Mitchell Smith - Moonrise

Was that a smile from Budnarik? Perhaps almost…

"A liar from a nest of lies," Paul French said. "Though there is charm here, bravery." He had an orator's, a singer's voice. "Might teach our children much of courage, while she dies."

Budnarik cleared his throat. "And you roam our mountains – why?"

"Going north and east, nothing to do with Robins."

"But had something to do with killing River's King down in Map-Tennessee? And managed with Sparrows!… You understand that pigeons fly for tribes, as well as towns."

"Yes, Commander," Patience said, sure of who he was.

"But why? That fight – what business was it of yours?" A second blow to his throat would have left Budnarik unable to speak at all.

"That king was Boston-crowned. His loss, their great injury."

"And all that," Paul French said, "- which, by the way, left room on the Mississippi for a king we understand to be much more formidable – all that for some personal reason?"

"All reasons are personal," Patience said, "- and mine more important than most."

"You don't yet persuade me." Paul French smiled, apparently a habit of charming with him. "You don't persuade me that you bring the Robins anything but difficulty. You claim against your own Boston, but north to Boston I suspect you were flying. Flying until, apparently, you fell and took your injury… I don't yet see the benefit in keeping you alive – and less than that in letting you wander."

"Then if not for politic," Patience said – and noticed that arguing for one's life was excellent medicine; the shoulder hardly hurt at all, "- if not for that, then why not for your tribe's honor and given word? I've traded with your people, and been provided hospitality and food – salted food at that."

"Traded, my ass," Paul French said, not smiling now, and using a very old copybook phrase. It seemed to Patience he'd read well, been very studious in whatever hut he'd grown sharing with newborn lambs, chicken-birds, and the skulls of Robin enemies. "To kill a boy -"

"Young man," Patience said, "and hunting me, who had done no harm."

"To kill Lou Pollano, then hold your hand from a second murder, and call that even? That is no fucking trading!"

"But the second young man – Pete… Pete Aiken. He agreed to the trade, and that it was fair."

"Agreed," Budnarik croaked, "with a saber at his neck."

"But agreed – Pete's reasons his own, though it seems to me that a whole life left to be lived is considerable payment for a single Lou. Certainly seemed fair and square to him… Do Robins now call one of their warriors Dishonorable-Pete, a welcher and exile and no Robin at all?"

"'Welcher,'" Budnarik said, and shook his head, almost smiling.

"You know the word, Commander?"

"He knows the word, and we know the word," Paul French said. "I wonder how many fine old Warm-time words would be spouted if you're staked."

"I'm becoming curious," Patience said to him, "why you're so willing to consider my death, an injured woman and your guest… Is it possible a Boston pigeon flies to you, and to no one else among the Robins? You seem so to be their friend."

"Nonsense – and desperate nonsense."

"Also, I notice no scars on you but decoration. No sign you've fought the Guard when they've come this way to choose among your tribe's daughters. No sign you've ever fought at all… Perhaps you're too clever a man to fight. Perhaps – so handsome – you have other interests."

"Oh, I have only one interest now."

"Still," Patience said, "'handsome is as handsome does,' such a perfect old phrase. And you do little boys, I would say, for preference. Do I smell a flowery scent?… Lilac?"

Silence. The tribes, losing children to every winter, had little sympathy for those who made none.

"- Of course, if I've offended (and though being a trade-guest), I will happily meet you with a sword, even weary, wrong-handed, and a woman."

An unhandsome look. "… There would be no honor to me in that."

"What you do not have," Patience said, "- you cannot lose, 'Lilac' May I call you Lilac?"

French raised his fist to hit her, but Budnarik reached to grip his arm – gifting Patience with hope even after both men rose, silent, took their lamp, and left her to darkness.

… Charlotte-doctor came lumbering with first light, found Patience lying awake, listening to village noises, and knelt ponderously to examine the shoulder's strapping, and scold her. "Sleep," she said. Then, "Raveled sleeve – raveled sleeve!" apparently an incantation, so not so scientific a physician after all.

"I would rather be awake while I can."

The doctor chuckled at that, chins wobbling. "Oh, I doubt I'll be carving you – and too bad; I'm wonderful with the little knives. But," a sigh, "likely not to be. A hostage held from Boston, if Boston loves you – or as a gift for Boston, if they don't. That's how you'll be kept."

"… Not the best news."

"Not the worst, either." Fat fingers fairly gentle. "There, that shoulder will do the best it can."

"I believe I have Paul French to thank for holding me."

"To thank for keeping you from my knives, yes. Sweet Chad would have killed you; believes you too dangerous to save – his grateful sister notwithstanding." Charlotte-doctor heaved to stand up. "Now, I'll bring you food. Then, sleep."

When she was gone – allowing a glimpse of a sentry's shadow when the sheepskin swung aside – Patience lay considering bad judgment. Bad judgment such as deliberately angering Paul French, a man of politic – who likely had threatened only to discover what threats might produce – angering him in order to impress Budnarik, a man of action, with her cleverness and courage. And impressed him sufficiently that he decided her execution was advisable.

A serious misjudgement, and barely survived. Which left the question whether it was a blunder from weakness and agonizing injury, or simply the deterioration of a Person bred to deteriorate early, so as not to become a threat to the Township. As, of course, she had become already – disobedient, prideful, and grasping of her child.

Now, to be kept. Grim news, since tribesmen were experienced in holding those they wished held. She'd be fortunate not to be blinded… or kept cramped in a little wooden box with only room for huddled crouching, until, after months and years, she became a shrunken knotted thing – screaming with pain, occasionally – that whined when children poked sticks through the slit where gruel was poured in, and water.

After only a few weeks in that close-box, she'd be pleased to have Boston people come for her, would weep with relief to be traveling north to the Common for burning in Justice's iron stove.

Ruined. All ruined by a moment of suckle-dreaming in the air… and no one to forgive her for it.

"That's one of seventeen villages – at least there were seventeen, when I served with the Guard." Richard, seeming comfortable with the vacancy beneath them, sat to Baj's left, Nancy's right – his large moccasin-boots kicking idly over the edge of a granite slip overhanging a small stream's valley perhaps a thousand Warm-time feet below. Errol would not come near the drop.

The mountains' haze was laced over the village with drifting smoke from a dozen fires along its creek. All revealed beneath them in miniature – as if a river lord had ordered a savages' settlement made to table-top scale for his small son's festival day.

"Robins," Nancy said, "claim to be near civilized."

"Take heads." Richard brushed a fly away.

"Yes. They take heads."

"To steal wisdom?" Baj imagined he was a Boston Talent, and might push off the cliff's edge and float out into the air. A wonderful thing…