Tales of the Zodiac - The Goat's Tale by PJ Hetherhouse Read Free Book Online Page B

copying them has long since ceased.
    She points to me our position in relation to Brightstone. For a brief moment, I feel that rarest of emotions: excitement. For an even briefer moment, this excitement even surpasses that nagging doubt that I am only being provided with this knowledge for one terrible reason.
    “As the crow flies, it is four hundred and thirty seven kilometres away from here on a north-westerly bearing. You should also note that it is not provided with the same natural barriers as our royal kingdom of Tallakarn. This makes it exposed to the snow savages in a way that we are not. The consequences of this are that the people of Brightstone have not been able to colonise any of the mainland in the way that we have and that, out of necessity, they are much, much greater fighters,” she says. She talks with such focus and precision that I cannot help but be impressed.
    “Why are you telling me this?” I ask.
    “You’re a sharp boy. Why don’t you tell me?” Vesta smiles the first smile that I have seen from her. It is a thin one, not altogether friendly.
    “You want me to go there.”
    “Prince Libran told us that you were sharp. Sharp and prickly, he said. Like a gorse bush.” Her eye contact, beginning from nothing, has become disconcertingly constant.
    “People may think of me as they like. Why do you want me to go there? Is there not a less imaginative way that you could have me killed?”
    “Why would we want to have you killed?” she questions flatly. Even this emotive comment doesn’t bring so much as a flush of blood to her pale face.
    “Because I beat the prince to a trophy that the king wanted him to win so much that he named it after him?”
    “The prince’s own pet pig, Snuffles, could have beaten him in that trophy.”
    “Yes, but it didn’t. I did,” I snap, ignoring the fact that I don’t disagree.
    “There is something you must understand about the art of governance,” she says, suddenly changing the subject. Her tone softens to become slightly more conciliatory.
    “Why? When will I need to rule? I’ll be dead within a month,” I scoff, catching the petulance only as it leaves my mouth.
    “In order to rule effectively, a ruler must be able to manipulate the masses. This is done through a balance of fear and excitement. An effective ruler creates an external fear and an internal excitement. This glues him to the masses. What do you think the external fear is in our case?”
    “The snow savages.”
    “Correct. And what are the internal excitements?”
    “Festivals, tournaments, royal weddings, great heroes.”
    “So would the realm prefer its prince to be a great hero? Or a soft, pudgy boy?”
    “A great hero.”
    “And what does it have?”
    “A soft, pudgy boy.”
    “Ergo, by winning that tournament, you have denied the realm its excitement. No one is excited about the son of a goatherd.”
    “I am sure people will find something else soon,” I sneer.
    “That is the hope. You must have noticed that the realm is unhappy. The Kernow are sinking our boats. The mainlanders feel unsafe. Some have started raiding the homes of the others, some are fleeing back to the island. Even on the island, feuds between families grow. The peasants resent their lords, the lords resent the king, the king resents his son. Plots are thickening.”
    “That is how it has always been.”
    “Not always. For a while, yes, but not always.”
    I do not reply.
    “Without something to distract the masses, the kingdom will fall apart. Things happen in the king’s shadow that even I do not know.”
    “It doesn’t matter to me who rules. As the king said, fish men fish, farm men farm…”
    “There are some who might say that the king is an idiot. What if no one rules? What about the snow savages? Who pays the soldiers that defend us from them?”
    “But where do I come in? Are you saying these problems would stop if the prince had won?” I almost spit these words out in