The Golden Princess: A Novel of the Change (Change Series) Read Online Free Page B

well-born young women a little older than her and selected for their varied skills. She could see Atsuko driving the point of her
naginata
into the face of the Korean swordsman who’d been about to strike Reiko . . . and to do it, ignoring the scar-faced savage who brought a stone-headed club down two-handed to shatter the plates of her helmet. Reiko could remember her frowning over the
go
board, too, or gently, patiently mopping the face of her friend Haru by the flickering light of a single swaying lantern when she was prostrate with seasickness in the endless storms.
    “Duty, heavier than mountains,” she said quietly.
    They hadn’t been friends, not exactly—there were barriers—but they had all become close, in the confined quarters and constant shared peril and hardship.
    “Death, lighter than a feather,” another voice murmured, completing the formula. Then: “But now you will have no woman to attend you, Majesty.”
    “We will do as we must. Continue, General-san,” she said levelly, switching to the more courteous distant form of address with his title.
    “Our ship
Red Dragon
is a wreck and most of the crew perished in the rearguard action there.”
    Young Ishikawa Goru, who had been
Kaigun Daisa
—captain—of the
Red Dragon
—leaned forward slightly at his gesture and supplied the precise information. Her father had directly ordered him to join the retreat because they absolutely must have an experienced navigator, and there had been tears in his eyes as he obeyed.
    “The upperworks burned and there is structural damage to thescantlings, Your Majesty, from the fire, from the grounding, and from the storms—we were leaking like a ladle dipping noodles out of the pot for days before we sighted land.”
    “I remember the pumping,” she said; her hands had hard calluses from weapons practice, but that had worn them sore.
    He ducked his head. “Majesty. And the repairs we could make to strikes by roundshot and catapult bolts at sea were makeshift. So sorry, we would need a shipyard, timber and cordage and sailcloth, many skilled workers and even with all these things at least a month or so to make her seaworthy. Effectively, complete rebuilding. As it is, here in this wilderness the ship must be regarded as a total loss. To return to the homeland we will require a new ship, and at least some of the crew for it.”
    “The Montivallans have ships capable of the voyage. They trade regularly with Hawaii and even more distant lands,” Reiko said.
    “Mainly by the southern routes, Majesty,” Koyama confirmed. “To avoid the savages who helped the
bakachon
against us.”
    “This is why the Montivallans took our side, Lord Steward?” someone asked. “They couldn’t know what was going on. We were all warriors from nowhere, we and the
bakachon
and those savages they picked up.”
    Here Reiko could answer: “The savages fighting with our enemy, the ones whose ship kept us off the coast so long after we reached Alaska . . . they are called
Haida
. And evidently they are enemies of Montival—pirates, I think.”
    Ishikawa nodded thoughtfully. “
Ah so desu ka
. That would explain why the seas were so completely empty as we came across the Pacific from Hokkaido, though that is the best sailing route from Asia to this continent, Majesty,” he said. “It is not that there is no sea traffic at all, as we feared, but that it avoids that route despite the favorable winds.”
    Reiko gestured agreement with her fan. “That came out when they made sure of where
we
came from. We are not stranded.”
    Nobody moved, but she could feel their relief.
    “Continue, General Egawa.”
    He went on: “The ship is lost, but a good deal of the baggage and gear in the hold was salvaged by the Montivallans after they put out the fire, andpromptly turned over to us, unopened. There is much goodwill on their part, I think, but communications are a problem; those of us who have some English have to use written