Light came on, blindingly, with a metal clapping sound.
9
Mitt did not even feel despair. He felt dead. He was caught, as he had always known he would be one of these days. He simply stood, blinking to see through the light, wondering if it was only the Countess lying in wait for him or Earl Keril as well.
The light was a dark lantern standing on the selfsame case he had intended to rob. When Mitt tore his eyes sideways from it, he could see the bilious visage of the Adon’s portrait, still on its easel. Beside that, in a big dark wood chair, Alk was sitting, bulky and blinking. Either the light had blinded him, too, or he had been asleep—asleep was most likely, because Alk yawned before he spoke.
“I told you,” he said, “not to do anything stupid until you’d talked to me. Did you shut the door?”
Mitt nodded.
“Then come over here,” said Alk.
Mitt went, still without any word to say, over several miles of violently creaking floor, until he was beside the table and the glass case, and in front of Alk’s chair. Alk put out a beefy hand and carefully closed down the iron shutter of the lantern until the library was nothing but shadows all round them.
“Now stand over there,” Alk said, pointing the other beefy hand.
Mitt moved, regretfully, away from the table and the glass case, and stood at the edge of the pool of light, beside the easel. Alk was alone, but this was no comfort. Mitt knew very well how quick and strong Alk was. Alk had put him where it was impossible for Mitt to get to the door before Alk did.
“Doing a bit of studying tonight,” Alk remarked, yawning again. “Or so I told my Countess. I had a bit of a conversation with her, like I told you I would, and I wasn’t pleased with what she had to say at all. To put it bluntly, as soon as Keril was out of the way, we had words—which is not a thing we’ve ever had before.” He blinked at Mitt, as sleepy and glum and grim as Mitt had ever seen him. “What do you think about that? You being the cause of those words.”
Mitt cleared his throat, which had somehow closed solid. “I’m sorry.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Alk. “So then I had a think. And it seemed to me that in your shoes I’d be trying ways to wriggle out of the bind they’d got you in. Am I right?”
Mitt cleared his throat again. His voice still came out hoarse and desperate. “I’m not doing any killing!”
“So I should hope!” said Alk. “But I’m glad to hear you say it. What’s she like, this Noreth?”
“Freckly,” said Mitt. “Full of life. I took her for a boy at first. She’s all right. She’s got her head screwed on more than you’d expect, considering.”
“Has she, now?” said Alk. “Then what’s she up to, riding the King’s Road with you for a follower? That doesn’t sound too clever to me. There’s more earls around than Keril and my Countess who’ll want to put a stop to that.”
“I know. Put like that, it sounds right daft.” But daft though it was, Mitt found himself defending Noreth. “She cares about people, and she’s got some good ideas. People will come to her. And she has got a claim.”
“As to that,” Alk said, “so have a lot of people got a claim. She’s saying she descends from the Adon over beside you and his second wife, Manaliabrid—right? Now I’ve been reading up again on all that.”
His big hand made a gesture, down by the lantern and the glass case it stood on. There was a spread of books there, several of them open, others with markers in. One of the markers was a shoehorn; another was a six-inch nail. Typical of Alk. Mitt would have grinned at any other time.
“My law stuff is a bit rusty after all these years,” Alk explained. Mitt was not sure he believed that. “But I’ve been finding out that even the Adon didn’t have that good a claim to be King. But he took the crown, so we’ll take it from there. Now if this Manaliabrid was who she said she was, she certainly made his claim better. She claimed to be of the Undying, daughter of Cennoreth and great-granddaughter of the One. Well, no one seemed to doubt she was, so we’ll give her that. Now she and the Adon had two children, a son and a daughter. And either these two were a great disappointment to their parents, or they weren’t any too sure of their claim either, because neither of them made the least push to rule after. The son, Almet, took the kingstone, but all he did with it was go off to the South and govern a little lordship that’s dead and gone now, somewhere near Waywold. And the daughter, Tanabrid, was quite satisfied to marry and settle down in Kredindale. After that there were marryings and intermarryings, the way there are, and Kredindale gets related to half the earls of the North. What I’m saying, Mitt, is that the claim’s rubbish. Her cousin Kintor has a better claim, and so has my Countess or that soft-faced boy in Dropwater.”
Mitt felt a bit light-headed. The last thing he had expected was for Alk to sit there talking family trees at him. He could only suppose that Alk was trying to make him feel foolish and give up the whole idea. So probably the Countess had not told him about Hildy and Ynen. “Yes, but—”
“You’re going to say she says her father was the One,” Alk interrupted. Mitt had not been, but he held his tongue. “Now there we’re into the difficult part.” Alk leaned back in his chair. It creaked horribly. “Even King Hern only claimed the One as his grandfather—which is probably just what we say when we call the One our Grand Father.” Alk tipped his face round to look at Mitt, across what had been a beautifully ruffled lawn collar but was now dirty laundry. “I’ve seen the One,” he said, to Mitt’s surprise. “Several times. Not a thing I talk about to everyone. You’d know why, if it ever happened to you. And … well … it’s like coming into a shadow all of a sudden, or the shadow coming into you. A bit like this.” Alk’s hand went out and downward across the narrow slit he had left in the shutter of the dark lantern. A huge hand-shaped darkness swept across the floor and Mitt and the wall of books beyond. Mitt shivered. “See?” said Alk. “He’s there, but not solid—but I could be wrong. And Noreth’s mother’s not alive to tell me I’m wrong, is she?”
When Earl Keril had said something like this, Mitt had not felt it mattered. Coming from Alk, it did. “But the One talks to her,” he protested. “I think I heard him. And it scares her.”
“I don’t doubt you,” said Alk. “That’s the most difficult part of the difficult part. If the One has an interest in all this, us mortal folk had best tread very wary. You don’t cross the One. I wish my Countess would see that. But that Keril’s one of your new, reasonable folk, and the Undying are just out-of-date beliefs to him. And she listens to him.” He leaned his massive arms on top of the books and pondered glumly.
After a moment Mitt said, “Were you expecting me … to come back here?” His voice was still annoyingly hoarse.
“After a fashion. It was one of the options,” Alk replied. “I was here on the off chance you’d take the option of going along with this Noreth and helping her claim. I knew I was right when that nag of yours started sounding off in the meadows. Woke me up. Probably woke the dead, too. She’s after the Adon’s gifts, isn’t she?”
Mitt’s heart sank. He felt himself sag slightly.
Alk noticed. He never missed much. “I thought so. She knows, and you know, she’s got no real claim. You were going to pinch this ring here, weren’t you?”
Mitt managed a small, throaty “yup.”