The Secret of the Swamp King Read Online Free PDF Page B

as evidence.”
    Darrow fixed Aethelbert with a withering glare. “Ah yes, Aethelbert. On the boy’s side, are you?” He looked around the trophy room at the other noblemen. “Does anyone else wish to throw in his lot with these two traitors?”
    The room remained silent. No one else was willing to take on the king when he was in this irrational frame of mind. Aidan looked imploringly from face to face, but no one, not even Steren, would meet his gaze.
    Finally Aidan spoke. His voice was choked with emotion. “I have only ever loved you, my king.” Darrow gazed blankly at him. Aidan tried again. “Your Majesty, I have desired only to serve you and your house.” Darrow looked away, staring into the distance as if he had heard nothing.
    â€œCommand me, my king.” Aidan’s tone was plaintive. “How can I prove my loyalty to you?”
    King Darrow still stared into the distance, but his eyes narrowed slightly as he mulled his options. Aethelbert was right. He didn’t have hard evidence against the boy, even if he was sure of his guilt. Still, evidence or no evidence, he couldn’t afford to have the boy at his court any longer. He believed what he had said to Steren: Even if the boy weren’t a threat to Darrow’s own kingship, he was a serious threat to his hopes for Steren. And yet he couldn’t have the boy killed or banished. The Four and Twenty Nobles would never let him get away with that. Maybe he could use the boy’s professed loyalty against him.
    At last the king turned to Aidan. “I suppose you’ve noticed I suffer bouts of melancholy.”
    Aidan just listened, choosing not to acknowledge how obvious the king’s depressive episodes had become.
    â€œMy medics and chemists have tried everything that might offer me some relief,” continued the king. “But nothing seems to help. There is one last treatment—a certain cure—but they lack the only ingredient.”
    â€œIs it something I can get for you?” asked Aidan hopefully.
    â€œPerhaps you can. The old lore promises one sure cure for melancholy: the essence of the frog orchid. Bring me a live frog orchid, and I will have no reason to doubt your loyalty.”
    â€œA frog orchid?” barked Lord Cleland. “I know a little of the old lore, too, Darrow. The frog orchid grows only in the depths of the Feechiefen Swamp.” Darrow nodded knowingly but without apparent concern. Cleland continued. “Nobody has ever come back alive from the Feechiefen Swamp!”
    But Aidan was relieved to have been offered the chance to prove his loyalty, even if the offer came in the form of a seemingly impossible task. “I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
    Lord Cleland wouldn’t let it lie. “You’re sending Aidan to his death, and you know it!” he protested.
    â€œYou weren’t so squeamish three years ago, when the boy offered to fight the giant on the Bonifay Plain,” Darrow retorted. “What was it you said, Cleland? ‘If the boy wants to die for his country, why not let him?’”
    Cleland was ashamed of the words he spoke the first time he ever met Aidan Errolson on the battlefield at Bonifay. But he couldn’t deny them.
    â€œWell, if the boy wants to die for his king,” continued Darrow, “why not let him?”
    But Aidan wasn’t there to hear this exchange. He was already headed toward his sleeping quarters to pack a bag for his trip to Feechiefen.
    * * *
    Aidan was nearly finished packing when the door swung open and Prince Steren stepped into the room. He looked at the backpack on Aidan’s bed, and his face filled with horror. “You’re not really …” he began. “Into the Feechiefen?”
    Aidan didn’t answer but kept packing.
    â€œDon’t do this,” Steren pleaded. “You know how Father is. Tomorrow he will have forgotten all about