7

The main square at Neathdale was always busy. It was not very large, but it had a handsome fountain in the middle and four inns on three of its sides. There was also a corn exchange and two guildhalls, which added to the coming and going. The fourth side was occupied by the gray frowning block of the jail. When Brid drove the cart into the square, it seemed busier even than they had remembered. It was packed with people. The reason, they saw, as Olob patiently shouldered his way toward the fountain, was that there had been a public hanging that morning. The gallows was still there, outside the jail, and so was the hanged man. A number of people outside the inns were raising tankards jeeringly in his direction.

The dangling figure made them all feel sick, although it meant a good crowd. Dagner turned green. Moril clutched his cwidder hard and swallowed. Brid could not resist leaning down and asking the nearest person who it was who had been hanged.

“Friend of the Porter’s,” was the cheerful reply. It was a cheerful whiskery man Brid had chosen to ask, and he looked as if he had enjoyed every second of the hanging. “Some say he was the Porter,” he added, “but you can’t tell. He wouldn’t admit to anything. Taken up last week, he was, on the new Earl’s orders.”

“Oh, is there a new Earl?” Brid said blankly, trying to keep her eyes from the swinging criminal.

“Sure,” said the man. “Old Tholian died more than a month back. The new Earl’s the grandson. Got a real nose for the Porter and his like, he has. Good luck to him, too!”

“Oh yes. Very good luck,” Brid said hurriedly, terrified of being arrested for disloyalty to the new Earl.

“Leave off, Brid, and let’s get started,” Dagner said irritably.

Brid smiled rather falsely at the whiskery man and hitched up the reins so that Olob knew to stand still. Then she blew a blast on the panhorn for attention. When sufficient people had turned their way, she stood up and spoke. Moril marveled at how cool she was. But Brid was like Clennen that way. An audience was meat and drink to her.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she called, “please come and listen. You see the cart I’m standing in? Many of you will know it quite well. If you do, you’ll know it belongs to Clennen the Singer. You’ll have seen it coming through Neathdale, year after year, on its way North. Most of you will know Clennen the Singer—”

She had aroused people’s interest by then. Moril heard someone say, “It’s Clennen the Singer.”

“No, it isn’t,” said someone else. “Who’s the pretty little lass?”

“Where’s Clennen, then? It isn’t Clennen,” said other people. Finally, someone was puzzled enough to call out, “Where is Clennen, lass? Isn’t he with you?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Brid. “I’ll tell you all.” Then she stopped and simply stood there, upright and conspicuous in her cherry dress. Moril could see she was trying not to cry. But he could also see she was making it plain to the crowd that she was trying not to cry. He marveled at the way she could use real feelings for what was in fact a show. He knew he could not have done it.

Brid stood there silent long enough for murmurs of interest to gather and grow but not long enough for them to die away. Then she said: “I’ll tell you. Clennen—my father—was killed two days ago.” And she stood silent again, struggling with tears, listening attentively to murmurs of sympathy. “He was killed before our eyes,” she said. At the height of a loud murmur, she came in again, loudly, but in such a calm way that Moril and most of the people present thought she was speaking quietly. They hushed to hear her. “We are the children of Clennen the Singer—Brid, Moril, and Dastgandlen Handagner—and we’re doing our best to carry on without him. I hope you’ll spare time to listen to us. We know our show will not be the same without Clennen, but—but we’ll try to please you. We hope you’ll forgive any faults in—in memory of my father.”

She got a round of applause for that. “Put your hat out, then, and let’s hear you!” someone shouted. Brid, with tears running down her cheeks, picked up the hat she had ready and tossed it on the ground. Several people put money into it at once, out of pure sympathy for them. Brid could not help feeling pleased with herself. She had made a considerable effect without boasting once—in fact, she had done the opposite, which, she thought, ought to please Dagner.

Though Dagner was far too nervous to show any pleasure at all, Brid knew he was not displeased because he left her to do all the announcing. That meant that Brid could more or less choose what they sang. She did her best to put together the things they had practiced in the order she thought would be most impressive. She began them with general favorites. Moril felt terrible. Without the deep rolling voice of Clennen, they sounded to him thin and strange, and they lacked the body Lenina usually gave them on the hand organ. Moril began to feel they had nothing to offer the crowd, except perhaps some well-trained playing on cwidder and panhorn.

Brid felt much the same. To encourage them, she announced that they would now play, in trio, the “Seven Marches.” That was one thing she was sure they could do well. And they did. The most successful part was when Dagner, on the spur of the moment, signaled to Brid to play soft during the “Fourth March,” and played his treble cwidder in double time against Moril’s slow and mellow tenor. They looked at one another while they were doing it. Moril knew they were neither of them exactly enjoying it, but they were both by then desperate for some applause from the silent crowd, and they had the dour kind of satisfaction of knowing they were giving an exhibition of real skill. They were rewarded by a burst of clapping and a little shower of coins falling into the hat.

Then they did Clennen’s “Cuckoo Song,” which always made people laugh. After that Brid, feeling that the sooner Dagner got his part over, the better he would be for the rest of the show, announced that Dagner would now sing some of his own songs.

Brid was glad she had said “some.” Dagner was so nervous that he only managed three. If she had not said “some,” it was probable that he would only have sung one. Moril was disappointed and Brid exasperated, and it was altogether a pity, because the crowd liked Dagner’s songs. “The Color in Your Head” went down particularly well. Brid could tell he had the crowd’s sympathy. They thought of him as bravely following in Clennen’s footsteps and wanted to encourage him. But Dagner was mauve and shaking, and he stopped.

Crossly Brid took the center of the cart and sang herself. Moril, without being told, came to her aid on the cwidder, while Dagner gasped to himself in the background. Brid did well. An audience always helped her. She sang a number of ballads, though she was forced to avoid “The Hanging of Filli Ray,” which she did best, because of the corpse dangling on the gallows behind the crowd. Her success was undoubtedly the patter song, “Cow-Calling,” which she did instead of “Filli Ray.” Brid always enjoyed it. You started with a sort of yodeling cry, to the whole herd, then you called the cows one by one, and each verse you added a new one.

Brid sang, and no one looking at her could have realized that she was frantically wondering what else she could put into their unusually short show before her voice gave out. At “Old cow, old cow,” inspiration came. Brid bowed at the end of the song. Coins clattered into the hat.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, my brother Moril will sing four songs of Osfameron.”

Moril gulped and glared at Brid. He had never performed any of the old songs in public before. But Brid had gone and announced him, so he was forced to take the center of the cart, with his wet hands shaking on the cwidder. To make matters worse, he suddenly met Kialan’s eye. Kialan was standing near the fountain, looking cool, attentive, and slightly critical. From where Moril stood, the hanged man on the gallows appeared to be dangling over Kialan’s head. Moril took his eyes off both of them and began to play. He knew he was going to make wretched work of it.

For a short while he could attend to nothing but the queer fingering and the odd, old-fashioned rhythms. Then his tension abated a little, and he was surprised to discover that his performance was pleasing him. As Moril’s voice was naturally high, he did not need to sound cracked and strained, the way Clennen did. And not being yet expert and not anyway liking the noise the old fingering made, he found he had been unconsciously modifying it, into a style which was not old, nor new, but different. Osfameron’s jerky rhythms became smoother, and Moril felt that if he could have spared time to attend to them, he might almost have understood the words:

It sounded good to Moril. And it was his own doing, he was positive, and not the cwidder’s. When he had finished, however, there was silence in the square. The crowd had never heard the old songs done that way and did not know what to think. Kialan made up their minds for them by clapping loudly. Other people clapped. Then came a burst of applause which made Moril feel ashamed of himself—he was only a learner, after all—and more coins went into the hat.

The applause seemed to worry Olob. From then on he became restive. He tossed his head, he stamped, he tried to go forward, and he threatened to back. Brid pulled him up, and he backed in earnest, throwing Moril into Dagner. Brid had to take the reins up again, which put her half out of action. Seeing this, Dagner pulled himself together and led into some songs with rousing choruses, hoping the crowd would join in. He had little luck. People were in the mood for listening. But they had come to the end of all they had practiced, so Dagner was forced to go on to “Jolly Holanders” and finish.

Olob was still behaving like a colt, so Moril got down and went to his head. The crowd shifted away from the cart. Moril heard Brid say to Dagner, “Shall I go shopping? I know what to get,” and the hat chinking.

“No, I’ll go,” said Dagner. He still seemed nervous, although the show was over. He took the hat and climbed down from the cart. Almost at once, several men that Moril recognized as friends of Clennen’s came up and crowded round Dagner.

“What’s this, Dagner? What’s this about Clennen?”

The upshot was that Dagner went off to have a drink with them, taking the hat. Moril did not see which inn they went to because he found himself being talked to by a kindly man just then. This man first gave Moril a pie, then told him—in a fatherly way—that he had sung the old songs all wrong, and things were going to the dogs if people could take those kind of liberties.

Moril took a leaf out of Dagner’s book. “Yes, but I can’t do it like my father did,” he said with his mouth full. He was extremely grateful for the pie, or he would have told the man his real opinion of the old songs.

When the man had gone, muttering that he didn’t know what the young were coming to, Moril remembered that Brid would be a prey to murmuring gentlemen. He looked up at the cart, wondering what he would do if she was. There was—or had been—a murmuring gentleman. Brid was glaring at him like a tiger, and the gentleman was retreating, very red in the face. “I do hope Dagner remembers the shopping,” Brid said to Moril, pretending the gentleman had never existed.

So did Moril. They waited, and waited, Moril at Olob’s restive head and Brid in the cart, for well over an hour. Moril saw Kialan at intervals, hanging about in the square, evidently waiting, too. But Kialan made no attempt to come near them. Moril rather irritably wondered why not.

Olob tossed his head furiously. Brid said, “There’s Dagner!” Moril saw Dagner hurrying back across the square with the empty hat rolled up in one hand. “Where’s the shopping?” Brid wondered. Dagner waved cheerfully and came hurrying on. He had almost reached the cart when two large men advanced, quietly and purposefully, on either side of Dagner. One took Dagner’s shoulder in a large hand.

“What—?” said Dagner, trying to shake free.

“You’re under arrest, in the Earl’s name,” said the man. “Come on quietly and don’t make any trouble now.”

For a moment Moril had another glimpse of Kialan, looking absolutely horrified, in the crowd beyond the fountain. The people near, seeing someone being arrested, drifted quickly away from around the cart. Kialan seemed to get lost in a moving group and was gone the next second. Moril stood by Olob’s head in an empty space, quite irrationally angry with Kialan. Not that anyone could do anything if the Earl took it into his head to have Dagner arrested, but even Kialan would have been better than no one. He looked despairingly at Dagner. Dagner had only time for one hopeless look back before the two men led him away across the square toward the jail. The crowd hurried away from all three—as if Dagner had a disease, Moril thought angrily. He wished Dagner would walk upright, instead of going bent and guilty-looking.

“I’ve never been so furious in my life!” said Brid. “Never! Of all the unjust—” She stopped, and looked uneasily round the empty space by the fountain, realizing she was on the way to getting herself arrested, too.

The two men vanished with Dagner inside the frowning jail. Moril had never felt more lonely. “I’ve just realized,” he said. “We didn’t have a license to sing, did we?”

“We’re entitled to operate on Father’s for six months,” said Brid. “Father told me, and I know that’s the law. I hope Dagner remembers. They can’t do this! They’re just trying—”

A man approached across the empty space, rather grudgingly, carrying what looked like a sack of oats. He stopped some way off the cart. “Your brother ordered this,” he said. “Do I take it away again?”

“You’ll do no such thing!” Brid said haughtily. “It’s paid for—that I do know. Put it in the cart.”

“Please yourself,” said the man unpleasantly. He dumped the sack on the flagstones and went away.

That was nasty, somehow. Moril saw that everyone was going to avoid them now. Angrily he supposed that Kialan had deserted them in the same way. He left Olob, who seemed to be quietening down, and dragged the sack over to the cart. “What shall we do, Brid?”

“Do?” said Brid, more furious than ever. “I’ll tell you what to do. I’ll have to stay here, in case Dagner ordered anything else, but you’re to go over to the jail at once and ask to see Dagner. Go on. Tell them he’s related to the Earl. Say Mother’s Tholian’s niece. Make a fuss. Ask them to send for Ganner. Make it quite clear that we’re well connected. And when you see Dagner, tell him to do the same. Go on. They’re just trying to frighten us into paying for another license, I know they are!”

Obediently Moril scurried off across the square. He was so shaken that he could think of nothing else to do, even though he knew in his heart that it was no good. In the South, when they arrested people, even for small offenses, it took more than a boy talking about noble relatives to get them out of prison. At the least it took a lot of money. And as they had not got a lot of money, the doors of the jail could well have closed on Dagner for good. Moril wished Ganner had found them, after all. By the time he reached the cold archway into the jail, he was heartily wishing they had never left Markind.

“Please,” he said to the man on duty there, “I want to see my brother.”

The man looked down at him, not unkindly. “Clennen the Singer’s son?” Moril nodded. “And how old are you, lad?” asked the man.

“Eleven,” said Moril.

“Eleven, are you?” said the man. “They don’t hang your kind till they’re fifteen, you know, so you’re lucky.” Moril thought this was meant to be a joke and smiled politely. “Look, lad,” said the man. “Take some good advice. Get in that cart of yours and drive off. You won’t do any good here.”

Moril looked up at him in helpless irritation. “But—”

“Be off!” said the man, urgently. Footsteps were coming through the dark passage behind him. Moril could see the man meant kindly, but he did not move. He waited to see if the person coming would let him see Dagner.

The man who came was one of the two who had arrested Dagner. He glanced at Moril, without seeming very interested. Then he looked again—sharply. “That’s another of them, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” said the man at the gate, and he gave Moril a reproachful look, as much as to say, “Now see what you’ve done.”

“Come with me, lad,” said the other man. Moril, with his stomach hopping as it had never done before, even before this last show, followed him into the dark passageway, through a dismal courtyard and up some stone stairs. They went into a blank room with yellow walls and a bench by one of the walls, where the man told him to sit and wait. Then he went out and locked the door.

Moril sat on the bench for some time, feeling terrible. He wondered if he was arrested, too. It looked like it. He tried to see out of the window, but it was high up and barred. He dragged the bench over to it, but he still could not see much except gray walls. There was no hope of wriggling out between the bars. He dragged the bench back to its original position and sat on it again.

Then the most dreadful part began. He could not bear being shut between walls. He was hot. He was trapped. The room seemed to get smaller every second and the ceiling seemed to be moving down on him. He thought he would have to scream. He nearly did scream, when a fortunate stain on the wall opposite caught his attention. It was almost the shape of the mountains between Dropwater and Hannart.

Moril thankfully escaped into a dream. He imagined snow-capped mountains and forgot he was too hot. He imagined wide valleys and the sky overhead, and the small room became easier to bear. He thought of the old green roads of the North and of Osfameron and the Adon walking along them. He became Osfameron himself. He and his friend the Adon made their way to imaginary Hannart. On the mountain, they were ambushed by enemies and fought their way clear. Then they went down into Hannart and strolled under the rowan trees outside the old gray castle, composing a song of victory together.

The door opened, and another man told Moril to come along now, quickly.

Moril came back to the present with a jump. He was scared and vibrating and small. He was aware of every stone and stain in that oppressive room, of the grain in the wood of the door, and the dirt in the fingernails of the man’s hand holding it open. He even knew there were six hairs in the mole on the man’s nose. As he got up, he suddenly remembered Clennen by the lake, saying, “You’re in two halves at present.” And he wondered if this was what Clennen had meant.

The man ushered him into a large, imposing room, with a heavy old table at one end. An elderly man sat behind the table, with a younger one who was taking notes. Moril could see by the gold chain round the elderly one’s neck that he was a justice.

“Stand in front of the table and answer clearly,” said the younger man, pausing in his writing and pointing his pen at Moril.

Moril did as he was told, still vibrating. He knew every bulge in the rather pointless carving on the wall above the justice. He could tell how many wrinkles there were in the forehead of the justice—fifteen yellowish folds.

The justice wrinkled these folds up and looked at Moril. “Full name?”

“Osfameron Tanamoril Clennensson,” said Moril. “I’d like to see my brother, please.”

“Quite a mouthful,” remarked the Justice, while the other man wrote it down. “Osfameron?”

“He’s my ancestor,” said Moril. Seeing that the yellow folds of the justice were lifted toward him with slight interest, he explained, “I was called after him. And could I see Dagner, please?” The yellow folds drew closer together. “My brother,” Moril said patiently.

“Your brother?” said the justice. The other man passed him a sheaf of papers, and he drew the folds of his forehead together over them until it looked like smocking. “Some other mouthful down here,” he said.

Moril, with a little wobble to his stomach, realized the papers must be Dagner’s answers to the questions they had asked him. He wondered what Dagner had said and wished he knew. For if he gave different answers from Dagner’s, the justice might well convict Dagner of all sorts of things he had never done. “We call him Dagner for short,” he explained carefully. “And I’d like to see him, please.”

“You can see him presently, if you answer my questions truthfully,” said the justice. “You come of a family of singers, is that true?”

“Yes,” said Moril.

“And you traveled with your father, giving shows?”

“Yes,” said Moril.

“How long have you been doing that?”

“All my life,” said Moril.

“Which is how long?”

“Eleven years,” said Moril.

The younger man leaned over. “The elder boy said ten years.”

The justice smocked his forehead at Moril, calculating how old he was. He looked weary and shrewd, and Moril was just a doubtful fact to him. Moril saw that to follow Brid’s advice and talk of being related to the Earl and to Ganner would do no good, simply no good at all. He knew Brid would have done it. But he was not going to try.

“I was a baby when we started,” he explained.

“From Hannart?” said the justice sharply.

“Yes, but I don’t remember,” Moril said, knowing well enough that if he admitted to his true feelings about Hannart here, he could convict both himself and Dagner. “My father said he had a quarrel with Earl Keril.”

They checked that off against Dagner’s answers, and it seemed to be right, to Moril’s relief. But they seemed dissatisfied, and they became more dissatisfied as the questions went on.

“Where did you last perform before Neathdale?”

Moril thought. It seemed very long ago. Fledden? Yes, because that was the last place before they were in the Markind lordship and stopped performing. That was where Lenina had mended Kialan’s coat. “Fledden,” he said.

“Who did your brother talk to in Fledden?”

“Nobody,” said Moril. He remembered particularly, because no girls had come up to Dagner for once, and he had talked to Dagner himself.

“But you weren’t with him every moment you were in Fledden, were you?” said the younger man.

“Yes, I was,” said Moril. “We were all in the cart, you see. Father always made us stay in the cart together in towns.”

“Always?” said the justice, smocking his folds severely. “You don’t mean to tell me your brother never went off on his own.”

Moril realized he could convict Dagner of poaching rabbits unless he was careful. “No, never,” he said. “Dagner’s not interested in anything much except making up songs.” And to divert attention from the idea of poaching, he added, “Dagner hasn’t done anything you could arrest him for—and our license is in order, honestly.”

The justice sighed irritably. “I’m not concerned with your license, boy. Your brother has been arrested for passing illegal information—”

“What!” said Moril.

“—and I want to know where he got it,” said the justice. “That surprises you?”

“I should just say it does!” said Moril. “He couldn’t have done! You must have made a mistake.”

“Our agents are very reliable,” said the justice. “What makes you think it’s a mistake?”

“Because Dagner wouldn’t. He’s just not interested. He’s only interested in making songs. Besides, there’s nowhere he could have got information,” Moril said frantically.

“That sort of assertion is not at all helpful,” said the justice. “I fancy both you brothers are concealing something. You say you last performed in Fledden. That must have been a week ago. Where have you been since?”

“Markind,” said Moril, wondering why on earth Dagner had not mentioned it. “Then we came here by Cindow.”

The justice and the younger man looked at one another, and seemed incredulous. It was clear that they thought Markind the last place where anyone could obtain illegal information. Moril took heart a little. “Why Markind?” snapped the younger man.

“My father was killed,” Moril explained, his voice wobbling a little.

“We know. At Medmere. Why did you go to Markind?” said the younger man.

“My mother went to marry Ganner,” said Moril.

“Ganner!” they both exclaimed, and both looked at Moril in flat disbelief. “Ganner is Lord of Markind,” the justice said, as if he thought Moril did not know.

“I know,” said Moril. “Mother was betrothed to him before she married Father, and she went back there.”

“Very likely,” the justice said cynically. “In that case, why did you and your brother leave?”

Angry tears came into Moril’s eyes. “Because I saw one of the men who killed Father there, if you must know! And if you don’t believe me, ask Ganner!”

“I most certainly shall,” said the justice. The other man murmured something to him and they looked at one another, the wrinkles of the justice smocked into a tight yellow bunch. Moril saw Brid had been right after all to tell him to mention Ganner. But like Brid, the justice had jumped to the conclusion that Ganner had had Clennen killed, and the younger man was wagging his eyebrows at him to warn him that Ganner was far too important to be accused. The justice showed himself neither very nice nor very just by giving a cynical little laugh, smiling and shrugging. Moril supposed he should be glad, if, as Kialan had said, Ganner really had nothing to do with Clennen’s death. Then the justice turned to Moril again and Moril saw, sadly and rather bitterly, that there was one law for Ganner and quite another for himself and Dagner. “Did your brother talk to any strangers in Markind?”

“No,” said Moril. “Only Ganner’s household.”

“Then who did he talk to between Markind and here?”

“Only us,” said Moril.

“Listen, my boy,” said the justice, “you’re not being very helpful, are you? Perhaps it will jog your memory if I remind you that your brother’s crime is one for which he will be hanged in due course. Therefore, I can put you in prison for withholding information.”

Moril felt sick. “I am being helpful,” he said. “I’ve told you it’s a mistake. But if you’re only going to believe me if I tell you Dagner’s guilty, then it’s no use asking me questions. Because he didn’t do it!”

The younger man half stood up, looking savage. Moril blinked and waited for them to hit him, or clap him in a cell, or both. But they did neither. The younger man, after a dreadful pause, told Moril coldly to go and sit down at the other end of the long room. Moril did so. He sat on a hard shiny stool near the door and watched the two conferring together in low voices. There were footsteps beyond the door, so that he was unable to hear anything that was said, though he thought he caught Ganner’s name more than once. Then they called him back to the table.

“We’re going to let you go, boy,” said the younger one. “We’ve come to the conclusion you know nothing about this matter.”

“Thank you,” said Moril. “Can I see my brother now?”

The younger man glared at him and was obviously going to refuse. But the justice said irritably, “Oh, very well, very well. I said you should if you answered my questions. I wouldn’t like you to go away thinking we’re unjust here.”

Moril thought Brid would have made the obvious answer to this. He held his tongue, with a bit of an effort.