`Me?' Ferris was horrified at the concept. 'What do you expect me to do?'
`Speak out! Take control of your Kingdom and offer the people an alternative to this charlatan! Break this cult of his. Roll it back and destroy his power! It's built on an illusion anyway. Offer them another illusion.'
`What?' Ferris asked. 'What illusion do I have?'
`The illusion of your own authority,' Halt said sarcastically. 'That won't go far. But fortunately for you, we've provided an additional one.' He pointed to Horace. 'The Sunrise Warrior.'
`But that's a myth!' Ferris cried and Halt laughed bitterly.
`Of course it is! Just as Alseiass, the all-loving Golden God of the Outsiders, is a myth. Make the Sunrise Warrior your counter-myth. Make him your champion, summoned by you to bring the rule of law back to Clonmel.
`We've already prepared the ground for you. The warrior was seen at a village called Craikennis just a few days ago. He wiped out a band of three hundred outlaws.'
`Three hundred?' Horace, said, surprised. 'You're coming it a bit strong, aren't you, Halt?'
The Ranger shrugged. 'The bigger the rumour, the easier it is to make people believe,' he said. But Sean had reacted instantly to the mention of Craikennis.
`It's true, your majesty. I heard rumours of the Warrior in the marketplace yesterday. And I heard mention of a battle at Craikennis as well.'
Ferris looked from one to the other. He made an ineffectual, undecided gesture, one hand flapping in the air. `I don't know. I… I just don't know.'
Halt stepped close to him so that their faces were only centimetres apart.
`Do this, brother. Speak out and denounce Tennyson and his cult. Offer the people the protection of the Sunrise Warrior at the head of your soldiers and I promise we'll give you every support.'
He saw that Ferris was wavering and added his final inducement.
`Do it and I swear I will make no claim against you for the throne. I'll return to Araluen as soon as we've destroyed the Outsiders, and Tennyson with them.'
That struck home, he saw. For a second or two, Ferris was on the brink of agreeing. But decisiveness had never been his long suit and still he vacillated.
`I need time to think about this. I need a few days. You can't just walk in here and expect me to…' He hesitated and Halt finished the sentence for him.
`Make a decision? No, I suppose that's a pretty foreign idea for you. All right. We'll give you a day.'
`Two days,' Ferris replied instantly. Then, in a pleading tone, 'Please, Halt, there's a lot for me to take in here.'
Halt shook his head. The longer Ferris had to think about this, the more likely he would find a way to weasel out of his predicament. It was not impossible that he wouldn't try to contact Tennyson again.
`One day,' he said firmly. His tone told Ferris that there would be no further discussion of the matter and the King's shoulders slumped in resignation.
`Very well,' he muttered.
Halt studied the submissive figure for a few seconds. Ferris seemed cowed, but he still didn't trust him. He turned to Sean.
`Do I have your word that you'll prevent any trickery?'
Sean nodded instantly. 'Of course. I'll make sure he keeps his side of the bargain,' he said, then added, 'Uncle.'
A grim smile touched Halt's face at the word. He studied Sean for a few seconds. The eyes were clear and honest. The face was a trustworthy one. He felt a surge of warmth for this young man. Halt had lived his life without any knowledge of his family. At least one of them had turned out well, he thought. Pity about the other one in the room with them.
`That's good enough for me.' He looked back to Ferris. `We'll be back at noon tomorrow for your answer. Let's go, Horace.'
They turned and walked towards the big double doors, their boot heels ringing on the flagstones. They were almost there when Ferris's cry stopped them.
`Wait!' he called, and they turned to face him again. `What if my answer is… no?'
Halt smiled at him. At least, it might have been called a smile. Horace thought it was closer to the way a wolf shows its fangs to an enemy.
`It won't be,' he said.
Chapter 33
Will was seated under a tree, his back comfortably against the trunk, repairing a part of Tug's harness. He worked the point of an awl through the tough leather strap, wincing as the sharp end caught the ball of his thumb.
`I'm going to have to stop doing that,' he told himself. Perhaps the key to doing so would be to keep his eyes on the job in hand. But the broken strap was merely a ruse to occupy him while he studied the sprawling camp of Tennyson's followers.
He had joined the band two nights previously, riding in after dark and being challenged by a sentry from the picket line thrown around the camp. He identified himself as a travelling minstrel and said he was anxious to join the followers of Alseiass. The sentry grunted, seeming to be satisfied, and waved him inside the camp.
There were nearly four hundred people massed under Tennyson's banner. Most of them were people fromvillages along the way, who had joined after hearing the enthusiastic testimony of the residents of Mountshannon. Some had been summoned from other villages further south, where Tennyson had already driven off parties of outlaws. The prophet had left some of his henchmen in each of these villages and, once the march on Dun Kilty began in earnest, they had been summoned, along with their converts, to join the band.
But there was also a solid core of Tennyson's acolytes, recognisable by their white robes. Most obvious of all were the two massively proportioned bodyguards who always stood close to the leader. They were surly brutes, Will thought. The Golden God Alseiass hadn't imbued them with his much-professed love for their fellow man.
As the numbers grew, Tennyson continued to preach, stressing the King's lack of decision and action, and laying the blame for Clonmel's troubled situation squarely on his shoulders. And at each of these sessions, his subordinates moved among the crowd, collecting gold and jewellery in tribute to Alseiass.
As an outsider Will smiled at the inadvertent use of the word – he could see the sharp division in the camp. There were the fervent, hopeful new converts, the large mass of people who had chosen to follow Tennyson and who looked to him and his god as the new hope for peace and prosperity. That group grew larger each day as new converts flocked into the camp.
And there was the hard-edged core of existing followers, who collected the gold, protected Tennyson and, Will was sure, dealt with anyone who chose to speak out against Alseiass's prophet.
The previous day, the latter group had been reinforced by three remarkable newcomers. Dressed in tight black leather, they wore dull purple cloaks and wide-brimmed, feathered hats of the same colour. They were olive skinned and dark haired and obviously foreigners. And they weren't simple pilgrims come to join the throng. They carried crossbows slung on their backs and, from Will's careful observation, each of them had at least three daggers on his person – in belt sheaths, in their boots and under the left arm. They were dangerous men. They carried themselves with an air of assurance that said they had confidence in their weapon skills.
He wondered who they were and where they had come from. He was less curious as to their purpose. They were Tennyson's hired killers. Earlier, Will had been singing close to the white pavilion and had watched as one of them followed a shabbily dressed man out of the camp and into the forest. Fifteen minutes later, the foreigner returned alone, going straight to Tennyson's pavilion to report. Will, who had discreetly followed them part of the way, waited by the edge of the forest until sundown. But there had been no sign of the other man returning.