Traveling with twelve men, he had no fear from bandits, and thus was surprised when they were set upon on their second day, before even reaching Leghorn. The bandits, silent and unobserved, had been invisible inside a grove on one side of the road, and behind a crumbling wall on the other, and when Trinian’s band marched directly between them, they leapt out, bows drawn and ready to kill. Trinian halted.
“Unseat yourselves, and deliver up your goods!” said the only man without a bow, clearly the leader.
“We have no goods,” Trinian spoke before Phestite could. “We are on a diplomatic journey to Leghorn.”
The man openly sneered. “Death take me, a diplomatic mission? And are you also women and beggars? Come, you have purses – unload them.”
Phestite spoke quickly when Trinian flushed and would have retorted.
“May I?”
Trinian nodded.
“What funds we have would service you nothing,” Phesite spoke firmly. “We are fugitives, fleeing the wrath of the new king of Drian, Lord Trinian. He is a fierce master, who drives out any who oppose him, and he is now turning his gaze toward the wilderlands. Soon, he will drive you all out, if you are not careful.”
The lead bandit studied him through slitted eyes. “You don’t look like fugitives.”
“No. We had warning of our impending capture and managed to flee before he threw us, one and all, to the hangman’s noose.”
“And what, may I ask, did noble soldiers such as yourselves do to bring down the king’s wrath, eh?” He laughed roughly, and his men with him.
“We are gatesmen, and we failed to stop the gorgans from flooding the city of Drian.”
The bandits swallowed hard and shifted uncomfortably at that. Rumors of gorgans, especially of the damage done in South Drian, had reached even their secluded homes. They certainly did not want to deal with anything like that, and seemed uncomfortable around people who had dealt with them.
“And these gorgans – did the king drive them out?”
“He did. But now he wants to tame the surrounding lands, to keep the gorgans from overrunning everything and killing all men and woman who live in Minecerva. And he thinks we would just let them run wild over us.” There was an uncomfortable shuffling about, and mild grunts from the men. “But we would see them to the grave in no time, you can be sure of that.”
They nodded understandingly. They lacked the insight to realize the unlikeliness of Phestite’s story. That he would speak with such deep respect of the king who disgracefully rode him out of town did not occur to them. But the chance of being overtaken by gorgans certainly did.
“Well,” said their leader at last. “Normally we’d take your weapons and all, but under the circumstances, we can’t afford to have gorgans getting strong off your flesh. If you can kill a few, that’s a better thing for all of us. So we’ll just take your money and let you get on.”
Trinian kept his mouth shut, curious how Phestite would maneuver out of this as well. The general, usually so stoic and unreadable, looked nervous and as though he would argue, but then he shrugged and nodded reluctantly. “Very well. That’s only fair. Boy,” he gestured to Kett, “give them the purse.”
Kett rode forward and pulled out his own personal money bag, which was small and insignificant compared to the ones Phestite, Trinian, and even Gorj were concealing under their belts.
He held it out and the bandit approached him, but then the boy got nervous and tossed it. It landed in the dust, and the bandit snarled at him, snatched it up, and waved his hand angrily.
“Get on with you all before I change my mind!” and in a last effort to assert his authority, he cried out, “And tell anyone you see it was Hedger that stole of ya!”
And putting their horses to a gallop, they left Hedger and his robbers far behind, both groups laughing at the other’s expense when they were far from earshot.
69
The Squire of Leghorn
Trinian was now deep in the wilderness, far from home, far from his family, and far from Gladier. Behind, he had left his kingdom in the hands of a man ill-equipped to defend it, and before, he moved forward to form alliances with countries he did not know.
He kept silence as he rode and ran over a script in his mind to deliver to the steward of Leghorn. He planned to stress the historical importance of an alliance between Leghorn and Drian, to emphasize the connectivity the lands once shared with each another: the protection from enemies, good roads, and easy trade and travel that could once again be theirs. Emperor of a world over which he had no jurisdiction, Trinian attempted to form the perfect words of persuasion to convince Minecerva to defend itself, and he memorized every word of an argument he was certain was unassailable.
When Trinian led his men through Leghorn, entering the town as possessive hens enter a henhouse, loudly clomping through the streets and drawing all eyes to their strangeness, he loudly called out to speak with the steward, only to be met with odd looks and puzzled glances. He saw they did not understand him and amended his request, asking instead for the Governor, Lord, or Squire. Squire brought recognition, and he and his men were given directions to the estate of Squire Hagar on the other side of town.
Trinian had known, of course, that various towns and cities had leaders with specific titles. Asbult himself had an official title of Governor of the Western Arm of Drian, but that title bowed before the marked respect of ‘steward’, and Trinian was disconcerted that these people did not follow that custom. They did not even seem to know who, or what, a steward was.
Steward Hagar was a large man with a broad, red face and a full belly. It jiggled when he walked, which he did confidently with his stomach thrust forward, his shoulders back, and his thumbs nestled in the grooves of his suspenders. But aside from his walk, there was nothing to set him apart from other men, for he wore comfortable farmer’s clothes and thick, muddy boots.
“How can I help you, sir?” he asked, with a curious glance at their ostentatious blue and silver armor.
“Steward Hagar,” began Trinian, and the man interrupted him with a startled wave of his hand.
“No steward here, sir, for time out of mind. We’re our own little hamlet, let that be enough for us, and we’re quite comfortable about it. Call me Squire; everyone else does, and it’s a comfortable name. No waiting for empty prophecies – that was my father’s way of thinking, and his father’s before him. We’re simple folk, caring for ourselves and our descendants, and the rest of the world’s got little to do with us. No stewards stewarding for a lost king here.”
Trinian tried again. “Squire, have you heard that the prophecies of the king have come true in Drian?”
“Aye, have they now? We heard something about that, but it’s little to do with us. He’s king of Drian, let that be enough for him.”
Trinian sat straighter in his saddle. Neither he nor his men had yet dismounted, but sat astride their horses in Squire Hagar’s courtyard, and Trinian was irritated that the man had not invited them in, but even more so that he refused to hear his carefully planned speech. So, dropping his prepared words, he exclaimed abruptly, “The king has returned to Drian, and I am he!”
The squire gaped at him a moment, and his stomach sagged a little. Then, all at once, he was asking them in and calling for his wife to feed them, his stable-boys to unhorse them, and his servants to bring them water for washing.
A flurry of people and activity swept Trinian and his men along like a hurricane, until the king found himself seated in an inner room with the Squire, his wife, Phestite, and Kett.
“So, you say you’re the king of Drian, do you? Well, I’m surprised with myself but I believe it. Don’t you believe it, Lenora?”
The Squire’s wife, gray streaks in her brown hair and just plump enough to look spry and healthy, studied Trinian with the careful gaze of a mother doe and nodded. “He does at that. Has a natural, regal bearing about him.”
“That’s it. I suppose I could have turned yo
u away for a liar, but I’m curious to hear you out, and inclined to believe you.”
So Trinian, trusting to their good nature and honest faces, leaned forward and delivered with precision and elegance his prepared speech. Unity, safety, and prosperity he emphasized with all the emphasis he could bequeath them, seeking to draw out their long-forgotten feelings of loyalty to the capital as a farmer draws out cream from sour milk. When at last he finished, he leaned back in his seat, satisfied that these good, hard-working people must understand the importance of his words and intentions. He trusted that they would pledge allegiance to the capitol and join him in his fight against the east. He drank his beer calmly in the weighted silence, not noticing the tenor of the significant glances between husband and wife.
“It’s like this,” Lenora told him slowly, “we are hard-working people, who never interfered with others, and don’t let others interfere with us.”
There was a patient silence.
“We’s honest,” the Squire said. “And never asked anything from anyone we couldn’t do ourselves. We’ve protected our own for five-hundred years, and who’s to say we couldn’t do so now? In all this time without a king we haven’t missed him, and we’ve puttered along just fine. Our people are happy and prosperous, and we mean to leave them so when we pass on and another generation takes our place. It’s the way of the world.”
In all these words, they were trying to tell him something he could not imagine, and so he did not hear it. Finally, Hagar leaned forward and said earnestly, “We don’t need a king, see. Maybe he needs us, but we’re happy as we are and I see no reason to change it. We don’t owe anyone anything, least of all the king of Drian, begging your pardon. He’s never done anything for us.”
Trinian went pale and the man saw it and said kindly, “We’re sorry for your troubles. Really, we are. And a spirit trying to kill your family is a bad fix – one I pray to Leghorn’s god never overtakes us. And I hope you win against it. You must pray to your natural gods. But your gods are not our gods, and ours are not yours. We share nothing in common, you must see that. Not gods, not land, not family. It’d be wrong for me to send my young men away from their homes, to a far-off place, to fight for a battle that is not theirs.”
Trinian’s mind was reeling faster than a galloping horse. All his arguments had turned to dust in the squire’s mouth, and he did not know how to respond. The young king felt that the old man was wrong, but his words seemed right. Beneath the sense of the Squire’s words, Trinian knew a deeper truth – a truth he had learned from direct experience with evil – but he did not know how to articulate it. He knew that all men were accountable to each other, especially when one asked aid of another. In his bones, he felt that all men must band together against great evil lest that evil infect all men. But he did not know how to articulate the feeling. He was swimming lost in a sea of words, his mind blank, his heart overfilling with fear so that he feared it would burst.
Hagar rose from the table. “We’ll give ya lodging and food tonight, but tomorrow I must ask that you get on your way. It’s important that you not stay and try to recruit my men. You might not try to, but some of the young one’s are impressionable, and if they heard your story… well, they might leave home against my word.”
Trinian wanted to cry out in anger and desperation, but his throat was dry and no words came. He gaped like a schoolboy, and in the end, he and his men left town the next morning. The unassailable arguments in his head, he now found, were assailable, and even he did not know how to argue against them. How could he recruit men to defend the east if they cared for no one but themselves? That even good men could turn him away scared him most of all, and he wondered how he would convince the corrupt. But the greatest fear that weighed him down was whether Hagar was correct. Did Trinian have a right to ask for aid from those who were not yet in danger?
70
Tarfan’s Bandits
The next day they visited the next town, and here they had no more luck than the last. And although the arguments against joining with Drian were the same, they were harder to hear, for the governor of this place was sleazy, small-minded, and suspicious, and practically glared Trinian and his men out of town. In the wake of a second defeat, Trinian’s doubts, fears, and anxieties tripled, and he grew ever more desperate to sort out his own arguments.
That night, he lay beneath the open sky, unwilling to take rooms in the inn of another unfriendly town. He lay on his back gazing up at the stars and wrestling with his doubts, turning them over like dogs wrestling in the streets, first one on top, and then the other.
He listened to Kett’s quiet breathing at his feet, and smiled despite himself. It amazed him how quickly the boy could fall asleep. Yet he knew from experience that if he stirred even a bit, his servant would sit up immediately, attentive to his master’s every need. Trinian had a fierce affection for him. He was not sure why he had made Kett his personal servant instead of simply assigning him to the squadron, but he felt that it was important, somehow, for him to have someone who was just his. Someone he could trust unquestioningly, and who had access to all that he thought and knew. He was beginning to accept, at last, that he needed friendship and counsel.
Suddenly, Kett moaned and sat up, gasping heavily into the darkness, awakened from a nightmare; after a moment, the youth gained his bearings, let out a heavy sigh, and fell back against his blanket. Trinian was sensitive to the boys’ privacy and said nothing, so he was surprised when, after a minute, Kett spoke to him, seeming to know with an inner sight that his master was wide awake.
“Do you ever have bad dreams, sire?”
Trinian sighed. “Yes,” he admitted ruefully. “Every night.”
“Seems impossible not to,” pursued the boy, “seeing as, even when we wake, the world is still a nightmare. Sire, is that why you don’t sleep?” he asked.
Ah, so he had deduced Trinian was awake because he was always awake. Well, that was true – he had gotten very little sleep since leaving the capitol. “My dreams are not about gorgans or demons, Kett. They are about losing my family and failing my kingdom. I fear failure, and that torments my mind so that I cannot close my eyes.”
“You put a lot on yourself, sire.”
“Because everything is already all on me.”
“Don’t say so sire. I’d do anything to help you, and so would any man in Drian.”
Trinian smiled grimly in the darkness, realizing that the boy had misunderstood him. “Yes,” he agreed. “But I alone must face the dark lord, for it is my birthright that he desires. And I alone must find an answer to defeat him, for he said so himself. I must find the answers, but the answers are so very difficult to find.”
Kett shifted about in the darkness, dissatisfied and silent, and Trinian returned to his own restless thoughts. He tried to run over what to say at the next city, but the words jumbled about in his head and to clear it, he fretted fitfully on his blanket: roots dug into him every which way, bugs buzzed in his ears, and every little sound made him more awake. He was weary of being tired and not sleeping.
“Kett,” he whispered after a moment, but the boy did not respond; so much for waking up at the king’s slightest movement. Trinian sighed and kicked his cloak off. Then the night air bit into him, and grumbling, he grabbed it and pulled it back on again.
It was then, suddenly and without a warning, that he felt cold steel against his throat. He started, and a voice spoke quietly. “Tell your men to wake up and leave their weapons on the ground. You’re surrounded, and I’ll slit your throat if I must. Tell them to stand in a line before the fire.”
Slowly and carefully, Trinian did as the voice commanded, and presently, his men were all strung out like washing behind the fire. Trinian was now standing, held apart from the rest by his invisible attacker. He scanned his men – their faces lit by the flames – and frowned when he realized Kett was missing.
“Now that you’re all awake,” said the invisible man, who spoke with a sm
ooth, commanding voice, “I’m going to talk quiet with your leader; but if any of you try anything, my men will stick you like skewered meat. Kart, show em.”
Kart, a gnarled old man with an arced bow at the ready, materialized out of the shadows where before, nothing and no one had been visible.
“I’ve got twenty such all around,” announced the leader, and once again, the archer disappeared into the shadows. “You try anything, I kill your leader. And if I don’t come back, my men kill you. Tell ‘em,” he prodded Trinian.
“Try nothing,” Trinian commanded Phestite. “I will be fine.”
Phestite nodded, and the man pulled Trinian away from the fire toward a collection of ancient stones, crumbling and cracking, and sat him on one of the steppes, out of earshot of the others.
“Now – I’ve got to get an ear full from you, and you’re gonna give it. I’ve been hearing words from folks I don’t like to hear, and rumors misting like ghosts, and scaring my men just as much.”
“What have you heard?” asked Trinian evenly.
“About gorgans and kings and what not.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Don’t dance around a bush. Tell me what you know – and I’ll know if you’re lying.”
Trinian doubted that very much, but he had nothing to gain by falsehood. He paused to plan his speech, but thinking better of it, he simply launched in. He spoke the truth to this vagabond – without fancy speech, large words, or practiced emphasis, he spoke the entirety of it. From becoming king, to meeting Power, to fighting for Drian, to learning that the god was of the high heavens and not the earth, his words poured over each other in a natural, honest cadence, and the other man listened, spell-bound.
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