The Palace (Bell Mountain Series #6) (28 page)

At last they were shown to their quarters: a suite of rooms for Goryk Gillow and Mardar Zo, another two rooms for the Dahai, and one for Jack and Martis.

“Well?” Jack said, after a servant shut the door on them and left them alone.

“I hadn’t expected they would lodge us in the palace,” Martis said, “the one place in Obann where I don’t know my way around. But we have a few days to make use of. We’ll think of something.” He paused to feel the stuffing of a chair. “I remember that man Merffin Mord—one of Lord Reesh’s most persistent flatterers. Reesh laughed at him behind his back.”

Jack had stayed in the palace before, but from this region of it he didn’t know the way out. He’d have to leave it all up to Martis. Besides, he was tired from riding in the coach, so he lay down on one of the room’s two beds. Something crackled underneath his pillow. He reached under it and found a piece of parchment.

“Martis, look at this. A letter.”

Martis sat beside him and they read the note together. All it said was, “I know where you are. Take no risks. Gallgoid.”

“He’s the spy,” Jack said.

“Lord Reesh’s expert poisoner,” Martis said. “Gallgoid.” He spoke the name with some distaste. “Well, I suppose he means to help us, somehow.”

“You don’t like him.”

“He’s as bad a man as I ever was. I don’t like having to trust him.”

“He must be somewhere in the palace,” Jack said.

“If he is,” said Martis, “he already knows where to find us.”

After a formal dinner with the council, Merffin Mord and Aggo met with Goryk, Zo, and Martis in Goryk’s rooms. The walls were hung with tapestries, cunningly decorated with hunting scenes. Sumptuous quarters indeed, Martis thought; he recognized the carpets as having come from the easternmost marches of the land of the Wallekki.

Zo had the covered box right next to his chair. Martis knew what was in it and wondered how he might contrive to steal it and destroy it. But his first concern was to get Jack out of the palace and deliver him to Baron Bault. Besides, Zo never let the box out of his sight. You would have to kill him before you could lay hands on it.

“My lord,” said Merffin, “tell me now about that boy. Who is he, and why have you brought him?”

“He is the key to peace,” Goryk said. “As a condition to a lasting peace between us, my master King Thunder wishes to take custody of King Ryons. I think you and I will agree that it’s not desirable for a descendant of Ozias to have the throne of Obann. He’s a boy now, but he’ll make trouble when he reaches manhood.”

“Obann will be better off without him,” Merffin said.

“After the coronation, it won’t be difficult to send the king secretly to Kara Karram and replace him with this common boy. Jack will do whatever I tell him to do, and Jayce has instructed him in how to play the king. By and by, when the time is best for us, we can dispose of him.”

“He doesn’t look much like the king,” Aggo said. “He’s taller.”

“Boys grow,” Goryk said. “I’m more interested, for the time being, in the whereabouts of your First Prester.”

“My lord, what can I say?” Merffin said. “We’ve turned the city inside out for him. He’s bound to turn up somewhere.”

“But if he doesn’t,” Aggo said, “we have you to crown the king. It remains only to have you acknowledged as First Prester. That has been arranged.”

“Will the clergy of Obann accept me?”

“Most of those who won’t,” Merffin said, “have already been sent away to serve at distant chamber houses. The rest have been promised advancement under your regime. You’ll need presters and reciters for the New Temple and for all the new chamber houses that will have to be built.”

They’ve been busy, Martis thought. “Nothing much has changed since Lord Reesh’s time: always presters for sale and the Temple’s still the Temple, even if the Temple itself is nothing but a pile of rubble.”

“What about this prester from Durmurot—this Prester Jod?” Goryk asked. “I hear he’s formidable and quite incorruptible.”

“He’ll be outvoted,” Merffin said. “It’s all arranged.”

Goryk nodded. “Then it seems our plans are running smoothly. I congratulate you, councilors.”

Two days, maybe three, in which to find a way out, Martis thought. “Ply the Dahai guards with money and tell them where to go for wine and women, pick the lock on our door, and find a way out of the palace without getting caught—unless Gallgoid has made other plans for us.”

CHAPTER 30

How Fnaa Returned to the City

Roshay Bault pushed his cavalry hard to get to Obann as fast as he could. He didn’t want to overtake Goryk Gillow, so he crossed the river at Ninneburky and took the road along its northern bank. It wasn’t as good as the south road, and past Cardigal there were no sizeable towns along the way. They camped under the stars each night and rode all day.

So Ellayne reached Obann two days before Jack did, and hoped it would be a long time before she rode a horse again.

They didn’t immediately enter the city. In the green fields before the West Gate, parties from all over the country had set up tents and booths. These acres would be the coronation grounds, and they were already well populated. Roshay rented a pavilion and pitched it almost a mile from the gate. There would be tents for the troopers and a picket line for the horses. Above the pavilion fluttered a blue banner.

“How Martis is going to find us in all this crowd, I don’t know,” the baron said. “Let the men go into the city and see as much of it as they like, Kadmel. You, too. I’ll go in tomorrow and pay my respects to the council. Hopefully Martis will come to know we’re here.”

Ellayne tugged on his sleeve. “I think Wytt has already gone into the city,” she said. “He disappeared while we were setting up the tents.”

“I hope he’ll be able to find his way out.”

“First he’ll find Jack,” said Ellayne.

“In a huge city full of people?” Roshay said. “Won’t it be dangerous for him?”

“He’s been here before.” But Ellayne worried about him all the same.

Prester Jod led King Ryons—or rather the boy he believed to be King Ryons—into Obann.

Mobs of people lined the streets and waved their hats, jumped up and down, and shouted. “The king, the king, long live the king! King Ryons!” And also, “The queen—hurrah for Queen Gurun!” There were even a few shouts for Uduqu and many for Prester Jod.

Fnaa waved back, smirking as foolishly as he could. He didn’t have any coins in his pocket, but he was wearing a soft black cap with long white feathers, so he plucked the feathers one by one and tossed them to the crowd. Amid gales of jollity, men and boys dove and wrestled for the feathers as if they were gold coins. Some of them, Fnaa supposed, would be kept as family heirlooms.

“Welcome home, King Ryons!”

“Don’t go away anymore!”

Uduqu grinned. “They love having a fool for a king,” he thought. Abnaks had no kings: only chiefs who advised, but had no power to command. “The bigger the fool, the greater the king!”

Gurun smiled at the people, although she didn’t feel like smiling. How many times would she have to say “I am not a queen” before anyone believed her? A storm had brought her to Obann. Obst said God had sent the storm for that purpose. She had a filgya that said her place was by the king—the real king, not Fnaa. And there were more people watching this parade than there were on all of Fogo Island, she reflected. Wind-blown grass, stunted trees and stunted sheep, and homes modeled after the barrows of the dead—oh, how she missed it all!

The parade wound its way to the great steps at the pillared entrance to the palace, overlooking a crowded Oligarchs’ Square. On the steps stood the councilors in all their rich men’s finery, and a host of hangers-on, waiting to greet their king.

“Welcome home, King Ryons!” said Merffin Mord, after some large men with cudgels had quieted the crowd. “Your city has been desolate without you. All the palace is prepared for you. All the people of Obann will celebrate your coronation.”

“Are you the same fat man who was here when I left?” asked Fnaa. Those who heard it laughed, and in no time at all the king’s words were flying from one pair of lips to another, until the whole crowd was laughing. Merffin Mord’s face flushed deep red. Even his fellow councilors were snickering.

But behind them on a higher step stood a lean and dark-haired man in the robes and gold chain of the First Prester. And he wasn’t laughing.

King Ryons and his Ghols emerged from Lintum Forest to find some of the army there before them and the rest of it not yet arrived. “Just like I said would happen, for all our nice plans,” Helki said. They had to wait another two days for the remaining groups.

“So now they’ll know we’re coming,” Helki said, “and they’ll make ready for us.” He twirled his rod meditatively. “Can’t be helped.”

“Our scouts say Silvertown’s defenses are still in poor repair,” Obst reminded him.

“What do you know about the work of war, old man?”

“About as much as you do,” Obst said, and Helki laughed. “We go to Silvertown at God’s command. We can only put our trust in Him.”

Ryons welcomed the respite from marching. He didn’t so much welcome the sensation of being out from under the trees. It made him feel like a spider on a tablecloth, very vulnerable to getting swatted. His Ghols were overjoyed to have room to let their horses stretch their legs. Before an hour passed, they had set up targets and were galloping around them, shooting arrows as they passed. “Our skill has grown rusty,” Chagadai said, frowning. Well, they were happy to be out of Lintum Forest, and it pleased Ryons to see them happy. “But I’d rather have the trees around me,” he thought. He supposed he was getting to be like Helki.

Last to arrive at the rendezvous were the five hundred Hosa. Their chiefs were happy that they hadn’t lost a single man in passing through the forest. They came out of the woods singing.

“Someday soon, my king,” said Xhama, hereditary chief of the Red Regiment, “you will see what we Hosa can do! Out here in the open, where men can run at speed and maneuver in formation, is the only proper place for war.”

Hawk, chief of the four brothers who were the first Hosa to join King Ryons’ army, sighed. “If only I had my old regiment, the Ghosts! We would have pleased you, my king—a thousand men with tall shields so white, they hurt the eye to look at them. In two hundred years, no enemy ever withstood a charge by the Ghosts. But the Thunder King’s mardars poisoned our cattle and our women, and slew our children by witchcraft. My brothers and I are the last. The rest of us are ghosts indeed.”