Mitchell Smith: Moonrise

"Would your pretty Up-river girl be happy here at court? Would she be happy as the ladies turned their backs on her? As men stared her through the rooms?"

"We -"

"Would she be happy knowing she was hurting you? Was injuring you in your world, so you would always be thought a fool and cock-thinker, instead of a serious man?" The little dog had grunted with pleasure. Scratch… scratch. "Would she be happy, knowing her children would be subjects of laughter, would come to her, weeping?"

"I don't know."

The queen had put the little dog down. "Never lie to me, Baj, for I held you in my arms as a baby, and would die for you as I would die for Newton. Besides, lying makes men smaller. It's a coward's trick."

"I suppose… I do know."

"Of course you know – and knew before you came to me – that if you love this girl, you will of course protect her from any sorrow that you can. Even at your own cost." The queen had stood. "Now, we will think how best to make your pretty girl both safe, and happy in her life."

And so they had. It became a sort of delicious plot between them, and Bajazet saw the subtle powers of the Crown, even in so small a matter. And by doing secret good for Gwendolyn behind curtain after curtain of the queen's influence, she, who had been only a pretty and tender little whore, became at first one thing better – a very lucky whore who won the First Melt lottery. Then a second thing better as she was invited by the sisterhood of Lady Weather to erase the old, and write the new in good works. And finally – when Bajazet was past eighteen – asked to become an ambitious young magistrate's wife, she ended respectable, safe, and a mother.

"Go," the queen had said to him, summer bowling on the south lawn at Island. "Go back to visit Who-was-your Gwendolyn, and see if your love and care for her is proved."

Bajazet had gone, seen, and found Gwen still fond of him, but gently, distantly, and very happy in her husband, baby, and home.

He'd sailed back down to Island, climbed the North Tower's steps to the queen's solar, and knelt to thank her.

"Mine the advice, Baj," she'd said, raising him up. "But yours the decision."

Bajazet loved the king – had always loved him. But loved the queen even more.

… Standing by the little stream Confusion, he found he'd had a few more tears to shed, after all, and wiped them from a grimy face with grimy hands. Then turned east again, and jogged away toward distant softly rounded hills, rising to greater hills – mountains – beyond.

Three days later, the pemmican, biscuit, and small round of cheese long since eaten, Bajazet bent retching nothing but sourness where the course of Confusion divided – a slighter, foaming little creek come down from eastern hills to join. He'd munched alder buds the night before, and scraped the tender inner bark of a birch for thin sweet jelly.

One of these had knotted his stomach, so he'd walked bent as an old man all morning, making barely a mile over tangled deadfall and windfall while keeping to the small stream's course. The little river had become a friend to him, and Bajazet, who now had no other friend, was afraid to leave it to follow the lesser fork that ran up into the first hills he'd come to.

He'd dreamed, last night, of the Vosses. And in the dream they'd appeared armored from a stand of trees with crowding companies of smiling soldiers, absolutely loyal… and bringing a buttered loaf and stove-heated blanket as well.

He tried to vomit again, wiped his mouth, and stood straight with an effort. His small pack – only the canteen, flint and steel, and rawhide cord in it, now – still seemed to weigh his back, the bow and quiver also heavier. The rapier, more and more, was in his way.

He knelt in leaf-mold… looked into the stream's swift shallow ice-water. He'd seen fish the day before, had tried to hand-catch them – which he'd seen Ted Atcheson do – and failed. Then he'd thought of a willow branch, rawhide string, a little carved-wood hook, and a dug worm for bait. But the staying there to fish, and waiting… waiting, became impossible. Every minute would have been a gift to the pursuing traitor-king – and now, the king pursued. Cavalry trumpets had sounded from the west the day before.

Food… woods-meat and game. What had seemed simple, easy enjoyment – hunting with foresters, grooms, guards and friends under the horn's music… galloping fields and forest edges behind coursing hounds, when it appeared (and was true enough) that driven deer and wild boar had appointments to meet the king's ward and Second-son – all had proved a different matter alone, on foot, and starving.

What use a fine rapier on rabbit tracks in the last of Lord Winter's snow? – or a beautiful bow where only dubious mushrooms, birch bark, and alder buds were found.

A huntsman had once told Bajazet that a man could catch any grazing creature by steady tracking, steady walking-after, day and night, until the beast grew so weary as to stand, head hanging, to have its throat cut. A tale well enough, that even might be true if the man were fed good meals as he followed, and had a savage's eye for tracking.

But no one had come to Bajazet in the forest with spotted-cow soup steaming in a panniken, a half loaf of oat bread to soak in it. And no one had offered to show him the broken twig, the turned clod, the tree bark touched to indicate a fat young buck – frightened by distant trumpets – had traveled just that way, and only moments before.

Savages… These eastern woods had been home to the Redbirds – most gone, now, whittled away many years ago by Middle-Kingdom's East-bank army. And other tribes driven from the wider Mississippi's flooded flatlands back into the forest, then hunted there, as well, to prove and temper regiments' recruits, their fresh formations… until only the Map-Appalachian hills and mountains offered refuge.

The old queen was said to have reined that in; King Sam had put a stop to it. But too late for the Redbirds. Now, only bands of Sparrows stooged these woods, and occasional Thrushes down from Map-Kentucky, teeth filed sharp, but settling no lowland villages, presenting no chiefs to discuss matters with anyone… Discussing matters with Kingdoms and Khanates, States and City-towns, had long proved unfortunate for all the tribes.

Bajazet had been told the tribesmen used to take children, when they could, from settlements back from the river. Adopted the strong, killed and ate the weak. "True," a sheriff's sergeant had said, when asked. "But not frequent, now, young sir."

"Not frequent." For the last days, Bajazet had traveled frightened at the notion of meeting savages, as he was frightened of being caught by Cooper's soldiers… Now, though the troopers still concerned him, the hill-tribes didn't. Dazed with hunger, he'd formed what seemed a sensible plan to run from their encountered scouts – shooting as he fled – then circle back to find a dead savage, retrieve his arrow, and carve steaks from the man.

He could smell those steaks smoking on green branches over hot hardwood coals. And why not? That meat had been a long tradition on the river – still supposedly practiced now, though only by some old families at festivals.

Kneeling at the bank's edge, Bajazet bent to thrust his face down into the water – was shocked by its chill, but wakened too, and saw in glimmering reflection the face of a gaunt young man, dark-eyed, stubble-bearded beneath the ten dots tattooed across his cheeks – five dots on the left, five on the right – his long dark hair tied into a pony's tail with a knotted leather string.

Men had – only a week before – bent their backs before those tattooed dots, lowered their eyes and voices, waited to hear what the king's Second-son might wish to have done…