The Spellcoats (10 page)

“Then the man who wants him is there,” Tanamil said. “Now I must get to work. We must save your brother without this powerful man suspecting. You understand?” He looked at us all very solemnly. “If what I do seems strange to you, it is done for the best. Will you remember that?”

“Yes,” we all said, nodding, even Hern, though I had expected him to object. For all Tanamil was a Heathen, we felt we trusted him. He seemed to know so much.

He told us to get out of the boat and stand beside him in the rushes. We all did so willingly, leaving Gull lying in the bottom of the boat. Tanamil squatted down by the water's edge, where he dug and prized in the ground with his fingers until he had a double handful of wet red earth. We watched, mystified, as he dumped his pile of earth on the dry part of the path and set to work, squeezing, pinching, molding, smoothing at it. Occasionally he glanced in the boat to see how Gull was doing, and continued molding the earth. Shortly Hern began to look sarcastic. The earth was becoming a man-shaped figure, a young man-shaped figure, a figure we could recognize.

“It's Gull!” Duck whispered. “Isn't it
like
him!”

It is very like him. I have it in front of me as I weave. It is Gull to the life, but not so thin as he was when he lay in the boat. The wonder of it is that Tanamil caught the Gull he could not have known—the Gull who once laughed and boasted about going to war, and poled about the River whistling because he found life good. I can remember Gull like that—and an awful tease—but how could Tanamil have known?

When the figure was finished, Tanamil sat comfortably down in the rushes and said, “You can sit down if you want.” Only Hern did so. The rest of us stood watching anxiously. Tanamil brought out from his rugcoat a slender reddish pipe, which seemed to be made of a bundle of thin reeds, and began to play it. After the first few notes Hern, who had been scornfully plaiting rushes, looked up, fascinated. It was a sad, sobbing tune that seemed to have a thread of laughter running through it. The notes ran, caught themselves, blended, and ran on, singing. I saw Duck's mouth open and Robin's face entranced. That pipe chimed like bells and ran like water. In it I felt all Spring budding and bursting as it does along the Riverside, and yet it was Spring in the future, overlaid by a sad winter. I hoped it would never stop. I wanted it to run forever as the River does.

I looked down at the red figure of Gull standing in the path. It was drying. I could see it turning pinker, shrinking a little, flaking slightly, and plainly becoming harder every second. I could have sworn the notes of the pipe were sucking water from it and then baking it under my eyes. It became harder, pinker, and smaller yet, until it seemed impossible that any moisture was left in it. Tanamil still played, watching the image as he played, until the pink was whitish. Then he drew to a close so gently that I did not at first realize he had stopped. There was no silence. There was the sound of the two rivers running on either side of us, and the wind stirring the reeds, and birds on the cliffs. All these noises seemed to have caught and held the music.

“OH!”
said Robin, like a scream. “Gull—!”

I looked into the boat and Gull was transparent. I could see the boards and a corner of the blanket beneath him. I could see how the hair at the back of his head was pressed flat as he lay. As I looked, he was fainter. He was like a pool of liquid with his own reflection in it, and the liquid seemed to be drying up. It shrank, still with the whole of Gull in it, and dwindled till it lay only in the space in front of the tiller.

Hern jumped up. His foot went out to kick the dry image.

“Don't touch it!” Tanamil said, quick as a bark.

Hern's foot went back to the ground. At the same instant the liquid Gull dried away entirely. There was nothing but an empty boat.

We stood staring, with pale faces, too shocked to speak. Tanamil put his pipe away, stood up, and gently moved the image of Gull from the red earth. “There,” he said, with Gull in his hands. “He's safe now.”

“Safe how?” said Robin.

“Where is he?” said Duck.

“What have you done?” I said. As for Hern, he was speechless.

Tanamil held the dry pink Gull out to Robin, and she took it, utterly dismayed. “What—what do I do with
this
?” she said.

“Keep him safe until you come to your grandfather,” Tanamil said.

“We haven't got a grandfather,” said Duck.

Tanamil looked round at us all as if he did not know what to say. “I didn't know how little you understood,” he said at last. He considered a moment; then he said, “Gull's soul is not usual. If an enemy took it, he could use it as a spout to drain off the souls of his soul, as it were, and draw through it the souls of his forebears, right down to his first ancestor. I do not know if the man who was trying to take it knows this, but I know he should not have a chance to find out. What I have done makes Gull's soul safe without this man being any the wiser. If I swear by your Undying that Gull is safe, will you believe me?”

“He's safe from us, too, by the look of it,” Robin said, and Tanamil laughed.

“Come up to my shelter and warm yourselves,” he said, “before you go on.”

I do not know how we came to agree to this. Tanamil was a Heathen. He had just taken Gull from us, and the way he had done it proved him to be a powerful magician. Yet we thought of none of these things. We went up the red path between the rushes with him, Robin carrying Gull.

The path came up on a grassy shoulder beneath the red cliff. From there we could see into both rivers. Our own River wound back in a high gorge, mighty, swift, and yellow. The other River ran red and was smaller, though no less swift, and it had a merriment about it that I had not seen in a River before. It sang between red walls. The trees, ferns, and reeds seemed greener there. It was full of birds. We heard the noise of birds at all times while we were with Tanamil.

When I remember Tanamil's shelter, I am confused. I thought it was built against the face of the red cliff, of red mud and driftwood, and that we pushed reeds aside to go in. But I could swear that we went inside the cliff itself. Indeed, we must have been inside the cliff, for I remember a second entrance low down beside the second River, where the red water slapped robustly among the fringed tops of tanaqui. The sunlight came in green through it and danced on the ceiling in curls and ripples.

Inside was a comfortable enough room, with chairs, a table and piles of rugs, some of fur, some woven plain, and a good fire blazing. Tanamil had no Undying at his hearth, Heathen that he was. Robin carefully put the dry little image of Gull there instead. Seeing her do that broke the spell that was on me for an instant—I am now sure that it was a spell. I jumped up, saying, “Oh! We left our Undying in the boat!”

Tanamil smiled his pleasant smile at me. “Don't worry. They'll guard the boat for you.”

I sat down again, and for a long time I did not remember we were on a journey or consider our danger or even think of Gull. I had the time of my life instead. We all did, although Robin did not seem to enjoy herself so much at the end. But I cannot remember much that happened. Up till now it was all confused in my head. But by thinking and thinking and discussing it with Duck, I have remembered it better—though I am not sure we have it in the right order.

“That's the trouble with you, Tanaqui,” Duck said to me. “You always have to have things in
order
. You're as bad as Hern.”

I think Duck is right, though I did not realize it before. If I cannot get a thing straight in my head, it offends me, like a piece of weaving that has gone wrong—like Robin's awful blue skirt. This is why Hern and I are so much more horrified than Duck by our strange time with Tanamil.

6

I remember we had an excellent meal by that good fire. It was food such as I had only heard of before, lobster and fine white cakes and venison, with dried grapes afterward. Uncle Kestrel told us of grapes. They grow among the trees of the Black Mountains, on trailing creepers. When I first heard of the King, my father said he ate lobster and venison every day. I never thought to have them myself. We had wine, too, like our King. Wine is fine pink stuff with a sparkle to it. Tanamil said it was from the Black Mountains. Robin poured a little of hers in front of the dry statue of Gull. Tanamil laughed at her for doing it, and Robin went very pink. But Duck says she did it again at supper.

Now the odd thing is that I remember only that one meal. We must have had another, because we stayed the night. Indeed, I remember sitting out beneath the cliff in the hot sun, looking at both rivers and eating, not once but several times. Yet when I think, I only remember that one meal in front of the fire.

Hern and Duck got very merry. They romped and rolled and fought in the heaps of rugs. I think I did, too, but not all the time. I watched Robin dancing. Robin often used to dance in Shelling when she had time, but she never danced as she did then, when Tanamil played his pipe for her. I remember her dancing in the room, with whorls and wrinkles of sunlight sliding on the ceiling above her, and outside on the grass. I even seem to remember her up on the cliff opposite, across the second River, but that must be nonsense. What I do remember is that she took hold of Tanamil's arm on several occasions, demanding that he pipe for her. That is quite unlike Robin. She is so shy and formal. But I know she did. And when she asked him, Tanamil smiled and piped for her again, clear and lovely music, like a dream of music. And Robin danced and danced.

Duck wanted to learn to pipe, too. Hern and I made an outcry at that. If you ever heard Duck sing! But Tanamil obligingly went out and cut hollow reeds for him. I remember his fingers flying as he cut holes in the reeds and bound them together. He made the mouthpieces from joints in the reeds, where the pith is solid. Then he put Duck's fingers to the holes and told him to blow. Duck blew. Nothing happened.

“Silence! Thank goodness!” said Hern.

“Try saying
Ptehwh!
to it,” said Tanamil.

“Ptehwh!”
said Duck, scarlet in the face. And all the pipes sounded a terrible squealing and braying, as if pigs had got among donkeys. We shrieked with laughter. Duck glowered at us and went outside through the second door, down beside the red River. Shortly we heard halting little tunes from among the rushes.

Hern raised his eyebrows at me. “Ye gods! I didn't think he knew any tunes.”

Tanamil taught Hern things, too. I remember them squatting together in the dust, and Tanamil drawing things there with a pointed stick, and Hern nodding. At other times they were leaping on one another and wrestling. I liked the look of that. I pulled Tanamil's arm, like Robin, and said, “Show me, too!”