Queen of Mars - Book III in the Masters of Mars Trilogy (5 page)

“But you’ll need me in the field!”

I was too tired, and did not want this
conversation to go anywhere near the mysterious, frightening places
it could easily go, so I feigned toughness, just as I had that
afternoon with General Reis.

“It is my wish,” I said simply. “Go now.”

And then I closed my eyes until he was
gone.

But sleep, of course, would not come, despite
my exhaustion. I had done nothing but fight with someone or other
the entire day. Even Brenda, the old cook, had to be disciplined to
keep her from marching to war with me – and she with arthritis, and
a bad hip!

I opened my tired eyes and watched the open
curtains in my room flutter. It was a clear night, and over the top
of the Hall of Assembly the stars shone like diamonds on the
blackest velvet. How soothing to be out among the stars, I thought
– how much better to float among them and forget all the cares of
running an entire world – one which might be destroyed by either
war or natural catastrophe in the coming months.

How much better not to be me...

I dreamed then, of my birth. Or at least what
I thought my birth was like. I remember coldness from the
beginning, descending a cold shaft, a mother devoid of warmth, lost
in unhappiness and loss, incapable of transforming that into a new,
warm love for her only kit. My mother had a litter of one, an
unusual and some – those given to superstition – said, of special
significance. I was given over to the care of nursemaids
immediately, and never wanted for anything except my mother’s
touch.

And then I dreamed of Darwin, barely out of
kithood himself when he first played with me, always smiling and
warm, in a way, I suppose, a substitute for my mother, as well as
the brother I never had.

And even in the dream I knew that I had
ordered him to stay behind not because I needed him to watch the
government, which would do very well watching itself, I thought –
but because I wanted him, above all other things, to be safe.

Because, I knew, he was in love with me.

And I with him.

“W
hat do you think,
Rebecca?”

In the mirror reflection, I could see my
lady-in-waiting’s frown as she stood behind me, but her voice said
sweetly, “Very becoming, my lady.”

“Don’t lie to me,” I said.

“You do look rather...martial, your
majesty.”

“Yes....”

I allowed myself a slight smile, which threw
the entire look off. Head to toe in armor, a deep red, almost
black, severe, with black leather boots. The outfit outlined my
thin frame and made it look sharp and tight as a knife blade. From
the table beside me I hefted up my helmet, dark red with a thin
plume of jet black color trailing from the back like a ponytail. I
fitted it onto my head and turned to stand full in front of my
chambermaid.

“There!” I said, putting my gloved hands on
my hips. “What do you think now?”

This time her frown was a full one. “It looks
rather...warm...”

“Bah! It will be fine. I always knew I would
need something impressive to go into battle, and it took me months
to design this. Darwin said the same as you but you’re both
wrong.”

She bowed her head. “As you wish,
m’lady.”

“Help me fit on my sword.”

She did so, and I discovered that, in its
fancy scabbard, encrusted with rubies and sapphires and the
occasional diamond, it was much heavier than I had thought it would
be. In fact, it made me list slightly to the left, which I had to
compensate for – which soon gave me a cramp in either side as I
strutted around the room.

I went to the window and looked down at the
courtyard below, where my army awaited me. There was a sea of
mounted men in rank and file, and not a hint of metal armor among
them. The day was warm, and the battle weeks away. I instinctively
knew that if I appeared among these felines in this garb I would be
an instant laughing stock. Not a good way to begin a campaign!

I removed my helmet, breathing heavily in the
warm air, and wiped perspiration from my brow. I regarded myself in
the mirror again, and a slow smile came to my face. I turned to
Rebecca.

“Well, perhaps it is a bit much. Help me off
with it, will you? I believe a simple tunic will do at this point.
We can pack the light armor General Xarr gave me months ago. And
Rebecca?”

She stopped in the middle of unfastening one
of the hard-to-use buckles that were built into the frame of my
warrior cage. “Yes, m’lady?”

“Let’s keep these between you and me, shall
we? I wouldn’t want the troops to think I was a fool. At least not
yet, anyway.”

She stifled a short laugh and nodded
enthusiastically. “As you wish, your majesty.”

When it was all off, a great heavy pile
of unwieldy heavy metal on the floor, I asked her sheepishly,
“Would you do me the great favor of hiding this in a closet when
I’m gone?”

W
hen I appeared,
there was a stiffening of backs and a hush. I rode slowly,
inspecting the troops, nodding regally and keeping a steady pace. I
had no idea what I was doing, but tried to remember Xarr’s advice:
“Look like you know what you’re doing, and you’ve already done it.”
I hoped that my light crimson tunic, thinly fringed in a light
shade of gold, was appropriate. The matching cape wafted behind me
in the gentle breeze, and my sword, in its plain, lighter scabbard,
felt good against my side.

When I reached General Reis at the head of
the column his eyes flickered with either mild approval or disdain,
I could not tell which. He sat stiffer and taller in his saddle
than an officer should, I thought, but we would see his prowess
tested on the battlefield, which was the most important thing.

“Good morning, general,” I said.

“Your majesty,” he replied, bowing his head
slightly.

“A good day to ride,” I continued, taking my
place to his right. “Shall we?”

“As you wish, your majesty,” he said, and
gave the firm order to march, waving his hand back and then
forward.

“Onward, for the glory of Mars!” he shouted,
and the great army began to move.

At the gates of Wells, which were open wide,
I looked for Darwin in the massive crowd, but was disappointed to
see him nowhere. His distinctive white fur with the single stripe
on his crown would have been visible anywhere, but was not to be
found in that sea of faces, some shouting encouragement, some
crying for a relative gone off to war, some shouting the slogans of
war fever. It was magnificent and frightening – but without Darwin,
I was a little lonelier.

I turned in my saddle to regard the Hall of
Assembly, already shrinking in the distance behind us. Darwin was
there, no doubt, doing as I had asked, helping to run a world while
its young Queen went off to war.

“Something wrong, your majesty?” Reis asked
in his unctuous voice.

“Nothing that victory won’t cure, general,” I
said, turning back around to fix him with a steady gaze.

He nodded quickly, and turned his attention
back to the long road ahead of us.

I felt as alone as I ever had.

O
ddly, that night,
camping under the stars for the first time in my life, was one of
the happiest I had ever spent. And I didn’t know why. Was it
because I was finally fulfilling the destiny I had been groomed for
my whole life? Was it because I was free of the constraints of
Wells, the political infighting, the lying, the bowing and
scraping? I had no idea. I only knew that I felt free for the first
time ever.

It was a beautiful evening, with a purpling
bowl of sky at the setting horizon darkening to deepest black
overhead, with a billion twinkling stars accompaniment to the
desert crickets of late summer. The gentle hills were still green
with vegetation, but soon this would change to sparse scrub as we
skirted south of the Great Desert west of Wells, which stretched
almost halfway from the equator to the North Pole. Luckily routes
had been carved below this sandy continent over the centuries, and
it was not without water and rough-hewn towns. We would not be long
out of sight of civilization on this march, which would eventually
carry us away from the looming desert and into the plains of
Margarifiter Planum, far north of my grandmother’s homeland,
Argyre, and then into the lowlands of Valles Marineris itself. I
had only seen this massive gash in our planet once, by air, and
even from a height of 10,000 feet it had astounded.

Phobos was up, casting its ghostly pink
light. Unable to sleep, I wandered through the camp, always with my
bodyguard of two, and listened to the night sounds of an army at
rest. There was much cursing, most of it mild at the moment, the
complaints of footsore foot soldiers or riders whose derrieres were
not yet formed to the saddle. There were many card games, most of
them Jakra, which I longed to play, but, as instructed by Xarr, I
was not to do because too much mingling was not proper. There was
some singing, especially among one contingent of the Yern clan, who
were known for their deep, melodious voices. This was not an
exaggeration. I stopped to listen to a native song, from far to the
north:

And his homeland he missed,

The young Yern soldier,

And the true love he left behind,

In battles he fought

He became ever bolder,

But he never forgot his homeland,

Or the true love he left behind...

Imagine a deep tone of sadness and longing
injected into these words, a lyrical bass voice that carried with
it the hopes and dreams of a people, and you will have some sense
of what I heard.

I walked on, nodding to these soldiers as I
passed, and, suddenly, I had walked out of camp.

Only I had not quite run out of soldiers. For
there was a solitary fellow off in a field, running hither and yon,
aiming a small tube at the sky.

“I wouldn’t bother with ‘im if I was you,
your majesty,” one of my guards said, with deference.

“Why not?”

“He’s balmy, is why,” the guard replied.

I looked at the other guard for confirmation,
but he was stone-faced.

“I should like to speak with him,” I
decided.

The first guard shrugged and said, “He’s
balmy, but he ain’t dangerous.

“Very well, then. Stay here.”

I walked on alone, into the field.

The fellow did not see me at first, and kept
up his strange dance, moving from one spot to the other, aiming his
instrument at the sky, and then quickly moving to yet another spot.
As I approached I heard that he was mumbling to himself: “Yes...oh,
yes. Fine. Yes,” as he went about his work.

“Excuse me?” I said when I was nearly upon
him.

He jumped as if an electric charge had been
run through him.

“Don’t ever do that!” he squealed, panting
and looking about him as if ready to be attacked.

“It’s only your Queen, and I wish you no
harm.”

His eyes fixed on me like a mad colt, but
eventually his breathing evened and he calmed down.

He continued to stare at me.

“Is it really you...?” he asked.

I said nothing, and he made a jerking motion
forward, stepping closer to me. He tripped over an unseen stone,
and went sprawling at my feet.

I heard the tinkle of glass.

“My telescope!” He shrieked, as if he had
been stabbed.

He pulled himself into a sitting position and
retrieved the broken instrument from beneath him and examined
it.

He began to gently sob, rocking back and
forth, before suddenly remembering my presence. He held the
instrument up, a movement which caused broken glass to slide down
the useless tube.

“You’ll forgive me, your majesty,” he said,
issuing hitching sobs. “It’s just that I’ve had it so long, and
took so much pleasure in it, and now it’s...useless!”

Unable to continue, he broke into a fit of
uncontrolled weeping.

I waited a proper amount of time, and then
asked, “You’re an astronomer, then?”

This calmed him somewhat, though his nod was
a tentative one. “Of sorts. Not the proper kind, mind you, but I do
love the sky so.”

“What is your place in the army?”

“Whu–?”

This seemed to throw him, and I was about to
repeat my question when he answered, with a bitter laugh, “Just a
foot soldier, your majesty. And not much of one. I grew potatoes,
you see, but now I’m to fight Baldies. This...” he held up his
broken telescope, “is just a diversion. Something to keep me from,
well, thinking about fighting Baldies.”

“What is your name?” I asked.

“Copernicus, your majesty.”

“Are you very good at astronomy?”

“Oh, yes!” He stood up. “I know the sky like
I know the back of my hand, or every furrow in my far field.”

“How did you learn?”

“By looking at the sky, of course! Every
chance I can!” He regarded the broken tube in his hand, and let it
fall to the ground. “I did, that is...”

“I’ll tell you what, Copernicus. I have a
beautiful instrument back in Wells, a telescope that belonged to my
father. It was made by the Science Guild, designed by Newton
himself, and has been collecting dust for years because I have
never showed the interest in the heavens that my father did. It’s
less than a day’s ride back to Wells. What would you say if I sent
back for it, and gave it to you?”

His eyes widened, as if I had told him that
giant harlows were bearing down on him.

“You can’t mean that.”

I nodded. “Consider it done, Copernicus.”

He fell at my feet and began to weep again.
“You don’t know how happy you’ve made me!”

Embarrassed, I drew my paw away as he
slobbered over it. “Don’t worry, Copernicus, I may need you to do
me a favor someday.”

“Anything!” he wept. “Anything, my
Queen!”