The Palace (Bell Mountain Series #6)

by Lee Duigon

  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.”

  “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 shar
e, 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.