The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality (31 page)

We were moving along at a brisk trot, and I actually found myself hoping we would get to wherever we were going pretty soon; I was tired of hanging on. Where were they taking me anyway? Now I saw that we were going to go right past Mora's farm. It would be nice to say goodbye to her. It would be nice to go out among a group of friends, to have a chance to say goodbye to everybody. But how would you know what to say?

I envied Albert his peace of mind. I guess some people have it and some people don't. He said that dying made everything simple and clear; but nothing was simple and clear to me. I was sad and angry and afraid all at the same time.

Now they turned onto the cart track that led to Mora's cottage. No way! This was carrying it too far. If those bastards thought they were going to involve Mora in this, maybe I had some fight left in me yet!

But the soldier who had been leading me just turned his horse, reached out with his boot, and gave me a shove in the ribs. Down I went in front of the cottage and lay there with all the wind knocked out of me. They rode away without a word, taking the horse with them.

I could smell her before I saw her. Then I felt those small, strong hands tugging at me. "Come on," she said. "Let's get you into the house."

I sat in the sunshine on Mora's rickety bench and soaked my hand. It was swollen and stiff and the look of it worried me. I still could not flex my fingers without excruciating pain, but it didn't seem as if life could continue until I began to get that hand working, so I soaked it and stretched it day and night.

How can I explain what was going on in my mind? I was pleased to sit and enjoy being warm and dry and amply fed, looking at the trees and the clouds and listening to the birds. I could see with my eyes that I was not in the dungeon anymore, but the dungeon was still there in my mind, and the fear was still there. The part of me that had died in the dungeon hadn't come back to life yet. Sometimes I felt very empty in a peculiar way, as though I had no insides at all.

Mora was busy taking care of her farm with the help of two young men who came to work there during the day. She wasn't pressing me to do anything. We would smile at each other when she came by, going about her farm work in her cheerful way, singing to herself the little songs she made up. Sometimes I would help her by rocking the cradle when the baby was fussy, but beyond that I wasn't capable of much. My hand made me feel crippled and fragile, and I still had horrible flashes of pain in my jaw.

The third or fourth day, Mora took me to the blacksmithy and helped his two burly sons hold me down while the smith pulled out a tooth that had been broken in half. As soon as he had it out, I felt very relieved, as if a short circuit in my nervous system had been corrected. My whole body seemed to feel better for it. My jaw was still very sore, but such an improvement was more like pleasure than pain.

When I got back to the cottage I realized that I hadn't seen Mora's mother even once since the soldiers had dumped me off. "Where's your mother?" I asked her.

Mora pointed through the trees into a clearing. There were two graves there, an older one and a newer one where the earth formed a hump; the wooden marker was still green.

"When did that happen?"

"A week after the king was killed."

"I'm sorry, Mora. I'm sorry that I didn't even notice."

"That's all right. I know you're not yourself yet."

And just who was I when I was myself? Before Albert was killed I was a knight, but that was a fantasy, wasn't it? Albert had made me a knight because that was the easiest way to put me on the chessboard. I had to be called something to be in the game, and I couldn't be an earl or a duke because I didn't have the money to buy in. But was I ever really a knight?

Yes, I had had the clothes and the arms and the horse, and I had really been a knight because Albert had made me one. Now Albert was dead, and that wasn't true anymore.

Or was it? Albert had made me a lord on his death bed. By all rights I was prime minister of the kingdom, second only to Jenna in power, wasn't that true? Lord Hawke had used his power to turn me into a jester and then into a jailbird, but he didn't have the right to do that. I was really a lord.

Okay, but how many more trips to the dungeon did I have to make before I figured out how things worked in the New Middle Ages? Albert was dead and all his power belonged to the duke. That was all there was to it. At this moment I was a nobody, a guest on Mora's farm. I barely even qualified as a commoner, because commoners knew where they fit in, and I didn't even know that.

"Are you all right?" Mora asked me.

"I'm okay, but I think I'll go lie down for awhile."

I tried to relax. There was no need to understand everything right away. Except, why had those soldiers brought me here?

"Hello, Mora, how are you this afternoon?" It was Marya's voice.

"Very well, thank you, Mage."

"And how's the little one?"

"Oh, she's just growing and growing!" And they laughed together with that special delight women have about babies.

"Is he here?"

"He's inside. He had a tooth pulled today."

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, embarrassed by my peasant's clothes, my missing teeth, my broken hand.

Marya gazed into my eyes and put her arms around me. "I'm very glad you made it, Jack," she said when she let me go. "How do you feel?"

"I don't know what to feel first, Marya. I've been in a daze. They pulled a tooth for me today and now I feel a little insane. More alive, but more insane. That girl is in love with me. She wants me to stay here and be her man."

"Yes, I know. Are you going to stay with her?"

"Marya, I don't even know what's going on. Two soldiers dragged me up to see the duke. He didn't say a word to me. Then they dumped me in Mora's front yard. Do you know what the scoop is?"

"I can only guess what's going on in the duke's mind right now, but I do know what everybody else knows. The duke hasn't had a night's sleep since the day he had Albert killed."

"What, his conscience is bothering him?"

"Something is bothering him. Maybe Albert is bothering him."

I just looked at her.

"Maybe Albert is coming to sit on his chest every night. You can't just murder someone and get away with it, you know. That isn't the way it works."

"So what does that mean? He let me out of the dungeon because he didn't want me sitting on his chest along with Albert?"

"I'm not sure why he let you out, Jack. May I see your hand?"

I held it out to her and she took it gently between both of hers and spent a long time examining it. Then she closed her eyes and seemed to be making some kind of communion. Finally she opened her eyes.

"You just keep soaking this," she said. "Soaking it and working it. You're going to need a lot of determination, bubber. You've got to keep working on it, no matter how much it hurts, and you can't even think of giving up."

"Will it heal?"

"Yes, because you're going to heal it."

"How long will it take?"

"I wish I could tell you, but I don't know. I've seen people heal injuries that were worse than this just because they set their mind to it. And I've seen people die from next to nothing at all because they were tired of living. It all depends on you."

"Isn't there anything you can do to help me?"

"I'll give you some salve to rub on it, and I'll come massage it every chance I get. But the truth is this is an inside job."

"Okay, Marya, I'm not going to give up as long as there's hope for it."

"I know you won't, Jack. Otherwise you never would have come out of that dungeon alive."

"I had a very bad time in there. I was so afraid, Marya. The only way I could keep the fear from swallowing me up was by counting my breaths."

Her eyes lit up. "Okay, let's keep going with that. We can put that to good use."

"I've tried meditating since I came out, but when I close my eyes it seems like I'm back in the dungeon again, and the fear comes back."

"Then keep your eyes halfway open and concentrate on the fact that you're
not
in the dungeon. Heal your thoughts and you will heal the fear."

"Okay, I'll try it."

"I'm going to give you a healing mantra. It's a thought to repeat when you meditate or any other time you can remember to do it."

"I'll do whatever you say."

"It will help you. I use mantras for healing all the time. It might surprise you how many people here meditate regularly."

"Yes, that does surprise me."

"This is our legacy from Jo Mama, the leader of the Picts. You met him, remember? He was in the theater before he went to Tibet, where he spent many years in a monastery. When he came back he wasn't interested in theater anymore, and he couldn't believe in conventional society anymore, either. He met the abbot, and the abbot invited him here. He taught a lot of people here how to meditate, and after he went off into the forest, the abbot and I have been teaching anybody willing to give it a try. Mora meditates. You better believe the Picts meditate. It's very important if you want to be happy and discover what life is all about."

"Albert said something like that, I remember."

"Sit down and let me give you your mantra."

I sat down, and Marya invoked the help of the Goddess. She gave me the mantra and rehearsed it with me until I had it down pat. I certainly wanted to believe that it would help.

"I've been like a zombie, Marya. I've hardly said five words since I came out of the dungeon, even to Mora. What's going on in this kingdom now, or would it be better not to ask?"

She took a deep breath. "The duke is living in the castle now. He's calling himself prime minister now as if Albert had bequeathed him the job. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Jack, but he's also paying a lot of attention to Jenna."

The words refused to organize themselves in my mind. "He's . . . what did you say?"

"He's courting the queen."

Then I felt the pain. "And how is the duke doing with his courtship?"

"I think Jenna's doing her best to resist him, but the duke is charismatic when he chooses to be. And the queen is . . . well, I don't know how long . . ."

"You think she's going to tumble."

"Albert's death was a shock to her, Jack. Then suddenly you were gone too. I think she feels very lost right now."

It seemed like retribution, but for which of my sins? "Anything else I need to know?"

"Gordon and Sir Leo and the rest of Albert's knights never returned to court after Albert was killed. Since then, other soldiers and even some peasants have gone missing."

I found myself wishing I had died in the dungeon rather than face so much loss. "I swear I will kill that evil bastard if it's the last thing I do," I said, but I felt only the emptiness of my words, because I didn't truly believe I could do it even if it
was
the last thing I did.

"Jack, I didn't mean they were dead."

"What's happened to them if they're not dead?" Hoofbeats drummed on the road.

"Someone's coming," said Marya.

Sure enough, there was Lord Hawke with a couple of soldiers, blowing up the road like an ill wind. "Goddamn him," I said. "He'd better not be coming here." But again my words sounded empty and false, because most of what I was feeling was fear.

Marya slipped her cowl over her head and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "This isn't a good time for me to be seen with you, Jack. Watch your temper and trust in the light. The story isn't over yet." With that, she melted into the trees.

The horsemen were very near now, and they slowed to a trot. The duke made a little gesture to his soldiers and they stopped on the road while he alone rode up the path. It was no surprise to me that the soldiers were armed to the teeth.

Reining in, the duke sat staring down at me. He was dressed as he normally was in his surcoat and helm with the hawk device. I couldn't help noticing from the way my bowels were churning that I was very afraid of him now.

He sensed it easily enough, I'm sure. I wasn't challenging him with my body nor even holding my head up very straight. Though I didn't want to appear subservient, I wanted very much to avoid trouble, and that fearful uncertainty is something any bully can spot.

"Give you good day, farmer," said the duke, and his tone surprised me, for although it was aloof, it was not overtly insulting. He had cut me down to size and now he could afford to be almost friendly.

"Good day, my lord," I replied, surprised by the tone of my own voice. Where was hot-tempered, loose-tongued, irrepressible Jack?

The duke gazed off toward the woods and stroked his goatee. "That's good, Darcey," he said, as though he had just tasted something I'd served him. "That's good. I like that. Keep that up and you'll be all right. Mind your manners and work diligently. Remember that when winter comes you'll either be enjoying the fruits of your labors or going begging around to the neighbors. That's all you need to know." Then he tried to suppress a yawn.

Clearly he didn't want me to see him yawn, but I had caught just the hint of it. It gave me the same impression that I'd had when his guards first dragged me up from the dungeon. All I could see of him was the circle of his face that was exposed by his helm, and that face looked old and tired, with unhealthy-looking dark circles under his eyes.

"Any questions?" He was sitting up very straight on his horse, but his energy was low, like a man who had a case of the flu but had to go to work anyway.

Of course I wanted to know why he had dumped me in Mora's front yard, but I was too afraid. "No, my lord."

He was studying me carefully now, and the machinations of some decision he was making were reflected in his eyes, which were glittering like coals. He seemed to be fitting me up for some scheme of his; and if he decided that it didn't fit me, then I would die. I couldn't suppress the shiver that shook my body while I watched him decide my fate.

"So be it then," he said finally, and I had to hold my knees very stiff for fear they would buckle. "I hope you like farming, Darcey. Stay out of trouble and you can enjoy the land and the wench. Cross me again, and I'll snuff you out." He turned his horse back into the road and cantered away, followed by his men. In a few moments I was alone among the silent mountains that surrounded the valley.