Duck and I did not feel so scornful. The bowmen could shoot us here as easily as in a palace.
The grizzled Heathen stepped into one of the tattered tents. We waited outside with the flag and the crossbows. Since it was a tent, we could hear what was said inside amid the rattling of the canvas. But we had difficulty understanding it.
I heard, “I have brought no less than three young mages, lord, not knowing quite what else to do.” There followed talk I could not hear for the tent flapping. Then, “I think Ked told the truth for once, lord. I find them very hard to understand, and by their dress, they seem to have gone native.” After this they spoke so rapidly that I was lost, until the messenger said, “I agree, lord. It may be just what you were wanting.”
Meanwhile, we stood feeling slighted and uneasy. We did not know why the King should want us. We thought of Gull and of Tanamil. And we found it ominous that though there were numbers of Heathens about in the camp, they did not come crowding to see us, as people would have done in Shelling. I saw that women and girls kept quietly slipping across behind us to the sandy river, where they fetched water in iron pots. They could not all have wanted water at once. It was an excuse to see us. They were none of them as pretty as Robin, but I liked their clinging dresses. Men and boys were finding excuses to be about, too. Someone tidied a heap of rubbish. Someone came past with a tall horse. A boy staggered with a sack from one hut to another, and so on. We were being seen secretly all the time we waited, and it made us most uncomfortable.
At last the messenger came out and held the flap of the tent for us. “Please go in. My lord is waiting for you.”
By this time we were used to the speech. We went in, all of us thinking of Gull and very suspicious. The King stood up to meet us. That was a politeness. But Duck had his mind so firmly on Gull that he said, “No one here’s going to take my soul.”
“I think you know more about that than I do,” the King said politely. “Let me assure you that there is no question of that.”
He was no older than Gull and not as tall as Hern. We stared at him awkwardly, and he at us. He was really very like Hern, except that he had a slender, unhealthy look, and I think he walked with a limp, though I am not too sure of this, because he was sitting down most of the time. Hern looked surprisingly tall and sturdy beside him. Hern, I am sure, has grown inches since we left Shelling. But they both had the same forward set of the head and the same sharp nose, and they both knew it, too. They looked at one another with strong interest—that interest which can be friendship or hatred at the drop of a pin.
“I am Kars Adon,” this thin young King said, “son of Kiniren. The clans owe allegiance to me now my father is dead.” He was not boasting when he said this. He spoke as facts, to let us know who he was. I marveled that he named himself Adon. It is one of the secret names of our One, and we do not say it openly. He added, “Perhaps you would like to sit down,” and smiled awkwardly at us, before sitting down himself in a folding chair of studded leather and wood.
That chair was not fine, but it was the only good thing in the tent. In front of it, someone had arranged a tree stump, a milking stool, and a wicker basket. Hern sat on the milking stool, which I knew was a politeness because it put him lower than Kars Adon. Duck took the basket, and I sat gingerly on the stump. It rocked rather.
“Tell me,” I said, “does your name have a meaning?” Kars Adon followed our speech well. “No,” he said, with only a small pause. “It is just a name. Why?”
“Our names mean things,” Duck explained. “I am Mallard, he is Hern, and she is Tanaqui. Our father was Closti the Clam.”
I could see Kars Adon found this quite outlandish, but he was too polite to say so. “I am of Rath Clan, like Ked,” he said, and seemed to look at us expectantly. “I must thank you for rescuing Ked from the River,” he said. “I am deeply in your debt.”
He meant it. From what he said, I thought the brat must be his brother. “It was nothing,” I said, and I did not say what an ungrateful little beast he was. “Is he a near relation of yours?”
“I don’t think so,” Kars Adon said uncertainly. “He belongs to my clan, of course. But even if he didn’t, I’d be grateful. There are so few of us now—” He sighed, but it seemed as if he felt it wrong to be sad. He sat up straight and smiled at us. “What Ked said when he came back made me decide to send for you,” he said. “Forgive me. I know you mages are not subject to orders. But Ked swore that the person who rescued him had power to walk on the greediest waters and not only snatched him from the River’s mouth but bound him to tell the truth about it. And when Arin fetched you, he saw with his own eyes all three of you walk where he would have been sucked down, and he knew that Ked had told the truth. And we all know,” Kars Adon said seriously, “that anyone with power over that monstrous River is a mage indeed. Though I am inclined to think,” he added, with a little twitch of a smile, “that forcing Ked to tell the truth shows greater power still.”
I was getting truly uncomfortable. I could see Hern and Duck trying not to look at me and laugh. “I don’t think we are mages,” I said.
“Speak for yourself,” Duck said, creaking on his basket. “Personally I have some quite uncanny powers.” Sometimes Duck is as bad as Ked.
Kars Adon again looked at us expectantly, as if we were supposed to say something else. When we did not, he said, in an awkward way, as if he were having to re
mind us of a duty, “Before we go any further, you should tell me your clan and allegiances.”
That was a bad moment. Duck and I did not know what to say. I half expected Hern to make up something since I could see he was in that kind of mood, but Hern still said nothing. The stump wobbled under me with my fear and shame. I was ashamed that Kars Adon should so confidently think we were Heathen like himself, and I was terrified he would find out we were not and kill us for it.
“Ked and Arin both said that your speech was strange and you dressed as natives do,” Kars Adon said. “I can see that for myself. There are two things you could be.” His face grew red under its Heathen brown as he said this. I think, by his standards, he was being very impolite. “You could be of a small Western clan, one of those who came here before we did. Forgive me. Or instead you are some of Kankredin’s people.” He thought he was being so rude that he could scarcely bear to look at us.
“Who is Kankredin?” said Duck.
Kars Adon was in quite a taking at this. He knew he had been rude, and he wanted to look away, but he was also so astonished that Duck had not heard of this Kankredin that he wanted to stare at Duck to see if Duck was pretending. Between looking and not looking, twisting his hands together, and fumbling at the clasp of his cloak, he made us feel quite as bad. “Kankredin,” he said. “Kankredin is mage of mages. It is Kankredin in the ship beyond the sandbars. You must have seen the ship at least!”
Hern’s head pecked forward at this. Duck said blandly—I never knew Duck was such a liar—“We suspected there was a ship there, but it was hidden in an enchanted mist.”
“Yes, that is Kankredin,” Kars Adon said eagerly. “We’ve been warned to keep clear of his mist. It was Kankredin I wanted to talk to you about. You see—”
“Just a moment,” said Hern. “Before you go any further.” Now Hern had not said a word up to then. He says he was absorbed in finding out what manner of person this Kars Adon was. “Before you say another word,” he snapped out suddenly. And he jumped up from the stool and pounced to the opening of the tent. Kars Adon stared at Hern. This was real rudeness.
“Hern!” I said.
“Stand back there!” Hern said at the door of the tent, speaking very loud and slow. “I want to say something private to the King.”
A great many voices made objection to this. I think everyone in the camp was standing there listening in.
“I know that,” said Hern. “But you can guard him from where you can’t hear. Get over near that hut, all of you.”