The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality (39 page)

Close to a thousand people were ready to rush together and mangle each other; a few hundred more were spread around the edge of the forest. The time of handclasping and embracing was over. These last-minute exchanges were necessarily all too brief, and the message was always the same:
If we don't see each other again, it was good to know you.
Now there was nothing left to do but fight.

"I still don't like this," I said to Leo. "Why did he decide to fight us in the field when he could box himself up in that castle? We outnumber them, don't we?"

"Yes, my lord," said Leo. "We have the margin by well over a hundred."

"Those peasants," I said, pointing at their line, "are not eager for this fight. They would all go home if the duke's cavalry wasn't riding herd on them."

"I'm sure that's true," said Leo.

"Is there something we haven't thought of? Has he got people hidden inside the walls ready to attack us when the time comes?"

"I don't think so, my lord."

"Then how do you explain this?"

"I don't know what to say, my lord. Maybe he's too tired to think clearly."

I had been watching the duke, but at that distance he was just a shape that paced on the battlement, or sat in that ugly chair.

"My lord," said Leo, "I think it's time."

We exchanged a look that was eloquent with unanswered questions about the human predicament. "All right, Leo. Let's do what we have to do."

I lifted my arm in the air and looked up and down our line. Then I saw the lone rider approaching the field on her distinctive mare. Wearing a sedate riding costume and wrapped in her customary aura of self-possession and infallibility, she entered the meadow between the two armies at a dignified trot, and no one yelled, "Hey, lady, can't ya see . . ?" We all knew that Marsha Bennett knew exactly what she was doing, and we were obliged to wait to find out what it was.

When she came to the middle of the killing ground, she reined in her mare, and after pausing to make sure she had everyone's attention, she said in a voice which could easily be heard along both lines, "Peter, James, and Michael! Come along with me!"

Thousands of eyes now shifted to Lady Bennett's three boys and their father, who sat their horses together among Lord Hawke's cavalry. "Aw, Mom!" exclaimed the oldest boy, snatching off his helmet in a gesture of frustration and protest.

Lady Bennett nudged her horse to a walk and rode directly toward them. "You heard me, Peter," she said. "James, Michael, come out of there this minute!"

Lord Bennett looked shaky and ill and very much on the defensive. "Marsha, this is intolerable!" he cried, trying to draw himself up in an imposing manner. But there was neither force nor vitality behind his complaint.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Terry," Lady Bennett told him. "I'll speak to you when we get home. Peter, James, Michael! I will
not
say it again!"

Furious and embarrassed but unable to resist her, the oldest boy clapped his heels to his horse and galloped off the field, down the road, around the bend, and out of sight. She paid no attention to him as he went by, instead keeping her focus on the other two boys, who rode out to meet her and reined in several yards away.

Turning her eyes one last time toward her husband, Lady Bennett shook her head. Everyone on that field was witness to that look of disappointment and dismissal. Lord Bennett was trying to look angry, but he was crumbling before our eyes. Finally he flicked the reins against his horse's neck and rode slowly away out of the press of the duke's cavalry, away from his wife, away from the crowd, away from his shame.

A scream of rage from the battlements: "Bennett!" But there was no response from the retreating figure. "Bennett!"

For just a second I thought I could see, even at that distance, the duke's eyes glowing bright red in their black sockets. "Bennett!" screamed the duke for the third time, his voice croaking from the strain. But Bennett gave no indication that he had heard. A dying man has his own priorities.

"Farmers!" announced Lady Bennett. "There is no need for you to stay and fight in Lord Hawke's lost cause. The harvest is beginning and there is work to be done. You are free to go to your homes!" Without waiting for a response, she urged her horse to a trot and ushered the two boys quickly out of the path between the two armies.

Now there was a chaotic jostling all through the ranks of the peasants in front of the castle. Lord Hawke leaned out over the battlements and bawled orders to the captains of his cavalry, who began yelling orders in their turn. Then the duke's cavalry began to press inward from the flanks to maintain the lines by penning the peasants between the horsemen. Marsha Bennett was standing up as high as she could in her stirrups, staring straight at me, and pointing with her outstretched arm at the center of the duke's unstable line. It was an eloquent message without any words.
Well, don't you see what I've done for you? What are you waiting for?

If we could split that rebellious energy down the center and turn it outward toward the flanks . . .

"Forward now!" I shouted. "Quick step! Follow me! The center! The center!" Our army began to move, heavy at first, then faster and faster still.

"Lances now! Keep together! The center!" Down came our steel-tipped spears, all pointing right into the vortex of all that desperate energy. Glancing for a split second up at Lord Hawke, I had the fanciful impression that he was tearing that massive, carved chair in half with his bare hands, but I had no time to wonder about what I thought I had seen.

"Together now and charge!" I bawled at the top of my lungs and the army responded with a roar that must have echoed for miles with the vehemence of its pent-up anger as we hurtled across that meadow toward the castle. And the duke's line split just at the point where our lances were aimed; the two halves of the duke's line surged against the cavalry that sought to contain them. I was still shouting wildly, screaming and crying with all the feelings that had been stuffed inside me since Albert's death. It seemed as if all the frustrated feelings of my whole life were coming up at the same time; I was wailing like a banshee as our army charged.

To my left I saw Renny dashing ahead of the army at a full gallop with his sword waving high over his head. "Renny, stay with us!" I yelled after him, but he was already some twenty yards ahead of the charge; and little wonder he didn't hear me because everyone on that field was screaming. The duke's cavalrymen were screaming threats at the peasants who were screaming as they tried to make a run for it. We were screaming as we charged. All the people who ringed the field at a distance were screaming. The whole world was screaming. I lashed up my mount and took off after Renny.

Then Renny did a strange thing. He dropped his reins and his sword and both his arms went out to the sides in an odd, submissive gesture; he was falling backwards, relaxed and careless, and under him his horse was falling too.

Now my own horse was falling under me, and I hit the ground hard in my leather armor. I barely managed to roll with my fall and now I was running toward Renny and my brain was racing too, because I knew something had gone terribly wrong but I couldn't figure out what.

When I came up to Renny I could see right away that he was dead. His face was mangled and he was covered with blood. He didn't look like Renny or even like a boy anymore.

What could have done that to him? Looking over my shoulder I was amazed to see that our charging army was reeling and falling in impossible confusion, horses and people just tumbling to the earth like trees struck by lightning or wheat nipped off by the scythe.

Renny's horse was lying dead on its side and I was taking cover behind it even before I knew what I was taking cover from. There was an evil thumping under all that screaming that didn't belong in our kingdom and didn't exist in our time. It belonged to that time of the everlasting cacophony of the machines, and suddenly I recognized the thumping of that machine gun that was the sudden death of our entire cause.

Pulling my knees up, I tried to get my whole body behind the meatiest part of that dead horse. At the same time I was trying to get as flat to the earth as I possibly could. Peeking out from under my arm I could see our army in rout. Those who could run were running; those who could run no longer were crawling or kicking or just lying on the ground like rocks or logs. Our cheering section had fled into the woods. It was all over, and it had only taken a few moments.

"Darcey! Where are you? Come out and let's play!" The screaming had been replaced by the wailing of women and the groaning and crying of the wounded, and now I could hear the duke clearly, shouting in his triumph. "Where are you, Darcey? Don't you want to fight me? Is that you over there?"

Several puffs of dust showed me where the machine gun bullets were hunting along the ground for my flesh. The bullets slammed into one of the bodies on the meadow, flipping it rudely over. But it wasn't me. It was all that was left of Sir Maynard, his high spirits and his laughter gone, nothing now but bloody meat.

"You spoiled it, Darcey! This is all your fault, you know!" the duke shouted. "Can you hear me? Albert and I were playing for the castle and the woman, and I was winning because I always win, Darcey! It was none of your business!" I wanted very badly to get a look at him. For all my fear of the bullets I wormed my way toward the front end of that horse and peeped out with one eye between the shoulder bone and the slope of the neck.

"Come out, Darcey! Let's have a little swordfight, you and I. Do you like my sword? I knew I would never need it against silly old Albert, but I kept it for a rainy day. Wasn't that prudent of me?"

There he was, all alone up on the battlements, crouching over the heavy weapon that had been concealed in his chair. It was some tripod-mounted monster that fed from a bullet belt that trailed down into the innards of the chair. Now he squeezed off a burst, but the bullets weren't aimed at me. If he had known where I was, he could have blown me to pieces, horse or no horse, for I was fairly close to the castle wall. For the moment I was safe, but I couldn't just lie there. His soldiers would surely be riding out soon to do the mopping up. They would find me, and off I would go to the dungeon or the chopping block.

"I don't see you out there, Darcey," bawled the duke. "But I'll find you, never fear. You're through making your little messes in my kingdom. No more chances now!"

I considered jumping to my feet and making a dash for the woods, but the odds did not appeal to me. I had no options. I couldn't run and I couldn't hide.

"I'll make you a deal, Darcey. Show your face and I'll kill you now. Otherwise you'll eat rats in the dungeon until you die, damn you!"

Should I just stand up and have done with it? I would join Albert and we could haunt him day and night until both his eyes turned into black holes of howling insanity.

"Anderson!" shouted the duke to one of his captains. "Take a troop and search the field. If Jack's dead, bring me his head. If he's not, bring me the man alive."

The peasants had all fled. Only the duke's cavalry remained, lined up near the wall. The captain who the duke had spoken to was a very large man with a face as big as a ham and close-cropped sandy hair. I had it in my mind that the duke's soldiers were all aggressive and cruel, but this man just looked shocked. He held his helmet in one huge hand that was gnarled and knotted from working in the soil; and rather than jumping to carry out his orders, he sat motionless on his horse.

"Snap to it, Anderson!" said the duke sharply. "Get out there and bring me what's left of Jack the Jester!"

But the captain wasn't paying attention to the duke. Now he was looking around at the other men, and they were looking around at each other. They all looked shocked, and they looked embarrassed too.

Now I began to hear again the terrified wailing of the women and the children on the outskirts of the battlefield, and the agonized groaning of the wounded. Anderson slowly dismounted. Bending over, he picked something up from the ground. I was just close enough to see that it was a brass casing from one of the machine gun slugs. The sun glinted on the metal as he put it up to his nose and sniffed at it. Finally, he dropped it on the ground, turned toward the duke, and said quietly, "I'm sorry, m'lord, but it's harvest time." Then he pitched his helmet away like a rotten melon.

"You dare!" screamed the duke, beside himself. "You're under arrest! Krystoff!" he shouted, pointing to another of his captains. "Put this man under arrest and then go and find Jack!" The duke's brow was beaded with sweat and his voice was cracking with tension.

Anderson and Krystoff exchanged a look. Then Krystoff looked over his shoulder at the duke and said, "I would, my lord, but it's harvest time." He unstrapped his helm, and let it fall to the ground.

"It's harvest time," said a third soldier, brushing off his helm and unbuckling his harness. The words echoed down the line as the cavalry divested itself of arms and armor.

Snarling, the duke snapped the barrel of the machine gun around, but there was not enough space between the crenels of the parapet for him to bring the gun to bear on the men directly below him. "Damn you!" he shrieked. "You'll rot in the dungeon, every one of you!"

The men paid no attention to his threats. Before my astonished eyes his soldiers were turning back into the farmers they had been before falling under his spell so long ago, and soon the ground was littered with the iron paraphernalia of war. With a terrible howl of rage and hate, the duke ripped the heavy machine gun loose from its mounting in the chair and stumbled with it back away from the parapet, dragging the bullet belt behind until I could no longer see him.

Suddenly there was a horrible screech of iron on iron and I thought
Oh God, what now?
But it was the massive chains of the drawbridge as it came crashing down; and over the bridge swept a wave of women with their hands full of bandages and blankets and buckets and stretchers, running out onto the field.