“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 instead 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!”
Aidan sidled up alongside him. “Hello, Father,” he said quietly. The old man turned to look at him. “Aidan!” he yelped with spontaneous joy. “Returned from the Feechiefen!” He took up his son in a bearish embrace. “My lost son is found!” he shouted. “Welcome, welcome, welcome home!” He called to the farmhands. “My boy Aidan! Home from the Feechiefen!” The farmhands gave him a sidelong look but didn’t lift their heads from their work.
&n
bsp; Errol broke into a little jig of excitement and relief. “So,” he asked, his arm draped over Aidan’s shoulder, “did you complete your quest? Did you find the frog orchid?”
“Yes, Father. Moira is tending to it now.”
“I knew it!” Errol whooped. “I knew you’d come back with it!”
“I would have told you, Father,” Aidan began, “but—”
Errol interrupted him. “Don’t say another word about it.”
Aidan was perplexed to see his father doing so well. This was the Father of old. Aidan hadn’t seen him so energetic and chipper since before Maynard went away.
One of the farmhands straightened his back and pulled at his curling mustache. “Lorrrd Errrol,” he said. “I think it’s time to rrrest!”
“I’ll say when it’s time to rest,” Errol answered sharply.
Aidan knew that voice, that curling mustache. These were the plume hunters he had met near Bullbat Bay. His eyes bulged in wonderment.
“You sent these boys just in time,” Errol said. “With Jasper getting ready for the university and Brennus off at his own farm and you at Tambluff, I was in desperate need of help in the cotton field.” He gestured at the plume hunters. “We burned their plume bale, but I thought they might like to have a chance to make some more respectable bales. They’ll be here through the summer, then at harvest time we’ll split the gold from whatever cotton bales we produce.”
Aidan chuckled. “What makes you think these rascals will stay around till autumn?” he asked. But then he heard the clank of a heavy iron chain, and he realized that the five farmhands were shackled together.
“We got your pigeon note,” Errol continued, “and when the plume hunters showed up with their plume bale the next day, we were ready for them. Your brothers and I and all the servants on the place threw them in chains.” He smiled, remembering the scene. “Even Ebbe got in on the act.”
Aidan looked at the two weeks’ stubble on the five men’s heads. “I didn’t recognize them without their big hair.”
“Well, I told them Tambluffer hairdos had no place on a working farm, not my working farm anyway.” He nudged Aidan and whispered, “I plumed the plume hunters. I just can’t find a hatmaker to buy the plumage.” He slapped his knee, laughing at his own joke.
Aidan laughed, too, and shook his head. “It’s going to be a long, hot summer for those mountain boys.”
But every mention of the plume hunters stabbed at Aidan’s conscience. He knew now, or thought he knew, the plume hunters were likely connected with Maynard. They were a reminder of the secret he was withholding from his father.
Father and son walked back to the manor house. Errol asked many questions about Aidan’s journey into the swamp and back, but Aidan answered them evasively, studiously avoiding anything that would reveal any information about the false Wilderking. It just wasn’t worth it, Aidan finally decided. Father was looking healthier, happier. Even in the three weeks since Aidan had seen him, Father seemed to have come to terms with the loss of Maynard. Why open that wound again? Maynard was better off dead. And Aidan was better off getting out of there until he was better prepared to talk to his father about what happened in Feechiefen.
“I’ve got to get back to Tambluff tonight,” Aidan announced when they reached the manor house. “But I’ll come back as soon as I can.” Errol was understanding. He packed Aidan’s supper himself and had his horse brought from the stable—the same horse Aidan had ridden down from Tambluff three weeks earlier. Moira’s brief ministrations to the frog orchid had worked wonders. It wasn’t exactly good as new, but it looked much more presentable.
Father followed Aidan out the door. On the front porch he asked the question he always asked anyone who came to Longleaf from the Eastern Wilderness: “Have you seen my son Maynard?”
Aidan froze. His eyes darted aside from his father’s gaze as a lie formed in his mouth. He had decided he would never tell his father what he had seen on Bearhouse Island. But the lie wouldn’t come out. His mouth wouldn’t open.
Errol smiled at his son. “I know that Maynard lives,” he whispered. “In the trial of the plume hunters, they told me who they worked for. They didn’t even know Maynard’s real name. But I figured it out. I know what he’s doing in the Feechiefen. I know he’s impersonating the Wilderking. I know about his plot against King Darrow.”
Errol looked beyond Aidan and down the cart path. “And it all breaks my heart.” He paused. “But where there’s life there’s hope. And the heartache of knowing my son’s wickedness is outweighed by the joy of knowing he’s still alive and may yet turn back. I didn’t have that hope when I thought he was dead.”
Errol looked at Aidan’s eyes now. “I can’t explain it,” he concluded, “except to say that I am still his father, and he is still my son.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Throne Room
King Darrow could hear his son’s exuberant shouts even before he burst uninvited into the throne room. “Father! Father! He’s back! Aidan has returned from the Feechiefen!”
The castle was already buzzing with the news. Even in the city of Tambluff, the rumor was starting to spread that Aidan Errolson had gone into the Feechiefen and come out again bearing the frog orchid of old lore.
The king was in a darker mood than usual that night. His melancholic episodes had grown noticeably meaner and more frequent in the three weeks or so since the hunt feast. That night he sat sulking in the glum light of torches, refusing to let his servants light the brighter-burning wax candles.
Steren’s voice echoed against the sandstone walls. “Father! Our prayers are answered! The frog orchid is here and Aidan is alive! Your melancholy is cured!”
The king cast heavy-lidded eyes on Steren. He neither smiled nor gave any other signal he had heard or even recognized his son.
“Should I bring him in?” asked Steren eagerly. “Do you want to see the frog orchid?” King Darrow didn’t speak but waved a hand in an ambiguous gesture. He might have been granting Steren permission or he might have been shooing him away. Steren took it as a gesture of permission and darted out of the room to fetch Aidan. He came back immediately, pulling the returning hero by the arm. In his hands Aidan held a tree branch, and above it, on a long, limber stem, nodded a delicate white flower trailing two long ribbons like the springy legs of a leaping frog.
At the very sight of the frog orchid, Darrow felt his spirits lift. A man would have to be made of stone not to be affected by a thing of such exquisite beauty. Perhaps it was, as the old lore said, “melancholy’s surest cure.”
Aidan knelt before the king’s throne. Bowing deeply, he held the flower out as an offering to the king. “Your Majesty,” he said, “the frog orchid. Out of many perils and many hardships, I bring this gift to you.”
Darrow took the branch and flower from the kneeling Aidan. He turned the branch around in his hands and examined the flower’s delicate beauty from every angle. A smile softened his face, the first smile Steren had seen in days. The true King Darrow seemed to be breaking through the cloud of melancholy that had obscured him these many months. It wasn’t just the flower itself that touched the king, but the sacrifice of this boy, a boy he had believed to be his enemy, in the service of his king. Even as his smile of happiness grew, a tear of regret began to form in the king’s eye. He silently vowed to be more worthy of such loyalty.
The king rose and carried the flower to a torch, to see it better in the light. But as he stood in the torchlight, the jealousy and hatred that had caused him to send Aidan to the Feechiefen in the first place washed over him again like a wave. With a sudden movement he snapped the flower from its stem and dangled it over the licking flames of the torch. The long, ribbony legs of the frog orchid shriveled in the blaze. Then the king plucked the petals one by one and watched them curl and smoke as he dropped them into the fire. Then he dropped the bud, the last morsel of the flower, into the torch.
Darrow turned and spoke to Aidan for the f
irst time but without emotion: “There is only one way the frog orchid could have cured my melancholy: only if it had lured you to your death in the Feechiefen Swamp.”
Aidan’s eyes filled with tears. He realized that his king was lost and that he could do nothing to bring him back. There wasn’t much hope, as the prophet had said, for a man who wouldn’t live in the grace he was given. The Truthspeaker had warned him: No chemist could cure what ailed King Darrow. And yet, Aidan hadn’t believed it until he saw the look of hatred in the king’s eyes. Aidan turned and ran from the throne room. At last he understood that his days in King Darrow’s court were over.
The Secret of the Swamp King Page 17
