Sitting on that limb, Aidan thought over what Dobro had said earlier: “I don’t think you know what a enemy is.” It was time he decided: Was King Darrow his enemy, or wasn’t he?
The morning star was rising. The camp would probably be up and stirring in half an hour, maybe even less. Aidan made his decision. He pulled the hunting knife out of his side pouch, clenched the blade in his teeth pirate fashion, and descended as stealthily as a panther toward the sleeping king.
Chapter Six
The bodyguards surrounding King Darrow faced outward, their backs to the king, the better to confront whatever danger might come from any point of the compass. It never occurred to anyone that danger might come from directly above. King Darrow stirred when Aidan touched down in the sand beside him. But the guards heard nothing and did not see the knife-wielding phantom who stood over the man they had sworn to protect.
Darrow stirred again when Aidan’s cold blade touched his collarbone. But Aidan was sure of his purpose and unflinching in its execution. He lifted the leather strap that rested against King Darrow’s neck. When the king was in Tambluff Castle, he wore a medallion of a golden boar, his badge of kingship, on a thick chain of gold. Here in the field, the badge of kingship hung from this leather strap around his neck. Aidan cut it with a single swipe of his knife. As deftly as any thief, he palmed the medallion and dropped it in his side pouch. Then he shinned back up the tree trunk before being noticed by either Darrow or his guards.
Aidan hadn’t been back in his treetop perch five minutes when the river mists that covered Last Camp lightened from gray to white in the first rays of dawn. The camp came to life in the morning light. The men were making their final preparations, checking their gear one last time before lining up to cross on the ferries. No one relit the cooking fires. No time for breakfast on such a day as this. The men drank water from their canteens and gnawed stale flatbread, not even sitting down to eat.
King Darrow was up with the rest of the men. He had been a warrior even longer than he had been a king, and he wasn’t one to lie about while a campaign was afoot. His hair had gone almost completely white in the years since Aidan had last seen him. That was a shock to Aidan, though perhaps it shouldn’t have been; the king was nearly seventy years old. Nor did King Darrow still move with the manly grace of his younger years. A night sleeping unsheltered on the ground had left him stiff in his joints. He was too old to be leading a military expedition into the Feechiefen Swamp. He was too old to nurse the sort of grudge that would drive him to do such a thing. But there he was, giving orders, hearing reports from lieutenants, pointing at maps.
Darrow was leaning over to tighten a boot lace when he noticed that his badge of kingship was missing. He clutched at the ends of the severed strap that hung loose about his neck. Aidan watched as the king patted around his chest and belly for any sign of the missing medallion. But even as he did so, it was obvious that King Darrow understood the truth: His badge of kingship had been taken.
“My badge of kingship!” King Darrow bellowed, and his voice echoed all the way across to the feechie side of the River Tam. “My badge of kingship! Who has stolen my kingship from me?”
The faces of the four night bodyguards were ashen. Their terror was plain to see. Darrow snatched the strap from around his neck and used it as a whip to lash his bodyguards about the head and shoulders. “My kingship!” he roared. “Someone has stolen my kingship from me!” The guards made no move to protect themselves from the lashing but stood erect and looked straight ahead, absorbing this abuse from the king.
Throughout the camp, all preparations for the crossing stopped as men gaped at the king’s outburst. Darrow was still roaring and flailing like a crazy man when a tall, dark-haired young man strode up behind him. In his bearing was all the natural command of a man born to rule. He was the very picture of King Darrow when he was younger, when he still had all his wits about him. “Father,” he said firmly but gently. He put a comforting hand on the older man’s shoulder. “Father, no one has taken your kingship from you.”
King Darrow let the strap fall to the ground. The presence of his son Steren brought him back to himself. Aidan, too, was moved by the sight of his dearest friend in all the civilized world. The mere sight of Steren-the true, the brave, the just Steren-awakened in Aidan a loyalty that had lain dormant during his years in the swamp. Steren stood for all that was good about Corenwalder civilization. Aidan could see in the soldiers’ faces a love for the prince that far outstripped any love they still had for his father the king.
“No one has taken your kingship from you,” Steren repeated, “but your badge of kingship-I will not rest until it has been returned to you.” He fixed his gray eyes on the bodyguards, convinced that at least one of them knew something of the medallion’s whereabouts. The bodyguards, who had stood so bravely under the king’s lashing, wilted under the prince’s glare.
The long silence that followed was broken by a clear voice in the tree limbs high above the bodyguards’ heads. “Your Majesty,” the voice called. King Darrow, Prince Steren, and nine hundred ninety-five Corenwalder soldiers squinted to see Aidan Errolson dangling the badge of kingship from the tip of a hunting knife. The four bodyguards, anxious to make up for their earlier negligence, lifted crossbows to shoot Aidan out of the tree, but Steren raised a restraining hand.
Those soldiers who had been conscripted from Hustingreen knew Aidan by sight, and the whispered news raced around Last Camp: The man they were going to seek had come instead to them.
Aidan bowed in the direction of King Darrow. “Your badge of kingship.” He flipped the medallion toward the nearest bodyguard, who dropped his crossbow in order to catch it. “With all the glad heart of a loyal subject, I return it to my king.” After three years among the plain-spoken feechies, such courtly language no longer came naturally to Aidan. But the assembled soldiers seemed to think it a pretty sentiment. They appeared to be on the verge of applauding Aidan.
King Darrow, for his part, was speechless with rage. Nor did Steren look very pleased with his old friend’s gesture. “A loyal subject,” Steren said in clipped tones, “would not have stolen from his sovereign to begin with.”
Some of Aidan’s self-satisfaction ebbed away under the stern gaze of the crown prince. “I truly meant it as a gesture of goodwill,” Aidan said, not quite so confidently. “To show His Majesty, and every man assembled here, that I would never do my king harm.”
The king’s rage boiled over at this. “You lie!” he shouted. “You have done me many harms! The subjects whose loyalty you have stolen-”
“Your Majesty, I would never-”
“The swamp men you have organized into a hostile army-”
“No, Your Majesty-”
“My own son, whom you almost turned against me…” As if it weakened him merely to speak of such things, the king leaned heavily on Steren, who neither frowned nor smiled at Aidan.
Aidan extended the hand that held the hunting knife. “This morning I held this knife an inch away from Your Majesty’s throat, while you slept.” His hand shook as he spoke, and his voice trembled. “If I had meant you any harm, I could have done you harm.”
This statement seemed to get through to the king, whose aspect softened, though only a little. Aidan continued. “I’m about to go away. Pursue me if you must. But I make this solemn promise: I will not cross again into the land of the feechiefolk. You need not look for me there.”
King Darrow snorted. “Why should I believe that?”
“Because I have never lied to you.”
In that moment King Darrow understood Aidan was telling the truth, as he always had. “Why would you make me such a promise?” the king asked.
“Because I am not worth the lives of a thousand men. If you lead these men into the Feechiefen, you will be leading them to their deaths. The feechies are fierce, and they aren’t forgiving of outsiders who invade their swamp.”
Aidan paused to let the king and his men think about what he had said. “I will run for my life if I have to, Your Majesty. But you have my word: I won’t run that way.”
King Darrow pondered Aidan’s promise. Something about it rankled him-the quarry defining the terms of the
