The Crown of Dalemark (36 page)

There were more solid shapes advancing down the green road to meet them. The orange dawn flashed on gold braid and threw turning glints from steel and leather. It was a smaller group than theirs, but everyone in it was orderly and very well armed.

“It looks as if Earl Keril got here first,” Maewen said.

“No,” Mitt said, squinting up his eyes to look. “That's not Hannart colors, it's—Flaming Ammet! It's Alk! What's
he
doing here?”

19

Alk was riding an enormous horse. Mitt knew it well. It was about the only one in Aberath which was up to Alk's weight. By the horse and the hugeness Alk was unmistakable, as he gestured to the rest of his party to halt and rode out ahead of them alone. Though Mitt knew Alk would be wearing his own special armor under his pale leather clothes, he still thought this was very brave—or very foolish—of Alk. Luthan's people had guns and crossbows. They might be tired, but after the way Navis had worked them, they were jumpy as cats.

“Nobody fire!” Navis called sharply. Fifty weapons were up.

Luthan came awake with a jump. “That's right, Navis. Hold fire, everyone. We've no quarrel with Aberath.”

Speak for yourself! Mitt thought nervously as Alk came to a ponderous halt halfway between the two bands.

“Good morning,” Alk called. “I need to speak to some of you. Here's my list: Navis Haddsson, Alhammitt Alhammittsson, Hestefan the Singer, Tanamoril Clennensson, and a lady known as Noreth Onesdaughter, if she's with you. I'd be grateful if they all came out here and the rest of you went back a bit. I need to talk to them in private.”

They exchanged mystified looks. Mitt and Moril had been yawning. Maewen's eyes had been nearly shut. But they were all suddenly wide awake. “I suppose we should see what he wants,” Navis said. “We
are
four to one.”

“That doesn't count with Alk,” Mitt said. “I've seen him throw a
horse
.”

Navis bowed politely to Luthan. “We'll try not to keep you waiting long,” he said. Luthan gave him a polite, bewildered nod. Navis edged his mare out of the throng, and the other three followed him.

Alk looked them over as they approached. Mitt had never seen him look so glum and grim. “Where's Hestefan the Singer?”

“Following behind,” said Navis. “His mule couldn't keep up. Are you likely to detain us long, my lord?”

“My lord.” Alk rubbed his chin. It rasped. Behind him Mitt could see a cluster of faces he knew well from Aberath. All of them had a weary, fed-up look, and none of them greeted him. “My lord?” Alk repeated. “Now, I reckon you're at least as much of a lord as I am, Navis Haddsson. My reading is that when you call people that, you don't mean any respect at all. So don't call me that. As for how long we'll be, this'll take as long as it takes. You all gave me the slip once, when I'd nearly caught you up at Dropthwaite, and forced me to get ahead of you. I've been hanging around for you, up and down the green roads, for a day and a half now, so now you can just wait for me, Navis Haddsson. That reminds me—” Alk's glum manner vanished. He turned to Mitt. “This is something you'll appreciate, Mitt. I'd been in Aberath such years that I'd forgotten what these green roads were like. Lovely level runs, you get on them—bends beautifully cambered, not a sharp curve among them—and never a steep gradient anywhere! It would only take a little tinkering and filling in, and I could lay tracks and run my steam engines all over the North!”

Maewen had been watching Navis look as put down as she had ever seen him, but this snatched her attention back. So
that
was why there were no green roads in her day! They were all railways! “So that's—” she began, and stopped herself.

But the small noise caught this huge man's attention. “And who are you, young lady?” Alk asked her.

“Noreth Onesdaughter,” she said. “You asked to see me.”

“With respect, young lady,” said Alk, “I don't think you can be.”

He was terrifyingly grim about it. Mitt and Moril gave her looks that were plain frightened. As for Navis, he looked at her, narrowed his eyes, and looked again, in a way that made Maewen feel as if she were dropping fast through the earth, leaving sun and grass and friendliness behind. “Wh-what makes you say that?” she managed to ask Alk.

“The reason I came after you all.” Alk settled himself stonily upright on his huge horse. “Four days,” he said. “Four days after Mitt set out for Adenmouth, Lady Eltruda of Adenmouth arrives in Aberath. Came herself. Asking for justice. On a charge of murder. She brought the murdered corpse with her, because the victim was her niece. Noreth of Kredindale. The girl's throat had been cut.”

“I don't believe this!” Navis burst out. His face had drained to a blue-white, except for his eyes, which were rimmed with red. “Does Eltruda—the Lady of Adenmouth—suspect that I—”

“You're on her list,” said Alk, “though I can't say she likes the idea.”

Navis sagged. There were big, deep lines on his face that had not been there a minute before. He's really fond of her! Mitt thought wonderingly. That little, loud lady. Who'd have thought it?

“It seems,” Alk continued, “they didn't find the girl's body right away because whoever did her in killed her in the stables. Then shoved her in an empty stall and piled straw over her. It was only luck they found her. I reckon the killer hoped it would be longer than that before they did.”

His eyes wandered over all four of them, bleak as stones. Mitt shivered. He had never seen Alk like this. This was Alk the lawman. Seeing it, Mitt had an inkling at least of why the Countess had married Alk. Like this, he must have frightened even the Countess.

“Lady Eltruda,” said Alk, “ought to have been a lawwoman. She did a fine job. Everyone in Adenmouth she's accounted for, and had them all prove where they were and what they were doing. She has it narrowed down to everyone who went off on Midsummer morning. You'd better believe this. I do. I suspect you all, plus”—his eyes traveled to Maewen—“you. I've seen the body. You could be her twin sister, but you're not her. She looked older.” His eyes traveled to Moril and on to Navis. “
You
told Fenna you'd sworn to follow Noreth, and
you
promised Lady Eltruda you'd look after her. But when you both went off, she was already dead.” His eyes went to Mitt and, if possible, were bleaker still. “And you came and made promises to me in Aberath, so you could get that ring for someone who wasn't Noreth. Did you know she was dead then?”

“I didn't—I didn't know. I swear—” Mitt stammered.

“Nor did I,” Moril whispered. “I was with Hestefan all—”

“
All
the time?” said Alk. “You went and talked to Fenna, up in her bedroom, and after that you were running around, no one knows where, looking for your cwidder.”

Moril wilted. Navis said nothing. Maewen put her hands to her face. The poor girl. And here was I cheerfully thinking she'd just been kidnapped. Maewen knew, too well, what Noreth's last moments had felt like. Grabbed round the throat. The knife coming round. Or maybe Noreth had been glad to see the killer and turned round smiling—oh, are you coming, too?—and then she saw the knife. Tears came rolling down her face. Poor Noreth.

“This gets us nowhere,” Alk said. “I came for justice, not playacting. And I made inquiries as I came. When Karet came back up from Gardale with the news that the Adon's cup had gone from the Lawschool, I thought, Can you believe anything that Mitt says? You stole it, didn't you?”

“No,” Navis said. “I did.”

Alk stared at him in genuine surprise. After blinking a bit, he said, “Then where is it?”

Navis answered by fetching the cup from his pocket, still wrapped in the handkerchief. Alk stared at it for a moment. He considered. Then he nodded at Maewen. “Give it to her. And you,” he said to Maewen, “take hold of it without that wrapping and tell me your name is Noreth of Kredindale. Go on.”

Maewen wretchedly took the cup and just stopped herself from wiping the tears off her face with the handkerchief. “My name is Noreth of Kredindale,” she said, “Why—”

“Quiet,” said Alk.

Maewen obediently shut her mouth. The man had a personality as huge as his body, she thought, wiping her face with her sleeve. You did what he said.

“Now say your real name,” said Alk.

“I'm Mayelbridwen Singer,” Maewen said sadly.

She was still thinking of Noreth. She saw everyone staring at the cup before it occurred to her to look at it herself. It was shining blue all over its lopsided shape. Even in the gold haze of dawn it was bright. And at the end of her long shadow, stretching away on top of her horse's longer shadow, right out across the grass and bracken, there was a blue haze where the shadow of the cup should have been. She saw Alk's followers turning to look at it.

“Marvelous!” said Alk. “Clever work! When I was a boy at the Lawschool, I heard they used it for truth telling in evidence.” For a moment, in spite of their anxiety, all four of them had an irresistible vision of Alk at grittling. His side must have won every time. Even Navis nearly smiled. “But I never saw it at work before this,” Alk said. “Now tell me another lie, young Mayelbridwen.”

Maewen's mind would not come up with a lie at first. Then her horse sidled, no doubt puzzled by the blue light on its back, and she caught a glimpse of scarlet, where Luthan was standing, patting his horse's nose and staring at the cup. She said, “I'm in love with the Earl of Dropwater.” The blue light went from the cup as if someone had turned a switch. Moril gave an unhappy chuckle.

“Now another truth,” Alk commanded.

Maewen nearly began, “I'm in love with—” but she swallowed it down and said, “Oh—er—we found the Adon's sword. It's behind my saddle.”

“Did you indeed?” said Alk as the cup lit blue again, like a small sheeny moon. “I thought no one knew where that sword really was. Well, well. Now pass the cup to the Singer-lad.” Maewen reached across and handed the cup over. As Moril's hand closed round it, the blue light went again. Alk nodded. “You say your name,” he said to Moril.

“Osfameron Tanamoril Clennensson,” said Moril. And the cup was alight and blue again. He stared at it wonderingly.

“Untruth,” commanded Alk.

“I—er—I can't play the cwidder,” Moril said. And he was holding a simple silver cup.