“You didn’t know,” said Hildy. “I never trust Mitt either. His ideas are all in a muddle. But if Al’s killed him, I’m going to call on Old Ammet and Libby Beer for vengeance.”
“I sincerely hope they answer you quickly,” said Navis.
But when, about an hour before sunset, Al came into the nursery with a number of the largest guards, he was as sturdy and carefree as ever and rather more pleased with himself than usual.
“Up you get, sir,” he said, “and you, guvnor. Bence is back from a little job I sent him on. The old Wheatsheaf is all ready, the tide’s right, and we’re going sailing again. It’s not what I’d have chosen, being a landsman and inclined to queasiness, but we reckoned you’d not be able to give us the slip so easy at sea.”
Navis stood up slowly. “You mean you’re taking us back to Holand.”
“Quick on the uptake, your pa,” Al remarked to Hildy. “That’s right, sir. We’re taking you and the boy, and leaving the girl here.”
“Why are you leaving my daughter?” said Navis.
Al looked at Hildy. Hildy wanted to hit him, to scream, to make a fuss in every way she could think of, but she felt she could not when her father was behaving so calmly. “Be reasonable, sir,” said Al. “She’s betrothed to Lithar. We’ve got to have a bargaining point. The money Harl offers has
got to go up, and up again, and she’ll be the reason. And if he won’t offer enough, you may find we come sailing back here with you in a day or so. Look on the bright side, sir.”
“Oh, is there a bright side?” said Navis.
“For some of us,” Al answered genially. “I’ll trouble you to step along now.”
They said good-bye stiffly. None of them wanted to say anything important with Al there. Navis and Ynen were marched out by the guards. Hildy stood by herself in the middle of the room, with her hands clenched into useless fists, watching the door close behind them. She was determined not to cry till it shut.
The door opened again. Al put his head round it. “By the by, little lady,” he said, “something tells me that Lithar may suffer a little accident on the voyage. He would come with us, you know. Then there’ll be a new Lord of the Holy Islands for you to marry.”
Hildy looked at that grinning face stuck round the edge of the door and was so angry that she shook all over. “If you mean it’ll be you,” she said, “I bet you have at least two wives already.”
Every scrap of expression went out of Al’s face. “Someone tell you their life story, did they?”
“No,” said Hildy. “I just know. You’re just that kind of man.”
“Then you better keep that idea to yourself,” said Al. The door snapped shut, and the key grated.
Hildy went on standing where she was, too miserable and frightened even to cry now. She knew she had been very, very foolish to say that to Al. But after all that had happened, it hardly seemed to matter. She thought she might as well sit down anyway.
She was just turning toward a chair, when she noticed that the door was swinging open again. Beyond, in the dark corridor, Hildy could see one of the little island women. She thought it looked like Lalla.
“Will you come out now?” asked the gentle island voice. “It is time to be leaving, if you wish to go.”
“Oh, I do wish to go!” Hildy said, and hastened out to her.
Lalla turned and walked down the passage, and Hildy walked beside her. It was so strange to be free suddenly that Hildy did not quite believe it. It felt like a dream. Dreamily she went with Lalla down some stairs and along another passage.
“Where are we going?” she asked as they came to more stairs and went down again.
“Out to the hardway. Riss is waiting there for you.”
Despite her troubles, Hildy was dreamily glad. Of the two little sailors, Riss was the one she had liked best. “Where will Riss take me?”
“To the North, if you wish to go there.” They came to the end of the stairs and out into the big stone room where Mitt had made his last attempt to convince Navis. It was empty now, rather cold, and seemed dim because there was such a blaze of evening light from the arched doorway to the courtyard. Their footsteps echoed softly from the stone. Among the echoes Hildy heard Lalla ask, “Will you be wishing to come back to the Islands again?”
Hildy thought about it, as they crossed the ringing stone floor. She would not have been surprised to find she never wanted to come here again. But she found she did. The Holy Islands had somehow taken her heart while she was sailing through them in Wind’s Road into danger. “I’d love to,” she said. “But not if Al’s here.”
“We can rid you of your enemies,” Lalla said, “if you are prepared to trust Alhammitt.”
“Mitt?” said Hildy. “Is Mitt all right?” Then she became embarrassed that Lalla knew how little she trusted Mitt and wanted to explain herself. “It isn’t what he did. It’s what he thinks and the way he’s been brought up. I mean, I know I’d probably be just the same if I’d been brought up on the waterfront, but I haven’t. And I can’t help the way I was brought up, either. I think mostly he annoys me. I suppose I annoy him. That’s it, really.”
As Hildy said this, she came to the doorway and a blaze of orange sunlight. There was a bull in the courtyard beyond. It was a huge animal, almost red in the low sun. There was power in every line of it, in each stocky leg and from its tufted tail and slim rear to its great shoulders and blunt triangular head. It seemed to be loose in the courtyard, with no one to control it. Hildy stopped short and stared at it. And the bull raised two wicked horns growing out of a mat of chestnut curls, and looked at Hildy. Hildy did not care for the look in its large red eye. She turned uncertainly to Lalla.