The Crown of Dalemark (24 page)

“With you!” someone said. Doors banged. Wood resounded. The knife gleamed in half daylight. It had grown. No, it was a sword, being held by someone else. Maewen only glimpsed it before her attacker dropped her as if she was on fire and fled, kicking her as he barged across her, shoving the swordsman aside, and banging out through the door. Maewen could feel the pounding of his running feet as she lay on the sticky mud floor.

“Are you all right?
Noreth!
Where are you hurt?”

It was Navis. His hand was pulling at her arm. Maewen tried to sit up and found she had suddenly no strength at all. Navis hauled her upright and dragged her out into the comparatively pure-smelling yard.

“Where are you hurt?”

“I—I'm not… I … How did you—Who
was
he?” “I wish I knew,” said Navis. “It was far too dark. As I didn't see him when I came along behind you, I conclude he was hiding in there.”

“What a horrible place to hide!” Maewen managed to say. “Why did you—”

“I told you,” said Navis. “Your aunt told me to look after you. Let's get the horses and go out on the common. You should be safe out of the crowds. We should have stayed there as soon as we saw Hannart was in town.”

13

Maewen spent what was left of the morning sitting on the grass outside the town, more or less where Dagner's black and white cart had been, hedged in by Mitt, Navis, and the three horses. Even this did not make her feel safe. If someone came to untether a cow, or a goat bleated, or a lark went up from the grass, she jumped and stared round, expecting her throat to be grabbed and a knife to appear. She was, slowly, beginning to feel more rational when crowds of people came streaming out of town to follow the road to the Lawschool. Maewen started shaking again.

“Nearly midday.” Navis stood up and brought her horse over.

Maewen mounted, hoping she would feel better high up on a horse. It seemed to help a little. They rode sedately over to join the stream of carts, carriages, riders, and walkers on the road, and she found herself hanging back nervously.

“Get the Southerner to steal the Adon's cup for you,” the deep voice said suddenly in her ear.

Maewen felt like a water bed, trembling all over from being trodden on. “Is that all you can say? Where
were
you? Why didn't you warn me?”

“You are not hurt. The Southerners were there to help,” said the voice.

“Oh thank you!” said Maewen. “You're such a comfort!” She was trembling with indignation now. What use was a ghostly adviser who did not care that you might have been killed? Angrily she caught up with Mitt and Navis as they joined the busy road. They had almost reached the clump of trees before she realized that she felt much better. It made her smile. Perhaps the voice knew what it was doing after all.

Outside the gracious buildings of the Lawschool there was now a picket line set up for horses, and boys in that old-fashioned uniform to guard it. The man with bad teeth was now letting people through the gate in slow twos and threes. Mitt jigged with impatience as they joined the line of people waiting to go in, and even Navis looked anxious.

Moril got down from a waiting carriage which had evidently given him a lift and came jogging over to them with his cwidder bumping on his back. He was folding up a pie and corn cakes in an expensive-looking linen napkin and chewing as he arrived. “They gave me lunch, too,” he explained. “I wondered where you'd got to.”

“And where is Hestefan?” asked Navis.

Moril looked a little anxious. “He said he'd have a rest and meet us at the waystone with Wend. I don't think his health's very good. He's looked ill ever since the cart overturned.”

“You think he got hurt then?” Mitt asked.

“Yes, but he won't say,” said Moril.

They came to the gate and the man with bad teeth. Moril gave him a beaming smile. “Do you think you could take care of my cwidder until I come out?” That was how he got the ride in the coach, Maewen thought, watching the porter try to pretend that no one had ever asked him such a thing and then give in and take the cwidder carefully in his arms. Singers learned to get round people.

“Through the garden and turn right to the small quadrangle,” the man said, as he said to everyone.

Nobody looked at the garden. Moril and Maewen passed through on the cobbled path, trying to keep up with Navis and Mitt. They swept through an archway on the right and came to a square court surrounded by buildings. Here stood a long row of young people in gray, with broad white collars. Some were much younger than Moril; some were nearly grown-up. Most seemed around Maewen's real age. Many of them were already greeting parents and other relatives, and most of the rest were staring sideways at the archway, looking for their own families. There were no hugs or shouts and almost no jigging about. Evidently the way of this school was to pretend you were very grown-up. It made things very awkward. Mitt, Navis, Moril, and Maewen went crabwise along the line, and the ones waiting stared coolly past them, until Navis stopped in front of a thin dark girl, whose pale face seemed to be set in a permanent little frown.

“Hildy!” he said. There was delight and relief all over him. Mitt was the same.

The dark girl turned from whispering to the enormous girl bulking beside her and stared at Navis. “Father! Fancy you being here!” Her face lit up. For a moment it looked as if she were going to break out of school custom and hug Navis. Then she remembered the grown-up behavior and took hold of both his hands instead, smiling all over her face. It made her look much younger. “Father, this
is
good! Now I'll have someone to show round and shout for me at last grittling after all!”

“Are you all right? Is all well here?” Navis asked her.

“Absolutely
mountaintop
!” said Hildy. “I love it here. But this is Biffa.” She turned and pulled forward the huge girl beside her. “Biffa's my besting. Do you mind if she comes round with us? She's a winthrough like me, and her parents can't afford to come today. Please. She won't have anyone if I go off.”

“I shall be honored,” Navis said. Huge Biffa turned pink right down to her white collar and stood bulking helplessly, smiling. She had a very sweet smile. It transformed her slab of a face and made everyone see why Hildy liked her.

“Good,” said Hildy, and began to tow Navis away, ignoring the rest of them completely.

Navis hung back. Mitt said, “Hello, Hildy.”

Hildy glanced over her shoulder. “Oh. Hello, Mitt.” It was barely friendly. Maewen found she could not bear to look at Mitt's face. The hurt in it and the disillusionment were so huge and so plain that it hurt her, too, just from the one glimpse she had of it.

Navis firmly pulled Hildy back again. “My dear daughter,” he said. “Not so hasty. Let me introduce my friends. This young lady is, ah, Ilona Kernsdaughter.”

Maewen bowed, impressed that Navis remembered to invent her a false name. Hildy's eyes swept over Maewen's travel-stained hearthman's livery and back to her face, which she seemed to study freckle by freckle. Hildy's eyes were very dark, very observant, and not very warm. Maewen felt thoroughly uncomfortable. She was wondering whether to bow again, ironically this time, when Hildy seemed to decide that Maewen met some standard she approved of. The little frown cleared from between her eyebrows, and she smiled and bent her head to Maewen.

“Who is placed in my care by her aunt,” Navis continued. “This lad with me is Moril, from a line of famous Singers.”

Singers were obviously something Hildy respected. She bowed and smiled at Moril, who stared gravely and did not bow back.

“And,” Navis finished dryly, “Mitt, of course, you know.”

Mitt had his face under control by then. It still stared pale and blank, but he grafted a joking smile onto it. “Turned up again like the bad penny,” he said.

Somehow this hurt Maewen more than the way Mitt had looked at first. When Hildy nodded coolly and turned away, Maewen could have slapped her. He's looked forward to meeting you and worried about you—which is more than you deserve!—and you do
this
to him! she thought. You little—little
cow
!

They all moved off, with Mitt drifting in the rear like a sleepwalker. Moril spoke to huge Biffa. “Do you happen to know where I'll find my sister?” He said it shyly but somehow made it plain that he had no use for Hildy. “She's called Brid Clennensdaughter.”

Maewen caught a look of sheer awe above her on Biffa's face. “Brid!” said Biffa. “Is Brid your
sister
? She's Great Girl this sessioning. She won all the prizes on tally. She's somewhere about with the Adon.”

Eh? thought Maewen. But the Adon's dead, centuries before this.

Hildy turned half round from in front. “She means she's with the Earl of Hannart's heir,” she said. “He came to see her because she's the Earl of the South Dales' sister.”

There was a reverent note to her voice that told Maewen that Hildy was a snob. This probably accounted for the way she treated Mitt. Mitt had caught the reverent note, too, and his face was worse than ever.

“They say,” Biffa added shyly to Moril, “that the Adon's in love with your sister.”

“
Is
he?” said Moril, as if he thought he might have something to say about that. “Where's the best place to find them?”

“Skreths—no, maybe Climbers,” said Biffa. “I'll come and show you if you like.”

She led Moril off, while Hildy called instructions about where to meet again and Biffa called back about when. Both of them seemed to be talking gibberish. And when Biffa had vanished round the nearest corner, Maewen realized that there were only three of them left. Mitt seemed to have slipped off with Biffa, too. She could hardly blame him. She would not have stayed to be ignored by Hildy either. No, it was worse than ignoring. It was more unkind than that. From what Moril had told her, Hildy was an earl's granddaughter, but Navis was only a hearthman now. He was not going to be Duke of Kernsburgh for some years yet. There was no reason, no
excuse
for Hildy to think so well of herself.

She gloomily followed the girl on a grand tour of the school. It soon became a great blur to Maewen, confused in her mind with tours of the Tannoreth Palace—except that this tour was strewn with other pupils in white collars leading brightly clothed relatives who all looked as bewildered as Maewen. When she thought of the visit she had made here with Aunt Liss, she became even more confused. None of it was the same. When she remembered some of the buildings, they seemed smaller or in the wrong place. And parts of it were like any old school.