The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality

by Gahan Hanmer

  "Lady, I'm sure you're way ahead of me, and I'm very interested in what you have to say."

  "Thank you. In the first place, you can get it out of your head that people are calling you Straw Jack or whatever it was you said. You're the only hero this kingdom has ever had, and I'm afraid you're stuck with that, whatever may happen. Yes, I can see you're rather at a low point, but what of that? All the great heroes had their share of hard knocks: Beowulf, Roland, Lancelot, all of them. It's a necessary part of any legend."

  "Those were storybook characters."

  She laughed. "So are you; or you will be as soon as we get around to writing storybooks. Maybe I'll write one myself about how you tried to cut your way through two dozen soldiers to kill the duke. I haven't forgotten that epic charge any more than anyone else has."

  "If I had it to do over, I would have more sense."

  "We can all say that about our whole lives, I'm sure, but it hardly matters. We do what we do; and you did what only a great hero would have done. Would you like to take a walk? I don't think the river is very far, and this might be one of the last lovely days before the weather turns."

  There it was again: the hint of a kittenish smile, the subtle body language. I was intrigued by her and curious too.

  "I guess Ben and Matt can get along without me," I said, and soon we were completely alone, ambling among the beautiful autumn trees. But if I suspected she was going to seduce me I was wrong, for she turned businesslike again.

  "How's your hand?"

  "Stiff as a board," I said, for that was what I wanted people to think. I tried to sound resigned and a little bitter, but she wasn't convinced.

  "Can't we be friends? Why do you think you have to protect yourself against me? Besides," she said with her bark of a laugh, "the whole kingdom knows that you're nursing your hand, even how often you soak it. It's an important bit of news how our hero is getting along and that he might be able to use that famous sword again. Do you doubt it?"

  "Marsha, I'll believe anything you tell me."

  "Here's another bit of news, then, and if you haven't heard it, you're the last person to know. Albert's knights have organized a resistance against the duke, and they've just sent him an ultimatum. They're demanding that he vacate the castle and relinquish the reins of government."

  "Relinquish them to who?"

  "To whom? To the ones Albert named on his death bed. To a spoiled boy heir, an ineffectual queen, and you, Albert's lord minister designate."

  "Lord Hawke will tell them to get stuffed with poison ivy."

  "Of course he will, but how long can he hold out?"

  "If he can hold out until the harvest, he can hold out until spring. And if he can hold out until spring, he can hold out forever because Sir Leo and his band will be dead of cold and hunger and from then on everyone will swallow whatever the duke dishes out."

  "Well, I see you're feeling discouraged and I suppose I can hardly blame you. But if you ask me, he won't be able to hold out long at all. He hasn't been able to sleep since the day he had the king murdered, and that will wear any man down very quickly."

  I sat down on a fallen tree and put my chin in my hand. I had seen the duke with my own eyes, and it was true that he looked like a mess. Marya had mentioned it too, and it didn't seem far-fetched to her that maybe Albert himself was keeping the duke from sleeping. But what did that all mean for me?

  "Lady Bennett," I said finally, "you came here to give me some advice, is that it?"

  "Stop chopping clods and get involved here. Things can't stay as they are and there's no safety in holding back. Lord Hawke is going to start to crack, and when he does he's going to make mistakes. Get ready for him. Contact the band in the forest. Go secretly and talk to Dugdale and Griswold. Lay your plans and schemes. You're not a serf that belongs to the duke. You are Sir Jack, hero and rightful lord minister of this realm."

  "Why did you come here to tell me this?"

  She surprised me by going down on one knee in front of the fallen tree I was sitting on and gazing earnestly into my face. "I see something in you," she said, laying a hand on my knee. "You have some integrity, some force. That teenage boy and Queen Jenna aren't capable of running a kingdom. The duke might have been a likely ruler in some ways, but he's lost his chance now, don't you see? He made a terrible mistake thinking he could get away with murdering Albert, but it's too late now, and it's going to break him up just like a ship on the rocks."

  "Okay, Marsha, but I still don't know why you're here."

  "Because I want to help you. Because I know how lonely it is at the top, and how easy it would be for you to make mistakes from lack of any practical experience here. Because you're going to need someone to turn to for counsel and advice, someone who has lived here as long as I have, someone who can help you develop your vision of how a kingdom ought to be ruled."

  "Me?"

  "Yes, you, damn it!" she said, jumping up and waving her hand in the air. "Who do you think we're talking about?"

  How long I sat there with my mouth hanging open, I have no idea; but after awhile the idea finally squeezed its way into my brain. This woman wanted to fix me up to be the new king. And she was going to be the woman behind the throne.

  "Is your husband in on this crazy idea?"

  "Oh, poor Bennett," she said with more contempt than sympathy. "He hardly ever really knows what's going on anymore. He's permanently pickled his brain already, it's a terrible shame. He was a man of parts when I married him. But I don't think he's a factor in this at all." She finished up with a kittenish smile that made me very uncomfortable indeed.

  "Lady Bennett, I hate to break this to you, but you're talking to the wrong man. I'm not interested in being a king. I'm not that kind of person at all."

  "I know this must be something of a shock, but you're not the first person to be called to greater responsibilities than you think you're capable of. Trust me, Sir Jack. Be strong and resolute."

  "What I mean to say is that I don't want that job. I'm more the beachcomber type. You'd understand if you saw me in my cut-off jeans."

  "Oh, stop clowning. It doesn't become you as much as you think. There aren't that many jobs to choose from here. Do you want to spend the rest of your life in wooden shoes?"

  "If you're looking for someone to be king, maybe you should try Sir Leo. He's charismatic and he's got his head on straight. He's been here a long time. He knows the ropes."

  "I think not. Sir Leo is an incomparable servitor; none better. But he's not ruling class."

  "There's a soldier named Gordon who has as much class as anybody I've ever met. What about Gordon?"

  "Gordon? I can't believe you're serious. He's never even been to school. I think he was in the Navy."

  "Merchant marines."

  "There, you see?"

  "We need someone with some breeding, eh?" I was feeling a little detached now from this lady from Finch who was so concerned about where people went to school. "What about Griswold? He's read at least a few chapters of Caesar's Commentaries in Latin. I can personally vouch for it."

  "Never! Griswold designates his responsibilities to his peasants and spends his time in rut. He is not so very far from being a socialist!"

  "Dugdale then." I felt like I was looking at her through the wrong end of a telescope.

  "Dugdale has become more manly since he came up here; but what he wants most is to please Charlsey, and all Charlsey wants is to go home to Cambridge. He makes an effective enough earl, but he could never detach himself enough from her problems to be king."

  "So that leaves me?"

  "Let's stop joking, Sir Jack. I'm willing to play along with you for a few minutes while you recline on that tree looking me over like I'm some amusing kind of snob. But now I've had enough of it!"

  "Sorry, Marsha," I said, "and I don't underestimate you. But I frankly think your idea of making a king out of me is a big joke."

  "Oh, you're far from perfect, I admit, and you'd need a l
ot of help, God knows! But the people would embrace you as their ruler without any fuss and that's very important. We could have a stable, smooth-running kingdom again."

  "Marsha, why don't you save me the trouble entirely and just become king yourself?"

  That seemed to please her. "In a way I would be king. There's a vast amount of trouble in managing a kingdom and you'd soon tire of most of it. But as far as running on my own ticket, so to speak, that would be the quickest way I know to start creating factions and divisions and controversy, which is the last thing we want. No, you are the natural choice, the organic choice, whether that pleases you or not."

  I tried to take it all in. "What would happen to the Picts if you became the undercover king behind puppet-hero Jack?"

  "As I see it, the Picts are a cult of Jo Mama's, and when he dies the Picts will evaporate. In the meantime they do no more harm than fairies or leprechauns."

  "And where does Queen Jenna fit in? I don't think you can count on her to evaporate."

  "It will probably be necessary for you to marry her. Ha, ha, Sir Jack! You ought to have seen your face! You must have some strong feelings about the queen. Does she attract you? Never mind, it's none of my business and it doesn't matter. It would be a purely political marriage, and as far as your private lives are concerned you can both do as you please. Of course, if she has a child, you'll have to acknowledge it and make it your heir."

  "Renny is already the heir."

  In the silence of the woods I could almost hear the glistening pink marbles of her brain revolving. "Renny," she said finally, "is a problem. Albert said all the correct things on his death bed. What else could he have said? But we who are left behind with all the problems of this real kingdom, we must interpolate. It would be an unusual boy who was ready to assume a king's power at eighteen, and Renny's just an ordinary boy, rather green, rather spoiled. Fortunately he's only turned fifteen, so we have a few years leeway to consider Renny's succession. A good deal could change in three years. What's more important right now is what will happen in the next three weeks, don't you think?"

  Ben and Matt were bursting with curiosity, but I hardly said a word all afternoon beyond a few simple questions about the work at hand. Feeling hassled and overwhelmed, I sulked and refused even to think about my encounter with Lady Bennett. What I desparately wanted was for people to leave me be for a little while so I could get my feet on the ground. But when could I look forward to that? It was not until Ben and Matt had gone for the day that I was able to shake off my angry feelings.

  "What did Lady Bennett want?" Mora asked me; and it took me a few moments to come up with an answer because I was concentrating on the two delicious smells in the cottage at that moment: supper and Mora.

  "She wanted to go to bed with me, but I told her I was already in love with you."

  "She better not come around here after you, because I will scratch her eyes out!"

  I had meant it for a joke but I should have known better. "I'm sorry, honey. Sometimes I'm not as funny as I think I am. Lady Bennett was here about politics. She thinks Lord Hawke won't be running the show much longer, and they might need me in the government again."

  "She is a spider. You should be careful of her."

  "Why is that?"

  She struggled for her words. "I can't explain what I feel about her, but . . . well, look at her husband. He isn't very happy, that's plain. And they say she wants every little thing her own way."

  That evening I took the time to go carefully over everything that Marsha had said to me. By the time I had worked on my hand, and the dishes were done, and the baby had nursed, and we were ready for bed, I understood that whatever else might be true about Lady Bennett, she was certainly a fabulous manipulator. She was so skillful at it, I realized, that she could tell you right up front how she was going to twist you around her finger and at the same time convince you she was doing you a favor.

  "That's twice in two days," I said to Mora as we were turning in, "that someone has come to recruit me. I could spend a pleasant winter just with you and the baby, but I don't think politics is going to let me."

  "I don't know anything about politics. All I know is the land."

  "Where I came from, politics meant millions of rats a-fighting. My inclination was usually to stay out of it."

  "Yes, I wish you would," she said, snuggling up against me.

  But I knew perfectly well I was going to be dragged into it, and what was so bad about that? What had become of my spirit? Guy Hawke had killed Albert. Didn't I want a place among the people who were going to drag him down? I was still quaking inside from what had happened to me in the dungeon, but mostly it was my useless hand that made me feel helpless and furtive. Without my own right hand to come to my aid in whatever life sent me, I had no confidence and no audacity. Over the last few days it had loosened up a bit, but it had ever so far to go, and I knew that circumstances were not going to give me the time I needed. Things were heating up too fast, and soon I was going to have to make a decision.

  I thought of Leo and Gordon and the others out in the forest. Goodnight, Leo. Goodnight, Gordon. Hope it doesn't rain. There was a twinge of guilt but I shoved it away. Whatever was coming would be here soon enough.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The next morning it was chillier and the rain fell in buckets. Mora poked the thatch around with a pole in her expert way until she had it the way she wanted. Then she stood in the doorway looking out at the weather.

  "How does it look to you?" I asked her.

  "I think we have a little time yet. The rain is still pretty warm. My guess is it will clear tomorrow."

  "I suppose a lot of people will be making bets on the weather today. How do you know when you have to start the harvest?"

  "Everybody knows at the same time. You know because your neighbors know, and they know because you know. Everybody just feels it and then we don't stop working for days and days except to eat and sleep."

  "That's what you do anyway."

  "Oh, no," she laughed. "At harvest time we work."

  "Then what do you call what you usually do?"

  "Going to market and nursing the baby and making the dinner?"

  "And chopping the wood and hauling the water and mucking out the pens and everything else that needs to be done."

  "That's just life. That's the way we live. What else is there to do? Oh, I know a few people who'd rather just drink and sit around all day if they could. But they're not the happy ones. Would you be happy sitting around all day?"

  "What do you do after the harvest is in?"

  "Well, everybody has a good long sleep because we're all worn out. But then we cook and make presents and we go visiting, and there are decorations and costumes to make for the festivals and rehearsals and, well, life doesn't just stop."

  "What about in the dead of winter?"

  "The days are very short, so there's only so much you can do. I can spin by firelight and knit practically in the pitch dark, but I don't like to sew at night. We have some time on our hands in the winter, so we go visiting more and stay at people's houses and tell stories by rushlight. Mickey the smith is a great storyteller. His house is crowded all winter. And that's good for him because you have to bring something when you visit, even if it's just a little bit. There are lots of fun things to do in winter like sleigh rides and sledding and skating on the ponds. I love winter."

  "You said you had cat for dinner last winter."

  "We didn't have to eat the cat until just before spring thaw. Last winter was hard without Dad, but Mom and I had a lot of help from friends. This year I want to do much better."

  The rain had stopped for about an hour when I saw five horsemen start up the path from the market road; one of the riders was Lord Hawke. He held up his hand and three of the riders remained in the road. They were all warriors, heavily armed. The other rider continuing up the path with the duke was my own darling Jenna, complete with a circlet of gold around her brow. S
he had a very guarded look about her. We looked right into each other's eyes but I found no clues there except that she was afraid.

  The duke reined in a dozen paces or so from the cottage door, and I went to meet him. Curiously, my guts weren't churning and my heart wasn't pounding the way they were the last time he paid me a visit.

  Marsha Bennett was right. The duke was deteriorating. Even since our last meeting only days before, I could see the change. The circles went right around his eyes now, so he seemed to be staring out of deep pits. And though his eyes still glittered, it was dimly now, as if the fire was banked in the ashes of his fatigue. I almost felt sympathy for him, but not quite.

  "You look right at home in your commoner's clothes," he said. "Unfortunately, I need your help at court. You can ride behind one of my men. If there's anything you want to bring, get it quickly."

  "My lord wants me in court?"

  "Yes, in court," he said impatiently. "Didn't you hear what I said? You can come back and muck in the dirt some other time if that's what you like to do, but right now I need you to play prime minister."

  "Is this a game?"

  "For you it's a game," he snapped. "What the hell do you know about this kingdom? You're coming back to court with me, and I'm going to tell you what to say and when to say it."

  "My lord does me too much honor."

  "Don't get cute with me, Darcey. This is an opportunity you won't get again."

  "An opportunity to do what? Betray my friends?"

  "What friends?" sneered the duke. "If you mean that little gang in the woods, the sooner they're rooted out of there the better for everyone."

  "I'm really very sorry, my lord," I said, trying to sound as polite and reasonable as I could, for I didn't feel the least bit safe arguing with this man with his crazy, glittering eyes staring out of two black holes. "I'll do anything within reason but I can't help you with that. Surely you can understand."

  "Do you want to die?"

  "No, my lord, I don't want to die," I said, "and I would think you'd had your fill of killing by now—the way you look. How many more people do you want sitting on your chest at night?"