THE KINGS OF CLONMEL

by John Flanagan

  Not that that was an insurmountable problem. He had numbers enough now, and the outlaws had served their purpose, creating fear and uncertainty and giving him the opportunity to rise up as the uncontested saviour of the Kingdom. But the planned massacre at Craikennis had been an important part of his end game. Now that had been taken away. The unfortunate man before him looked up, saw his leader's face twisted with fury.

  `Your honour,' he said, 'perhaps it was the Sunrise Warrior who told —'

  He got no further. Tennyson was upon him. His face was dark and flushed now as he heard that ridiculous phrase. The messenger had mentioned it before. Now Tennyson let his rage loose as he beat back and forth at the wretched man with his closed fists. Blood flowed from the crouching man's nose and he huddled lower, trying to protect himself from the savage fists.

  `There is no Sunrise Warrior! I tell you he does not exist! If you use that name before me again I'll. . .' He stopped suddenly, the blinding rage gone almost as

  soon as it had formed. This stupid Hibernian superstition could be a problem, he thought. If people started believing in the Sunrise Warrior, it would undermine his position. His mind was working rapidly. So far as he knew, he was the only one who was aware that there had been no massacre at Craikennis. At least, he thought sourly, no massacre of the villagers. If he moved quickly, he could spread the rumour that the village had been razed to the ground, all its inhabitants killed. By the time the truth was known, he would be in an unassailable position. He had four hundred followers with him now, all prepared to swear that he had the power to defeat the marauding bandits who were scourging the Kingdom.

  So, he reasoned, any mention of this Sunrise Warrior must be quashed.

  He became aware that the man was watching him fearfully. The blood still streamed from his nose and one eye was swelling shut where Tennyson's fists had struck him. He smiled now and stepped forward, offering his hand. His voice was silken and low, conciliatory.

  `My friend, I'm sorry. Forgive me, please. It's just that I become enraged when Alseiass's will is denied. I should never have struck you. Say you forgive me? Please?'

  He gripped both the man's hands in his own and looked deep into his eyes. Warily, the former bandit began to relax a little. There was still a shadow of fear behind his eyes but it was receding. Tennyson released his hands and turned to the altar, where a small pile of offerings to Alseiass was assembled. He selected one, a chain of heavy golden discs linked together. It caught the light and gleamed as it twisted in his hand.

  `Here, take this as a sign of my repentance. And as thanks for bringing me this news. I know it must have been a difficult choice for you.'

  The man's eyes were locked on the chain now. The linked discs turned slowly, rich and gleaming and heavy. It was a fortune to a man like himself. He could live comfortably for years if he were to sell that chain. He seized it, marvelling at the weight of it as Tennyson released it to him. What were a few bruises and a bleeding nose compared to this, he thought.

  `Thank you, your honour. I thought I should . .

  `You did your duty, friend. Your duty to me and to Alseiass. Now tell me. What is your name?'

  `It's Kelly, your honour. Kelly the Squint, they call me.'

  Tennyson looked at him, careful to keep the distaste he felt off his face. He could see why the man had been given such a name. His two eyes wandered in different directions.

  `Well, Kelly, I'll rename you Friend of Alseiass. I'll wager you didn't have much to eat on your way here?' `No, your honour. I did not.'

  Tennyson nodded, smiling beneficently at the man. `Then Kelly, Friend of Alseiass, take yourself to my tent and tell my man there to serve you food and wine. The finest I have.'

  `Why thank you, your honour. I must say, I . .

  Tennyson held up a hand to silence him. 'It's the least I can do. And tell them I said they are to tend your bruises as well.' Tennyson took a fine silk cloth from his sleeve and dabbed gently at the blood on Kelly's face, tut-tutting as he did so, the very picture of concern. Satisfied that he had

  cleared most of it, he stepped back and smiled reassuringly at the man. 'Now be off with you.'

  He waved a hand in blessing and dismissal and Kelly the Squinting Friend of Alseiass hurried from the pavilion. When he was gone, Tennyson began pacing again. After a few minutes, he called to one of his massive bodyguards, stationed outside the curtain that separated the inner tent from the main part of the pavilion.

  `Gerard!'

  The curtain parted and the enormous creature entered. He and his twin were from the western isles. Massive brutes, they were. And killers.

  `Lord?' he said.

  `Find me the leader of the new men. Bring him here.'

  Gerard frowned, puzzled. 'New men, my lord?'

  Tennyson repressed the instinct to shout at the giant oaf. He remained patient, his voice silken.

  `The three new men who joined us two days ago. The Genovesans.'

  Gerard's face cleared in understanding. He knuckled his brow in salute and hurried from the tent to look for the leader of the three Genovesans Tennyson had hired. Originally from a land far to the east, on the northern shore of the Constant Sea, the Genovesans could now be found in all the major kingdoms of the main continent. They were a race of mercenaries, each man armed with a crossbow and a selection of daggers. They were also very efficient assassins, with a comprehensive knowledge of poisons, and Tennyson had decided that it might be useful to have people with such skills working for him. They didn't come cheaply, but chances were there'd be more than oneoccasion over the coming days when he'd need to get rid of a troublesome critic. Or someone who simply knew too much — for example, someone who knew about the defeat at Craikennis. Of course, the massive twins could handle that sort of thing with ease, but he felt there were occasions like this one when more subtlety and discretion was needed. And they were not qualities that the hulking islanders possessed in any quantity.

  Tennyson waited outside the pavilion for Gerard to return with the Genovesan. He watched a small group of recently joined followers listening to the songs of a young minstrel. He frowned. The singer was a new addition, he thought. He hadn't seen him around before and he'd bear watching. Tennyson wasn't sure that he wanted anyone else commanding an audience among his followers, no matter how small that audience might be. He decided that he'd issue an edict from Alseiass the following morning, banning any music that wasn't a hymn of praise to the Golden God.

  His attention was distracted by the arrival of Gerard with the Genovesan.

  `Thank you, Gerard. You may go,' he said. The giant hesitated. Usually he and his brother dogged the leader's footsteps, their presence adding to his aura of authority. But now, as he hesitated, Tennyson's brow darkened in anger.

  `Go,' he repeated, a little more forcefully. The huge man touched his forehead in obedience and entered the pavilion, leaving Tennyson with the newcomer.

  He was slim and swarthy, wearing a wide-brimmed hat with a long feather in it. It was the Genovesan national

  headwear, Tennyson knew. The man was dressed completely in tight, body-fitting leather and he had a superior smile on his face. Tennyson was sure that he wore perfume.

  `Signor?' the Genovesan asked now.

  Tennyson smiled at him and moved towards him, putting an arm around his shoulder. The leader of the Outsiders set great store by touching and laying hands on his followers.

  `Luciano, that's your name, isn't it?'

  `Si. That is what people call me, signor. Luciano.'

  `Let's walk a while then, Luciano." He kept his arm on the smaller man's shoulder and led him away from the tent. Behind him, he was aware of the minstrel finishing a song and the hearty burst of applause from his audience. He scowled momentarily. He would definitely issue that edict tonight at prayers. Then he brought his mind back to the matter at hand and assumed the smile again.

  `Well now, my friend, there's something you can do for me.' He paused but the oth
er man said nothing so he continued. 'There's a man called Kelly in my tent right now. An ugly little person with a terrible squint. My servants are feeding him and tending him. He's been a little bruised around the face, poor man.'

  `Yes, signor?' Luciano was an experienced mercenary and assassin. He could see through the false concern in Tennyson's voice. There was usually only one reason for an employer to point out a third party to a Genovesan, he knew.

  `When he leaves my tent, follow him and wait for a moment when there's no one around.'

  `And then what should I do, signor?' But Luciano already knew what Tennyson wanted and a wolfish smile was creasing his face in anticipation.

  `Then you should kill him, Luciano. Then you should kill him.'

  Luciano's smile broadened, matched by an answering smile on Tennyson's face. The two men looked into each other's eyes and understood each other perfectly.

  `Oh, one other thing, Luciano,' Tennyson added as an afterthought. The Genovesan said nothing but arched an eyebrow questioningly.

  `You'll find a gold chain on his person. He stole it from me. Bring it back to me when the job's done.'

  `It shall be as you say, signor,' Luciano said. And Tennyson, still smiling, nodded in satisfaction.

  `I know,' he replied.

  * * *

  Chapter 32

  * * *

  Ferris went white. Horace saw the colour literally drain from his face and his hand went up to his tf in an involuntary gesture of shock. After initially recoiling, the King took control of himself and stepped forward a pace, peering into the face of the grim, grey-bearded man who stood before him.

  `Brother?' he said. 'But you can't . . .' He stopped, then tried to take possession of himself once more, tried to assume an air of dignified mystification. 'My brother is dead. He died many years ago,' he said, the conviction in his voice growing as he spoke. He made a small sign with his right hand and Horace ce heard the large doors behind them open, heard several sets of hurried footsteps on the stone flooring and knew that Sean Carrick and a small group of men at arms had entered the throne room.

  He'd been right about the unseen observers, he thought grimly.

  `Your majesty, is everything all right?' Sean Carrick asked.

  Halt glanced over his shoulder at the group of armed men. He stepped a little closer to Ferris. Instinctively, the King began to back off a corresponding pace. Then he seemed to realise that, by doing so, he was giving Halt the upper hand. He stopped, watching Halt warily. Halt spoke softly so that only his brother and Horace could hear his words.

  `If you're frightened, brother, then let Sean stay. He has a right to hear me. But unless you want your men to hear what we're about to discuss — and I don't think you do —send them outside again, where they can see but not listen.'

  Ferris looked at him, then at the armed men standing ready by the door. Halt and Horace were both unarmed, he realised, while he was wearing his sword. Sean Carrick was similarly armed and Ferris knew his steward was a more than capable swordsman. That was one of the reasons Sean held the position that he did. Years of guilt and fear, long suppressed, now swam to the surface of his mind. He realised instinctively that he didn't want his soldiers to hear whatever it was that Halt planned to say. He knew it would not show himself in any favourable light. Abruptly, he decided.

  `Sean!' he called. 'Dismiss the men to their posts and come stand by me.'

  Carrick hesitated and Ferris turned to look directly at him.

  `Do it,' he ordered.

  Carrick still hesitated another second or two, then nodded to the men. As they turned and trooped out of the room, Sean waited till the doors closed behind them, then strode forward to stand beside the King.

  `Uncle,' he said, confirming Halt's earlier suspicion, `what's the trouble? Who is this man?'

  He was looking at Halt, frowning. From the relative positions of the three men, Halt and Ferris facing each other, Horace standing a pace or two back, it was obvious now that the Araluan knight was not the leader here, but the follower. And now Sean had that same sense that he'd felt before, that there was something very familiar about the smaller man.

  Halt turned to face him.

  `Uncle?' he said. 'You'd be Caitlyn's son then?'

  Sean nodded. 'What do you know of my mother?' he asked, his tone defensive and a little belligerent. Ferris let out a deep sigh of anguish and turned away, moving to sit on a low bench beside the throne, his head in his hands.

  'She was my sister,' Halt told him. 'I'm your uncle too. My name is Halt.'

  `NoP Sean rejected the statement vehemently. 'My uncle Halt is dead. He died over twenty years ago!' He looked to the King for confirmation. But Ferris's face remained in his hands and he refused to look up and meet Sean's gaze. He shook his head repeatedly from side to side, as if trying to deny the scene before him. Sean's conviction began to waver and he looked more closely at the small, rather stocky man in the mottled cloak.

  The beard was full and covered the face. And the moustache was heavy as well. But if that shaggy mop of hair were drawn back as Ferris's was ...

  Sean shook his head now. The features were the same. They were more defined in the stranger's face. In Ferris's, they were blurred somewhat by the extra flesh he carried.

  A person's features become altered by their actions over their lifetime, he knew. A face is a canvas where the years paint their marks. But if you could strip away the effect of the years from these two faces, remove the excesses, the joys, the pains, the triumphs and disappointments of twenty years or more, then he sensed that they would be identical.

  And if you looked beyond the faces to the eyes. . .

  The eyes! They were the same. Yet in one important way, they were different. Ferris, he knew, could never meet your gaze for more than a few seconds at a time. His eyes would slide away from yours uncertainly. That was why Ferris set great store by the fact that people should not gaze directly into the face of a king. But this man's eyes were steady and unwavering. And as Sean Carrick looked into them now, he saw something else, a faint hint of sardonic humour deep behind them.

  `Finished looking?' Halt asked him.

  Sean stepped back. He wasn't totally convinced, but his mind couldn't ignore the evidence that his eyes were seeing. He turned to Ferris.

  `Your majesty?' he said. 'Tell me.'

  But the only response from Ferris was a deep groaning sound, and an ineffectual wave of the hand. And in that moment, Sean Carrick knew. A second later, Ferris confirmed it with one word.

  `Halt. . .' he began uncertainly, raising his eyes at last to look at his brother. 'I never meant you any harm. You must believe that.'

  `Ferris, you're a lying sack of manure. You meant me a great deal of harm. You meant to kill me.'

  `No! When you left I sent men after you to find you!' Ferris protested. Halt laughed, a short, barking sound that had no humour in it.

  `I'll bet you did! With orders to finish what you'd started!'

  It was too much for Sean. Nobody had ever taken such a tone to the King and the habit of years now made him intervene. He stepped forward, interposing himself between Ferris and Halt, his eyes locked on Halt's, each of them unwilling to drop his gaze.

  `You can't talk to the King like that,' Sean said with some force. Halt held his gaze for several seconds before he replied quietly.

  `I'm not talking to the King.' He jerked a contemptuous thumb at his brother. 'He is.'

  The thought was so outrageous, so directly opposed to everything that Sean had lived by for his entire adult life, that it checked him like a physical blow. Yet he realised it was true. If this was Halt, then he was the rightful King of Clonmel, and Ferris was a usurper. No ceremony of coronation and consecration could change that basic fact. And as he looked into Halt's eyes again, then tried to look at Ferris, only to have the so-called King avert his gaze, the last doubt disappeared from Sean's mind. This was Halt. This was the rightful King of Clonmel.

  `Your
majesty . . .'he said and began to sink to his knees before Halt. The Ranger quickly stopped him, stepping closer to seize his forearm and draw him back to his feet. Ferris made a choking sound in his throat. Significantly, Sean thought, he made no protest about Sean's demonstration of fealty to Halt.

  `Very kind of you,' Halt said, 'but we don't have time for that nonsense. I'm really not interested in being King. I prefer to work for a living. Now, Ferris, we need to talk.'

  Ferris looked wildly about the room, as if seeking some form of escape. He knew that he was about to face retribution for his crimes. So he was quite startled when Halt continued, in a bad-tempered tone.

  `Oh, for God's sake, man! I'm not here to steal your throne! I'm here to help you keep it!'

  `Keep it?' Ferris, said, bewildered. Events were moving too fast for him. 'Keep it from whom?'

  `Let's sit down, shall we?' Halt saw several low benches to one side and he picked one up and brought it close to the throne, gesturing for Horace and Sean to do likewise. Ferris stood watching them, uncertain what to do next, plucking nervously at the hem of his satin sleeve.

  `You hop up on your throne,' Halt told him. 'I'm sure you'll enjoy that.' He glanced at Sean. 'I don't suppose there's any chance we could get some coffee sent in, is there?' he asked.

  Sean looked doubtful. 'We don't drink coffee here. The King —' he corrected himself '— Uncle Ferris doesn't like it.'

  `Might have known,' Halt said, scowling. He looked at Horace and curled his lip in distaste. Horace couldn't help grinning. Halt seemed more antagonised by the fact that his brother didn't like coffee than by the fact that he had stolen the throne from him. Typical, the young warrior thought.

  `Well, never mind,' Halt continued. 'We'll just get this over as quickly as we can. Now, Ferris, you've heard of a group called the Outsiders, I take it?'