The Fugitive Prince (Bell Mountain) (28 page)

Jack felt ashamed of himself when he told of hitting Noma with the stone while the man slept, but Martis had no reaction to it. Well, he’d done a lot worse things than that, Jack reflected, many times over. The children knew those actions troubled Martis sometimes. He’d told them so.

“We were going to steal it all along,” Ellayne said, “as soon as we got the chance. We were going to take it back to Obann and tell Obst all about it. We thought he’d better know.”

“You should have seen how all those people looked at Noma when he shone the light at them. They thought it was magic,” Jack said. He turned to Ellayne. “So did she.”

“And so did you, Mr. Bucket!” She knew Jack didn’t like that nickname. “Well, who wouldn’t think so?”

Martis turned the light on and off a few more times and sat there looking at it, and thinking.

“They’re trying to awe the people into submitting to the Thunder King. That’s obvious,” he said. Then he fell silent for so long that it made Ellayne fidget.

“What are you thinking, Martis?” she said. “Have you decided what we ought to do?”

“Oh, we have to take this back to Obann,” he said. “The people have to be taught not to be afraid of something like this, not to think it’s magic. They have to understand that things like this are nothing, really—just odds and ends left over from the past. There must be other agents of the Thunder King traveling the countryside, with other pretty baubles in their keeping. His army couldn’t conquer Obann, but maybe he can use lies to overthrow it.”

He didn’t tell the children everything that was in his heart. He didn’t reveal the extent of his fear.

If the Thunder King had found little things left over from the Age of Empire, might he not also have found big things? Maybe more had survived in the East than in the West: Lord Reesh used to think that might be so. What if the Thunder King had found something that could slaughter people at a distance? What if the sinful pride of those ancient days had found a new servant in the Thunder King?

“I hate to leave King Ryons wandering around alone,” he said at last. “But we might search all our lives and never find him; and meanwhile the king’s counselors and chieftains must be warned, and we’re the only ones who can warn them. We can make good time, straight back to Obann, and we’ll be reasonably safe if Kwana and his men ride with us. Do you agree?”

“We hoped to find King Ryons,” Ellayne said. “Wytt kept picking up his trail. But this business with Noma changed everything.”

“We always wind up sorry for it, if we don’t listen to you,” Jack said. “I guess I’ve learned that lesson.”

But of course they didn’t know that Obst and all the chieftains had just left Obann, and there would be no one in the city to advise them.

Wytt listened quietly to the humans’ talk, understanding it in his own fashion. Besides which, he’d already made his own plan.

He would find King Ryons.

Chapter 33

For the Welfare of the City

In the city of Obann, with the chieftains and their warriors gone, there were only Hennen’s spearmen to guard the palace and the city gates, and eighteen Blays (two were lost) to guard the queen. There were two thousand militia now in Obann, but these were new recruits who’d not yet been tested in battle. All in all, there were nowhere near enough troops to defend so great a city; but no one expected there would be a need to defend it—not from any enemy on the outside.

On the evening of the same day that the chiefs departed, a group of prominent citizens invited themselves to the palace and politely demanded an audience with the queen and General Hennen.

“We are concerned for the welfare of our city and for the welfare of our good King Ryons, too,” said their spokesman, a rich wool merchant named Merffin Mord. “Every king, especially a king of such tender years as Ryons, must have a council to advise him and show him what ought to be done. Not a council of Heathen warlords—some of them never saw a city before they came here!—but a true council of Obann’s loyal citizens. I have been chosen by the people of Obann—”

Here he was interrupted by a series of rude noises coming from just outside the doorway of the audience chamber. They were the kind of noises that important people least expect to hear when they are talking business.

“Your Majesty, please!” cried Gurun; for she guessed at once who was making the noises. And into the hall strutted Fnaa, with his mother trailing after him like the poor helpless servant of a distracted king. Fnaa let his eyes rest for a moment on Merffin Mord, then turned to Gurun.

“What does this fat man want? What’s he doing here?” Fnaa said—quite loudly, too. “I didn’t ask him to come!”

Merffin bowed to the supposed king, and his fellow delegates bowed, too.

“Sire,” Gurun said, “these are very important men in the city. They want to be your councilors.”

“I don’t need any councilors. Tell them to go away.”

Gurun shrugged. “Good sirs, I think we should talk of this some other time. I have no right to make decisions that belong properly to King Ryons, and he is not in a mood for it. Please come back another day.”

With more bowing, and some inadequately suppressed grumbling, the prominent citizens began to leave. But none had reached the door when Fnaa cried out, “Wait! Don’t go!” And they halted.

“Do these men,” Fnaa asked, “want to come here and do dull work? All that foolery about taxes and roads and fixing up this or that building? You know I hate sitting around and listening to all that rot! If Mr. Fatty-fat wants to bother with it, why shouldn’t he?”

Merffin, whose reddening face showed what he thought of the nickname Fnaa had given him, said, “Sire, we know the city, and we will give you good advice. You don’t want the city’s business to miscarry, after all. But it can indeed be dull business, as you so rightly say. There’s no need for you to be troubled with it.”

Gurun wanted to answer, but Fnaa didn’t let her.

“Very well, then, that’s settled!” he said. “These men will come to the palace every day, and if there’s anything to do that’s dull and costs money, let them do it. I, the king, command it!” Fnaa had gotten rather fond of that phrase lately.

When at last they got a chance to talk to him alone, just before bedtime, Gurun and Dakl wanted to know what Fnaa thought he was doing.

“Anything that comes into my heart to do—just like the prophetess said,” he answered.

“Those men who were here this evening did not mean well,” said Gurun. “They think you have become a simpleton.”

“The whole city thinks that,” Dakl said.

“They will steal the city out from under us,” Gurun said. “They wouldn’t have dared to try, while the chieftains were here.”

“Uduqu’s still here,” Fnaa said. But Dakl said, “Pish! He’s a fierce old man who is as helpless as a babe, in a place like this. Men like Merffin Mord will have no fear of him.”

“Well, the prophetess said I was to lead them into folly,” Fnaa said. “That’s what God wants, and she says He’ll protect me.”

Dakl looked at Gurun. “There’s wisdom in it, my lady,” she said. “As long as they think the king’s a fool, to be blown this way and that as it suits them, and will never turn on them as long as they give him a hobbyhorse to ride, they’ll be happy to have him on the throne. They won’t murder him.”

“Please don’t call me ‘my lady,’” Gurun said. “I will tell you what worries me. In the Scriptures, in the Book of Thrones, it tells of King Emver, who became king when he was just a boy. His nobles ruled the kingdom, and in his name did all kinds of wicked deeds. So the elders made a conspiracy and killed the king.”

“I don’t know those Obann Scriptures!” Dakl said, wide-eyed. Gurun hadn’t meant to frighten her, but it was too late to take back what she’d said.

“It’s all right, Mother,” said Fnaa. “God’s protecting me.”

In his office in the palace, which no one but Gurun and Dakl knew he had—but they did not know that he’d moved it to another room, even more out-of-the-way than the first—Gallgoid listened to the report of one of his agents. The man was in the palace as a humble servant who mopped floors, and had also served refreshments to Merffin and the others when they came to see Gurun. Gallgoid thanked him and dismissed him, after writing down the names of all the delegates. From now on they would all be watched.

“They’ve lost no time, have they?” he asked himself. “They have their hearts set on becoming oligarchs. The king’s foolishness invites it.”

Gallgoid knew about the boy king’s capers. His agents kept him very well informed. He didn’t know why the king was behaving so oddly, but he suspected Gurum knew. But he resisted the temptation to question her about it.

“They won’t find it as easy as they think, to become oligarchs,” he mused. He liked the idea of letting them do the mundane work of governing the city until, in their false security, they judged the moment right to declare themselves its rulers. He would try to upset their plan just a moment before that moment arrived.

Someone, he thought, should have reminded them of that ancient proverb: “Traitors, beware of treachery.”

Far away in Lintum Forest, Hwyddo and Maelghin toiled eastward. Hwyddo knew the way, having lived in the forest all his life. Maelghin nursed a forearm badly savaged by Cavall’s teeth.

The attack by the giant bird had panicked Hwyddo. But after fleeing for some miles, he remembered that he’s left his brother behind, and headed back for him. So he chanced upon Maelghin, who’d gotten up and come looking for him.

“It’s no use,” Maelghin said, when Hwyddo mentioned it. “That monster kicked poor Culluch right in the belly. He’s done for.” Hwyddo thought it over, and decided Maelghin was right.

“This forest isn’t big enough for us and Helki,” he said.

“Maybe we could go to Silvertown,” Maelghin said. “The Thunder King has an army there.”

“And maybe the commander of that army would like to do something about Helki, eh?” Hwyddo was thinking clearly now. “They have a score to settle with him. Maybe they’d like to see Lintum Forest go back to the way it was, before Helki made himself so big.”

“The Thunder King’s general might like that very much,” said Maelghin. “Do you think there really is a king in Obann now?”

“The important thing is that there shouldn’t be a king in Lintum Forest,” Hwyddo said.

Chapter 34

Concerning Prophets