Cart and Cwidder

by Diana Wynne Jones

  “Why did Tholian kill Father?” said Moril.

  “He was looking for me,” said Kialan, “and he didn’t want anyone to know, because I’m supposed to be Hadd’s prisoner—or Henda’s, only they were still arguing about that when I escaped. Dagner thought that maybe the Neathdale spy—or perhaps it was the fellow they hanged—might have given Tholian a hint about your father. But he couldn’t have known much, or we’d all have been arrested. Tholian’s the sort who says dead men tell no tales, so he kills Clennen and then beats the woods for me.”

  “If only we’d known!” said Brid. “Where were you all that time?”

  “Up a tree,” said Kialan, “rabbits and all. They were crashing about searching all the time you were playing that cwidder, Moril, and it worried them like anything. They kept saying that blessed boy and his music made their heads go round. Tholian suggested going back and killing you, too, but none of them could quite be bothered to. And when you left off, they’d had enough and they went.”

  “Could you pass it me?” said Moril. Kialan obligingly crawled back to the instrument rack and reached the big cwidder over to the driving seat. Moril took it and clutched it to him. It felt fat and hard and comforting. Apart from the fact that it seemed to have saved both his life and Kialan’s, it was in its rather more awesome way as good as Olob’s nose. He felt he needed it, somehow, after the events of today.

  “Play something,” suggested Kialan.

  “No, don’t,” said Brid. “Not until we’ve decided what to do. We’re slap bang in the middle of Tholian’s earldom, and we’ve obviously got to get North, and everyone knows this cart. And we’ve no money. I daresay Father meant to go this way because it would have looked suspicious if he didn’t, but I vote we turn east and try to get North through the Marshes.”

  Kialan fetched the map out and scowled at its sketchiness. “I suppose we could try the sea,” said Moril. “We might find a boat that wants a singer.”

  Kialan glared at the map. “We’d take ages, either way. And we can’t be more than four days off Flennpass here. Don’t either of you understand? Tholian’s getting an army together to invade the North, and Henda’s sent to my father to say he’ll ransom me, so my father thinks I’m a prisoner and daren’t do a thing! And I suppose,” he added, “Henda’s message is the first news my father gets that we’re not both drowned. If you don’t mind, I’d like to get North as quickly as I can—but it’s your cart, of course.”

  Moril glanced at Kialan and decided that his hectoring tone had much to do with the tears in his eyes. Brid did not notice. “Oh, is it our cart?” she said. The result was that Kialan managed to laugh, rather sheepishly.

  “We’ll go straight on,” Moril said, suddenly deciding. “We’ll do it Father’s way and be quite open about it. It worked for him, and it worked for me in the jail.”

  Brid and Kialan seemed to be relieved that Moril had taken the lead. But as Olob dragged the cart into the level ground of the first Upland, they began to make nervous objections.

  “Innocent little children is all very well,” said Brid. “What about when the Earl hears of Dagner doing the Porter’s business?”

  Moril looked round on fields with green corn showing and sheep grazing. The hills of the North towered against the sky, so high and blue-gray with distance that, on first glance, Moril took them for a bank of cloud.

  “A certain pink cart will be looked for,” said Kialan. “Could you paint it?”

  “Dark green would be best,” said Brid. “But we’ve no money.”

  A village came in sight, looking very small against the hills of the North. Moril roused himself before Kialan and Brid could have any wilder ideas. “Tholian knows me,” he said. “He recognized me up a ladder in Markind. That’s the trouble with having red hair.”

  “Wear a hat,” said Kialan.

  Moril turned round to quell Kialan. “What about this village?” As he said it, he realized that Kialan was tired out. His face was as white as such a brown complexion could be, and there were dark rings under his eyes. All the watching at night and the suspense in Neathdale had been rather too much for him. “Get down in the cart,” Moril said, taking pity on him. “I’ll put the cover half-up.”

  Kialan lay thankfully down beside the wine jar, and Moril pulled the canvas forward until it hid him. They drove straight through the village, Brid holding the reins and Moril sitting beside her, gently strumming the cwidder. On the heights above the village there was an odd little gray tower, belonging to the Lord of the Uplands. Brid looked at it and quivered with terror, knowing as she did that the Earl of Hannart’s son was hidden in the cart. But Moril knew it was no different from any other risk they had run without knowing. The tower and the mountains made him think of his imaginary Hannart. He felt soothed and peaceful.

  Several people looked up, or out at doors, hearing the cart and the cwidder. When they saw what it was, they smiled and waved. Brid did her best to smile and nod back. Then a woman came out of a house and walked beside them.

  “Have you been through Neathdale today?”

  “Yes,” said Moril.

  “They tell me there was to have been a man hanged.”

  “Yes,” said Moril. “He was. We saw him.”

  “I knew it!” the woman said, smiling. “He was bound to come to it!” She seemed so gleeful that Moril thought she must have hated the hanged man, until he noticed the tears in her eyes. Then he saw she was just trying to hide her feelings. He wanted to say something kind to her, but she left the cart and went back into her house. Moril wondered whether Clennen had known her, and what her connection was with the hanged man.

  9

  A mile or so beyond the village, Olob looked at the sun moving into the blue mountains and turned toward a cart track which led away to the left. Brid tried to stop him. “No, Olob. We must get on.”

  “Let him find a place,” said Moril. “I told you. It’s no good looking guilty. Besides, we haven’t eaten a thing since this morning.”

  “You had a pie, you lucky pig!” snapped Brid, but she gave in and let Olob pull the cart into a secluded grassy space under a cliff. A stream ran in a trickle of green mosses down the rock face. Moril came down from the cart, feeling shaky at the knees.

  “If we’re going to camp this near the village,” said Kialan, emerging from hiding, “then we’d better set a watch tonight.”

  “What for?” said Moril. “Nobody’s going to bother to come at night, not after three children. And if they come while we’re awake, we’ll hear them.”

  “I’m going to watch, all the same,” said Kialan.

  “No you’re not,” said Moril. “There’s no point.”

  “Bossy, aren’t you, all of a sudden!” Brid snapped. Then she rounded on Kialan. “And if you make yourself ill staying awake every night, what are we supposed to do with you?”

  Moril realized that Brid was angry because she was tired and miserable. So he said nothing and simply began to get Olob out of the shafts. Kialan must have realized it, too, because he said wearily, “Oh, all right. I give in,” and started collecting firewood.

  Brid investigated the provisions Dagner had bought. “What am I supposed to do with all this flour?” she demanded. “And no eggs!”

  It looked as if Dagner’s idea had been to stock the cart with enough food to last them until they reached the North. But as Brid said mournfully, his mind must have been on that message, for the only useful things he had bought were the bacon and a large cheese. Among the less useful things were lentils, candles, and a big bunch of rhubarb.

  “Look at this!” said Brid, wagging the rhubarb about. “What was he thinking of?”

  “Waste of money,” agreed Kialan. “Did he use all you earned?”

  “Yes,” said Brid. “Every penny. And there’s not even any bread.”

  They had a rather strange supper of fried bacon, cheese, and experimental pancakes made out of flour and water. Brid, after nibbling one, promptly put
them in the frying pan that held the bacon, and Kialan thought of melting cheese over them to improve the taste. This left them still so empty that they finished the meal with about a quart each of stewed rhubarb; luckily, Lenina had left some sugar in the cart.

  Moril felt better after that. He got up, fetched the bucket, and carefully cleaned the cart. It was looking very dusty and uncared for, and to his mind, it had a furtive, illegal look. He thought about Dagner as he worked. He wondered what he had to eat in prison and how soon he would be tried and hanged. Or did the questioning by the justice count as a trial? Moril feared that it did. He wondered again what Dagner had said when they questioned him. Then he thought of Dagner trying to carry on Clennen’s work in Dagner’s way. It had not seemed wise. Dagner had been nervous and secretive, and he had made a fatal mistake. But on the other hand, Dagner was so unlike Clennen that it was probably the only thing he could do. Moril thought about himself going back to Clennen’s way and wondered if that was wise. He was not like Clennen either. But he did not know what he was like. He supposed that sooner or later he would have to find out, and then do things in the way best suited to what he found.

  Brid and Kialan were washing the pans. Kialan was looking exhausted. Tears kept coming into Brid’s eyes, and she angrily wiped them away with the back of her greasy hand. And they were both pretending they were cheerful.

  “Do you think if we mixed the cheese in with the flour, they’d taste better?” Brid said.

  “What about rhubarb? Sort of fritters?” said Kialan.

  “Ugh!” said Brid. “When I see Dagner, I’ll—” She wiped off another set of tears and said brightly, “He must have had his reasons, I suppose.”

  Moril tipped away the dirty water, wondering if there could be three more unhappy people in Dalemark. Kialan must know he was a danger to himself and his companions. His landfall in Holand must have been horrible. And since then, Moril realized, Kialan’s life had been one long, tense escape, which was not over yet. As for himself and Brid, they had seen their family simply dwindle away, until it was down to their two selves. And Kialan had been fond of Dagner, too—fonder than he had realized.

  Moril stopped himself in the midst of a snuffle of self-pity. No. Last year, as soon as they were safely in the North, Clennen had told them some of the other things that happened in the South. Whole families had been arrested. The older ones had been hanged, and children younger than Moril had been left with nothing in the world, and nobody dared help them for fear of being arrested, too. Clennen had told them how Henda had calmly doubled his taxes last year and turned those who could not pay out to starve, and how old Tholian had hunted an old man with dogs for not raising his hat to him fast enough. Moril knew there must be hundreds of people in the South even worse off than he was. They had a horse and cart, and Clennen had left them with a means of earning a living and a license to do it. If it came to the worst, they could go back to Markind. Moril did not like the idea. He tried to tell himself that they could not go back, because of Kialan. But he knew that was not it. Lenina would help Kialan. The reason for his not liking it, he was forced to admit, was that he was not at all clear whether they had deserted Lenina, or she them. And it made him uncomfortable.

  “We’ll give more shows,” he said, putting Lenina out of his mind. He went to the cart to polish the instruments and stopped at the sight of the wine jar taking up so much room inside. “Do you know anything about this wine jar?” he called to Kialan.

  “No—oh, you mean the papers?” Kialan said, coming over to the cart. “Dagner had a look in Markind, because he had to find the message for Neathdale. They’re down inside its basket.”

  Moril scrambled up to look. Kialan took down the tailgate and told him where to put his hand down between bottle and basket. Brid hurried over and watched Moril fish about, feel paper, and pull it out. “What are these?”

  “Messages that weren’t so important,” said Kialan. “Lucky they didn’t search the cart, wasn’t it?”

  Brid and Moril held the papers into the sinking sun and spelled out, in Clennen’s writing: “For Mattrick. Someone in Neathdale—I think Halain—smells of lavender. Dirty washing through Pali and Fander in future.”

  “Lavender!” said Brid. “Really, Father!”

  The other notes said the same, and were marked to be delivered to places between Markind and Neathdale.

  “Go and put those all on the fire,” Moril said, handing them to Kialan. “Now do you believe we can read?”

  Kialan grinned and took the papers. While he was stuffing them under the embers and the air was filling with the strong smell of burning paper, Moril busily worked his hand on round the wine jar. Halfway round, he felt more papers. He pulled them out and unfolded them.

  These were all in different people’s writing. Some of them seemed to have come from parts of the South they had not visited in years. Others concerned the places they had passed through, and these were mostly in Lenina’s writing. Moril felt oddly glad to see his mother’s small, bold writing. He could see that whatever Lenina had thought, privately, of Clennen’s freedom fighting, she had most scrupulously done what Clennen wanted while he was alive—even at the risk of being hanged for spying. It was queer to find her so honorable, but Moril liked it. Among other things, she had written: “Crady—169 taken north to Neathdale” and “Fledden—24 pressed yesterday, with horses.” The other notes said much the same.

  “What do you think this means?” said Brid.

  Kialan came over to look. “Do you think,” he said, after some puzzling, “those might be for my father or someone in the North? It could be about the army Tholian’s gathering.”

  “You know, I do believe that’s it!” said Brid. “They mean how many men went for soldiers from each place. Don’t you agree, Moril?”

  “Probably,” said Moril. It seemed a bit boring to him. “We’d better take them North, then.” He put them back and, just to be on the safe side, went on working his hand round the other side of the jar. There were cold, hard things. He gripped one and pulled it out. “I say!” It was a gold piece. “Whose is this?”

  They were all mystified. Brid suggested that it was payment for taking Kialan North, but, as Moril and Kialan rather scornfully pointed out, if Clennen had organized that, he would have been paying himself. No other explanation seemed likely, either.

  “Anyway, that means we can buy food tomorrow,” Brid said. “Father couldn’t mind that.”

  “Don’t be a big idiot!” said Moril. “When did we ever have a gold piece before? Someone’s going to think we stole it, and if we get arrested, the whole thing’s going to come out.” Carefully he slipped the coin back behind the basket again.

  Brid sighed. “A whole bottleful of gold! Oh, all right. I suppose you’re right and it would look odd. I’m going to bed. Get out of the cart.”

  Moril helped Kialan put up the tent. By then Kialan was so tired that he dragged a blanket into it and fell asleep before the sun set. Moril felt too agitated to go to sleep straightaway. He sat against the cliff, with Olob companionably cropping grass nearby, and strummed on the cwidder for comfort. He did not play any particular song, just snatches of this and a bar or so of that. It seemed to express the state of his feelings. He still found it hard to believe that his father had been a notorious agent. Of all the discoveries of the last few days, that one was hardest to take. He had thought he knew Clennen. Now he saw he had not. He wondered when Dagner had found out and how he had felt. And he made an effort to think of Clennen in this new light.

  But somehow, he did not want to think of his father. He wanted to forget the blood gushing into the lake, and he did not want to consider how Clennen could be so public and so private at one and the same time. Instead, by degrees, Moril took refuge in hazy memories from much earlier. He thought of the cart rolling down a green road in the North. Clennen was singing in the driving seat, Lenina doing some mending beside him, and the three children were playing happily on the lockers
. The sun shone—and, somewhat to his surprise, the cwidder began to produce a muzzy sound. It was a very queer noise. Moril did not like it, and Olob looked round at it disapprovingly.

  “Time for bed,” Moril said to Olob. He got up and went to put the cwidder back in the cart.

  Inside, the cart was hot, and Brid and the wine jar seemed to fill it. Moril hesitated, thinking of the active elbows and knees of Kialan. But he could not bear the heat, so he took a blanket and wriggled into the tent with Kialan.

  Luckily Kialan was so exhausted that he did not move in his sleep. Both he and Moril woke feeling fresher and happier. Brid was the somber one, but she improved after a breakfast of bacon steaks fried by Kialan. Then Moril fetched Olob’s harness to clean. He was determined that their turnout should be as spruce and innocent as he could get it. Kialan, without being asked, went to groom Olob. And Moril realized that not only had Kialan done his full share of the chores ever since they left Markind, but nobody had either noticed or thanked him.

  “You don’t have to do Olob,” he said. “I’ll do him.”

  “Am I supposed to stand around and watch you wear yourself out, or something?” said Kialan. “Move, Olob, you lazy lump.”

  “Well, you used to,” said Brid, scrubbing the frying pan. “And you’re an earl’s son.”

  “I thought I’d get that sooner or later!” Kialan said with his most fed-up look. “I didn’t know what needed doing at first, and there always seemed loads of you to do it, anyway. But if you two are having to earn money now, it’s only fair you don’t do everything else.”

  “Moril,” said Brid, going very somber again, “do you think we really can earn money? I mean, even with Dagner, we sounded so—so thin and pale, didn’t we?”

  “No, you didn’t,” said Kialan, at work on the farther side of Olob. “You just gave a different kind of show. Only I think you made a mistake in not building it round Dagner more. You should have got him to sing again, Brid. He’d have done it in short bursts, and his songs are really good.”