“Aren’t you proud of me at all?” Mitt asked him. Al stared at him. “Chip off the old block, and so on?” said Mitt.
At this Al spat on the floor as Mitt remembered him often spitting in the dyke. “Proud of you! I’ve got three kids in Neathdale, and the lot of them put together never got in my way like you do. First thing you ever did was get lost and put me under an obligation to Navis. Then you let the bull get at the rent collector. Then you hang round my neck in Holand. Then, when I thought I’d seen the last of you years before, you bob up dressed like a side of bacon and dump a bomb in front of Hadd just when I’d got my sights lined up on him! I don’t know what good you thought that would do. Mind you,” said Al, “I didn’t know who you were then, but if I had known, I’d have said it was Milda’s fault. It looked just like one of her daft ideas.”
Mitt was not much given to blushing, but he felt his face going warm and red at this. “It was my idea. So!” he said. He felt he had to defend Milda to Al. “She’s all right, Milda is. It’s just she’s not too clear about what’s real. You know, always throwing her money about—” Mitt stopped. That was exactly the truth about Milda, and he had always known she was like that. Milda never looked to the future, whether she was buying too many oysters or sending Mitt to be taken by Harchad. The fact was, neither of them had dreamt what it would be like. It was very painful to Mitt, the way Al was laughing about it.
“You don’t have to tell me she’s got no flaming sense!” Al said. “She’d have ruined me if I’d let her. And you’re just the same. Fancy making friends of Hadd’s grandchildren!”
“They’re not my friends!” Mitt said angrily.
“You could have fooled me,” said Al. “Swap jokes on the cabin roof with your enemies, do you? Told them half your life story, didn’t you? And that Hildrida’s no fool. If you say one word more to her, she’s going to add it up with what I said and spoil all the plans I got for her. You finished yourself when you opened your big mouth, you did. You don’t make friends with people like that. You batten on them.”
There were hurrying footsteps outside the storeroom door. Someone shouted, “Al! Al, are you there? Lithar wants you.”
“Coming!” Al shouted back. “I’ll have to leave you to Bence to deal with,” he said to Mitt. “Can’t that gibbering fool manage for five minutes without me?” He banged out of the storeroom, muttering.
The bolts shot home. Mitt slid down into a heap in the corner. After a moment he wrapped his arms round his head, as if that could keep some of his misery off him. But nothing could. The horrible similarity between himself and Al was clearly no accident. Like father, like son. And as Mitt hated Al so vehemently, he hated himself, if possible, even more. He had set out to be a brute like Al, and it had not been his fault if he had failed. Worse still, everything he had thought he was doing it for turned out to be a complete sham. Al had betrayed the Free Holanders, not the other way round. Mitt felt as if his whole mind was falling to pieces, like Canden in his dream. There seemed nothing left of him at all.
“One thing you might have done, Al,” he said from his corner. “You might have put me out of my misery quick, instead of running away to flaming Lithar!”
It was some hours before anyone came to put an end to Mitt’s misery. By that time he was rolling groaning in the middle of the room. He barely had time to scramble up and barely time to glimpse the little brown sailor, Jenro, and another he did not know, and Bence standing in the doorway, before a large sack was pushed over his head and he was bundled head-down over Jenro’s shoulder.
“Hey!” Mitt said, struggling miserably.
“Be silent, little one, and no harm will come,” Jenro said softly.
“Hurry up,” said Bence from the distance.
Mitt trusted Jenro and stopped struggling. The world began to bounce about as Jenro hurried somewhere with him. Mitt was uncomfortable with his head hanging down, but not badly so. After a short while he was swung up, swung down, and lowered surprisingly gently on to boards that dipped a little. Mitt heard water slapping quietly under the boards and guessed he was in a boat. He felt the boat sway, bumping as the two sailors hitched on the oars. Mitt tried to see through the sack where they were. It was a hairy, porous sack, which tickled his nose rather. He could see very little light coming through, which made him suspect that the boat was undercover somewhere and whatever was being done with him was a secret. He would have yelled, but for what Jenro had said.
The movements of the two sailors stopped. Jenro’s soft voice said, “Then, Captain, you are settled that we must be stirring out to sea to throw this little one in?”
“Yes,” Mitt heard Bence say from above somewhere. “And I’m coming with you to see it done.”
“Captain, there is no need to do that,” said the other sailor.
“Oh, isn’t there?” The boat surged heavily as Bence landed in it. “I know you lot. When you say no need, I start to get suspicious. Cast off there.”
The sailors said nothing. Mitt felt the boat move. The oars began a slow, sleepy dip-creak-splash, dip-creak-splash. Shortly, bright sunlight fell across the holes in the sack. Mitt thought they must be out in the harbour. They went on steadily in the sun, dip-creak-splash, dip-creak-splash. It was so soporific that Mitt nearly fell asleep, in spite of his misery.
Then he heard the gentle voices begin again. “Captain, throwing this little one in the sea is a thing we cannot do.”
“But you wait to tell me till we’re past Trossaver,” Bence said from the distance. “You’ll do it.”
“Captain, there are two of us and one of you.”
“All right. You can watch me do it, then,” said Bence.
“But that is a thing we cannot do.”
“You’ll have to put up with it,” said Bence. “Al wants it done. You always do what Al wants, don’t you?”
“We would not do this for Al either.”
Bence seemed really astonished. “Not for Al!”
“No,” said Jenro. “For this one came on the Wind’s Road, with a great one to guide him behind and before.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” Bence demanded. “You saw Al come on the same flaming boat.”
“That matters not at all. The great ones contain multitudes.”
“Don’t you throw your religion at me!” said Bence.
The voices stopped. The oars dipped slowly and peacefully. Mitt grinned to himself inside the hairy sacking and rubbed his itching nose. He suspected that Bence was more likely to be thrown into the sea than he was. He thought Bence knew it too. Mitt dozed off, soothed by the sound of oars and glad to forget himself. Every so often he woke up to find the argument going on again.
“What am I supposed to do when two of my best men don’t do what I say?” he heard Bence demanding.
“We will do what you say,” answered a gentle voice.
“Then I want this brat dumped in the sea.”
“But that is a thing we cannot do.”
Another time Mitt heard Bence say, “What do you think you’re rowing all this way for, then? Are we just going to turn round and come back again, or what?”
“If you wish for us to turn round, Captain.”
“I do not! I want this brat dumped in the sea.”
“But that is a thing we cannot do, Captain.”
The next time Mitt woke, Bence’s nerve had broken. “I see,” he was saying. “And if I lay a finger on him, it’ll be me in the sea instead.”
“You would not force us to that, Captain.”
“Then what can I force you to?”
“If it is a thing that meets your mind, Captain, we can be stirring to an island and putting the little one on it. There are those where no mortal men live.”
“Bother meeting my mind,” said Bence. “It won’t meet Al’s.”
“If you are not telling Al, we shall not be saying either.”
“Hmm,” said Bence. After a pause he said, “Well, it’s not so different
from dumping him in the sea, I suppose, provided it’s uninhabited. Which island is it to be?”
“Lovely Holy Island is nearby. There is none on her but She Who Raised the Islands and the Earth Shaker.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“No mortal soul lives there.”
“I thought there was supposed to be a mad old priest living there.”
“He does not live there. No mortal soul lives there.”
“Oh, very well!” said Bence. There was a noticeable increase in the creak and jerk of the oars. Mitt could feel the boat shoving through the water. After barely a minute the swing of the oars stopped. Shingle grated underneath and grated again. Mitt could hear waves rattling the pebbles of a beach.
“Hurry up!” said Bence.
Mitt was lifted and carried by two people. Their feet crunched on sand, and then his own feet were placed tenderly on what felt like turf. Jenro pulled the sack off him and smiled at him.
Mitt had a feeling Jenro was going to say something, perhaps tell him something important, but while Mitt was blinking and rubbing hairs from the sack out of his eyes, Bence was climbing angrily along the rowing boat at the sand’s edge.
“Get back here,” said Bence. “Or else.”
The two sailors smiled at Mitt, and Jenro certainly winked, though Mitt could not see why, before they trotted back to the boat. Mitt stood, blinking still, while they pushed the boat off, twirled it with a deft shove of an oar, and rowed smartly away, getting smaller and smaller against the green of the nearest island. He thought they were going at least twice as fast as they had come.
Mitt felt desolate. The nearest island was far too far for him to swim. Holy Island towered above him in a tumble of rocks and green grass. Little trees and heather hung far above his head. It was wild, uncultivated and deserted. To judge from the fresh, peaty smell, there was water somewhere, but there was no food except berries. Mitt could not see why Jenro had winked. He was going to starve to death.
He tried to remember what Holy Island had looked like from the other side, as they sailed past in Wind’s Road. He thought it had seemed lower and greener, and – though he might be mistaken – he thought he remembered that the islands were nearer on that side. It was worth going to look, anyway.
Mitt set off round the island. There was no clear path. He was forced to wander up and down, between rocks and over slippery turf, sometimes almost down to the water’s edge, sometimes quite far up the high hill, and, as he went, his miseries caught up with him again. He hated himself and Al and Navis – everything – so much that he wished someone really had drowned him. He no longer wondered why Hildy had exclaimed she hated life. It was not worth living.
The sun was low. Mitt was hot and under a cloud of midges. And he found his way round the island barred by a huge block of granite. Grumbling dismally under his breath, he scrambled his way to the top of it. A green meadow spread beneath him on the seawards side, bright in the golden evening. Beyond it the sea rolled and swashed in little waves. Mitt looked out over their golden ribbing and saw that the nearest two islands were only two hundred yards or so away. He could swim that easily. No wonder Jenro winked. Then he looked down at the meadow.
There was a bull in it. It was a huge animal, almost red in the low sun. Its great shadow stretched halfway across the meadow. As Mitt looked at it, the bull raised its triangular head, armed with wicked horns growing out of a mat of chestnut curls, and looked at Mitt. Its tufted tail swung. Keeping its red eyes on Mitt, it advanced towards the rock. Mitt could feel the granite tremble under the weight of it as it walked.
Now what am I supposed to do? Mitt wondered, crouching on top of the rock.
A woman came round the rock and looked up at Mitt. “You’d better not go that way,” she said to Mitt, nodding towards the bull. She was wearing a green Island dress with red embroidery, but Mitt thought she could not be an Island woman. She was tall, and she had long red hair which blew round her in the sea breeze. Her face was very beautiful and rather serious. “Go up that way,” she said, pointing to the island above the rock.
Mitt looked where she pointed and saw a path of trodden earth climbing steeply this way and that among the rocks. He looked back at the bull, which met his eye unpleasantly. “I suppose I’d better,” he said, and he stood up. Then it occurred to him that the woman was standing in the meadow, only a few yards from the bull. “Are you safe there?” he said.
The woman smiled. It reminded Mitt of the way Milda smiled, when the crease went out of her face and the dimple took its place. “Thank you. I can manage him,” she said.
As Mitt set off up the steep path, he saw the woman go towards the bull with her hand held out. The bull stretched its massive neck to nuzzle her fingers. Well, rather her than me! Mitt thought.
The path went backwards and forwards across the hill, diving between twisted trees and making hairpin bends over rocks. Mitt climbed with the rich smell of the earth and the sharp smell of turf in his nose. In his ears the plangent plash and roll of the waves became larger, but more distant. Mitt wondered where he was going and what good it would do when he got there. Then the path went round a rock with a tree growing out of it and entered a very small hanging dell, open one side to the sea, and greener than any of the islands. Mitt stood there to get his breath. There was a great view over the islands in the golden light, islands on one side floating green-gold in blue-grey sea, and islands on the other side blue-black against the sun, floating in silver-gold, like clouds in the sunset.
Mitt, hot and breathless and miserable as he was, felt very bitter at the sight. Times out of mind, as a small boy, he had dreamt of such a place. Now he had found it, and what good had it done?
He turned away and went on into the dell. It was moist and cool. To Mitt’s pleasure, there was a trickle of water running down a rock. The sack had made him very thirsty. He put his hands and then his face into it and came out dripping. He noticed that beside him there was one of those stone pillars he had seen on the Isle of Gard. It was about as tall as a sundial, but wider. On it were two small figures, one made of green grapes and rowan berries, and the other of plaited stalks of wheat.
“Hey!” said Mitt. “Here’s Libby Beer and Old Ammet!”
He was stretching out a hand to give Old Ammet a touch of greeting when he felt the dell tremble under the feet of a heavy creature. He whirled round, expecting to see the bull again.
A grey-white horse had stopped further down the dell and a tall man with flying light hair was dismounting from it. Mitt hastily brushed his wet face with his arm and backed against the short stone pillar. The man was Old Ammet. He came towards Mitt, smiling a little, with his long light hair blowing and swirling about his head and shoulders as if the wind were blowing half a gale in the dell. But there was no wind at all. He had a straight, grave way of looking, which reminded Mitt a little of Hobin, though his face was nothing like Hobin’s. It was like no face Mitt had ever seen. One moment Mitt thought Old Ammet was a grand old man, and the next he seemed a handsome young one. And as Mitt saw these strange changes in Old Ammet, he was more frightened than he had ever been of any nightmare. With every step Old Ammet advanced, Mitt felt another wave of fear, until he was as terrified as he had been that time in Holand when he pretended to play marbles – right up to the moment when Old Ammet spoke to him. Then it all seemed perfectly natural.
“I was needing to speak with you, Alhammitt,” Old Ammet said. His voice reminded Mitt of Siriol’s, though it was also quite, quite different. “I have to ask you a question.”
“You could have talked to me anytime,” Mitt said, feeling a little resentful. “Why does it have to be now, when I’m all to pieces?”
Old Ammet’s young face laughed, and his old face answered. “Because there was no doubt till now what you would do.”
“What I want to do is get out of this place and go North,” Mitt said. “What’s so doubtful about that?”
“Nothing,” agreed
Old Ammet, out of his grave old face. “The men of the Islands will help you go North.” Then his face blazed young and glad and eager, and he said, “It is also quite certain that you will come back.”
“How did you know that?” Mitt asked. He knew it was true. He would have to come back to the Holy Islands. “When do I come?”
“That is for you to say,” said Old Ammet, young and old at once. “And when you do, it is laid down that we shall deliver these islands into your keeping. My question to you is: will you take them as a friend or as an enemy?”
“As an enemy to you, you mean?” Mitt asked, highly perplexed by this question.
Again Old Ammet’s young face laughed. “We are not the stuff of enemies or friends, Alhammitt. Shall I ask this way: will you come as a conqueror or in peace?”
“How should I know?” Mitt said. “What do you mean coming and asking me questions like that? What do you mean coming and pushing me around? It’s my belief you’ve been pushing me around all the time, you and Libby Beer, and I don’t like people pushing me around!”
“Nobody has pushed you around,” said Old Ammet. He looked as old as the Islands. “You chose your own course, and we helped you, as we were bound to do. We shall help you again. All I needed to know was what manner of help we must give you in times to come.” And as if Mitt had already told him the answer to that, Old Ammet turned away and went to his horse. The corn colour of his clothes and hair caught the sun and seemed to melt into it.
“Hey, wait!” said Mitt. He felt very resentful and very disappointed in Old Ammet. He had expected more from him somehow. “Well, what am I supposed to say? You might give me a bit of help over that, at least!” he said, hurrying after the melting, hazy figure. Old Ammet turned round, melting back to a young man, and Mitt found he had to stop. “Can’t you give the Holy Islands to someone else? I don’t deserve to get them,” he said.
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