The Palace (Bell Mountain Series #6) (5 page)

“Nywed is my grandmother, and Lanora is her sister. I live with them. Was that a rat you had on your lap?”

“No. What are you doing here?” Ellayne said.

“I don’t know. I just wanted to meet you, that’s all.” Enith was embarrassed. Ellayne softened.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You startled me, and I guess my manners aren’t very good today.” Ellayne forced a smile. “Have a seat. Your name’s Enith, I think.”

Enith sat down on a second overturned crate. “Are you going to tell me what kind of animal it was that you were playing with? I was sure it wasn’t any kind of cat.”

“He isn’t any kind of animal at all,” said Ellayne. “I’ll get him to come out so you can see him, if you promise not to scream or act silly. He wouldn’t like it, and neither would I.”

“I promise!” Enith said. She was much too curious to do otherwise.

“All right.” Ellayne turned to the hedge. “Come back, Wytt. Let Enith see you.”

From out of the hedge, on two hind legs, stepped something that most definitely was not a rat, or a cat, or anything else. It was about the size of a squirrel, but without a tail. And it had a face—and little hands! It peered right up at Enith, and all she could think was, “A tiny little man!” But it was a man covered head to foot by glossy, reddish fur.

“His name is Wytt,” Ellayne said. “He’s one of the little ‘hairy ones’: it’s in the Scriptures. Omah, they’re called. He can’t talk, exactly, but he understands every word I say to him.”

Enith stared. She knew nothing of the Scriptures, or of the hairy ones that were to inherit the ruins of great cities. What she saw, standing in front of her like a human being, made her speechless. How could such things be?

The creature chattered like a squirrel.

“He knows you’re afraid of him,” Ellayne said. “He says you shouldn’t be afraid. He likes you—and he’s never wrong about people.”

Now Martis and her father had carefully taught Ellayne and Jack never to speak of their adventures on Bell Mountain and under the Old Temple. “Your lives won’t be worth a penny, if you do,” Martis said. He had to say it often because Ellayne wanted to be famous. “The country’s full of men who would sell you to the Thunder King. And some of Lord Reesh’s old agents will still be looking for you.”

So Ellayne and Enith talked about other things, and by and by Enith noticed that the other girl wasn’t paying full attention to the conversation.

“What’s the matter, Ellayne? Are you still mad because your father wouldn’t let you go on the trip up the river, the other day? Aunt Lanora said you were very unhappy about it.”

“Aunt Lanora ought to mind her own cuss’t business,” Ellayne said. “No, it’s not that I’m mad. And it’s not that I’m lonely, either. But I do have a bad feeling that I don’t like! It bothered me all night, so that I could hardly sleep. It just won’t go away.”

“What do you suppose it is?”

“I wish I knew—just a feeling that there’s something wrong, somewhere. Something bad. Don’t you ever get that kind of feeling?”

“Well, yes.” And after a while it came out that Enith’s mother ran away one day, years ago, when Enith was little more than a toddler; and her father ran after his wife, and neither of them ever came back. Enith couldn’t have said why she told Ellayne about it. She never discussed that with anyone. But of course at home, in Obann, the whole neighborhood already knew the story.

“That’s why I live with my Grammum,” she finished.

Just then Wytt hopped off Ellayne’s lap and pounced on a beetle, which he proceeded to devour with an unpleasant crunching noise. That distracted both girls from thinking about really more unpleasant things.

That night, just before bedtime, Ellayne discovered what her bad feeling was all about.

Herger came pounding at her father’s front door, and when the baroness opened it, he practically fell into the hall. His clothes were streaked with dried, dark mud, his hair was flying out in all directions—and he was alone.

“Herger, what’s happened?” Vannett cried.

“The baron—I have to see the baron, ma’am—right away!”

She led him into the parlor, where Roshay Bault had already risen from his chair. Ellayne remained huddled in a corner of the couch, suddenly queasy. Where were Jack and Martis? Why had Herger come alone?

“What are you doing here, man?” the baron said. “Where’s Jack? Where’s Martis?”

“I don’t know, my lord!” Herger panted. He had trouble catching his breath, but his news wouldn’t wait. “We were set upon, the first night out, just as we were about to make camp. A gang of men with clubs and knives—they came at us from out of the woods. We never had a chance. I don’t know what they did to Martis, nor Jack. I don’t know!”

“But you escaped.”

“Had to, sir! There were too many of them, and they took us by surprise. All I could do was to dive out of the boat and swim for it.”

“You coward!” Ellayne thought. But her father said, “Well done, Herger. Otherwise we wouldn’t have known.”

“I came straight back to you, my lord. It seemed the only thing to do.”

Roshay nodded. “Could you find the place again?” he asked. “And lead militia to it?”

“Oh, aye, sir—I know it well.”

“Sit down, Herger. We’ll get some food into you and some good, strong drink.”

“I’m ready to go right back there now, my lord.”

“Let me get you something to eat first,” Vannett said, and hurried off to the kitchen.

“Ellayne, fetch me Dorek—now. Hurry!”

This was no time to ask questions. Ellayne, grateful for something to do, rushed out to the stables and came back with Dorek, the groom. Roshay hardly looked at him.

“Dorek, bring the sergeant here right away. Tell him I need a patrol, a dozen men. Will a dozen be enough?” He threw a glance at Herger, who nodded. “Go, Dorek!” And Dorek went.

Vannett came back with a heel of fresh-baked bread and a serving of the baron’s best ale. There was nothing to do, for the moment, but wait for the sergeant to organize a patrol. Roshay Bault paced the floor.

But, no, there was certainly one more thing that could be done.

“Father!”

“Yes, Ellayne.”

“Let me go with the patrol!” she said. “Me and Wytt, I mean. Wherever those men went, Wytt will find them. He’s better than a dog.”

“No!” Vannett cried. “I mean—” she didn’t finish. Once upon a time, she would have.

“I suppose that little beggar is better than a dog,” Roshay mused. And to his wife, “And I suppose Ellayne will be safe with twelve armed men around her—provided she obeys me. And obeys the sergeant!” He turned to Ellayne. “Pack your things and be quick about it.”

Still sick to her stomach, but already feeling better, Ellayne hurried to her room. She understood, instantly, what it meant to her mother and father to risk a daughter for the sake of a son. Truly Jack had become a son to them: they weren’t taking care of him just to please her.

She lifted a floorboard to retrieve a certain item that no one but Jack and Martis knew she had, and stuffed it into the bottom of her sack. Then she raced back to the parlor.

“She’s not just an ordinary girl, is she?” Ellayne heard her mother say.

“No, my dear—that she is not. But it still takes some getting used to.”

“I’m ready,” Ellayne said. The sergeant had not yet arrived.

“No matter what,” Roshay said, “you are to stay with the patrol. I mean that, Ellayne. And you are to obey the sergeant, whatever he tells you to do.”

“And bring that boy back to us,” Vannett added.

“I will,” said Ellayne. “Don’t worry. Wherever Jack is, Wytt will find him.”

“Poor Martis!” said Vannett, under her breath so you could barely hear her. Ellayne noticed a tear shining on her mother’s cheek, a tear for Martis, for which she kissed her.

She also realized something else: her father would give just about anything he had to go on this mission himself. But he couldn’t. He was the baron, responsible for the defense of everyone living by the river from Ninneburky all the way up to the foothills of the mountains. So he had to stay.

It slowly began to dawn on Ellayne that her father was a great man, worthy of the honor that the king had bestowed on him.

Sergeant Kadmel came at a run. “The lads’ll be here presently, my lord,” he said, “just as soon as they can saddle up.” It was an innovation introduced by Roshay Bault that the militia should be mounted whenever they had to go any distance. It would be some time yet before Obann produced horsemen who could fight as cavalry, but they’d at least made a start.

Kadmel was a stout, grey man who’d been a soldier all his life. Ellayne was glad that he would command the patrol. He listened gravely as the baron explained the mission to him.

“If they’re on foot, we ought to catch up to them soon,” he said. “But, sir, your daughter—are you sure?”

“I think it’s necessary,” Roshay said, and then he told Ellayne to fetch Wytt. “If he won’t go, you don’t go,” he added.

Wytt lived under the back porch, having dispossessed a large rat. He heard people clumping around in the house overhead and didn’t want to come out.

“You have to, Wytt!” She told him what had happened and why she needed him. He came out, then, with a sharp stick and a red glint in his eye. Once he’d killed a full-sized man with such a stick; Ellayne remembered that vividly. She held him closely in her arms as she brought him back to the parlor. The sergeant’s eyes went wide.

“What’s that?” he said.

“His name is Wytt. He’ll track for us,” Ellayne said. “You can trust him.”

“It’s true,” Roshay added.

Then the men arrived, eleven of them in shirts of mail, on horseback, armed with spears, and with horses for Herger and the sergeant. Ellayne would have to sit behind a rider, and Wytt, for the time being, would have to go into her sack. He didn’t like it, but he’d had to do it many times before.

“Bring that boy back to us, Kadmel—and Martis, if he’s still alive,” Roshay said. “And don’t let my daughter out of your sight.”

“Aye, my lord.”

Ellayne kissed her father and mother. Vannett stroked her hair and said, “Don’t forget your prayers.” Once upon a time, Ellayne thought, her mother would have been in a panic over anything like this. Certainly she would never have allowed her daughter to go out with the militia.

“I’ll be good, Mother,” Ellayne said.

She went out the front door with the sergeant. It was just about the exact time she usually went to bed.

CHAPTER 5

Jack’s Prayer

As the patrol rode out of Ninneburky, a letter was on its way from Obann to Silvertown. The rider who carried it and his companion had safe-conduct passes signed by Merffin Mord and lies invented by him, in case anyone should stop them, but the letter itself was signed by all the members of the council. The riders made good time and would arrive in Silvertown the next day. They were sworn not to open the letter, but if they had, they wouldn’t have been able to read it. For the letter was in a code to which only Goryk Gillow had the key.

Gallgoid had no copy of this letter, but he was well aware of its content. He could have intercepted it, but had decided to let it go through. As the two riders made camp for the night, Gallgoid sat at his desk, contemplating the message and talking to himself. As an added precaution, he spoke to himself in Wallekki.