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29: DAMSEL, DISTRESSED

In which there is little in the way of traffic control but much in the way of gallantry.

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The King's Highway was the pride of the nation. Running all the way from Ickleminster, huddled in the shadows of the mountains of Night, all the way north to the ivory-towered city of Vaschava on the outskirts of Day, it was one of the greatest feats of Middler engineering in the land. The only problem was that nobody could quite decide whose nation the King's Highway was the pride of, given that it passed through several, nor, indeed, which King it belonged to. Two hundred years ago the Highway was briefly claimed by King Hartofar of Lemfarthing, who announced that his scholars had unearthed an ancient deed naming one of his ancestors the original road-builder. The other disgruntled kings quickly shot back that if he was going to be such a spoil-sport about it then it was only fair he took responsibility for the Highway's maintenance. King Hartofar duly issued a statement that he appeared to have mislaid said ancient deed and could no longer legally claim to be the King of the King's Highway, which was obviously a dreadful shame but there was nothing he could do. Since then, no other king had been quite so keen to claim ownership of the road, and it had fallen—by dint of no one quite knowing what else to do—to each separate kingdom to maintain the stretch of Highway that ran through their domain. This made for a rather variable quality of road surface for the long-distance traveller. The borders, in particular, got quite messy.

This did not stop the King's Highway from being one of the busiest thoroughfares in the Middling. Everyone from merchants to miners, nobility to nobodies, could be found on the Highway. Elegant carriages drawn by graceful, high-backed horses rolled smoothly past humble hay-ricks and lumbering ox-drawn wagons. The roar and rumble of wheels and hooves passing by became a veritable cacophony at certain times of the day, especially on those stretches of the Highway that were better maintained and lent themselves well to speed.

Harriet had discovered that the stretch of Highway skirting the forest from which she had recently emerged was one such stretch. She had also discovered that it was not friendly to pedestrians, or to those trying to hitch a ride.

Here follows an account of Harriet's first minute on the King's Highway:

Harriet stepped onto the road. Harriet was very nearly knocked right off the road again as a coach clattered past, spraying dust into Harriet's face. Harriet steadied herself. Harriet was then unsteadied as a horse cantered towards her, and she dived away from its pounding hooves. Her dive took her into the path of an oncoming gig. The driver cursed and hauled on the reins, the horses gave twin snorts of surprise, and a lady inside complained hotly. Harriet lurched out of the way—and into the way of a wagon trundling in the opposite direction. Harriet scrambled underneath this, and emerged, breathless, only to collide with a woman carrying a basket of eggs (Take note: It is inadvisable to carry a basket of eggs along a hectic thoroughfare, as the woman quickly discovered). The eggs dropped, shells cracked, yolk splattered everywhere. The woman opened her mouth to yell at Harriet, only to be shouted down by a galloping messenger who tore between them, giving Harriet a chance to escape. She scampered in front of another coach (more cursing followed her), wove past a wheelbarrow, hopped briefly on the back of a caravan, was cursed at again, hopped off, scuttled round a cart loaded with hay-bails, and, finally, threw herself off the road to land, gasping, in the exact spot where she'd started.

Rupert poked his head out of her satchel, where he and Juggalug had lately taken up residence, and gesticulated furiously.

"No," panted Harriet, "I am not trying to get us killed. But they are!" She pointed at the traffic that crammed the highway—although 'traffic' was not really an apt term for it, implying as it does at least a semblance of order, an underlying system behind the hectic motion. There was no such system at work on the Highway, as far as Harriet could make out.