Duck stared at them guiltily. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I told the King about Jay last night. He cheated. He promised me he wouldn’t let Jay marry Robin.”
“And he hasn’t,” said Hern. “Don’t you know better than to trust the King, you stupid little—”
“Don’t fight!” said Robin. “We’ve all we need without that!”
4
The King is luckily not very passionate over Robin. His main wish is to move on. I am weaving this amid the bustle of clearing up to go. The King visits Robin frequently, to remind her she is to be Queen, I think. You would think it would make her ill again, but Tanamil is with her, and she gets better every day. The King is unable to see Tanamil, but he has no illusions about Robin’s feelings. He has detailed ten men to watch us night and day.
“Not Jay, I’m afraid,” he said to me. “He’s not a man I trust in affairs of the heart. But my bride must have a proper bodyguard, fluffyhead.”
The bodyguards watch by five and five. Robin has no chance of getting away. Hern says we must stay with her. All I have been able to do is to insist that the One wants us to travel by River. It was not easy. The King has shown a desire to overrule the One. “A King is awfully exposed by water,” he says. “We shall be a big slow target for every Heathen crossbow. Are you quite sure our golden friend really wants us to?”
“Yes,” I said.
So the King has taken all the boats from Shelling. Zwitt stands scowling at us across the River, but I think it serves him right.
Tanamil has recovered his spirits again. In spite of our worries, we are flooded with his joy and pleasantness, which makes me feel very strange sometimes. I could not think why Tanamil was so cheerful until he came to me and said, “This second coat you’re weaving—does it describe the first coat?” I said it did. He smiled and said, “Then I think it may be used instead.” I can see he has set his hopes on this. If this coat has power to unbind the One—and it might, since it holds my understanding—then Tanamil will be unbound as well, and he can marry Robin whatever the King says. The difficulty is that the King will marry Robin as soon as he finds another headman.
Sometimes I think Tanamil lacks hardness. I would move against the King if I could, bound or not. But then I think of the way his arms seemed pinned to his sides when the King took my rugcoat away. I think Cenblith did her work well.
Robin has given me the One. She has Gull and the Young One, and Duck has Mother. We have moved a day’s journey up the River, beyond the great marshes.
We went in thirty small boats, watched by all Shelling standing on the bank. We were in the marsh most of today. The King’s men shot ducks there, which they are cooking for supper. Everyone is scratching because of the mosquitoes. We nearly lost the King in the marsh—a thing I would have been glad to do at any other time, but not when Hern was in the King’s boat. Our boat is large and slow, because it carries the bodyguards, and we lost sight of all the rest. It is not surprising. The pools and channels of the marsh change every year with the floods, and the whole is hung with slight blue mist. There are warm springs underneath, which make the mist and cause flowers of all kinds to riot and tangle at this time of year. Every so often the mist and flowers part to show a smoky blue mere. Each time we searched the bleary water for signs of the other boats, but there was nothing but the jump and scuttle of wild creatures.
One such mere was covered with silver birds. When our boat broke through the rushes, they rose into the haze on bent wings. I cried out in fear. “Seagulls! Mages in disguise! Shoot them!” The bodyguards looked at me in consternation.
Tanamil smiled and stood up. He was sitting unseen with Robin. It is as if their troubles have increased their love. They cling together. When he stood up, the seagulls flocked to him and flew calling round his head, while the eyes of the bodyguards rolled sideways, and they muttered of spirits.
“They’re only gulls,” said Tanamil, and he sat down. The birds flew away. “There are storms at sea. They talk of great waves.”
I felt foolish. After all, this could be a sign from the One that Gull will be restored to us. But now that I am sitting weaving on the bank, removed from the peace Tanamil brings, I think the gulls were telling of Kankredin’s anger. I am very glad that we are moving at last.
I have had no chance to weave for three days. At least Robin is not Queen yet, for which it seems we must thank the Heathens.
That morning after the marshes we were woken by numbers of people hurrying along the bank among our tents. The cats hid in my blankets because the people had dogs with them. I sat up and stared through the tent flap at the confusion among the willow trees. There were children and donkeys, men and dogs, and everyone waving lights and shouting. The King had come out with his face creased and crumpled with sleep. But even with the King asking them, the people would not stop or answer clearly. We gathered that Heathens were coming up behind. They shouted that the whole countryside was in flight and fled on.
“That’s no reason to give up common politeness!” said the King. “Move!”
We took to the boats and packed and folded our things as we rowed. My loom was nearly left on the bank. I asked Jay to make them load it, but he walked away. Tanamil carried it to the boat. Nobody noticed in the confusion.
Since then we have traveled as fast as oars and sails and men dragging on the bank could take us. We traveled till light was gone. As summer is here, that is many long hours. And when we landed, they were tired and cross and would not unload my loom.
The River is shallower after the marshes, and more winding. It is crowded with willows for a day’s journey. In one place a willow had fallen in the floods and lay, still living, across the River.
“Oh, curse this River!” the King said. “He seems to be doing his best to thwart me!”
Our boat was alongside his. Unkingly though it is, I think our King is frightened. I told him the One would not like to hear him speak like that.
“Then tell him to behave more like a benefactor,” the King said. “Are you sure he really wants us to go this way?” He looked at me almost pleadingly. Hern looked at me, too. Hern does not understand why Duck and I are so set on going by water.
I told the King I was sure. “Why am I so sure?” I asked Tanamil, while the bodyguard was busy shoving at the willow to squeeze us underneath.
“Your father’s people bound us,” Tanamil answered out of a mass of pointed willow leaves. “Your father’s people know how to unbind us.” Why do the Undying never tell you straight? I long to ask Mother a few more cunning questions, but I am not allowed to talk to her when Tanamil is there, and he never leaves us.
The willows stopped after a day. The River, no longer eye green but clear gray, hurried toward us down a valley of green banks. We saw white birch trunks above us and green bracken. Beyond that there were mountains. Some have a dazzle on their peaks which hurts your eyes. One of the bodyguards told me it is snow. It is no good asking Tanamil anything anymore. He is too taken up with Robin. Duck has gone to join Hern in the King’s boat. He says all this love suffocates him.
In places where the valley was wider there were humped bridges over the water and houses nearby, built of stone. We found most of them empty. But yesterday the King said, “Ah, people! We shall have our wedding now.” Robin looked piteous.