Farther away than it looked

a fragment

It was farther away than it looked. We had started out in the early afternoon, crossing the meadows, aiming for the lichen-mottled tor. The sun was nearly gone before we touched the base.

Distances can fool you out on the flats, whether you are on the sea or on the plains. This particular deception began to ravel hours ago, but Sharlozh had refused to turn back. “And waste all the walking we’ve already done?” he said. When I pointed out that we could not possibly reach the tor and get back home before nightfall, he jeered, “What’s wrong? Are you afraid of the dark?”

“Of course not,” I told him, “but I’m sure your parents will worry.”

“It’s your parents who will worry, since they probably know what a coward you are. My parents will know better.”

I am not sure where he got that idea. Being the companion to the Prince was no job for a coward. I knew, though, much better than he, what dangers lurked in the high grass, unseen even in daylight, and the most terrible were two-legged. I was not permitted to apprise his Highness of this fact. It was treason to suggest that there existed in his father’s realm any unruly element, force of nature, man or beast that he could not command. And yet we subjects all knew of them, were even related to some of them.

Since I could not, on pain of having my tongue torn out like the previous companion, tell the Prince exactly what it was I feared, I had to point out ever more reasons why we should turn back short of our goal, and perhaps try again tomorrow, starting earlier in the day. He was not afraid of getting lost: the plain was entirely flat, and after dark there would be the guard fires to guide us. He wasn’t afraid of missing dinner. The backpack he demanded of the kitchen weighed heavy on my back, stuffed with enough food to see us through a week of missed dinners. He wasn’t afraid of punishment: punishment would fall on me for leading my Prince into any danger we came upon.

I’ve always believed that it was dangerous to allow a person, even a well-protected prince, to grow up so ignorant of the world around him. He was never permitted to gain experiences that would teach him about the borders of safety. No curb of common sense or awareness of consequences protected him from his own willfulness. We bodyguards bore the burden of caution yet had no power to guide his actions accordingly.

We finally reached the tor. Then the prince said he was hungry. I suggested that we eat as we walked back to the city. He refused.

“A Prince reclines to eat,” he said, “and he takes his time.”

He leaned back against the smooth stone wall at the base of the tor and looked at me expectantly. I dropped the backpack from my shoulders and pulled out a tablecloth, a silver goblet with gold tracery, a flagon of wine, and basket after basket of food. He sampled this and that as though he were at a formal banquet and did not seem at all like a truly hungry man. I grew impatient, but he was my Prince and I dared not rush him.

By the time I packed up the leftover food, the silverware, the dishes, the baskets and the silverware, the sun was gone and we were surrounded by gliding shadows.

I placed myself between the Prince and the nearest shadow, but the Prince called out to it by name.

My fear turned to sudden rage but before I could temper it enough to speak, a voice came out of the dusk.

“All is ready, Sharlozh.”

The voice called him by name! In the city, this was an act so unthinkable that no one had even devised a punishment for it.

“Come along, my watchdog.”

“Please, no,” I said. “The King is expecting you. Is expecting us.”

“Even if I did not command it, you must come. If you go to the city without me, the King will believe that you have killed me, or had me kidnapped.”

And if I didn’t go to the city, pursuit would follow faster than I could run.

He eyed me, then said: “You have two choices. You can come with us. Or you can die where you stand.”

So what could I do?

They wouldn’t even tie my hands so that I could later claim that I’d been kidnapped or physically forced.

He didn’t make fatuous promises that everything would be all right, because we both knew that they wouldn’t be. I could go back three-quarters dead, and I would still be executed, no doubt after long torture.

So I walked. In silence. I followed directions and kept my mouth shut. We passed between the still grass, and did not bend the stalks any more than would a deer or some other grazing beast.