6

The fogginess was cold as well as thick. Maewen lost all sense of direction. She staggered and found her sandals were getting wet in short grass beaded with fog drops. It felt icy. “Oh—ouch!” she cried out.

Her voice had the unechoing clarity of somewhere outside—and high up, too, she thought, having been brought up among mountains. Anyway it was nothing like the woody, stony echoes inside the museum gallery. She looked up and around in a panic. Everything was mist, thick white mist, except for—thank goodness!—one pink streak of dawn over to the right. And there was something dark ahead through the mist. Maewen took a couple of excruciating cold, wet strides toward the dark thing, enough to numb her feet, and found the thing was a round stone a little higher than her waist with a hole in the middle. A waystone? It was only about a tenth the size of the one outside the station in Kernsburgh, but she supposed that was what it might be.

She stood shivering in her scanty summer shorts and shirt, staring at the stone resentfully. It’s real! she thought. Wend tricked me! I’m in shock! I’m going to die of exposure, and I haven’t the faintest idea where I am! Or when!

Here she noticed that the pins and needles feeling was no longer with her. It had been replaced—some seconds ago, now she thought about it—by a much better feeling, a feeling that everything was going to be all right. Well, I hope so! she thought. I could scream, only there doesn’t seem to be anyone around to hear.

She began to feel definitely warmer.

She looked down in time to see her sandals closing over and growing up her legs into stout-looking boots. Her shorts were growing downward into felty, rather baggy trousers that tucked into the boots. A faint jingling alerted her to the fact that her shirt was also growing, and multiplying, into linked mail with one thinnish shirt under it and another, thicker one on top. A heaviness on her head caused her hand to leap up there. She touched metal. She now had a light domed helmet on.

She felt a mad, hilarious pleasure. I’m a warrior maid! I’m changing into a fighting girl under my own eyes—what I can see of myself! Her feet were still frozen inside the boots, and her hands were no warmer, but she nevertheless had a warm, cared-for feeling. Something—the golden statue?—was looking after her.

There was another jingling over to the right. Maewen whirled like a wild animal. The jingling mixed with a pruff of breath, a sound that she knew very well. She moved warily over that way, jingling herself. Sure enough, looming out of the mist, dark against the pink stripe of dawn, was a horse, standing patiently waiting for someone. Not a bad horse, though rather shaggy, as far as she could see, and it was saddled and bridled, with a roll of baggage behind the saddle. It turned and blew steamy breath at Maewen as if it knew her.

Maewen had not realized how much she had been missing horses. Almost by reflex, she gathered in the reins, put her foot in the stirrup, and swung up into the saddle. Ouch! Effort! The mail and the boots were heavy. It was only when she was up that it occurred to her that the horse almost certainly belonged to someone else. What did they do to you for horse stealing? Oh well. Say I’m awfully sorry, there was this thick fog and I thought it was mine. Would that work? It felt so much better to be mounted that she hardly cared. Deal with the owner when we meet her. She reined around toward the little waystone and tried to make out where she was.

The mist was clearing gradually, downward, dropping into a valley below the stone, but that was still all she could see. “Hello?” she said uncertainly.

“Oh—your pardon, lady. I never heard you come.”

Maewen bunched herself, again with wild-animal wariness, as a tall man unfolded himself from where he had been sitting against the other side of the waystone and bowed to her, hastily and politely. When he straightened up, she saw he was Wend. She went warier than ever. His hair was a good deal longer, grown into wavy whitish ringlets that were not very well combed, which altered the shape of his face somewhat, and instead of the neat uniform she had seen him in a few minutes ago, he was wearing patched and baggy woolens with an old sheepskin jacket on top. The sort of clothes, Maewen thought, that a poor shepherd might have worn two hundred years ago. She stared at Wend, wondering if she really was in the past. And does he know me? Does he think I’m Whatshername?

Wend stared back with the usual grave politeness. “I am Wend, lady,” he said. “If you remember, we met before.” So he does know me, Maewen thought. “And I am here to follow you from waystone to waystone along the royal road, until you come to Hern’s city of gold and claim your rightful crown.”

He’s briefing me, Maewen thought, and so he should—tricking me into pretending to be this Northeen, or whatever she’s called! The trouble was Wend still made her fizz with embarrassment. He spoke in a very strong Northern accent, of the kind that Mum and Aunt Liss always objected to when Maewen spoke that way. It seemed quite natural to Wend, but she had heard him speak quite normally only a minute ago, and she could not get over the feeling he was putting on an act. It irritated her. “I think I need to know a bit more than that,” she said angrily.

Wend bowed humbly, which irritated Maewen even more. “True, lady. Then I will tell you what no one else knows. I am the one they call the Wanderer, and I keep the green roads—”

He stopped talking and looked over his shoulder. There was a brisk jingling of tack below and nearby. Maewen once more bunched up like a wary wild animal and watched two more riders scramble uphill out of the fog. They seemed to bring the fog with them, fog of their own breath, fog of their horses’ breath, and fill the air with their presence.

“Good morning, Noreth,” said the smaller of the two. “You got ahead of us very quickly. We were hoping to ride up with you.” He was riding a truly magnificent mare. His clothes were like the ones Maewen had so recently acquired, mail coat and cap and all, except that on this man they had a neater, wealthier look. Maewen was shocked to find that she knew his face. She had last seen those clear-cut ruthless features staring over a painted shoulder out of the portrait of the Duke of Kernsburgh.

It gave her a vivid, physical shock, like touching a live wire. Up to then Maewen had not really believed she had been sent two hundred years into the past. But here was a live man, breathing out warm, live, foggy breath, whom she knew to have been dead for well over a century. It made it real. It made it much more frightening. She looked rather frantically across at the taller rider, wondering if she would know him, too. He was young and gawky and obviously in the middle of growing even taller. His clothes, which were quite neat, too, sat on him as if they were his best clothes and he was used to wearing something much scruffier. And his horse looked villainous.

He was a total stranger, but Maewen’s feelings about that changed from relief to dismay when this young one smiled at her. He smiled in a cheerful, friendly way, with just a touch of shyness, as if he knew her quite well. And she had simply no idea who he was. O great One! she thought. Why hasn’t Wend warned me about these people?

She looked at Wend, waiting humbly by the way-stone, but had to look back when the man with clear-cut features spoke again. “As you see,” he said, “Mitt and I have come to be your followers on the royal road.”

Maewen was thrown into confusion again. He sounded so sarcastic. It was just the way a man like this one would speak—and it made her feel about five years old. But it was a double confusion. She suddenly found she had no idea when this was. She had been assuming, in a muddled and buried way, that she had been bounced into this Noreth woman’s place somewhere halfway to Kernsburgh. But from what this man said, she could be right at the start of Noreth’s journey from the North. It gave her a low, grinding sort of worry to add to all the other things. Among the other things was the thought, If Kankredin got to Noreth that early, how soon will he get to me? And a slightly more trivial thought, but just as worrying, was that this man on the fine mare was not going to be made Duke of Kernsburgh until some years on in Amil the Great’s reign. If she was Noreth and at the start of Noreth’s journey, then Amil the Great was somewhere else in Dalemark and nowhere near being King yet. So this man was not Duke of Kernsburgh yet. And she had no idea what to call him. At least she now knew the younger one was called Mitt.

She gave Mitt a flustered smile and tried a stately bow on his companion. He bowed back, ironically, and raised an eyebrow at Wend. He was, naturally, one of those who could slide one eyebrow up without the other one moving at all.

“I am Wend, sir,” Wend said humbly, “and I follow the lady, too.”

“Well, well. That makes three of us,” the man said. “How many more are we expecting?”

Maewen could not answer since she probably had less idea than he did. In fact, she had no idea what they expected her to do. She simply sat on her purloined horse and hoped that Wend would have the decency to give her a hint.

Wend said nothing. They all sat, or stood, while the horses fidgeted and the pink of the sky spread and faded toward a gray morning. Below, the mist seemed to be thinning, but not enough to show any landscape that might give Maewen some idea whereabouts they were. She began to feel stupid. This had the feeling of a party when none of the guests turn up.

The man who would be Duke of Kernsburgh obviously felt the same. “Not much sign of a mighty band of followers,” he remarked.

Mitt was horribly embarrassed. “Navis!” he protested.

Navis! Maewen thought in the greatest relief. Or should I call him Your Grace? No. Stupid. Not yet.

“I suggest we give it till full daylight and then be on our way,” Navis said.

It was more of a decision than a suggestion, as if Navis was in charge, but Maewen was simply grateful for someone deciding something. “Yes,” she said. “That’s fine.”

It was the first time she had spoken in front of Navis and Mitt. She saw Mitt give her a puzzled glance, as if her voice, or her accent, or something, was not quite right. She glowered at Wend. She was angry enough to smash his smooth, grave, handsome face. He had tricked her into this, and now he was not giving her any help at all. If one of these two noticed she was not Noreth, it would be his fault, and it would serve him right.

Luckily—probably it was lucky—Mitt was distracted by someone else arriving at last. There were clatterings and a light rumbling from the thinning mist below. It could be quite a number of people. Everyone turned that way. The first thing to appear was a lop-eared glum-looking mule. Then a darkness behind it resolved into the rounded canvas cover over a cart, the whole thing painted a sober dark green. The bearded man driving the cart looked as sober as the rest of his turnout. As the cart tipped forward onto the level land beside the waystone, he looked up and reined in the mule as if he were surprised to see anyone there at all. Maewen read the name in sober gold lettering: Hestefan the Singer. Now this was interesting. Her mind shot to Dad’s family tree. He could be one of her own ancestors. And she had had no idea that Singers still roamed the land as late as two hundred years ago.

“This is a surprise, Hestefan,” Navis said. “Did Noreth inspire you to follow her, too?”

He was even more ironic than he had been before, but Hestefan answered quite simply, “I thought I’d come along. Yes.” His voice rolled out foggy breath, full and trained-sounding, but not very deep.

“But,” Mitt chipped in, “Fenna’s not fit to travel, is she?”

A boy stuck his head out of the back of the cart. “We’re not fools,” he said. “We left her in Adenmouth.” The gathering sunlight struck red on his head. Maewen could not take her eyes off him. She knew him, too. He was the unknown Singer-boy from the portrait in the palace.

“And Lady Eltruda was good enough to lend us a mule,” Hestefan said.

“Lady Eltruda is always generous,” Navis said. He seemed to mean this. At least he did not sound nearly as ironic as usual, saying it. “And what of others following? Did you pass any large numbers of folk hurrying to join Noreth?”

Hestefan slowly shook his head. “We were the only ones on the road.” Maewen caught the Singer-boy, and Mitt, too, looking at her as if they were afraid she would be very disappointed at this news.

Then everyone was looking at her expectantly.

“Er—” Maewen said. “Well, I suppose we’d better be getting on, then.” Thinking that she had better lead the way, she turned her horse toward the green path stretching from the waystone. Then she paused. Wend was on foot. “Will you be able to keep up?” And serve you right if you can’t!

Wend put a horrible old baggy cap on his head and smiled his restrained smile up at her. Maewen was growing to hate that smile. “I walk the green ways every day, lady. Unless you gallop, I shall be beside you.”

I wish he wouldn’t talk like that! Maewen thought as the small party set off.

Nobody talked much at first. Maewen was glad of the silence. She had so much to sort out. For one thing, she was still full of quivering animal wariness, first from thinking Wend was mad and then from finding he seemed to have told her the truth. On top of that was the sheer shock of being, really and truly, two hundred years in the past. And one thing sorted itself out of that: This expedition, with herself in place of Noreth, had to be very important. The mere fact that two of the people who had been important enough for their portraits to hang in the palace were on it made this certain. It was frightening—too much responsibility for an ordinary girl who just happened to look like this Noreth. Perhaps, she thought hopefully, Noreth escapes and comes back to take over later. But if that were going to happen—

Here Maewen came hard up against a question which had been nagging at the back of her head from before she laid hands on the golden statue, from the moment Wend first mentioned Noreth. If Noreth was that important, why haven’t I seen her name in a history book somewhere? And I haven’t, not even once. Dad never mentioned her. None of the guides said a word about her, and they were forever on about Amil the Great. The really frightening thing was that, as Maewen now seemed to be Noreth, she was the one who was going to vanish utterly from the face of history. She shivered and tried not to think about Kankredin.

Well, Amil the Great comes along soon. I just have to hand over to him, she thought. That was a much better thought than the idea that she was all alone here having to make history—or fade out of history permanently. I’ll simply go on until he turns up. She raised her head and began trying to see where they were.

The green road curved gently ahead, sloping upward a very little, carving its way into the mountains by what seemed the easiest route. At first it ran between high hillsides of brown rock and Maewen could not see very far. The shapes of mountains do not change, she reminded herself. When I see them, I’ll know. Even though two hundred years ago there was no big refinery at Kredindale, and Weaversholm was probably hardly a town, there would be something to give her bearings.

But there was nothing to see for some miles, except every so often a rowan tree, leaning like a guardian over the path, or a stream carefully channeled under it. Corners had been built up to keep the road level. Maewen wondered about this road. There was nothing like this that she knew of in her day. Did Wend mean it when he said he kept the green roads? She looked at him, striding beside Hestefan’s mule. Two hundred years old. He had to be. He had to be of the Undying, then.

She looked round again to find the path coming out on an upland and, like a relief, blue peaks and khaki shoulders of mountains in all directions. They swung slightly right. Maewen stared at the high horseshoe top of Aberath Tor and knew at once where she was. In the far North, right up near Adenmouth somewhere. She and Mum and Aunt Liss lived—would live—just twenty miles west of here. But it was no good rushing off home at a gallop. She might find the house—it was old—but there would be strangers living in it. A miserable, lonely thought. And she had been right. Wend had pitched her in right at the start of Noreth’s royal ride, and Noreth had been kidnapped, so she was in for days of this. Oh—damn!

Maewen turned another glowering look on Wend. And this made her notice that the rest of the party was not entirely happy either. Mitt and Navis rode side by side, but this was so that they could argue in low voices. As she looked, Navis snapped, “I never believed you could be such a prig!”

Mitt answered, “Call me names! It was you took advantage!”

“It was not taking advantage,” Navis retorted. “Surely, with your background, you must have some idea of what it means to be married to a hopeless drunkard!” He turned haughtily away, found himself looking at Hestefan, and turned haughtily from Hestefan, too, as if Hestefan displeased him as much as Mitt did.

Hestefan took no notice. He just stared dreamily at the mule’s ears. Probably he was a dreamy type, but just then he looked as if he was having rather bitter dreams. The boy—Moril, she had gathered his name was—sat equally dreamily beside Hestefan, plucking at his big old cwidder, but he was no happier. He did not have quite the tragic look that Maewen remembered from the portrait, but she could see he was brooding on something miserable. Whatever this was might have had something to do with Mitt. In between arguing with Navis, Mitt made various friendly remarks to Moril, and Moril either pretended not to hear or else gave a short, snide answer that stopped any conversation dead.

Nobody but Maewen seemed to have met Wend before. After their latest argument Navis tried to talk to him and ignore Mitt. Wend’s replies were so polite and humble that Navis raised both eyebrows and gave up. Serve Wend right! thought Maewen. Then she thought, This won’t do! What a dreadful way to start an important journey!

Angrily she turned her horse sideways to the rest of them. “What’s the matter with you all?”

They stared at her out of a confusion of horses and mule half pulled up. Mitt’s horse refused to stop and went bucking backward into the stones of the verge. He hit it. “Behave, you Countess, you!”

“Matter?” Navis said with his head haughtily up.

He reminded Maewen of someone like that, but she had not the patience to think who just then. “Yes,” she said. “There are only five of you, and every one of you is deliberately annoying all the others. You’re to stop it, do you hear! Why can’t you all be cheerful?”

Mitt, who had on the whole been trying, Maewen had to admit, gave his horse another bang and said resentfully, “That’s great, coming from you! Who’s been off ahead the whole time, looking like a wet week?”

Moril grinned at this, as if he could not help it.

Maewen glared from one to the other. Boys! “All right. I’ll try as well. But I order the rest of you to be cheerful, too!”

Navis asked smoothly, “And how do you suggest we fulfill your orders?”

“You can do it by stopping being so damn sarcastic!” Maewen shot back. “And you”—she pointed to Hestefan—“can come out of your dream.”

This seemed to alarm Hestefan. He stared at her in a stunned, terrified way which seemed entirely wrong for the kind of person he was. Maewen did not understand, and it cooled her down rather suddenly. She had been about to go on to Mitt and suggest he made peace with Navis and then to Moril and tell him to stop the dumb insolence, but Hestefan’s stare made her see that she really knew nothing about what had happened among these people before she met them. Maybe they were right and she was wrong. So she swung round on Wend, as the only one she knew. “And you’re to stop being so polite all the time!”

Wend snatched off his cap and seemed about to give one of his humble bows.

“No,” said Maewen. “Don’t even think of it!”

Navis threw back his head and bellowed with laughter. Mitt snorted. Moril actually giggled. Even Hestefan gave a shaky smile. Maewen thought there might even have been a bit of a grin on Wend’s face, too. Thank the One! Maewen heaved a deep startled breath and rode on again, staring at a large bird—eagle?—circling among the nearest mountains, to help herself cool down. How had she dared snap at Navis? No matter. It had worked. She could hear people talking behind her in an ordinary, cheerful way now. But she thought she had better go round each of the party and talk privately to them if she could. That way she might piece together what had made them so gloomy.

Mitt came up to ride beside her as she was thinking this. “You’ve got that golden statue safe, have you?” he said. “Don’t forget that it’s half mine.”

Maewen went hunched and wary again. She had no doubt which statue he meant. The trouble was, it was two centuries away, locked in a glass case in a palace which was not built yet. “Oh yes. Safer than houses,” she said, which, she thought, was certainly true.