Mitchell Smith: Moonrise

Of course, hoof-marks would have been easier for pursuers to track… and stealing one would have required passing many snoring troopers to get to the horses. Careless guard of the new king's son, perhaps, with no danger expected. Careless guard of a regiment's mounts – never.

Bajazet thought of a bite or two of his pack's pemmican, then decided not. It was startling how empty of game – of any food – these wild woods were. He'd seen nothing, not even a rabbit or squirrel for reason to string his bow. And no time to set and wait out snares… Unless many tribal hunters had come through, the distant sounds of the hunt had been enough to frighten the game away before them. In that way, by hunger, the chase might kill him without ever catching.

… On the royal hunts, of course, the foresters had already found game, or driven it, for the family's pleasure. But he was no longer a person privileged. Now, he was only a person, and could even be alone and by himself – though he'd many times been almost alone with only a whore for company… and with other men's wives. Alone in his chambers at Island, of course, though with Terry Fitz, or Noel, or sad old Ralph-sergeant on duty outside his door. The steward, and the maids. It was Terry he missed most, and was surprised to be missing him. A valet… clothes-press, hot irons, and fussing over colors.

Bajazet raised his arms, stretched as well as bow, quiver, and pack allowed, and took a deep breath of cold woods air. There was a pleasure to being only a person, and alone – though a pleasure that would likely be short-lived.

Time to angle back to the stream. East…, east would have to be the way, at least for a while. East, and thank Floating-Jesus – or the Forest's Jesus, now – for rising hills and deeper woods, where a troop of Light Cavalry (certain soon to arrive and chase) would find difficult going.

Bajazet settled his gear, canted the scabbarded rapier back out of his way, and trotted – allowing for frequent interfering trees – a long southeastern way, taking direction from a watery sun

through graying cloud. His toes hurt… He felt he must someday

set bitter loss aside, set the last of cushioned boyhood aside as well, to become a slightly different person, one to whom the panoply, music, and colors of the court would seem odd to remember.

Alone. The king gone, the queen gone – and Colonel Mosten drowned with them… Newton gone. Pedro Darry killed – and certainly others.

And who left alive, who had loved King Sam Monroe? Possibly Master Lauder, who'd seemed so sly. Possibly he and Lord Voss – both in their fifties, now – had survived in North Map-Mexico; the Coopers' arm might not have reached so far… Come to a wall of ice-sheathed bramble, Bajazet had to backtrack, go around to avoid it. – And if Howell Voss still lived, then his wife, Charmian, would be alive as well, and she a fair and dangerous match for her husband. Lauder and the Vosses, formidable people who'd been King Sam's officers and friends.

Bajazet had met the three of them once, come up from the Gulf for Lord Winter's festival. The Vosses, particularly, an impressive pair, both tall and battle-scarred. They'd brought twins with them, of all things – a little boy and girl clumsy and curious as puppies… Lord Howell, one-eyed and seeming to Bajazet old to have fathered young children, had been humorous, and played the banjar once in his Second-mother's solar. His wife, not quite as old – her long black hair, streaked iron-gray worn loose down her back as if she were a girl – had come up to the salle once, and stood watching a lesson, a battle-melee where fifteen of the older boys (and a river lord's odd daughter) half-armored, fought with blunted blades in confused turmoil, divided one group against the other. Lady Voss had watched for a while… then, smiling, had left.

After the lesson, the others dismissed, the Master – a grizzled West-bank Major, still quick as a cat – had said to Bajazet, "Be careful around the Lady Charmian Voss, Prince, now and in the future. Careful courtesy, do you understand?"

Bajazet had understood, understood even that year before the king's painful lesson. The lady's smile, though pleasantly amused, had seemed to conceal something grimmer. He'd heard the king, later, discussing those two with Queen Rachel as they went hand-in-hand to dinner. "- Howell and dangerous Charmian, together for loss and lack of other loves," he'd said. "But it seems they suit, after all."

"Suit very well," the queen had said.

… Slowed to a walk by thickets, Bajazet paged dripping foliage aside. He could hear the stream again – to the right – returned to after his detour. Odd word; he'd read detour in some old copybook, a seventh copy concerning people using Warm-times' bang-powder guns for robbery.

"Stranger than we can know," Ancient Peter Wilson had said of Warm-times, "- even with a number of their books copied and in our hands. Even using those books' language as our own."

Bajazet came to Confusion's bank, and as he stood resting, heard no hounds calling over the soft sounds of running water. He noticed his hands as if they were a stranger's. Dirty – filthy, really – and a fingernail broken like some sweat-slave's on the Natchez docks… Natchez – not Warm-times' town, of course; that long drowned as the river rose in even the short summers' melt-water off the Wall. Not the same town, though named the same, and likely more than twenty miles east of the old one. But what times he'd had there… Gwendolyn.

"You have slant eyes," speaking while astride him, bending down to observe. "Yes," Bajazet had said. "All Kipchak – except Ancient Wilson says my grandmother was a capture from Bakersfield in Map-California."

"Funny eyes," Gwendolyn had said, and leaned lower to kiss them.

Love, of course. He'd loved her, and loved no other, though fucking where he could. Some whores, of course – and court ladies too – had smiled and passed him by. "You're a pretty boy," Lady Bennet had said to him, "but grown men have a sadness to them that I care for. And besides, my Walter might have you killed – adopted prince, or not."

"What am I to do?" He'd asked Newton – a seventeen-year-old's question to a wiser sixteen-year-old. "I love her."

Newton had thought for an afternoon, then found Bajazet on the foot-ball field. "Talk to our mother."

So grotesque a suggestion, that Bajazet had gone to Ancient Lord Peter Wilson immediately for a better notion. The old man had been napping in a library niche – woke, listened to the inquiry, and said, "Speak to the queen about it."

So, in an agony of embarrassment, Bajazet had gone to Queen Rachel's study the next morning – lingering outside her door while a guardsman watched, amused – then, invited in, had "spilled" as Warm-times had had it. Had "spilled his guts."

"Ah…" Queen Rachel had held a little gray dog on her lap, stroking it. "The Up-river girl – Gwen?"

"Gwendolyn," Bajazet had said, deeply mortified. Apparently a person's life was not his own.

"I understand she's very pretty, Baj."

"…Yes."

"But isn't she… professional?"

"That makes -" Bajazet had intended to say, "makes no difference," but couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't care to see pity in the queen's eyes. See Poor boy there.

"Though, of course," the queen said, "- regarding love, that makes no difference."

"No."

"It's so sad, Baj, that while it makes no difference where love is concerned…" The little dog had turned on its back to have its belly scratched. "It's so sad that it makes a great deal of difference where happiness is concerned."

Bajazet had said nothing. He'd seen wisdom coming, and no way to avoid it.