The Crown of Dalemark (44 page)

She backed away and worked her way out to the exit. And caught the eye of another portrait, one she had never bothered to do more than glance at before. A woman. A thin white-faced woman with black hair piled up high and an angry little frown between the eyebrows. Hildy. O great
One
! Misery came thundering down on Maewen again, more than she had thought possible—and here she had thought she was as full of it as she could be. Memories came with the misery: Mitt brushing at the damp patch of her tears in the Lawschool; the straight, greasy feel of Mitt's hair when she put the crown back on him; the incredible knuckliness of Mitt's hands….

Maewen caught up with herself to find she was racing upstairs again, pushing past a big party of tourists and then another, and then hammering on upward alone. By the time she flung through the doorway of the palace office, she hardly had breath left to pant. She leaned against the wall to recover, watching the usual frenzy, people rushing all over, papers being passed, typing, telephones ringing. Dad sensed she was there. He put down a telephone to turn to her over his shoulder and raise his chin inquiringly.

That pose!
Now
Maewen knew whom Navis had all along reminded her of. Both of them were short men. And just like Dad, Navis was in his element giving orders and attending to a thousand things at once. No wonder Mitt had made Navis a duke and let him organize the kingdom! Dad saw she needed something and came over to the door. That was like Navis, too.

“What's the matter, Maewen?”

Nothing, she wanted to say. I'm only in love with a King who died over a hundred years ago. Stupid. Keep your mouth shut. “Dad, who did Amil the Great marry?”

He raised an eyebrow, although unlike Navis, he could not do it without raising the other eyebrow slightly, too. “Is this important? All right, I see it is. Well, she was never very prominent. She seems to have been rather a retiring character, because very little is known about her apart from the fact that she was very tall, and I believe she was also very kind-hearted—”

“Her
name
, Dad!” Maewen said. “Not a lecture.”

“Didn't I say?” He was surprised. “Enblith—though she is
not
, of course, to be confused with Enblith the Fair.”

“Thanks.”

Fancy that! Maewen thought as she ran away downstairs. Biffa!
Biffa!
Well, Mitt had shown some sense, at least! And it was really a very good choice, she thought, patrolling round the museum gallery while she waited for Kankredin to show himself. Biffa was nice—so nice, in fact, that it was entirely likely that Mitt had lived happily ever after. Maewen tried to feel glad. But in moments she was saying, “I expect he forgot about me entirely after a day or so. I don't suppose he thought about me
once
in the rest of his life.”

Her voice rang out, peevish and hurt. Don't be so ridiculous! she told herself. Kings have to marry. Besides, he
had
to remember you in order to get the waystone changed to a huge one, like I told Moril it was. And—well, the waystone was not really a message, since it
had
to be there—but Maewen stood suddenly stock-still, wondering if Mitt might not indeed have left her a message, buried in history. She was on her way upstairs again, before the idea had had time to be fully formed.

“Dad!” she said from the office doorway.

Dad was reading a bundle of papers, but he came over to her. “Yes?”

“Dad, how did the Tannoreth Palace get its name?”

“Amil named it,” Dad said. “I'm sure I told you the first day you were here. Nobody knows quite where he got it from. The first part,
tan,
is the old word for ‘young' or ‘younger,' and we assume Amil was thinking of Hern's old palace, which may have been on the same site.”

“And the
noreth
part?” Maewen asked.

“Nobody knows. It seems to be just a name—Maewen, forgive me, but I
must
get this read before the Queen's Office phones me.”

Maewen galloped away downstairs again, thinking, Young Noreth—no, the
younger Noreth
! Not Noreth, but the one who was younger. Great One! He named a whole palace after me, and I'll never be able to say thank you! It made her eyes prick, and it warmed the heavy hurt inside her without making it any better. She walked twice round the gallery, hugging Mitt's message to her. Then there were other things that she just had to know. Upstairs she dashed again.

“Dad!”

She forgot how many times she rushed up to the office or quite what order she asked the other questions in. Each time Dad was surprisingly patient—like Navis, if you really needed something. Or was it, in some confusing way, that Navis had had some kind of family feeling for Maewen? One of the first things she asked was, “Dad, who did the Duke of Kernsburgh marry?”

Dad frowned. “I really don't remember the name of his first wife. But his second wife was the widow of the Lord of Adenmouth.” He clicked his fingers. “What
was
her name? Eltruda, that was it!”

“Thanks, Dad.” Noreth's aunt. It all fits. And downstairs again to patrol round the gallery.

Upon one of her reappearances in the office, one of Dad's young ladies handed her a cheese roll, saying it was lunchtime. Maewen had no appetite. She carried the roll about as she patrolled. She was carrying it when she saw Wend coming and fled from him up to the office again. There she had to stop and eat the roll, chokingly, for fear of offending the young lady.

“Dad, who did Hild—er, the Duke of Kernsburgh's eldest daughter marry?”

“Hildrida. Dear me. That family seems to be an obsession with you,” Dad said. “I really can't remember. She certainly
did
marry, because her descendants are still Wardens of the Holy Islands, but—Not that Hildrida ever spent much time in the Islands. Amil was there far oftener, and so was Hildrida's brother, Ynen, building up our navy. That was when Dalemark first became a big sea power, you know. Ynen tried out the first steamships there.”

Bless Dad and his lectures! Maewen thought. You always got twice the answers you asked for. Sometimes on her visits to the office she got more than she wanted, like the lecture she got when she asked who Hobin was. That lecture started, “You mean Bloody Hobin of Holand? He was the center of the uprising in the South at the start of Amil's reign. Like so many revolutionaries, he got quite out of hand….” Maewen did not attend to this one much, because it was all about Hobin and nothing about Amil.

But there were times when she got next to nothing, as when she asked, “Moril the Singer, Dad? Does history say anything about him?”

“No,” Dad said. “I never heard of him.”

“Hestefan the Singer, then?”

“Nope,” said Dad. “You must remember that things changed very fast in Amil's reign. Singers were right out of date by the time Amil died.”

Poor Moril. Next time Maewen charged upstairs, she asked, “Earl Keril of Hannart, Dad. Was he a great nuisance to Amil the Great?”

Eyebrows up, like the image of Navis, Dad said, “Are you writing a historical novel or something? Far be it from me to discourage such a venture. But let it be accurate, please. Earl Keril supported Amil, like most earls of the North, but he never seems to have been very deep in Amil's confidence. Historians usually put Hannart's decline down to this period.”

“Thanks.” Oh. So history had Keril as just a politician who backed the wrong move. Right, in a way, but so wrong, too.

Maewen went thoughtfully away. She was tired. Today had literally lasted two hundred years. But even if she could have borne to sit and wait for Kankredin, Maewen's misery would not let her keep still. She patrolled wider and wider, through most of the palace by the afternoon.

Halfway through the afternoon the loudspeaker outlets crackled all over the palace. Here it comes! Maewen thought, and stood stock-still where she was, between two state bedrooms.

“Attention. Your attention, please.” It was Major Alksen's voice. “A bomb has been reported concealed on the palace premises. I repeat. A bomb has been reported somewhere in the palace or grounds. I must ask everyone to leave as quickly and quietly as possible. This applies to all visitors and staff alike. Please leave the palace and its grounds as quickly as you can. Doors and gates have been opened front and rear. Please leave by the nearest exit you can find. Please do not return until the bomb is located. Attention, please…”

The message went on and on, repeating.

The palace resounded softly as hundreds of people's feet hurried through rooms and down stairs to find the doors. Presumably Dad and his ladies were on their way out, too. Maewen wanted to know. Once more her feet took her on the familiar journey to the office. But the stairs were blocked by the office staff pouring down them.

“Your father, dear?” said someone, barely stopping. “Mr. Singer's gone down to Security. He'll probably stay with them until the bomb squad gets here. You come down with us.”

Maewen hung back and let them pass until the stairway was empty. Dad was not safe, but there was nothing she could do. She went softly down again. The palace was weirdly empty, much emptier than she had ever known it. Maewen went on a zigzag course, quite unimpeded, from back windows to front ones, and then back windows again, as she went down. She saw people pouring out through gardens at the back and through the court at the front. Nothing would happen until everyone was gone. She was sure of that. Kankredin was after
her
. Maybe he would also destroy the palace as a belated revenge on Mitt, but he would not blow up all the tourists. Kankredin valued power over people, and you could not have that if all the people were dead.

She went on down, checking windows. By now she had come to the floors that opened onto the cloister balconies at the front. The windows were big glass doors, and Maewen had to go through those, into a roofed space held up by thin pillars, and then lean over the parapet to see into the front court. When she did this at the highest balcony, there was still a scatter of people hurrying away through the court and out under the arched gateway. At the next floor, everyone had gone. Everywhere was empty and still—No, it was
not
!

Maewen leaned on the parapet and did not dare move. Over the multiple domes of Amil's tomb, a big cloud of something nearly invisible rolled and coiled on itself. She could see it mostly by the way it distorted the wall and the city buildings beyond, in ugly, glassy waves. It was not person-shaped—yet. Kankredin was busy assembling himself. Maewen licked her lips. There was so much of it. Kankredin seemed to have brought more of himself from somewhere. The ugly shimmer was easily five times the size of the ghost thing that had been her horse. She supposed she ought to shout that word, but she had a feeling that the thing hovering there was too big to be dealt with like that.

On the other side of the court the gates in the big main gateway were softly closing, switched by remote control from Security, shutting her in with Kankredin. But Dad was inside, too. She had to do
something
.

Before the gates had quite swung closed, a man in an old leather jacket slipped between them and pushed them shut with his back. He must be the bomb disposal expert. Maewen had heard that bomb men were daredevils who dressed all anyhow and enjoyed risking their lives. The trouble was, he was not up against a bomb. She saw him realize. He stood as still as Maewen, staring up at the heaving, invisible cloud. Then his head switched—There was something odd about—There was somebody else in the court, running. Maewen could hear running footsteps. Then see who. It was Wend, racing toward Amil's tomb.

The man by the gate gave a great shout. “
GET BACK, YOU FLAMING FOOL
!”

That was Mitt's voice!
Maewen was head down, leaning far out over the parapet, without knowing she had moved. She
knew
she was right. Except it couldn't be true. The man was not gawky enough—was he?

Above the tomb, the coiling movement, which had been bunching and bending over itself ready to move down on the man by the gate, now swayed round and turned to face the movement Maewen had made. She saw—no,
felt
—eyes in its midst. Eyes that knew her. Eyes that hated her. Fat-lidded eyes she knew.

Mitt's voice yelled a word. It was not the word Maewen knew. This was a word that made your brain clench and then prefer to forget you had heard it. It was a word that dragged shivers from deep, deep under the earth. A word that shook the palace. The invisibleness above the tomb coiled hurriedly round to throw itself at the shouter.

In the act of coiling it was caught, and held, and thrown high, high in the air, mixed with and part of a tremendous jet of water, a huge tsunami. Water burst from the tomb in a giant dark horn, throwing pieces of building aside like a card house. Maewen stared, with her neck twisted, at the immense column of water hanging into the sky, darker and darker with dissolving shreds of the coiling cloud, and all spouted to yellow froth at its distant top.

Then it fell.

Maewen threw herself flat beside the parapet. Even so, she was soaked. The open balcony bucked under her. Salt water stung her eyes. Salt? And the roar of falling tons of water was more deafening than any bomb. It went on and on, mixed with the crashing of stone. Maewen scrambled up in the midst of it, unable to care that she was deaf as a post. Three pillars that held up the balcony were missing nearby, and there was a gap in the parapet where she had been leaning. Unable to care about that either, she walked over balcony that swayed and grated until she reached the nearest whole pillar. Clinging to it, she stared at the courtyard awash with angry, gray, leaping waves. The gate was down. The gateway was mostly rubble. Water was roaring out into King Street. The salt that ran on Maewen's face was partly tears. No one could have survived that.