Mitchell Smith: Moonrise

Bajazet, barely twenty years old and an improbable successor, would not have been important enough for the king to come kill him… but perhaps slightly too important for some liveried captain's responsibility. Who better, then, to deal with the last of family business, than the king's only son?

It certainly seemed possible, even likely. Bajazet, trusting in the first hints of cloudy moonlight for his footing, trotted back through the woods as if cold and hunger were sufficient sustenence. He traveled as certain of direction as if back-tracking the lingering scent of his own terror the day before. Moving fast, ducking through tangles, then running full out where occasional clearings widened to shallow snow and wind-burned grasses, he traveled due west through evening into deeper night, short-cutting all the meandering ways he'd fled – and cowered here and there to hide.

In this forest, standing back from the river's east bank, there was only one place – the Lodge – suited to house a new Prince of the Rule as he directed a hunt… No doubt young Mark Cooper's people had scrubbed the blood from the dining-room flooring, washed it off white plaster walls, mopped it from the stair risers where Purse's men had stood and died to give Bajazet his moments running.

Mark Cooper – a playmate since childhood, plumper than most of his family, lazy, and amiable even as a little boy. Seeming lazy and amiable, cautious of a fierce father… an even fiercer grandfather while that unpleasant old man had lived.

Could Mark have always been called a friend? Yes.

After what must have been at least six glass-hours of woods-running, of dodging sudden trees, scrambling over fallen logs… of exhausted stumbles, scrapes and scratches from frozen branches as he'd shoved and wrestled through to the next clearing, Bajazet smelled at last the smoke of camp.

And as he came nearer, heard horses whinny… heard the quieting noise and banter of troopers – the last of their patrols long since ridden in, their mounts grained and tended. The men, now also fed, would be settling into sleep at the fires, weary after riding the long day, and into night.

Bajazet paused at the edge of the lodge clearing, stood shadowed under the branch-broken crescent moon, and took deep recovering breaths. He was shivering with weariness and cold… There seemed to be no sentries posted, except for two men standing a distance to the left, talking, by the lodge front's wide half-log steps. No reason for many guards to be posted, after all… A hound was yodeling in the kennels, interested in these stranger cavalrymen come to camp.

The hounds hadn't been set after him, the whole chase. It must have been thought they weren't to be trusted to track and pull down one of their accustomed masters. And true, there wasn't a soft-eyed scent-hound or brute mastiff there that Bajazet hadn't played with as a puppy. Even more than Newton, he'd had a way with them.

"You don't respect him," he'd said once to his brother, concerning a hound's stubborn disobedience.

Newton had smiled. "I find men difficult enough to respect, Baj. I don't have enough left for even an amiable dog." Though, as was Newton's way, he was more patient thereafter.

… The kennel quieted after a time. The lodge camp quieted. Only a fire's hiss and crackle, only an owl far away, only the night wind sounded through the trees as Bajazet walked cloaked into camp as if he were a forester with ordinary business there – had perhaps been out to john trench, and was coming back to coarse blanket and pack pillow. Though the two men at the lodge's steps, if they'd noticed, might have wondered why he strolled around to the back of the building, where no fires burned.

Bajazet threw back the cloak's hood, managed his scabbarded rapier clear, and climbed the fire-ladder back up the way he'd come, a coward fleeing, the morning before. The climb – a dozen rungs up a simple ladder – was surprisingly difficult; he had to stop once to rest, and hung there, very tired.

The window was swung closed, its leaded squares of glass giving blurred vision down an empty corridor lit by two whale-oil lamps hung to ceiling hooks by fine brass chains.

Odd, that he'd never noticed such detail. It all seemed new, not quite the lamp-lit hallway it had been. He'd left the memory of it behind, as he fled.

Bajazet drew his dagger, slid the long, slender blade between window frame and jamb… and forced it, levering just beneath the simple catch. It was wonderful how the knife spoke to him through its grip, the steel reporting angle and effort… mentioning its limits, but not seriously.

Bajazet felt the latch at the blade's top edge, and lifted it.

The window squeaked and swung wide. He threw a leg over and was in, stood in indoor warmth for a moment, smelled roasted meat, and suddenly felt sick. The heat seemed furnace heat, so he swayed, wanting to lie down. He closed his eyes, breathed deep… and felt a little better. Then, his eyes open, he walked as through a dream down the long corridor to his chamber. And, as he lifted the door latch, felt certain as Floating-Jesus who he would find. He stepped in, and closed the door behind him.

Mark Cooper, awake in this small hour as if by appointment, stood startled before the sideboard and a tray of food, barefoot in a bed-robe of velveted maroon.

"… Baj!… Thank Lady Weather! I thought these idiots might have killed you." Great relief on young Mark's face. Great relief. "I just got out here, late, and put a stop to it. No reason for you to be involved in this at all." Mark took a step forward, then a step back as Bajazet came to him."… My father. My father has ordered things -"

"Newton?"

A nod from sad Mark Cooper. "I'm just so sorry, Baj. Dad… I never thought he'd do something like this!"

"Pedro, and the others?"

"Well… I don't know about all of them. But Darry killed three of our people – my father's men. It was all just a real tragedy." He shook his head. "Terrible…"

Perhaps it was hunger that so sharpened a person's eyes. Sharpened his ears as well. Bajazet heard Mark's voice subtly uncertain as a banjar's slightly warped by having been brought indoors directly on a winter evening. The voice, like that instrument's, was almost true, but not quite. Cooper's eyes, still the mild blue of his childhood, had shifted, just slightly, toward the door – for escape, for what help might come to him if he had time to shout, if a slant-eyed, dark-eyed fugitive, grimed with mud and smelling like a forest creature gone to earth, weren't standing so close, his hand on the hilt of his long left-hand dagger.

Bajazet saw the food on the sideboard was still steaming, brought up not long ago. A hot meal now seemed as good a reason as revenge. As good a reason as leaving Gareth Cooper with no heir to his stolen throne.

"You'll be safe, Baj." The heir, frightened, and barefoot in his bed-robe. "Really. I promise, absolutely."

"And will also bring Newton back to life?" Bajazet drew the left-hand dagger as he reached to cover Mark's mouth with his right hand, stepped in, and thrust him deep, three swift times with rapid soft punching sounds – into the gut, the liver, and through the heart's gristle.

Mark stood on his toes with the long blade still in him, arching away, squealing into the muffling hand like a girl in her pleasure. Then fell forward, staring, slumped into Bajazet… clutched his cloak, and seemed to slip down forever as the steel slid out of him… He settled onto the floor, grunting, turned on his side with urine staining his robe, and took slow steps there as if walking through a tilted world. Then liquid caught and rattled in his throat.

Bajazet, staggering as if his dagger had turned to strike at him, as if the whole of the last day and night had turned to strike at him, stumbled to the sideboard, and wiped his blade carefully on a fine linen napkin. He sheathed it, then took up slices of venison from a serving platter, folded them together dripping gravy and red juices, and crammed them into his mouth… Chewing seemed to take too long; he bolted the meat like a hunting dog, drank barley beer from a small silver pitcher only to aid in swallowing… then gathered and swallowed more venison, gravy running down his fingers, spattering on fine figured wood and linen. Tears also; he cried as he ate, and supposed it was because he was still young, and though he'd injured men in foolish duels, had never killed a man before.