The Crown of Dalemark (The Dalemark Quartet 4)

“Then get in the cart,” said Navis. “Let’s get there as fast as we can.”

Wend took three running strides and heaved himself over the tailgate of the cart. Hestefan whipped up the mule. The cart set off rattling up the next rise, and the rest of them kept pace. It was maddeningly slow to Maewen. The mule was trying, but the cart was heavy, and it slowed down over every long, undulating rise. She grew a crick in her neck from looking back. The horse-men were gaining steadily. Every time she looked, there were fewer hills between them. Before long, they could tell that there were, in fact, only about fifteen of them. But as Mitt said, that was quite enough against six.

“Perhaps they aren’t after us at all,” Maewen said hopefully.

“Would you bet on that?” Navis asked. “Between us we have stolen a cup and a ring and attempted to start an uprising. I wish I could see the livery. That would give us a clue.”

And stolen a horse, Maewen thought guiltily, looking at the patient ears of the horse she had hoped was Noreth’s. Would someone ride all the way from Adenmouth after a stolen horse in these days? She wished she knew.

“And someone may think we sneaked Hildy along,” Mitt said, with his head turned back over his shoulder.

“Are they Hannart?”

The rain was blinding over in white clouds. It was never possible to see the horsemen except as a wavering dark blur, but they saw them most of the time. When the cart was down in a dip, the blur was cresting a rise, and as the cart labored uphill, the pursuers had already been down in the next dip and were wavering into sight again. They came closer and closer.

Navis was looking off into what could be seen of the countryside. It rose steeper and steeper to the left and not so steep to the right. Most of it was covered in head-high bracken. If they did go off the road, the cart would make tracks in that bracken that a blind man could follow. “How much farther?” Navis snapped at Wend.

“Just down to the river,” Wend said anxiously. “Not far.”

By the time they came down the last slope to see a small river cutting across the green road, the horsemen were only three hills behind. They were almost invisible in what seemed to be a final cloud of rain. As the cart splashed into the moist edge of the river, weak sunlight traveled after the rain and made everything golden white.

“Stop a moment,” Wend called. He leaned out of the back of the cart. “Will you play your cwidder now?” he asked Moril.

Moril leaned out to look at him. “Does it matter what?”

“Yes.” Wend jumped down into squashy turf. “Play anything you can think of about the witch Cennoreth,” he said, going to the mule’s head.

Moril wrenched the cover away from the cwidder and hurriedly plucked out the chorus to “The Weaver’s Song”:

Thread the shuttle, throw the shuttle,

Weave the close-bound yarn.

As he moved on to the tune of the verses, Wend led mule and cart in a half circle, with much splashing and swaying, until it was facing up to the left, along the riverbank.

“Follow me upriver,” he said to the others, under the music.

They rode after him along the wet grassy verge, none of them very hopeful. The light was brighter and more golden than before. Mitt looked at the tracks of the cart and the prints the horses were leaving and thought that even in another shower of rain the riders behind could hardly miss them. Maewen wondered if Moril had got the music wrong in his hurry. She knew “The Weaver’s Song,” and she had never known it had anything to do with the witch Cennoreth. Navis rode trying to look back up the green road, but the rise of the land cut off the view almost at once.

“This is going to take a miracle,” he murmured.

The lawnlike riverbank turned into a proper track, leading easily upward among bracken and rocks. As the cart clattered onto the higher, rockier part, they all distinctly heard the drumming of several dozen hooves, mixed with the rattle of tack and mail, and a few voices. Navis stopped his mare and, in a resigned way, fetched out his pistol and cocked it. Above, the cart went on, and Moril continued to play.

To everyone’s amazement, the drumming of hooves barely paused. It slowed and broke into separate noises, but that was mixed with the splashing of water and the clack of rolled stones as the party crossed the river. Then the regular drumming took up again and faded off into the distance.

“Missed us!” Mitt said. He could hardly believe it.

“Let’s hope they don’t come back before we’re out of sight,” Navis said, turning his mare back to the path.

Above the rocky section, the river was a mere stream, flowing out of a fair-sized lake, cupped inside steep black crags. The banks were squashy with marsh, but the path avoided it by mounting higher, among clumps of tall rushes. Maewen could not resist leaning sideways to trail her hand in the feathery heads. They were the scented kind of rushes. Clouds of strong pollen filled the air with a lovely smell, like nothing else she knew. Mitt sneezed. Navis pushed through the rushes in clouds of more pollen and caught up with the cart. Moril had stopped playing by then.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Navis asked Wend.

“Of course, sir,” Wend said. “This is Dropthwaite where my sister’s croft is. No one can find us here.” He smiled in his pent-up way and pointed out into the lake where a number of fat white ducks were swimming beside a patch of white-flowering weed. “Those are my sister’s ducks.” The way he smiled, Maewen thought he and his sister must have some private joke about them.

17

They came through the rushes to find a small ragged field with a stone trough in the middle. Hens wandered there. Two goats were tethered farther off, and there was a vegetable garden beyond that. The croft was a low stone house built against the crags, among fruit trees and lilacs. Everything was warm and fragrant because the rocks went round the holding in a high horseshoe and cut off all but the west wind.