Mitchell Smith - Kingdom River

"I will, milord."

They swept on past the barge, then steered in again, closer to the wall. Martha, looking ahead through the boat's rigging, saw Ralph-sergeant near the bow, talking, laughing with another soldier – and beyond them, a great tower of gray stone standing out into the river.

The boat swung out to pass the tower's base where the river's flow curled against it like goat's cream. Chunk ice bobbed there, striking the granite.

Beyond, there was a great stone gateway, wide as a meadow and arched over high in the air with what seemed a spiderweb of iron… the span of a bridge where Martha saw tiny soldiers looking over. Harsh wind blew through the gateway, and a river current seethed into it. They turned with that tide – the red boat leaning, pitching – and ran on into the harbor, oars lifting, then falling to splash in foam… which became quieter water.

They were in a made pond-lake, oars now barely stroking, with walls rising high around them like the eastern mountains Martha had heard of, where Boston's creatures hunted. She saw a row of long gray wharves with boats and great ships tied to them, and sweat-slaves working, loading and unloading… Even in this deep harbor, the current swirled, complaining. There were slow whirlpools, and the river's icy wind gusted here and there, trapped by stone.

A file of marines stood in order on a far dock as the red boat rowed slowly in. The Captain said something to his wheelman, and Martha felt the boat slowly turning toward those men. She had gotten used to that lifting, sliding motion, and thought she might become a barge-woman, being so at ease riding a wet-water ship.

They drifted in, the oars folding up and back like a bird's wings… and the red boat struck fat canvas cushions at the stone dockside with a squeak and three thumps. The sailors heaved out heavy lines; three wharfers caught them and cleated them in.

"Up." The Bad-lip Lord gestured Martha after him, as the gangplank was sliding out and down.

She had no time to smile good-bye to Ralph-sergeant – needed to nearly run down to the dock, her possibles-sack flapping at her hip, to keep up with the Bad-lip Lord. The file of marines, who had struck their two-color breastplates with armored fists to greet him, now followed, marching very fast. The harbor and docks were quickly left behind. Their bootsteps echoed off stone walls, stone steps, echoed down passages under overhangs masoned from great blocks of granite. Down those passages… then others, and turnings left and right and left again. In shadowed places, Martha sometimes saw, through narrow slits, a flash of steel in lantern light.

Other marines – more than a hundred in blue and green – came marching toward them down a way just wide enough, and passed so close as their officer called out, "Milord," and touched his breastplate, that Martha heard their armor's little clicks and slidings, smelled sweat and oil and sour birch-gum chew. Then they were gone, leaving only the fading sounds of their boots striking stone all together.

The Bad-lip Lord led on, striding so Martha had to trot to keep up, the file of marines trotting to keep up with her. They came to broad stone stairs, and went right up them past many people coming down, who smiled and nodded to the Bad-lip Lord. One of the men said, "Later," to him as they went by. All these men and women were rich beyond doubt – wore linen, velvet, and thick fur robes that blew against their fine boots in the wind. The men belted heavy short-swords; the women wore long, sheathed daggers in wide, jeweled sashes, and every one looked a lord or lady, except for several Ordinary women in brown wool, following their mistresses as tote-maids.

Martha- stopped to do a stoop-curtsy to a group of no-question Extraordinaries, so as not to get into trouble, but the Bad-lip Lord took her arm and pulled her on up the steps. "Move!" he said.

Two of those women smiled at him and called, "Sayre…!" But he didn't answer. When one lady's fur robe blew a little open, Martha saw she wore a wide skirt embroidered with yellow thread and paneled in blue, perhaps silk from the south… They hurried on through four high-ceilinged rooms, one after the other. There were people in all of them, the same kind of people as on the stairs outside, any one of them looking richer than a mayor… Then the Bad-lip Lord led down steep steps and into a long runnel of curved stone courses – the first tunnel Martha had ever been in, though she'd heard of them. The marines' boots, as they followed, sounded like the red ship's rowing-drum. The wind blew bitter after them along the stone, whining like a puppy.

They came out of that darkness into daylight, then through a wide iron-barred gate into a great sunny garden in a gray stone square. But the garden, the whole space of plantings, was an inside-outside! The ceiling, wider than any other ceiling Martha had seen, was made of pieces of clear glass set in frames of metal. It was all held up by iron posts three times the height of a man, and as many as trees in a crab-apple orchard. There seemed to be at least a Warm-time acre under it, with rows of broccoli and cabbage, and what looked like onions planted at the distant edge. "Vegetables …"

The Bad-lip Lord made a face, said, "Flooding Jesus…" and walked even faster, but she kept up.

They walked through that wonderful garden along a graveled path – the file of marines still coming behind them – went out another door, then turned and turned down a twisted staircase to a stone walkway, and into another glass-roofed garden. They were going so fast now, they were almost running. It seemed to Martha there was no end to Island, no end to gray stone and the cold smell of stone. No end to icy river wind, to soldiers – marines – and Extraordinaries in jewels and fine furs. No end to women who smiled at the Bad-lip Lord as if he was alone, with no up-river girl, big as a plow horse, trotting behind him in a wrinkled homespun dress, a greasy sheepskin, and muddy shoes.

Martha had begun excited by so much size and strangeness, so many new people – likely more than in Cairo, and she hadn't yet seen them all. She'd been excited, but now began to feel a little sick to her stomach with too much newness and hurrying. She missed her mother as if she was still a little girl, and her mother was alive and feeding the chicken-birds in the yard.

The Bad-lip Lord stopped at last, at the top of broad stairs where two guards – who must be soldiers, Martha supposed, and not marines, since one wore East-bank's all-green armor, the other West-bank's blue – stood to each side of iron double doors painted red as blood. Behind her, the marines stopped all together with a stamp stamp.

"Her Majesty in audience?"

"Yes, milord," the guard in green steel. "At the Little Chamber."

"Shit…" The Bad-lip Lord spun on his heel and went back down the steps two at a time, with Martha and the marines hurrying after. He opened a door made of squares of glass, and hurried down a black-stone walk through a roofed garden of flowers. The garden light wavered like water across rows of marigold blossoms, roses, and another sort of flower with a cup of red and yellow on a slender stalk.

The Bad-lip Lord led them running up a narrow staircase to other iron doors painted blood-red and guarded by two soldiers as the first had been, one in blue armor, the other in green. "Still in audience?"

"Yes, milord," the blue-steel soldier said. He reached to turn down a heavy latch, which looked to Martha to be made of gold, and swung the left-side door open to perfumed air, bright oil-lamps shining… and many people.

The Bad-lip Lord went in – then stepped out again, took Martha's arm, and pulled her inside with him.

It was a narrow room, its walls painted scarlet, with many old flags, banners, and lit chain-lamps hanging down from a ceiling shining with gold. At least it looked to Martha like gold – though there seemed too much of it for even a Queen's Island. The gold, or whatever bright metal it was, was hammered into shapes, possibly stories. Things flew among golden clouds up there – things like birds, but with stiff straight wings – and there were buildings appearing taller than buildings were made, taller even than fortress towers…