Free Lyrec by Gregory Frost Page B

as Reeterkuv moved among his horses. Their coats were sleek, though the dull sky preceding dawn contained no source to show off the sheen. The sun lay somewhere behind the trees; a hint of it glazed the tip of the tavern chimney.
    Reeterkuv patted a nuzzling horse and murmured his assurance to it that soon they would be going. He watched the smoke and his stomach grumbled. Yes, they would leave soon enough, but first he would have his breakfast. He imagined he could smell the corn pudding that Grohd stirred at this very moment in the cauldron beneath the chimney, although there was no breeze and the smoke rose straight into the sky.
    Reeterkuv ducked beneath the wagon tongue and began checking the harnesses on his lead horses. The next trip could only be an improvement, he thought. By the time he returned from Miria with new passengers, the death of the king would be old news. Most probably the people who would ride with him on his return northward would be on their way to see the boy given the crown. He sincerely hoped so. Such people would speak of nothing but the coming festivities, and what they would wear and how much they might drink, and who might be there to see. Oh, yes, a little celebrating could do no harm just now, especially if it silenced the bickering over blame. Such profligate lies! The king had been a good enough man. He had tried to end oppression, superstition and intolerance. He deserved tears and grief on his passing; what worried Reeterkuv was the frenzy with which people would turn to celebration in order to forget their grief—never thinking in all that time that a child never actually govern them. Who would run the kingdom? Someone had to make policy. Who? Reeterkuv did not know much about the way a kingdom was run, but he thought he did. He envisioned a boy surrounded by nameless faceless advisors, all of whom had personal interests, all of whom must surely be greedy and untrustworthy. Reeterkuv saw the world changing and that he feared above all else. No one likes to wake up and find that today’s world is not the same as yesterday’s.
    “I should like to be a horse,” he muttered to one of the lead animals. “What do you care which wagon you pull, eh? You do your work, you get your feed, someone brushes you …”
    He did not know exactly what it was that made him pause in his thoughts. Something caught his eye, drawing his attention to the dark road. He couldn’t see anything. He listened, but heard no sound.
    Then, as he began to turn away, a rider appeared out of the murky distance. A second one followed close behind, and then a third, wearing a helmet. They came on at a steady, purposeful canter. Soldiers.
    Reeterkuv squinted until he could make out for certain the color of their tunics. When he did, he turned and ran.
    In the tavern, Grohd stood over the cauldron. One hand clutched a huge wooden spoon and stirred the pudding slowly. The other hand balanced a stack of wooden bowls.
    The door crashed open and slammed back against the wall. The spoon jumped from Grohd’s hand. He groped for it as it settled out of sight in the pudding, which in turn caused the carefully balanced bowls to tip from his other palm and splatter into the yellow concoction. He managed to retrieve one, but the rest were sucked under in the time it took him to pull it out. The pudding eructed appreciatively. Grohd swung around, furious, his pudding-daubed fingers working like claws. Then he saw the expression on Reeterkuv’s face.
    “Soldiers!” shouted Reeterkuv to everyone in the room. “Orange, Ladomantines! On the road right now, they’re coming.” He realized he was yelling, and made himself continue more calmly. “If you’ve got valuables—money, anything you treasure—give it to Grohd to hide right now.” No one moved. They stared at him dumbly. “Well, don’t weigh it in your minds, you’ve only a minute.” He leaned over and flung the door shut at his back.
    People hurried to the bar and