Drowned Ammet (17 page)

“Over those mucky dikes?” said Mitt.

“That won't kill you, and it's nearest. But I don't know what guard they set over their boats there. See how you go. And if you get anywhere in Canderack or Waywold where there's a gunsmith, go to him and tell him I sent you. They'll all know me. Come on,” said Hobin. “I'll give you a lift up over the wall.”

Mitt pushed the gun into the belt and put on his jacket. “But what are you going to tell them when they come—these spies?”

“Nail up this window for a start,” said Hobin. “Then you may have tried to break in, but you didn't manage it. I'll be very grieved and disappointed in you, Mitt. You'll never darken my door again.”

Though Hobin smiled slightly as he said that, Mitt knew that he was not likely to see Hobin again. As he went across the yard with him, Mitt felt unexpectedly wretched about it. He had never treated Hobin right, never even thought of him in the right way. He wanted to apologize to Hobin. But there seemed no time to say anything. Hobin had his hands joined ready for Mitt to tread in. Mitt sighed and put his foot on them.

“Happy birthday,” Hobin whispered. “Luck ship and shore.”

There had been so much else on Mitt's mind that he had clean forgotten it was his birthday. He wanted to thank Hobin for remembering. But Hobin heaved. Mitt went upward. He had only time for a hasty grin down at Hobin, before he was on top of the wall and slithering over the other side.

No one seemed to have seen him. Mitt set out into the depressed corner of Holand between the causeway to the West Pool and the dunes. It was not far. Flate Street was some way west to start with. And Mitt saw Hobin had been right to tell him to go this way. He only saw one party of soldiers, and these he hid from in a doorway, fingering the fat little gun as they passed and thinking: Better not come too near. Hobin gave me a birthday present you won't like.

The soldiers passed without seeing him. Mitt went on. The town petered out into marsh and shacks made of pieces of boat. There was no one about at all. Mitt, the seagulls, and the rubbish thrown into the pink marsh plants had it all to themselves. Mitt was glad of his coat. There was a fresh wind ripping over the dunes on his left, from the sea, which brimmed to the horizon above the dunes and looked higher than the land. Ahead was a bright green stretch where a network of brackish dikes broke through the dunes. Mitt would have to cross those in order to get to the seawall of the West Pool. He was still not too keen on the idea. But beyond that black line of wall there were masts—several hundred pleasure boats, large and small, awaiting Mitt's pleasure.

Good old Hobin! Mitt thought, making squelching strides through the pink marsh.

Then he came to the dikes. They were gray-green muddy ditches, just too wide to jump, threading the squashy green turf in front of the wall as intricately as the patterns Milda used to embroider on hangings for the Palace. Once they had been simply sea marsh. Now they were where the Palace sewers came out. As the tide was going out, they were running sluggishly, with scummy bubblings and a foot of gray mud above the waterline.

“Yuk!” said Mitt, and looked rather desperately toward the causeway, wondering whether he dared go that way instead. There were people on it. He could see them moving between the trees. Once again that awful, unusual fear seized him. He was afraid to move at all. I better wait for dark, he thought.

But the people, whoever they were, continued flickering slowly to and fro between the trees. Mitt, with his hands shaking, tore up an old stake and prodded the nearest ditch with it. The nasty water was only knee-deep.

I'll have a go, thought Mitt. He slithered down into the sour, salty mud. “Oh yuk! Shershplottle-shloosh! What filthy filth!” said Mitt. He waded through and climbed out. “Careful of that gun, now,” he warned himself. A couple of yards on was another ditch. “Second sewer,” said Mitt, sliding in with a shudder. “And now”—as he climbed out—“here comes another.”

He was struggling out of that ditch when there were shouts from the causeway. Figures ran between the trees and leaped gingerly down on the green morass—green figures, darker than the marsh. Harchad had thought of the West Pool, too. Mitt went down, through and up out of that next dike quicker than the rats through the garbage on the waterfront. He was through the next two before the running soldiers reached their first. As he plunged down yet another slimy bank, he saw them stop there, about a hundred yards away.

Take them a while to bring themselves to go in, he thought. The wall of the Pool was about a hundred yards away, too. Mitt knew he would never get there. It was hopeless. He doubled over and ran along the ditch, splashing and squelching, keeping one hand over his coat and the gun. “Keep it dry. You might get one or two with it,” he said to himself. The ditch bent and joined another one. When Mitt looked up, the wall of the Pool was quite a bit nearer. There was a buttress he might climb up. But he would have to come out of this ditch to get to it. Mitt rolled out and dived across the moist green turf.

Something went
pheeew
past his head and thudded
smick
into the bank of the dike beyond.

Mitt found himself up and running. He was so frightened that he felt as if he had got some dreadful disease. His legs hurt, his breathing hurt, and he felt giddy. Bullets were going
pheeew-smick
all round him now. He thought he was like a chicken, running about with its neck wrung. He was sure he was dead.

Hey! thought Mitt. He was on the edge of another dike.
Pheeew-smick
. He threw up both arms, spun round, and fell. While he was falling, he had time to hoik Hobin's belt round him, so the gun was at his back, out of harm's way. He fell on his face on the cold, salty turf and let himself slide over sideways into the bubbling slime in the dike. He hardly noticed the smell.

There was one more shout from the distance, then businesslike silence.

Good, thought Mitt, and began to claw his way along below the bank on hands and knees.

“There are a lot of people,” Ynen said uneasily when he and Hildy were halfway along the causeway. “Soldiers, I think. By the Pool gate.”

They stopped, confounded, and humped their sacks of pies to the side of the road, where the trees hid them.

“It must be the uprising,” said Hildy. “Do you think they'd let us past if I offered them a gold piece? I've got one.”

“I don't know. There are an awful lot of them.”

They loitered forward, under the trees. It was hard to know what to do. The soldiers might not stop them. On the other hand, Uncle Harchad had told the guards by the kitchen to bring them to him. He could have sent the same message to these soldiers.

“And it would be the most terrible waste if they sent us back
now
,” said Hildy.

Before they were near enough to see or be seen clearly, they saw the figures at the end of the road flicker to the side of it, one after another, and disappear through the trees. It looked as if they had jumped off the causeway.

“Don't they want us to see them?” Hildy said, and stopped, thinking of bombs and revolutionaries.

“Oh come on!” said Ynen, and began to run. “Quick! While they're away.”

Hildy caught him up, and they ran hard, with the pies butting at their shoulders and the trees flicking past on either side. There was a salvo of little blunt bangs down below the road. Between the flicking trees they saw puffs of smoke and a flash or so. It sent both Hildy and Ynen over to the other side of the road, where they ran still, but more slowly. Neither of them wanted to run straight into a battle.

But the firing stopped after a round or so. Ynen panted to Hildy to hurry, to get to the gate before the soldiers came back. But no soldiers appeared. They reached the big pitch-painted gates before they saw them. There were about twenty soldiers, all down in the marsh to the left, jumping and slithering among the smelly dikes there. They were peering into each one they came to, and shouting to one another to cover the next one. Some had poles and were prodding the mud.

“They're looking for someone,” Ynen said, greatly relieved. “I bet it's the murderer.”

“I suppose they shot him,” Hildy agreed. “Ynen, how lucky! They've left the gates open. They must have been searching the Pool.” It did not really occur to them that someone's misfortune had caused their good luck.

Mitt slithered up that buttress. Like a horrible great slug, I am, he thought. He rolled onto the top of the wall. Left a slimy trail like one, too, he thought, looking at the wide smear of gray-green mud behind him. Below, the soldiers were prodding at ditches, convinced he was dead. Mitt rolled off the wall and thumped onto the jetty beyond before any of them chanced to look up and find reason to revise their opinion. He lay propped on his elbows, panting, clammy and almost tired out, and wondered which of these many little boats he had better get into. He knew it would have to be one he could manage easily alone. For that reason he rejected the beauty moored about ten yards down. “Too big, my lovely,” he told her. “One of them Siriol used to spit at, too.”

He looked round the rest. Some were big, some tubby, some the merest cockleshells. They all gleamed with splendid paint. Mitt thought he was weighing each one up as he looked at it, but in fact, all he was doing was comparing them with that blue beauty ten yards away and finding them trash in comparison. He did not have time to make himself decide reasonably. A soldier down in the marsh yelled. Mitt bolted on hands and knees like a monkey. He was rolling across the blue beauty's cabin roof before he had time to think. She had a steering well—purest pleasure boat stuff, Mitt thought, dropping down into it. At least it hid him from the soldiers.

But not for long. Before Mitt had believed it possible, footsteps were pattering on the jetty outside. He tore open the double cabin doors and dived inside. If he had not been in such a hurry, he would have stopped then and stared. He never could have imagined a ship's inside could be so beautiful—blue blankets and blue plush, a charcoal cooking stove, white paint and gold, and everything carved and ornamented and cleaned until it was more like a floating palace than a boat.

Ah, I always said the best wasn't good enough for me! Mitt thought, tiptoeing in a trail of green slime to the far end of the cabin. The boat's name was embroidered on all the blankets. Mitt could not resist pausing to spell out the name all this luxury went under.
Wind's Road,
he read. Very suitable. Suits me fine.

The next second
Wind's Road
dipped and swung under people's feet. “Isn't she beautiful!” Ynen said, dumping his sack on a locker. Mitt fumbled open a gilded cupboard, sweating with panic, and found himself confronting a bucket with a gilded seat. The bucket seemed to have roses painted all over it.

Flaming Ammet! thought Mitt. There really
is
nothing but the best on this ship! He shot the polished brass bolt to the cupboard with slimy, shaking fingers, and leaned against the gilded wall, listening to feet scampering and shrill, haughty voices calling overhead.

WIND'S ROAD

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