The Crown of Dalemark (15 page)

8

“Congratulations, Noreth,” Navis said as they rode away from Kredindale. Behind them Hestefan's cart was laboring and creaking with its load of provisions. “Tell me, do you intend to call for an army in every dale we pass?”

Maewen had been afraid he was going to ask her that. While Mitt and Navis had been riding about choosing cheeses and bags of oats, and rejecting numbers of skinny upside-down hens, Maewen had put in quite a bit of thought. “I don't think so,” she said judiciously. “Kredindale was special. Now they know I'm calling for an army, word will get round.”

“I admire your faith,” said Navis. “So we—”

“And I admire the way you got all the food organized,” Maewen said quickly, to stop him saying what she knew he was going to say next.

“Think nothing of it. I was an officer in Holand before you were born,” said Navis. “Although,” he added thoughtfully, “it was last year in Adenmouth that really taught me to do ten things at once.” Then, just as Maewen was sure she had distracted him, Navis went on, “But as I was about to say, your plan is that we spend the intervening months searching for certain objects with which to bolster your claim? Just what are these Adon's gifts?”

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 rather 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?”