It was midnight before Hildy dared signal that Mitt was asleep. In fact, he had been asleep all along, but so restlessly that Hildy had not realized. She pulled the cabin door quietly shut and shot the elegant little bolt home.
“Thank goodness! You go to the foresails,” Ynen whispered.
Hildy crept forward, round the starboard side, to avoid any noise near Mitt. Ynen could see her clearly against the pallor of the sails. As soon as she was ready, he put the tiller over hard. Wind’s Road surged round. Her sails ran out to the end of their ropes and swung back. The wind seemed suddenly twice as strong. Ynen kept his foot against the tiller and hauled in the mainsail frantically. Hildy collected the clapping foresails and dragged them the other way. Wind’s Road stood still, head on to the wind, and seemed to flap and tremble in every part. Then she was round, tipped over much farther, and apparently rushing through the water, but actually making very little way against the current. Ynen hauled in the mainsail as close as he could, in order not to waste time tacking, and they were now headed back to Holand. Hildy came back to the well, and they both sagged with relief.
Holand meant safety and bed and warm rooms. They had got the better of that dreadful boy. That was their first thought. Then they both remembered the trouble they would be in once they were back. That could not be helped, but they did wish the thought of the trouble did not go along with an empty, forsaken feeling. It was no good pretending Navis would defend them from the uncles. On the other hand, Uncle Harchad might forgive them a great deal if they brought him the boy who had thrown the bomb.
Hildy and Ynen peered at one another’s faces, trying to see what the other thought about that. The boy was a criminal. He had tried to murder their grandfather. Perhaps he was a friend of the man who had actually done so. But all the same, he was a human being, much the same age as they were, and having bad dreams in the cabin. They both thought of Uncle Harchad kicking the Earl of Hannart’s son, and the Earl’s son cringing. It was easy enough to replace the Earl’s son with a picture of that skinny, cocksure boy, and quite as unpleasant.
“We could put him off at Hoe Point, couldn’t we?” Ynen whispered, and relieved Hildy’s mind considerably.
Mitt, as he slept, was encountering Poor Old Ammet and Libby Beer at once. They rushed at him, one from either side. The world spun about and went wrong somehow. When Mitt opened his eyes, he knew the world was still wrong. It was going with a blunt, blundering, bucking motion, and tipping the wrong way. Those early years with Siriol had put some things deep in Mitt’s brain. Funny, he thought. Close-hauled against a current. Flaming Ammet! He snatched up Hobin’s gun and burst out of the cabin. He did not even notice the door had been bolted.
Outside, he had only to feel the wind on his face to know he was right. The children’s smitten faces in the lamplight confirmed it. So did the Northern Cross low down behind them.
“Turn her back round!” he yelled. “You sneaking idle rich, you! You think you can do just as you like, don’t you! Go on, turn her back round!”
At this, despite the waving gun, Hildy lost her temper. He spoiled her entire scheme, and then he shouted insults. “Don’t you talk to me about doing just as we want!” She was so angry that she stood up and yelled in Mitt’s face. “You sneak aboard our ship, and order us about like dirt, and eat our food, and make us go where you want to go, and then you have the nerve to say we always do what we want! You’re worse than—than Grandfather! He was honest about it at least!”
“Honest!” bawled Mitt. “Haddock honest! Don’t make me laugh. He was robbing all Holand for years!”
“So you try to murder him, and order us about like dirt on top of that!” Hildy screamed.
“You are dirt, that’s why!” Mitt thundered, waving the gun. “Turn this boat back round!” Ynen clutched the tiller and feared for Hildy’s life. In fact, neither he nor Mitt noticed that Mitt had not even remembered to cock the gun. He had not spun the empty barrel on either.
Hildy did not know and did not care. “If we’re dirt, I shudder to think what your family is!” she roared.
“Oh shut up!” Mitt pointed the gun at Ynen. “Turn this boat round, I said!”
For the second time that night Ynen thought he was about to be shot. It gave him a cool kind of resignation. “You did try to murder our grandfather,” he said. “Give me one good reason why we should do anything to help you.”
Mitt noticed he was pointing the gun at Ynen and realized that Ynen did not regard the gun as a good reason. It sobered him rather. He felt considerable respect for this smooth-faced, hawk-nosed little boy, though, as for his sister—! “Well then,” he said, “your precious grandfather bust up my family. Is that a reason?”
“How did he do that?” Ynen asked, shivering with cold and weariness.
Hildy added angrily, “Whatever he did, we didn’t do anything to you!”
“I’ll tell you,” said Mitt. He rested his arm on the cabin roof and began to talk, jerkily and angrily at first, and then more reasonably, as he realized neither of them was trying to interrupt. He told them how he had been born at Dike End, and how the rent had been doubled, and how this had forced his father to work in Holand and then forced them out of the farm. He told them how his father had never found proper work and so joined the Free Holanders, and how he had been betrayed over the warehouse—though he did not mention names—and disappeared, leaving Milda and himself to manage alone. He described how they had lived after that, and he could not help thinking, as he talked, that this was a funny kind of way to tell your life story, with Wind’s Road bucking through the water in the dark, and the half-lit faces of Hadd’s grandchildren staring up at him as he talked. He told them about Hobin. “And if it hadn’t been for him,” he said, “we’d have been turned out into the street when they knocked the houses down to make the Festival safe.”
“They didn’t just turn them out, did they?” Hildy said. “I thought—”
“Father had houses built for them,” said Ynen. “But I don’t think anyone else was going to bother. All the same,” he said to Mitt, “you and your mother weren’t there then. You were all right. You still haven’t given me a reason.”
“Isn’t that a reason?” Mitt demanded. “There was Hobin never daring to put a foot wrong for fear of the arms inspectors, and us near on as hard up as ever because Hadd would put the rents up all the time. But never the price of guns—not he! We had to pay through the nose to support those soldiers, so that they could make us scared to stir hand or foot. You don’t understand—can’t you think how it feels when everyone you know is scared sick all the time? You couldn’t trust people. They’d turn round and tell on you, anytime, even if it weren’t you done it, because they didn’t want to get marched off in the night themselves. That’s not how people should be.”
“It isn’t,” Hildy agreed.
“I grant you that,” said Ynen. “But you’re talking about everything. You haven’t told me one thing Grandfather did to you. I still don’t see why we should help you. But I’ve heard things about Uncle Harchad. I don’t mind landing you at Hoe Point, so you’ll have a chance to get away.”
Yes, Mitt thought, in full view of all the ships coming out to look for them. Very safe. Talking to this boy was like bashing down a weak little plant that kept springing up again in your face. “You might as well take me back to Holand and be done,” he said. “If I’m not caught landing, I’ll be caught in the Flate straight after.”
“Well, you did throw a bomb,” said Ynen. “And I can’t see why you did. There must have been lots of people in Holand far worse off than you. Why did you do it?”
That was a home question. Twenty-four hours earlier Mitt could have given all sorts of answers. He could have told them at least that it was to be revenged on Siriol, Dideo, and Ham. But he had gone out of his way not to be revenged. And he had run and run and run. He did not know what he thought he had been doing. He was reduced to answering with another question. “Could you
have seen things so wrong and not think you ought to do something about it?”
This in its turn was a home question to Ynen and Hildy. They had indeed seen things wrong. All Ynen had done was wish he could whirl a rattle in Hadd’s face. All Hildy had done was tear a bedspread and make empty threats. Then they had gone out sailing—a piece of defiance which had thrown them in the way of this boy. And he had not only told them more things that were wrong but had demanded that they help him. With the result that they were now sailing back to Holand to deliver him to Uncle Harchad.
“Ynen—” said Hildy.
“I know,” said Ynen. “All right. We’d better take you North. Hildy, could you go to the foresails again?”
Mitt was rather taken aback. He knew he had not given Ynen a reason. He felt dishonest, and shamed. What would happen to these two in the North? He thought of the Northmen shuffling through Holand to be tried and hanged. “See here,” he said. “All you got to do is land me near Kinghaven or whatsits—Aberath—and I’ll do nicely. Or you might try Tulfa. Then you go back to the Holy Islands. You’d be all right there if she’s betrothed to Lithar—What’s your name, by the way?”
“Hildrida,” said Hildy. “Hildy for short. And this is Ynen. What’s yours?”
“Mitt,” said Mitt.
“Oh, not another Alhammitt!” said Hildy. “That must make at least twenty I know!”
“Common as dirt,” agreed Mitt.
Ynen had been thinking over what Mitt had suggested. Tired as he was, he began smiling. “Let’s go to the Holy Islands, Hildy. I’d love to see them.”
Hildy just could not see herself sailing up to the Holy Islands and announcing she was Lithar’s future wife. The idea made her stomach squirm. But she looked at Ynen and decided he was too tired to be argued with.
Mitt could see how tired Ynen was, too. He remembered how he used to feel on a long stint aboard Flower of Holand. “How about you getting some rest, now we seem to know where we’re going?” he said. “I can sail her for you. Can she?”
“Naturally I can,” Hildy said haughtily.
So it was settled that they divide the rest of the night into three watches. Ynen reluctantly took his numb hand off the tiller and watched Mitt settle into his place. He felt very dubious as he stumbled off to the cabin. But he supposed that if Mitt could tell in his sleep when they turned the other way, he must be able to handle Wind’s Road. As Ynen lay down, he heard Hildy walking uncertainly forward over the roof, half blind from the light of the cabin. He saw Mitt’s bony hand pushing the tiller firmly over. Once more Wind’s Road surged round. Her sails ran out, clapped, and filled. Ropes rattled as Mitt and Hildy reset them. And shortly Ynen felt the tug and surge of Wind’s Road riding properly northward, and he knew Mitt could indeed manage her. He fell asleep, to the creak of ropes and the hurrying of dark water.
13
The night seemed extraordinarily long. Mitt stayed at the tiller for as much of it as he could. He wanted to get a good start Northward. It felt good to be handling a boat again, particularly a responsive racing boat like Wind’s Road. But with the good feeling went long, mindless boredom. There was nothing to do but watch the slowly wheeling stars and listen to the whelming of the huge sea. Mitt did make several honest efforts to decide just what he thought he had been doing back in Holand. But every time he started to think, he came to, some time later, to find he had been thinking of nothing at all. At length the stars began taking little jumps through the sky. Mitt did not know if he had been asleep while they moved or not, but he saw he had had enough. He hitched up the tiller and woke Hildy.
Hildy was so sleepy that she took her watch almost unconscious. It seemed a very long time. Then Hildy found herself doubled painfully over the tiller in a paler world. The sea was dark and glossy. A white wave fizzing past had woken her. Hildy hobbled off like an old woman and woke Ynen.
Ynen, much more refreshed by six hours’ sleep than Hildy felt he had any right to be, went gaily out into whitening dawn. The bank of mist where the land was seemed too near. Ynen corrected their course and tightened ropes, and sang while the sun came melting red and yellow out of the mist. Now it was settled, and they were going North, it felt like the best holiday Ynen had ever had. When Mitt came out a while after, Wind’s Road was sailing briskly in a brisk wind, under a streaky gray sky. The land was a chalky smudge, and the vigorous gray waves were galloping North, too, dividing into two lines of white round Wind’s Road’s eager bows. Hildy crawled out later still, groaning. It was so early.
They got the pies out. They were staler, soggier, and much less appetizing. “I reckon,” Mitt said, “that they’ll be old enemies by the time we make Kinghaven—if they last till then.”
“They ought to. We’ve got two sacksful,” said Ynen, and could not help laughing at the look on Mitt’s face.
“Then it’s only water that’s the worry,” said Mitt.
“Well, actually, the water barrel’s full up,” Hildy confessed.
For a moment Mitt could hardly credit that he had been so taken in. Then, to Hildy’s relief, he shouted with laughter. “I bet you were mad when I didn’t have the arris!” he said. “Us rough fellows are supposed to love that, aren’t we?”
Hildy bent her head, embarrassed. She was even more embarrassed when Mitt tasted the water and remarked that it was some of the sweetest-tasting water he had ever drunk. She and Ynen were both shuddering at its musty wooden taste.
Ye gods! What must the water be like down in Holand! Hildy thought. She was so uncomfortable that she jumped up and fled across the cabin roof, babbling that she thought the foresails needed looking at.
“Want a hand?” Mitt called.
Hildy did not know what to say and did not answer. Mitt was just getting up to help her when Ynen said, in great surprise, “I say! What on earth are those doing here?”
Mitt looked. To his astonishment, a number of half-submerged apples were bobbing in the waves beside the boat. He watched them apparently climb a wave, then get left behind by it, the way floating things do. There were dozens of them—bright red and yellow water-sodden apples, all round Wind’s Road. And there were what looked like wisps of grass as well, and some almost waterlogged flowers.
“Oh, I know!” said Ynen. “Those must be the garlands from the Festival. I suppose the tide brought them out into the current.”
“No good to eat, are they?” Mitt wondered.
There was a scream of excitement from Hildy. She was pointing, jabbing her finger seaward, at something floating ahead. For a nasty second Mitt and Ynen both thought it was a drowned person. There was sodden flaxen hair and an outflung hand. Then it rolled and seemed simply a mat of white reeds.
“Can’t you see!” screamed Hildy. “It’s Poor Old Ammet!”
Wind’s Road veered and shivered in the excitement of that moment. Ynen almost let go of the tiller. Mitt ran from side to side. Whatever the differences between them, they were all three Holanders, and they knew this was the lucky chance of a lifetime.
“We’ll miss him, we’ll miss him! Hurry up, Mitt!” Hildy screamed. “Bring me the boathook!”
Mitt plunged round on Ynen and seized the tiller from him. “You go. I’ll bring her round for you.”
Ynen knew the maneuver was probably beyond him. He let go of the tiller almost before Mitt had it and shot up along the deck, snatching up the mop and the boathook as he went. He thrust the mop at Hildy, and the two of them, waving their implements, balanced jubilantly on the pointed prow. As Mitt took Wind’s Road racing past Old Ammet and then round again toward the wind, he was very much afraid either or both of them would join Old Ammet in the water. But they clung on. Mitt let the mainsail out with a long rattle, to take the speed off Wind’s Road, and she plowed on, bash-bash-bash, with waves smacking at her bows and spraying Hildy and Ynen thoroughly. When they were a few yards off the floating straw figure, Mitt turned Wind’s Road right into the wind, and she stood almost still, shaking and flapping.
Hildy and Ynen both threw themselves on their faces and lunged at Poor Old Ammet.
Their efforts were agony to Mitt. They knew nothing about how to get things out of the sea, those two. Hildy prodded. Ynen was hanging right under the bowsprit like a monkey, wasting Mitt’s accurate work by pushing Old Ammet farther and farther away. It was so clear that they were going to lose him that Mitt hitched the tiller up and set off to help. Wind’s Road promptly jigged round sideways to the waves, where the strong wind threatened to fill her sails again. Mitt saw that she could capsize that way and hurried back to the tiller.
“Flaming mind of your own, you have!” he told Wind’s Road. “Sail me or I’ll drown the lot of you—that’s you!”
That jigging gave Ynen the extra foot he needed. He managed to get a grip on Old Ammet with the boathook. Hildy planted the mop on him to steady him, and together they tossed Poor Old Ammet aboard like the stook of corn he was.
Drowned Ammet Page 13