The Crown of Dalemark (The Dalemark Quartet 4)

A growl of voices welcomed the Undying, too. The custom seemed to be to tip your mug and let a few drops of wine splash on the floor. Navis looked at Mitt. Mitt shrugged. And they both spilled some wine as well, with a private murmur to Libby Beer. After that the feast broke up into groups loudly wishing one another luck for the year. It looked for a minute or so as if things were nearly over.

But suddenly everyone was shouting, “Noreth! Noreth! Noreth, has your sign come?” as Noreth came to stand in the circle of candles beside Hestefan. She was carrying the golden statue, and she held it up for everyone to see.

“Here is my sign,” she called out.

Navis murmured to Mitt, “You can say good-bye to your half of it, I think.” A number of people were cheering, although Lord Stair was saying loudly in the distance, “Is that girl

up to her nonsense again?”

“Hush!” someone said.

Noreth called out again. “Will my uncle’s lawman please come and stand by me? I wish to make a statement in the proper form of law.”

There was a lot of grumbling from the back. One of the men who had been at the high table, rather unsteady on his feet and very embarrassed, came and joined Noreth. She left the circle of light and walked down the lane of candles with him to the door. “I want everyone to hear,” she explained to the lawman as they came past Mitt. “Tell me if I say anything wrong.” Mitt could feel her shaking with the importance of what she was going to do. It made his stomach give a cold jerk.

“You know ash mush law ash me,” the lawman complained, but he went and stood by Noreth as she took up a position in the doorway where she could speak to the people outside as well as those in the hall. The two of them pushed Moril right back to the side of the door. Mitt could see him there, looking awed.

Noreth said, loudly and slowly, “I, Noreth of Kredindale, do this night state and affirm that I am the rightful Queen and heir to the crown of Dalemark, over both North and South and the peoples of both.”

It really is true, Mitt thought sadly. The lawman leaned across and murmured to Noreth.

“Oh yes. Thanks,” said Noreth. “And over all earldoms and marks therein, not excluding the earls of those marks and the lords under them. This claim I make through my mother, Eleth of Kredindale, descendant in direct line from Manaliabrid of the Undying, and also by right of my father, the One, whose true names are not to be spoken, and from whom all Kings descend. In proof of this my right, my father promised me a token at Midsummer this year, and this promise he kept. This is the token.” She held the golden statue up over the nearest lamps so that it could be seen. “Who witnesses,” she called out, “that the river Aden today gave me this golden image of my father, the One?”

Mitt jumped and looked round for somewhere to hide. But Noreth turned and looked at him as she spoke. He sighed and pushed his way to the doorway. “If I’d known what you meant when you asked,” he said, “I’d have gone straight back to Aberath.”

The lawman said, “Do you witnesh thish?” and swayed a little.

“Sure,” Mitt said bitterly. If Keril and the Countess had arranged personally for the landslip, they could hardly have pushed him into this any deeper. “I trod on the statue halfway across the brook. She picked it up. That do?”

Noreth replied with an eager, flustered smile. Her hands were still shaking as she held up the statue. She was truly nervous. She was not doing this because she was mad but because she saw it as her duty, as perhaps it was. Mitt felt himself bound to give her a smile in return before he edged away. Beyond Noreth he could see the Singer-lad staring at him resentfully. Now what does he think I’ve done? Mitt thought irritably.

“I call on you all,” Noreth said, “to support me in my right. Today at dawn, its being Midsummer Day, I go to ride the green roads until I come to where the crown is hidden, and there I shall be crowned Queen. Let whoever wishes to ride with me and support my claim meet me at the waystone above the quarry at sunrise today.”

There was another silence, which was followed by a surge of murmurs, half doubtful, half enthusiastic. Navis whispered to Mitt, “Well, there seems only one thing we can do now.” Mitt nodded, but his attention was on Moril in the doorway. He could almost feel the boy making some kind of decision. Sure enough, Moril put his hands to his cwidder and struck up the tune called “The King’s Way.” Hestefan looked surprised but took the tune up on his cwidder, too, and walked between the two lines of guttering candles to join Moril. Moril, leaning over, plucked once again in the odd and different way. The humming gathered and gathered behind the tune, until it had become more than simply a rousing song. Mitt could quite clearly feel a serious purpose booming behind the notes. Everyone sang:

“Who will ride the King’s Way,

the King’s Way?

Who will ride the royal road

and follow with the King?”

There was a certain amount of muddle as about half the people tried to sing “Queen” instead of “King,” but the singing was truly lusty. It seemed to affect Mitt’s head, either the singing or the queer boom of Moril’s cwidder, and his memory went a bit faulty after that. He remembered Noreth, glowing in the doorway, holding the glinting statue for everyone to see as they sang. He remembered glancing uneasily at Navis because this song was banned in the South, and finding, to his confusion, that Navis was singing with the rest. Mitt knew the song because he had been a freedom fighter, but Navis was an earl’s son, for Ammet’s sake!

Next thing he knew, he was back in Navis’s room, where Navis seemed to be persuading him to get into bed. Mitt interrupted what he was saying—he seemed to be repeating with great earnestness, “This is serious, Navis, she was serious!”—in order to protest that he didn’t need to sleep.

“Please yourself,” Navis said. “It’s only a few hours to sunrise anyway.” Mitt had a confused notion that Navis went away then, saying he had a lot of things to do, and he knew Navis did not come back until the next thing he knew, which was Navis shaking him awake in gray dawn.

“What is it now?” Mitt said.

“Time to get up,” Navis said. “You and I are going to ride the green roads with Noreth.”

“Whatever for?” protested Mitt. “I told you I—”

“Can you think of a better way to keep Hildy and Ynen safe until we get to them?” Navis asked. “You were told to join Noreth. Keril will assume you are doing what you are told. Now get up.”

Mitt got up—luckily he still seemed to be dressed—and shortly stumbled out into old food and beer smells in the hall. His bedroll was on the nearest table alongside one for Navis. Navis was just beyond, with his arms round someone, evidently kissing that person good-bye. For a moment Mitt thought it was Noreth and was outraged. Then the girl—no, woman, no, lady—stood back with her hands on Navis’s shoulders, and Mitt saw it was Lady Eltruda. He stood there in even greater outrage. How could Navis! An elderly woman. A married woman. Taking advantage of Lord Stair’s being a drunk!