The Crown of Dalemark (The Dalemark Quartet 4)

Moril hurriedly crouched in front of his cwidder.

“Don’t get it wet!”

That made sense. If the cwidder was spoiled, they would be in this for good. Mitt stood at the edge of the rock and let the water course and sluice and trickle off him where it did no harm. He was freezing, but to his surprise the air was warm. He could see himself beginning to steam as he said, “Well then. What’s biting you?”

Moril bent his head and fiddled with some pebbles lodged in a crack of the boulder. “I—It’s not that I think the whole world’s out to get me. I know the whole South is. I … killed an awful lot of them last year.”

“What? With that cwidder?” said Mitt.

Moril nodded. “When they tried to invade the North. It can move mountains. I closed Flennpass.”

“You did Noreth a favor then,” Mitt said. “In advance like. They can’t get at her till she’s ready, and from what I heard she can come down at them on the sheep tracks whenever she wants.”

He looked down at Moril’s head, wet and brown, feeling almost sympathetic until Moril said, “You don’t understand. I don’t dare go near Dropwater—it’s so full of Southerners—and I’ve no proof that you and Navis haven’t been sent to kill me. Almost the only person I can trust is Hestefan.”

“Get away!” said Mitt. “I heard you tell Noreth what friends you are with Earl Keril. That’s what got me mad.”

“Yes, but he treats me like—like a child,” Moril said. “And I’d done something so … awful I needed to go away and work it out for myself.”

“Just as long as you don’t have your workout on me,” Mitt said. “You don’t look much of a child to me if that’s any comfort to you. How old are you?”

“I shan’t be thirteen for another month,” Moril said regretfully. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen come Harvest,” said Mitt.

“I thought you were more than that,” Moril said, marveling. “You come from a slum somewhere, don’t you? You’ve got that old-and-young look they all have in Holand and places. But I thought you were at least as old as my brother.”

“Comes of earning a living as soon as you can walk,” Mitt answered. “But then I reckon that applies to both of us.”

From there it was the most natural step for Mitt to sit down on the edge of the boulder and swing his soggy boots above the streaming water while he told Moril about his life in Holand and his journey North and then about the Countess and Keril. Moril frowned at this. “I like Keril,” he said, dubious and thoughtful. “Could he be up to something deep?”

“No,” said Mitt. “No deeper than he wants Noreth out of the way before she can get to be Queen.”

Moril’s face came alight, the way it had when he talked to Noreth in the fog. “She must be Queen! It’s like the old stories, like Enblith and Tanamoril. I want to help her. I know the old things are still true.”

“Well, well,” said Mitt. “You make me feel old. Here was I going to say that the country needs bringing together because the North is poor as an empty barrel full of mice—let’s face it—and the South is rich—or it would be if those earls didn’t take it all. Noreth wants to do that, so I’m for her. Very dull and political.”

Moril laughed. “So you ride off in the night, like an old story, to steal her the Adon’s ring.”

“As to that,” Mitt said, knowing his face had gone hot, “it proved I wasn’t going to stick a knife in her, didn’t it?”

“That made me jealous,” Moril said frankly. “You must let me steal her the cup. Anyway, I’m dull and political, too. She said she thought the Singers ought to be paid by the Queen to stay in one place and make better music than they can going round in a cart. A royal academy, she said. I like that idea.”

“She’s got good ideas,” Mitt agreed. “I really loved the way she settled those miners. All right. So we’re both on the same side. Are you feeling happy enough about it to think how we get out of this river?”

11

Moril picked up his cwidder, carefully so as not to wet it on his clothes. “Can you read what it says on the front of it?”

There were swirls and dots there, made of mother-of-pearl, inlaid on either side of the strings. Mitt recognized it as the Old Writing, but that was all. “Not me,” he said. “It takes me all my time to read the usual stuff.”

“I can’t read it either,” Moril confessed. “But I was told that one bit says, ‘I sing for Osfameron’—and that’s my name, along with Tanamoril—and this other bit says, ‘I move in more than one world.’”

“What’s this?” said Mitt. “You mean we’re in another world!”

“I … don’t know,” Moril admitted. “You always have to tell the truth with the cwidder. It works on how you think when you play it.”

“Then let’s get at what we were both thinking,” Mitt suggested. He looked at the water boiling round the front of the boulder. “You were thinking I want this Southerner drowned deep. That right?”