The Palace (Bell Mountain Series #6)

by Lee Duigon

  “It’s only your plan, so far,” Aggo said.

  “Well, I’ve invited you here to let you in on it—so listen.” Aggo got under Merffin’s skin, but the man was shrewd: you had to give him that.

  Merffin laid out the plan for him. He would have liked to have heard some admiring remarks, but Aggo didn’t offer any. As patiently as he could, Merffin set out all the details.

  “Well?” he said, when he was finished.

  “Well what?” said the wine king. “It’s sound enough, I suppose—if we can find the right men for the work. It’s hard to find men who will carry out orders without making a hash of it, and who won’t talk afterward. All it takes is one fool bragging to a crony in a tavern or whispering secrets to his wife in bed, and the whole thing comes undone.”

  “I fancy that between us we can find such men!”

  “They say Lord Reesh had quite a few of them in his service. But I don’t.”

  “Nor do I,” Merffin said—“but Goryk Gillow does! And he’ll be here well before the king. So there’ll be three of us to get the deed done.”

  “But you haven’t discussed it with him yet.”

  “It’s not the kind of thing you can put in a letter!” Merffin restrained himself from accusing Aggo of nay-saying the plan because he himself hadn’t thought of it. “Help me with this, Aggo! You want the Oligarchy restored as much as I do.”

  “I’ve never murdered anyone.”

  “Oh, if you’re going to be squeamish—”

  Aggo held up a hand. “Don’t lose your temper, Merffin. I didn’t say I wouldn’t help. But if you bring this up before the rest of our council, I’ll oppose you.”

  Merffin took a deep breath. It was no good, getting upset with Aggo. He was an annoying sort of man, and that’s all there was to it.

  “We don’t need the rest of the council,” he said. “It’ll be our secret, Aggo. Just help me, that’s all I ask. It’s for the good of Obann, in the long run.”

  Aggo grinned at that.

  CHAPTER 26

  The End of a Long Walk

  Of course Baron Roshay Bault sent out men on foot, on horseback, and on boats to try to find his daughter. The first patrols were out on the river before Nelligg even got back to Ysbott’s camp. The baron also had a gallows built outside the gate. He would have liked to have gone with the patrols, but he had to stay put to receive news and give commands. Harder than staying put was to keep a tight rein on his temper. He managed it, just barely.

  He didn’t sleep that night, didn’t even go to bed. And early the next morning Sergeant Kadmel and his men came in with a prisoner.

  “We found him running through the cornfield on Will’s farm, Baron—practically ran right into our arms. He says Ellayne’s escaped, but I don’t know whether to believe him.”

  “It’s true! It’s true!” cried the outlaw, a stubby little man who looked like he’d run through more than one briar patch without paying much attention to it. “She made a witchcraft on us, she did! It was terrible! Struck us deaf and blind—”

  Roshay glared so hard at the man that he fell silent instantly.

  “Are you accusing my daughter of witchcraft, fellow? Mind what you say! There’s a noose all ready for you.”

  The outlaw stuttered unintelligibly. Roshay was not so blinded by anger that he couldn’t recognize a genuinely terrified man when he saw one.

  “Stop babbling,” he said, “and tell us everything that happened. Your only chance to live is if you tell the truth.”

  It was a very strange story that came out of him—much too strange, the baron thought, to have been invented by such a fool. Roshay cautioned him to tell only what he’d seen and heard. “I don’t want to hear what you thought of it.”

  So it seemed that Ellayne and Enith had indeed escaped, Ellayne having given the snatchers a thumping good scare that sent them scattering into the woods like rabbits. Roshay knew his daughter: she was quite capable of making up a fanciful story and persuading poor, ignorant louts to believe it. But he couldn’t begin to imagine how she’d actually done what the terrified knave swore he saw her do.

  “Shall we hang him, sir?” Kadmel said.

  “No, not for the time being. Lock him up. If we catch any of the others, we’ll see what kind of tale they tell. The girls are out there now, somewhere, and they’ve got to be found. They can’t be very far away.”

  “We’ll find them,” Kadmel said. “Everybody’s looking.”

  Wytt was settling down for a nap in the underbelly of the wagon when a faint whiff of something caused him to wrinkle his flat nose and tense his muscles. It was so faint that it would have passed unnoticed, even by him, had he been sleeping. You or I would have thought we had imagined it and just gone to sleep. But Wytt didn’t imagine things.

  He dove from the wagon and dashed across the road into the tall grass. No one noticed him. He didn’t care whether the men saw him or not; he just kept going as fast as he could. No matter how far he went, he knew he could always find the wagons again. He also knew, although he couldn’t have told you how, that he wasn’t far from Ninneburky. Anyone riding atop the wagons would see the thin line of trees that marked the river, just a few miles to the north. The grass kept Wytt from seeing much of anything, but he didn’t need to see. He was following a scent, and every moment brought him closer to its source.

  Ellayne and Enith were resting in the shade of an inkberry bush, screened by grass and heather, about a mile from the road. They were thirsty and tired, but Ellayne still hoped to reach the road before sundown. “Once we’re on it,” she said, “we’re bound to meet someone who can help us.”

  “I sincerely hope so!” Enith said. “I can’t go on much farther. I’ve never walked so far in all my life.”

  “The farther we get from the woods, the less chance those men will have of catching us again.”

  “They won’t have to catch us if we die of thirst.”

  Well, what else could you expect from a city girl? Ellayne resolved not to be too hard on Enith, who was doing the best she could. She remembered the first day she and Jack spent on their way to Bell Mountain. They thought their legs were going to fall off, and they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

  “We won’t die of thirst,” she said. “We must be pretty near the road by now.”

  “What I wouldn’t give for a nice, ripe melon!”

  “You’re just going to make yourself hungrier and thirstier, going on like that.”

  “But I am hungry! And thirsty. I wouldn’t even mind eating some more of those miserable water-weeds, just now.”

  That’s where they were when Wytt found them, leaping suddenly out of the grass and into Ellayne’s arms, nearly scaring her to death.

  “Wytt! Where the mischief did you come from?”

  He chattered like a frantic squirrel, but Ellayne understood him: “Boy and Whiteface in a wagon, can’t get away. Bad men keep them.”

  “Jack and Martis? Are they all right?”

  “Not hurt, but can’t go. Men will kill them if they try.”

  “Ellayne, what is all this? What’s he saying?”

  “He knows where Jack is, Enith! Martis, too. We have to tell my father—they’re in trouble. They’re just out there on the road. Wytt was with them.”

  Wytt startled her again by springing out of her arms and scrambling to the top of the bush. She heard him sniff the air.

  “Men and horses coming,” he reported. “I can see them.”

  “The outlaws don’t have horses,” Enith said.

  “Then it’s got to be a patrol from Ninneburky!” Ellayne said. “Who are they, Wytt?”

  He spent a few more moments sniffing. “Grey man from your place. You know him.”

  Ellayne and Enith got up. “How does he know who it is?” Enith wondered. “I can’t see anybody.”

  “It must be Sergeant Kadmel. Wytt has caught his scent.”

  “It’ll be bad for us if it turns out he’s wrong. W
e ought to hide.”

  “Shh, Enith—he’s never wrong.”

  “Here they come,” Wytt chattered.

  In another moment Ellayne and Enith saw them, too: half a dozen men on horseback, armed with spears and wearing helmets that glinted in the sun. They could only be men of the Ninneburky militia. Ellayne jumped up and down and waved and called until the men spotted her. The horses broke into a trot.

  “Well! Your daddy’s going to be mighty glad to see you, young lady,” Kadmel said. “And you, too, miss,” to Enith. “The whole town’s been worrying about you.”

  Wytt whistled from the top of the bush, and Kadmel grinned at him. “Where did he come from, miss?” he asked. Ellayne told him. “How many men with those wagons? Can he tell us that?”

  Ellayne asked Wytt, then translated his answer. “There are Jack and Martis, two men from Silvertown, two drivers, four guards, and ten horsemen, probably Wallekki.”

  “And six of us, with the two of you to keep out of harm’s way,” Kadmel said. “We’ll have to come back with more men. But first we’re going to take you home. We can catch up to a couple of wagons easily enough.”

  “But Jack and Martis are out there!” Ellayne said. “We have to rescue them!”

  “We will,” said Kadmel. “You can count on it.”

  CHAPTER 27

  How Martis andthe Baron Parleyed

  Ninneburky had sixty men who could ride well enough to fight at the same time, and who might reasonably be expected to overcome ten Wallekki horsemen. To them might be added another twenty who would have to dismount if they were going to fight. “Twenty mail-clad spearmen on foot would be a strength, not a weakness,” Kadmel said. “We want to scare those people into giving up their prisoners without a fight.”

  The sergeant had come straight to the baron with the girls to the militia’s stables, so Ellayne now stood listening to him with her father’s arm around her shoulders and Wytt’s arms around her neck. Wytt listened, too. He understood most of what he heard, and after a few moments, interrupted with a spate of chattering.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Roshay asked.

  “He’s saying it’s too dangerous!” Ellayne said. “I can’t quite make out why. I don’t think he knows how to tell us. But he says it’s dangerous to come too close to those wagons.”

  “Too dangerous for eighty armed men?” Kadmel said. “I don’t think so.”

  Wytt squealed at him. “He says you mustn’t!” Ellayne said. Wytt was scaring her, and she didn’t know why. “He knows something that he can’t explain to us—but he does know! He does!” It was so unlike him to be frightened of anything.

  “I don’t think a little creature like that can understand a military situation,” Kadmel said. But the baron asked, “How is it dangerous, Ellayne? If Jack and Martis are being held prisoner by those men, we have to rescue them.”

  “Please, Wytt—can’t you tell us anything more?”

  Wytt did his best to try to make her understand, and Ellayne did her best to translate.

  “Those men from Silvertown have something with them that could kill us all,” she said. “Wytt doesn’t know what it is—only that it’s deadly. Please, Father! Don’t you think I want us to have Jack and Martis back again? But Wytt says it can’t be done by soldiers, no matter how many we send. He says it’s something like whatever killed all those people in the cities, long ago. Jack and I saw that once—heaps and heaps of dead men’s bones, all piled up in some kind of tunnel underground. Whatever killed those people, those men have something like it. Wytt says so, and I believe him.”

  “Sounds like those old stories of the Day of Fire,” Kadmel said. “What do you want to do, my lord?”

  Roshay Bault knew a great deal about Ellayne’s adventures. What she hadn’t told him, Martis had. He understood that Wytt was more than just a little hairy thing that chirped and chittered. More, he understood that there were things happening in the world these days that no man stood—and that his own daughter played a part in them.

  “All right,” he said, “so we can’t fight. It would be too risky for the hostages in any event. But I’ve come to love that boy as if he were a son of mine, and at the very least I think we ought to go out there and see what’s what. Maybe we can parley with them.

  “Girls, I’ll take you home. Your mother’s waiting there for you, Ellayne—and your grandmother, Enith. Sergeant, saddle up all the men who can ride and bring along a flag of truce. I’ll ride with you.”

  Wytt disapproved. Ellayne wanted to say more, but what was the use?

  “Be careful!” she said, as her father walked her home. “I really ought to go with you.”

  “I can’t see my way to allowing that,” said Roshay.

  It usually got rather hot and stuffy inside the compartment during the day, even with the leather flaps rolled up from the windows. At such times, Jack and Martis sat on the coach’s roof with the two Dahai that guarded them. Goryk Gillow often did the same, but you never saw Zo come out until they stopped for the night and had their supper. He slept in the compartment, guarding the Thunder King’s weapon. Martis would have liked to steal a closer look at it, but had no opportunity.

  The day’s march was nearly done when Jack spotted a cloud of dust some little distance north. He jogged Martis’ elbow.

  “Is that what I think it is?” he asked.

  “It’s horsemen, quite a lot of them,” Martis said. And then the Wallekki riders who’d been screening them on that flank came galloping back, loudly calling out to Goryk in Tribe-talk. Goryk signaled the wagons to halt.

  “Whoever they are, they’re approaching under a flag of truce,” Martis said. He understood most of the Wallekki dialects. “Our riders are afraid because there are so many of them.”

  Jack’s heart leaped. Rescue! But then it sank: the rescuers would only be struck blind, just like that commander of the Zeph.

  Martis sprang to his feet. He could see the horsemen clearly now and their white flag.

  “My lord,” he cried to Goryk Gillow, “let me go out and parley with those people. They come in peace, under a white flag: Obannese militia, by the look of them. Let me find out their intentions.”

  “You, Jayce?”

  “Lord Reesh often employed me as a negotiator and a spokesman.”

  “Very well.” Goryk ordered one of the Wallekki to lend Martis a horse, and two more to go with him to the parley. “Taking no chances with me,” Martis thought. He squeezed Jack’s shoulder. “I’ll be back,” he said, “but whoever they are out there, they’ve got to keep their distance. I’ll warn them if I can.”

  Martis jumped to the ground. Goryk called Jack’s name. “Get back in the coach, Jack,” he ordered, “and let down the window flaps. Now is not the time for you to be seen by anyone but us.” Jack could only obey, playing his part as Goryk’s compliant little tool.

  Martis, flanked by two Wallekki, rode out to meet the horsemen. When they saw him coming, they stopped to wait for him. Martis said to the Wallekki, in Obannese, “Let me do all the talking.” To his joy, they didn’t understand him. He had to repeat himself in Tribe-talk.

  “You die first,” one of them replied, “if those riders lift a hand against us.”

  “They won’t,” Martis said.

  At the head of the horsemen, mounted somewhat uncomfortably on a grey gelding, was Roshay Bault. Martis halted in front of him.

  “Be very careful, Baron!” he said. “You’re in grave danger that you cannot see. Address me by the name of Jayce.”

  Roshay had been on the point of jumping out of the saddle to greet Martis, but being a man of quick understanding, he concealed his joy.

  “I’m glad to meet you, Jayce,” he said. “What news?”

  “My guards don’t speak our language,” Martis said, “so I can tell you Jack is well, no harm has come to him—not yet! But Goryk Gillow has a safe-conduct from the council in Obann and is on his way there for the coronation. I’m sure h
e expects them to recognize him as First Prester. Have you any news of the king?”

  “Only that he’s safe in Lintum Forest,” Roshay said. “But what’s the danger to us?”

  Martis told him. “Any attempt to rescue us by force,” he said, “and Goryk will use his weapon. There’s no defense against it.”

  The baron hid his frustration, lest the Wallekki get a clue as to the tenor of their conversation. “So we have to let him go on his way unmolested!” he said. “Can you protect the boy? What does Goryk want him for?”