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. Embarra.s.sed, 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 Aidanites' Rally The mob was so raucous, so joyous, the people didn't seem to notice Aidan's protests. There was such jostling and b.u.mping 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 appet.i.te 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!"

Aidan was more than happy to make a speech. It was going to be a stem-winder too. He was going to set these people good and straight. But before he could collect his thoughts, the mayor bounded to the platform in the middle of the square (he was surprisingly agile for a man of such roundness) and raised his hands for silence.

"For years we have labored in the dark shadow of tyranny," he began in deep, dramatic tones.

"Tell it, Mayor!" came a woman's voice from the crowd.

"No more tyrants!" A man in a wool cap shook his fist in the air.

The mayor raised his hands again in acknowledgment of his hearers' comments and kept going. "Too long have the wrongs of an unjust ruler been heaped on the backs of hardworking villagers like yourselves."

"My back's killing me!" called a voice in the crowd.

"Hear him!"

"Yes-s-s-s!"

"Where are the young men of Hustingreen?" asked the mayor. Moans from the audience. "I ask you, where are our young men?" Young wives throughout the crowd began to cry loudly. Aidan noticed for the first time that, except for Percy, Dobro, and himself, the crowd was composed entirely of children, women, and men over forty.

"Drafted into Darrow's army, that's where!" The mayor shook with indignation as he answered his own question. "Dragged off to the Feechiefen Swamp to fight for a king who doesn't care if he throws away the lives of his own subjects!"

The wailing of women grew louder. The mayor paused for silence. Or was he just enjoying the effect of his own oratory? "But today a new light has dawned!" An approving murmur rippled through the square. "The Wilderking prophecy has been the only hope of an unhappy people. Today it is coming true!" The murmur grew louder. "Today Aidan Errolson has come out of the swamps and forests-just as the Wilderking prophecy said he would-back to his people, who have longed for his return!" The mayor had to shout to be heard over the rapturous crowd. "Hail to the Wilderking!"

"Hail to the Wilderking!" the people replied in a deafening shout.

Aidan's face was ghostly white. This was much worse than he had imagined it would be. He felt as if he might faint.

A group of schoolchildren was herded onto the platform. A polite silence fell over the crowd as the spectators turned their attention toward the children who, as their tutor proudly explained, had memorized the Wilderking Chant in cla.s.s.

The recitation got off to a ragged start. One of the boys obviously didn't have it down yet; he appeared to be mouthing the words "Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon," and his hand motions were a full second behind those of his peers. But the rest of the children's confidence grew, and by the time they had reached "Watch for the Wilderking," the crowd joined in on the refrain in a kind of responsive reading.

It would have been quite a moving experience, this public recitation from the old lore, if Aidan didn't understand what it all meant. When the children reached the line "Watch for the Wilderking, widows and orphans," a widow in the fifth row raised her hands and fainted rapturously away.

When the children had shuffled off the stage, a mime troupe reenacted the Battle of Bonifay Plain. The players had to cut it short, however, when the mime playing Greidawl the giant fell off his stilts and wrenched his knee. It was all so ridiculous, Percy couldn't help howling with laughter.

Eighteen years old, Aidan thought, and I've already pa.s.sed into legend. The villagers, in fact, were so taken with the legendary version of Aidan being presented on the stage that they paid surprisingly little attention to the real Aidan. They gave a very warm welcome to the bard who stood to sing "The Ballad of Aidan Errolson." All of Hustingreen seemed quite familiar with this versified (though not precisely accurate) account of his first expedition into the Feechiefen: It's a dangerous thing to be feared by a king, And Aidan struck dread in King Darrow.

His most loyal service just made the king nervous And pierced his black heart like an arrow.

One feast night the king sentenced Aidan to death As he sat in his pride and his pomp.

He said with tongue forked, "I want a frog orchid, And it grows in the Feechiefen Swamp, boy, Nowhere but the Feechiefen Swamp."

Oh weep, won't you weep for a kingdom whose royalty Can't tell high treason from untainted loyalty.

It seems funny, don't it, that the old boy who wanted The orchid sat safe in his hall While the bold son of Errol ran headlong toward peril And dispraised his king not at all.

Young Aidan was neither the first nor the only To outdare the vast Feechiefen.

There were brave men of yore who dared to explore, But none of them came out again, boys.

n.o.body comes back again.

I ask you, what good kings-who else but dictators- Send subjects to get et by panthers and gators?

Last Camp hangs grim at the kingdom's far limit.

Beyond it? That's anyone's guess.

Beyond it, pure mystery throughout all of history.

But beyond it lay young Aidan's quest.

At the great river's bend lives a tough breed of men; The Last Campers fear very few.

But they said with a shiver, "If you cross that river, Dear Aidan, we sure will miss you, boy, Dear Aidan, we sure will miss you."

Aidan stood by the Tam with his pack in his hand And watched where the brown water swirled.

He said his good-byes to all things civilized, Then he stepped off the edge of the world, boys.

He stepped off the edge of the world.

Could you face the Feechiefen, there take your chances?

Could you leave your country with no backward glances?

Aidan went for to wander way over yonder

Where graybeard moss sways in the breeze.

Where gator jaws snap and craney-crows flap

And moccasins drop from the trees.

Who knows what occurred? No one ever heard.

Our young hero never did say.