The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality (37 page)

"I understand what you must be feeling, and it is a little crazy, isn't it? But listen to me, Jack. Everywhere you look you'll see someone who's a better farmer than you'll ever be. But there's only one Lord Jack, don't you see? That's who you really and truly are. You just need to get used to it. You'll be fine, Jack. I have complete faith in you."

Ben and Matt burst into the clearing, gasping for breath, and ran to where Mora was sitting. People nearby hurried to hear what they had to say. "We ran as fast as we could to tell you, Mora," said Ben, "but it's not a good thing."

"What is it, Ben?"

"Soldiers burned down your cottage, Mora."

"We didn't dare try to stop them," said Matt.

"They burned down my house?"

"They torched the field and trampled the gardens. They drove off the livestock too," said Ben. "It was a terrible thing to see."

"Then I've got no farm left," said Mora.

"We're very sorry, Mora," said Matt. "We didn't dare try to stop them."

Before this news had time to sink in, a tall man came out of the forest looking for Don the armorer. "Well, here I am, Lou," said the armorer. "What is it, man? Why do you look so pale?"

"Duke's soldiers burned your cottage, and they beat your wife, Don. Some others are bringing her along, but I ran ahead to tell you."

"They beat Dorothy? Is she all right?"

"She'll mend, Don, I've no doubt. But she's very scared and she needs you."

Don and the tall man scrambled off into the forest together and it wasn't long before they returned with his wife; her face and arms were badly bruised.

"Now, Dorothy, you're safe now, so dry your tears. There's a brave girl. Now tell us what happened," said Don.

"Oh, Don, they burned everything, and what they couldn't burn they stole. 'Tell that rabble they can eat twigs and leaves this winter.' That's what the soldiers told me. Oh, whatever will we do?"

"Do? Why, Dorothy, we'll just do whatever we need to do to get by as always," and he threw us a wink, but he looked scared and worried too.

"And the soldiers said they were doing the same for everyone who'd gone to the forest!" said the wife.

Well, that brought a roar from the crowd, and then everybody was talking at once in a panicky way. Even the knights, I could see, were thinking about their holdings and wondering what to do.
If I were only at home now,
every face seemed to say,
I could protect what is mine!

"Do something," said Marya to me.

"What should I do?"

"Do anything and make it quick. If these people head for their homes, it will be the end of our fight. The duke will pick them off one at a time."

"Sir Leo," I said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Pull your people together and break camp. It's time we settled this once and for all."

"Stations and battle gear, smartly now!" roared Leo, and people scrambled to their tasks. Leo was everywhere at once, shouting orders, directing traffic, lending a hand where it was needed. If anything, it was happening too fast. In no time at all they would be ready to go, and where would I lead them?

"Leo," I said, pulling him aside, "I want to do a tour and pick up supporters just the way we did with Albert."

"Lord Griswold's manor house is very close by. From there we could go through the woods to get Lord Dugdale. Are we going to fight the duke today?"

"How long before the whole valley will know we're on the march?"

Leo snorted. "As long as it takes to boil up a pot of mush."

"Then I'm thinking the duke will have to rally his soldiers as quickly as he can, and there'll be no time for him to burn farms."

"To Griswold's then?"

"Yes, and we'll leave the womenfolk there."

No sooner had I said that than I was surrounded by Marya and a half dozen other women who were already carrying bows and other weapons. Lord or no lord, I was kidding myself if I thought I was going to make
that
order stick. "Okay, okay," I had to shout because they were all talking at once. "Anybody who wants to go can go." And the women ran off to continue their preparations.

Soon our whole band was moving through the trees, and I was surprised to see a manor house just over the brow of the first hill. "Griswold's?" I asked Leo. "You weren't kidding when you said it was close."

"There's a forge at the manor, and that's where Don the armorer and his crew have been doing their work."

"You mean Harvey is mixed up in this?" I said, very impressed and pleased.

"This valley is too small for anyone not to be mixed up in it."

We were close enough now for me to see the defensive preparations, the sentries and the bowmen. When we approached the manor house, we had to thread our way carefully through a maze of sharpened timbers and ditches.

"Hello, Jack," said Harvey, coming to meet us in his armor. He still wore his cynical smile, but his eyes were shining with excitement; I realized for the first time that Harvey was actually a grown man and not the boy I had gone to school with.

"Harvey, I owe you an apology. I've had it in my mind that you were a scandalous wimp. What does the duke think of this?"

"He was here a few days ago foaming at the mouth, but he didn't try to come in past the stakes."

"It sounds like you're not too worried about him."

"Wrong. I'm very worried about him. I'm worried enough to keep sentries and archers up all night and to make everybody else sleep in their clothes. I'm worried enough to keep two runners watching the castle. I wasn't kidding when I said he was foaming at the mouth."

"Okay, right; but what I mean is that you're not knuckling under."

"That's not new. I can't explain everything that happened in the early days, but this has always been the free-love fief. It's on the other side of the kingdom from Lord Hawke's fief. I run it my own way, and I've always let him know that if he didn't like it he could jump on a flagpole. I never cared much for armor and battle-axes and all that crap, but I have some of the finest archers in the kingdom here and we never have any trouble from him and his boys. That was the way it was when Albert was alive, and that's the way it is today. The only thing that's new is the stakes and the ditches."

I had to shake my head and sigh. "I never had time to get the lay of the land, Harvey. People still have to explain the simplest things to me. Yet at the same time I'm supposed to be the big leader and hero around here."

Harvey laughed. "So you are, so you are. Look, Jack, it's all crazy politics. The world is a crazy place and this kingdom isn't any different. But we're glad you're here and you made a big difference, see what I mean? Albert got killed and that was a terrible thing; now we have to rally around you and see if we can't get things straightened out again. We'll do the best we can. It doesn't have to make sense, and it's never going to."

"Okay, tell me about Dugdale. We're going there next."

"Well, Charlsey went hysterical for awhile," said Griswold. "Don't ask me exactly what happened, but that's Charlsey for you. Dugdale had his hands full trying to keep the top of her head glued on. Are you asking me if he's ready to go on the march?"

"Yes, I am."

"You haven't asked me if
I'm
ready to go on the march."

"Well, aren't you?"

"What happens if we get to the castle with four hundred people and the duke is sitting there all alone in front of the fire with the door wide open?"

"You know damn well that isn't going to happen."

"Yeah, but humor me, your lordship, because I want to know what we're planning to do this time
before
we get started."

"We'll stick him in the dungeon and try him for killing Albert."

"I don't think that's such a good idea. A couple of thousand people saw the king get stabbed by some Picts who disappeared into the woods."

It was a good point and I didn't know what to say.

"Also," Harvey went on, "the harvest is going to start soon. We don't have time for a big trial, even if there was any point in having one."

"So what do we do?"

"That's up to
you,
my lord."

I looked around at the faces of the people I knew and also the ones I didn't know who were all standing there listening, and I realized that they all knew what they wanted me to say.

But somehow it wouldn't do for them to come right out and tell me what it was. I myself, as the repository of dead Albert's authority, was supposed to come up with it.

"What you want me to say," I finally said, "is that we can't afford to take him alive." There was a low murmur from the crowd that was hard to interpret. Harvey nodded encouragingly, but it was clear from his expression that there was more to it than that.

"So even if he were to surrender, unlikely as that might be," I said, feeling like I was limping through rough and unfamiliar terrain, "then I suppose in that case we ought to take him to the nearest stump and chop his head off. Is that what you want me to say?"

Now there was such a silence and such a stillness that I might have thought time had stopped entirely except that the leaves were still rustling in the chilly wind. That was what they wanted me to say all right. The duke was history as soon as we laid our hands on him. No waiting for
this
haircut. Everything right off the top. No more chances. No rehabilitation. No excuses. No mercy. Snip! No more duke.

Could I really bring myself to do such a thing? I tried to imagine it.
Goodman Smith and Goodman Jones: tie Lord Hawke's hands behind his back, if you don't mind.
—Yes, my lord.—
Now bend him over this stump.
—Ready, my lord.—
Goodman Brown: since you happen to be standing next to the axe, would you be so kind as to strike off the duke's head?—
Who, me, m'lord? Oh, I couldn't do that, sir!—
Well, do we have a volunteer, then?
—Stillness. Silence.—
I suppose you would all just as soon have me do it myself, is that it?
—Low murmurs of approval . . .

And it wasn't really funny, because the possibility of such a scene actually happening was a real one.

"Jack," Marya said softly. "I know this is a hard moment for you, but if you're indecisive it's going to hurt our cause. For the sake of the whole kingdom we need a leader who will do what he has to do."

"But how can you ask me to do this," I whispered to her. "How can I just condemn a man to death?"

"I know that wasn't the way your mother raised you, Jack. But that was long ago and far away. Be a man, Jack. That's all you have to do."

"To be a man is to kill a man?"

"To be a man is to face what's ahead."

"Only the law can condemn a man to death." It sounded sententious to my ear, but it was all I could think of to say.

"You
are
the law."

"I am?"

"Well, think about it, but hurry up! Is Renny the law? Is Jenna? The two of them are locked in the tower for all we know. Is Lord Hawke the law? Will you settle for that? This is a little kingdom in the deep woods. If the common people attack Lord Hawke without legitimate authority, then the law in this kingdom falls apart and there is no law anymore. There would be no law, Jack!"

"I am the law."

"That's right."

"My word is law."

"It's the best we've got."

"And that's why I have to be on the spot."

"Thank you, Jack. I knew you would get it."

"All right, then. Off with his head."

"Tell the people. Tell your people."

There was a little platform nearby with two steps to the top, likely used to mount a horse. I climbed up and turned to the crowd. There was an extraordinary tingling sensation running through my whole body that was like nothing I had ever felt before. It wasn't like adrenaline and it wasn't like ordinary excitement or fear. It was a rippling pins and needles sensation, not unpleasant, quite the contrary, but very distracting, like the whole inside of me was getting scrubbed with diamonds. I wanted very much to give my attention to that amazing new feeling, but I couldn't stand there any longer in front of that expectant crowd and say nothing. So I opened my mouth and took a deep breath, hoping that whatever came out would be vaguely cohesive.

"My friends," I said, and then I had to clear my throat because my voice was croaking. "Friends," I tried again, "farmers, knights, soldiers, servitors, loyal subjects. The day of reckoning has come!" The crowd made a sound that was low and deep and full of power, like distant thunder. I felt like I must be on the right track.

"We once marched with King Albert, the finest man I ever knew, but now King Albert is dead, treacherously murdered on his wedding day." This time there was a growl that came from a mouth with about two thousand teeth in it.

There was a high scream, and then I heard the pounding hooves. Down the market road at a headlong gallop came Jenna and Renny, barely ahead of a troop of the duke's cavalry; suddenly we were all scrambling over the ditches and through the maze of sharp timbers to meet them.

Griswold's fortifications were designed to make it confusing and difficult for horsemen to approach the manor, but unfortunately the effect was the same for Renny and the queen. Turning their horses this way and that, frantically looking for an opening, they lost the slim lead they had and we were obliged to rush outside our own defenses to meet them. We were all still carrying the weapons we had brought with us, and with the addition of Griswold's men-at-arms and archers, we were a formidable force. But though we tried our best, we were not quick enough to surround Renny and the queen before the duke's troops caught up with them. Instead, we were packed together against the troopers with Renny and Jenna in the middle.

"The queen comes with us!" shouted one of the troopers who seemed to be in command, and with his mailed fist he grabbed Jenna's bridle. Renny tumbled out of his saddle and was shoved by a dozen hands to safety within the crowd. But Jenna was staring in horror at the soldier who had hold of her horse. In front of her the duke's men were unslinging crossbows, drawing their swords and axes, and urging their horses forward in an effort to surround her. Vastly outnumbered, I have no idea why those soldiers even took a stand. Maybe they were afraid to face the duke. Maybe it all just happened too fast.