The Spellcoats (UK)

by Diana Wynne Jones

  Since then I have been weaving, unless Robin finds the noise too disturbing. The King is amazed at my industry. Indeed, I am often very tired, though it gets easier and easier. But I am afraid Robin will die, and I weave to take my mind off it. I pretended to myself that when the coat was finished, Robin would be well, but she is not. Then as soon as it was finished, I dreamt once more that my mother was telling me to think. And I found I had it all to do again.

  The morning I started this second coat, Duck lost patience with me. Lately, because he is so bored, he has been spinning for me, and he was at work outside by the millwheel, which has clumps of forget-me-nots growing all over it. “Of all the boring, stupid, gloomy people!” Duck said. He flung the spindle down and waved his arm at the sun-scattered brightness over all the green growing things.

  “Look at it! Look at you! You’re even worse than Hern!”

  I burst into tears and said I hated the King.

  “Who cares?” said Duck. “He’s keeping Gull safe, and us safe from Zwitt. What more do you want?”

  “It’s all my fault,” I sobbed. “I betrayed the One to him. And I made you leave the One in his fire when we should have taken him to Kankredin. If we’d had the One then, everything would have been different.”

  “You’re just letting yourself be taken in by what the King thinks,” Duck said. He took up the spindle and poked moodily in the ground with it.

  “I know I didn’t obey the One,” I said.

  “Yes, you did! Don’t be a fool,” Duck said, stabbing with the spindle. “The One arranged it that way! He wasn’t strong enough to meet Kankredin. If we’d waited for him, he probably wouldn’t have come out of the fire at all. The One alone knows what would have happened if Hern had poured water on it!”

  “Stop ruining my spindle,” I said. “Are you calling the One a coward?”

  Duck looked sideways at me through his hair. He ties it back with a band, but it always falls round his face in white tendrils. “No,” he said, and he squatted there, using my spindle to draw patterns round a clump of grass. He reminded me of someone. “The One is deep,” he said, “like the River. Tanamil knows. He’s the one we should have asked.”

  “So you understand it all?” I said scornfully. “Tell me.”

  Duck looked sideways again. “You wouldn’t believe me unless you’d worked it all out yourself, anyway.”

  I knew who Duck reminded me of – Ked, the ungrateful Heathen brat, when he was lying. I wanted to throw him in the mud in the empty millrace for making fun of me. I shoved him over sideways instead, for spoiling my spindle, and went raging into the mill.

  I was so angry that I took my rugcoat off the loom and carried it to the River door to read for myself, by my own account, that Duck was talking nonsense. First, I held it up and looked at it. It is a very handsome coat in gloomy colours, touched here and there with bright yellow and burning red. It is also very large. In the front the gloomy colours gather up the centre into a shape, and that shape is the same shadow with a long nose and a bent head that I saw when Uncle Kestrel came. I turned it round hastily, when I saw it. There is a lightness on the back that begins from the time we met Tanamil. I did not see that the same shape was there at once. But it is. It is made of greys and sallow greens, which are harder to see. Across the neck of the long-nosed shadow, near the hem, runs a band woven in that expressive twist which Tanamil showed me. It expresses my terror of Kankredin and his soulnet. Nothing else goes right across the coat, except the place where I unpicked my long lament for my father. I do not think even Robin would see this unless I told her it was there.

  I was so frightened when I saw that double shadow that I dropped the coat. My skin crawled, and I wanted to wake Robin. But I said to myself, “I made this weaving. I wove in it that it held the meaning of our journey. No one is frightened of a thing they made themselves. Read it, Tanaqui, and find out what you meant.”

  I knelt on the floor, in the doorway, and read what I had woven. It took nearly all morning, even though there were places I moved over very rapidly, remembering what I had woven. It was comforting at first. Here were we all, Robin, Hern, Duck and I, and poor Gull, being ourselves, and there was my own beloved River in his grandest time, being as usual a part of our lives. And I noticed many things. I have thought about them all these three days I have been weaving my second coat.

  I had read down to the place where we found the cat Sweetheart, when I could have sworn I heard a seagull cry. I looked up at the red, sandy Gull, beside my loom, first. Then I looked out over the leaf-speckled green River. There were no seagulls near Shelling. I thought I had imagined the sound, from reading about the gulls on Sweetheart’s island.

  Then Sweetheart herself jumped down the ladder to the upper floor. Cats often appear when you think of them. It is one of their strange ways. Sweetheart was carrying a mouse. She jumped on Robin’s bed to give it to Robin.

  I knew what Robin would think of that when she woke. I got up to take the mouse away. And moving upright gave me a sight of the other bank of the River, just below the last house in Shelling. I saw Zwitt under the clump of hawthorns there – the may is over now – and another man moving to meet him, as if secretly. This other had darkened his light hair and further tried to disguise himself with a garish rugcoat – and a shoddier piece of weaving I seldom saw – but I knew him by his mauve pointed face and crooked mouth. He was Kankredin’s mage, the one with hidden death in his gown. I could see the gown looped up under the dreadful rugcoat.

  I dared not move while he talked to Zwitt. I was halfway across the dark room by then. And there was my coat, laid out in the doorway, in the full light above the River. Zwitt was nodding, talking eagerly, and pointing directly at the mill. He was telling hidden death where we were.

  “Tanaqui!” Robin called out fretfully. “Sweetheart’s put another mouse on my bed!”

  “Ssh!” I said. “She does it because she likes you.”

  “Take it away,” Robin said. “Take it away!”

  “Oh, please shut up,” I whispered. “Something awful’s happened!”

  The mage turned his crooked face towards the mill and saw my rugcoat. I saw his face change with fear. He leant out across the River, staring, as if he were trying to read it. As he was a mage, perhaps he was reading, with his eyes on two invisible horns, like a snail. I wanted to snatch the coat away, but I dared not let him see me. I stood helpless. Robin, who is no fool, even ill, lay quietly and stared at me as anxiously as I stared across the River. And at last the mage turned away downstream, and Zwitt went back towards Shelling. I took my rugcoat and hid it under Robin’s bed, until I could finish reading it elsewhere.

  I told Robin. I would like to weave a curse on Zwitt because of the panic and terror Robin has been in. She said we must get away at once. She got up and fell on the floor. I yelled for Duck, and luckily Hern came too, and we got her back to bed. We are all very frightened. We know we should tell the King that the One says we must leave, but we are afraid Robin will die if we do. And as Duck pointed out, Robin’s soul will be caught by Kankredin’s net, which is just as bad as if he had caught Gull. We do not know what to do. Duck and Hern have kept watch these last three days, but the mage has not come back. We think he has gone to Kankredin. Hern says this gives us seven days or so. In that time I must cure Robin. I have inklings already.

  As soon as Robin was settled, I set up new warps in my loom. This was because of the understanding that came to me when the mage was afraid of my weaving. When mages weave, what they weave is so. That is why his gown shows hidden death. That death, to whomsoever it was sent, is the very words that boast of it. It is the same with Kankredin’s gown. The River is bound, Gull’s soul endangered, and the soulnet set up by Kankredin weaving those words.

  My weaving is a performing too. I am sure of it. When I compare my close and intricate weaving with that of the mages, so loose, large and crude, I know I am a greater weaver than they. Setting up my threads, I felt v
ery vengeful and vainglorious. I meant to curse Zwitt, to weave that our King became serious and courageous, and then to say that Kankredin and his net crumbled into the sea. That is why I put in my wish that I could turn the Shelling people’s feet the wrong way. I am quite relieved to look across the River and see that their toes still point to the front. I know why. I am like Hern. I need understanding. When I have woven my understanding, then Kankredin will have cause to fear.

  This is what I must understand. Why is Gull’s soul of such special value? Why is Robin so ill? And what is the One? These questions are all bound to lesser ones, such as what have Hern, Duck and I sworn to the Undying that we will do? The answers all lie in my first rugcoat, and they are coming to me as I weave.

  Robin seems calmer this evening. Before I read my rugcoat, I would have put her panic over the mage down to illness. She has not seen Kankredin. We have not told her much. But now I am sure Robin knows many things the rest of us do not. It is her birthright, as mine is weaving.

  I can weave this, yet I get angry when Uncle Kestrel tells me that we gave offence in Shelling! It is not very logical. I read my rugcoat, and I remember, and I know that we all, even Gull, who is the most modest of us, felt and behaved as if we were special people. I think we are now. But the fact is I had no grounds to think it then. I had no business to set myself up. I am ashamed. I could almost apologise – no, not to Zwitt or Aunt Zara.

  Here I stopped to light the lamp. Robin seemed asleep, with her yellow candle face turned to the wall. I shut the door to the River and read my first coat again. I do not blame myself about the One now. I see him roosting cunningly in his fire and contriving that I should appear before Kankredin in Robin’s skirt, so that Kankredin thought I was of no account as a weaver. I think he arranged I should betray him to our King too, and that we should be summoned to Kars Adon, though what his purpose was, I still have no idea. If I go back, I can even think that the One used Kankredin’s power over Gull for his own end, to bring us to the Rivermouth. And I am certain that Tanamil delayed us until we would arrive as the floods went down.

  Just beyond that place, when we first saw the tides, I looked carefully at my account of the Heathen girl on the roof. I noticed that Robin had not been herself even then. I tell hardly a tenth of what we all said – if I put in all Duck and I say, my rugcoat would be too large for a giant – but Robin says barely a tenth of that. But about that Heathen girl – I had left out what she was wearing. I jumped up to ask Hern.

  The latch clicked and Jay came in. “My!” he said. “That’s a beauty of a coat, lass. Who’s the lucky man?”

  I said I had made it to take my mind off Robin. True.

  Jay glanced at the bed and saw Robin was asleep. He put his face down by the lamp and whispered, “When do you think she’ll be well?” He had a significant twist to his face, but I had no idea why. I tried to keep my eyes off the jumping stump of his arm and did not answer. Then Jay leant closer still and said, “When will she be well enough to listen to advances from an honest man with one arm? I think she likes me enough, and I want to be sure of her before it’s too late. Understand?”

  I could not think how to tell him what Robin thought of him. “Not really,” I said, and looked at the floor because my face was so hot.

  “The King,” Jay whispered. “The King, little lass! The thought is shaping in his head that he has no wife, and he needs the power of the One. Has he never talked to you? Hasn’t he mentioned that he needs an heir?”

  “Did he mean he wanted to marry Robin?” I said. “It never entered my head!”

  “Lucky for me you didn’t understand him,” Jay said. He was all merry with relief. “Speak to your sister for me – quickly, soon. Tell her I can’t knowingly go against the King, so it’s up to her to marry me before the King declares himself. You say that. Tell her she’s the sweetest girl I know.”

  Then he went. I sat and stared at Robin’s yellow face. She bounced up out of her pillow as soon as the door had shut.

  “What shall we do about this?” I said.

  “Jay wants the One,” Robin said, “just like the King. Oh, I wish I was dead!” It was the first time she had said that, but I know she meant it. She plunged down on her bed, crying, and rolled about wretchedly, tipping the cats off.

  “No, stop,” I said to her. “I’m thinking of something. I almost have already.” I dashed off to find Hern, as I had meant to before Jay came.

  Robin called tearfully after me, “Tanaqui, I’m sorry. All I seem to do is complain at you. You’re so patient.”

  Patient! If Robin only knew. “I’ve nearly hit you a thousand times,” I called back, and went flying out into the blue evening.

  Hern was sitting moodily against a tree. Beyond him the King’s campfires sent merry streaks down into the water of the millpond. I could hear people singing. “Hern,” I said, “when Gull and Father went to war, what did you swear to the Undying?”

  “I said I’d free the land from Heathens,” Hern said sourly. “Ha-ha! Go away.”

  “Oh,” I said. I could not see what the One could make of this oath. Mine was easier. I had asked to be sent to war as a boy, and Ked had indeed taken me for a boy because I was wearing Hern’s clothes. “Another thing,” I said to Hern. “That Heathen girl on the roof who told us about the tides – what was she wearing?”

  Hern scowled. “A sort of blue rugcoat— No. She couldn’t have been. Heathens don’t wear rugcoats. I don’t know.”

  That was it. “Tanamil wore one,” I said.

  “Kars Adon would probably say he’d gone native,” Hern said gloomily, showing where his thoughts were. There has been no news of Kars Adon since the broken bridge. “Go away.”

  I went away and looked at my rugcoat under the lamp. When Robin asked what I was doing, I said I was sewing it up and I would go to bed soon.

  “I looked at it,” said Robin. “It’s beautiful. But why do you use that strange word for river? I keep thinking you’re talking about the One.”

  It was like a great light cast. “Robin,” I said, “I knew you’d help me!” She meant Tanamil’s sign for the River. It is not unlike the sign for brother. I had often noticed that. Now I plunged outside for a handful of rushes from the millrace and wove them together furiously under the lamp. I wove the two signs of my own name: Tan – aqui. I weave it here to show. See: together, rushes; apart, younger – sister. Then I took more rushes and wove again: Adon, Amil, Oreth, the One’s secret names. Adon is as much as to say Lord, the difference of a thread. Oreth I do not see so well. It is a sign for weaving, or knotting, but not the usual one. But Amil is River, all but a thread. I took all the rushes undone except that name and the front of my name and held them together in front of me.

  So now I know. I have been weaving it until late at night because Robin is still too upset to sleep. And I still cannot believe that we are wrong and everyone else is right and the One is indeed the River. But I know what I must do. I must find Duck. He has the Lady inside his shirt.

  DUCK WAS NOWHERE. I took the lamp and went upstairs to bed in the end. And the first thing I saw was the Young One, thrown out of my bed on the floor. I rushed to pick him up. He is so worn and old that I was afraid Duck had damaged him. Duck had thrown him out. He was in my bed asleep. He says he prefers it to sleeping in a tent. I held the Young One under the lamp and made sure he was not broken. The light made the smile move on his worn clay face. Then I shook Duck.

  “I’m not asleep,” said Duck. He was in his maddening mood. “The King told me about needing an heir too.”

  “Then why didn’t you come down when I shouted for you?” I said. “I want to know what you swore to the Undying.”

  “Do you?” he said. I told you he was maddening.

  “And I want Mother,” I said.

  Duck had thought he was the only one who understood. He was annoyed. “You can’t have her,” he said, and sat up against the wall with his arms wrapped round himself.

  “
She’s my mother too,” I said. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need her.”

  “You’re not having her,” he said. “I found out before you did, and she’s mine.”

  I was too angry to argue any more. “You selfish little beast!” I shouted, and jumped on top of him. We wrestled and struggled. “I need to talk to Mother!” I shouted. Duck at the same time screamed that the Lady was his and I was stealing her. Half the boards came off the trestles of the bed. We crashed to the floor. I heard Robin call out weakly from downstairs, and the door latch rattle as Hern came in to find out what the noise was. I had my hand on the Lady by then. Duck had my hair in both hands and was shaking my head about.

  Then, through the noise we were making, we both heard the River door open below. Robin screamed. Duck and I stared at one another without moving, and Hern said, “I don’t believe it! I just don’t believe it!” just as he did at the net of souls. We heard light footsteps walking from the River door.

  Neither Duck nor I remember how we got to the ladder. We were halfway down it before my mother reached the middle of the room. Hern was backed against the other door. Robin was upright in bed, with her hands to her mouth. And the River door was open where I had left it shut.

  “What a disgraceful noise!” Mother said to Duck and me. “There’s no need to behave like babies!”

  I think the way she spoke did more to reassure us even than the cats. The cats had all jumped off Robin’s bed and were rubbing purring round Mother’s ankles. She bent down and stroked them. My mother is beautiful. She looks no older than Robin, but her face has more angles to it than Robin’s and looks more delicate. Her hair is bushy, like mine, just as it was in my dream. But my dream did not show her huge eyes, deep and green as the River, and the long, long lashes round them.

  “Lie down, Robin, love,” she said. “It’s all right.”