Kings of Clonmel (15 page)

Halt pretended to take a sip at his coffee. He was tempted to turn and ask the locals for more information. But so far, he and Horace had gone virtually unnoticed in the room. The locals might be willing to discuss this freely among their companions. With strangers it might be a different matter altogether.

“What think you about these religious folk at Mountshannon?” asked another of the men. Horace took a quick glance at him. He was a few years younger than the bald-headed miller/baker. Possibly a merchant of some kind. Not a warrior, Horace thought.

The man’s two companions snorted derisively.

“Religious quacks is more like it!” said the third, the one who hadn’t so far spoken. The bald man was quick to agree.

“Aye! Claiming to be able to keep Mountshannon safe. Funny how religious folks like that say their god will protect them—right up until someone hits them with a club.”

“Still,” said the merchant, seeming unconvinced by their scorn, “the fact remains that Mountshannon has been untouched so far. While at Duffy’s Ford there’s four dead and the rest scattered God knows where in fear.”

“There are over a hundred people at Mountshannon,” the bald man explained to him. “Duffy’s Ford is no more than three or four houses. Barely a dozen folk to begin with. It’s the bigger villages that have less to fear. Like Mountshannon.”

“And Craikennis,” put in the one who’d agreed with him about religious quacks.

“Aye,” said the bald man, “I’ll warrant we’re safe enough here. Dennis and his watchmen do a good job keeping an eye on strangers to the village.”

As he said the words, he glanced up and became aware for the first time of Halt and Horace at the next table. He muttered a guarded warning to his companions, and both of them turned to glance at the strangers behind them. Then they leaned forward over their own table and continued their conversation in lowered tones, inaudible against the buzz of a dozen other conversations in the room. Halt raised his eyebrows at Horace, who essayed a slight shrug. He had no doubt that they’d hear no more from them now.

A few minutes later, there was a stir of interest in the room as Will struck up the opening chords of a new song. People turned from their conversations and settled back in their seats to listen. When the serving girl came to collect their platters and see if they needed a refill on their coffee, Halt shook his head and dropped a handful of coins on the table to pay for their meal. He jerked his head at Horace.

“Time to go,” he said.

They rose and threaded their way to the door. The bald man looked up after them briefly. Then, deciding there was nothing threatening about the two strangers, he turned his attention back to the music.

Outside, the cold wind cut into them again as they retrieved their horses and mounted.

Horace shivered briefly, huddling down into the warmth of his cloak.

“We should have taken a room ourselves,” he said. “It’s cold out here.”

Halt shook his head. “ This way, we’ll be forgotten within half an hour. If we’d stayed, more people would have noticed us. More people would be asking questions about us. You’ll soon warm up back by our campfire.”

Horace smiled at his grim-faced companion.

“Is it such a bad thing to be noticed, Halt?”

The Ranger nodded emphatically. “It is to me.”

They rode past the sentry station, nodding to the men who were on duty. This time, none of them felt the need to come out into the wind, away from the fire they had burning in a steel grate inside the shelter. As Halt had predicted, within an hour, their presence in Craikennis had been forgotten.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, HALT AND HORACE WERE SITTING around their campfire when Abelard gave a snort of welcome. A few seconds later, Will and Tug rode into the clearing where they had made their camp. He glanced at the two small tents, barely a meter in height and two meters long. It had rained during the night and the canvas sides were beaded with moisture.

“Sleep nice and warm, did we?” He grinned.

Halt grunted at him. “At least we weren’t eaten to death by bedbugs.”

Will’s grin faded just a little. “Yes, I’ll have to admit the Green Harper could do with a thorough spring cleaning. I do seem to have had one or two little visitors.” He scratched idly at an itchy spot on his side as he said the words.

Halt looked down at the fire, hiding a satisfied smile.

Will dismounted, unsaddled Tug and set him loose to graze. He joined the others by the small fire, where a coffeepot sat in the coals to one side.

“Still,” he continued, “they do a good breakfast at the Harper. Bacon, sausages, mushrooms and fresh bread. Just the thing to set you up on a cold morning.”

There was a low groan from the point where Horace sat, poking idly at the coals with a dead stick. Will wasn’t entirely sure if the groan had come from Horace or from his stomach. Breakfast at the camp had been a frugal matter of flat, slightly stale bread, toasted over the fire and eaten with a ration of dried meat.

“Hard rations build character,” Halt said philosophically. Horace looked mournfully at him. Already the vast helping of lamb stew he’d eaten the previous evening was nothing but a dim memory.

“They also build hunger,” he said.

Will waited a few seconds more, then relented and tossed a substantial bundle wrapped in a napkin down beside Horace.

“Fortunately, the kitchen girl saw fit to give me some food for my journey,” he said. “Seems she’s a music lover.”

Horace eagerly unwrapped the bundle to reveal a pile of still-warm food inside.

He transferred a large portion to his plate and reached for his fork. He paused as he saw Halt moving to join him and take his own share of the bacon and sausages, ripping off a chunk of fresh, soft bread to go with it.

“I thought you said hard rations build character?” Will said, managing to stay straight-faced. Halt looked up at him with some dignity.

“I have character,” he said. “I have character to spare. It’s young people like you two who need their characters built.”

“I’ll build mine tomorrow,” Horace said through a mouthful of food. “ This is excellent, Will! When I have grandchildren, I’ll name them all after you!”

Will smiled at his friend and took a seat by the fire, pouring himself a cup of coffee. He added honey and drank appreciatively.

“Aaah!” he said.“They may know their way around bacon and sausage at that inn. But their coffee doesn’t hold a candle to yours, Halt.”

Halt grunted, his mouth too full to answer. He finished off the plate of food that he had taken and sat back, patting his stomach. Then he couldn’t resist leaning forward and taking one more piece of crisply fried bacon.

“So, did you hear anything at the inn?” he asked as he finished off the tidbit.

Will nodded. “The main talking point was an attack on a place called Duffy’s Ford—a small settlement by a river some ten kilometers from here.”

“Yes. We heard about that too,” Halt said. “Did you hear any mention of a village called Mountshannon?”

Will drained his cup and tossed the dregs into the fire before answering.

“Yes. Quite a few people were talking about it. Sounds as if our friends have set up headquarters there.”

“We heard they were claiming to be able to protect Mountshannon from the sort of thing that happened at the ford,” Horace put in. Although he hadn’t heard too clearly the night before, he and Halt had discussed the matter when they reached camp.

“I heard much the same thing. Opinion seemed divided as to whether there was any value to the claim,” Will said. Halt looked at him shrewdly.

“What did most people think? Did you get any idea?”

Will shrugged. “I’d say it was two to one against. Most people I spoke to, or heard discussing the matter, seemed to think Mountshannon could look after itself. It’s a big village, apparently. They talked about it quite a lot after I’d finished singing.”

Halt chuckled briefly. “ That’s the handy thing about your being able to pose as a minstrel,” he said. “People seem to think you’re one of them. They’ll talk far more openly about matters in front of you. Anything else?”

Will considered. He wasn’t quite sure how Halt would react to the next piece of intelligence he had learned. Then he decided there was no way to sugarcoat the message.

“General opinion is that King Ferris is a broken reed. There’s precious little respect for him. Nobody seems to think that he’s capable of sorting out the mess that Clonmel’s in. The ones who think the Outsiders might have the answer were particularly strident about it. And if anything was going to sway the others to their point of view, it was the fact that Ferris is weak and ineffectual. They all agreed on that.” He paused, then added, “Sorry, Halt. But that’s the way people see it.”

Halt shrugged. “I can’t say I’m surprised. For years Ferris has cared so much about just being king that he’s neglected to act like one. He was like that from the beginning.” There was a note of bitterness in his voice, and Will regretted having to pass on the negative information about his brother.

Horace checked the spread-out napkin to make sure there were no leftovers remaining. Then he shifted to a more comfortable position.

“Halt,” he said now, in a serious voice, “I think it might be time you told us more about you and your brother.”

There was no trace of his former lighthearted tone when he had grumbled about breakfast. This was a serious matter. But there was also no trace of apology in his words. He was prying into Halt’s past, he knew, but it was time he and Will learned all the facts about King Ferris and his relationship with his brother.

Halt was watching him now with those calm, serious eyes of his.

“Yes. You’re right,” the Ranger said. “You should know all the facts behind the current situation. For a start, there’s one pertinent fact you should be aware of. Ferris and I aren’t just brothers. We’re twins. That’s why the Outsiders’ leader at Selsey thought I looked familiar. He’d spent some time in Clonmel, and he’d seen Ferris.”

“Twins?” Will sat up at that news. In all the years he had spent with Halt, he had never had the slightest inkling that his mentor had any siblings, let alone a twin brother.

“Identical twins,” Halt said. “We were born seven minutes apart.”

“And you were the youngest?” Horace said. He shook his head. “It’s funny, isn’t it? But for that seven minutes, you’d be the King of Clonmel now and Ferris would be . . .”

He paused, not sure how to continue. He had been about to say, “Ferris would be a Ranger,” but then he realized, from what they had heard about the vacillating, ineffectual King, he would never have become a Ranger. Halt regarded him, seeing the sudden question in the young warrior’s mind.

“Exactly,” he said quietly. “What would Ferris have become? But you’re not exactly right there, Horace. I was actually the one who was born first. Ferris is my younger brother.”

Horace frowned as the implications of what Halt had said sunk in. But it was Will who asked the obvious question.

“Then what happened? Surely as the elder brother, you should have become King? Or isn’t that the way it works here in Hibernia?”

“Yes. That’s the way it works here, just like everywhere else. But I had a problem. My brother resented those seven minutes bitterly. He felt he had been cheated out of his birthright. Cheated by me,” he added.

Horace shook his head in disbelief. “That’s crazy. It wasn’t your fault you were born first.”

Halt smiled sadly at Horace.
So honest. So straightforward. So free of deceit and jealousy. If there were more men like Horace, and fewer like my brother, the world would be a better place,
he thought.

“He made himself blame me,” he told them. “That way, it was easier for him when he tried to kill me.”

“He tried to kill you?” Will’s voice rose in disbelief. “His own brother? His
twin
brother?”

“His older brother,” Halt added. He looked deep into the smoking embers of the fire as he recalled those long-ago days. “You know, I don’t really enjoy talking about this,” he began, and both Will and Horace reacted immediately.

“Then don’t!” Will said.

“It’s none of our business anyway,” Horace agreed. “Let it go, Halt.”

But Halt looked up at them both now, letting his gaze move from one to the other. Both of these two he would trust with his life. But his own brother? He let out a short, bitter laugh at the thought, then continued.

“No. I think you need to know this. And I certainly need to face it. I’ve been running away from it for too long.” He saw their reluctance to hear more and reassured them.

“You need to know this, really. It could be important to you. So let me get it out of the way as quickly and painlessly as possible. Ferris believed the throne was rightly his. Why he believed that I have no idea. But he did. Maybe it was because he was the more popular with our parents. And that may have been because they felt he needed their attention more than I did. After all, I was going to be King, and they possibly felt that he needed something in compensation for that fact. Plus he was friendly and cheerful, and I was . . . well, I was me, I suppose.

“When we were sixteen, he tried to poison me. But fortunately, he got the amounts wrong and only succeeded in making me violently ill.” He grinned wryly. “I still can’t face the sight of a plate of shrimp.”

“But didn’t your parents . . . do something?” Will protested.

Halt shook his head. “They didn’t know.
I
didn’t know. I only found out later. I just thought the food had been spoiled and I was lucky to survive.

“The next time was six months later. I was walking in the castle yard when a pile of roof tiles hit the ground half a meter behind me. They smashed and cut my legs pretty badly. But they didn’t land on me, which was the intent. I saw Ferris on the battlements above me. He ducked back out of the way but not quite quickly enough.