At the Queen_s command cc-1

by Michael A. Stackpole

  "I can see that." Owen studied the shore. Mostly forests, with the occasional swampy meadow full of cattails, long grasses, and bright flowers. "Do you know the river's speed?"

  Nathaniel shook his head. He'd removed his buckskin shirt, baring his upper torso. The man's muscles worked fluidly beneath tanned skin. A few scars stood out. Owen recognized the raised welts of a whip, a couple of knife cuts, and one gunshot wound, but asked about none of them. If Nathaniel wanted him to know, he'd tell him, otherwise it was none of his business.

  "She flows as she flows."

  "I need to know speed to calculate rates of movement for troops."

  "Miles per hour, then?"

  "Yes, that sort of thing."

  "You won't be finding that of much use here, Captain." Woods smiled back over his shoulder. "Ain't really how fast the river goes as how fast a man can go on the river."

  Owen frowned. "Meaning?"

  "Well now, supposing the river goes five miles in an hour. A man going from dawn to dusk could go pretty far."

  "Sixty miles. Knowing that, I can estimate how quickly du Malphias could deliver troops to Temperance."

  "But if his people all got in canoes and paddled fast, they'd go farther, and your figuring would be wrong."

  "Yes, but…"

  Nathaniel shipped his paddle and turned halfway back toward Owen. "The Altashee don't worry none about miles. For them it's all 'walks.' Right fine system."

  Owen frowned. "Let me be clear. I need to know distances so I can put things on a map."

  Kamiskwa cleared his throat. "Captain Strake, how long does it take a man to walk one of your miles?"

  Owen looked back at the Altashee. "Flat road, easy pace, a third of an hour."

  "And in the rain, no road, through the forest, heavily laden?"

  Owen laughed, remembering more than one similar march in the Low Countries. "One in a day."

  "Distance does not matter. Speed of arrival does." Kamiskwa smiled indulgently. "We have many walks. Your flat road would just be a walk; though we have no flat roads. A hunting walk would be slower. Garrahai -warwalk-much faster. Then there are wet and dry walks, and light and heavy walks. We have words for all of them."

  Owen was about to complain that this system was highly impractical, but he stopped. For a people that migrated seasonally, in a land where no roads existed, the system actually did work. And while it seemed impractical to his mind, it suited the land. He might have to calculate distance backward for mapping purposes, but absent a surveying crew, his measurements were going to be inexact. While his sextant would allow him to track latitude, but without a pair of timepieces, determining longitude couldn't be done.

  He frowned. "If you measure in walks, how do you measure travel on the river?"

  "This river is a two-three: twice as fast as a walk paddling up, three times floating down." Kamiskwa dipped his paddle again. "The system has worked for all time."

  Owen nodded. "And the charts sent back from those who came before me? Their distances?"

  Nathaniel shrugged. "Made up mostly, I 'spect. Ain't never run into any of the Branches outside Bounty. Only true distance they know is between alehouses and stills."

  The Altashee chuckled. "They measure in dizzy-walks."

  Owen fell silent and listened to the sound of paddles in the water. A dragonfly zipped over, paced them for a bit, then lighted on a gunwale. Its iridescent wings sparkled in the sunlight. The insect's mahogany body hue reminded him of Catharine's eyes for a moment, then his thoughts abruptly shifted to Bethany Frost. He thought she would be entranced by the insect.

  Catharine would want me to save her from it.

  The dragonfly took off, zigzagging toward the shore. Owen followed its flight, then looked up and gasped. "My God, what is that?" He reached for his musket.

  Nathaniel turned and signaled for him to leave the gun alone. He lowered his voice. "It's a tanner. This range your ball would bounce off."

  Owen stared. The creature appeared to be an elk, but one of prodigious proportions. It stood taller than he was at its shoulder, and he was certain he could have lain straight out on its vast rack of antlers with plenty of room for his head and feet. It grazed, still chewing, as it lifted its head to regard them.

  "A tanner?" The brown coat with white throat blaze provided no clue about its name. "Why do you call it that?"

  "One of the first explorers through here, Blackston, I'm thinking his name was, called it the 'Titan Elk.' Cumbersome name."

  "Ti- tan becomes tanner, I see." Owen shot Nathaniel a sidelong glance. "And I could hit it from here."

  "Hitting ain't killing." Nathaniel nodded toward the elk. Tanner'd take more than one ball. Wounded, it would run a fair piece. We'd be all day finding it. If it tried to find us, well, we'd run a fair piece our own selves."

  The guide sighed. "Now, iffen we was out trapping or hunting, beast like that would be worth the shot. Meat'd feed a village for a week. That hide would cover Reverend Bumble. Worth a pound or three down to Temperance."

  Owen dug into his coat pocket. "Perhaps it's on the Prince's list."

  The other two men chuckled. "You'll be finding a lot on his list. Half of it don't exist."

  "But the Prince…"

  "He's a smart man, belike, but some of that learning has come from books that ain't worth the time to open."

  Kamiskwa cleared his throat. "My people related stories to early explorers, who paid them with a variety of baubles. The more fantastic the story, the better the pay."

  Owen nodded. "How will I know what is real and what is not?"

  "Only know what I see, only believe what I touch." Nathaniel smiled.

  "I get the feeling, Mr. Woods, that this will be a very long trip."

  The other men chuckled and bent to their paddles. Owen continued to watch the elk until it vanished around a river bend. That the creature dwarfed any similar Auropean beast impressed Owen. Its magnificence made him smile. But there was something else there, too. The tanner, and maybe even the way the Twilight People accounted for distance, seemed so primitive.

  Others would take primitive to mean backward, but Owen intended a wholly different sense. Mystria seemed a land that slumbered, still young and vital. Norisle and Tharyngia had been worked long and hard. He couldn't have gone a fraction of the distance he'd traveled in either without coming across someone or at least a signpost that indicated people lived nearby.

  The earliest Mystrian settlers and explorers had called the natives the Twilight People because they tended to keep to the shadows. They'd been seldom seen except at twilight, and even then only in silhouette. They were part of the land and their reticence to be seen had been explained away as their fear of the white men and their magick.

  Owen suspected it was something else entirely. The Shedashee were part of the land. They lived with it, reaping its bounty, not tearing its flesh and breaking it to their will. They'd watched that behavior in the settlers and wanted nothing to do with them, thinking them evil or insane.

  And greedy, to them, is insane.

  That first afternoon, with nothing but the sounds of wind, water, birds, bugs, and fish leaping, made Owen realize how far he was from Norisle. Not just in miles or walks, but in the very nature of the land. Mystria wasn't a place to be broken easily, though war could do that.

  And it was his mission to lay the groundwork for that war. He would do his duty for the Crown. He had no choice. War was inevitable, especially with du Malphias somewhere out there. But, if there was a way to mitigate things, a way to save Mystria, he would seek that out, too.

  If he did anything less, his failure would haunt him for the rest of his life.

  Chapter Seventeen

  May 6, 1763

  Grand Falls

  Bounty, Mystria

  T hey continued up the river another four days through country that slowly rose toward the mountains in the west. They encountered rapids around which they had to portage. They brought the c
anoe to shore, unloaded it, carried it up around the rapids, then reloaded their gear and proceeded on upriver.

  Travel was not arduous. They started out at dawn, would rest for a couple of hours during the heat of the day, then push on until dusk. Kamiskwa proved adept at hand-catching fish-what Nathaniel called "tickling"-and Nathaniel shot a tom turkey on the second day out. They roasted some of it, smoked the rest in a makeshift smokehouse, and didn't even think about hunting until they'd finished the bird.

  Kamiskwa cleaned and plucked the turkey, and found a use for the various parts. The feathers went into the bag with the wurm scales. The innards got tossed into the river for fish, and after leaving bones out overnight for insects to clean, he collected them up too. Owen presumed they'd be ground for bonemeal and used for fertilizer.

  He'd watched Kamiskwa work. The Altashee used the smaller of two knives. Each had an antler handle and a black, glassy stone blade. Though only three inches long, the butchering knife's blade had a triangular shape and two very sharp edges. The point where blade and antler met had leather wrapped around it so he couldn't see how it was joined.

  He suspected magick.

  Owen squatted next to the Altashee. "What is your knife made of?"

  Kamiskwa smiled, never looking up from his work. "Your Prince calls it obsidian. In my tongue it is chadanak. It is 'shadow that cuts.' It is traded from far away and very valuable."

  "Same stone as the blade on your warclub?"

  The Altashee nodded. "I am afforded it by my rank."

  "Yes, you are a Prince." It struck Owen as very odd in that moment that he, a common officer, and Nathaniel, a commoner, were being served by nobility.

  Is this place so strange that the natural order of things is overturned?

  Nathaniel laughed from where he was building a tiny smokehouse with river stones. "Now Captain Strake, don't be getting your knickers in a knot. Being a prince among the Shedashee ain't exactly like being a prince in Norisle."

  "No?"

  "See, the Twilight People set a store by magick. They're much better at it than we are. The stronger you are, the better they like it. Tend to want strong men to breed with their strong women. Among them, the child belongs to the mother's family, but there's a bit of sharing. If a warrior got a child on one of Kamiskwa's sisters, it would be expected that he'd return the favor."

  Kamiskwa nodded. "It keeps peace between the tribes."

  "Kamiskwa is a prince not just because his father is a great chieftain, but because he's proven himself to be strong in magick. They have contests every two-three years for to pick princes. Then the matriarchs start horse-trading with other families and tribes for their services."

  Owen shook his head, not quite sure of what he was hearing. "So he will then have a wife chosen for him by tribal elders?"

  "Not a wife." Woods took out his tomahawk and chopped some branches off a maple tree to roof over his smokehouse. "It's whoring according to Reverend Bumble."

  Owen looked at Kamiskwa. "Is he having me on again?"

  "He exaggerates." The Altashee, almost invisible in the growing gloom, looked up. "We have marriage guaranteeing that two people have children together exclusively, or with others by permission of the spouse. If I were to marry, my wife would join my household. Sharing seed keeps all tribes equal in power. It ties us together. No one wishes to go to war against his father's people."

  "I see."

  Nathaniel laughed. "You will, inside the week, I'm thinking."

  Owen left to gather firewood and later, after they'd eaten, he pulled out his journal and began writing. He recorded the information about the Altashee marriage custom and the knife, covering a page. He included a rough sketch of the knife and tucked one of the small turkey feathers into the pages. Though not a great artist, his various drawings looked closer to reality than not.

  He realized that he was including a lot more detail than he had expected, especially some concerning his reactions. He mentioned his surprise concerning the Altashee marriage custom, and his great joy at Woods' turkey-killing shot. None of that had any value to his mission, but it pleased him to write it down.

  He knew it would please Bethany, too. She was a lovely woman and smart. She was clearly a product of the land of her birth. He found it very easy to imagine her faring well were she with them. She'd tirelessly pitch in, doing a fair share of the work.

  Catherine, on the other hand, would be lost completely. She would hate being out here. She would have little interest in the flora or fauna, and would be completely useless doing any work around camp. Even trying to collect firewood would likely inspire the vapors, necessitating a long rest. And we'd need another three canoes for her wardrobe.

  The realization that he was writing for Bethany did not displease him. He would be clinical in the details he transferred into his official transcript, but in his private notes he wanted to record all his thoughts and feelings. Owen felt certain Bethany would appreciate them and, unlike his wife, would not become anxious just reading them.

  Having a confidante, even in absentia, made the trip much easier. Nathaniel and Kamiskwa clearly had quite a history together, as well as a certain disdain for things Norillian. He'd never fit perfectly with them. This didn't bother him too much. He was well used to being an outsider. Having someone to explain things to eased his isolation.

  After cleaning up all sign of their campsite the next morning, they got back on the river. Owen got to see another moose and, later, watched a black bear clawing a bee-tree open to harvest honey. None of the creatures paid them any mind. Owen marveled at their lack of concern and, consequently, felt no fear.

  Most often they traveled in silence, mostly out of a reverence for the land and its beauty. The sun dawned and painted the clouds red and blue. The setting sun could flood the sky with gold and deep scarlet. Once an eagle swooped down and plucked a salmon from the river, screaming victoriously and flew off to a nest high atop a tree.

  Owen remained silent for fear of breaking whatever spell enabled him witness such wonders. Woods and Kamiskwa would share a silent glance, smiles splitting their faces, as they marveled at things like the eagle. They had so much wilderness experience, and yet the land still surprised them.

  This pleased Owen, and scared him. If he were to be successful, he'd have to communicate a sense of Mystria to his superiors. Yet their attitude-based on birth, wealth, and rank-insulated them from understanding. They were already at the pinnacle of society, therefore at the pinnacle of the world. There could be nothing bigger or grander than what they already knew. To suggest otherwise would incite them to doubt their reality. It would be easier to convince them that wurms could fly than get them to see the true nature of Mystria.

  On the fourth day they came to Grand Falls. The land rose abruptly for three hundred feet and the water traveled through a narrow gorge above a fantastic waterfall. They unloaded their gear just before noon and rested before beginning the trek through the woods to the upper river.

  "We done walked the river 'bout as far as possible. Rest up here, start on foot tomorrow."

  "Very good, sir." Owen sat on a rock beside the blue pool into which the water splashed. A bright rainbow glowed through light mist coming off the water. He pulled his journal from his pack and quickly sketched the falls.

  "You're getting a mite better, Captain."

  He looked up. "Thank you, Mr. Woods."

  "I'm not making nothing of your chicken scratches, mind, but you got the falls right." He carried his sheathed rifle across his shoulders and pointed the butt toward the top. "Two years back me and Kamiskwa was up here come spring. Ice jammed up above there, so you could see everything dry. There's a cave back behind the water. Looked as though a jeopard or two laired there down through the years."

  Owen glanced at his musket leaning against a tree. "I'd never make it alone, would I?"

  "Nope, but this is more bear country. Don't have much of a taste for men. Now an ax-bird would be on you in a he
artbeat."

  Owen flipped to the back of the journal and unfolded the Prince's list. "A-ha. Ax-bird. Is that just a legend?"

  Woods shook his head. "They exist. More to the south and across the mountains. Mild winter, snow early out of the passes, some of them come over. Hain't seen sign for a while."

  The soldier traced his finger down the list. "Giant Ground Sloth? Mammoth? Wooly Rhinoceros?"

  "Down south, Fairlee and Ivory Hills. Newland and Felling maybe. Ivory Hills got its name from the Mammoths. We might see one of those Wooly Rhinoceroses he wants. Short of having a cannon, there will be no bringing one back."

  Kamiskwa made a comment in his own tongue.

  "Add a bigger canoe and a bigger river." Nathaniel walked over, slung his rifle across his back, and hefted the canoe with Kamiskwa. They started off through the woods along a well-worn path.

  Owen gathered up his things, including the paddles, and followed. Like Woods, he slung his musket across his back. Bringing it to hand would take a while, so he slipped the pistol into his right hand. He kept his thumb off the firestone, but kept watch as they moved.

  They followed no trail, just picked their way between trees and over hummocks. Five hundred feet from the river, near a large standing stone, they overturned the canoe in a sandy depression. Woods motioned for Owen to give him the paddles, which he tucked under the canoe.

  "You'll just leave this here?"

  "Won't nobody touch it." Nathaniel nodded. "Mystrians will know it's Shedashee, and won't want to be caught dead taking a lend of it. The Shedashee will know it's Kamiskwa's and ain't gonna take it for similar reasons."

  Owen studied the canoe more closely. "How will they know? There's not a mark on it."

  "Not to you and me, but in magick…" Nathaniel shrugged. "As I said afore, the Shedashee is better at magick than we is. Kamiskwa made the canoe, so there ain't no mistaking who it belongs to."

  Gathering their equipment, they set off on a trail paralleling the falls. It gently cut back and forth across the face of the foothills. It leveled out now and again, affording them a chance to rest. After about an hour they reached the gorge's far end and made camp in a clearing that had seen much use.