The Palace (Bell Mountain Series #6) (7 page)

Wytt was overjoyed to be out of the sack. He ran to stretch his legs. He knew most of the horses in Ninneburky, and they knew him. But he didn’t like the way that fear came oozing off the horsemen. He would rather not have been seen by them at all. He didn’t like being around so many Big People at once, but he understood the need for it.

To him the scene of Jack’s abduction was as easy to read as a picture book, illustrated with odors instead of colors. Herger, standing close by, gave off a scent of fear that almost drowned out the other scents.

What everyone soon saw, of course, was the dead body lying crumpled on the stony shore. When Ellayne first spotted it, she feared it might be Martis. But Wytt gave it only a brief examination.

He understood that the Girl was anxious about the Boy, and after he’d learned what he wanted to know, he scampered back to Ellayne.

“Men took Boy, but first Whiteface killed that one. Only Boy’s scent is here. They pick him up and take away. Eight men come here, but only seven leave.” To the troopers it sounded only like a lot of chittering and chattering, something like a scolding squirrel. But to Ellayne the meaning was clear.

“No sign of Martis, Wytt?”

“Whiteface never set foot on ground—not here.”

“Which way did they go with Jack?”

“That way.” Wytt pointed with his sharp stick. “That way, into woods. Easy to follow.” And before Ellayne could say another word, he dashed off into the trees. The men shied back from him, like housewives afraid of mice.

“What’s he doing, Ellayne?” Kadmel said.

“Oh, he’s gone off after the villains. I wish he wouldn’t do that!” Ellayne said. She repeated all that Wytt had told her. “He knows we have to stop for rest, but he’s raring to go. He’ll be back.” Times without number in their travels, Wytt raced off alone, and half the time you never knew why. Omah seldom ask for explanations, and even more rarely provide them. “I ought to be used to it by now!” Ellayne thought. But she doubted she would ever get used to it.

“Can that thing really know all that much, just by sniffing around for a few minutes?” asked one of the men. Ellayne glared at him.

“He’s not a thing, and yes, he can know all that,” she answered. “He’s a person, and you’d all do well to remember it. Not a human kind of person—but he’s not an animal. There’s nothing to be afraid of!”

It was embarrassing to them to be told off by a girl. Ellayne wondered how many of them believed the Little People would capture a man while he slept, and drag him down to their underground kingdom and keep him there; and when he finally escaped and came back up, the moment the sun first shone on him, he’d turn to dust. And yet she doubted any of these men had ever seen an Omah all their lives.

“Let’s rest while we can,” the sergeant said. “We may have a lot of hard riding ahead of us today.” And they unsaddled and tied up the horses, unrolled blankets, and caught what sleep they could. Ellayne doubted she would sleep at all, but the river sang a lullaby that closed her eyes before the first pink glint of the sun crept into the sky.

In Lintum Forest, Helki the Rod sat on a fallen tree trunk, talking softly to a little girl with long, fair hair. He had a small frog perched on his outstretched finger; it curled its toes around his finger like a bird roosting on a twig. The frog had been grey a minute ago, but now it was green. The child watched it, fascinated.

“This is what we call a tree frog, Peeper,” he said, “because it lives in trees and bushes. He’ll eat right out of my hand, if I offer him a bug. If it was going on nighttime, he’d probably sing for us.”

“So pretty!” said the girl.

She was Jandra, God’s prophet: only four years old, guessed Helki. Not old enough to understand that she was a prophet—but God speaking through her had made Ryons king of Obann. Helki had found her wandering alone on the vast plain between the forest and the river, an orphan, and had brought her back to Lintum Forest for safekeeping. She still called him “Daddy.”

It would be hard to imagine him as anyone’s daddy—huge, with wild hair that had never known a comb, and clad in a stained garment that seemed to be all patches, no two of the same color. For all his bulk, he moved as silent as smoke through the densest thickets in the forest, and as dearly as he would have loved with all his heart to live alone again, he was responsible for the settlement at Carbonek, and for the safety of the king.

But this morning he set aside his duties and took Jandra to a place where tree frogs lived, because the little girl loved him and he felt a need to spend some time with her. He could not have told you the nature of that need. He’d lived alone too long to understand it.

Jandra sat on a stump. At her feet, as though to guard her, stood a most unsightly creature—a bird in dirty purple plumage, with sharp teeth in its beak and a long, stiff tail that was like a snake with feathers. She’d found it, no one knew where, when Helki first brought her to the forest. It never left her side. It hissed at most people, and no one but Jandra cared to touch it. Just now it eyed the frog on Helki’s finger as if it had a mind to snap it up, but it made no move to do so.

“Can I hold the frog?” Jandra said.

“Maybe. Hold out your hand, sweet. He might get scared and jump away, so don’t you fuss if he does. He’s only a frog and doesn’t know any better.”

The hideous toothed bird watched the transfer with keen interest. The green frog sat on Jandra’s palm, apparently content. The little girl giggled with delight. “He’s tickly!” she said. “Tickly frog!”

And then her face suddenly shed its little-girlishness, and she spoke to Helki in a voice that he could never hear without trembling deep inside.

“Flail of the Lord, there is still much work for you to do! For my Word must go to Silvertown, and must be heard across the mountains, and to the uttermost East. And I shall do a thing, which you shall see with your own eyes, to shake the nations of the Heathen, and make the mountains of the East to dance and prance like lambs.”

It was not a child’s voice. It was the voice that had made Ryons a king and Helki his champion.

It passed away like a shadow flitting across a sunlit patch of ground, and there sat Jandra staring bemusedly at the frog in her hand. She never remembered anything God said through her, and usually fell asleep immediately afterward.

“Daddy, I’m tired!” she said, in her ordinary little voice.

“I know, Peep.” Helki gently took the frog from her and released it, and was just in time to catch her as she began to slip sideways from the stump. He picked her up in his arms. As it often did on these occasions, the bird ruffled its feathers and gave a harsh and piercing cry that made all the other birds in the neighborhood suddenly fall silent.

“Yes, I know,” Helki answered it. “The Lord has spoken. And I don’t know what He means.”

CHAPTER 7

To Tempt the King’s Guardians

Merffin Mord did not become the richest man in Obann by being a blockhead. His many successes were due to his always having a clear vision of what he wanted, and then bending all his powers to getting it.

He wanted Obann back the way it used to be, ruled by oligarchs—but this time with himself as their chief—ruled by the Temple, and without a king. The Temple was indispensable. It kept the people contented with the way things were. Moreover, the Temple ought to be ruled by a First Prester who was hand-in-glove with the High Council of the Oligarchs: who was one of them, as Lord Reesh was, sharing in their vision of stability and working closely with the council to govern the nation. Lord Orth, Merffin reflected, would never be that kind of First Prester. But Goryk Gillow would.

Merffin wanted no king in Obann, but for the time being, there were two kings, and no one knew which was which. Merffin would have gambled that the real king was the feebleminded boy who’d fled to Durmurot with Gurun, the so-called queen. But he never gambled if he could avoid it. The thing to do, he thought, was to rid Obann of both the kings at once. Then it wouldn’t matter which was which.

He discussed this confidentially with Aggo the wine merchant, the one man on the council whom he recognized as having a mind nearly equal to his own. Merffin invited Aggo to his townhouse for a sumptuous dinner, highlighted by some of Aggo’s most exquisite wine. After sating themselves, they adjourned to Merffin’s private office behind a closed door, with strict orders given to the servants not to disturb them.

“Are you worried that a maid or a footman might try a bit of eavesdropping?” Aggo said. “My own servants are incorrigible in that respect.”

“I insist on strict obedience,” said Merffin. “And I get it, too.”

“At least you think you get it.”

“I didn’t invite you here to argue, sir!”

“Then let it pass,” said Aggo. And soon, when they were comfortably settled in their chairs, they got down to business.

“The problem,” Merffin said, “is to remove two kings in such a way that our hand won’t be seen in it.”

“But one of those boys is not the king,” Aggo said.

“Oh, they’re both imposters, as far as I’m concerned! No one has any right to be king of Obann. But because one of them is more of an imposter than the other, that’s why they must both be removed from the chessboard at the same time,” Merffin said. “Unfortunately, both would seem to be out of our reach. Prester Jod protects the one in Durmurot, and the other hides in Lintum Forest with a Heathen army to protect him.”

“Then they are indeed out of our reach,” Aggo said, sucking on his wispy beard. “There’s not much we can do.”

“I am wondering if there might be a way to lure both of them back to the city.”

Aggo sat up straighter and thought about that. Probably it had not occurred to him before.

“We don’t know how the one wound up in Lintum Forest,” he said, thinking out loud. “Maybe he’s just a boy that those people set up to play the king. But the other would never have been brought all the way out to Durmurot unless someone—Jod, I would guess—thought the king would not be safe here, among us. Both, therefore, have good reason to stay away from Obann. Why should either of them ever come back?”

“What would make you come back to Obann, Aggo, if you were one of them?”

Aggo grinned—not a pleasant sight. “Nothing!” he said. “I know you too well, and I know myself too well, and I know it would be folly to trust either one of us.”

“The king’s only a child,” Merffin said, “so of course his advisers and protectors will make the decision for him. So the question becomes, how do we tempt his guardians?”

“If we can tempt them at all,” Aggo said. “But you must already have some plan in mind, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Merffin shifted in his amply stuffed chair. It was his favorite chair, and he’d had many a good idea while sitting in it. He was proud of the hand-carved woodwork that decorated the walls of his office: not that Aggo was one to appreciate it.

“As it happens,” Merffin said, “I do have the germ of an idea. But I wanted to discuss it with you before I mentioned it to any of the others. It’s only a germ, mind you—it’ll need refining.”

“I am at your service, sir,” Aggo said. Merffin didn’t miss the sarcasm, but now was not the time to make an issue of it. He leaned closer to Aggo and lowered his voice.

“How would it be,” he said, “if we offered the king a formal, public, splendid coronation—in the Palace?”

The hint of mockery fled from Aggo’s face. He rocked back and sucked on his beard for a moment.

“A coronation?” he said, after a long pause. “My dear Mord, I had no idea you were so subtle! How many people in this city even know what a coronation is? Whatever made you think of such a thing?”

“Old stories, believe it or not—old stories that my nurse used to tell me when I was little more than a baby,” Merffin said. The thought of Merffin as a baby made Aggo smile. “Old stories from the Scriptures. I just happened to remember some verses about the great coronation they had for King Kai. And it set me to thinking.”

“And what’s a king without a coronation!” Aggo said. “Yes, Mord, I salute you! But this requires a great deal of thought. What about the presters? Won’t the First Prester have to crown the king? I seem to remember something about that. But we haven’t even decided yet who shall be First Prester.”