The first hundred kilometers, I still built illusions of a quick road.
My horse tired by noon of the first day and looked at me with the reproach that only weary animals and honest people can express. The good horses had been taken by the Kriver army before that—along with the good people, good news, and the last crumbs of hope.
Stops every two hours. At first, I was angry—at the horse, at the circumstances, at the whole unfair world where good kings die and evil empires thrive. Then I resigned myself. And then I even began to derive a strange pleasure from the slow journey. When there's no hurry, you notice how the sun plays in the foliage of old oaks, how gray herons step importantly like senators, how a nameless stream murmurs tenderly as it runs down into the valley.
Philosophers say that the journey is more important than the destination. Now I was beginning to understand—they definitely never rode bad horses on matters of state importance.
The second trouble—money.
Monalian coins weren't accepted anywhere. What sense in trading the currency of a nonexistent state? Beautiful gold and silver circles with the profile of the late king turned into scrap metal. The first night I spent hungry, listening to my stomach rumble under the starry sky. The irony was obvious and painful: yesterday an officer of a great kingdom, today—a beggar wanderer with a handful of useless coins.
I had to show inventiveness that isn't told in knightly romances.
I exchanged silver buttons for bread in villages where peasants looked distrustfully at anyone wearing a sword. A sword meant trouble—either you bring it or it brings you.
In one such village, I met an old miller. A grumpy old man with flour in his gray hair and wisdom in his tired eyes.
"From Monalia?" he asked, weighing my silver button. "And it's gone now, that kingdom."
"It's still there," I objected hotly. "As long as there are people who remember."
"Ah, son," the miller shook his head. "Remembering isn't the same as existing. I remember my youth, but my knees don't stop hurting from it. I remember my late wife, but the loneliness doesn't get any easier. Memory—it's like flour without water. It won't bake bread on its own."
"Without memory, there won't be bread either," I didn't give up.
"Look at you, a philosopher!" the old man laughed. "Alright, I'll trade your button for a loaf and a piece of meat. Not because your kingdom is alive, but because silver is silver. And you're hungry—that's obvious."
He gave me bread for the road, sprinkled with advice:
"Don't go preaching to bandits. They're not into philosophy—they're into your purse. And if you fall into imperial hands—say you served anyone but Monalia. They don't understand jokes."