The Crown of Dalemark

“Who will ride the King’s Way,

the King’s Way?

Who will ride the royal road

and follow with the King?”

There was a certain amount of muddle as about half the people tried to sing “Queen” instead of “King”, but the singing was truly lusty. It seemed to affect Mitt’s head, either the singing or the queer boom of Moril’s cwidder, and his memory went a bit faulty after that. He remembered Noreth, glowing in the doorway, holding the glinting statue for everyone to see as they sang. He remembered glancing uneasily at Navis because this song was banned in the South, and finding, to his confusion, that Navis was singing with the rest. Mitt knew the song because he had been a freedom fighter, but Navis was an earl’s son, for Ammet’s sake!

Next thing he knew, he was back in Navis’s room, where Navis seemed to be persuading him to get into bed. Mitt interrupted what he was saying – he seemed to be repeating with great earnestness, “This is serious, Navis, she was serious!” – in order to protest that he didn’t need to sleep.

“Please yourself,” Navis said. “It’s only a few hours to sunrise anyway.” Mitt had a confused notion that Navis went away then, saying he had a lot of things to do, and he knew Navis did not come back until the next thing he knew, which was Navis shaking him awake in grey dawn.

“What is it now?” Mitt said.

“Time to get up,” Navis said. “You and I are going to ride the green roads with Noreth.”

“Whatever for?” protested Mitt. “I told you I—”

“Can you think of a better way to keep Hildy and Ynen safe until we get to them?” Navis asked. “You were told to join Noreth. Keril will assume you are doing what you are told. Now get up.”

Mitt got up – luckily he still seemed to be dressed – and shortly stumbled out into old food and beer smells in the hall. His bedroll was on the nearest table alongside one for Navis. Navis was just beyond, with his arms round someone, evidently kissing that person goodbye. For a moment Mitt thought it was Noreth and was outraged. Then the girl – no, woman, no, lady – stood back with her hands on Navis’s shoulders, and Mitt saw it was Lady Eltruda. He stood there in even greater outrage. How could Navis! An elderly woman. A married woman. Taking advantage of Lord Stair being a drunk!

“Take care of my girl for me, love,” Lady Eltruda said to Navis. “I trust her to you. She’s the only child I ever had.”

“I’ll look after her, I promise,” Navis said, and smiled in what Mitt thought was altogether too loving a way.

At that moment Noreth herself rushed into the hall, once more dressed as a hearthman. “Aunt, where’s my bedroll? Aunt! Oh!” she said as she saw how her aunt was occupied. She made a face at Mitt that showed that she felt much the same as he did about it. “I’d better go and look in the stable,” she said. “I don’t think I ever unpacked. Are you riding with me?”

Mitt nodded.

“Oh good!” Noreth said, and raced away outside.

PART TWO (#ulink_8a1f0c1e-1faa-5ed7-a29d-13f8ae0ede67)

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MAEWEN CAME BACK to the present with a jump. For a moment there it had seemed as if the noise of the train was not the beat of wheels on tracks, but the sound of water rilling over stones. She had almost seemed to see young leaves rustling overhead, casting a mix of sunspots and shadow on the racing water. In the confusion of glints she could have sworn there was a brighter glint, hands diving for the brightness, voices, and then the brightness taking the form of a dripping golden statuette.

Nonsense, of course. She must have dropped off to sleep while the train was rushing into this deep green cutting – such a deep one that there was no sign of the mountains beyond – and the glint had to be the gold buttons of the guard, just passing on his regular walk down the corridors. The guard smiled gravely at Maewen with his head cocked to one side. Was she all right?

Maewen managed a sort of smile, and the guard passed on. She prickled all over with embarrassment again. It was too bad of Aunt Liss. Mum would just have given Maewen a vague kiss and waved goodbye, but Aunt Liss, being the practical sister, had had to collar the guard and explain loudly and at length. “This is my niece’s first-ever train journey. She’s going all the way to Kernsburgh to visit her father and I don’t like to think of her going all that way without someone to keep an eye on her. Could you make sure she’s all right? Can I leave her in your tender care?”

And so on for five minutes, while Maewen wished she were anywhere else and hoped the other four passengers in the carriage were all deaf. As if she were ten years old instead of nearly fourteen! The worst of it was that the guard was quite young and rather good-looking. He probably did think Maewen was only ten. She was unfortunately small for her age. He listened seriously to Aunt Liss and eventually took his cap off, baring his beautiful white-fair curls, and bowed slightly.

“Thank you, madam. You can safely leave your niece to me.”

Looking back on it, Maewen wondered if the guard hadn’t been making fun of Aunt Liss, but it hadn’t seemed like that at the time, and Maewen had spent the entire space between Adenmouth and Kredindale trying to hide her hot face and squirming all over.

The silly part was that Maewen usually got on with Aunt Liss, better than with Mum. Aunt Liss was the one who cared. While Mum wandered in her studio covering her strange gawky statues with metal rags and splashes of bright colour, deaf and blind to the world, Aunt Liss made sure Maewen had meals and clothes and – most important of all to Maewen – a horse to ride. Aunt Liss earned day-to-day money by running a livery stable. When Mum sold a statue, she earned big money, but that only happened—

“Are you travelling far, young lady?” asked the passenger opposite, making her jump again. He must have got on the train at Orilsway or somewhere. She looked at him, trying to remember, and decided she must have been asleep when he got on because she had certainly not noticed him before. He was one of those wide kind of old men who are almost bell-shaped sitting down. He had a sheet of wriggly grey hair on either side of his wide, plump face. Maewen was not sure she liked the way his eyes were half hooded in fat eyelids – it made him look cunning and rather cruel – but his question had been perfectly polite, and she supposed she had better answer.

“Just to Kernsburgh.”

“Indeed?” he said. “And where did you get on?”

“Adenmouth,” said Maewen.

“From the furthest north,” said the old man, “halfway down the country to King Hern’s city of gold. That is a momentous journey, child. At one time it was the royal road to the crown of Dalemark.” He chuckled in a windy, breathy way. “And what brings you on the paths of the Undying?”

What a silly way to talk! Maewen thought. There are people who travel between Adenmouth and Kernsburgh every day of the week. “I’m going to visit my father,” she said. Up to this moment she had secretly thought this was the greatest adventure of her life, but thanks to this old man, it was suddenly ordinary and boring. “For the holidays,” she added drearily.

“Your father,” said the old man, in a breathy sort of pounce, “works away from home? In Kernsburgh? Eh?”

“Yes,” said Maewen.

“You travel to see him often?”

“No,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve been.” And she wished she could end this conversation. She did not like the old man’s voice. There was something odd about it.

“Ah, I see. He’s only just gone to work in Kernsburgh, is that it? Eh?”

“No. He’s worked there for the last seven years.” What was so odd about his voice? It almost seemed as if the sound was not coming from the old man at all but from somewhere else quite a long way away. Perhaps he was one of those people who had had surgery on his larynx and had to use a false voice box, in which case he was unfortunate and she ought to be polite to him. Maewen tried to explain without giving away her entire family history. “I haven’t seen him since I was – was a lot younger.” She really did not want to tell him her age, which he would know if she told him her parents had been divorced when she was seven.

“Now why is that?” the old man asked. “Do your parents perhaps not get on? They seem to have lived a long way apart for most of your life.”

Cheek! Maewen thought. It’s none of his business. “My mother,” she explained haughtily, “is a sculptor who prefers to work near the stone she uses. And my father is a very busy man. He’s Head Curator of the Tannoreth Palace.”

“Ah,” said the old man. She really did not like his half-hooded eyes. She looked away. “So you are truly on your way to the royal palace?” he said. He seemed very pleased. “And travelling all on your own until we met, eh? Now you can travel with me.” He leant forwards. The carriage seemed full of his wheezing breath, as if it were coming from outside into him, instead of the right way.

For one horrid moment Maewen thought he was going to pat her knee. She surged herself right to the back of her seat, but that did not seem nearly far enough away.

“I will be with you from now on,” he said, leaning at her. “Think of me as a friend.”

No! Help! Maewen thought. She looked at the other passengers. Three were asleep, and the other was deep in a book. She thought of putting her feet up and kneeling sideways out of reach of the old man’s fat hand hovering to pat her. And the guard only just went past, she thought, so it’ll be hours before he comes back again.

“Look me in the eyes,” said the old man, “and tell me you think of me as a friend.”

His face seemed to be right in front of hers, filling all she could see. Maewen shut her eyes. Let the guard come! she prayed. Let somebody help!

And here, like a miracle, the carriage door was sliding back and the guard’s solemn good-looking face was leaning round it. “Are you all right in here?”

“I … oh … yes … no … he—” Stop stammering and say he tried to pat your knee, you fool! “He—” Maewen turned to point at the seat opposite and found herself stammering again, this time with astonished embarrassment. The seat was empty. A quick look round the carriage showed her that there were only four passengers, three asleep, one reading. “But he … there was … I thought an old man … I mean—”

The guard shifted his head to look gravely at the empty seat. “I don’t think he’ll bother you again,” he said, perfectly straight-faced and polite, and he shut the door and went away.

Maewen sat back hot and squirming, worse than before. If one more thing happens with that guard, I think I shall die! She must have fallen asleep and dreamt the old man. What had possessed her to have a sinister little dream like that? Probably, deep down, she was terrified of seeing Dad again. Determined to stay awake from now on, she sat looking out at the mountains, dun-coloured shoulders, green steeps, black crags and blue jagged distances spinning past as the train thundered through the centre of North Dalemark. She thought firmly of Dad, to conquer her nerves. He had written over and over again to ask Maewen to visit him. He must really want to see her. But Mum just said irritably that she was not letting Maewen go until she was old enough to take care of herself. “Because he’s quite likely to forget you exist after half a day,” she said. “You’d starve or worse.” She went on to a tirade about how wrapped up Dad was in his work.