The Crown of Dalemark (21 page)

Hestefan lifted his chin and jutted his beard at Maewen.

A black mark and detention! Maewen thought. And Mitt glowering, too. If you're a leader, everyone hates you. So will Moril after this. “And, Moril, you were trying to hurt Mitt with that cwidder, weren't you?”

Any other boy would have protested that Mitt was bigger than he was. Moril impressed Maewen by just saying, “Yes.”

She felt like a beast, but she was launched on her way now and found she had to go on. “Then, until we get to Gardale, someone else is going to take charge of it. Moril, will you give your cwidder to Wend, please?”

It was hard to tell if Moril, Wend, or Hestefan was more surprised. Hestefan turned away and climbed into the cart, still jutting his beard. Moril at first clutched the cwidder closer. Then, with a glance at Mitt that certainly meant something, he passed the beautiful gleaming instrument over to Wend. Wend took it so reverently that it seemed to slide into his hands. He hung the worn leather strap across his shoulder and looked down at the cwidder as if it was a lamb he had just rescued from the snow. His left hand formed a chord on the strings as if it could not help itself. “May I?” he asked Moril.

“If you
can
,” Moril said. “I'll fetch you the case.”

Wend's right hand played on the strings as if it were stroking the lamb's head. He only played a sequence of chords and arpeggios, but he became a new person doing it. His face came alive, into a slight, rapt smile, full of thoughts and energies that had not been there before. The way he stood altered, to accommodate the cwidder, into the stance of someone much stronger. For the first time since Maewen had met him, he looked happy. Oddly enough, that made him look ten times more dangerous, too.

Why couldn't he be like that all the time? Maewen wondered as she turned away to mount her horse again at last. Instead of trying to pretend he was not an Undying among all us dying-people? She tried to catch Mitt's eye to see what he thought, but Mitt was raw with shame about that word
jealous
, and he turned away quickly. Hestefan gave her an unloving look from the seat of the cart.

Two
black marks and a whole week in detention! Maewen thought. She thought Navis was right. Hestefan had wanted Moril's cwidder. As they rode on, she found herself wondering why Hestefan had chosen to follow Noreth if he disliked her so much.

The handing over of the cwidder had a surprising effect on Moril. While Wend strode along, looking strong and different, Moril behaved like a boy let out of school. He went scampering along beside Mitt's horse, shouting cheeky remarks up at Mitt. Mitt answered the same way, and both of them laughed themselves silly. After a while they began taking turns to ride, with a lot more silly laughter when the Countess-horse tried to throw Moril off.

Maewen rode out ahead, feeling lonely and unloved, listening to the pair of them laughing in the foggy distance behind. I suppose owning a thing like that cwidder
is
a big responsibility, she thought, but she had a stupid, hypersensitive feeling that Moril and Mitt were fooling about because of
her
. I was
told
to come here and be the leader, she thought. No need to be paranoid.

As if that word had triggered it off, the deep voice spoke to her, at her ear in the gathering fog. “You did well not to let the Singer get his hands on the cwidder,” it said.

Maewen's hands shook on the reins. She had known that the voice would catch her alone sooner or later.
Was
it the One? Somehow, because it was telling her what she wanted to hear, she doubted it. After seeing that sudden mighty river, she had a feeling that the One was more likely to tell her something unexpected that she did not want to know about at all. No. It was some kind of ghostly effect of her own mind on the green road.

“You will need that cwidder, and the Singer-boy to play it,” the voice continued, “when you come to find the crown.”

Maewen had not meant to answer, but she found herself saying, “And what about the cup and the sword?”

“The Southerner can steal both of those for you,” said the voice.

“Oh? Can he? Just like that?” Maewen said.

“I tell you so,” said the voice. “You must accept my advice or you will never find the crown. And I tell you not to alienate the Singer-boy.”

“All right.” Maewen was working on her horse, slowing down so that Navis and Wend could catch up with her. “All
right
. Just go away now, will you?”

She could hear Navis behind now, asking Wend how much farther it was to Gardale, and Wend answering that it would take another day. Maewen fell in on the other side of Navis, and as she had hoped, the voice did not speak to her again.

The fog thickened. By nightfall, when it was blue-dim, they stopped in another of those lumpy places that might once have been a town. There was a well-made fire pit where Moril built a cheerful coal fire. Maewen reminded Mitt of his idea for cooking pickled cherries. Mitt could not bring himself to be natural. Gruffly he borrowed skewers from the cart and kept his back turned while he stuck them with cherries, cheese, and dried meat to roast. It was terrible. Mitt tried to be polite and found himself agreeing fawningly with Noreth that a lentil stew would help. He tried to correct that and went gruff again. He could not seem to get it right. Plainly by the firelight, he could see the hurt, puzzled look among Noreth's freckles. He could feel her wondering what she had done to offend him, and of course there was no way he could tell her.

Never mind. I'll be seeing Hildy again in Gardale, he thought. For some reason he knew that would make things better.

While the lentils plopped and bubbled and turned too thick, Maewen tried to put Mitt out of her mind by thinking what she should do in Gardale. Should she make a speech? She had told Navis that her army would arrive by itself, but that was over on the coast. They were now a long way inland, where people would not know about Noreth. The trouble was that she had no idea what to expect. She had been to Gardale in her own time. She and Aunt Liss had driven there on a sight-seeing trip. But she had a feeling that this was only going to confuse her.

Around then Wend politely asked Moril's permission and played the cwidder again. Lilting tunes from the old days rang in the crags. Everyone seemed to feel better. They ate caked lentils and Mitt's sooty skewered things quite cheerfully, and when they had finished, Hestefan surprised them all by telling tales. Most of them were stories that were around in Maewen's day, too, but she had only read them in books. It was another thing again to hear Hestefan tell them, gravely and plainly, as if every strange occurrence were the exact truth. The stories were suddenly unknown and new. Maewen had known what was going to happen nearly every time, but it still surprised her.

This
is what it means to be a good Singer, she thought, and he really is good!

“I thank you,” Navis said when Hestefan finished. “I have never heard those tales better told.”

Hestefan bowed as he sat. “And I thank you. Never have I told them so well for so little in return.”

Navis laughed and tossed Hestefan a silver piece. Hestefan took it with a bit of a twinkle. It looked as if they were actually beginning to like one another. Maewen caught a little smile on Wend's face as he carefully put the waterproof case round the cwidder, and she wondered.

The fog was worse in the morning. Probably they were down into the clouds again. Certainly the green road sloped gently downhill as if it were leading them back to the valleys. Before long it was branching past waystone after waystone, and Maewen was glad to have Wend striding out in front to show the right way. And this day, for the first time, there were other people using the road. It made sense, as Navis remarked. Up to now they had been ahead of or behind all the folk who had gone somewhere else to celebrate Midsummer. Now they came up with all those people returning home and also the usual traffic of people going into Gardale.

They passed riders, groups of walkers, and families with carts all coming toward them. Hestefan called out cheerfully to each. But when they passed the first person going the other way, who was someone driving a flock of geese, he said ringingly, “Hestefan the Singer here! Watch for me in Gardale.”

Maewen tensed. Hestefan had to advertise, of course, but so did she. She wondered whether to call out in the same way, Noreth Onesdaughter here! and ask the gooseman—no, it was a woman all bundled up against the fog—ask the goosewoman, then, to join her at Kernsburgh. She dithered. She hated the idea, and besides, the woman might tell the Earl of Gardale. On the other hand, perhaps she
ought
. For once she would have welcomed that deep voice speaking to her out of the air to tell her what to do. But of course, there were too many people near.

Meanwhile, more and more white triangular geese kept appearing out of the fog. As Maewen, still dithering, opened her mouth to imitate Hestefan, Mitt's horse demonstrated that it considered geese a lower life-form. It began moving at them in pounces, with Mitt hauling on the reins and cursing it. After ten feet of rocking-horse-like progress, the Countess-horse won and plunged in among the geese. Mitt fell off into an outrage of honking, flapping, and running. Geese ran in all directions, except for two, which ran for Mitt with spread wings and outstretched necks. The lady driving them shouted mightily—most of it very rude things about Mitt and the horse.

Navis was into the fray almost instantly, using his riding crop on everything. The lady shouted at Navis, too. But the two geese fled, Moril caught the Countess-horse, and Navis hauled Mitt up. Everyone else chased geese for a while. By the time the flock was assembled again, Maewen's nerve was gone. Even if the goose-lady had not been so very angry, she thought, watching Navis and Hestefan being wonderfully polite to the woman, the proper time to declare Noreth as Queen was when she had reached Kernsburgh with the Adon's gifts and had something to show those earls. The decision made her feel utterly relieved and completely feeble in about the same proportions.

“I think this is yours, madam,” Navis said, bowing and handing the goose-lady the stick she had dropped.

“Just keep that big looby off his back and out of my geese,” she answered.

“Certainly,” Navis agreed. “But I'm afraid that would mean buying him a real horse, and we neither of us have the funds just now.”

At this the woman hooted with laughter. Mitt struggled back into his saddle again feeling like an utter idiot.

After that he kept tight hold of the beast whenever another traveler loomed through the fog.

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