He seemed—how shall I say?—wet with haste or damp with the open air. His skin was ruddier than ours. Otherwise he was not so different, except that he was grown up and four of us were not. His hair was long and golden and even more wildly curly than Robin’s or Duck’s. I must say I liked his face. He had a gentle, laughing look, and his nose turned up a little. His rugcoat was an old faded red one, not unlike the one my father went to war in, very plain and wet with dew. I could see there was red mud splashed on his legs and that he wore shoes like ours, wet, too. But to our relief, he had no kind of weapon. His hands were empty, spread to part the rushes.
I thought: Well, if this is a Heathen, they can’t be so very bad.
“Er—nobody called, really,” Hern said, cautiously. “We were arguing about whether to land or not.”
“It’s lucky you did land,” he said. “There’s a large party of Heathens in a boat coming down the Red River.” Since they were Heathens to him, we knew he meant our people. Not that this made any difference in the danger to us.
We looked at one another. “We’d better wait until they’re past,” Robin said doubtfully.
“If you like, you can come up to my shelter to wait,” the Heathen man said politely.
We did not like this idea, but we did not want him to know we were his enemies. Robin and Hern and I looked at one another again. Duck looked at the Heathen man and smiled. “Yes, please,” he said. I kicked at his ankle, but he just moved out of the way. The next second he was scampering away up the path. Robin gave a small ladylike wail and climbed out of the boat, too.
Hern and I did not know what to do. We thought we ought to stay together, but that meant leaving Gull. We bent down and tried to pull Gull up.
“Come along, Gull,” I said. “We’re going on a visit.” Hern said encouraging things, too, but Gull would not move, and we could not budge him.
Damp hair brushed my face, and I jumped. The Heathen man was kneeling beside the boat and leaning between us to look at Gull. “How long has he been like this?” he said.
Hern looked at me. “Months, I think.”
Robin leaned eagerly over us. “Do you know what’s wrong with him, sir? Can you help us?”
“There’s something I can do,” the Heathen man said. “I wish you could have brought him here before this, though.” He stood up, looking very serious. “We must wait till the Heathen have gone by,” he said.
Duck came scooting back down the path. “I saw the Heathen—” he said.
“Quiet!” said the man.
We heard loud voices and the splashy sound of many people rowing. I never saw the people, and they were all talking at once, but I heard one say, “All clear ahead. None of the devils about.” It sounded like a big, heavy boat, moving fast with oars and current, and I thought they must be patrolling for Heathen. The sounds moved quickly into the wide stretch of the double River and faded away.
When they had gone, our Heathen said, “My name is Tanamil, which means Younger Brother.”
I was not sure we should tell him our names, for fear he might guess we were not Heathens, not having outlandish names like his. But Robin went all polite and ladylike and introduced us all. “This is Hern,” she said, “and Tanaqui, and my brother lying there is Gull. That is Duck—”
Tanamil looked up at Duck, in the path above. “Duck?” he said. “Not Mallard?”
Duck’s face went almost as red as the earth. “Mallard,” he said. “Duck’s a baby name.”
Tanamil nodded and looked back at Robin. “I can guess your name,” he said. “You have to be a bird, too, a bright one, a bird of omen. Robin?”
Robin went red, too, and nodded. She was so confused she forgot to be ladylike. “How did you guess?”
Tanamil laughed. He had a very pleasant laugh, that I admit, very joyful. It made us want to laugh, too. “I’ve wandered about collecting knowledge,” he said. Then he went serious as he looked down at Gull. “And lucky I did,” he said. “He’s very far gone.”
We all looked at Gull then, thinking Tanamil was exaggerating—until we saw how Gull had changed, even in that short time. He was thinner and paler than ever. He lay with his eyes closed, breathing so slightly that we could hardly see it. We could see the other bones in his head, joining those sharp cheekbones of his. He looked like a skull.
Robin seized Tanamil’s arm. She would never have done such a thing in the ordinary way. It shows how upset she was. “What is the matter with him? Do you know?”
Tanamil continued to look down at Gull. “Yes,” he said. “I know. They are trying to take his soul. He has fought them long and hard for it, but they are winning.”
Hern gave a sort of shiver. He was angry.
He is always angry when people talk this way, but I had never seen him as angry as he was then. “Oh, are they?” he said. “And who are they in that case, and where are you imagining they are?” He was so angry he could hardly speak.
Tanamil was not offended. He seemed to understand Hern. “The one who is reeling your brother in now,” he said, “is a powerful man who sits beyond the edge of my knowledge. I think he is down by the sea.”
Hern seemed not to know what to say next. He did not seem angry anymore. “Gull kept saying he must go to the sea,” I said.