The Crown of Dalemark (26 page)

The domed room filled with crackling blue light.

Mitt leaped back. One arm was over his face and watering eyes. The other hand was fizzing, prickling, and stinging, and he shook it frantically. The light was gone by then. Mitt blinked away tears and dazzle, panting. No wonder no one bothered to guard this cup. The thing looked after itself. He looked round nervously, hoping that no one had been near enough to see the One's chapel suddenly fill with light.

Somebody must have been. There were shouts outside, loud and desperate, from somebody young.

14

Maewen had had enough of Hildy by then. Navis was being far too patient with her. “Now look, my dear,” he was saying, as they wandered through the garden by the gate, “it really is vital that you come away with us today. If you remain here, you're playing into Earl Keril's hands. He's using you as a hostage for my behavior—not to speak of Mitt's.”

“Let's
not
speak of Mitt,” said Hildy.

“All right, we'll speak of you, then,” Navis agreed. “Everyone else goes away from here today, isn't that right? Surely you would prefer not to be left all alone in this place all summer.”

The fierce little frown grew between Hildy's brows. “Why are you bothering now? I was alone here for nearly two weeks at spring recess—at least, Biffa was here, too, but it was
nearly
alone—and I didn't mind.”

“Things have changed since then,” Navis said patiently.

“What things?” said Hildy.

“Politics. I know now that you were sent to this place as part of a plan,” Navis explained. “The plans I've made to counter the earls' move could make it very dangerous for you. Keril knows you are here. He has only to take you away. Anyway, the only safe thing for you to do is to be with me for the next three months. I—”

“Three
months
!” Hildy interrupted. “But then I'd miss Harvest grittling and modes
and
the start of middle vokes—
No
!”

“Well, yes, I'm afraid you would,” Navis admitted. “But you'd be alive. You'd not be in prison. You can always come back next year, if things go our way.”

“
If
! Next
year
! Miss a whole
year
!” It was clear Hildy could not believe her ears. “Just for politics! No
way
!” She meant this so much that she actually made an effort to explain. “Father, you're asking me to go back to junior vocation studies, just for
politics
.”

Navis looked exasperated and, for him, surprisingly helpless. His eyes flicked to Maewen. Maewen realized she must be some of his difficulty. She supposed it was because Navis had told Hildy she was someone called Ilona Something and Navis was not sure he dared explain who she really was—or who Navis
thought
she was. Oh, what a muddle! Maewen was sick of this. It was with enormous relief that she saw Biffa coming towering through the garden toward them. Maewen rushed to meet her.

“There you are!” Biffa said. “I hunted everywhere. Then I thought she'd decided to show you the One's chapel and I came this way. Have you been there?”

“Not yet,” Maewen said. “Which way is it?”

But Biffa was gazing over Maewen's head. “What's wrong with Hildy? She looks near on in one of her rages.”

Maewen looked back at Navis and Hildy, bent toward one another arguing, against a great bush of lavender full of bees. She saw the anger in Hildy's white face and the worry in Biffa's healthy pink one, and she wondered how Hildy had managed to be friends with such a nice girl. “Navis wants to take her away with him,” she explained, “and she won't go.”

“Why ever
not
?” said Biffa. “She's been right gloomy all this week, saying she'll be alone all summer here—you wouldn't believe!”

Maewen could believe. “Then go and persuade her. Navis is worried to death,” she said. “Which way is the One's chapel?”

“Over there,” Biffa said, pointing. “You'll just have time before grittling.” She strode over to the lavender bush to loom anxiously over Hildy.

Maewen sighed as she trudged off the way Biffa pointed. She knew Biffa would persuade Hildy. She supposed it was a good thing, if Hildy
was
in danger. But the idea depressed her too much for her to bother to work out what the danger might be. There would be Hildy all the way to Kernsburgh, frowning angrily and pretending Mitt did not exist. And Mitt would have that look all the time, with that horrible jokey smile grafted on top of it. It hardly bore thinking of.

Chalk up another black mark to this Keril, she thought, as she came through the bushes and saw the One's chapel across a gravel court. It was just as she had remembered it. But she had not remembered it
here
. The buildings must all have been in different places after two hundred years. I wonder why she didn't show us it, Maewen thought. No, I know why. It's not something she can call a silly name and mystify us with. Or maybe she'd call it Wunners.

The thought amused Maewen enough to give her the courage to advance slowly and quietly toward the small, domed building. She was not happy with the idea of stealing this cup. But she did think she ought to do something for herself. And of course she was in the fortunate position of knowing that she had done it. Just rush in, snatch it, and out, she told herself as she advanced cautiously, slantwise to the door.

A funny blue flash made her jump round. The gravel crunched under quick footsteps. Maewen swung round further, almost in time. Someone muffled in a gray robe grabbed at her with one hand and raised a knife in the other.

“No, not again!
Help
!” Maewen screamed.

She went on screaming because this time he had not grabbed her throat. It was so much like last time that she was sure it was the same man. He had her arm instead of her throat, and he was trying to twist it so that she would hold still for him to bring down the knife into her neck. In spite of the way it hurt, Maewen seized the wrist of his knife hand with her free hand and frantically held it away. She could see his face over her head. It seemed to be made of gray cloth, except for his glaring eyes. The sight turned her weak. She could only push at his wrist and keep screaming, “
Help!
I'm being
killed
!”

Gravel scrunched and spurted, stinging her face. Someone said, “Flaming
Ammet
!” and then, “Drop that, you hooded horror, you!” Mitt's unmistakable large bony hand closed over the fist that was trying to stab Maewen. Everyone swayed, and grunted, and slid, in a shrill jangling of gravel. Then the attacker wrenched his hand, and his knife, free and ran, with Mitt after him like a greyhound. Maewen was left standing in a patter of small stones, still shouting.

“Oh save me, Mitt!”

She heard herself say it, as the madly running gray man plunged into the bushes and trees of the garden and Mitt hurtled after him. She stood staring, feeling a total fool. Tears were running down her face, though she had no memory of when she had started crying. How—how totally …
girly
! “Oh save me, Mitt!” she mimicked herself. Honestly!

She tried to walk to the chapel then, but her legs wobbled and refused to go, even though at the time they were carrying her round and round on the spot, like someone in a mad, giddy dance. She seemed to be trying to see all sides of the yard at once in case there were any more gray attackers. She made herself stop that. She managed to stand still and wipe her eyes, but that was all she could manage before Mitt came hurtling back with Navis running beside him. Both of them looked so anxious that tears came leaking down Maewen's face again.

“Bastard got away in the bushes!” Mitt said disgustedly.

“What are you doing on your own here?” Navis demanded.

Maewen swallowed. “Cup,” she managed, but that was all.

“That's easily solved,” said Navis. “Stay with her, Mitt.”

Before Mitt could say anything, Navis had crossed the gravel and briskly vanished into the chapel.

“Are you all right?” Mitt asked Maewen. He put both hands out uncertainly, with half a mind to take hold of her shoulders. But then he did not quite like to touch her. Maewen instantly found she was hurling herself against him. She pressed her face against his chest. Through the hard mail she could feel Mitt panting and his heart thumping. She was sure she was embarrassing him horribly, but this did not prevent her from wrapping her arms round him, tightly. One of Mitt's arms came gingerly round her shoulders and he patted her back. “There, there. It's all right.”

“Oh Mitt, I'm so sorry!” Maewen blurted. “About me and about Hildy—about
everything
!”

“There, there,” Mitt repeated.

That was all they had time for before Navis trod briskly out of the chapel again, carrying something bundled in a large handkerchief. “Quite simple, you see,” he said.

Mitt stood back a bit, with a damp spreading patch on his jacket where Maewen's face had been. “Simple?” he said. “It's got a hex on it sizzles off like a thunderbolt when you touch it!”

“This being the North, I considered that,” said Navis, “and I didn't touch it. Look.” He opened the silk handkerchief a fraction to show the cup nestled in it. Then he calmly stowed the bundle in one of his wide pockets. “We'd best take ourselves off to the great court,” he said as he made sure this pocket was arranged not to bulge more than the one on the other side of his coat. “We must attend a closing ceremony, it seems.”

They went there slowly. Maewen was still shaking, and her legs were not steady. Navis courteously put his hand under her elbow to help her along. Mitt avoided touching her. Maewen kept seeing him rubbing at the wet patch her face had made on his chest. She could hardly look at him for embarrassment.

“You persuaded Hildy to come along?” Mitt asked, rather too casually, giving his chest a further rub.

“Not yet,” said Navis.

Mitt's face went tight and bony, like a skull. “She's
got
to.”

“I know,” said Navis. “I'm hoping that extremely large friend of hers can make her see reason. In that hope I explained the whole situation to both of them.”

“Biffa?” said Mitt. “Is that safe?”

“I trusted her,” said Navis. “And this you won't believe! The girl's real name is Enblith!”

“After Enblith the Fair!” In spite of his skull face of worry, Mitt began to giggle.