“Sponsorship is one word for it,” Mitt said. “Nice try.”
“I asked you to see my point of view!” Keril snapped. “When I was young and ignorant, I took part in an uprising. I know better now. I would go to greater lengths than this to stop another. People die in uprisings, by thousands, most horribly.”
“When I was young and ignorant,” said Mitt, “I lived in Holand. People died there all the time, only slowly. And the rest were too scared to help. There needs to be an uprising. One that works this time.”
The two of them stared at one another unlovingly. “If this is your attitude,” Keril said, “I shall see you hanged at Harvest. There are plentiful grounds.”
Moril, Kialan, and Ynen surged to their feet, Kialan saying, “Listen, Father—” and Ynen protesting, “Don’t undo the belt yet!”
“Be quiet!” said Keril. “I’ll deal with you two later. What I want to know—”
Hasty feet crunched over the grain, and Alk and Navis arrived, one on either side of Keril. Alk’s leathers were torn all over, showing battered links of mail underneath, and he had a streak of blood on his chin. One side of Navis’s face was black with powder. He looked tired to death, but he spoke to Keril with the utmost courtesy. “My lord, we have to thank you for your timely intervention.”
Alk grinned. “We were goners without you, Keril.”
Keril turned his unloving look on them. Navis said, “Is there some trouble, my lord? May we assist?”
“Yes,” Keril said grimly. “I want to know how this Mitt of yours contrived to have a Southern war band to meet him.”
“I did no such thing!” said Mitt.
“Those are Henda’s men, my lord,” Navis said. “As you surely know, Henda can be trusted to respond to anything that might be a threat to his earldom entirely on his own.”
“But how did he know?” Keril said. “Did you tell him, Navis Haddsson?”
“Oh come now, Keril,” said Alk. “You saved Navis’s life yourself. You heard the Southerners calling him traitor.”
Keril hitched his shoulders irritably. Navis bowed to him. “As to how Henda knew, my lord, since I had heard of Noreth Onesdaughter at least two years ago, I can only suppose Henda’s spies told him at the same time.” Mitt stared. This was news to him. “One of those secrets,” Navis said to him, “that my brother took good care not to have known on the waterfront in Holand.”
“So I am to understand,” Keril said to Navis, “that Navis Haddsson commandeered the hearthmen of Dropwater and Aberath to fight Henda, knowing that Henda would oppose Navis Haddsson’s candidate for the crown.”
Navis’s eyes went to the golden band round Mitt’s forehead. He smiled slightly. “My lord, I did not expect Henda. I expected you. But you are right to believe that I hoped Mitt would be King.”
“Why?” Keril asked icily.
Navis shrugged. “Aside from obvious personal wishes, my lord, one of the pictures in my rooms in Holand was a portrait of the Adon. My impression is that you, too, my lord, were struck by Mitt’s resemblance to the Adon. I thought about it much of the time we sailed North. But I would have waited a few years to do anything about it. You forced our hands.”
“I’m glad I did,” said Keril. “Your candidate is not of age and has no right to that thing on his head.”
Alk had been exchanging looks with Moril. Now he said, “Right, Keril. Why don’t we ask?” And he nodded at Moril.
Moril stood forward. “The One called us to witness just now,” he said, loudly and formally, “that we have a new King. The One gave Mitt the crown and his own name of Amil.”
“I hereby witness this as lawful,” Alk said. “Come on, Keril. Accept it.”
Keril still seemed entirely unwilling. Moril, carefully and meaningly, arranged his fingers on the cwidder. “I could summon the One,” he said.
Keril looked uneasily at the cwidder. “You always were a bit of a mystic, Moril,” he said. “But this is a reasonable age—”
He was interrupted by howls and yells and catcalls in the distance behind him. “Traitor!” they heard. “Traitor! There’s the traitor!” The shouting was coming from hearthmen in all three liveries. It seemed to have something to do with the row of supply wagons beyond the road. Navis set off that way at a run. Alk and Keril followed. Mitt pointed a thumb at Keril’s back. “Never rely on things being reasonable,” he said.
“Sayings of the King,” Moril said, laughing.
They jogged toward the wagons, with Ynen and Kialan following more slowly. As Mitt reached the crowd milling round the wagons, Navis waved. People fell back respectfully to let Mitt through. Everyone’s eyes for a moment fixed wonderingly on the crown. “What is it?” said Mitt.
“We invite you to look at this,” Navis said. And, with a smooth stare at Keril, he added, “Your Majesty.”
He waved again. Several hearthmen hauled on the dark weatherproof covering of one of the wagons. As they dragged it away, the trim green-painted cart underneath came into view.