Copyright

First published in Great Britain by Macmillan London Ltd in 1975

This edition published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2016

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, 1 London Bridge Street,

London, SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Diana Wynne Jones 1975

Map illustration © Sally Taylor 2016

Cover artwork © Manuel Šumberac

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2016

Diana Wynne Jones asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008170622

Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780008170639

Version: 2016-10-21

For Rachel

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map of North and South Dalemark

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

A Guide to Dalemark

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Books by Diana Wynne Jones

About the Publisher

Map of North and South Dalemark

“DO COME OUT of that dream, Moril,” Lenina said.

“Glad rags, Moril,” said Brid. “We’re nearly in Derent.”

Moril sighed reproachfully. He had not been in a dream, and he felt it was unfair of his mother to call it that. He had merely been gazing at the white road as it wandered northwards, thinking how glad he was to be going that way again, and how glad he would be to get out of the South. It was spring, and it was already far too hot. But that was not the worst of the South. The worst, to Moril’s mind, was the need to be careful. You dared not put a foot, or a word, out of place for fear of being clapped in jail. People were watching all the time to report what you said. It gave Moril the creeps. And it irked him that there were songs his father dared not sing in the South for fear of sounding seditious. They were the best songs, too, to Moril’s mind. They all came from the North. Moril himself had been born in the North, in the earldom of Hannart. And his favourite hero, the Adon, had once upon a time been Earl of Hannart.

“You’re dreaming again!” Lenina said sharply.

“No, I’m not,” said Moril. He left his perch behind the driving seat and climbed hastily into the covered back of the cart. His mother and his sister were already changed into their cheap tinsel-trimmed show dresses. Lenina, who was pale and blonde and still very beautiful, was in silver and pale gold. Brid, who was darker and browner, had a glimmering peacock dress. Lenina hung Moril’s suit above the rack of musical instruments, and Moril squeezed up to that end to change, very careful not to bang a cwidder or scrape the hand organ. Each instrument was shiny with use and gleaming with care. Each had its special place. Everything in the cart did. Clennen insisted on it. He said that life in a small cart would otherwise become impossible.

Once Moril was changed, he emerged from the cart as a very flamboyant figure, for his suit was the same peacock as Brid’s dress and his hair was red – a bright, wild red. He had inherited Lenina’s paleness. His face was white, with a few red freckles.

“You know, Mother,” Brid said, as she had said before every show since they left Holand, “I don’t think I like that colour on Moril.”

“It makes people notice him,” said Lenina, and went to take the reins while Clennen and Dagner changed in their turn.

Moril went to walk in the damp springing grass on the roadside, which was rough-soft under his toes, where he could have a good view of the cart that was his home. It was painted in a number of noticeable colours, principally pink and gold. Picked out in gold and sky blue along the sides were the words Clennen the Singer. Moril knew it was garish, but he loved this cart all the same. It moved softly, because it was well sprung and well oiled, and ran easily behind Olob, the glistening brown horse. Clennen always said he would not part with Olob for an earldom. Olob – his real name was Barangarolob, because Clennen loved long names – was harnessed in pink and scarlet, with a great deal of polished brass, and looked as magnificent as the rest of the turnout. Moril was just thinking that his mother and Brid on the driving seat looked like two queens – or perhaps a queen and a princess – when Clennen stuck his head out of the canvas at the back.

“Admiring us, are you?” he called cheerfully. Moril smiled and nodded. “It’s like life,” Clennen said. “You may wonder what goes on inside, but what matters is the look of it and the kind of performance we give. Remember that.” His head popped back inside again.

Moril went on smiling. His father was always giving them odd thoughts to remember. He would probably want this one repeated to him in a day or so. Moril thought about it – in the dreamy way in which he usually gave his attention to anything – and he could not see that their turnout was like life. Life was not pink and gold. At least, some of theirs was, he supposed, but that was only saying the cart was life.

He was still pondering when they came under some big trees covered with pale buds, and the canvas cover went down with a bit of a clatter, revealing Clennen and Dagner dressed in scarlet and ready for the show. Moril scampered back and climbed up with them. Clennen smiled jovially. Dagner, whose face was tight and pinched, as it always was before a show, pushed Moril’s cwidder into his hands and Moril into the right place without a word. He handed the big old cwidder to Clennen and the panhorn to Brid, and took up a pipe and a long, thin drum himself. By the time they were all settled, Olob was clopping smoothly into the main square of Derent.

“Ready,” said Clennen. “Two, three.” And they struck up.

Derent was not a big place. The number of people who came into the square in response to their opening song was not encouraging. There was a trickle of children and ten adults at the most. True, the people sitting outside the tavern turned their chairs round to get a better view, but Moril had a vague feeling, all the same, that they were wasting their talents on Derent. He said so to Brid, while Lenina was reaching past him to receive the hand organ from Dagner.

“All your feelings are vague!” Lenina said, overhearing. “Be quiet.”

Undaunted by the sparse crowd, Clennen began his usual patter. “Ladies and gentlemen, come and listen! I am Clennen the Singer, on my way from Holand to the North. I bring you news, views, songs and tales, things old and things new. Roll up, draw up chairs, come near and listen!” Clennen had a fine rolling voice, speaking or singing. It rumbled round the square. Eyes were drawn to him, for his presence matched his voice. He was a big man, and not a thin one, though the scarlet suit made his paunch look bigger than it really was. He had a good sharp curl of ginger beard, which made up for the bald patch at the back of his head – now hidden by his scarlet hat. But the main thing about him was his enormous, jovial, total good humour. It seemed to fetch people by magic or multiply those there out of thin air. Before his speech was over, there were forty or fifty people listening to it.

“So there!” Brid said to Moril.

Before the performance could start, however, someone pushed up to the cart, calling, “Have you got any news from Holand, Clennen?” So they had to wait. They were used to this. Moril thought of it as part of the performance – and it certainly seemed to be one of their duties – to bring news from one part of Dalemark to the others. In the South particularly, there were few other ways in which people could get to know what was happening in the next lordship, let alone the next earldom.

“Now, let’s see,” said Clennen. “There’s been a new earl invested for the South Dales – the old one’s grandson. And they tell me Hadd has fallen out with Henda again.” This surprised nobody. They were two very quarrelsome earls. “And I hear,” said Clennen, stressing the hear, to show that he was not trying to stir up trouble, “I hear the cause of it had something to do with a shipload of Northmen that came into harbour at Holand last month.” This caused confused and careful muttering. Nobody knew what to make of a ship from the North coming into Holand, or whether they were breaking the law to think of it at all. Clennen passed on to other news. “The Earl of Waywold is making new money – copper and goodness knows what else in it – worth nothing. You get more than two thousand to one gold. Now the price on the Porter – you’ve all heard of the Porter, I suppose?” Everyone had. The Porter was a notorious spy, much wanted by the earls of the South for passing illegal information and stirring up discontent. Not one of the earls had been able to catch him. “The price on the Porter’s head now being two thousand gold,” said Clennen, “it’s to be hoped that he’s not taken in Waywold, or you’ll have to collect your reward in a wagon.” This caused some cautious laughter. “And the storm last month carried off the lord’s roof in Bradbrook, not to speak of my tent,” said Clennen.

Lenina, by this time, had sorted out the strips of paper on which she had written messages from people in other places to friends and relatives in Derent. She began calling them out. “Is there someone called Coran here? I’ve a message from his uncle at Pennet.” A red-faced young man pushed forwards. He confessed, as if he were ashamed of it, that he could read, and was handed the paper. “Is there a Granny Ben here?”

“She’s sick, but I’ll tell her,” someone called.

So it went on. Lenina handed out messages to those who could read, and read them out to those who could not. More people hurried into the square, hearing there was news. Shortly there was a fair throng of people, all in great good humour, all telling one another the latest news from Holand.

Then Clennen called out: “Now I’m putting my hat on the ground here. If you want a song of us too, do us the favour of filling it with silver.” The scarlet hat spun neatly on to the cobblestones and waited, looking empty and expectant. Clennen waited too, with rather the same look. And after a second the red-faced Coran, grateful for his message, tossed a silver coin into it. Another followed, and another. Lenina, watching expertly, muttered to Brid that it looked like good takings.

After that the performance began in earnest. Moril did not have much time even for vague thinking. Though he did not do much of the singing, his job was to play treble to the low sweet notes of his father’s big cwidder, and he was kept fairly busy. His fingers grew hot and tingly, and he leant over and blew on them to cool them as he played. Clennen, as he had promised the crowd, gave them old favourites and new favourites – ballads, love songs, and comic songs – and some songs that were entirely new. Several of these were his own. Clennen was a great maker of songs. Brid and Dagner joined him for some of them, or played panhorn, drum and third cwidder, and Lenina played stolidly on the hand organ. She played well – since Clennen had taught her – but always rather mechanically, as if her mind were elsewhere. And Moril fingered away busily, his left hand sliding up and down the long, inlaid arm of his cwidder, his right thrumming on the strings until his fingertips glowed.

Every so often Clennen would pause and send a cheerfully reproachful look towards his hat. This usually caused a hand to come out from the crowd and drop a small, shamed coin in with the others. Then Clennen would beam round at everyone and go on again. When the hat was more than half full, he said: “Now I think the time has come for some of the songs out of our past. As you may know, the history of Dalemark is full of fine singers, but, to my mind, there have never been two to compare with the Adon and Osfameron. Neither has ever been equalled. But Osfameron was an ancestor of mine. I happen to be descended from him in a direct line, father to son. And it was said of Osfameron that he could charm the rocks from the mountains, the dead from their sleep and the gold from men’s purses.” Here a slight raising of Clennen’s sandy eyebrows in the direction of the hat called forth an apologetic penny and a ripple of laughter from everyone. “So, ladies and gentlemen,” said Clennen, “I shall now sing four songs by Osfameron.”

Moril sighed and leant his cwidder carefully against the side of the cart. The old songs only needed the big cwidder, so he could have a rest. In spite of this, he wished his father would not sing them. Moril much preferred the new, full-bodied music. The old required a fingering which made even the big mellow cwidder sound cracked and thin, and Clennen seemed to find it necessary to change his deep singing voice until it became thin, high and peculiar. As for the words – Moril listened to the first song and wondered what Osfameron had been on about.

“The Adon’s hall was open. Through it

Swallows darted. The soul flies through life.

Osfameron in his mind’s eye knew it.

The bird’s life is not the man’s life.”

But the crowd appreciated it. Moril heard someone say: “I do like to hear the old songs done in the right way.” And when they were over, there was a round of applause and a few more coins.

Then Dagner, with his face more tight and pinched than ever, took up his cwidder. Clennen said, “I now introduce my eldest son, Dastgandlen Handagner.” This was Dagner’s full name. Clennen loved long names. “He will sing you some of his own songs,” said Clennen, and waved Dagner forwards into the centre of the cart. Dagner, with a grimace of pure nervousness, bowed to the crowd and began to sing. Moril could never understand why this part was such a torment to Dagner. He knew his brother would have died rather than miss his part in the performance, yet he was never happy until it was over. Perhaps it was because Dagner had made the songs himself.

They were strange, moody little songs, with odd rhythms. Dagner made them even odder, by singing now loud, now soft, for no real reason, unless it was nerves. And they had a haunting something. The tunes stuck in your head and you hummed them when you thought you had long forgotten them. Moril listened and watched, and envied Dagner this gift of making songs. He would have given – well – his toes, anyway, to be able to compose anything.

“The colour in your head

The colour in your mind

Is dead

If you follow it blind,”

Dagner sang, and the crowd grew to like it. Dagner was not remarkable to look at – he was thin and sandy-haired, with a large Adam’s apple – and people expected his songs to be unremarkable too. But when he finished, there was applause and some more coins. Dagner flushed pale purple with pleasure and was almost at ease for the rest of the show.

There was not much more. The whole family sang a few more songs together and wound up with Jolly Holanders. They always finished with that in the South, and the audience always joined in. Then it was a matter of putting away the instruments and replying to the things people came up to say.

This was always rather a confused time. There were the usual number of people who seemed to know Clennen well; the usual giggly girls who wanted Dagner to tell them how he composed songs, a thing Dagner could never explain and always tried to do; the usual kind people who told Moril he was quite a musician for a youngster; and the usual gentlemen who drifted up to Lenina and Brid and tried to murmur sweet nothings to them. Clennen was always very quick to notice these gentlemen, particularly those who approached Brid. Poor Brid looked older than she was in her show clothes – she was really only just thirteen – and she did not know how to deal with murmuring gentlemen at all.

“Well, you see, my father taught me,” Moril explained.

“They come into my head like – er – ideas,” Dagner explained.

“It is Lenina, isn’t it?” murmured a gentleman at the head of the cart.

“It is,” said Lenina.

“I didn’t quite hear what you said,” Brid said rather desperately to another gentleman.

“I don’t go to Hannart. I had a little disagreement with the Earl,” said Clennen. He swung round and, with one comprehensive look, disposed of the man Brid could not hear and also the one who thought Lenina was herself. “But I’m going through Dropwater and beyond,” he continued, turning back to his friends.

Lenina had collected the money and was counting it. “Good,” she said. “We can stay at the inn here. I fancy a roof over my head.”

Moril and Brid fancied it too. It was the height of luxury. There would be feather beds, a proper bath and real food cooked indoors. Brid licked her lips and gave Moril a delighted grin. Moril smiled back in his milky, sleepy way.

“No. No time,” said Clennen, when at last he was free to be asked. “We have to press on. We’re picking up a passenger on the road.”

Lenina said nothing. It was not her way. While Brid, Moril and even Dagner protested, she simply picked up the reins and encouraged Olob to move.

“WHERE ARE WE picking up the passenger?” Brid enquired when they were three miles or so beyond Derent and her discontent had worn off somewhat. She was back in her everyday blue check and looked rather younger than she was.

“Couple of miles on. I’ll tell you where,” Clennen said to Dagner, who was driving.

“Going North, is he?” Dagner said.

“That’s right,” said Clennen.

Moril, in the ordinary rust-coloured clothes he preferred, and in which, to Brid’s mind, he looked a great deal nicer, trotted along beside the cart and hoped vaguely that the passenger would be agreeable. They had taken a woman last year who had driven him nearly crazy with boredom. She had known a hundred little boys, and they were all better than Moril in some way, and she had at least two long stories about each boy to prove it. They took someone most years, going North. Since North and South had begun their long disagreement, very little traffic went between. Those who had no horse – and to walk meant the risk of being taken up as a vagrant and clapped into jail – had to rely on such people as the licensed singers to take them as paying passengers.

The disagreement had begun so far in the past that not many people knew its cause: the North had one version, the South another. But it was certain that three kings of Dalemark had died, one after another, without leaving a proper heir to the throne. And almost every earl in the land had some kind of claim to be king. Even before the last king ruled from Hannart in the North, there had been quarrels and wars, and the country showed signs of breaking up into two. And when the Adon, who was the last king, died, his heirs were not to be found. Civil war began in earnest.

Since then the only rulers of Dalemark had been the earls, each in his own earldom, with the lords under them. No one now wanted a king. Keril, the present Earl of Hannart, said publicly that he had no claim to the throne. But the disagreement ran deeper than ever. The men of the North claimed that half the land was enslaved, and the earls of the South said the North was plotting against them. The year Brid was born, Keril, Earl of Hannart, had been proclaimed a public enemy by every earl and lord in the South. After that the only people who dared travel between were accredited traders and licensed singers, and they had to prove that their business was harmless or they might be arrested anywhere in the South.

Moril had met some of the traders and quite a few of the singers. Clennen did not speak highly of any of them, except perhaps the singer Hestefan, whom Moril had not met. But Moril had never heard any of them complain of having to take passengers. He thought they must all be very patient people.

“What about payment?” asked Lenina.

“You wait and see,” said Clennen, with a laugh.

“That’s all very well,” said Brid, returning to her discontent. “But why do we always have to take someone? Why can’t the stupid North make friends with the silly South?”

“You tell me,” said Clennen. And after Brid had stammered for a minute, he laughed and said, “Would you make friends with someone you knew would stab you in the back if he got the chance? Remember that. Mind you, there was a time when the South was as free a place as the North. Remember that too.”

This was a bold thing to say in the South. The last rebellion had been stamped out very harshly indeed, and the strict laws were still in force. You did not say anything that suggested you were discontented with the ways of the South. The countryside was known to be full of spies and informers, watching and listening to give warning of rebellious thoughts.

That was why, when Clennen spoke of North, South and freedom in the same breath, Moril saw Lenina look round the hedges to make sure no one was listening. He found himself doing the same.

But the hedges, though the leaves were already dusty, were still thin enough to see through. Nothing moved in them but birds. The only people they saw, for the next mile or so, were in the distance, planting vines on a hillside, until they came to where a road branched off to another vineyard. There, on the triangle made by the turning, a man was waiting. At his feet he had a huge round bottle half encased in a straw basket. He waved, and Dagner drew up. Olob turned his head and looked at the huge bottle with evident misgiving.

“Evening, Flind,” said Clennen. “Is that our payment there, by your feet?” The man nodded. He seemed disinclined to smile, though Clennen smiled broadly at him. “I hoped it was,” said Clennen. “Where’s the passenger?”

Flind jerked a thumb. The passenger, probably in an attempt to keep out of the sun, was sitting behind the bottle in its shadow. He looked very hot, very untidy, rather discontented and rather younger than Dagner.

“Help him into the cart,” Clennen said to Moril.

Moril did his best, but the passenger shook off his helping hand. “I can get in by myself,” he said, “I’m not a cripple.” He climbed in very nimbly and sat on the floor. The canvas cover was half up, and he seemed glad of its shade. Moril looked vaguely after him and hoped it was the heat that made him feel so disagreeable. He knew from bitter experience that someone around Dagner’s age could make life very unpleasant if he was steadily disagreeable for some hundreds of miles. This could be worse than the woman last year. He looked at Brid, who made her squeezed-lemon face back.

Clennen and Flind, meanwhile, were heaving the huge jar through the tailgate of the cart. It took a good deal of effort, and a lot of space once it was in. Olob almost laid his head backwards over his shoulders in an attempt to show his strong disapproval of it.

“Are you really taking our payment in wine?” said Lenina.

“Can you think of a better one?” said Clennen. “My dear girl, there’s only beer to drink in the North! Count your blessings. We’ll broach it this evening, shall we? Or would you rather wait until we’re going through Markind?”

“Oh – this evening,” said Lenina, smiling a little.

Clennen latched the tailgate, waved to Flind, and they went on. Olob made a very expressive business of getting the cart under way again. Brid was quite sorry for him, straining in front of all that extra weight, but everyone else knew that the cart was so well sprung and greased that Olob could hardly feel the difference. Dagner made no bones about flicking him with the whip.

“What a lazy horse!” exclaimed the passenger.

“They’re often the wisest ones,” said Clennen.

The passenger, realising he had been snubbed, put his chin on his knees and sighed gustily. Brid and Moril took turns at eyeing him through the gap in the tailgate. He was burlier than Dagner, though he was younger, and much the same height. But he was more remarkable-looking, because he was a queer combination of dark and fair. His hair was tawny-fair, and there was a lot of it, like a lion’s mane, only rather more untidy, and his eyes were a pale blue-green. But his eyebrows were thick and black and his skin very brown. His nose put them in mind of an eagle. He still had that fed-up look, which they decided must be due to more than the heat.

“Perhaps his grandfather’s dying, and they sent for him, and he doesn’t want to go,” Brid speculated. Moril was content to leave it vague. He simply hoped the passenger would not vent his annoyance on them.

A mile or so further on Clennen said: “We haven’t got your name, lad. There’s a lot in a name, I always think. What is it?”

“It’s Kialan,” said the passenger. “With a K.”

“Even with a K, it’s not half long enough for me,” said Clennen.

“Well, what do you expect me to say? It’s really my name!” the passenger protested.

“I like longer names,” Clennen explained. “Clennen’s too short for me too. Lenina – my wife’s name – is too short. But my children all have good spreading names, because I could choose them myself. The lad driving is Dastgandlen Handagner, my daughter is Cennoreth Manaliabrid, and the one with the red hair is Osfameron Tanamoril.”

Moril ground his teeth and waited for the passenger to laugh. But, in fact, he looked rather awed. “Oh,” he said. “Er, do you call them all that when you want to speak to them?”

“And the lazy-wise horse is Barangarolob,” Clennen added, perfectly seriously, as if he were simply anxious for Kialan to know. Dagner gave a little whinny of laughter, which might have come from Olob. Kialan looked piteous.

“Take no notice,” said Lenina. “They’re Dagner, Brid and Moril for short. And the horse is Olob.”

Kialan looked relieved. He gave another gusty sigh or so and took off his coat. He must have been hot in it, because it was a thick coat, of good cloth. Brid whispered that it must be his best one, but Moril had lost interest in Kialan by then and did not care. Kialan folded the coat – not as carefully as such a good garment deserved – and used it as a pillow while he pretended to go to sleep. Brid knew he was only pretending, because he started up every time any travellers passed them and looked through the opening of the cover to see who they were.

There was not much traffic on the road. Mostly it was slow wagons, which Olob trotted past without any difficulty, sending spurts of white grit from beneath the cartwheels, until Moril, trotting in the rear, seemed to have hair the same colour as Clennen’s. But there were a few horsemen, and these overtook Olob as easily as Olob overtook the wagons. Once, quite a group of riders came past, raising a whirl of white dust, and were scanned by Kialan with great interest. One of the group seemed equally interested in them. He craned round in his saddle as he passed to get a good look at the cart.

“Who was that fellow?” Clennen said to Lenina.

“I couldn’t say,” she answered.

“Funny,” said Clennen, “I seem to have seen him before.” But since the man was a perfectly neutral-looking person, neither dark nor fair and neither young nor old, Clennen could not place him and gave up the attempt.

Shortly after that, as the sun was getting low, Olob left the road of his own accord and jolted the cart among gorse bushes into a heathy meadow. He stopped near a stream.

“Olob thinks this’ll do,” Dagner said to Clennen. “Will it?”

“You don’t really let your horse choose where to stop!” Kialan exclaimed.

“He doesn’t often let us down,” said Clennen, surveying the meadow. “Yes, very nice. Horses have a gift for stopping, Kialan. Remember that.”

The fed-up look settled on Kialan’s face, and he watched, a little scornfully, while Dagner unharnessed Olob and led him off to drink. He watched Moril wiping the dust off the cart and Brid collecting firewood.

“Don’t offer to help, will you?” Brid muttered in his direction.

While Lenina was cooking supper, Clennen fetched the big cwidder down, polished it, tuned it carefully and beckoned Moril. Moril came reluctantly. He was rather in awe of the big cwidder. Its shining round belly was even more imposing than Clennen’s. The inlaid patterns on the front and arm, made of pearl and ivory and various coloured woods, puzzled him by their strangeness. And its voice when you played it was so surprisingly sweet and quite unlike that of the other cwidders. Clennen took such care of it that Moril still sometimes thought – as he had when he was little – that this cwidder was an extra, special part of Clennen, more important than his father’s arm or leg – something on the lines of a wooden soul.

“Let’s have that song of Osfameron’s,” said Clennen.

Moril liked the old songs so little that he was making very heavy weather of learning them. Clennen corrected him, made him go back to the beginning, and twice stopped him in the middle of the second verse. To make matters worse, Kialan came over and stood himself in front of Moril, listening. Moril, in self-defence, went into a dream between two notes, and stopped. He was with the Adon, on a green road in the North.

“Do you really need to teach him?” said Kialan.

“How else,” asked Clennen, “do you think he’d learn?”

Kialan seemed a bit confused. “Well – I sort of supposed they picked it up–from giving shows,” he said.

“Or it grew naturally, along with hair and fingernails?” Clennen suggested.

“No – I – Oh, that’s silly!” said Kialan, and to Moril’s relief, he drifted away. But he drifted back when Moril had finished and Brid took his place. Kialan caught Moril’s sleeve. “I say, you all know all this music, but I suppose you can’t even read and write, can you?”

Moril removed his sleeve. “Of course I can,” he said. “My mother taught us.” Before Kialan could ask any more impertinent questions, he scurried off among the gorse bushes to the stream. He stayed there, lost in vagueness, watching the bright water hurry over the different brightness of the stones beneath, until he heard Brid shouting.

“Supper! Wash, Moril!”

Supper was not very good, and what little bread they had was stale. “I say, this tastes peculiar!” Kialan said, pushing his share about on his plate.

Lenina’s face, which never had much expression, went quite blank. “I meant to buy bread and onions in Derent,” she said. “But there was no time.”

There was a heavy pause. Then Clennen said, “Look, lad, we’ve got to travel more than a hundred and fifty miles together, you and us. It needs a little give and take, don’t you think? I’d hate to have to break a good cwidder over your head.”

The sun was setting then, and the light was red. But Moril thought that this did not entirely account for the colour of Kialan’s face. Kialan, however, said nothing. He silently accepted some of the wine and drank it, but he did not speak again until much later. By then Clennen had become very jolly with the wine. Beaming in the firelight, he leant back against the wheel of the cart and said to Dagner, “Give us that new song of yours.”

“It’s not quite ready yet,” said Dagner. But, since this was not a performance, he willingly fetched his cwidder and picked out a sketch of what Moril thought was a very promising tune. And without a trace of nervousness, he half sang, half spoke the words.

“Come with me, come with me.

The blackbird asks you, ‘Follow me.’

No one will know, no one will know,

Wherever you go, I shall go.

Come with me. Morning spreads,

Clouds are high in milky threads,

The moon looks like a white thumbnail,

Larks are singing up the dale.

The sun is up, so follow me.

I’d like us to go secretly

Along the road, across the hill

Where water runs and woods are still.”

“And then I think the first four lines again,” Dagner said, looking up at Clennen.

“No,” said Clennen. “Won’t do.”

“Well, I needn’t have them again,” Dagner said humbly.

“I mean the whole thing won’t do,” said Clennen.

Dagner looked very dashed. Kialan seemed unable to stop himself saying indignantly: “Why? I thought it was going to be a jolly good song.”

“The tune’s all right, as far as it’s gone,” said Clennen. “But why spoil a tune like that with those words?”

“They’re jolly good words,” Kialan insisted. “I liked them.”

“It’s the words I seem to want,” Dagner said diffidently.

“I see,” said Clennen. “Then in that case don’t utter them again until we’re in the North – unless you want us taken up for rebels.”

Dagner tried to explain. “But I – it wasn’t. I was just trying to say how much I liked travelling in the cart and – and so on.”

“Were you?” said Clennen. “And haven’t you heard the songs the freedom fighters used to sing here the year of the rebellion – oh, it’ll be sixteen years ago now, the year you were born? They never dared say a thing straight out, so it was all put sideways – Follow the lark was one, Free as air and secret another went, and the best known was Come up the dale with me. The lords here still hang a man on the spot for singing words like that.”

“And I do think that’s ridiculous!” Kialan burst out. “Why can’t people sing what they want here? What’s the matter with everyone?”

Brid and Moril looked at his firelit face with interest. It began to seem as if Kialan might be a freedom fighter. They felt they could forgive him much if he was. Clennen, however, simply seemed amused.

“I hope there’s not someone behind the gorse listening to you,” he said. Kialan’s head jerked round towards the nearest looming bush. “See?” said Clennen. “That’s why, in one easy lesson, lad. No one can trust anyone any more. It comes of uneasy rulers paying uneasy men to make the rest uneasy too. It’s not always been like that, you know. Dagner, what did I say outside Derent?”

Dagner’s mind was woefully on his unsuitable song. “Oh – er – something about life being only a performance, I think.”

“I knew I could trust you to get the wrong saying – and the wrong saying wrong,” Clennen said tolerantly. “Anyone?”

“You said the South was once as free as the North,” said Brid. “You said it to me, really.”

“Then remember it,” said Clennen.

AFTER ONE NIGHT attempting to share the smaller tent with Kialan and Dagner, Moril took to creeping into the cart along with Brid and the wine jar. As he told Brid, even the wine jar took up less space than Kialan, and it did not have knees and elbows. Moril had woken up three times to find himself out among the guy ropes in the dew. He resented it. He resented Kialan, and he wished Dagner joy of him. It was hard to tell if Dagner got on with Kialan or not, because he was such an untalkative person. Dagner was like Lenina in that way. It was quite impossible to tell what Lenina thought about Kialan – or, indeed, about anything else.

Kialan, in spite of Clennen’s rebuke, seemed unable to stop making outspoken remarks. “You know, that cart is really horribly garish,” he said, on the second morning. Perhaps he had some excuse. It was standing against the dawn sky, as he saw it, and Moril’s red head was just emerging from it. The effect was undeniably colourful, but Brid was keenly offended.

“It isn’t!” she said.

“I expect you’re too young to have much taste,” Kialan replied. Brid swore to Moril that she was Kialan’s enemy for life after that one.

What Moril resented most – apart from Kialan’s elbows and the fact that Kialan never made the slightest attempt to help with any of the chores – was the superior way Kialan stood by and listened in whenever Moril had a music lesson. Unfortunately he had them fairly frequently in the next few days. They were taking – perhaps for Kialan’s benefit – a more direct route to Flennpass and the North than usual. It meant that they did not pass through any large towns and only two villages. Lenina bought supplies in the first, but they did not perform in either. Clennen took the opportunity to grind away at the old songs with Moril, to keep Brid hard at the panhorn and to rehearse a number of songs with all of them.

Kialan stood by and put Moril off continually. Moril came so to resent it that he took refuge in more than usual vagueness. He would sit on his perch behind the driving seat, staring up the white road unreeling ahead between the grey-green slopes of the South, basking in the hot sun – which never tanned him however long he sat in it – and dream of his birthplace in the North. It always saddened Moril that his father would never go to Hannart because of his disagreement with Earl Keril. He longed to see it, and he had built up in his mind a complete image of what it was like. There was an old grey castle in it, rowan trees and blue hills of a certain spiky shape. Moril saw it clearly. He saw the whole North with it, spread over the grey-green Southern landscape as if it were painted on a window: dark woods and emerald dales, the queer green roads from olden days which led to places that were not important any longer, hard grey rocks, and the great waterfall at Dropwater. In it lived all the stories of magic and adventure that seemed to go with the North. The South had nothing to compare with them.

Hearing Kialan talking behind him, Moril thought that the North had one new advantage. Kialan would leave them there.

“I’ve said that six times now,” Kialan said. “Do you spend all your time a thousand miles away?”

Moril was annoyed. His family could accuse him of dreaminess if they wanted, but Kialan was a stranger. “You’ve no right to say that,” he said.

It was possible Kialan did not realise how annoyed Moril was. “You see,” Brid explained to him later, a good long way behind the cart, “even when you’re angry, you always look so sleepy and – and milky, that he probably didn’t even notice you were attending. Not,” she added tartly, “that he’d have noticed anybody’s feelings but his own, mind you.”

What Kialan had replied was: “Oh, good grief! I know you’re the fool of the family by now, but you don’t have to be rude as well as stupid!”

“And the same to you!” Moril retorted, and took Kialan completely by surprise by butting him in the stomach. Kialan fell backwards heavily – and painfully, Moril hoped – on to the wine jar. Whereupon Moril found the prudent thing to do was to hop out of the cart double quick and scud off down the road behind it. And for the rest of the day he was forced to walk well in the rear for fear of Kialan’s vengeance.

But it was Clennen who took the vengeance. When they camped for the night, he beckoned both Kialan and Moril up to him. “Are you two going to make up and apologise?” he enquired. Moril looked warily at Kialan, and Kialan looked most unlovingly back. Neither answered. “Very well then,” said Clennen, and banged their heads together. Nothing seems harder than another person’s head. Moril could only hope that Kialan had seen as many stars as he had. He was rather surprised that Kialan did not say anything to Clennen. “Next time, I’ll do it harder,” Clennen promised. Then, as if nothing had happened, he went on to give Moril a lesson. And to Moril’s annoyance, Kialan stood by and listened just as usual.

The following day they reached a market town called Crady, and it came on to rain – big warm drops that seemed like part of the air and very little to do with the moist white sky. The raindrops made dark brown circles in the dust of the road and raised a delicious smell of wet earth. But it meant everyone crowding into the cart to change in great discomfort. Moril was not surprised that Kialan got out.

“I’m not really interested in your show,” he said to Clennen. “I’ll meet you on the other side of Crady, shall I?”

“If you like, lad,” Clennen said cheerfully. Brid and Moril exchanged seething glances in the hot dim space under the cover and wondered why Clennen did not box Kialan’s ears for him. But the only thing which seemed to perturb Clennen was the rain. “We shall have no audience in the open,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do. We’ll go in with the cover up.”

It was lucky that they did. By the time they came to the marketplace, the rain was coming in white rods and bouncing up off the flagstones. Olob was wearing his most long-suffering expression, and there was not a soul in sight. But Clennen had friends in Crady, just as he had everywhere else. Half an hour later they were installed under the great beams of a warehouse on the corner of the marketplace, and a crowd, damp but interested, was gathering into it.

They gave an indoor kind of show. After Clennen had told everyone about Hadd and Henda, the Waywold money, the price on the Porter’s head and the cost of corn in Derent, and the usual messages had been handed out, they sang songs with a chorus that the audience could join in. Dagner did his part early. Then, when good humour and attention were at their peak, Clennen told one of the old tales. This pleased Moril highly. He always felt rather too hot indoors, and playing the cwidder made him hotter still. But during a tale he was only needed once or twice. All the stories had places where there was a song. For the rest of the time Moril could sit on the dusty chaff of the floor with his arms wrapped round his knees and drink the story in.

Clennen chose to tell a branch of the story of the Adon. It had to be only a branch because, as Clennen was fond of saying, stories clustered round the Adon and Osfameron like bees swarming. The songs which came in where the story needed them were the Adon’s own, or Osfameron’s. Moril always thought the old songs sounded rather better set in their proper stories, though he still wished the silly fellows had tried to sing more naturally. But their doings made splendid tales. Moril listened avidly to how Lagan wounded the Adon and the wound would not heal until Manaliabrid came out of the East to him. Then came the story of the love of both Lagan and the Adon for Manaliabrid, and how the Adon fled with her to the South. Lagan followed, but Osfameron helped them by singing a certain song in the passes of the mountains, so that the mountains walked and blocked the way through. And Lagan was forced to turn back.

Here Clennen lowered his rich voice to say: “I shall not sing you the song Osfameron sang then, for fear of moving the mountains again. But it is true that since that day the only pass to the North is Flennpass.”

The Adon for a time roamed the South with Manaliabrid, singing for a living, until Lagan found where they were. Then he stole away Kastri, the Adon’s son by his first wife, and the Adon followed. But Lagan was something of a magician. He made Kastri invisible and took on the shape of Kastri himself. And when the Adon came up to him, unsuspecting, Lagan stabbed him through the heart.

Here came Manaliabrid’s lament, which Moril was supposed to sing. He took up his cwidder for it, glancing as he did so into the warm blue-grey depths of the barn at the attentive audience. To his surprise, Kialan was there. He was standing at the back, very wet and draggled, listening with as much interest as anyone there. Moril supposed he had decided he preferred a performance to a soaking after all. And he was annoyed with Kialan for coming. His head was full of grand things, journeys, flights, fighting and the magic North of once-upon-a-time. Kialan was the everyday world with a vengeance. Moril felt as if he had a foot on two different worlds, which were spinning apart from one another. It was not a pleasant feeling. He took his eyes off Kialan and concentrated on his cwidder.

Then Clennen went on to how Manaliabrid asked Osfameron for help. Osfameron sang, and made Kastri visible. Then he took up his cwidder and journeyed by a way that only he knew, to the borders of the Dark Land. There he played such music that all the dead crowded in multitudes to hear him. Once they were gathered, Osfameron sang and called the soul of the Adon to him. And – this part always gave Moril a delicious shiver – Clennen once more lowered his voice to say: “I shall not sing you the song Osfameron sang then, for fear of calling the dead again.”

Osfameron led the Adon’s soul back and restored it to his body. The Adon arose, defeated Lagan, and reigned as the last King of Dalemark. He was the last king because Manaliabrid’s son, who was to have been king after him, chose instead to go back to his mother’s country. “And since that time,” said Clennen, “there have been no kings in Dalemark. Nor will there be, until the sons of Manaliabrid return.”

Moril gave an entranced sigh. He had hardly the heart, after such a story, to join in Jolly Holanders, and he only managed to sing with an effort. After it he crept away to the other end of the barn to avoid the usual crowd, and sat under the cart, brooding, while Clennen greeted his friends and Dagner failed to explain how he made up songs. If only such things happened nowadays! Moril thought. It seemed such a waste to be descended from the singer Osfameron, who knew the Adon and could call up the dead, and to live such a dull life. The world had gone so ordinary. Compare the Adon, who lived such a splendid life, with the present-day Earl of Hannart, who could think of nothing better to do than to stir up a rebellion, so that he dared not show his face in the South. Or you only had to think of the difference between that Osfameron, Moril brooded, and this one, Osfameron Tanamoril, to see how very plain and ordinary people had become lately. If only –

Here the plain and ordinary life interrupted in the person of Lenina, carrying the chinking hat to the cart. She was followed by the usual kind of murmuring gentleman. “And it must be sixteen years now …” this gentleman was murmuring.

“Seventeen,” Lenina said briskly. “Moril, come out of that dream and count this money.”

Moril unwillingly scrambled out from under the cart. As he did so, Clennen turned his head, and his voice boomed across the barn. “No, I didn’t care for him at all, last time I was in Neathdale.” With his voice came a look that caused the murmuring gentleman to wither away into the crowd. Moril watched him wither, a little puzzled. He seemed to be the twin of the murmuring gentleman in Derent.

The takings were not bad, which pleased Lenina. And Clennen was in good humour because an old friend of his had made him a present of a beefsteak. It was beautifully red and tender and wrapped in leaves to keep it fresh. Clennen stowed it carefully in a locker. He talked jovially of supper as they drove through Crady in the slackening drizzle. Kialan, to Brid’s contempt, was waiting for them under a tree just beyond the town.

“Huh!” said Brid. “Not interested in our shows, isn’t Mr High-and-Mighty! Did you see him, Moril? Drinking in every word!”

“Yes,” said Moril.

While the red steak fizzled over the fire, Brid said mock-innocently to Kialan: “Father told one of the Adon stories at the show. Do you know them at all?”

“Yes. And a dead bore they are too,” said Kialan. “All that magic!”

“You would say that!” said Moril. “I saw—”

“Silence!” said Clennen. “You’re interrupting the steak. Not another word until it’s ready to eat.”

The steak was certainly worthy of respect. Even Kialan had nothing to say against it. They went on again after supper. In his carefree way, Clennen seemed to be quite as anxious as Moril to see the North again. He refused to let Olob choose them a meadow until the sun was nearly down and the sky ahead and to the left was a mass of lilac clouds barred with red.

“Imagine that over the peaks of the North Dales,” he said. “But even in the South, Mark Wood is fine at this time of year. There’s nothing to beat a tall beech in spring. And do you know the Marsh at all, Kialan?”

“A little,” said Kialan.

“If we’d time, I’d take you through it just for the flowers,” said Clennen. “But it’s too far east, more’s the pity. The ducks there make your mouth water.”

“There are rabbits in the South Dales,” Dagner suggested.

“So there are,” said Clennen. “Look the snares out tomorrow.”

By the end of the following day the landscape had begun to change. The rolling grey-green slopes gave way to higher, greener hills, and there were more trees. It was like a foretaste of the North. Moril began to feel pleasantly excited, although he knew that they were only entering the South Dales. Tholian, Earl of the South Dales, was reputed to be a tyrant fiercer even than Henda. It was still a long way to the North. Beyond these green hills lay the Uplands and Mark Wood, before they came to Flennpass and the North at last.

Nevertheless, budding apple trees made a pleasant change from rows of vines. The nights were slightly cooler, and rabbits were plentiful. Every night Dagner went off to set snares round about the camp, and to Moril’s surprise, Kialan made his first helpful gesture and went with Dagner.

“It’s only because he likes killing things,” Brid said. “He’s that type.”

Whatever the reason, Kialan was surprisingly good at catching and skinning rabbits, and Lenina was good at rabbit stew. Since they had wine as well, they fed very well for the next few days. Moril was almost grateful to Kialan. But Brid was not in the least grateful because every time they stopped in a town or village to give a show, Kialan would put on his act of not being interested and announce that he would meet them outside the town. And every time, unfailingly, they would see him among the audience, as interested as anyone there.

“Two-faced hypocrite!” Brid said indignantly. “He’s just trying to make us feel small.”

“That wouldn’t do you any harm,” Lenina said, in her dry way. Brid was more indignant than ever. It was becoming clear that Lenina rather approved of Kialan. Not that she said anything. It was more that she did not say any of the things she might have done. And when Kialan tore his good coat in the wood, Lenina mended it for him with careful neat stitches.

Kialan seemed far more surprised than grateful when Lenina handed him the mended coat. “Oh – thanks,” he said. “You shouldn’t have bothered.” His face was red, and he seemed actually a little scornful of Lenina for doing it.

“Nothing to what I am!” said Brid. “He can go in rags for all I care.”

The day after this they entered the part of the South Dales which was the lordship of Markind. They never gave shows in Markind. Brid’s dislike of Kialan came to a head while Olob was patiently dragging the cart up and down the steep little hills of this lordship. The reason was that Clennen, who never disdained an audience, began to explain to Kialan exactly why he always hurried through Markind without giving a performance.

“I took Lenina from here, you see,” he said. “From the very middle of Markind, out of the Lord’s own hall. Didn’t I, Lenina?”

“You did,” said Lenina. She always looked very noncommittal whenever Clennen told this story.

“She was betrothed to the Lord’s son. What was his name? Pennan – that was it. And a wet young idiot he was too,” Clennen said reminiscently. “I was asked in to sing at the betrothal – I had quite a name, even in those days, and I was a good deal in demand for occasions like that, let me tell you. Well, no sooner did I come into the hall and set eyes on Lenina than I knew she was the woman for me. Wasted on that idiot Fenner. That was his name, wasn’t it, Lenina?”

“He was called Ganner,” said Lenina.

“Oh, yes,” said Clennen. “I remember he reminded me of a goose somehow. It must have been the name. I’d thought it was his scraggy neck or those button eyes of his. Anyway, I thought I’d rely on my looks being better than his and deal with Master Gosler later. For the first thing, I concentrated on Lenina. I sang – I’ve never sung better, before or since – and Lenina here couldn’t take her eyes off me. Well, I don’t blame her, because I don’t mind admitting that I was a fine-looking man in those days, and gifted, too – which Flapper wasn’t. So I asked Lenina in a song whether she’d marry me instead of this Honker fellow, and when I came up to get my reward for my singing, she said Yes. So then I dealt with him. I turned to him. ‘Lording,’ I said, most respectful, ‘Lording, what gift will you give me?’ And he said ‘Anything you want. You’re a great singer’ – which was the only sensible thing he said that evening. So I said, ‘I’ll take what you have in your right hand.’ He was holding Lenina’s hand, you see. I still laugh when I think of the look on his face.”

While the story went on – and it made a long one, for Clennen went over it several times, embroidering the details – Brid and Moril walked by the roadside out of earshot, watching the fed-up look settle on Kialan’s face. They had both heard the story more times than they could remember.

“I suppose the thing about being a singer is that you like telling the same story a hundred times,” Brid said rather acidly. “But you’d think Father would remember Ganner’s name by this time.”

“That’s all part of it,” said Moril. “I always wonder,” he added dreamily, “what would happen if we met Ganner while we were going through Markind. Would he arrest Father?”

“Of course he wouldn’t,” said Brid. “I don’t suppose it’s true, anyway. And even if it did happen, Ganner must have grown into a big fat lord by now and forgotten Mother ever existed.”

Since this was Brid’s true opinion of the matter, it was a little unreasonable of her to be so angry when she found Kialan shared it. But one is seldom reasonable when one dislikes someone. They stopped for lunch, and Clennen, thoroughly in his stride, went on embroidering the story.

“Lenina’s a real lady,” he said, leaning comfortably against the pink and scarlet wheel of the cart. “She’s Tholian’s niece, you know. But he cast her off for running away with me. And it was all my fault for playing that trick on Gander. ‘Lording,’ I said to him, ‘give me what you have in your right hand.’ Oh, I shall never forget his face! Never!” And he burst out laughing.

Kialan had heard this at least three times by then. Moril had rarely seen him look so fed up. While Clennen was laughing, Kialan got up quickly to avoid hearing any more, and stumped off without looking where he was going. He nearly fell over Moril and Brid and became more fed up than ever.

“Blinking bore your father is!” he said. “I’d be quite sorry for Ganner if I thought there was a word of truth in it!”

“How dare you!” said Brid. “How dare you say that! I’ve a good mind to punch your nose in!”

“I don’t fight with girls,” Kialan said loftily. “All I meant was I’m sick of hearing about Ganner. If your father remembers it that well, why on earth can’t he get the poor fellow’s name right?”

“It’s part of the story!” screamed Brid, and threw herself at Kialan.

Kialan, for a second or so, tried to keep up his claim not to fight girls, with the result that Brid punched his nose twice and then boxed his ears in perfect freedom. “You spiteful cat!” said Kialan, and grabbed both her wrists. It was in self-defence. On the other hand, he squeezed her wrists so painfully that he hurt Brid rather more than if he had hit her. She lashed out at his legs with her bare feet, but finding that made no impression on Kialan, she sank her teeth into the hand round her wrists. At this, Kialan lost his temper completely and punched Brid with his free hand.

Dagner never let people hit Brid. He surged up from his seat in the hedgerow and fell on Kialan. Moril, since Dagner seemed to be doing his best to strangle Kialan, thought he had better get Brid out from between them and entered the fray too. They made a grunting furious bundle. Brid would not unfasten her teeth and Kialan would not let go of Brid. Clennen heaved himself up, strolled over, and wrenched Dagner away from Kialan and Kialan away from Brid. Everyone, including Moril, fell with heavy thumps, this way and that. Clennen might have been fat, but he was also strong.

“Now stop!” said Clennen. “And if you’ve anything more to say about my story, Kialan, say it to me.” He looked cheerfully down at Kialan, angrily sprawled on the roadside sucking his bleeding knuckles. “Well?”

“All right!” said Kialan. “All right!” Moril could see he was nearly crying. Brid was crying. “You can keep on saying you’ll never forget Ganner – or whatever he’s called – all you like,” said Kialan. “I don’t believe you’ve even met him! You wouldn’t know him if he came walking down the road this minute! So there!”

The cheerfulness died out of Clennen’s face. It was replaced by a very odd look. Kialan noticeably tensed at it. “Do you know Ganner then?” Clennen said.

“No, of course I don’t!” said Kialan. “How could I? I don’t suppose he exists.”

“Oh, he exists all right,” said Clennen. “And I’m sure you don’t know him. Yet you’re right. I’ve seen Ganner three times this month and not known him till this minute.” He laughed again, and Kialan relaxed considerably. “Not a face that stands out in a crowd,” he said. “Eh, Lenina?”

“I suppose not,” agreed Lenina, and continued calmly slicing cold sausage.

“You knew him though, didn’t you?” Clennen said. “In Derent, and on the road, and again in Crady?”

“Not till he said who he was,” Lenina said, quite unperturbed.

There seemed suddenly to be a situation ten times worse. All through lunch Clennen looked at Lenina in a tense, troubled way. He seemed to be expecting her to say something and, at the same time, carefully not saying all sorts of things himself. And Lenina said nothing. She said nothing so positively and obviously that the air seemed sticky with her silence. It was hateful. The rest of them picked awkwardly at their food, and no one spoke much. Kialan did not say anything. It was obvious, even to Brid, that he was kicking himself for causing the situation – as well he might, Moril thought.

When the food was finished and the cart packed again, they went on, still in the same heavy silence. At last Clennen could bear it no longer.

“Lenina,” he said, “you’re not regretting all that, are you? If you want that kind of life – if you’d rather have Ganner – just say the word and I’ll turn Olob towards Markind this moment.”

Moril gasped. Brid’s mouth came open in her tear-stained face. They looked at Clennen and found he seemed quite serious. Then they looked at Lenina, expecting her to laugh. It was so silly. Lenina was as much part of their life as Olob or the cart. But Lenina did not laugh, nor did she say anything. Not only Brid and Moril, but Dagner, Kialan and Clennen too, stared at her in increasing anxiety.

They came to a fork in the road. One branch led west, and the milestone said MARKIND 10. “Do I turn here?” asked Clennen.

Lenina gave herself an impatient shake. “Oh no,” she said. “Clennen Mendakersson, you must be a very big fool indeed to think such a thing of me.”

Clennen burst into a roll of relieved laughter. He shook the reins, and Olob trotted past the turning. “I must say,” he said, laughing still, “I can’t see how you could prefer Ganner to me. He couldn’t have made the songs I’ve made to you, not if his life depended on it.”

“Then why did you think I did?” Lenina asked coldly. The trouble was not over yet.

“Well,” Clennen said awkwardly. “Money and all that. And it’s what you were bred to, after all.”

“I see,” said Lenina. There was silence again for quite half an hour, except for the plopping of Olob’s hooves and the light rumble of the cart. Kialan was unable to bear it. He got out and walked ahead, whistling the Second March rather defiantly. The others sat with their heads hanging, wishing Lenina would make peace. At last she said, “Oh, Clennen, do stop sitting there watching me like a dog! I’m not going to take wings and fly, am I? It’s lucky Olob has more sense than you, or we’d be in the ditch by now!”

Then the trouble seemed to be over. Clennen was shortly laughing and talking again. And Lenina, if she was silent, was silent in her usual way, which everyone was used to. Brid and Moril got out of the cart too, though they did not go near Kialan. Brid was still too angry with him.

THAT NIGHT THEY camped in one of the many little valleys Markind abounded in. There were woods up its steep sides and a meadow in the bottom, containing a small peaceful lake full of newly hatched tadpoles. Dagner and Kialan went off to set their snares. Lenina put herbs on the fire against the midges, and the fragrant smoke streamed sideways and settled across the lake in bands. Brid and Moril, quite unworried by insects, waded into the shallows of the lake and tried enthusiastically to collect tadpoles in an old pickle jar. Moril had just lost most of them by accident when he looked up to find his father watching them.

“You want a bigger jar,” Clennen said. “And both of you want to remember what I said to Kialan about give-and-take.”

“He doesn’t remember it,” Brid said sulkily.

“He’s never had to learn it before,” said Clennen. “That’s his trouble. But it’s not yours, Brid. A fight takes two.”

“Did you hear what he said?” Moril demanded.

“I’m not deaf,” said Clennen. “He’s entitled to his opinion, like everyone else. And it wouldn’t hurt you to find some opinions of your own instead of borrowing Brid’s, Moril. Now get that slime off your fingers before you touch my cwidder.”

While Moril was having his lesson, Kialan came out of the woods and into the lake, where he tried to teach Dagner to swim. The sight of them splashing about was a great distraction to Moril. It grew worse when Kialan tried to persuade Brid to learn to swim too. Brid claimed to be afraid of leeches. Nothing would induce her to go above her knees in water, but she agreed to learn the arm movements. Moril could hear her laughing. It looked as if Kialan were trying to make friends.

Moril became more distracted than ever. Perhaps, after all, Kialan was not bad at heart – only tactless. Moril tried to decide what he thought. It really rankled with him that Clennen believed he borrowed Brid’s opinions. Moril considered that he thought long and deeply – if rather vaguely – about most things. But he knew he had agreed with Brid, quite unquestioningly, both about Kialan and about the Ganner story. And it looked as if Brid had been wrong about both. Moril did not know what he thought.

“I suppose I ought to be used to you being up in the clouds by now,” said Clennen. “Do you want to swim too?”

“No,” said Moril. “Yes. I mean, is that story about Ganner true, then?”

“Word of honour,” said Clennen. “Except it’s the fellow’s face I seem to have forgotten, not his name. I may embroider a detail here and there, but I never tell a story that isn’t true, Moril. Remember that. Now go and swim if you want to.”

Clennen was clearly very relieved that Lenina was not leaving for Markind. He drank a great deal of the wine that night to celebrate. The level in the huge bottle was almost down to the straw basket when he finally rolled into the larger tent and fell asleep. He was still asleep next morning when Dagner and Kialan went off to look at their snares. When Brid and Moril got up, they could hear him snoring, though Lenina was up and combing out her soft fair hair by the lake. Brid attended to the fire, and Moril tried to attend to Olob. Olob, for some reason, was tetchy. He kept flinging up his head and shying at shadows.

“What’s the matter with him?” Moril asked his mother.

Lenina’s comb had hit a tangle. She was lugging at it fiercely and not really attending. “No idea,” she said. “Leave him be.”

So Moril left off trying to groom Olob and turned to put the currycomb back in the cart. He found himself looking at a number of men, who were pushing their way through the last of the wood into the clear space by the lake. They were out almost as soon as Moril saw them, six of them. They stood in a group, looking at Moril, Brid kneeling by the fire, Lenina by the lake, the cart and the tents.

“Clennen the Singer,” one of them said. “Where is he?”

Olob tossed his head and trotted away round the lake.

“He’s not here,” said Brid.

Moril thought he would have said the same. The men alarmed him. It was odd to see six well-dressed men outside a wood in the middle of nowhere. They were very well dressed. They wore cloth as good as Kialan’s coat, and all of them had that sleek look that comes from always living in style. Each of them wore a sword in a well-kept leather scabbard, belted over the good cloth of their coats, and Moril did not like the way the hilts of those swords looked smooth with frequent use. But the truly alarming thing about them was that they had an air of purpose, all of them, which hit Moril like a gust of cold wind and frightened him.

“My father won’t be back for ages,” he said, hoping they would go away.

“Then we’ll wait for him,” said the man who had asked. Moril liked him least of all. He was fair and light-eyed, and there was an odd look in those eyes which Moril did not trust.

Lenina evidently felt the same. “Suppose you give me your message for Clennen,” she said, coming forwards with her hair still loose.

“You wouldn’t like it, lady,” said the man. “We’ll wait.”

“Moril,” said Lenina. “Go round the lake and fetch your father.”

Moril thought that was clever of her. It would deceive the men, and Dagner and Kialan might be some help. He tossed the currycomb into the cart and set off at a trot. But Clennen chose that moment to crawl out of the tent like a badger. He stood up, with his eyes red and blinking inside a tousled frill of hair and beard.

“Somebody call me?” he said sleepily.

Moril stopped, helpless. Everything went so quickly that he could hardly believe it was happening. The six men pushed forwards in a body, overwhelming Lenina for a moment, and then leaving her in the open, clutching Brid. Their swords caught the pink early sun. The group round Clennen trampled a bit. Clennen, sleepy as he was, must have put up something of a fight. A man stumbled sideways into the lake. Another fell in with a splash. Then the six men, swords sheathed again, went running away from the lake in a group. One glanced into Clennen’s tent and then the smaller one. Another took a quick look into the cart as they passed.

“Nothing here,” he called.

“Look in the woods, then,” said the fair one. And they were gone.

Clennen lay where he had fallen, half in the lake, with blood running out of him into the water.

Before Moril could move, there was a thumping of racing feet. Dagner shot past him round the lake and surged on to his knees in the water beside Clennen. “Have they killed him?”

“Not quite,” said Lenina. “Help me move him.”

Moril stood where he was, some distance away, and watched them heave his father out of the calm sunny water. Brid’s face was greyish white, and her teeth were chattering. Dagner’s mouth kept twisting about. Moril could see his hands shaking. But Lenina was quite calm and no paler than usual. As they turned Clennen over, Moril saw a cut in his chest. Bright red blood was gushing from it as fast as the river ran in Dropwater, steaming a little in the cold air over the surface of the lake.

At the sight, the bright trees, the lake and the sunny sky dipped and swung in front of Moril. Everything turned sour and grey and distant. He could not move from the spot. Up in the woods behind him, he could dimly hear the six men crashing about and calling to one another, but they could have been on the moon for all the fear and interest Moril felt. His eyes stared, so widely that they hurt, at the group by the water.

Lenina, without abating her calm, tore a big strip from her petticoat, and another, to stop the bleeding. “Give me yours,” she said to Brid, and while Brid, shaking and shivering, was getting out of her petticoat, Lenina said in the same calm way to Dagner, “Get the small flask from the cart.”

Moril stared at his mother working and telling Brid what to do. The only sign of emotion Lenina showed was when her hair trailed in the way of the bandages. “Bother the stuff!” she said. “Brid, tie it back for me.”

Brid was still trying to get a ribbon round Lenina’s hair when Dagner scudded back with the flask. “Do you think you can save him?” he asked, as if he were pleading with Lenina.

She looked up at him calmly. “No, Dagner. The most I can do is keep him with you for a while. He’ll want to have his say. He always did.” She took the flask from Dagner and uncorked it.

Moril desolately watched her trying to get some of the liquid from the flask into Clennen’s mouth. It was not fair. He felt it was not fair on his father at all, to die like this, first thing in the morning, miles from anywhere. He ought to have had warning. Dying was a thing someone like Clennen ought to do properly, in front of a crowd, with music playing if possible.

Music was possible, of course. Moril found himself beside the cart, without quite knowing how he had got there. He scrambled up and seized the nearest cwidder. It happened to be the big one. In the ordinary way, Moril would not have chosen it. But being inside the cart made him feel sick and queer, so he simply took what came first to hand and backed hastily down with it.

While he was getting its strap over his back, he realised that Clennen’s eyes were open. And it was clear that Clennen shared Moril’s opinion. Moril heard him say, rather thickly, but quite strongly, “This came out of the blue, didn’t it? I’d have preferred to have notice.”

Moril put his hands to the strings and began to play, very softly, the weird broken little tune of Manaliabrid’s Lament. The cwidder responded sweetly. The old song seemed more melodious than usual, and because of the water, it carried out across the lake until the valley seemed full of it. Moril heard its echo from the woods opposite.

His ears were so full of the sound that he did not hear much else of what Clennen said. Clennen’s voice became weaker, anyway, after that first remark, and he spoke to Lenina in what was only a murmur. Then he spoke to Brid for a while, reaching out to hold her hand, which made Brid cry. After that, it was Dagner’s turn. Clennen was very weak by then. Dagner had to put his head right down near his father’s face in order to hear him. Moril played on, as softly as he could, watching Dagner listening and nodding, and wondered vaguely at the amount Clennen seemed to have to say. Then Dagner looked up and beckoned to Moril.

“He wants to talk to you. Quickly.”

Moril did not dare take off the cwidder for fear of wasting time. He hurried over to Clennen with it bumping at his thighs and knees, and hoisted it away sideways as he knelt down. Clennen’s face was paler than Moril had ever seen a face before. His eyes did not seem to reflect the sky, or Moril bending over him, though it was clear he could see Moril.

“Got the big cwidder, have you?” Clennen said. Moril nodded. He could not manage to speak. “Keep it carefully,” said Clennen. “It’s yours now. Always meant to give it to you, Moril, because I think you’ve got the ability. Or will have. But you have to come to terms with it, and with yourself. Understand?” Moril nodded again, though he did not understand in the least. “You’re in two halves at present,” Clennen went on. “Often thought so. Come together, Moril, and there’s no knowing what you might do. There’s power in that cwidder, if you can use it. Used to be Osfameron’s. He could use it. Handed down to me. I couldn’t use it. Only found the power once, when I—” Clennen paused for breath. Moril waited for him to go on, but nothing happened. Clennen stayed as he was, with his eyes open looking at Moril, and his lips parted. After a while, Moril realised that this was all there would be. He got up and carefully, very carefully, put the cwidder back in its place inside the cart.

Brid was crying loudly. Lenina was standing very upright beside the lake, as calm as ever. Dagner seemed to have frozen into the same sort of calmness, facing her. And Kialan was coming slowly towards them round the lake with a bundle of dead rabbits.

When he reached them, Kialan stopped. He looked at Clennen and, for once, seemed not to know what to say. “I’m – terribly sorry,” he said at length.

“It was going to happen sometime,” said Lenina. “Will you help us dig a grave, please?”

“Of course,” said Kialan. “Here?”

“Why not?” said Lenina. “Clennen never had a home after he left Hannart, and we can’t take him there.”

“Very well,” said Kialan, and he laid the rabbits down and unhooked the spade from its clips beneath the cart. Dagner went and fetched the pickaxe, and the two set to work. Lenina watched and seemed ready to take Kialan’s advice, as if, in some odd way, Kialan were in charge just then. “I think we should mark the spot,” Kialan said as he dug.

“How?” said Lenina.

“Is there a spare board in the cart?” Kialan asked.

“Find him one, Moril,” said Lenina.

Moril managed to work free one of the spare boards Clennen always carried under the floor of the cart, and on Kialan’s instructions, he sawed off a piece about three feet long. Then he relieved Kialan at the digging for a while. Kialan took out his sheath knife and carved away at the board, quickly and competently, as if this were another thing he was good at. When he had finished, the board had letters deeply and neatly cut into it. CLENNEN THE SINGER.

“That do?” said Kialan.

“Very well,” said Lenina.

When the grave was ready, Kialan, Dagner and Brid put Clennen into it. Moril did not like to see his father topple into the hole. Nor did he like to see the earth going in on top of Clennen’s face and clothes. Rather than watch, he fetched his own cwidder and stood back a little, playing another lament, a newer one that had been made for an earl of Dropwater killed in battle. He went on playing while Brid put the turf back in place and Kialan trenched his board in until it was standing upright at the head of the grave, as it should. And now that there was nothing but a grave to be seen, Moril began to feel that something was missing. They should all be feeling and doing something else. They should be angry. Clennen had been murdered. They should be trying to bring the murderers to justice. But none of them thought of it. It was out of the question, here in the South. The six men had been far too well dressed.

“There,” said Kialan, wiping his hands on his coat.

“Thank you,” said Lenina. “Now I must change. This dress has blood on it. And you too, Brid. Kialan, I think it would be a good idea if you changed your coat for Dagner’s old one.”

Kialan agreed to this, although Moril did not think Kialan’s good coat was more than a little earthy. When everyone was changed and cleaned, Lenina told Dagner to catch Olob and harness him to the cart. Kialan picked up his bundle of rabbits.

“Leave those,” said Lenina. “We don’t need them.”

“Well, I don’t fancy them at the moment, either,” said Kialan. “But—”

“Leave them,” said Lenina. Kialan did as he was bid. Now Lenina seemed to be definitely in charge. It was she who took the reins when Olob was ready and drove out of the valley.

Brid and Moril looked back. It was a very beautiful valley. Probably, Moril thought, it was a good place to be buried, if one had to be. Brid cried. Dagner did not look back. He had sunk into a silence as profound as any of Lenina’s. He did not look at anything, and no one liked to speak to him.

Lenina drove northwards for a mile or so, until she came to a road that turned off to the left. Then, to Moril’s surprise, she swung the cart into it.

“Hey! Where are we going?” said Moril.

“Markind,” said Lenina.

“What? Not to Ganner!” demanded Brid, halting in the middle of a sob.

“Yes. To Ganner,” said Lenina. “He said he would have me and mine if ever I was free, and I know he meant it.”

“Oh, but no! You can’t!” said Moril. “Not just like that!”

“Why not?” Lenina asked. “How do you think we shall live, without a singer to earn us money?”

“We can manage,” said Moril. “I can sing. Dagner can – Dagner …” His voice tailed away as he thought of Dagner and himself trying to perform as Clennen did. He just could not see Dagner doing it. He did not know what to say, so he stopped, fearing he might be hurting Dagner’s feelings. But it looked as if Dagner was not listening. “Father wouldn’t like us to go to Markind,” Moril asserted. He was sure of that, at least.

“I can’t see that your father has much say in the matter now,” Lenina answered drily. “Get this clear, Moril. I know well enough that your father was a good man, and the best singer in Dalemark, and I’ve done my duty by him for seventeen years. That’s half my lifetime, Moril. I’ve gone barefoot and learnt to cook and make music. I’ve lived in a cart in all weathers, and never complained. I’ve mended and cleaned and looked after you all. There were things your father did that I didn’t agree with at all, but I never argued with him or crossed him. I did my duty exactly in every way, and I’ve nothing to reproach myself with. But Clennen’s dead now, so I’m free to do as I choose. What I’m choosing is my birthright and yours too. Do you understand?”

“I suppose so,” Moril mumbled. He had never heard Lenina say anything like this before. He was frightened and rather shocked to see that she must have been not saying it for longer than he had lived. He thought it was wrong of her, but he could not have said why. He thought she was altogether wrong, but he could not find any words to set against her. All he could do was to exchange a scared, helpless look with Brid. Brid said nothing either.

It was Kialan who spoke. He sounded rather embarrassed. “It’s not my place to object,” he said. “But I do have to get to Hannart, Lenina.”

“I know,” said Lenina. “I’ve thought of that. You can pose as my son for the moment, and I’ll find someone to take you North as soon as I can, I promise. Hestefan’s in the South, I know, and Fredlan may be too.”

Kialan looked exasperated as well as embarrassed. “But Ganner must know how many children you’ve got!”

“I shouldn’t think so,” Lenina said calmly. “People who haven’t got children themselves never bother to count other people’s. If he wonders, I’ll say you’ve been ill and we’d left you at Fledden.”

Kialan sighed. “Oh well. Thanks, anyway.”

“Remember that,” Lenina said to Moril, Brid and Dagner, and Moril felt very queer, because “Remember that” was such a favourite saying of Clennen’s. “Kialan’s your brother. If anyone asks, he’s been ill in Fledden.”

Olob plodded towards Markind. He did not look happy either, Moril thought, looking at the droop of Olob’s head. Moril was so miserable himself that he could almost hear it, like a droning in his ears, and he could not hide away in vagueness, much as he tried. He felt vividly and horribly attentive to everything, from the leaves in the hedge to the shape of Kialan’s nose. Kialan’s eagle nose was so different from Dagner’s, Brid’s, or Moril’s that surely anyone could tell at a glance he was no relation? Why did he have to be a relation, anyway? And had Clennen known he wanted to go to Hannart? Clennen would not have gone there because he never went to Hannart. And why had the six men killed Clennen? Who were they, and what were they looking for in the wood? And why, why, why above all, had Clennen given Moril a cwidder he did not want in the least?

I shall never play it, Moril thought. I’ll polish it and string it, and maybe tune it from time to time, but I don’t want to play it. I know I should be grateful, because it must be very valuable – though it can’t be old enough to have belonged to Osfameron; he’s long ago in a story – but I don’t like it and I don’t want it.

Markind came into view at the other end of a valley. Without meaning to, Moril looked at it as he always looked at a new town. Sleepy and respectable, he thought. Bad takings. Then he remembered he was supposed to be going here to live, not to sing, and tried very hard to look at the pile of yellowish-grey houses with interest. He found he was more interested in the villainously freckled cows which were grazing in the small green meadows outside the town.

Lenina looked at these cows with pleasure. “I remember I always liked those speckles,” she said. She encouraged Olob to trot, and the grey and yellow houses approached swiftly. Moril’s heart sank rather – and he had thought it was low enough before.

Soon they were winding up a gravelly street between quiet old houses. The houses were tall and cold and shuttered. There were very few people about. Even when they came to the main square and found a market going on under the high plane trees, there were still very few people, and these all sober citizens who looked at the gay cart with strong disapproval. Lenina drove past the stalls looking neither to right nor to left, and drew Olob up in front of a round-topped gateway in a massive yellow wall. Two men who seemed to be on guard at the gate peered round it at the cart in evident astonishment.

“Had you business here?” one of them asked Lenina.

“Certainly,” Lenina answered haughtily. “Go and tell Ganner Sagersson that Lenina Thornsdaughter is here.”

They looked at her in even more astonishment at that. But one of them went off into the spaces behind the thick yellow wall. The other stayed, frowning wonderingly at Lenina, the cart and her family, until Moril scarcely knew where to look.

“What’s the betting we get a message back to say, Not Today, Thank You?” whispered Brid.

“Be quiet, Brid!” said Lenina. “Behave properly, can’t you!”

Brid would have lost her bet. The man who had gone with the message came back at a run, and they could hear a number of people behind the gate, running too. The two halves of the gate were flung wide open.

“Please drive in,” said the man.

Lenina smiled graciously and shook the reins. Olob plodded forwards, disapproval in every line of his ears and back, into a small deep courtyard lined with interested faces. Ganner was standing in the middle of it, smiling delightedly.

“Welcome back, Lenina!” he said. “I never thought I’d see you so soon. What happened?”

“Some men killed Clennen this morning,” said Lenina. “They looked like the pick of somebody’s hearthmen to me.”

“Not really!” exclaimed Ganner. Then he looked a little worried and asked, “Does that mean it happened in my lordship then?”

“Yes,” said Lenina. “At Medmere.”

“I’d better send some hearthmen over to investigate,” said Ganner. “Anyway, come down and come in. Are these your children?”

“My three sons and my daughter,” said Lenina.

“What a lot of them!” said Ganner, looking a little daunted. But he smiled gallantly at all four. “I’ll do my best to look after you all,” he said. Moril could not find it in his heart to dislike Ganner, much as he had intended to. It was so plain he meant well. If, to someone who had been used to Clennen, he seemed a very ordinary person, then that was hardly Ganner’s fault, Moril supposed.

“He doesn’t look much like a goose,” Brid whispered, in some disappointment. Kialan had to bite his lip. Moril looked at Ganner gallantly helping Lenina down from the cart and smiling at her in a way that showed he adored her. Apart from that smile, he really seemed perfectly normal and ungooselike.

“Oh dear, oh dear!” Ganner exclaimed, as they all got down. “Shoes! Boots! Can you only afford one pair of boots?”

Lenina glanced along their line of bare feet, interrupted by Kialan’s scuffed boots. “We don’t usually bother with them,” she explained. “But Collen has tender feet.”

“I must make sure you all have shoes this instant!” Ganner exclaimed distractedly.

“You know, I think he may be a goose after all,” Brid said, with considerable satisfaction.

BY THAT AFTERNOON Moril was wondering if it was only that morning they had left Clennen buried by the lake. It felt like last century. There had been so many changes. After a good breakfast, followed by the attentions of a tailor, a bootmaker and Ganner’s old nurse, followed in turn by an astonishingly good lunch, Moril scarcely knew himself. He looked in a mirror – it was a thing he seldom had the chance of doing, so he looked long and often – and he saw a smoothly combed red-haired boy in a suit of good blue cloth and a pair of soft rust-coloured boots. The boots, to tell the truth, pleased him enormously. But he did not look in the least like his idea of himself. Dagner and Kialan had become spruce, gentlemanly figures in the same kind of blue clothes, and Brid a young lady in bright cherry colour. They were all four behaving very soberly and politely, not because Ganner insisted on it – because he did not – but simply because Markind was the sort of place where you could behave in no other way.

The biggest change was to Lenina. She was splendidly dressed too, and she had done her hair the way ladies did. Her cheeks were pinker than usual, and she laughed and chattered and hurried about with Ganner on a hundred errands. Moril had not often seen her laugh, and he had certainly never seen her so talkative. She was like a different person. That troubled him. It troubled him far more than learning she was going to marry Ganner that same evening.

Moril quite liked Ganner. Ganner told Moril he could do just what he liked and go anywhere he wanted, and obviously meant it. He was a very good-natured man. Moril quite liked the other people in the house too. He liked Ganner’s old nurse specially. She fussed rather, and she said rather too often that she had always known Lenina Thornsdaughter would come back to them, but she called Moril “My duck” and said he was a “blessing”. And while she was dressing him, she told Moril a story about a lord of Markind who had been outlawed. Moril had not heard the story before, and he drank it up. But he felt strange. Everything felt strange.

Moril took Ganner at his word and explored the house. He found two gardens and the kitchens. He looked at the cellars and the small rooms under the roof, but in between each exploration he found himself drifting into the stableyard. The cart had been put away in a coach house there, just as it was, wine jar, cwidders and all, down to the string of onions under the driving seat. It was just the same, yet somehow it already looked smaller and dustier and a little faded. Moril spent a lot of time talking to Olob, who was standing dejectedly in a stall nearby and seemed glad of his company. Moril stole sugar for him from the kitchen, which was easy to do because everyone there was in a great bustle, preparing for the wedding feast. Olob ate it politely, but he looked sad, and he was sweating rather.

“Poor fellow,” Moril said sadly. “I’m hot too. It’s being in a house.”

As the afternoon drew on, Moril became hotter still. Being between walls so oppressed him that he wondered whether to go out and walk in the town. But Markind had not inspired him with any wish to see more of it. He wandered to the stableyard and then into one of the gardens. Brid was there. She was feeling much the same, for she had taken off her cherry-coloured boots and was sitting with her feet in one of the goldfish ponds.

They exchanged sad, polite smiles, and Moril went on into the second garden. Behind him he heard Ganner’s voice.

“My dear little girl! You’ll catch your death like that! Do please dry your feet and put your boots on. You’ll worry your mother.”

Moril felt sorry for Brid. Then he suddenly felt even more – desperately – sorry for himself. He needed to be somewhere else, out in the open. He looked round wildly, upwards, everywhere. And a sturdy creeper growing up the thick yellow wall of the house gave him an idea. He slung himself on to it and started to climb.

It was extremely easy, except for the last bit, which needed a long stride and a heave across some crumbly stonework. Then he was on the wide, leaded roofs. It was splendid. Moril looked round, into the town, out across the valley, and over to valleys beyond. He turned north and looked at the misty blue peaks there, where he had so longed to go, and Kialan – lucky Kialan! – was going soon. But that made him sad. So, presently, Moril began to patter about across the leads and among the chimneys. He skirted courtyards and looked down into the gardens. Then he ran along a narrow part to another wing and looked down into another court.

And there was Ganner, horrified and gesturing below. “Come down! Come down at once!”

Moril looked. There was a lead pipe and an easy flight of windows. Obediently he swung his legs over the edge of the roof.

Ganner stopped him with a hoarse shriek. “No! Stop! Do you want to break your neck? Wait!” He ran away and presently ran back with a crowd of men carrying a ladder. With them ran a group of horrified maids and the old nurse, wringing her hands.

“My duck! Oh, my duck!”

Moril sat sadly on the edge of the roof, swinging his legs and watching them all pothering with the ladder. He knew what was wrong with Ganner now. He was a fusspot.

The ladder finally thumped against the wall beside him. “You can come down now,” Ganner called. “Go very carefully.”

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