Mitchell Smith - Kingdom River

"As to tonight's banquet, and attending what they call Extraordinaries, sir," Carey said, "I'm told that presently there is still no Boston ambassador at Island. The Queen ordered him out last year, as we knew – quite a scene, I understand. She threw a cabbage at him in one of their glass growing-houses."

"I'll try to avoid cabbages," Sam said.

"As for the rest, sir, no ambassador from the Khan, of course. Left, weeks ago. The others will be court officials, river lords, generals, commanders, courtiers and so forth. And their wives."

" 'And their wives,' " Margaret said, still apparently regretting finery.

"Thank Lady Weather, that's over." The Queen, weary from the Welcome-banquet, and half-submerged in scanty lye-soap suds in the great silver tub, rested with her eyes closed. Steam scented with imperial perfume rose around her. It had taken Orrie, Ulla, and a nameless tower servant, two trips up from the laundry with pails of boiling water to fill the tub.

Martha, ringlets ruined by wet heat, knelt to scrub the Queen's long back – a back softened here and there by age, but still showing ropes of muscle down her spine. And there were scars, though not the many that showed on her front – puckered white beside her mouth, across her left breast, her belly, her left shoulder… and a bad one pitted into her right thigh. Her wrists and forearms, like Master Butter's, seemed decorated with scars' pale threads and ribbons.

"It seemed to go well, ma'am. And the dancing." Though Martha had been struck, above all, by the Welcome-banquet's food, as if the Kingdom offered endless spotted-cattle roasts, baked pigs, geese, and goats, fried chicken-birds, pigeons, and candied partridges to overawe the North Mexican lord. All those foods, and many tables of others.

The evening's bright occasion, and its music, had pleased Martha very much – though after, something pleased her more. Climbing the solar tower's entrance steps behind the Queen, she'd noticed by torchlight a large soldier in green-enameled armor, who'd winked and smiled at her while standing sergeant of the guard.

"Dancing," the Queen said, talkative after considerable imperial wine. "The usual strutting and sweating. Not a man of them could leap over a high fire."

"Lord Patterson paid attention to you."

"Lord Pretty would pay attention to anything with a hole between its legs – and crowned, all the better. Still, at least Gregory can dance, there's some sense of rhythm there."

"Yes," Martha said, distracted – and to her own surprise, bent and kissed the Queen on her temple.

"What are you doing? Don't be impertinent."

"It… it is a thank-you."

"A thanks for what, Country-girl?" The Queen surfaced a long leg, looked at her toes.

"A thanks for sending for Ralph-sergeant."

"Oh… Well, 'kind' soldiers aren't good for anything but standing at my stairs. Another useless mouth to feed at Island. The expense of this manure pile is outrageous – thieves, every damned one of them. Sutlers, fucking cooks and clothiers… Do you know, I don't dare look at the stable bills? You would suppose the Kingdom would receive gift-privilege from these merchant hogs – oh, no. Overprice and thievery!"

"I could visit them, with Master Butter."

The Queen laughed, half-turned in the tub to hit Martha on the shoulder with a soapy fist. "No, no. My people and I play many games, Trade-honey, and your ax would break the rules."

"Then we won't," Martha said, and used a soft cloth to rinse. The Queen's torso had a fierce history, but her nape, revealed under pinned-up hair, was tender as a child's.

Standing with care, then stepping out into wide southern-cotton toweling, the Queen left wet footprints on the carpet, so a woven snow-tiger grew a damp mustache. Martha hugged and gathered her in cloth – felt a sweetness of care and attending as she stroked the Queen dry over softness here, hard muscle there.

Swaddled, the Queen turned and turned as Orrie took wet cloth from Martha, replaced it with dry.

… Burnished, smelling of flowers from the bath, the Queen sat on an ivory stool – the ivory once the teeth of a Boston sea-beast called the walrut, or perhaps sea walnut. She sat slumped while Martha unpinned and brushed out her hair, long, with weaves of gray running through the red.

Martha brushed with slow easy strokes of boar bristle so as not to tug or tangle.

"Now listen," the Queen said, her head moving slightly under the brush. "This sergeant of yours – Orrie, leave us."

"Yes, Majesty." Orrie, very fat and usually a stately walker, always seemed to scuttle away relieved when dismissed.

"Ma'am, he isn't really my sergeant."

"And may never be, Martha, and then never more than a lover. Don't talk to me about men. But this sergeant of yours, if it should come to love, it still cannot come to marriage and children as long as I'm alive – ouch."

"Sorry, ma'am."

"I must and will be first. My life always above his and yours. Not because I'm such an Extraordinary, but because my life is the peoples', and they have no one else… Though it's also true that I enjoy being queen. I don't deny it."

"I understand."

"Perhaps you understand, girl, and perhaps you don't – how many strokes is that?"

"Forty-three, I think."

" 'You think.' Alright, forty more… What I was saying to you about coming first, about the necessity of it? I have one child, a resentful daughter only two years older than you, who misses her father still, and believes me a brute bitch who hasn't even wept to lose him."

"I know better, ma'am."

"Yes, you heard me wake crying for my Newton on End-of-Summer Night, after our Jordan Jesus rafted down. You heard that, and you've heard my dream groaning. And likely heard my grunts playing stink-finger under the covers, rather than have some tall man come up to give me shaking joys – then take advantage for it… You've heard, Martha, and so are closer to me than my daughter ever has been, or ever will be. And who are you? Only a strong child, really, and otherwise no one at all. Rachel will never believe how I love her… wouldn't credit it."

"I know you love her."

"She's all I have of Newton. And more, Rachel was a charming child – easy with that fucking brush – and she was so intelligent that people made the River-sign, hearing her conversation."

"I believe it. And she's pretty."

"How many is that?"

"Seventy… I think."

"Oh, for Weather's sake, Martha, learn how to fucking count." The Queen stood, shook her hair out, put her hands back for the sleeves of her night-robe, then shrugged it comfortable as Martha wrapped the fine green cloth around her, then tied its soft belt bow. "Pretty? Well, if not truly pretty, then Rachel's handsome enough, I suppose." Queen Joan raised her arms high and stretched like a man, joints cracking. Then she stepped a little jigging dance, shook her arms out as wrestlers did to ease their muscles, before she strolled relaxed to the little silver bucket, tucked up the hem of her night-robe, and squatted.

"But. But. This Kingdom is crueler than my mountains ever were, Martha. Crueler than the tribesmen who came down. Well named the River Kingdom, uncaring, cold, and made of killing currents as the river is." There was faint musical drumming as she peed. "And full of men and women who once ate talking meat. Still do, sometimes… This is what my daughter will someday rule, and I don't believe that she can do it."

"She has your blood."

The Queen tucked a tuft of cotton wool to her crotch, wiped herself. "But has not had my life. Hasn't seen what I've seen, hasn't fought as I've fought, hasn't learned what I've had to learn. Let me tell you, when my Newton was killed in Map-Kentucky coming to a fair agreement, I came this close," – the Queen held up her thumb and forefinger, almost touching – "this close to being weighted with iron and thrown into the river… Where's my nail-knife?"