Mitchell Smith: Moonrise

Bajazet considered sleeping by the stream, though there was still daylight. His belly ached; his bones ached with weariness. An hour at practice swordplay, a few hours riding, an evening of dancing at Greeting Parties, or strolling here and there on Island or at the short-summer residence in Memphis – these had proved poor preparation for days of fear, woods-running, and starvation.

"I'm in trouble…" It seemed reasonable to say that aloud. But only seemed reasonable, since the remark appeared to wake trumpets – and Bajazet heard, for the second time, the king's men coming. Two trumpets that began to call back and forth far down the valley like bright-voiced angels. The troopers were well behind him still, miles behind – but their trumpet calls had caught him.

It would be Light Cavalry, now, not liveried bravos or a persuaded file of local reserve Heavies. It would be a troop, perhaps two, of regulars. – And no shame to them, after all. The Achieving King was dead. His queen was dead. His First-son and heir was dead. There was a new king, now, and orders were always orders…

The trumpets, which should have signaled so grim, affected Bajazet in a different way, as if they sang encouragement, reminded him of the real and waking world, where weariness and hunger were not unusual.

He stood fairly erect, struck his sore stomach with his fist to put it in its place, and started walking east and up the high run's slope. Up into the first of hills… If he met no edible Thrush savage on the way, perhaps he might string his bow at last, and wait in the hills for a cavalryman to cook and carve.

That notion made him smile; his first smile since Noel Purse, amid the clamor of steel below, had shouted, "Run."

…With evening, Lady Weather came sweeping into the foothills on a strong south wind, as if to introduce her Daughter, Summer, not yet come to stay. The treetops bowed and curtsied to it, whispering in breezes, roaring when the gusts came booming.

Weary to stumbling, his cloak bannering about him in the wind, Bajazet climbed a thicket slope, searching for a place to lie to sleep. He felt, as if a soft insistant pressing at his back, those who came behind him. He seemed to sense under his boots the beat of horses' hooves, the soft, swift, moccasined tread of foresters and woods-scouts running before. They would be fed, warmed at fine fires, and made furious with the king's fury, their strength growing with his rage and impatience.

What other end, then, could there be, than the prey captured? But a fighting prey – like bear or wolf or boar – that might still take a huntsman with him when he went.

Climbing the crest of the rise, he saw the eastern hills, under dark wind-driven clouds, heaving up like great soft breasts – strange to the eyes as they were tiring to the legs of a young man raised on a river. Bajazet noticed an eagle's nest almost above him, ragged black, swaying in blown bare branches high at the top of a tall yellow birch.

He bent to brace his hands on his knees to rest a moment, take breaths from the climb – then, as he stood, saw the nest more clearly.

For a moment, so high, it did seem an eagle's nest… and with an eagle's white head showing. Then the white head moved, and the nest stirred – and the head was a woman's, her long white hair streaming on the wind, and the nest the gathered folds of a dark-blue coat that she now spread like wings in the gusts.

The woman looked down at him, seemed to be smiling from her height – then, as if the gale had picked her up, as if Lady Weather had lifted her, she rose from the branches – buffeted, swaying in the air – then sailed out and out across the treetops, her greatcoat billowing… and away into darkening evening.

Bajazet stood staring as she went. He had seen Boston's Ambassador, MacAffee, Walk-in-air, though only once, when that pleasant fat man had been drank at Festival… This woman had been another New Englander, one of their very few with the talent-piece in their brains to push the ground away beneath and behind them, so they seemed to fly as birds flew.

Wonderful, just the same, though the white-haired woman almost certainly scouted for the king – known to be likely Boston's creature. She would circle back west, find Gareth Cooper and his troopers, then tell the distance and point the way, smiling.

He should have braced the bow and put an arrow into her – tried the shot, anyway, if she'd stayed for it. How many should haves, would haves, could haves, can a person afford, running for his life?… Not many.

She'd seemed to smile at him, looking down from that height… It was odd how cruel smiles could be, grimmer than any frown.

Bajazet gave Warm-times' traditional finger to the air she'd traveled, called out "Kiss my ass!"- quoting directly from those ancient people's copybooks – then trotted heavily down the rise's wooded reverse, to make at least a ran till full dark.

… Two mornings later, he woke, stood, and fainted after a dark dream of a weeping infant – its body swollen huge – lying naked but for a blanket diaper in a cave of glittering ice. A little mother, blue-coated, was attempting to comfort it with caring murmurs, little strokes and partings at its massive belly.

The dream, the child's cries, rang in Bajazet's head like a cracked bell, and he crawled down to the splashing steep little creek, drank ice-water, and ate a bunch of new grass just sprouting on the shallow bank.

Then he got to his feet, went back to gather his weapons and goods, and ate a little spring beetle off a tree. There was no taste to it, only slight crunching.

He was surprised to find he could walk, though starving, could keep climbing the wooded gradual slopes the creek-branch ran through. – Though he walked poorly, bumping into trees he must have seen, then forgotten. He said, "Excuse me," to one tree he struck fairly hard with his shoulder, trying to move it aside. An apology that made him laugh, though probably it had been just as well to be polite. He was not in a situation to make more enemies.

"Absolutely not," Bajazet said aloud, against his own rule, and was perfectly clear in his mind. Hungry, but perfectly clear in his mind. The encounter with the tree seemed to have helped. And in that clarity, he walked a little better, not staggering, and made sure to travel up-hill, and not down.

At noon, seeing squirrels play through an oak above him, he strung his bow – with some difficulty, since the recurve drew eighty Warm-time pounds. Truth of the matter (a nice old copybook phrase) truth of the matter, it had always been too heavy for him… He set a broadhead to the string – should have used a blunt-tip, but had none – blinked to clear his vision, drew short and trembling, and hoped for luck.

No luck. A missed squirrel, and a lost arrow, the broadhead stuck deep in a thick branch half a hundred feet up. He could not afford lost arrows.

Bajazet pretended he'd killed the squirrel, even mimed skinning it as he walked along… mimed roasting it over a small fire, his fingers fluttering for the flames. Then he bit, chewed as if there were hot meat in his mouth, and swallowed.

"And so much for imagination," he said, forgetting sensible silence entirely… As he passed trees, looking for other beetles on their bark, leaves flashed their lighter green with a chill breeze come through. – Then the air vibrated to a man's agonized shriek. Loud… loud, and just though the woods.

Bajazet froze in shock, fumbled his bow off his shoulder, knelt to brace it, then slid an arrow from his quiver, and trembling, set it to the string.

The man shrieked again – drew in a loud whooping breath for another scream. All in a voice that might have been an animal's, but was not. It was a sound Bajazet had never heard before.