The Spellcoats (12 page)

“Do stop going on about it, Hern,” Robin said. “You must have noticed the days were going by.”

“—are the floods going down?” said Hern.

“We didn't notice,” I said. “Do you know how long we were there?”

“I didn't count,” Robin said. “It felt about ten days.”

“Ten days!” I exclaimed. “No wonder the cabbages were bad!”

“Are the floods going down or not?” said Hern.

We looked anxiously at the spreading waters. The River, in its double strength, was bringing down sticks, straw, boughs, leaves, and weed, between the two lines of trees. “Look, look!” Duck cried out, pointing to the nearest floating bough. We looked and found that it was moving not down the River but gently
backward
. We were aghast.

“The River's flowing the wrong way!” said Robin.

For over an hour the sticks, straw, and leaves continued to move gently upstream. Our boat still went forward, tacking against the wind, but we were all in the greatest panic. Duck and I hung over the side watching the debris. We had no idea if this meant the end of the floods or more malign magic.

“That magician by the sea must be turning the whole River now,” I said.

“If there
is
a magician there,” said Hern. “Think who told us there was.” He stared at a place where the water was gently troubled, as if the true current of the River were forcing its way against the unnatural flow. “Gull's soul is one thing,” he said. “It can't be very heavy. But it would take magic stronger than I can believe in to turn all this weight of water. There must be some other explanation.”

To our surprise and relief, the sticks and weeds turned at midmorning and began going the proper way.

We stayed in the boat all that day. There was nowhere to land in the sheets of water on either side of the trees. But at nightfall we were all sick of raw food. In the dusk we saw what we took for a low island or small mountain out in the flood. We drew up the keel and poled cautiously across to it. It proved to be the roofs of a mighty house, not high, but covering the space of several cornfields. Some roofs were old thatch, some new and steep, of slippery tiles, with painted carvings at the ridge and bundles of tall chimneys.

“I bet the King lived here,” said Duck.

We thought Duck was right. But everyone there had gone to the wars and not come back. We tied the boat to the bars of a window and landed on a flat space of tiles, bringing our Undying with us. Hern thought we might have to put the One in his fire anytime. I could not bear to touch Gull for many days after that, so I brought the Young One. As I set him down, I was struck by the resemblance between them. Gull seems to be made of the same flaky pink stone. Yet I know the Young One was carved many lifetimes ago.

There was only a glimmer of fire in both firepots. We tore off gilded carvings and red and blue rails from the roofs and used handfuls of thatch for kindling. Our fire smoked and smelled bad on the tiles, and smoke spread over the flat water.

After supper we left Robin sitting by the fire with her hands wrapped round the knees of her awful blue skirt and scrambled over the roofs in the near dark. I kept wishing I could see into the drowned rooms underneath. But I had to imagine the grandeur. Hern and I collided coming round the tall chimneys above our boat. While we were laughing, we heard the slop and creak of our boat swinging round to face upstream.

“It's happened again!” said Hern.

We slithered down the steep roof, and sure enough, we could see the boat turned and the rubbish from our supper drifting the wrong way. We knelt with our heads hanging off the roof, trying to see how fast the current went. Hern took a stick and held it with his fingers just out of the water.

“It can't be the end of the floods,” he said. “My thumb's wet now.”

Somebody laughed on the roof behind us. I thought it was Duck and turned to tell him about the current. But it was a Heathen girl. I could see just enough to know that she was fair-haired and not Robin. I nudged Hern and he looked, too.

“Er—good evening,” we said. I don't know how Hern felt, but I was hoping very hard she would think we were Heathens too.

“Hallo,” she said. “Why are you two making such a fuss about the tide?”

“Tide?” we said, stupid as owls in a strong light.

“You must know about it,” she said. “The sea rises twice a day and comes up the River.”

“Oh, we know all about that,” Hern said. “We—er—we were just seeing how high it came up.”

“Of course,” she said.

“We know it's different by the sea,” I lied.

“Of course,” she said. I know she was laughing at us as she slipped away behind the chimneys.

We felt very foolish and very scared. When Robin and Duck learned we were sharing the roofs with Heathens, they wanted to row away in the dark, but we gave up that idea because we could not see where the two lines of trees were by then. Instead we threw our fire into the water and got into the boat. There we did not sleep for a long time, but we never heard a sound from the Heathens.

7

We did not hear the Heathens go, but we were the only people on the roofs in the morning. Hern and I climbed a tower in the middle and made sure of it.

“Now, please,” said Robin as we were all getting into the boat, “let's decide where to stop. What kind of place do we want to live in?”

“We're going down to the sea first,” said Duck.

“Surely not,” Robin said. She gestured to the pink clay brother in the bows of the boat. “Think of Gull.”

At once it was certain that Duck, Hern, and I were all settled on going to the sea. “I do think of Gull,” said Hern. “I want to see that magician—if there
is
a magician. I'm going to flood him out with real things. I shan't believe a word he says. That's the only way to deal with magic.”

“I'd have thought more magic would be better,” said Duck. “But I've got to go there, too.”

My thought was that we would find a magician by the sea and he would prove to be Tanamil. I growled like a dog, I was so angry—angry with Tanamil and angry with myself for believing anything he said. “I'm going to see that magician,” I said, “and I'm going to rescue Gull.” I knew I had not the power to do that. I took up the One and shook him, I was so angry. “He'll help,” I said. “He'd better!”

“Tanaqui!” said Robin. “You mustn't threaten the Undying! I think you're all mad or—or something.”

“Don't you start on about being the eldest and knowing best!” said Hern. “We've all decided.”

“I wasn't,” Robin protested. “I don't know best. I don't know anything anymore. All I know is that it's dangerous. If I didn't know it was quite as dangerous in Shelling, I'd ask to go home.” She bent her head, and tears dripped. Hern sighed.

“We'll find a really nice home when we've been to the sea, Robin,” I said.

It took us four days to come near the sea. It might have taken longer if the wind had not backed to southwest and come hurling over the plains of water, bringing ruffles like gooseflesh. With that we made speed even when the tide turned and flowed up the River. Each day it flowed more strongly, until we came to expect it, as we expected the sun to rise. We found it useful, for it showed us where the River truly ran. There were no more trees to mark the River after the first day. Instead there was a very confusing landscape.

I think more people had lived in that part of the land than I knew existed before. It rose into humps and lumps everywhere. The flooded River flowed round them in lakes, in strings of shallow pools, and in a multitude of smaller rivers. Often the first sign we had that we had missed the main River was that we found ourselves sailing beside the posts of a fence. There were houses on nearly every hump of land and more houses half underwater. Not all these houses were burned, but there were no people anywhere. We risked staying in an empty house one night, but none of us felt comfortable there. Even when we put our Undying in the empty niches by the hearth, it still felt like someone else's house.

Many of the humps had animals on them. We have three cats now, Rusty, and Ratchet, and Sweetheart, who came from the island where the gulls were. I love cats. Robin named them. There was one island full of dogs, but they were wild and hungry and barked at us so fiercely that we did not go near them. Most of the humps were full of sheep. They had lambs, because it was Spring. We wondered whether to catch some to eat, but we were not that hungry yet. We had plenty of dried fruit and pickled fish, and there were cows stranded on every hillside. Once we had got used to the way things were, we did not hesitate to milk those cows.

By the fourth evening in that confusing landscape, the mountains we kept seeing in the distance drew in around us, in the form of low, empty-looking hills. They were dark, stony, and infertile. But the island we landed on was grassy and covered with bushes. There little black Sweetheart came running to meet us, purring and mewing. Never have I seen a cat more glad to have human company.

That morning I was woken by melancholy crying. I got up and found the waters covered with white floating birds, and more flying, catching the sun in a way that had me blinking.

“What are these large mournful birds?” I said.

Hern laughed. “Haven't you seen seagulls before?”

“She may not have done,” Robin said. “They stopped coming to Shelling years ago. They used to come and cover the field when it was plowed, Tanaqui, and Father said they came inland to get away from the Spring storms.”

“But I remember them,” Hern protested. “She's only a year younger than me.”

“Please, Hern,” said Robin. “I'm much too tired to quarrel about seagulls.”

“They used to come after the floods,” Hern said. “Does that mean the River's going down, then?” He scrambled to test the height of the water. He tried a different way nearly every day to see if the floods were over, but the tides grew stronger and steeper the nearer we came to the sea and defeated all his methods. That day Hern hung a piece of twine with knots in it from a bush. But the end of it floated instead of sinking, and Sweetheart came along and played with it. Hern roared at her. It was very odd: Hern, of all of us, was the one who was determined that the One should go in his fire at the proper time.