The Crown of Dalemark (The Dalemark Quartet 4)

“Who are you, really? You said Singer,” Moril asked her.

“That’s a surname,” Maewen explained. “My dad said we had Singer blood. Believe it or not, he was showing me some of our family tree the night before I left, but the part from this time was really confused, and I’ve no idea whether I’m related to you.” It felt so good to be able to be herself again that she could have chattered on for minutes. “I may be called Singer, but I can barely sing a—”

“How long into the future?” Moril said.

“Oh. Er—two hundred years, I think.”

Mitt and Moril looked to one another. “That long!” said Mitt. “Then you’ll know what’s going to happen here—right?”

“Not really,” Maewen confessed. She was rather dashed to find that what they were really interested in was their own future. She had wanted to amaze them about planes and computers and television. “History doesn’t tell you about the Undying or the green roads or anything,” she explained. “It’s mostly kings and politics. Noreth didn’t come into any of the history I learned, but I’ll tell you who does: Amil the Great. I’m almost sure he’s almost now.”

“Who?” said Mitt.

“Amil,” Moril said, rather accusingly. “That’s not a king’s name. It’s one of the names of the One.”

“What about him? Tell,” said Mitt.

Maewen racked her brains. “Well, there was a big uprising, and Amil the Great took the crown and united all Dalemark. He reigned for ages and rebuilt Kernsburgh and changed the whole country.”

“Ah,” said Mitt. This sounded good. Let him and Navis only get in on that, and Earl Keril and the Countess could go whistle. “When is this uprising going to start?”

“I can’t remember the date,” Maewen confessed—which was stupid, considering how often she had heard it in the palace—“but it can’t be more than a year away now. I’ve been thinking all along that I’ve only got to keep going until Amil comes.”

“Then where does he start?” said Mitt. He needed to know where to make for.

Maewen flogged her brain again, feeling quite resentful at being released from her imposture only to stand up to a history test. She would have told him so, too, if she hadn’t thought she owed it to them. The trouble was, what she remembered was a muddle. “I think it began in the South, down on the coast—No, because I seem to remember that the North Dales and Dropwater came into it, too. And Kernsburgh, I think. Yes, I’m pretty sure that some of it began near Kernsburgh.”

“Kernsburgh.” Mitt and Moril looked at one another again. She could see that both their minds were hard at work. “Kialan’s bringing Ynen to meet us at Kernsburgh,” Mitt told Moril. “If he can.”

“Kialan,” said Moril, “would make a good king.”

“My money’s on Ynen,” said Mitt. “I grant you that Kialan’s kingly, but Ynen’s got the character.” Both boys looked at Maewen. “I reckon,” Mitt said, “that our job is to go along there and hand over that sword and that ring and the cup, to one of them.”

“Yes,” Moril agreed. “I don’t think we can stop. The One’s got an interest in it. You can tell from this king’s name.” He frowned down at the little white goat cheese in front of him on the table. “But I don’t understand. What’s happened to Noreth?”

This was the part Maewen had been dreading. Both of them were eyeing her, picking out the features that did not match their memory of Noreth—or, maybe, wondering if she was a murderess. “I don’t know,” she said. “Honestly. She was gone when I got here. I found her horse—at least I suppose it’s her horse—wandering about by the waystone. I thought maybe one of the earls might have kidnapped her.”

Again Mitt and Moril exchanged looks. “It could be,” Moril said. “About the only earl in the North who won’t want to stop her is Earl Luthan.”

Mitt said, “Then we’ll look for her … after.”

There was a silence, filled with the soft singing of the kettle on the banked peat and clacking from the loom next door. A memory teased at Maewen, now she had space to think. “I remember! Wend told me, back in the palace when he was tricking me into coming here, that Kankredin had got to Noreth somehow.”

Both of them pounced on this. “The voice,” said Moril.

“Now we’ll tell you something,” said Mitt. “That voice that talks to you. You think it’s the One, don’t you?”

“But it’s not,” said Moril. “It’s Kankredin.”

“How do you know?” Maewen said guiltily.

“By what it tells you—mostly,” Mitt said.

“But I’m the only one who can hear it!” Maewen protested.

“We’ve both heard it,” Moril told her. “And we know it’s Kankredin.”

He and Mitt looked at one another again. “If he’s got rid of Noreth,” Mitt said, working it out, “he got you instead because he thinks you’ll do what he wants. Do you want to?”