1

I am Tanaqui. I must begin on a second rugcoat because understanding has come to me at last, and maybe I no longer need to blame myself.

My dream of my mother came to me again the night I finished the first coat. It troubled me. Why should my mother tell me to think? What should I think about except that I have wronged the One twice now? I started the first coat because of this dream, but when the dream came again, I began to suspect that my weaving was not enough. I am glad Uncle Kestrel brought me all my yarn, even that which was under the broken part of the roof. I still feel bitter about that. Zwitt need not have broken our house. But the wool has dried out now, and I think there is enough of every color to make another coat.

I will tell first how I wronged the One again. We were caught while we stuck on the mudbank because we had still not grasped the nature of the mud there. Hern jumped overboard to push us off and sank in it beyond his knees. He was so weak after our meeting with Kankredin that he could hardly struggle back into the boat, and he was very angry with me. I told him that it was because I had made them leave the One in his fire.

“Don’t talk such nonsense!” Hern said. “It doesn’t mean you have to steer straight into a mudbank.”

We tried rocking the boat to loose it. The water trickled from the mud continually and held the keel fast. We should have seen from that that the mud was getting firmer, but we did not. We were too taken up with looking anxiously at the mist where the soulnet stood, thinking Kankredin was bound to follow us. No mages came. I think Kankredin had decided we were not worth the trouble. But we were taken completely by surprise when men of our own people came running over the mud from behind us and dragged us out of the boat, thinking we were Heathens.

We screamed that we were not Heathens, but they did not believe us and dragged us away a full mile over the mud and sand. All the while, they were saying things like “I look forward to hearing these squeal” and “I’m going to take it out on these for Litha. I’ll make it long and sweet.” I think we were all crying by the time they pushed us over the sand dune and into a camp of some size. We were desperate by then that they should know we were not Heathens.

Someone who saw us being brought in said, “You had a bit of luck, didn’t you? I’ll put you all down for a reward. Bring them along, and let’s see what we can make of them.”

They pushed us into a clear space where a great tree lay, dead and silver. The man who had spoken sat on this tree, and many others—the way our people do—came crowding from the tents to look. I heard someone call, “Come on, Jay! Heathens for lunch!”

The man who had hold of me—his name is Sard and I still do not like him—shook me and said, “Now you behave. This is the King. King, understand? He eats you Heathen for breakfast, he does.”

I could hardly credit it, but it was indeed our King. I was nearly too awed to look at him. This was not, like Kars Adon, a boy and a Heathen. This was a true King. I took a quick look from under my hair. I saw a small plump man of about middle age. At one time, I think, he has been quite stout, but he lost flesh in the wars, they say. His face is still chubby, however, with a pout to the lips and a humorous twist to it. There were bags under his eyes, and his eyes looked bright and dark, twinkling upon the bags.

“Where were they?” our King said to Sard.

“Run aground on Carne Bank, Majesty,” Sard replied, grinning. “I thought even Heathens had more sense.”

Our King looked at us. “Where are you from? Where is your clan and how many are you?”

Hern stood with his head down, glowering at our King. “We’re not Heathens,” he said. Then Duck and I began to clamor at our King, trying to convince him we were not Heathens in every way we knew.

Our King leaned back and folded his arms, sighing. As we talked, I heard him say humorously to the man who stood behind him, “Why do they all make this fuss, Jay?” It was so clear he was not listening that I stopped talking in despair. Hern and Duck had stopped already. “Finished?” asked our King, twinkling his eyes at us. “Right. Now I don’t like using unpleasant methods with youngsters, but I assure you I shall if you won’t talk. I want to know where your camp is. Who’s your chief, or earl, or whatever you call it? How many Heathen are you? Not that it will help much, as you seem to swarm like vermin, but still—we do what we can. Now tell me, and I may spare your lives.”

“Majesty, we were truly born in Shelling, up the River,” I said. Our King smiled. I cast about for a face that might believe me. All smiled. The man called Jay, who stood behind the King, smiled broadest of all. I knew him. He had only one arm now and his red rugcoat was gray and ragged, but he had smiled like that at Robin, when she stood with her arms all floury. “You came to Shelling,” I said. “You took my father and my brother Gull to the wars. Don’t you remember?”

“You saw me there,” said Hern. “You said I was too young.”

“I went to a lot of places,” the man Jay said, smiling still.

“And you smiled at my sister,” said Duck.

Jay looked at me and choked. “She’s a bit young for me.”

“Not that one, stupid! The other one,” said Hern.

“I do smile at girls,” Jay said, grinning widely. “I’ve even been known to wink at Heathens. They picked this up, Majesty,” he said to our King, “from some poor soul they tormented.”

“They must have done,” our King agreed.

At that I became so frantic that I could think of only one way to convince the King I was no Heathen. “Look,” I said, “I’ll prove we’re not Heathens. Here is one of our Undying.” I dragged the Young One from the front of my shirt and held him toward the King.

Our King twinkled at me. “So you’re a thief, too?”

“No, no!” I said. “Heathens don’t have Undying. We have the Lady as well as the Young One.” Duck scowled at me and shook his head, but I went on. “The greatest of our Undying is the One. I can’t show him to you because he’s in his fire at the moment—he always has to go in his fire when the floods go down—but please believe me!”

“A nice story,” said the man Jay.

But our King leaned forward, with a twinkle of interest in his eyes and only the barest smile on his face. I have never known him quite without a smile. “This One of yours,” he said. “What color is he?”

Hern and Duck both glared at me, but I said, as if I could not stop, “Dark, with glistering specks, but—”

“Shut up, Tanaqui!” said Duck.

“—but he changes each time he goes in his fire,” I said.

Our King gestured to Duck that he was to hold his tongue. Then he leaned to me further, and said, “Name me his secret names.”

“They’re secret,” I said. By this time I was horrified, but it was like the rapids at the end of the lake. I had gone too far to stop.

“Come here and name them in my ear,” said our King.

I am ashamed when I weave this, but I did so. I went up to our King—he smelled of sweat and horse and, just a little, of cloves—and I whispered, “He is called Adon and Amil and Oreth.” That is how I wronged the One. But I went on and wronged him further because when the King asked me, I told him the One’s fire was on our island and that Robin was there, unwell, too. And I described which our island was, in spite of the way Hern and Duck looked at me.

Our King sat back and puckered his face toward Jay and the others nearest him. “Well, what do you think?”

“There’s quite a nest of Heathen over there,” one of them said. “It looks like the perfect trap to me.”

“I know,” our King agreed. “But let’s say curiosity killed the King. Or that somebody slipped up in Shelling last autumn. Jay—Oh, I forgot. Can you manage one-handed?”

“Provided the remaining hand’s tied behind my back” was Jay’s reply.

“Good,” said the King. “Tie your hand up, take ten men and the best boat—and the elder boy, I think—and let him show you the place. Bring back anything you find there.”

“I’m glad you said me,” Hern said. He spoke very rudely because he was angry with me. “I’d have had to ask you to send me if you hadn’t. I’m head of the family, and it has to be me who takes the One out of the fire.”

“Oddly enough, I thought of that,” our King said to him. “And I thought the other two could stay as hostages for your good faith. Move, Jay!”

My punishment was that I never saw the One taken out of the fire. The King’s camp was right on the other side of the Rivermouth from our island. Duck and I had to wait two hours for Jay to cross and come back. We sat on a sandbank watching the King’s men bustling in the camp. Their tents are good, in many color, but the people are few—not more than fifty, all men. It ought to have seemed more warlike than the poor huts of Kars Adon, because there were no women, no rubbish heaps, and no children but Duck and me, but it did not, and never does. It is more as if our King were traveling for a holiday.

While we waited, Duck was so angry with me that he only spoke once. “Did Kankredin’s coat say how we can get Gull back?” he said.

“No,” I said. “It said Gull was coming to him. The net is to catch Gull, and he’s waiting for him before he conquers the country. And it can’t be wrong to tell our own King about the One.”

“If he thinks Gull’s still on his way,” Duck said, “then I was right, and Tanamil isn’t one of his mages. And you know we’re not supposed to talk about the One to anybody.” And he said nothing else.

At last there was a great shout that the boat was coming. Everyone, our King included, went running through the hills of sand to the shore. We ran with them. We were part of the crowd jostling on the shingle, and we helped to pull the boat out of the falling waves. It was large and high. Jay appeared head and shoulders above the gunwale.

“Well?” said the King.

“Everything as described,” said Jay. “This is the list—start unloading. Three cats.” Sweetheart, Rusty, and Ratchet were dropped down beside our King. They were ruffled and not pleased. Our King looked at them in amusement. “Ten blankets,” said Jay, and these were dropped on the shore, too. “Two sacks, containing cheese, dried fish, and onions mostly.” The sacks followed our blankets. “And,” said Jay, “one sick young lady.”

I thought they were going to drop Robin on the shore, too. In fact, they lowered her very carefully, and Hern climbed down to make sure she was safe. They had wrapped her in Jay’s rugcoat. She was worse again. She says it was the shock of Jay’s coming, on top of worry about us. I put a blanket round her as she shivered on the pebbles, and she cried because Duck and I were still alive.

“And?” said our King, holding out his hand to Jay. “Nothing else?”

“With her,” Jay said, nodding down at Robin.

It seemed that Hern had no sooner taken the One from his fire than he gave him into Robin’s hands. Robin would let nobody near him. I could not think why Hern had done this, until Hern said, “Come and see,” and beckoned Duck over, too.

Robin unwrapped her hand from the great folds of Jay’s rugcoat and showed us the One clasped in it. He was gold. He shone all over with a mild orange luster and seemed to be made of metal. Hern and Robin could understand it no more than we could. Hern said he had found the One shining even more brightly in the ashes of the fire. He had dulled a little in the air since. And, Hern says, there was such naked greed on the faces of Jay and the others that he gave the One to Robin, instinctively as it were, to keep him safe. How he thinks poor Robin would be able to keep the One if somebody twisted her wrist, I do not know. She has Gull to keep, too, wrapped in her own rugcoat, and no one knows of him but us four.

Up to this moment Robin has most valiantly fulfilled Hern’s trust. She wrapped the One away when the King came up and refused to let him be seen. A faint pink came into her pale face at having to treat our King so, but she was firm.

“He is not to be bandied about and looked at by everyone,” she said.

“If you all came into my tent and looked at him over supper?” our King suggested. “I could set up a hearth to make him feel more at home.”

Our King was being very polite now, but Robin looked at him severely. She is not used to people making jests all the time, the way our King does. But she agreed.

Our King insisted on a polite and lavish supper. It was a trial to Duck and me, though not to Hern. Hern likes eating and does not care about manners. It was a trial to Robin, too, because she was not really well enough, but I was glad she was there. People believe Robin. When she said we were not Heathens, our King assured her it had been an unfortunate mistake.

“May I see the One now?” he asked when we had eaten fish and meat. There was a pause then, before they brought in chickens, eggs, and sweetmeats. No wonder our King is chubby.

Robin reluctantly brought out the One and stood him on the table among the King’s fine dishes. He was the finest thing there. Our King put out a hand to him, looked quizzically at Robin, and at last picked him up. We could see the One was heavy. Robin says he weighs twice what he did.

“Solid gold!” said our King. “I swear to it! This is his latest change, is it?” We nodded. Our King carefully turned the One around to have his face beneath the lamp. Now that he is gold, the One’s features are much easier to see. He has a strong nose, a little like Hern’s or Gull’s. The King saw this. I saw him look at Hern’s profile. “How long has this fellow been in your family?” he asked Robin.

“For as long as anyone knows, my father told me, Majesty,” Robin replied.

“Hmm,” said our King. “Your family must once have been a very important one, young lady, did you know that? And you truly put him in a fire every year after the floods?”

“Every year,” said Robin. “My father said we have never once missed.”

“That was the sign by which I knew him,” our King said, turning the One over. “You have been faithful to the bargain your ancestors made with him. Do you know who he is, this golden gentleman?” He waved the One toward us, from side to side, not wholly respectfully.

“Yes,” I said. “He’s the One.”

“That’s a silly sort of name,” said our King. “You told me his real names earlier. My fluffy-haired maiden, he is the River—the great River himself! What do you think of that?”

“I think it isn’t true,” I said.

“Oh, yes, it is true,” said he, still waving the One about. “We Kings have a hard time of it and have to put up with a great deal from our subjects—flat contradictions from little girls, among other things—but our reward is that we are told more than most people. I know about your One. As a matter of fact, I had him searched for when the Heathen came. If only Jay had found him when he came to Shelling, I wouldn’t be in this pickle now. He could have got us out of it. Only fancy him turning up like this! You’d almost think he did it on purpose. What do you think you’re playing at, you stupid golden beggar?” he said to the One. “It wasn’t nice to hide away!” This was not quite a joke—or only a joke in the way that everything our King says is a sort of joke. I could see Robin was shocked.

“How do you know he’s the River?” Hern asked bluntly. I could say that Hern was tired out after our day’s troubles, and it would be true. On the other hand, I have never once heard him speak respectfully to our King.

“Knowledge is handed down from King to King,” said our King. “When our people first came to this land, there was a Queen called Cenblith, who may have been a many-greats-grandmother of yours as well as mine, I think. She found a way to bind the River to the service of man. They say she was a witch. I think it just as possible she was simply very pretty, and the River fell for her like a waterfall. Anyway, he submitted to be bound. He agreed among other things to support our people in battle with his not inconsiderable strength, which strength he obligingly let Cenblith put into this small image of himself. But he made one condition: that he be put into a fire once a year. When his dross was purged and he turned to gold, then he would be at his utmost power. And here he is, golden and too late!” The King’s eyes twinkled almost as if they were wet, as he looked at the One between his hands.

I remember looking at the One and wondering about the great floods and Kankredin’s struggle with the River. I still do not believe the One and the River are the same—or not quite the same.

“He was daft to let himself be bound,” Duck said.

“I agree, but I am very glad he did,” said our King. He held the One up toward the colored roof of the tent. “Now we can prosper and succeed together,” he said. “Now I’ve got you, you slippery golden beggar!”

“Majesty,” said Robin, “the One is ours.”

“So he is, young lady,” said our King. “You shall stay with me and keep him for me.” He passed the One to Robin. “There. Back to his rightful guardians. Keep him safe. We have a lot of traveling before us, now the floods are down.”

And travel we did that next morning. This is what has made Robin so ill. She has been hurried here and bumped there and made to sit in the rain until the King is ready. After the first day’s travel our King had his physician see her. He said it was the River fever and, as she had had it once, she would soon be well and was quite fit to travel. It is this same physician who took off Jay’s arm. Jay says if it were not for that physician, he would still have two arms. I share Jay’s opinion. Robin does not get well, even resting.

The King has taken a fancy to Hern. He gave him a pony to ride, while the rest of us bumped and creaked in the baggage carts. Every evening, I had to attend to Hern’s saddle sores, before I could see to Robin. Now I know why Robin so often exclaimed “Why does nobody help me!” Everything falls on me. For the rest of the day the King has Hern beside him. “Fetching and carrying,” Hern calls it. He is not in the least grateful. The trouble is, our King loves people who are rude and familiar with him. This is why he is so fond of Jay. So the crosser Hern is, the more the King admires him.

Hern is in a black mood. He does not show half of it to our King. He says he went down the River to rescue Gull or avenge him. He did not believe in enchantments. Yet first Tanamil and then Kankredin defeated him with spells. He could do less than Duck or I could. He was forced to admit that enchantments exist. This has damaged his respect for his own mind.

“But enchantments are of the mind, too,” I said.

“Not of my mind,” said Hern. “That’s why I’m a failure. I wasn’t even sure people had souls. Then I saw the souls in the net and knew I was looking failure in the face. It’s an awful feeling.” Yet that was not the whole story, as I found out later.

Duck is gloomy, too, because he is bored.

All this while our King hastened with us across the country. He does not stay near houses or in any one place for long, for fear of the Heathens. Whenever we come to a farm or a village, the King’s men knock at doors and run into houses shouting that the King has come. If the place is empty because of the floods or the Heathens, they take what they can find. When there are people, the King orders what he needs. The people often protest; I know how we should feel if they came banging at our door and carried off all we had saved from winter before the supplies had grown again. The King promises payment and takes so much that we sit high up in the carts on piles of corn and dead sheep. Collet is our King’s memory man, and he memorizes the debt. He tells me that he holds many thousand payments in his head, for food or promised rewards. He does not think they will ever be paid.

It was very rough traveling after the floods. Robin suffered more and more because after a while she became too weak to get out and walk in the worst places. “I can’t stand this anymore!” she said one evening when the sun was down, but we still went jolting on.

Hern had looked in on us, and he saw how ill Robin was. He went and asked the King if we could stop.

“Oh, the light’s good for miles more yet,” said our King. “Besides, there seem to be Heathens coming up behind.” Our King gets news of Heathens from everyone we encounter. And we went on.

I was so angry that I jumped down from the cart and ran among the horses to the King. “Majesty,” I shouted. “The One wants us to stop here!”

I did not think the King would listen, but he did. We stopped at once. After that I chose our camping place every day, speaking for the One. We spared Robin a good deal of jolting like that. It amazes me that our King believes I know the One’s wishes, but I think it is the one thing he takes seriously. I have become spokesman for the One. Every day the King asks me jestingly, “And what has the golden gentleman to say to me today, fluffyhead?” I could tell him anything.

“If he believes you, he’d believe anything!” Hern said scornfully.

Our King, of course, talks to everyone, freely and cheerfully, but he talked to me much more after that. I cannot be familiar with him. The weight of kingship and all our Kings before him makes him a heavy matter to me. Our position oppresses me, too. We cannot be called prisoners, yet what else are we? So when he makes his jokes, I do not laugh.

“Fluffyhead, you do come of a serious-minded family,” he said to me one day, in a brown field, where the grass lay plastered down with mud in long ripples. “Can’t you laugh? I know you’ve had your troubles, but look at me. I’ve lost my two sons, my wife, and my kingdom, and I can still laugh.”

“I expect you’re looking forward to conquering the Heathen and getting your kingdom back, Majesty,” I said, “and I’m not.”

“Great One!” he said, twinkling his eyes at me. “Do you think so, solemn face? I gave up that idea months ago. The most I hope for is to save my skin until I can get a new heir. It will be my son who benefits from the One’s help, not me.”

I thought this was just his joke at the time, but it has now become clear to me that our King has indeed no intention of fighting the Heathen again. He inquires daily about the Heathen, but this is in order to avoid them.

Many times it has been on the tip of my tongue to tell him that the Heathen he is running from is only Kars Adon—though I think there are other little bands, too, as Kars Adon said—and that the real menace is Kankredin. But I have not said. Kars Adon is a Heathen and an enemy, but his way is better than our King’s. I do not blame our King. Jay has told me how terrible the wars were. But I will not tell him about Kars Adon. Duck will not tell him either. He says our King bores him, and nobody can do anything about Kankredin. As for Hern—well, I found out when we had news of Kars Adon at last.

Summer drew on us as we traveled. We approached the River again, which seemed to revive Robin, and came into the hills at the end of the great lake. The lake was beautiful. It was blue as solid sky. The many trees around it were reflected upside down in the blue. But it was spoiled for me by the people there. They said we were Heathens and stoned us. Duck has a scar from it which will last all his life.

Jay stopped the stoning by saying we were Heathen princes under the protection of the mages. Robin was very angry with Jay.

“What should I have said, lady?” Jay asked. “You try telling them the truth.”

While we were there, some men came over the broken bridge, very pleased with themselves. They had fought Kars Adon. They knew it was him by the flags. Kars Adon’s people had been surrounded in a valley across the River. Numbers of them were killed before they could fight free.

“Why didn’t you kill them all?” our King asked pleasantly.

Hern told me this with a pale face. “The fool!” he said. “The stupid fool! Fancy getting himself penned in on low ground!”

Now I know the other part of Hern’s misery. As Hern has failed in what he set himself to do, he has taken comfort in the dreams of Kars Adon. He knows it is wrong—that is why he is so moody—but he cannot help himself. I had often wondered why Hern listened so eagerly to the King’s daily messages about the Heathen.

He was hoping for news of Kars Adon. Now we have it, it is bad news. Poor Hern. It is lucky our King does not intend to fight the Heathen. Hern would be on both sides at once.