The Palace (Bell Mountain Series #6)

by Lee Duigon

  “Obann will be better off without him,” Merffin said.

  “After the coronation, it won’t be difficult to send the king secretly to Kara Karram and replace him with this common boy. Jack will do whatever I tell him to do, and Jayce has instructed him in how to play the king. By and by, when the time is best for us, we can dispose of him.”

  “He doesn’t look much like the king,” Aggo said. “He’s taller.”

  “Boys grow,” Goryk said. “I’m more interested, for the time being, in the whereabouts of your First Prester.”

  “My lord, what can I say?” Merffin said. “We’ve turned the city inside out for him. He’s bound to turn up somewhere.”

  “But if he doesn’t,” Aggo said, “we have you to crown the king. It remains only to have you acknowledged as First Prester. That has been arranged.”

  “Will the clergy of Obann accept me?”

  “Most of those who won’t,” Merffin said, “have already been sent away to serve at distant chamber houses. The rest have been promised advancement under your regime. You’ll need presters and reciters for the New Temple and for all the new chamber houses that will have to be built.”

  They’ve been busy, Martis thought. “Nothing much has changed since Lord Reesh’s time: always presters for sale and the Temple’s still the Temple, even if the Temple itself is nothing but a pile of rubble.”

  “What about this prester from Durmurot—this Prester Jod?” Goryk asked. “I hear he’s formidable and quite incorruptible.”

  “He’ll be outvoted,” Merffin said. “It’s all arranged.”

  Goryk nodded. “Then it seems our plans are running smoothly. I congratulate you, councilors.”

  Two days, maybe three, in which to find a way out, Martis thought. “Ply the Dahai guards with money and tell them where to go for wine and women, pick the lock on our door, and find a way out of the palace without getting caught—unless Gallgoid has made other plans for us.”

  CHAPTER 30

  How Fnaa Returned to the City

  Roshay Bault pushed his cavalry hard to get to Obann as fast as he could. He didn’t want to overtake Goryk Gillow, so he crossed the river at Ninneburky and took the road along its northern bank. It wasn’t as good as the south road, and past Cardigal there were no sizeable towns along the way. They camped under the stars each night and rode all day.

  So Ellayne reached Obann two days before Jack did, and hoped it would be a long time before she rode a horse again.

  They didn’t immediately enter the city. In the green fields before the West Gate, parties from all over the country had set up tents and booths. These acres would be the coronation grounds, and they were already well populated. Roshay rented a pavilion and pitched it almost a mile from the gate. There would be tents for the troopers and a picket line for the horses. Above the pavilion fluttered a blue banner.

  “How Martis is going to find us in all this crowd, I don’t know,” the baron said. “Let the men go into the city and see as much of it as they like, Kadmel. You, too. I’ll go in tomorrow and pay my respects to the council. Hopefully Martis will come to know we’re here.”

  Ellayne tugged on his sleeve. “I think Wytt has already gone into the city,” she said. “He disappeared while we were setting up the tents.”

  “I hope he’ll be able to find his way out.”

  “First he’ll find Jack,” said Ellayne.

  “In a huge city full of people?” Roshay said. “Won’t it be dangerous for him?”

  “He’s been here before.” But Ellayne worried about him all the same.

  Prester Jod led King Ryons—or rather the boy he believed to be King Ryons—into Obann.

  Mobs of people lined the streets and waved their hats, jumped up and down, and shouted. “The king, the king, long live the king! King Ryons!” And also, “The queen—hurrah for Queen Gurun!” There were even a few shouts for Uduqu and many for Prester Jod.

  Fnaa waved back, smirking as foolishly as he could. He didn’t have any coins in his pocket, but he was wearing a soft black cap with long white feathers, so he plucked the feathers one by one and tossed them to the crowd. Amid gales of jollity, men and boys dove and wrestled for the feathers as if they were gold coins. Some of them, Fnaa supposed, would be kept as family heirlooms.

  “Welcome home, King Ryons!”

  “Don’t go away anymore!”

  Uduqu grinned. “They love having a fool for a king,” he thought. Abnaks had no kings: only chiefs who advised, but had no power to command. “The bigger the fool, the greater the king!”

  Gurun smiled at the people, although she didn’t feel like smiling. How many times would she have to say “I am not a queen” before anyone believed her? A storm had brought her to Obann. Obst said God had sent the storm for that purpose. She had a filgya that said her place was by the king—the real king, not Fnaa. And there were more people watching this parade than there were on all of Fogo Island, she reflected. Wind-blown grass, stunted trees and stunted sheep, and homes modeled after the barrows of the dead—oh, how she missed it all!

  The parade wound its way to the great steps at the pillared entrance to the palace, overlooking a crowded Oligarchs’ Square. On the steps stood the councilors in all their rich men’s finery, and a host of hangers-on, waiting to greet their king.

  “Welcome home, King Ryons!” said Merffin Mord, after some large men with cudgels had quieted the crowd. “Your city has been desolate without you. All the palace is prepared for you. All the people of Obann will celebrate your coronation.”

  “Are you the same fat man who was here when I left?” asked Fnaa. Those who heard it laughed, and in no time at all the king’s words were flying from one pair of lips to another, until the whole crowd was laughing. Merffin Mord’s face flushed deep red. Even his fellow councilors were snickering.

  But behind them on a higher step stood a lean and dark-haired man in the robes and gold chain of the First Prester. And he wasn’t laughing.

  King Ryons and his Ghols emerged from Lintum Forest to find some of the army there before them and the rest of it not yet arrived. “Just like I said would happen, for all our nice plans,” Helki said. They had to wait another two days for the remaining groups.

  “So now they’ll know we’re coming,” Helki said, “and they’ll make ready for us.” He twirled his rod meditatively. “Can’t be helped.”

  “Our scouts say Silvertown’s defenses are still in poor repair,” Obst reminded him.

  “What do you know about the work of war, old man?”

  “About as much as you do,” Obst said, and Helki laughed. “We go to Silvertown at God’s command. We can only put our trust in Him.”

  Ryons welcomed the respite from marching. He didn’t so much welcome the sensation of being out from under the trees. It made him feel like a spider on a tablecloth, very vulnerable to getting swatted. His Ghols were overjoyed to have room to let their horses stretch their legs. Before an hour passed, they had set up targets and were galloping around them, shooting arrows as they passed. “Our skill has grown rusty,” Chagadai said, frowning. Well, they were happy to be out of Lintum Forest, and it pleased Ryons to see them happy. “But I’d rather have the trees around me,” he thought. He supposed he was getting to be like Helki.

  Last to arrive at the rendezvous were the five hundred Hosa. Their chiefs were happy that they hadn’t lost a single man in passing through the forest. They came out of the woods singing.

  “Someday soon, my king,” said Xhama, hereditary chief of the Red Regiment, “you will see what we Hosa can do! Out here in the open, where men can run at speed and maneuver in formation, is the only proper place for war.”

  Hawk, chief of the four brothers who were the first Hosa to join King Ryons’ army, sighed. “If only I had my old regiment, the Ghosts! We would have pleased you, my king—a thousand men with tall shields so white, they hurt the eye to look at them. In two hundred years, no enemy ever withstood a charge by the Ghosts.
But the Thunder King’s mardars poisoned our cattle and our women, and slew our children by witchcraft. My brothers and I are the last. The rest of us are ghosts indeed.”

  That night Ryons had need of Obst: no one else would do. No one else would understand.

  “All these men!” he cried, when he was alone with his teacher, a little distance from the camp. “All these men from all over, from countries that I never heard of—how can I be king of all these men? Chiefs and great warriors, and men who’ve been everywhere and seen everything—and I’m just a stupid boy. When the Hosa clashed their shields for me today, it made me want to run away and hide. And the Ghols call me their father!”

  Obst drew him into a gentle embrace and stroked his hair. Ryons had grown a little, but his head still didn’t come up to Obst’s chest.

  “Shush, shush!” he whispered. “All’s well, my boy. All’s well. It’s not always easy to be what God wants you to be. And there’s no doubt He wants you to be king.

  “Your chiefs and your warriors know you’re just a boy, but they love you, and they know you’ll be a man someday. Sooner than you think! Yes … They’re wise; they see the man in you already. Wise to obey the Word of God, whose prophets named you king. No, there’s no doubt of it at all, my son.” Obst patted him between the shoulders. “But if there is, remember this. In all the army, my king, the only one who cannot see the red streak of King Ozias in your hair, is you.”

  CHAPTER 31

  A New First Prester

  Lord Orth prayed for the peace of Obann, prayed for the advancement of God’s word and for the protection of God’s servants. He had little else to do in his secret rooms above the palace. The view from his window was of a vast expanse of rooftops, the great dome of the Great Hall of the Oligarchs, and chimneys everywhere. Beyond the rooftops of the palace stretched the city, the walls, and the green fields by the river.

  Gallgoid brought him his meals. He saw no one else.

  “Goryk Gillow’s in the city, my lord,” he reported one day. “The council has put out the story that you’ve gone mad again and wandered off alone. It’s possible they believe it. They’ve mounted a thorough search for you, and they’re amazed they haven’t found you.”

  “Haven’t they searched the palace?”

  “Of course—but no one has used these rooms in a hundred years. I had quite a job getting rid of all the dust.”

  “Does Preceptor Constan know I’m here?”

  “It’s safer for him if he doesn’t, my lord. He understands that.”

  The day after Goryk’s arrival at the palace, Gallgoid came to Orth with a new proposal.

  “I’ve decided it would be best, First Prester, to send you secretly to Lintum Forest, where King Ryons is. You’ll be safe there. Besides, a prophet said Ozias’ throne is to be set in Lintum Forest, not here in Obann City.”

  “Who spoke that prophecy?”

  “A three-year-old girl,” said Gallgoid. “I’ve seen her. She truly is a prophet, if anyone is.”

  Outside the city, the search for Orth had been called off. It wouldn’t be too hard, now, to get him out of the city and on his way to Lintum Forest, Gallgoid thought. He wanted Orth to be far from the city before the coronation.

  “Sir, I trust in God and I will not resist you,” Orth said. “But I confess I’d be easier in my mind if Constan and his scribes and students could be moved to Durmurot. If I’m in danger here, then surely he is, too.”

  Gallgoid shrugged. “I can’t persuade him to abandon the seminary library,” he said. “Goryk Gillow as First Prester will put a stop to Constan’s work. I’m hoping it will serve as a kind of leash on him when you turn up alive and well in Lintum Forest.”

  “The work must not be stopped,” said Orth. “It’s much more important than my life or Constan’s. The Scriptures must be read in every chamber house and preached from the mountains to the sea, wherever there are ears to hear it.”

  “I could stop Goryk tomorrow,” Gallgoid thought. “A little poison in his dinner, and there’s an end to him.” But Jandra the prophetess, speaking God’s own message to him, had commanded him to sin no more. Gallgoid wasn’t sure what he believed in anymore, but he did believe that God had spoken to him. And yet removing Goryk Gillow would be so easy! “It may yet come to that,” he thought. “The one commandment God has ever given me—and I break it. For the good of all Obann, of course: but a broken commandment none the less.”

  “Ah, well!” Orth sighed. “If the work is truly of God, then no man will be able to stop it.”

  Gallgoid remembered those words.

  Along with rats and mice and spiders, and a black-and-white cat who had to be taught a lesson at the sharp point of a stick, Wytt took up residence in the palace stables. The mice ignored him. The rats accepted him when they understood he wasn’t there to steal their babies. Wytt had been there before, and a few of the horses remembered him.

  He would know Goryk Gillow’s horses when he saw them, and they weren’t here. Wytt had no word for “palace,” but he knew that when Goryk came to the city, he would stay at the palace. This was the nest where important people stayed. Whiteface and the Boy would be brought here, too. And then Wytt would see what he could do.

  Ellayne and Kadmel were in the crowd that welcomed the king and the queen to the city. Kadmel kept a firm grip on Ellayne’s hand. With the other hand she waved to Gurun, but Gurun didn’t see her.

  She knew that by now Jack and Martis had been lodged in the palace, along with Goryk Gillow. Kadmel’s men had heard that in an alehouse near the palace. One of the councilors had told her father not to bother trying to pay his respects to the First Prester. “He’s out of his head again and has been missing for days on end.” And then the man had bragged, “But we’ll have a new First Prester in time for Coronation Day!”

  “That was a slip of the tongue,” Roshay said, “and the other councilors glared daggers at him. I said I didn’t concern myself with Temple business and was only here to see the coronation and to ask the crowned king to confirm me in my office. They were satisfied with that, but we’ll take care not to seem too curious. If we’re too curious about them, they’ll grow curious about us.”

  Her father had explained the situation to her as if she were grown up, and it made Ellayne proud. “I’m not a silly little girl anymore!” she thought.

  The day after the king’s return to the city, presters, reciters, preceptors, and seminarians assembled in the Great Hall of the Oligarchs to decide who should be First Prester of the Temple. As expected, Prester Jod opposed the election of a new one—argued, indeed, that this was not a proper conclave, that only a fraction of the clergy had been notified, and that the whole procedure was unlawful. But he’d only been in the city for a day and had had no time to organize a campaign.

  “Dear brothers!” he pleaded from the podium. “I can’t imagine a more irregular procedure than this. It’s monstrous! To replace Lord Orth with a man who has never been ordained, never served the Temple in any capacity at all—and who, moreover, is a traitor to Obann and a creature of our enemy, the Thunder King—what can you be thinking? This is an abomination.”

  Yes, he had his supporters in the hall. That was only to be expected, Merffin said. “But when the votes are counted,” he told Goryk, “he’ll find himself the loser. He doesn’t know the votes have already been counted!”

  The councilors weren’t clergy, and so could not address the conclave. Nor did it seem wise for Goryk to speak for himself until the last. But Merffin had had ample time to find mouthpieces aplenty, and one by one they went up to the podium to urge the election of the Thunder King’s candidate.

  “My friends, be reasonable!” said the loudest of those mouthpieces, a prester from the north named Iza. Merffin had promised to make him a very rich man. “We’re about to crown a king. We need a First Prester for that; and Lord Orth, without a word of explanation to anyone, has fled from his responsibility.

  “Electing Goryk Gillo
w means peace between our country and the Thunder King. Peace! This war has nearly ruined us. Today the Temple itself is nothing but a heap of broken stone. Who wants to see what further war might bring?

  “At his own considerable expense, our former enemy has built a New Temple for our God, in the very heart of Heathendom. I call that a miracle! All the world will come to the New Temple to worship the God of Obann. Some of us will be fortunate enough to serve Him there. So it’s not only peace we’re offered, and reconciliation, but the rebirth of the Temple. Not just for Obann, but for all the world! And a man of Obann to be First Prester. What more could we ask?”

  There were many others who spoke in the same vein, until at last Goryk himself advanced to the podium. He wore a prester’s robes, but no chain of office.