Kingdom • of the Egg
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s Humpty left his stone room in the western wing of the castle, he brushed skeletal fingers across his bed sheets, made from a fabric called silk that arrived by caravan when this ridiculous war had just begun. Twenty years later and the silk was still smooth to the touch. He'd done nothing certain yet. But already he was glancing wistfully at the scrollwork canopy bed upon which the royal carpenter had worked in solitude for two months; already touching the magenta silk for what might be the last time, even though he knew he could still turn back, wrap those sheets around his enamel shell and get another few hours of shuteye. But he couldn't chicken out now. For twenty years he'd languished in silent protest behind the castle walls, hearing only the sketchiest reports from the front of ground gained and given. The arthritic mason chiseled the names of the kingdom's fallen warriors upon the Tablet of Remembrance next to the city's Great Gate and all that time Humpty had lacked^the^courage to do the one thing that could bring this war to a close. Now the northern horizon was pocked with smoke from the invader' fires. He couldn't afford to wait any longer. He hooked his fox fur shawl through his elbows and around his equator then quietly budged open the door that led to the candlelit hallway. He knew the guard at the entrance to the vestibule would be sleeping off a drunk and that an unmanned passageway through the slaves' kitchen would lead him out of the castle. Once outside, he lumbered through the city's alleys as swiftly as his chicken legs and those oversized slippers would allow, mindful of loose cobbles. The drum had yet to sound and the city at that moment was silent, exhilarating. The stable boys were still dreaming on hay mattresses of manhood 124
and battle and a polished shield that bore the crest of the egg-the kingdom's highest honor. The dogs had yet to start their morning rounds loping between crooked buildings, just dogs, just animals scavenging for whatever these wasteful people threw away for them to eat. He heard the drum sound five times and quickened his approach to the staircase at the northwest comer of the city wall. The staircase was close to forty feet high, exposed, and by the time Humpty reached the top, he was panting from both the exertion and his jangled nerves. He'd gambled well on the time, reaching the top of the wall during a rotation of the guards. He took a deep breath before lifting one leg through the notched parapet and perching himself atop it. The darkness was burning off and he looked across what he could see of the kingdom-the cliffs diving into the sea, the ancient forest already touched with autumn, the grazing lands and furrowed loam from which farmers had reaped bumper harvests each year since the egg's arrival. "Don't do it!" someone cried. Humpty jerked around to see a tall guard at the top of the stairs, hands raised at the elbows as if trying to calm a nervous horse. The shape of his helmet identified him as one of the palace detail. He must have followed him here. "Don't come a step closer or I'll jump! I mean it," Humpty shrieked, startled by the wildness of his voice. "I'll stay where I am if you can promise me you won't jump. How does that sound? Can you do that?" The helmet's obscured the guard's face, but Humpty could tell by the timbre of his voice that he was young. And already a palace guard. Once an honorable job, the egg thought bitterly, before reproaching himself for that bitterness because it certainly wasn't the kid's fault that everything had gotten so corrupted with the priests and the broken treaties and this most recent campaign his brother Rolfe had waged for the last five years. The guard was probably the idealist type hoping to do good and marry well. It didn't give the egg an pleasure to think about the beating he'd get if Humpty jumped on his watch. "I have demands. These demands will be met, or I'm going over," Humpty said. He brought his slippered foot back pnto-the wall.-His-legs were trembling. "I'm going to sit, but don't come any closer. I'm not myself right now." The egg laid down his shawl and gingerly took a seat atop it. It was rare that he got this much exercise and he wheezed with relief when he was propped against the wall with his spotted legs kicked out in front of him., "Are you hurt?" the guard asked. "No," the egg responded. "Can you take off your helmet?" The guard removed the helmet to reveal a neat ponytail. His left cheek bore the scar he received at his initiation into the order. The kid had a trustworthy face and the sight of it weakened Humpty's will. Now he wished he'd just thrown himself from the wall without ceremony. Clean. Simple. The guard's face made 125