Drowned Ammet

  Ynen judged that Hildy’s temper was cooling. He risked laughing. “Everyone called him that!”

  “I wish I’d known,” said Hildy. “I’d have said it, too.”

  This encouraged Ynen to believe she was almost calm again. “Hildy,” he said, “that was rather a good coverlet.”

  It had been a good one. It was blue and gold, and worked in a pattern of roses. The sewing women down in Holand had taken a good month to embroider it. Hildy’s four furious strips had left it a square of ragged, puckered cloth about four feet long. “I don’t care,” said Hildy. Her rage flared up again. She seized the puckered square and tore it and tore it. “I hate good things!” she raged. “They give us good coverlets, and golden clocks, and beautiful boats, and they don’t do it because they like us or care about us. All they think of is whether we’ll come in useful for their plans!”

  “Nobody thinks I’m useful at all,” Ynen said. That was the reason for his misery, but he had been ashamed to say it before.

  Hildy glared round at him, and he shrank. “I could murder them for thinking that!” she raved. “Why do you have to be useful? You’re nice. You’re the only nice person in this whole horrible Palace!” Ynen went pink. He was very flattered, but he would like to have been told he was useful, too. And he wished Hildy would realize that she was quite as alarming raging for him as she was raging at him. “I intend to teach them a lesson,” Hildy proclaimed.

  “They probably won’t notice,” Ynen said. “I wish we could go and live somewhere else. Somebody told me Father preferred living in the country. Do you think if I asked him—?”

  Hildy interrupted him with a squawk of angry laughter. “Go and ask one of the statues in the throne room! They’ll pay more attention.”

  Ynen knew she was right. But now he had talked about going away from the Palace, he knew it was the one thing he really wanted to do. “Hildy, couldn’t we go out for the rest of the day? I hate the Palace like this. Couldn’t we go sailing—oh, I forgot. You’re not allowed to anymore, are you?”

  “Don’t be a fool! The place is full of revolutionaries. They won’t let us go out,” said Hildy. But she could see from the window behind Ynen that it was perfect weather for sailing. “Won’t all the sailors have a holiday today?”

  Ynen sighed. “Yes. I wouldn’t have a crew.” Still, it had been a good idea. “Suppose we rode out to High Mill then?”

  But Hildy stood looking from the window to the ruins of her coverlet. There was going to be trouble about that. It was a silly thing to get into trouble about on its own. She ought to do something worse. She was aching to do something really terrible and show everybody. She remembered Navis had asked them to stay where he could find them. That decided her. “Let’s go sailing, Ynen,” she said. “And let’s give them a fright. Let’s knot the coverlet and hang it out of the window, and make them think we’ve run away.” Ynen looked at her dubiously. “I can crew,” said Hildy. “You can be captain because it’s your boat.”

  “You don’t mind getting into awful trouble?” said Ynen.

  “I do not,” said Hildy.

  Ynen jumped up, so full of pleasure and mischief that he looked like a different boy. “Come on then! We’ll need warm clothes, and we’d better pinch some food, too. We’ll have to sneak out past the kitchens, anyway.”

  Hildy laughed at the change in him as she snatched up two strips of coverlet and knotted them together. She pulled the knot tight. There was an ominous ripping noise. “It wouldn’t bear a sparrow, this stuff,” she said.

  “It’s only got to look used,” Ynen pointed out. “Pull it as tight as you can without tearing it.” He helped her make the knots and then to tie the fraying strip to the window frame and let it down outside. It did not reach very far. “It’ll do,” Ynen said hopefully. “We could have jumped down onto the library roof.”

  Hildy leaned out beside him. Their rope dangled a pitiful sixteen feet. The library dome was twenty feet or more below that. “They’ll wonder how we didn’t break our necks,” she said. “Go and get warm clothes. I’ll come to your room when I’ve changed.”

  Ynen raced off, hardly the same boy who had sat miserably on Hildy’s window seat half the afternoon. Hildy, as she changed into a short woolen dress, sea boots, socks, and a pea jacket, told herself she was doing right. Ynen was so happy. She still felt wonderfully rebellious, but she was also just a little scared. There were people in Holand with bombs and guns. She had seen them.

  “They won’t know who we are,” she told her reflection in the mirror. “And I’m sick of being important.” She took her hair down and did it in pigtails, to look as ordinary as possible, and collected dust from all the corners where she could find it and rubbed it on her face. Then she threw her good clothes to the back of a closet and set off for Ynen’s room.

  Her cousins Harilla and Irana were coming along the passage. Hildy dodged behind a grand china vase. She heard them go into her room. Harilla was saying: “Well, Hildy, did they let you break off your betrothal? You needn’t think—Oh!”

  Hildy dodged out from the vase and ran, as quietly as she could in sea boots. “Quick!” she told Ynen. “Harilla found the coverlet.”

  “It would be her, wouldn’t it?” said Ynen.

  They could tell the alarm was up as they crept down toward the kitchens. There was a great deal of noise and running about. But everyone seemed to believe that Hildy and Ynen would be found in the direction of the library. It was easy to avoid the people running there from the kitchens, and once they reached the kitchens, there were very few people left there. They heard someone whistling and dishes clattering, but the sounds echoed with emptiness. Ynen risked opening the door of a pantry.

  “Look at that!” he said. The pantry was full, from floor to ceiling, with pies—glazed pies, golden pies, puffy pies, tarts, flans, pasties, and pies with flowers and birds on them. “Pass us a couple of those sacks,” said Ynen. “Let’s make it look as if we took enough for a week.”

  They pulled the pantry door to behind them and, in the half-dark, seized what pies came first to hand and stuffed the sacks with them. While they were doing it, footsteps hurried outside, backward and forward. They waited for whoever it was to go away, and took the opportunity to eat a pasty each.

  “Seems quiet now,” Hildy whispered.

  They wiped gravy and crumbs off their mouths and tiptoed out. The kitchen gate was just beyond. The footsteps had been Uncle Harchad’s. He had done them a favor. The soldiers who should have been on guard at the gate were standing stiffly just inside the kitchen door up the passage, listening to Harchad, along with the scullions left in the kitchen.

  “And you’re absolutely sure neither of them has gone past?” they heard Harchad saying.

  “Quite sure, sir.”

  “If you see them, I want them brought to me, understand? Not to Earl Harl,” said Uncle Harchad.

  Nobody saw or heard Ynen and Hildy tiptoe to the gate, open the small postern carved in the big door, and slip out of it with their sacks.

  10

  Mitt took a last deep breath, hurled himself across the alley, and ran up the wall. If you are light and strong and determined, you can get a long way up a wall like this. Mitt’s feet scrambled, his breath sawed, and his fingers caught and slipped in the greasy bricks overhead. His right hand managed to clench in a crumbly crack. He threw the other arm over the top of the wall. Then, with a rasping slide and a slither, he was over and down, in his own backyard, terrified at the noise he had made.

  It was queer. It looked like a strange backyard already. Mitt had not remembered it so small and grimy, or the target on the wall so pitted, or the mangle so rusty. As he stole over the slippery earth, he could hardly believe that just as usual, he would be able to slide up the workshop window and unlatch the back door. Yet just as usual, he put his arm in and the cold latch clicked upward under his fingers. He pulled open the door, creeeak, and slipped round it into the grimy, gloomy workshop.
r />   Remember to break that window, Mitt thought. Noisy. Pity. Do it last. He crept across the room and picked up a crowbar. He looked at the rack of finished guns—locked, with the seal of Holand dangling from the lock—and the chests of powder—each kind separate, and locked, with the seal of Holand dangling there, too. He wished Hobin was not so careful. He was going to have to break everything, mix his own powder, make his own cartridges.

  There was a soft, purposeful movement behind him. Mitt’s heart hammered, and his tongue suddenly grew too fat for his mouth. He whirled round, with his hand wet on the crowbar. Hobin was just latching the door which led upstairs to the house.

  “That you, Hobin?” Mitt said weakly. Cold despair set in. Everything was going wrong. Hobin should have been out at High Mill, but he was here instead, and wearing his good clothes, as if he had never been out for a walk at all.

  Hobin nodded. “I was hoping you’d be along. You’ve got some sense left, I see.” He walked deliberately across the workshop, even more solid and grave than usual. Mitt could not help backing away, even though he knew he would be cut off from the back door. And he was. Hobin stationed himself by the back window, and Mitt knew he was doing it on purpose.

  “But you went out,” said Mitt. “With Ham.”

  “And I came back,” said Hobin. “Without him.”

  “And—” Mitt pointed jerkily upward with the crowbar. “My mother. She in?”

  Hobin shook his head. “At Siriol’s, isn’t she? We’d best keep her out of this. Mitt, what kind of fool do you think I am to get taken in by someone like Ham? And what did you think you were aiming to do?”

  Mitt swallowed. “I—I came for a gun. I was going to make it like robbers broke in. Honest, Hobin, I wasn’t meaning to get you into trouble.”

  “No, I mean out there on the waterfront,” said Hobin.

  “Oh,” said Mitt.

  “You do take me for a fool, don’t you?” said Hobin. “I can tell my gunpowder to a grain. I knew it was you taking it, but I never thought it was you who was going to use it. Who was the one that shot the Earl? Another of your precious fishermen?”

  “I don’t know. Hands to the North, I suppose. Hobin,” said Mitt, “let me have a gun. Then I’ll go away and never bother you again. Please. Everything went wrong.”

  “I saw it go wrong,” said Hobin. “I was right by you when you chucked your fizz-bang. And it was lucky for them, after that Navis kicked it away, that none of them caught you. Then there was nothing I could do but hope you’d have the sense not to trust those fishermen to get you away. Because you’re in really bad trouble, Mitt. And it’s not funny. Not this time.”

  “I know!” said Mitt. “I know! There’ll be spies here by tomorrow asking for me.”

  “Tomorrow!” said Hobin. “You must be joking! They’ll be here by sundown. I give them till then to notice it was one of my guns shot the Earl.”

  “One of yours? How can you tell?” Mitt wished Hobin would come away from the back door. He felt trapped.

  “It had to be one of mine to throw straight over that distance,” said Hobin. “And it fired first time. Now do you see why I keep well in with the arms inspectors? Or was that what you were counting on?”

  “No, I was not,” Mitt said wretchedly. “Why do you think I set Ham on you? What did you do with Ham, anyway?”

  “Nothing, only gave him the slip,” said Hobin. “Being the fool he is, he’s still walking round in the Flate looking for me. No, I didn’t see you thinking that way, but I couldn’t help being riled over Ham. I could see through Ham easier than through that window.” Hobin pointed to the grimy glass and came away from the back door at last. Mitt eyed the distance and was wondering whether to dash for it when Hobin said, “What did you aim to do when you’d pinched a gun?”

  Mitt heard keys jingle. He looked round to see Hobin unlocking the rack of guns. He could hardly believe it. He knew the risk Hobin was running. “Go out on the Flate,” he said. “See here, I don’t want you in trouble. Make it look as if I stole it.”

  Hobin looked at him over his shoulder, almost as if he was amused. “You keep taking me for a fool, Mitt. I’m not giving you one of these. If a man can make one gun, he can make two, can’t he?” The whole rack of guns swung out from the wall. Hobin took two loose bricks out of the wall where it had been and reached into the space they left. While he was fumbling inside it, he said, “I wish you’d tell me what made you start on this freedom fighting nonsense, Mitt. Was it your father, or what?”

  “I suppose it was,” Mitt admitted. It seemed like confessing to one spot when you had measles, but it was the best he could do. Like an admission of failure, he laid the crowbar gently down.

  “I thought that was it.” Hobin wriggled the bricks back into place and swung the rack back to its usual position. He turned round carefully, carrying a strange, fat little gun. “And I hoped you’d grow up, Mitt,” he said. “You’ve got your own life to live.” Gently he spun the strange fat barrel of the gun round. Mitt had never seen a gun like it before. “Have you ever thought,” Hobin asked, “what kind of man leaves you and Milda on your own like that?”

  This was such an untoward question that Mitt was quite unable to answer it. “What kind of gun is that?” he said.

  “The one I had in my pocket while you were planting your banger,” said Hobin. “In case of trouble. I kept it loaded for you. But I can only let you have the six shots in it, so go easy on them. I can’t cheat the inspectors much more than you can.”

  “Six shots?” said Mitt. “How do you do for priming?”

  “You don’t. Ever thought what I did with those percussion caps I set you making?” Hobin said. “They’re in here, see, on the end of the cartridges, and the hammer fires them off. There’s a barrel for each shot. You spin the next one up after you’ve fired. It doesn’t throw far, or I wouldn’t let you have it. This is to get you out of trouble, not get you in it, see. If it wasn’t for Milda and the girls, I’d have kept you with me and sworn myself blue in the face you were with me all along, like I used to for Canden. But there’s them to consider, too. There you are.”

  He put the gun in Mitt’s hands. Like all Hobin’s guns, it was beautifully balanced. Mitt hardly felt the weight of the chubby six-holed barrel at all. “What did you make this for?”

  “Experiment,” said Hobin. “And because one of these days there’s going to be a real uprising here in the South. The earls can’t hold people down forever. So I’ve made ready. I hoped you’d be patient and be ready, too. But there. You’ll find your pea jacket on the stairs, and my belt to carry the gun in.”

  Mitt went to the stair door. There, sure enough, were his old pea jacket and the belt. “You—you had this all ready,” he said awkwardly.

  “What did you expect?” said Hobin. “Sometimes I think I’d make a better freedom fighter than any of you. I put a bit of thought into it. And I’ll give you some advice, too. Don’t go out in the Flate.”

  Mitt stopped in the middle of fastening Hobin’s belt round himself. “Eh?”

  “Eh?” said Hobin. “You’re all the same. Do what the other man did. You’ve got a brain, Mitt. Use it. They’ll expect you out in the Flate. You’ll be caught by tomorrow lunchtime if you go that way. What you want to do is go up along the coast and see if you can’t get a boat at Hoe or Little Flate. Or it’s worth looking at the West Pool.”

  “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 yo
u 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.