The Secret of the Swamp King wt-2

by Jonathan Rogers

  Dobro and Aidan weren’t alone in the flatboat. Benno Frogger was making the trip to the North Swamp too. He had decided to leave Larbo’s band and rejoin Gergo’s. It had been nearly two years since he had seen his mama, and he was in a hurry to get back to Bug Neck.

  There had been so much to think about in the last day that Aidan had almost forgotten the last thing Maynard said before poling off into the southern reaches of the swamp. “Ask Dobro,” he said, if Aidan wanted to know how Maynard had pulled off his scheme. How could Dobro have played a part in this? Aidan had to know what Maynard meant, and they weren’t even out of sight of Bearhouse before he asked.

  “Dobro, the false Wilderking-did you know he was my brother?”

  “What?” Dobro asked incredulously, his face scrunched into a frown. Then a look of recognition dawned on his face. “Curly brown-headed feller? Looks a lot like you?”

  Aidan nodded his head. His eyes narrowed. “How did you know that?”

  Dobro sat down on the poling platform and let the push pole drag behind. His look of recognition was changing into a look of open-mouthed horror. “Did I…?” he muttered. “Could I have…?”

  “When I asked my brother how he did it, how he tricked a whole band of feechies, he told me to ask you.” Aidan’s tone wasn’t exactly accusatory, but neither was it the warmest Dobro had ever heard. “Did you meet my brother? What did you tell him?”

  Dobro put fingertips to his temples, trying to think. “No,” he said. “It couldn’t have been…”

  Aidan was getting impatient. “What happened?” he urged. His voice was a little louder. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I was coming up the river,” Dobro began, “up near the meadow where you set with your sheep sometimes. I looked through the trees, and I saw you setting under that big oak tree. Least I thought it was you. I decided I’d drop in on you.”

  Dobro thought for a minute, trying to get the details right. “No, wait a minute. It wasn’t just me. Who was it with me?” He furrowed his brow in concentration. “Wait… It was you, weren’t it, Benno?”

  Benno turned around for the first time since Dobro started his story. “Huh? What’d you say? I weren’t listening.”

  “I said you was with me the day I dropped in on Aidan’s brother in the sheep meadow.”

  “Oh,” Benno answered vaguely. “Now that you mention it, I do remember that.”

  “Anyway,” Dobro continued, “we dropped out of the tree to howdy you, only it weren’t you. It was your brother.

  “And the peculiar thing,” Dobro continued, “he wasn’t surprised to see us. I mean, he was jumpified at first. I think we woke him up, if you want to know true. But it was almost like he was waiting for us to come. Ain’t that right, Benno?” Benno gave a little grunt of agreement, but he had nothing to add.

  “Well,” continued Dobro, “we howdied him, and he howdied us back. And it weren’t long before he commenced to asking us all kind of questions about feechie ways. Wanted to know about your feechiemark, Aidan, and what it meant. Wanted to know where we live and what kind of weapons we hunted with and did we know about the Wilderking and did we ever make war on other feechies.”

  Dobro shivered to recall it. “Made me feel uneasy in my mind. I know I ain’t been the keerfullest feechie in the swamp when it comes to civilizers, but even I ain’t gonna answer that kind of question.”

  “So what did you tell him?” pressed Aidan.

  “Didn’t tell him nothing,” answered Dobro. “Just hemmed and hawed, and first chance we got to climb back up the tree, we took it.”

  “So you didn’t give my brother anything that would help him trick Larbo’s band?”

  “Naw, Aidan. I promise. Cross my gizzard. Ask Benno.”

  Benno nodded his head. “Dobro told true. He didn’t tell him nothing.”

  “And Benno didn’t neither,” added Dobro. “I can vouchify that.”

  Aidan’s brow creased. He shook his head. “I don’t understand,” he murmured. “Maynard told me to ask my friend Dobro.” Aidan tried to piece the whole thing together. How could Maynard have gotten a start on his scheme with no more than that to go on? How could Maynard have gone from that little bit of information-no information, really-to ruling a whole band of feechies as the Wilderking?

  “Awwww hawwwww hawwww hawwww!” Benno burst into sudden, violent tears. “Awwww hawwwww hawwww hawwww! It was me what brought that rascal to the Feechiefen! It was me what brought such misery and heartache! Awwww hawwwww hawwww hawwww!”

  Aidan and Dobro stared at Benno, astounded, as he continued to wail. “Slow down, Benno,” Aidan coaxed. “What are you saying?”

  “After me and Dobro was back in the woods,” Benno sniffed, “I made out like I had somewhere else to be, and we parted ways. I circled around and found Maynard again.”

  “But why?” asked Dobro. His voice was full of hurt and betrayal.

  “’Cause you had a civilizer friend and I wanted one too,” bawled Benno. “’Cause you and the rest of the band thought I was a know-nothing show-off, but here was somebody wanted to listen to me talk.”

  Dobro looked down at his hands. It was true that he had never taken Benno very seriously. He had always waved off Benno’s attempts to get attention and gain acceptance.

  “So I told him everything he wanted to know,” continued Benno, “and then some. I told him how I never got the say-so I deserved from my people, and he said he knew what that was like. I told him how I was figuring on going over to Larbo’s band where I could get some respect, and he reckoned that wasn’t a bad idea.”

  Benno reached into his side pouch and pulled out a steel hunting knife, identical to Aidan’s. It had escaped the forge fires that morning. “And he give me this.” Benno sighed as he watched the sun play on its burnished steel. “I knowed I had no business with a cold-shiny knife. But it shined as pretty as the sun on swamp water. And it made me feel special, you know, to be the only feechie in the band with a cold-shiny knife. Even if I never showed it to nobody, I liked to have it in my side pouch and know I was a little better than the folks around me, with their poor old stone knives.

  “Every new moon, me and Maynard met in the sheep meadow, and he’d ask me questions about feechie ways. I felt just as smart and important as Chief Gergo hisself.

  “Then one day Maynard asked me if I’d take him to meet Chief Larbo. I knowed that weren’t a good idea. But I done it anyhow ’cause it made me feel important, you know, to say, ‘Chief Larbo, let me introduce you to the man can outfit you with enough cold-shiny to whup this whole swamp.’”

  Benno started crying again, loudly, sloppily. “I wanted to show you I was somebody, Dobro-you and everybody else in the band who treated me like a no’count big-talker. I was mad at all of you. I just wanted to feel better.” He wiped his eyes. “By the time it was over, I’d done ruint a whole band of feechies, and we weren’t too far from ruining this whole swamp.” He moaned like a wounded animal. “And I still didn’t feel no better!”

  He looked again at the hunting knife in his hand. The glint of the sun on its surface made little prisms through his tears. Then with a sudden, lurching movement he flung the knife into the deep blackness of the swamp. They watched the circles expand from the spot where the knife splashed down.

  “Do you feel a little better now?” asked Dobro.

  “Yeah,” Benno answered. “A little better.” A little smile softened his sorrow-crumpled face.

  Aidan reached out to touch Benno’s shoulder. “You’re almost home now, Benno.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The Last Leg

  At Scoggin Mound, Benno left Dobro and Aidan to pole east toward Bug Neck. After a short visit with Aunt Seku and her grandchildren-which involved a snack of frog-egg jelly, much marveling over the frog orchid, and the happy return of Aidan’s cold-shiny hunting knife-Aidan and Dobro poled on toward the scrub swamp at the northern edge of the Feechiefen. The travelers parted ways where the scr
ubby tanglewood lifted itself out of the black water. They bid one another good-bye with promises to meet again at the second full moon where the Bear Trail meets the River Trail, the spot where Dobro joined Aidan and Steren’s boar hunt.

  The scrub swamp was a challenge. Tree walking required two free hands, and one of Aidan’s hands was occupied with the frog orchid. He managed at last to push through to the pine flats beyond. He didn’t, however, find his backpack and civilizer clothes and so he had to cross the pine flats bare-chested, wearing his snakeskin kilt and turtle helmet. The pine forest, he was happy to find, was recovering nicely from the brushfire he and Hyko had started. In the two weeks since the fire, wire grass had already sprouted tender and green among the charred remains of its parent grass. All over the fire site, gopher tortoises munched on the fresh shoots.

  When Aidan arrived at last at the broad river, he stood on the high bank and shouted toward Last Camp on the other side: “Massey! Floyd! Isom! Burl! Cooky!” Someone came to the bank on the civilizer side of the river. It was Isom, Aidan thought, but it was hard to tell so far away. Whoever it was, he didn’t recognize Aidan, who jumped, waved, and yelled like a wild man. “It’s me!” Aidan shouted. “Can you bring a boat?”

  The river breeze carried Aidan’s words downstream. All the hunter heard on the other side was incoherent hollering from what appeared to be a savage in a skirt and helmet. The hunter disappeared, and a dejected Aidan began preparing to swim one-handed across the wide, alligator-infested water.

  But soon the hunter was back at the far bank, and he had several hunters with him. Aidan jumped around and wheeled his arms in a broad come-here gesture, but the men only stood in a knot, talking, obviously discussing what to do about the wild man on the other side of the river.

  They were still talking when another man-tall and white-haired in a dusty tan robe-pushed past them and leaped into the nearest rowboat. When two goats jumped in after him, Aidan knew Bayard the Truthspeaker was pulling across the river to him.

  “Bayard!” Aidan shouted when the old man nosed the rowboat into the root tangle at the river’s edge. “What are you doing at Last Camp?”

  “I heard about your fool’s errand,” the old prophet answered, “and I was headed into the Feechiefen to see if you needed rescuing. I was to leave Last Camp tomorrow morning.”

  Bayard looked at Aidan’s outfit and laughed. “I’m not sure those boots go with that skirt,” he remarked as he helped the young hero into the boat. Aidan situated the frog orchid at the boat’s prow, where Bayard’s goats would have to get past him to get to it. The poor flower was wilted and already brown around the edges, but it wasn’t dead yet.

  “So you found the frog orchid,” the old man observed as he rowed the boat out of the eddy and into the open river.

  “It found me, is more like it,” said Aidan.

  Bayard smiled. “Maybe. But I don’t think the frog orchid could have found you, say, in Tambluff Castle or at your father’s house or even at Last Camp.” The prophet rowed in silence for a few pulls, then recited from the Frog Orchid Chant: And in the orchid’s essence pure Is melancholy’s surest cure.

  Aidan looked at the sickly flower. “I don’t know if the royal chemists will even be able to extract the essence out of this half-dead thing.” He held the orchid out for Bayard to inspect. “Do you think they’ll be able to, Bayard?”

  Bayard didn’t look at the plant. He looked into Aidan’s eyes. “No, Aidan, they won’t be able to. No chemist can extract the essence of a flower.” He rowed a couple of pulls. “But you’ve experienced the frog orchid’s essence.”

  Aidan smiled at the memory of Round Pond-that moment of peace that redeemed the turmoil of Bearhouse. Now he quoted the Frog Orchid Chant: On oaken limb around a pond As black as night, as round as sun.

  “That’s right,” said Bayard. “How does a chemist extract that? The frog orchid does its healing work only on the adventurous soul who goes to it. Its essence can’t be bottled and taken to one who will not make the journey.”

  Aidan fingered the drooping ribbons, which no longer looked like a frog’s legs. “Aidan,” Bayard said softly, “no chemist’s art can heal what ails King Darrow.”

  Aidan fought back tears-tears of sadness and of anger too. “My king sent me to fetch him a frog orchid.” He raised the broken oak limb from which the orchid sprouted. “I have fetched him a frog orchid, through many dangers and hardships.” He wept openly now. “And I will bring it to Darrow’s throne room. He is my king.”

  “That’s right, Aidan,” the prophet said soothingly. “That’s right.”

  They were halfway across the river by now, and Little Haze, whose eyes were the sharpest among the hunters, recognized Aidan in the boat with Bayard. When the boat landed, the hunters of Last Camp lifted Aidan from the boat and carried him around the camp on their shoulders. Aidan still held the orchid in his hands to protect it from the goats.

  Cooky was already roasting a wild boar on a spit. The hunters were having a special supper that night; it had been a whole week since the last nighttime attack on the camp, and they were celebrating.

  But Aidan couldn’t stay. He was too eager to get to Tambluff. A dead orchid wouldn’t be a suitable offering for his king. He bathed in the river while the hunters gathered a new backpack for him and the few supplies he would need for the three-day hike up the Overland Trail and the River Road to Tambluff. Little Haze gave him a set of civilizer clothes, and Aidan and Bayard were off again.

  The Overland Trail was like a pleasure stroll compared to the traveling Aidan had grown accustomed to. And being with the Truthspeaker sweetened the journey even more. “How did you learn of my quest for the frog orchid?” Aidan asked, fending off one of Bayard’s goats, which was nibbling at the hem of his tunic.

  “Your father told me.” Bayard laughed at the look of surprise on Aidan’s face. “He suspected you were heading into the Feechiefen. Then, about a week after you left, news trickled into Longleaf about the hunt feast and the way King Darrow sent you on your ridiculous mission.”

  “Was he worried? Father?”

  “He took it surprisingly well,” the old prophet answered. But Bayard grew pensive. “Your father’s never been the same since Maynard died.”

  “Maynard’s not dead.” Aidan’s words made the Truthspeaker stagger back a step, as if he had been struck a blow. Aidan told the story of the false Wilderking, from Maynard’s encounter with Dobro and Benno in the bottom pasture to the Battle of Bearhouse and his poling away to the South Swamp. It is no easy thing to astonish a prophet, but Aidan astonished Bayard that day.

  “It was a strange thing,” said Aidan, “to look into my brother’s eyes and see what he had become. It was like looking at what I might have become-who knows, at what I might become yet, if I don’t guard my heart.” Bayard nodded, listening, but he didn’t say anything.

  Aidan went on. “I know my brother is a liar and a fraud. But some of the things he said sounded right, made me wonder if I have what it takes to be the Wilderking.” Aidan paused, collecting his thoughts. “He said that everything I ever had was given to me, that I haven’t deserved any of it. I’ve been thinking about that. And I don’t know. Maybe it’s true.”

  Bayard threw back his head and laughed. “True? Of course it’s true!”

  Aidan was hoping for something more reassuring from the Truthspeaker. “What do you have that wasn’t given to you?” the old man continued. “That’s grace, man-what you’re given, not what you deserve. And that’s as true for Maynard as it is for you, as it is for me. Grace is the very air we breathe.”

  Aidan was still thinking about the things his brother had said to him. “Maynard said I didn’t deserve to be the Wilderking any more than he did.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know,” Bayard answered. “Does a tall man deserve to be tall? Does Prince Steren deserve to be the son of a king? A bird might think he deserves to swim as well as a fish, but if he sits moping on the riverbank ins
tead of using the wings God gave him, the fox is going to eat him.

  “Your brother would rather have his own way than be happy. He’s thrown away the grace he was given because it’s not the grace he had in mind.” The Truthspeaker paused to reflect on that. “There’s not much hope for a person who won’t live in the grace he’s given.”

  ***

  When the River Road brought the travelers to the gates of Longleaf Manor, they went their separate ways. Bayard insisted that he had to get to the hill country above Tambluff before dark. But there was another reason, a truer reason why the prophet wouldn’t accompany Aidan to his father’s house. Aidan had to face his father alone. It wasn’t for Bayard to explain to Errol what had become of his second son. That was Aidan’s task.

  Moira, the cook, met Aidan in front of the manor house. “Aidan!” she called. “Welcome home!” She looked down at the orchid in Aidan’s hands. “Your quest was successful, I see.”

  Aidan gave Moira a weary nod. Now that he was home again, he was starting to feel the exhaustion of his quest for the first time. Moira fingered the brown-edged orchid. “Looks like it has seen better days,” she remarked. “I’ve grown orchids all my life. Why don’t I see what I can do for this orchid while you go see your father. He’ll be glad to see you safely home.”

  “Where is Father?” Aidan asked.

  “You can find him in the cotton field,” said Moira. “He’s breaking in some new field hands.” Aidan thought he detected a sly smile play about the corners of the cook’s mouth. He handed the frog orchid to Moira and began the long walk to the cotton field. He still didn’t know what he would tell Father about Maynard. His son’s apparent death had crushed Errol. Would the news of Maynard’s living be an even greater blow?

  Father’s back was turned when Aidan arrived at the cotton field. He had a heavy hoe and was vigorously chopping around cotton stalks while five slack-faced, surly field hands looked on. He was showing the proper method for hoeing a cotton field, and he looked as strong and healthy as Aidan had seen him in a long time. Errol motioned to his recruits to try for themselves. Their shaved heads bobbed up and down with their halfhearted effort; they looked more like storks than field hands. “Chop, men, chop!” Errol urged. “I’ll make you farmers yet!”