“I thought he might come see us,” Aidan said.
“From what I know of Lynwood,” said Errol, “he’s not the sort to go to that much trouble if there’s someone he can pay or cajole to do it for him.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s a merchant and a very wealthy one. Lives with his wife and daughters in one of the finest houses in Tambluff.”
“If he’s so rich, what does he want with a new king? Sounds like things have gone well enough under the old king.”
Errol thought on the question. “I don’t really know the man; we met only once or twice, so most of what I know of him is second hand. But he strikes me as the kind of man who wants to have a king who owes him a favor. He’s done well enough under King Darrow, but Darrow doesn’t know him from Adam. He’d risk a charge of treason for the satisfaction of being in a king’s inner circle.”
“Is he a bad man?” Aidan asked.
“He’s a man who doesn’t know his own heart. He probably tells himself he does everything for the good of Corenwald, and he probably believes it.
“Now that he’s given you an army, it’s probably only fair that you should tell him where you stand with things.” Errol thought for a moment, then his eyes brightened with an idea. “Dobro’s been dying to get out of these canyons.”
“Time to leave these neighborhoods,” said Aidan.
“Right. If anything would throw cold water on Lynwood’s desire for a Wilderking, it might be having a genuine feechie in his house. Why don’t you take Dobro along?”
Chapter Sixteen
Ma Pearl’s Public House
The village of Ryelan was the nearest civilization to Sinking Canyons, ten leagues across scrubby plain. In truth, it just barely counted as civilization. The mean little village was the sort of place people left the first chance they got. But horses could be bought there, so Aidan and Dobro made it their first stop on their journey to Tambluff. They wore hooded robes over their tunics to conceal their identities.
“Listen here, Dobro,” Aidan said when the low buildings of the village came into view. “I think it’s going to be better if you don’t talk while we’re in Ryelan. We need to draw as little attention to ourselves as possible. And if we can keep people from noticing you’re a feechie, so much the better.”
“Seems a shame,” said Dobro, who had begun to think of himself as something of a feechie ambassador to the civilizers.
“Here’s the thing,” said Aidan. “Even if you don’t mind breaking the Feechie Code—”
“Aw, Aidan,” Dobro interrupted, “half the civilizers in Corenwald believes in feechies these days.”
“That’s not the point,” Aidan insisted. “When people realize who you are, they realize who I am. You heard what those militiamen were saying. Everybody’s been talking about how I brought a feechie with me when I came out of the Feechiefen.”
“Folks don’t say you come with one feechie,” Dobro corrected. “They say you come with a whole mess of feechies.” He took some pride in the fact that popular gossip had multiplied him into a band of feechie warriors.
“The last thing we need is a bunch of Aidanites and Wilderkingers following us to Tambluff. So when we get to Ryelan, don’t speak to anybody.” He thought about Dobro’s green teeth; tooth brushing was one aspect of civilizer life Dobro hadn’t yet mastered. “Don’t smile at anybody either.”
“What if I see a pretty civilizer lady?” Dobro asked.
“If you see a pretty civilizer lady, believe me, she doesn’t want to see your teeth. And whatever you do, don’t breathe on anyone.”
* * *
There was more activity than Aidan had expected in the little village. The dust from the main street lay in a thick cloud, kicked up by people going back and forth. The activity seemed to center on the general store. Only it wasn’t called a general store anymore. On the façade above the entrance, a new sign had been nailed over the old one. It read “Sinking Canyon Outfitters. One stop for all your camping and militia-related needs.” A string of wagons stretched along the front of the store, waiting there to unload their supplies of boots, ropes, water bladders, hardtack biscuit, dried beef, swords, shovels—everything a militiaman might need to make Sinking Canyons more livable.
Aidan hurried past the scene on his way to a public house called Ma Pearl’s two doors down. “It’s almost noon,” he said to Dobro. “Let’s get some dinner here and save the food in our packs. I’m sure somebody here can direct me to a horse trader.”
The little dining room was nearly full and loud with the raucous conversation and laughter of the rough locals. All eyes followed Aidan and Dobro as they pushed their way to an empty table in the back.
After they were seated, a rough voice from two tables away called in their direction. “You boys hiked in from the south, didn’t you?”
Aidan nodded his head.
“Sinking Canyons?” the man asked.
Aidan craned his neck to see if the innkeeper were coming.
“’Course Sinking Canyons, you half-wit,” shouted a walleyed man at another table. “Coming from the south. Where else would they be coming from?”
“Must be a couple of Aidanites,” another man observed. “Say, when you boys figure to march on Tambluff Castle?”
The walleyed man snorted. “They better march on it soon if they don’t want to find Pyrthens when they get there!”
“Don’t matter to me who lives in Tambluff Castle,” the first man declared. “Long as they leave me alone, I mean to leave them alone. Tambluff’s a long way from Ryelan.”
“Say,” said the walleyed man, directing his attention back to Aidan and Dobro, “I reckon you boys has seen this Aidan Errolson?”
Aidan and Dobro looked down at the table, trying to pretend they hadn’t heard the man.
“I’m talking to you boys,” the man repeated a little more loudly, refusing to be ignored. “I asked if you boys has seen Aidan Errolson.”
“You know, the Wilderking,” said another.
“Watch for the Wilderking!” boomed another with false portentousness.
“Yes, we’ve seen him,” Aidan finally answered, hoping to avoid trouble.
“I wouldn’t mind getting a look at that feller,” said the walleyed man, getting a look at the feller even as he said it. “I hear he goes around with a whole gang of mean-looking feechies. Is that true?”
Dobro drew his hand over his mouth, trying to stifle a smile of pleasure at his inflated reputation.
“No,” Aidan answered. “It’s just one feechie, a scrawny rat of a fellow, acts like he doesn’t have good sense half the time.”
A man in the far corner shouted across the room, “If you Aidanites think a Wilderking is any different from a King Darrow or a Pyrthen king—or a feechie king, for that matter—then you Aidanites is a pack of fools.”
His opinion was met with hoots of agreement and support from across the crowded room.
Ma Pearl, the innkeeper, finally arrived at the table. She was a stout, jolly-faced woman, and she wiped her hands on her apron as she said, “Fools or no, them Aidanites has sure been good for business. You want lunch, sugar?”
Aidan and Dobro both nodded their heads.
“I got bacon, collard greens, and sweet potatoes.”
“Bring us two,” Aidan said. “And some water if you don’t mind. And could you tell me where I could find a horse trader?”
Ma Pearl directed him to a stable on the other side of the dusty street, and Aidan, eager to keep their visit to Ryelan as short as possible, left Dobro waiting at the table while he went out to buy their horses.
“Remember,” he whispered in Dobro’s ear before he left, “no talking. No fighting. No grinning.”
It wasn’t long at all before Ma Pearl brought the plates to Dobro’s table. And Dobro, figuring that Aidan probably wouldn’t want him to wait, dug in. Like tooth brushing, eating with utensils was one of those civilizer niceties Dobro hadn’t yet embraced. H
e had just shoved a fistful of collard greens into his mouth when a big farmhand sat down across from him in Aidan’s chair. “Say, stranger,” he said, “where you come from anyway?”
Remembering what Aidan had said, Dobro just looked blankly at the man. He didn’t speak. He didn’t smile. A drop of green pot liquor dripped from his chin and back onto the pile of collard greens from which it had come.
“What’s a matter with you, boy?” the big Ryelanite asked. “Cat got your tongue?”
“Get after him, Lumley,” one of the diners urged.
“Come on, Lum,” yelled another.
Dobro just shrugged and thumbed a glob of sweet potato into his mouth.
“You stuck up or what?” Lumley leaned across the table and put his face just inches from Dobro’s. Dobro remembered Aidan’s warning about breathing on the locals, so he put up a hand to shield his mouth and nose.
“Oh, so my breath stinks, does it?” Lumley was yelling now, and everybody in the place was watching intently to see what would happen next.
“Well, stranger,” Lumley continued, “I ’bout had it with outsiders coming here and looking down their noses at us Ryelan folks.”
Dobro looked down at his plate. There was no stopping the big field hand now. “I may not be from Tambluff or Middenmarsh or whatever fancy place you come from, stranger, but I mean for you to know that Ryelanites is as good as anybody. You gonna howdy me and be neighborly, or I’m gonna find out why.”
Lumley was off his chair now, looming over Dobro with a fist drawn back. “Am I gonna have to learn you manners the hard way?”
Dobro’s shrug and close-lipped little smile was more than Lumley could tolerate. He roared like a bear as his left fist rocketed toward Dobro’s right ear. But Dobro was much quicker than any big field hand’s fist. He easily ducked under it, and Lumley’s knuckles cracked against the timber that held up the roof above them. He screamed with pain and lunged at Dobro with a sweeping right. Dobro dodged that, too, and Lumley’s momentum sent the table crashing to the ground.
Dobro leaped onto the nearest table and headed for the door, dodging from tabletop to tabletop as the diners dove for him and grabbed at his ankles. Food, crockery, forks, and knives tumbled to the floor with a crash and a clatter. Tables tipped, and people slipped on the smashed sweet potatoes and greasy collard greens that littered the floor.
When Dobro reached the door, he found it to be guarded by three very large Ryelanites. Dobro felt confident he could whip them, but he had orders not to fight, so he jumped from a tabletop to one of the exposed rafters above. He pulled himself up and ran from rafter to rafter, dodging broken plates and mugs the diners were hurling at him.
By this time, Ma Pearl had waded into the fray, swinging her black iron skillet like a battle ax, trying to subdue the rowdies who were tearing her public house apart. Big men fell like mown wheat under Pearl’s skillet; their thick heads rang like gongs.
Dobro, meanwhile, found a way out onto the thatched roof. Aidan was coming around from the stable leading two horses. His face was a mask of horror when he heard the uproar coming from Ma Pearl’s inn. The very walls were shaking.
“Aidan!” Dobro shouted. “Time to leave these neighborhoods!” Aidan led the horses across to the eave where Dobro was waiting for him. Dobro dropped onto the horse’s haunches, and they took off at a mad gallop as angry Ryelanites came boiling out the front door of Ma Pearl’s.
Aidan rode easy in the saddle as his horse weaved through the villagers who came into the street to see what the ruckus was. His horsemanship returned naturally after so many years. Dobro, on the other hand, rode standing up like a circus rider. As the village receded in the distance, he waved his thanks to Ma Pearl, who was still brandishing her black skillet.
“I told you not to get into any fights,” Aidan yelled when they were out of immediate danger.
“I wasn’t fighting,” Dobro said. “I was just running away from the fight. But that only seemed to make them more angrified.”
“What did you say to those people?” Aidan asked hotly.
“I didn’t say a word the whole time I was there,” Dobro insisted. Then he confessed, “But, Aidan, when them old boys was chasin’ me acrost the tabletops, I did grin a little bit. I just couldn’t help it.”
Chapter Seventeen
South Gate
Aidan still knew the River Road bend for bend. “Over this next rise,” he called to Dobro behind him, “we’ll get our first glimpse of Tambluff Castle.” He turned around in the saddle to look at his feechie friend. “Dobro!” he shouted, exasperation in his voice. “You have to sit down in the saddle. I mean it!” Dobro had ridden most of the way from Ryelan, standing up on his horse’s back.
“I can see more this way,” Dobro said.
“We’re trying not to draw attention to ourselves,” Aidan said.
“Ain’t that what these hoods is for? To keep folks from recognizin’ us?”
“Yes, Dobro, but if you’re carrying on like a trick rider...”
“It just don’t seem right to me, settin’ on a critter’s back,” said Dobro. “Don’t seem respectful to the critter.”
“Dobro, sit down!”
Dobro flopped into his horse’s saddle, slumping like a petulant child. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said. Sarcasm was one of the civilizer habits he was starting to get the hang of.
“In an hour we’re going to be in Tambluff,” Aidan said. “It’s not like any place you’ve ever seen before. Busy streets, fine carriages. Guards everywhere. Soldiers. People whose job is to pay attention to who comes in and who goes out. If you don’t try a little harder to blend in with the civilizers, we’re going to be in a whole world of trouble, Dobro.”
“I’ll try harder, Aidan,” said Dobro. “But you folks is got such peculiar ways, it ain’t easy to blend in.”
“Just try to do what everybody else is doing.”
* * *
They approached the city at the south gate and merged with the steady flow of people threading under the teeth of the portcullis. Dobro pulled his hood further over his face, suddenly self-conscious among so many civilizers, aware of how different he was from them.
Before they reached the gate, the door to the gate-house swung open, and a round old man leaped in front of them holding a pikestaff across his body to block their way. “You!” he shouted. “You hooded horsemen. You’ll identify yourselves before you pass through my gate.”
The old man was Southporter, keeper of this gate since well before Aidan was born. How many times had Southporter welcomed Aidan to Tambluff when he was younger? King Darrow never had a more faithful servant. Perhaps he would not look so kindly on Aidan anymore. The armed guards at the gate looked alert, watching the confrontation, ready to get involved if need be.
Aidan had no choice but to identify himself and pray for the best. He could run if he had to; he knew every nook and cranny of Tambluff. And he had no cause to fear on Dobro’s account. The wily feechie could take care of himself. Aidan leaned down toward Southporter so the old gatekeeper could see his face under the hood. “I am Aidan Errolson,” he whispered.
Southporter’s face paled, and he staggered back a step. “Aidan,” he whispered. Then, after a quick glance at the armed guards, he opened his arms in a gesture of welcome to Aidan and Dobro. “Simon!” he said heartily. “Thurston! What took you so long? Come in! Come in!”
He turned back to the gate guards. “Can you keep an eye on things until I get my friends settled? It will only take a minute.” He herded Aidan and Dobro into the gatehouse and sat them down on a bench he used for questioning suspicious strangers (and sometimes used for taking afternoon naps).
“Aidan, what are you doing in Tambluff?” he whispered, his voice full of genuine concern. “This is the most dangerous place you could possibly be!”
“I’ve come to—” Aidan began, but Southporter was at it again.
“And who is this with you?” Southporter threw back D
obro’s hood and squinted at him, trying to remember if he had ever seen him, or even anybody like him, before.
“Southporter, this is Dobro Turtlebane,” Aidan began.
Southporter nodded his head and pointed at Dobro. “I know what you are,” he said. “Yes.” He kept looking at Dobro, kept nodding. Then he looked back at Aidan. “So it’s true. I thought it was just another wild rumor, you traipsing around the countryside with a feechie, but here he is, setting right here in my gate-house.” He stared another moment at Dobro. “He is a feechie, ain’t he?”
Aidan nodded.
“You’ve brung some astonishing things to this gatehouse,” Southporter said. “Six years ago, you brung the biggest alligator I ever seen before or since. And today, you have brung a feechie in the flesh.” He slapped his thighs. “I don’t know how you gonna top this one, Aidan!”
Dobro gave Southporter a greenish grin. Southporter shook his head in amazement. Then he grew suddenly serious. “Aidan, there’s another rumor about you, and every time I hear it I tell folks it’s a filthy lie.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Folks say you and your pap’s training a rebel army down in Sinking Canyons. And I tell them, ‘That’s a filthy lie, and I don’t care who knows it! Ain’t nobody,’ I tell them, ‘ain’t nobody truer to the House of Darrow than Lord Errol and his boys.’ I still call him ‘lord,’ even if King Darrow don’t. And I tell them, ‘Anybody cares to contradict me can have my pikestaff right across his skull bone.’”
Southporter had plenty more to say on that subject, and he meant to go on at some length, but he noticed a strange expression on Aidan’s face. Southporter tried to soldier on. “It’s like I tell them …” He broke off. “Aidan, why ain’t you looking at my eyes? Aidan? Oh, dear me, no! Aidan? You are training a army in Sinking Canyons!”
“Southporter, it’s not what you think!”
Southporter’s face crumpled and tears stood in his eyes. “Traitor?” His tone of voice was halfway between an accusation and a question. “Aidan Errolson a traitor?” He put his hand on the bell pull that would summon the armed guards.
The Way of the Wilderking Page 11