The king turned and faced Aidan, who was too bewildered to speak. “I, too, have trusted too much.” He spoke without emotion as he addressed Aidan. “I brought you into the bosom of my family. It would have been better to embrace a rattlesnake. At least a rattlesnake’s venom works quickly. Yours is a slow poison.”
Aidan had withstood Darrow’s rage bravely. But this quiet insult was more than he could bear. He stood straight, his eyes fixed on Darrow’s beard. But big tears welled in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.
Darrow was unmoved. He spoke to Aidan with a steely evenness. “Save your tears, boy. A crocodile can cry too. But that doesn’t mean it won’t eat a man alive.”
The king reached into a pouch that hung at his side and pulled out a piece of folded palmetto paper with a broken wax seal. Without prelude or explanation he began to read it: Your Majesty-
I write to warn you: Your most dangerous enemy dwells under your roof. Beware the youngest son of Errol.
He has convinced himself that he is the Wilderking of ancient prophecy-the rightful occupant of your throne. His every action is calculated to convince your courtiers of the same. His claim to have killed a panther with a stone is a claim on the throne of Corenwald-a blatant reference to the Wilderking Chant: With a stone he shall quell the panther fell, Watch for the Wilderking! He claims friendship with feechiefolk as part of a scheme to build a legend in keeping with the Wilderking prophecy.
At the mention of feechiefolk, Steren gasped, remembering his own run-in with Dobro Turtlebane the day before. But Darrow paid him no attention and kept reading the last paragraph of the letter. Your Majesty, it pains me to accuse a fellow Corenwalder of treason. But it pains me more to think that my king would be nurturing a traitor under his own roof.
Yours sincerely, A loyal subject
All the color drained from Aidan’s face as the king read. It was a lie, of course, but it contained just enough truth to make it hard to answer. Yes, he had come to believe that he was destined to be the Wilderking, but that realization had been thrust upon him. He had never wanted such a destiny, had certainly never schemed to put himself in that position. Yes, he claimed to have killed a panther; yes, he claimed to know feechiefolk. But never had he shown (or even felt) anything less than perfect loyalty to the House of Darrow. He stood mute under the glare of his king.
Darrow turned to the assembled courtiers. “See?” he said, gesturing at Aidan with one hand and waving the letter in the other. “He doesn’t even deny it.”
For the first time since Darrow’s outburst, one of the noblemen spoke. “Your Majesty,” said Lord Aethelbert cautiously, “these are very serious accusations. An anonymous letter is not the same thing as evidence.”
Darrow fixed Aethelbert with a withering glare. “Ah yes, Aethelbert. On the boy’s side, are you?” He looked around the trophy room at the other noblemen. “Does anyone else wish to throw in his lot with these two traitors?”
The room remained silent. No one else was willing to take on the king when he was in this irrational frame of mind. Aidan looked imploringly from face to face, but no one, not even Steren, would meet his gaze.
Finally Aidan spoke. His voice was choked with emotion. “I have only ever loved you, my king.” Darrow gazed blankly at him. Aidan tried again. “Your Majesty, I have desired only to serve you and your house.” Darrow looked away, staring into the distance as if he had heard nothing.
“Command me, my king.” Aidan’s tone was plaintive. “How can I prove my loyalty to you?”
King Darrow still stared into the distance, but his eyes narrowed slightly as he mulled his options. Aethelbert was right. He didn’t have hard evidence against the boy, even if he was sure of his guilt. Still, evidence or no evidence, he couldn’t afford to have the boy at his court any longer. He believed what he had said to Steren: Even if the boy weren’t a threat to Darrow’s own kingship, he was a serious threat to his hopes for Steren. And yet he couldn’t have the boy killed or banished. The Four and Twenty Nobles would never let him get away with that. Maybe he could use the boy’s professed loyalty against him.
At last the king turned to Aidan. “I suppose you’ve noticed I suffer bouts of melancholy.”
Aidan just listened, choosing not to acknowledge how obvious the king’s depressive episodes had become.
“My medics and chemists have tried everything that might offer me some relief,” continued the king. “But nothing seems to help. There is one last treatment-a certain cure-but they lack the only ingredient.”
“Is it something I can get for you?” asked Aidan hopefully.
“Perhaps you can. The old lore promises one sure cure for melancholy: the essence of the frog orchid. Bring me a live frog orchid, and I will have no reason to doubt your loyalty.”
“A frog orchid?” barked Lord Cleland. “I know a little of the old lore, too, Darrow. The frog orchid grows only in the depths of the Feechiefen Swamp.” Darrow nodded knowingly but without apparent concern. Cleland continued. “Nobody has ever come back alive from the Feechiefen Swamp!”
But Aidan was relieved to have been offered the chance to prove his loyalty, even if the offer came in the form of a seemingly impossible task. “I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
Lord Cleland wouldn’t let it lie. “You’re sending Aidan to his death, and you know it!” he protested.
“You weren’t so squeamish three years ago, when the boy offered to fight the giant on the Bonifay Plain,” Darrow retorted. “What was it you said, Cleland? ‘If the boy wants to die for his country, why not let him?’”
Cleland was ashamed of the words he spoke the first time he ever met Aidan Errolson on the battlefield at Bonifay. But he couldn’t deny them.
“Well, if the boy wants to die for his king,” continued Darrow, “why not let him?”
But Aidan wasn’t there to hear this exchange. He was already headed toward his sleeping quarters to pack a bag for his trip to Feechiefen.
Aidan was nearly finished packing when the door swung open and Prince Steren stepped into the room. He looked at the backpack on Aidan’s bed, and his face filled with horror. “You’re not really…” he began. “Into the Feechiefen?”
Aidan didn’t answer but kept packing.
“Don’t do this,” Steren pleaded. “You know how Father is. Tomorrow he will have forgotten all about this. Why don’t you go away for a few days? Go see your father and brothers at Longleaf. Father will be all right.”
“It’s been a long time since your father’s been all right,” Aidan answered. “Toward me anyway. He’s lost faith in me, Steren. I can’t stay here if my king has no faith in me. Yet I cannot bear to leave the court of Darrow. I must complete this quest.”
Then, almost as an afterthought, Aidan added, “Besides, if the essence of the frog orchid really does cure your father’s melancholy, that will be a service to the whole kingdom.”
“But nobody ever comes back from the Feechiefen,” Steren persisted. “What makes you think you will?”
Aidan rolled back his sleeve to expose a red scar in the shape of an alligator on his right forearm. “That’s the feechiemark,” he said. “It means any feechie I meet is obliged by their code of honor to be a friend to me.”
“Like Dobro,” Steren observed.
“That’s right,” answered Aidan. “By the providence of the One God, I believe the feechies will see me through the Feechiefen.”
“Do you even know how to get into the Feechiefen?” Steren asked.
“Just what we all learned in geography lessons,” said Aidan. “Follow the Tam to Last Camp and turn south. You can’t miss it. But I’ll stop by Longleaf tomorrow to see what my brother Jasper can tell me. He knows the old lore backward and forward.”
Both boys were silent for a moment, then Steren spoke up with the determined voice of a person not accustomed to being told no. “I’m coming with you, Aidan.”
Aidan shook his head. “No, Steren. This is my mission.”
“But you’re my best friend,” Steren insisted. “I can’t let you face that kind of danger alone.”
“We may be best friends,” said Aidan, “but your responsibilities to Corenwald outweigh your friendship to me. You’re the crown prince, King Darrow’s only heir. You can’t go galloping off to the Feechiefen Swamp.”
Steren saw Aidan’s point. “I’ll pray for you, Aidan,” he said. “Every day.” He turned to leave, then stopped.
