Mitchell Smith - Kingdom River

The Queen whispered to herself, as she always did under that banner. Whispered to herself, or perhaps the killed King… then walked on.

"So, Martha, now what do you think of our sturdy young Captain-General?"

"I think you should be careful, ma'am."

"Mmm. You think he might – if, for example, he and Rachel become engaged to marry – perhaps take advantage afterward, set me aside? Kill me?"

"He might, if he thought it best. Set you aside, I mean. But – "

" 'But?' "

"He wouldn't kill you, ma'am."

"And why not, girl?"

"Same reason you won't kill him."

"Clever Martha… The past weighs on both of us like a fallen tree. And I see Catania, smiling at me."

There were two guards at the door to the West Tower solar. A chamber, as Sam had found – Sergeant Burke clanking up behind him – reached after a steep seventy-two-step climb from the tower gate. As usual at Island, one of the guards was armored in blue-enameled steel-hoop, the other, in green. Also as usual, both were armed with shield and short-sword for handiness in close quarters… They were keeping an eye on Sergeant Burke.

"No entrance here, milord." Green-armor.

"Announce me," Sam said.

"Cannot do it, sir." Green again.

"Announce me," Sam said, "or stand aside."

There were few moments more interesting to a commander, than those spent waiting to see if a questionable order would be obeyed.

After those interesting few moments, Blue-armor turned and knocked gently on the iron-bound oak door. Sam had found no flimsy entranceway on Island, except on the glass greenhouses. Any enemy army reaching Kingdom's capital would find difficult barricades at every turn, on every landing, and before every room.

The door latch turned, thick oak and iron swung open, and Princess Rachel stood impatient in her slate-gray gown. She held a small copybook in one hand, a steel-nib pen in the other.

"I'm occupied, milord." Looking down at him a little, since she was slightly taller. "And I believe our conversation was just completed at my mother's audience."

"I've come to apologize again for that… clumsiness, Princess."

"You spoke your mind."

"Carelessly." Sam tried a smile past a guard's steel shoulder.

"As I said, milord, I'm occupied."

"And since I am not, Princess, I've taken a guest's liberty to visit."

Impatience and annoyance. "Very well." She stepped aside as he came in, then swung the door closed behind him. Sam saw, as if he still stood outside on the landing, the look exchanged by the three soldiers.

This solar was no lady's retirement, with cushions, harps, embroidery frames, little dogs, game-boards and so forth. It was a library and copying room, circled with shelves and copybook stacks, copy stands, and a flat-topped work-desk beneath the north window… Only thick carpets – spiraled tribal work, Roamer patterns woven in greens, golds, and rust reds, with dreamed creatures chasing down the edges – relieved the room's simplicity. The light was good, a bright, cool reading light from four great windows spaced around the chamber – the only windows Sam had noticed at Island that were not narrow and iron-barred.

There was no scent of perfume – the Princess apparently didn't use it. The only odors were of fine laid paper and best black sea-squid ink.

Princess Rachel stood silent, watching him, pen and copybook in hand. She had her mother's lean height and length of bone, but what must have been her father's features, blunt, brown-eyed, with wide cheekbones. A handsome face, in its way.

"Forgive me, Princess, for intruding, but it's proved necessary." Sam walked over to a shelf, read copybook titles on fine sewn top-bindings. "Otherwise, you'll continue avoiding me all over Island, and I'm sorry to say we don't have the time for it… Martian Chronicles. I've heard of Dreaming Bradbury, but not read him. I have read one copybook supposedly by G. Wolfe. Some argument whether it's really a dream of his. Might have been written of our time, in some ways."

Sam glanced over at her, saw no welcome in her face. "The View from Pompey's Head …"

"We have two of Basso's." Grudging, but a response. Sam supposed this princess could not not speak of books.

"Haven't read him."

"We have that – and the Light Infantry Ball."

"Really? Well, light infantry, at least, is a subject I know something about." Sam looked for an empty chair; there seemed to be copybooks or copy paper stacked on everything. It was a room Neckless Peter would have loved.

"Not that sort of light infantry."

"Oh? What sort is it?"

A little color in those pale cheeks. "It… it is about social relationships before and during the very ancient Civil War."

"The Map-America civil war?"

"Yes," the Princess said, and certainly wished him gone.

"Not much use of light infantry there. Skirmishers, scouts, that sort of thing. Of course, the bang-powder bullets must have influenced all their tactics… Have you read the Right Badge of Courage!"

" 'Red.' " Definitely blushing – and of course, very shy. What else could she have grown to be with such a mother?

" 'Red'?"

" 'Red' Badge of Courage."

"Really? You're sure?" Sam set a stack of paper on the floor and sat on an uncomfortable little stool set against the wall by the bookshelf. "I've seen the copybook. Book-English, though traded from Mexico City."

The Princess opened her mouth to say she was sure, then must have noticed something in his face. "…But you knew it. You knew that was wrong."

Sam smiled at her. "Yes, I did. There is no 'Right' Badge of Courage. " He leaned back, stretched his legs out, and crossed his boots at the ankle. His sword-hilt tapped the wall behind him. Shouldn't have worn his sword. It was a mistake to have come up to her chamber armed, a long bastard blade slanted down his back. Think first, was the rule at Island.

"I apologize, Rachel." The Princess blinked at the familiarity. A formal court, they held. "I shouldn't have come to your chamber armed."

A little smile. "I didn't consider your sword rudeness, milord." She went behind her work desk, and sat looking out at him over a low barrier of copybooks – as Charles Ketch so often did. Gentle people finding refuge behind written walls. "- Everyone goes armed at Island."

"You don't, I've noticed. Not even a lady's dagger."

"I have guards."

"You have guards, yes – each man from armies kept deliberately separate. West-bank and East. Guards commanded by ambitious generals. West-bank generals… East-bank generals."

"It has worked for us very well."

"And will, until the day a really formidable general joins the River armies together. Perhaps is forced to join them to meet the sort of threat that, for instance, the Kipchak Khan is posing now. That general will be king – and all the more easily if those who ruled are dead."

"I don't think… I don't think you need concern yourself with that, milord."

"Oh, but I do. You see, Princess, the government of Middle Kingdom depends not only on the strict separation of your two armies, not only on the Fleet as a third force. It depends on a ruler being strong enough to maintain them in balance."

"You being such a ruler, of course."

"Your mother being such a ruler."

"Then you had better discuss your ambitions with my mother." An angry face over the stack of copybooks. Now, Sam could see her father in her.

"I wish… Rachel, I wish we'd had the time to know one another better. If there'd been a year or more for visits, so we didn't meet now as strangers, and all this so… awkward."