Drowned Ammet

by Diana Wynne Jones

  “Father’s not listening!” Hildy said, with her head pushed against the bars. “Isn’t that just like him!”

  “He may only be pretending not to listen because it’s safest,” Ynen suggested hopefully.

  Mitt hoped Navis was pretending, too. “Hildy and Ynen sent me,” he explained, feeling sure this would convince Navis. But Navis tramped through the main doorway of the mansion into a large stone room without appearing to have heard. The room was full of people. Mitt hung back in the doorway, wondering whether he dared follow Navis in. They were mostly island people. The singsong of their talk rang round the room. Mitt decided that it was safe enough and ran after Navis to make one more attempt.

  “Do come out of here,” he said, dodging about near Navis’s shoulder. “They’ll sell you to Harl to kill. Honest.”

  Navis looked at someone beyond Mitt’s head and called out loudly, “Will one of you take this offensive child away, please!”

  Mitt sensed a movement in the crowd and got ready to run. “Can’t you listen to me, you pigheaded idiot!” he said.

  “Will you shut your unpleasing mouth?” said Navis. “Guard! Remove this, will you!”

  Mitt turned and ran. But the guard was nearer than he thought. Two big men seized him as he turned. Mitt lost his temper then. He kicked and struggled and called Navis a number of names he had learned on the waterfront.

  “Oh, him again,” Al said from behind Mitt. “Not to worry, sir. I’ll take care of him, sir.”

  Upstairs in the barred nursery, Hildy and Ynen waited and waited. For a long time they were sure that whatever had happened between Mitt and their father, Mitt would come and unlock the nursery door any moment. They had great faith in Mitt’s resourcefulness. But when the island women came and brought them lunch for two, even Ynen gave up hope.

  “I don’t think Mitt was even trying to make Father understand,” Hildy said angrily. “And now he’s just forgotten us. His kind are all the same!”

  “I don’t think he would forget,” Ynen said.

  “Yes, he would. He had a perfect chance to escape on his own, and he took it,” said Hildy.

  “I thought he felt he owed us—” Ynen began uncomfortably.

  “He didn’t feel anything of the kind,” said Hildy. “His whole idea was that we owed him everything, because of his rotten life in Holand!”

  This was so exactly the kind of thing Mitt had said himself that Ynen could not argue any longer.

  Long hours later they were trying to play I Spy. Hildy was far too dejected to concentrate. “I give up,” she said. “There’s nothing beginning with T in this room.”

  “Table,” Ynen said drearily.

  The door opened just then, and Lithar shambled in. Hildy did not realize. “How was I to know it was something as stupid as that!” she snapped, thoroughly bad-tempered.

  Lithar stared at her, shocked. “I don’t think I want to marry you,” he said.

  “That goes for me, too!” Hildy retorted. “I hate the sight of you!”

  Lithar turned plaintively to Al, who had followed him in. Behind Al came two of the large men, with Navis between them. “Al,” said Lithar, “I don’t have to marry her, do I? She’s not womanly.” Al laughed and patted him on the back.

  “There, Hildrida. You have just received your first compliment,” said Navis. “Possibly your last, too.”

  “Where’s Mitt?” Ynen said to Al. Al laughed and shrugged. “You do know, don’t you?” said Ynen. “Have you killed him?”

  Al chuckled. “Say hallo to your pa like a good boy.”

  “Not until I’ve told you what a foul brute you are,” said Ynen.

  “He’s not very nice either,” Lithar complained. “Let’s go away.”

  “After you,” said Al, and everyone went out of the room again, leaving Navis standing by the locked door.

  Hildy and Ynen stared at Navis. He looked tired, dirty, and depressed. Hildy felt sorry for him. She was almost certain she was glad to see him. She went toward Navis to tell him so. But she did not quite dare and stopped. Then she somehow ran at him without thinking and threw her arms around him. For just a second Navis looked surprised. Then Hildy found herself being hugged, picked up, and swung round, and her father looking more pleased and more upset than she had ever seen him. When Ynen came shyly up, Navis spared an arm for him, too, so that they all hung together in a bundle.

  “Who warned you to get away?” said Navis. “How did you manage in that fearsome storm?”

  “Nobody. It was an accident. Mitt and Libby Beer and Old Ammet helped,” they said, and they tried to tell him about their adventures in Wind’s Road. After a little, Navis let go of them and sat down to listen, pressing two fingers to the corners of his eyes as if he had a headache. They could not help noticing that he frowned and seemed to press harder every time they mentioned Al or Mitt.

  “Why did you come here?” Ynen asked him at last. “Was—is Al in your pay? I saw you talking to him in Holand.”

  Navis looked up at Ynen in surprise. “Of course not. You must have seen him the time he came to offer—for a large sum of money, naturally—to tell me of a plot against the Earl. You can’t imagine how often people did that,” Navis said. He sounded very depressed. “I found Al very uncongenial. But I mentioned the matter to Harchad, and, ironically, I remember Harchad telling me in return that he had put an agent in the Holy Islands to keep Lithar in line, in case the North attacked. If I had known it was this same Al, I would have stayed well away. I came because there are boats here—prepared to pay high for being taken North—and trying not to hope there might be news of you two. But it seems that Al has decided that Harl would pay more for us than I would pay for a boat—which I’m sure is true—so we are being sold back to Holand.”

  There was a wretched silence.

  “Wouldn’t Uncle Harl let us go,” Hildy asked, “if we all signed something to say we didn’t want to be earls?”

  Navis shook his head, with his two fingers lodged hard above his nose. “He doesn’t trust me. He never has. Besides, I kicked him in the stomach when he came to arrest me. He was so annoyed that he came out in the Flate after me himself, in spite of the storm. He nearly trod on me while I was lying in a ditch. By which I knew he wouldn’t easily forgive me.”

  Ynen laughed, though he was sure it was no joke. “But didn’t Mitt try to warn you?”

  He saw his father’s forehead crease. “If Mitt is the boy who tried to blow up the Sea Festival—yes, he did. I thought he was lying and asked the guards to take him away. Al took charge of him after that. Is this one more mistake I’ve made?”

  “Yes,” said Ynen.

  “You didn’t know,” said Hildy. “I never trust Mitt either. His ideas are all in a muddle. But if Al’s killed him, I’m going to call on Old Ammet and Libby Beer for vengeance.”

  “I sincerely hope they answer you quickly,” said Navis.

  But when, about an hour before sunset, Al came into the nursery with a number of the largest guards, he was as sturdy and carefree as ever and rather more pleased with himself than usual.

  “Up you get, sir,” he said, “and you, guvnor. Bence is back from a little job I sent him on. The old Wheatsheaf is all ready, the tide’s right, and we’re going sailing again. It’s not what I’d have chosen, being a landsman and inclined to queasiness, but we reckoned you’d not be able to give us the slip so easy at sea.”

  Navis stood up slowly. “You mean you’re taking us back to Holand.”

  “Quick on the uptake, your pa,” Al remarked to Hildy. “That’s right, sir. We’re taking you and the boy, and leaving the girl here.”

  “Why are you leaving my daughter?” said Navis.

  Al looked at Hildy. Hildy wanted to hit him, to scream, to make a fuss in every way she could think of, but she felt she could not when her father was behaving so calmly. “Be reasonable, sir,” said Al. “She’s betrothed to Lithar. We’ve got to have a bargaining point. The money Harl offers has
got to go up, and up again, and she’ll be the reason. And if he won’t offer enough, you may find we come sailing back here with you in a day or so. Look on the bright side, sir.”

  “Oh, is there a bright side?” said Navis.

  “For some of us,” Al answered genially. “I’ll trouble you to step along now.”

  They said good-bye stiffly. None of them wanted to say anything important with Al there. Navis and Ynen were marched out by the guards. Hildy stood by herself in the middle of the room, with her hands clenched into useless fists, watching the door close behind them. She was determined not to cry till it shut.

  The door opened again. Al put his head round it. “By the by, little lady,” he said, “something tells me that Lithar may suffer a little accident on the voyage. He would come with us, you know. Then there’ll be a new Lord of the Holy Islands for you to marry.”

  Hildy looked at that grinning face stuck round the edge of the door and was so angry that she shook all over. “If you mean it’ll be you,” she said, “I bet you have at least two wives already.”

  Every scrap of expression went out of Al’s face. “Someone tell you their life story, did they?”

  “No,” said Hildy. “I just know. You’re just that kind of man.”

  “Then you better keep that idea to yourself,” said Al. The door snapped shut, and the key grated.

  Hildy went on standing where she was, too miserable and frightened even to cry now. She knew she had been very, very foolish to say that to Al. But after all that had happened, it hardly seemed to matter. She thought she might as well sit down anyway.

  She was just turning toward a chair, when she noticed that the door was swinging open again. Beyond, in the dark corridor, Hildy could see one of the little island women. She thought it looked like Lalla.

  “Will you come out now?” asked the gentle island voice. “It is time to be leaving, if you wish to go.”

  “Oh, I do wish to go!” Hildy said, and hastened out to her.

  Lalla turned and walked down the passage, and Hildy walked beside her. It was so strange to be free suddenly that Hildy did not quite believe it. It felt like a dream. Dreamily she went with Lalla down some stairs and along another passage.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as they came to more stairs and went down again.

  “Out to the hardway. Riss is waiting there for you.”

  Despite her troubles, Hildy was dreamily glad. Of the two little sailors, Riss was the one she had liked best. “Where will Riss take me?”

  “To the North, if you wish to go there.” They came to the end of the stairs and out into the big stone room where Mitt had made his last attempt to convince Navis. It was empty now, rather cold, and seemed dim because there was such a blaze of evening light from the arched doorway to the courtyard. Their footsteps echoed softly from the stone. Among the echoes Hildy heard Lalla ask, “Will you be wishing to come back to the Islands again?”

  Hildy thought about it, as they crossed the ringing stone floor. She would not have been surprised to find she never wanted to come here again. But she found she did. The Holy Islands had somehow taken her heart while she was sailing through them in Wind’s Road into danger. “I’d love to,” she said. “But not if Al’s here.”

  “We can rid you of your enemies,” Lalla said, “if you are prepared to trust Alhammitt.”

  “Mitt?” said Hildy. “Is Mitt all right?” Then she became embarrassed that Lalla knew how little she trusted Mitt and wanted to explain herself. “It isn’t what he did. It’s what he thinks and the way he’s been brought up. I mean, I know I’d probably be just the same if I’d been brought up on the waterfront, but I haven’t. And I can’t help the way I was brought up, either. I think mostly he annoys me. I suppose I annoy him. That’s it, really.”

  As Hildy said this, she came to the doorway and a blaze of orange sunlight. There was a bull in the courtyard beyond. It was a huge animal, almost red in the low sun. There was power in every line of it, in each stocky leg and from its tufted tail and slim rear to its great shoulders and blunt triangular head. It seemed to be loose in the courtyard, with no one to control it. Hildy stopped short and stared at it. And the bull raised two wicked horns growing out of a mat of chestnut curls, and looked at Hildy. Hildy did not care for the look in its large red eye. She turned uncertainly to Lalla.

  The blazing low sun had dazzled her, but Lalla seemed taller than she had thought. In the dimness, her hair seemed not white but red, or brown. But it was the same singing island voice which said, “It was only two things I asked you. Would you come again to the Islands, and would you trust Alhammitt?”

  Hildy felt the ground shake under the weight of the bull as it trod nearer. It was unfair of Libby Beer to try and frighten her. “What happens if I say no to those questions?” Hildy asked defiantly.

  The lady standing in the dimness might have been a little surprised. “Nothing will happen. You will go in peace and live quietly.”

  Then Hildy found that it was important to her to answer both questions truthfully. She stood thinking, while the bull twitched its tail and paced heavily in the sunlight. “Yes, I want to come here again,” she said. That was the easy part. “And—and I suppose I do trust Mitt really. I did in the storm. It’s just when I’m angry I notice the difference between us, but I don’t think that’s quite the same. Is it?”

  She looked up to Libby Beer for an answer, but there was no one there. The stone room was empty. Shaken, Hildy looked out into the courtyard. That was empty, too.

  “Didn’t I answer right, then?” Hildy said. Her lonely voice rang round the room. Since there was no good to be done there, Hildy went out into the warm dazzle of the courtyard and walked over to the open gate. The damp scent of the Islands met her there. The sea hurried to the shingle of the causeway in myriad small ripples, setting the waiting rowing boat nuzzling at the stones.

  As Hildy’s feet crunched on the pebbles, Riss stood up in the rowing boat and smiled warmly. “Will you thrust on the boat and climb in, little one? We will be stirring to your ship.”

  Beyond Riss, Wind’s Road was moored in the deeper water between the mainland and the causeway. Hildy could see her swinging gently in the tide. She smiled at Riss delightedly.

  “I think,” she said, as she kicked off her shoes on the shingle and tied a knot in one side of her Island dress to keep it out of the way, “I think I’ve just been talking to Libby Beer.”

  “That is not the name we use here,” Riss said. “She is called She Who Raised the Islands.”

  19

  Al slung Mitt into a room which was probably a storeroom and left him there while he went to attend to Navis. It was a very small stone room with a skylight too small even for Mitt to squeeze out through. Mitt sat with his hands behind his head, glaring up at it and hating Navis with all his heart. All his troubles went back to Navis. He felt as if instead of kicking a bomb this time, Navis had actually kicked him in the teeth. And Mitt had only been trying to help!

  “That’s the last time I ever do anything for that lot!” Mitt said to himself, and fell into a prolonged and fierce daydream about what he would like to do to Navis. He imagined himself as a powerful outlawed revolutionary with several hundred seasoned followers at his back. He imagined himself conquering a town full of terrified lords and ordering them all to surrender. Out they came, with Navis among them, cringing Harchads, quaking Hadds, dozens of Hildys, and several frightened Ynens, all hanging their heads and shuffling, as the men from the North had shuffled through Holand. Mitt had them all killed, but Navis he saved till last for a truly frightful death.

  It was most interesting. For years now Mitt had been too busy with other things to do any daydreaming. He found he had been missing something. He did the story over again, with a larger town, and made himself more powerful and even more merciless. He began to see that he really had it in him to become such a revolutionary. He felt considerable respect for himself. He did the story a third tim
e and conquered all South Dalemark, pursuing Navis ruthlessly until at last he caught him.

  He was halfway through killing Navis very slowly, with great attention to detail, when Al came back again. Mitt jumped up and backed into the far corner of the small space. Al’s face had its most blank and unpleasant look. Because of what he had been thinking of doing to Navis, Mitt knew rather well how much Al could hurt him if he wanted to.

  But Al simply leaned against the door and surveyed Mitt. “You’re a real nuisance to me,” he said, “and I’m going to have to get rid of you quick. How many people know where you are?”

  Mitt stared at Al uncertainly. He did not know what Al thought he had done.

  “Out with it,” said Al. “Or do I have to knock your head in? Navis knows you were the one with the bomb. Does Hobin know about that? Hobin must’ve given you that gun. I don’t see you pinching one of Hobin’s specials. He’s too careful of them. Does Milda know where you are, too?”

  Mitt shook his head and went on staring at Al. Out of the distant past came memories of Al’s voice shouting that the cow had calved, and Al’s square back marching away toward Holand to find work, but he could not bring himself to believe it.

  “If you was anyone else,” Al went on bad-temperedly, “I could send you back to Holand with the other two and good riddance! But I’m not having you tell Hobin about me. He’d have it round every gunsmith in the country, and without Harchad to back me I’d never get near a gun again. He’s made it hard enough for me as it is. And all because I happened to drink a bit too much one day and let out to him how I bust up the Free Holanders. He said he was going to Holand to look after you and Milda, but I know he did it just to spite me.” Here Al noticed the way Mitt was staring at him, and laughed at him. “Say hallo to your pa, then, why don’t you?”

  “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.