'Kidnapped!' roared Rogate. 'Stole their minds and souls! Filled then with false fears and threats and had himself declared Lord of Flotsam, chosen by powers beyond our ken! It was then that the darkness truly fell, and I was forced to leave!'
Toede was stunned. 'He succeeded? Groag?' he stammered. He looked at Bunniswot. 'Short fellow, whines and faints a lot?'
The scholar nodded. 'In the confusion following your… er… death, Groag arrived and usurped Rogate's preachings, but with the added punch line that he controlled your return, and unless all of Flotsam toed his line, you'd be back with a vengeance.'
'An effective argument,' said Toede. 'And what happened when the populace laughed in his ugly face?'
'That's just it, they didn't laugh,' said Bunniswot. 'They'd seen the local ruling class decimated twice in previous months by your apparent actions. They figured things could hardly be worse with Groag on the throne, so he took control by acclamation. After all, he claimed to be acting in your name.'
'False pretender,' muttered Rogate. 'False minion! And he wore a mask, so none might know his face, though many knew his touch.'
Toede was silent for a moment, unable to think of a suitable reply. Then he asked, 'So how's he doing?'
Rogate snarled. Taywin shook her shorn head. Bunniswot answered, 'You know how once I told you about Renders's histories, the ones that called you a fop and fool and a bumbler?' Rogate started to snarl again, so Bunniswot quickly added, 'In a moment of light jest.'
Toede nodded, an eye cast toward his new knight. 'In a moment of light jest, I remember.' It might be interesting having a follower with the protective nature of an attack dog.
'Well, Groag makes you look like wise king Lorac of the Silvanesti,' Bunniswot said.
Toede leaned back against the wall and whistled. 'That bad?'
'Corruption, despotism, whimsical rulings, oppression,' said Bunniswot, ticking off his fingers.
'Nothing new there,' said Toede, then added quickly for Rogate's benefit, 'That's par for the course in half a dozen cities throughout Ansalon.'
'Summary executions,' said Bunniswot.
'Part of any ruler's rights,' said Toede.
'Without hearing, involving torture, and in public,' sighed Bunniswot. 'The bodies displayed on the gibbets for crows.'
Toede winced. 'A little too much of a good thing. And was the population recalcitrant, to earn such heavy- handed responses?'
Bunniswot shook his head. 'Not before. They are now.'
'I suddenly understand why your… ah… my book on government is so popular,' said Toede.
Bunniswot nodded. 'Some inhabitants fled, and many merchants avoid the city now. Groag used to threaten the populace in your name, now he just threatens them period. He has hired small armies of mercenaries to protect him and his court. Nonhumans are banned once again. Other nonhumans, that is.'
Taywin broke in. 'We had heard about the new Lord of Flotsam from refugees around the time we found our hunting grounds being patrolled by hired swords. I went to Flotsam to see if it was the same Mister Groag that I had picked berries with.' She touched her scalp. 'It was. He had me arrested for poaching, my head shaved publicly, and my execution scheduled for the next day.'
'Unfortunately, the paperwork was lost,' said the scholar innocently. 'So we ferreted her out of town in a flour barrel. We hooked up with Rogate here, who had moved in with the kender.'
'We thought you'd be returning again,' said Taywin.
'In six months, as before. So in between we organized our resources and arranged to keep an eye out for you.'
'Now that you have returned,' intoned Rogate, 'the Allied Rebellion can move forward and crush the spine of the false minion, and spill the blood of his corruption on the sands of history!'
'We arranged for a meeting,' Bunniswot added, 'with the leader of the kender: Kronin, Taywin's father. With you present we can convince him to join us, and with his approval, the kender raiders will swell our rebellion.'
'Uh-huh,' said Toede. He looked at the others, then said, 'And tell me, exactly, how many people do we currently have in this rebellion I am leading?'
Taywin said brightly, her eyes shining with hope, 'Including you, me, Bunniswot, Sir Rogate, and Miles… that makes five.'
Chapter 22
The moot that Taywin had mentioned was another name for a big kender party, and the planning for said party had been bubbling and ebbing for days. The last of the winter stores (mostly salted trout and grape preserves) were being plundered, along with the standard complement of goose, boar, and a delicacy that had eluded Toede previously-hedgehogs wrapped in mud and roasted in their own shells.
Toede watched the geese roasting over the fire and thought of Groag, curled up in his manor (meaning Toede's manor), seated at a table heavily laden with culinary treasures and surrounded on all sides by fawning sycophants. He could imagine that, but equally he could imagine the new lord of Flotsam tightly curled up in his bed, eyeing the darkness nervously, unable to sleep, jumping at every noise.
From what the others had described, it sounded as though the city had fallen on hard times indeed under Groag's rule. There was little there to attract Toede, unless he put Groag's death high on his 'to-do' list.
Groag's death was on his list, but not in the top ten, to be honest. After all, the drive to claim his vaunted lordship had several times resulted in an unpleasant death. Toede might have a learning curve verging on a flat line, but he did connect Flotsam with messy, bloody deaths (usually his). Toede thought of Groag, and his drunken palate wrapped around the word: a-dap-tive.
The problem was that his compatriots-pornographer, poetess, nut-case, and guard-were intent on helping him regain this flawed gem, this dead dog of a city, and did not care to take no for an answer. Particularly the nutcase, who, Toede was sure, would get agitated should the target of his fervor prove less than excited about the prospect of reclaiming his historical throne.
Rogate the nut-case was wrapped up in some kind of fantasy version of justice. Taywin was in it for revenge and retribution. Bunniswot apparently considered this some great adventure, like those accursed Heroes of the Lance. And Miles?
Toede looked at the kender guard, who hovered close by him at all times. Miles beamed back at him with a gap-toothed grin, and Toede smiled weakly. Miles? Well, someone in every revolution has to do the heavy lifting, make the tea, pass out the leaflets, and make sure the hero of the rebellion-in this case, Toede-doesn't head for the hills.
Tomorrow, he would have to face Kronin.
Toede winced to think of the kender leader, and wondered how Kronin felt about him. After all, it was Toede who had ordered Kronin and another kender shackled and chased on that disastrous hunt, on the last day of his first life. And even though the kender elder seemed to have a mind like a steel sieve, the pair of them had run rings around Toede and his hunting party, right up to the point when Toede confronted the fire-breathing end of an angry dragon. And died.
Perhaps Kronin was setting Toede up. Perhaps the kender leader intended to shackle him to a boulder and give him a fifteen-minute head start before setting the hounds loose. Toede rubbed his chin at the thought. The kender were little more than savages, and Kronin could be holding a grudge.
Then again, so could Toede. It wouldn't hurt to pack a little extra precaution.
The present kender camp was located near the spot where Groag and he had plunged into the river almost a year ago. Most of the huts had been erected far from the water, and the intended moot-site was among the taller trees that overlooked the berry patches. Toede wandered back to his hut, his guardian in tow. Miles stopped at the
