The Royal Ranger: The Missing Prince

by John F. Flanagan

  He said it in a lighthearted tone and the innkeeper took no offense. Rather, he saw it as a compliment, of sorts. He offered his hand. “My name’s Michel du Mont, by the way.”

  Drawn by the cart parked in front of the tavern, customers began arriving and filling the tables. As they ordered food and drink, sending the two serving girls scurrying back and forth from the kitchen to the taproom, Michel viewed the busy scene with a smile.

  “Good business for early in the week,” he said, then stopped Giselle, the prettiest of the two serving girls, as she hurried past with a jug of coffee for one of the tables. “Don’t forget to serve them a pot of honey with that,” he said. He had already told the girls about Will and Maddie’s innovation.

  Will waited until most of the crowd had finished eating, then he uncased his mandola and made a few adjustments to the tuning. An expectant buzz ran round the room and he affected not to notice that all eyes were on him. Finished tuning, he began to put the mandola away. A small cry of protest came from the middle of the crowd and he turned, pretending to be surprised as he saw the roomful of people watching him.

  “Oh,” he smiled. “Did you want to hear a song?”

  There was a chorus of assent from the room, and a few handclaps. He slung the mandola over his shoulder and launched into a bouncy, lighthearted version of “Sunshine Lady.” It was one of his favorites, a popular folk tune about a redheaded girl with sunshine in her hair and happiness in her eyes. Few audiences could resist joining in and this one was no exception. The room echoed to the sound of eager, if occasionally tuneless, voices singing along while several dozen pairs of hands clapped in time.

  In remote, sleepy villages like this one, it was relatively easy for a good jongleur—and Will was definitely a good one—to involve and excite the audience. Their lives were a repetitive sequence of work, eat, sleep and work again. The work was hard and there was little to divert them as the days and months passed and the seasons rolled around in a predictable and inevitable sequence.

  Added to that, there was a certain glamour in Will and Maddie being foreigners, and Will salted his performance with tales of events and misadventures in exotic locations. Not all of them were strictly true, of course. But all of them were highly entertaining.

  As Will neared the end of his set of songs, Maddie took the large sack around among the tables, and held it out while coins clinked into it. Within a few minutes, it had grown agreeably heavy. Satisfied that she hadn’t missed anyone, she hurried outside and deposited the coins in the locked strongbox at the rear of the cart, snapping the heavy padlock back in place once she had done so. There was a lot of money in there by now, she noticed with some satisfaction.

  Inside the tavern, Will was already announcing her act, billing her tonight as the Mistress of the Flashing Blades of Peril. She wondered idly when he would run out of hyperbolic ways of describing her to audiences. As two of the stable hands lifted the target wheel out of the cart and set it up, and the audience started pouring out of the tavern to the tables and chairs in the square outside, she fetched her knives and began her act.

  It went well, very well indeed. To her surprise and gratification, she finally convinced an audience member to be strapped onto the target board—the wheel of a thousand deaths, as Will described it this night.

  The person in question was the village blacksmith, a strapping young man named Simon, who had his eye on Giselle, the serving maid, and was eager to impress her with his courage and bravado.

  The bravado faded somewhat as the wheel began to turn and he saw Maddie preparing to throw the first knife.

  As it thudded into the wood beside his head, he let out a startled eek!

  It was such an unlikely sound from such a big, muscular fellow that the audience broke out in peals of laughter, which became more infectious as each successive knife was greeted by the same high-pitched squeak of fright.

  It made a superb climax to Maddie’s act. She almost wished she could offer Simon a permanent job traveling with them as her target. As the wheel came to a halt, she skipped forward to help Will unstrap the blacksmith, kissing him on the cheek as he stepped down, his legs a little unsteady. She glanced around for Giselle and saw the girl was pointedly ignoring the young man, going to great lengths to look unimpressed—which told Maddie that she was very impressed indeed. As coins showered around Maddie, thrown by the laughing patrons, she took Simon’s hand and held it high.

  “Please, ladies and gentlemen, show your generosity for a courageous young man! Let’s have some coins for Simon!”

  But as the coins began to shower down once more, a voice from the back of the crowd interrupted.

  “And let’s have some coins for the Black Vultures!”

  An ominous silence fell over the crowd as the speaker strode forward into the light. He was a man of average height and build, with long black hair tied in a queue at the back of his head. He had a full beard and, above it, a hawklike beak of a nose, surmounted by dark eyes, set close together. A horizontal scar ran across his forehead. He wore a ragged black jerkin and leggings and a short black cape that reached to his waist.

  And he carried a loaded crossbow, resting in the crook of his arm.

  The silence that had fallen over the crowd was replaced by a low hum of recognition. As the man stepped farther into the light, Will became aware of movement at other points around the fringe of the crowd. Seven more men, similarly dressed and armed with a variety of clubs, axes and short swords, moved out of the shadows, where they had been watching the performance.

  The leader nodded at Simon, who was still swaying uncertainly. He hadn’t yet recovered his balance from the time he had spent on the rotating target wheel.

  “You! Start picking up those coins and bring them to me!”

  But Simon, aware that Giselle was watching the confrontation, squared his shoulders and snarled in reply.

  “The blazes I will! You can—”

  He got no further. The bandit leader stepped in close to him and swung the butt of the crossbow so that it slammed into Simon’s forehead. The blacksmith staggered and fell, hitting the gravel with a heavy thump. His head bounced off the hard ground and he lay stunned.

  Maddie ducked involuntarily. The heavy impact could well have triggered the crossbow, she knew, sending the wicked-looking bolt who knew where. As she regained her composure, a figure darted across the square and fell to her knees beside Simon, cradling his head in her arms. It was Giselle. Blood ran freely down the blacksmith’s face from a deep cut above his eye. She mopped at it gently with her apron.

  His eye drawn by Maddie’s involuntary movement, the bandit chief now pointed at her. “You! Girl! You fetch me those coins!”

  Maddie hesitated, ready to defy him. Her blood was up, and she was angered by the cruel and unexpected attack on the young blacksmith. But Will touched her arm and said quietly, “Better do as he says. This isn’t the time.”

  She took a deep breath, gaining control of her anger, as she realized Will was right. They were unarmed, facing a group of eight armed men—men who were obviously ready to use their weapons without further warning. The villagers couldn’t be relied on for help. They were cowed by the dark-clad intruders. She couldn’t blame them. They were farm folk. They were unarmed, as well, and unaccustomed to fighting.

  She took the money sack from inside her jerkin and began to move around the open space of the square, collecting the money strewn there and dropping it into the sack. She moved past the sobbing Giselle. Simon was beginning to regain consciousness, groaning softly and moving his head from side to side.

  More coins went into the sack and she moved to collect another pile that had rolled farther than the rest. Moving casually, bent over to retrieve the coins, she edged closer to the target wheel, where her five knives were buried point-first in the soft wood. She studiously avoided looking at the wheel as she moved clos
er and closer.

  “Not another step.” The harsh voice stopped her in mid-stride. The target wheel was only two meters away and she looked up to see the gang leader had the crossbow trained directly at her, held at waist height.

  “Get away from that,” the man ordered, jerking the crossbow to one side to emphasize the order. Reluctantly, she backed away from the target wheel, standing in a half crouch. “Now move among the tables for more donations,” he said, smiling sardonically. Then he addressed the people at the tables as Maddie approached them. “And I advise you to be generous, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Michel, the publican, stepped forward now to plead on behalf of his customers.

  “Please, Vincent. These people aren’t wealthy. They’re poor farmers and they’ve already given plenty.” He indicated the ground, where Maddie had collected the money thrown by the audience.

  “Vincent?” the bandit said. “So you know my name, do you?”

  Michel shrugged and lowered his eyes. “Everyone knows the leader of the Black Vultures,” he said, hoping that an ingratiating manner might mollify the bandit and convince him to show a little mercy. But the ruse, transparent as it was, didn’t work. The bandit’s eyes flashed with anger.

  “Then you should know that you address me as Monsieur Vincent,” he snarled. Then he jerked his head at Maddie, who had stopped when Michel intervened on behalf of the villagers. “Keep going!” he ordered, and she held out the sack to the nearest table of customers, feeling it twitch as the coins clinked into it.

  As she threaded her way among the tables, Vincent called out a further warning. “Don’t hold back. I’ll be searching a few of you when we’re finished and if I find you’ve kept anything back, it’ll go badly for you.”

  Finally, she collected the last of the coins from the villagers. The sack now held a considerable weight of money. She took it to Vincent and dropped it onto the table beside him, where it gave off a pleasing chink. He nodded, then gestured toward the cart.

  “I’ll have the cashbox from the cart as well,” he said.

  Maddie’s heart sank as she realized he must have been watching her for some time, and had seen her deposit the takings into the cashbox earlier in the evening.

  “Please, sir!” Will stepped forward a pace, then stopped abruptly as the crossbow swung toward his stomach. “We’ve been working and traveling all week for that money!”

  Vincent smiled cruelly. “Then there should be plenty in it,” he said. He jerked his head toward the cart and ordered Maddie. “Go get it.”

  “Sir, I beg of you!” Will pleaded. “That’s all our money in the world! Leave us something!” Beneath the pleading, he wanted nothing more than to smash the superior grin off the bandit’s face. But he knew it would be more in the character of a traveling jongleur if he seemed to beg.

  “I suppose you’re right. I shouldn’t take it all,” Vincent said. His eyes fixed on the pleading jongleur, Vincent reached into the sack on the table. Working by feel, he selected the smallest coin he could find and flicked it into the dust at Will’s feet.

  “Now get that cashbox,” he told Maddie.

  27

  “It’s my fault,” said the innkeeper the following morning. “I should have known they were back in the area.”

  “Who are they?” Will asked, harnessing Tug between the shafts of the cart as they prepared to be on their way.

  “They call themselves the Black Vultures,” Michel told him. “They’ve been preying on the farms and villages in this area for the past two years. I thought they’d gone south, or I would have warned you to keep your money hidden somewhere safe.”

  “Could have used a warning,” said Will, but without any sense of recrimination. “He got all our savings—and we’d worked hard for them. We’ll be on short commons for a while now.”

  Michel shrugged. “I’d help out if I could,” he said. “But he cleaned me out too.”

  Will glanced quickly at him. He doubted that last statement. Innkeepers were experts at keeping their takings safe from marauding bandits. Inns were a prime target, after all. Vincent and his thugs may have taken some of Michel’s cash, but Will was sure there was a lot more hidden somewhere—probably buried in the woods or under the flagstones of the bathhouse. Still, it wasn’t Michel’s responsibility to recompense them.

  Will snorted derisively now as he thought about the gang’s name. “Black Vultures,” he said. “Why do these ragged bandits always give themselves such fierce-sounding names? Black Vultures, Bearkillers. Why don’t they call themselves the Turtledoves or the Puddle Ducks?”

  Michel looked at him curiously. “Who are the Bearkillers?” he asked.

  Will shrugged dismissively. “They were a bunch of thugs we ran into in Araluen,” he said. He glanced up as Maddie emerged from the inn, carrying their luggage.

  “Load that into the cart and we’ll be away,” he told her.

  Maddie nodded and glanced at Michel. “How’s Simon this morning?” she asked.

  “He has an aching head,” Michel told her. Then he added, with a smile, “But Giselle is looking after him so he probably thinks it’s worth it.”

  “Give him my thanks for his help last night,” she said, and he nodded.

  Will finished buckling the harness around Tug’s stout body, tugged at it once or twice to test the tension, then clambered up onto the driver’s seat. Bumper was tethered to the rear of the cart, although that was only for appearance’s sake. As a Ranger horse, he would follow wherever they went without the need for a lead rein.

  “We’ll be off then,” Will said, as Maddie climbed up beside him. “Thanks for your hospitality.”

  Michel spread his hands in a helpless, unhappy gesture. “Sorry about the way things turned out,” he said.

  “Not your fault,” Will told him. Then, as an afterthought, he said, “By the way, any idea where those thugs might be? I wouldn’t want to run into them again.”

  Michel paused uncertainly, looking up and down the road that ran through the village. “If they run true to form, they’ll have a camp somewhere in the forest. But they’ll stay away from the main road. You’ll see a fork in the road about half a kilometer out of town. The right fork leads into the forest proper. I’d wager they’ll be somewhere there. But you’d be wise to avoid them, as you say.”

  Will raised a hand in thanks, then clicked his tongue at Tug. The little horse leaned forward into the traces and the cart moved off at a brisk walking pace.

  They sat in silence for some minutes. They reached the fork in the road that Michel had mentioned. Will brought Tug to a halt. He looped the reins over the brake handle and climbed down, gesturing for Maddie to follow him.

  “Let’s take a look around,” he said. He was stooping, his eyes studying the surface of the road, still soft after the recent rain. After a few moments, he dropped to one knee and studied the road surface more closely. In a muddy patch where a puddle had dried only recently, he saw two distinct footprints. They were clearly delineated, which told him they were relatively new—they hadn’t had a chance to deteriorate and lose definition.

  Maddie, a few meters farther away, also dropped to one knee. She was looking at a patch of damp ground that spread from one side of the track to the other.

  “Tracks here,” she said. She traced the marks in the clay with one forefinger. “At least half a dozen men. I’d say it’s our friends the Black Vultures.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Will said, straightening and looking off down the narrow road in the direction the tracks were leading.

  “I take it we don’t plan on avoiding Vincent and his cronies?” Maddie said, with a half smile on her face.

  Will shook his head. There was no answering sign of amusement in his expression. It was grim and determined. “Not in the slightest,” he told her. “I don’t like being robbed. And I don’t like band
its who prey on defenseless villagers.”

  He took hold of Tug’s harness and led the little horse into a small clearing five meters off the road. He unharnessed Tug, then retrieved their saddles and bridles from the cart. Maddie joined him and they quickly saddled the two horses. Tug and Bumper shook themselves, pleased at the prospect of becoming saddle horses again. Pulling a cart was demeaning work, after all.

  Maddie grinned at Bumper and rubbed his soft nose affectionately. “Happy now?” she asked, and he shook his mane at her.

  “Time we changed too,” Will said. They exchanged their gaudy jongleur’s outfits for their drab gray, brown and green Ranger uniforms. Their weapons were in a concealed compartment under the tray of the cart. They strung their bows, hooked their quivers to their belts and buckled on their double scabbards. Maddie also had her sling wound loosely beside the hilt of her saxe, and she took a small but heavy chamois shot bag and hooked it onto the knife belt opposite the two knives.

  Last of all, they slung their green-and-gray-mottled cloaks around their shoulders and pulled up the cowls, so their faces were in deep shadow.

  In less than five minutes, the brightly colored, flamboyantly dressed jongleurs had transformed themselves into two heavily armed, grim figures, who merged into the dark tones of the forest background.

  “I know just how Bumper feels,” Maddie said, a satisfied note in her voice. Being a jongleur was all very well, but it was good to be back as a Ranger, she thought.

  * * *

  • • •

  The trail left by the Black Vultures was easy to follow—particularly for two such skilled trackers. The road surface was soft clay and sand, and the recent rain had left a lot of water lying in puddles. The boots of the eight bandits had left deep, clear impressions, particularly as the bandits tended to walk on the side of the road where most of the water gathered. Maddie queried this and Will explained.