The Fugitive Prince (Bell Mountain) (33 page)
Read The Fugitive Prince (Bell Mountain) Online
Authors: Lee Duigon
Meanwhile, Constan had the project running smoothly. The scholars sent to him by Prester Jod from Durmurot were a great help. Jod had resigned, rather than accept what he was sure was counterfeit Scripture foisted on the country by Lord Reesh; but since the destruction of the Temple, and at the insistence of the people of Durmurot, he’d resumed his prestership. His best men supervised the copying of the Lost Scrolls and their translation into modern language, while Constan’s students at the seminary worked day and night to get it into books. The Old Books, too, had to be copied and bound. By winter, Constan hoped, he would be able to start delivering the Scriptures to the many chamber houses, with exhortations to the local presters and reciters to study them and preach from them at every assembly of their congregations. He now believed that this was the work that he was born to do, and he was doing it with all his might.
“Preceptor,” a student said, as he bent to inspect a page of copy, “there’s talk of a New Temple in the East, built by the Thunder King.” The enemy’s agents in Obann had started such talk. “Could that be the fulfillment of Prophet Ika’s words? ‘All the nations shall know me, from east to west, from north to south; and all peoples shall sit down at my table.’”
Expressionless, Constan looked back at the youth for a full minute before saying, “No. The New Temple is a snare laid for us by the enemy.” He pointed to the manuscript page on the boy’s desk. “There is the foundation of the Lord’s new temple—His word itself, to be raised up in the human heart; not by hands, but by God’s spirit. We must do our work well, or He will pass us by and find someone else to do it.”
It was like old times—Jack and Ellayne riding Dulayl, with Martis leading him, and Wytt scampering far ahead, trying to pick up Ryons’ trail. Martis doubted Wytt could find it again: the children had been almost to Caryllick when they turned aside to follow Noma.
But Wytt knew Ryons was bound for Lintum Forest. It wasn’t in him to communicate to humans all the things he knew, or how he knew them. They would have been surprised! Ryons was traveling with a grown man and a giant bird. A fox saw them and remembered it, and Wytt learned about it from the fox. Soon he found tracks to confirm it—tracks that were much too old and worn-away for Martis to read. Once they were in Lintum Forest, Wytt knew there were many birds and animals that would remember seeing such a strange group of travelers. The Forest Omah would help, too.
“I wish we could have sent a letter to my father,” Ellayne said. “He’d be mighty glad to know you’re with us now.”
“He’d also want to know why I haven’t brought you straight home!” Martis said. “I don’t look forward to answering that question.”
Baron Roshay Bault hadn’t forgotten about the children, but there was nothing he could do about getting them back home, just now. The king had made him responsible for the defense of all the towns along the river from Caristun up into the foothills, and he had militia to raise and train, palisades to build around the towns that didn’t have them, inspection tours to make, and a communications network to organize. Messages came to him from all directions. And there was a powerful Heathen army in Silvertown to be kept track of.
“They’ll be all right,” his wife comforted him. “They made it to Obann safely, and Martis will look after them, once he catches up to them.”
Roshay smiled at her. Once upon a time Vannett would have been in a perpetual panic over this, and he not far behind her. But since the morning the bell rang on Bell Mountain, fearfulness and Vannett were strangers.
“I have to go to the chamber house,” he said, “and see the wandering prester that the patrol brought in last night. Ashrof says the man’s a fraud.”
“Try to be home in time for supper.”
Ninneburky had changed since Jack and Ellayne first left it. For one thing, there were more people in it, many of them refugees from other towns. Having survived an attack last spring by the army of the Zeph, much had been done to make the town’s defenses even stronger. New militia marched in and out for drills, and work crews toiled to reinforce the wooden palisade with stone. They dug the moat deeper. They built new wharfs on the river, and barges came and went with cargoes of lumber, stone, and provisions.
Jack’s mother’s great-uncle, Ashrof, now a prester, waited for the baron at the chamber house, meeting him at the door. It was Ashrof who’d prayed for deliverance from the Zeph, and God provided it—an unseasonable storm of snow and freezing rain.
“Thank you for coming, Baron,” he said.
“What don’t you like about this wandering prester, Ashrof?”
The old man frowned. “I know the names of almost all the presters,” he said, “but I never heard of any Prester Lodevar from a town called Wyllyk in the Southern Wilds. Maybe there’s no such place. But what I’ve heard is that this man preaches the Thunder King’s New Temple, and that the people must turn to it or God will turn away from them. Also I think he might be quite mad. I had to put a guard on him.”
“Well, let’s question him,” said Roshay.
They had him locked inside the prester’s meditation closet, with a militiaman on guard at the door.
“Glad to see you, Baron!” the guard said. “This cluck’s been talking my ear off with his nonsense, all day long, and he won’t shut up. He finally gave it a rest just a few minutes ago.”
“Let’s have a look at him.”
The man who called himself Prester Lodevar sat on the stool that was the only piece of furniture in the room, red-eyed, with his chin propped on his hands and his elbows on his knees. Roshay expected a frothing-at-the-mouth, doing-handstands lunatic, but this man looked sane enough. He looked weary, too.
“Why have you confined me as a prisoner?” he said. “I take it that you, sir, are a man of authority. What have I done, to be treated so?”
Very reasonable questions, Roshay thought. Not knowing the answers, he responded, “They tell me you’re mad. Madmen are confined for their own good.”
“Please don’t get him started up again!” muttered the guard.
“Mad, am I?” said the prisoner. “If I’m mad, what shall we call people who incur God’s wrath and won’t repent? Who can’t see the sign of His wrath in the destruction of the Temple in Obann? Who, when their enemy makes peace with God and builds a New Temple for Him, refuse to worship there? What would you call that, if not madness? And is it sane to punish anyone who tries to call these people to their senses?”
Ashrof interrupted. “But you call yourself a prester, and you are not!”
“And yet you are?” Lodevar said. “Are any of the presters left in Obann truly presters? Who ordained them? In what Temple do they serve? Their Temple lies in ruin, by God’s decree, and their First Prester died in its destruction.”
“Did he?” Roshay said. He was one of the few who knew that Lord Reesh betrayed the Temple, escaped, and died with the first Thunder King in the avalanche at the Golden Pass. But Obst had cautioned him not to speak of that.
“The First Prester died!” Lodevar said, raising his voice. “But there is a new First Prester now, and he ordained me. So I’m more a prester than this man here.”
“Anew First Prester?” Roshay said. “And who ordained him?”
Lodevar laughed. “The Thunder King himself, by the grace of God—that’s who ordained him!”
“This is blasphemy and foolishness,” Ashrof said. “The First Prester is elected by the College of Presters, and the Thunder King is a wicked Heathen.”
“You’re the one who’s spouting foolishness, old man. There’s no more Temple in Obann! Your College of Presters is extinct—no Temple, no college!”
“If you shout at us again, I’ll have you bound and gagged and shipped to Obann facedown in a flatboat,” Roshay said.
Lodevar made an effort to restrain himself and answered the baron’s questions as calmly as he could. Roshay already knew something about this Goryk Gillow and his activities in Silvertown, thanks to reports from Hlah. But he learned more now: most importantly, that Goryk had ordained many false presters and sent them into Obann to preach the New Temple.
This prisoner would have to be sent on to Obann soon, he decided. This was a matter for the king’s advisers. He left Lodevar under guard and had a last word with Ashrof before going home for supper.
“I don’t like this at all,” he said. “This traitor Goryk has enslaved the people in Silvertown, and he has a Heathen army there.”
“Do you think they will invade Obann?” Ashrof asked.
“I do—but not until Goryk’s preachers do their work. I think they all ought to be rounded up and put away. Otherwise they’ll confuse the people.”
“I’m confused!” Ashrof said. “How could anyone accept these base persons as presters? ‘Ordained’ by a traitor to Obann, no less! Everything’s gone all topsy-turvy since the Bell rang.”
Roshay shrugged. “See if you can get him to tell you the names of any more of these Silvertown presters,” he said. “Keep him talking, and have someone handy to write down everything he says.”
Obst’s Book of Scripture was held for safekeeping at Carbonek, all of the Old Books in a single volume. Ryons could hardly lift it, but he was delighted to have it at last. He was a little less delighted when Perkin put it on a table for him and opened it, and he got his first glimpse of a page.
“I can’t read this!” he said. “The letters Dyllyd taught me never looked like these.”
The man peered over Ryons’ shoulder. “It’s the ancient language, Majesty,” he said. “The letters are different because some scribe took great pains to make them fancy, and tried to make them look like ancient letters.”
“What does it say?”
“I’m rusty at this,” Perkin said, “and I never did complete my studies. Still, I’ll try to read it.” He bent a little closer to the book and read aloud. “Ayn micklen rukh os myner Godd, Ih sal niht fyle hem hallen-var.” He smiled down at Ryons. “‘A mighty tower is my God, I shall not fail to praise Him.’ It’s from one of King Ozias’ Sacred Songs. I remember that verse.”
Ryons thought for a moment, then asked, “Why does God need to be praised?” And Perkin laughed.
“He doesn’t!” he said. “But it is His due, and a good and wholesome thing for us to do. We need to praise God because it nourishes our souls.”
Ryons wasn’t sure what a soul was, or how it got nourished. But he did understand that King Ozias had just spoken to him, out of this book. And Obst and Jandra said that King Ozias, the servant of God, was his own ancestor.
“Teach me that language, Perkin! I want to hear more. I want to know what it means!”
“I’ll try, Your Majesty; but I’m not much of a scholar. There are Scriptures in these books that are ages older than Ozias, and some of them I never did learn how to read in the original. In the Book of Beginnings, some of the fascicles are older than Obann itself and written in languages that no man has spoken since the world was young.”
A thrill touched Ryons at some place deep inside his being. He had no words to express it. But he was sure that someday he would.
It was amazing, Jack thought, how much ground Wytt could cover in a day. They were hard-pressed to keep up with him, and in just three days he led them to the fringe of Lintum Forest. They would have arrived even sooner, had the human beings not had to forage for food along the way.
“Remember the first time we came here?” Ellayne said. “We saw the knuckle-bears.” Those were big, horsey-looking animals with bodies like bears and long front legs armed with mighty claws. “They gave us a scare!”
