Mitchell Smith - Kingdom River

"Yes, sir."

"And you say you couldn't find your way here?"

"Yes. I went to West Tower."

Master Butter-boy gave her a hard look. "Then learn your way. Learn Island well enough to run its passages blind. Because on some dark night of trouble, you may have to. We are at war, though many here don't yet seem to realize it."

"Yes, sir."

"Mmm… Well, you've got size, if it doesn't slow you. None easier to butcher than Large-an'-slows. And thank the River you don't carry big teats – very much in the way, fighting hand to hand. No big teats, and no balls to guard, either… Your age?"

"Seventeen, sir."

"Better and better. Youth makes the third fighting gift. No comment? We stand silent? – though I hope, not stupid." Butter-boy smiled, drew a small knife from his belt, and threw it at her spinning.

Martha thought of ducking away, but there was no time. Thought of catching the knife by its handle, but that seemed unlikely. She swung her hand as the knife came whirling, and slapped it to the side to clatter across the floor. Her palm was cut a little.

"Did you think of catching it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then why didn't you try?"

"I think I thought… better a cut, than chance the point coming in."

Master Butter-boy smiled. "You and I, Martha Queen's-Companion – may I call you Martha?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, Martha, you and I are going to settle in very well when it comes to murder." He walked over to pick up his knife. "You do know that all killing is murder, though often for worthwhile reasons?"

"… I suppose so."

"She 'supposes so.' " Butter-boy began to sheathe his knife, then spun and threw it at Martha again, but underhanded, with a swift shoveling motion.

Since it wasn't spinning this time, Martha thought she might catch the knife's handle as it came – stepped a little to the right, reached out, and just barely managed to. Then, for no particular reason, it seemed reasonable to immediately throw it back.

"… I can't tell you, Martha," Master Butter-boy said, "how pleased I am with you already." They were at the weapons racks, putting yellow ointment on their cuts. "You are the season's surprise!"

"Thank you, sir."

"Now – not to waste instruction time…" Butter-boy put the ointment pot back on a shelf, considered a moment along the racks, then chose a plain, long-bladed, double-edged dagger. "Ah, is there any creation as honest as an honest weapon? No, there is not."

Master Butter-boy stepped out onto slippery marble. "Difficult to be sure of your footing on this. Deliberately difficult. Did you think I'd spilled oil come all the way from Map-New England – rendered out of whatever sea beasts – in carelessness?"

"I wasn't sure, sir."

"Well, I didn't. Learn to fight on treacherous footing, and firm footing comes as a gift." In illustration, Butter-boy began to stride, the long dagger's needle point balanced on his thumbnail. Suddenly he slipped, slid, and tripped stumbling across the floor. But the weapon went with him perfectly, didn't sway as he mis-stepped and staggered, didn't threaten to tumble and fall. It seemed to have grown, become rooted, where it stood on his thumb.

"The knife… the knife… the knife." Master Butter-boy jumped suddenly forward, then sideways, then high-stepped back and back on the oiled marble – very light on his feet, it seemed to Martha, for so wide a man. The dagger stayed with him as if they were partners in a dance.

"Listen," he said, always moving – turning in circles now. "Every steel weapon, sword to ax, flowers from the knife and its discipline of timing, force, and distance to strike. The swinging ax, the parrying sword, are only children of the knife. Never despise it – though there are fools who do, until its blade slides between their ribs." He flipped the dagger off his thumbnail, caught it casually by the grip, and stood easy.

"Some courtiers – you know that word? It's a Warm-time word, and means those who linger in a king or queen's court. Some of those will stare at your ax, which I understand is being fettled for you, and consider it your first weapon in protection of the Queen. They will think of the ax – perhaps one or two plan for the ax – and forget the long knife entirely. See to it you do not."

"Yes, sir."

"And always remember this: Your weapons, if across a room and out of reach, are no weapons at all, but only a source of amusement for those butchering you, then your Queen."

"I understand."

"Never, never, never go unarmed."

"I won't."

"And never unarmored. Always at least fine chain-mail over a padded shift to protect your breast, your belly – and your back, above all."

"Yes, sir. They're making it."

"Now, Martha, choose a knife from our weapons stand, and come see if you can cut off some portion of me – keeping in mind there are no dulled instruments here, bleeding being the best teacher."

"The Queen is among her pickles." The East-bank soldier, steel armor-straps enameled to gleaming jade, stepped aside to let Master Butter pass into storage – household storage, not the great, dark, echoing chambers beneath Island's inner keep, stacked with barrels of crab-apple, barley, pickle-beets and onions, salt beef, salt mutton, salt pork, and salt cabbage.

Here, in Household, were small rooms of special cooked and jarred far-south fruits, condiments, compotes, and particular meats – boiled and poured into clamp-lid crocks, then sealed with wax, so they almost always lasted more than a year. Though sometimes not, and burst with hard sounds and messes.

Butter walked down the narrow stone corridor, his shoulders wide enough to often brush the walls. He heard the Queen muttering, ahead and off to the left, in the pickling room… One of her dear things, pickles. Apparently they hadn't had them in the savage mountain world she'd been born to, so she ordered foods pickled that most had never thought to. Broccoli, carrots, cauliflower.

The court had taken to these, so every gathering and ball saw bowls of pickles along the sideboards, with the smoked meat, honey candy, hard-cooked eggs and hot barley rolls. The salting prompting thirst, of course… Butter stepped to the left.

"So, Master Butter…?" Queen Joan, in ropes of freshwater pearls over a gown of soft imperial cloth – dark blue, with dark-blue lambskin boots to match – was shaking a great blown-glass jar of the tiniest gherkins, finding treacherous sediment. "Look at this sad shit," she said – the Warm-time phrase so apt – and held the jar up to a deep arrow-slit through the tower's stone, so daylight might aid lamplight.

Master Butter straightened from a bow. "Susan-preserver is getting old."

"We're all getting old, Butter. But not all of us careless."

"She's very old."

"Then let her get her trembling ass off my island. Let her hobble back where she came from." The Queen shook the gherkin jar again. Peered into it. "… So? What of my Large-Martha; is there prowess there?"

"Your Large-Martha will do, Majesty – when she learns Island, and always to be a little early rather than late. Should do better than some who call themselves fighting men. She has size and strength, but more important, quickness. A big man, stronger and just as fast, could likely beat her down, but not easily. She doesn't mind bleeding."

"But can she learn to fight, Master Butter? – fight serious men and sudden, not just bumpkin Ordinaries brawling in her father's yard."

"I'm sure so."

"And you're 'sure so'… why?"

"Most men and women, Queen, if steel or any trouble comes suddenly, throw their heads back in startlement – and so, of course, lose a moment to defend themselves. This Martha does not. She lowers her head to look closer, to watch what comes and how it comes."