The Spellcoats

by Diana Wynne Jones

  “Stop behaving like beasts!” he said. We all winced. Tanamil angry is a great one of the Undying, without question. Like Gull when I first saw him on the bank of the Riverbed, he was more alive than the rest of us below. Unseeable strength came from him like hammerblows. “Attend to your wounded,” he said, “and then attend to your real enemy. The mage Kankredin is nearly here.”

  Everyone knew Tanamil for what he was. The Heathen hailed him as Tan Adon. A number of the King’s people murmured names: Tanoreth, Red One, and the Piper, to name a few. I had not known he had so many names. But Tanamil ignored their murmurs and came down to where Wren, the headman, was bending over the King. The King was not breathing.

  “Who did this?” Tanamil demanded.

  A shadow fell across the King, of a hawk-nosed man. I whirled round. It was not the One. It was Uncle Kestrel, heaving aside Jay’s body as he got up. I was sad about Jay because I would never be able to make him like me again. But I was glad Uncle Kestrel was alive.

  “Tanamil!” Hern said. He was desperate.

  We all turned to where Kars Adon was dying, with his hands pushed hard to his chest, and blood running from one side of his mouth. Hern and Arin were kneeling beside him. Tanamil pushed between them and raised Kars Adon, very gently, so that he could see us all. “What is your will, lord?” he asked, as gently as he had lifted him.

  Kars Adon looked at no one but Hern. “Hern,” he said. I wondered how he could speak at all. The effort heaved his chest, bringing blood between his fingers. “Hern, was it the King’s sword did that to you?”

  Hern looked down under his own arm at the slashed ruin of his rugcoat. He was bleeding along his ribs. He was surprised to discover it. “Yes, it was,” he said.

  “Then,” said Kars Adon, “we are blood brothers.” He laughed, and pink froth came from his mouth. “I meant to tell you so much,” he managed to say. Then he pushed himself up with his elbows, so that he could see Tanamil, Arin, Wren, and all the rest of us standing round. “This is my will,” he said, “all of you: that Hern is King and Adon after me, and that all the clans obey him.”

  Kars Adon passed into death so smoothly then that we could not tell when he did so. He spoke, and there was no difference to him, but he was not alive. After a moment his hands slipped from his chest, and we knew he was dead. I have asked the One many times to help him get past Kankredin in the River of Souls.

  Tanamil laid Kars Adon down, and Hern looked angrily at Arin. The anger was because there were tears in his eyes. “I can’t do that—rule the clans—can I?” he said.

  “Someone must,” Arin said. “It was his will, and you are very like him.”

  Tanamil said, with some bitterness, “You’re the King’s heir, too, since this morning. Accept it, Hern. There is a great deal to do.”

  7

  After that the day was all hurrying, coming, going, meeting, and mourning. Tanamil seized a word with me in the confusion. “What happened?” he said. “Something came about, but not all. I find I can reveal myself to mortals, yet I had no power to stop the King’s wedding. Was something more needed?”

  “Yes,” I said, and I told him what Kars Adon had said.

  “I thought you might need to weave again,” he said.

  “But I think it’s more than that,” I said. “The One left me with this bobbin of yarn. What do I use it for?”

  Arin came just then, to take Tanamil to the camp of the Heathens. “Your mother can tell you that,” Tanamil said, and he left.

  I snatched a word with Hern. “The King married Robin?” I said.

  “Oh One!” said Hern, and covered his face with his hands. “It was my fault! I made him so ashamed, and all I wanted to do was to cover up for you. The trouble was, I said it in front of everyone, and he felt he had to marry her. Then Jay came in soaking wet, saying you’d run off with the One and were lying drowned for your sins, and the King was so furious that he swore nothing would stop him marrying Robin. He had them dragging the lake for the One. And Robin was too upset about you to bother what the King did. Then Uncle Kestrel appeared. The King went wonderfully calm after that, and I suppose I should have suspected he was up to something. But Tanamil had disappeared, and Duck and I had our hands full with Robin. Wren arrived around dawn. He had his whole village with him, and they were too scared to stop at first. The King made Sard shoot one of them. So they stopped. They were terrified. They say there’s a wall of water half a mile high coming up the River. The King said we’d all move when he was married to Robin, but then he made them wait to look after Robin while he went to meet Kars Adon. He took Wren and me to make sure the rest all stayed. It’s not been fun, I can tell you. Then Tanamil! Tanamil turned up during the wedding. He went dashing out across the lake, tearing his hair and yelling, and Robin began crying again. It was terrible. It’s all terrible, Tanaqui. I can’t be a King, can I, Tanaqui?”

  He had wanted to say that most of all. “Gull knew you were going to be,” I said. “He wouldn’t tell me because he thought I’d laugh. But I wouldn’t have laughed. Gull doesn’t know how much you’ve changed.”

  “Being with the King has taught me what not to do, if that’s what you mean,” Hern said, but it made him happier. He wanted me to tell him what had happened to me, but I was not sure he heard it all. They kept asking things, and he had to hurry away before I had finished.

  I found Duck brooding up on the rocks. “Isn’t fighting beastly?” he said to me. We talked of that for a while. Then Duck said, “Old Smiler married Robin after all, just this morning. Did you know?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But I’d taken the rugcoat. What wedding clothes did he wear?”

  Duck laughed. “Nobody knew you had. Remember that mat of rushes that I made?”

  “Duck!” I said.

  “I told you I was going to be a magician,” Duck said. “I’ve got quite good at little things like that. Peacepiping’s much more difficult. I thought I was going to let Tanamil down when we started. Anyway, I put that mat in the chest, and everyone thought it was your spellcoat. The King wore it. Nobody knew. At least Hern knew, but he was too upset to say and Robin did, of course, but she kept looking away because she hates people to look silly.”

  “But, Duck, I don’t think the wedding was legal!” I said. I was thoroughly shocked.

  “It was all right if the headman did it,” Duck said grumpily. “And don’t you dare tell anyone. Without that wedding Hern hasn’t the slightest right to be King. So keep your mouth shut.”

  Duck is quite right, of course. I have not told a soul except to weave it in my second rugcoat.

  By then a certain order began to appear in the coming and going. The bodies of the two Kings and the others who were killed were laid on the broad grass beside the lake. Wren, the headman, went round the lake to the barn among the trees. When he got there, Kankredin was so near that waves were standing high in the middle of the lake and its water was forced over the lowland. Wren found the barn flooded. Our cats were up in the beams, spitting at the water. Wren’s villagers and Robin were up on the hillside above, and Wren brought them back round the lake to the falls, where I was still standing by my loom, wondering what I ought to do.

  Robin is no different, in spite of being a Queen and a widow, though she was wearing her best skirt. She burst into tears when she saw me. She says she had known I was not drowned, but she had not been able to believe it. We went down to look at the King. You would not have thought Robin could cry over our King. But she did.

  “You didn’t like him!” I said.

  “I know. I didn’t treat him well,” Robin sobbed. “Nothing treated him well. He wasn’t the right man for what he was made to do.”

  I think Robin is right. But I was glad Tanamil was not near. He would have been hurt.

  Tanamil was all this time up at Kars Adon’s camp. I am glad he was there. If Arin had gone alone to the camp with news of our King’s treachery, there would have been bloodshed, and Hern would have died i
n it before he could do anything. As it was, Tan Adon, as they call him, came in majesty to the Heathens and bore witness that Kars Adon had named Hern as his heir. Even so, the Heathens from the camp came down beside the falls with black looks and weapons ready. My people whom Kars Adon had sheltered came, too. But it was noticeable that they kept apart, with those too weak to fight sheltered in the midst of them.

  Jay is not dead, by the way. While Robin and I were watching the people coming down the falls, Hern and Uncle Kestrel were laying Jay with the other bodies. And Jay sat up, rubbing his head. “I might have known you’d get the best of it, old-timer,” he said to Uncle Kestrel. Then he looked at me. It was almost his old, joking look. “I’ve been sent back from a hurrying host of dead people,” he said, “with orders to keep you safe, my lass. There are some glass giants at work down the River. It looks as if they’ll be here by nightfall.”

  Uncle Kestrel thought Jay’s mind was wandering. I knew it was not. “He means Kankredin,” I said to Hern.

  “I was afraid he did,” said Hern. He lifted his heel and hacked at the grass with it. “Now I have a chance to do all the things I swore to do,” he said. “And I don’t think I can.”

  The people from the camp arrived and gathered by the lake. Our people went to stand with Wren and his villagers, near the lake. But the Heathens stood up among the rocks and planted their flags there.

  “How shall we do the Adon’s will?” a lordly Heathen called out mockingly to Hern.

  Hern was very pale. I could see him shaking. He stood out between the two crowds, among the bodies, all on his own. I had expected him to look small there, and I am still surprised that he did not. Hern is thin still, but he has grown as tall as Gull. When Tanamil came to stand near him, the two were the same height.

  “First look at this,” Hern said, pointing to the corpses. Everyone was quiet. The noise from the falls meant we had to listen very carefully. “These,” Hern said, “are the bodies of two kings. They were killed in senseless hatred, when both had lost nearly all they had. Someone is coming up the River who knows of this, and it pleases him very much. This will make it easy for him to suck out our souls, and the soul of this land, and rule us as his slaves. He is coming in a wall of water. And he is nearly here.” He pointed down the River, across the lake.

  Our people by the lakeside swayed all one way, like grass in the wind, away from the water. The Heathens stood firm, but their crowd was white with faces staring across the lake. The current set it in banks of water, churning toward us, and the space by the lake was flooding as Hern talked.

  “This morning,” said Hern, “one King married my sister Robin, and the other named me as his heir. This gives me a title to lead all of you against Kankredin. I did not ask for it, and you may choose again later, if you want. But for the next three days I must ask you to fight as one people against our real enemy. The same flags shall fly over us. The same Undying shall guide us. We shall none of us run away. We are going to hold these falls behind us to the death.”

  Heads swung uneasily to look at the rearing white falls. Everyone shifted with infirm resolution.

  “We shall do it,” said Hern. “For one thing, we shall lose our souls, anyway, if we do nothing. The main thing is that we have a way to win. My sister Tanaqui can weave against Kankredin, spell for spell. She can unbind Oreth, our Grand Father, so that he can rise and crush Kankredin. She can save us. But she must have time. We must hold Kankredin while she weaves. If we can hold him for three days, we have won.”

  So Hern did understand about my weaving. I admire him for grasping it so quickly. I did not think he would because it is not reasonable. But I never foresaw that it would all depend on me. I am very frightened. I know how Hern feels.

  “If this is any comfort to you,” Hern said, looking at the stricken faces by the lake and the grim ones up on the rocks, “the chief power of the mages is that they can take our souls. Everyone is right to be afraid. But Tan Adon, Lord of the Red River, will make you each a talisman which will keep the soul within your body. You can wear that and go into battle with confidence.”

  Tanamil, for an instant, looked as if he could not believe his ears. But as eyes turned to him, he smiled and nodded.

  “So,” said Hern, “will you all follow me—just for three days?”

  There was the most nerve-racking pause. Hern sat down on a piece of rock. I think his knees gave.

  Then Wren stepped out from among our people and went on one knee in front of Hern. I like Wren. “We’ll follow you, me and my people,” he said. That brought other headmen struggling through the crowd, one by one, and they knelt, too. Zwitt was one of them. Only believe that! He looked very grudging, but he was scared stiff. I think Hern’s talk of talismans tempted him.

  As the number of headmen increased, the Heathen lords realized they were being outdone. There was some hasty whispering among them. I am not sure that all of them believed Kankredin to be their enemy. But the will of Kars Adon was a powerful thing. All the Heathen flags dipped together, stood, and dipped again. A great shout went up. “Hail Hern Adon! Hail Hern King!” Arin tells me this is the custom among the clans. So, when the last headman went on one knee, both sides were pledged to Hern. I think Hern was near tears, because he scowled so.

  After that our King was buried by the lakeside and mourned properly, although the grass was being covered in water while the mourning was done. I saw Aunt Zara among the wailers, but she would not come near us. But Kars Adon was carried up to the head of the falls and buried where the smoking waters of the One’s source run across the green turf. Tanamil said it should be so. I can see the grave beside me as I weave. I look at it often and hope that we will be able to complete his dreams for him.

  Before we came up here, I overheard Tanamil whisper to Hern, “Why did you promise them talismans? There is no way to keep a man’s soul in his body.”

  “Yes, there is,” said Hern. “If the man himself believes it’s going to stay there. That’s how I kept my soul when Kankredin tried to get it. I’m sorry, Tanamil. I had to say it. Give them all mud pies or buttons—I don’t care—but make them something, please!”

  Duck, who was standing by, burst out laughing. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s make mud pies.”

  “Later,” said Tanamil. He was very worried. “Hern,” he said, “I went down the River last night and saw Kankredin. There was no way I could stand against him. Don’t underestimate his strength. I went away. I knew he could take me, and the One, too, through me. The same goes for you, for Duck and Tanaqui, and for Robin most of all. You must take care.”

  “It’s no good taking care anymore!” Hern said, and stormed away to talk to men about weapons.

  “Well,” said Tanamil, looking up the length of the falls, “we must make what defense we can. Mallard, can you make nets?”

  “I made the best nets in Shelling,” Duck said. Nothing will ever make Duck modest, but he does make good nets.

  “These will be spellnets,” said Tanamil, “as strong as we can make them.”

  “Let me help,” I said. “I can make nets, too.”

  “I think you can,” said Tanamil. “But only you can weave, Tanaqui. Please go and weave again, as fast as you can. And for the One’s sake, leave as little out of your tale as you can. We do not know what small thing may be needed to complete the web.”

  So I climbed up here to the smoking spring again. Robin came with me. She and Jay arranged for my loom to be dragged up, too, and all my wools. I hope I shall have enough. And here was a strange thing. Robin had Gull with her, and the Young One. When they had placed my loom on the turf, she took out Gull to give him to me. And he crumbled to a mound of red earth in her hands.

  I cried out with horror. “Robin! Has Kankredin got him?”

  It is true Robin knows things. She was smiling at the handful of earth. “Of course not,” she said. “It means he’s back, just as Tanamil promised. I think the same will happen to the Young One when Tan
amil’s unbound.”

  “Then why isn’t Gull here?” I said.

  “Hush,” said Robin. She poured the earth carefully into the spreading pool of warm water and whispered so that Jay could not hear, “Don’t be silly, Tanaqui. What do you think would happen to Hern’s plans if Gull came along? Gull’s older.”

  I see Robin is right. My grandfather has sent Gull somewhere else. He has done it to show me that he keeps his promises. But I long to see Gull. Duck and I have decided we shall go and find him if we win against Kankredin.

  What Tanamil said so frightens me that I wonder all the time what I have left out. Should I say that I have a corn on my thumb and three blistered fingers? That my eyes ache, and my neck? Should I say how cold I have been in the mountain wind, these last two days? I have been weaving with such haste that I make mistakes. I had to unpick how I saw Kankredin and his glassy mages and weave it again because Duck and Tanamil distracted me when they came over the edge of the falls.

  Robin has arranged for a tent to be pitched here and for people to bring me food. I think she left the cats here, too, hoping they would amuse me. But they will play with what is left of my yarn and with the shuttles and bobbins. I have had to ask Jay to take them to the camp.

  Except when he did that, Jay has stood guard here the whole time. He is not courting Robin anymore. He has seen her with Tanamil, and he looks at her regretfully. But he talks cheerfully enough. “A man with one arm is not much good for fighting,” he said, not, I think, altogether truthfully. “I shall stay here and make your last defense, my young witch.”

  “I don’t think I am a witch,” I said.

  Jay said, “What do witches do if they don’t weave spells?”

  He is standing on the edge of the green turf at the moment, looking intently down at the fighting. It is mostly from Jay that I get my news. Everyone else is too busy. But I must have news. It must all go in my weaving.