“And I thought you never believed it answers to the right blood!” Alk smiled slightly, his face all slabs of shadow and curves of light. He shook his head. “I wish I knew how the man who made it did it. I’ve tried all ways to catch it changing size, but I never can pin it down. And my Countess can put it on any finger and both her thumbs, and it’ll fit her. I made Gregin try it, and it fell off him. So I’ve no doubt it would fit your Noreth whatever size her hands are.”
“Small.” Mitt’s eyes went longingly to the glass case, where the ring picked up gleams of light underneath the lighted pane of glass, as if it were underwater. It looked as always very big, nearly big enough to fit one of Alk’s massive fingers. If it did not fall straight off Noreth, it would be a miracle indeed.
“But it’s a stupid way to get out of a mess,” Alk said. “And I know you’re in a mess, Mitt. Take this ring, or put a foot wrong any other way, and my Countess will have you—or Keril will. My sense is, they don’t mean you to live too long. Or maybe they mean you to spend the rest of your days as their hired murderer. My Countess wouldn’t admit to one or the other, but it has to be that.”
Mitt nodded. He had worked this out, too. He tried to imagine Alk twisting the information out of the Countess, and he just could not see it. It was like imagining one of Alk’s engines running straight up a house.
“And the only way you can keep out of that,” Alk continued, “is to stay completely lawful and not give them a handhold. If you do that, I’m on your side. Will you promise me you won’t murder or steal or anything like that?”
Alk didn’t understand. It was clearer than ever to Mitt that the Countess had not told Alk about Hildy and Ynen. “What else can I do?” Mitt said, trying to talk round it.
“Uh-uh,” said Alk. “Promise, I said.”
“I’d rather not,” Mitt said. “Something might come up.”
“Fish feathers,” said Alk. “I put it to you, you’ve done nothing outside the law yet. You went off to visit Navis Haddsson. You came back to have a chat with me.”
“I came to pinch that ring,” Mitt said, looking at it gleaming below the glass.
“But only I know that, and you’re not going to,” Alk said. “Whatever threats they made to you, I’ll stand by you if you give me that promise.”
Whatever threats? Perhaps Alk did know about Hildy and Ynen then. Mitt looked searchingly at Alk’s big shadowy face. It gave nothing away. “What can you do against Keril?” he said.
“Hold him to the law,” said Alk. “I don’t know! Everyone round here seems to have forgotten I used to be a lawman once upon a time! And the law’s the same whether you?
?re an earl or a fisherman. Are you going to give me that promise?”
“I—” Mitt was not sure he dared.
“I’ll make it easier for you,” said Alk. “You didn’t come here to steal that ring. You came here to ask me to give it you.”
“What?” It was odd how the library seemed to be a brighter, warmer, freer place all of a sudden. “You couldn’t do that,” Mitt said, trying not to laugh. “She’d notice.”
“I made a copy,” Alk said, “trying to get it to change size the same way. And I couldn’t do it. It’s just a ring. But it looks just the same. Now what d’you say?”
“I promise,” Mitt said. “You won’t know me, I’ll be so lawful.”
“That’ll be the day!” said Alk. Smiling a little, he fetched out a small key that was marking a place in another of his books and stood up to move the lantern and unlock the glass case. The dim light swept around the room, and his vast shadow blotted half the library into darkness. “Remember,” Alk said as he turned the key, “that the One has an interest in this, and don’t go forgetting you promised.”
Mitt looked at that vast shadow and shivered. “I’ll bear it in mind.”
Alk lifted the glass lid, fetched out the ring, and held it where the light from the lantern was strongest. It was a plain heavy ring, made of gold, and its only ornament was the big seal carved out of some kind of red stone into the haggard-looking profile of the Adon. Alk’s huge, deft fingers twiddled it. “Safest way to carry it is to wear it,” he said. “Put your hand out.”
Mitt spread his long, bony hands into the light. Alk tried to slip the ring on the ring finger of Mitt’s right hand. It stuck at the knuckle. “I got big lumps there on all my fingers,” Mitt said.
“You put it on then,” said Alk.
Mitt took the heavy ring and, still barely able to believe Alk was letting him have it, tried it on finger after finger. Each time it slid only as far as Mitt’s first knuckle. The only finger it would fit, and only with a struggle, was the little finger of his left hand.
“Well, at least it won’t fall off,” Alk said. “Off you go then, and give it to your Noreth. And if she wants you to do anything else unlawful, you say no. Understand? And I’ll back you up.”
“Thanks,” Mitt said. It was truly heartfelt.
He was not any too clear about much of the journey back. He scrambled back round the mansion wall. That took concentration because it meant balancing on the edge of the cliff above the sea. After that some kind of reaction hit him. Things came and went. He remembered getting onto the Countess-horse, because it tried to bite him as usual, and—dimly—going up the rake to the green road, because that took all the concentration he had left. But as soon as the horse was on the road to Orilsway and there was nowhere else it could go, Mitt was probably asleep in the saddle. He thought he dreamed that Alk had given him the Adon’s ring. It had to be a dream, he decided, waking up about a hundred yards from the camp, because it was just not probable that Alk would do a thing like that. Why had he woken up? He thought it was the Countess-horse, which had gone from a stumbling plod to a much more eager pace. No, it seemed to be because something was wrong with his left hand.
Wrong! That was an understatement. He felt as if his little finger had been clamped in one of Alk’s vises. And someone was still twisting the vise. Throb, throb, throb. Mitt could feel his finger swelling. He dropped the reins and wrenched at the ring. It would not budge. Flaming Ammet! He could have pulled his finger off sooner than moved that ring! He had to have light—help—something! He shot down from the horse and rushed toward where he thought the camp was.
Maewen sprang up. She had been half listening, not really asleep, hoping she had not got Mitt into trouble with this Countess of his. She heard mad, blundering footsteps, followed by a cracking voice swearing and then demanding, “Where is this flaming camp then? They can’t have all gone off and left me!” Maewen ran in that direction. And there was Mitt, a demented leggy figure in the near dark, racing toward the southernmost waystone, apparently wringing his hands.