The Secret of the Swamp King (4 page)

Aidan was about to turn his horse off River Road and into the cart path leading to the manor house when his brother Percy burst through the gate at a dead run and lurched to a stop in front of him. Percy was eighteen now, and his responsibilities at Longleaf Manor were growing as he moved into manhood. But in his enthusiasms, he was as boyish as ever.

“Aidan!” he shouted breathlessly, not even bothering to say hello to the brother he hadn't seen in nearly a year. “You've got to see this!” He grabbed the horse by the bridle and, horse and brother in tow, ran down the trail that led to the River Tam.

Aidan was anxious to see his father, his other brothers, and the old home place after so long an absence. But it was hard not to be carried away by Percy's enthusiasm. “What's at the river?” he asked. But as soon as the question was out of his mouth, the river came into view and he could see for himself.

Around the upstream bend a huge timber raft slid along the surface of the water. It must have been constructed from forty full-grown pine trees lashed together,
and they made a floating floor more than half the size of the floor in King Darrow's great hall. At the front of the raft, two men wearing buckskin and coonhide caps were straining at a long pole that reached into the water. The pole was an oar-sweep—a forty-foot-long paddle whittled from a single pine sapling and balanced on a waist-high oar bench. In the spring of the year, when the water was high, a skilled rafthand could stand at the back of a raft and, using that one long oar, guide a hundred tons of pine trees around any bend or whirl the River Tam might offer.

But these obviously weren't skilled rafthands. The back of the raft was where the front was supposed to be, and the front was where the back was supposed to be. They were drifting down the river in a slow spin, in spite of their efforts with the oar-sweep. They were utterly at the mercy of the current. Aidan shielded his eyes against the high sun and peered upriver at the vast bulk of pine logs lumbering toward them, sideways now. “Who are those people?” he asked.

“A couple of gator hunters up from Last Camp,” answered Percy. “They bought a load of logs from a farmer clearing a field above Hustingreen.” The Errolsons watched one of the gator hunters get knocked into the river by the swinging oar-sweep, and Percy couldn't help chuckling while the other hunter, the bearded one, fished him out. “They thought it would be a good idea to build the logs into a raft and float them down to Big Bend.”

“Big Bend?” snorted Aidan. “I'll be amazed if they make it around the next bend. How do they expect to make it all the way to Last Camp?”

The Errolsons watched the approaching vessel get closer. For the moment it was oriented correctly: bow in the front, stern in the back. But it was already going into another rotation. “Ebbe was at Hustingreen this morning when they came barreling through,” said Percy, smiling at the old house servant's description of the scene. “Said they had the whole village in an uproar. They came shooting out of the upper shoals like a hog on ice, taking out everything in their way. Smashed up a few fishing skiffs, barely missed the ferryboat, and the whole time those two swampers are shouting and yelling at one another, riding that sweep like a bucking horse.” Percy pointed at the raft and chuckled. “About like they're doing now.”

The raft was less than a hundred strides away, and they could hear the hunter-raftsmen yelling at one another.

“Pull to the starboard!” called the one with a beard.

“I
am
pulling to the starboard!” shouted the other, obviously irritated.

“Nah, starboard's the other way when the boat's going backerds.”

The men's faces were red from yelling and pulling. The fact that they pulled in opposite directions didn't help.

“Who made you cap'n anyway?”

“Somebody's got to be cap'n, and I reckon it ought to be the one with some sense.”

The raftsmen had stopped pulling in opposite directions. Now they were pushing one another. The raft, meanwhile, was booming down on Longleaf landing.

Percy cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted to be heard over the men's bickering. “Ahoy there, sailor men!”

The raftsmen, who had stopped paying attention to where they were going, were surprised to hear a human voice on this lonely stretch of river—and especially so close. They were stern-first again, and from their post at the oar bench, they were only a few feet away from the Errolsons.

“Throw me a line,” offered Percy, “and I'll tie you up.” The bearded raftsman, the self-appointed captain of the vessel, let go of the oar-sweep and bent to sling the heavy rope that coiled at the near corner of the raft. At the same time, the sweep grounded itself in the deep river mud and levered the other rafter off his feet. The force of the massive raft against the long oar-sweep catapulted the hapless gator hunter well up the bank and then snapped the pole like a dry twig.

The captain sighed as he watched Aidan help his partner to his feet. “Well, Floyd, I reckon that's one way to disembark from a timber raft.” He hopped onto the bank while Percy secured the raft with a hitch knot around a cypress tree. “But it's a sight too show-offy for me.” He shook Percy's hand, then Aidan's. “I'm
Massey,” he said, “cap'n of this ship. And the gymnast here is Floyd.”

Floyd shook hands with the Errolsons too. “Massey ain't no more cap'n than a muskrat is,” he said, smiling, “but he's right about one thing. My name's Floyd.”

“We're the Errolsons,” said Aidan. “He's Percy, and I'm Aidan.”

“Errolsons?” exclaimed Massey. He seemed a little disappointed. “Does that mean we ain't no further down-river than Longleaf?”

“Afraid so,” answered Percy.

“Ha!” barked Floyd. “I told you, Massey!” He looked at Aidan and Percy. “The cap'n here was sure we was just around the corner from Big Bend.”

Massey grumbled something about the difference between a captain and a navigator, directing a significant look at Floyd. But he thought it best to change the subject as quickly as possible. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You said your name was Aidan?”

“Yessir,” answered Aidan.

“Aidan Errolson?”

“Hey,” interrupted Floyd. “You're the feller killed the Pyrthen giant.”

“Well,” began Aidan, “he wasn't really a giant…”

“We was there,” said Floyd excitedly, “both of us.”

“And if that weren't a giant,” said Massey, “I ain't never seen a giant.” He swelled his chest up, rose up on his tiptoes, and stalked around a few steps. Floyd twirled his coonskin cap above his head, pantomiming Aidan's motion with a sling, and then let an imaginary stone fly at
Massey. Massey staggered in a circle and then flopped down in the sand in imitation of the epic fall of Greidawl, the Pyrthen champion.

“You've growed since then,” remarked Floyd.

Percy reached a hand down to help Massey to his feet. “Get up, Greidawl,” he said. “And you two come eat dinner with us.”

“Supper too,” added Aidan. “You can't go anywhere until you get a new oar-sweep. We'll get Carver to start working on one right away. You can leave in the morning.”

“Why, sure,” said Massey. “We'd be proud to stay the night at the House of Errol.” And with that, the four-some headed up the path to the manor house.

When the Errolsons arrived at the manor house with Massey and Floyd, Ebbe eyed the two alligator hunters suspiciously. From their buckskin garb he recognized them as the raftsmen who had wreaked havoc on the Hustingreen riverfront earlier in the day. Ebbe had always been more concerned with the dignity of the House of Errol than Errol or his sons had ever been. He felt much put-upon when one of the Errolsons—usually Percy—dragged in characters like these two river rats for him to wait on.

But Percy, pretending not to notice Ebbe's annoyance, smiled broadly at the head servant. “Ebbe,” he said, “these old boys could use a wash-up before dinner, and they might like to rest their bones a few minutes before we eat.” He nudged Floyd. “Rafthanding is hard work.”

“So I have observed,” Ebbe answered icily, looking at Floyd's breeches, still wet from his dip in the river. The hunters, unaccustomed to such withering propriety, held their coonskin caps in their hands and studied the floor. The pale, skinny house servant struck terror in the hearts of these men who made their livelihood wrestling alligators with their bare hands.

“So maybe you could show them to a couple of the spare bedrooms and dip them up some washbowls,” suggested Percy.

Ebbe waited a long second, blinked slowly, and with a formal smile answered, “Certainly.”

Ebbe had begun to turn on his heel when Percy added, “And you might want to say hello to Aidan too.”

Ebbe bobbed stiffly in Aidan's direction. “Master Aidan.”

Aidan smiled at the stuffy old servant. “Hello, Ebbe.”

Ebbe didn't trust Aidan much more than he trusted the alligator hunters. He had been attached to the House of Errol since before the boy was born, had seen the boy in diapers, seen him cry when he fell down, seen him waste away whole days in boyish daydreams. He had heard the other servants' whispered talk of Aidan being the Wilderking, and he didn't think it was proper at all—not at all. The whole thing started the day Aidan claimed to have killed a panther in the bottom pasture. But Ebbe had gone to the bottom pasture himself, had taken the boy's place watching the sheep—which, as Ebbe often pointed out, wasn't part of his job in the first place—and he saw for himself that there was no dead panther in the bottom pasture.

But still the servants talked, about the boy killing a giant and routing the Pyrthen army almost single-handedly, about other accomplishments they took to be signs the boy was indeed the Wilderking. But what did the other servants know, thought Ebbe, as he led the alligator hunters down the hall without speaking a word to them. The other
servants would believe anything. They even believed in feechiefolk.

Percy left for the woodshop to get Carver started on a new oar-sweep for Massey and Floyd. Aidan knocked on the door of his father's library. “Father?” he called. Pushing the door open, he was surprised to see his father struggling to his feet, both hands on a walking stick. Errol gave his son a weary smile, and as he walked toward the door, Aidan noticed his father's limp had worsened. He looked more haggard and world-weary than he had six months earlier, when Aidan last saw him; it was the last time Errol had visited Tambluff Castle. Errol's trips to the court of King Darrow had grown less frequent as his health declined. Or perhaps, as Aidan suspected, his father's health had declined because his visits to the court had grown less frequent.

“You've grown,” Errol observed as he embraced his son. “King Darrow must be feeding you well.”

“He feeds me very well,” answered Aidan, “but still I miss Moira's cooking.”

Errol laughed and put his arm around Aidan's shoulder, as much for support as out of affection for his son. “Moira will be glad to hear her kitchen compares so favorably to the king's.”

Aidan looked down at his father's walking stick. “How are you feeling, Father?”

Errol sighed. “These old battle wounds are troubling me. The rheumatism has crept into my bad leg.” Leaning on Aidan, he hobbled to the nearest chair and sat down heavily. Aidan could feel his own eyes grow wet with the
sadness of seeing his father, always so hale and strong, carrying himself now like an old man.

“I had hoped you'd come to Darrow's hunt two days ago,” said Aidan. Then, thinking of his father's ailing state, he quickly added, “Or at least to the hunt feast.”

“So I gathered from your letters,” answered Errol. “So I gathered. But I never got an invitation from the king.” He looked vacantly out the window. “There was a time when I was free to come and go as I pleased at Tambluff Castle,” he said quietly. “But no more.”

Aidan remembered King Darrow's remark the night before, when he referred to Errol as a man “whose standing in the realm isn't what it used to be.”

Errol patted his left leg, his bad leg. “I've had this limp for thirteen years now, since the Pyrthens' fourth siege of Tambluff,” he remarked. “It's never bothered me much. It always seemed a small price to pay for freedom, a small enough tribute to a king I loved, a king who loved his kingdom like a father loves his family.” He stared into the distance. “But now this old battle wound is a misery to me.”

Aidan and Errol sat in silence for a few awkward seconds before Aidan changed the subject. “Brennus wrote. Said Gemma was having a baby.”

“That's right,” answered Errol, brightening at the prospect. “They've been married over a year now. It's time they gave me a grandchild.”

“He said in his letter that he cleared another field for indigo,” added Aidan.

“That farm of his will be another Longleaf before you know it,” said Errol. Though he had hoped that his
eldest would stay and raise his family on Longleaf Manor, he was proud of the young man's initiative. “You know how your brother works.” He paused a moment, then chuckled. “Your brother Brennus anyway. Your brother Percy is another matter altogether. It's not that he minds working; it's just that he likes so many other things better, it's hard to get a whole day's work out of him. This is the son who decides to stay on the farm.” He shook his head and smiled. “But he's good company. And I'm going to need it when Jasper starts at the university in the fall.”

“I'd almost forgotten,” said Aidan. “We'll be together again.” Tambluff University was just around the corner from the castle drawbridge.

“But I don't know what the professors at the university are going to be able to teach that boy,” Errol remarked. “He knows the old lore better than anybody I've ever seen—except the Truthspeaker, maybe. He's read every book in the library.”

Father and son both fell silent. Both were thinking of the other Errolson, the missing one. Maynard had disappeared two years earlier, less than a year after Aidan moved to Tambluff. He went out hunting in the Eastern Wilderness and never came back.

Everyone had given Maynard up for dead. That was just the way of the Eastern Wilderness: sometimes people went out and never came back. It was a vast and perilous place. Only Errol still held out hope for his son's safe return. But it was a hope fueled by a father's love and blind faith—not by any reasonable expectation that
Maynard could possibly be alive. But even Errol's faith had begun to waver. Every day he looked a little grayer.

Aidan had already decided not to tell his father the whole story of why he was headed downriver. He would find out soon enough, whether Aidan told him or not. Now that he saw his father's troubled state, Aidan was even more convinced it would do more harm than good to explain that King Darrow had sent him on a fool's errand, an impossible mission he didn't expect Aidan to survive. “King Darrow has sent me on a mission down the river.”

“Hmmm …” said Errol. “Sounds important.” There was a pause. Aidan looked down at his boots. Errol pressed him. “Too important for you to tell your father about?”

Aidan was between a rock and a hard spot. It would be a disaster to tell his father that he was headed alone into the very heart of the Feechiefen Swamp. Father would be worried sick, and rightly so. He would probably try to stop him from going, command him as his father to stop this insane quest. And Aidan wouldn't do that. To quit his quest would mean self-banishment. King Darrow had ordered him not to return without the frog orchid.

Not to tell, however, would be a slap in Father's face. Until recently, Errol had been one of Darrow's chief advisers. The king did almost nothing without Errol's knowledge. Had Darrow now entrusted Aidan with a task that was too secret for Errol to know about? Had Errol's fifteen-year-old son surpassed him in the king's confidence?

Errol saw the struggle on Aidan's face. “I understand,” he said. “I won't ask you to betray your king's trust.” Aidan nodded his head. But he couldn't meet his father's gaze. The silence between father and son was mercifully broken by the clanging of Moira's dinner bell.

* * *

Moira was bringing around pies she had made from plum preserves, but as usual, Percy was so busy talking to the guests that he had hardly touched his dinner of venison and sweet potatoes.

“So if you needed timber at Last Camp,” Percy asked Massey, “why didn't you just cut down some of the trees down there? Hustingreen to the Big Bend is a long float.”

Massey straightened in his chair and answered self-importantly, “I ain't a timber cutter,” as if felling trees were beneath the dignity of an alligator hunter.

“Well, if you don't mind my saying so,” observed Percy, “you aren't much of a rafthand either.” Percy's twin Jasper, who had taken off from his studies to eat dinner, couldn't help but snicker. Ebbe, standing behind Lord Errol's chair, raised the back of his hand to his mouth as if to conceal a laugh.

Lord Errol intervened, mindful of his guests' feelings. “Why do you need a raft of timber at Last Camp?”

“We're building a stockade,” answered Floyd.

“A stockade?” asked Errol. “Who would attack hunters and trappers?”

“We don't know,” said Floyd. He was grimly serious now. “That's what's got us worried.”

“Somebody wants us gone from Last Camp,” explained Massey. “They hide in the woods and shoot up the camp with arrows, throw spears in amongst us.”

“Just the other day,” said Floyd, “Massey was leaning up against a tree resting after a day-long hunt, when a spear come sailing in and stuck in the tree just above his head.”

“Parted my ever-loving hair like a Tambluff dandy,” added Massey. With his right hand he showed the motion of the spearpoint, imitating the noise of an arrow in flight striking a tree:
“Sssssssssst-thwonnnngg!”

“I never seen such a near miss,” said Floyd.

“Was it a near miss,” asked Jasper, “or a warning shot? A man who can part your hair with a spear can kill you just as easily.”

“Well, whatever it was,” said Massey, “near miss, warning shot, or friendly hello, we're building ourselves a fort.”

“And we're building it strong,” added Floyd.

The diners returned to their plum pies. Errol, poking at his rather than eating it, finally asked the question he always asked anyone from the Eastern Wilderness. “Have you seen my son Maynard?”

Massey and Floyd looked at each other, then at Errol. “No sir,” answered Floyd. “Why?” Errol didn't answer, only picked more at his pie.

Mostly to fill the dead air, Percy asked, “Do you boys ever run into plume hunters in the Eastern Wilderness?”

Massey looked a little shocked, as if someone had asked him if any of his friends were grave robbers, but Massey did his best to answer politely. “No, plume hunters know they ain't welcome at Last Camp, and they stay clear of us in the forest too.”

Errol's face went from red to purple, and he pounded the table. “Percy!” he shouted. “How can you sit at my table and even speak of plume hunters?” He pushed his pie away. His appetite was ruined. “The vile criminals—how I'd like to get my hands on a few plume hunters!

“It's a mean business, plume hunting. Trading a heron or an egret's life for two feathers on a dandy's hat—to pluck a dead bird's plumes and leave the rest of it on the ground to rot. Nobody gets fed. Nobody gets clothed. Just feathers for a dandy's hat.”

It was a good thing, thought Aidan, that his father hadn't been to Tambluff lately. His old-fashioned frontier sensibilities would have been shocked by the extravagance of the latest spring fashions. The Pyrthen Empire may have been Corenwald's bitterest enemy, but the Pyrthens still defined clothing styles for the known world, and wealthy Corenwalders worked hard to mimic the Pyrthens' outlandish dress. Men and women alike, bowing and nodding their elaborately plumed hats at one another, bobbed up and down Tambluff's High Street like tall ships under sail.

“That's not the worst of it either,” continued Errol. “The navy stopped a smugglers' ship near Middenmarsh last week. They found bales and bales of plumes.” He paused a minute, finding it hard to finish saying what
everyone at the table could figure out for himself. “Those plumes were headed for Pyrth. There's hardly a plume bird left on the continent. The Pyrthens have used them all up for hats and horse bridles. So somebody is sending them ours … for as long as they last.”

Errol wiped his mouth with his napkin and stood to leave. It was clear from his abrupt manner that he was finished talking about plume hunting. “Percy,” he said, “go get a field wagon and carry me around to see how the melons are coming along.”