The Spellcoats (9 page)

“Of course she's warm, the way you hug her all the time!” I said. “It's a wonder she's not worn down to a log.”

“Shut up, Tanaqui,” Robin said wearily. “Let's find somewhere to have lunch.”

We did not find anywhere to land. The River had spread between hills that must have been nearly a mile apart. There were the roofs of barns and houses sticking up out of the swirling water on both sides of us. We had some thoughts of tying up to the first roofs we came to, but when we reached them, two old people stood up by the chimneys and yelled insults at us. They thought we were Heathens. We put the sail up and went on, eating cold food as we sailed, feeling very dejected. Gull would not eat again. “I'm glad we're getting on,” he kept saying.

We did not get on very well. The River turned, and the wind blew from the north, in gusts, straight in our faces. We had to tack from side to side against it. Often we found we were sailing right round a submerged roof, and nearly every one was burned or broken. We smelled burning the whole way. Up on the hills to either side were the burned ruins of more houses, burned haystacks, and burned woods. Where the trees were alive, they were not budding. It was like sailing back into winter. Just a few of the fields had been plowed in spite of the wars, and the earth was a curious red, as if the ground was wounded.

“The Heathens have been here,” Hern said. “Everyone's run away.”

None of us answered him. I think we were all becoming more and more uneasy at the way Gull insisted on our going toward where the Heathens must be. I know I was. It seemed to me we were in danger from both sides, and I began to wonder at how thoughtlessly we had set off into this danger. True, Zwitt had left us no choice, but there was no reason to have gone down the River more than a mile or two. I wondered why we were going on, and I wished my father were there to tell us what to do.

Toward evening the River rushed again between steep hills of reddish earth that were covered in bare trees. Someone among the trees shot arrows at us. They all fell short as we raced with the flood, but after that we kept a blanket over us, and whichever of us was steering wrapped their head in a rugcoat. We did not dare think of landing until the River widened again and rushed past on either side of islands, long and boat-shaped and half submerged. The first islands were crowded with people who must have fled there from the Heathens. They were dark-haired, like Shelling people. As soon as they saw the boat, they crowded to the edge of the floods, shouting, “You can't land here! No room!” Zwitt could hardly have been friendlier.

Duck was steering. He stood up and put his tongue out at them, the fool, and the rugcoat slipped off his head. Then they all screamed, “Heathen!” and threw sticks and stones after us. We kept clear of all the other islands until night came on.

As it grew dark, we could see fires here and there on the steep shores and the islands. But the last island we came to was dark. It was very small, with only one patch of dry ground under the trees. Robin said we must land there. She was tired out. We were all scared of landing. We drew in as quietly as we dared and went ashore whispering, even though there was no one there. We lit our fire in a hole among the roots of a tree and prayed to our Undying that nobody would see it.

Gull would not eat again. He would not speak, and he was cold. But we were all cold that night. We pressed against one another in the boat, and every time I woke, the rest of them were shivering, too. I was woken by a dream I kept having. As far as I remember, it was just my mother's voice, saying, “The watersmeet!” and with it a slight scent of tanaqui. But I find it hard to separate it in my head from the dream I have been having ever since I started weaving. In that dream I see my mother bending over me, just the shape of her, with fair hair as curly as Robin's, but bushy like mine. “Wake up, Tanaqui,” she is saying. “Wake up and think!” There is a scent of tanaqui with that dream, too. And I do think I have been thinking, but nothing comes of it, except that I blame myself.

In the morning the boat, our blankets, the ground, and the bare trees were all covered with frost. It looked odd, the white frost on the bloodred earth. The River here ran pink among the yellow, because of the earth.

Gull would not eat again, and I thought of my dream. I found I was wringing my hands like Robin as I looked down at Gull lying in the frosty boat. I expect it was the cold. Now what is a watersmeet? I said to myself. It is where one river joins another. Hern may say what he likes, but if we do come to another river, I shall fall overboard, or pretend to die, or something, and make sure we stay there.

Then it turned out that Robin had come to a decision, too. “You know,” she said, “I don't think we should go any farther. I think we should stay on this island and get Gull warm and well again. I think this is the safest place we're going to find.”

Gull, for a wonder, said nothing. He seemed too weak to speak. But Duck said, “Oh, honestly, Robin! We'd starve here!”

Hern said, “We'd be much better off finding a deserted house somewhere. Gull needs shelter, Robin.”

“Or there must be
some
people who'll believe we're not Heathens,” I said, “and who'll help us look after him. Let's go on, please.”

“I think you're wrong,” Robin said. “It seems to me we may be killing Gull, taking him on a journey like this.”

“He wanted to go,” Hern said.

“He doesn't know what's right for him,” Robin said. “Do let's stay.”

We took no notice. Hern and Duck climbed over Gull in the boat and put the sail up. I poured water on the fire and put the firepot away.

Robin sighed and shook her head and looked about eighty. “Oh, I don't know what to do for the best!” she said. “Promise me you'll stop as soon as you see a good place.”

We all promised, easily and dishonestly. I meant only to stop at another river. I do not know what Hern and Duck meant to do, but I can tell when they are being dishonest.

As we sailed on, the sun came up over the hill at the right of the River, leaving it all dark and blue with frost and turning the left bank to gold. The slopes became higher and steeper as we swirled along, one blue, one gold, until the sun melted the red earth into sight again. There were low red cliffs to the left suddenly, which stopped like the wall of a red house. Beyond that the River was twice as wide or more than that. We could see a row of trees to either side, standing in water, and sheets of water beyond that, flaring in the sun. I think the trees marked the real low banks of the wide River.

I turned my head as we sailed past the end of the red cliff. And I saw more water there, winding back behind the cliffs, with red cliffs on the other side of it.

“The watersmeet!” I shouted. I jumped to the tiller and wrestled to get it out of Hern's hand. Duck jumped with me.

“Don't be idiots!” Hern shouted.

We went to and fro and the sail swung. The boat began going in circles. “What are you doing?” Robin shouted.

“We're going to land. We want to land!” Duck yelled.

With three of us shouting and fighting round the tiller and the boat going in circles, we should have been a perfect mark for bowmen, Heathen or our own. But we were lucky. Hern gave in, though he kept shouting. We came surging round into a great bed of rushes under the first red cliff.

They were the tallest rushes I have ever seen. They must have been deep in the floods beneath, but they were high above our heads even so. They parted in front of the boat and closed behind, and the speed we had drove us on between them, still arguing, into a sort of green grove, until we grounded on a beach of dry shingle, hidden from both rivers.

“I suppose this seems safe enough,” Robin was saying when a Heathen man came swiftly down a small red path above us and stopped among the rushes when he saw us.

“Who was it called?” he said.

He seemed—how shall I say?—wet with haste or damp with the open air. His skin was ruddier than ours. Otherwise he was not so different, except that he was grown up and four of us were not. His hair was long and golden and even more wildly curly than Robin's or Duck's. I must say I liked his face. He had a gentle, laughing look, and his nose turned up a little. His rugcoat was an old faded red one, not unlike the one my father went to war in, very plain and wet with dew. I could see there was red mud splashed on his legs and that he wore shoes like ours, wet, too. But to our relief, he had no kind of weapon. His hands were empty, spread to part the rushes.

I thought: Well, if this is a Heathen, they can't be so very bad.

“Er—nobody called, really,” Hern said, cautiously. “We were arguing about whether to land or not.”

“It's lucky you did land,” he said. “There's a large party of Heathens in a boat coming down the Red River.” Since they were Heathens to him, we knew he meant our people. Not that this made any difference in the danger to us.

We looked at one another. “We'd better wait until they're past,” Robin said doubtfully.

“If you like, you can come up to my shelter to wait,” the Heathen man said politely.

We did not like this idea, but we did not want him to know we were his enemies. Robin and Hern and I looked at one another again. Duck looked at the Heathen man and smiled. “Yes, please,” he said. I kicked at his ankle, but he just moved out of the way. The next second he was scampering away up the path. Robin gave a small ladylike wail and climbed out of the boat, too.

Hern and I did not know what to do. We thought we ought to stay together, but that meant leaving Gull. We bent down and tried to pull Gull up.

“Come along, Gull,” I said. “We're going on a visit.” Hern said encouraging things, too, but Gull would not move, and we could not budge him.

Damp hair brushed my face, and I jumped. The Heathen man was kneeling beside the boat and leaning between us to look at Gull. “How long has he been like this?” he said.

Hern looked at me. “Months, I think.”

Robin leaned eagerly over us. “Do you know what's wrong with him, sir? Can you help us?”

“There's something I can do,” the Heathen man said. “I wish you could have brought him here before this, though.” He stood up, looking very serious. “We must wait till the Heathen have gone by,” he said.

Duck came scooting back down the path. “I saw the Heathen—” he said.

“Quiet!” said the man.

We heard loud voices and the splashy sound of many people rowing. I never saw the people, and they were all talking at once, but I heard one say, “All clear ahead. None of the devils about.” It sounded like a big, heavy boat, moving fast with oars and current, and I thought they must be patrolling for Heathen. The sounds moved quickly into the wide stretch of the double River and faded away.

When they had gone, our Heathen said, “My name is Tanamil, which means Younger Brother.”

I was not sure we should tell him our names, for fear he might guess we were not Heathens, not having outlandish names like his. But Robin went all polite and ladylike and introduced us all. “This is Hern,” she said, “and Tanaqui, and my brother lying there is Gull. That is Duck—”

Tanamil looked up at Duck, in the path above. “Duck?” he said. “Not Mallard?”

Duck's face went almost as red as the earth. “Mallard,” he said. “Duck's a baby name.”

Tanamil nodded and looked back at Robin. “I can guess your name,” he said. “You have to be a bird, too, a bright one, a bird of omen. Robin?”

Robin went red, too, and nodded. She was so confused she forgot to be ladylike. “How did you guess?”

Tanamil laughed. He had a very pleasant laugh, that I admit, very joyful. It made us want to laugh, too. “I've wandered about collecting knowledge,” he said. Then he went serious as he looked down at Gull. “And lucky I did,” he said. “He's very far gone.”

We all looked at Gull then, thinking Tanamil was exaggerating—until we saw how Gull had changed, even in that short time. He was thinner and paler than ever. He lay with his eyes closed, breathing so slightly that we could hardly see it. We could see the other bones in his head, joining those sharp cheekbones of his. He looked like a skull.

Robin seized Tanamil's arm. She would never have done such a thing in the ordinary way. It shows how upset she was. “What
is
the matter with him? Do you know?”

Tanamil continued to look down at Gull. “Yes,” he said. “I know. They are trying to take his soul. He has fought them long and hard for it, but they are winning.”

Hern gave a sort of shiver. He was angry. He is always angry when people talk this way, but I had never seen him as angry as he was then. “Oh, are they?” he said. “And who are
they
in that case, and where are you imagining they are?” He was so angry he could hardly speak.

Tanamil was not offended. He seemed to understand Hern. “The one who is reeling your brother in now,” he said, “is a powerful man who sits beyond the edge of my knowledge. I think he is down by the sea.”

Hern seemed not to know what to say next. He did not seem angry anymore. “Gull kept saying he must go to the sea,” I said.