by Gahan Hanmer
She walked me to my horse and I clambered aboard in my warlike duds. "Be careful, Jack."
"What a funny thing to say!" I nudged Pollux into a trot.
At first I was feeling very grim as I rode along, headed nowhere with no idea which way I ought to go. But it was a beautiful day and everything I saw was new and interesting. The people that I passed on the road waved and spoke greetings and regarded me with a curiosity that I now understood. I was the one who had been chosen by the mage's Tarot cards. I was a celebrity although I had done nothing to deserve it, and that gave me a funny feeling that is difficult to describe, as if I had turned into a character in a story. It was an exciting and expansive feeling; but there was, of course, a catch.
Where was I going? It didn't really matter. If I turned around, I could ride past the monastery, turn south on the market road at the bridge, and head for Griswold Manor. But I was not in the mood for Griswold. It occurred to me then to pay a visit to the Earl and Lady Dugdale. I was curious to see how the nobility lived and I could pick up some more information about the situation in the kingdom.
Soon I came upon a man who was digging dirt out of the road and putting it into his ox-cart, and didn't he give me a funny look when I asked him where to find Dugdale's manor. "Why, you're the king's new knight, aren't you?" he said, laughing. "It'll be something to tell the missus that someone asked me the way to Lord Dugdale's today. She'll never believe me."
He chuckled away about that, and I waited patiently for him to have his joke. "Well, where is it then?"
He pointed in the direction I was going. "You're almost there," he said.
"Thank you, my good man," I said. "Why are you digging up the road?"
"I need this clay for my mill."
"That's quite a hole you're making. Don't you think that's dangerous?" It was right at the bend of the road, and a man or a horse could have easily stumbled into it.
He looked at the hole and made a helpless gesture. "But where else will I find such good clay?"
"I don't know, but you'd better get that hole filled up before you leave."
He began to squirm, as though it was an impossible amount of trouble I wanted him to go to. "All right, all right, I will," he grumbled finally.
I didn't really believe he would, but I had done about all I could, so I tapped Pollux with my heel and continued down the road. Presently I came to a pretty little bridge, the most ornate of all the bridges I'd yet seen in that valley of many rivers, and on the other side of the bridge hung a carved wooden escutcheon about four feet high with a coat of arms and DUGDALE carved across the top.
Dugdale's fief looked different; it had a different flavor. As soon as I crossed the bridge I noticed it; it didn't seem to me that the landscape was perfectly natural. Especially around the bridge it looked more like a park than a woods, and as I continued north on the other side of the river I had the same impression that some serious landscaping had been attempted in certain spots. It would be something to make conversation about, and maybe to tease Charlsey with, for who else but she would have wanted to refine the woods that way.
Their manor house, made of fieldstone and timbers with a wall all around, also had a stylish look for a fortified building, and a great deal of care had gone into the flower gardens. Then I got a rather bad twinge of time-vertigo, for there was Charlsey kneeling among her flowers wearing a straw hat and gloves with a little trowel in one hand. The long skirt she wore barely maintained the medieval integrity that I was beginning to cherish and I felt annoyed at her for looking so modern. My impulse was to turn my horse quietly and slip away unnoticed, but I didn't make up my mind quickly enough.
"Sir Jack!" cried Charlsey, jumping to her feet and coming to greet me. "I'm so glad you came. Alton, guess who is here!" she shouted into the house. All the shutters seemed to open at once and several unfamiliar faces poked out to see the novelty. Before I knew it I was having tea and cakes with Charlsey and Dugdale in the garden, my sword with its scabbard and harness leaning against the hedge.
"This is such a pleasure," said Charlsey. "You can't imagine how tedious it can get without any society. Don't you think so, Alton? Actually, Alton has quite a lot to keep up with running the earldom, so I don't think he gets quite as lonesome as I do. It's better in the winter when there's less to do and people go visiting more. But at this time of year it's all work, work, work, and no one seems to consider their social obligations."
"You looked busy in your garden when I rode up," I said.
Charlsey had been going on a mile a minute since I arrived, and it was making me a little tense. She wanted a lot of attention and she made you feel obliged to give it to her. Also, try as you might to change her train of thought, it always came back to this: however much she might sugarcoat it with her pretty smile and her stylized vivaciousness, Charlsey was sorry she had come.
"Well, I do love my gardens, that's true. My mother was a fine gardener, and her mother was a gardener—a flower gardener, you understand—and they both took prizes in shows."
"You've won several prizes at the fair, my dear," said Dugdale proudly.
"Thank you, Alton. I am trying to carry on the tradition. One of the reasons I agreed to come all the way out here, Sir Jack, was that my family lacked land. Mother was always saying she could do with a bit more land. We had quite a substantial lot for Cambridge, but it was still only a couple of acres, and mother felt limited. So when we were considering becoming part of the peerage here, the promise of unlimited land quite made me lose my reason."
"How much land have you got?" I asked Dugdale.
"I don't know," said Dugdale. "We share a border with Lord Hawke and another with the royal domain. But our land to the northwest keeps going right up into the mountains, if you want to look at it that way. The amount of land you have up here really has no significance. What matters are the people you have to work it."
"My lady," said a servant, "will you pick out a chicken?"
"Cook can do that, Betty."
"Cook sent me to ask if your ladyship would be pleased to pick which one you like."
"Well, I suppose the red hen," said Charlsey.
"There are three red hens, your ladyship."
"Not that I recall," said Charlsey after a pause.
"If your ladyship would be pleased . . ."
"Oh, I'll come! Alton, why don't you give Sir Jack a tour while I see to this."
Charlsey went off with the servant and Dugdale showed me the stables and the falconry and the buttery and the wine cellar and the central hall and something he called the solar, which was a big bedroom and den above the hall.
"Albert really didn't let you smuggle in a thing, did he?"
"No. He was very strict. Everything you see was made right here in this valley. And yet we have some beautiful things, do we not?"
"Was this manor designed by Joel Mason?"
"Oh yes, of course. He designed the whole kingdom. Anything made since his death naturally follows his style since his are the only models to copy. His signature will be on the kingdom as long as it lasts."
"It seems built to last forever."
"The Middle Ages didn't last forever. It was a transition period between the fall of Rome and the rise of other empires."
"Do you miss the modern world?"
"Do I miss it? No, I can't truthfully say I do. This is our busiest season right now, and I'm feeling harried looking after everything, but mostly I'm content. Charlsey, on the other hand . . . Well, sometimes I feel like I've taken her away from everything she really loves: fashion and art and society."
"Had to be dragged here kicking and screaming, did she?"
Dugdale gave me an odd look. "Oh goodness, no," he said. "I would never ask Charlsey to do anything she wouldn't like to do. She was actually more enthusiastic about coming here than I was. I think the opportunity to be a titled lady was the attraction for her in the beginning, along with the amount of land. We were to be neighbors to a king! But
I don't think she understood how much she'd be leaving behind."
Dugdale and I walked back to the garden without speaking. He seemed lost in his own thoughts, as was I.
Charlsey had changed into a different gown for lunch. Dugdale was wearing a long robe, belted with an elaborate dagger, and a short jacket with puff sleeves. It felt to me like we were all in costume, and it was the first time I had felt that way since I'd arrived in Albert's kingdom. Perhaps it was the way the garden was arranged, but it didn't feel far from Cambridge; and I was already wishing that our visit was over so I could get back on my horse and soak myself in those new, heavy-textured feelings that my new life evoked in me.
"You would think," said Charlsey with some asperity, "that they could pick out a chicken without having to pester me. You would think they could prepare a simple wine sauce without my having to tell them how for the fiftieth time, but they can't. You'll notice soon enough how complacent the servants are in this kingdom, Sir Jack. You can send them back to the fields and pick someone else, but it does no good for they are all the same. They would rather wait for you to tell them what to do than to just do what needs to be done."
"Alton, tell me what you think," I said. "I passed a man digging clay out of the road not far from here. He said he wanted the clay for his mill."
"Oh, that man!" said Charlsey.
"A fat fellow? Clean shaven with black, spiky hair?"
"That's him," I said.
"Thank you for telling me. The king said that if he leaves another hole in the road, he's going into the dungeon, and it's about time."
"There is simply no reasoning with some of these peasants," said Charlsey. "I would like to see that man dig up the road in Lord Hawke's fief."
"What would happen if he did that?" I asked.
"The duke would have him beaten black and blue," said Charlsey. "We've been much too lenient with that miller, Alton."
"Would Lord Hawke be within his rights to beat up that man?" I asked.
After a moment or two Dugdale said, "Lord Hawke is rather more strict that we are."
"But would he be within his rights?"
"The man will probably not get the beating because he will know better than to ask for it."
"But indulge me for a minute, Alton, if you would. I'm new here and I don't even know what the laws are."
"Well, you don't have much to learn there, because there aren't any laws."
I was amazed. "No laws?"
"There are rules," said Dugdale, "but there is no legal system as such with written statutes and all the rest of it. If something out of the ordinary comes up, we talk it over among the nobility and make a decision. Otherwise, everyone knows what the rules are. No cows in the corn. No diverting of streams. No fighting in the church. Simple, common-sense rules. They don't need to be written down."
We ate in silence. "But there must be disputes," I said finally.
Dugdale smiled wanly. "There are. All the time."
"What happens then?"
He shrugged. "That depends."
"All right. Here's an example. A man has bought and paid for a cow. The previous owner is delivering it and the cow drops dead in the road. Does the new owner get his money back?"
"Of course. Isn't it obvious that he should?"
"Okay. The cow drops dead in the new owner's barn the morning after she's delivered. Does he get his money back?"
"Probably not."
"What does probably mean? What's the rule?"
"How could you make such a rule? Let's you and I make up a rule right now: a cow is considered to be sold in fair exchange if the animal lives for two hours and forty-five minutes after the tether rope passes from hand to hand. Don't you see how absurd that is?"
"So how would a dispute get settled?"
"If people absolutely cannot come to terms, the matter can be brought before the manor court. The court meets four times a year."
"And how do decisions get made?"
"According to what his lord thinks is just and fair."
"But . . ."
"Look, Jack—may I call you Jack? It's just the three of us. Suppose a cow dies in the course of the trading that goes on between peasants all the time. It wouldn't go to the manor court. Whoever got the worst of the deal would try to do better the next time, that's all. But suppose someone passes off a sick cow on an old widow woman, a woman whose eyesight is known to be poor. If she complained to my court about that, then she would get her money back and also collect a fine from the man to teach him to be kinder to old women. That's the way I would look at it. My responsibility would be to do the best I could for the old woman, and at the same time to discourage the man from taking advantage of people. Now if there were two men who kept coming to my court with disputes about cows, I would fine them both for wasting everyone's time, and I would give some of their cows to someone who needed them more than they did. Do you begin to see?"
I wasn't sure what to think. "It's like parents deciding which child gets to play with the toy."
Dugdale laughed. "I think that's a reasonable comparison. Yes, it's the family approach to government, if you like, and it's the only way to run a kingdom like this. We can't afford a class of lawyers and lobbyists and legislators and a lot of quid pro quo. We have to get the harvest in. We have to keep food on the table."
Images passed through my mind of the active, happy-looking people I'd passed along the road when I rode in with Gordon, and the ringing cheers that had greeted Albert when he arrived at his castle. "Well," I said finally, "I haven't been here for long, and so far I'm impressed with what I've seen. It feels funny to think that there are no laws here, though."
"Oh, I know. We all went through the same thing when we first came up here. But just sit down and try to write some laws yourself and you'll discover that that kind of litigiousness just doesn't make any sense in this situation. We're in a little valley on the edge of nowhere, and we'd be crazy to wait around for the innocent to be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and all the rest of if before we could give someone who needs it a kick in the pants."
"Like that miller who was digging in the road."
Dugdale nodded. "People have had quite enough of falling into his holes."
"So if Lord Hawke caught the miller and beat the piss out of him, that would just be the way things are around here."
Dugdale and Charlsey looked at one another, and I read confusion in their faces.
"I don't know quite what to say, Jack. Each fief is a bit different. Griswold tends to be ironic about his responsibilities and he likes to see people hash things out for themselves. I also tend to hold back and try not to be too patriarchal. Bennett, as you may have heard, is a bit of a lush, and it's hard to know how he's going to behave. But his wife is a serious woman and she can be quite severe. The king himself has probably got the best mix. His peasants know just where they stand, and they like him enormously."
I waited for him to go on, but he didn't. "You forgot somebody."
"Well, Lord Hawke is certainly a man of parts," said Dugdale. "There was a time when we couldn't possibly have done without him. Overall though, one could say that he tends to use the club where the switch would do just as well. Wouldn't you say so, my dear?"
"His peasants are very well-behaved," said Charlsey.
"That's true," said Dugdale, "but they are also too much in the shadow."
I felt chilly, though the sun was shining in the garden, and a shiver ran through my body. "Come on, Dugdale, quit being so diffident and lay it on me, would you please?"
Charlsey raised an eyebrow, but Dugdale continued. "There was an ugly incident last year during tithe collection. A soldier or two always accompanies the collector. It's a lonely job at best. Well, there was some kind of a misunderstanding, and one of the peasants was killed and another crippled. As soon as the king heard about it, he went to see what was what, and the duke told the king to mind his own business."
"I was stuffed in the dungeo
n for less than that," I said.
Dugdale nodded. "Yes, it's very much against the rules to get cheeky with the king. But Albert had only a small escort and the duke was surrounded by his own soldiers on his own land."
"Albert backed down?"
"Albert was very angry. He went back to his castle, and he was gathering his soldiers when a messenger came from the duke. He said he would make restitution to the peasant's family and reprimand the soldiers, but that he would regard any armed incursion by the king as an act of war."
"Did Albert let him get away with that?"
"The king replied that if the duke kept faith by making restitution to the peasants, then he, Albert, would make no reprisals as long as it never happened again."
"So Albert chickened out."
"Well, maybe it sounds like an obvious mistake to you, but that was a difficult year in many ways. The harvest was poor. Tempers were frayed. Relations between the fiefs were tense at best. No one wanted to see a war break out between the duke and the king."
"What happened then?"
"That was all there was to that. The duke made the family a gift of money and took responsibility for the mistake. There was also the implied promise that he would keep his soldiers in line, and that was very important, for this was just the worst of a long string of complaints about the way his soldiers behaved."
"But from what I hear, his soldiers are still out of control."
Dugdale sighed. "Yes, I'm afraid so."
"Worse than ever?"
He nodded.
Again I felt that chilly, tingling feeling all through my body: a kind of raw excitement, a mustering of dark energies deep within my bones. Do you still ride well? Do you still fence? Yes, Albert, I do, and I still can't stand bullies. All of a sudden I had a longing to strap my sword back on and to feel the strange, embracing heft of my armor. Was I losing the little bit of good sense that I had? Was I looking forward to the trouble that I now distinctly felt was right around the bend?
"Enough about all that, Alton," said Charlsey. "I'm sure Sir Jack doesn't want to talk about politics all day." She looked at me for confirmation and I replied with a shrug. It was her teapot.