“I will ask again your pledge to the throne of Landover,” Ben answered. “I think that this time you will want to give it.”
Skepticism and a hint of alarm reflected in the sprite’s chiseled features, and the gills on his neck ceased their steady flutter. “I have given you my conditions for such a pledge,” the River Master said softly. There was a warning note in his voice.
Ben kept his gaze steady. “I know.”
The River Master nodded. “Very well. I will be there.”
He embraced Willow briefly, gave his permission for her to stay on with Ben and was gone. His people disappeared with him, melting back into the forest gloom. Ben and the members of his little company were left alone.
Willow moved close, her hand closing about his. “He does not intend to give you his pledge, Ben,” she whispered, lowering her voice so that the others could not hear.
Ben smiled ruefully. “I know. But I’m hoping that he won’t have any choice.”
It was time to be going. He dispatched Bunion to Rhyndweir castle with a message for Kallendbor and the other Lords of the Greensward. He had done as they had asked and rid them of Strabo. Now it was their turn. They were to meet him at the Heart three dawns hence and give him their pledge of loyalty.
Bunion disappeared into the forest wordlessly, and Ben and the remaining members of the little company turned homeward toward Sterling Silver.
It took them longer returning from Elderew and the lake country this time than it had before, because this time they traveled afoot. Ben didn’t mind. It gave him time to think, and he had a great deal to think about. Willow walked with him as they traveled, staying close, saying little. Questor and Abernathy questioned him repeatedly about his plans for dealing with the Mark, but he put them off. The truth of the matter was he didn’t have any plans yet, but he didn’t want them to know that. It was better if they thought that he was simply being closemouthed.
He spent much of his time surveying the country they traveled through and imagining how it had been before the failing of the magic. His memory of the vision shown him by the fairies recalled itself often, a gleaming, wondrous painting where the mists, the gloom and the wilting of the land’s life were absent. How long ago had this valley been like that, he wondered? How long before it could be made that way again? The vision of the fairies had been more than a memory; it had been a promise. He pondered the sluggish swirl of the deep mists that screened the sunshine and shrouded the mountains, the thinning groves of Bonnie Blues dotted with wilt and spotting, the lakes and rivers turned gray and clouded, and the meadows and grasslands grown sparse and wintry. He pondered the valley’s people and their lives in a world turned suddenly harsh and unproductive. He thought again of the faces of those few that had appeared for his coronation — of the many who had lined the roads leading into Rhyndweir. That could all be changed if the failing of the magic could be halted.
A King to serve the land and lead her people would accomplish that end, Questor Thews believed. Twenty years of no King upon Landover’s throne had caused the problem in the first place.
But the concept was a difficult one for Ben to grasp. Why would such a simple thing as the loss or gain of a King have so great an effect upon the life of this valley? A King was just a man. A King was just a figurehead. How could one man make such a difference?
It could, he decided finally, where the land took its life from the magic that had created it, and the magic was sustained by the rule of a King. Such a thing might not be possible in a world governed solely by natural laws, but it could be so here. The land took its life from the magic. Questor had told him so. Perhaps the land took its life from the King as well.