Mildred listened to the fire in the man’s words. At the top of the next turn of the stairway, she came out onto the mouth of a tree that opened over a cul-de-sac.
Small buildings littered the land before her, spilling down the gentle grade toward a twisting stream that glinted in the afternoon sunlight. In between each dwelling and every road, a garden grew, sometimes on different levels as vines and growths were curled up along strings instead of being allowed free run along the ground, optimally maximizing the available space. All of them looked luxuriant. Carts and oxen appeared to be the major form of transport. Men on horseback in green garb and wearing the silver patch of Boldt’s personal army cycled within the populace. They gave the appearance of being more oppressive than defensive.
Mildred immediately recognized the presence as martial law. People walking along the streets beside the men on horseback didn’t look up, just kept their gaze directed toward the ground and kept on moving.
“This is Wildroot,” Boldt said.
If she’d been viewing the countryside under other circumstances, Mildred admitted to herself that she might have thought she’d walked into a child’s fantasy story. Everything that had been built in Wildroot had been designed to blend into the countryside, not really to camouflage it.
“Would you care to see it?” Boldt asked.
Mildred glanced at him. “Sure you’re not just talking me into following you along to my own public execution? I saw those men in the forest.”
“Those men in the forest only got what they deserved,” Boldt said. He waved to one of the men below, then followed the narrow steps carved into the gnarled tree roots and stone beside him.
The man below nodded and quickly raced to bring a cart and horses into view, then stood waiting, holding the horses’ halters.
“They were poachers trespassing on our lands,” Boldt said. “They raid us frequently. My people have never been into New London except to exact vengeance. Besides the poaching, those men have also taken our women and children into slavery, to be used in brothels. Apparently their tastes are not so discriminate. I’ve even heard stories about the liberties they take with beasts.”
“Don’t sound like friendly souls, do they?” Mildred believed what the Celtic prince said, but she also kept in mind the fear she saw in the faces of the people around them as the man descended the stairs. For his part Boldt didn’t seem to care about the terror one way or the other.
“The New Londoners are not.” Boldt stepped up into the cart. One of his guards took the reins and sat beside him.
Mildred was sandwiched in the back between her two captors. Both kept their shoulders ahead of her, where they could easily pin her by simply leaning back.
“Your friends are with them now,” Boldt said.
The guard snapped the reins against the horses’ backs, and they stepped into a quick trot. The cart’s wheels rattled as they turned.
“I don’t suppose you’d tell me if your people happened to kill one of my friends,” Mildred said.
Boldt turned to look at her, his face looking more like a skull than before. “I’d tell you. Honesty, I feel, is something you and I are going to need between us before your part is done.”
Mildred turned the cryptic statement over, not liking any of the directions it led. She glanced back up the hill at the trees that crowned the crest, which didn’t look much different from the other trees surrounding Wildroot. Yet she knew they had to be. If the trees around the ville possessed root systems like the ones they’d walked through, there would have been no way the gardens would have grown.
“I take it your father worked with the environment,” she said.
“It became his crusade,” Boldt agreed. “My father’s successes weren’t commercial. He was a brilliant geneticist and dedicated his lifeand the fortunes of his father and grandfather before himto his cause.”
“Awfully generous of him.”
“Yes.” Evidently Boldt heard none of the sarcasm in her words. “He was a selfless man.”
“Even having you when he was young,” Mildred said, “it’s kind of hard to believe that you’re as youthful as you are.”
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