The Spellcoats

by Diana Wynne Jones

  I hung back on the threshold of the River. “Where?”

  “Silly,” said Mother. “I’ll keep hold of your hand.”

  We stepped out across the River—I think. But things get so strange when you are with the Undying. There was a moon, and green light rippled through the trees, above and below us. I do not know if I walked on the water, or beneath it, or in some other place entirely. Certainly nobody saw us, but I remember seeing the square of dim light from the mill door to one side as we talked, and the lights of Shelling on the other.

  “You’ve been thinking at last, Tanaqui,” said my mother. “I don’t suppose you can understand how it felt, watching you weave and willing you to stop blaming yourself and start thinking. I’d almost given up hope. I was telling myself that you’d put so much of the River in your coats, maybe that would do instead.”

  “Is it important,” I said, “to put the River in?”

  “Yes,” said my mother. “But that is connected with the things I was forbidden to talk about when I married your father. You have to be very careful what you ask me, Tanaqui.”

  I had supposed some things were forbidden. My father was never talkative, but even he would have told us some of it had he been allowed to. I was prepared to be cunning. “Do you know about Kankredin?” I asked.

  “I do,” said Mother. “I was there with you. The mage hidden death reached him this evening. You have to move fast, all of you.”

  “We know,” I said. “Are you allowed to tell me if Tanamil’s a relation of ours? His name is Younger River, isn’t it?”

  “No. He is of himself,” Mother said, to my great relief. “You have charge of him simply because he was bound when my father was bound. He has his name because he made the younger River—even more unwillingly than your grandfather made this one.”

  “Oh good,” I said. “I was afraid he was going to turn out to be our uncle. I think Robin’s in love with him.”

  “So do I,” my mother said dryly. “That kind of thing seems to run in our family.”

  “Can you tell me how to call him?” I asked next. “Do I have to go to the watersmeet?”

  “Any lesser stream will do,” she told me. “But there’s no need to scream like you did before.”

  That made me a little ashamed, but not much. I was too pleased, and too happy to have a mother again. I leaned against her. She was warm and solid and smelled, just faintly, of tanaqui. “I can’t ask about the Undying,” I said, as if I was talking to myself, “which means I can’t ask if the One is my grandfather. But I know he is. Mother is his daughter. Are we—?”

  Mother chuckled. It was like water in pebbles. “Don’t get too cunning, Sweetrush.”

  “Can I ask your name, then, and how you came to marry my father?” I said. “You are the lady who haunts the mill, aren’t you?”

  “While Closti was a young man, I certainly haunted it,” said Mother. “He used to come here to fish from the time he was Gull’s age. And one day I met him by the millpond. ‘My name is Anoreth,’ I said, ‘and will you marry me?’ Anoreth means ‘unbound,’ Tanaqui—I can tell you that, since you are nearly there already. I suppose asking like that is more the kind of thing you would do than Robin, isn’t it? Closti said he had seen me reflected in the water, often and often, and he was only too glad to marry me. But he was betrothed to Zwitt’s sister. He had to give the coat back, and they were furious. So was Zara. And I was cast off by my father. That was when the mill was forbidden, through his anger. So when Duck was born, I should have died, but my soul was forbidden to go, you see. I had to ask your father to do for me what Tanamil did for Gull. That way at least I could watch over you all.”

  It seemed a sad story to me. Now I know why Zwitt dislikes us so much. “Gull,” I said. “Can I get Gull back?”

  “Ask Tanamil,” said Mother.

  “I’ll go and get him now,” I said.

  Mother kept hold of my hand. “Wait,” she said. “Have a little tact, Tanaqui. Tanamil does not like to remember he’s bound, for one thing. Then there’s Robin.”

  “Yes, I know Robin knows things. She knew who Tanamil was,” I said. “What shall I do, then?”

  “Sleep on it,” said Mother. “Kestrel could lend you a boat to get Robin away in.”

  We went back together through the River door after that. Mother kissed Robin and Duck. Then she took Hern out into the wood and talked to him. I think she knew Hern’s mind would not take walking into the River. Hern will not say what she said to him, but he is much happier now.

  But I disobeyed Mother this very morning, the day after Mother came. Robin woke around dawn. She was pale and damp-haired and iller-looking than ever.

  “I wish I could die quicker than this!” she said.

  I had not seen before that Robin meant to die. I was appalled. “Kankredin—” I said. I was too sleepy to say more.

  “I know all about his net,” Robin said. “I shall be expecting it. Duck says quite a lot of souls get through.”

  “How do you know how fat your soul is?” I said, but I did not stay to argue. The fact is, I do not know what I should do without Robin. I raced upstairs and came back past Robin with the Young One in the sleeve of my rugcoat. “I’m letting the cats out,” I said. They were mewing about because they thought it was morning. I went out with them into a white fog. Everything was dripping softly. I looked anxiously into the millrace. The sluices from the pond have been closed longer than Robin has lived, but there was a trickle of water down there among the rushes and forget-me-nots.

  I climbed down there and put the Young One on one of the slats of the millwheel. “Tanamil,” I said, “Younger River, will you please come here? We need you very badly.”

  I felt very silly. The flaky stone image did not change or move. When I heard someone coming along the millrace behind me, rustling the wet plants, I felt so foolish that I jumped round to stand in front of the Young One.

  It was Tanamil who came along the race, out of the wet whiteness, with fog drops clinging to him all over. My mother did right to warn me. He gave me a doubtful, distant look, as if he had never seen me before. “Did you call me?”

  At first I could not think what to say. Then I remembered how we should have asked him the right question, and only Robin did. “Last time,” I said, “I should have asked if you were the Young One, shouldn’t I?” And I moved so that he could see the Young One on the millwheel.

  That was a mistake. He looked aside from the figure, almost shuddering. “That’s true,” he said, polite and distant. “I am the Young One.”

  He was so unhelpful that I burst into tears. I am getting as bad as Robin. “Boohoo!” I said, just as if I were a baby. “It’s not my fault you quarreled with Robin! And now you’re like this, and the King wants the One, and so does Jay, and we can’t get away from Kankredin even, because Robin’s trying to die! Boohoo!” And I went on boohooing until Tanamil shook me.

  “What did you say about Robin?” he said. I think he had to say it several times. When I cry, I can hear nothing but me.

  “She’s trying to die,” I said.

  “What nonsense!” he said, looking very angry. He came out of the millrace, pulling me almost as fiercely as I pulled the brat Ked, and crashed in through the mill door. Robin sat up with a shriek. “You look like an old woman!” Tanamil said to her. I think he could have been more polite. Just then I found Duck beside me, staring at Tanamil. He looked at me, and we shut the mill door and went to sit outside in the fog.

  “I’ve been wondering whether I dared get him,” Duck said. “But I was afraid she hated him for being of the Undying.”

  “We’re of the Undying, too,” I said. “We descend from the One on both sides.”

  “I don’t know—we feel suspiciously human to me,” Duck said. “Maybe it’s just our souls that are different.”

  “I must ask him how to get Gull back,” I said.

  “He told us,” said Duck. “He said take him up the River to the On
e, only we didn’t understand.” He was in a much more obliging mood than the night before. He said, “I’ll take him, if you like. I have to go. I swore to the Undying—it was after Zwitt said the River was angry and we weren’t to pasture our cow with theirs, remember?—and I swore to see every inch of the River so that I knew more about it than old Zwitt.”

  “I see,” I said. “That means the One wants us to go. We must get hold of a boat again.”

  Soon after that we were so cold and so curious about what was going on in the mill that when the cats came and mewed at the door to be let in, we opened it and went in with them.

  Robin was sitting up cross-legged on her blankets, eating—stuffing, in fact—and her face was pink again. Tanamil was passing her things from the table, which was loaded with finer food than even the King has. He smiled at us and invited us to eat, too. Then he looked at the cats, and there was a fish on the floor for each of them. The mill seemed filled with peace and pleasure. I think Tanamil always brings this feeling. But on that occasion it was more than that; it was Robin, too. I was right. They are in love, and they mean to marry. Robin is almost well again already.

  Tanamil assured Duck that the food was not an illusion, as Hern said. He has the power to bring anything which is on the banks of streams and lesser rivers, even from the far south, where very few people live. As he was saying this, Hern came in. He was carrying the Young One, accusingly. “Who left him—” he said, and he saw Tanamil.

  I was afraid Hern was going to be angry. He was not, but he was awkward. I think Mother talked to Hern of Tanamil. All the same, it has taken Hern most of the day to get used to him. And Tanamil would not look at Hern because Hern was carrying the Young One and Hern did not understand. I had not realized how much Tanamil hates being bound. He hates it so much that he will not speak of it. His face loses all expression when you ask him, and he looks like the image of himself.

  “Amil Oreth is bound deeper than I am,” was all he would say when I asked. Robin told me angrily to leave Tanamil alone. At that Tanamil seemed to relent a little. He did not speak of himself, but he said to me, “Adon has a double bond to bear now. In the first place, he was cheated by a woman, and it was his own fault. In the second place, he was already bound, so that he could not use his full strength against Kankredin.”

  We have had such a good day. Hern has neglected the King entirely, and we have sat about in the mill laughing and trying to make plans for getting away up the River without the King or Zwitt knowing. Tanamil sits with his arm around Robin, as happy as we are, and Robin must have eaten more today than she has in the last month. Anything she fancies is instantly on the table. My only regret is that we are not allowed to have Mother here, too. Because of the One’s anger when she married my father, Tanamil is not allowed to speak with her. Tanamil is not going to risk the same thing happening over Robin. They are going together to ask the One’s permission to marry.

  Now the fat is in the fire! Now I see why Tanamil so hates to be bound. I should not have disobeyed Mother. But at least the main fault this time is Duck’s, not mine. I will tell it in order.

  We were very happy, sitting in the evening sun from the open River door. I had a feeling Mother could be with us like that. I brought my weaving up-to-date and then turned to sewing up my first rugcoat and clipping the ends. Tanamil came over to look at it.

  “What made me think I could teach you anything?” he said.

  I was very pleased, but I said, “You told me two very useful things,” and I showed him the band of expressive weaving at the back, where we went to Kankredin.

  “I was there with you,” he said. “I knew you would need me; he was almost too strong for me, too. It was lucky he sat down and that you repeat his spellgown broken here. Did you realize it would have made another bond on us?” I had not realized. It is a frightening thought. He told me that he had left when Kankredin said we could go, knowing Duck could take us through the net; it was Tanamil who brought us through it the first time, of course. Robin had told him never to come near us again. The quarrel had been far worse than I had known. I think it was good of him to help us at all, though he says he was thinking so hard of us all, and Robin particularly, that it is a wonder there is anything growing on the banks of streams anywhere.

  Then he said, “I was as bad as Amil over Cenblith, but I hope I shan’t need to expiate my folly the same way.”

  “By being bound, you mean?” I said.

  “No,” he said. “By fire. When it was almost too late, he found how to cheat the woman who cheated him and made her promise to put him in a fire every year. Every fire reduces his bonds by a fraction until they can be broken.”

  He looked so sad, saying this, that it came to me that it must hurt the One to be in the fire. I had not seen that before. And we put him in the fire so happily. “Did you know the One is golden now?” I asked Tanamil.

  “Yes,” he said. He picked up my rugcoat and looked at it. “That means his bonds can be broken,” he said.

  “What are you telling me?” I said. You have to ask the Undying clear questions. They do not tell you things properly.

  Tanamil put the thick folds of my weaving back on my knee. “We call this a spellcoat,” he said. “I think you should take it to the rising of the River. But I am not certain. You are making a thing here which is beyond anything I know. I dare not risk spoiling it by—”

  Here came the disaster. The King came in with Jay, to pay his evening visit to the One. His pouched eyes twinkled merrily at Robin. “My dear young lady! Looking better at last! Restored to health and considerable beauty, isn’t she? And how is my golden gentleman?”

  Tanamil was standing against my loom, but the King did not see him, nor did Jay. Hern, Duck, and I made faces of astonishment at one another. Robin was too busy with the King to look at anything. She said the One was safe and she was feeling better today.

  “Good! We shall be able to move on again,” said our King. He circled the room, passing in front of Tanamil without knowing it, and seemed arrested at the sight of my rugcoat. “My dear fluffyhead, this is beautiful! Now I see the purpose of all your industry. I call it truly delicate, my dear!” He took the rugcoat off my knee. My hands went out to stop him, but he whisked it out of my reach. I thought Tanamil might have stopped him. But Tanamil stood as if his hands were strapped to his sides. The King held the rugcoat against himself. It was far too big for him. As I said, he is a small, plump man. But his eyes twinkled delightedly at Robin. “Your sister has made a royal coat for our betrothal, my dear. When shall our wedding be?”

  When I think of all our faces, I could almost laugh—though it is no laughing matter. We were all horrified, but Duck was worse even than Tanamil. He stared at the King as if he was a monster and backed away into a corner. As for Jay, he was worse even than Duck. He staggered, as though the King had hit him, and glared at me. I see now that he thought the coat was for him.

  “But, Majesty,” I said, “the coat’s too big!”

  “We can turn up a hem or so,” the King said, “at the bottom and round the sleeves. I must admit, fluffyhead, that either you miscalculated or you were thinking of another man.” The sideways twinkle he gave Jay made no doubt about who he thought the man was. He bowed to me. “Thank you for my coat. I shall salute my bride-to-be.” He took Robin’s hand and kissed it. He can be very courtly when he pleases.

  Robin dragged her hand away. She looked ill again. “I haven’t agreed yet, Majesty.”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “This coat is agreement. Shall we marry tomorrow? The headman in Shelling can do the business.”

  Robin looked desperately at Hern. Hern said, in a cracking voice, “Majesty, we object to Zwitt. You’ll have to find another headman to marry you.” Hern says this is the law. He says he was lucky to remember it because his mind was spinning.

  “Well, frankly, I don’t care for Zwitt either,” the King said, readily enough. “We note your objection, brother-to-be. We’ll use
the next headman we find. I’ll go and give orders to pack up and leave. Sleep well, my young lady.” He bundled my coat under his arm and took it away. Jay went with him, looking as if someone had hit him in the face.

  He left us in uproar. Robin was in tears, with Tanamil embracing her. I found I was making the noise old women use at funerals. All my work misused and gone. Just as I had understood its nature and how to use it. Hern was demanding why Tanamil had not stopped the King.

  “I’m bound!” Tanamil cried out. “I’m bound, I tell you! I have to do what the King wants.”

  “Do you mean you can’t marry Robin now?” Duck asked. He was very shaken.

  “Not unless the King changes his mind,” said Tanamil. I think he was near to tears, too. Robin put her face in her hands and wept that he was not to leave her, ever.

  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.”