Mitchell Smith - Kingdom River

"And you – of course – are capable of all that."

"No, not without you. Without you, without an engagement to marry you, Rachel, I remain only the provincial war-lord you named me, and unable to unite the Kingdom's armies with mine. Unable to command them."

"I will not do it." The Princess walked back to her desk, and sat, seeming less secure behind her paperwork walls. "Now, you've said what you have to say. Please leave me."

"Rachel, your people and mine need my sword." Sam smiled at her, hoped she saw kindness in it. "And, sadly, where my sword goes… so do I."

"I would be no help in any of that." Perhaps there were tears in her eyes. "I'm happiest with copybooks. I enjoy… quiet." She tried a small smile. "I am not like my mother."

Sam glanced out the south window for the gull, and saw several a bow-shot away, riding cold wind. "I understand. You would be happy in some peaceful house. Perhaps with a peaceful man, but certainly with as many copybooks as could be gathered or lent from here or there… and visitors whose interests reached beyond present wars, present politics. You'd wish to correspond with others of like mind from Boston to the Pacific Coast – not all Kipchaks, I understand, gallop and shoot arrows – and from Mexico City, as well. Perhaps learn the Beautiful Language…"

"Yes. That's very much what I'd like."

"Then let me tell you, Rachel, what I'd like… There's a farm in the hills past Villa Ocampo. It's a place – we measure in Warm-time acres – a farm of about six hundred acres. A sheep farm, with more summer grazing higher in the hills. And there's hunting. Partridge and deer, of course. Brown bear… wolves. There's a fieldstone house on the place, with a little wall around it, and a garden and orchard. We have just enough summer, most years, for crab apples."

The Princess listened and watched him, as a wary young mare might watch from spring pasture. Ready to wheel and run.

" – A man named Patterson owns the farm I'm speaking of. Important sheep-runner, Albert Patterson. And I believe he'd sell the place to me. There's no guarantee, of course – we hold a citizen's property as part of lawful liberty – but I believe he might sell, if I met his price." Sam smiled at her. "That is what I'd like, and like to do."

"Milord – "

"So now, Rachel, we know what we'd wish our lives to be. But, since neither of us is a fool, I think we also know the lives we will have."

"Your obligations are yours only."

"Yes – as yours will be to continue the decency of your mother's rule here! Decent, at least, compared to what it had been, with men eating men for dinner, and the river lords seizing anything they couldn't eat."

"My… my mother rules and wishes to rule. I don't."

"Your mother will soon be old, Rachel. She won't be able to shelter your people much longer from the river lords and the generals of East-bank and West. She won't be able to shelter you from men who would take you, or simply cut your throat, in consideration of the throne."

"And you have no consideration of the throne?"

"I don't want the fucking thing." Sam saw her wince at the word. Gently brought up… too gently brought up. "I don't have a choice! You and I have no choices. The thousands of men and women on your river, and down in my North Mexico – many of them better people than we are, Princess – depend on us to do what we're supposed to do. Their children depend on it."

" I will decide my duty." She stood; her white fists struck the top of the desk before her, hitting the wood hard. Three long sheets of paper sifted to the floor. "I will decide – not you."

Sam went to the door, so angry he felt his hands trembling. Angry at this stubborn girl, striking against a trap already closed upon her. Angry at himself… at this great pile of rocks filled with fools.

He turned at the door. "There is no 'I will' for you, Rachel – and none for me. The Queen sees to that. The Kipchak Khan sees to that. Boston, and the Emperor in Mexico City see to that. And the actions of some of our own people, fallen so far from Warm-times, also leave us no 'I will.' "

She stood staring at him as if he were some grim wizard, flown from New England on a storm. Sam saw tears in those dark eyes, saw the knowledge of her lost freedom in them – perhaps the same freedom her father was said to have regretted – and felt great pity for her.

"So, my dear," – and why not? Perhaps, in time, she might even become his 'dear' – "like it or not, you will have to replace that pen with a dagger. And as for me, my farm will be the camps… my flock, soldiers." He swung the oak door open, smiled at her, and hoped she saw affection in it. "Welcome, Princess, to our engagement – and almost certainly, endless troubles." He stepped out and closed the door behind him.

Sergeant Burke, lounging by the guards, spit tobacco juice out into the stairwell and came to a fine attention with a clank of his saber's scabbard. "Congratulations, sir!"

"Fuck off, Sergeant," Sam said, pleasing Burke – and, he supposed, the two Island men as well – since soldiers liked nothing better than fond curses.

"I believe you're to be congratulated, Monroe." Lord Sayre stepped across West Keep's ground corridor, smiling at Sam like an old friend. "I say it, since you've come from the lady's solar without cat scratches." The wound at Sayre's mouth left lower teeth showing unpleasantly when he smiled, an effect apparently useful to the man.

Sam took the offered hand – a strong hand. "Since you're so… well informed and first with congratulations, except for my sergeant – I suppose I'd better be wary of you."

Lord Sayre laughed. "Always a good idea." He glanced over Sam's shoulder, where Sergeant Burke stood watching. " – And your sergeant, there, also a good idea."

Sam turned to Burke. "Henry, this is Lord William Sayre. Pass the word to the others. Lord Sayre can come to me at any time, his reasons his own."

"Sir."

"This… hasty engagement, with marriage possibly to follow, is going to be so interesting." Sayre walked beside Sam down the corridor, their boots silent on deep carpets, ringing on stretches of stone. "Too bad the war's confusing issues. You know, I'd thought I might have the throne myself, in time."

"You wouldn't have been suited to it, milord. Slightly too honorable, from what I've heard."

"'Slightly.' Mmm, that's possible… Do you play chess, Monroe?"

"No. My friend, Ned Flores, plays a strong game, but I've never really advanced past checkers."

"And I understand Colonel Flores will be playing one-handed, now?"

"Island seems always well-informed." They were walking through a huge room paneled with wood streaked rust and red. Its ceiling, worked in hammered copper and gold, was two stories high – so high that Sam could make out few details in an elaborately carved narrative, apparently of love and loss… By a polished granite fireplace, one of the few he'd seen without an iron Franklin fronting it, a group of men and women dressed in furs, and velvets in every color, were laughing at some notion or remark. The jewels down their weapon scabbards sparkled in the fire's light.

"Island well-informed? Informed about such as your Colonel Flores, you bet, since our strength is not in cavalry."

"Wonderful Warm-time phrase, 'You bet.' "

"Yes… and your checkers game, Monroe." Sayre opened the left of double doors, and ushered Sam through into a long hall he'd seen before. It was decorated with musical instruments of every different kind, hanging on the walls, or, if very large, resting on polished stands. " – A game fairly successful, it seems. You jump a few pieces, and are crowned." Sayre struck a light chord on an ivory banjar as they passed.