are our young men?” Young wives throughout the crowd began to cry loudly. Aidan noticed for the first time that, except for Percy, Dobro, and himself, the crowd was composed entirely of children, women, and men over forty.
“ Drafted into Darrow’s army, that’s where!” The mayor shook with indignation as he answered his own question. “Dragged off to the Feechiefen Swamp to fight for a king who doesn’t care if he throws away the lives of his own subjects!”
The wailing of women grew louder. The mayor paused for silence. Or was he just enjoying the effect of his own oratory? “But today a new light has dawned!” An approving murmur rippled through the square. “The Wilderking prophecy has been the only hope of an unhappy people. Today it is coming true!” The murmur grew louder. “Today Aidan Errolson has come out of the swamps and forests-just as the Wilderking prophecy said he would-back to his people, who have longed for his return!” The mayor had to shout to be heard over the rapturous crowd. “Hail to the Wilderking!”
“Hail to the Wilderking!” the people replied in a deafening shout.
Aidan’s face was ghostly white. This was much worse than he had imagined it would be. He felt as if he might faint.
A group of schoolchildren was herded onto the platform. A polite silence fell over the crowd as the spectators turned their attention toward the children who, as their tutor proudly explained, had memorized the Wilderking Chant in class.
The recitation got off to a ragged start. One of the boys obviously didn’t have it down yet; he appeared to be mouthing the words “Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon,” and his hand motions were a full second behind those of his peers. But the rest of the children’s confidence grew, and by the time they had reached “Watch for the Wilderking,” the crowd joined in on the refrain in a kind of responsive reading.
It would have been quite a moving experience, this public recitation from the old lore, if Aidan didn’t understand what it all meant. When the children reached the line “Watch for the Wilderking, widows and orphans,” a widow in the fifth row raised her hands and fainted rapturously away.
When the children had shuffled off the stage, a mime troupe reenacted the Battle of Bonifay Plain. The players had to cut it short, however, when the mime playing Greidawl the giant fell off his stilts and wrenched his knee. It was all so ridiculous, Percy couldn’t help howling with laughter.
Eighteen years old, Aidan thought, and I’ve already passed into legend. The villagers, in fact, were so taken with the legendary version of Aidan being presented on the stage that they paid surprisingly little attention to the real Aidan. They gave a very warm welcome to the bard who stood to sing “The Ballad of Aidan Errolson.” All of Hustingreen seemed quite familiar with this versified (though not precisely accurate) account of his first expedition into the Feechiefen: It’s a dangerous thing to be feared by a king, And Aidan struck dread in King Darrow. His most loyal service just made the king nervous
And pierced his black heart like an arrow.
One feast night the king sentenced Aidan to death As he sat in his pride and his pomp. He said with tongue forked, “I want a frog orchid, And it grows in the Feechiefen Swamp, boy, Nowhere but the Feechiefen Swamp.”
Oh weep, won’t you weep for a kingdom whose royalty Can’t tell high treason from untainted loyalty.
It seems funny, don’t it, that the old boy who wanted The orchid sat safe in his hall While the bold son of Errol ran headlong toward peril And dispraised his king not at all.
Young Aidan was neither the first nor the only To outdare the vast Feechiefen. There were brave men of yore who dared to explore, But none of them came out again, boys. Nobody comes back again.
I ask you, what good kings-who else but dictators- Send subjects to get et by panthers and gators?
Last Camp hangs grim at the kingdom’s far limit.
Beyond it? That’s anyone’s guess.
Beyond it, pure mystery throughout all of history.
But beyond it lay young Aidan’s quest.
At the great river’s bend lives a tough breed of men; The Last Campers fear very few. But they said with a shiver, “If you cross that river, Dear Aidan, we sure will miss you, boy, Dear Aidan, we sure will miss you.”
Aidan stood by the Tam with his pack in his hand And watched where the brown water swirled. He said his good-byes to all things civilized, Then he stepped off the edge of the world, boys. He stepped off the edge of the world.
Could you face the Feechiefen, there take your chances? Could you leave your country with no backward glances?
Aidan went for to wander way over yonder
Where graybeard moss sways in the breeze.
Where gator jaws snap and craney-crows flap
And moccasins drop from the trees.
Who knows what occurred? No one ever heard.
Our young hero never did say.
But he somehow survived where so many men died
And he brung the frog orchid away, boys.
He brung the frog orchid away.
And thereby was proven, or so it would seem,
Young Errolson’s friendship and love for the king.
Back at the palace, King Darrow the jealous
Mused on the murder he’d planned.
Imagine his gloom when the boy he had doomed
Marched in with the orchid in hand.
Aidan soon understood that his gift was no good,
So he wheeled and ran swiftly away.
He returned again to the deep Feechiefen,
And there he has stayed to this day, boys.
There he has stayed to this day.
The crowd was delighted, but Aidan had heard enough. He pushed his way to the front and mounted the platform. The crowd roared at the sight of him, and the chant quickly arose again: “Hail to the Wilderking! Hail to the Wilderking!”
“Quiet!” Aidan shouted over the noise. “Be quiet! Let me speak!”
Gradually the noise subsided enough for Aidan to make himself heard. “People of Hustingreen!” he yelled. “You have a king! His name is Darrow!”
Hissing sounded from the audience. “Darrow ain’t my king!” a voice called.
“Hail to the Wilderking! Hail to the Wilderking!”
“No!” Aidan shouted. “No! This is treason! This is a gathering of traitors!”
Percy watched with some concern as smiling faces turned sullen and grumbling rumbled across the village square.
But Aidan didn’t care. “I will have no part of this.” He remembered something Bayard the Truthspeaker had told him years before, and he repeated it to the Hustingreeners. “A traitor is no fit king. How can a man be king of Corenwald if he betrays the king of Corenwald?”
Quizzical looks contorted a few faces as Aidan’s hearers tried to work out the tricky logic of the question.
“Looks to me like Darrow’s the traitor,” the village blacksmith shouted. “The way I figure, he’s the one who ain’t fit to be king!” Heads began nodding again. People were slapping the blacksmith’s back and shaking his hand.
Aidan could tell he was losing them again. “People of Hustingreen! Aidanites!” he yelled, straining to be heard. “It is not your job to make the ancient prophecies come true!”
“We ain’t making the prophecies come true,” Wash yelled back. “You’re doing a fine job of that your own self!” The crowd laughed and whooped in appreciation. Wash pressed his advantage. “Aidan Errolson, did you or did you not kill a panther with a stone?”
