Siriol thought, in his customary unhurried way. “If the Palace thinks of staying at home,” he said, “we’ll hear it soon enough on the grapevine. Meanwhile, it wouldn’t do no harm to see if we couldn’t start a bit of a panic. Go round letting on that it’ll be terrible bad luck for Holand to stop the Festival, and that kind of thing.”
So the Free Holanders dropped a word here and another there. Most of them were content simply to hint at dire bad luck. But Mitt felt he could not leave things so much to chance. Whenever Hobin was not by to listen, Mitt would whisper passionately to anyone who happened to be in the workshop, of floods, fires, famines, and plagues. “And that’s just the least of what’ll happen if old Hadd’s too scared to hold the Festival,” he would conclude, and pull a dreadful face to suggest all the other unspeakable kinds of bad luck. When Milda was out shopping, she said things even more highly colored.
Four days later the rumor came back to Mitt when the arms inspectors called on their weekly visit. “Hear what they’re saying?” said one. “They say if Hadd stops the Festival, the sea rises up and spews out monsters over Holand, and all manner of ignorant nonsense.”
“Yes,” said the other. “Monsters with heads like horses and horns like bulls. I mean, I know it makes you laugh, Hobin, but you must admit it shows how much happier everyone would be to know there is going to be a Festival this year.”
Hobin was still laughing after they had gone. “Monsters!” he said. “Don’t let me catch you listening to that sort of nonsense, Mitt.”
“No fear!” said Mitt. Secretly he was awed by the way the rumor had grown.
Next day Hadd announced that the Festival would be held as usual. Hadd was no coward, and no fool either. The news Harchad’s spies brought him showed him well enough how much he was hated in Holand. He knew that to cancel the Festival might be the thing that could spark off a real revolution. So he did not cancel it. But he forbade any of his grandsons to take part in the procession. The procession, this year, was to consist of servants and merchants and their sons—all people who did not count.
The news was a great blow to Ynen. He had looked forward to the Festival for months. He had counted on hitting Hadd with a rattle. He had dreamed of himself whirling the rattle round and round under Hadd’s great pointed beak, closer and closer, and at last, bash. But now… It did not console Ynen in the least that he was allowed to come to the feast afterward. And it was the last straw to learn that his father was to be in the procession. Harl was quite content to stay in the safety of the Palace. Harchad, of course, would be busy supervising the soldiers and spies posted to keep Hadd safe. But someone in Hadd’s family had to carry Libby Beer, and Hadd chose Navis. Navis was his most expendable son. Besides, Hadd did not like Navis much.
“It’s not fair!” Ynen said to Hildy out of his disappointment. “Why is Father allowed in the procession, and not me?”
“Now you know how I feel,” Hildy said unsympathetically. Girls were never allowed in the procession at all.
When this news filtered down through devious ways to the Free Holanders, Siriol was rather pleased than otherwise. “Less chance of our Mitt being recognized,” he said.
The other safety measures were much more disturbing. In the week before the Festival, all boats were ordered to the far side of the harbor. Siriol had to move Flower of Holand to a distant mooring, where she was bumped and rubbed by six other boats crammed in round her. He grumbled furiously. He grumbled even more when, for two days before the Festival, no boats were allowed in or out of the harbor, and all were searched by soldiers every few hours. At the same time Harchad had all the tenements on the waterfront knocked down, and a large rubbly space cleared in front of the harbor. This was more serious. The street where Mitt was supposed to join the procession vanished. They had hastily to choose the next inland. Milda and Mitt were furious. They had lived in one of those tenements.
“The whole lot down, just to keep his nasty old pa safe!” said Mitt. “Talk about callous tyranny!”
“They should have come down years back,” said Hobin. “They were nothing but rats and bedbugs. And ‘callous tyranny’ is the kind of talk I’m not having.”
“But those poor people are turned out in the street!” Milda protested.
“Well, it’s cleaner there,” said Hobin. He was combing his hair and getting ready for a Guild meeting. “Anyway, to my certain knowledge, three trades have offered them room in their guildhalls, Gunsmiths included. But there’s new houses being built for them, back in the Flate.”
“The Earl’s building them houses?” Mitt asked incredulously.
“No,” said Hobin. “Would the Earl do a thing like that? No. It’s one of the sons—Navis, I think.” He put on his good jacket and went away downstairs, as far as Mitt could see, rather annoyed with Navis for stealing the Gunsmiths’ thunder.
“He’ll come back talking of Waywold,” Mitt said as the door slammed. “You see. Still, it won’t matter you going back there after tomorrow.”
“Mitt, I’m nervous!” said Milda. “All our planning!”
Mitt felt pleasantly excited, no more. “Don’t you trust me or something?” he said. “Come on. Let’s have a look at those clothes.”
Milda laughed excitedly as she fetched the red and yellow costume from its hiding place under her newest carpet. “I don’t think you know the meaning of fear, Mitt! Honest, I don’t! Here, now. See if they fit.”
It was a strange and rather ridiculous costume. The breeches, which came halfway down Mitt’s thin calves, had one yellow leg and the other red. The jacket was red and yellow in the opposite halves. Mitt was a bit thin for the jacket. But he buttoned it up and added the jaunty cap, which had a double crown like a cock’s crest. “How do I look?”
Milda was delighted. “Oh, you do look handsome! You look just like a merchant’s son!”
Mitt looked in the little mirror, all prepared to agree. He felt very fine. And he had rather a shock. He looked good, it was true. But there were things in his face one never saw in the smooth faces of wealthy boys—lines which made it look old and shrewd. It was the knowing face of the poor city boys who ran about in the streets, fending for themselves. And yet—this was the thing which shocked Mitt most—it was a babyish face, too. Under the lines there were empty curves, emptier than in any boy’s face he had ever seen, and his eyes stared as round and wide as his baby sisters’. Mitt made haste to alter it by putting on his most jokey smile. The empty cheeks puckered, and the eyes leered long and sly. Mitt flipped the crest of his cap. “Cock-a-doodle-do!” he said. “Roll on, Festival!” Then he turned away from the mirror and did not look in it again.
7
On the day of the Festival, Ham called for Hobin soon after dawn. That’s got rid of him! Mitt thought, hearing them clattering away downstairs. To tell the truth, he had not slept as well as usual. But since this was a holiday, he stayed in bed another good hour. I reckon they’ll be questioning me all tonight, he thought. I better get all the rest I can. But when Milda called him, he was very glad to jump up and put his own holiday clothes on, on top of the Festival costume. They were supposed to be spending the day at Siriol’s house. So they went there first, Milda, the two babies, and Mitt, very bulky and warm in his double set of clothes. They were not to go to the side street until word came that the procession had already left the Palace.
The procession left the Palace a little before midday. Ynen watched it from the upstairs window of a merchant’s painted house. He was crowded round with hearthmen and hearthmen’s sons, all of whom had strict instructions to keep Ynen safe. Ynen could hardly see for them. His was the first and worst position anyway. The other boy cousins were all in houses from which they could see the cleared space by the harbor. Ynen could see it only if he craned, and if he craned, someone was sure to take hold of the back of his jacket and pull him respectfully back inside.
Ynen could hardly bear it, even before the first of the procession came past. When at last he heard the thump, thump, thump of the horsehair drums, followed by the squealing of scarnels and joined finally by the groaning of cruddles, his frustration was almost boundless. Perhaps he was not very musical. It struck him as the most exciting sound in the world. Then he heard shouting. Then the lovely, lovely din of the rattles. And at last came the first of the procession, ribbons fluttering from silly hats, banging and blowing and scraping as they marched, with a beribboned bull’s head bobbing among them, and the lucky boys with rattles tearing in and out between their legs. Lucky red and yellow boys.
“Oh, why can’t all the revolutionaries drop dead!” wailed one of the hearthmen’s sons.