Haydn of Mars (24 page)

“Finally,” he said, as if it were a prayer.

There came a knock on the door.

“Anyone home?” a hearty voice, one I thought I knew, called from outside.

Newton made a motion, and the blockade was moved away.

The door opened.

The man filling the doorway looked at Newton and nodded, and then his eyes locked with mine.

“Kerl...” I breathed, a whisper.

“It took you long enough to get here,” Newton said, and then he gave a hearty, deep, happy laugh.

“We had quite a fight of our own this morning before we got here,” Kerl explained.
 
We were eating a meager dinner, but it felt like a feast.
 
We had moved to another vast building on the far side of the station, leaving the battlefield, a carpet of white bodies, to the inevitable scavenger birds and beasts, some of which were edible and had been caught.
  
The smell of roasting meat filled the air.
 
Kerl's men were well provisioned, and had spices (ironically, I discovered later, some of them I had carried myself) and wine.
 
Tables were festooned with simple things: candles set in makeshift holders, scavenged silverware and dinnerware in a hundred patterns, the occasional electric lantern.
 
The Baldies, for whatever reason, had left our vehicles untouched.
 
When I asked about it, Newton said simply, “They're only interested in feline flesh, not in things.”

I could not take my eyes off of Kerl.
 
And I knew he could not take his eyes off of me.
 
For propriety's sake we sat apart, on opposite sides of the table, but I knew our conversation would be a passionate one later.
 
The wine, though not very good, was not dampening that feeling.

He continued his story: “We fought our way through a F'rar army east of here at dawn.
 
Not a large one, and lucky for us they had just finished looting a town and were fat with hangovers.
 
I had to split my forces and melt into the countryside.
 
I had heard rumors of a Baldy incursion into Arabia Terra but had no idea they were so close or I would have gotten here sooner.
 
By the time my scouts reached me with the news of your peril it was already noon.
 
We rushed here as quickly as we could.”

Newton, who had regained his ironic composure, said, “Barely quickly enough, I'd say.”

“True.”

For a second, Kerl glanced at me and our eyes locked.

“But our Queen is safe.”

To my astonishment, glasses were raised and all eyes, including Kerl's, were on me.

Newton, who had, I noted, gone significantly past his usual chaste allotment of wine, said, “She comported herself splendidly, Kerl.
 
She fought with the best of us.”

Kerl said, “Her fighting days are over, now.”

He stood, and held his own glass high.
 
“To Queen Haydn, the legitimate heir to the throne!”

The rest stood, and I was left with nothing to do but stand myself.
 
I managed to mumble out, “Thank you,” and quickly sat down again, as embarrassed as I'd ever been.

The rest of the meal went by in a blur, with Kerl telling of his troops quickly chopping their way through wave after wave of Baldies.
 
“I'm afraid that at least half the force fled into the hills, and may reform at some point.”
 
He addressed Newton.
 
“You may want to return to Sagan immediately.”

“I've already decided that this expedition is over.
 
We'll work through the night and head for home tomorrow morning.”

“Good.
 
I'll send a contingent of my men to guard you, at least to the outskirts of the city.
 
I'm afraid we're not quite ready to meet your F'rar friends in force yet.”

“Then you'll be leaving too?”

Kerl nodded.
 
“We have much to do in the east.”

He glanced at me again, and then suddenly rose.
 
“There is much I need to attend to.”

Newton held his glass up in salute.
 
“We can't thank you enough, Kerl.”

“Until later, then.”

I waited the appropriate amount of time, feigning interest in my food and listening to drunken talk, and then took my leave of the table.
 

Newton caught my eye as I rose, and I saw a faint ironic smile touch his lips.

He seemed to be saying: “Go.
 
I know what you must do.”

I found Kerl alone, as I'd hoped.
 
He was checking his horse, talking to it, soothing it as he brushed the dust of the day from it and combed its mane.

“There, there,” he whispered.
 
“We have another long ride tomorrow, and now you must rest.”

The horse made a sound like pleasure at his attentions.

“I wish I could make that sound,” I said.

He turned and stood frozen, regarding me.
 
He still held the brush in his hand.
 
“I imagined this conversation would take place at some point this evening.”

“It was all I could do to get through dinner.”

I was suddenly in his arms, and held him as if my life depended on it.

“All these months–” I began, a sob climbing into my throat.

“Shhh.
  
At first I thought you were dead.
 
And then I was sure you had lived through the F'rar raid at Galle.
 
And then more reports that you had been killed by the F'rar in Schiaparelli.
 
And then nothing but rumors...”

His body shook as he suppressed his own emotions.

For a moment we stood there locked in embrace.

Finally he said, “I had long given up hope when word came from Newton that you were in Sagan.”

I pushed him gently away, startled.
 
“When did you know this?”

“Two months ago.”

“And you didn't send word to me?
 
All this time while you wondered about me, I wondered about you–”

“It was unsafe.
 
I had this day etched in my mind.
 
And now finally it is here...”

Again we embraced.
 
This time I cried.

“Don't weep, my Queen.
 
I have much to tell you.
 
While your people are mostly quiet at this moment, we are readying for a great battle.
 
When you come back with me, and they see with their own eyes that you are alive, they will rise from their meek positions and the F'rar will be driven from the face of Mars.”

“I am to return with you?” I said, surprised.

“Of course.
 
That was my reason for meeting with Newton here.
 
It was the reason he took you with him.”

I thought of the last conversation I had had with Soler, how strangely final it had seemed.

“Yes, of course...”

He held me at arm's length from him and smiled.
 
“Queen Haydn,” he whispered.

“I don't know if I–”

“You must.
 
You will.
 
You are much changed in these many months.
 
I can see it immediately.
 
You are stronger, and more mature.”
 
His eyes looked downward.
 
“I heard of your litter, my brother's kits.
 
I was so sorry to hear it.”

“It was a bad time.”
 
I told him of the Mighty, and the many kindnesses the brigand had afforded me.
 
And then I blurted out something I had not meant to say: “I want to have a new litter with you.”

“How can you say that?”

“Now.
 
Before the madness begins.
 
There will be no more battles until we are wed.
 
I want to show our people a Queen with her King.”

He looked away, and from the look on his face I knew something was terribly wrong.

He whispered, almost choking the words out, “It cannot be done.”

“Why not?”

“In the time when we thought you were lost, in the beginning, there was another who consoled me.
 
We became close, and then there were other reasons...”

My heart stopped for a moment.
 
“You are wed?” I whispered.

He shook his head, and my heart began to beat again.
 
“Betrothed.
 
She is the daughter of an ally in the north, the head of the Sarn clan.
 
If I were to break the engagement now it would mean the loss of his alliance.”

He balled his paws and became suddenly angry, as did I.

“More
politics
–” I nearly spat.

“Yes!
 
More politics!
 
It is our lot, and our destiny, I fear.
 
It will always stand between us–”

“Yes,” I said.

He looked at me curiously, and his anger drained away.
 
“You
are
changed,” he said.
 
He wanted to touch me again as much as I wanted to touch him, and yet we remained apart.
 

“We are but two,” I answered, quietly.
 
“There are many, many more to think of then just ourselves.”

He looked into my eyes and nodded.
 
“Yes, my Queen.”

I turned from him then, and walked away, and though I wanted to fall to the ground and weep, my walk was steady and true.

It was only when I was by myself later, deep in the night, in the corner of the building I had claimed for myself, that I wept long and bitter tears.

In the morning I took my leave of Newton, after we buried Merlin outside the walls of the station.
 
It was a sad burial, her small body placed in a lonely grave beside the others: five of our own company from Sagan and three of Kerl's soldiers fell in battle the day before.
 
Newton said some words, which I did not hear.
 
I was thinking of my own time with the frail geologist.
 
I would miss her greatly. When the graves were covered it was as if she had never existed, save as another ghost in my heart.

Then it was time to go.
 
I was given a sturdy mount by Kerl.
 
Once again it felt as if I was losing a family.
 
The time I had spent with Newton had been more precious than I had realized.
 
There were tears in my eyes as I bade farewell.

His own smiled was devoid of irony, and held only warmth.

“This has been a good time for me, Haydn,” he said.
 
“I hope you have learned something, too.”

“Much,” I said.
 
“And you needn't worry about my forgetting the Science Guild.
 
It will be foremost in my thoughts.
 
As will you.”

He took my paws, and, to my astonishment, kissed them.

“Good-bye – daughter,” he whispered.

I watched his tall figure as I rode away, safe in the bosom of a marching army, toward a distant but nearing battle.

I had forgotten how lush my own country could be.

Even though we were at the fringes of the southern plains, hiding in the mountains as the Mighty would, I could still feel the differences from the places I had been.
 
I was home.
 
It was late autumn, and yet the fields were lushly ripe with vegetation and harvest and would stay so for weeks.
 
This had been Kerl's idea all along, to plan the ultimate rising and battle when the heat of summer had dissipated and the cold of winter had yet to descend.

Even the desert here was different.
 
I had been used to the dry blowing sand of the central plains, and then the strange topography and wetlands and cold dry forests of the north.
 
And now here I was where I had grown up.
 
It seemed like a foreign country to me, yet one that I owned.

Our camps were widespread and relatively small, with good, quick communication between them.
 
Some had been supplied with message machines by Newton, though sometimes the weather interfered with their use, and there was always the problem of providing electricity for them.
 
In such times and others, there was always a fast rider at hand.
 
This planning, I learned, had been in place long before I had ended up with the mighty.