Will was nodding knowledgeably. “Genovesans. I thought as much,” he said. Horace shot a pained look in his direction.
“You had no idea,” he said, and Will couldn’t manage to keep a straight face.
“Maybe not. But I knew they were trouble,” he said. His smile faded as Halt replied.
“Oh, they’re trouble, all right. They’re big trouble. Be very careful if you come up against them, both of you.”
36
“I CAN’T DO IT,” SAID FERRIS. HALT’S EYES DARKENED IN ANGER AS he looked at his brother. Ferris shrank back onto his throne as if the oversized wooden seat gave him strength.
“I won’t,” he repeated petulantly. “I can’t. And you can’t force me to do it.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” Halt told him. He glanced at Horace and Sean, saw the contempt on one face and the bitter disappointment on the other. But he knew Ferris was right. He couldn’t force him to stand up to Tennyson.
“Why should I, Halt? Why should I do what you say? What’s in it for you, after all?” His eyes narrowed in suspicion as he said the words. In Ferris’s world, people only did things out of self-interest. Now he wondered what Halt stood to gain if he, Ferris, denounced Tennyson as a charlatan. And as he had the thought, the obvious answer rose up before him. He slid off the throne and stepped forward to face Halt, emboldened now that he could see his brother’s ulterior motive.
“Suddenly, I see. You want me to stand against Tennyson in the hope that he and his followers will kill me. That’s it, isn’t it? You’ll let them do your dirty work for you, and then you’ll magically reappear and take my place on the throne. And I wager you’ll simply accept Tennyson’s conditions when you do.”
Halt studied his brother’s face for a few seconds, saw the devious mind working behind the ever-shifting eyes. He shook his head in contempt.
“I might think that way, Ferris. If I were you. But my real concern is for the people out there.” He gestured in the direction of the town below them. “The ones who call you their King—who look to you for leadership and protection. And God help them, for they’ll get little of either from you.”
“Please, your majesty,” Sean said, stepping forward. “Please reconsider. Halt is right. The people do need you. They need someone to lead them. To take charge.”
Ferris laughed scornfully at his nephew. “Oh, it’s ‘please, your majesty’ now, is it, Sean? Yesterday, you were all too ready to call
him ‘
your majesty,’ weren’t you? Don’t think I don’t see through your treacherous ways. You’re in it with them.”
Sean stepped back now, as if being too close to his uncle made him feel unclean. His voice was low and angry as he spoke.
“I have never been disloyal to you, your majesty. Never!”
The anger was so palpable that Ferris eyed his nephew nervously. Perhaps he had gone too far. He knew how much he relied on Sean. But he still refused to budge on the main question.
“Perhaps I spoke too hastily,” he said in a conciliatory tone. Then his voice hardened and he turned to Halt. “But I will not do as you ask. If you want to oppose Tennyson, you take the risk. You go out and rally the people behind this ridiculous Sunrise Warrior of yours.”
“If it comes to it, I will,” Halt told him. “But I’m a stranger here, and you’re the King. It will seem—”
Before he could continue, Ferris seized on his words and interrupted. “ That’s right. I am the King. I’m glad someone here remembers that small fact. I am the King, and I will decide for myself.”
He drew himself up, trying to look haughty and decisive. But the eyes, as ever, gave him away as they shifted and slid away from any contact with the other three.
Halt silently cursed Ferris. Without the King’s authority, any resistance to the Outsiders would be ineffectual. The people would not follow an unknown stranger and a young warrior against Tennyson, the savior of Mountshannon and half a dozen other villages, a skilled orator and an expert at whipping a crowd into a frenzy.
And a man with hundreds of fanatical followers at his back.
In spite of his inner turmoil, Halt allowed no sign to show on his face. He drew breath for one last attempt to convince Ferris. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, for it had all been said already. He stopped when he heard a commotion outside the throne room doors. Then one of the doors opened and a guard entered, hurrying toward the small group at the far end of the room. Halt noticed that he reported to Sean, not Ferris. That might be simply protocol. Or it might indicate where the man’s real loyalty lay.
“Sir Sean, there’s a messenger outside. Claims it’s urgent. He wants to see this one.” He indicated Halt.
Sean turned to him. “Are you expecting a message?”
Halt hesitated. It could only be one person. He addressed the guard. “Is he dressed like me?” he said, indicating the mottled cloak and empty double scabbard—as before, they had left their weapons outside.
The guard nodded. “He is indeed. Exactly so, your honor.”
“Yes,” Halt told Sean. “I was expecting him. He has important news bearing on this problem.” He had no idea why Will had come after them, but he realized that it must be important.
Sean nodded to the guard. “Let him in.”
The guard withdrew, and a few seconds later Will entered the room. Ferris let out a snort as he took in the cowled cloak, the drab brown and green tunic and leggings.
“Brought your own follower, have you, Halt?” he sneered. “I’d say that Tennyson has a few more than you.”
Will glanced curiously at the King, seeing the same similarities, and dissimilarities, that Horace had noted the day before. Then he dismissed him and looked to Halt.
“He’s here,” he said simply. For a moment, the significance didn’t register with Horace, but Halt saw it immediately.
“Tennyson?” he said, and Will nodded.
“They’re setting up their camp. He’s announced that he’ll be addressing the people at three o’clock.”
There was a twelve-hour water clock in the throne room and Halt looked quickly at it. It was just before one o’clock. Inwardly, he was seething, but as before, he controlled his emotions so there was no trace of them on his face or in his manner.
“Very well,” he said. “Thanks, Will. Go and keep an eye on them. Let me know if anything else develops.”
Will nodded. He glanced inquisitively at Ferris, then back at Halt, his eyes asking a question:
How is it going here?
But Halt’s quick headshake told him not to ask it aloud. Will gathered enough from this subtle response.
“Right, Halt. I’ll be at the market ground. That’s where they’re setting up the pavilion.”
He turned and left the room quickly. Halt studied his brother’s set features, and he felt a very unfamiliar sensation—that of failure. But he had to try once more.
“Ferris . . . ,” he began.
Ferris raised an eyebrow. “That’s your majesty, I think.” He sensed that Halt was going to try appealing to his better nature. Perhaps even to plead with him. And now, as he knew he had the upper hand, his confidence flowed back. Halt glared, but before he could say anything, the young warrior who had accompanied him cut him off.
“Your majesty,” Horace said, and his tone was conciliatory, even respectful, “I think I might see a way to resolve this problem—and it’s one that we might all profit from, if you take my meaning?”
He rubbed finger and thumb together in the universal gesture of greed—a gesture that Ferris understood only too well. The King turned to him, interested to hear what he might say.
But Halt interrupted before Horace could go further.
“Leave it, Horace. It’s useless,” he said, his voice tired.
Horace pushed his bottom lip out, assumed a thoughtful expression and replied, in a slightly disparaging tone, “Oh, Halt, let’s skip your claptrap about honor and duty to the people. You’ve tried. You’ve failed. Face up to it and move on. Now, I can see a definite opportunity with this Sunrise Warrior nonsense. Why shouldn’t we make a little cash for ourselves here?” He looked back to the King. “And a lot for you, your majesty.”
Ferris nodded. Horace was talking the language he understood best. Self-interest. Halt’s angry reply convinced him of this.
“Horace, shut up! You’ve forgotten your place! You’ve got no right to—”
“Oh, come off it, Halt! Admit for once that your way isn’t going to work,” Horace told him, cutting him off. Halt stopped, but the fury was still evident on his face as he glared at his young companion.
He’s speechless, Ferris thought delightedly. Then Horace turned to the King again.
“Well, your majesty? Interested?”
Ferris smiled and nodded. It wasn’t just the promise of money that attracted him. It was seeing his brother bested, and seeing his impotent rage when one of his followers turned against him.
“Go on,” he said. He could see the disappointment in Sean’s face at Horace’s unexpected interruption. Served him right. Sean was an idealist, and it was time he learned a little about the realities of life.
Horace looked around the echoing throne room, saw a small curtained doorway to one side. “Perhaps if I could have a few words in private, your majesty. Could we . . . ?” He indicated the side room.
“My robing room,” Ferris said, and led the way toward it. “We can talk in there, undisturbed.” He looked meaningfully at Sean and Halt as he said the last word.
Horace followed him, shouldering his way past Sean as he did so, a smirk on his face. Sean shook his head and turned despairingly to Halt. The Ranger had his eyes lowered, but as the King and Horace went through the curtain, he looked up to meet Sean’s gaze. The young Hibernian was startled to see that Halt was grinning.
Sean started to speak, but Halt held up a hand. A second or so later, they heard the sound of a fist striking flesh and a sudden cry of pain, cut off by the clatter of furniture being knocked over. Then Horace’s voice came from behind the curtain.
“Can you come in here, Halt?”
Sean followed as the Ranger crossed the room and stepped behind the curtain. The chamber was a small annex where the King’s official robes for state occasions were kept. It contained a large wardrobe for the purpose, along with several chairs, a dressing table and a mirror. There was a small fireplace in the corner. The King was stretched unconscious on the floor, an overturned chair beside him. Horace was shaking his right hand, nursing his obviously bruised knuckles.
“Horace Altman,” Halt said, “what on earth have you done?”
Horace gestured to the wardrobe full of official garments. “I’ve just elected you King,” he said. “Start getting dressed.”
37
SEAN MOVED QUICKLY TO KNEEL BESIDE THE UNCONSCIOUS FIGURE on the floor of the robing room. He felt for a pulse, was relieved to find there was one, then looked up at the two Araluens, now facing each other.
“He’s out cold,” Sean said.
Horace glanced at him. “Do you have a problem with that?”
Sean considered the question for a few seconds. “Not really. But you might have when he wakes up. He’ll bring the guards down on you like a ton of bricks. And I doubt I’ll be able to protect you.”
Horace shrugged. “It won’t be a problem. I’ll be walking out of here with the alternative King.”
“Horace, take a good look at Ferris. Then take a good look at me. This may not be so simple,” Halt said.
“It will be,” Horace said calmly. “All we need to do is pull your hair back off your face and fasten it with that leather headband he wears . . .”
“That’s the royal crown of Clonmel,” Sean felt he had to interject.
Horace glanced at him. “All the better. Adds to the illusion.”
“You’ve noticed that our beards are completely different?” Halt said sarcastically, and Horace nodded.
“Luckily, yours is fuller than his. I noticed you’ve been letting it grow since we’ve been on the road.”
Halt shrugged. “That was intentional. I didn’t want people to notice my similarity to Ferris.”
“Well, now we do want them to. So we have to remove some of it. Be a bit difficult if the situation were reversed. Hard to put more beard on.”
“You’re planning to shave me?” Halt said. For the first time in many years, he was taken aback by the turn of events.
“Halt, you know as well as I do that we need the King to appear in public and denounce Tennyson and the Outsiders . . . and to invoke the myth of the Sunrise Warrior. Put on one of those robes and that leather thingy”—he looked at Sean, who had opened his mouth to protest—“all right, the royal crown thingy . . . and I’ll bet nobody will see the difference. They’ll see what they expect to see. Isn’t that what you always say?”
It was true. Halt knew that an impersonation was already halfway to success if people were expecting to see the real subject. And of course, few in Clonmel would have seen the King at close quarters. But Halt was stuck at one thought.
“You’re planning to shave me?” he repeated.
Horace nodded, turning to Sean. “I’ll need my dagger. Can you get it for me without making too much fuss about it?”
Sean met his gaze coolly. “You expect me to go along with this?”
Horace answered without hesitation. “Yes. Because you know it’s the only way. And you know that he”—he jerked his thumb at the unconscious Ferris—“is willing to sell this country out to Tennyson and his thugs.”
His confidence was a mask. As he said the words, he found himself hoping that he’d been right in his judgment of the young Hibernian. Halt, disguised as Ferris, and in the company of the King’s steward, would most likely be accepted as the King. If Sean wasn’t with them, they’d never get past the guards outside the throne room doors.
Sean hesitated a moment longer. Yet he realized that, when he failed to call the guards the moment he had seen Ferris sprawled on the floor, he had already decided to throw in his lot with the two Araluens.