19

Alk was riding an enormous horse. Mitt knew it well. It was about the only one in Aberath which was up to Alk’s weight. By the horse and the hugeness Alk was unmistakable, as he gestured to the rest of his party to halt and rode out ahead of them alone. Though Mitt knew Alk would be wearing his own special armor under his pale leather clothes, he still thought this was very brave—or very foolish—of Alk. Luthan’s people had guns and crossbows. They might be tired, but after the way Navis had worked them, they were jumpy as cats.

“Nobody fire!” Navis called sharply. Fifty weapons were up.

Luthan came awake with a jump. “That’s right, Navis. Hold fire, everyone. We’ve no quarrel with Aberath.”

Speak for yourself! Mitt thought nervously as Alk came to a ponderous halt halfway between the two bands.

“Good morning,” Alk called. “I need to speak to some of you. Here’s my list: Navis Haddsson, Alhammitt Alhammittsson, Hestefan the Singer, Tanamoril Clennensson, and a lady known as Noreth Onesdaughter, if she’s with you. I’d be grateful if they all came out here and the rest of you went back a bit. I need to talk to them in private.”

They exchanged mystified looks. Mitt and Moril had been yawning. Maewen’s eyes had been nearly shut. But they were all suddenly wide awake. “I suppose we should see what he wants,” Navis said. “We are four to one.”

“That doesn’t count with Alk,” Mitt said. “I’ve seen him throw a horse.”

Navis bowed politely to Luthan. “We’ll try not to keep you waiting long,” he said. Luthan gave him a polite, bewildered nod. Navis edged his mare out of the throng, and the other three followed him.

Alk looked them over as they approached. Mitt had never seen him look so glum and grim. “Where’s Hestefan the Singer?”

“Following behind,” said Navis. “His mule couldn’t keep up. Are you likely to detain us long, my lord?”

“My lord.” Alk rubbed his chin. It rasped. Behind him Mitt could see a cluster of faces he knew well from Aberath. All of them had a weary, fed-up look, and none of them greeted him. “My lord?” Alk repeated. “Now, I reckon you’re at least as much of a lord as I am, Navis Haddsson. My reading is that when you call people that, you don’t mean any respect at all. So don’t call me that. As for how long we’ll be, this’ll take as long as it takes. You all gave me the slip once, when I’d nearly caught you up at Dropthwaite, and forced me to get ahead of you. I’ve been hanging around for you, up and down the green roads, for a day and a half now, so now you can just wait for me, Navis Haddsson. That reminds me—” Alk’s glum manner vanished. He turned to Mitt. “This is something you’ll appreciate, Mitt. I’d been in Aberath such years that I’d forgotten what these green roads were like. Lovely level runs, you get on them—bends beautifully cambered, not a sharp curve among them—and never a steep gradient anywhere! It would only take a little tinkering and filling in, and I could lay tracks and run my steam engines all over the North!”

Maewen had been watching Navis look as put down as she had ever seen him, but this snatched her attention back. So that was why there were no green roads in her day! They were all railways! “So that’s—” she began, and stopped herself.

But the small noise caught this huge man’s attention. “And who are you, young lady?” Alk asked her.

“Noreth Onesdaughter,” she said. “You asked to see me.”

“With respect, young lady,” said Alk, “I don’t think you can be.”

He was terrifyingly grim about it. Mitt and Moril gave her looks that were plain frightened. As for Navis, he looked at her, narrowed his eyes, and looked again, in a way that made Maewen feel as if she were dropping fast through the earth, leaving sun and grass and friendliness behind. “Wh-what makes you say that?” she managed to ask Alk.

“The reason I came after you all.” Alk settled himself stonily upright on his huge horse. “Four days,” he said. “Four days after Mitt set out for Adenmouth, Lady Eltruda of Adenmouth arrives in Aberath. Came herself. Asking for justice. On a charge of murder. She brought the murdered corpse with her, because the victim was her niece. Noreth of Kredindale. The girl’s throat had been cut.”

“I don’t believe this!” Navis burst out. His face had drained to a blue-white, except for his eyes, which were rimmed with red. “Does Eltruda—the Lady of Adenmouth—suspect that I—”

“You’re on her list,” said Alk, “though I can’t say she likes the idea.”

Navis sagged. There were big, deep lines on his face that had not been there a minute before. He’s really fond of her! Mitt thought wonderingly. That little, loud lady. Who’d have thought it?

“It seems,” Alk continued, “they didn’t find the girl’s body right away because whoever did her in killed her in the stables. Then shoved her in an empty stall and piled straw over her. It was only luck they found her. I reckon the killer hoped it would be longer than that before they did.”

His eyes wandered over all four of them, bleak as stones. Mitt shivered. He had never seen Alk like this. This was Alk the lawman. Seeing it, Mitt had an inkling at least of why the Countess had married Alk. Like this, he must have frightened even the Countess.

“Lady Eltruda,” said Alk, “ought to have been a lawwoman. She did a fine job. Everyone in Adenmouth she’s accounted for, and had them all prove where they were and what they were doing. She has it narrowed down to everyone who went off on Midsummer morning. You’d better believe this. I do. I suspect you all, plus”—his eyes traveled to Maewen—“you. I’ve seen the body. You could be her twin sister, but you’re not her. She looked older.” His eyes traveled to Moril and on to Navis. “You told Fenna you’d sworn to follow Noreth, and you promised Lady Eltruda you’d look after her. But when you both went off, she was already dead.” His eyes went to Mitt and, if possible, were bleaker still. “And you came and made promises to me in Aberath, so you could get that ring for someone who wasn’t Noreth. Did you know she was dead then?”

“I didn’t—I didn’t know. I swear—” Mitt stammered.

“Nor did I,” Moril whispered. “I was with Hestefan all—”

“All the time?” said Alk. “You went and talked to Fenna, up in her bedroom, and after that you were running around, no one knows where, looking for your cwidder.”

Moril wilted. Navis said nothing. Maewen put her hands to her face. The poor girl. And here was I cheerfully thinking she’d just been kidnapped. Maewen knew, too well, what Noreth’s last moments had felt like. Grabbed round the throat. The knife coming round. Or maybe Noreth had been glad to see the killer and turned round smiling—oh, are you coming, too?—and then she saw the knife. Tears came rolling down her face. Poor Noreth.

“This gets us nowhere,” Alk said. “I came for justice, not playacting. And I made inquiries as I came. When Karet came back up from Gardale with the news that the Adon’s cup had gone from the Lawschool, I thought, Can you believe anything that Mitt says? You stole it, didn’t you?”

“No,” Navis said. “I did.”

Alk stared at him in genuine surprise. After blinking a bit, he said, “Then where is it?”

Navis answered by fetching the cup from his pocket, still wrapped in the handkerchief. Alk stared at it for a moment. He considered. Then he nodded at Maewen. “Give it to her. And you,” he said to Maewen, “take hold of it without that wrapping and tell me your name is Noreth of Kredindale. Go on.”

Maewen wretchedly took the cup and just stopped herself from wiping the tears off her face with the handkerchief. “My name is Noreth of Kredindale,” she said, “Why—”

“Quiet,” said Alk.

Maewen obediently shut her mouth. The man had a personality as huge as his body, she thought, wiping her face with her sleeve. You did what he said.

“Now say your real name,” said Alk.

“I’m Mayelbridwen Singer,” Maewen said sadly.

She was still thinking of Noreth. She saw everyone staring at the cup before it occurred to her to look at it herself. It was shining blue all over its lopsided shape. Even in the gold haze of dawn it was bright. And at the end of her long shadow, stretching away on top of her horse’s longer shadow, right out across the grass and bracken, there was a blue haze where the shadow of the cup should have been. She saw Alk’s followers turning to look at it.

“Marvelous!” said Alk. “Clever work! When I was a boy at the Lawschool, I heard they used it for truth telling in evidence.” For a moment, in spite of their anxiety, all four of them had an irresistible vision of Alk at grittling. His side must have won every time. Even Navis nearly smiled. “But I never saw it at work before this,” Alk said. “Now tell me another lie, young Mayelbridwen.”

Maewen’s mind would not come up with a lie at first. Then her horse sidled, no doubt puzzled by the blue light on its back, and she caught a glimpse of scarlet, where Luthan was standing, patting his horse’s nose and staring at the cup. She said, “I’m in love with the Earl of Dropwater.” The blue light went from the cup as if someone had turned a switch. Moril gave an unhappy chuckle.

“Now another truth,” Alk commanded.

Maewen nearly began, “I’m in love with—” but she swallowed it down and said, “Oh—er—we found the Adon’s sword. It’s behind my saddle.”

“Did you indeed?” said Alk as the cup lit blue again, like a small sheeny moon. “I thought no one knew where that sword really was. Well, well. Now pass the cup to the Singer-lad.” Maewen reached across and handed the cup over. As Moril’s hand closed round it, the blue light went again. Alk nodded. “You say your name,” he said to Moril.

“Osfameron Tanamoril Clennensson,” said Moril. And the cup was alight and blue again. He stared at it wonderingly.

“Untruth,” commanded Alk.

“I—er—I can’t play the cwidder,” Moril said. And he was holding a simple silver cup.

“Now say—Did you kill Noreth of Kredindale?” Alk said.

“No!” said Moril, and again the cup flared blue. Moril screwed his eyes up at it as if he might cry.

“Now pass it to Navis,” Alk ordered. When Navis had stretched out and taken the cup and it was once more a mild silver, Alk said, “And did you kill Noreth Onesdaughter?”

“I most certainly did not,” Navis said, and screwed his eyes up like Moril when the cup shone blue in his hand.

Mitt waited anxiously. Alk was leaving him till last because he thought Mitt was the guilty one. He could see that. It was a wretched thought. But the cup itself was beginning to worry him just as much. If it was behaving as it was supposed to with the others—and from Alk’s look as he tested it, it was—then it had behaved all wrong with Mitt, spitting blue sparks at him both other times he touched it. Mitt suspected the thing disliked him. He did not trust it not to prove him guilty out of sheer malice. He could see the faces of his onetime friends in Aberath behind Alk, shut away from him, sure he was a murderer.

“Now to him,” Alk said to Navis.

Navis held the blue-glowing cup out to Mitt. That, and Mitt’s worry, made his new horse turn round restively, giving him a sight of Luthan and all his people staring. Ammet only knew what they were thinking.

“Take it!” Navis snapped.

Mitt spared a hand for the thing. “Ouch!” It was like nettles, squirting blue rays between his fingers. He had to let go the reins and hang on to the cup with both hands or he would have let it fall. It hurt. It crackled blue streams round his wrists and knuckles. The cup clearly hated him as much as the Countess-horse did. “Ow!” And Luthan’s spare horse did not help, bucking around in fear, until Navis grabbed it and pulled on the bit.

“Can you bring yourself to tell a lie?” Alk said, watching callously.

“You being … sarky is … all I need!” Mitt said with his teeth clenched. “Burn you! I—I—You don’t make steam engines!” The blue rays faded inward between Mitt’s fingers and vanished. The prickling lasted an instant longer, and then that went, too. Mitt shook the plain silver goblet he was now holding, and the other hand as well. The relief! “Burn you, Alk! This thing hates me! I won’t dare tell the truth now, I warn you!”

“I dare you,” said Alk. “Did you kill Noreth of Kredindale?”

“No!” Mitt spat, hunched against another assault from the cup. It spat at him again, with a sharp sizzle, but, to his surprise, it was nothing like so painful. More like a tingling. The blue rays reaching through his fingers were almost glorious. “Ah. Calmed it down,” he said.

“Turn it off, turn it on. I thought that might do it,” Alk said. He looked smug, like someone who had won a bet. As Mitt thankfully passed the cup back to Navis, he said, “Then I declare you all clear of the charge of murder. Now,” he added to Maewen, “let’s have a look at that sword, young lady.”

“But why?” said Navis.

“It might do to swear some more on,” Alk said.

Navis looked harrowed. “Please,” he said. “I have to get to Kernsburgh in case my son, Ynen, is there.”

Maewen hurriedly scrabbled the sword loose, knowing Navis was right.

Alk grinned. “It’s just curiosity, really. I love clever metalwork. Just draw the sword and show it to me, young lady, and then you can all go.”

Maewen tried to draw the sword in the same hurry—too hurriedly. She jammed it sideways somehow, and it refused to emerge. “It’s stuck!” she said, hauling uselessly at it. Mitt and Navis leaned over to help. They both wanted to get going. Both their horses, and Maewen’s with them, got the wrong idea and started to move and were pulled back. All three surged round in a circle, and Moril’s horse joined in. Alk calmly moved his own horse back, where he sat watching the confusion. It was only resolved when Navis seized the leather scabbard Maewen was waving about and planted the hilt end on Mitt’s saddle. Both pulled. The sword came loose with a slithery clang.

“There,” said Mitt. He rode over and pushed the sword under Alk’s nose. “Satisfied?”

“I’ll say!” Alk looked it over admiringly. “It may look plain and a silly old fashion, but it’s better work than any of us could do today. I’d give an eyetooth to meet the man that made it. He’d have taken a year and a day to do it, you know. No one bothers to take that sort of trouble today. All right. Put it away, and let’s all get to Kernsburgh.”

“All?” said Navis. He was more depressed than Mitt had ever seen him. “I’ve no more patience for jokes.”

“No joke,” said Alk. “I said I’d come to Kernsburgh with the rest of you. Keril listens to me.”

“I don’t think you understand,” Navis said wearily. “You have just removed my pretext for dragging the Earl of Dropwater there with me.”

Alk’s eyes went to Maewen. “Is that so? Who heard me do that, apart from you and two lads who knew, anyway? Didn’t you?” he asked Moril.

“Kankredin might have heard,” Moril said.

“All the more reason for going there,” said Alk. He turned his vast horse round to join his hearthmen.

“Just a moment,” Navis said. He seemed to have revived wonderfully. Alk stopped and turned his head questioningly. “If I have no pretext,” Navis said, “you must have one.”

“Must I?” Alk lifted his helmet and scratched his head. “I suppose it stands to reason,” he admitted, “that if I pull the rug out from under you, you’ll need somewhere to stand.” He grinned. “Let’s say I’ve got the same pretext as you have.”

Navis laughed and wheeled round to ride back to Luthan.

“What did he mean?” Maewen asked as their three horses shimmied about, glad to be moving again.

“Not to tell Luthan you’re not Noreth, I think,” Mitt said, although, knowing Alk and Navis as he did, he was not at all sure.

She made a face. Moril laughed. “Don’t look now. Luthan’s on his way to ask you all about what Alk wanted.”

Maewen naturally looked. Luthan was mounted again, trotting up the road with an eager, tender, questioning look. “What shall I tell him?”

Navis reached Luthan first. He spoke quickly and quietly to Luthan, and whatever it was he said, it seemed to satisfy Luthan entirely. He shot Maewen a look of deep understanding and rode gravely beside Navis as their party joined Alk’s.

The two groups together made quite an impressive force, Mitt thought, as he rode in the midst of it. This ought to show Earl Keril they meant business—if this was what Navis and Alk had in mind. Since he was not sure, Mitt found himself thinking about Noreth instead, dead before she set foot on the King’s Road. Kankredin must be angry about that. Wend had fooled him, and everyone else, by sending Maewen in her place. Except that Wend hadn’t seemed to know what he was doing. Mitt was anxious about that. Wend had withdrawn his protection from Maewen, and she could well be in danger if Kankredin turned on her. Mitt decided not to let her out of his sight.

He was surprised, and a little ashamed, to find that when he thought he was thinking of Noreth, it was Maewen he was really worried about.

About an hour later they reached Kernsburgh. At least, it was where Alk and all the Dropwater people said Kernsburgh was.

“It is. Honestly,” Moril assured Mitt and Maewen.

They had halted in a half circle three or four riders deep, facing an ordinary small waystone. Beyond it the green turf rose and fell in a hundred humps and hummocks. And that was all.

“City of Gold,” Alk said genially. “Always on the hill beyond.”

Navis beckoned Mitt and cantered among the grassy mounds to organize his defense. Everyone followed slowly, Maewen among the last. This felt weird. Where they had first stopped could have been the space which Kernsburgh Central Station was going to fill, except that the waystone was all wrong. Those low mounds were where she had last seen shops and office blocks, and the slightly higher hummocks ahead, up which Navis was riding slantwise, were where the Tannoreth Palace would be someday soon. The green crease she was following, full of hoofprints and horse droppings, was probably King Street. And instead of cars and lorries, there was a much quieter confusion of riders in two different liveries. Maewen could so little believe this was really Kernsburgh that she had to look up toward the distant hills to make sure. There she saw the blue jagged shapes she saw from Dad’s apartment, the North Dales Peaks. But the oddest part was the way there had obviously been a city here once, under all these lumps. She felt as if time had stood upside down and she really was in the far future, looking at the remains of the Kernsburgh she had known.

A great shout jerked her attention back to here and now. Mitt was down from his horse, leaping across the hummocks, yelling. Maewen shook her own horse to a fast trot and arrived at the top of the palace mounds in time to see Mitt delightedly greeting two newcomers. The tall, curly one was plainly Kialan. Navis had his arm round the shoulders of the small pale boy with Kialan. They were alike enough for Maewen to know that this was Ynen. There were two weary-looking horses in the hollow behind the two. It looked as if they had ridden all night as well.

“I’m sorry we kept out of sight,” Kialan was saying. “There was a big troop of horsemen in war gear on the road last night. We had to leave the road to avoid them. We couldn’t see who they were in the dark, but we didn’t think they should see us.”

“It was probably Alk,” said Navis, “but we’ll take precautions.”

Maewen was watching Ynen frisk round Mitt like a terrier puppy round a greyhound. I’m so glad! she thought. He likes Mitt! I don’t think I could have borne it if he’d been like Hildy. Ynen was so unlike Hildy that she thought maybe he was a bit of a softie. Then Ynen looked up at Maewen, and she knew he was not soft at all. He smiled at her uncertainly, not knowing who she was.

“Are you Noreth?” Kialan asked her. Lordly, Maewen thought. He reminded her of the boys at the sixth form college.

“We all thought so, but apparently not,” Navis said. “Mayelbridwen, I believe, is the name.”

Just then, there were agitated noises from Luthan a little way off. Mitt went haring over there to see what was wrong. Maewen found she could not face the puzzled looks from Kialan and Ynen, and she followed Mitt.

In another hidden hollow Luthan was standing over an immense heap of mixed bread and grapes. There was another heap beyond that looked like oats. “Where did all this come from?” Luthan demanded.

Mitt narrowed his eyes at the stuff. The loaves were the kind plaited into a wheat shape which he had last seen in the Holy Islands. The grapes were the sweet green Southern kind. He grinned. “A present,” he said, “from the Earth Shaker and She Who Raised the Islands.”

“You’re joking,” Luthan said uncertainly.

“I am not,” Mitt said.

However it arrived, the breakfast was very welcome. By the time Navis had the place organized, everyone was glad to sit down and eat at their posts. Alk’s people, and most of Luthan’s, were posted hidden behind mounds in a great circle. Kialan and Ynen were sent to help pass a loaf and a bunch of grapes to everyone, while Maewen and Mitt were busy pouring a pile of oats in front of each of the horses picketed in the middle. Luthan’s hearth-women were standing by a third of the horses to mount a cavalry charge if necessary.

“There’s still quite a heap of bread and grapes left,” Kialan said as he arrived at the horses with an armload for the hearthwomen.

“As if they might be expecting more people,” Ynen said, following Kialan with his arms clutched round loaves and grapes dangling from his fingers. “I got these for us.”

Mitt wondered about this as they went to eat in the central hollow. What did the Undying think was going to happen? He had a sense that this was a lull before things got frantic. And once things got frantic, he knew they would go on that way for quite some time.

Before Mitt could mention this feeling to the others, Navis arrived with Alk and Luthan. “There,” Navis said. “That should stop anyone interfering while we look for the crown. Has anyone any idea where it is?”

Everyone shook their heads. Wend would know, Maewen thought. Oh, bother the man!

Luthan broke apart a loaf. “They say,” he said, “that the crown is buried in the ruins of King Hern’s palace. You may be sitting on it,” he added, with a melting smile at Maewen.

“Then it’s going to take digging to find,” Alk said, sitting on the slope with a loaf in each hand.

“Long, careful digging,” Kialan agreed. “They took six weeks’ digging to find the second spellcoat up above Hannart.”

“I doubt,” said Navis, “that we have six hours.”

“Then we think it round another way,” said Alk.

Moril arrived then, with his vaguest look, and was introduced to Ynen. Ynen was delighted. It turned out that he had met Moril’s brother, Dagner, in Hannart, who had told him a great deal about Moril. The two of them chattered as they ate. They were the only ones talking. Everyone else was wondering how to find the crown, except Luthan, who kept giving Maewen such melting looks that she wanted to tell him to start digging. But he won’t, she thought. It would spoil his scarlet suit.

“This won’t do,” Mitt said at last.

“No,” Kialan agreed. He nudged Moril with his boot. “Moril, do the Singers have any sayings that might help us find the crown?”

Moril looked up. His face was full of a kind of nervous awe. “You want to go and get it now?”

Everyone stared at him.

“I’ve been walking around,” he said, “trying to work it out. I think the cwidder will do it. We have to go to the waystone.”

Everyone sprang up. “Why didn’t you say?” Ynen cried out.

“I second that,” said Navis.

“Leave him be,” Kialan said, as they all raced down the hummock. “He’s like that. One of us should have asked him before.”

They raced past the hobbled horses, where the hearthwomen were fixing bayonets to long guns. Mitt knew how they felt. Every one of the women was trying to pretend this was just a training exercise, and very much hoping that was all it would turn out to be. As they ran on, more hearthmen sprang up alertly from among the green humps and then subsided, seeing they were not being attacked. Further heads reared up from across the green road and disappeared, as the eight of them gathered round the waystone.

“What do we do?” said Kialan.

“Go through,” said Moril. “I think.” He knelt down and carefully put his face to the impossibly small hole in the middle of the waystone.

“Look any different through there, does it?” Mitt asked hopefully.

“No,” Moril said, crawling away backward. He slung the cwidder round to the front of him and stripped off its cover, thinking hard.

“I don’t wish to cast a blight, lad,” said Alk, “but not even young Ynen is going to get through there.”

Moril frowned. “I know. I wish I could think how—”

“Wait a minute,” Maewen interrupted.

As she spoke, there was a yell and a splatter of gunfire from the mounds over to the right. Here comes the frantic bit, Mitt thought.

“Uh-oh,” said Alk.

Luthan’s curvaceous face went a little less pink. “My sector,” he said and went dashing away.

“Good,” said Maewen. “Moril, in the time I come from, this waystone is as tall as a house—and I think the hole is lower down. Does that help?”

Moril’s white face lifted to her. “Yes. That’s a truth.” He put his fingers to the strings of the cwidder and bent his head. Mitt, now he knew a little about the working of the cwidder, could feel Moril concentrate and the power begin to build. He knelt beside him, as if that could help.

There was another shot and a great deal of yelling, fierce and strident, from over to the left. Alk flinched in that direction and turned back. “I’d better go,” he said. “That’s my part. Here, Mitt. Here’s a keepsake for you. Catch.” He tossed Mitt something small and round and heavy.

Mitt was just in time to catch it. “What’s this, then?”

“Told you I made a copy of the Adon’s ring,” Alk called over his shoulder. “Put it on. I may have a hole in me like that waystone when you see me next.”

Mitt gave the ring a distracted look and shoved it on his nearest finger. Moril had begun to play, rippling music like waves from a stone dropped in water, expanding and expanding, and rippling again. The waystone looked no different, but Mitt could feel the solid booming beneath the ripples, and strange, shrill stretching sounds buried in it, that told him that something was happening. Counterpoint against the music came more shots and clamor, this time from behind.

Navis looked over his shoulder. “Now I must go. You young ones find that crown, and we’ll cover your backs.”

“But you’ll need me,” Mitt said, half getting up.

Navis put a hand on his shoulder and held him down. “Not yet. You go. Luck ship and shore.”

A strange thing to say, Maewen thought. She looked back at the waystone and saw the impossible sight of Moril stepping through the hole in the center, carefully holding his cwidder. The waystone looked no larger. Moril looked no smaller. Yet he stepped through, and there was no sign of him on the other side. Ynen hopped eagerly through after him, and he disappeared, too. Then Kialan stooped to follow. He was so much bigger that Maewen held her breath. But Kialan stepped through as calmly and easily as if he did this impossible thing every day. Mitt went next, in a gawky scramble of elbows and long legs. By this time the yelling and the gunshots were coming from all round. As Maewen bent down to follow Mitt, there were white puffs of smoke coming from every mound she could see. She saw the hearthwomen in the center grimly getting on their horses.

A strange voice behind her yelled, “Charge! Come on, charge them!”

Maewen had no time to think that the hole was too small. She simply scrambled through it, and was barely surprised to find that it was easy.