Drowned Ammet by Diana Wynne Jones

Author:Diana Wynne Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins

13

The night seemed extraordinarily long. Mitt stayed at the tiller for as much of it as he could. He wanted to get a good start Northward. It felt good to be handling a boat again, particularly a responsive racing boat like Wind’s Road. But with the good feeling went long, mindless boredom. There was nothing to do but watch the slowly wheeling stars and listen to the whelming of the huge sea. Mitt did make several honest efforts to decide just what he thought he had been doing back in Holand. But every time he started to think, he came to, some time later, to find he had been thinking of nothing at all. At length the stars began taking little jumps through the sky. Mitt did not know if he had been asleep while they moved or not, but he saw he had had enough. He hitched up the tiller and woke Hildy.

Hildy was so sleepy that she took her watch almost unconscious. It seemed a very long time. Then Hildy found herself doubled painfully over the tiller in a paler world. The sea was dark and glossy. A white wave fizzing past had woken her. Hildy hobbled off like an old woman and woke Ynen.

Ynen, much more refreshed by six hours’ sleep than Hildy felt he had any right to be, went gaily out into whitening dawn. The bank of mist where the land was seemed too near. Ynen corrected their course and tightened ropes, and sang while the sun came melting red and yellow out of the mist. Now it was settled, and they were going North, it felt like the best holiday Ynen had ever had. When Mitt came out a while after, Wind’s Road was sailing briskly in a brisk wind, under a streaky gray sky. The land was a chalky smudge, and the vigorous gray waves were galloping North, too, dividing into two lines of white round Wind’s Road’s eager bows. Hildy crawled out later still, groaning. It was so early.

They got the pies out. They were staler, soggier, and much less appetizing. “I reckon,” Mitt said, “that they’ll be old enemies by the time we make Kinghaven—if they last till then.”

“They ought to. We’ve got two sacksful,” said Ynen, and could not help laughing at the look on Mitt’s face.

“Then it’s only water that’s the worry,” said Mitt.

“Well, actually, the water barrel’s full up,” Hildy confessed.

For a moment Mitt could hardly credit that he had been so taken in. Then, to Hildy’s relief, he shouted with laughter. “I bet you were mad when I didn’t have the arris!” he said. “Us rough fellows are supposed to love that, aren’t we?”

Hildy bent her head, embarrassed. She was even more embarrassed when Mitt tasted the water and remarked that it was some of the sweetest-tasting water he had ever drunk. She and Ynen were both shuddering at its musty wooden taste.

Ye gods! What must the water be like down in Holand! Hildy thought. She was

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