The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality (38 page)

"Hands off, trooper!" shouted Griswold. "Ready archers!"

"Archers, choose your marks!" shouted Leo.

"Jenna, jump down!" I shouted, thrusting my way through the crowd to pull her out of the saddle if I had to.

There was a thumping sound, and Jenna came hurtling backwards out of her saddle and into my arms with a crossbow bolt in the middle of her chest.

"Jack!" she screamed, clutching at me, but her body was twitching and would not obey her. "Jack!" Her voice was already weak and her eyes swirled with pain and confusion. "Oh no, please!" Then the blood came out of her mouth and she convulsed and was gone forever.

Around me there were screams and grunts and clashing and chaos, but it meant absolutely nothing to me. I didn't care what was happening and I didn't care what might happen to me. Now and again I was jostled in the melee that raged about me, but I paid no attention to it. I just cradled her body and gazed down into that face that would never again know fear or pain. Death had relaxed her, and her perfect beauty had returned. Her eyes were open and looked a little puzzled, as though she was trying to remember where she had put something, and as I reached up with my fingers to close them, I began to cry.

Through the translucent curtain of my tears I saw again, one by one, all the episodes of our brief romance: the first moment I saw her in jeans and a sweatshirt as I stepped out of Albert's Rolls-Royce; bare-ass Jenna leaping the chasm of death, her fingers locked in her horse's mane; the candlelit dinner and our first magical night of love. Then a short string of passionate encounters, just a few of them really, but so wild and so beautiful.

I cried in my grief for all that was lost and gone, and I cried in my rage that the gods were so jealous and stingy. I cried in my fear and my guilt as though I myself had killed Jenna by neglecting to save her. I cried until I melted myself down into a kind of trance that was strangely orchestrated by the sounds of battle.

"My lord." A hand was shaking my shoulder. "My lord." I opened my eyes and there was Gordon with his great kindly face a little lopsided with the scar that ran across it, staring down at me. "Let me have her now."

I nodded, willing to do whatever I was told and grateful for the guidance. Unwrapping my arms from Jenna's body, I released her to Gordon, who lifted her lightly up.

It was much quieter now. The din of battle had been replaced with a low chorus of groans and weeping. Looking around, I found myself in the middle of a bloody mess of dead bodies which were lying just as they had fallen.

"I think you ought to stand up now, my lord," said Gordon. "People are beginning to arrive."

Gordon carried the queen a dozen yards and laid her body gently down on a raised platform that had been organized out of timbers and poles and cloth. Two women attended her, adjusting her limbs and crossing her arms, straightening her clothes and brushing her hair.

As I was getting to my feet, I found Jenna's little gold crown on the ground. Walking over to where she now lay in state, I gave it to the women and they placed it on her brow. Poor Jenna. From the moment of her coronation her luck began changing, first to bad and then to worse and now she was dead without one single day to just relax and get a kick out of being a queen, her life snuffed out by a clumsy soldier with a crossbow in his hand, nothing more than a stupid accident. How awful life was sometimes; how stupid and cruel it was!

People were indeed arriving: armed men and boys with their slings, and women and girls also. They stood off at a distance while the two women were preparing the queen; and when the women had finished, then the people began to file past her body. There was no hurry and no protocol. Some placed flowers or small gifts near her body, some stood and gazed at her, some knelt down to pray. Each made his farewell in his own way and in his own time moved on.

Most of the women gathered in groups and many wept and held each other. The men and women who had come to fight were gathered in their own groups with their crude weapons close at hand, and talked in low voices if they talked at all. When a new fighter arrived, he would silently show me the weapons he had brought, and I would nod in acknowledgement that he had pledged himself. Through our first battle I had done nothing but cradle the queen and weep; but that had not diminished my image as the warrior who had been sent to turn the tide against the duke. I was cast in that role the day I killed Mike and Mitch, and that was who I would be to these people forever.

Mora came to stand by my side, putting her arm through mine. "The duke may as well get a good night's sleep," she said, "because tomorrow is his last day on earth."

"Everybody knew what was going on between the queen and me, didn't they?"

"It doesn't matter. We loved her just the way she was."

I understood exactly what she meant. Jenna had placed herself a little bit outside the boundaries of ordinary life and the people had accepted her that way. I had been her lover but I wasn't the only one. It didn't make me special and it didn't seem to bother Mora. I didn't have to feel guilty and I didn't have to pretend. Everybody loved Jenna just the way she was.

"Stay with me now, Mora."

"Are you hungry?" she said. "Would you like me to find you something to eat?"

"I'm not hungry. Just stay with me."

People continued to arrive. The first few waves had come by foot. Now they were coming in carts and wagons from the far ends of the kingdom. Griswold's people had to start directing traffic and helping people to cooking and camping spots; but any resemblance to coronation day ended there. It was a deadly serious multitude that kept coming even after the sun had gone down. They brought only their food for the night, their blankets and their weapons. They found places for their wagons and animals and then they went to see the queen, whose body was lit by torches on the four corners of her bier. The crowd was pulsing with a violent and impatient energy. All I would have to do tomorrow morning was mount up and stay a few yards in front of the doom that would be headed for the castle and the duke.

Shortly after sunset Leo and Gordon came to see us. Leo looked tired and there was a bandage around his head with a bloody spot soaked through it. "Good evening, my lord," he said. "Good evening, Mora."

"Good evening, Sir Leo," I said. "Good evening, Gordon. I'm sorry I missed the battle. How did we do, all in all?"

"How did we do?" said Leo. "That was the wrath of the gods. When the queen fell, the people swarmed over those troopers and killed every one of them." He paused and a whole array of emotions passed across his face before he went on. "Of course we suffered on our side too. Lord Griswold's hall is a hospital tonight. Four of our people were killed in the fray and two more have died since. They would not have killed so many of us except for those crossbows. Curses on such cowardly weapons forever!"

"What's being done with the dead?" I asked Gordon.

"Well, sir," said Gordon, "the dead have been laid out as decently as possible to wait for their families to claim them. I never imagined that anything like this could happen in this valley, with people killing each other like cats. I'm hoping very much that it will all be over tomorrow so we can go back to being humans again."

"Thank you, Gordon," I said. "I share your sentiments. And thank you all for taking care of everything. I'm afraid I wasn't much use. Is there anything else I need to know?"

"Lord Hawke has been to see Lord Bennett as we expected," said Leo, "and between them they rounded up Bennett's peasants and herded them off to the castle to fight for the duke. Bennett is there, of course, and his three sons too."

"All three? One of them is very young."

"I believe they're all at the castle."

"Where's Renny?"

"He's asleep," said Gordon. "After the battle he began to shiver and shake and then he cried his eyes out. Lord Griswold put him to bed in the stables, for the hall is full of the wounded."

Mora stifled a yawn, and that made me realize how completely exhausted I was myself. "Well, let's get some rest. Any idea where Mora and I can bunk down?"

"I'll find you a place if you'll come with me, my lord," said Leo.

On our way I stopped to look at the queen, who lay peacefully among the simple tributes from her subjects. "We'll watch her all the night, my lord," said one of the women. "Flora and me and all these others as well. If it rains, we'll see she's properly cared for, don't you worry."

Jenna's face was a pale transparent color and cold to the touch. It made me want to howl with anger and frustration. Her death had been nothing but an idiotic mistake, a nervous finger on a little iron lever. Nobody had wanted to kill her. Other mistakes in life could be set to rights. Why not this? What was so special about death?

Near Jenna's bier, standing so silently and motionless in the shadow of a tree that I might easily have passed right by without noticing him, was Rudy Strapp. "Hello, Rudy," I said to him. "How goes it with you?"

"Since you ask, I am not feeling so good, my lord."

"Did you get hurt in the fight today?"

"I have not felt good since the king got killed. It was my job to look after him, but I let him down because I was enjoying myself when I should have been working."

"I know exactly how that feels, Rudy."

"Albert brought me in out of the cold and made something out of me. When someone does that for you, you're not supposed to let them down. But I did. And now the queen is dead and I feel like I let him down again. Look at her. Did you ever see anyone so beautiful? We should never have let any of this happen."

"Tomorrow we will finish this."

"Yes, I hope so," said Rudy. "But I don't have such a good feeling about tomorrow."

"Meaning what?"

"When we decided to guard the king we tried to plug up all the ratholes, but we missed one little one and look what happened. So I think about tomorrow and I'm asking myself what is it that we haven't thought of? We have plenty of people here, and I know just how they feel. We could tear the goddamn drawbridge right off the castle if that's what we need to do. But what is that one thing we haven't thought of?"

I awoke in the predawn with everyone else, and by sunrise our army was on the move. As I had suspected, there was little I needed to do besides put on my armor and get on my horse. The energy I had felt from the crowd the evening before had become even more palpable, even more irresistable; if I had done nothing at all, they would have dressed me and placed me on my horse in the course of their impatient preparations.

Dugdale arrived at the last minute with only a handful of his retainers. "I had trouble breaking away this morning," he explained, "but the rest of my people are already here. Very sorry about the queen, Darcey. Very sorry indeed. She was a lovely lady, and she will be mourned by us all."

"Thanks, Dugdale," I said. "I appreciate your kind words. Sir Leo, would you find a place for Lord Dugdale in the cavalcade?"

"Just here in front of Sir Maynard if you don't mind, my lord," said Leo, and Dugdale steered his horse into line. "We are ready, my lord," said Leo.

Feeling very strange, and not in the least bit in control of what was happening that morning, but rather impelled by forces ever so much more powerful than I was, I raised my arm as I was expected to do, and after a dramatic pause swept it forward. With that, the entire multitude began to move. It seemed clear to me that it was the multitude that moved my arm rather than the other way around.

We had a strong turnout. About two thirds of the people who had arrived the day before had come prepared to fight, and the fighters numbered over five hundred souls, more even than had marched with Albert. Of the other people, the majority dispersed into the woods headed in the direction of the castle.

After we had gone about a quarter of a mile I looked around at the knights and the lords I was riding with and said, "Gentlemen, we are marching at the head of a lot of raw power. But so far we have not made any specific plans."

"The plan as I understand it, my lord," said Sir Bradley, "is to capture Lord Hawke and chop off his head."

It was an idea which I still couldn't get used to, but so what? If we succeeded that day in killing the duke, I would have plenty of time to get used to it. And what else was there to do?

"Thank you, Sir Bradley," I said, "but do you think we're going to find the drawbridge down and the gates open?"

"No," said Sir Bradley, "unless the duke makes a run for it."

"Is that a possibility? What do you think, Sir Leo?"

"Anything is a possibility."

"What do you think, Renny? Will the duke run away?" Renny hadn't said a word all morning, and he looked so serious that I wanted to draw him out.

"Aren't you supposed to call me your majesty?"

It took me a moment to get over my surprise. "What do you think, Dugdale? Am I supposed to call this young man your majesty?"

"Actually no," said Dugdale. "Since he is under your stewardship until he is eighteen, it would be more appropriate to call him your royal highness."

"I'll never get used to this," I said.

"We all had trouble with the titles at first," said Dugdale. "But since this is a kingdom that we created, the less confused we are about it, the less confused the people tend to be. That was our experience the first few years. It seemed easier for everyone when we were strict about titles. Am I right, Griswold?"

"Perfectly right," said Griswold. "The more I insisted that everyone call me my lord, the more the farm girls wanted to jump in the hay with me."

"Well, your royal highness," I said finally, "do you concur that the plan is to capture the duke and chop off his head?"

"Yes," said Renny. "He killed my father. He killed Queen Jenna. Other people are dead because of him. Now it's his turn."

"Well," I said, "that's it then. At least we know what we're going to do."

A couple of hours had passed by the time we finished lining up our army to its best advantage across the meadow from the duke's army, which was lined up in front of the castle. On the castle battlements Lord Hawke was standing next to that massive chair that Jenna had said was a symbol of his defiance of Albert. He must have had it lugged all the way from his manor house. Was he planning to sit in it while he watched the slaughter?