The Magic Kingdom of Landover , Volume 1 (21 page)

Ben accepted the suggestion—although it was really less a suggestion than a caution, he thought—and departed Sterling Silver at dawn of the following day for the estates of the land barons. Questor Thews, Abernathy and the two kobolds went with him once again. Ben, the wizard and the scribe rode horseback because the journey to the Greensward was a long one. The kobolds could have ridden, too, had they chosen to do so, but kobolds in general had little use for horses, being quicker of foot and stronger of wind than the best racer that had ever run, and so almost always traveled afoot. Besides, horses were unusually skittish when ridden by kobolds. Ben had no trouble understanding that. Anything that could dispatch a timber wolf, a cave wight, and a bog wump with such ease made him skittish, too.

It was a peculiar-looking group that departed that morning. Questor led the way, his tall, brightly cloaked figure slouched across an old gray that must
have been ready for pasture years ago. Ben followed on Wishbone, a sorrel with the oddly shaped white blaze that gave him his name and a propensity for seizing the bit and bolting. He did that twice with Ben hanging on for dear life each time. Questor, after the second incident, whacked him hard across the nose and threatened magic in horse tongue. That seemed to bring Wishbone to his senses. Abernathy followed atop a white-faced bay gelding and carried the King’s standard with its by-now familiar insignia of the Paladin riding out from the castle at sunrise embroidered in scarlet on a field of white. It was strange indeed to see a soft-coated Wheaten Terrier with glasses and tunic riding a horse and holding a flag, but Ben kept the smile from his face, because Abernathy obviously saw nothing at all funny about it. Parsnip trailed, leading on a long set of guide ropes a pack train of donkeys with food, clothing, and bedding. Bunion had gone on ahead, sent by Questor to advise the land barons that the King of Landover wished a meeting.

“They will have no choice; they will have to receive you,” Questor declared. “Courtesy dictates that they not turn away a Lord whose stature is equal to or higher than their own. Of course, they would have to receive you if you were simply a traveler seeking shelter and food, too, but that is beneath you as King.”

“Very little is beneath me at this point,” Ben replied.

They rode out through the mists and shadows of the early morning, skirted the shores of the lake until they were turned east, then wound slowly to the valley rim. Several times Ben Holiday glanced back through the gray, watching the stark, colorless projection of Sterling Silver against the dawn sky, her towers, battlements, and walls ravaged as if by some nameless disease. He was surprised to discover that it was hard for him to leave her. She might appear as Castle Dracula to the naked eye, and he might find her loathsome to look upon, but he had felt the warmth of her and he had touched the life within. She had been kind to him. She had made him feel welcome. He found himself wishing that he could do something to help her.

He consoled himself with the thought that one day he would.

Then the castle, the mists, and the valley disappeared behind them as the company rode east through forest and hill country toward Landover’s heartland. They traveled steadily for the better part of the day, stopping once for a midday meal and several times to rest, and by dusk they were within sight of the broad sweep of fields, pastures, and farmland that comprised the Greensward.

They made camp that night within a copse of fir on a knoll overlooking pastureland given over to cattle and goats and a cluster of small huts and wooden houses some miles further east. Ben swung down gratefully from Wishbone’s back when Questor brought them to a halt. It had been some time since he had ridden a horse. It had been, in truth, the better part of
twenty years—and that last time had been on a date in college that he would just as soon have forgotten. Now, a world and a lifetime away, he recalled the feeling that came with a long ride—his body stiff, the land still moving about him as he tried to walk, the sensation of the horse still locked between his knees, though he was dismounted. He knew that by tomorrow he would be sore from the shoulders down.

“Would you walk with me a moment, High Lord?” Questor asked and beckoned to him. Ben wanted to throttle the wizard for even suggesting the idea, but he forced his irritation aside and went.

They walked only a short distance to the edge of the knoll and stood shoulder to shoulder staring out across the flatlands below.

Questor’s arm swept the horizon. “The Greensward, High Lord—the estates of the old families, the baronies of Landover. Their domain encompasses more than half of the kingdom. There were but twenty families at last count, and those twenty rule all of the land, its thralls, their villages and families and stock—subject to the King’s will, of course.”

“Of course.” Ben looked out over the valley. “You said twenty families at last count. What do you mean, ‘at last count’?”

The wizard shrugged. “Families merge through marriage. Families accept wardship from stronger families. Families die out—sometimes with a little help.”

Ben glanced at him from the corner of one eye. “Charming. They don’t all get along so well, then, I gather?”

“Just so. United under the old King, they were less disposed to take advantage of one another. Divided under no monarch, they are a suspicious and at times scheming lot.”

“A circumstance that I might be able to use to my advantage, you think?”

The owlish face glanced over. “There is that possibility.”

Ben nodded. “There is also the possibility that their suspicions and schemes might result in them trying to do away with me.”

“Tch-tch,” Questor clucked. “I will be with you, High Lord. Besides, they are unlikely to waste time and effort trying to do away with a King that they regard as essentially worthless. They refused, after all, even to attend your coronation.”

“You are a wellspring of inspiration,” Ben admonished dryly. “Whatever would I do without your support?”

“Oh, well, that is all part of my service to the throne.” Questor either missed the dig entirely or was ignoring it.

“So tell me what else I should know.”

“Just this.” Questor faced him. “In better times, these lands were fertile, the stock fatted, and there were willing thralls enough to make up a dozen armies to serve Landover’s King. Much has changed for the worse, as you will
see on tomorrow’s journey in. But what has changed can be put right again—if you can find a way to secure the pledge of the Greensward’s Lords.”

He glanced over once more, turned, and walked back toward the camp. Ben watched him go and shook his head in disbelief. “I’ll work on it,” he muttered.

It took an hour longer than it should have done to set camp. There were tents to be put up, and Questor took it upon himself to aid the process through use of his magic. The magic inflated the tents like balloons and sent them floating skyward to lodge in the highest tree limbs, and it required all of Parsnip’s considerable athletic skill to bring them down once more. The horses bolted from their tether when Abernathy barked—to his acute embarrassment—after catching sight of a stray farm cat, and it was another hour until they could be caught and brought back around. Then supplies were unloaded, the King’s standards set, the stock fed and watered, and the bedding placed—all without incident.

Dinner, however, was a disaster. There was a stew with beef and vegetables which smelled delicious while cooking, but lost some of its flavor after Questor fueled the cooking fire with a touch of quickening which created a miniature inferno that left the kettle and its contents black and crusted. The fruit of the Bonnie Blues was moderately satisfying, but Ben would have preferred at least one plate of the stew. Questor and Abernathy carped about the behavior of men and dogs, and Parsnip hissed at them both. Ben began to consider rescinding his standing invitation to have them join him for his meals.

It was nearing bedtime when Bunion returned from his journey to the Greensward to advise them that the land barons would be waiting to receive Landover’s new King on his arrival at Rhyndweir. Ben didn’t know what Rhyndweir was and he didn’t care. He was too tired and fed up to care and he went to sleep without worrying about it.

T
hey reached Rhyndweir by mid-afternoon of the following day, and Ben had an opportunity to see for himself exactly what it was. Rhyndweir was a monstrous, sprawling castle seated atop a broad plateau at the joining of two rivers. Towers and parapets lifted skyward out of fortress walls more than a hundred feet high to lance into the mist-shrouded blue of the mid-afternoon skies. They had been traveling east in the Greensward since sunrise, following the labyrinth roadways that wound down through the valley’s lowlands past fields and villages, past farmers’ cottages and herdsmen’s huts. Once or twice there had been the sight of castle walls in the distance, far from where they traveled and almost miragelike in the shimmer of Landover’s sun. But none had been as grand and awesome as Rhyndweir.

Ben shook his head. Sterling Silver was so much the worse by comparison that he hated to think about it.

The homesteads and villages of the common people of the Greensward did not compare favorably either. The fields looked seedy and the crops appeared to be afflicted with various forms of blight. The cottages and huts of the farmers and herdsmen looked ill-kept, as if their owners no longer took pride in them. The shops and stands of the villages looked dingy and weathered. Everything seemed to be falling apart. Questor nodded knowingly at Ben’s glance. The Lords of the Greensward spent too much time at each other’s throats.

Ben turned his attention back again to Rhyndweir. He studied the castle in silence as the little company approached from the valley it commanded on a roadway running parallel to the northernmost of the rivers. A scattering of village shops and cottages lined the juncture of the rivers in the broad shadow of the castle, forming a threshold to its gates. Thralls watched curiously as the company crossed a wooden bridge spanning to the castle approach, their tools lowered, their heads lifted in silent contemplation. Many had the same worn but expectant look on their faces as those who had come to the Heart.

“They have not seen a King of Landover make this journey to their master’s castle in twenty years, High Lord,” Questor spoke softly at his elbow. “You are the first.”

“No one else made the effort?” Ben asked.

“No one else,” Questor replied.

Their horses’ hooves clumped off the bridge planks and thudded softly in the dusty earth. Ahead, the roadway lifted toward the walls of the castle and the open gates. Pennants flew from the parapets at every turn, brilliant silks fluttering in the wind. Banners hung from stanchions above the gates, and heralds stepped forward to sound their trumpets in shrill blasts that shattered the afternoon quiet. Lines of knights on horseback formed an honor guard on either side of the gateway, lances lifted in salute.

“This seems a little much, given everyone’s attitude about the coronation, don’t you think?” Ben muttered. His stomach had the same hollow feeling it always developed before major court appearances.

Questor’s owlish face was screwed into a knot. “Yes, this does appear to be a bit overdone.”

“When anyone’s this overly friendly in my world, it’s time to watch your backside.”

“You are in no danger, High Lord,” the wizard responded quickly.

Ben smiled and said nothing. They had reached the gates, passing down the corridor formed by the honor guard, the blare of the trumpets still ringing across the valley. Ben took a quick count. There were at least a hundred
knights in the guard. Armor and weapons glistened brightly. Visored helmets stared straight ahead. The knights were iron statues that kept their place and did not stir. Ben sat rigid atop his mount. Every muscle in his body ached from yesterday’s ride, but he refused to let the pain show. This wasn’t just a reception line—this was a show of strength. This looked to be a case of who could impress whom. He glanced back at his little entourage of Questor, Abernathy and the kobolds and wished he had a bit more to work with.

They rode into the shadow of the gateway through the towering walls and the great woven banners. A delegation waited in the court ahead, a gathering of men afoot, robed and jeweled.

“The Lords of the Greensward,” Questor breathed softly to Ben. “The tall one, the one who stands foremost, is Kallendbor, master of Rhyndweir. His is the largest of the estates, and he the most powerful of the Lords. Look for him to take the lead in what is to follow.”

Ben nodded and said nothing. He had forgotten the ache in his body, and his stomach had settled. Already, he was considering what he would say—very much as if he were about to argue a case in court. He supposed that was what he was going to have to do, in a sense. It was going to be interesting.

Questor brought the company to a halt a dozen yards from the assembly of Lords and looked at Ben. Together, they dismounted. Pages came forward to take the reins. Abernathy remained on his horse, the King’s banner hanging limp from its staff. Parsnip and Bunion stood to either side, crouched expectantly. No one looked very comfortable.