The Crown of Dalemark

They went out into the hall, which was full of cooking scents and people standing about waiting for Lord Stair to arrive and start the feast. The big doors were open, blowing in a chilly wind. A lot of noise came from the yard, where everyone else in Adenmouth was gathered at the tables drinking beer until the food arrived. Mitt stood, a little lost among all these strangers.

“Oh, there you are, Mitt!” said Rith’s voice.

Mitt turned and found himself facing an elegant lady. He was utterly dismayed. The only thing that was the same about her was the longish, freckled face with its eager, cheerful look. But that was surrounded by clouds of fair, frizzy hair, done in a most fashionable style, and she had on a slender dress of grey-blue that hung in sheeny folds round a thoroughly female figure. Mitt could see now she was a lot older than he was – eighteen or twenty at least – and that was enough to make him feel a fool. But the thing that dismayed him most was the fact that Noreth was alive, utterly alive, and warm, and a person.

“Come on!” said Noreth. “Where’s your tongue?”

“Er,” said Mitt. “Your ladyship—”

“I told you,” she said, “to call me Rith.”

“Yes,” said Mitt, “but … what were you doing, letting on you were a boy?”

“I always travel like that,” Noreth said. “It’s far quicker and safer than a carriage, and I don’t need to bother to take a guard. My cousin lends me the livery. And I can use the weapons too. You learn to, during grittling. But listen—” To Mitt’s consternation, Noreth reached out and took hold of both his hands. Her hands were strong and warm, but so small they made Mitt’s feel like great cold paws. “I’m very nervous,” she said. She was. Mitt could feel her hands trembling. “There’s something I have to do. Do you know how it feels to do something that means your life will never be the same again?”

“Don’t I just!” Mitt said. He sensed that Navis had come up behind him and was watching Noreth coolly. That reminded him that he had to ask for his share in the statue, but he was too confused to know how to put it.

“I had a feeling you did,” said Noreth. “Listen, could you—” There was a bustle up on the dais. Someone was calling for lamps to be lighted. Noreth looked round. “Oh, here comes my uncle,” she said. “Drunk as usual. I must go. If you could just bear witness about that statue when the time comes?”

“Sure,” said Mitt, “but—”

Noreth let go of him and hurried away. Everyone was surging towards the long tables to sit down. Navis beckoned Mitt to a place beside him, just below the important table on the dais. Mitt found there were advantages to being sent to Adenmouth after all. At Aberath he would have been waiting at the tables with the other boys. Here he was a guest, and he could sit and let boys wait on him. He settled down to enjoy himself. The food was good, though Mitt found he did not much care for the traditional Midsummer sausage. Like so much of the food in the North, it seemed to be mostly oatmeal. But there was venison and pork and chicken and beef as well, oyster patties and plum-and-mutton pies, strawberries, raspberries with syllabub, and sweet soda bread. Ale and spirits were passed round the whole time. The sound of voices became a cheerful roar that almost drowned the even greater din from the yard outside. Mitt ate hugely and became very friendly with the hearthmen at his table. There were a great many jokes about vinegar.

Lord Stair was indeed drunk. It was impossible not to notice. He was a large, sallow man, and he sat sprawling in his chair, eating very little and shouting for more drink. Every so often he complained loudly about the food. Nobody took much notice. If people needed to have orders about anything, they asked Lady Eltruda. It looked as if Lady Eltruda, short and fat and loud as she was, had the same power here that the Countess had in Aberath.

“Indeed she does,” Navis told Mitt. “I owe my position here to Eltruda. I imagine Noreth does too.”

Lady Eltruda was obviously very fond of Noreth. She kept smiling at her proudly.

The feast drew to a close in sweet cream cheeses and sugared fruit, which Mitt was too full to touch. Lord Stair began to get impatient. His voice roared something about “those idle flaming Singers!” and there were terrific clatterings and scrapings from the yard, where the tables were being moved aside. Hestefan got up from a table near the end of the hall and went to stand in the great doorway. With him, to Mitt’s surprise, came Fenna and Moril.

Navis frowned. “I don’t think that girl should be here. Nor the boy. They both look ill to me. But I suppose they have to earn their keep.”

His voice was nearly drowned in cheering and clapping. Nobody else cared two hoots how the Singers felt, for there was going to be dancing. Tables were pushed aside in the hall too. Hestefan slung a narrow drum round his neck, looked to see if Fenna was ready on the portable organ and that Moril had tuned his cwidder, and struck up a strenuous jig. Outside and inside, everyone grabbed a partner and danced.

The dancing went on and on. Mitt at first leant against a table, feeling a little out of things and watching Navis being whirled about by Lady Eltruda. But at the next tune he was grabbed by a young lady in scarlet ribbons, and from then on he danced with the rest. The hall whirled around him, hot and riotous. He kept catching glimpses of Navis dancing with Lady Eltruda, which bothered him slightly, since Lord Stair simply sprawled in a chair and went on drinking. But once or twice he saw Navis dancing with Noreth, in a very courtly way. Mitt would not have dared to dance with Noreth himself. He knew absolutely none of the dances. The young ladies squealed with laughter and pushed him into the right places, and he kept going wrong. Every time his desperate, ignorant caperings got him into a real mess, he seemed to catch the eye of Moril, tirelessly playing his cwidder in the doorway, and there was malicious amusement in Moril’s look. It began to annoy Mitt.

It took Mitt unawares when the Singers suddenly changed to a slow, haunting tune and everyone stopped dancing. For a moment Mitt was the only one capering. Moril grinned. “What’s this tune, then?” Mitt gasped.

“Undying at Midsummer, of course,” said the girl in scarlet ribbons. “It’s nearly midnight.”

Around him dancing partners were breaking apart and the servers were going round with bottles of rare white wine, Southern wine, to welcome midnight with. Someone put three mugs of it down on the steps for the Singers.

Navis bent over his mug, sniffing deeply. “Now this I have missed,” he said to Mitt. “Grapes don’t ripen this far North.”

They exchanged a little smile of pride in the South, even though it had turned them both out. Mitt said wonderingly, “That can’t be the only thing you miss!”

“I think it is,” said Navis. “Life’s never dull up here.” Saying this, he thrust his mug into Mitt’s free hand and dived towards the doorway. He was just in time to catch Fenna as she dropped the heavy organ and passed out. Everybody stared in shock as Navis turned to Hestefan with Fenna draped over his arms. “What were you thinking of, letting this girl play tonight? Couldn’t you see she was ill?”

Hestefan gave him a slow, worried look. “She swore she was well, sir, and we needed her part on the organ. I thank you for catching her so quickly.”

Navis looked at Moril. “And you? Are you quite well?”

Moril’s face did not have much expression, but Mitt could tell that he would not have admitted it to Navis even if he had been playing with all ten fingers broken. “Perfectly, thank you,” Moril said.

Here Lady Eltruda raised her voice. Two women came and took Fenna quickly away. Someone shoved the heavy little organ to the side of the doorway. It was almost midnight. A running crowd of men and women were carrying every lamp and candle in the place and putting them down on the ground in two long lines leading from the gates of the yard, through the yard, up the steps and into a circle in the middle of the hall. It was good luck to place a candle, so everyone fought for the honour except for Lord Stair – and Mitt and Navis, who did not know the custom.

“Let in the Undying!” everyone shouted as the last candle was put in place.

Silence fell, expectantly. From the yard came a strong grating sound as the two big gates were pushed open. At Hestefan’s nod, Moril again played the slow, haunting chords of Undying at Midsummer. To Mitt’s ears he seemed to be playing now in an odd, different way. At any rate, there was a queer humming building under the notes. A damp breeze blew in from the yard, where it was probably raining again, bending all the candle flames. A great wavering shadow advanced across the floor and grew up the wall beyond.

Flaming Ammet! Mitt thought, with shivers spreading up his back. I think something really is coming in!

But the shadow shortened and fell, and Mitt saw it had been caused by Hestefan advancing up the lane of lights, carrying a small treble cwidder. When Hestefan reached the circle of lights, he turned round and called out, “Welcome the Undying to this house, for this night and the coming year!” Then he played the same slow tune on his cwidder. Mitt wondered why it sounded so much more ordinary now.

A growl of voices welcomed the Undying too. The custom seemed to be to tip your mug and let a few drops of wine splash on the floor. Navis looked at Mitt. Mitt shrugged. And they both spilt some wine as well, with a private murmur to Libby Beer. After that the feast broke up into groups loudly wishing one another luck for the year. It looked for a minute or so as if things were nearly over.

But suddenly everyone was shouting, “Noreth! Noreth! Noreth, has your sign come?” as Noreth came to stand in the circle of candles beside Hestefan. She was carrying the golden statue, and she held it up for everyone to see.

“Here is my sign,” she called out.

Navis murmured to Mitt, “You can say goodbye to your half of it, I think.” A number of people were cheering, although Lord Stair was saying loudly in the distance, “Is that girl up to her nonsense again?”

“Hush!” someone said.

Noreth called out again. “Will my uncle’s lawman please come and stand by me? I wish to make a statement in the proper form of law.”

There was a lot of grumbling from the back. One of the men who had been at the high table, rather unsteady on his feet and very embarrassed, came and joined Noreth. She left the circle of light and walked down the lane of candles with him to the door. “I want everyone to hear,” she explained to the lawman as they came past Mitt. “Tell me if I say anything wrong.” Mitt could feel her shaking with the importance of what she was going to do. It made his stomach give a cold jerk.

“You know ash mush law ash me,” the lawman complained, but he went and stood by Noreth as she took up a position in the doorway where she could speak to the people outside as well as those in the hall. The two of them pushed Moril right back to the side of the door. Mitt could see him there, looking awed.

Noreth said, loudly and slowly, “I, Noreth of Kredindale, do this night state and affirm that I am the rightful Queen and heir to the crown of Dalemark, over both North and South and the peoples of both.”

It really is true, Mitt thought sadly. The lawman leant across and murmured to Noreth.

“Oh yes. Thanks,” said Noreth. “And over all earldoms and marks therein, not excluding the earls of those marks and the lords under them. This claim I make through my mother, Eleth of Kredindale, descendant in direct line from Manaliabrid of the Undying, and also by right of my father, the One, whose true names are not to be spoken, and from whom all Kings descend. In proof of this my right, my father promised me a token at Midsummer this year, and this promise he kept. This is the token.” She held the golden statue up over the nearest lamps so that it could be seen. “Who witnesses,” she called out, “that the River Aden today gave me this golden image of my father, the One?”

Mitt jumped and looked round for somewhere to hide. But Noreth turned and looked at him as she spoke. He sighed and pushed his way to the doorway. “If I’d known what you meant when you asked,” he said, “I’d have gone straight back to Aberath.”

The lawman said, “Do you witnesh thish?” and swayed a little.

“Sure,” Mitt said bitterly. If Keril and the Countess had arranged personally for the landslip, they could hardly have pushed him into this any deeper. “I trod on the statue halfway across the brook. She picked it up. That do?”

Noreth replied with an eager, flustered smile. Her hands were still shaking as she held up the statue. She was truly nervous. She was not doing this because she was mad but because she saw it as her duty, as perhaps it was. Mitt felt himself bound to give her a smile in return before he edged away. Beyond Noreth he could see the Singer-lad staring at him resentfully. Now what does he think I’ve done? Mitt thought irritably.

“I call on you all,” Noreth said, “to support me in my right. Today at dawn, it being Midsummer Day, I go to ride the green roads until I come to where the crown is hidden, and there I shall be crowned Queen. Let whoever wishes to ride with me and support my claim meet me at the waystone above the quarry at sunrise today.”

There was another silence, which was followed by a surge of murmurs, half doubtful, half enthusiastic. Navis whispered to Mitt, “Well, there seems only one thing we can do now.” Mitt nodded, but his attention was on Moril in the doorway. He could almost feel the boy making some kind of decision. Sure enough, Moril put his hands to his cwidder and struck up the tune called The King’s Way. Hestefan looked surprised but took the tune up on his cwidder too, and walked between the two lines of guttering candles to join Moril. Moril, leaning over, plucked once again in the odd and different way. The humming gathered and gathered behind the tune, until it had become more than simply a rousing song. Mitt could quite clearly feel a serious purpose booming behind the notes. Everyone sang: