“He’s older than us,” I said. “And I admit you’re doing quite right to wrestle with the River. I think you’re very clever. I think—” I would have said anything, anything.
Kankredin laughed at me, with his cruel chuckle, and looked at his two mages. “What shall we do?”
“They’re absolute idiots,” hidden death said, but he said it with a sour kind of slyness, meaning something else.
“Exactly,” said Kankredin, agreeing to this something else. “All right,” he said to us. “If you can get back through the net again, you’re free to go. Go and try. I shall enjoy watching you.”
I do not remember going out through the room with the hammocks. I think Kankredin hurled us out on deck, where Hern staggered about.
“You get the boat cast off,” I said to Duck. “I’ll bring Hern.” I thought it would be like Gull all over again.
But Hern is tougher than Gull. As Duck raced down the black decking, Hern pushed me away and dived at the baskets ranged against the side. “You do the other side!” he shouted. He went staggering up the whole row, throwing up the lids. I am still amazed at Hern thinking of the trapped souls. But he must have known what they felt like. I threw back wicker lids on the other side of the ship. The roaring wings of the escaping souls mixed with the angry yells of the mages.
Kankredin’s voice boomed through it all. “Let them be. We shall take vengeance for that.”
The mages left us alone and stood watching as we went down into our boat. I took the tiller. We moved away from the staring eyes of the ship, before all the staring faces of the mages lining the side of it, and two more sitting staring in the soulboat nearby. We felt the jeers in the staring, but there seemed nothing we could do except sail for the net.
I was too shaken to manage the boat well, and the tide was against us. Duck took out an oar to help, but we still drifted crankily sideways. We could see mouth after mouth of the River passing behind the great black net, until the black ship looked small behind us. Then at last we drifted up against the net. A soul or two struggled in it above our heads, and we were just the same, going the opposite way.
Kankredin’s voice boomed across the water. “Go on! Go through the net!” We knew he was playing cat and mouse with us.
“He’ll fetch us back in a minute,” said Hern. “We can’t get through.”
“We can try this,” said Duck. He put the oar away and carefully took out of his shirt the pipes Tanamil had made for him. He saw the way I looked at him. He said, “I’m almost sure Tanamil isn’t one of them. And it’s worth a try even if it’s using their own enchantment against them. Keep us going for the net.”
Duck put the pipes to his mouth and played. His music was nothing like Tanamil’s. It was bold and jerky and full of breath. But he had scarcely played half a tune when I looked up at the net and found its blackness misted over, with mist beyond.
Kankredin’s voice boomed out. “Duck! Stop that silly piping. Stop it!”
Duck faltered and lost the tune. The net swung before me, black and clear. “Go on,” I said. “It works!”
“I can’t,” said Duck. “Not with him shouting at me.”
“Duck! Come here to me!” Kankredin boomed.
Hern looked up. “He’s not shouting at you. Your name’s Mallard. Keep playing, and don’t be a fool. He’s worried stiff we’re getting away.” Hern was right. The two mages in the soulboat were poling toward us as fast as they could go.
Duck played again, fierce and squeaky with haste. His face was red with it. The net turned from black to gray, and then it was not there. We were moving forward in whiteness. In a moment, as before, there were birds all round us that we could not see. This time we were heartily glad of it. Duck played and played us forward into whiteness, until at last he had to leave off and lean over, panting. By then the net was behind us some way and the wide sands of the Rivermouth in front.
“You did it!” I said. “How did you know?”
Duck wiped the pipes and put them carefully away. “Everything goes away like that quite often when I play,” he said. “I thought I was out of breath the first time. You know, I think I shall be a magician when I grow up. I shall be a better one than Kankredin.”
“Hey! Tanaqui! Look where you’re sailing!” said Hern.
He was a little late saying it. I was looking at Duck. We ran deep aground in a reed flat with our keel down, and we stuck. This was how we came to be captured by our own people. Maybe it was Kankredin’s malice. I am sure it was my fault for leaving the One in his fire.
I am now at the back hem of my rugcoat. All I have space to say is that we are at a stand. Gull is still a clay figure. Robin is ill. I am afraid she will die. I sit with her in the old mill across from Shelling, with no help from my gloomy brothers. Even if Robin were well enough for us to run away, Zwitt would have us killed if he found us on our own. It is a bad thing to wish to run away from our own King, but I wish I could. Instead all I can do is weave and hope for understanding. The meaning of our journey is now in this rugcoat. I am Tanaqui, and I end my weaving.
PART TWO
THE SECOND COAT
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.