Maewen tried not to sigh. But then people did not get made Duke of Kernsburgh by being easy to distract. The trouble was, she had no more idea than Navis did. “I think,” she said, “that the best person to ask is Hestefan. Singers always know more about these things.”
“I shall,” said Navis. “But you are aware, are you, that none of the earls are going to take kindly to our wandering the green roads like this? Three months will give them ample time to deal with your claim.”
Maewen knew he was right. She had been wondering whether to answer this one by saying piously that the One would provide, but she had a feeling that Navis would simply laugh at that. So she did the only other thing she could think of and smiled a secretive, knowing smile—or she hoped it was—and then asked Navis how he came to be in the North.
He had had an adventurous escape from some kind of danger in Holand, she gathered, though as he would only talk about it lightly, in scraps, as if it were a joke rather than a flight for his life. Maewen never quite understood what the danger had been. He had met Mitt for the first time in the Holy Islands. “Mitt appeared to be having dealings with the Undying. Quite beyond my depth,” Navis said lightly.
He was so easy to distract that Maewen felt rather sad. She knew he was letting her change the subject, and that had to mean that Navis did not really care what they did in the next three months. Someone like Navis was not going to join this expedition without some other, personal reason. Maewen suspected that he and Mitt were going to leave and go off on their own as soon as that personal reason led them in a different direction.
“Don’t worry, Noreth,” Navis said. “I promised your aunt I would take care of you. I intend to see you right.”
Maewen was still surprised by this when they stopped for the night. The road had plunged them back into the heart of the mountains again, through narrow places full of pine trees, then out again into a sort of crossroads in the green ways. It was a large, lumpy meadow among the crags with quite a number of way-stones round the edge. They camped in a flat space among the lumps. People obviously used it regularly. There was a fireplace, a surprisingly clean latrine pit, and sort of caves scraped in some of the humps for sleeping in.
“Where is this?” Mitt asked while Moril was lighting a fire with the bag of coal the miners had given them.
Wend answered, but he spoke to Maewen as if Mitt was just a servitor. “This is Orilsway, lady.” Orilsway! Maewen thought. But I went through this in the train. It was a town! “It is the northern crossway,” Wend explained, pointing to the various waystones. “That leads to Aberath, and that to central parts, with Hannart at the end. Southeasterly, you may go by Ansdale and Loviath, to Gardale and beyond, but I take it, lady, we’ll be wanting the way down the end there that goes south to Dropwater.”
Maewen looked up at Wend’s serious face. Always serious. Why can’t he unbend a little? she thought irritably. “I’m considering,” she said. “I’ll tell you which way in the morning.”
Supper was fresh bread, curd cheese, and pickled cherries. Mitt loved pickled cherries. It was not a thing he had met in the South. But Navis spit his first and only one into the fire. “I take it the cherry crop was large in Kredindale,” he said. “They should have left it for the birds. Hestefan, tell us about the Adon’s gifts.”
Hestefan looked up from the other side of the fire. “These are well known to everyone in the North,” he said.
“But not to me,” said Navis. “Or Mitt.”
Mitt threw a handful of cherry stones on the fire. “Speak for yourself, Navis. They’re supposed to be the things Manaliabrid gave the Adon in her dowry. There’s a sword and a cup and a ring, and the Countess has got the ring in that old collection of hers, back in Aberath.”
“And the cup’s in the One’s chapel at the Lawschool in Gardale,” Moril said. “I saw it when I went to see my sister.”
“The sword is in Dropthwaite,” said Wend. “It is well hidden, but I have seen it.”
“And would they answer to the true Queen?” Navis asked Hestefan. “Tankol seemed to think they would, and he’s the sort of practical man I’m inclined to believe.”
Hestefan had been looking from one to the other, for all the world, Maewen thought, like a schoolmaster who had come prepared to teach and found his class knew all the answers. He had reminded her of a schoolmaster ever since she first saw him—Dr. Loviath, who taught her physics last year, that’s who he was like! He said, in exactly Dr. Loviath’s repressive way, “There are various kinds of hearsay about the gifts—nothing I have seen myself and nothing anyone is known to have proved.”
Mitt, who thought Hestefan was a right stick, took up another handful of cherries and said, “Alk told me the ring always fits the right one’s finger. He says it fits the Countess, and not him, because she’s descended from the Adon. Mind you, it’s a small ring. And you should see the size of Alk’s fingers!”
“So that is not proven,” Hestefan said, frowning. “Singers are bound only to tell the truth. I can say nothing more.”
Moril seemed puzzled. “Yes, but we can tell what people say,” he said. “And I know they say that only the Adon’s true heir can draw the sword.”
“I can say nothing more,” Hestefan repeated.
Maewen tried to smooth things over by asking, “Can you tell me something I’ve always wondered? Was the Adon of the Undying?”
It did not work. Hestefan stared at her rather as he had stared before, when she told him to come out of his dream. Then he said grudgingly, “I think not, though he was of their blood. He died twice, you know.”
Chalk up two more of us who don’t get on, Maewen thought. Hestefan and me. Thoroughly disgruntled, she got up and went to sit on top of a hump some distance away, where she watched the last of the light fading from the highest peaks. The sky was still silvery, but the mountains were bluer and bluer. Over the other way the campfire made it seem quite dark. What was the matter with her? Why should it bother her that nobody in the group got on? She was only a fraud and a substitute, who was in danger of making history go in circles after this afternoon.
That seemed to be it. This afternoon she had done something which really would affect history, and because of that, whether it was impossible or not, she wanted this mad venture of Noreth’s to succeed. She wanted to take it and make it work. Maybe, when the time came, she would not tamely hand over to Amil the Great. That would be changing history indeed—if only she could think how to do it.
“You dealt very shrewdly with those miners,” the deep echoing voice remarked in her ear. “My advice has not been wasted on you.”
Maewen jumped and looked round carefully. For as far as she could see in the gloaming, she was alone on her damp green hillock. She could see Navis, Hestefan, and Wend over in the orange light of the fire. Besides, she knew their voices now, and it was none of those three who had spoken. Moril’s voice was still a husky treble, and Mitt’s tended to crack and rumble. It was that ghost again. Ghosts cannot hurt one, but Maewen did not like the bluish wafts of mist that were gathering in the spaces between the hummocks. She got up casually and started to go back to the fire.
“Now you must acquire the Adon’s gifts,” the voice said, still at her ear. She walked faster, but it was still at her ear, sending deep, deep vibrations through her. “Find the Adon’s gifts. They will prove your claim. They will also give your followers a purpose, and your search will confuse the earls.”
This was exactly the idea that Maewen had been fumbling for in her own mind. Perhaps this voice was part of her mind. That made it worse. “I’ll consider it,” she said, and fled.
By the fire everyone seemed to be getting up and settling for the night. But there was no sign of Moril. Moril was the one Maewen wanted. She needed some more magic from that cwidder. She thought she heard it, twanging gently, beyond one of the hummocks to the right. She swerved and ran that way, over a hump and down the other side, where she very nearly trod on Mitt, sitting rath
er as she had been sitting herself.
Mitt sprang up with a hoarse squawk. Maewen yelled.
“Thank you very much!” Mitt said. “That’s all I need for a perfect day!”
“Is anything the matter?” Navis called from the fireside.
“Nothing,” Mitt called back. “Just saddlesore. Vinegar!” he said disgustedly to Maewen. “He made me sit in vinegar. Maybe I’d be worse without it, but it doesn’t do your temper any good, I can tell you! And then you come charging over this mound. What’s up? You seem a bit off from yesterday.”
“I was wanting Moril,” Maewen said.
“He’s off over here somewhere,” Mitt said. They wandered that way together, between two lines of vague dark mounds. “Looks a bit like a street,” Mitt remarked. “I shouldn’t wonder if this wasn’t a town once. What do you want Moril for?”
It was soothing wandering between hummocks with Mitt. Maewen found it much easier than she had expected to say, “I’m being haunted. A ghost keeps speaking to me, and Moril helped last time.”
Mitt was truly puzzled. “What do you mean, a ghost? Last night you were saying it was the One, your father, who spoke to you. Or is this another voice?”
Help! thought Maewen. Why didn’t Wend tell me?
“It’s—it’s always very alarming when he does,” she said.
“That’s the Undying for you,” said Mitt. “What did he say?”
How can he be so matter-of-fact? Maewen wondered. Even for two hundred years ago. But she remembered what Navis had told her. Mitt knew what he was talking about. “He said I ought to have the Adon’s gifts,” she said. She wanted to ask Mitt if he thought the voice was really the One’s, but Noreth seemed to have told him already that it was, so she could hardly do that. Instead she said, “If this is Orilsway, Aberath is only a little way to the north. I can go and get the ring from there tomorrow.”
Mitt laughed. It was a hacking, unhappy noise. “You’ll be lucky! They’d cut your throat on the spot, girl. I know. I know that Countess.”
Maewen began, “But—” Then she saw that Mitt, once again, probably knew what he was talking about. Two hundred years before she was born, people really did cut throats. Earls could get away with it then. She changed her objection to “But I need that ring. What should I do?”
“I’ll get it for you,” said Mitt. It seemed obvious to him that this was what Noreth was angling for. And it ought to be child’s play. “I was looking at that ring only two days ago,” he explained. “I know just where it is. If I go off now, I can sneak in while it’s dark and pick it up with no one any the wiser.”
“But you’re saddlesore,” Maewen protested. “And your horse isn’t fresh.”
“Teach that horse a lesson,” Mitt said blithely. “And I’m not that bad. I was just having a moan.”
He was lying a bit about the soreness. Ouch! Flaming Ammet! he thought as he mounted the surprised and reluctant Countess-horse. But he kept his mouth shut. Noreth’s face, which he could see as a pale, anxious oval, was lifted toward him from beside the hummock he had used to mount. She was worrying, anyway. As he set off beside the half-seen waystone that marked the road to Aberath, he thought that she would have to give over this habit she seemed to have of worrying about everyone. She’d go off her head with it if she got to be Queen.
The green road, as they all seemed to be, was level and smooth and surprisingly easy to follow in the dark. The Undying did a good job, Mitt thought, if it was them who made the roads. And he was pleased to find that after years of indoors work, he had not lost the knack he had learned as a fisher lad of finding his way in the night. You did it the way they said bats did, mostly. Sort of by feel. Whenever the road turned, he could feel the air pressing off the bigger bulks of rock, and he knew to veer left or right, even when he could not see the pale grayishness of the track. The Countess-horse, to be fair to it, had the same knack, when it consented to go.
It made quite a fuss at first. After a mile of head tossing, loitering, and pretending to go lame, and hearty cursing from Mitt, it chose to surprise him by consenting to go. They thudded on at a fair pace. Mitt, in order not to think of the trouble he might be in if he got caught at the mansion, tried to work out why he was going off to get this ring for Noreth.
It might have belonged to the Adon, but whatever Alk said, Mitt was fairly sure it was just a ring. The Northerners could believe in these things if it made them happy, but Mitt had been brought up by the practical Hobin, making guns for a living in Holand, and he knew that the only virtue that ever got into a piece of metal was fine, careful workmanship.
Right. That was the ring. Did he believe the One wanted Noreth to have it?
Mitt had a little more difficulty here. He had never met this One the Northerners made so much of. Or had he? Mitt narrowed his eyes into the mild wind of the night as he remembered finding the golden statue and that great deep voice crying, “There!” That had surely not been Noreth shouting. Well, keep an open mind there. But would the greatest of the Undying be that bothered about a ring?
You could say it was Mitt himself bothering. If he took this ring, it would prove to the Countess that Mitt was not her hired murderer. That could be true. But it was fairly clear to Mitt that he was riding through the night like this simply because Noreth thought she needed the ring. That nervous, freckly look of hers made you want to do things for her. So you did them. And then trusted to Navis to get them all out of the consequences, Mitt added to himself as he came out beside the waystone above Aberath.
The Countess-horse knew where they were. It slithered gladly down the raked track to the town. Mitt was almost sorry for its disappointment when he dragged it over to the woods beyond the first fields and—to its incredulity—left it tied to a tree. It made its feeling plain, quite loudly, and several other horses answered it from stables in the town.
“Shut up!” Mitt told it. “Be quiet or I’ll bite you for a change!”
He ran away round the fields toward the cliff. Reproachful horse noises followed him for a minute and then stopped with a sigh Mitt could hear even at that distance. He grinned and ran with long strides. His legs ached from being wrapped round a horse so long and it was good to stretch them in spite of his soreness. He supposed he had vinegar to thank that he could run at all. He only stopped running when he was looking down at the pale heaving sea. There he paused to speak to the Undying he did know.
“Alhammitt,” he said. “Old Ammet. Do you hear me? I’d be much obliged if you and Libby Beer could keep an eye on me in the mansion. If I get caught there, quite a few people are going to be in trouble.”
There was no sign from the glimmering sea, but Mitt felt better as he hurried along the clifftop to the place where all the children regularly scrambled round the wall. He nipped round, quietly and carefully, and there he was out in the space by Alk’s shed. It was so easy Mitt could hardly believe it.
It went on being easy. Mitt slithered in among the buildings of the mansion, from well-known spot to well-known spot, and not a person moved or a sound disturbed the place except for the faint crunch of his own feet when he crossed the gravel court in front of the library. There were one or two dim lights in some of the upper windows. Otherwise he would have thought the place was empty. It reminded him of times in Holand when he sneaked into strange places with a forbidden message. In fact, it was too much like that. The mansion did not feel like anywhere he had ever lived anymore. Nor was it now, he thought ruefully, as his feet carefully inched through the dark archway and met the flight of stairs up to the library.
At the top his hand met the door and found the handle. Gently, gently, he turned the great latch ring and pushed the door open on the woody, booky mustiness inside. It was so dark in there that he realized he was going to have to find the glass case where the ring was by memory and feel. But since he was going to have to break the glass and someone might hear, he shut the door behind him as gently as he had opened it. He took a step into the room.<
br />
Cree-eak.
“Flaming Ammet!” Mitt muttered. “Wish I’d remembered how noisy this dratted floor was!”
Light came on, blindingly, with a metal clapping sound.
9
Mitt did not even feel despair. He felt dead. He was caught, as he had always known he would be one of these days. He simply stood, blinking to see through the light, wondering if it was only the Countess lying in wait for him or Earl Keril as well.
The light was a dark lantern standing on the selfsame case he had intended to rob. When Mitt tore his eyes sideways from it, he could see the bilious visage of the Adon’s portrait, still on its easel. Beside that, in a big dark wood chair, Alk was sitting, bulky and blinking. Either the light had blinded him, too, or he had been asleep—asleep was most likely, because Alk yawned before he spoke.
“I told you,” he said, “not to do anything stupid until you’d talked to me. Did you shut the door?”
Mitt nodded.
“Then come over here,” said Alk.
Mitt went, still without any word to say, over several miles of violently creaking floor, until he was beside the table and the glass case, and in front of Alk’s chair. Alk put out a beefy hand and carefully closed down the iron shutter of the lantern until the library was nothing but shadows all round them.
“Now stand over there,” Alk said, pointing the other beefy hand.
Mitt moved, regretfully, away from the table and the glass case, and stood at the edge of the pool of light, beside the easel. Alk was alone, but this was no comfort. Mitt knew very well how quick and strong Alk was. Alk had put him where it was impossible for Mitt to get to the door before Alk did.
“Doing a bit of studying tonight,” Alk remarked, yawning again. “Or so I told my Countess. I had a bit of a conversation with her, like I told you I would, and I wasn’t pleased with what she had to say at all. To put it bluntly, as soon as Keril was out of the way, we had words—which is not a thing we’ve ever had before.” He blinked at Mitt, as sleepy and glum and grim as Mitt had ever seen him. “What do you think about that? You being the cause of those words.”
The Crown of Dalemark Page 10
