Ammet laughed. It felt as if the wind had turned to a warm gale. “That name is not to be used that lightly. It will be many a long year before you will need to say my Great Name. But you have three other names. I am here to tell you that if you use those names properly, the Shield of Oreth can be covered again with fields like these.”
His hand spread to show Mitt the surging barley and the stiff rustling wheat. Mitt looked wistfully, thinking of that farm he might have. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he said.
“We would, Alhammitt,” Old Ammet agreed. He smiled at Mitt, rather sadly, over his shoulder among his flying hair, as he walked away round a turn in the lane.
Mitt stood looking a moment. The lane ran straight as a ruler through the two fields. Then he sighed and turned to go back.
Moril was standing a few yards down the hill. The two of them simply stared at one another for a moment. Then Moril licked his lips and cleared his throat. Still, his voice came out scratchy with awe. “Wh-who was that?”
“Old Ammet,” said Mitt. “The Earth Shaker.” His voice was not in much better shape. “What are you doing here?”
“You forgot to take any bread,” Moril said.
“It was like a flaming gray rock this morning,” Mitt said. “There’ll be critters in it by now.”
“Well, anyway, I brought—” Moril started to hold out the bundle in his hands. And stopped and stared at it. Then he unwrapped the cloth and held out a crusty new loaf. Mitt could smell the newness of it on the wind. He looked ruefully down at the cheese and onions he had not yet bothered to eat. The onions were the same but the cheese was now a fresh pale wedge. It smelled as wonderful as the bread.
He held it out to Moril. “Want some?”
Moril nodded. He arranged the cwidder on his back and sat down by the hedge. As Mitt sat down beside him, it occurred to him that this cwidder was as much of a sore place to Moril as those names were to him—and more of a nuisance, too. Moril had barely let go of the thing since Hestefan had threatened to take it away.
They tore the crusty fresh loaf in two, broke the cheese in half, and ate like wolves. “All the same,” Mitt said, going back to what Moril had first said, “it’s not like you to run after me with bread.”
“I wasn’t spying,” Moril said, with as much dignity as someone who is crunching a pickled onion can. “I only saw him. I didn’t hear a word he was saying. And he must have known I was there, because of the bread.”
“So?” said Mitt.
“Something’s wrong,” said Moril. “This morning I was on top of the rocks, trying to get warm. I heard that voice telling her to kill us.”
Mitt felt his appetite go. “And?”
Moril swallowed the pickled onion as if it was a lump in his throat. “I heard it before. I heard it tell her to find the Adon’s gifts. It seemed all right then.”
Mitt went on eating although his appetite had gone. If you had once been poor in Holand, you never wasted a chance to eat. “So what do you think?”
Moril was eating in the same dutiful way. Singers met hard times, too. “I think,” he said, “that it isn’t the One that speaks to her.”
Mitt knew this was why Old Ammet had looked kind. It was something he did not want to think about. “Who is it then?”
“Kankredin,” said Moril.
So it was out. Mitt nodded. “I think you’re right. You know what this means, then?”
“He started talking to her when she was young and worked her up to this gradually,” Moril said, thinking about it. “He’s disembodied, so he could pretend to be the One.”
“Probably, but I don’t mean that,” Mitt said. “Just stop and think what it means if she got to be Queen. She may be all right, but she’d go every where with this voice telling her to do what Kankredin wants. And she’d do it, too. She does.”
“But,” said Moril, “this morning she was sounding sarcastic, rather the way your Navis does.”
“Maybe, but she’ll do it in the end,” Mitt said. “Don’t you see? He works her along, like you said. He tells her she’s got to be Queen and she’s the One’s daughter, and she sets out to ride for the crown. For all we know, she’s got no claim at all. Alk thought not. It means this whole ride is a load of old crab apples.”
“So what should we do?” Moril asked.
Mitt smiled his most unfunny smile. “It looks as if I better do what the Countess and your Keril wanted in the first place. Kill her somehow. It’s a laugh!”
It was a horrible thing to say. Mitt almost choked on it, thinking of Noreth’s nervous, freckly look—which seemed to get to him more now he knew her so much better—and how plain frightened she had been when that man attacked her in the Lawschool. He was still surprised at how very frightened she had been. She would be the same, or worse, when she found Mitt after her.
He was fervently relieved when Moril said, firmly and quietly, “No.”