Diana Jones - The Crown of Dalemark

“Come on, then,” said Alk. He let go of Mitt and lumbered ahead of him through the archway that led to his apartments. Alk’s valet was waiting there, with candles lit and water steaming and good clothes hung carefully over chairs. “You can have a rest tonight, Gregin,” Alk said cheerfully. “Mitt’s going to clean me up today. Part of his education.”

Even if Alk did not know he was doing Mitt an honour, the valet certainly did. His face was a mixture of jealousy, respect and anxiety. “Sir,” he said. “The coal. The oil.” He started to back out of the room as Alk waved him away, and then came back to whisper fiercely to Mitt. “Mind you don’t let him stop you scrubbing him when he’s still grey. He’ll try. He always does.”

“Go away, Gregin,” said Alk. “My word by the Undying that we won’t let you down.” Gregin sighed and went away. Mitt got down to the hard work of scrubbing Alk clean. “Do I take it you’ve had another of your disagreements with my Countess?” Alk asked while Mitt laboured.

“Not … the way you mean this time,” Mitt said, rubbing away at one huge hairy arm.

“Her bark is worse than her bite,” Alk observed.

Alk had to think that, Mitt supposed. He must have had a lot of illusions about the Countess to have married her at all. “Keril’s worse,” he said. “He’s all bite and no bark, as far as I can see.”

“So Keril’s in it too?” Alk said musingly. He took his arm away from Mitt, looked at it, and gave it back, sighing. It was still grey. “Now I see you’re in no mood to agree with me, but Earl Keril’s a good man, shrewd as he can hold together. Knows all about steam power too. They have a steam organ at Hannart, did you know? Huge thing. But he’s not the man to get on the wrong side of if you can help it.”

“Well, I have,” Mitt said bitterly. “I was on his wrong side before he even set eyes on me.”

“Now why was that?” wondered Alk.

He was obviously waiting for Mitt to tell him, but Mitt found he could not bear to, any more than he could bear to go near Kialan. He finished scrubbing Alk’s left arm and began on the right, even blacker and larger than the left.

“Something’s up,” Alk said at length, “that I don’t know about, I think. And it can’t be quite legal, or she would have told me. Did they tell you not to tell me?”

Mitt looked up to find Alk staring shrewdly at him across his lathery arm. “No,” he said. “But I’m not saying. They knew I wouldn’t too, for fear you’d be disgusted and kick me out. How do you like being washed by the scum of the earth?”

Alk frowned. “You scrub even brisker than Gregin, if that’s what we’re talking about.” He said nothing else for a while, until Mitt had scrubbed him to clean pink blotches and was starting to help him into good clothes. As his head came out through the neck of the white silk shirt, he said, “See here. I was only a poor farmer’s boy before I came to be a lawman. Keril’s Countess Halida was nobody much either, and she was from the South like you.” Mitt had not the heart to answer this. It was kindly meant, but so wrong. “Hmm,” said Alk. “Wrong track there.” As Mitt helped him force his arms down the sleeves, he added, “And it’s maybe the wrong track too, if I was to mention that you’re much better placed than you were when you came? You can read and write and use weapons now. They tell me you learn good and quick, and you’ve brains to use what you learn – well, I know you’ve got brains. My Countess has not treated you so badly—”

“And that’s a lie!” Mitt burst out. “She did it all for a reason!”

“As to that,” Alk said as Mitt threaded golden studs into his cuffs, “ you’ve not gone out of your way to make her love you, Mitt. And everyone always has a reason for what they do. It’s only natural.”

“Then what’s your reason for trying to cheer me up like this?” Mitt retorted.

“Easy,” said Alk. “I can’t abide misery, and I hate mysteries. Anyone taking half a glance at your face could see something was wrong. And cheering up often brings things to light. I found that out when I was a lawman, the first time we had a man accused of murder.” Mitt winced at that and nearly dropped a stud. He knew Alk noticed, but Alk only said, “Want me to talk to my Countess about this?”

“No point. Wouldn’t do any good,” Mitt said. Everyone knew that Alk never went against the Countess. He turned away and got Alk’s vast brocade trousers. “Look, I don’t want to talk about this no more,” he said, helping Alk step into them.

“I see that. And I think you ought to,” Alk said.

Mitt obstinately said nothing while he buttoned the trousers round Alk’s bulging waist and then fetched the huge embroidered jacket. Alk backed into it with his arms out, like a bear. “Nothing you want to say, then?” he asked.

“Nothing, only a question,” Mitt said, meaning to change the subject. “Is the One real?” Alk turned round with the jacket half on and stared at him. “I mean,” said Mitt, “I never heard of the One, nor half the other Undying either, until I came here. We don’t take much note of Undying in the South. Do you believe in any of them?” He went round Alk and heaved the jacket on to him. Then he bent down to help Alk with his boots.

“Believe in the One!” Alk said, and trod into the right boot. “It would be hard not to, here in Aberath, at this time of year, but—” He trod into the left boot and stamped down in it, thinking. “Put it like this. I believed in my machines when they were just a notion in my head and nothing I could touch or see. Who’s to say that the One isn’t as real as they were in my head – or as real as they are now?” He flipped the fastening at the neck of his shirt to see if Mitt had tied it securely and tramped to the door. “Coming?”

Supper would be ready in the great hall. It came to Mitt that it would be his job to wait on Kialan at table. He could not face it. “I got to polish my gear and pack now,” he said. “I’m off to Adenmouth tomorrow.”

“Are you now?” Alk turned round in the doorway and looked hard at Mitt again. “Then I’ll make sure someone remembers to feed you,” he said. “I think I’m on the right track now. And I don’t like it, Mitt. I don’t like it any more than you do. Don’t do anything stupid until I talk to you again.”

MITT HAD TO SET out for Adenmouth without seeing Alk again. The Countess had obviously given strict orders. He was roused before dawn, and fed, and pushed to the stables as the sun rose, where he found the Armsmaster waiting for him in a very bad temper. Mitt sighed and watched every buckle, pouch and button being checked, and then every scrap of tack on the horse. He had had some idea of hanging his belt, with the sword on one side and the dagger on the other, up on a nail and then forgetting it accidentally on purpose. But there was no question of that with an angry Armsmaster standing over him.

“I’m not going to have you let me down in front of potty little Adenmouth,” the Armsmaster said as Mitt mounted.

Mitt rather hoped the horse would try to take a bite out of the Armsmaster, the way it always did with anyone else, but of course, it did not dare, any more than Mitt did. “I wish you’d let me take a gun,” Mitt said. “I can use a gun. I’d let you down with a sword for sure.”

His idea was that it would be much easier to shoot this Noreth from a distance than to get close up the way you had to with a sword. But that idea died at the look on the Armsmaster’s face. “Nonsense, boy! Guns here have to be smuggled in from the South. Think I’d trust you with something that expensive? And sit up straight! You look like a sack of flour!”