The Spellcoats

  Kars Adon, being such a stiff, polite person, was naturally hugely embarrassed. He twisted his hand out of mine and stepped back. “Please don’t cry,” he said. Then he thought he had been too chilling, and he said, “I am very pleased to see you up here. We wondered what you were doing.”

  “Didn’t you see the One?” I said. “I was talking to my grandfather.”

  Kars Adon looked at me with an oddness he was almost too polite to show. “There was no one here,” he said. “Who did you think it was?”

  “He’s called Adon, like you,” I said, “and Amil and—”

  “Hush!” said Kars Adon. He was very awed. “You mean our Grand Father was here?”

  I nodded. I was crying again, to think the One had gone away without my seeing him.

  “Then is that why the water coming out of the hill is suddenly smoking like this?” Kars Adon asked.

  “Doesn’t it usually smoke?” I said, sniffing busily.

  “Not while we’ve been here,” he said.

  I was cheered by this. “Then it shows I’ve done something,” I said, and my crying stopped.

  “If you feel better,” Kars Adon said, “I think you should come with us. We are having to move from here. Kankredin is coming up the River, they say, in a great wall of water. As he hasn’t sent word to me, I’m assuming he’s my enemy, too, now.”

  “He is,” I said. “He wants to be King himself.”

  Kars Adon twisted his mouth at that. “Thank you. I should have seen that. I could have seen that even when my father was alive, now that I think.” He fidgeted a moment with the hem of his cloak, and then he said, “I owe your family a great debt. If it had not been for your brother, I would still be crouching like a mouse in the hem of Kankredin’s gown, dreaming of—of glories … and risking getting trodden on. Hern made me see how ridiculous that was.”

  Hern would be glad of that, I thought.

  “You’d better come to our camp,” said Kars Adon. “I can show you some gratitude now, at least.”

  “Oh, but I can’t!” I said. “My weaving’s down in our King’s camp, and I have to get it and finish it before Kankredin gets here. You wouldn’t believe how important that is!” I took a look over the edge of the turf, down to the tiny slip of the lake below, but I had to snatch my eyes away.

  “Is your King down there?” Kars Adon asked, suddenly very eager. I thought he had not noticed my talk of weaving at all, but I found later that I was wrong.

  “Yes,” I said. “We got to the lake down there this afternoon.”

  Kars Adon was delighted. “Then that alters everything,” he said. “We stay here. I shall send someone down to talk to your King, and they can ask for your weaving then. I think Hern would say that was the right thing to do. You come with me.”

  He wrapped his cloak around him against the wind and walked away up the turf. He walked with a strong limp; I had been right about that. When I did not come with him at once, he called to me, “Are your brothers with the King?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Then everything will be all right,” he said, and walked on.

  I caught him up easily because of his limp. As we walked round the mountainside together, I asked him if he had been wounded.

  His face was pink, and he shook his head. “I was born this way,” he said.

  In the trees beyond the shelving turf, we were met by six lordly-looking Heathens. They had that grave, anxious look Heathens always seem to have, but I think they were truly anxious. One asked, “Shall you give orders to strike camp now, lord?”

  “I’ve found a better way to settle our troubles,” Kars Adon said. “The native King is at hand, and we shall face Kankredin together.” He motioned me to walk with him and limped swiftly down the hillside, with the lordly ones following. From the conversation they had as we went, I gathered that the lordly ones had been trying to persuade Kars Adon to leave the place for days, because of Kankredin. They were frightened white by Kankredin, even more than Robin is. It began to give me a sense of how strong Kankredin is, their fear. But it was also quite plain that it stuck in Kars Adon’s gorge to flee from Kankredin. He had been looking for an excuse to stay, and he had found it in what I had said.

  The lordly ones kept saying that prudence was safety, and who could face the mage of mages? Kars Adon limped on without answering until we came to a trodden path leading out from among the pine trees when he flung over his shoulder, “I was prudent once before and nearly lost the clans. Now I shall trust to our Grand Father.” That silenced them.

  The Heathen camp spread beneath us. It was very large. Numbers of flags flew over many tents in one of the most favored valleys I have ever seen. It was warm, facing south, and flowers grew there in such profusion that they scented the evening.

  “As I promised your brother, I have mustered all the clans that remain,” Kars Adon told me, and his chin lifted. I could hear imaginary trumpets. “I want to make my kingdom in this dale.” I did not blame him. It is a beautiful place, and no one else lives there.

  When we came down among the tents, the first thing I saw was a group of dark boys in rugcoats making up to three Heathen girls in clinging dresses. They were being very polite about it—offering to carry the girls’ water-pots and so on—but I was a little shocked. We went round a tent, and there was the same thing in reverse. Some very forward girls in rugcoats were coaxing away at two Heathen boys to give them a ride on their horses.

  Kars Adon saw me look. “Your people have been coming here for days now,” he said, “fleeing from Kankredin. I made treaties, as I told you I would. You think Hern would approve?”

  I did not know what Hern would think. Treaties sound very grand, but the practical result is an awful lot of giggling and a very strange camp. Polite, quiet Heathens looked at us without seeming to look. People of my race crowded and stared. Some of my people were not at all clear they had made a treaty. Kars Adon was hissed by some, and some sat about staring and made no attempt to look after themselves. Most of these, Kars Adon explained, had been too near Kankredin. “I think he has hurt their souls,” he said. “They think they are our prisoners. We have to feed them.” He sighed. “I often wish that your brother was here to persuade them.”

  We went to Kars Adon’s tent—he had found a great white one big enough to act a play in, from which his garish flag flew proudly—and there we had supper. It was plain food, nothing like the food our King insists on, and confusing. Heathens have the whole meal out upon the table at once, but you do not help yourself. Everything is carried to you by boys. I saw Ked among the serving boys, but he kept to the other end of the table. He is still terrified of me.

  I sat eating with a most peculiar mixture of feelings. I was shy, but I felt at home in a way I never did with our King. When I realized this, I began to think I was a traitor, and yet, I told myself, the camp was full of my people, and my grandfather had placed me where I would meet Kars Adon, as if he had intended it. Kars Adon spent the whole time telling me of his plans, and this was oddest of all. “You do agree?” he kept saying. “Do you think Hern would like that?” It was all Hern. It is strange to think that Hern has made as big an impression on Kars Adon as Kars Adon has on Hern. They did not talk together long. But each has gone away thinking deeply of the other and, as it were, trying to live up to what he imagines the other to be. Kars Adon seemed to me to credit Hern with ideals that Hern never had. But how can I tell? Hern has certainly credited Kars Adon with the same, and here was Kars Adon doing his best to achieve them.

  After supper Kars Adon sent his lordly ones to the end of the tent and said he must talk privately with me. “Would your King agree to a parley?” he said. “If I offered him a treaty, would he agree to face Kankredin with us?”

  The way our King was placed, with fifty men and Kankredin coming up the River, I could not see he had much choice. “I think if you sent someone he could trust and listen to,” I said. I did not think he would listen to one of the lordly
ones.

  “I know the very person,” Kars Adon said, and he sent lordly ones in all directions to find this man. “Then you spoke of weaving,” he said to me. He was very respectful. Of course weaving to his mind is the mages’ art. “Should I ask our messenger to bring you this weaving?” he asked.

  “Oh yes!” I said. And then I told him why it was so important. It was something I had never dreamed of myself doing. But he had been open with me, and we were both children of the One. He was equally in danger from Kankredin. I told him of the first coat and how it had loosed Kankredin’s bond. “But I don’t know what I have to do to unbind him from Cenblith’s,” I said. “Have you any idea?”

  Kars Adon was at his most awkward at this. He wound his fingers in his cloak and twisted about. I think the reason was that he had hoped for just this from my weaving and was ashamed of making me tell him. “I know nothing at all of magery,” he protested.

  “But nobody knows about this,” I said. “And you can look at it fresh.”

  I think he was flattered. He considered. “What did you give our Grand Father in the first coat?” he said.

  “Kankredin’s spell broken and our journey down the River,” I said. “The second one starts with the King telling us how the One was bound and what happened when we came up the River.”

  Kars Adon thought deeply. “Would it be,” he said at last, “that you are to give him back his bonds and the entire River with it? And perhaps the story of how you discovered this?”

  You know, he is right! I knew it as soon as he said it. This is why I am weaving this now. But it is still not quite the whole story, and I know I must go on.

  I had not finished thanking Kars Adon for his cleverness when someone came up to us saying, “They say you want something from me, young lord.”

  We looked up, and there was Uncle Kestrel bending his shaking head to Kars Adon in the most respectful way. “Uncle Kestrel!” I shrieked. I jumped up and hugged him.

  “Ah, now, I thought it might be you in our midst,” he said. I put a kiss on his beak of a nose. It came to me that my grandfather looks a little like Uncle Kestrel, which is a good thought. It seems that Uncle Kestrel and all the rest of Shelling were forced to run away from Kankredin the day after we left. The River flooded backward and drowned most of the houses. Zwitt was so frightened that he made them go by land to the mountains, while we, because of the winding of the River, took much longer to reach this place.

  Kars Adon told Uncle Kestrel to go to our King’s camp and arrange a meeting as soon as possible, and he gave him strict instructions to bring my loom and yarn back with him. Uncle Kestrel was a little surprised to be chosen, but it was a good idea. Robin would believe him, and the King would believe Robin. “That weaving,” said Uncle Kestrel. “I do nothing but fetch her that weaving.” He agreed to go. He keeps his independent manner, but he thought the world of Kars Adon.

  I had a lumpy bed that night in a tent with some Heathen girls. They chatter just like our girls when they are on their own. They told me that Kars Adon had asked every one of our people who came to his dale whether they knew the family of Closti. And when Uncle Kestrel came, he had exclaimed, because Kars Adon reminded him so of Hern. Kars Adon spent several hours asking Uncle Kestrel all about Shelling and about Hern. The girls were a little shocked that their Adon, as they call him, should be so interested in natives. I was pleased. I thought all was going well.

  In the morning, however, I heard that Uncle Kestrel had not brought my weaving. Our King had made conditions. He agreed to talk and named a place, but he said he would exchange my weaving for the One. He knew I had the One.

  “But I haven’t got him anymore!” I said to Kars Adon. “I gave him back to himself.”

  “That won’t matter,” Kars Adon said. “We can explain. The important thing is that he has agreed to talk.” He was overjoyed at that. He set out soon after dawn with me, and Uncle Kestrel and seven of his anxious lordly ones, to go down to the place the King had named, near the lake.

  So it was that I have seen every inch of the River, and my coats between them contain it all. As we climbed down past the waterfall, I made myself look at it, although the height and the noise made my head turn round. It streams down hundreds of feet, not wide, but with enormous force, into a great rocky basin beneath the mountain. We climbed down to it over moss and hanging ferns, perpetually wet with the clouds of spray. That day Kankredin was so close that the basin had become a place of white waters, where the fall wound back on itself, up and round, as if it were trying to climb the mountain again. The din was enormous, and there were rainbows at the edge of the winding water as big as rainbows in the sky. Everyone stared at it, shaken. No one liked to say the name of Kankredin, but he was in all our minds.

  Beyond that the water boils down to the lake through a curving ravine, in a chain of basins as blue as the eye of a Heathen, and white bubbles fight up through it. The ravine opens into a grassy space just before it reaches the lake. There, between slants of rock, the King was waiting. They were before us, not having had far to come. We came there feeling deafened. Even there the noise was loud. I could not think why our King should choose a place where we could hardly hear ourselves speak.

  He was sitting on a stone, smiling at us. He even smiled at me. My loom was behind him, between Hern and Jay. Hern seemed to try to smile at me, too. In spite of what Duck said, he was sure I was drowned until Uncle Kestrel came. But I could see there was something else on Hern’s mind. As for Jay, he half closed his eyes and gave me a look of detestation which I find it hard to forget.

  Our King did not get up. That was to show Kars Adon he was usurper and invader, which was true enough. Kars Adon bowed to him politely. Our King bent his head, twinkled, and began to shout the names of the important ones with him. The first was a stranger to me, an agreeable-looking man in the rugcoat of a headman.

  “This is Wren,” bawled our King. “And this”—he pulled Hern forward—“is Hern, my young brother-in-law.”

  Brother-in-law! I thought. I stared at Hern. Hern heaved up his shoulders, spread his hands, and looked “Tell you later.” But I did not need to be told. Wren was a headman. Robin was a Queen. Poor Robin. Poor Tanamil. Then I thought: But they hadn’t got my rugcoat. I think it’s unlawful! I missed the first part of what was said because of this. When I listened again, Kars Adon was leaning forward, shouting earnestly into our King’s face.

  “We can’t afford to be enemies,” I heard above the thundering water. “We must make a treaty and unite against Kankredin.”

  “Treaty?” shouted our King. “You come to my land, kill, lay it waste, dispossess me, and then you bleat of treaties!”

  “Things are different now,” yelled Kars Adon. I lost his voice in the noise. It came to me in fragments: “… make amends … proud future … kingdom together … one tongue … same Undying.”

  Our King’s voice carried better. “Who cares about all that? That child Tanaqui stole Oreth from me. I want the One back. She can have her weaving in exchange for the One.”

  Kars Adon was pleased the King should talk of the One. “Our Grand Father,” he yelled, pointing a finger at my loom, “is the most urgent thing we must talk about.”

  “How dare you shout at me!” thundered our King. “Have you got Amil?” He looked at me and knew I had not got the One. It must have shown in my face. He stood up. I see now that it must have been a signal, though at the time I simply thought he was angry.

  Next I knew, the King and everyone except Hern had snatched swords from beneath their rugcoats. I had never seen fighting before. It is swifter and more beastly than you would believe. The worst of it was, Kars Adon, Hern, and I stood stupidly aghast, not believing our King’s treachery. Before we moved, three of Kars Adon’s lords had lost their lives, and most of the rest of the King’s men were jumping down from the rocks where they had been hiding. Uncle Kestrel was hobbling frantically round us, with Jay slashing at him as he ran. Jay impeded our Ki
ng, or Kars Adon would have died that first second. The King had to make a second stroke at him, and his sword moved to do it as swift and deadly as a snake.

  Hern screamed, “You promised me not to!” and tried to get in front of Kars Adon. The King’s sword sheared Hern’s rugcoat half away. Kars Adon tried to step back. Hern fell into me and, as we went down, I heard the King’s sword meet Kars Adon’s chest. It was the most awful noise I have ever heard, dull and sticky. The same noise came again. I had glimpses of more Heathens with crossbows. Kars Adon may not have suspected treachery, but someone had. I think it was Arin, who fetched us from the island. The King fell just beyond me, choking, his face mauve and smiling a grin of pain. There was a crossbow bolt in his neck. And Arin stood above us, crashing swords with Wren, the headman, glancing down at our King in satisfaction, until they were both knocked aside by Uncle Kestrel, who toppled over with Jay on top of him. One of them was breathing even more dreadfully than the King.

  “Grandfather!” I screamed. “Help!”

  The answer was like a skirl of sheer anger, shrieking above the thunder of the falls and the rasp of the fighting. I looked up and saw Tanamil on the rocks above us.

  Tanamil had been very unhappy. His hair was a wild yellow cloud, and his rugcoat smeared with mud. I could see misery in his face, even through his anger. He was very angry. His pipes screamed with rage and struck across our ears like terror. All round me, people fell apart from their enemies, staring and shocked. And the pipes screamed on, modulating to a wail and down to sobbing. The heat and the shock died out of us. We began to stir sheepishly, and Hern and I climbed to our feet. I noticed that Tanamil seemed to be looking to the rocks behind me as if someone directed him. I turned. But it was not the One. It was Duck. Duck was crouched there, playing as Tanamil played, with that intent and irritable look you have when you are doing something which is almost too difficult for you. And Tanamil was directing Duck.

  To the piping of both, even the noise of the falls grew quiet. Tanamil stopped playing and stepped to a high rock where everyone could see him.