The Way of the Wilderking wt-3

by Jonathan Rogers

  The servant led them through wide arches, past great banks of windows, substantial fireplaces, gracefully appointed furniture, huge portraits in heavy frames, a suit of armor standing in a corner. Finely dressed servants swished through, turning around to stare at the strangers after they had passed.

  “What’s your name?” Dobro asked the back of the servant.

  The servant made not quite a quarter turn in Dobro’s direction without slacking his pace. “I’m the butler,” he said in a tone meant to convey that in his line of work he didn’t ask personal questions and shouldn’t be expected to answer any.

  “Butler,” said Dobro. “That’s a nice name. I’m Dobro, and this here’s Aidan.”

  The butler didn’t react to Dobro’s introductions. He opened a pair of very tall, narrow doors and gestured Aidan and Dobro into a high-ceilinged, airy room. A bearded man, probably in his fifties, his wife, and four beautiful young women, their daughters, all rose from richly embroidered chairs. Lynwood directed the butler from the room with an elegant nod, and when the servant had glided noiselessly away, he beamed an ingratiating smile at Aidan and bowed deeply. “Aidan Errolson,” he said, “I am honored to have you in my home.”

  Aidan popped a quick bow, but his social graces were still rusty. “We are pleased to be here,” Aidan said, not altogether convincingly. In the Feechiefen and in Sinking Canyons, he had abandoned the habit of saying things he didn’t mean. “This is my very good friend Dobro Turtlebane.” Lynwood and his family, turning their attention to Dobro for the first time, all opened their eyes a little wider, realizing at once that the rumors of Aidan consorting with feechies were surely true. But they managed to maintain their composure.

  Dobro gave a closed-lipped little smile. He remembered what Aidan had said about civilizer ladies not wanting to see his teeth. He tipped over in a bow that was even less graceful than Aidan’s. Dobro was truly awestruck in the presence of these five women-the mother no less than the daughters. The grandeur of the house had made but little impression on him. But these civilizer ladies-Dobro had no idea such exquisite creatures even existed.

  “My wife, Lenora,” Dobro could hear Lynwood saying through a buzzing in his ears. “Daughters Onie, Lilla, Jewell, and Sadie.”

  Their curling hair was swept into carefully arranged piles high atop their heads. Except for the youngest daughter-Sadie, was it? Her hair had already begun to unpile in several unruly tendrils down her neck and in front of her face. Such faces… the mother and three of the daughters were as white as boar tusks, as if they had never seen the sunshine. But that youngest girl-yes, it was Sadie-her face was brown, or pink, really, especially on the end of her nose and on her cheeks. She looked as if she had soaked up the sun and was now shining it back on everyone who looked at her. No wonder these girls preferred not to cover their faces in swamp mud! And their arms were as long and thin and graceful as a craney-crow’s neck.

  Except for Sadie, who seemed to divide her attention equally between the two visitors, the women were all gazing at Aidan with undisguised admiration. Lynwood said something about an honor and a privilege. Whatever he was saying, Dobro couldn’t make any sense of it. He felt this same way at the Battle of Bearhouse, after he had been conked on the head. He could see that talking was happening; he could even hear most of the words, but he couldn’t make them make sense. He was that taken with the four Lynwood daughters. Then Sadie stuck her tongue out at him, and it brought him back around like a splash of water in the face.

  “Retire to the dining room,” Lynwood was saying, as he shepherded the group across the hall toward the dining room. Elaborately carved chairs surrounded a table set with blown-glass tumblers and six or seven pieces of silver per place setting.

  Lynwood put Aidan near the head of the table, in the place of honor beside his own right hand. Dobro got the second spot of honor, the foot of the table directly across from Lynwood, which meant he was surrounded by Lynwood’s daughters, much to the young ladies’ disappointment.

  While the servants brought out the first course, a soup of river perch, Lenora got the conversation started with small talk. How was Aidan and Dobro’s trip? Wasn’t this weather unusual for August? How long did they plan to stay in Tambluff? Aidan answered each question politely but with as little elaboration as possible.

  Dobro, meanwhile, was working on his soup, and working rather hard. He held his spoon handle in his fist as if it were the haft of a spear and jabbed it beneath the pieces of fish that bobbed in his fine, white-clay bowl. Then he brought the spoon to his mouth, palm up, slurped the soup loudly, and smacked with satisfaction before plunging the spoon in for another go at it. The small talk around the table stopped as Lynwood and his family stared in horror and confusion at this most outlandish dinner guest. Enraptured by the soup, Dobro didn’t notice he had become the center of the room’s attention.

  Sadie was the first person to speak. She leaned back in her chair, the better to take in the wild and smelly young man in the chair beside her, and she said to Dobro what her parents and sisters were saying silently: “Are you some kind of feechie or something?”

  Dobro jerked his head back, amazed at the girl’s perceptiveness. “Well, ain’t you the clever one?” he said with an admiring smile. “There ain’t no hiding the truth from you, is there?” He was quickly mastering his shyness. “I like that in a gal.” He winked at Sadie. She blushed and looked down at her soup, twirling a ringlet around a finger.

  “I can’t lie to a pretty civilizer gal like you,” Dobro said. “That would go against the Feechie Code. I am a feechie, but my dress and manners done got so refined, most folks take me for a civilizer.” He arched the left half of his one long eyebrow and graced the room with a look meant to convey great sophistication. The effect, such as it was, was ruined by a sneeze that came on him as suddenly as a sparrow hawk. He was not accustomed to the ground black pepper served at civilizer tables.

  Dobro grabbed the corner of the tablecloth and blew his nose into it with a great trumpeting. He gave Sadie a broad wink. “Like that right there. Time was, I’d a wiped my nose on the back of my hand.” He pantomimed raking his nose from his knuckles nearly to his elbow. “But now I takened to blowing it in a cloth, just like a civilizer.”

  Dobro mistook the shocked silence for rapt attention, and it emboldened him to keep talking. “It’s the little things makes a feller blend in, ain’t it?” He slurped up another spoonful of soup. “And if there’s one thing a feechie knows about, it’s blending in. I remember one time I was cooling off in a seep hole, and I was blended in so good a alligator nearbout stepped on me.” His bashfulness was completely gone by now. A little bashfulness would have done him some good.

  “This here alligator just noozled up beside of me. I was so blended in, you see, that he thought he was by his lonesome. I raised up and frammed him in the snout.” With that he put his two fists together like a club and crashed them down on the table, causing plates, bowls, silver, and blown-glass tumblers to leap an inch off the planks of the tabletop. A roll tumbled off the table and circled around Aidan’s feet.

  The crash and the reproachful looks from the ladies were enough to abash Dobro at last. His face pinkened with embarrassment, and he returned his full attention to his soup. He didn’t even notice the look of admiration that beamed from Sadie’s face.

  Lynwood thought it best to get down to business before Dobro got started again. He turned toward his wife. “The hope of Corenwald, seated at our very table, Lenora. Can you believe it?”

  Lenora beamed a charming smile at Aidan. “We so longed for your return from the Feechiefen, Aidan, for the fulfillment of the prophecy. We were beside ourselves with joy when we heard you were back on this side of the river.”

  “I hope you will forgive my eagerness to move things along, Aidan,” said Lynwood, “what with the local committees and the Aidanite militias and the posters on the trees. We figure there’s no point putting off the inevitable-no, the foreordained
-is there?”

  “That’s actually what I came to speak with you about,” Aidan began, but Lynwood cut him off.

  “Three thousand men at your disposal, Aidan. What does that kind of power feel like?”

  “Now wait a minute,” Aidan tried to interrupt. But Lynwood pressed on.

  “I love to give good gifts-as my darling Lenora and my daughters can attest.” Lenora and the girls eagerly nodded their heads, except Sadie, who blew a stray wisp of hair out of her eyes. “And I had been waiting years to give that gift to the Wilderking: a whole army of loyal men willing to fight to the death for you against”-he reined himself in-“against tyranny.” He grinned a sly, knowing grin. “So what do you say our next steps are, Aidan?” At last he paused to give Aidan a chance to speak.

  Aidan’s eyes narrowed as he prepared to speak. “I did not come here to scheme with you,” he said firmly but quietly. “I want no part of your conspiracy against the anointed king.” A look of confusion overspread Lynwood’s face. Aidan pressed on. “You have sent me an army, and I thank you for it. I will lead them. But I won’t lead them against King Darrow.”

  Lynwood’s brow was knitted with perplexity. He had prepared for many, many possibilities but never this one. It had never occurred to him the Wilderking might not welcome his efforts on his behalf. “Not lead our army against King Darrow?” he said. “Why do you think I gave them to you?”

  “I know full well why you ‘gave them’ to me, Lynwood,” Aidan answered. “But I won’t shed Corenwalder blood for the sake of my ambition-or for the sake of yours.”

  Leonora broke in. “But, Aidan, surely you know yourself to be the Wilderking of ancient prophecy. What about the panther you slew with a stone? What about the Pyrthen giant? What about the feechiefolk? You have to believe you’re the Wilderking.” She paused, her confidence slipping. “Don’t you believe it?”

  “I believe the living God raises kings and brings them down,” Aidan answered. “I believe we don’t have to force ourselves on the ancient prophecies. I believe a traitor is no fit king.” He turned his gaze to Lynwood. “If you want to follow me, Lynwood, then follow me. But don’t try to lead me like a bull with a nose ring, and all the while pretend you’re following me.”

  Lynwood looked down at his knuckles, the expression on his face shifting from disappointment to embarrassment to something more like anger. Another awkward silence descended on the room. It was broken this time by loud sucking noises at the far end of the table, where Dobro was picking his teeth with his fork.

  Lynwood exploded in an outburst of irritability. “Could someone do something with that infernal heathen?” He pointed at Dobro with all five fingers. “Could you at least have the decency to act like a human being at my table?”

  “Lynwood, don’t you understand?” said Aidan. “When the Wilderking comes, he won’t be coming to bring you more of this.” He gestured around at the finery of Lynwood’s house. “He’s probably going to bring you a little more of that.” He pointed at Dobro, who was moping after Lynwood’s rebuke.

  Lenora gasped-squeaked, really.

  “Think about it,” Aidan continued. “‘Leading his troops of wild men and brutes.’ Are you sure that’s what you want? A bunch of wild feechies running loose in Corenwald? That’s what the Wilderking will bring with him. Feechies free to leave their forest haunts and live among the rest of us, if that’s what they want to do.”

  Aidan chuckled. “If you’re backing me for king, you need to know that’s what you’re backing.”

  Lynwood grew pale behind his beard. Lenora was fanning herself with quick, choppy strokes. And three of the sisters’ faces were contorted into expressions of undisguised contempt for the feechie at their table. But Sadie’s eyes twinkled at the prospect of feechiefolk in Tambluff.

  From the hallway came the sound of a mailed fist pounding on the front door. A gruff and threatening voice penetrated the thick walnut. “Open up! In the name of King Darrow, open up!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Ferry Keeper’s Daughter

  Everyone froze, like statues arranged around a dinner table. “Spies,” Lynwood hissed. “King Darrow has spies in the neighborhood. They must have seen you come in.”

  The first person to act was Sadie. She grabbed Dobro by the hand and, motioning for Aidan to follow, ran out of the dining room and down the corridor, away from the entry hall. They dashed through the rambling house and out a back door opening onto an alleyway. It was dark already, and they were able to get to the street without being detected. But just barely. Armed men in the blue uniforms of King Darrow’s castle guard seemed to be everywhere.

  Following Sadie’s example, Aidan and Dobro didn’t run but walked as calmly as they could manage. Any second, though, one of these guards was going to realize who they were. Or perhaps the guards would just start arresting everybody on the street.

  When they turned another corner, they saw a great crowd of people congregated on the sidewalk. Aidan’s first impulse was to run, to seek seclusion. But Sadie, the city girl, knew there was no better place to hide than in a crowd. She led Aidan and Dobro straight into the throng. Then Aidan realized what had drawn the crowd. They were standing outside the Swan Theater where, according to the sign above, The Ferry Keeper’s Daughter was playing.

  Sadie walked boldly up to the ticket seller’s booth and bought three tickets for the balcony.

  It was dark in the theater. There was little chance of anyone recognizing them here. Aidan could see from Sadie’s silhouette that her hair had given up all efforts at respectability. Some of it hung in limp curls, and some jutted out at odd angles, like the hair of a she-feechie. Dobro thought she was beautiful.

  When they were settled in their seats, thirty feet above the stage, Sadie lost all composure and folded herself over in her seat. Her face was covered in cupped hands, and her shoulders were shaking.

  Aidan and Dobro, seated on either side of her, stared at one another. They had handled plenty of sticky situations together, but neither of them knew what to do about a crying woman. Sadie had reason enough to cry, poor thing. Her whole family no doubt was in the clutches of King Darrow’s men. What’s more, her father was guilty as charged. Dobro raised a hand to pat her on the back, but when she raised herself up, they realized it was giggling, not sobbing, that shook her frame.

  “Have you… ever had… this much fun?” she whispered between fits of laughter. “Supper with a feechie… escape from the castle guard… now a play!” A nearby patron of the theater shushed her, but Sadie couldn’t help herself.

  “But what about your family?” Aidan whispered. “Aren’t you worried about them?”

  “Not at all,” she whispered back. “Not at all. Papa’s been ready for this for years. He dug a tunnel. Everybody pops down the tunnel. They pop back up in one of our other houses. Perfect escape. No, don’t worry about them.”

  When the orchestra struck up, Dobro jumped a foot off his seat and clutched his ears. He liked music well enough, but he had never seen more than a pipe and drum at a feechiesing, or the occasional fiddle by the campfire at Sinking Canyons. The sound of a whole orchestra in an enclosed place was overwhelming. “Where is that racket comin’ from?” he demanded.

  “Down there.” Aidan pointed to a spot in front of the stage. “In the pit.”

  Dobro peered over the balcony railing and saw, just below the dimmed foot lanterns, the violinists sawing away, the trumpeters blowing for all they were worth, a xylophonist running up for the high notes and down for the low notes, and a drummer pounding at a big bass drum.

  “Whoever flung them folks in the pit had the right idea,” Dobro judged, “but it don’t seem to have slowed them down none.”

  A woman in a neighboring seat shushed him, but Dobro, who had never been shushed before, thought she had sneezed and kept talking at the same volume. “What is all these folks setting here in the dark for?” he asked. “Who they hiding from, you reckon?”

 
“They’re not hiding,” Aidan whispered. “This is an entertainment.”

  “Like a feechiesing?”

  “Sort of. But not exactly. It’s a play.”

  “Play?” Dobro looked around the darkened theater. “I don’t see what game this many folks could play. If they all took turns at a gator grabble, the poor gator’d be slap wore out before they got halfway through. And these folks ain’t dressed for fistfights.”

  “No, they’re not here to play,” Aidan whispered back. “They’re here to see a play.” He couldn’t figure out how to explain a play to Dobro. The feechies did a lot of storytelling, but they didn’t do drama or playacting. As it turned out, however, he didn’t have a chance to explain. The foot lanterns were brightened, the curtain rose, and the play explained itself.

  The scene was a ferry landing, complete with cutout trees standing in front of a painted backdrop of a muddy river. Dobro was spellbound. “How they get trees to grow inside a building?” he wondered aloud.

  The lead character, the ferry keeper’s daughter, was played by a fresh-faced girl in a peasant dress. She paced up and down the front of the stage and fetched a long sigh before launching into a soliloquy.

  “That’s gal’s a loud talker!” Dobro observed. “I can hear her all the way up here!”

  “Not half as loud as you!” hissed a theatergoer behind him.

  The ferry keeper’s daughter poured out her troubles in that opening speech. Her father had been too sick to operate the ferry, so he had missed two months of payments to the moneylender. Now the moneylender wanted a bag of gold before midnight, or he would take away the ferry keeper’s house, leaving the old man and his faithful daughter with nowhere to go.

  Dobro was struck to the heart. He leaned across Sadie to whisper in Aidan’s ear. “Did you hear that gal? We got to help her.” He snatched Aidan’s side pouch and started digging around in it. “You still got that bag of gold you had when you bought them horses?”