The Way of the Wilderking (10 page)

Aidan still knew the River Road bend for bend. “Over this next rise,” he called to Dobro behind him, “we'll get our first glimpse of Tambluff Castle.” He turned around in the saddle to look at his feechie friend. “Dobro!” he shouted, exasperation in his voice. “You have to sit down in the saddle. I mean it!” Dobro had ridden most of the way from Ryelan, standing up on his horse's back.

“I can see more this way,” Dobro said.

“We're trying
not
to draw attention to ourselves,” Aidan said.

“Ain't that what these hoods is for? To keep folks from recognizin' us?”

“Yes, Dobro, but if you're carrying on like a trick rider...”

“It just don't seem right to me, settin' on a critter's back,” said Dobro. “Don't seem respectful to the critter.”

“Dobro, sit down!”

Dobro flopped into his horse's saddle, slumping like a petulant child. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said. Sarcasm was one of the civilizer habits he was starting to get the hang of.

“In an hour we're going to be in Tambluff,” Aidan said. “It's not like any place you've ever seen before. Busy streets, fine carriages. Guards everywhere. Soldiers. People whose job is to pay attention to who comes in and who goes out. If you don't try a little harder to blend in with the civilizers, we're going to be in a whole world of trouble, Dobro.”

“I'll try harder, Aidan,” said Dobro. “But you folks is got such peculiar ways, it ain't easy to blend in.”

“Just try to do what everybody else is doing.”

* * *

They approached the city at the south gate and merged with the steady flow of people threading under the teeth of the portcullis. Dobro pulled his hood further over his face, suddenly self-conscious among so many civilizers, aware of how different he was from them.

Before they reached the gate, the door to the gate-house swung open, and a round old man leaped in front of them holding a pikestaff across his body to block their way. “You!” he shouted. “You hooded horsemen. You'll identify yourselves before you pass through my gate.”

The old man was Southporter, keeper of this gate since well before Aidan was born. How many times had Southporter welcomed Aidan to Tambluff when he was younger? King Darrow never had a more faithful servant. Perhaps he would not look so kindly on Aidan anymore. The armed guards at the gate looked alert, watching the confrontation, ready to get involved if need be.

Aidan had no choice but to identify himself and pray for the best. He could run if he had to; he knew every nook and cranny of Tambluff. And he had no cause to fear on Dobro's account. The wily feechie could take care of himself. Aidan leaned down toward Southporter so the old gatekeeper could see his face under the hood. “I am Aidan Errolson,” he whispered.

Southporter's face paled, and he staggered back a step. “Aidan,” he whispered. Then, after a quick glance at the armed guards, he opened his arms in a gesture of welcome to Aidan and Dobro. “Simon!” he said heartily. “Thurston! What took you so long? Come in! Come in!”

He turned back to the gate guards. “Can you keep an eye on things until I get my friends settled? It will
only take a minute.” He herded Aidan and Dobro into the gatehouse and sat them down on a bench he used for questioning suspicious strangers (and sometimes used for taking afternoon naps).

“Aidan, what are you doing in Tambluff?” he whispered, his voice full of genuine concern. “This is the most dangerous place you could possibly be!”

“I've come to—” Aidan began, but Southporter was at it again.

“And who is this with you?” Southporter threw back Dobro's hood and squinted at him, trying to remember if he had ever seen him, or even anybody like him, before.

“Southporter, this is Dobro Turtlebane,” Aidan began.

Southporter nodded his head and pointed at Dobro. “I know what you are,” he said. “Yes.” He kept looking at Dobro, kept nodding. Then he looked back at Aidan. “So it's true. I thought it was just another wild rumor, you traipsing around the countryside with a feechie, but here he is, setting right here in my gate-house.” He stared another moment at Dobro. “He
is
a feechie, ain't he?”

Aidan nodded.

“You've brung some astonishing things to this gatehouse,” Southporter said. “Six years ago, you brung the biggest alligator I ever seen before or since. And today, you have brung a feechie in the flesh.” He slapped his thighs. “I don't know how you gonna top this one, Aidan!”

Dobro gave Southporter a greenish grin. Southporter shook his head in amazement. Then he grew suddenly serious. “Aidan, there's another rumor about you, and every time I hear it I tell folks it's a filthy lie.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Folks say you and your pap's training a rebel army down in Sinking Canyons. And I tell them, ‘That's a filthy lie, and I don't care who knows it! Ain't nobody,' I tell them, ‘ain't nobody truer to the House of Darrow than Lord Errol and his boys.' I still call him ‘lord,' even if King Darrow don't. And I tell them, ‘Anybody cares to contradict me can have my pikestaff right across his skull bone.'”

Southporter had plenty more to say on that subject, and he meant to go on at some length, but he noticed a strange expression on Aidan's face. Southporter tried to soldier on. “It's like I tell them …” He broke off. “Aidan, why ain't you looking at my eyes? Aidan? Oh, dear me, no! Aidan? You
are
training a army in Sinking Canyons!”

“Southporter, it's not what you think!”

Southporter's face crumpled and tears stood in his eyes. “Traitor?” His tone of voice was halfway between an accusation and a question. “Aidan Errolson a traitor?” He put his hand on the bell pull that would summon the armed guards.

“No! Never!” Aidan looked into Southporter's eyes, resisting the temptation to look at his hand on the bell pull. “Believe me, Southporter. Errol and his sons are no traitors. Yes, we are training an army, an
army to place at the service of the House of Darrow. These men insist on following me, Southporter. I will lead them in service to Corenwald.”

Southporter was silent for a moment. He looked at his hand on the bell pull, then back at Aidan. “Why should I believe you?”

Aidan blinked slowly and said, “Do you even have to ask that?”

Southporter took his hand off the bell pull. He looked a little ashamed of himself. He also looked relieved. “No, Aidan, of course I don't. But you have to admit it looks suspicious. The king outlaws a nobleman and his sons. The nobleman and his sons train an army of malcontents.”

“Father says we may be the only army Corenwald has.”

Southporter nodded his head. “He may be right. Darrow's army was in terrible shape even before he tried to invade the Feechiefen. Since then, it's been even worse. When the Pyrthens come …” Southporter broke off. He shook all over, as if from a sudden chill.

“So you think the Pyrthens are coming too?”

“How could they not be? The question isn't
if
they'll come; it's
when.
And why they haven't already is a mystery to me. I figured the two of you were Pyrthen spies or assassins when you rode up hooded. What are you doing in Tambluff anyway?”

“Seeing the sights,” said Dobro with admirable candor. “I ain't never been to the city before, and I made Aidan bring me.”

“And I'm here,” Aidan began, “to meet with Lynwood Wertenson.”

A flicker of suspicion returned to Southporter's eyes. “The rabble-rouser?”

Aidan raised an eyebrow.

“I got no use for that man,” said Southporter, “and I don't care who knows it. What business do you have with him?”

“I've come to tell him that I don't intend to lead his rebellion, Southporter.”

“That's my boy,” whooped Southporter. “That's my boy!”

Aidan wrote a quick note to Lynwood expressing his wish to see the Chair of the Committee at his earliest convenience. Southporter sent the note with his most trusted messenger, then settled in to give Aidan the news from Tambluff. He said he hadn't seen King Darrow since the day he galloped home from Last Camp, after the aborted invasion of the Feechiefen.

“He come thundering through my gate on that beautiful black horse of his,” Southporter said, “face like a wild man.” He turned to Dobro. “No offense intended, of course.”

The wild man nodded and smiled greenly. “None taken.”

“Galloping so hard his mounted bodyguard couldn't keep up with him. Galloped into the castle, and so far as anybody knows, he ain't come out since. Hasn't met with the Four and Twenty Nobles, hasn't seen anybody besides his personal servants and Prince Steren.

“The servants say he raves and rages for whole days at a time. Goes back and forth between wanting to pardon you and wanting to hunt you down and kill you. So he ends up not doing anything.” Southporter shook his head. “I think your act of mercy—choosing not to kill him when you had the chance—got inside his mind and busted it up. He's been hating so long he can't make sense out of mercy. Sounds like he can't make sense of nothing else either. He done the same thing in the days after you brought home the frog orchid. Tore up with guilt for hating a feller who always answers good for bad, but still hating you all the more for it.”

Aidan's heart went out to his friend the prince. “What about Steren?” he asked. “What has he been doing?”

“He's been away for three weeks. His father sent him out looking for you.”

Aidan thought on this. “It wouldn't take three weeks to hunt me down. Doesn't everybody in Corenwald know we're in Sinking Canyons?”

Southporter laughed. “The children playing in the street out there know you're in Sinking Canyons. Of course, they also think you're in Sinking Canyons with an army of ten thousand feechiefolk, all foaming at the mouth and ready to tear down Tambluff brick by brick.”

Dobro managed to stifle a little smile, but he did sit up a little straighter.

“So Steren must not be trying very hard to find me,” said Aidan.

“Doesn't sound like it,” said Southporter. “Sounds like he's protecting his old friend. Or maybe,” he added after a brief reflection, “he's afraid of what he might find if he does track you down.”

“When Steren comes back, Southporter, would you make sure he knows what I told you? That army in Sinking Canyons is his army—Corenwald's army—not mine.”

Southporter smiled. “I'll make sure he knows.”

By that time the messenger was back with Lynwood's reply. He requested the honor of Aidan's and Dobro's presence at his supper table that evening. The supper hour was fast approaching, so Southporter loaded Aidan and Dobro into his pony cart and covered them with a blanket. It wouldn't do for Southporter to be seen with these hooded strangers. Nor would it do for him to be seen at Lynwood's house. So when he reached the street corner where Lynwood's house stood, he stopped for a passing wagon and made a low whistle. Aidan and Dobro tumbled out the back of the cart, and Southporter rolled on without a backward look or a wave.

Try to blend in,” Aidan whispered as they mounted the marble steps to Lynwood's house. Somehow he knew Dobro wouldn't blend in. They were in the finest neighborhood in all of Tambluff. A gleaming carriage rattled by, pulled by a horse whose carefully groomed flanks shone in the afternoon sun. Lynwood's massive front door was polished walnut. The brass of its great alligator-head knocker was so bright Aidan hated to touch it at all.

“Everything's so shiny!” Dobro marveled.

The servant who answered Lynwood's door was dressed as finely as a Pyrthen lord, in tailored silks and white hose and gold buckles on his shoes. Dobro whistled when he saw him and nudged Aidan. “Even the folks is shiny!”

The man hurried the two dusty travelers into the entry hall, peering out into the street to see if anyone had noticed them. “Follow me … gentlemen,” he said. There was that tiny pause, barely perceptible, before he said the word
gentlemen.
Ebbe used to do the same thing when ushering people he considered
to be beneath the dignity of Errol's house. Dobro, of course, didn't notice.

The servant led them through wide arches, past great banks of windows, substantial fireplaces, gracefully appointed furniture, huge portraits in heavy frames, a suit of armor standing in a corner. Finely dressed servants swished through, turning around to stare at the strangers after they had passed.

“What's your name?” Dobro asked the back of the servant.

The servant made not quite a quarter turn in Dobro's direction without slacking his pace. “I'm the butler,” he said in a tone meant to convey that in his line of work he didn't ask personal questions and shouldn't be expected to answer any.

“Butler,” said Dobro. “That's a nice name. I'm Dobro, and this here's Aidan.”

The butler didn't react to Dobro's introductions. He opened a pair of very tall, narrow doors and gestured Aidan and Dobro into a high-ceilinged, airy room. A bearded man, probably in his fifties, his wife, and four beautiful young women, their daughters, all rose from richly embroidered chairs. Lynwood directed the butler from the room with an elegant nod, and when the servant had glided noiselessly away, he beamed an ingratiating smile at Aidan and bowed deeply. “Aidan Errolson,” he said, “I am honored to have you in my home.”

Aidan popped a quick bow, but his social graces were still rusty. “We are pleased to be here,” Aidan
said, not altogether convincingly. In the Feechiefen and in Sinking Canyons, he had abandoned the habit of saying things he didn't mean. “This is my very good friend Dobro Turtlebane.” Lynwood and his family, turning their attention to Dobro for the first time, all opened their eyes a little wider, realizing at once that the rumors of Aidan consorting with feechies were surely true. But they managed to maintain their composure.

Dobro gave a closed-lipped little smile. He remembered what Aidan had said about civilizer ladies not wanting to see his teeth. He tipped over in a bow that was even less graceful than Aidan's. Dobro was truly awestruck in the presence of these five women—the mother no less than the daughters. The grandeur of the house had made but little impression on him. But these civilizer ladies—Dobro had no idea such exquisite creatures even existed.

“My wife, Lenora,” Dobro could hear Lynwood saying through a buzzing in his ears. “Daughters Onie, Lilla, Jewell, and Sadie.”

Their curling hair was swept into carefully arranged piles high atop their heads. Except for the youngest daughter—Sadie, was it? Her hair had already begun to unpile in several unruly tendrils down her neck and in front of her face. Such faces … the mother and three of the daughters were as white as boar tusks, as if they had never seen the sunshine. But that youngest girl—yes, it was Sadie—her face was brown, or pink, really, especially on the end of her nose and on her
cheeks. She looked as if she had soaked up the sun and was now shining it back on everyone who looked at her. No wonder these girls preferred not to cover their faces in swamp mud! And their arms were as long and thin and graceful as a craney-crow's neck.

Except for Sadie, who seemed to divide her attention equally between the two visitors, the women were all gazing at Aidan with undisguised admiration. Lynwood said something about an honor and a privilege. Whatever he was saying, Dobro couldn't make any sense of it. He felt this same way at the Battle of Bearhouse, after he had been conked on the head. He could see that talking was happening; he could even hear most of the words, but he couldn't make them make sense. He was that taken with the four Lynwood daughters. Then Sadie stuck her tongue out at him, and it brought him back around like a splash of water in the face.

“Retire to the dining room,” Lynwood was saying, as he shepherded the group across the hall toward the dining room. Elaborately carved chairs surrounded a table set with blown-glass tumblers and six or seven pieces of silver per place setting.

Lynwood put Aidan near the head of the table, in the place of honor beside his own right hand. Dobro got the second spot of honor, the foot of the table directly across from Lynwood, which meant he was surrounded by Lynwood's daughters, much to the young ladies' disappointment.

While the servants brought out the first course,
a soup of river perch, Lenora got the conversation started with small talk. How was Aidan and Dobro's trip? Wasn't this weather unusual for August? How long did they plan to stay in Tambluff? Aidan answered each question politely but with as little elaboration as possible.

Dobro, meanwhile, was working on his soup, and working rather hard. He held his spoon handle in his fist as if it were the haft of a spear and jabbed it beneath the pieces of fish that bobbed in his fine, white-clay bowl. Then he brought the spoon to his mouth, palm up, slurped the soup loudly, and smacked with satisfaction before plunging the spoon in for another go at it. The small talk around the table stopped as Lynwood and his family stared in horror and confusion at this most outlandish dinner guest. Enraptured by the soup, Dobro didn't notice he had become the center of the room's attention.

Sadie was the first person to speak. She leaned back in her chair, the better to take in the wild and smelly young man in the chair beside her, and she said to Dobro what her parents and sisters were saying silently: “Are you some kind of feechie or something?”

Dobro jerked his head back, amazed at the girl's perceptiveness. “Well, ain't you the clever one?” he said with an admiring smile. “There ain't no hiding the truth from you, is there?” He was quickly mastering his shyness. “I like that in a gal.” He winked at Sadie. She blushed and looked down at her soup, twirling a ringlet around a finger.

“I can't lie to a pretty civilizer gal like you,” Dobro said. “That would go against the Feechie Code. I
am
a feechie, but my dress and manners done got so refined, most folks take me for a civilizer.” He arched the left half of his one long eyebrow and graced the room with a look meant to convey great sophistication. The effect, such as it was, was ruined by a sneeze that came on him as suddenly as a sparrow hawk. He was not accustomed to the ground black pepper served at civilizer tables.

Dobro grabbed the corner of the tablecloth and blew his nose into it with a great trumpeting. He gave Sadie a broad wink. “Like that right there. Time was, I'd a wiped my nose on the back of my hand.” He pantomimed raking his nose from his knuckles nearly to his elbow. “But now I takened to blowing it in a cloth, just like a civilizer.”

Dobro mistook the shocked silence for rapt attention, and it emboldened him to keep talking. “It's the little things makes a feller blend in, ain't it?” He slurped up another spoonful of soup. “And if there's one thing a feechie knows about, it's blending in. I remember one time I was cooling off in a seep hole, and I was blended in so good a alligator nearbout stepped on me.” His bashfulness was completely gone by now. A little bashfulness would have done him some good.

“This here alligator just noozled up beside of me. I was so blended in, you see, that he thought he was by his lonesome. I raised up and
frammed
him in the
snout.” With that he put his two fists together like a club and crashed them down on the table, causing plates, bowls, silver, and blown-glass tumblers to leap an inch off the planks of the tabletop. A roll tumbled off the table and circled around Aidan's feet.

The crash and the reproachful looks from the ladies were enough to abash Dobro at last. His face pinkened with embarrassment, and he returned his full attention to his soup. He didn't even notice the look of admiration that beamed from Sadie's face.

Lynwood thought it best to get down to business before Dobro got started again. He turned toward his wife. “The hope of Corenwald, seated at our very table, Lenora. Can you believe it?”

Lenora beamed a charming smile at Aidan. “We so longed for your return from the Feechiefen, Aidan, for the fulfillment of the prophecy. We were beside ourselves with joy when we heard you were back on this side of the river.”

“I hope you will forgive my eagerness to move things along, Aidan,” said Lynwood, “what with the local committees and the Aidanite militias and the posters on the trees. We figure there's no point putting off the inevitable—no, the foreordained—is there?”

“That's actually what I came to speak with you about,” Aidan began, but Lynwood cut him off.

“Three thousand men at your disposal, Aidan. What does that kind of power feel like?”

“Now wait a minute,” Aidan tried to interrupt. But Lynwood pressed on.

“I love to give good gifts—as my darling Lenora and my daughters can attest.” Lenora and the girls eagerly nodded their heads, except Sadie, who blew a stray wisp of hair out of her eyes. “And I had been waiting years to give that gift to the Wilderking: a whole army of loyal men willing to fight to the death for you against”—he reined himself in—“against tyranny.” He grinned a sly, knowing grin. “So what do you say our next steps are, Aidan?” At last he paused to give Aidan a chance to speak.

Aidan's eyes narrowed as he prepared to speak. “I did not come here to scheme with you,” he said firmly but quietly. “I want no part of your conspiracy against the anointed king.” A look of confusion overspread Lynwood's face. Aidan pressed on. “You have sent me an army, and I thank you for it. I will lead them. But I won't lead them against King Darrow.”

Lynwood's brow was knitted with perplexity. He had prepared for many, many possibilities but never this one. It had never occurred to him the Wilderking might not welcome his efforts on his behalf. “Not lead our army against King Darrow?” he said. “Why do you think I gave them to you?”

“I know full well why you ‘gave them' to me, Lynwood,” Aidan answered. “But I won't shed Corenwalder blood for the sake of my ambition—or for the sake of yours.”

Leonora broke in. “But, Aidan, surely you know yourself to be the Wilderking of ancient prophecy. What about the panther you slew with a stone? What
about the Pyrthen giant? What about the feechiefolk? You have to believe you're the Wilderking.” She paused, her confidence slipping. “Don't you believe it?”

“I believe the living God raises kings and brings them down,” Aidan answered. “I believe we don't have to force ourselves on the ancient prophecies. I believe a traitor is no fit king.” He turned his gaze to Lynwood. “If you want to follow me, Lynwood, then follow me. But don't try to lead me like a bull with a nose ring, and all the while pretend you're following me.”

Lynwood looked down at his knuckles, the expression on his face shifting from disappointment to embarrassment to something more like anger. Another awkward silence descended on the room. It was broken this time by loud sucking noises at the far end of the table, where Dobro was picking his teeth with his fork.

Lynwood exploded in an outburst of irritability. “Could someone do something with that infernal heathen?” He pointed at Dobro with all five fingers. “Could you at least have the decency to act like a human being at my table?”

“Lynwood, don't you understand?” said Aidan. “When the Wilderking comes, he won't be coming to bring you more of this.” He gestured around at the finery of Lynwood's house. “He's probably going to bring you a little more of that.” He pointed at Dobro, who was moping after Lynwood's rebuke.

Lenora gasped—squeaked, really.

“Think about it,” Aidan continued. “‘Leading his troops of wild men and brutes.' Are you sure that's what you want? A bunch of wild feechies running loose in Corenwald? That's what the Wilderking will bring with him. Feechies free to leave their forest haunts and live among the rest of us, if that's what they want to do.”

Aidan chuckled. “If you're backing me for king, you need to know that's what you're backing.”

Lynwood grew pale behind his beard. Lenora was fanning herself with quick, choppy strokes. And three of the sisters' faces were contorted into expressions of undisguised contempt for the feechie at their table. But Sadie's eyes twinkled at the prospect of feechiefolk in Tambluff.

From the hallway came the sound of a mailed fist pounding on the front door. A gruff and threatening voice penetrated the thick walnut. “Open up! In the name of King Darrow, open up!”