The Palace (Bell Mountain Series #6) (8 page)

“That’s one of the refinements that we’ll have to make, my colleague!”

Aggo smiled, then broke into a dry, rattling chuckle like the rustle of dead leaves. Merffin joined him, and before he knew it, they were both laughing merrily out loud.

Prester Jod did not know that the boy he was protecting in Durmurot was not King Ryons. “Safer for him, if he doesn’t know,” Uduqu said to Gurun, when she asked him what he thought of revealing the secret to the prester. “Safer for King Ryons, too. You can see the prester doesn’t trust that bunch in Obann. Wherever Ryons really is, it’ll be better for him if they go on thinking it’s Fnaa who is the king.”

“But I do not feel right about deceiving Jod,” Gurun said. “He is a righteous man.”

“You’re young,” Uduqu said, “and Jod’s an honest man, honest as the day is long. Me, I’m an old varmint from the hills. And I’m telling you, those high and mighty merchants in the city, in all their fancy clothes, are wolves and hyenas. If they ever get wind of how Fnaa fooled them, they’ll have his head on a pole—and yours and mine and Prester Jod’s right alongside it. I know how such people think! We Abnaks live in huts instead of palaces, but we know how the world works. Let’s not be in too big a hurry to give away our secrets.”

More people lived in Durmurot than on all of Gurun’s islands put together, but she found this city less grim, less oppressive, than Obann. It was a much newer city, half the size and less than half the population of Obann—and with no hulking pile of ruins glowering at it from across the river.

Durmurot’s chamber house, where nowadays Jod read the Scriptures to the people in assembly, would have fit neatly inside the lesser assembly hall of the old Temple in Obann. To Gurun the house seemed colossal, but with its pale pink granite, marble trim, and its multitude of delicately carved hardwood screens, and the abundance of tall windows to let in natural sunlight, it never struck her as heavy or forbidding. She marveled particularly at the central dome—which, because of all the light let in around its base, seemed to float in the air above the hall.

She liked Durmurot. Its people were friendly, with none of the furtiveness she’d observed in the people of Obann. They loved their chief prester and respected the councilors who governed them. Durmurot’s oligarchs had died or vanished in the war, and the council operated now without an oligarch.

Gurun would have been happy there, if only the real King Ryons could be sheltered there, too. By now it was generally said he was in Lintum Forest—unless the boy in the forest was an imposter. Gurun hoped he was there. It was in Lintum Forest that his ancestor, King Ozias, was born and grew to manhood. Time and again in the forest, Ozias and his mother eluded their enemies. And at last he emerged from the forest with a band of mighty men, captured the great city, and ruled there for a time as Obann’s last anointed king, as recorded in the Scriptures.

But of course it wasn’t until he was established in the city that the traitors finally wrested his throne from him and drove him from the country. “That was what he should have expected,” Uduqu said, when Gurun told him the story.

Meanwhile, in spite of Durmurot’s friendliness and security and nearness to the great sea that she loved, it galled her to be waiting here—waiting and waiting for she knew not what.

“Why, All-Father,” she prayed, “have you brought me to this pleasant city, where there is nothing I can do for the king and no way I can help him?”

But to that prayer she received no answer.

CHAPTER 8

How Wytt Fought a Duel

Martis pushed himself hard. He had at least a full day’s worth of ground to make up on Jack’s abductors, not to mention the frequent stops he had to make to make sure he was still on their trail. They only had to stop when they were tired.

When they came down from Bell Mountain, Martis made a vow to protect Jack and Ellayne with his life for as long as he lived. This vow drove him now—drove him on, in spite of his hunger and his lack of food, despite his wounded head that ached abominably. In Lord Reesh’s service he’d carried out a number of missions in the wild; alone, he’d trekked all the way across the mountains and camped in Heathen lands. But for all of that, his proper hunting-ground was the streets and alleys of Obann: there he was supreme. Here he had the skill to follow eight men through the woods, and not much more. The few berries he snatched in passing, and wolfed down without breaking stride, hardly served to keep him from starvation.

It was worse when the trail led him out onto the open plain. What he wouldn’t give to have his horse, Dulayl! But Dulayl had remained behind in Ninneburky, and Martis’ own legs were gradually giving out.

Killer birds, flightless and as tall as horses, stalked these plains. Once, mounted on Dulayl, he’d only just managed to outrun one. Should one of them cross his path now, it would easily kill him. That was another thing that wouldn’t worry eight armed men. But Martis could only put his fear aside and plod and plod and hunger and thirst for as far as he could go. And his head was killing him.

Step by step, his speed slackened. He was not aware of it. Ahead, at some vague distance, loomed the green hills.

“I’ll not stop; I must keep going!” he panted to himself. But as the sun rose higher and higher in the sky, and its touch grew hotter and hotter, and the coarse, tall grass clung to his ankles, his vision blurred and his head swam. And finally he did stop, and he fell forward, and the scent of the grass in his nostrils was the last thing he knew before he slid into a peaceful darkness.

Not many paces distant, a gigantic bird with a great hooked beak cocked its head and waited to see if the man would get up again.

When he didn’t, the bird took a leisurely step toward him.

Sergeant Kadmel’s troop had to travel single file through the woods, which slowed them considerably. But with Wytt to guide them, at least there was no danger of their losing the trail.

Ellayne rode behind young Aswyll, thankful that the horses weren’t trotting. Their slow progress maddened her. Where were those men taking Jack? Who were they? But then Wytt came scampering back with news that greatly cheered her.

“Whiteface follows Boy!” he chattered at her.

“Martis is alive?” she cried.

“He hunts,” Wytt said, “but he is slow. We catch up to him quick.”

She relayed the information to the sergeant, who was not well pleased.

“I hope we catch him before he catches up to the snatchers,” Kadmel said. “What one man thinks he can do against eight, I just don’t know.”

They’ll find out what he can do, thought Ellayne—and they won’t like it.

In another hour they’d passed out of the woods and onto the plain. They were closing in on Martis, Wytt reported, but the bandits, or whatever they were, were still a good ways ahead. And then Wytt darted off alone, disappearing in the grass.

“Tell him not to do that, girl!” Kadmel snapped.

“Just follow him!” Ellayne said.

“In another two hours we’ll have to stop and make camp.”

“Please, Sergeant!”

Kadmel fumed, but ordered his company to trot.

They told Jack they were going to Silvertown, but that was all he could get out of them. They expected a generous reward for capturing the king, and most of their talk centered on their various plans for spending it.

“I’ll bet I run out of women before I run out of money!” bragged one.

“Keep your women!” said another. “I’m going to set myself up in a fine house with servants.”

“What’ll you do with your share, boss?”

Ysbott smiled with his thin lips. “I’m only interested in money,” he said, “if it can buy me Helki’s scalp. It’ll look good dangling from my belt.”

Jack despised them. He’d seen Helki kill a giant in single combat; this fellow Ysbott wasn’t worth the dirt under Helki’s fingernails. Ysbott dreamed of being the king of Lintum Forest. Maybe he hoped to hire assassins to kill Helki.

“What fools!” Jack thought. Whatever money they got for him, they would fritter it away and soon be as penniless as ever. That’s what his stepfather, Van, used to do whenever he had money, and even Van was a better man than any of these.

How terrible it was to be a boy! A grown man like the baron would scatter these cowards like starlings. They never would have gotten the best of Martis, if they hadn’t all attacked him by surprise when he was up to his knees in water. Even one of the little, wiry Attakotts in King Ryons’ army could kill them all.

He was scandalized that God would let such contemptible creatures as these get away with any of their crimes. As outlaws in the forest, they lived by terrorizing isolated settlers. Helki had chased them out of Lintum Forest, so now they’d turned their hands to kidnapping. What heroes!

“You aren’t going to get any money at all,” Jack couldn’t help saying, “once they find out I’m not the king. If you really want King Ryons, why don’t you go back to Lintum Forest and try to take him? It ought to be easy for brave men like you!”

The man who was carrying him across his shoulders stopped. “That’ll be enough out of you, Your Royal Cusset Highness!” he growled.

“Easy on the merchandise,” said Ysbott. “The prattling of a child can’t hurt you, Neff. Or have you suddenly developed tender feelings?”

“It isn’t right that he should sass us.”

“His sassing days will soon be over, once we get to Silvertown. That should be in just another day or two—if you can stop your dawdling.”

They were already heading back uphill. Spurred on by Ysbott, they’d made better time than Jack thought possible. The mountains towered over them, but they weren’t going that far up: just to Silvertown, and to whatever fate lay waiting for him there, Jack thought.

The men marched at a brisk pace, and Jack prayed silently, fearful that his prayers would go unheard.