Drowned Ammet (30 page)

Lithar giggled. “Well—not terribly, Al. Unless they do tricks. Are you acrobats or something?” he asked them. “Untidy children, aren't they?” he said to Bence.

Al hitched his chair round and leaned close to Lithar, in a way that could only be described as possessive. “They're untidy because they've been at sea. Forgot to take their hairbrushes with them. But you know who they are? Who she is? She's your little betrothed. Harl's niece, from Holand. The brat with the long nose is her brother.”

Hildy said, “How did you—?”

Al grinned at her. “You sit on top of the cabin, little lady, boasting for half a day how you was betrothed to Lithar, and then you ask me how I know! Be reasonable!”

“I thought you were asleep,” said Hildy.

“Not me,” said Al. “Too seasick. Well, Lithar? Aren't you going to thank me?”

Lithar, to help himself absorb what Al said, had put a forkful of food in his mouth. It looked like some of the tastiest sea fry Mitt had ever seen. He and Ynen looked at it longingly. They were ravenous. Lithar chewed, wagging his brown boot toe of a chin. “I suppose she'll grow,” he said discontentedly, with his mouth full. “But I don't want her brother.”

“Yes, you do,” said Al. He went back to eating sea fry, too, but paused to wave his loaded fork to Bence. Mitt thought it was cruel. “Here, Bence,” Al said. “Tell us that news from Holand you gave me on the boat.” Bence raised his eyebrows and looked at Hildy and Ynen as if he did not want to say anything in front of them. Al angrily waved another forkful at him. “Get on with it!”

Bence was the ruddy, hairy kind of man who looks strong-minded but is really rather weak. He was obviously well under Al's thumb. “I just wondered—” he said. “Well, the news from Holand is that the old Earl was shot some days back, and his sons had a set-to over the earldom. Harl, the eldest son, killed Harchad, the second son, and family. And Navis, the third son, and family took fright and ran away. That's all I heard, Al.”

Hildy and Ynen stared desolately at one another, while Al laughed loudly and pointed his fork at Lithar. “Understand?” Lithar nodded intelligently and plainly did not understand. “Harl,” Al explained, “has come out on top. But Navis isn't dead, or not yet. You've got Navis's family here. You want the girl, anyway. She's worth alliance, and bargains and a lot of money. But you want the boy, too. He's a nuisance to Harl. Harl's got boys of his own, and he'll pay high to be rid of this one. And if the unexpected happens, and Navis comes out on top, then you've done him a favor instead, see? Don't worry about the girl. She'll grow.”

“Sure to. They all do,” Bence said heartily.

Lithar's lined face was riven with bewilderment, but he gave Hildy a formal smile, still with his mouth full, and Ynen a doubtful nod. Then he pointed his fork at Mitt. “But who are you? Al keeps not talking about you.”

“I'm just a nobody,” Mitt said quickly.

Al tipped his chair back and looked at him. “Don't be too sure of that. Murderer, aren't you?”

Lithar was delighted. “Oh? Like you, Al?”

“No—though he flaming near got in my way,” said Al. “I bear you a grudge for that,” he told Mitt. “Harl's going to want him, too, Lithar. He had a go at killing Hadd. It didn't come to much, but he'll make someone to blame—satisfy a crying need nicely, you might say. You offer to send him back for a price.”

Lithar cocked his long face intently. “How much should I ask?”

Mitt wanted to say something, but he was in such terror that his mind was blank. How had Al known? He must have given himself away just as Hildy had, thinking Al was asleep, and his red and yellow breeches were on him to prove it.

Ynen looked at Mitt's face and knew exactly how he felt. Ynen felt bad. They had promised Mitt to take him North. Something Al had said came into Ynen's mind and combined with the way those sailors had behaved. “I don't think you should,” he said to Lithar. “His name's Alhammitt.”

“Half Holand's called that,” Al said swiftly and loudly.

But Lithar looked at him reproachfully. “Now, Al. That isn't a name we take chances with in the Holy Islands.
You
should know that. I can't send him to Holand. I'm a god-fearing man.”

“You're a superstitious ass,” said Al. “You send him.”

“I can't,” said Lithar, and he smiled pleadingly, as if he wanted Al to forgive him.

Al's square face lost all its expression. He laid down his fork and picked up Hobin's gun again. It was empty. Al must have used all the remaining shots demonstrating it to Lithar. He grunted. Then he looked up in annoyance, because the door of the room opened. A little brown woman with white hair came in. She was a slim, upright person in a green-embroidered island dress.

“Clothing and food is prepared for the little ones,” she said to Lithar.

Lithar giggled. “Little ones! A bit more respect, please, Lalla. You wouldn't believe how important they are! Shall I send them with her?” he asked Al. Al shrugged.

18

To Mitt's heartfelt relief, Lalla took them out of that dangerous room. A crowd of small brown island women were waiting for them outside, with beautiful dark faces and hair either snowy white or light-fair. No one could have been kinder or more concerned than these women. They hurried all three of them upstairs again to rooms where baths were waiting.

Hildy and Ynen, in spite of the situation, were very glad to have a bath. Mitt was hugely embarrassed. He was not used to baths. He was not used to being undressed in front of strangers. Two of the kindly women helped him, soaping and scrubbing and then drying him. Mitt was afraid he seemed unpleasantly dirty. And they kept shaking their heads distressfully over him and talking about him in soft voices almost as beautiful as their faces.

“He is too thin, this one. Look at those legs on him, Lalla. But see the shoulders, and the span on them. There is the makings of a thick man, and the flesh of a sparrow to cover him.” Mitt writhed.

At length, feeling rather as if he had been put through the mangle in Hobin's backyard, Mitt tottered out into a long, cheerful room with barred windows, where Hildy and Ynen were waiting to begin breakfast. Mitt hardly knew them. Hildy had been given a faded blue island woman's dress with white embroidery down the front, which made her look grown-up and haughty. Ynen's black hair was wet and shiny and smooth. He had been given a secondhand suit so faded that it was the color of blue-green distance. Mitt became very conscious of the good suit of new bottle green they had given him to wear. He had never worn anything half so good. It gave him a feeling there had been a mistake somewhere, because it was certainly better than Ynen's.

They were left alone to eat breakfast. There were piles of smoking sea fry, new bread, crusty outside and moist within, salty butter, and bunches of green grapes, smaller and sweeter than those of Holand. As Ynen said, it made a wonderful change from pies. But Hildy simply sat looking haughtier and haughtier and not eating.

Mitt found her very annoying. “Do eat,” he said irritably. “Keep your strength up.”

“I can't,” Hildy said, tight and toneless. “Uncle Harchad's dead. And half the cousins.”

“So what? Good riddance, if you ask me,” said Mitt.

“Uncle Harl's a murderer,” said Hildy. “He's no better than Al.”

“Well, you knew that before,” Mitt pointed out, “and you didn't let it put you off your food then.”

“Yes, do eat, Hildy,” said Ynen.

“Don't you see?” said Hildy. “Uncle Harl has probably killed Father, too.” Two tears ran slowly down her narrow cheeks. “Because we got away, people think he was with us.”

Ynen looked at Mitt, appalled. Mitt sighed, rather. He felt he had enough troubles of his own, without sharing theirs. “I always thought it was wrong somewhere,” he said, trying to think it out, “what you told me about when you were coming away. Looks as if your uncle Harchad may have been out to kill you.”

“You mean,” Ynen asked, “that when those soldiers fired at us in the West Pool, it wasn't because they thought we were you, it was because Uncle Harchad had given them orders to stop us?”

Mitt nodded. “Could be. Harchad or Harl. If you ask me, you were luckier than you knew there.”

“Lucky!” exclaimed Hildy. “You call us lucky when Father's probably dead and Al's going to sell us to Uncle Harl!” Tears came down her cheeks in pulses. “Lithar's an imbecile!” she said. “And I boasted so! There's no such thing as luck. Life's horrible. I hate everything about it. I think I always have done.”

“You like sailing in
Wind's Road
,” Ynen said, rather hurt.

“With two murderers,” said Hildy, “into captivity.” She bent her head over the pale oak table and sobbed miserably.

Mitt was offended. “Stop that!” he said. “If I hadn't had to get away, you'd be lying dead in Holand at this moment, and you know it! Ynen's worse off than you, and he's not crying. All this means is that we've got to get out of here and go North. So will you stop crying and eat something!”

Tears whisked over the table as Hildy raised her head and glared at Mitt. “I don't think I've ever disliked anyone so much as I dislike you!” she said. “Not even Al!” She snatched up a bunch of grapes and began to eat without noticing the taste.

“How can we get away?” Ynen asked anxiously.

Mitt got up and tried the door. It was locked. Rather dashed, he looked over at the bars on the windows. Somehow he had not expected the island women to lock them in.

“Iron bars,” said Ynen.

“Of course, stupid!” said Hildy. “This is a nursery. The bars are to stop babies falling out.” Eating the grapes made her suddenly realize how very hungry she was. She began wolfing lukewarm sea fry. “Ye gods!” she said as she wolfed. “I haven't been shut in a nursery for—for some time.”

Ynen and Mitt left her eating and went to look at the windows. They looked out on the mainland, rolling into green distance, and the shingly causeway which led to it from the back of Lithar's mansion. Little boats were drawn up to the causeway, nudging the shingle on either side. Immediately below them was a courtyard, with a gateway opening on the causeway. It was full of people, and people were walking backward and forward along the causeway, too.