The Crown of Dalemark (The Dalemark Quartet 4)

“Kankredin might have heard,” Moril said.

“All the more reason for going there,” said Alk. He turned his vast horse round to join his hearthmen.

“Just a moment,” Navis said. He seemed to have revived wonderfully. Alk stopped and turned his head questioningly. “If I have no pretext,” Navis said, “you must have one.”

“Must I?” Alk lifted his helmet and scratched his head. “I suppose it stands to reason,” he admitted, “that if I pull the rug out from under you, you’ll need somewhere to stand.” He grinned. “Let’s say I’ve got the same pretext as you have.”

Navis laughed and wheeled round to ride back to Luthan.

“What did he mean?” Maewen asked as their three horses shimmied about, glad to be moving again.

“Not to tell Luthan you’re not Noreth, I think,” Mitt said, although, knowing Alk and Navis as he did, he was not at all sure.

She made a face. Moril laughed. “Don’t look now. Luthan’s on his way to ask you all about what Alk wanted.”

Maewen naturally looked. Luthan was mounted again, trotting up the road with an eager, tender, questioning look. “What shall I tell him?”

Navis reached Luthan first. He spoke quickly and quietly to Luthan, and whatever it was he said, it seemed to satisfy Luthan entirely. He shot Maewen a look of deep understanding and rode gravely beside Navis as their party joined Alk’s.

The two groups together made quite an impressive force, Mitt thought, as he rode in the midst of it. This ought to show Earl Keril they meant business—if this was what Navis and Alk had in mind. Since he was not sure, Mitt found himself thinking about Noreth instead, dead before she set foot on the King’s Road. Kankredin must be angry about that. Wend had fooled him, and everyone else, by sending Maewen in her place. Except that Wend hadn’t seemed to know what he was doing. Mitt was anxious about t

hat. Wend had withdrawn his protection from Maewen, and she could well be in danger if Kankredin turned on her. Mitt decided not to let her out of his sight.

He was surprised, and a little ashamed, to find that when he thought he was thinking of Noreth, it was Maewen he was really worried about.

About an hour later they reached Kernsburgh. At least, it was where Alk and all the Dropwater people said Kernsburgh was.

“It is. Honestly,” Moril assured Mitt and Maewen.

They had halted in a half circle three or four riders deep, facing an ordinary small waystone. Beyond it the green turf rose and fell in a hundred humps and hummocks. And that was all.

“City of Gold,” Alk said genially. “Always on the hill beyond.”

Navis beckoned Mitt and cantered among the grassy mounds to organize his defense. Everyone followed slowly, Maewen among the last. This felt weird. Where they had first stopped could have been the space which Kernsburgh Central Station was going to fill, except that the waystone was all wrong. Those low mounds were where she had last seen shops and office blocks, and the slightly higher hummocks ahead, up which Navis was riding slantwise, were where the Tannoreth Palace would be someday soon. The green crease she was following, full of hoofprints and horse droppings, was probably King Street. And instead of cars and lorries, there was a much quieter confusion of riders in two different liveries. Maewen could so little believe this was really Kernsburgh that she had to look up toward the distant hills to make sure. There she saw the blue jagged shapes she saw from Dad’s apartment, the North Dales Peaks. But the oddest part was the way there had obviously been a city here once, under all these lumps. She felt as if time had stood upside down and she really was in the far future, looking at the remains of the Kernsburgh she had known.

A great shout jerked her attention back to here and now. Mitt was down from his horse, leaping across the hummocks, yelling. Maewen shook her own horse to a fast trot and arrived at the top of the palace mounds in time to see Mitt delightedly greeting two newcomers. The tall, curly one was plainly Kialan. Navis had his arm round the shoulders of the small pale boy with Kialan. They were alike enough for Maewen to know that this was Ynen. There were two weary-looking horses in the hollow behind the two. It looked as if they had ridden all night as well.

“I’m sorry we kept out of sight,” Kialan was saying. “There was a big troop of horsemen in war gear on the road last night. We had to leave the road to avoid them. We couldn’t see who they were in the dark, but we didn’t think they should see us.”

“It was probably Alk,” said Navis, “but we’ll take precautions.”

Maewen was watching Ynen frisk round Mitt like a terrier puppy round a greyhound. I’m so glad! she thought. He likes Mitt! I don’t think I could have borne it if he’d been like Hildy. Ynen was so unlike Hildy that she thought maybe he was a bit of a softie. Then Ynen looked up at Maewen, and she knew he was not soft at all. He smiled at her uncertainly, not knowing who she was.

“Are you Noreth?” Kialan asked her. Lordly, Maewen thought. He reminded her of the boys at the sixth form college.

“We all thought so, but apparently not,” Navis said. “Mayelbridwen, I believe, is the name.”

Just then, there were agitated noises from Luthan a little way off. Mitt went haring over there to see what was wrong. Maewen found she could not face the puzzled looks from Kialan and Ynen, and she followed Mitt.

In another hidden hollow Luthan was standing over an immense heap of mixed bread and grapes. There was another heap beyond that looked like oats. “Where did all this come from?” Luthan demanded.

Mitt narrowed his eyes at the stuff. The loaves were the kind plaited into a wheat shape which he had last seen in the Holy Islands. The grapes were the sweet green Southern kind. He grinned. “A present,” he said, “from the Earth Shaker and She Who Raised the Islands.”

“You’re joking,” Luthan said uncertainly.

“I am not,” Mitt said.

However it arrived, the breakfast was very welcome. By the time Navis had the place organized, everyone was glad to sit down and eat at their posts. Alk’s people, and most of Luthan’s, were posted hidden behind mounds in a great circle. Kialan and Ynen were sent to help pass a loaf and a bunch of grapes to everyone, while Maewen and Mitt were busy pouring a pile of oats in front of each of the horses picketed in the middle. Luthan’s hearth-women were standing by a third of the horses to mount a cavalry charge if necessary.