Kings of Clonmel (33 page)

“You’re right,” he said. “I’ll get the knives. I suppose it’d be too obvious if I asked for a razor?”

“My dagger will do. It’s sharp enough,” Horace said. But Halt demurred as Sean began to turn away.

“Not the dagger. Get my saxe. It’s good enough to cut my hair. It’ll shave me.”

Horace was looking at him, fascinated by the revelation.

“So it’s true,” he said. “You really do cut your hair with your saxe knife.” It had long been a subject of discussion in Araluen; now Halt was confirming it. The Ranger didn’t bother to reply.

“And get a bowl of hot water,” Halt continued to Sean. Then he glanced at Horace. “You’re not shaving me dry.”

“Make it tea,” Horace corrected him. “A pot of hot tea. People might wonder why we’d want a bowl of hot water. But a pot of tea won’t make them curious.”

Sean hesitated. “You’re going to shave him in tea?”

“You’re certainly not going to shave me in tea,” Halt added. But Horace made a conciliatory gesture.

“It’s still essentially hot water. And we can use it to darken the parts of your face where the beard has been.”

Sean looked from one to the other. Then he nodded agreement. Horace was right. Shaving Halt would expose an area of his face that had been protected from sun and wind for years. It would show like a beacon unless they disguised it somehow.

“Saxe knife and tea,” he muttered, as if it were some bizarre kind of shopping list. Then he hurried from the robing room.

“One more minor problem,” Halt said. “Ferris’s hair is dark, while mine is a dignified shade of gray.”

“He dyes it,” Horace said, and Halt exploded irritably.

“Well, of course he dyes it! But somehow I don’t think tea will do the trick for me. Any thoughts?”

“Soot,” Horace told him. “The fireplace and chimney will be full of it. We’ll rub it through your hair. We might mix a bit into the tea for your face as well.”

Halt reached down and righted the chair that had been knocked over when Ferris went down. He slumped on it, resigned to his fate.

“It just gets better by the minute,” he said gloomily.

 

An hour later, the doors of the throne room crashed open. The six guards in the outer room all came to attention as Sean emerged.

“The King has decided to visit the market ground,” he announced. “Form up to escort him.”

The guards hurried to obey as the King, dressed in a heavy green satin cloak decorated with intricate brocade work and trimmed with pure ermine, swept out of the throne room. The cloak reached to the ground and had a high collar, which the King had turned up. One of the foreign visitors accompanied him. There was no sign of the second foreigner, but the guards, if they registered his absence, didn’t have time to dwell on it. They formed up rapidly, two in front of the royal party and four behind, maintaining a respectful distance so that they were close enough to protect the King if required, without being able to eavesdrop on the royal conversation.

Sean led the way, with the King and Horace side by side behind him. Sean had to agree that Horace’s handiwork had been effective. Halt’s hair, darkened with chimney soot, was parted in the middle, slicked down with tea and drawn back beneath the royal crown. A close inspection of the King’s face would have revealed a rather patchwork effect on the lower areas, where an uneven paste of soot, dirt and tea dregs had been smeared on the pink flesh left bare by Horace’s inexpert efforts with the saxe knife. The paste also went some way toward concealing half a dozen small nicks and cuts on his face, where the saxe had not been quite up to the task of dealing with Halt’s wiry beard. Horace had quickly found that a thick slurry of soot and tea served to staunch the bleeding quite effectively.

“I’ll get you for this,” Halt had told him as he dabbed the disgusting mixture on the worst of the cuts. “That soot is filthy. I’ll probably come down with half a dozen infections.”

“Probably,” Horace had replied, distracted by his task. “But we only need you for today.”

Which was not a comforting thought for Halt.

Also aiding their deception was the fact that Ferris, over the years, had made it clear that he did not want his subjects looking directly into his face. Most people, even many of those in the castle, had never had a chance to study the King’s features in detail. They had an overall impression of him, and that impression was matched by the way Halt looked, talked and moved.

Preceded by two of the throne room guards, the party marched out of the keep tower into the courtyard. Abelard and Kicker were standing close by the doorway. Kicker’s reins were fastened to a tethering ring. Abelard, of course, simply stood where he was until he was wanted.

He looked up as the party emerged and nickered a soft
hello
to his master, who was dressed in an unfamiliar green cloak and had dirt plastered on his face. Halt glanced at him, brow furrowed, and silently mouthed the words “shut up.” Abelard shook his mane, which was as close as a horse could come to shrugging, and turned away.

The small group marched down the ramp to the town itself. As they approached, Halt was conscious of the fact that, while people drew back from their path and lowered their heads or curtseyed as their King passed, there was no sign of cheering or waving. Ferris, now unconscious and bound and gagged in the wardrobe of the robing room, had done little over the years to endear himself to his subjects.

They made their way into the town proper and the way continued to clear for them—whether out of respect or because of the armed men who flanked them, Halt couldn’t tell. He suspected it was a combination of the two. They turned down a side street, and at the end of it he could make out an open space. The buzz of hundreds of voices carried to them. They were approaching the market ground, where Tennyson was already addressing a large crowd.

“They’ve started without us,” he said.

“ They may have started,” Horace replied, “but we’ll finish it.”

WILL STOOD TOWARD THE BACK OF THE CROWD IN THE MARKETPLACE. Tennyson’s followers had been hard at work for some hours, preparing for the time when he would address the assembled crowd. A raised platform had been constructed, and to one side there was a cooking fire surmounted by a large spit. Two of the Outsiders, stripped to the waist and glistening with sweat, were turning the spit, which suspended a sheep’s carcass above the fire. As the spit turned, fat from the beast dripped down onto the glowing coals of the fire, causing flames to leap and splutter and fragrant smoke to drift around the market ground.

Will hadn’t eaten, and the smell of the roasting meat set his stomach growling. From time to time, the Outsider in charge carved choice pieces from the outside of the meat. Another tore pieces of flat country bread to use as plates, and the meat and bread were distributed to the waiting crowd. A cask of wine and another of ale had been broached, and the townsfolk were invited to bring their mugs and tankards forward to be filled up. The atmosphere was a jovial one, almost like a holiday. The food and wine were good, and it was a pleasant break in the day-to-day humdrum life of the town. The market ground buzzed with conversation and goodwill.

Then Tennyson began to speak. At first he was cheerful and welcoming, beginning with a series of amusing anecdotes—often at his own expense—that set the crowd chuckling. He was a good performer, Will thought. He spoke of the happy times he and his followers spent as they moved through the countryside, caring for each other and worshipping their god. A choir of a dozen Outsiders filed onto the platform with him and, at his signal, they launched into song.

They sang popular country songs that had their audience tapping their feet and swaying in time until, at Tennyson’s urging, the townsfolk joined in the chorus. Then the choir sang a simple hymn of joy to Alseiass. It had an easy and catchy chorus that the crowd could join in—and did. Then the choir moved offstage and, as more wine circulated, Tennyson’s mood became less cheerful.

He did so by degrees, first becoming wistful as he described the evil that had seemed to spread over Clonmel in recent months—a dark cloud that was diametrically opposed to the simple, cheerful life espoused by Alseiass and his followers. His tone darkened into indignation, then anger as he described horrors like the massacre at Duffy’s Ford, and others that had gone before. The details were unfamiliar to most in the crowd, but there had been rumors of evildoing at half a dozen towns and villages through the south of the Kingdom. The place-names were familiar and since rumor is by nature imprecise, Tennyson was able to embellish and exaggerate events, painting a picture of bleak horror while he assumed an air of righteous indignation at the suffering of the people of Clonmel.

Will sensed the change in the crowd’s mood. There was fear stalking among them, unseen and as yet unrecognized, as Tennyson pointed out how the killings, the attacks, the burnings, were gradually tracing a path north, toward Dun Kilty itself. The uneasiness grew as the level in the wine mugs fell. And as Tennyson detailed atrocity after atrocity, his white-robed followers began to echo his words. Then members of his newly converted group would step forward and attest to the truth of what he spoke.

“ The prophet Tennyson has the right of it!” someone shouted. “I was there and I saw these things for myself!”

“There’s evil stalking this land,” Tennyson said, reaching the heart of his address. “Evil in the form of the dark spirit Balsennis! He’s a depraved spirit who preys on the simple folk of this land and brings his hordes to plague and murder them! We’ve seen his hand before, haven’t we, my people?”

He addressed this last question to the inner group of followers behind him and their voices chorused confirmation of the fact. Then Tennyson continued, his voice rising in intensity and volume.

“He must be stopped! His evil followers must be crushed and defeated! And who will do that for you? Who will protect you from his attacks? Who will face the bandits, criminals, murderers and outlaws who flock to his banner? Who will turn them back in confusion and defeat?”

The crowd muttered restlessly. There was no answer that they knew to his question.

“Who has the power to stand against Balsennis and protect you from his dark and evil ways?”

Once more, Tennyson allowed the muttering and uncertainty to work its way through the crowd. Then he stepped forward and his deep, sonorous voice went up yet again in volume.

“Will your King do it?”

Silence. An awkward, nervous silence as the crowd looked at each other, then looked hurriedly away. This close to Castle Dun Kilty, no one was willing to make the first step toward denouncing the King. Yet, in their hearts, they all knew that the answer to the question was no. Tennyson’s voice rose out of the silence again.

“Has your King”—the contempt in his voice was all too obvious as he said the word
king
—“done anything to alleviate the suffering of his people?
Has he?
”

The intensity of his voice, the passion that showed in his face, demanded an answer. From the rear of crowd, a few hesitant voices rose.

“No!”

And once the lead had been given, more voices joined in, until the cries denouncing King Ferris were coming from all sides, and the volume was growing.

“No! No! The King does nothing while the people suffer!”

“He’s safe in his mighty castle! What about the rest of us?”

The first few voices were probably plants, Will realized. They were Tennyson’s cronies, scattered through the crowd and dressed in simple country clothes, without their telltale white robes. But the voices that swelled the chorus condemning the King were coming now from the people of Dun Kilty.

Tennyson raised his hands for silence and, as the yelling gradually died away, he spoke again.

“Who was it who turned back the attack on Mountshannon? Was it the King?”

Again, the chorus of “No!” boomed around the market square. As it subsided, Tennyson asked another question.

“Then who? Who saved the people of Mountshannon?”

And behind him, a group of villagers from Mountshannon shouted their enthusiastic response, practiced over the past week in half a dozen villages and settlements along their way.

“Alseiass!” they shouted. “Alseiass and Tennyson!”

And the people of Dun Kilty took up the cry until it echoed back from the buildings around the market square, redoubling itself as it did so, becoming one long, rolling cry: “Alseiass-and-Tennyson-Alseiass-Tennyson-Alseiass.” And it seemed to Will that the people were hypnotized by the rolling, echoing roar until they had to join in and reinforce the sound, the echo and the hysteria that was sweeping over the square.

This was getting very dangerous, he thought. He had never experienced mob hysteria before. Standing in the middle of it, he felt the full, ugly, unreasoning force of it.

Tennyson’s hands went up again, and the rolling thunder of voices gradually stilled.

“Who stood against evil at the gate to Craikennis?” he demanded. And this time, before his planted followers in the crowd could answer, Will decided to take a hand.

“The Sunrise Warrior!” he yelled at the top of his voice.

Instantly, a hush fell over the square. People around him turned to stare, and Tennyson, taken by surprise, was silenced for a few seconds. Will seized the opportunity.

“I was there! He destroyed his enemies with a flaming sword! He drove them back! Hundreds of them defeated by one man—the mighty Sunrise Warrior!”

He heard voices echoing the phrase “Sunrise Warrior” around the square. For rumors had reached Dun Kilty of events at Craikennis, and there was confusion now as to who had actually saved the town. But Tennyson shouted him down, pointing a finger at him.

“There is no Sunrise Warrior! He’s a myth!”

“I saw him!” Will insisted, but Tennyson had the advantage of a raised platform and a trained orator’s voice.