Drowned Ammet Read online

  Good old Hobin! Mitt thought, making squelching strides through the pink marsh.

  Then he came to the dikes. They were gray-green muddy ditches, just too wide to jump, threading the squashy green turf in front of the wall as intricately as the patterns Milda used to embroider on hangings for the Palace. Once they had been simply sea marsh. Now they were where the Palace sewers came out. As the tide was going out, they were running sluggishly, with scummy bubblings and a foot of gray mud above the waterline.

  “Yuk!” said Mitt, and looked rather desperately toward the causeway, wondering whether he dared go that way instead. There were people on it. He could see them moving between the trees. Once again that awful, unusual fear seized him. He was afraid to move at all. I better wait for dark, he thought.

  But the people, whoever they were, continued flickering slowly to and fro between the trees. Mitt, with his hands shaking, tore up an old stake and prodded the nearest ditch with it. The nasty water was only knee-deep.

  I’ll have a go, thought Mitt. He slithered down into the sour, salty mud. “Oh yuk! Shershplottle-shloosh! What filthy filth!” said Mitt. He waded through and climbed out. “Careful of that gun, now,” he warned himself. A couple of yards on was another ditch. “Second sewer,” said Mitt, sliding in with a shudder. “And now”—as he climbed out—“here comes another.”

  He was struggling out of that ditch when there were shouts from the causeway. Figures ran between the trees and leaped gingerly down on the green morass—green figures, darker than the marsh. Harchad had thought of the West Pool, too. Mitt went down, through and up out of that next dike quicker than the rats through the garbage on the waterfront. He was through the next two before the running soldiers reached their first. As he plunged down yet another slimy bank, he saw them stop there, about a hundred yards away.

  Take them a while to bring themselves to go in, he thought. The wall of the Pool was about a hundred yards away, too. Mitt knew he would never get there. It was hopeless. He doubled over and ran along the ditch, splashing and squelching, keeping one hand over his coat and the gun. “Keep it dry. You might get one or two with it,” he said to himself. The ditch bent and joined another one. When Mitt looked up, the wall of the Pool was quite a bit nearer. There was a buttress he might climb up. But he would have to come out of this ditch to get to it. Mitt rolled out and dived across the moist green turf.

  Something went pheeew past his head and thudded smick into the bank of the dike beyond.

  Mitt found himself up and running. He was so frightened that he felt as if he had got some dreadful disease. His legs hurt, his breathing hurt, and he felt giddy. Bullets were going pheeew-smick all round him now. He thought he was like a chicken, running about with its neck wrung. He was sure he was dead.

  Hey! thought Mitt. He was on the edge of another dike. Pheeew-smick. He threw up both arms, spun round, and fell. While he was falling, he had time to hoik Hobin’s belt round him, so the gun was at his back, out of harm’s way. He fell on his face on the cold, salty turf and let himself slide over sideways into the bubbling slime in the dike. He hardly noticed the smell.

  There was one more shout from the distance, then businesslike silence.

  Good, thought Mitt, and began to claw his way along below the bank on hands and knees.

  “There are a lot of people,” Ynen said uneasily when he and Hildy were halfway along the causeway. “Soldiers, I think. By the Pool gate.”

  They stopped, confounded, and humped their sacks of pies to the side of the road, where the trees hid them.

  “It must be the uprising,” said Hildy. “Do you think they’d let us past if I offered them a gold piece? I’ve got one.”

  “I don’t know. There are an awful lot of them.”

  They loitered forward, under the trees. It was hard to know what to do. The soldiers might not stop them. On the other hand, Uncle Harchad had told the guards by the kitchen to bring them to him. He could have sent the same message to these soldiers.

  “And it would be the most terrible waste if they sent us back now,” said Hildy.

  Before they were near enough to see or be seen clearly, they saw the figures at the end of the road flicker to the side of it, one after another, and disappear through the trees. It looked as if they had jumped off the causeway.

  “Don’t they want us to see them?” Hildy said, and stopped, thinking of bombs and revolutionaries.

  “Oh come on!” said Ynen, and began to run. “Quick! While they’re away.”

  Hildy caught him up, and they ran hard, with the pies butting at their shoulders and the trees flicking past on either side. There was a salvo of little blunt bangs down below the road. Between the flicking trees they saw puffs of smoke and a flash or so. It sent both Hildy and Ynen over to the other side of the road, where they ran still, but more slowly. Neither of them wanted to run straight into a battle.

  But the firing stopped after a round or so. Ynen panted to Hildy to hurry, to get to the gate before the soldiers came back. But no soldiers appeared. They reached the big pitch-painted gates before they saw them. There were about twenty soldiers, all down in the marsh to the left, jumping and slithering among the smelly dikes there. They were peering into each one they came to, and shouting to one another to cover the next one. Some had poles and were prodding the mud.

  “They’re looking for someone,” Ynen said, greatly relieved. “I bet it’s the murderer.”

  “I suppose they shot him,” Hildy agreed. “Ynen, how lucky! They’ve left the gates open. They must have been searching the Pool.” It did not really occur to them that someone’s misfortune had caused their good luck.

  Mitt slithered up that buttress. Like a horrible great slug, I am, he thought. He rolled onto the top of the wall. Left a slimy trail like one, too, he thought, looking at the wide smear of gray-green mud behind him. Below, the soldiers were prodding at ditches, convinced he was dead. Mitt rolled off the wall and thumped onto the jetty beyond before any of them chanced to look up and find reason to revise their opinion. He lay propped on his elbows, panting, clammy and almost tired out, and wondered which of these many little boats he had better get into. He knew it would have to be one he could manage easily alone. For that reason he rejected the beauty moored about ten yards down. “Too big, my lovely,” he told her. “One of them Siriol used to spit at, too.”

  He looked round the rest. Some were big, some tubby, some the merest cockleshells. They all gleamed with splendid paint. Mitt thought he was weighing each one up as he looked at it, but in fact, all he was doing was comparing them with that blue beauty ten yards away and finding them trash in comparison. He did not have time to make himself decide reasonably. A soldier down in the marsh yelled. Mitt bolted on hands and knees like a monkey. He was rolling across the blue beauty’s cabin roof before he had time to think. She had a steering well—purest pleasure boat stuff, Mitt thought, dropping down into it. At least it hid him from the soldiers.

  But not for long. Before Mitt had believed it possible, footsteps were pattering on the jetty outside. He tore open the double cabin doors and dived inside. If he had not been in such a hurry, he would have stopped then and stared. He never could have imagined a ship’s inside could be so beautiful—blue blankets and blue plush, a charcoal cooking stove, white paint and gold, and everything carved and ornamented and cleaned until it was more like a floating palace than a boat.

  Ah, I always said the best wasn’t good enough for me! Mitt thought, tiptoeing in a trail of green slime to the far end of the cabin. The boat’s name was embroidered on all the blankets. Mitt could not resist pausing to spell out the name all this luxury went under. Wind’s Road, he read. Very suitable. Suits me fine.

  The next second Wind’s Road dipped and swung under people’s feet. “Isn’t she beautiful!” Ynen said, dumping his sack on a locker. Mitt fumbled open a gilded cupboard, sweating with panic, and found himself confronting a bucket with a gilded seat. The bucket seemed to have roses painted
all over it.

  Flaming Ammet! thought Mitt. There really is nothing but the best on this ship! He shot the polished brass bolt to the cupboard with slimy, shaking fingers, and leaned against the gilded wall, listening to feet scampering and shrill, haughty voices calling overhead.

  PART THREE

  WIND’S ROAD

  11

  “Help me get the mainsail up, and then stand by to untie her,” Ynen said. “Oh, look at this! She’s all over mud! I knew those blessed sailors used her for lobsters when my back was turned!”

  “I’ll wash it down when we’re sailing,” Hildy said. “But do let’s get going before those soldiers come. Most of the mud’s only on the sail cover.” She jumped on the cabin roof and helped Ynen unlace the cover.

  Ynen unlaced busily beside her. He was not often angry, but he was now. Someone had been on Wind’s Road, the apple of his eye, the one lovely thing that was truly his own, and made a mess of her in his absence. He could not forgive them. “Honestly!” he said. “Green, smelly mud! You trust people, and they go and take advantage of you.”

  “Father said you can’t blame people for that,” said Hildy. “I’ll fold from my end, and be quick! He said the poor see the rich as their natural prey.”

  “Just the kind of thing he would say!” Ynen said irritably. “Fold it, don’t just scrunch it! Mind you, he was probably right. I’ll ask for a guard in future.”

  “Some soldiers have just come through the gates,” said Hildy, causing Mitt to stand stiffly in his cupboard with his hands clenched. He had no idea who these arrogant fugitives could be or why they were in such a hurry, but he knew they could not be in too much of a hurry for him.

  “Cast off the moorings and push her off, then,” Ynen called, “while I get the sail up. Make sure you don’t push us out of the deep channel, though.”

  Yes, and hurry up about it, for Old Ammet’s sake! Mitt thought.

  In a flurry of thumping, Hildy untied the mooring ropes and threw them on the planking, ready to be coiled later. Then she heaved on the jetty with all her might. Mitt gathered from the shifting and dipping what was happening. He heard the rhythmic rattle, rattle as Ynen sent the mainsail up, hand over hand, and then a further pounding of feet combined with a stiff tilting, as Ynen bounded to the bows to get the foresails up, and Hildy plunged to the tiller and turned Wind’s Road to catch the wind. After that came a slow ripple, ripple. Wind’s Road got gently under way and slid along the channel toward the open sea.

  They won’t find us so easy to stop now, Mitt thought. Whoever these rich youngsters were, they could handle a boat all right. He supposed it was lucky they could. But he was still scared stiff. He could not see them getting away with it.

  Hildy and Ynen anxiously watched the harbor wall glide by and wished it would glide faster. Four or five soldiers were now running along the jetty behind, stumbling among ropes and shouting.

  “What are they saying?” Ynen wondered.

  Hildy gave a nervous giggle. “Stop, I think.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Pull on the reins?” Ynen said, and laughed, too.

  Soldiers appeared on the harbor wall, struggling up from the marsh behind, most of them muddy and all in a great hurry. No sooner did they see Wind’s Road sliding proudly past and beginning to lean a little in the sea wind than they became quite frantic. They shouted to one another and yelled at Hildy and Ynen to come back. One or two raised their guns.

  “They’re awfully close,” Hildy said.

  “I know, but I daren’t leave the channel,” said Ynen. The soldiers seemed so angry that he thought he had better pacify them. He jumped up onto the seat of the steering well, with his foot on the tiller, and waved. “It’s all right,” he shouted cheerfully. “We’re only going out for a sail.”

  A soldier sighted along a gun at him. Ynen overbalanced out of sheer astonishment and pitched down into the well, kicking the tiller as he went. As Wind’s Road veered, the shot fizzed slantwise across where Ynen’s head had been, only just missing the lovely whiteness of her mainsail.

  “Ye gods!” said Hildy, and plunged for the tiller. Wind was hard in the sail, and she could feel the deep keel dragging in the mud of the Pool. Another shot zinged across behind Hildy’s head.

  Ynen rolled over as if he had been stung and stared anxiously up at the sail. “Filthy swine! If he’s holed my canvas, I’ll have his guts for garters!”

  Hildy dragged the tiller across. Wind’s Road, her sail now properly filled, gathered majestic speed and foamed past the end of the wall. If the soldiers fired any more shots, they were lost in the sudden buffet of waves and the singing of the fresh wind. “They can’t possibly stop us now,” said Hildy. “But, Ynen, they fired at us! What did they think they were doing?”

  “They must all be filthy revolutionaries,” Ynen said. He was still very shaken. “I’ll make sure they’re all hanged when we get back.”

  “I think it must have been a mistake,” Hildy said, almost equally shaken.

  Mistake all right, Mitt thought, shaking all over. They thought one of you was me. Now you had a taste of the way the rest of us feel. Don’t like it, do you? What did I have to go and choose this boat for? I can’t do a thing right today, can I? If only I’d got on any of the other ones, I could have sat tight and let the soldiers think these two was me.

  “It must have been a mistake,” Ynen agreed, recovering. “I was just furious in case they’d spoiled the boat. We can sort it out when we get back.”

  “We might not be able to,” said Hildy. “Don’t forget we’ll be in awful trouble when we get back.”

  “Oh, don’t let’s think of that now,” said Ynen. “Hand over the tiller. I want to stand well out to miss the shoals.”

  It was beyond Mitt to imagine what these two thought they were doing. First they ran from the soldiers as fast as he had. Now they talked about going back. The one thing Mitt was certain of was that he was going to change that idea for them. He wriggled the bolt quietly back and came out of his gilded cupboard. There he suddenly felt tired out. He stood listening to the sea frilling briskly past the hull and the creak and rattle of ropes. Feet batted the roof as Hildy began coiling ropes and resetting the foresails. Then came the clank and slosh of a bucket being dipped overboard. Rubbing and trickling sounds told Mitt that someone was washing off the mud he had brought aboard.

  That’s right, he thought. Bustle about. Siriol taught me to keep my boats particular. Ah, I feel like a wet wash leather! And since it was obvious that neither of his companions was intending to come into the cabin, Mitt flopped onto the port bunk for a rest. He could wait a bit to change their plans. The cabin, as small places do, quickly got up a fug. The mud on Mitt, the blankets and the floor dried in big green flakes. Mitt drowsed.

  When Hildy had washed the deck, she joined Ynen in the well. “I love the way the wind blows in your face and makes your eyes all cool,” she said.

  “It’s my favorite feeling,” Ynen said.

  Mitt hoped they would not go on like this. He did not want to hear their silly private thoughts. He was glad when Hildy said, “The land’s a long way off already.”

  “The tide’s running out,” Ynen explained. “We’ll be past the shoals in a minute. Then we’ll turn north.”

  “I like the south best,” Hildy objected.

  “So do I. But the wind’s wrong. We’d be close-hauled, and I wouldn’t dare tie the mainsheet when we had supper.”

  “But there’s a current to the north, isn’t there? If we get into that, we’ll never get back before dark, not close-hauled,” Hildy pointed out.

  “I wasn’t going that far,” said Ynen. “I want to be back in daylight because of the shoals. I thought we’d go north till slack water, and then have supper, and then come back when the tide turned.”

  “Supper at slack water sounds a nice idea,” Hildy admitted. “And you are captain.”

  Mitt thought supper at any time was a nice idea. And you’ll share it
three ways, he thought. Two for me and one for you. Then we’ll see about who’s captain, and carry on up North. He bestirred himself enough to fetch out Hobin’s gun and see how it had fared in the dikes. To his relief, it was dry. He laid it by his head, within easy reach, and dozed again. Wind’s Road rose and fell. The wind creaked in her sails. The water splatted past. Ynen and Hildy did not talk much. They were too happy. Time and the land slid away.

  The next thing Mitt knew, Wind’s Road’s motion was a more sluggish one. Hildy was saying angrily, “Why did you tell me you knew if you didn’t?”

  Ynen answered patiently, in the overfirm way people use when they are trying to convince themselves as much as the other person, “I do know. That must be Hoe Point over there, and I’m sure Little Flate is in the dip beyond it. All I said was that we’d come a bit farther than I expected.”

  Mitt blinked at the gilt and white portholes and was surprised to see it was still daylight, if they had come that far. Wind’s Road, even allowing for the tide which helped her, was a fine, fast boat. Unless it was tomorrow, of course. So much had happened to Mitt today that he felt as if it had gone on for a fortnight, even before he boarded this boat.

  “Are you saying you think we’ve got into that current?” Hildy asked sharply. “Because, if so, we’d better turn straight round now.”

  “No, no. It’s only slack water,” Ynen assured her anxiously. “I can tell it’s slack water by the way she’s sailing.”