Brid and Kialan consulted about it and went to see what Keril thought.
“Yes,” said Keril. “I’m afraid he’ll be off again, one of these days. I hope not yet, though. I owe it to Clennen to see he has an education.”
After that Brid watched Moril like a hawk. Moril showed no sign of wanting to leave. He seemed perfectly happy getting the education Keril thought he should have. He spent long hours playing his cwidder with Kialan, arranging songs and trying to make new ones. He rode with Kialan and Brid and walked on the hills with them. It was just that he was too hot indoors, and there was something at the back of his mind he did not want to think about yet.
Now Flennpass was blocked, there was very little news from the South. It was nearly a month before some fishermen brought news that Tholian had indeed been killed by the fall of rocks, and his army, most of it having been unwilling, anyway, had packed up and gone home. Some time after that, a trader arrived to say that things had gone very quiet in the South. Yes, he said, when Keril questioned him, the lords and earls were very shaken. But the cause of the quiet was the ordinary people. They did nothing, but they seemed powerful. The earls were afraid of them. They dared not even try for peace with the North, in case that stirred up a revolution.
A month later still a cart drove into Hannart. By the black mud on its axles, it had clearly come north through the Marshes. Apart from the mud, it was gaily painted in green and gold, and trim enough. It was driven by a very pretty girl. Beside her on the driving seat sat a dreamy-looking man with a thin face and a thin, graying beard, who smiled round at the gaiety of Hannart with a look of mild pleasure. The small gold lettering on the side of the cart said he was HESTEFAN THE SINGER.
The people of Hannart realized that here would be both music and more news of the South. Numbers followed the cart as it jogged through the streets and drove into the front court of the Earl’s house.
“Oh look! A singer!” Brid said to Kialan.
“Do you know him?” Kialan asked Moril.
“I’ve heard of him,” said Moril. He looked at Hestefan’s mild face and dreamy eyes, and it came to him that he would probably look like that when he was older.
The cart stopped. The mottled gray horse blew, as much as to say, “Good—that’s enough for today, thank you.” The canvas cover came back a little, and a third traveler rather hesitantly stood up in the cart.
“Dagner!” shrieked Brid, Moril, and Kialan.
They rushed up and hurled themselves on him. Dagner, grinning and blushing mauve with pleasure, climbed out of the cart and was thrown against it by their onrush.
“What happened?” said Brid.
“How did you get out of prison?” said Moril.
“Ganner got me out,” Dagner said when he had got his breath back. “Ganner’s a good fellow. I got to like him a lot. He did follow us, you know, but he went back to Markind when he didn’t find us. Then—I don’t know what you said to that old snob of a justice, Moril, but when they had me up in front of them again, they didn’t seem at all sure I was guilty and kept asking me about Ganner. So I told them he was marrying Mother, and they sent all the way to Markind to ask if it was true. It was marvelous. As soon as Ganner heard I was in prison, he came to Neathdale and raised a real stink. And while he was doing it, news came that Tholian was dead. Ganner upped and sacked the justice, and said he was in charge now. It was marvelous! He let half the other prisoners go, too. But seeing that I really had been passing information, Mother thought I’d better go North for a while and got Hestefan to take me.”
“How is Mother?” asked Moril.
“Terribly happy,” said Dagner. “Runs about all the time laughing. I don’t know why—she laughed when she heard Flennpass was blocked and said you and Brid must have made it to the North. She sent me with a letter for you both.”
Brid and Moril snatched the letter and bent over it eagerly. It was a good long letter, all about Lenina’s doings in Markind. Lenina wrote of everything from the speckled cows to the roof where Moril had walked, and reminded Brid of this and Moril of that, and sent Ganner’s love—and to Moril, it was like a letter from a distant acquaintance. He felt it might just as well have been written to the baker’s boy round the corner. He was sad that he should feel like that, but he could not help it.
“What a lovely letter!” said Brid. “I shall keep it.”
While they were reading it, Hestefan’s pretty daughter had driven the cart away to the stables. Moril was annoyed, because he had wanted to talk to Hestefan. He dashed away to the stables, but the green cart was already standing empty in the coach house beside their battered and faded pink one. Moril went back to the courtyard, where Dagner, delighted to see them all again, was being uncharacteristically chatty.
“Shall I tell you something really silly?” he said to Kialan as Moril came up. “You won’t believe this!”
“Try me,” said Kialan.
“Well,” said Dagner, “I’m the Earl of the South Dales. They won’t have me,” he said hastily, as Kialan burst out laughing. “Nothing will possess them to invest me. But it’s true. Tholian wasn’t married, and all his cousins were killed, too, when Flennpass collapsed—you must tell me about that, by the way—and the only living heir left was me. And Moril after that. Honestly.”
Moril stood silent in the crowded courtyard and left Brid and Kialan to do the exclaiming. Now he knew what it was that he had not wanted to think about. He had done that. He had worked a huge destruction and killed so many people that Dagner was now an earl. Everyone no doubt thought he had done right. He had saved the North, prevented a war, and avenged Clennen and Konian. But Moril knew he had not done right. He had done it all because Olob was killed. With the cwidder in his hands, he had behaved as if it was for Konian, for Clennen, for Dagner, and for the North, but it had all been for Olob, really. He was ashamed. What he had done was to cheat the cwidder. That was the worst thing. If you stood up and told the truth in the wrong way, it was not true any longer, though it might be as powerful as ever. Moril saw that he was neither old enough nor wise enough to have charge of such a potent thing as that cwidder.
That night, there was a feast in honor of Dagner, Hestefan, and Fenna, Hestefan’s daughter. Keril asked Hestefan to sing. Hestefan sang, old songs, new songs, and many that Moril had never heard. When he sang, you forgot it was Hestefan singing and thought only of the song. Moril was impressed. Then Hestefan told a story. It was one Moril did not know. And while Hestefan was telling it, he found he forgot who was telling it and simply lived in the story. Moril realized he still had a lot to learn.
After that they wanted Dagner to sing. Dagner was nervous, but surprisingly ready to perform.
“Huh!” said Brid. “He just wants to impress Fenna, that’s what.”
Whatever the reason, Dagner took his own cwidder, fetched for him by Kialan, tuned it, and sang the song Moril had tried to finish for him. He did it nothing like the way Moril had made it go. The new parts of the tune were quite different from Moril’s, and he had changed the beginning. It now went:
“Follow me, follow me.
The blackbird sings to follow me.
No one will know where we go—
All that matters is we go.”
Kialan looked at Moril and made a face to show that he liked Moril’s version better. Moril smiled. Everyone had to do things their own way. While Dagner went on to sing his “Color” song, Moril slipped quietly away, fetched the old cwidder, slung it on his shoulders, and went to where Hestefan was refreshing himself with beer beside an open window. Hestefan looked as if he was too hot, just like Moril.
“Please,” Moril said to him, “will you take me with you when you go?”
“Well,” Hestefan said dubiously, “I was thinking of slipping off now, while nobody’s noticing.”
“I know you were,” said Moril. “Take me, too. Please.”
Hestefan looked at him, a vague, dreamy look, which Moril was positive saw twice as m
uch as most people’s. “You’re Clennen’s other son, aren’t you?” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Tanamoril,” said Moril. “I’m called Osfameron, too,” he added, as an inducement.
Hestefan smiled. “Very well then,” he said. “Come along.”
About the Author
DIANA WYNNE JONES wrote more than forty award-winning books of fantasy for young readers. For her body of work, she was awarded the British Fantasy Society’s Karl Edward Wagner Award for having made a significant impact on fantasy and the World Fantasy Society Lifetime Achievement Award.
www.dianawynnejones.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Other Works
Also by
DIANA WYNNE JONES
Archer’s Goon
Aunt Maria
Believing Is Seeing: Seven Stories
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The Dalemark Quartet, Volume 2
Dark Lord of Derkholm
Dogsbody
Eight Days of Luke
Fire and Hemlock
Hexwood
Hidden Turnings: A Collection of Stories Through Time and Space
The Homeward Bounders
Howl’s Moving Castle
The Merlin Conspiracy
The Ogre Downstairs
Power of Three
Stopping for a Spell
A Tale of Time City
The Time of the Ghost
Unexpected Magic: Collected Stories
Warlock at the Wheel and Other Stories
Wild Robert
Witch’s Business
Year of the Griffin
Yes, Dear
THE WORLDS OF CHRESTOMANCI
Book 1: Charmed Life
Book 2: The Lives of Christopher Chant
Book 3: The Magicians of Caprona
Book 4: Witch Week
Book 5: Conrad’s Fate
Mixed Magics: Four Tales of Chrestomanci
The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume I
(Contains books 1 and 2)
The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume II
(Contains books 3 and 4)
Credits
Cover art © 2005 by Dan Craig
Cover design by Christopher Stengel
Cover © 2005 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Map by David Cuzic
Copyright
Cart and Cwidder copyright © 1975 by Diana Wynne Jones
First published in Great Britain in 1975 by Macmillan London Ltd.
Published in 1993 by Mandarin, an imprint of Reed Consumer Books Ltd.
First published in the United States in 1977 by Atheneum.
Published in 1995 by Greenwillow Books.
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EPub Edition © JANUARY 2012 ISBN 9780062200778
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Also by Diana Wynne Jones
The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume I and Volume II
The Chrestomanci oversees the magic in all the worlds. Omnibus editions of the first four novels featuring Diana Wynne Jones’s most beloved characters. Contains Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, Witch Week, and The Magicians of Caprona.
Conrad’s Fate
With the help of Christopher Chant, can Conrad figure out who is pulling the possibilities and putting his world at risk … and also stay ahead of his dark fate? A Chrestomanci Book.
The Dalemark Quartet, Volume 1 and Volume 2
Omnibus editions of all four books in the thrilling fantasy epic, The Dalemark Quartet: Cart and Cwidder, Drowned Ammet, The Spellcoats, and The Crown of Dalemark.
Dark Lord of Derkholm
When Derk is chosen to play Dark Lord, he is forced by the sinister Mr. Chesney to turn his country estate into a castle lit by baleful fires, manifest himself as a nine-foot-tall shadow, and lead his minions in a battle against the forces of good.
Year of the Griffin
At Wizard’s University, Wizard Derk’s griffin daughter Elda and her fellow first-year students encounter tyrannical tutors, boring lectures, and truly terrible refectory food.
Dogsbody
Sirius, immortal Lord of the Dog Star, is outraged when he is falsely accused of murder and banished to Earth. There he must live—and die—in the body of a dog unless he can retrieve a mysterious celestial weapon and thereby clear his name.
Fire and Hemlock
Polly tries to reconcile her two sets of memories and discover the truth behind her friendship with musician Tom Lynn in time to save him.
www.harperteen.com • www.dianawynnejones.com
Hexwood
Through her window, Ann watches person after person disappear through the gate of Hexwood Farm. Then strangeness spreads from Earth right out to the center of the galaxy.
The Homeward Bounders
After Jamie discovers that mysterious beings are manipulating worlds in an elaborate game, they send him bouncing from world to world—until he tries to use their own rules to defeat them.
Howl’s Moving Castle
When the Witch of the Waste turns Sophie into an old woman, Sophie finds refuge in the floating castle of a mysterious man. People and things are never quite what they seem in this entrancing fantasy.
Castle in the Air
Abdullah was content with his daydreams until the day a stranger sold him a magic carpet. This fast-paced fantasy is full of djinns, wizards, a floating castle, kidnapped princesses, and two puzzling prophecies.
The Merlin Conspiracy
Roddy, Nick, and Grundo come together from different worlds in an attempt to unseat the false Merlin of Blest, who threatens the very structure of all worlds.
A Tale of Time City
A girl evacuated from London during the Blitz is kidnapped to Time City in the far distant future, where she must help save both Time City and all of human history.
The Time of the Ghost
A nameless protagonist doesn’t know why she’s invisibly floating through the buildings and grounds of a half-remembered boarding school. Then, to her horror, she encounters the ancient evil that four peculiar sisters have unwittingly woken—and learns she is the sisters’ only hope against a deadly danger.
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Diana Wynne Jones, Cart and Cwidde
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(Series: The Dalemark Quartet # 1)
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