Jonathan Rogers - The Way of the Wilderking

“My wife, Lenora,” Dobro could hear Lynwood saying through a buzzing in his ears. “Daughters Onie, Lilla, Jewell, and Sadie.”

Their curling hair was swept into carefully arranged piles high atop their heads. Except for the youngest daughter-Sadie, was it? Her hair had already begun to unpile in several unruly tendrils down her neck and in front of her face. Such faces… the mother and three of the daughters were as white as boar tusks, as if they had never seen the sunshine. But that youngest girl-yes, it was Sadie-her face was brown, or pink, really, especially on the end of her nose and on her cheeks. She looked as if she had soaked up the sun and was now shining it back on everyone who looked at her. No wonder these girls preferred not to cover their faces in swamp mud! And their arms were as long and thin and graceful as a craney-crow’s neck.

Except for Sadie, who seemed to divide her attention equally between the two visitors, the women were all gazing at Aidan with undisguised admiration. Lynwood said something about an honor and a privilege. Whatever he was saying, Dobro couldn’t make any sense of it. He felt this same way at the Battle of Bearhouse, after he had been conked on the head. He could see that talking was happening; he could even hear most of the words, but he couldn’t make them make sense. He was that taken with the four Lynwood daughters. Then Sadie stuck her tongue out at him, and it brought him back around like a splash of water in the face.

“Retire to the dining room,” Lynwood was saying, as he shepherded the group across the hall toward the dining room. Elaborately carved chairs surrounded a table set with blown-glass tumblers and six or seven pieces of silver per place setting.

Lynwood put Aidan near the head of the table, in the place of honor beside his own right hand. Dobro got the second spot of honor, the foot of the table directly across from Lynwood, which meant he was surrounded by Lynwood’s daughters, much to the young ladies’ disappointment.

While the servants brought out the first course, a soup of river perch, Lenora got the conversation started with small talk. How was Aidan and Dobro’s trip? Wasn’t this weather unusual for August? How long did they plan to stay in Tambluff? Aidan answered each question politely but with as little elaboration as possible.

Dobro, meanwhile, was working on his soup, and working rather hard. He held his spoon handle in his fist as if it were the haft of a spear and jabbed it beneath the pieces of fish that bobbed in his fine, white-clay bowl. Then he brought the spoon to his mouth, palm up, slurped the soup loudly, and smacked with satisfaction before plunging the spoon in for another go at it. The small talk around the table stopped as Lynwood and his family stared in horror and confusion at this most outlandish dinner guest. Enraptured by the soup, Dobro didn’t notice he had become the center of the room’s attention.

Sadie was the first person to speak. She leaned back in her chair, the better to take in the wild and smelly young man in the chair beside her, and she said to Dobro what her parents and sisters were saying silently: “Are you some kind of feechie or something?”

Dobro jerked his head back, amazed at the girl’s perceptiveness. “Well, ain’t you the clever one?” he said with an admiring smile. “There ain’t no hiding the truth from you, is there?” He was quickly mastering his shyness. “I like that in a gal.” He winked at Sadie. She blushed and looked down at her soup, twirling a ringlet around a finger.

“I can’t lie to a pretty civilizer gal like you,” Dobro said. “That would go against the Feechie Code. I am a feechie, but my dress and manners done got so refined, most folks take me for a civilizer.” He arched the left half of his one long eyebrow and graced the room with a look meant to convey great sophistication. The effect, such as it was, was ruined by a sneeze that came on him as suddenly as a sparrow hawk. He was not accustomed to the ground black pepper served at civilizer tables.

Dobro grabbed the corner of the tablecloth and blew his nose into it with a great trumpeting. He gave Sadie a broad wink. “Like that right there. Time was, I’d a wiped my nose on the back of my hand.” He pantomimed raking his nose from his knuckles nearly to his elbow. “But now I takened to blowing it in a cloth, just like a civilizer.”

Dobro mistook the shocked silence for rapt attention, and it emboldened him to keep talking. “It’s the little things makes a feller blend in, ain’t it?” He slurped up another spoonful of soup. “And if there’s one thing a feechie knows about, it’s blending in. I remember one time I was cooling off in a seep hole, and I was blended in so good a alligator nearbout stepped on me.” His bashfulness was completely gone by now. A little bashfulness would have done him some good.

“This here alligator just noozled up beside of me. I was so blended in, you see, that he thought he was by his lonesome. I raised up and frammed him in the snout.” With that he put his two fists together like a club and crashed them down on the table, causing plates, bowls, silver, and blown-glass tumblers to leap an inch off the planks of the tabletop. A roll tumbled off the table and circled around Aidan’s feet.

The crash and the reproachful looks from the ladies were enough to abash Dobro at last. His face pinkened with embarrassment, and he returned his full attention to his soup. He didn’t even notice the look of admiration that beamed from Sadie’s face.

Lynwood thought it best to get down to business before Dobro got started again. He turned toward his wife. “The hope of Corenwald, seated at our very table, Lenora. Can you believe it?”

Lenora beamed a charming smile at Aidan. “We so longed for your return from the Feechiefen, Aidan, for the fulfillment of the prophecy. We were beside ourselves with joy when we heard you were back on this side of the river.”

“I hope you will forgive my eagerness to move things along, Aidan,” said Lynwood, “what with the local committees and the Aidanite militias and the posters on the trees. We figure there’s no point putting off the inevitable-no, the foreordained-is there?”

“That’s actually what I came to speak with you about,” Aidan began, but Lynwood cut him off.

“Three thousand men at your disposal, Aidan. What does that kind of power feel like?”

“Now wait a minute,” Aidan tried to interrupt. But Lynwood pressed on.

“I love to give good gifts-as my darling Lenora and my daughters can attest.” Lenora and the girls eagerly nodded their heads, except Sadie, who blew a stray wisp of hair out of her eyes. “And I had been waiting years to give that gift to the Wilderking: a whole army of loyal men willing to fight to the death for you against”-he reined himself in-“against tyranny.” He grinned a sly, knowing grin. “So what do you say our next steps are, Aidan?” At last he paused to give Aidan a chance to speak.

Aidan’s eyes narrowed as he prepared to speak. “I did not come here to scheme with you,” he said firmly but quietly. “I want no part of your conspiracy against the anointed king.” A look of confusion overspread Lynwood’s face. Aidan pressed on. “You have sent me an army, and I thank you for it. I will lead them. But I won’t lead them against King Darrow.”

Lynwood’s brow was knitted with perplexity. He had prepared for many, many possibilities but never this one. It had never occurred to him the Wilderking might not welcome his efforts on his behalf. “Not lead our army against King Darrow?” he said. “Why do you think I gave them to you?”

“I know full well why you ‘gave them’ to me, Lynwood,” Aidan answered. “But I won’t shed Corenwalder blood for the sake of my ambition-or for the sake of yours.”