Wend pointed a fist holding a piece of cheese. “City of gold!” He and Moril and Hestefan spoke almost in chorus. “Hern’s golden city.”
“Go on,” said Maewen. “It can’t be! Kernsburgh’s miles south of here.”
“It’s what we say, lady,” Wend explained, “when a peak catches the sun—to show we remember the city even though it’s long ruined and gone.”
“Ruined and gone!” Maewen said. “But—”
“It is, though,” Hestefan said reprovingly from the cart above her. “Did you not know?”
“I—” Maewen craned round at what she could see of the gray beard. What did Hestefan remind her of? She should have known about Kernsburgh. All the guides in the palace had never seemed tired of pointing out that Amil the Great had rebuilt the city. But none of them had thought to say that he had rebuilt it from nothing. “Ruins and rubble?” she asked.
“More like grass and humps in the ground by what I heard,” Mitt told her.
“Oh—bother!” Maewen said. “How am I supposed to find a crown in a place like that?”
“How indeed?” Navis murmured.
“A way will be found, lady,” Wend said.
Maewen supposed Wend knew. But as they mounted again and moved off, she could not help thinking that this mission was becoming more impossible with every mile they went. She wondered if Noreth had realized and simply run away. Maewen would not have blamed her. Six people set out wandering the old roads—one of those six accused of theft by a voice in the air, too!—in search of a crown buried in a city that did not exist anymore, with no provisions and almost no baggage, and this was supposed to prove that the wrong girl was Queen. As if the earls in their earldoms would let even Noreth get away with it! Maewen uneasily remembered that earls were like little kings in those days, bad kings in the South and better ones in the North, but all of them kings. And kings always made a point of keeping their thrones.
But Amil the Great did it somehow, she told herself. Don’t be too long turning up, Amil. I’ll hand over to you with the greatest pleasure.
The green road all this while was taking them through another gorge, overhung by more rowan trees. Maewen found she was nervously looking at the skyline, high above, in case an earl had sent a party of hearthmen to make sure they got no farther. It must be an earl who had kidnapped Noreth. One of her five companions was in the pay of an earl.
She felt a great deal better when the road took them out onto a green plain, high, high up. Chilly reviving wind swept over her. Far below, and yet seeming to stand up into the sky, was the gray sea, chopped by white galloping waves.
“This is better,” Mitt said, coming up beside her. “Maybe it’s being brought up a fisherman; I always like seeing the sea. Or maybe it comes of being a Holander. Eh, Navis?”
Navis had come up on the other side. He was looking out at the sea just as Mitt was—as if it was home, really. He said, “I miss the blue of the sea farther south, but I wasn’t displeased the Countess sent me to Adenmouth. Plenty of sea there. And I’ve never for one moment regretted leaving Holand.”
It was odd to hear Navis talk without sarcasm at all. Maewen wondered how to find out what they were both doing so far from Holand, but before she could think how, Navis said to her, “You, of course, will have a special interest in this stretch of sea.”
“Why? Do you know something I don’t know?” Maewen shot back. A silly thing to say, but Navis had that effect on her.
“I was meaning that we must be quite near Kredindale,” Navis said, “where I gather you were born, Noreth. Isn’t it your cousin Kintor who’s lord here?”
Maewen said quickly, “Yes, but we don’t get on.” That, she hoped, would stop Navis expecting her to go and visit her cousin. But he can’t be right! she thought. It was miles round the coast from Adenmouth to Kredindale. It took ages, even by car. But as they moved on, she saw the long spit of green, scribbled with the ditches of a sea marsh, stretching out into the sea below, where, in her day, the big refinery stood. She had seen it from the train only days ago. It seemed that the old road had cut straight through the mountains.
“Whatever you feel about your cousin,” Navis said, “I imagine you could hope to gather quite a number of followers here.”
Followers! I hope not! Maewen thought. Whatever would I do with them?
“Yes, I reckon you’re going to have to have an army,” Mitt agreed. “Show those earls you mean business.”
They were probably both right, but Maewen just could not see herself leading an army. She would feel such a fool. She rode on wondering how to get out of having one.
The coastline made a grand curve, and the road followed it, but so high that Maewen could not see the big Kredindale Valley she knew must be down there somewhere. There, as they came round the curve, was the waystone marking the way down to the valley and—horrors!—really quite a big crowd of people gathered on the clifftops beside it. As Maewen’s group came into sight, there was a lot of shouting. She heard the name Noreth! over and over again, and—she couldn’t help it—she pulled her horse to a standstill, terrified. Her eyes blurred, and her knees shook.
She said stupidly, “What do you think they want?”
“To talk to you, evidently,” Navis replied.
He seemed to be right. A group of people, men and women, was running toward her eagerly, with one man out in front, and the crowd itself was pressing forward behind them, more slowly, in a jog-trot filled with windy wavings of scarves, hair, arms, ribbons, and some kind of long, snapping banners. Midsummer flags, Maewen thought. They must be holding their Midsummer Fair up here. She wanted to shake her horse into a gallop and leave. Fast. But the crowd was blocking the road. And they all looked so glad to see her.
Oh Noreth! she thought. Why did you have to let me in for this?
Wend strode up beside her. “May I hold your horse, lady, while you get down and speak with them?”