Primitive intrigue. I envisaged this chaotic nation, with its toilers ignorant as the oppressed Mexican peons at their worst. Striving to better themselves, yet, not knowing how. Ready to shout for any leader who might with vainglorious words set himself up as a patriot.
This Rohbar, perhaps, was planning to do just that.
And so was Derek! He said, "Hope, if you could persuade the king to postpone the festival—if Blanca would help persuade him—just until to-morrow night...."
"I can try, Derek. But the festival is planned for an hour or two from now."
"Where is the king?"
"In his palace, near the festival gardens."
She gestured to the south. My mind went back to New York City. This hillock, where we were standing in the starlight beside a tree, was in my world about Fifth Avenue and Sixteenth Street. The king's palace—the festival gardens—stood down at the Battery, where the rivers met in the broad water of the harbor.
Derek was saying, "We haven't much time: can you get us to the palace?"
"Yes. I have a cart down there on the road."