The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality

by Gahan Hanmer

  Albert's eyes were flashing now; I had never seen him like this. And though I was dead on my feet and just wanted to lie down someplace where I wouldn't be disturbed, I couldn't help feeling very proud of him.

  "Now go get a bath and rest. Talk to Sir Leo before you leave on your quest. He'll see that you have everything you need. Rescue some fair damsels. Get some cats down out of trees. Let your guide be your own high sense of ethics. Any questions?"

  Something in what he said made me wonder whether he had already heard about the incident with the girl in the woods. I still needed to talk to him about that, and I promised myself I'd catch him in the morning before I left. "Not right now, your majesty."

  He rang a little bell and a young maid came in. She seemed to know what to do without having to be told. "Will you please come with me, sir?" she said, and I followed her out of the hall. She was very efficient in a polite and friendly way and didn't wrinkle up her nose or ask me any questions, but just steered me into a tub of hot water and made off with my clothes. I lay in the tub and soaked and snoozed. When the girl came back, she washed my hair with some pleasant-smelling soap, helped me into a robe, and led me to a little room with a pallet bed. As I slipped under the blankets, she said, "You poor thing, you got quite a many bites. I'll find the mage and tell her where you are. She'll come look in on you."

  "Thank you, dear," I said. I was already falling asleep, and didn't think to ask her who or what the mage was.

  When I woke up I felt warm and clean and rested. The room glowed with the gentle light of a candle, and outside it was dark. Looking over my shoulder to see where the candlelight was coming from, I discovered I was not alone. A woman, wearing a light brown robe with the cowl hanging down her back, was sitting cross-legged on the floor with her back to me. I could see by the way she was sitting, with her back very straight and her hands lying palms-up on her knees, that she was meditating. For some reason I felt very warm and friendly toward this woman. I felt as though I had known her for years, and that we had spent many a peaceful night like this together by candlelight. Whoever she was, I was glad she was here.

  I must have dozed off again, for when I opened my eyes, the woman was sitting quite close and gazing down on me. Her cowl was up and the candle was behind her, so I couldn't see her face. But I still had the same strong impression of familiarity, even of kinship, with her. It made me think that she must have a very kind and loving soul to make me feel so comfortable in her presence.

  "You, I take it," I said softly, feeling extremely relaxed and somewhat disembodied, "must be the mage."

  She nodded and that was all. In the silence that followed, I was aware of the night sounds of crickets and frogs. Then she said, "You got that right, bubberoo."

  The look of astonishment on my face must have been classic, for her shoulders shook with silent laughter. Then with a slow gesture that carried all the significance of a ritual, she put up a hand and pushed the cowl back until it fell from her face.

  When we had been lovers, eons ago in our college days, she had leading roles in the local Gilbert and Sullivan Society's productions and had a sideline in belly dancing because she liked to see the college boys go mad with lust for her. Among all my friends and acquaintances, she was far and away the nuttiest with her astrology and her numerology, her runes and her Tarot cards. Other people I knew bandied about arcane ideas and dropped names, but when Marya Randall spoke about the unseen web of meaning which held together all the coincidences of life, it was with the complete assurance that came from making all that lore truly her own. As mysterious and elusive as those ideas might be, they were still as real to her as knives, forks, and spoons, and just as much a part of her daily life.

  It was a long time before I broke the silence. In our intimacy we had often shared long periods of unspoken communion, and I was grateful to realize that we could still do that after so many years. I knew she was thinking that fate had brought us back together for its own transcendent reasons, and I was wondering what had caused two tiny needles to find each other again in the huge haystack of the world. We gazed at each other, and our eyes held a conversation which was all the more complex and profound for not using words.

  Finally she said, "One of the maids told me you had been in the dungeon and got some bites."

  "They're not bad. They're mostly on my hands and arms."

  "Mind if I have a look?" She helped me to my feet, and eased off my robe. Then she brought over the candlestick, and examined me all over. I noticed that she had a touch of gray in her hair now, but it seemed like only yesterday that we had been alone together by candlelight. I had the impulse to reach out to her, to stroke her hair. We had had a very wild relationship. We had tried to stretch the boundaries of experience to the limit and beyond. We had had no secrets. I felt like it would be very natural to make love to her now, almost the polite thing to do, like shaking hands or saying hello.

  She took a little box of salve from a satchel full of oddments, and dabbed at the bites. Then she helped me with my robe.

  "I can't help thinking how nice it would be to make love to you, Marya."

  "Yes," she said, "I'm sure it would be very nice. It would be easy for us to do that, Jack. The trouble is that it would complicate things. Are you sure that's what you want?"

  I understood what she meant. The friendship was there. It felt stable and strong and comfortable. But making love would be the first step toward another kind of relationship. It wouldn't be possible for us to make love without setting up expectations about tomorrow and the next day.

  "You were always wiser about these things than I was, Marya."

  "I'm flattered that you still want me, Jack," she said. "And I'm glad to see that you're just as horny as ever," she added with a smile. "But let's wait a little, okay?"

  "All right, Marya. How do the bites look?"

  "Oh, our Northwoods rat is a pretty clean little guy. If you saw him in the light, you might just let him snuggle up to get warm."

  I shuddered, and she reached out and touched me gently. "I know it must be an awful experience to be in Albert's dungeon, but I don't know anyone who's gotten sick in there. I made him take me down once. He keeps it pretty clean, for all that it stinks."

  "Why would you want to go down there?"

  "Because I'm the mage, and the state of the dungeon is a health matter." She sat down on a cushion and adjusted the folds of her robe. I lay down on my pallet, the candlestick between us.

  "What exactly is a mage?"

  "Oh, that's just a word I got from a novel I read somewhere. Some little girls were asking me one day if I was a witch. I could tell they wanted to like me, but they weren't so sure it was a good idea to like a witch. So without even thinking about it, I said, 'Oh, no, I'm a mage!' That was just what they wanted to hear, and they spread it all around, so now that's what people call me."

  "Is that what you do up here? That's like your job?"

  "Yup. I'm the local mage. I give people practical advice about staying healthy, and dose them with herbs and love them up when they're sick. I tell fortunes and make love potions. I have a good time, and I get paid in eggs and vegetables or pieces of cloth—whatever people have to give."

  "What about doctors? Are there any regular doctors here?"

  "The only doctor Albert could find who was willing to go back in time was a retired general practitioner whose grandfather was a country doctor who made house calls with a horse and buggy. He was here for nine or ten years before he died. The monks and I worked with him closely, and I will say truthfully that we finally wore him out. Yet he was a very happy man, much fulfilled, very serene. I miss Dr. Knox."

  "So now it's you and the monks?"

  "It's me and the monks and the king and the Goddess and every housewife with her herb garden and everybody who lends his neighbor a hand or helps someone with his burden. I've been here a long time, Jack, and I can't remember the modern world that well anymore. Isn't that funny? But what I reme
mber seems like an endless junkyard where each person went his lonesome way in a toxic fog. It's very different here. We work together and we help each other. We spend most of our time outdoors in the fresh air and sunshine. We eat the organic food that we grow and we live alongside all the animals and plants in the natural rhythms of nature, so we're generally very healthy. We have accidents and disease and death, but we don't use disease to get rich and we don't set aside any particular space for it."

  "It sounds like a good life for you."

  "It is. And of course I do all the things that everybody does together, like getting the harvest in and getting ready for the festivals. It's a terrific life we have up here, Jack. You're going to love it."

  "How did you get here in the first place?"

  "I had a little herb market in Manhattan. It was just a little hole in the wall, you know? I did health counseling and card readings and whatever else I could. Our old friend Albert just appeared one day, and said he was looking for a healer for a picturesque and unpolluted kingdom he was organizing. Well, I must have been ready for a change, because it didn't take me five minutes to decide to pick him up on that offer, let me tell you!"

  "Well, so far I'm glad to be here, Marya. I have a good feeling about Albert's kingdom. Do you know what I mean? It's a feeling. There are no clocks here, no electricity or doctors. There's nothing here that we used to have, and yet nothing seems to be missing, nothing at all. And the big thing that was missing in the modern world, the inside thing, the thing that makes you feel connected to people and the sun and the moon and all the little stars in the sky—that's starting to come back to me. And it's a feeling, just this tremendous, amazing feeling."

  "Yes, I know what you're talking about, Jack. I think just about everybody had a little dose of that when they first arrived. I certainly felt it, but it's not a feeling that lasts."

  "No?"

  "I mean that it's something you have to cultivate if you want it to last. With the silence and the freshness and the vastness of the territory that surrounds us, you can't help but feel differently at first. But when all this becomes normal . . . well, it doesn't get you high anymore. So if you want the feeling to continue, then you have to cultivate it."

  "How?"

  "By meditating. By becoming more aware of the divine Presence in yourself and all around you."

  "I meditated for a little while with Albert and the monks at the monastery. It felt pretty good. He said if I wanted to appreciate this kingdom, I would have to make a habit of it."

  "You know something, Jack? Time passes no matter what you do, so the smart thing is to use it wisely and to put a little effort into your spiritual growth every day. Then the little bits add up and as the years go by, you see that you made some progress. How do you feel right now?"

  "Well, I feel sad that the feeling doesn't last. I think that's the thing I like best of all about Albert's kingdom."

  "Pull your legs under you."

  "Like this?"

  "Yes, but straighten your spine. That's better. Keeping a straight spine is important. Now close your eyes and see if you can feel the beating of your heart."

  "Albert taught me that trick at the monastery."

  "Okay. That's a good technique for bringing your mind back into the present moment very quickly. Now for the next step."

  So I sat there with my legs crossed and let her coach me, and I was surprised to find that once again it was as though the night and the night sounds and the breeze through the casement came together like a peaceful balm and that my body and my mind could embrace that peace.

  "Well, that feels pretty nice all right," I said finally. "I never felt anything like that before I came here."

  "You can cultivate that feeling just the same in the modern world, but it's more difficult because the distractions are so intense and continuous. Listen, Jack, I have to tell you something. Albert's kingdom, when you get to know it, is just another loony bin like anyplace else in the world. People here are growing and changing and making mistakes just like anywhere else. The real question is whether this place suits you or not; whether it's your kind of loony bin. Albert went to a lot of trouble to find people who would be attracted to this life. I'm hoping that you like it too, that's all."

  "So far so good. I was a little shocked to find out that the only way out of here is a hard chance through the deep woods. Albert never mentioned that."

  "What did Albert tell you?"

  "You know, the abbot at the monastery asked me the same question. Albert really didn't tell me anything. He gave me a windy line that doesn't mean anything when I think about it. Maybe I would have been more suspicious except that I already had a hell of a case on Jenna Yumans."

  "Oh, no! Did she seduce you?"

  "Well, I suppose you could put it that way. What do you know about all this?"

  Marya was gazing into the candle and gave no indication of what was going on in her mind. Finally she said, "It was my idea to bring you here, Jack."

  "You?"

  She turned to me. "Actually the idea came from the Tarot cards."

  Well, there it was. You either try to plan your life, or you drift. And if you drift, then you have to be pleased with whatever you get. "All right," I said, as a huge yawn began to pry my jaws apart. "I give up. I'm through trying to figure things out. Let it be the Tarot then. I don't care. My brain is tired, Marya."

  "Well, I'm glad that you're taking it like a good sport, bubber," she said. There was something in her voice that I should have paid more attention to, except that I was already beginning to drift away. She went on, "Maybe that's enough for now. There's something else I need to tell you, but it'll keep until morning. Turn over and I'll rub your back."

  Massage had always been one of her talents, and she gave me the full treatment, as though she were rolling me up in a bank of clouds; with the relaxation came that wonderful feeling again.

  "Thank you, Marya," I managed to say though my tongue was lolling. "That is much better."

  "Go to sleep, sweetie," she said as she pressed her thumb firmly into the soft spot at the base of my skull. It was like a little fireworks display of pure pleasure, and when it was over, I was asleep.

  Chapter Seven

  I woke the next morning eager to venture out into my new and unexplored kingdom and play at being a knight. Marya was gone, but I remembered that she had something more to tell me. So I donned my boots and sword and cloak, ran my fingers through my hair, and went to look for Marya.

  The first person I ran into was the young maid who had seen to my needs when I came out of the dungeon. "Mage has gone to a birthing, sir."

  "Oh? And where might that be?"

  "Thinking of going and helping out yourself?" she asked, and I was surprised by the sarcasm in her voice because the day before she had been very demure.

  "I don't think I'd be much help," I admitted. "But I do have a few questions I want to ask her."

  "Plenty of time for questions when she returns, sir," she said as though she were talking to me through a barred gate. I changed the direction of my inquiry to finding myself some breakfast.

  Now she was eager to assist me and led me through the corridors to the kitchen. "Of course, we all had breakfast hours ago," she said, teasing me, "but if you ask her nicely, I'm sure cook will put something up for you." Dropping me a curtsy, she went on her way.

  The cook clasped me to her ample bosom and clucked her tongue about my time in the dungeon. I wasn't sure whether Hélène was annoyed at me for making trouble for Albert or with Albert for punishing me. It didn't matter. To Hélène we were both just boys home from school, and she wanted us to play nicely and stay out of mischief. She gave me a whopping breakfast, and when I told her I was going on quest, she made a series of emphatic and incomprehensible French gestures and put me up a sack of food that would easily last me four or five days. Then she gave me another hug and sent me off to play.

  Sir Leo was glad to see me and shook my hand warm
ly. I had caught up with him in the field outside the walls where he was practicing with a bow and arrow. "Do you shoot?" he asked me.

  "I haven't since I was a boy."

  He handed me his bow and quiver and watched me put two arrows in the target and scatter five or six others in the grass beyond it.

  "That was not too good," he said, holding out his hand for the bow. In one fluid motion he nocked and drew and loosed and that arrow sprang into the bullseye like it couldn't wait to do anything he wanted it to.

  "That's fantastic, Leo," I said, and he grinned with pleasure. "How did you learn to do that?"

  "Well, I taught myself. Or you could say I learned it from the birds. Have you ever wished you could fly?"

  "Who hasn't?"

  "I made myself miserable with envy watching the birds when I was a boy. But when I discovered archery, I realized there was more than one way to ride the wind. If my body couldn't do it, my spirit could. Here, take this arrow and throw it at the target."

  When I tried, the arrow twisted in the air and landed a few yards away pointing back at me. "Keep trying," he said, but no matter what I did, the result was pathetic.

  "It's like trying to make a dead bird fly," I said.

  "Now try the bow."

  When I took up the bow this time, I had a different attitude toward it. It was a pleasure to nock my arrow, and to draw the feather back to my cheek. And when I loosed at the target, my heart leapt forward with the arrow as it hummed over the field. When it thumped into the target, I felt an entirely different sense of satisfaction than archery had ever given me before.

  "That was better," said Sir Leo. "Now let my explain something about your feet."

  Well, for the next hour or so I had one of the most exhilerating lessons of my life. Leo was a real genius when it came to archery and his enthusiasm was contagious. By the end of the lesson, I was determined to learn everything the man could teach me.