Mitchell Smith - Kingdom River

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KINGDOM RIVER
BOOK TWO OF THE SNOWFALL TRILOGY
By
MITCHELL SMITH
Version 1.0
Copyright © 2003 by Mitchell Smith
ISBN: 0-765-34058-5
Concern has been expressed by the National Science Foundation that possible alterations of
Jupiter's orbit, following successive major cometary impacts, may affect the earth's orbit —
slightly, but still decisively — and so change the annual patterns of our planetary weather.
Associated Press, May 16, 2006
Article in Bloomington Times-Tribune
Bloomington, Indiana, May 17, 2006
Had this latest — -and most severe — ice-age taken an age to arrive, instead of only
decades, enough preparation might have been possible to spare those hundreds of millions who
froze in the north... those hundreds of millions who starved in the south. Might have spared us, as
well, four — now almost five — barbaric centuries, with what remains of civilization learned, like
our language, from those relatively few books surviving.
New Harvard Yard, Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Commentaries
Introduction
To the Kipchak Prince and Khan Evgeny Toghrul, Lord of Grass, Ruler Perfect of the Bering Strait
Traversed, the Map-Pacific Coast, Map-California — and, lately, Conqueror of Map-Texas to the
Guadalupe River and beyond.
Greetings from Neckless Peter, old man and librarian, who years ago, having been taken captive
from my Gardens Town by naked savages — Border Roamers serving with your father's subsidiary
forces — was privileged to tutor a brilliant boy in what we know of Warm-times gone, and their
wisdom.
This boy has become you, my lord — and I, your recently assigned ambassador and agent to
North Map-Mexico, take this opportunity to tell you that I quit.
'I quit.' Is it any wonder we get not only our written and spoken language from the books of
centuries past, but even its casual slang — so neat, so pointed, so appropriate?
I am, of course, aware that your strangler's bowstring awaits any who disappoint you, and can only
hope that a thousand miles of distance — and perhaps some slight regard you might still hold for your
elderly tutor — will prevent a determined attempt at murder.
In any case, I can now say what I felt it unwise to mention to you before — so as not to increase
an already understandable arrogance — which is that you were by far the most extraordinary
intelligence I had ever encountered or ever expected to encounter, and as such were a joy to teach. I
have not forgotten and will never forget sitting by the Meadow Fountain at Caravanserai with a quiet,
slender boy whose eyes, black, glossy, steady as a spider's and slightly slanted beneath the folds of their
lids, drank from the pages of every copybook I presented to him.
Your first question to me: What had happened to the countless thousands of Warm-time books now
lost to us? You'd asked, and been saddened by my answer: "Burned, libraries of them, almost all those
not eaten by centuries of winters. Burned with all knowledge of their miracles of learning — perfect
medicines, the making of black bang-powder, the secrets of flying machines and laboring machines and
thoughtful machines, as well as endless wonderful intricate tales.... Almost all the books burned for
warmth as their peoples' world collapsed beneath weather, and they and their children froze."
Yours proved to be a genius clear and encompassing as flowing water. And now, of course, driven
by a ferocity that impressed even your late and quite ferocious father, that intelligence is causing our
ice-weighted world to tremble, so only Middle Kingdom, and of course New England, might stand
against you.
Do you remember the afternoon we read of Ancient-Alexander's life and conquests? We read it
together in a spectacular copybook, a treasure copied from an original found in the ruins of Los Angeles.
(— I trust, by the way, that the library at Caravanserai is being cared for. Over eight hundred
copybooks. No moisture. There must be no moisture — and copying and recopying continuous. The
books are all we have of Warm-times and civilization.) Do you remember how we yearned for an
encyclopedia, that dreamed-of miracle of answers? Never found, alas; too wonderful as kindling.
We read of Ancient-Alexander, and you diagramed his battles with squid ink on wide sheets of the
court's perfect paper. You refought those conflicts in your mind, your quill moving here and there... and
finally decided how the Persian center might have been more suitably arrayed.
"Clumsy forces," you said of the Persians and their Greek allies, but gathered them together on your
paper, set them in odd echelon... then waited for Ancient-Alexander and his Companions to make the
inevitable charge.
"He would have beaten me at the Granicus," you said, "but at Issus, I would have destroyed him.
There would have been no Gaugamela." And satisfied, you let the white sheets of paper, swarming with
the inked lines and arrows of battles never to be fought, slip from your lap to the grass.
I will not forget those afternoons, lord, nor your love of Warm-time poetry — particularly the New
England lady's. I could not stop for Death, so he kindly stopped for me... (How sad that those
Map-Boston people have fallen to growing beasts in women's bellies.)
Remembering our rich days, why then do I quit you? And for the service of an upstart
Captain-General of North Map-Mexico, Small-Sam Monroe, to whose camp you sent me as
ambassador and spy?
First, I leave your service for his because I loved his Second-mother, Catania Olsen, as a friend,
and because Small-Sam was born at Gardens, my home, when it was still tree green and full of families
and fine weaving, all under the rule of the last great Garden Lady, Mary Bongiorno. So, I choose my
future in honor of my past.
Second, I leave your service for his because while Small-Sam Monroe is a war-captain, and
successful at it, I think he will not be only a war-captain, determined as you are to devour all our
cold-struck continent, and so cause a barbarous age to become even more so.
You will be interested to hear that when I mentioned my intention to Monroe — to leave your
service for his — he insisted I first complete the task for which you sent me, and forward to you a
complete history, description, and report of the current essential military and economic matters of his
overlordship. This report to be carried sealed and unread by him or any man of his, and delivered along
with his personal apology for depriving you of an amusing servant.... I'm not sure why 'amusing.'
He also refused to accept any report I might have made to him concerning you or the Khanate.
I believe you would like Sam Monroe — the 'Small-Sam,' I understand, has gone out of usage
since his victories. He is a very interesting young man — your age, as it happens, within a year or two.
He possesses a sort of informed, stony common sense, an interesting contrast to your brilliance.
I will miss you, my lord. You were an incomparable student… though I have felt more and more that
I failed you as a teacher, to have left you with nothing but the determination to enforce your will across
our world.
Once your servant, but no longer such...
Neckless Peter Wilson
KINGDOM RIVER
CHAPTER 1
The ravens had come to This'll Do.
Sam Monroe, Captain-General of North Map-Mexico — and commander of the army that,
before this, had been called Never-Defeated — frightened birds here and there as he walked among
the dead.
A messenger-pigeon had reached Better-Weather, and he'd come, down with headquarters' Heavy
Cavalry, come quickly, but still arriving two days too late. Troopers of the Second Regiment of Light
Cavalry lay scattered through high grass for almost a Warm-time mile down the valley from Please Pass.
Sam Monroe walked through tall brown stems still brittle from last night's frost. Death had come in
Patchy-fool Autumn, the eight-week summer ended two weeks before. Dead troopers lay here and
there, almost hidden in the grass except where low mounds of the slain showed — Light Cavalry's
hide-and-chainmail hauberks hacked by the imperial cataphracts' battle axes.
More than three hundred dead within sight of his encampment on the near hill, and dozens more
lying out of sight to the east, where the village stood, ridden down as they'd spurred away. It seemed to
Sam Monroe there would certainly be at least four hundred dead, when totaled.
Though the villagers had been spared the empire's usual rapes and murders, valuable squash and
pumpkin fields had been trampled, their last harvest destroyed. Farms had been burned or battered —
pine-plank buildings feathered with the cataphracts' arrows, doors smashed in, the furnishings axed for
campfires.
The valley fields were quiet now, excepting only a raven's occasional croaking, only the dawn wind's
murmuring through the grass. A cold wind, almost freezing, with Daughter Summer dead. Sam's soldiers
believed Lady Weather would be weeping sleety tears for her, as Lord Winter came walking south from
the Wall.
The imperials' commander had already recovered his killed and wounded, taken them back south
through the pass, heading farther south of the Sierra Oriental to what would certainly be a triumph in
Mexico City for the Empire's first victory against the North.
Not a great battle — only a clash of cavalry along a mountain border. But Sam Monroe's army
had lost it. The charm of always winning was broken.
The Heavy Cavalrymen not digging john-trench, tending horses, or guying tents, were watching from
the hill as he walked through the grass from corpse to corpse; Sam could feel them watching.... He knew
so many of the dead. A small army was full of familiar faces — even though the chill afternoons had still
been warm enough to spoil these, begin to swell them with rot in the army's brown wool and leather.
He knew a number of these troopers — and all the officers, of course. He'd saluted them in battle
many times as they'd poured past him to trumpet calls in a flood of fast horses, shining steel, and banners.
Sam walked through the grass, visiting this one… then another. The women were the worst. If it
hadn't been for the women, he would not be weeping. They lay, slender bones broken, soft skin sliced,
faces — some still beautiful — astonished at their deaths. Where bright helmets had been beaten away,
gleaming drifts of long hair, black, red, and golden, lay in broken grass.
He visited the dead for a Warm-time hour, then went back up the hill as the picks and shovels were
brought down to bury them.
Two Heavy Cavalry corporals were posted as guards just beyond ear-shot of his tent (wonderful
Warm-time phrase, 'ear-shot'). They saluted as he passed. Sam saw Margaret had brought his breakfast
to a camp table by the tent's entrance.
"Sir, please eat." She stood watching him. "Done is done." A favorite saying of hers.
"The wounded?"
"Mercies found the last of them, eleven WT miles east. They've started bringing them in." She saw
the question in his face. "Fifty-three, sir. And Ned Flores. He lost a hand… left hand."
Sam sat at the table. The breakfast was scrambled chicken eggs, goat sausage, and tortillas —
almost a Warm-time breakfast out of the old copybooks, except the sausage would have been pig, the
tortillas toasted bread with spotted-cow butter.
"You have to eat."
He took a sip of hot chocolate. "Thank you, Margaret."
Margaret turned and marched away, her boots crunching on the last of morning's frost, her rapier's
length swinging at her side.
Margaret Mosten, old enough to be an older sister, always served his breakfasts. Always served
every meal. She would come riding up to his horse, on campaign, with jerk-goat or crab apples for his
lunch. Boiled water, safe from tiny bad-things, for his leather bottle. No food came to him, but from
Oswald-cook by her hand.
Her predecessor, Elder Mosten, smelling something odd in chili, had tasted Sam's dinner once along
the northern border by Renosa, then convulsed and died.
"To you — only through me," his eldest daughter, Margaret, had said, then resigned her captaincy in
Light Infantry, and come to Sam's camp to take charge of it with a much harder hand than her father's
had been.
Though that fatal chili's cook had hung, Margaret had ridden back to Renosa, inquired more strictly,
and left four more hanging in the square — the cook's wife for shared guilt, and three others for
carelessness in preparation and service.
"That many," Sam had said to her when she returned, "and no more."
"The cook and his wife were for that dinner;" Margaret Mosten had answered him, "the others were
for our dessert."
So, as with many of his followers, the burden of her loyalty leaned against Sam Monroe, weighed
upon him, and tended to make him a short-tempered young man, everywhere but the battlefield.
He could take bites of the breakfast tortilla, but the sausage and eggs were impossible. He must not
— could not — vomit by his tent for the army to see.
"Too young," they'd say. "What is Sam, twenty-six, twenty-seven? Too young, after all, for a grown
man's work. All that winning must have been luck."
And Sam Monroe would have agreed it had been luck — the good fortune of having the Empire's
old, incompetent generals for enemies; the good fortune of having fine soldiers to fight for him; and what
had seemed the good fortune of being born with battle-sense.
But battle-sense had led to victories; victories had led to ruling. And ruling had proved a crueler field
than any battleground, and weightier duty.
It seemed to Sam, as he tried to eat a bite of eggs, that his will, which he had so far managed to
extend to any necessary situation — as if a much older, grimmer, and absolutely competent person stood
within him — that his will, his purposes, had turned him into that someone else, a man he would never
have liked and didn't like now.
The proof lay beneath the hill, in dead grass.
But even that grim and forceful person had not come forth this morning to eat goat sausage and
eggs.Margaret came back, her sturdy bootsteps quieter; the light frost was melting under the morning sun.
"Sir...." With official business, "sir" was all the Captain-General required. Sam had early decided that
honorifics promoted pride and stupidity; he had the south's imperial examples.
"The brothers," Margaret Mosten said.
"Lord Jesus." He ate a bite of sausage to show he could, then took deep breaths to quiet his belly.
The Rascobs had to be spoken with, but a little later would have been better. "Will they wait?"
"No," Margaret said. "And it would hurt them to be told to."
That was it for the sausage. Sam took another deep breath and put down his two-tine fork — silver,
a spoil from God-Help-Us. "I'll see them."
"You should finish your eggs."
"Margaret, I don't want to finish the eggs. Now, send them up." Odd, when he thought about it.
Why 'send them up'? The camp was on high ground, but level. His tent was only 'up' because he gave
the orders.
Different bootsteps, stomping. The Rascobs appeared side by side and saluted — a fashion that had
settled in the army after the early days in the Sierra. It was something all soldiers apparently loved to do.
The brigadiers, Jaime and Elvin Rascob, were twins, scarred and elderly at fifty-eight — both tall,
gray-haired, gray-eyed, baked brown and eroded by weather. Elvin was dying of tuberculosis, caused
by poison plants too small to see, so he wore a blue bandanna over mouth and nose as if he were still a
young mountain bandit and sheep-stealer.
"We just rode in." Jaime Rascob's face was flushed with rage. "And saw what comes of sending
Light Cavalry where infantry should have gone."
"Told you, Sam," Elvin said, the south's blue cotton fluttering at his mouth. "Heavy Infantry to hold
the pass — Light Infantry to come down the hills on them. Would have trapped those imperials, maybe
killed them all. Told you." Dying, Elvin was losing courtesy.
"Ned thought he could deal with them." Sam stuck his fork in the eggs and left it there.
"Ned Flores is a fool kid-goat — a Light-Cavalry colonel! What the fuck does he know about
infantry situations?" Courtesy lost entirely.
"It was your fault, sir." Jaime's face still red as a rooster's comb.
"Yes, it was my fault." Sam looked up at two angry old men — angry, and dear to him. "Scouts
reported only a few hundred imperials, and from the careful way they came, with no great force behind
them. So, it seemed to me that Light Cavalry, with room to run east if they had to, could handle their
heavies without our infantry to lever against. I was wrong."
"Three hundred dead," Jaime Rascob said.
"That's incorrect. It will be nearly four hundred."
"Goodness to Godness Agnes..." Elvin, through his bandanna — certainly a Warm-time copybook
phrase. "Almost three out of every four troopers dead. And we told you!"
"Elvin — "
"Jaime, I'm just saying what everybody knows." A statement definite, and with the weight of years as
well, since he and his brother were each old enough to have been their commander's grandfather.
Squinting in morning sunlight, Sam pushed his breakfast plate a little away. The smell was troubling.
A mistake. He noticed the colonels noticing; an exchange of glances. He picked up his fork, ate a
bite of eggs, then another. Took a sip of chocolate. "Do we know the cataphracts' commander?"
"Voss says it was likely one of the new ones, probably Rodriguez." Jaime didn't sound convinced,
though the Empire, slow at everything, had begun to allow promising younger officers commands. Michi
Rodriguez was one of those 'Jaguars.'
"Whoever," Jaime said, "he whipped Flores with just six hundred heavy horse."
"Less."
"Not less, Elvin," his brother said. "Three squadrons, at least."
Elvin didn't argue. Any argument with Jaime Rascob ended only after a long while.
"Still a damn shame." Elvin cleared his throat behind the bandanna. "We could have bottled them in
Please Pass, maybe killed them all."
Sam chewed a bite of sausage and managed to swallow it. "My decision to let them come through.
My decision to send only Light Cavalry down to deal with them. My fault." The breakfast was hopeless
— one more bite and he would be sick for all the camp to see. The young Captain-General, who'd never
failed, vomiting his breakfast while troopers rotted in the mountain grass.
"You got too big for your bitches," Elvin said, certainly not the correct Warm-time phrase. The old
man took little care with them, rarely got them right.
"It's a mistake I won't make again." Sam took a sip of chocolate. A smell of spoiling was rising from
the valley.
"We can't win every fight, Elvin." Jaime gave his brother a shut-up look.
"For sure not campaigning like this!" Elvin coughed a spatter of blood into his kerchief, turned, and
marched away into the camp. His brother sighed, and followed him.
Sam turned on his camp stool to watch them go. Two tough old men. Both wore heavy
double-edged broadswords scab-barded aslant down their backs, the swords' long grips wound with
silver wire. Elvin stumbled slightly on the uneven ground. Half a year ago, Portia-doctor had reported he
was dying. She'd heard bad sounds in his lungs when she'd thumped him.
It had been a difficult examination. Elvin had thumped her in return, then attempted a kiss.
"He's just a boy," she'd said to Sam, "in an old man's body."
"Then he's younger than I am, Doctor."
"Yes, sir. In many ways younger than you are."
Portia-doctor had apprenticed in medicine under Catania Olsen, which said everything in North
Map-Mexico — and south in the Empire as well. Portia had learned as much as that dear physician, four
Warm-time medical copybooks, and seven years of hard experience could teach.
She'd been pretty those years ago, a sturdy young woman with dark brown hair and eyes to match.
Now, the army work and civilian work had worn her. And losing Catania to plague at Los Palominos
had worn her more.
Howell Voss, commanding the Heavy Cavalry, called her "the noble Portia," looked for her in any
group or meeting, and was thought by a thoughtful few to have been in love with her for some time.
"Why doesn't he just tell her so?" Sam had once asked his Second-mother, after an officers'
evening asado.
"Because," Catania Olsen had said, tightening her mare's saddle girth, "because Howell has lost an
eye, and fears being blind and a burden. And because he believes that Portia is very fine and good, and
that he is not."
...Sam sat and watched the Rascob brothers walk away
down the tent lines. The other, grimmer Sam Monroe inside him began to consider inevitable
replacements for the two of them, certainly following Elvin's death. Jaime's replacement, then, would of
course destroy him.
'Fools do top with crowns, and so bid friends farewell.' A copied Warm-time line, and very old.
The Captain-General of North Map-Mexico pushed his breakfast plate a little farther away, took a
deep breath to calm his stomach, and sat at his camp table with his eyes closed, not caring to watch the
Sierra's shadows — lying across a wide, meadowed valley lightly salted with flocks of sheep — slowly
shorten as the sun rose higher.
Bootsteps. No one in the army seemed to walk lightly. "You didn't finish your eggs."
"No. I've had enough, Margaret."
"Oswald-cook goes to some trouble with your eggs. Herbs."
"Oh, for Weather's sake." The Captain-General picked up his fork, reached over, and took another
bite of eggs.
"Sir, there's no winning forever. You don't have to be perfect." It was a burden-sharing she often
practiced. At first, it had annoyed him.
Margaret stood in bright, chill morning light, watching him eat two more bites of egg. "They had
room to run."
"Yes — if they'd run, instead of fighting." Sam put his fork down a little more than firmly. Margaret
took the plate, and went away.
It was a great relief; he was tired of people talking to him. He stood to go into his tent… get away
from distant murmurs and the troops' eyes, their unspoken concern — concern for him, as if he were the
party injured. They were wearing him away like constant running water. Wearing that lucky youngster,
Small-Sam, away — and so revealing more and more of the present Sam Monroe. Someday, they might
be sorry….
He pulled the tent flap back — then let it fall, turned, and walked out into the camp, stepping on his
morning shadow as he went.
The mercy-tent was the largest the army raised — but not large enough, now. Wounded lay in a
row by the entrance — silent as was the army's pride, though Sam saw some mouths open for cries
unvoiced. He went to those first, and knelt by stained raw-wool blankets. He knew many.
He spoke to them in turn, and most — those in least agony — could listen, even make reassuring
faces to comfort him. Two of them tried to make jokes.
"... Sir, didn't think it was possible for a trooper to outrun her horse. But by Mountain Jesus, I was
scared enough and did it."
"Mavis, you were just charging to the rear." That oldest of cavalry witticisms.
Trooper Mavis Drew had been cut across the belly. The wound was bandaged tight to keep things
in. Sam kissed her on the forehead, and went on down the line. Those who could see, seemed glad to
see him.
"Where's Colonel Flores?"
The mercy-medic, a bearded older man, and tired, pointed to the tent entrance. "Inside, down to the
left." "He'll live?"
"Live one-handed," the medic said.
The tent was filled with sunshine glow through canvas woven of the Empire's southern cotton, filled
with that light and a soft, multiple hum of agony, the army's silence-in-suffering fallen away. Portia-doctor
was with someone, bent over, doing something that made the person's breath catch and catch again.
Sam went down the narrow aisle to the left, and saw, at the end of a row, Ned Flores lying slight on
a folding cot. His left arm was out on the blanket, the wrist a fat wad of white bandage spotted with red.
The man in the cot beside his was snoring softly, unconscious.
"Sorry, Sam. Not quite as planned." Barely Ned's voice, rusty as an old man's, and from what
seemed an aged face — no longer a young hawk's, handsome, high-beaked, and cruel. His youth had
gone with his wound, and losing.
Monroe knelt beside the cot. "No, not quite as planned, Ned.
At least three hundred more dead and wounded than planned." He kept his voice low, "I sent you
down here to lose a battle — to lose maybe forty or fifty of our people, then break off and run."
"Right... right."
"That was only between us, Ned. I thought you understood why it was necessary to lose at least a
skirmish."
"I know. Necessary…"
"Our army's always won — never lost — and that's become dangerous. Even more so, now, with
the Khan moving on Middle Kingdom. I didn't want him to think us a serious threat, and I didn't want the
shock of our first lost battle, my first lost battle, to occur when we couldn't afford it. I thought you
understood that."
"Yes." A long pause, eyes closed. "Like cow-sore vaccination against the pops."
"Then" — careful to speak softly — "then why the fuck didn't you order the regiment disengaged
after the first melee? Behind you was all the room in the world to run!"
"Well... tell you, Sam. Seemed to me... we had a chance to beat the bastards." Apparently great
effort required to get that said.
"Ned, you did not have a chance to beat them — almost seven hundred imperial cataphracts met in
a pass at such close quarters? And you weren't sent down here to beat them!"
"My fault." Flores seemed to doze, then woke with a start.
Sam stood. "Yes. And my fault for trusting you to obey orders."
"I know... I lost all those people."
"Yes, and deserved to lose more than a hand, Ned. You deserved to lose your head."
"You... can have it."
Sam bent over him. "Ned, we've been friends since we were boys on the mountain. But if that order
to lose, lose and run, hadn't been only between us — and have to remain only between us — I would
have you tried and hanged for disobedience."
"Don't doubt it, Sam," Ned Flores said. "And what a relief... that would be."
CHAPTER 2
To the Great Khan and Lord of Grass:
Neckless Peter Wilson, elderly and once your servant and ambassador, submits and conveys this
report of information concerning the history, winning, and holding of North Map-Mexico by the young
Captain-General Small-Sam Monroe — by whose order this is forwarded sealed from all eyes but
yours, Great Lord.
Twenty-seven years ago, a band of fugitive Trappers — driven south from the mountains and
ice-wall of Map-Colorado by the Cree — stopped to rest at Gardens, the town in forest and of forest.
Their notable persons were Jack Monroe, that mythic fighting man; Catania Olsen, a physician; Joan
Richardson, an Amazon; and Tattooed Newton, to be revealed errant third son to the ruler of Middle
Kingdom.
Within the year, Jack Monroe was dead — in tales, murdered by a bear jealous of his strength.
Within this time also, Newton, with Dangerous-Joan Richardson, returned to the Boxcars' Middle
Kingdom, where he came in time to his inheritance. On his death, years later — while arranging a
reasonable agreement in Map-Kentucky — Dangerous-Joan was left to rule as Dowager Queen, and
remains so today, aged, but no less dangerous.
As these storied ones met their fates, so Catania Olsen, caring for an orphaned Trapper baby,
Small-Sam Monroe, traveled down to North Map-Mexico, and into the Sierra Oriental.
In the Sierra, after killing two men — one having attempted rape, the other having tried to steal her
goat — Catania Olsen became physician to the savages and bandits of the mountains, and came to be
loved by them.
Her adopted son, Small-Sam, grew to manhood in those harsh and freezing altitudes — a world
largely peopled, as all North Map-Mexico had been, by North Americans driven south centuries before,
as the cold came down. So their language was and is book-English, their ways also informed by those
surviving copies of Warm-time books.
The original, the Beautiful Language, now is only spoken in the Empire of Map South-Mexico and
Guatemala — and, one assumes, in the continent of wilderness below.
Twenty-two years passed after Doctor Olsen's arrival. Then, the Empire's Duke Alphonso da
Carvahal attempted a reconquest of their lost northern territories. This went badly.
In a series of attacks along the western flank of the Sierra Oriental, Carvahal lost battle after battle
— never, as the Warm-time saying had it, 'getting his ducks in a row.'
In these battles, the men and women of North Map-Mexico lost two leaders slain. A third, a very
young man, was elected for lack of better. This was Small-Sam Monroe, and at the town God-Help-Us,
he attacked the imperial forces by night, and defeated them. Then he sent all the common-soldier
prisoners south, alive and whole, at the plea of his Second-mother, Catania Olsen, whose name is still
praised as a saint's for mercy in South Map-Mexico and Guatemala.
The duke and his officers were disemboweled.
So successful as a war leader that no man cared to stand against him in rule, young Small-Sam
found himself acclaimed Captain-General of all the provinces of North Map-Mexico — as they still are
named in the Beautiful Language, Baja California Norte, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Nuevo
Leon, now united.
He was urged to invade the south as the south had invaded the north, and so destroy the Empire. He
refused, on consideration of that ancient stability better left preserved.
Now twenty-seven years old — though looking older — Sam Monroe rules south from the Bravo
down into both Sierras, and east from the Gulf of California and Ocean Pacific to the Great Gulf Entire.
He enforces lightly in rule and taxes — but holds the towns, villages, mountains and fields of these
fractious and turbulent people as with a fine noose, which lies slack unless tugged against.
He is respected and popular, but treated with caution, since his reasons for violence are often not
anticipated by ordinary men.
Small-Sam Monroe — 'Sam' to his friends and near-equals, 'Sir' to all others — is stocky,
sandy-haired, and exceptionally powerful and active. It is said in his army that few can match him with the
sword. He carries what is called a 'bastard' — that is, a weapon a little lighter than a two-handed sword,
with a grip called a 'hand and a half.' This weapon, I understand, is a rain-pattern blade, forged and
folded many times from the empire's rare 'wootz' steel. And — which I think of some interest — though
the important fighting men and women of this country follow the barbarian tradition of naming their
swords, Monroe hasn't done so. A modesty availing not, since his officers and men christened the
weapon 'Nameless.' So the great, in small ways as in large, are denned by those they rule.
Monroe's face, square and harsh-featured, is marked by weather, war, and cares of state. His eyes
are very clear, a dark hazel, his lashes almost long as a girl's. Commanding an army whose men are often
mustached and bearded, he shaves his face clean — as do most of his senior officers and administrators,
likely in imitation.
The Captain-General's intelligence, like his vision, is clear, direct, devouring of subjects of interest,
and dismissive of others. He is alert, profoundly practical, and unafraid. He works harder than any of his
servants, though all, whether soldiers or administrators, are hard and constant workers.
Finally — and this may be unimportant, may simply reflect the pressures of great power on a young
man less than hungry for it — finally, it seems to me that Small-Sam Monroe is not happy.
Important administrators: Charles Ketch — an exceptionally tall, stooped man in his fifties, once
a prosperous valley farmer, then first Chief of Supply… and now Chief Executive, North Map-Mexico.
What Monroe commands, Charles Ketch effects — and stands, it seems, somewhat in the role of father
to the much younger man.
Eric Lauder — current Chief of Supply, a man in his thirties, squat, bearded, bald, lively and
humorous. Lauder, besides commanding the army's supply train, is also the edge of the secret civil
sword… collecting information, dispensing any necessary covert deaths. (He has informed me, in the
pleasantest way, that he considers my resignation from your service likely a clumsy ruse, and that I
remain under his eye.)
Margaret Mosten, Secretary. Mosten, an officer's widow — and herself an ex-officer of Light
Infantry — administers Monroe's quarters and camps, and commands his personal guard. A sturdy
blonde in her thirties, apparently easygoing and amiable, Mosten is both more efficient and more
formidable than she appears. (I was told by a muleteer that on one occasion she personally escorted two
drunken armed trespassers — found in the camp at night — to the perimeter guard post, where she cut
their throats. A warning as well, apparently, to the guards who had not discovered and prevented them.)
Margaret Mosten decides who sees the Captain-General, but doesn't appear to abuse her position.
Her relationship to Monroe seems to have always been that of a friend, not a lover.
Military Commanders: Almost elderly, and ranked brigadiers in the old Warm-time style, Jaime
and Elvin Rascob have functioned as Monroe's senior commanders. These brothers, often in
disagreement with each other — and occasionally with Monroe as well — nevertheless have a strikingly
successful record in war. Their staff, field officers, and subordinate commanders hold these old men in
great esteem. My impression is that the two brothers, together, have made one very formidable general.
It may prove important, therefore, that Elvin Rascob is ill of tiny plants in his lungs — certainly the
Warm-time TB — and is dying.
Ned Flores, Colonel, commands the Light Cavalry regiments. A restless young man — violent and
charming — Flores is a childhood friend of Monroe's, his closest friend. Though apparently only the
image of a perfect dashing commander of light horse, this officer, as many of Monroe's people, reveals
more depth on examination. He is responsible, more than any other, for reviving the game of chess in this
territory — where checkers had been the board game of choice — and more often than not beats
Monroe at it. He more often than not beats me as well, and crows like a child at his triumphs.
Howell Voss, Colonel, commands the Heavy Cavalry. Colonel Voss, like Eric Lauder, is often
amusing. He is also large and handsome — though missing his left eye — and is a favorite with women.
(The eye was lost in a duel with an angry husband.) Howell Voss is occasionally subdued, 'blue' as
Warm-times had it, and then stays alone in his tent. He plays the banjar very well indeed... and is said to
be suicidally brave in battle.
Phillip Butler, Colonel, commands the Heavy Infantry. An older man, gray-bearded, small, silent,
and eccentric — he always has tiny dogs about him; he puts them in his jacket pockets — Colonel
Butler was the mayor of Tijuana-City before the South invaded. It's said by Monroe's people, certainly
an exaggeration, that Butler has never made a tactical mistake on a battlefield. He is regarded as an
extraordinary soldier, having become, as it were, a Regular among inspired amateurs. His pikemen and
crossbowmen love him, though he can be a harsh commander; they treat him like an irritable old uncle.
Charmian Loomis, Colonel, commands the light Infantry. A tall, thin, awkward-seeming young
woman, with light blue eyes and a bony — and, it seems to me, quite plain — face, she commands the
elite of Monroe's army. ('Elite,' lord, may be found in Copy-Webster's. Bottom shelf on the right as you
enter the library. I believe the word may have been Warm-time Canadian in origin.) ... This officer, a
woman with no family, quite silent, and who appears to offer little in any social situation — I've met her
several times — is by reputation a demonic figure in battle, with quite extraordinary skill in controlling a
force designed after all to be mobile, occasionally fragmented, and self-directing to a considerable
degree. Monroe occasionally calls her 'Joan,' I suspect in reference to some Warm-time figure he has
read of. All others call her 'Colonel.'
In summary, it is my civilian impression that these officers, and those they command, represent
considerable military talent — experienced, highly disciplined, confident, and aggressive. I believe you
would enjoy their company, if matters were otherwise, and would certainly then find them useful to
employ.
As to Sam Monroe. His Second-mother's death — while fighting an outbreak of flea-plague in the
township of Los Palominos three years ago — has left him with no family. (I must add that I mourn that
most tender of physicians still, and deeply regret not seeing her again.)
The Captain-General's occasional women are companions as well as lovers and, I understand, come
and go as tasks and places come and go. He is very generous to them, and to his dose friends and
officers — but only once. An important gift is given — a prosperous farm, or wide sheepland, or large
herd of fine riding-horses — but after that, nothing ever but army wages. So men and women who
continue to serve him, do so because they wish to, expecting no further reward.
His army is relatively small, but as I understand it is a 'balanced force,' composed of five fairly equal
elements: Supply; Light Cavalry; Heavy Cavalry; Light Infantry; Heavy Infantry. Monroe has stated, in
my hearing, that his Light Cavalry, while very good, is not quite a match for the Khanate's, that his Heavy
Cavalry, while excellent, is not quite as formidable as the Empire's best, and that his Heavy Infantry,
though solid, is not quite the instrument that Middle Kingdom fields. His Light Infantry, however — men
and women of the Sierra — Monroe believes to be the finest of our world.
It is the balance of these forces he considers crucial. That, and the strategy and tactics of their use.
I'm told he has said, 'These are the edged tools for fashioning victory, as a carpenter fettles a table.' (For
'fettle,' Great Khan, see my monograph on Warm-time Words Unusual.)
The Captain-General's sigil — and, by adoption, the army's banner — is a black scorpion on a field
of gold. Though a far-south creature, it is appropriately ominous. While the enlisted men among their
prisoners are very well treated, captured enemy officers are invariably beheaded — or, if they are senior,
disemboweled. This, apparently, a brutal remainder of these people's desperate days of revolt against the
Empire.
FORCES, IF AT FULL ESTABLISHMENT:
Supply: Two thousand men and women. Five hundred draft horses. Five hundred pack mules.
Wheeled wagons. Drays. Sledges.
Light Cavalry: Two regiments — each, one thousand men and women. Remounts.
Heavy Cavalry: Two regiments — each, one thousand men and a small number of women.
Remounts.
Light Infantry: Two regiments — each one thousand men and women.
Heavy Infantry: Two regiments — each one thousand men and a small number of women.
The fighting formations above are to some extent based on Warm-time copybook models. (See that
摘要：

KINGDOMRIVERBOOKTWOOFTHESNOWFALLTRILOGYByMITCHELLSMITHVersion1.0Copyright©2003byMitchellSmithISBN:0-765-34058-5ConcernhasbeenexpressedbytheNationalScienceFoundationthatpossiblealterationsofJupiter'sorbit,followingsuccessivemajorcometaryimpacts,mayaffecttheearth'sorbit—slightly,butstilldecisively—and...

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