“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 forwards on to 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 towards 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 upwards 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 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 channelled 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 backwards 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 fulfil 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.
HOLDING THAT FIRST conversation with Mitt was one of the hardest things Maewen had ever done. Long before they stopped for what Navis called “a nuncheon”, she could feel sweat starting in beads on her face. The air grew milder anyway, warm enough for Maewen to remember that this was, after all, Midsummer Day, but it was not that. It was the sheer difficulty of keeping her end up. She kept looking at Wend, hoping he would give her a hint or so, but Wend simply strode along, easily keeping up with Navis’s mare, and said nothing to anyone. Maewen took this to mean that Wend was only going to come to her rescue if she made a really bad mistake.
In a way this was comforting because it meant she had not done anything really wrong yet, but it was frightening too. She knew her face was a mass of dots, dots of freckle and dots of sweat. She hated herself like that. She kept sneaking looks at Mitt’s long, bony profile, hoping he was not too disgusted.
Mitt usually turned and grinned at her. After a while Maewen realised that he was as flustered as she was. At first she thought it was because she was supposed to be Queen. Then Mitt said, “I’ll tell you straight, Noreth. It came as a shock last night, finding out you were so old.”
Old! Maewen thought. Oh, bother these freckles! He must be at least fifteen! How old does he think I am? Eighteen, said her memory. Noreth went on her ride the Midsummer after she was eighteen. That would seem old to Mitt. “Don’t hold it against me,” she said. “Please!”
Mitt laughed. “I’ll try not to.”
This did not make the conversation any easier. Maewen was trying to find out who Mitt was – he had a dreadful Southern accent for someone so far north – and how he knew Noreth, and how he was connected with Navis, and why Moril disliked him so, and why Mitt talked as if he lived in Aberath, not Adenmouth, and what had made him come on this expedition, and Mitt would keep talking about that golden statue. His beastly horse did not help. It kept trying to bite her leg.
Each time Mitt hauled its head round and cursed it. “Stop that! I told you, you Countess, you!”
After about the sixth time, Maewen had to laugh. “It’s a gelding. Why do you call it Countess?”
“I told you yesterday,” Mitt said, obviously surprised.
Help! “Oh, so you did,” Maewen said hurriedly.
It was like that all the time. But Maewen kept on, because she did need to know, feeling ridiculously flustered for someone riding in the clear open air with mountains slowly wheeling around them on all sides. And at last she seemed to have the story of the statue sorted out. Mitt and Noreth had found it together in the River Aden. Maewen frowned a little at this. There was that odd dream she had had in the train …
“And I need my share of the money,” Mitt told her. “I need it bad. It’s to help Navis out too, or I wouldn’t keep nagging about it.”
Mitt believed in plain speaking, Maewen could see. She liked that, but it made her feel dishonest. “The statue is quite safe … honestly,” she repeated. She began to hope devoutly that the horse she was riding might have belonged to Noreth. It had been wandering by the waystone. Noreth had meant to meet everyone there, and then she had been kidnapped, so it could have been her horse, if you supposed the kidnappers had hauled her into a carriage and turned the horse loose. If that was so, then the golden statue just could be in the roll of baggage behind the saddle.
They stopped to eat in a grassy bay surrounded by high rocks. Maewen made haste to lead her horse to one side across the moist green tender grass, where she hunted through that baggage roll, pretending to look for food. Food she found – bread, cheese, apples, and a fine small pie – though not very much of it, not nearly enough to last all the way to Kernsburgh. She found a clean undershirt and drawers and some socks. They were all her size, so it did begin to look as if this was indeed Noreth’s horse, but there was no statue. What about this roll of blanket, then? It felt unpromisingly soft and light, but Maewen unrolled it all the same. As she did so, someone spoke, close beside her.
“You won’t find the statue there. It has been stolen.”
It was a man’s voice, deep and rather echoing. “What do you mean, stolen?” Maewen said, wondering how whoever it was knew. She looked round, expecting to find herself talking to Navis or Hestefan. She was confounded to see Hestefan many yards away, still dreamily sitting on the driver’s seat of the cart, and Navis unsaddling his mare right on the other side of the green bay. It had not sounded like Wend. Wend was anyway sitting against the wheel of the cart, fetching a loaf out of his knapsack. Mitt was over beside Navis. Moril came crawling out of the cart beside Hestefan as she looked. Everyone was too far away to have spoken – unless of course one of them was a ventriloquist. Maewen looked up at the rocks, and all round, and then bent to look under the horse’s belly. There was no one else. But the blanket came unrolled as she stooped, showing that it was nothing but blanket. There was no golden statue anywhere in this ba
ggage.
“Who are you?” she said, keeping her eyes warily on all of the other five people. “Where are you? How do you know?”
She had spoken too softly for anyone to have heard her, and none of the others moved. But the voice answered her, seemingly out of the air beside her. “I am the one who has always advised you. And I can feel the statue near. One of those five has it.”
“Thanks very much!” Maewen rolled the blanket up. “I can’t tell you how that sets my mind at rest!” She thought she was in a state of shock again. Her mind was whirring with it. Whoever had taken the statue could only have taken it from Noreth. Therefore, one of her companions must have helped kidnap Noreth, and that person knew Maewen was a fraud. Why had that person not said? Or was this voice lying?
“I am glad to find you so calm,” the voice said. “You speak like the Queen you will be.”
Calm! thought Maewen. She rammed the blanket and clothes back in the container and turned back across the grass, juggling pie and cheese and apple with hands that seemed too shaky to hold them.
Moril met her as she came. He was eating a large hunk of bread – one-handed, because his other hand was supporting that cwidder of his. Maewen had yet to see Moril put it down. It was as if it were part of him. She noticed now, without any surprise, that it was the same cwidder that had been in that portrait of Moril, the one that was in the glass case beside it. She was noticing everything just then. She felt like a hunted hare, wild big eyes staring. She noticed that Moril did have a scatter of freckles on his pale skin, rather like hers, only not so many. She noticed he was looking at her wonderingly.
“What’s the matter?” he said with his mouth full. “Have you seen a ghost?”
“Yes – or I heard one at least,” Maewen said. “Out of the air. A man spoke.”
“I thought something happened,” Moril said. “I think I need to break my rule again. Just a second.” He bit off another mouthful of bread, tossed the rest down on the grass, and put both hands to the cwidder. For a moment he chewed and thought, and then he played a short run of mellow rippling chords.
The Crown of Dalemark (UK) Page 8