They staggered their way up a flat flight of stone stairs to a sunny stone landing. They waited, while one of the men went to knock on a door. Then—bang! There was an explosion somewhere. All the windows rattled. All three of them jumped violently, and Mitt, at least, burst out in cold, trickling sweat all over. He was nearly as scared as he had been in the storm. But the large man did not turn a hair and did not pause in knocking on the door. There was a voicelike noise from beyond it. The large man opened the door.
“They’re here. Shall I show them in?”
“If you like,” said someone inside.
The man jerked his head. Hildy, Ynen, and Mitt trooped through the door into a long, sunlit room smelling of food and gunsmoke—as queer a mixture, though less pleasant, as the mixed smell of the islands and the sea. The food smell came from the table near the door. Al was sitting beside it, with his back to the table and Hobin’s gun supported over the back of his chair. Another table was against the wall at the other end of the room. There was a row of bottles on it and cups balanced on the bottles. One bottle was smashed. Al fired again as soon as the door was shut. It was deafening. A cup jumped and shattered, and there was a great deal of laughter.
“Got the hang of this flaming gun now, Lithar,” said Al.
“About time,” said Bence, the captain of the Wheatsheaf. He was sitting on a chair by the window, eating an apple.
The third man said, “Oh, Al! I have missed seeing you do that!”
Lithar’s clothes were nearly as rich as Harchad’s, but he looked nothing like so well in them. He had a mop of fairish hair over the brown face of a Holy Islander and a long, long chin. He seemed quite well built, but he sat in a strange, hunched way which creased his clothes in all directions. When he looked toward them, Ynen, Hildy, and Mitt were uncertain how old he was, because his face was oddly lined, old and young at once. Like Mitt’s face, Hildy thought, and she looked at Mitt to compare the two. But Mitt was young and undernourished, whereas—
With a horrible jolt, Hildy realized Lithar was a near imbecile. It was as if her whole future, and her whole past, too, fell away and left just herself—a small girl with untidy hair—alone in a sunny smoke-filled room. Hildy had not realized how much she had built on Lithar and the Holy Islands. She seemed to have founded on them everything which made her into Hildrida and not one of her cousins. It was not exactly her fault, but she had done the building. And it was all unreal. It had not even gone; it had just never been.
It was the same with Mitt. He took one look at Lithar, and one look at Hildy, and he knew that what was happening to Hildy now had happened to him in Holand. But he had not admitted it. Everything he had thought of as being Mitt—the fearless boy with the free soul, the right-thinking freedom fighter—had fallen to pieces there, as thoroughly as Canden in his dream, or Old Ammet in the harbor, and he had been left with what was real. And it had frightened him to death. Mitt thought his face must be as yellow pale as Hildy’s. I hope neither of them are fools enough to say who they are, he thought. We better all make off North, quick.
“Who are you?” Lithar asked, with a surprised wag of his long chin.
Mitt and Ynen opened their mouths to begin on two separate false stories, but Al got in first. “Little present I brought you,” he said, without turning round. “Don’t you like it?”
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, beca
use 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.
“We could get down,” Ynen said. “Next window along. There’s a drain that goes right down to the yard wall. We’d better wait till there are fewer people and then try.”
Mitt cautiously forced open the window over the drain and tried if he could get his head through between the bars. He found he just could. And, he knew from experience, where his head would go, the rest of him could follow, sideways on. Since he was bigger than Ynen, that meant that Ynen could certainly get through, and probably Hildy, too. So they settled down to wait until there were fewer people about.
The time came about an hour later. Mitt put his head through, turned his shoulders sideways, and shoved. He could hardly do it. He thought he must have grown. His stomach stuck. By the time he finally forced himself through onto the high sill outside, his stomach felt as if it had been pulled down near his knees. He turned round, hanging on to the bars, to help Ynen and Hildy through.
But Ynen could not get through. He was too well nourished. His shoulders were just too thick. He pushed and squirmed and squeezed, and Mitt pulled him perilously from outside, but it was simply no good. Ynen had to give up, bruised and miserable. Hildy was even worse. She was bigger than Mitt all over and could barely even get her head through. They stood unhappily against the window, while Mitt crouched outside with his knees aching from the strain, feeling both unsafe and obvious, wondering what they were going to do now.
“Do I come in or what?” Mitt said angrily.
“Could you come back up and unlock the door for—” Ynen began to say.
“Oh, ye gods!” said Hildy. “There’s Father! Look!” Her face was suddenly bright red, and she looked as if she was going to cry again.
Mitt swiveled himself round on the sill to look. The man trudging along the shingle of the causeway was wearing farmer’s clothes and big boots, but he was certainly Navis. Mitt knew him by the way he walked and, even at that distance, by the face that was so like Harchad’s and Hildy’s. “It is, too!” Mitt said. “You lot have the luck of Old Ammet!”
“It’s not lucky at all,” said Ynen.
“Mitt, go down and warn him, quick!” said Hildy. “Tell him we’re prisoners and it’s not safe for him here. Quickly, before Al sees him!”
“But he’ll know me,” Mitt objected.
Hildy shook the bars
in her anxiety. “He can’t possibly—not in those clothes. If you won’t go, I’ll have to shout, and someone will hear!”
“All right, all right!” said Mitt. “I’ll tell him. I’ll tell him to keep back on the mainland, and then I’ll have a go at letting you out. Tireless Mitt does all the work again.”
“Oh shut up!” said Ynen.
“And hurry up!” said Hildy.
Mitt made a face at both of them and slid down the drainpipe. Mitt to the rescue! he thought. He reached the yard wall without anyone noticing him at all. Nobody seemed particularly interested when he shot down from the wall and raced to the gate.
Navis was just about to come through it. Close to, Mitt saw that he looked tired and not very well shaved. The big boots were caked with mud. But Navis took no notice of Mitt as Mitt darted out of the gate to meet him. That encouraged Mitt. Navis did not remember him. He could only have seen Mitt for half a minute on the day of the Festival, after all.
“Hey!” Mitt said to him. “Don’t come in here. It’s not safe.”
Mitt had reckoned without two things. Navis had been a fugitive, living on his wits, for days now. And he had Ynen’s memory for faces. Or perhaps not only for faces, for he recognized Mitt mainly by his build and the way he ran. And since Navis had no reason to think Mitt would do him a good turn, he simply looked at Mitt as people do when they are surprised to find themselves addressed by a total stranger and walked past him into the courtyard.
Mitt was so annoyed by this haughtiness that he would have let Navis alone had it not been for Ynen and Hildy watching from above. He ran after Navis and took hold of his sleeve. Navis shook Mitt’s hand off and walked on. Mitt was forced to trot beside him, trying to explain.
“See here, it’s not safe for you here. Lithar’s wrong in the head, and the fellow who shot Hadd got hold of him and made him take Hildy and Ynen prisoner. They’re up there, in that room with bars. Take a look.”
Since there were so few people about, Mitt risked pointing. But Navis would not demean himself to look. He trudged on, trying to decide why this murdering brat should spin him a yarn like this and taking no notice of Mitt at all.