by Lee Duigon
“You have the spirit of a king,” Obst said, “but you’ll need to have the mind of a king, too. You won’t always have advisers you can count on, but God’s word never changes. Remember that.”
As much as he had come to love his teachers and protectors, Ryons also came to love his time alone in the woods. He loved the quiet and the feast that God’s creation laid out daily for his eyes and ears. You could never, however hard you tried, see or hear any more than a tiny fraction of it at a time, and it was different every day. He loved this little pool, with its lush growth of ferns around it and the nearby patch of blackberries; turtles ate there, Helki said, until they got too fat for their shells. He loved being able, now, to find his way there and back alone. Cavall’s quiet companionship delighted him, and he’d long since lost all fear of Baby.
“There are animals in this forest who can hurt you,” Helki said, “but with both Cavall and Baby around, they’ll stay out of your way.”
Above the pool rose an old oak tree, and on it perched Ryons’ hawk, Angel. The Ghols were great hawkers, and they’d taught him how to hunt with Angel, and how to restrain her from hunting except at his command. Helki taught him how to stroke her feathers in the way that she liked best, and Ryons knew the hawk loved him, in her savage little way.
When he was alone in the forest with his hawk, his hound, and Baby, Ryons felt like King Ozias, his ancestor, whose life he was learning from the Scriptures.
These were by far the happiest days of his life.
While Ryons explored the woods, Obst and Helki tried to find the meaning of Jandra’s latest prophecy.
“The Lord wants us to go to Silvertown—that’s clear,” Helki said. “Goryk Gillow holds it for the Thunder King, so I reckon that means a battle. I’d rather do without that! I’ve already seen enough of battles to last me all my days.”
They sat together outdoors at a hand-hewn table, just outside the ruined castle at Carbonek. There wasn’t much the settlers could do with the ancient pile of stone and masonry, although parts of it were usable, but all around the castle, they’d done plenty—planted acres of crops, built cabins by the score, and wooden towers and stockades for defense. The Abnaks in the king’s army ranged throughout the forest, scouting for enemies and bringing home meat, while the king’s Wallekki horsemen and wild Attakotts spent most of their time on the plains, guarding the approaches to the forest. The black men from the Hosa country farmed with a will—it was the occupation they loved best—while the king’s Dahai, Fazzan, and Griffs hunted down and battled gangs of outlaws. And every five days, they assembled for Obst to lead them in prayer and teach them from the Scriptures.
“Now that everything’s going so smoothly,” Helki said, “it seems a shame to march us out to fight a battle. I want to crawl off into a cave and go to sleep for a year!”
“But we must go farther east than Silvertown,” said Obst. “It’s quite clear to me that the Lord wishes His word to be carried across the mountains and into the heart of Heathen country.”
“And how far east would that be?” Helki wondered. “If we’re going to go at all, we’d better get a move on soon. I don’t like it.”
Obst smiled at him. “I don’t think I’ll like it much, either, Helki—it’s no life for a hermit. I was happy in my hermit’s life, but I doubt I’ll ever be able to return to it. As to how far into the East we’ll have to go, the Lord Himself will show us that. But I think our journey won’t end until we stand before the gates of Kara Karram.”
“King Thunder’s castle!” Helki whistled softly. Kara Karram, on the far shore of the Great Lakes, where the Thunder King had built his New Temple! “Does anybody even know how to get there?” he asked.
“The Ghols will know,” said Obst. Their country lay much farther in the East, beyond Kara Karram.
“And what do we do along the way? Fight battles or preach sermons?”
“Both, I would imagine.”
“And at the end of it all,” said Helki, “we’ll see something with our own eyes that we’re never going to forget—that is, if we live to tell of it.”
“Some of us will surely live,” said Obst. And Helki thought, “Which ones?” But he didn’t say it.
Martis was right: Kadmel and his men didn’t catch the snatchers.
“This is the way to Silvertown. That must be where they’ve taken the boy,” Kadmel said, when they came upon the rutted cart-road that Ysbott had followed up to Silvertown. “There’s a Heathen army there, and they’ll have scouts. We’ve gone as far as we can go.”
“You’re going to leave Jack there? You’re going to just leave him?” Ellayne cried. “You can’t! You can’t!”
“This is a patrol, miss, not an army. We’re too few to fight and too many to get past the scouts. We’d only get caught.”
That was true. Ellayne knew it, but wouldn’t accept it. At that moment she would have marched straight up to death, if it would get Jack out of Silvertown. But when she opened her mouth to say more, no words would come out of it. She felt as if she’d just fallen out of a tree and had all the breath knocked out of her.
Martis swung himself down from the back of a trooper’s horse.
“I’ll go,” he said. “One man on foot can get through where twelve on horseback can’t.”
“You’re not fit for it, Martis,” Kadmel said, as kindly as he could. “That blow on the head—”
“From which I have recovered!” Martis finished for him. “I’ve rested all I need to rest, and eaten enough of your rations to get back my strength. I’ll go to Silvertown.”
“And what about me?” Ellayne’s voice broke. “Do you think I can just say ‘Oh, well,’ and go home?”
“You’ll obey your father’s orders, miss,” said Kadmel. “And mine!”
Martis walked up to Aswyll’s horse and held Ellayne’s hand.
“It’ll be all right,” he said. “I’ll pose as an outlaw and get into Silvertown. There’s always a welcome there for traitors to Obann. I’ll find Jack and get him out. I’ve had harder missions than this. You know that, Ellayne.”
Wytt watched and listened. In his own way, he understood what all these Big People were saying. But when he started chattering, only Ellayne understood him. That was a gift that she and Jack had received at the top of Bell Mountain.
“I go with Whiteface,” he chirped to Ellayne. “We find Boy.”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Wytt!” Ellayne said. “Martis can’t understand you when you talk.”
“That’s true,” Martis said. “But I can understand enough so that Wytt could help me get there safely.”
“Then take me, too!”
“I promised your father I wouldn’t let you face any danger,” Kadmel said. “You stay with us, Ellayne.”
“I’ll run away!”
“I’ll tie you up, if I have to.”
“The sergeant’s right, Ellayne,” Martis said. “My best chance is to go alone, with Wytt to help me get there—no scouts will be able to sneak up on him. It’s our only chance. If you went, too, it’d be twice as dangerous, with only half the chance of success—a chance that’s small enough already.”
They were all so right! And it was all so wrong, Ellayne thought.
“Give me a kiss for good luck,” Martis said, “and pray for me.”
In the end he had his way. He and Wytt went off together. No Jack, no Martis, and now no Wytt! When the troop turned to ride back to Ninneburky, Ellayne rode with them, feeling lonelier and more forsaken than she’d ever felt in her life.
CHAPTER 11
How Jack Was Offered a Crown
The morning after the day they first met, Enith went next door to see Ellayne and was told by a maid that Ellayne wasn’t home: “She’s had to go somewhere,” with no further explanation. But in the evening she got the story out of Aunt Lanora, who didn’t always know when to keep things to herself.
“The poor baroness!” And here Grammum would have stopped her, but Grammum
wasn’t there, she’d gone out to visit someone, so Aunt Lanora just went on. “First the boy taken by river pirates, or some such—and now Ellayne gone off with soldiers, trying to rescue him! The poor lady can hardly see straight, she’s so upset. And in the middle of the night! To let a young girl like Ellayne go riding with a bunch of troopers, when she ought to be in bed … Honestly, I don’t understand it! I don’t know what the baron could have been thinking, to allow it.”
It certainly was very strange, Enith thought. She couldn’t imagine any girl being allowed to do a thing like that. How could Ellayne rescue anybody? But Aunt Lanora didn’t know about Wytt—he was always careful not to be seen by any of the baron’s household staff—so there was no way she could understand the situation.
“Ellayne went out on a horse? In the middle of the night—with soldiers? To chase pirates?” Just saying it made it seem all the more incredible.
“I’m sure I don’t know what this world is coming to!” Aunt Lanora shook her head, completely baffled.
The next day, late in the morning, Grammum came over to fetch Enith. “The baroness would like to meet you,” she said. “Your aunt never should have told you that story last night, so please act like you never heard it. Don’t ask any questions! It’s their personal family business, and we have no right to pry.”
So Enith went across the yard with Grammum and was introduced to Baroness Vannett in the parlor. They’d been sewing, Enith noticed, but the baroness had put her work aside.
“Thank you, Nywed,” she said. “And thank you for coming, Enith. I’m happy that you’ve come to live next door.”
She was a very handsome woman, Enith thought, and a little dainty, birdlike, in her mannerisms. Ellayne had inherited most of her looks but little in her way of speaking or carrying herself. Enith remembered just in time to curtsey.
“I’ll be going to the market now, ma’am,” said Grammum. “Lanora’s making tea.”
Alone with the baroness, Enith answered questions about her home in Obann, and its neighborhood, and city life in general. The baroness admitted she had always hoped, someday, to have a townhouse in the city.
“Usually, around this time of day,” she said, “I sit down with Ellayne and Jack, and we have a lesson from the Scriptures. We have one of the very first of the new copies that they’re making in the city—a present from Queen Gurun. Did you ever see her while you lived there?”
“Oh, yes—she’s lovely!” Enith said—with a fleeting pang of homesickness. “Everyone in Obann loves her. She came to us across the sea.” That was something that people in Obann considered miraculous. No one ventured out on the sea.
Vannett sighed. “You’ve probably heard that our boy, Jack, is in some kind of trouble and that Ellayne went out with a patrol the other night to try to find him. I hope you’ll pray for both of them.” With a visible effort, she set aside her fears. “I was hoping you wouldn’t mind reading the lesson with me today.”
Enith had never read, or been read, anything from the Scriptures. She knew no one in Obann who had a book of Scriptures. Her tutor took the lessons from dull books about commerce and silly stories about talking animals. Not until after the Temple was burned down, and the new First Prester started holding assemblies wherever people could get together, had Grammum shown any interest in religion. None of it had ever made much sense to Enith; none of it had ever seemed to have much to do with anything. But of course she couldn’t turn down the baroness’ invitation.
“Yes, ma’am, I’d like that,” she said. So Vannett got up and took down from a shelf a big, thick book with beautiful calfskin covers and bade Enith join her on the settee so they could look at it together. The baroness opened it to the flyleaf.
“See? That’s Gurun’s own handwriting.”
It was a peculiar kind of writing, very hard to read: something about “best wishes to my dear friends.” Enith had no way of knowing that Gurun was only just learning to write in modern Obannese script, which is very different from the islanders’ old-fashioned way of writing. The page on which she’d written was of the most beautiful, cream-colored sheepskin vellum. The book, thought Enith, must have cost a fortune.
Vannett opened it to somewhere near the middle. “We’ve been studying the Book of Thrones,” she said, “and the life of King Ozias—our own King Ryons’ ancestor, and the last anointed king of all Obann.”
Enith prepared herself to be politely bored. But when the baroness began to read aloud of the young king’s life in Lintum Forest and how he escaped his many enemies, Enith discovered that it wasn’t boring at all.
Unknown to anyone else in Silvertown except for Mardar Zo, Goryk Gillow had received his coded message from the self-appointed Council in Obann, inviting him to come to the city under cover of peace talks and then be recognized by them as First Prester. The thing could not possibly be done, wrote Merffin Mord, unless Goryk was there in person.
“The College of Presters has elected this man Orth,” Merffin wrote, “but there are those who hold that, College notwithstanding, the election cannot be valid because there is no Temple of the Lord. And as for this rigmarole preached by Orth about an imaginary Temple not made by human hands, we know not what to make of it, & neither do most of the people in the city. Better a Temple at Kara Karram, we say, than no Temple at all! But for us to prevail in the argument requires your presence in the city.”
Goryk had not yet decided what to do. Just to go to Obann would be difficult. There was an army in Lintum Forest that might come out and attack him. It was King Ryons’ army, and Goryk feared it. Had it not annihilated two invasion forces sent into the forest to defeat it? To say nothing of what the people of Obann would think if he came to the city with Obannese blood on his hands and a Heathen army at his back!
“You worry needlessly,” Zo said. “Let the Lintum army come out after us—we have the means to destroy it.”
He was referring to another secret, the most closely guarded secret he and Goryk had: a power against which there could be no defense.
“I would rather not have to use those means against King Ryons’ army,” Goryk said. “If Obann recognizes me as First Prester and submits to our master the Thunder King and to his New Temple in Kara Karram, we shall have won a decisive victory without the risk of a battle. I would rather not have to stake everything on a power that I don’t understand.”
“But how will you get to Obann, except escorted by your army?” Zo said. “That new baron controls the traffic on the river, so we cannot go by boat, nor march along the River Road. As for any risk involved in battle, it seems very small to me!
“No one understands the power of the ancients. No one remembers what spells the ancients used to bind demons and make them obey. But I have seen that power: you know I employed it to put down a rebellion on the Great Lakes. It would have taken a mighty army a long time to put down that rebellion, but the demon did it in the blink of an eye. It caused men to drown themselves in the lake. Those who weren’t driven mad were struck blind. All in an instant! You should have seen them throwing themselves out of the canoes and into the water, never to come up again.”
So far, the terror of the Thunder King’s name, and Goryk’s liberal application of the gallows and the whipping post, had been adequate to keep the peace in Silvertown. So far, he’d been afraid to use the power that Zo had brought to him in a box, all the way from Kara Karram—a gift from the Thunder King, infinitely rare, beyond all price.
“We’ll defeat the Lintum army,” Zo said.
“Only to have to fight again, under the walls of Obann!” Goryk said. “I’d rather win without fighting. These foolish councilors in Obann have offered us a golden opportunity.”
Zo shrugged. “I’m only here to serve our master, side by side with you,” he said. “Perhaps between the two of us we’ll find the perfect plan.”
“Perhaps,” Goryk said. And now, he thought, he had this boy from Ninneburky, whom Ysbott thought to be the king. Was this a n
ew piece on the board, Goryk wondered, that he could use to his advantage? How many people in Obann would realize that this boy was not the king? It seemed to him the Council would be eager to say he was the king, even knowing that he wasn’t. “We must think on this, Zo. We have our chessmen in position for victory. It’s just a matter of finding the correct moves.”
Zo didn’t play chess, and the analogy was lost on him, but he wasn’t averse to devoting more thought to the matter. He was the most easygoing mardar, Goryk thought, that he had ever met.
Jack did know how to play chess, but that knowledge wasn’t doing him any good in Silvertown.
They hadn’t mistreated him, beyond locking him up in a windowless room somewhere inside the chamber house. In the evening someone brought him supper, and in the morning, breakfast. You could eat the food and not get sick, but that was about all you could say for it. The people who brought it were Obannese, servants or slaves, and Jack hadn’t been able to get a word out of them.