“He was blind in one eye,” the boy said. “He walked off the bridge.”
“I just wish mine would do that, too!” Mitt said, to make him feel better. “Mine’s a right brute.”
The boy simply stared at him. “Southerner,” he said. “You both are.” He turned his back and led Navis’s mare to the other side of the road.
Navis glanced at Mitt. “There’s a lot of prejudice,” he said. “Now cut here.” Mitt slashed away angrily. Cool, cool Navis. He had forgotten just how cool.
By the time they had cut the horse loose, the people from the farm and the town had arrived. There was a lot of typically Northern milling about and talking. The chief talker was a lad from the farm, who wanted everyone to know how quickly he had gone for help to the mansion and what the lady Eltruda had said to him. But amid all this there was unnoticed efficiency. In less than a minute many hands had heaved the neat green cart upright and Mitt was able to read the gold lettering on its side.
“Hestefan the Singer.”
“You want me?” Hestefan asked.
He was standing beside Mitt with a cwidder in one hand and a fife in the other. Mitt was embarrassed. He had only said it aloud because he still found it easier to read that way. Now he felt he had to say something. “How did you get past the landslip on the road?” he asked.
“Landslip?” said Hestefan. “What landslip?”
Mitt gave him up again and turned to Rith, who said in a worried whisper, “I think that girl, Fenna, has really hurt her head. Can you help me get her on a horse?”
The Countess-horse was at that moment demonstrating that it was not carriage-trained. They had tried to back it into the shafts of the cart, where it divided its attention between trying to take bites out of anyone near and attempts to kick the splashboard in. Mitt ran and hauled it clear. “You good-for-nothing Countess, you!” He dragged it over to the injured girl, where the Singer-boy held it while Mitt and Rith heaved Fenna into its saddle. The chattering crowd seized Rith’s horse and backed that into the cart instead. Nobody thought of using the beautiful mare that belonged to Navis. Typical of Navis, that, Mitt thought, taking the reins from the boy. The lad looked as ill as Fenna. “Want me to boost you up behind her, Moril?” Mitt asked. He had gathered the boy’s name was Moril.
Moril simply turned away and walked to the cart.
“All right. Be like that then!” Mitt said to his back. All this running about made his backside feel as if it was on fire. It got worse when he set off leading the horse into Adenmouth. Fenna had to nudge him with her foot before Mitt noticed she was trying to speak to him.
“Er—young hearthman. Sir.”
Mitt looked up. She was pale, but she was dark and pretty, and she spoke with just a trace of a Southern accent, which made him try to smile at her. “Sorry. What?”
“Don’t think too hard of Moril, sir,” Fenna said. “He loved our old horse. And I heard tell he had another horse killed by Southerners last year.”
Well, he’s no call to take it out on me! Mitt thought. But he said politely, “Heard
tell? I thought he was your brother.”
“Oh no, sir,” Fenna said. “Moril is Clennen the Singer’s son. He’ll be a great Singer himself before long.”
Rith grinned at Mitt round the nose of the Countess-horse. “These artists! You can tell what they’re like from the red hair. Sit straight, Fenna, or you’ll fall off.”
It was not far to Adenmouth, just across another bend in the Aden, which then poured noisily past low gray houses crowded at the edge of a cove. Mitt was glad. By the time they had gone up the main street to the mansion, he was not sure he could have walked another step. Their arrival caused much confusion, for a good hundred more people came out of the houses to see what was wrong and then followed them into the courtyard of the mansion, where rows of trestle tables that had been set up for the Midsummer Feast all had to be moved to make way for the cart.
Lady Eltruda was out on the hall steps, bellowing instructions in a voice like the armsmaster’s. “Navis!” she yelled. “Get that thing through to the stables! Spannet, fetch the lawman! You!” she screamed at Mitt. “You in the Aberath livery! Bring that poor girl to me!”
Before Mitt could move, Rith was dragging Fenna and the Countess-horse toward the steps, zigzagging between tables and shouting back. “Aunt! Aunt! I’m here! I got here, and I got my sign!”
At this Lady Eltruda dashed down the steps, yelling, “Noreth, my dove! Noreth!” and flung her arms round Rith.
Mitt stared. He felt terrible.
3
The confusion cleared up surprisingly quickly. Mitt was almost alone in the yard, wondering what on earth to do now, when Navis put a hand on his shoulder.
“Come to my room,” he said. “Tell me your news there.”
Funny, Mitt thought, staring slightly downward into Navis’s cool, clear-cut face. I don’t remember him being that small. Maybe I grew. “I would if I could walk,” he said.
Navis smiled a little. “It’s not far. But I can’t carry you.”