The Crown of Dalemark (The Dalemark Quartet 4)

“Yes, I have,” Moril said, dogged and white. “And it belonged to my father, not to you. You’ve no right to take it away.”

Mitt felt he had better intervene. “Now look. He didn’t do any harm with it.”

Hestefan ignored Mitt. “Give me the cwidder here,” he said, and held his hand out sternly for it.

“There’s no need—” Mitt tried to say.

But at this point Navis intervened, too. He came up beside Moril and said, in his most sarcastic way, “Is it possible the master envies his apprentice? Surely not?”

Hestefan turned and glared at Navis.

Wend looked urgently at Maewen. “Lady!”

Maewen had been feeling like she did in school, watching one of the teachers tell off someone else in her class. Hestefan was so very much like Dr. Loviath that she could not help it. And of course, if a teacher decides to tell someone off, no one else in the class dreams of interfering. Wend’s look made her realize that it was not like this at all. She tried to gather her wits.

“Stop it,” she said to Navis. “Er—Hestefan, I’m not sure this is right. Moril told me this morning that it was your daughter, Fenna, who was indentured to you, not him. He said he came with you from his own choice. Doesn’t that make him your—er—colleague instead of your apprentice?”

“Well yes,” Hestefan said, very displeased. “But considering his years and his actions, common law would hardly make that distinction.”

That displeased look made him so like Dr. Loviath that Maewen had to fight herself not to agree humbly. As so often happens, she found herself going too far the other way. “But I’m the leader,” she said, “and I say he isn’t really your apprentice. So I say you can’t take his cwidder away even if he did something—er—rather mad with it.”

“That was my fault, too,” Mitt put in, but in a very gruff and unfriendly way. He was having trouble even looking at Noreth after what Moril had said.

Hestefan lifted his chin and jutted his beard at Maewen.

A black mark and detention! Maewen thought. And Mitt glowering, too. If you’re a leader, everyone hates you. So will Moril after this. “And, Moril, you were trying to hurt Mitt with that cwidder, weren’t you?”

Any other boy would have protested that Mitt was bigger than he was. Moril impressed Maewen by just saying, “Yes.”

She felt like a beast, but she was launched on her way now and found she had to go on. “Then, until we get to Gardale, someone else is going to take charge of it. Moril, will you give your cwidder to Wend, please?”

It was hard to tell if Moril, Wend, or Hestefan was more surprised. Hestefan turned away and climbed into the cart, still jutting his beard. Moril at first clutched the cwidder closer. Then, with a glance at Mitt that certainly meant something, he passed the beautiful gleaming instrument over to Wend. Wend took it so reverently that it seemed to slide into his hands. He hung the worn leather strap across his shoulder and looked down at the cwidder as if it was a lamb he had just rescued from the snow. His left hand formed a chord on the strings as if it could not help itself. “May I?” he asked Moril.

“If you can,” Moril said. “I’ll fetch you the case.”

Wend’s right hand played on the strings as if it were stroking the lamb’s head. He only played a sequence of chords and arpeggios, but he became a new person doing it. His face came alive, into a slight, rapt smile, full of thoughts and energies that had not been there before. The way he stood altered, to accommodate the cwidder, into the stance of someone much stronger. For the first time since Maewen had met him, he looked happy. Oddly enough, that made him look ten times more dangerous, too.

Why couldn’t he be like that all the time? Maewen wondered as she turned away to mount her horse again at last. Instead of trying to pretend he was not an Undying among all us dying-people? She tried to catch Mitt’s eye to see what he thought, but Mitt was raw with shame about that word jealous, and he turned away quickly. Hestefan gave her an unloving look from the seat of the cart.

Two black marks and a whole week in detention! Maewen thought. She thought Navis was right. Hestefan had wanted Moril’s cwidder. As they rode on, she found herself wondering why Hestefan had chosen to follow Noreth if he disliked her so much.

The handing over of the cwidder had a surprising effect on Moril. While Wend strode along, looking strong and different, Moril behaved like a boy let out of school. He went scampering along beside Mitt’s horse, shouting cheeky remarks up at Mitt. Mitt answered the same way, and both of them laughed themselves silly. After a while they began taking turns to ride, with a lot more silly laughter when the Countess-horse tried to throw Moril off.

Maewen rode out ahead, feeling lonely and unloved, listening to the pair of them laughing in the foggy distance behind. I suppose owning a thing like that cwidder is a big responsibility, she thought, but she had a stupid, hypersensitive feeling that Moril and Mitt were fooling about because of her. I was told to come here and be the leader, she thought. No need to be paranoid.

As if that word had triggered it off, the deep voice spoke to her, at her ear in the gathering fog. “You did well not to let the Singer get his hands on the cwidder,” it said.

Maewen’s hands shook on the reins. She had known that the voice would catch her alone sooner or later

. Was it the One? Somehow, because it was telling her what she wanted to hear, she doubted it. After seeing that sudden mighty river, she had a feeling that the One was more likely to tell her something unexpected that she did not want to know about at all. No. It was some kind of ghostly effect of her own mind on the green road.

“You will need that cwidder, and the Singer-boy to play it,” the voice continued, “when you come to find the crown.”

Maewen had not meant to answer, but she found herself saying, “And what about the cup and the sword?”

“The Southerner can steal both of those for you,” said the voice.

“Oh? Can he? Just like that?” Maewen said.