Kingdom River

hope his opposites might wash hands undoubtedly dirty, before the lamb arrived.

***

Sam came ashore in bitter dark before dawn, from a freezing river already streaked and stiffening with ice, so the boatmen, as they'd done off and on for two days and nights, had had to batter and break thin shelves of it, sailing, then rowing, to reach the appointed West-bank beach.

Sam, then Wilkey, despite their protests, were lifted and carried ashore like cargo bales, the rivermen splashing, cursing, stomping crackling edge-ice. Carried, deposited… and left.

Wilkey held a boatman's woolen smock as he started away. 'Is this the fucking place?'

'An' how would you know if it wasn'?' the boatman said, and pulled loose – but managed a bow to Sam. 'Sir, here's North Map-Arkansas, an' jus' the spot away to your people. We didn' fail you.'

'I never thought you would,' Sam said, gave the man silver… then stood with Wilkey to watch the boat pull away.

'The fucking place' looked to be just that, as much as a fading moon, cloud-buried, could show. A narrow, frozen bar of beach, then a steep bank with dark trees and tangle thick along its top, all bending to the river's wind.

'We'll get off this shelf.' Sam led the way up sliding sand, gripping frozen roots and brittle vines to climb… At the top, he got a good grip, hauled himself up and over onto all fours – and found six pairs of shaggy moccasins waiting. The savages, pale as the dead in dark-gray light, were tall, thin men. Five were carrying steel-blade tomahawks, and one, the tallest, a long-handled, stone-headed club.

Sam heard Wilkey, coming up behind him, say, 'Shit,' and was considering a lunge to one side to clear.his sword, when someone laughed.

'Not the most dignified entrance, for a Captain-General! And… bride-groom?'

'Ned – you son-of-a-bitch.' A perfect use of the copybook phrase.

Ned slid down from a dappled horse, and walked out into the last of moonlight to offer Sam a hand to stand. 'You're in one piece, anyway. They didn't kill you. – Sergeant.'

'Sir.' Wilkey stood watching the savages.

'Don't be troubled by my Bluebird friends. I'm a favorite of theirs, for some reason I'd rather not know.'

The tallest of his friends, the man with the stone-headed club, smiled and said in fair book-English, 'Ned man, is a merry man.' The Bluebird's teeth were filed.

'Very merry, now,' Ned said, smiling. 'Our song-birds, here, came from their camps last evening with wonderful news. News, I suppose, drummed all the way down the river, from tribe to tribe.'

'Wonderful?'

'We – well, the Kingdom's people – have won, Sam! A victory in the north, fighting all day yesterday – and according to Toothy, here, right on through the night. He says the drums say, 'A so-cold dying on the ice for the horse riders.' '

'If it's true… if it's true.' Sam felt relief rise in his throat, painful as sickness.

'Oh, my friends here don't lie, Sam. Don't think they know how, actually. – Great thieves, of course, steal anything not chained to a tree. Understand they like to bake children in pits in the ground… Reason I haven't accepted invitations to dine.' Ned went back into the brush, came out with four more horses on lead. 'Didn't know if more might be coming with you. Sure you recognize your favorite.'

The imperial charger, Difficult, night-black and looking big as a house, tried to bite Ned's shoulder.

'Behave yourself.' Sam took the halter. 'So Toghrul is coming down with only half an army, Ned – thanks to the Boxcars. Lady Weather bless Hopkins and Aiken!'

'Friends?'

'Well, a winning admiral, and a winning general – which makes them our friends.'

'And Toghrul is not 'coming,' Sam. He's here. Arrived with his first elements yesterday. Man seems to be in a great hurry.'

'But he hasn't attacked?' Sam went to Difficult's left side, tugged the stirrup strap down, hopped in the snow to get his boot up, and swung into the saddle. The charger sidled, began a buck, and blew noisy flatulent breaths.

'What a brute,' Ned said, and was on his horse simply as taking a step. ' – No. Still settling in just north of us when I rode out to meet you. Fourth day I've ridden up and down the bank, hoping to their Floating Jesus this was the place meant. No real notion when you'd be coming, only word sent over from a Kingdom ketch.'

'Supposed to be a one-day sail here. Became more than two, with the ice.'

'Yes. A possibility Toothy mentioned. Not much the Bluebirds don't follow on the river. Have to – the Boxcars hunt them, now and then… Sergeant, mount up.'

… Then, a long morning's ride through deepening snow. They climbed slow-rising slopes west of the river, horses bucketing through deep drifts – the white lap of Lord Winter – as the Bluebirds paced them, drifting in and out of sight through bare-limb trees and snow-drifted bramble, jogging along, never seeming to tire.

'Good men,' Sam said.

'Yes,' – Ned smiled, riding beside him – 'but risky at dinner.'

'I see that. What news from home, Ned?'

'One piece of very bad news, Sam, pigeoned up a couple of weeks ago.'

'Yes?'

'Elvin… The old brigadier's dead, back home. Died in his sleep of that fucking disease.'

'Elvin dead…'

'Yes, sir. Jaime's still doing organizational work down there.'

'Mountain Jesus.'

'Does seem wrong, doesn't it, Sam? Old man was meant to die fighting.'

A dusting of new snow was falling. Nothing much. It barely sifted in Sam's sight, then vanished. 'Jaime won't live long, now Elvin's gone.'

'I suppose that's right,' Ned said. 'So there was that message, a while ago – then, last few days, three separate gallopers come all the way up from the Bravo – killed a couple of horses doing it.'

'Saying?'

'First one was from Charles: 'All going to copybook hell-in-a-handbasket. Trouble with the provinces. Trouble with money. There isn't any money. Imperative you return soon as possible!'… Then, the second, from Eric: 'Enemy agents cropping up, possible rebellion planned in Sonora, paid for by the empire. Imperative you return as soon as possible!' '

'And the third?'

'Oh, the third – and last – was from the little librarian. Four words: 'Nothing important happening here.' '

Sam smiled, still thinking of Elvin. Remembering him throwing the dinner roll.

'A sensible old librarian,' Ned said, 'Neckless Peter.'

'Yes. A sensible man.'

As they climbed a steep slope through cold clear light – come far enough that the river, when it could be seen those miles behind them, was only patches of bright glitter in the rising sun – Sam heard bird calls, but calls from the birds of the Sierra. The tall savages trotting alongside laughed, imitated those calls perfectly… and Light Infantry – from Kearn's Company, by their bandannas – stepped out to meet them.

… Sam had said to the Princess, 'My farm will be the camps; my flock, soldiers.' Saying it, of course, as a measure of loss – which now was proved a lie, since he found himself truly happy in dark, wooded hill-country, deep-snowed and freezing. Happy that a ferocious arid brilliant war-lord had come south to oppose him. Happy in the warmth, the trust of more than ten thousand soldiers, men and women who greeted him now from regiment to regiment with stew-kettle drums and singing. They enclosed him like a warm cloak of fur… fur with fine steel mail woven through it. 'My flock… soldiers.' He prayed to the Lady, riding through them, for those who would die by his decisions.

… Most of the rest of the day was spent learning the ground – riding rounds down deep, snowed gullies, then up their wooded, steep reverses – and in greetings, embraces by officers and their scarred sergeants, shy as girls.