“Bug Neck?” said the red-bearded man. “Never heard of it.”
“You know, Bug Neck,” Dobro repeated. “A day’s polin’ east of Scoggin Mound?” The villager still looked blank. Dobro was a little annoyed. “In the Feechiefen!”
The three Hustingreeners squinted at Dobro. “Feechiefen?” one of them muttered. Then it dawned on them. No wonder this fellow looked so strange and acted even stranger. “He’s a feechie!” one of the men gasped.
The three men stared wide-eyed at one another. The sandy-haired one was the first to speak. He quoted a snatch of the Wilderking Chant: “‘Leading his troops of wild men and brutes.’” And together the three of them quoted the next line in reverent tones: “‘Watch for the Wilderking!’”
“This is a sign,” the red-bearded man said to his companions. “This fellow’s a sign, I’m telling you. If there’s a feechie in Hustingreen, Aidan Errolson can’t be far behind.”
“You said something there, feller,” Dobro said. “Matter of fact, he ain’t no more’n five or six steps behind.”
The Hustingreeners looked past Dobro to Percy and Aidan. They had found Dobro so peculiar that they had paid very little attention to the civilizers with him. Aidan’s looks had changed since he had last gone to market in Hustingreen, but now that they had a good look at him, the three villagers recognized him.
“Aidan Errolson,” one of them said in hushed tones.
“Hail to the Wilderking,” said another. His eyes were glistening with tears of joy.
The three Hustingreeners elbowed past each other to be the first to kneel at Aidan’s feet.
“Your Majesty!”
“Our king in exile, returned to us!”
“Command us, our sovereign!”
Their voices quivered with emotion.
“Get up! Get up!” Aidan demanded. There was anger in his voice. Embarrassed, he looked around to be sure no one else had seen this unseemly display. “Your king is Darrow, not me,” he said sharply as he waded through the kneeling Aidanites.
“Listen to him,” said one of the Aidanites as they scrambled to their feet to follow him. “He’s so humble.”
“Nothing like King Darrow. Not like King Darrow at all.”
“That’s what Corenwald needs in a king-somebody who’s not going to try to grab all the power for himself.”
Aidan stalked with long strides toward the village, and Percy and Dobro strode with him. The three Aidanites trotted to keep up.
“I’m Milum,” said the red-bearded fellow, “and this is Burson and Wash.” Aidan didn’t even acknowledge them and didn’t offer to introduce his brother Percy who, though he understood this was a serious situation, was finding it very hard not to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
“We just knew you’d come straight to Hustingreen when you came back.” Milum had begun speaking so fast he could hardly catch his breath. “I remember when you were a boy. You probably don’t remember me, but I remember you. You’d come on market days, and one day you kicked a ball under my cart and I kicked it back. But you probably don’t remember.” He paused a moment to give Aidan a chance to say something like “Sure, of course I remember that,” but Aidan looked straight ahead as if he hadn’t heard anything. So this is what Aidanites look like, he thought. So these are the fools threatening to tear this kingdom apart.
They were within a hundred strides of the village of Hustingreen by now. Burson and Wash ran ahead shouting, “Aidan Errolson is here!” and “The Wilderking is returned!”
Meanwhile Milum continued his monologue. “Hustingreen’s a major Aidanite stronghold, you know. Of course you know. It’s almost your home village. Everybody in Hustingreen has an Aidan Errolson story. Every old lady in the village says she could tell, even when you were a little boy, you would grow up to do great things.”
Percy pinched Aidan’s cheek, a gesture that had always made him redden when he was a little boy. He slapped Percy’s hand away.
Milum yammered on. “Just yesterday an old boy at the militia drills was telling a story about the time you…”
Aidan stopped in his tracks. “Militia drills?” He looked hard at Milum. “What militia?”
Milum laughed a nervous laugh, not sure whether Aidan was putting him on. “Why, the Aidanite Militia, Hustingreen unit.” He stood up straight, raised his chin, and popped his right fist against his heart. This, apparently, was the Aidanite salute. He gestured to his green tunic and plumed hat. “This is the Aidanite uniform.”
Aidan could feel his face grow hot. “This militia,” he said, barely able to keep his voice down. “Whom do you propose to fight?”
Milum looked askance at Aidan. Surely Aidan was pulling his leg now. “Of course you know that! ” he began. But seeing Aidan’s eyes narrow, he cleared his throat, straightened his posture, and recited the official answer: “The purpose of the Aidanite Militia is to stand in readiness to protect the motherland from all who would threaten the common good… sir!” He gave Aidan a knowing wink.
The impertinence on Milum’s face infuriated Aidan. “Don’t you know that this is treason?” he shouted.
“To train yourselves to fight against your king? If you think I would lead a revolt against King Darrow-my king, your king-you are mightily mistaken!”
Milum’s shoulders slumped and his head dropped. He was crushed by Aidan’s strong words. But Aidan didn’t care. He was furious. A traitor deserved much more than harsh words.
But neither Milum nor Aidan had long to reflect on the exchange. From Hustingreen they heard the peal of bells in the village square, and it looked as if the whole village was running out to meet them on the road.
Percy, Dobro, and Aidan considered running away, but the happy throng was on them before they could make a decisive move. People were shouting, dogs barking and children laughing. A pair of buglers played a tinny and off-key version of a local folk tune. A kind-faced old woman handed Aidan a pie that had been cooling in her window when the news came that the Wilderking was come at last. The village girls all kissed Percy and Aidan. A few of the brave ones even kissed Dobro.
In a confused moment, a group of men tried to hoist Percy onto their shoulders, mistaking him for Aidan. Wash straightened them out, and they scooped up Aidan in spite of his protests. Others lifted Percy and Dobro to their shoulders for good measure, and the whole procession marched back into Hustingreen, led by the red-faced, white-bearded village mayor, who swung his staff of office like a parade marshal’s baton.
Chapter Eight
The mob was so raucous, so joyous, the people didn’t seem to notice Aidan’s protests. There was such jostling and bumping the men carrying Aidan didn’t even pay any mind to his wiggling efforts to get off their shoulders. Percy steered his bearers toward his brother, and when he was next to Aidan’s ear, he shouted, “Stop struggling! Let’s just go with it! You’ll get your chance to make a speech. Then you can set everybody straight!” He nearly fell off when one of the men carrying him tripped over a dog. “But shouldn’t we find out as much about these Aidanites as we can?”
Aidan nodded. For the moment at least, he had no choice but to “go with it.” And Percy was right: The more he knew about his “followers,” the better he could undo the damage they had done. But he also had the nagging suspicion that his brother’s suggestion was motivated not by prudence but by his appetite for the ridiculous.
Dobro, for his part, was having tremendous fun. To a feechie, a roiling mob looked a lot like a regular party. The scene was downright homey for Dobro, unaware as he was of the larger trouble it represented. He took every hand that reached up to him. He waved at the children, many of whom ran away in terror. Dobro was almost as big an attraction as Aidan himself, being the only feechie the Hustingreeners had ever seen.
The buglers were joined along the way by a drummer and a xylophone player. It wasn’t clear, however, whether they were trying to play the same tune. The mayor, in his self-important way, led the procession to the middle of the village square, where trading was done on market days. A general murmur quickly grew into a loud, rhythmic chant: “Speech! Speech! Speech!”