“And he felt like a real one, too,” Mitt said. “I wonder who he was.”
20
Wind’s Road heeled gently westward in a peaceful evening breeze, threading her way among the Islands. When the sun went red and gold behind High Tross and the misty green hump of Holy Island beyond that, Hildy began to feel chilly. Riss told her there were coats below. Hildy went into the cabin. There she found that not only had the cupboard been repaired and the water keg refilled, but the forward bunk held a pile of coats and seaboots to fit both men and boys. Puzzled by this, Hildy put on one of the coats and came out, intending to ask Riss about it.
A sweet, haunting sound came to her. It seemed to be coming from Ommern. Hildy listened, enchanted, to a tune at once melancholy and filled with joy—at once a tune and at the same time only the broken pieces of a tune. Instead of coming from Ommern, as she had thought, it came from the green hump of Wittess. But when she turned that way, the sound came from Prestsay to one side. “Piping?” she said to Riss.
He nodded. “The greeting of the great ones.”
Hildy leaned over the side of Wind’s Road listening until she thought her heart would break, but whether with joy or sorrow she could not tell.
They heard the piping aboard the tall ship Wheatsheaf, too, as she tilted among the islands, carrying Navis and Ynen to Holand. They were in Bence’s stateroom, with Al, Lithar, and two guards. Bence was stamping about above in a considerable rage. It seemed that the Wheatsheaf’s sails unaccountably kept losing the wind, and they were making very poor progress.
“Can’t any of you trim a sail right!” Bence roared.
“It is the wind toward evening, and the islands taking the force from it,” explained a gentle voice.
“Teach your flaming grandmother!” roared Bence. “You there! Stop sleeping along that yard and trim your sail!”
The piping came to Ynen’s ears very sweet and fitful, sometimes like a melting song, sometimes as a wild skirling. He could not hear it properly for the roaring of Bence. “I wish he’d be quiet,” he said to Navis.
From time to time Bence fell into an exasperated silence. Each time the piping came from a different quarter. Al wriggled his shoulders at it as if it made him itch.
“I wish they’d stop that flaming piping! What do they do it for?”
“Nobody does it,” Lithar said in surprise. “It happens sometimes. Always near sunset, around suppertime. Shall we have supper?”
“If it makes you happy,” Al growled.
Bence’s steward brought in cold meat and fruit and wine. Al did not eat much, though he drank the wine. The rest had supper and listened to the shouts of Bence and the piping in between. The steward cleared the meat away, and they were still among the islands and the piping still sounded.
Mitt heard the piping, too, as he swung down the side of Holy Island, galloping the occasional steep stretch. The sound seemed to come from the heart of the island beneath his feet. It was the wildest, most joyful music he had ever heard. Mitt felt so glad and confident that he would have sung, except that he was afraid of spoiling the music.
But when he came down with a steep rush to the shingly shore and saw the well-known elegant shape of Wind’s Road leaning past High Tross in the haze of evening, he nearly despaired again.
“They’ve got away! They’ve gone and left me!” he said. “Wind’s Road! Hey, there! Wind’s Road!” He jumped and waved and shouted, knowing they were too far away to see or hear him.
A sudden wave rose between Holy Island and green Ommern and traveled swiftly to the shore where Mitt was. It was so queer, all on its own, that Mitt stopped shouting and watched it. It rushed on, one lonely peak of water, and thundered down on the shingle beside Mitt in a mass of white water and the rubbly squeaking of pebbles. Mitt scrambled hastily out of range. Then he realized that the white foam of the wave was still standing high above his head. He found he was staring at one of the lovely white horses of the storm.
“Thanks, Ammet,” Mitt said, laughing a bit nervously. He had ridden a horse only when he was a very small boy, and that was a cart horse. He edged toward the horse. It put its nose down and blew salty breath at him. Nervously Mitt grasped it by its rough wet mane, which it did not seem to like, and struggled onto its slippery back. The horse shook its head and rippled the skin under Mitt, but it did not throw him off.
“Can you catch that boat for us?” Mitt said to it.
The horse surged forward, joggled him, bounced him, and then seemed to be pure movement under him. Mitt found they were galloping across the sea itself, tossing spray, tossing the horse’s mane, tossing Mitt. He fell forward and put his arms round the horse’s neck. There were hard muscles in it, and it felt warm and cold together, like a hot day high on a mountain. Spray dashed into Mitt’s face and the dark sea raced beneath. He could only bear to watch it out of one eye. He tried peering forward for Wind’s Road, but she had sailed behind Wittess.
Wittess was straight ahead. Almost there. Underneath him. The horse galloped straight across the island without checking. The only difference was that its hooves thudded deep and drumlike, and turf flew into Mitt’s face instead of spray. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw several people, who all shaded their eyes to see Mitt against the sun. They did not seem particularly astonished.
“Must have odd things happen all the time,” Mitt said breathlessly to the horse as it thudded down to the sea again. Among the sound of its hooves, he could hear the piping again, strong and wild. The sound changed to whipping water, and the horse seemed to splash wet sunset out of the sea. In the dazzle Mitt saw the deck of Wind’s Road just in time, almost underneath him, as the horse dissolved to a wave of gray, foamy water.
Hildy turned round almost too late. She saw Riss smiling, a welter of disappearing water, and Mitt’s feet landing on the cabin roof. “You’re not alive!” she said.
It was not very welcoming. “I’m not a ghost yet,” Mitt said gruffly. “Where’s Ynen then?”
“With Father and Al on the Wheatsheaf,” Hildy said miserably. “He’s taking them back to Holand. They went hours ago.”
“Oh, well,” said Mitt. He was going to say it was a pity, and then forget about it, when he saw Riss was smiling at him knowingly.
“The Wheatsheaf will be between Yeddersay and the outer island,” Riss said. “Jenro is seeing to that. They will wait until the sun goes down and the piping stops, when they will know you are not coming.”
“Oh,” said Mitt. This was too bad! It was not enough to decide to come back as a friend. It seemed to mean he was expected to act as a friend, and to Navis, of all people, here and now. Ynen, Mitt did not mind. But he did not want to see Al again either. He shot a surly look at the bows of Wind’s Road, where Old Ammet still lay, stiff and blond and bristly. It was all his fault.
But while he was looking, Mitt suddenly remembered, for no reason he clearly knew, the time when he had first seen Old Ammet in his other, better shape, standing by the bowsprit as Wind’s Road hung on the slope of that monster wave, trying to turn over and drown them all. For a moment he felt like Wind’s Road himself. But at that point he had already saved Ynen’s life by grabbing his ankle just in time. Mitt sighed. It seemed as if it was his way to make friends without knowing he had— just as he had with Siriol, or Hobin, for that matter. Perhaps even Hildy and Navis were friends, too, deep down where it did not show.