The Crown of Dalemark (The Dalemark Quartet 4)

He clearly had no idea she was not Noreth. Well, you see what you expect to see, Maewen thought. “How did you know when to expect me?” she bawled back.

Luthan put an arm round her shoulders and led her up the road, past the people who had been running with him, and among masses more. There was what looked like a small army strung out along the way, and horses for them standing in patient rows under the crags. “There’s less noise along here. We can hear ourselves speak,” Luthan said.

Mitt looked at Moril, who nodded and scampered off beside Maewen. Mitt slid to the ground and hurriedly led Maewen’s horse and the Countess-horse along behind them. Navis looked at him questioningly and then rode up behind Luthan.

Luthan turned round, surprised. “Noreth, who are these?”

“My followers, of course,” Maewen said. They came to a moist green ground beyond the rocks where Luthan had a fine tent set up. The noise of the waterfall was cut off by crags in the way. Maewen could speak normally as she said, “This is Navis Haddsson, and this is Mitt. This is Moril Clennensson.”

Luthan’s curvaceous face lit up. “The Southerners who came on the wind’s road? I’ve heard of you. And of course, I’ve met you, Moril, now I think—though I knew your father better. My cousin certainly knows how to pick her followers.” He smiled at Maewen and really seemed to mean it. She felt like a beast deceiving him. She felt worse as numbers of men and women in Dropwater livery came crowding round to smile and say hello. They were probably Noreth’s personal friends. And all she could do was smile back and hope they did not think she was behaving oddly.

“Now, to business,” said Luthan. “You were awfully secretive when you left, Noreth, but I guessed what you were up to. You’re riding the King’s Road, aren’t you? Well, the whole North knows you are. What made you think I wouldn’t follow you?”

Maewen found herself thinking, Flaming Ammet! She seemed to have caught that from Mitt. Here was the army she had been trying to avoid having. “It—it’s going to be very dangerous,” she said lamely.

Luthan swept that aside. “Danger—nothing! I court it! I intend to follow my true Queen!” He meant it. Maewen squirmed. “But I won’t keep you guessing about how I knew. They sent word down by sea from Kredindale. They told the whole coast. All the coastal dales are ready to come to you as soon as you give the word, and of course, I got ready at once. You’ll need my help. There’s worrying news, too.” Luthan’s curved brows set in a serious line. “My agent in Hannart sent a carrier pigeon. Earl Keril has set out for Kernsburgh, and it looks as if he wants to stop you. I was going to invite you down to the mansion, but in view of that news, I think we’d better break camp and be on our way.”

“You mean you’re coming, too?” Maewen said. Oh flaming Ammet, oh bother!

Luthan smiled meltingly. “My Queen, what do you think I’ve been telling you? I am coming, and all my hearthpeople with me.”

Navis coughed. “When did the Earl of Hannart set out, and how long will it take him to reach Kernsburgh?”

Luthan blinked his beautiful eyelashes. “Er. Um. Yesterday. He’d be there tomorrow evening if he rode hard.”

“Yesterday.” Maewen could see Navis thinking that it was not Earl Keril’s band that had been after them, then. “And Dropwater is on the other point of a triangle, am I right?” Luthan nodded, in another flutter of eyelashes, and turned back to Maewen. “Then,” said Navis, forcefully, “if you would be good enough to strike camp at once, my lord, I think we must ride through the night.”

Luthan all but sprang to attention. “Oh. Yes. At once, sir.” He ran away, waving his arms and shouting orders. Moril snorted. He butted his head into Mitt, and both of them bent over, howling with laughter.

“It’s not funny!” said Maewen.

“Only some of it,” said Navis. “But allies are allies.” He watched the Dropwater people running about for a while, and he sighed. “These children have no idea they are about to fight a war. And,” he added, “no idea how to hurry either. Mitt, stop giggling and come with me. I’ll need a serious aide.” He shook his mare into motion and rode into the confusion. Mitt popped his eyes at Maewen and legged after him.

It was like magic. The confusion stopped as soon as Navis took over. He seemed to know just which gaggle of people to speak to and which to leave alone. And if two or more inefficiencies happened at once, Navis had only to nod to Mitt, and Mitt was at one of them, sorting it out as quickly as Navis. Maewen was impressed. Barely half an hour later they were ready to go. There was even a spare horse for Moril. Navis came riding up with it himself. “Because I take it you are ready to leave us now,” he remarked unlovingly to Hestefan.

Hestefan’s beard jutted at him. “If you recall,” he said, “sir—Navis Haddsson from Holand—I told you a long way back on the road that where great events are toward, a Singer must needs be there. But by all means remove my apprentice. I’ll follow at my own pace.”

“As you please,” said Navis, and he murmured as he wheeled away, “Crawl behind, if you like. I don’t know what it is,” he remarked to Mitt as soon as they were well away from the green cart, “but I can’t abide that fellow. He sets my teeth on edge—rather the way my brother Harchad always used to.”

Mitt shuddered. “That’s a bit steep, isn’t it? Your brother Harchad only killed a few hundred folk each year and terrified the rest. Hestefan’s a Singer, Navis. Maybe it’s the beard reminds you.”

They rode. The cart was soon only a green smudge behind. They rode under Navis’s direction as fast as they could without exhausting their horses. They stopped to breathe them and rode again, on over the green undulations of the Shield, rising now, toward the high plateau that held Kernsburgh. Before nightfall the more distant mountains had wheeled into the blue jagged shapes Maewen remembered seeing from Dad’s apartment. The peaks of the North Dales, Dad had told her. They set off again into the sunset to ride some more.

The Countess-horse had had enough by then. It stopped with all four feet planted and tried to bite Mitt’s leg while Mitt cursed and bounced and shook the reins. Navis looked. He beckoned with a trim, gloved hand. One of the Dropwater hearthwomen instantly rode up with Earl Luthan’s spare horse for Mitt. Nobody seemed to object that after that Mitt rode on a mare that was almost as good as Navis’s own. When Maewen next saw the Countess-horse, it was in the rear carrying someone’s baggage. She was impressed all over again. This was the kind of thing, quite certainly, that was going to get Navis made Duke of Kernsburgh during the next year or so.

Otherwise she did not enjoy the ride. At least the actual riding was a pleasure. It was good not to have to keep to the pace of Wend or the cart. It was Luthan she did not enjoy. He was beside her far too often, and he would keep reminding her, with significant smiles, of all the things he and Noreth had done together. “Do you remember the Harvest when we threw plums?” he said, and Maewen had to pretend to remember. Or, “You know that time with the lawbooks? Ham the Markinder still hasn’t got over that.” This was bad enough. But Luthan’s smiles grew more and more melting. Finally he sighed and said, “Noreth, it seemed an age, an endless age, after you had gone. Dropwater was empty. Empty and void.”

This is dire! Maewen thought. Moril, jogging on the other side of her, thought so, too. “But,” he said, “Dropwater isn’t empty. It’s full of plum trees and people.”

Luthan was not at all embarrassed. He smiled meltingly again. “You know what I mean. Lovers are allowed to say these things.”

Maewen gave up trying not to hurt Luthan’s feelings and lost her temper. “Stop being so silly! I am not your lover!” Then she bit her tongue. For all she knew, Noreth was very fond of Luthan—though if she was, Maewen was beginning to wonder why.

Luthan sighed, and laughed a little. “Oh dear. Have I overstepped again? I never know where to have you, Noreth. I think I’ve won your heart, and then you bite my head off.”

So that was all right. But it did not stop Luthan. When Mitt was relieved of the Countess-horse, he rode Luthan’s spare mare firmly up between Luthan and Maewen. Whenever Luthan said anything sighing or melting, Mitt grinned, grinned like a death’s-head. It was soon too much for Luthan. He gave up and rode on ahead. But then, as far as Maewen was concerned, it was almost worse. Moril and Mitt could not seem to stop teasing her about it.

“Your handsome lordly lover got it bad for you!” Mitt said.