Kingdom River

from his quiver and held them alongside the bow's grip with a curled finger, to be handy… Sam walked to the middle of the room and sat in the carved chair, stretching his legs. He breathed out a faint cloud of frost, and wished for another mug of coffee. What was expensive and rare at Better-Weather – though so much closer to the Empire – seemed lightly come-by on Kingdom's river. Goods and gold by water shipping, he supposed. How fine would made- roads have to be, to equal that ease…?

After a while, footsteps, a latch's turning, and the double doors swung open across the room. The Queen's armswoman, Martha, stepped through first. She was wearing a heavy, green-paneled woolen gown, the dress's hem reaching just to her low boots, not long enough to trip her. Sam saw the handle of her ax just over her right shoulder, and a gray glint of fine mail beneath a wrist's cuff. He'd seen bigger young women, but not many.

Queen Joan came behind her, almost as tall as her fighting girl, though slender. She was dressed like a copybook queen, with an ermine wrap over sky-blue velvet laced and looped with pearls. She wore blue-dyed deerskin slippers, and a narrow crown of leaves of gold.

Princess Rachel, behind her, was nearly as tall, but plainly dressed in a gown the color of stone. Her long dark hair was down, bound only once by a slender silver chain.

Sam stood, bowed to the Queen and her daughter, though not deeply, then stepped back.

Queen Joan sat, her armswoman standing behind her – and watching Sergeant Wilkey. Princess Rachel stood beside.

'It occurs to me…' The Queen had a voice that seemed younger than she was, a voice unlined, with no age in it. 'It occurs to me… do you know the tale of the Gordian knot? It's a Warm-time tale.'

'I know it,' Sam said.

'Then tell me, Captain-General – who was Small-Sam and peed down my front on occasion – tell me why I shouldn't cut one of my Kingdom's possible knots, by cutting your throat? Pigeons informed me this morning that you're no longer a guest, but an invader, with your foot soldiers marching up through West Map-Louisiana… your cavalry come, or coming, east into Map-Arkansas to join them there.'

Silence and stillness by the narrow door, where Sergeant Wilkey stood with his longbow.

'If I'd asked your permission,' – Sam smiled – 'you would have denied it. My army is crossing Kingdom territory, and intends to fight on it in North Map-Arkansas, South Map-Missouri – but fight the Khan Toghrul, not Boxcars.'

'So you say. But with your throat cut, you'd say no more, issue no commands, invade no one.'

Sam took a moment before answering.'…I think you won't kill me, Queen, for two reasons: Your war with the Khan has already begun badly, and I doubt you want war with North Map-Mexico as well. Kill me, and you'll certainly have it. And also…'

'Also?'

'My Second-mother, Catania.'

Queen Joan sat and stared at Sam, her face bleached pale as bone. 'Well… Well, you have a ruler's guts at least, to use her name to me, to assume I honor her memory so much.'

'I don't know what memories you honor, Queen – I only know she honored yours.'

'You young dog… to use my own heart against me.'

'What weapon more worthy than your heart, Queen?'

Queen Joan stared at him; she didn't seem to need to blink. 'I have courtiers – ass kissers – who speak to me in just that way.'

'No, you don't. Those people fear you, and they lie. I'm as likely to bite your ass as kiss it.'

The Queen glanced over at her daughter. 'Rachel, what do you think of him?'

'He is… a change, I suppose.'

The Queen looked back at Sam. 'Let me tell you something, clever young Captain-General of minor importance – let me tell you that if I were even five years younger, and had a different sort of daughter, I'd put you under the river… Yes, and then weep for sweet Catania's memory.'

Sam nodded. 'But you're not younger, Queen. You need help against the Khan. And you don't have a daughter fierce enough to follow you in this kingdom.'

'I'm here,' Princess Rachel said. 'Don't speak as if I were not.'

'I apologize, Princess.'

'But you are not here, Rachel.' The Queen spoke without looking at her daughter. 'You're only present. To be here, you would have had to do more than read and write in your book tower. Do more than tame song-birds. More than conversations and philosophies and letters and studies of this and that. You have not earned being here.'

'Then I will not be missed.' Princess Rachel left her mother's side and walked out through the double doors. The doors remained open, so her footsteps could be heard down the hall as she went.

'I'm sorry,' Sam said, 'that the Princess was upset.'

'Too fucking easily upset. My Newton wanted a boy. I gave him a girl – and am punished for it.'

'A princess may become a queen.'

'Some may… Listen, Small-Sam Monroe, you care for your North Mexico, and hope to save it by joining us against the savages. All this perfectly understood, and sensible. Be assured, if I hadn't thought you might be useful to us in just that way, I would never have asked your visit, never offered the possibility of engagement to my daughter.'

'Always more improbable than probable.'

'Yet here you are, Small-Sam. And apparently intend to make the 'improbable' a fact!'

'Yes, I do.'

'We're not in that much trouble. We're a civilized kingdom – well, coming to be civilized – while you lead only border tag-ends, roosting on land stolen from the Emperor. Land that any more formidable emperor will soon take back.'

'Queen, if you didn't need me, if you didn't need my army… if you had any man to keep your daughter safe, we wouldn't be talking. I'd be dead, or gone.'

'Still a possibility.'

'Not since Map-Jefferson City.'

Queen Joan sat watching Sam for almost a full glass-minute, then said, 'You're fortunate that so many of my ghosts stand beside you.'

'I know it.'

Queen Joan rose, her armswoman looming behind her. The Queen was tall; she looked slightly down at Sam, her eyes the flat blue of sky reflected in polished metal. 'You have my permission to try to persuade Rachel. And also my permission to… advise our commanders in all campaigns where your people will also be engaged.' She considered him for a moment. 'And I do hope that some foolish treachery of yours, some starving ambition, won't make it necessary to kill you.'

'Poison,' Sam said, 'would be the only way with a chance to keep my army from your river, then your island. An absolutely convincing illness. And even then…'

'Oh,' – the Queen smiled – 'you know the old copybook phrase 'Where there's a will, there's a way'?'

'I know it. And I depend on it.'

The Queen walked away, laughing, her armswoman striding to cover her back.

Sam heard bootsteps behind him, the faint music of oiled mail. 'Well, Sergeant?'

'Seems thin ice, sir.'

'Yes. Thin ice… over deep water.'

***

The Queen – with Martha nearly beside her, only a half-step back – strolled down the Corridor of Battles. Banners along the walls, some only woven memories, moth-eaten and frail as insect-gauze, billowed slightly in the faint breeze of their passing. The Queen, as always in this corridor, paused beneath the flag of battle Bowling Green – this great cloth, its years recent, still gleamed in white silk and gold thread, its only crimson a tear of loss, sewn at its center.