“But—” said Tanamil. “Without Gull?”
“Zwitt told them Gull is my son,” my mother said. “After that Kankredin guessed how he had been tricked. He’ll take Hern or Robin instead. He knows where they’ve gone. Take that spellcoat back from the King, you fool, and show Tanaqui what to do with it at once!” My mother turned, in a surge of whiteness. A great white swan went beating off across the lake, making the air ring with its wide wings.
I think the King and his men had seen Mother as a swan all along, rearing and hissing at the water’s edge. They called to one another to put an arrow in it, saying swans were good to eat, while Mother talked. As I recovered from the shock of what she said, I heard Jay saying, “If I had my other arm, that would never have got away!” I do not like Jay anymore.
Duck came to crouch between Hern and my loom. “Where is the coat?” he whispered.
“In the coffer in the King’s boat,” Hern whispered back. “I’ll create a distraction of some kind. Then you and Tanaqui go and get it.”
I looked over at Tanamil. He nodded urgently, but he held out his hands with the wrists together, to show he could do nothing himself.
“Be ready to go as soon as no one’s watching you,” Hern whispered.
While we waited, I could hardly even pretend to weave.
Duck, however, jerked a handful of rushes from the water and wove them idly into a small mat. He looked bored to tears.
We did not wait long. The King noticed how pale Robin had gone. She had dropped the spindle when she saw Mother and sat staring straight ahead, twisting her hands together. I could see her mouth saying, “Oh no! Oh Mother!” I think she thought it was her fault that Tanamil had neglected his duty. She would not speak to Tanamil when he bent and whispered to her.
“Cheer up, pretty one!” the King said. He came and pinched Robin’s cheek. “It was only a swan,” he said. “You sweet, timid creature! I really am quite fond of you, you know.”
“In that case,” Hern said, jumping to his feet, “why don’t you get on and marry her?” He marched round my loom, denouncing the King. “You talk about it enough, but you don’t do it! What are people going to think? I can’t have my sister gossiped about!”
He said a great deal more. Hern can be very eloquent when he chooses. I wish I could have stayed to hear it and to watch the King’s face. It was the first time I have seen our King entirely without a smile. But by the time I had slipped round my loom and among the rushes outside, the King had recovered enough to wrench the smile back onto his face. “My dear boy,” he said. “My dear boy!” Each time he said it, Hern thundered louder and harsher.
“Robin’s name has been sullied!” he was shouting as Duck and I hurried among the trees. Tanamil was in front of us, beckoning. “My family’s name is mud!” Hern roared, and we could not help giggling.
“I hope the King won’t take Hern too seriously,” Duck said as Tanamil slipped down into the King’s boat. It did not so much as dip as Tanamil went aboard it, but it plunged for Duck and me.
“The box is locked,” said Tanamil. He stood by the King’s beautiful carved chest, looking helpless.
Duck laughed and cracked his thumbs. He has double-jointed thumbs. He holds them upright and they hop about, looking as beastly as Jay’s stump. He did it now, and the carved lid of the King’s coffer hopped in sympathy. I took hold of the lid, and it lifted, pouring rainwater over my feet. “How did you learn to do that?” I said.
“Tanamil taught me,” said Duck. Tanamil was out on the bank again. He laughed.
My coat was folded on top of golden things. As I snatched it up and bundled it into my arms, I saw enough plates and goblets encrusted with red and blue stones to have bought our whole country. I turned to follow Tanamil.
Jay landed heavily in the end of the boat as I turned. I saw from his face that he disliked me even more than I knew. He looked at me as Zwitt did. “You thieving fiend’s child!” he said. “Your brothers are just as bad. What are you all playing at now?”
“Nothing,” I said. “The King has to be
married in this coat. I’m getting it for him.”
“Liar!” said Jay. “Heathen liar! You may fool the King, but you’re not fooling me anymore. Give us that coat. And you can hand over your golden statue while you’re at it!” I do not know how Jay knew I was carrying the One in the front of my shirt. He must have been watching me for days.
“Into the River,” Tanamil said to me from the bank. I glanced at him and saw he had his pipes to his mouth. I tried to plunge sideways over the side of the boat. Jay’s one hand fastened itself into the spellcoat and jerked me back.
“No, you don’t!” he said. “You’re coming to the King.”
I did not care that Jay has only one arm. I bit the hand that held the coat, and I thrust at him in the way Tanamil taught me. We both went over into the water in a spout of splashes. It was bitterly cold. Jay howled and struggled. I had not known he could not swim.
“Duck!” I yelled. “Rescue Jay!”
At that moment Tanamil’s pipes sounded. It was a breathy scream, like seagulls, and a crying, like an old woman at a funeral. I felt as if I had been taken out of my head and put somewhere strange and terrible. There was a long streak of light and, in that streak, smooth sliding. Then Tanamil and I were standing by the lake, surrounded by mountains as before, but everything was calm and empty, with a whiteness to it. There were no boats tied to the trees, and the trees stood as if in fog. Yet I could clearly hear a great splashing and large tricklings. Out of nowhere Duck said, “You’re all right, you fool! Put a leg over the side. It’s your own fault for making Tanaqui bite you.”
“Ough! Oughgurrouch!” went Jay’s voice.
“What do I do now?” I said to Tanamil in the whiteness.