Drowned Ammet (16 page)

Hildy dodged out from the vase and ran, as quietly as she could in sea boots. “Quick!” she told Ynen. “Harilla found the coverlet.”

“It would be her, wouldn't it?” said Ynen.

They could tell the alarm was up as they crept down toward the kitchens. There was a great deal of noise and running about. But everyone seemed to believe that Hildy and Ynen would be found in the direction of the library. It was easy to avoid the people running there from the kitchens, and once they reached the kitchens, there were very few people left there. They heard someone whistling and dishes clattering, but the sounds echoed with emptiness. Ynen risked opening the door of a pantry.

“Look at that!” he said. The pantry was full, from floor to ceiling, with pies—glazed pies, golden pies, puffy pies, tarts, flans, pasties, and pies with flowers and birds on them. “Pass us a couple of those sacks,” said Ynen. “Let's make it look as if we took enough for a week.”

They pulled the pantry door to behind them and, in the half-dark, seized what pies came first to hand and stuffed the sacks with them. While they were doing it, footsteps hurried outside, backward and forward. They waited for whoever it was to go away, and took the opportunity to eat a pasty each.

“Seems quiet now,” Hildy whispered.

They wiped gravy and crumbs off their mouths and tiptoed out. The kitchen gate was just beyond. The footsteps had been Uncle Harchad's. He had done them a favor. The soldiers who should have been on guard at the gate were standing stiffly just inside the kitchen door up the passage, listening to Harchad, along with the scullions left in the kitchen.

“And you're absolutely sure neither of them has gone past?” they heard Harchad saying.

“Quite sure, sir.”

“If you see them, I want them brought to me, understand? Not to Earl Harl,” said Uncle Harchad.

Nobody saw or heard Ynen and Hildy tiptoe to the gate, open the small postern carved in the big door, and slip out of it with their sacks.

10

Mitt took a last deep breath, hurled himself across the alley, and ran up the wall. If you are light and strong and determined, you can get a long way up a wall like this. Mitt's feet scrambled, his breath sawed, and his fingers caught and slipped in the greasy bricks overhead. His right hand managed to clench in a crumbly crack. He threw the other arm over the top of the wall. Then, with a rasping slide and a slither, he was over and down, in his own backyard, terrified at the noise he had made.

It was queer. It looked like a strange backyard already. Mitt had not remembered it so small and grimy, or the target on the wall so pitted, or the mangle so rusty. As he stole over the slippery earth, he could hardly believe that just as usual, he would be able to slide up the workshop window and unlatch the back door. Yet just as usual, he put his arm in and the cold latch clicked upward under his fingers. He pulled open the door,
creeeak,
and slipped round it into the grimy, gloomy workshop.

Remember to break that window, Mitt thought. Noisy. Pity. Do it last. He crept across the room and picked up a crowbar. He looked at the rack of finished guns—locked, with the seal of Holand dangling from the lock—and the chests of powder—each kind separate, and locked, with the seal of Holand dangling there, too. He wished Hobin was not so careful. He was going to have to break everything, mix his own powder, make his own cartridges.

There was a soft, purposeful movement behind him. Mitt's heart hammered, and his tongue suddenly grew too fat for his mouth. He whirled round, with his hand wet on the crowbar. Hobin was just latching the door which led upstairs to the house.

“That you, Hobin?” Mitt said weakly. Cold despair set in. Everything was going wrong. Hobin should have been out at High Mill, but he was here instead, and wearing his good clothes, as if he had never been out for a walk at all.

Hobin nodded. “I was hoping you'd be along. You've got some sense left, I see.” He walked deliberately across the workshop, even more solid and grave than usual. Mitt could not help backing away, even though he knew he would be cut off from the back door. And he was. Hobin stationed himself by the back window, and Mitt knew he was doing it on purpose.

“But you went out,” said Mitt. “With Ham.”

“And I came back,” said Hobin. “Without him.”

“And—” Mitt pointed jerkily upward with the crowbar. “My mother. She in?”

Hobin shook his head. “At Siriol's, isn't she? We'd best keep her out of this. Mitt, what kind of fool do you think I am to get taken in by someone like Ham? And what did you think you were aiming to do?”

Mitt swallowed. “I—I came for a gun. I was going to make it like robbers broke in. Honest, Hobin, I wasn't meaning to get you into trouble.”

“No, I mean out there on the waterfront,” said Hobin.

“Oh,” said Mitt.

“You do take me for a fool, don't you?” said Hobin. “I can tell my gunpowder to a grain. I knew it was you taking it, but I never thought it was you who was going to use it. Who was the one that shot the Earl? Another of your precious fishermen?”

“I don't know. Hands to the North, I suppose. Hobin,” said Mitt, “let me have a gun. Then I'll go away and never bother you again. Please. Everything went wrong.”

“I saw it go wrong,” said Hobin. “I was right by you when you chucked your fizz-bang. And it was lucky for them, after that Navis kicked it away, that none of them caught you. Then there was nothing I could do but hope you'd have the sense not to trust those fishermen to get you away. Because you're in really bad trouble, Mitt. And it's not funny. Not this time.”

“I know!” said Mitt. “I know! There'll be spies here by tomorrow asking for me.”

“Tomorrow!” said Hobin. “You must be joking! They'll be here by sundown. I give them till then to notice it was one of my guns shot the Earl.”

“One of yours? How can you tell?” Mitt wished Hobin would come away from the back door. He felt trapped.

“It had to be one of mine to throw straight over that distance,” said Hobin. “And it fired first time. Now do you see why I keep well in with the arms inspectors? Or was that what you were counting on?”

“No, I was not,” Mitt said wretchedly. “Why do you think I set Ham on you? What did you do with Ham, anyway?”

“Nothing, only gave him the slip,” said Hobin. “Being the fool he is, he's still walking round in the Flate looking for me. No, I didn't see you thinking that way, but I couldn't help being riled over Ham. I could see through Ham easier than through that window.” Hobin pointed to the grimy glass and came away from the back door at last. Mitt eyed the distance and was wondering whether to dash for it when Hobin said, “What did you aim to do when you'd pinched a gun?”

Mitt heard keys jingle. He looked round to see Hobin unlocking the rack of guns. He could hardly believe it. He knew the risk Hobin was running. “Go out on the Flate,” he said. “See here, I don't want you in trouble. Make it look as if I stole it.”

Hobin looked at him over his shoulder, almost as if he was amused. “You keep taking me for a fool, Mitt. I'm not giving you one of these. If a man can make one gun, he can make two, can't he?” The whole rack of guns swung out from the wall. Hobin took two loose bricks out of the wall where it had been and reached into the space they left. While he was fumbling inside it, he said, “I wish you'd tell me what made you start on this freedom fighting nonsense, Mitt. Was it your father, or what?”

“I suppose it was,” Mitt admitted. It seemed like confessing to one spot when you had measles, but it was the best he could do. Like an admission of failure, he laid the crowbar gently down.

“I thought that was it.” Hobin wriggled the bricks back into place and swung the rack back to its usual position. He turned round carefully, carrying a strange, fat little gun. “And I hoped you'd grow up, Mitt,” he said. “You've got your own life to live.” Gently he spun the strange fat barrel of the gun round. Mitt had never seen a gun like it before. “Have you ever thought,” Hobin asked, “what kind of man leaves you and Milda on your own like that?”

This was such an untoward question that Mitt was quite unable to answer it. “What kind of gun is that?” he said.

“The one I had in my pocket while you were planting your banger,” said Hobin. “In case of trouble. I kept it loaded for you. But I can only let you have the six shots in it, so go easy on them. I can't cheat the inspectors much more than you can.”

“
Six
shots?” said Mitt. “How do you do for priming?”

“You don't. Ever thought what I did with those percussion caps I set you making?” Hobin said. “They're in here, see, on the end of the cartridges, and the hammer fires them off. There's a barrel for each shot. You spin the next one up after you've fired. It doesn't throw far, or I wouldn't let you have it. This is to get you out of trouble, not get you in it, see. If it wasn't for Milda and the girls, I'd have kept you with me and sworn myself blue in the face you were with me all along, like I used to for Canden. But there's them to consider, too. There you are.”

He put the gun in Mitt's hands. Like all Hobin's guns, it was beautifully balanced. Mitt hardly felt the weight of the chubby six-holed barrel at all. “What did you make this for?”

“Experiment,” said Hobin. “And because one of these days there's going to be a real uprising here in the South. The earls can't hold people down forever. So I've made ready. I hoped you'd be patient and be ready, too. But there. You'll find your pea jacket on the stairs, and my belt to carry the gun in.”

Mitt went to the stair door. There, sure enough, were his old pea jacket and the belt. “You—you had this all ready,” he said awkwardly.

“What did you expect?” said Hobin. “Sometimes I think I'd make a better freedom fighter than any of you. I put a bit of thought into it. And I'll give you some advice, too. Don't go out in the Flate.”

Mitt stopped in the middle of fastening Hobin's belt round himself. “Eh?”

“Eh?” said Hobin. “You're all the same. Do what the other man did. You've got a brain, Mitt. Use it. They'll expect you out in the Flate. You'll be caught by tomorrow lunchtime if you go that way. What you want to do is go up along the coast and see if you can't get a boat at Hoe or Little Flate. Or it's worth looking at the West Pool.”