Part 11 (1/2)
”No,” Aidan answered. ”It's just one feechie, a scrawny rat of a fellow, acts like he doesn't have good sense half the time.”
A man in the far corner shouted across the room, ”If you Aidanites think a Wilderking is any different from a King Darrow or a Pyrthen king-or a feechie king, for that matter-then you Aidanites is a pack of fools.”
His opinion was met with hoots of agreement and support from across the crowded room.
Ma Pearl, the innkeeper, finally arrived at the table. She was a stout, jolly-faced woman, and she wiped her hands on her ap.r.o.n as she said, ”Fools or no, them Aidanites has sure been good for business. You want lunch, sugar?”
Aidan and Dobro both nodded their heads.
”I got bacon, collard greens, and sweet potatoes.”
”Bring us two,” Aidan said. ”And some water if you don't mind. And could you tell me where I could find a horse trader?”
Ma Pearl directed him to a stable on the other side of the dusty street, and Aidan, eager to keep their visit to Ryelan as short as possible, left Dobro waiting at the table while he went out to buy their horses.
”Remember,” he whispered in Dobro's ear before he left, ”no talking. No fighting. No grinning.”
It wasn't long at all before Ma Pearl brought the plates to Dobro's table. And Dobro, figuring that Aidan probably wouldn't want him to wait, dug in. Like tooth brus.h.i.+ng, eating with utensils was one of those civilizer niceties Dobro hadn't yet embraced. He had just shoved a fistful of collard greens into his mouth when a big farmhand sat down across from him in Aidan's chair. ”Say, stranger,” he said, ”where you come from anyway?”
Remembering what Aidan had said, Dobro just looked blankly at the man. He didn't speak. He didn't smile. A drop of green pot liquor dripped from his chin and back onto the pile of collard greens from which it had come.
”What's a matter with you, boy?” the big Ryelanite asked. ”Cat got your tongue?”
”Get after him, Lumley,” one of the diners urged.
”Come on, Lum,” yelled another.
Dobro just shrugged and thumbed a glob of sweet potato into his mouth.
”You stuck up or what?” Lumley leaned across the table and put his face just inches from Dobro's. Dobro remembered Aidan's warning about breathing on the locals, so he put up a hand to s.h.i.+eld his mouth and nose.
”Oh, so my breath stinks, does it?” Lumley was yelling now, and everybody in the place was watching intently to see what would happen next.
”Well, stranger,” Lumley continued, ”I 'bout had it with outsiders coming here and looking down their noses at us Ryelan folks.”
Dobro looked down at his plate. There was no stopping the big field hand now. ”I may not be from Tambluff or Middenmarsh or whatever fancy place you come from, stranger, but I mean for you to know that Ryelanites is as good as anybody. You gonna howdy me and be neighborly, or I'm gonna find out why.”
Lumley was off his chair now, looming over Dobro with a fist drawn back. ”Am I gonna have to learn you manners the hard way?”
Dobro's shrug and close-lipped little smile was more than Lumley could tolerate. He roared like a bear as his left fist rocketed toward Dobro's right ear. But Dobro was much quicker than any big field hand's fist. He easily ducked under it, and Lumley's knuckles cracked against the timber that held up the roof above them. He screamed with pain and lunged at Dobro with a sweeping right. Dobro dodged that, too, and Lumley's momentum sent the table cras.h.i.+ng to the ground.
Dobro leaped onto the nearest table and headed for the door, dodging from tabletop to tabletop as the diners dove for him and grabbed at his ankles. Food, crockery, forks, and knives tumbled to the floor with a crash and a clatter. Tables tipped, and people slipped on the smashed sweet potatoes and greasy collard greens that littered the floor.
When Dobro reached the door, he found it to be guarded by three very large Ryelanites. Dobro felt confident he could whip them, but he had orders not to fight, so he jumped from a tabletop to one of the exposed rafters above. He pulled himself up and ran from rafter to rafter, dodging broken plates and mugs the diners were hurling at him.
By this time, Ma Pearl had waded into the fray, swinging her black iron skillet like a battle ax, trying to subdue the rowdies who were tearing her public house apart. Big men fell like mown wheat under Pearl's skillet; their thick heads rang like gongs.
Dobro, meanwhile, found a way out onto the thatched roof. Aidan was coming around from the stable leading two horses. His face was a mask of horror when he heard the uproar coming from Ma Pearl's inn. The very walls were shaking.
”Aidan!” Dobro shouted. ”Time to leave these neighborhoods!” Aidan led the horses across to the eave where Dobro was waiting for him. Dobro dropped onto the horse's haunches, and they took off at a mad gallop as angry Ryelanites came boiling out the front door of Ma Pearl's.
Aidan rode easy in the saddle as his horse weaved through the villagers who came into the street to see what the ruckus was. His horsemans.h.i.+p returned naturally after so many years. Dobro, on the other hand, rode standing up like a circus rider. As the village receded in the distance, he waved his thanks to Ma Pearl, who was still brandis.h.i.+ng her black skillet.
”I told you not to get into any fights,” Aidan yelled when they were out of immediate danger.
”I wasn't fighting,” Dobro said. ”I was just running away from the fight. But that only seemed to make them more angrified.”
”What did you say to those people?” Aidan asked hotly.
”I didn't say a word the whole time I was there,” Dobro insisted. Then he confessed, ”But, Aidan, when them old boys was chasin' me acrost the tabletops, I did grin a little bit. I just couldn't help it.”
Chapter Seventeen.
South Gate Aidan still knew the River Road bend for bend. ”Over this next rise,” he called to Dobro behind him, ”we'll get our first glimpse of Tambluff Castle.” He turned around in the saddle to look at his feechie friend. ”Dobro!” he shouted, exasperation in his voice. ”You have to sit down in the saddle. I mean it!” Dobro had ridden most of the way from Ryelan, standing up on his horse's back.
”I can see more this way,” Dobro said.
”We're trying not to draw attention to ourselves,” Aidan said.
”Ain't that what these hoods is for? To keep folks from recognizin' us?”
”Yes, Dobro, but if you're carrying on like a trick rider...”
”It just don't seem right to me, settin' on a critter's back,” said Dobro. ”Don't seem respectful to the critter.”
”Dobro, sit down!”
Dobro flopped into his horse's saddle, slumping like a petulant child. ”Yes, Your Majesty,” he said. Sarcasm was one of the civilizer habits he was starting to get the hang of.
”In an hour we're going to be in Tambluff,” Aidan said. ”It's not like any place you've ever seen before. Busy streets, fine carriages. Guards everywhere. Soldiers. People whose job is to pay attention to who comes in and who goes out. If you don't try a little harder to blend in with the civilizers, we're going to be in a whole world of trouble, Dobro.”
”I'll try harder, Aidan,” said Dobro. ”But you folks is got such peculiar ways, it ain't easy to blend in.”
”Just try to do what everybody else is doing.”
They approached the city at the south gate and merged with the steady flow of people threading under the teeth of the portcullis. Dobro pulled his hood further over his face, suddenly self-conscious among so many civilizers, aware of how different he was from them.
Before they reached the gate, the door to the gate-house swung open, and a round old man leaped in front of them holding a pikestaff across his body to block their way. ”You!” he shouted. ”You hooded hors.e.m.e.n. You'll identify yourselves before you pa.s.s through my gate.”
The old man was Southporter, keeper of this gate since well before Aidan was born. How many times had Southporter welcomed Aidan to Tambluff when he was younger? King Darrow never had a more faithful servant. Perhaps he would not look so kindly on Aidan anymore. The armed guards at the gate looked alert, watching the confrontation, ready to get involved if need be.