The Crown of Dalemark (17 page)

“My law stuff is a bit rusty after all these years,” Alk explained. Mitt was not sure he believed that. “But I've been finding out that even the Adon didn't have that good a claim to be King. But he took the crown, so we'll take it from there. Now if this Manaliabrid was who she said she was, she certainly made his claim better. She claimed to be of the Undying, daughter of Cennoreth and great-granddaughter of the One. Well, no one seemed to doubt she was, so we'll give her that. Now she and the Adon had two children, a son and a daughter. And either these two were a great disappointment to their parents, or
they
weren't any too sure of their claim either, because neither of them made the least push to rule after. The son, Almet, took the kingstone, but all he did with it was go off to the South and govern a little lordship that's dead and gone now, somewhere near Waywold. And the daughter, Tanabrid, was quite satisfied to marry and settle down in Kredindale. After that there were marryings and intermarryings, the way there are, and Kredindale gets related to half the earls of the North. What I'm saying, Mitt, is that the claim's rubbish. Her cousin Kintor has a better claim, and so has my Countess or that soft-faced boy in Dropwater.”

Mitt felt a bit light-headed. The last thing he had expected was for Alk to sit there talking family trees at him. He could only suppose that Alk was trying to make him feel foolish and give up the whole idea. So probably the Countess had not told him about Hildy and Ynen. “Yes, but—”

“You're going to say she says her father was the One,” Alk interrupted. Mitt had not been, but he held his tongue. “Now there we're into the difficult part.” Alk leaned back in his chair. It creaked horribly. “Even King Hern only claimed the One as his grandfather—which is probably just what we say when we call the One our Grand Father.” Alk tipped his face round to look at Mitt, across what had been a beautifully ruffled lawn collar but was now dirty laundry. “I've seen the One,” he said, to Mitt's surprise. “Several times. Not a thing I talk about to everyone. You'd know why, if it ever happened to you. And … well … it's like coming into a shadow all of a sudden, or the shadow coming into you. A bit like this.” Alk's hand went out and downward across the narrow slit he had left in the shutter of the dark lantern. A huge hand-shaped darkness swept across the floor and Mitt and the wall of books beyond. Mitt shivered. “See?” said Alk. “He's there, but not solid—but I could be wrong. And Noreth's mother's not alive to tell me I'm wrong, is she?”

When Earl Keril had said something like this, Mitt had not felt it mattered. Coming from Alk, it did. “But the One talks to her,” he protested. “I think I heard him. And it scares her.”

“I don't doubt you,” said Alk. “That's the most difficult part of the difficult part. If the One has an interest in all this, us mortal folk had best tread very wary. You don't cross the One. I wish my Countess would see that. But that Keril's one of your new, reasonable folk, and the Undying are just out-of-date beliefs to him. And she listens to him.” He leaned his massive arms on top of the books and pondered glumly.

After a moment Mitt said, “Were you expecting me … to come back here?” His voice was still annoyingly hoarse.

“After a fashion. It was one of the options,” Alk replied. “I was here on the off chance you'd take the option of going along with this Noreth and helping her claim. I knew I was right when that nag of yours started sounding off in the meadows. Woke me up. Probably woke the dead, too. She's after the Adon's gifts, isn't she?”

Mitt's heart sank. He felt himself sag slightly.

Alk noticed. He never missed much. “I thought so. She knows, and you know, she's got no real claim. You were going to pinch this ring here, weren't you?”

Mitt managed a small, throaty “yup.”

“And I thought you never believed it answers to the right blood!” Alk smiled slightly, his face all slabs of shadow and curves of light. He shook his head. “I wish I knew how the man who made it
did
it. I've tried all ways to catch it changing size, but I never can pin it down. And my Countess can put it on any finger and both her thumbs, and it'll fit her. I made Gregin try it, and it fell off him. So I've no doubt it would fit your Noreth whatever size her hands are.”

“Small.” Mitt's eyes went longingly to the glass case, where the ring picked up gleams of light underneath the lighted pane of glass, as if it were underwater. It looked as always very big, nearly big enough to fit one of Alk's massive fingers. If it did not fall straight off Noreth, it would be a miracle indeed.

“But it's a stupid way to get out of a mess,” Alk said. “And I know you're in a mess, Mitt. Take this ring, or put a foot wrong any other way, and my Countess will have you—or Keril will. My sense is, they don't mean you to live too long. Or maybe they mean you to spend the rest of your days as their hired murderer. My Countess wouldn't admit to one or the other, but it has to be that.”

Mitt nodded. He had worked this out, too. He tried to imagine Alk twisting the information out of the Countess, and he just could not see it. It was like imagining one of Alk's engines running straight up a house.

“And the only way you can keep out of that,” Alk continued, “is to stay completely lawful and not give them a handhold. If you do that, I'm on your side. Will you promise me you won't murder or steal or anything like that?”

Alk didn't understand. It was clearer than ever to Mitt that the Countess had not told Alk about Hildy and Ynen. “What else
can
I do?” Mitt said, trying to talk round it.

“Uh-uh,” said Alk. “Promise, I said.”

“I'd rather not,” Mitt said. “Something might come up.”

“Fish feathers,” said Alk. “I put it to you, you've done nothing outside the law yet. You went off to visit Navis Haddsson. You came back to have a chat with me.”

“I came to pinch that ring,” Mitt said, looking at it gleaming below the glass.

“But only I know that, and you're not going to,” Alk said. “Whatever threats they made to you, I'll stand by you if you give me that promise.”

Whatever threats? Perhaps Alk did know about Hildy and Ynen then. Mitt looked searchingly at Alk's big shadowy face. It gave nothing away. “What can
you
do against Keril?” he said.

“Hold him to the law,” said Alk. “I don't know! Everyone round here seems to have forgotten I used to be a lawman once upon a time! And the law's the same whether you're an earl or a fisherman. Are you going to give me that promise?”

“I—” Mitt was not sure he dared.

“I'll make it easier for you,” said Alk. “You didn't come here to steal that ring. You came here to ask me to
give
it you.”

“What?”
It was odd how the library seemed to be a brighter, warmer, freer place all of a sudden. “You couldn't do that,” Mitt said, trying not to laugh. “She'd notice.”

“I made a copy,” Alk said, “trying to get it to change size the same way. And I couldn't do it. It's just a ring. But it looks just the same. Now what d'you say?”

“I promise,” Mitt said. “You won't know me, I'll be so lawful.”

“That'll be the day!” said Alk. Smiling a little, he fetched out a small key that was marking a place in another of his books and stood up to move the lantern and unlock the glass case. The dim light swept around the room, and his vast shadow blotted half the library into darkness. “Remember,” Alk said as he turned the key, “that the One has an interest in this, and don't go forgetting you promised.”

Mitt looked at that vast shadow and shivered. “I'll bear it in mind.”

Alk lifted the glass lid, fetched out the ring, and held it where the light from the lantern was strongest. It was a plain heavy ring, made of gold, and its only ornament was the big seal carved out of some kind of red stone into the haggard-looking profile of the Adon. Alk's huge, deft fingers twiddled it. “Safest way to carry it is to wear it,” he said. “Put your hand out.”

Mitt spread his long, bony hands into the light. Alk tried to slip the ring on the ring finger of Mitt's right hand. It stuck at the knuckle. “I got big lumps there on all my fingers,” Mitt said.

“You put it on then,” said Alk.

Mitt took the heavy ring and, still barely able to believe Alk was letting him have it, tried it on finger after finger. Each time it slid only as far as Mitt's first knuckle. The only finger it would fit, and only with a struggle, was the little finger of his left hand.

“Well, at least it won't fall off,” Alk said. “Off you go then, and give it to your Noreth. And if she wants you to do anything else unlawful, you say no. Understand? And I'll back you up.”

“Thanks,” Mitt said. It was truly heartfelt.

He was not any too clear about much of the journey back. He scrambled back round the mansion wall. That took concentration because it meant balancing on the edge of the cliff above the sea. After that some kind of reaction hit him. Things came and went. He remembered getting onto the Countess-horse, because it tried to bite him as usual, and—dimly—going up the rake to the green road, because that took all the concentration he had left. But as soon as the horse was on the road to Orilsway and there was nowhere else it could go, Mitt was probably asleep in the saddle. He thought he dreamed that Alk had given him the Adon's ring. It had to be a dream, he decided, waking up about a hundred yards from the camp, because it was just not probable that Alk would do a thing like that. Why had he woken up? He thought it was the Countess-horse, which had gone from a stumbling plod to a much more eager pace. No, it seemed to be because something was wrong with his left hand.

Wrong!
That was an understatement. He felt as if his little finger had been clamped in one of Alk's vises. And someone was still twisting the vise. Throb, throb, throb. Mitt could
feel
his finger swelling. He dropped the reins and wrenched at the ring. It would not budge. Flaming Ammet! He could have pulled his finger off sooner than moved that ring! He had to have light—help—something! He shot down from the horse and rushed toward where he thought the camp was.

Maewen sprang up. She had been half listening, not really asleep, hoping she had not got Mitt into trouble with this Countess of his. She heard mad, blundering footsteps, followed by a cracking voice swearing and then demanding, “Where
is
this flaming camp then? They
can't
have all gone off and
left
me!” Maewen ran in that direction. And there was Mitt, a demented leggy figure in the near dark, racing toward the southernmost waystone, apparently wringing his hands.

“What's the matter?”

Mitt rushed up to Maewen and towered over her still pulling at his finger. “I got you the ring. The flaming thing's stuck on my finger! I think I'm in for life!”

Maewen seized the hand he flapped in her face. She could feel the ring, a tiny metal waist in a finger that seemed as large and hot as a fresh-cooked sausage. “Oh my lord!” She tugged. Mitt yelped. It was most well and truly stuck. “Don't you know any better than to put on a ring that's too small for you?”

“How should
I
know? I never wore a ring in my life!”

“Well, you should have
thought
! People were smart in the old days!” But this
is
the old days.
He's
not smart. Never mind.

They bent over Mitt's hand, both of them in the same panic. “I'm stuck in this thing for
ever
!” Mitt squalled.

“Lick it. See what lots of spit does,” said Maewen. “Or soap.” There had been no soap in her baggage roll. But surely soap
was
invented by this time? No one struck her as
that
dirty. “Or—water—water might cool your finger down.”

“I've got some soap,” Moril said from beside them. “Shall I fetch it?”

“Yes, and a light, too,” said Maewen.

Moril dashed away. Mitt put his hand to his mouth and slobbered on it mightily. Maewen helped him spread the spit up and down the swollen finger. Then she pulled. Mitt pulled. Neither of them had budged the ring one fraction by the time Moril dashed up again with a piece of soap and a lighted lantern from the cart. By the light Moril looked both awed and scornful.

“That's the Adon's ring?” he said.

“Yup,” said Mitt, soaping for his life.

“It only fits people with royal blood,” Moril pointed out.

“I know
that
!” Mitt snarled. “I only wore it not to lose it, you stupid little—”

“Cool it, cool it,” Navis said, arriving with a slopping leather bucket.

“Oh no!” said Mitt. “Keep him away from me! He'll try to boil it off or something!”

“It's only cold water,” Navis said. “Put your hand in it.”

“Yes, that should take the swelling down.” Wend agreed, coming, yawning, up beside Navis.

Mitt plunged his hand in the bucket. Took it out, soaped it, hauled on the ring, sighed, and put his hand in the water again. He did this four more times. “I'll bring this water to the boil, at this rate,” he grumbled. As he plunged his hand in for the sixth time, Hestefan arrived, yawning, rubbing his beard and wanting to know what the fuss was about. By this time it was plain to Maewen that she could not have kept the theft of the ring secret, as she had meant to, any more than if she had shouted it from the top of the nearest mountain.