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They went out into the hall, which was full of cooking scents and people standing about waiting for Lord Stair to arrive and start the feast. The big doors were open, blowing in a chilly wind. A lot of noise came from the yard, where everyone else in Adenmouth was gathered at the tables drinking beer until the food arrived. Mitt stood, a little lost among all these strangers.
“Oh, there you are, Mitt!” said Rith’s voice.
Mitt turned and found himself facing an elegant lady. He was utterly dismayed. The only thing that was the same about her was the longish, freckled face with its eager, cheerful look. But that was surrounded by clouds of fair, frizzy hair, done in a most fashionable style, and she had on a slender dress of grey-blue that hung in sheeny folds round a thoroughly female figure. Mitt could see now she was a lot older than he was – eighteen or twenty at least – and that was enough to make him feel a fool. But the thing that dismayed him most was the fact that Noreth was alive, utterly alive, and warm, and a person.
“Come on!” said Noreth. “Where’s your tongue?”
“Er,” said Mitt. “Your ladyship—”
“I told you,” she said, “to call me Rith.”
“Yes,” said Mitt, “but … what were you doing, letting on you were a boy?”
“I always travel like that,” Noreth said. “It’s far quicker and safer than a carriage, and I don’t need to bother to take a guard. My cousin lends me the livery. And I can use the weapons too. You learn to, during grittling. But listen—” To Mitt’s consternation, Noreth reached out and took hold of both his hands. Her hands were strong and warm, but so small they made Mitt’s feel like great cold paws. “I’m very nervous,” she said. She was. Mitt could feel her hands trembling. “There’s something I have to do. Do you know how it feels to do something that means your life will never be the same again?”
“Don’t I just!” Mitt said. He sensed that Navis had come up behind him and was watching Noreth coolly. That reminded him that he had to ask for his share in the statue, but he was too confused to know how to put it.
“I had a feeling you did,” said Noreth. “Listen, could you—” There was a bustle up on the dais. Someone was calling for lamps to be lighted. Noreth looked round. “Oh, here comes my uncle,” she said. “Drunk as usual. I must go. If you could just bear witness about that statue when the time comes?”
“Sure,” said Mitt, “but—”
Noreth let go of him and hurried away. Everyone was surging towards the long tables to sit down. Navis beckoned Mitt to a place beside him, just below the important table on the dais. Mitt found there were advantages to being sent to Adenmouth after all. At Aberath he would have been waiting at the tables with the other boys. Here he was a guest, and he could sit and let boys wait on him. He settled down to enjoy himself. The food was good, though Mitt found he did not much care for the traditional Midsummer sausage. Like so much of the food in the North, it seemed to be mostly oatmeal. But there was venison and pork and chicken and beef as well, oyster patties and plum-and-mutton pies, strawberries, raspberries with syllabub, and sweet soda bread. Ale and spirits were passed round the whole time. The sound of voices became a cheerful roar that almost drowned the even greater din from the yard outside. Mitt ate hugely and became very friendly with the hearthmen at his table. There were a great many jokes about vinegar.
Lord Stair was indeed drunk. It was impossible not to notice. He was a large, sallow man, and he sat sprawling in his chair, eating very little and shouting for more drink. Every so often he complained loudly about the food. Nobody took much notice. If people needed to have orders about anything, they asked Lady Eltruda. It looked as if Lady Eltruda, short and fat and loud as she was, had the same power here that the Countess had in Aberath.
“Indeed she does,” Navis told Mitt. “I owe my position here to Eltruda. I imagine Noreth does too.”
Lady Eltruda was obviously very fond of Noreth. She kept smiling at her proudly.
The feast drew to a close in sweet cream cheeses and sugared fruit, which Mitt was too full to touch. Lord Stair began to get impatient. His voice roared something about “those idle flaming Singers!” and there were terrific clatterings and scrapings from the yard, where the tables were being moved aside. Hestefan got up from a table near the end of the hall and went to stand in the great doorway. With him, to Mitt’s surprise, came Fenna and Moril.
Navis frowned. “I don’t think that girl should be here. Nor the boy. They both look ill to me. But I suppose they have to earn their keep.”
His voice was nearly drowned in cheering and clapping. Nobody else cared two hoots how the Singers felt, for there was going to be dancing. Tables were pushed aside in the hall too. Hestefan slung a narrow drum round his neck, looked to see if Fenna was ready on the portable organ and that Moril had tuned his cwidder, and struck up a strenuous jig. Outside and inside, everyone grabbed a partner and danced.
The dancing went on and on. Mitt at first leant against a table, feeling a little out of things and watching Navis being whirled about by Lady Eltruda. But at the next tune he was grabbed by a young lady in scarlet ribbons, and from then on he danced with the rest. The hall whirled around him, hot and riotous. He kept catching glimpses of Navis dancing with Lady Eltruda, which bothered him slightly, since Lord Stair simply sprawled in a chair and went on drinking. But once or twice he saw Navis dancing with Noreth, in a very courtly way. Mitt would not have dared to dance with Noreth himself. He knew absolutely none of the dances. The young ladies squealed with laughter and pushed him into the right places, and he kept going wrong. Every time his desperate, ignorant caperings got him into a real mess, he seemed to catch the eye of Moril, tirelessly playing his cwidder in the doorway, and there was malicious amusement in Moril’s look. It began to annoy Mitt.
It took Mitt unawares when the Singers suddenly changed to a slow, haunting tune and everyone stopped dancing. For a moment Mitt was the only one capering. Moril grinned. “What’s this tune, then?” Mitt gasped.
“Undying at Midsummer, of course,” said the girl in scarlet ribbons. “It’s nearly midnight.”
Around him dancing partners were breaking apart and the servers were going round with bottles of rare white wine, Southern wine, to welcome midnight with. Someone put three mugs of it down on the steps for the Singers.
Navis bent over his mug, sniffing deeply. “Now this I have missed,” he said to Mitt. “Grapes don’t ripen this far North.”
They exchanged a little smile of pride in the South, even though it had turned them both out. Mitt said wonderingly, “That can’t be the only thing you miss!”
“I think it is,” said Navis. “Life’s never dull up here.” Saying this, he thrust his mug into Mitt’s free hand and dived towards the doorway. He was just in time to catch Fenna as she dropped the heavy organ and passed out. Everybody stared in shock as Navis turned to Hestefan with Fenna draped over his arms. “What were you thinking of, letting this girl play tonight? Couldn’t you see she was ill?”
Hestefan gave him a slow, worried look. “She swore she was well, sir, and we needed her part on the organ. I thank you for catching her so quickly.”
Navis looked at Moril. “And you? Are you quite well?”
Moril’s face did not have much expression, but Mitt could tell that he would not have admitted it to Navis even if he had been playing with all ten fingers broken. “Perfectly, thank you,” Moril said.
Here Lady Eltruda raised her voice. Two women came and took Fenna quickly away. Someone shoved the heavy little organ to the side of the doorway. It was almost midnight. A running crowd of men and women were carrying every lamp and candle in the place and putting them down on the ground in two long lines leading from the gates of the yard, through the yard, up the steps and into a circle in the middle of the hall. It was good luck to place a candle, so everyone fought for the honour except for Lord Stair – and Mitt and Navis, who did not know the custom.
“Let in the Undying!” everyone shouted as the last candle was put in place.
Silence fell, expectantly. From the yard came a strong grating sound as the two big gates were pushed open. At Hestefan’s nod, Moril again played the slow, haunting chords of Undying at Midsummer. To Mitt’s ears he seemed to be playing now in an odd, different way. At any rate, there was a queer humming building under the notes. A damp breeze blew in from the yard, where it was probably raining again, bending all the candle flames. A great wavering shadow advanced across the floor and grew up the wall beyond.
Flaming Ammet! Mitt thought, with shivers spreading up his back. I think something really is coming in!
But the shadow shortened and fell, and Mitt saw it had been caused by Hestefan advancing up the lane of lights, carrying a small treble cwidder. When Hestefan reached the circle of lights, he turned round and called out, “Welcome the Undying to this house, for this night and the coming year!” Then he played the same slow tune on his cwidder. Mitt wondered why it sounded so much more ordinary now.
A growl of voices welcomed the Undying too. The custom seemed to be to tip your mug and let a few drops of wine splash on the floor. Navis looked at Mitt. Mitt shrugged. And they both spilt some wine as well, with a private murmur to Libby Beer. After that the feast broke up into groups loudly wishing one another luck for the year. It looked for a minute or so as if things were nearly over.
But suddenly everyone was shouting, “Noreth! Noreth! Noreth, has your sign come?” as Noreth came to stand in the circle of candles beside Hestefan. She was carrying the golden statue, and she held it up for everyone to see.
“Here is my sign,” she called out.
Navis murmured to Mitt, “You can say goodbye to your half of it, I think.” A number of people were cheering, although Lord Stair was saying loudly in the distance, “Is that girl up to her nonsense again?”
“Hush!” someone said.
Noreth called out again. “Will my uncle’s lawman please come and stand by me? I wish to make a statement in the proper form of law.”
There was a lot of grumbling from the back. One of the men who had been at the high table, rather unsteady on his feet and very embarrassed, came and joined Noreth. She left the circle of light and walked down the lane of candles with him to the door. “I want everyone to hear,” she explained to the lawman as they came past Mitt. “Tell me if I say anything wrong.” Mitt could feel her shaking with the importance of what she was going to do. It made his stomach give a cold jerk.
“You know ash mush law ash me,” the lawman complained, but he went and stood by Noreth as she took up a position in the doorway where she could speak to the people outside as well as those in the hall. The two of them pushed Moril right back to the side of the door. Mitt could see him there, looking awed.
Noreth said, loudly and slowly, “I, Noreth of Kredindale, do this night state and affirm that I am the rightful Queen and heir to the crown of Dalemark, over both North and South and the peoples of both.”
It really is true, Mitt thought sadly. The lawman leant across and murmured to Noreth.
“Oh yes. Thanks,” said Noreth. “And over all earldoms and marks therein, not excluding the earls of those marks and the lords under them. This claim I make through my mother, Eleth of Kredindale, descendant in direct line from Manaliabrid of the Undying, and also by right of my father, the One, whose true names are not to be spoken, and from whom all Kings descend. In proof of this my right, my father promised me a token at Midsummer this year, and this promise he kept. This is the token.” She held the golden statue up over the nearest lamps so that it could be seen. “Who witnesses,” she called out, “that the River Aden today gave me this golden image of my father, the One?”
Mitt jumped and looked round for somewhere to hide. But Noreth turned and looked at him as she spoke. He sighed and pushed his way to the doorway. “If I’d known what you meant when you asked,” he said, “I’d have gone straight back to Aberath.”
The lawman said, “Do you witnesh thish?” and swayed a little.
“Sure,” Mitt said bitterly. If Keril and the Countess had arranged personally for the landslip, they could hardly have pushed him into this any deeper. “I trod on the statue halfway across the brook. She picked it up. That do?”
Noreth replied with an eager, flustered smile. Her hands were still shaking as she held up the statue. She was truly nervous. She was not doing this because she was mad but because she saw it as her duty, as perhaps it was. Mitt felt himself bound to give her a smile in return before he edged away. Beyond Noreth he could see the Singer-lad staring at him resentfully. Now what does he think I’ve done? Mitt thought irritably.
“I call on you all,” Noreth said, “to support me in my right. Today at dawn, it being Midsummer Day, I go to ride the green roads until I come to where the crown is hidden, and there I shall be crowned Queen. Let whoever wishes to ride with me and support my claim meet me at the waystone above the quarry at sunrise today.”
There was another silence, which was followed by a surge of murmurs, half doubtful, half enthusiastic. Navis whispered to Mitt, “Well, there seems only one thing we can do now.” Mitt nodded, but his attention was on Moril in the doorway. He could almost feel the boy making some kind of decision. Sure enough, Moril put his hands to his cwidder and struck up the tune called The King’s Way. Hestefan looked surprised but took the tune up on his cwidder too, and walked between the two lines of guttering candles to join Moril. Moril, leaning over, plucked once again in the odd and different way. The humming gathered and gathered behind the tune, until it had become more than simply a rousing song. Mitt could quite clearly feel a serious purpose booming behind the notes. Everyone sang:
“Who will ride the King’s Way,
the King’s Way?
Who will ride the royal road
and follow with the King?”
There was a certain amount of muddle as about half the people tried to sing “Queen” instead of “King”, but the singing was truly lusty. It seemed to affect Mitt’s head, either the singing or the queer boom of Moril’s cwidder, and his memory went a bit faulty after that. He remembered Noreth, glowing in the doorway, holding the glinting statue for everyone to see as they sang. He remembered glancing uneasily at Navis because this song was banned in the South, and finding, to his confusion, that Navis was singing with the rest. Mitt knew the song because he had been a freedom fighter, but Navis was an earl’s son, for Ammet’s sake!
Next thing he knew, he was back in Navis’s room, where Navis seemed to be persuading him to get into bed. Mitt interrupted what he was saying – he seemed to be repeating with great earnestness, “This is serious, Navis, she was serious!” – in order to protest that he didn’t need to sleep.
“Please yourself,” Navis said. “It’s only a few hours to sunrise anyway.” Mitt had a confused notion that Navis went away then, saying he had a lot of things to do, and he knew Navis did not come back until the next thing he knew, which was Navis shaking him awake in grey dawn.
“What is it now?” Mitt said.
“Time to get up,” Navis said. “You and I are going to ride the green roads with Noreth.”
“Whatever for?” protested Mitt. “I told you I—”
“Can you think of a better way to keep Hildy and Ynen safe until we get to them?” Navis asked. “You were told to join Noreth. Keril will assume you are doing what you are told. Now get up.”
Mitt got up – luckily he still seemed to be dressed – and shortly stumbled out into old food and beer smells in the hall. His bedroll was on the nearest table alongside one for Navis. Navis was just beyond, with his arms round someone, evidently kissing that person goodbye. For a moment Mitt thought it was Noreth and was outraged. Then the girl – no, woman, no, lady – stood back with her hands on Navis’s shoulders, and Mitt saw it was Lady Eltruda. He stood there in even greater outrage. How could Navis! An elderly woman. A married woman. Taking advantage of Lord Stair being a drunk!
“Take care of my girl for me, love,” Lady Eltruda said to Navis. “I trust her to you. She’s the only child I ever had.”
“I’ll look after her, I promise,” Navis said, and smiled in what Mitt thought was altogether too loving a way.
At that moment Noreth herself rushed into the hall, once more dressed as a hearthman. “Aunt, where’s my bedroll? Aunt! Oh!” she said as she saw how her aunt was occupied. She made a face at Mitt that showed that she felt much the same as he did about it. “I’d better go and look in the stable,” she said. “I don’t think I ever unpacked. Are you riding with me?”
Mitt nodded.
“Oh good!” Noreth said, and raced away outside.
PART TWO (#ulink_8a1f0c1e-1faa-5ed7-a29d-13f8ae0ede67)
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MAEWEN CAME BACK to the present with a jump. For a moment there it had seemed as if the noise of the train was not the beat of wheels on tracks, but the sound of water rilling over stones. She had almost seemed to see young leaves rustling overhead, casting a mix of sunspots and shadow on the racing water. In the confusion of glints she could have sworn there was a brighter glint, hands diving for the brightness, voices, and then the brightness taking the form of a dripping golden statuette.
Nonsense, of course. She must have dropped off to sleep while the train was rushing into this deep green cutting – such a deep one that there was no sign of the mountains beyond – and the glint had to be the gold buttons of the guard, just passing on his regular walk down the corridors. The guard smiled gravely at Maewen with his head cocked to one side. Was she all right?
Maewen managed a sort of smile, and the guard passed on. She prickled all over with embarrassment again. It was too bad of Aunt Liss. Mum would just have given Maewen a vague kiss and waved goodbye, but Aunt Liss, being the practical sister, had had to collar the guard and explain loudly and at length. “This is my niece’s first-ever train journey. She’s going all the way to Kernsburgh to visit her father and I don’t like to think of her going all that way without someone to keep an eye on her. Could you make sure she’s all right? Can I leave her in your tender care?”
And so on for five minutes, while Maewen wished she were anywhere else and hoped the other four passengers in the carriage were all deaf. As if she were ten years old instead of nearly fourteen! The worst of it was that the guard was quite young and rather good-looking. He probably did think Maewen was only ten. She was unfortunately small for her age. He listened seriously to Aunt Liss and eventually took his cap off, baring his beautiful white-fair curls, and bowed slightly.
“Thank you, madam. You can safely leave your niece to me.”
Looking back on it, Maewen wondered if the guard hadn’t been making fun of Aunt Liss, but it hadn’t seemed like that at the time, and Maewen had spent the entire space between Adenmouth and Kredindale trying to hide her hot face and squirming all over.
The silly part was that Maewen usually got on with Aunt Liss, better than with Mum. Aunt Liss was the one who cared. While Mum wandered in her studio covering her strange gawky statues with metal rags and splashes of bright colour, deaf and blind to the world, Aunt Liss made sure Maewen had meals and clothes and – most important of all to Maewen – a horse to ride. Aunt Liss earned day-to-day money by running a livery stable. When Mum sold a statue, she earned big money, but that only happened—
“Are you travelling far, young lady?” asked the passenger opposite, making her jump again. He must have got on the train at Orilsway or somewhere. She looked at him, trying to remember, and decided she must have been asleep when he got on because she had certainly not noticed him before. He was one of those wide kind of old men who are almost bell-shaped sitting down. He had a sheet of wriggly grey hair on either side of his wide, plump face. Maewen was not sure she liked the way his eyes were half hooded in fat eyelids – it made him look cunning and rather cruel – but his question had been perfectly polite, and she supposed she had better answer.
“Just to Kernsburgh.”
“Indeed?” he said. “And where did you get on?”
“Adenmouth,” said Maewen.
“From the furthest north,” said the old man, “halfway down the country to King Hern’s city of gold. That is a momentous journey, child. At one time it was the royal road to the crown of Dalemark.” He chuckled in a windy, breathy way. “And what brings you on the paths of the Undying?”
What a silly way to talk! Maewen thought. There are people who travel between Adenmouth and Kernsburgh every day of the week. “I’m going to visit my father,” she said. Up to this moment she had secretly thought this was the greatest adventure of her life, but thanks to this old man, it was suddenly ordinary and boring. “For the holidays,” she added drearily.
“Your father,” said the old man, in a breathy sort of pounce, “works away from home? In Kernsburgh? Eh?”
“Yes,” said Maewen.
“You travel to see him often?”
“No,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve been.” And she wished she could end this conversation. She did not like the old man’s voice. There was something odd about it.
“Ah, I see. He’s only just gone to work in Kernsburgh, is that it? Eh?”
“No. He’s worked there for the last seven years.” What was so odd about his voice? It almost seemed as if the sound was not coming from the old man at all but from somewhere else quite a long way away. Perhaps he was one of those people who had had surgery on his larynx and had to use a false voice box, in which case he was unfortunate and she ought to be polite to him. Maewen tried to explain without giving away her entire family history. “I haven’t seen him since I was – was a lot younger.” She really did not want to tell him her age, which he would know if she told him her parents had been divorced when she was seven.
“Now why is that?” the old man asked. “Do your parents perhaps not get on? They seem to have lived a long way apart for most of your life.”
Cheek! Maewen thought. It’s none of his business. “My mother,” she explained haughtily, “is a sculptor who prefers to work near the stone she uses. And my father is a very busy man. He’s Head Curator of the Tannoreth Palace.”
“Ah,” said the old man. She really did not like his half-hooded eyes. She looked away. “So you are truly on your way to the royal palace?” he said. He seemed very pleased. “And travelling all on your own until we met, eh? Now you can travel with me.” He leant forwards. The carriage seemed full of his wheezing breath, as if it were coming from outside into him, instead of the right way.
For one horrid moment Maewen thought he was going to pat her knee. She surged herself right to the back of her seat, but that did not seem nearly far enough away.
“I will be with you from now on,” he said, leaning at her. “Think of me as a friend.”
No! Help! Maewen thought. She looked at the other passengers. Three were asleep, and the other was deep in a book. She thought of putting her feet up and kneeling sideways out of reach of the old man’s fat hand hovering to pat her. And the guard only just went past, she thought, so it’ll be hours before he comes back again.
“Look me in the eyes,” said the old man, “and tell me you think of me as a friend.”
His face seemed to be right in front of hers, filling all she could see. Maewen shut her eyes. Let the guard come! she prayed. Let somebody help!
And here, like a miracle, the carriage door was sliding back and the guard’s solemn good-looking face was leaning round it. “Are you all right in here?”
“I … oh … yes … no … he—” Stop stammering and say he tried to pat your knee, you fool! “He—” Maewen turned to point at the seat opposite and found herself stammering again, this time with astonished embarrassment. The seat was empty. A quick look round the carriage showed her that there were only four passengers, three asleep, one reading. “But he … there was … I thought an old man … I mean—”
The guard shifted his head to look gravely at the empty seat. “I don’t think he’ll bother you again,” he said, perfectly straight-faced and polite, and he shut the door and went away.
Maewen sat back hot and squirming, worse than before. If one more thing happens with that guard, I think I shall die! She must have fallen asleep and dreamt the old man. What had possessed her to have a sinister little dream like that? Probably, deep down, she was terrified of seeing Dad again. Determined to stay awake from now on, she sat looking out at the mountains, dun-coloured shoulders, green steeps, black crags and blue jagged distances spinning past as the train thundered through the centre of North Dalemark. She thought firmly of Dad, to conquer her nerves. He had written over and over again to ask Maewen to visit him. He must really want to see her. But Mum just said irritably that she was not letting Maewen go until she was old enough to take care of herself. “Because he’s quite likely to forget you exist after half a day,” she said. “You’d starve or worse.” She went on to a tirade about how wrapped up Dad was in his work.
