The Palace (Bell Mountain Series #6) by Lee Duigon Page B

matter. He was the most easygoing mardar, Goryk thought, that he had ever met.
     

     
    Jack did know how to play chess, but that knowledge wasn’t doing him any good in Silvertown.
     
    They hadn’t mistreated him, beyond locking him up in a windowless room somewhere inside the chamber house. In the evening someone brought him supper, and in the morning, breakfast. You could eat the food and not get sick, but that was about all you could say for it. The people who brought it were Obannese, servants or slaves, and Jack hadn’t been able to get a word out of them.
     
    “Oh, well,” he thought, “if they were going to kill me, they wouldn’t bother feeding me.” Now that they knew he wasn’t the king, he supposed they would hold him for ransom. But did they know he was Baron Bault’s adopted son? If they didn’t, he might be of no use to them at all, other than to sacrifice to an idol. If all they were going to do was to make him a slave, he thought, they’d have done it by now.
     
    Around midday, when he was getting hungry again, someone opened the door. Instead of a servant with food, the great traitor himself, Goryk Gillow, came in and sat down. Someone outside closed the door after him. No point in even trying to escape, Jack thought.
     
    “I won’t ask you how you like it here,” said the man, “but I hope it hasn’t been unbearably unpleasant for you. I’m not a cruel man, despite what you may have heard to the contrary. Had Ysbott not ignorantly mistaken you for King Ryons, you wouldn’t be here. It was none of my doing.”
     
    “Yes, sir,” Jack said. He had no idea what else to say, and he was thinking of all those dead bodies hanging from the gallows. One or two of those hadn’t looked much older than he was himself.
     
    “What’s your name?”
     
    “Jack, sir.”
     
    “You have good manners, Jack.”
     
    “That’s because I’m afraid, sir.”
     
    Goryk smiled. Jack didn’t like his smile. It was probably the last thing some of those people saw before he hanged them.
     
    “Try not to be afraid,” the man said. “I have no plans to hurt you.”
     
    “Not yet!” Jack thought. But he only said, “Yes, sir.”
     
    “Do you know who I am?”
     
    “They called you First Prester, sir. That’s all I know.” That was all Jack would admit to knowing. He’d heard the baron talk about this man and his infamous deeds, but now was not the time to mention Goryk’s treason. And to call yourself First Prester, when you were no such thing—that was treason against God.
     
    “Well, Jack, that’s what I am—the First Prester,” Goryk said. Jack wondered why the man dressed all in black. It was supposed to be Temple colors, like Martis used to wear, but it only made him look like a villain. “There’s another man in Obann City who calls himself First Prester, but I’m the only First Prester with a Temple. The councilors in Obann understand that very well, and if they and I can come to an agreement, the world will be at peace again. I think everybody’s had enough of war—don’t you?”
     
    “Yes, sir.”
     
    “He’s studying me,” Jack thought. “What’s he looking for? He knows I’m not the king; I heard him say so. What is he going to do to me?” Some moments passed before Goryk spoke again.
     
    “I’ve been thinking, Jack,” he said, “thinking very hard about how to bring peace to Obann. That’s all I’ve ever tried to do, you know. I think that’s what most of the people in Obann would like to see. And they miss the Temple! I think the New Temple in the East would make them happy, if only there were peace again. People could go on pilgrimages to see it. And you and many other people could all go home again.”
     
    Jack didn’t know how to answer, so he waited.
     
    “To bring peace, Jack,” the man in black said, “it will be necessary to engage in a few small deceptions—just to make the process nice and orderly, and only for a little while.