Mitt cleared his throat, which had somehow closed solid. “I’m sorry.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Alk. “So then I had a think. And it seemed to me that in your shoes I’d be trying ways to wriggle out of the bind they’d got you in. Am I right?”
Mitt cleared his throat again. His voice still came out hoarse and desperate. “I’m not doing any killing!”
“So I should hope!” said Alk. “But I’m glad to hear you say it. What’s she like, this Noreth?”
“Freckly,” said Mitt. “Full of life. I took her for a boy at first. She’s all right. She’s got her head screwed on more than you’d expect, considering.”
“Has she, now?” said Alk. “Then what’s she up to, riding the King’s Road with you for a follower? That doesn’t sound too clever to me. There’s more earls around than Keril and my Countess who’ll want to put a stop to that.”
“I know. Put like that, it sounds right daft.” But daft though it was, Mitt found himself defending Noreth. “She cares about people, and she’s got some good ideas. People will come to her. And she has got a claim.”
“As to that,” Alk said, “so have a lot of people got a claim. She’s saying she descends from the Adon over beside you and his second wife, Manaliabrid—right? Now I’ve been reading up again on all that.”
His big hand made a gesture, down by the lantern and the glass case it stood on. There was a spread of books there, several of them open, others with markers in. One of the markers was a shoehorn; another was a six-inch nail. Typical of Alk. Mitt would have grinned at any other time.
“My law stuff is a bit rusty after all these years,” Alk explained. Mitt was not sure he believed that. “But I’ve been finding out that even the Adon didn’t have that good a claim to be King. But he took the crown, so we’ll take it from there. Now if this Manaliabrid was who she said she was, she certainly made his claim better. She claimed to be of the Undying, daughter of Cennoreth and great-granddaughter of the One. Well, no one seemed to doubt she was, so we’ll give her that. Now she and the Adon had two children, a son and a daughter. And either these two were a great disappointment to their parents, or they weren’t any too sure of their claim either, because neither of them made the least push to rule after. The son, Almet, took the kingstone, but all he did with it was go off to the South and govern a little lordship that’s dead and gone now, somewhere near Waywold. And the daughter, Tanabrid, was quite satisfied to marry and settle down in Kredindale. After that there were marryings and intermarryings, the way there are, and Kredindale gets related to half the earls of the North. What I’m saying, Mitt, is that the claim’s rubbish. Her cousin Kintor has a better claim, and so has my Countess or that soft-faced boy in Dropwater.”
Mitt felt a bit light-headed. The last thing he had expected was for Alk to sit there talking family trees at him. He could only suppose that Alk was trying to make him feel foolish and give up the whole idea. So probably the Countess had not told him about Hildy and Ynen. “Yes, but—”
“You’re going to say she says her father was the One,” Alk interrupted. Mitt had not been, but he held his tongue. “Now there we’re into the difficult part.” Alk leaned back in his chair. It creaked horribly. “Even King Hern only claimed the One as his grandfather—which is probably just what we say when we call the One our Grand Father.” Alk tipped his face round to look at Mitt, across what had been a beautifully ruffled lawn collar but was now dirty laundry. “I’ve seen the One,” he said, to Mitt’s surprise. “Several times. Not a thing I talk about to everyone. You’d know why, if it ever happened to you. And … well … it’s like coming into a shadow all of a sudden, or the shadow coming into you. A bit like this.” Alk’s hand went out and downward across the narrow slit he had left in the shutter of the dark lantern. A huge hand-shaped darkness swept across the floor and Mitt and the wall of books beyond. Mitt shivered. “See?” said Alk. “He’s there, but not solid—but I could be wrong. And Noreth’s mother’s not alive to tell me I’m wrong, is she?”
When Earl Keril had said something like this, Mitt had not felt it mattered. Coming from Alk, it did. “But the One talks to her,” he protested. “I think I heard him. And it scares her.”
“I don’t doubt you,” said Alk. “That’s the most difficult part of the difficult part. If the One has an interest in all this, us mortal folk had best tread very wary. You don’t cross the One. I wish my Countess would see that. But that Keril’s one of your new, reasonable folk, and the Undying are just out-of-date beliefs to him. And she listens to him.” He leaned his massive arms on top of the books and pondered glumly.
After a moment Mitt said, “Were you expecting me … to come back here?” His voice was still annoyingly hoarse.
“After a fashion. It was one of the options,” Alk replied. “I was here on the off chance you’d take the option of going along with this Noreth and helping her claim. I knew I was right when that nag of yours started sounding off in the meadows. Woke me up. Probably woke the dead, too. She’s after the Adon’s gifts, isn’t she?”
Mitt’s heart sank. He felt himself sag slightly.
Alk noticed. He never missed much. “I thought so. She knows, and you know, she’s got no real claim. You were going to pinch this ring here, weren’t you?”
Mitt managed a small, throaty “yup.”
“And I thought you never believed it answers to the right blood!” Alk smiled slightly, his face all slabs of shadow and curves of light. He shook his head. “I wish I knew how the man who made it did it. I’ve tried all ways to catch it changing size, but I never can pin it down. And my Countess can put it on any finger and both her thumbs, and it’ll fit her. I made Gregin try it, and it fell off him. So I’ve no doubt it would fit your Noreth whatever size her hands are.”
“Small.” Mitt’s eyes went longingly to the glass case, where the ring picked up gleams of light underneath the lighted pane of glass, as if it were underwater. It looked as always very big, nearly big enough to fit one of Alk’s massive fingers. If it did not fall straight off Noreth, it would be a miracle indeed.
“But it’s a stupid way to get out of a mess,” Alk said. “And I know you’re in a mess, Mitt. Take this ring, or put a foot wrong any other way, and my Countess will have you—or Keril will. My sense is, they don’t mean you to live too long. Or maybe they mean you to spend the rest of your days as their hired murderer. My Countess wouldn’t admit to one or the other, but it has to be that.”
Mitt nodded. He had worked this out, too. He tried to imagine Alk twisting the information out of the Countess, and he just could not see it. It was like imagining one of Alk’s engines running straight up a house.
“And the only way you can keep out of that,” Alk continued, “is to stay completely lawful and not give them a handhold. If you do that, I’m on your side. Will you promise me you won’t murder or steal or anything like that?”
Alk didn’t understand. It was clearer than ever to Mitt that the Countess had not told Alk about Hildy and Ynen. “What else can I do?” Mitt said, trying to talk round it.
“Uh-uh,” said Alk. “Promise, I said.”
“I’d rather not,” Mitt said. “Something might come up.”
“Fish feathers,” said Alk. “I put it to you, you’ve done nothing outside the law yet. You went off to visit Navis Haddsson. You came back to have a chat with me.”
“I came to pinch that ring,” Mitt said, looking at it gleaming below the glass.
“But only I know that, and you’re not going to,” Alk said. “Whatever threats they made to you, I’ll stand by you if you give me that promise.”
Whatever threats? Perhaps Alk did know about Hildy and Ynen then. Mitt looked searchingly at Alk’s big shadowy face. It gave nothing away. “What can you do against Keril?” he said.
“Hold him to the law,” said Alk. “I don’t know! Everyone round here seems to have forgotten I used to be a lawman once upon a time! And the law’s the same whether you??
?re an earl or a fisherman. Are you going to give me that promise?”
“I—” Mitt was not sure he dared.
“I’ll make it easier for you,” said Alk. “You didn’t come here to steal that ring. You came here to ask me to give it you.”
“What?” It was odd how the library seemed to be a brighter, warmer, freer place all of a sudden. “You couldn’t do that,” Mitt said, trying not to laugh. “She’d notice.”
“I made a copy,” Alk said, “trying to get it to change size the same way. And I couldn’t do it. It’s just a ring. But it looks just the same. Now what d’you say?”
“I promise,” Mitt said. “You won’t know me, I’ll be so lawful.”
“That’ll be the day!” said Alk. Smiling a little, he fetched out a small key that was marking a place in another of his books and stood up to move the lantern and unlock the glass case. The dim light swept around the room, and his vast shadow blotted half the library into darkness. “Remember,” Alk said as he turned the key, “that the One has an interest in this, and don’t go forgetting you promised.”
Mitt looked at that vast shadow and shivered. “I’ll bear it in mind.”
Alk lifted the glass lid, fetched out the ring, and held it where the light from the lantern was strongest. It was a plain heavy ring, made of gold, and its only ornament was the big seal carved out of some kind of red stone into the haggard-looking profile of the Adon. Alk’s huge, deft fingers twiddled it. “Safest way to carry it is to wear it,” he said. “Put your hand out.”
Mitt spread his long, bony hands into the light. Alk tried to slip the ring on the ring finger of Mitt’s right hand. It stuck at the knuckle. “I got big lumps there on all my fingers,” Mitt said.
“You put it on then,” said Alk.
Mitt took the heavy ring and, still barely able to believe Alk was letting him have it, tried it on finger after finger. Each time it slid only as far as Mitt’s first knuckle. The only finger it would fit, and only with a struggle, was the little finger of his left hand.
“Well, at least it won’t fall off,” Alk said. “Off you go then, and give it to your Noreth. And if she wants you to do anything else unlawful, you say no. Understand? And I’ll back you up.”
“Thanks,” Mitt said. It was truly heartfelt.
He was not any too clear about much of the journey back. He scrambled back round the mansion wall. That took concentration because it meant balancing on the edge of the cliff above the sea. After that some kind of reaction hit him. Things came and went. He remembered getting onto the Countess-horse, because it tried to bite him as usual, and—dimly—going up the rake to the green road, because that took all the concentration he had left. But as soon as the horse was on the road to Orilsway and there was nowhere else it could go, Mitt was probably asleep in the saddle. He thought he dreamed that Alk had given him the Adon’s ring. It had to be a dream, he decided, waking up about a hundred yards from the camp, because it was just not probable that Alk would do a thing like that. Why had he woken up? He thought it was the Countess-horse, which had gone from a stumbling plod to a much more eager pace. No, it seemed to be because something was wrong with his left hand.
Wrong! That was an understatement. He felt as if his little finger had been clamped in one of Alk’s vises. And someone was still twisting the vise. Throb, throb, throb. Mitt could feel his finger swelling. He dropped the reins and wrenched at the ring. It would not budge. Flaming Ammet! He could have pulled his finger off sooner than moved that ring! He had to have light—help—something! He shot down from the horse and rushed toward where he thought the camp was.
Maewen sprang up. She had been half listening, not really asleep, hoping she had not got Mitt into trouble with this Countess of his. She heard mad, blundering footsteps, followed by a cracking voice swearing and then demanding, “Where is this flaming camp then? They can’t have all gone off and left me!” Maewen ran in that direction. And there was Mitt, a demented leggy figure in the near dark, racing toward the southernmost waystone, apparently wringing his hands.
“What’s the matter?”
Mitt rushed up to Maewen and towered over her still pulling at his finger. “I got you the ring. The flaming thing’s stuck on my finger! I think I’m in for life!”
Maewen seized the hand he flapped in her face. She could feel the ring, a tiny metal waist in a finger that seemed as large and hot as a fresh-cooked sausage. “Oh my lord!” She tugged. Mitt yelped. It was most well and truly stuck. “Don’t you know any better than to put on a ring that’s too small for you?”
“How should I know? I never wore a ring in my life!”
“Well, you should have thought! People were smart in the old days!” But this is the old days. He’s not smart. Never mind.
They bent over Mitt’s hand, both of them in the same panic. “I’m stuck in this thing forever!” Mitt squalled.
“Lick it. See what lots of spit does,” said Maewen. “Or soap.” There had been no soap in her baggage roll. But surely soap was invented by this time? No one struck her as that dirty. “Or—water—water might cool your finger down.”
“I’ve got some soap,” Moril said from beside them. “Shall I fetch it?”
“Yes, and a light, too,” said Maewen.
Moril dashed away. Mitt put his hand to his mouth and slobbered on it mightily. Maewen helped him spread the spit up and down the swollen finger. Then she pulled. Mitt pulled. Neither of them had budged the ring one fraction by the time Moril dashed up again with a piece of soap and a lighted lantern from the cart. By the light Moril looked both awed and scornful.
“That’s the Adon’s ring?” he said.
“Yup,” said Mitt, soaping for his life.
“It only fits people with royal blood,” Moril pointed out.
“I know that!” Mitt snarled. “I only wore it not to lose it, you stupid little—”
“Cool it, cool it,” Navis said, arriving with a slopping leather bucket.
“Oh no!” said Mitt. “Keep him away from me! He’ll try to boil it off or something!”
“It’s only cold water,” Navis said. “Put your hand in it.”
“Yes, that should take the swelling down.” Wend agreed, coming, yawning, up beside Navis.
Mitt plunged his hand in the bucket. Took it out, soaped it, hauled on the ring, sighed, and put his hand in the water again. He did this four more times. “I’ll bring this water to the boil, at this rate,” he grumbled. As he plunged his hand in for the sixth time, Hestefan arrived, yawning, rubbing his beard and wanting to know what the fuss was about. By this time it was plain to Maewen that she could not have kept the theft of the ring secret, as she had meant to, any more than if she had shouted it from the top of the nearest mountain.
As Mitt took his hand out of the bucket for the seventh time, Wend said wearily, “Here. Let me.” He seized Mitt’s bony wrist in one hand and the ring with the other. And dragged.
“Yow!” said Mitt. “Leave me my hand!”
But the ring was off. Everyone was silent while Wend held it under the lantern light, where they could all see the red stone flash, and then passed it to Maewen.
She felt sweat popping out among her freckles. “This is the Adon’s ring,” she said, making a clean breast of it, “that Mitt very kindly—er—obtained for me. I intend to collect all the Adon’s gifts. Tomorrow we’re going to Gardale.”
“How convenient,” Navis murmured to Mitt. But Mitt was watching Maewen across the finger he was sucking. They were all watching.
Maewen realized there was no way she could distract them. She was going to have to put this ring on, now under the light, and it was not going to fit. It was huge. Mitt’s fingers might look long and bony, but each of them would have made two of hers. If Dad was right, she told herself, Mum does go back to Amil the Great somewhere. But she was afraid that drop of royal blood had got very watered down by the time it came to her. She took a deep breath—and an even deeper risk—and slipped the w
ide gold band round her right thumb, this being the only place it had even a chance of fitting. And it fitted. Everyone sighed.
“I’ll see to your loathsome horse,” Navis said to Mitt. “You get some sleep.”
10
It took some days to get to Gardale, even straight through the heart of the mountains. Long before they got there, everyone except Mitt was heartily sick of pickled cherries. Mitt was simply sick with himself. The Countess-horse was tired and subdued, and he rode slackly at the rear, watching clouds come down and stream like gray scarves below spiky black mountain peaks, and then seeing those mountains wheel aside to show more and yet more ranged behind, and clouds stream against those mountains, too. It seemed as if the green road was gradually rising to take them through the central heights of the North.
Mitt supposed it was all very beautiful and grand, though it was not what he was used to. It was harsher than the sea and even more obviously cruel. And empty. One of the times they stopped, Navis remarked that they had not met another soul on the way. “Everyone is at home celebrating Midsummer, I imagine,” he said. “It makes this the best time to travel and not be found.”
Mitt simply grunted, “Good.” His mind would not seem to let go of that promise he had made to Alk. In a way it was a weight off his mind. That worried him. It seemed so feeble to shelter behind a promise. Smug. Now I can do no wrong, you said, and ended up doing nothing, like a total failure. At the same time he had a gloomy feeling that the promise clamped him round as tight as that ring had, and that meant doing nothing, too, and total failure that way. It was worse than Keril and the Countess.
Maewen kept rubbing the red stone of the ring on her thumb. It became quite a habit. The voice had told her to get this ring, and she had got it. Somehow that made her uneasy. She had the same fizzing, doing-wrong feeling about it that Wend had given her in the train and in the palace. Without exactly admitting it to herself, she was careful never to be alone somewhere where one of the others could not hear. She suspected, again without admitting it, that the voice would only speak to her when she was on her own. And that was all mixed up with a nasty suspicion that the voice was part of her own mind, perhaps something to do with being sent back in time. It was bound to make your mind play tricks on you.