The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality (10 page)

"Please, sir," she began pleading, "don't let my father find out. Please, sir, I'll be more careful, I promise I will."

Gordon said, "The knight asked you what your name is, girl."

She rose quickly to her feet, still holding her torn dress together, and dropped me an awkward curtsy. "I'm Anna, sir."

"Why are you worried that your father will find out?"

"He'll beat me, sir. He'll say I should have been more careful."

"Surely he wouldn't do that, Anna."

She was crying now. "Oh, he will, sir. Please don't tell anyone about this, sir."

Now I was really stumped. We all stood there looking at one another until Gordon said, "Run home now, Anna, and be more careful in the woods."

"Oh, I will, sir," she said, beginning to run. "Thank you, sir," she called to me over her shoulder, and then she was gone.

I got back on my horse and we rode out of the woods and continued up the road. We came to a bridge made of heavy planks. "This is the road that goes to Griswold's manor house?"

"There are trails here which will take you to the earl's manor. But the market road is at the next bridge."

"Why did that girl think her father would beat her?"

Gordon shrugged. "I suppose she knows her own father."

"You're looking at me very strangely, Gordon. Is something wrong?"

"Sir Jack, if you don't mind my saying so, it's going to take more than a day or two for you to understand the way things work around here."

"Are you telling me I should have let them rape that girl?"

"No, no, I would have broken that up myself. But I might not have bloodied the face of the heir to the throne. Calm yourself, Sir Jack, I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm not saying you did anything wrong. If a brawl breaks out on market day, I may knock a few heads together without being quite sure they're the right heads. We have to settle for whatever we do in the moment, I suppose. All I can tell you is that ever since Anna started budding, she's been acting wild and flouncing around, and I'm just not all that surprised, that's all."

"You know her?"

"Of course I know her. I know everybody. Everybody knows everybody."

I thought it over as we rode along. Here was a little kingdom in a river valley, split up into different estates, with several thousand peasants and a sprinkling of nobility. However unlikely the whole idea may have sounded to me two days ago, it was now perfectly real, and the more I saw of it, the more complicated it appeared.

Well, I would have a talk with Albert about it the first chance I got. I didn't think that farm girls getting raped by his nobles' sons was something he would be casual about. Much too vulgar for his taste, surely.

I wondered what he would say when he found out I had smacked the prince around. I wondered why he hadn't mentioned that he had a son, or about the the Picts either—that is, if they existed. I wondered what other big surprises I was in for.

But my thoughts were distracted now that we were coming into the farmlands. West of the bridge I had noticed cart tracks every so often heading into the trees, and I assumed the presence of farms, though I couldn't see them from the road. East of the bridge the cultivated fields began, first on one side of the road, then on both sides, until I could see them stretching far toward the south. Dwellings and barns and pens were visible now, and everywhere there was activity.

Here a man was plowing; here a woman was sowing; here a man split logs with a mallet and wedge; here a woman stirred a great pot with a long stick; here some boys were slaughtering a pig; here some girls carried wash to the river. Traffic increased on the market road until it was full of carts and flocks and people coming and going. Some waved or spoke greetings to Gordon, and everyone peered at me with curiosity. I smiled and nodded and said "Good day," and they bobbed their heads and said "Good day, sir," and the men took off their hats in a friendly way. The women also seemed open and friendly, and the younger ones giggled if I took off my hat to them. In the main all these people seemed busy and happy and prosperous.

Their clothing was all hand-made, heavy and practical. The men dressed mostly in leggings with long shirts in a variety of styles, belted at the waist, and each man had his wallet and his knife. The women wore dresses down to the ground, and many had brightly colored jackets and shawls. There was a definite similarity and medieval flavor in the cut and style of these simple clothes, as though the same designer who had conceived my clothes and Gordon's also had an influence on the clothing of the farmers.

At the crossroads by the second bridge, I had a moment of vertigo similar to the one I had experienced when we all burned our modern clothing. At the bonfire, though, I had been fearful of losing touch with what had been familiar; now I was fearful of losing what was still new and strange. I felt handsome and dashing with my horse and my sword and my feathered hat. I felt excited to have a place in this well designed kingdom as a knight, a fencing master, a friend to the king. For a moment I had a dizzy feeling of loss. I was afraid of waking up and realizing this was all a dream.

"How long have you been here, Gordon?"

"Years and years. So many now that the life I knew before seems as faded as the photos of my grandparents when they were children."

That was exactly what I wanted to hear: that the dream would continue and become my new home and my new life.

"You speak very well. You have a talent for it. What did you do before you came here?"

He smiled shyly. "I thought of myself as a poet, but I made my living as a merchant seaman. When we were at sea, I had plenty of time to read and write to my heart's content. I wasn't published very often, but it opened my heart and mind."

"How did you like that line of work?"

"In the beginning I liked it. I was making money and seeing a bit of the world. Then there came a point when it began to annoy me that we had to burn a million gallons of fuel to bring some chopsticks over from China. I started to have a very bad attitude, but that turned out to be a good thing for me in the end."

"How was that?"

"I knew another seaman who was starting to feel the same way I was. We were both in the same boat, you might say. He said he was going to take some kind of an employment test and he invited me to go along. Six months later we arrived here."

"What kind of test was it?"

"It was one of those tests where you're not supposed to know what you're being tested for. It was a long test. There were several parts to it. I was a hasty man in those days, and I almost walked out on it. Thank God I didn't!"

"You're happy here?"

"I never knew what it meant to be alive before I came here. Everything I did, and everything everybody else did, was for the sake of some nameless butterball somewhere with twenty buttons on his telephone."

"And now?"

He thought for a moment. "I can't explain it. Of course we don't make a way of life out of pointless and wasteful activity, because that wouldn't get us through the winter. But it's much more than that. It's something that you feel. You feel it in your body as well as in your mind. It has to do with what a human being really is. Perhaps you'll see what I mean."

"I'll take your word for it, Gordon. Is your seaman friend here also?"

He grimaced. "I think he's still here, but we're not friends anymore."

"Why not?"

"Because he became a Pict." Gordon slowed his horse and pointed. "Look, there's the monastery."

The monastery graced the top of its own little hill north of the market road, and I sensed once again the presence of that unseen designer who seemed to have a hand in everything here. Harmonious and balanced, as though it had grown organically among the trees that sheltered it, the abbey with its wooden church and outbuildings radiated an aura of peace and serenity.

"Is that a Catholic monastery?"

"No, I don't think so. Not exactly. I guess it is for those who want it to be. For the rest of us, it's just the monastery."

We tied our horses at a long hitching rail, and hung up our weapons in a sort of lean-to which had shelves and pegs for that purpose. "You can bring the cut-meat inside," said Gordon, indicating the dagger on my belt, "in case we stay for supper."

Jenna's horse was tied at the rail along with the horses of the French servants. Albert's horse was not there, nor was Émile's. There were a number of things I wanted to talk to Albert about, and yet I was glad he wasn't there. I wanted a chance to be near Jenna when he wasn't around, and this cloister was as good a place as any. It made me excited just to see her horse.

The first person Gordon and I came across was an elderly man dressed in a brown robe. He was standing by the sanctuary door as though he had been expecting us.

"Hello, Gordon," he said in a kindly voice. "I haven't seen you in quite a while. Who's this you've brought with you?"

"Abbot, this is Sir Jack, our new fencing master."

"Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Sir Jack," said the abbot. "Are you here to hone our dueling skills?"

"No, Father," I said. "I'm here to inspect the kitchen and the wine cellar."

He smiled at that. "What I meant to ask, in a more general way, is what brings you to this kingdom of the apocalypse?"

"Well, that's a good question, Father. Actually I was shanghaied by my old friend, King Albert."

After a pause, he said, "Gordon, would you mind going over to the bakery for me and asking Brother Robert to put on two more plates for supper?"

Once Gordon was gone, the abbot took a couple of deep breaths. "Please forgive me for anything I may have inadvertently done to put you off."

"Oh, that's okay, Father. I . . ."

"No, no," he held up his hand. "I try to put people at ease, but often I seem to make them uncomfortable instead. And I've been looking forward to meeting you."

"You have?"

"Do you know that you're the first new arrival in over a year? The kingdom was finished. That was the general understanding. The roster was complete. The king had some final arrangements to make down south, and then he was going to burn the bridge, once and for all. Now one more person arrives: a new knight and a skilled swordsman, of all things. That's interesting, isn't it?"

"Keep talking, Father, I'm all ears."

"Did you take a test before you came here?"

"No, I didn't take that test."

"And what kind of a briefing did you have, if I may ask?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"What did King Albert tell you about the situation here?"

"Not that much. I've been trying very hard to get my bearings ever since I arrived yesterday."

"And what do you think so far?"

"I'm very impressed. It's quite an amazing place. I've never seen anything like it in my life." The abbot seemed to be waiting for me to go on, but I didn't know what else to say.

"But this is incredible," he said finally. "You really don't have any idea what's going on here, do you?"

"That's what I just got finished saying, Father."

"But that's so hard to believe. Why did the king say he wanted you to come?"

"He said it was lonely at the top."

"Well, so it is. But that doesn't answer the question. Aren't you wondering why he brought you here?"

"I had my doubts that the kingdom even existed until I saw it with my own eyes."

"And now that you've seen it with your own eyes, where do you think you fit in? Farmers till the soil, millers grind the grain, monks keep school and visit the sick. What is Sir Jack here to do?"

"The king said he needed some help."

"With what?"

"He didn't say."

"And you didn't ask?"

"I didn't have anything better to do, Abbot," I said, exasperated by all these questions I couldn't answer. "I was at loose ends. My prospects were uncertain. This opportunity popped up, and here I am."

"Opportunity to do what? This isn't a spa. This is a lonesome candle on the edge of the world. One good puff would blow it out. Now tell me, did you not make any kind of an agreement with the king?"

"It didn't seem necessary."

"But you've already been knighted, isn't that so?"

I had, of course, been knighted, but what did that mean? In my confusion I said, "I was told that if I didn't like it, nobody would try to keep me here."

The abbot looked puzzled, and gave me a long, serious look. "And what did you think that meant, Sir Jack?"

"Well, obviously that I . . . uh . . ."

"It is certainly true that you're free to go," said the abbot quietly. "So are we all. That was the agreement that we all made. If you don't like it, then go. If life is too difficult here, then go. No one will try to stop you. Go, but God be with you, because the kingdom is surrounded by thousands of square miles of trackless wilderness, and the compass hasn't been invented yet!"

"Oh, Jack!" It was Jenna's voice, and I turned toward the sound like a flower turns toward sunshine. "I was wondering what was keeping you."

She had changed into a long-waisted dress with a decorative belt, and she must have known how becoming it was because she spun around to show it off.

My smile must have cracked, because she stopped and peered into my face. "You look strange, Jack. What has Abbot Frederick been saying to you?" That was quite an intuitive leap, I thought, and it made me appreciate her all the more. "Abbot," she said, tapping her foot on the wooden porch, "you have been upsetting our new knight. Why is that?"

"My ladyship . . ." began the abbot, smiling and spreading his palms.

"I am going to ask the king to make Sir Jack into a bishop instead of a knight, and then you will have to kiss his ring."

"It will be my duty and my pleasure to obey you both, my lady," said the abbot. It sounded quite genuine, and my impression was that he liked her.

"Sir Jack," Jenna continued, "if you will be so kind as to come along with me, I have something to show you." When I offered her my arm, she took it and led me off. I did manage one glance at the abbot, by which I meant to convey that the subject of our conversation was still open, and he nodded in return. Jenna did not regard him again. He had been dismissed.