The Fugitive Prince (Bell Mountain) (23 page)

“I’m not even sure I sinned,” Jack said. “I don’t know if I did right or wrong.”

“No—but God knows,” said Ellayne. “Leave it up to Him. That’s what Obst would say.”

They were camping in a gully for the day. Jack climbed out and went to sit by himself behind some bushes for a while. Wytt was going to follow him, but Ellayne asked him to stay. The Omah found a little spot of moist ground and probed it with his stick, looking for worms. Ellayne looked the other way.

“We’re not soldiers,” she told herself, “but there is a war going on, and we’re in it. Noma was on the other side. Jack did right to take the magic from him. It was the only thing to do!” And before she knew it, she was praying, too.

By and by Jack came back to the gully. He seemed to be in better spirits. He sat down beside Ellayne and took the light-giver out of his pocket.

“Don’t play with that!” Ellayne said.

“I don’t think it’s dangerous.”

“You don’t know anything about it!”

Jack held it up in his fingertips. You could see through it, like glass; but it wasn’t glass. “There really isn’t much to it,” he said. “It weighs hardly anything. It doesn’t get very hot when it makes light. Doesn’t make any noise, either.”

Ellayne had never touched the cusset thing, and didn’t plan to. There was a spell on it; she was sure of that. She flinched when Jack made the light go on and off. For all he knew, fire would suddenly shoot out of it and burn them up.

She startled when Wytt sprang to his feet and squealed. “Horses coming—fast!”

That could only mean one thing. Jack thrust the light-giver deep into his pocket. They flattened themselves to the floor of the gully. Wytt disappeared into the grass. Maybe the riders would pass without seeing them.

But then Jack noticed that their little campfire was still sending up a wisp of smoke. They hadn’t even needed one! Frantically he stamped on it, even as they heard the pounding of the horses’ hooves, which suddenly stopped.

“Marabba kay or!”

A man spoke to them. He and a few others peered down at them from horseback—unwashed, bearded faces.

“You know Martis?” said the rider. “He ask us to look for you.”

These were Wallekki. The man’s Obannese was hard to understand.

“Martis?” Jack repeated.

“Yes, yes—Martis. You know him? He seeks two children, cannot find them. I am Kwana.” The rider touched his heart and dipped his head. “Martis is our friend.”

Ellayne scrambled to her feet. “He’s our friend, too!” she cried. “Where is he? Can you take us to him?”

Kwana shrugged. “Where he is, we know not. Two days since we see him. But maybe we can find him. We try.”

Martis knew how to make friends of the Wallekki. The children had seen him do it more than once. He’d taught them that these Heathen’s friendship, once given, could be trusted. Jack stood up beside Ellayne and said, “Yes, please try! We want to see Martis.”

Kwana turned to the others and rattled off something in their language. They dismounted and began to pluck up bushes.

“We make big smoke, and maybe Martis see,” he said. He grinned at Jack. “We see your little-bit smoke! If Martis see mine, he will read.”

It took them a little while to get their fire going. They were using waxbushes with green leaves. Those would produce a terrific amount of smoke, once they got burning properly. When at last the smoke was rising in a thick, grey column, Kwana and another man took a blanket and used it to make the smoke go up in disconnected puffs.

“If Martis sees that, he’ll be able to understand the message?” Ellayne said.

“He will.”

She nudged Jack. “Isn’t that something!” It was one of the cleverest things she’d ever seen. “How far away can Martis be,” she asked Kwana, “and still be able to see that?”

Kwana glanced up at the sky. “This weather, maybe two days’ ride.”

Jack whispered to Ellayne. “Can we trust these fellows?”

“They’re Martis’ friends,” she whispered back. “But if they turn bad on us, flash the light on them at night and scare their eyeballs out!”

Her suggestion left Jack flabbergasted.

Chapter 27

A Terror for Jack

Fnaa was getting odd and dangerous ideas—dangerous to himself, probably, he thought. But how dangerous? Hadn’t the little girl, Jandra, told him to do whatever came into his heart to do, and God would protect him? And didn’t everybody say she was a prophet? Fnaa didn’t know much about religion, but he supposed it was best to listen to a prophet.

And so one day, at supper with his chiefs and some of the more important citizens of Obann, he started giggling with a mouthful of soup so that it dribbled out all over, and rolled his eyes every which way, and finally laughed out loud; and everybody at the table stared at him.

“Your Majesty, what’s the matter?” cried Gurun, sitting next to him. “You’ve spilled soup all over your nice clean shirt.”

“I can’t help it!” Fnaa said. “It’s so funny, that man’s beard.” He pointed across the table to Obann’s richest lumber merchant. “It’s got all those bread crumbs in it!” He broke into a peal of high-pitched, quavering laughter that echoed up and down the banquet hall like the wailing of a ghost. He couldn’t see his mother, who was standing somewhere behind him to wait on the banqueters, but he could imagine the look on her face. Meanwhile the wealthy merchant hurriedly applied a napkin to his beard; but he couldn’t dab out the blush of embarrassment that reddened his cheeks.

“I think perhaps we’ve kept His Majesty too long at the table,” said a man whose work crews were repairing the damage to the city’s walls. Fnaa grinned at him and tried to make his eyes roll in opposite directions, and the man looked the other way.

“Yes—I’m sure you must be tired, Sire,” said Gurun.

One by one the prominent citizens rose from the table—they were losing out on a good supper—bowed politely to the king, excused themselves with flowery words, and left. The chiefs remained at the table, still staring at Fnaa.

“I think I ought to put His Majesty to bed,” Gurun said. “Come along, King Ryons.”

“I will go with you,” said Chagadai. Uduqu got up, too. “I think I’ll tell the king a bedtime story,” he said.

“Do you think that wise, Chief Uduqu?”

“Very wise, O Queen.”

So four of them went off to the royal bedchamber, with Dakl hurrying after. “Oh, I’m going to catch it now!” Fnaa thought.

Chagadai commanded Dakl to stay outside and not let anyone stop by the door to listen. She wrung her apron in her hands, and he patted her shoulder. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “We won’t hurt him.”

With the door shut and bolted, Fnaa had to deal with three pairs of grown-up eyes all trying to bore holes in him at once. For courage he turned to God’s promise to protect him.

“Are you well, Fnaa?” Gurun asked. “Please tell the truth! Your mother has told me that you always used to play the fool in your old master’s house, so that they wouldn’t sell you. But why play the fool with us?”

“If he’s playing!” Uduqu added.

Fnaa shrugged. “It’s the thing I do best,” he said. He told them what Jandra had said to him. Chagadai nodded: Abgayl had already told him of the incident. But this was the first time Fnaa told anyone what Jandra had actually said.

“Everybody says God speaks through her,” he went on. “So I thought it was God telling me what to do.”

The adults exchanged puzzled looks. They’d all had experience of Jandra’s prophecies: there could be no doubting her. She was far too young to invent the messages that came out of her mouth. Besides, her prophecies came true.

“Why should God want the people of this city to think their king has lost his wits?” Gurun wondered.

“She said I should do anything that came into my heart to do,” Fnaa said. He paused for a moment to concentrate. “She said God wants me to provoke folly in the minds of men who will not hear His voice. That’s just want she said. ‘Folly’ means really stupid foolishness—doesn’t it?”

Uduqu chuckled. “That it does!” he said. “But it might get ticklish for us, when all the people get to thinking we chiefs have unloaded a simpleton on them for a king. They might get nasty about it.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Fnaa said. “The next thing I’m going to do is to send the army away—to Lintum Forest, I mean. Maybe that’s where King Ryons is. Maybe you’ll be able to find him there.”

Chagadai’s jaw dropped open. “What will people think of us,” he said, “if we Ghols desert our father? My men will think I’m crazy! Except for the three of us in this room, and Obst, all the chieftains believe this boy is King Ryons. And all the warriors believe it, too.”

“Well, God said He would protect me,” said Fnaa. “He didn’t promise to protect anybody else, so all of you had better go. Then you’ll be safe. I wouldn’t want the real King Ryons to blame me for getting his army killed.”

“There is wisdom in this,” Gurun said. “The city is rotten with treason. If the people rise against us, better the king’s army have no Obannese blood on its hands. But I do not think they will rise, if the chiefs and their warriors leave the city. I will stay here with Fnaa: I am told the people are very far from hating me.”

“You are brave, honeysuckle,” said Chagadai. “And you, too, Fnaa, are a very brave boy—just like King Ryons himself. I don’t like to leave you! Even so, we have never gone wrong by obeying God. He has saved us out of worse troubles than this.”

“Lintum Forest is almost like home, to Abnaks,” Uduqu said. “But I’m getting too old to march so far, and I don’t care to bounce all those miles on a horse’s back. I think I’ll stay, too. My men can choose a younger man to be their chief.”

“It’s dangerous to stay,” said Fnaa.

“That’s all right,” Uduqu said. “I’m dangerous, myself. Anyone who wants my scalp will have a hard time earning it.”

The five Wallekki made camp by the gully. All afternoon they sent up smoke signals. Ellayne was curious, and watched them closely. “Can you really send messages by puffs of smoke?” she asked.

“Oh, yes—not difficult,” Kwana said. He was the only one who could speak any Obannese. “This smoke means, ‘Two—friends—found—come.’ If Martis sees, he will know what it means.”

With five armed men around them the children felt safe, although Wytt kept himself out of the men’s sight. Supper was short rations, for the Wallekkis’ hunting hadn’t prospered lately. Kwana said they would do better tomorrow.

By and by everyone was sound asleep but Jack. Some restless impulse led him to take the light-giver from his pocket and hold it in his hands. He rolled onto his side, facing away from the others, and wondered if he dared coax any light out of the object without the Wallekki seeing it and demanding an explanation—or maybe even hopping onto their horses in a panic and deserting. He supposed it would do no harm if he kept the object cupped tightly in his hands and held it close. After all, it made no noise.

He squeezed the bump in the middle of the disc and light leaped out. He held it close to the ground, close to his body, so it wouldn’t wake the sleepers. He fondled the smooth, round rim of it—

And then something happened that made him yelp aloud, very loud indeed; and he almost threw the disc away; and men woke up with grunts and mutterings. He heard them fumble for their weapons. Ellayne sat up next to him and said, “Jack? Jack?” But he had the presence of mind to pinch the nubbin and snuff out the light, and jam the disc back into his pocket before anyone saw anything.

“It’s all right!” he answered Ellayne. That was a lie: it was not all right, but he had to say something. “I just had a bad dream, that’s all. Sorry!”

Kwana overheard, translated for his men, and they lay back down, grumbling. Kwana crawled closer to Jack and asked, “What did you dream?”

“Just a silly dream,” Jack said. “I was climbing a tree and I fell.”

“Stay out of trees,” said Kwana, and crept back to his blanket.

After a few minutes Ellayne moved closer and whispered harshly, “Liar! You were playing with that cusset thing, weren’t you? What happened?”

“I’ll tell you in the morning.”

“You let out a yell like someone burned you.”

“I didn’t get hurt!” Jack said. “Everything’s all right. Now be quiet so the men can sleep!”