Halt looked down at the fire, hiding a satisfied smile.
Will dismounted, unsaddled Tug and set him loose to graze. He joined the others by the small fire, where a coffeepot sat in the coals to one side.
“Still,” he continued, “they do a good breakfast at the Harper. Bacon, sausages, mushrooms and fresh bread. Just the thing to set you up on a cold morning.”
There was a low groan from the point where Horace sat, poking idly at the coals with a dead stick. Will wasn’t entirely sure if the groan had come from Horace or from his stomach. Breakfast at the camp had been a frugal matter of flat, slightly stale bread, toasted over the fire and eaten with a ration of dried meat.
“Hard rations build character,” Halt said philosophically. Horace looked mournfully at him. Already the vast helping of lamb stew he’d eaten the previous evening was nothing but a dim memory.
“They also build hunger,” he said.
Will waited a few seconds more, then relented and tossed a substantial bundle wrapped in a napkin down beside Horace.
“Fortunately, the kitchen girl saw fit to give me some food for my journey,” he said. “Seems she’s a music lover.”
Horace eagerly unwrapped the bundle to reveal a pile of still-warm food inside.
He transferred a large portion to his plate and reached for his fork. He paused as he saw Halt moving to join him and take his own share of the bacon and sausages, ripping off a chunk of fresh, soft bread to go with it.
“I thought you said hard rations build character?” Will said, managing to stay straight-faced. Halt looked up at him with some dignity.
“I have character,” he said. “I have character to spare. It’s young people like you two who need their characters built.”
“I’ll build mine tomorrow,” Horace said through a mouthful of food. “ This is excellent, Will! When I have grandchildren, I’ll name them all after you!”
Will smiled at his friend and took a seat by the fire, pouring himself a cup of coffee. He added honey and drank appreciatively.
“Aaah!” he said.“They may know their way around bacon and sausage at that inn. But their coffee doesn’t hold a candle to yours, Halt.”
Halt grunted, his mouth too full to answer. He finished off the plate of food that he had taken and sat back, patting his stomach. Then he couldn’t resist leaning forward and taking one more piece of crisply fried bacon.
“So, did you hear anything at the inn?” he asked as he finished off the tidbit.
Will nodded. “The main talking point was an attack on a place called Duffy’s Ford—a small settlement by a river some ten kilometers from here.”
“Yes. We heard about that too,” Halt said. “Did you hear any mention of a village called Mountshannon?”
Will drained his cup and tossed the dregs into the fire before answering.
“Yes. Quite a few people were talking about it. Sounds as if our friends have set up headquarters there.”
“We heard they were claiming to be able to protect Mountshannon from the sort of thing that happened at the ford,” Horace put in. Although he hadn’t heard too clearly the night before, he and Halt had discussed the matter when they reached camp.
“I heard much the same thing. Opinion seemed divided as to whether there was any value to the claim,” Will said. Halt looked at him shrewdly.
“What did most people think? Did you get any idea?”
Will shrugged. “I’d say it was two to one against. Most people I spoke to, or heard discussing the matter, seemed to think Mountshannon could look after itself. It’s a big village, apparently. They talked about it quite a lot after I’d finished singing.”
Halt chuckled briefly. “ That’s the handy thing about your being able to pose as a minstrel,” he said. “People seem to think you’re one of them. They’ll talk far more openly about matters in front of you. Anything else?”
Will considered. He wasn’t quite sure how Halt would react to the next piece of intelligence he had learned. Then he decided there was no way to sugarcoat the message.
“General opinion is that King Ferris is a broken reed. There’s precious little respect for him. Nobody seems to think that he’s capable of sorting out the mess that Clonmel’s in. The ones who think the Outsiders might have the answer were particularly strident about it. And if anything was going to sway the others to their point of view, it was the fact that Ferris is weak and ineffectual. They all agreed on that.” He paused, then added, “Sorry, Halt. But that’s the way people see it.”
Halt shrugged. “I can’t say I’m surprised. For years Ferris has cared so much about just being king that he’s neglected to act like one. He was like that from the beginning.” There was a note of bitterness in his voice, and Will regretted having to pass on the negative information about his brother.
Horace checked the spread-out napkin to make sure there were no leftovers remaining. Then he shifted to a more comfortable position.
“Halt,” he said now, in a serious voice, “I think it might be time you told us more about you and your brother.”
There was no trace of his former lighthearted tone when he had grumbled about breakfast. This was a serious matter. But there was also no trace of apology in his words. He was prying into Halt’s past, he knew, but it was time he and Will learned all the facts about King Ferris and his relationship with his brother.
Halt was watching him now with those calm, serious eyes of his.
“Yes. You’re right,” the Ranger said. “You should know all the facts behind the current situation. For a start, there’s one pertinent fact you should be aware of. Ferris and I aren’t just brothers. We’re twins. That’s why the Outsiders’ leader at Selsey thought I looked familiar. He’d spent some time in Clonmel, and he’d seen Ferris.”
“Twins?” Will sat up at that news. In all the years he had spent with Halt, he had never had the slightest inkling that his mentor had any siblings, let alone a twin brother.
“Identical twins,” Halt said. “We were born seven minutes apart.”
“And you were the youngest?” Horace said. He shook his head. “It’s funny, isn’t it? But for that seven minutes, you’d be the King of Clonmel now and Ferris would be . . .”
He paused, not sure how to continue. He had been about to say, “Ferris would be a Ranger,” but then he realized, from what they had heard about the vacillating, ineffectual King, he would never have become a Ranger. Halt regarded him, seeing the sudden question in the young warrior’s mind.
“Exactly,” he said quietly. “What would Ferris have become? But you’re not exactly right there, Horace. I was actually the one who was born first. Ferris is my younger brother.”
Horace frowned as the implications of what Halt had said sunk in. But it was Will who asked the obvious question.
“Then what happened? Surely as the elder brother, you should have become King? Or isn’t that the way it works here in Hibernia?”
“Yes. That’s the way it works here, just like everywhere else. But I had a problem. My brother resented those seven minutes bitterly. He felt he had been cheated out of his birthright. Cheated by me,” he added.
Horace shook his head in disbelief. “That’s crazy. It wasn’t your fault you were born first.”
Halt smiled sadly at Horace. So honest. So straightforward. So free of deceit and jealousy. If there were more men like Horace, and fewer like my brother, the world would be a better place, he thought.
“He made himself blame me,” he told them. “That way, it was easier for him when he tried to kill me.”
“He tried to kill you?” Will’s voice rose in disbelief. “His own brother? His twin brother?”
“His older brother,” Halt added. He looked deep into the smoking embers of the fire as he recalled those long-ago days. “You know, I don’t really enjoy talking about this,” he began, and both Will and Horace reacted immediately.
“Then don’t!” Will said.
“It’s none o
f our business anyway,” Horace agreed. “Let it go, Halt.”
But Halt looked up at them both now, letting his gaze move from one to the other. Both of these two he would trust with his life. But his own brother? He let out a short, bitter laugh at the thought, then continued.
“No. I think you need to know this. And I certainly need to face it. I’ve been running away from it for too long.” He saw their reluctance to hear more and reassured them.
“You need to know this, really. It could be important to you. So let me get it out of the way as quickly and painlessly as possible. Ferris believed the throne was rightly his. Why he believed that I have no idea. But he did. Maybe it was because he was the more popular with our parents. And that may have been because they felt he needed their attention more than I did. After all, I was going to be King, and they possibly felt that he needed something in compensation for that fact. Plus he was friendly and cheerful, and I was . . . well, I was me, I suppose.
“When we were sixteen, he tried to poison me. But fortunately, he got the amounts wrong and only succeeded in making me violently ill.” He grinned wryly. “I still can’t face the sight of a plate of shrimp.”
“But didn’t your parents . . . do something?” Will protested.
Halt shook his head. “They didn’t know. I didn’t know. I only found out later. I just thought the food had been spoiled and I was lucky to survive.
“The next time was six months later. I was walking in the castle yard when a pile of roof tiles hit the ground half a meter behind me. They smashed and cut my legs pretty badly. But they didn’t land on me, which was the intent. I saw Ferris on the battlements above me. He ducked back out of the way but not quite quickly enough.
“Worst of all, I saw the expression on his face. You’d expect someone who had just witnessed his brother miss death by a few centimeters might look concerned. Ferris looked furious.
“Bear in mind, I had no real proof that he was trying to kill me. And at that time, my mother and father were arguing nonstop—they were never what you might call a happy couple. About the only bright thing in their lives was Ferris. Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to spoil that for them by accusing him. The only one who believed me was my younger sister. She could see what was going on.”
Horace and Will exchanged surprised looks. They were learning more about Halt in these few minutes than they had in the past five or six years.
“You have a sister?” Will said. But Halt shook his head sadly.
“I had a sister. She died some years back. I believe she had a son.” He paused for a few seconds, thinking about her, then he shook himself and went on with his story.
“The final time was a year after the roof incident, when my father was close to death. Ferris knew he had to act quickly. We were salmon fishing and I leaned over the side of our boat to untangle my line. Next thing, I felt a shove in the back and I was in the water. When I came up, Ferris was trying to reach me with an oar. At first, I thought he was trying to help. Then, when the oar hit me, I knew what he was really doing.”
Subconsciously, he rubbed his right shoulder, as if he could still feel the pain of that blow, all these years later. Will and Halt were horrified. But neither said anything. Both realized, somehow, that Halt had to finish this story, to purge his soul of the blackness that he had concealed all these years.
“He tried for me again, but I ducked underwater and swam for the bank. Nearly didn’t make it, but I managed to drag myself ashore. Ferris followed me in the boat, insisting that it had been an accident, asking if I was all right, trying to pretend that he hadn’t just tried to kill me.”
He snorted in disgust at the memory.“I knew then that he’d never let up. If I were to be safe, I had to do one of two things. Kill him or leave the country. Even if I were to simply stand aside, to abdicate, I knew he’d never trust me. He’d expect me to try to seize the throne from him at some time in the future. I guess it was just worth more to him than it was to me. It was worth his brother’s life.
“That’s what I told him. Then I left.” He smiled at the two concerned young faces opposite him now and added, “And the way things turned out, I’m rather glad I did.”
The two young men shook their heads. There were no words that could express their sympathy for the grim-faced Ranger who meant so much to both of them. Then they realized that Halt didn’t need words from them. He knew how much they cared about him.
“You might have noticed,” he said, trying to lighten the mood around the campfire,“I’ve been left with a distinct aversion to royalty and inherited authority. The fact that a person’s father is a king doesn’t necessarily mean that he will be a good one. All too often he’s not. I prefer the Skandian method, where someone like Erak can be elected.”
“But Duncan is a good king,” Horace answered quietly.
Halt looked at him and nodded. “Yes. There are always exceptions. Duncan is a fine king. And his daughter will make an excellent queen. That’s why we all serve them. As for Ferris, I confess I wouldn’t be heartbroken if this Tennyson character dragged him screeching off the throne of Clonmel. But then Araluen would be in danger, so we need to prop him up.”
“Unpalatable as that may be,” Will said.
“Sometimes we act for the greater good,” Halt said. Then he stood up, dusting himself off, as if to disperse the cloud of melancholy that had settled over them as he talked. He continued in a brisker tone.
“Speaking of which, it’s time we got moving. Will, I want you to go to Duffy’s Ford and pick up the trail of these bandits. Track them to their camp and see what you can find out about them: numbers, weapons, that sort of thing. If you can get any inkling of their plans, that’d be good. But be careful. We don’t want to have to come and rescue you. Don’t underestimate these people. They may look like an untrained rabble, but they’ve been doing this for some years now and they know what they’re about.”
Will nodded his understanding. He began to gather his equipment together and whistled to Tug, who walked forward to be re saddled.
“Will I meet you back here?” he asked.
Halt shook his head.“We’ll meet at Mountshannon. Horace and I are going to take a look at this Tennyson character.”
19
DUFFY’S FORD CROSSED A LONG, SLOW CURVE IN THE RIVER. OVER hundreds of years, the action of the water running through the curve had cut away the bank, eroding it so that the river gradually became wider. As the moving water was spread over a larger area, its speed and depth were both reduced accordingly, providing a crossing point for travelers. There was no logical reason why people on the road shouldn’t break their journey at any point along the way, but travelers tend to look for landmarks or significant features when choosing where to sit back, relax and enjoy a meal. Duffy’s Ford, with its wide, flat, grassy banks sheltered by willows, provided an ideal location.
As is often the case, the fact that travelers were drawn to a location resulted in the growth of a small settlement designed to serve their needs. The trees had been cleared, and there was a small huddle of buildings to one side of the ford.
Or there had been. Will dismounted and walked forward to look around. He studied the blackened remains of what had been a group of buildings, where wisps of smoke still rose in places. The largest, which had provided food and drink to passersby, had been a rambling, single-story affair, gradually added to over the years. Will guessed, correctly, that it had provided overnight accommodation to those who wanted it. Now less than half the building remained. The rest was a pile of blackened ashes. The roof had gone, of course, being made of thatch. And the mud walls had cracked in the heat of the fire that had swept through the building, then collapsed. But some of the timber framework remained in place—a skeletal structure of blackened beams and uprights that tottered precariously over the charred remains of beds, tables, chairs and other furnishings. There were several half-burned casks in one room. Will assumed that it had been the taproom, where thirsty
travelers could relax over a glass of ale. Remarkably, demonstrating the capricious nature of a fire like this, one corner had remained relatively untouched, and there were several dark bottles still standing on a shelf behind the collapsed charred bench that had been the bar. Gingerly, Will picked his way through the ashes and debris and picked one up. He unstoppered it and sniffed the cork, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the powerful smell of cheap brandy. He restoppered it and went to put it back—but then a thought struck him. It could come in handy at a later date. So he slipped the bottle into an inner pocket.
He made his way back onto clear ground and walked around the perimeter of the ruined central building, turning his attention to the other three destroyed structures. One had been the stables, placed behind the main building. There was nothing much left there. It had burned fiercely, the flames not even extinguished by the heavy rainstorm that had saved some of the main building.
“Probably full of straw,” he said to himself. The dried-out hay would have been perfect fuel, defying the efforts of the rain to quell the flames.
Beyond the ruined stable there were two other, smaller buildings. In front of one was a stone fireplace, where an assortment of blacksmith’s tools—hammers, awls and pliers—was scattered. It made sense, he realized, for a smithy to set up shop here. There’d be plenty of trade from passing travelers needing wagons repaired, horses shod or tack mended. The other building had probably been a residence—perhaps for the smithy and his family. There was little left of it now. The small settlement had a forlorn feeling to it—deserted and lifeless.
As the last word came to his mind he became conscious of something else—the by now familiar nauseatingly sweet smell of rotting bodies. As he walked farther to the back of the smithy, he made out the shapes of several carcasses in the small meadow behind it. Sheep, most of them. But there was also one huddled furry body that had been the dog that guarded them.
The survivors of the attack must have buried or carried away the bodies of the four human victims. But they had no time or inclination to dispose of the remains of the animals.
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