The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality (33 page)

"That's a billy goat and those are nanny goats," said Matt.

"I mean what kind of goats, like . . . isn't there a name for these particular kind of goats?"

"No," said Ben. "Just goats."

"Tell me everything I need to know about goats."

"Well, goats are easy to keep and the meat makes a good stew. The hide is soft when it's tanned right and makes a good shoe. What else, Ben?"

"Goats'll eat anything and stay fat, and they don't take sick much. Some people like goat's milk and goat cheese, but I don't care for it myself until at least February." They both laughed.

That got the conversation going, and we continued to talk as we worked. If they ran out of things to say, I asked another question, and so it went all afternoon. I was mostly in the way since I didn't know how to do anything and especially because of my hand. Still, I was determined to be a better farmer by the end of the day, and the boys were patient with me. They were big boys, tall and broad, who had worked hard all their young lives. Either one of them could lift more with one hand than I ever could have with two. At my age, time would make me weaker rather than stronger. It worried me to see how strenuous farm work was going to be.

Matt and Ben told me stories about local people and how they succeeded and failed. Some were venerated for their talent and their savvy and their consistent good results. Others were only average and had their share of good times and bad. A few were hopeless, even though they tried hard, and would have starved to death but for the helpfulness of their neighbors.

About mid-afternoon another peasant lad stopped briefly by to talk to Matt over the fence. "August the miller was beaten by our lord's soldiers," Matt told us. "They knocked out all his teeth."

"What, all of them?" said Ben.

"So it's said."

"Why?" I asked.

"For digging clay out of the road. Some people will never have any sense. But to lose all your teeth . . . That's very bad."

"Where was he digging?" Ben asked.

"In the royal domain," said Matt. "But that should be the queen's affair, not our lord's."

"But don't you know our lord's made himself king now?" said Ben.

"Hush, you! It isn't so."

"Then who is king, I wonder?"

"The king's son is the king, but the queen is looking after us until he's old enough."

"And who's looking after the queen?" said Ben.

Matt had no ready reply for that. "It's best not to talk about it," he said finally.

"Fine, but don't tell me our lord's not made himself king."

"Is that what you want, Ben?" I had the feeling the whole conversation was directed at me. Whether I wanted to think about it or not—whether I could do anything about it or not—I was still mixed up in the kingdom's politics.

"No, sir," said Ben firmly, "that is not what I want. But it's foolish to pretend it isn't so. Now the talk is that he wants to marry the queen, and that would settle it once and for all."

"What about Albert's son?"

"My dad says when the time comes, he'll just have an accident or be killed by the Picts like the king."

"This talk will just bring trouble on all of us," said Matt.

"And what kind of trouble are we in for already, with the duke getting crankier every day? First he deals out blows to his men, and then they deal them down to us. How will you like it when you lose all your teeth?"

"I'll do my best to stay out of their way."

"And where will you go to do that, I'd like to know?"

"I'll just do the best I can."

"Not me," said Ben. "After harvest I'm going to join the band."

"Well, if you are, then so am I."

"What band is this?" I asked. I had a picture in my mind of a band of musicians. What good would that do?

They both turned to look at me, and then looked at each other and back at me again. "There's only one," said Matt.

"Thanks, Matt, but you've still got the best of me on this one. What band is that?"

They were staring at me in disbelief. "Haven't you heard about the band, Sir Jack?"

"Forgive me, boys, I just got out of the slammer. Now what is it?"

Now they both tumbled over each other telling me what it was, and I could hardly take it in. Leo and the other knights and most of Albert's soldiers and a bunch of other people from all over the kingdom had moved into the forest and formed a band to overthrow the duke and avenge the king's death.

Leo alive? Gordon alive? All the boys from our guard service alive? That was what Marya had started to tell me. I was so relieved, I felt like crying. But what could a little band in the forest do against Lord Hawke?

And besides that, it was late in the year now. What could they do to survive in this wilderness once winter came? Who would leave a cozy cottage fireside to support them when snow was on the ground? When Albert went to march against Lord Hawke, hundreds had flocked to support him, but Albert had known that he had to take advantage of the high energy of the moment before it dissipated and the opportunity was lost. What kind of energy was there to draw on now, with Albert dead and the duke entrenched in his power?

"So, what will you do now that you know about the band?" Ben asked me.

"I don't know," I said, and I could sense their disappointment. Did they think I was going to rush off into the forest with my screwed-up hand and join an uprising? However I looked at it, I saw no reason for confidence or optimism. It seemed more like a terrific opportunity to die in the snow.

"Let me think it over, boys," I said, stalling. I continued to try to work, but my mind was full of confusion. What could I do with only one hand, and my left hand at that? I couldn't even hoe a row properly, let alone fight!

By sundown I was tired but I felt like I had learned a lot. After we put the tools away, Ben and Matt stopped at the cottage door for a few words with Mora and got a snack for the walk home through the woods. Here and there, off in the trees I saw a light or two as the valley farmers settled in to eat and trade stories of the day before they went to bed.

When I went inside, there was Mora with her apron on, looking like some young mountain mother out of a children's storybook. I gave her a big hug and kissed her while she stood there with a wooden spoon in one hand and the other tangled in my hair.

"Matt and Ben think you'll make a good farmer," she said as we were eating supper by the light of the hearth.

"Why is that?"

"They said they never heard anyone ask so many questions."

"If they came to live in Manhattan, the shoe would be on the other foot."

She smiled but she didn't get it. "What is Manhattan?"

"Just some place. It doesn't matter anymore. You know, Mora, it's not such early days for me to be learning a whole new line of work."

"Don't worry, Jack. We all do it together, and it's not so hard. All you have to do is keep trying, and the things that go right will make up for the things that go wrong. It's only really hard for the lazy ones and the grumblers. That's what my dad used to say."

"Do you miss your mom and dad a lot?"

"Yes, very much sometimes. But I have my baby and all my friends. I'm not lonely, especially now that you're here."

It was dark outside under the stars, and inside the cottage the amber light from the fire danced with the shadows. With the darkness came a different kind of stillness, very intimate, as if the whole outer world had become insubstantial and nothing existed outside our fire-lit cottage. Mora and I and the baby were the only people in the world until tomorrow morning, and the baby slept soundly with a tummy full of warm milk. I was just slipping my arm around Mora's waist when I heard a sharp "Pssst!" that was so totally unexpected that I must have jumped a yard in the air.

"What was that?" I said to Mora. I was reaching around with my useless hand for a weapon. The best thing I could find was the iron rod we used to poke up the fire, and I took it up with my left hand when I remembered that I couldn't grasp it with my right.

"Someone's outside," said Mora. She didn't seem worried, but a little perplexed, for it certainly wasn't the sound folks usually made when they came calling.

"Pssst! Sir Jack!"

"Who the hell is it?" I tried to sound firm and in control, but my voice quavered. My experience in the dungeon had wounded me in subtle ways, and I was still full of all the nameless fears that had seeped into my soul. The last thing I needed was to be startled by an unseen voice in the dark.

"Sir Jack! It's Leo!" said a coarse whisper, but I wasn't at all sure that I recognized his voice.

"Leo!" I called back. "Is that you?"

"Come out!" came the same hoarse whisper; though I listened carefully, I still wasn't sure it was really him.

"Come on in, Leo. Don't stand out there in the dark." I crept around with the poker so I would be behind the door when it opened. Urgently, I waved Mora out of the firelight and she slipped into the shadows. Then I raised the poker over my head with both hands as well as I could. It seemed quite a long time before the door finally opened.

Leo looked different. His hair and beard were longer and needed a trim. His clothes were wrinkled and dusty and there was a tear in his tunic. There was a new look in his eyes too, something wild and furtive. "Are you alone?" he asked, peering around.

"No, Mora is here."

She came out of the shadows and dropped him a curtsy.

"Good evening, Sir Leo," she said. "Can I give you a bowl of stew?"

"Yes, thank you," he said like a hungry man. While Mora was dishing it up, we stared at each other in the dim light. "You're thinner," he said.

"So are you." I was trying to smile but there was an awkwardness between us.

"I'm sorry we couldn't get you out of the dungeon. We would have if we could have. I hope you know that."

"It's okay, Leo."

"Those bogus Picts lay in ambush for Gordon. They left him for dead, and it was close at that."

"Is he all right?"

"Pretty much so. He's outside."

"Really? I want to see him."

"He's on guard." There was a strange tone in his voice and I knew what it meant. We had all been on guard when Albert was stabbed. We had failed him and the whole kingdom. We had failed ourselves.

"Okay, Leo, but have him come in."

Leo went to the door and made a woodland noise with his mouth, sort of a low warble. I felt very strange. Leo was alive and Gordon too, but instead of feeling joyous, I felt agitated.

"I've changed a little," said Gordon, pushing back his hood. A disfiguring scar ran diagonally across his face from hairline to jaw line.

"I'm very glad to see you again, Gordon," I said. "Come in and have some stew."

"Yes, I would like some," he said, and he too sounded hungry.

Mora served the two men and they dug right in. I had a cup of Mora's fern tea and watched them eat. I was not looking forward to what I knew this visit was bringing us.

"Thank you, Mora," said Leo when he finished eating. "That was a fine stew. We could certainly use your talent in the greenwood if you'd like to come along with Sir Jack."

Mora didn't reply, and her face was closed as she took the bowl from Sir Leo.

"We're fairly well set up now," Leo continued, "but it hasn't been easy. None of us knew quite what to do at first. We were all in shock from the king's death, and every one of us felt responsible. Sir Bradley and Sir Maynard were just coming back to court when I went out looking for Gordon. Between the three of us we got Gordon to safety and finally we managed to gather all the other knights together. Then we decided we would never go back to court until we were ready to avenge the king."

"So what's the plan?"

"Well, the plan in the beginning was to devise a way to get you out of the dungeon, and then to mobilize the same army that marched with Albert against the duke. But the plan didn't work because the duke's security was very tight and we couldn't find a way to get to you."

"Why didn't you storm the castle?"

"Yes, well and good," said Leo, laughing as though I'd made a joke. "But we needed you to lead the army as you did before."

"Albert led that army, not I."

"Yes, but don't you see? There never would have been any army without a champion to rally around. If the king hadn't needed your presence to muster that army, we would have let you stay in bed."

"You're the only champion this kingdom has ever had, Sir Jack," said Gordon. "Everybody loved King Albert, but he didn't think of himself as a fighting man and neither did anyone else. The duke walked all over him until you got here."

"And now you want me to be your champion again."

"Yes, that's exactly what we want," said Leo, a little impatiently, as though I was dragging my heels; and of course, that was exactly what I was doing.

"I still don't understand the plan. You know everybody is expecting the harvest to begin anytime now. If the weather holds, it'll be in a few weeks. But if the weather turns bad, the harvest has to happen right away. Isn't that true?" I said to Mora.

"Yes, Jack," she said.

"Well, then is anybody going to come out for a campaign right now, champion or no champion? Maybe we should wait until after the harvest."

"After the harvest the castle will be full of provisions," said Leo, "enough to last the duke all winter. If we have to lay siege to the castle, the time to do it is now."

"Maybe we should wait for spring," I said.

"In the spring, people will be concerned about getting some meat on their bones. There is no advantage in waiting until spring. We might just as well bow our heads and forget the whole thing!"

"How many people have you got in your band?"

"Counting men and women, there are about seventy-five of us living in the forest," said Leo, staring hard at me.

There was a silence and the cottage was full of tension. I didn't want to say what I was going to say, but I couldn't think of any other way to stall. There was simply no way in hell I was going off into the woods that night with scruffy-looking Sir Leo and scarred-up Gordon to spearhead a campaign against Lord Hawke. I just wasn't going to do it.