Drowned Ammet (18 page)

“Help me get the mainsail up, and then stand by to untie her,” Ynen said. “Oh, look at this! She's all over mud! I knew those blessed sailors used her for lobsters when my back was turned!”

“I'll wash it down when we're sailing,” Hildy said. “But do let's get going before those soldiers come. Most of the mud's only on the sail cover.” She jumped on the cabin roof and helped Ynen unlace the cover.

Ynen unlaced busily beside her. He was not often angry, but he was now. Someone had been on
Wind's Road
, the apple of his eye, the one lovely thing that was truly his own, and made a mess of her in his absence. He could not forgive them. “Honestly!” he said. “Green, smelly mud! You trust people, and they go and take advantage of you.”

“Father said you can't blame people for that,” said Hildy. “I'll fold from my end, and be
quick
! He said the poor see the rich as their natural prey.”

“Just the kind of thing he would say!” Ynen said irritably. “Fold it, don't just scrunch it! Mind you, he was probably right. I'll ask for a guard in future.”

“Some soldiers have just come through the gates,” said Hildy, causing Mitt to stand stiffly in his cupboard with his hands clenched. He had no idea who these arrogant fugitives could be or why they were in such a hurry, but he knew they could not be in too much of a hurry for him.

“Cast off the moorings and push her off, then,” Ynen called, “while I get the sail up. Make sure you don't push us out of the deep channel, though.”

Yes, and hurry up about it, for Old Ammet's sake! Mitt thought.

In a flurry of thumping, Hildy untied the mooring ropes and threw them on the planking, ready to be coiled later. Then she heaved on the jetty with all her might. Mitt gathered from the shifting and dipping what was happening. He heard the rhythmic
rattle, rattle
as Ynen sent the mainsail up, hand over hand, and then a further pounding of feet combined with a stiff tilting, as Ynen bounded to the bows to get the foresails up, and Hildy plunged to the tiller and turned
Wind's Road
to catch the wind. After that came a slow
ripple, ripple. Wind's Road
got gently under way and slid along the channel toward the open sea.

They won't find us so easy to stop now, Mitt thought. Whoever these rich youngsters were, they could handle a boat all right. He supposed it was lucky they could. But he was still scared stiff. He could not see them getting away with it.

Hildy and Ynen anxiously watched the harbor wall glide by and wished it would glide faster. Four or five soldiers were now running along the jetty behind, stumbling among ropes and shouting.

“What are they saying?” Ynen wondered.

Hildy gave a nervous giggle. “
Stop
, I think.”

“What am I supposed to do? Pull on the reins?” Ynen said, and laughed, too.

Soldiers appeared on the harbor wall, struggling up from the marsh behind, most of them muddy and all in a great hurry. No sooner did they see
Wind's Road
sliding proudly past and beginning to lean a little in the sea wind than they became quite frantic. They shouted to one another and yelled at Hildy and Ynen to come back. One or two raised their guns.

“They're awfully close,” Hildy said.

“I know, but I daren't leave the channel,” said Ynen. The soldiers seemed so angry that he thought he had better pacify them. He jumped up onto the seat of the steering well, with his foot on the tiller, and waved. “It's all right,” he shouted cheerfully. “We're only going out for a sail.”

A soldier sighted along a gun at him. Ynen overbalanced out of sheer astonishment and pitched down into the well, kicking the tiller as he went. As
Wind's Road
veered, the shot fizzed slantwise across where Ynen's head had been, only just missing the lovely whiteness of her mainsail.

“Ye gods!” said Hildy, and plunged for the tiller. Wind was hard in the sail, and she could feel the deep keel dragging in the mud of the Pool. Another shot zinged across behind Hildy's head.

Ynen rolled over as if he had been stung and stared anxiously up at the sail. “Filthy swine! If he's holed my canvas, I'll have his guts for garters!”

Hildy dragged the tiller across.
Wind's Road,
her sail now properly filled, gathered majestic speed and foamed past the end of the wall. If the soldiers fired any more shots, they were lost in the sudden buffet of waves and the singing of the fresh wind. “They can't possibly stop us now,” said Hildy. “But, Ynen, they fired at us! What
did
they think they were doing?”

“They must all be filthy revolutionaries,” Ynen said. He was still very shaken. “I'll make sure they're all hanged when we get back.”

“I think it must have been a mistake,” Hildy said, almost equally shaken.

Mistake all right, Mitt thought, shaking all over. They thought one of you was me. Now you had a taste of the way the rest of us feel. Don't like it, do you? What did I have to go and choose this boat for? I can't do a thing right today, can I? If only I'd got on any of the other ones, I could have sat tight and let the soldiers think these two was me.

“It must have been a mistake,” Ynen agreed, recovering. “I was just furious in case they'd spoiled the boat. We can sort it out when we get back.”

“We might not be able to,” said Hildy. “Don't forget we'll be in awful trouble when we get back.”

“Oh, don't let's think of that now,” said Ynen. “Hand over the tiller. I want to stand well out to miss the shoals.”

It was beyond Mitt to imagine what these two thought they were doing. First they ran from the soldiers as fast as he had. Now they talked about going back. The one thing Mitt was certain of was that he was going to change that idea for them. He wriggled the bolt quietly back and came out of his gilded cupboard. There he suddenly felt tired out. He stood listening to the sea frilling briskly past the hull and the creak and rattle of ropes. Feet batted the roof as Hildy began coiling ropes and resetting the foresails. Then came the clank and slosh of a bucket being dipped overboard. Rubbing and trickling sounds told Mitt that someone was washing off the mud he had brought aboard.

That's right, he thought. Bustle about. Siriol taught me to keep my boats particular. Ah, I feel like a wet wash leather! And since it was obvious that neither of his companions was intending to come into the cabin, Mitt flopped onto the port bunk for a rest. He could wait a bit to change their plans. The cabin, as small places do, quickly got up a fug. The mud on Mitt, the blankets and the floor dried in big green flakes. Mitt drowsed.

When Hildy had washed the deck, she joined Ynen in the well. “I love the way the wind blows in your face and makes your eyes all cool,” she said.

“It's my favorite feeling,” Ynen said.

Mitt hoped they would not go on like this. He did not want to hear their silly private thoughts. He was glad when Hildy said, “The land's a long way off already.”

“The tide's running out,” Ynen explained. “We'll be past the shoals in a minute. Then we'll turn north.”

“I like the south best,” Hildy objected.

“So do I. But the wind's wrong. We'd be close-hauled, and I wouldn't dare tie the mainsheet when we had supper.”

“But there's a current to the north, isn't there? If we get into that, we'll never get back before dark, not close-hauled,” Hildy pointed out.

“I wasn't going that far,” said Ynen. “I want to be back in daylight because of the shoals. I thought we'd go north till slack water, and then have supper, and then come back when the tide turned.”

“Supper at slack water sounds a nice idea,” Hildy admitted. “And you are captain.”

Mitt thought supper at any time was a nice idea. And you'll share it three ways, he thought. Two for me and one for you. Then we'll see about who's captain, and carry on up North. He bestirred himself enough to fetch out Hobin's gun and see how it had fared in the dikes. To his relief, it was dry. He laid it by his head, within easy reach, and dozed again.
Wind's Road
rose and fell. The wind creaked in her sails. The water splatted past. Ynen and Hildy did not talk much. They were too happy. Time and the land slid away.

The next thing Mitt knew,
Wind's Road
's motion was a more sluggish one. Hildy was saying angrily, “Why did you tell me you knew if you didn't?”

Ynen answered patiently, in the overfirm way people use when they are trying to convince themselves as much as the other person, “I do know. That must be Hoe Point over there, and I'm sure Little Flate is in the dip beyond it. All I said was that we'd come a bit farther than I expected.”

Mitt blinked at the gilt and white portholes and was surprised to see it was still daylight, if they had come that far.
Wind's Road
, even allowing for the tide which helped her, was a fine, fast boat. Unless it was tomorrow, of course. So much had happened to Mitt today that he felt as if it had gone on for a fortnight, even before he boarded this boat.

“Are you saying you think we've got into that current?” Hildy asked sharply. “Because, if so, we'd better turn straight round now.”

“No, no. It's only slack water,” Ynen assured her anxiously. “I can tell it's slack water by the way she's sailing.”

Mitt thought about the new motion of
Wind's Road
. It felt much more as if she were in a current to him, which suited him perfectly. In which case they were not where that flaming amateur at the tiller thought they were.

“Where does the current begin?” Hildy demanded.

“That's the trouble,” Ynen admitted. “It may be Hoe Point, or it may not be till Little Flate. I'm not sure.”

Mitt cast his eyes to the elegant ceiling. The current began off Hoe Point, and Hoe Point came after Little Flate. I thought everyone knew that, he thought. Anyway, what's the fuss about? You can go right out to sea and get out of it again.

But
Wind's Road
was simply a pleasure boat. Ynen had never been out of sight of land in her. And he had always had sailors with him before who knew the coast. “I think perhaps you'd better fetch me the chart,” he said to Hildy. “It's in the rack over the port bunk.”

“I think I'd better, too,” said Hildy, and she set off.

Whoops! thought Mitt, as he heard her coming. The time had come for him to act. He snatched up Hobin's gun and cocked it as he scrambled off the bunk. Then he grabbed open the door and whirled through it, just as Hildy was trying to come in.

They collided heavily. Hildy was slightly taller than Mitt and weighed a great deal more. But Mitt was moving twice as fast. Hildy crashed over backward with a shriek. Mitt was thrown against the cabin. The gun went off with a bark and a jerk and all but kicked itself out of Mitt's hand. It was like being hit over the wrist with a hammer. The shot, in a spatter of splinters, plowed across the deck and into the sea. The well filled with sharp-smelling smoke.

“Ye gods!” wailed Hildy. She thought her back was broken.

Mitt choked for breath against the cabin door and peered resentfully through the smoke at the gun. He thought Hobin might have warned him that it kicked like that. Then, as the smoke cleared, he saw Ynen in front of him, hanging on to the tiller and the rope from the mainsail, very white in the face, and staring at the long splintered groove in
Wind's Road
's beautiful planking. A right ninny, Mitt thought. Cares more about his boat being damaged than he does about his brother—sister, I mean. Hildy was painfully up on one elbow, glaring at Mitt. Mitt looked at both of them with the utmost contempt. They both had such a smooth look, with their skin well filled and their hair thick and dark and healthy. He could see neither had gone hungry in their lives. What aroused his dislike most—though he did not realize it—was that Hildy and Ynen both inherited their looks from their father. Mitt looked at Ynen and saw a gentle version of Hadd's nose and at Hildy and saw the narrow, pale face of both Navis and Harchad, and though he did not recognize either, he detested them both on sight. And since his opinion of females was low, anyway, he encountered Hildy's glare and thought: She makes me sick—worse than her brother!