“Hildy!” he said. There was delight and relief all over him. Mitt was the same.
The dark girl turned from whispering to the enormous girl bulking beside her and stared at Navis. “Father! Fancy you being here!” Her face lit up. For a moment it looked as if she were going to break out of school custom and hug Navis. Then she remembered the grown-up behavior and took hold of both his hands instead, smiling all over her face. It made her look much younger. “Father, this is good! Now I’ll have someone to show round and shout for me at last grittling after all!”
“Are you all right? Is all well here?” Navis asked her.
“Absolutely mountaintop!” said Hildy. “I love it here. But this is Biffa.” She turned and pulled forward the huge girl beside her. “Biffa’s my besting. Do you mind if she comes round with us? She’s a winthrough like me, and her parents can’t afford to come today. Please. She won’t have anyone if I go off.”
“I shall be honored,” Navis said. Huge Biffa turned pink right down to her white collar and stood bulking helplessly, smiling. She had a very sweet smile. It transformed her slab of a face and made everyone see why Hildy liked her.
“Good,” said Hildy, and began to tow Navis away, ignoring the rest of them completely.
Navis hung back. Mitt said, “Hello, Hildy.”
Hildy glanced over her shoulder. “Oh. Hello, Mitt.” It was barely friendly. Maewen found she could not bear to look at Mitt’s face. The hurt in it and the disillusionment were so huge and so plain that it hurt her, too, just from the one glimpse she had of it.
Navis firmly pulled Hildy back again. “My dear daughter,” he said. “Not so hasty. Let me introduce my friends. This young lady is, ah, Ilona Kernsdaughter.”
Maewen bowed, impressed that Navis remembered to invent her a false name. Hildy’s eyes swept over Maewen’s travel-stained hearthman’s livery and back to her face, which she seemed to study freckle by freckle. Hildy’s eyes were very dark, very observant, and not very warm. Maewen felt thoroughly uncomfortable. She was wondering whether to bow again, ironically this time, when Hildy seemed to decide that Maewen met some standard she approved of. The little frown cleared from between her eyebrows, and she smiled and bent her head to Maewen.
“Who is placed in my care by her aunt,” Navis continued. “This lad with me is Moril, from a line of famous Singers.”
Singers were obviously something Hildy respected. She bowed and smiled at Moril, who stared gravely and did not bow back.
“And,” Navis finished dryly, “Mitt, of course, you know.”
Mitt had his face under control by then. It still stared pale and blank, but he grafted a joking smile onto it. “Turned up again like the bad penny,” he said.
Somehow this hurt Maewen more than the way Mitt had looked at first. When Hildy nodded coolly and turned away, Maewen could have slapped her. He’s looked forward to meeting you and worried about you—which is more than you deserve!—and you do this to him! she thought. You little—little cow!
They all moved off, with Mitt drifting in the rear like a sleepwalker. Moril spoke to huge Biffa. “Do you happen to know where I’ll find my sister?” He said it shyly but somehow made it plain that he had no use for Hildy. “She’s called Brid Clennensdaughter.”
Maewen caught a look of sheer awe above her on Biffa’s face. “Brid!” said Biffa. “Is Brid your sister? She’s Great Girl this sessioning. She won all the prizes on tally. She’s somewhere about with the Adon.”
Eh? thought Maewen. But the Adon’s dead, centuries before this.
Hildy turned half round from in front. “She means she’s with the Earl of Hannart’s heir,” she said. “He came to see her because she’s the Earl of the South Dales’ sister.”
There was a reverent note to her voice that told Maewen that Hildy was a snob. This probably accounted for the way she treated Mitt. Mitt had caught the reverent note, too, and his face was worse than ever.
“They say,” Biffa added shyly to Moril, “that the Adon’s in love with your sister.”
“Is he?” said Moril, as if he thought he might have something to say about that. “Where’s the best place to find them?”
“Skreths—no, maybe Climbers,” said Biffa. “I’ll come and show you if you like.”
She led Moril off, while Hildy called instructions about where to meet again and Biffa called back about when. Both of them seemed to be talking gibberish. And when Biffa had vanished round the nearest corner, Maewen realized that there were only three of them left. Mitt seemed to have slipped off with Biffa, too. She could hardly blame him. She would not have stayed to be ignored by Hildy either. No, it was worse than ignoring. It was more unkind than that. From what Moril had told her, Hildy was an earl’s granddaughter, but Navis was only a hearthman now. He was not going to be Duke of Kernsburgh for some years yet. There was no reason, no excuse for Hildy to think so well of herself.
She gloomily followed the girl on a grand tour of the school. It soon became a great blur to Maewen, confused in her mind with tours of the Tannoreth Palace—except that this tour was strewn with other pupils in white collars leading brightly clothed relatives who all looked as bewildered as Maewen. When she thought of the visit she had made here with Aunt Liss, she became even more confused. None of it was the same. When she remembered some of the buildings, they seemed smaller or in the wrong place. And parts of it were like any old school.
Maewen’s head ached, and her stomachache came back. She trailed behind Hildy and Navis, wanting to sit down, while Hildy dragged Navis along by one hand, saying things like, “and this is where hardimers set trethers. Even if you’re sailing in grybo, they can make you a comedown for squarks.” She never once bothered to explain. Navis looked increasingly ironic. Maewen thought, Hildy doesn’t want us to know what it really means. She’s one of those that like to be on the inside knowing things, with everyone else on the outside, not knowing.
Perhaps this was unkind. Maewen knew she was still feeling odd because someone had tried to kill her. She made an effort. She came politely up beside Hildy while they were crossing an enormous courtyard that did not exist in Maewen’s day and tried to join in the talk. But after a very short time of politeness, she found herself saying, not altogether kindly, “Why did you treat Mitt like that? He’s been looking forward to seeing you.”
“Really?” said Hildy. “How stupid of him. I suppose it comes of being uneducated.”
“Is he uneducated?” Maewen said, even less kindly.
“He’s practically illiterate,” said Hildy. “He can hardly read.” She made it sound like an infectious disease. She added, “He used to fish for a living.” Her manner of saying it told Maewen that Hildy was quite aware of Maewen’s unkindness, that she had met it often before, and that she expected it and did not care two hoots.