The Islands of Chaldea

by Diana Wynne Jones

  “Yes, but I’ve no patience with that nonsense,” Aunt Beck said. “What do you imagine will happen now you’ve set eyes on us?”

  “How should I know?” the king said. He looked rather nervously up at the dark beams in the ceiling. “All I know is that the gods will be angry.”

  Aunt Beck opened her mouth. Almost certainly she was going to say, “Nonsense!” But at that moment there was a tremendous CRASH somewhere outside. People began yelling and screaming out there; hens cackled, pigs squealed and donkeys brayed. Aunt Beck said, “Well I never!” instead.

  King Colm, with his face as well as his belly wobbling, got up and hurried to a door near his chair. Shawn sped after him, crying out, “Father! Be careful!” and Aunt Beck strode after Shawn. Ogo and I looked at one another, dumped our bags, and raced after Aunt Beck.

  We came out into quite a big farmyard sort of place. There were sheds and huts all around it, some of which seemed to be for people and some for pigs, hens or geese. One seemed to be a hay barn. In the middle of the farmyard was a smoking hole. Steam was rising from the mud around it. People – women, children and old men mostly – were backed against the huts, staring at the hole or – if they were very young – burying their faces in their mothers’ skirts and crying. Alarmed hens and indignant goats were running all over the place, while a squad of donkeys crowded into one corner and made the sort of dreadful noise only donkeys can make.

  We all hurried to the hole. In fact, we were practically pushed there by all the men crowding out of the hall behind us, Ivar among them. It was a deepish hole. At the bottom of it lay a small black smoking stone.

  Aunt Beck said, almost drowned out by the donkeys, “That’s a meteorite.”

  “A fallen star!” the king cried out. “Sent by the gods to punish me!”

  “Och, man, don’t talk rubbish!” said Aunt Beck. “If the gods aimed it, they missed you.”

  “I tell you it’s my geas!” bawled the king. “My fate!”

  I discovered Finn beside me looking down into the hole, interested. On his shoulder, the green bird was equally interested. It put its head this way, then that, to inspect the smoking stone, and the lines around its eyes looked wiser than ever. “A meteorite, a meteorite,” it muttered. Then it stood up tall on Finn’s shoulder. “The geas is broken!” it said.

  Finn turned his head to look at it. “Are you sure of that?” he demanded.

  “Sure of that,” the bird echoed.

  “Good,” said Finn, and reached to tap the king’s shoulder. “Majesty,” he said loudly, “your geas is broken.”

  King Colm turned and glared at the little monk. It was fairly plain to me that he had cherished that geas. “And what makes you say that?” he demanded.

  “Green Greet says so,” Finn explained. “He is a messenger of the gods.”

  The king stared at the bird. So did Aunt Beck. “That parrot?” she said.

  “A messenger of the gods,” the parrot said to her.

  “You’re just repeating what your owner says,” my aunt told it – and I confess I would have said the same. Except that no one else had said, “The geas is broken.”

  “No I’m not,” said the bird. “It’s Thursday. The geas is broken. I’m sure of that. It’s Thursday.”

  “A marvel, isn’t he?” Finn said, smiling all over his chubby face.

  “Hm,” said my aunt. She turned to the king. “Well, Majesty, it looks as if your lazy Thursdays are at an end.”

  “By your doing, woman,” the king said bitterly. “Why couldn’t that bird have just kept quiet?” He sighed, because everyone crowding the farmyard seemed to have heard the bird quite clearly. They were all smiling and thumping one another on the back and congratulating Shawn on his father’s delivery. “And why couldn’t you have kept the woman out?” the king said to his son. “That geas has been handed down, father to son, for hundreds of years. You’ll live to regret this.”

  Shawn looked startled. “I’ve always thought the geas would go to one of my brothers,” he said. “Why me?”

  “Because you failed to guard the gate of course,” the king said.

  “I fail to see,” Aunt Beck said, “why inheriting a non-existent curse would bother anyone. Majesty, we—”

  “Oh, be quiet, woman!” ordered the king. “Who knows what trouble will fill the hole where my geas was, every Thursday. You’ve brought bad luck to my family. What do I need to do to make you go away?”

  Aunt Beck looked decidedly taken aback. Finn said placatingly, “Majesty, they are from the High King of Chaldea who has sent them on a mission to Bernica.”

  The king said testily, “No doubt he wanted to get rid of her too. All right, all right. Come back into the hall, woman, and tell me why you’ve been sent to shake up Bernica. Does he want me to wage war on Gallis or what?”

  I could see Aunt Beck was seething with rage at being treated so disrespectfully. As we all trooped indoors again after the king, she was muttering, “I call this downright ungrateful! For two pins I’d put the geas back. And I’d make it every day of the week!”

  But, by the time he was in his chair again and we were all standing in front of him, she had a grip on herself. She explained, perfectly politely, how we had been sent to rescue the High King’s son and – possibly – to destroy the barrier too.

  King Colm said, “Woman, it’s all one to me if you choose to attempt the impossible. What do you expect me to do about it?”

  “To give us your aid, out of the royal goodness of your heart, Majesty,” Aunt Beck replied. “If you could set us on our way by providing a donkey and cart, and maybe some food and a little money, I—”

  “Money!” exclaimed the king. “Didn’t the High King even give you funds for this mission of yours?”

  I thought, Oh dear, he’s stingy as well as eccentric!

  Aunt Beck drew herself up proudly and said, as if the admission was being dragged out of her, “We were given a purse, Majesty, but it proved to be full of stones.”

  King Colm seemed astounded. A shocked murmur ran round the hall behind us. “But it is the duty of any king,” he said, “to show generosity at all times. Very well, you shall have money. And I can probably spare you a cart and a donkey. Is there anything else?”

  “One thing,” admitted my aunt. “According to the prophecy, we must have with us one man from each of the islands. Have you a man from Bernica you might spare to go with us?”

  I had forgotten that we needed this person. For a moment, I was very excited, hoping the king would give us Shawn. He was so good-looking. And indeed the king’s eyes did move towards his son. Then Finn piped up. He gave a little cough and announced, “Majesty, I am that man. There is no need for you to deprive yourself of anyone. I and Green Greet have already decided to go with these good people on their mission.”

  “Speak for yourself, speak for yourself,” muttered the parrot.

  The king gave a great relieved laugh. “Splendid!” he said. “They will have the gods with them then. Go with my blessing, Finn Fitzfinn. And be careful,” he added to my aunt, “that this monk doesn’t eat and drink you out of all my money.”

  So that was that. Half an hour later, we drove out of the king’s back gate in a neat little cart, with Aunt Beck driving a neat little donkey with a black line all around her like a tidemark. The people who hitched the donkey to the cart didn’t seem to think she had a name, so I called her Moe. I don’t know why, except that it suited her. There was food in the cart and jars of ale and, as she drove, my aunt kept smugly patting the fat purse on her belt.

  The way was very level and green, first through more of the little fields and then through wide-open boglands. Moe trotted cheerfully on, pulling the rattling little cart, while we took turns to ride. There was only room for two of us beside the person driving. I don’t think Moe could have pulled all five of us anyway. She certainly couldn’t when we came to the hills. There, everyone except Aunt Beck had to walk.

  But, whi
le we were on the levels, Aunt Beck was very talkative. She had a long discussion about religion with Finn, while Ogo sat looking glum and mystified and Green Greet kept saying, “Mind your own business! Mind your own business!” until, Ogo said later, he wanted to wring the bird’s neck.

  When it was Ivar’s turn and mine to ride, Ogo went striding ahead to cool off and Aunt Beck said to Ivar, “You were mighty slow coming out of the hall when the meteorite fell. What kept you?”

  Ivar shrugged. “It sounded dangerous out there.”

  “It was. Someone could have been injured,” Aunt Beck said. “You could have helped them.”

  “Someone in my position,” Ivar said, “being a king’s son and all, has to be careful. I could have been killed! I don’t think Bernica’s gods take much care of people.”

  “But they do,” said my aunt. “That thunderbolt didn’t hurt so much as a chicken! What are you being so careful of yourself for, may I ask?”

  Ivar was surprised she should ask. So was I, as a matter of fact. “I could be king one day,” Ivar said. “At the rate my brother carries on, I could be king tomorrow.”

  “If you think that, you’re a greater fool than I took you for,” Aunt Beck snapped. “Your brother Donal is a very canny young man and one that lands on his feet like a cat, I may tell you.”

  “I don’t think it exactly,” Ivar protested.

  It seemed to me that Aunt Beck was trying to show Ivar up in the worst possible light. First, he was a coward to her and then he was stupidly ambitious. Without waiting for what she might make him out to be next, I interrupted. “Aunt Beck, what made you think of going to King Colm?”

  Aunt Beck, as I hoped, was distracted. “It was our obvious choice, Aileen,” she told me. “We were in a strange land with no money, no food, no transport, and we had a task to do. All kings are supposed to be generous, provided you can give them a high enough reason. And, as you see, it worked – although I must say,” she went on in a most disapproving way, “I’d not expected to find a fat man snoring in a smoky barn and clinging to his geas as an excuse to be lazy. If I were his wife now – and I think his queen must be as bad as he is – I wouldn’t stand for it longer than a week.”

  And she was off on a tirade about King Colm and his court that lasted until we reached the first of the hills. She seemed to have noticed far more details than I had. She mentioned everything, from the dust on the king’s chair to the squalor in the farmyard. I remember her going on about the gravy stains on the king’s clothes, the laziness of his household, his underfed pigs and the ungroomed state of his horses, but I didn’t attend very hard. My attention kept being drawn to a softness and a throbbing by my shins.

  I kept looking down, but there was nothing in the cart but our bags and the food. In the end, I reached down and felt at the place. My fingers met whiskers, a cold nose and a couple of firm, upstanding ears on a large round head. It was as I half expected: Plug-Ugly. Invisible. Who would have thought such an ill-looking and magical cat could have such very soft fur? I couldn’t resist stroking him – he was like warm velvet – and I could easily do this unnoticed, since Ivar was staring moodily over the edge of the cart, highly offended by Aunt Beck’s accusations, and Aunt Beck herself was haranguing the landscape.

  Actually, Finn was listening to her as he trotted beside the cart. “Hold your horses, Wisdom!” he protested as Aunt Beck moved on to the tumbledown state of the huts in the farmyard. “Why should a king be grand? Give me a reason.”

  “For an example to the rest,” my aunt retorted. “For standards of course. And talking of standards …” And she was off again, this time about the responsibilities of a king to set an example to his subjects.

  Plug-Ugly purred. He rumbled so loudly I was amazed none of the others heard. Or maybe Green Greet did. He interrupted Aunt Beck’s discourse by saying, “Claws and teeth, claws and teeth underneath!”

  But no one took any notice, except my aunt, who turned to the parrot and said, “If that’s aimed at me, shut your beak, my good bird, or you’ll be sorry!”

  Green Greet rolled his wise eyes around to her and stopped speaking.

  The hills, as I said, were hard for Moe the donkey, and for Finn, who puffed and panted and went pink in the face, but like nothing to the rest of us. Bernica is a low country, with lumps in it, and nothing like the deep slopes of Skarr. As Moe toiled up the hill, I looked around at the green, green landscape dappled with moving patches of sun from among the moist purple clouds, and I thought I had never seen such lovely countryside. It came on to rain near the top of the hill and at once there was a rainbow arching over it all. I found it glorious.

  “Pah!” said Aunt Beck. “Wet.”

  I could tell she was in a really bad mood. When Aunt Beck gets like that, the safest thing is to keep quiet, but none of the other three seemed to understand this. Finn said soothingly, “Ah, but Wisdom, the rain is what greens our lovely island so.”

  Aunt Beck made a low growling noise. She hates being soothed.

  Then Ivar asked innocently, “Where are we going? Do you know the way?”

  “To the next town of course!” Aunt Beck snapped. “Cool Knock or some such name.”

  “Coolochie, Wisdom,” Finn corrected her.

  “And of course I know the way!” snarled my aunt. “I was here as a girl, for my sins.”

  “But—” said Ivar.

  Ogo tried to help. “The prince really means,” he said, “what is our route? Don’t we have to make for Gallis?”

  This got him in trouble from two directions. Ivar said, “Don’t speak for me. Dolt!”

  Aunt Beck glared at Ogo and snapped, “Naturally, we do, you great fool! We go south-east, down to the Straits of Charka, and find another boat. Do you think I don’t know what I’m doing?”

  Ivar still didn’t seem to understand. “How do we go? Is it very far?” he said.

  “Shut up,” said my aunt. “You’re a fool too!”

  Ivar looked so puzzled at this that Finn sidled up to him and whispered, “It will be three or four days for the journey. Bernica is larger than Skarr, but not so large as Logra.”

  “Did the boy learn no geography?” Aunt Beck asked the wet sky.

  After this, I cannot remember anyone else speaking much for the rest of the day. We stopped for a silent picnic of bread, ham and plums and then went on across the green pillowy plain. By dusk it was raining really hard and quite obvious that we were not going to make Coolochie that day. We were forced to stop at a damp little inn for the night.

  Aunt Beck glowered at the rain pattering off its thatch and the green moss growing up its walls. “I hate Bernica!” she said.

  I sometimes wonder if my story would have been different if the beds in the inn had been comfortable. They were not. The mattresses seemed to have been stuffed with gorse bushes. They prickled and they rustled and the bed frames creaked, and I know it was hours until I got to sleep – and I only slept when Plug-Ugly came creeping in beside me, warm and soft. Aunt Beck probably had a worse night than I did. When I got up soon after cockcrow, she was still fast asleep, looking exhausted. I crept away downstairs where I found that Ivar had ordered a splendid breakfast for himself and Ogo and Finn, but forgotten Aunt Beck and me entirely.

  “I’ll order more for you now,” he said. “Does Beck want any?”

  My aunt never eats much for breakfast, but she does like her tea. When I asked in the kitchen, they only had nettle tea. No camomile, no thyme, no rosehip. I told them to take her up a mug of what they had and went out into the yard to see to Moe. Ogo had made sure she was fed luckily, and brushed her down, and Plug-Ugly was sitting in the cart, fully visible, eating the rest of the ham. I went and sat with him and finished most of the bread, and most of the plums.

  “You are a strange creature,” I said to him. “What are you really?”

  He just rubbed his head against my arm and purred. So we sat happily side by side until an uproar broke out in the inn. I could h
ear the landlord and his wife protesting mightily, sharp cracks of anger from Aunt Beck, Finn shouting for peace and Ivar yelling that it was not his fault. Shortly, both Ogo and Ivar shot into the yard, still eating, and Finn hurried after them, feeding a handful of raisins to Green Greet.

  “What is going on?” I said.

  “Your aunt’s being a sow!” Ivar said through his mouthful.

  “Sure, she meant for us to eat in the cart as we travelled,” Finn explained.

  It turned out that Aunt Beck had not budgeted for our stay at the inn, nor for the breakfasts – Ivar and Ogo had of course eaten the food they’d ordered for me. And Plug-Ugly and I had eaten the rest of the food in the cart. Aunt Beck was furious because this meant that we had to buy food in Coolochie now. I must say I didn’t feel this was a very good reason for being so angry. I put it down to the bad night on the bad bed, and I sympathised with Ivar when he kept saying, “She could have told us!”

  We set off under another rainbow – a great double one – as a very subdued group, Aunt Beck all upright, with her mouth pressed into an angry line, and the rest of us hardly daring to say a word. Only Green Greet said anything, and he kept squawking, “Double bow, double measure!” Aunt Beck shot him looks as she drove, as if she was longing to wring his green feathery neck.

  We reached Coolochie around midday. Ivar made moans of disgust when he saw it. It was not a large place and its walls were made of mud. Inside the big sagging gates, houses were crowded irregularly around a marketplace and it all smelt rather.

  “I’ll say this for Skarr,” Ogo murmured to me as the cart squished its way into the market, “at least your towns smell clean.”

  “Of course they do,” I said proudly. “And I suppose you remember the towns in Logra so well!”

  “Not really,” he said. “But I do remember there was no mud on the streets.”

  I sighed. Logra was all perfect in Ogo’s memory.

  Aunt Beck meanwhile drove the cart among the scattering of poor-looking market stalls and drew up grandly in front of the largest. I looked at its stack of elderly cabbages and the flies hovering around the small heap of bacon and hoped she was not going to buy either of those.