“Are the floods going down or not?” said Hern.
We looked anxiously at the spreading waters. The River, in its double strength, was bringing down sticks, straw, boughs, leaves, and weed, between the two lines of trees. “Look, look!” Duck cried out, pointing to the nearest floating bough. We looked and found that it was moving not down the River but gently backward. We were aghast.
“The River’s flowing the wrong way!” said Robin.
For over an hour the sticks, straw, and leaves continued to move gently upstream. Our boat still went forward, tacking against the wind, but we were all in the greatest panic. Duck and I hung over the side watching the debris. We had no idea if this meant the end of the floods or more malign magic.
“That magician by the sea must be turning the whole River now,” I said.
“If there is a magician there,” said Hern. “Think who told us there was.” He stared at a place where the water was gently troubled, as if the true current of the River were forcing its way against the unnatural flow. “Gull’s soul is one thing,” he said. “It can’t be very heavy. But it would take magic stronger than I can believe in to turn all this weight of water. There must be some other explanation.”
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To our surprise and relief, the sticks and weeds turned at midmorning and began going the proper way.
We stayed in the boat all that day. There was nowhere to land in the sheets of water on either side of the trees. But at nightfall we were all sick of raw food. In the dusk we saw what we took for a low island or small mountain out in the flood. We drew up the keel and poled cautiously across to it. It proved to be the roofs of a mighty house, not high, but covering the space of several cornfields. Some roofs were old thatch, some new and steep, of slippery tiles, with painted carvings at the ridge and bundles of tall chimneys.
“I bet the King lived here,” said Duck.
We thought Duck was right. But everyone there had gone to the wars and not come back. We tied the boat to the bars of a window and landed on a flat space of tiles, bringing our Undying with us. Hern thought we might have to put the One in his fire anytime. I could not bear to touch Gull for many days after that, so I brought the Young One. As I set him down, I was struck by the resemblance between them. Gull seems to be made of the same flaky pink stone. Yet I know the Young One was carved many lifetimes ago.
There was only a glimmer of fire in both firepots. We tore off gilded carvings and red and blue rails from the roofs and used handfuls of thatch for kindling. Our fire smoked and smelled bad on the tiles, and smoke spread over the flat water.
After supper we left Robin sitting by the fire with her hands wrapped round the knees of her awful blue skirt and scrambled over the roofs in the near dark. I kept wishing I could see into the drowned rooms underneath. But I had to imagine the grandeur. Hern and I collided coming round the tall chimneys above our boat. While we were laughing, we heard the slop and creak of our boat swinging round to face upstream.
“It’s happened again!” said Hern.
We slithered down the steep roof, and sure enough, we could see the boat turned and the rubbish from our supper drifting the wrong way. We knelt with our heads hanging off the roof, trying to see how fast the current went. Hern took a stick and held it with his fingers just out of the water.
“It can’t be the end of the floods,” he said. “My thumb’s wet now.”
Somebody laughed on the roof behind us. I thought it was Duck and turned to tell him about the current. But it was a Heathen girl. I could see just enough to know that she was fair-haired and not Robin. I nudged Hern and he looked, too.
“Er—good evening,” we said. I don’t know how Hern felt, but I was hoping very hard she would think we were Heathens too.
“Hallo,” she said. “Why are you two making such a fuss about the tide?”
“Tide?” we said, stupid as owls in a strong light.
“You must know about it,” she said. “The sea rises twice a day and comes up the River.”
“Oh, we know all about that,” Hern said. “We—er—we were just seeing how high it came up.”
“Of course,” she said.
“We know it’s different by the sea,” I lied.
“Of course,” she said. I know she was laughing at us as she slipped away behind the chimneys.
We felt very foolish and very scared. When Robin and Duck learned we were sharing the roofs with Heathens, they wanted to row away in the dark, but we gave up that idea because we could not see where the two lines of trees were by then. Instead we threw our fire into the water and got into the boat. There we did not sleep for a long time, but we never heard a sound from the Heathens.
7
We did not hear the Heathens go, but we were the only people on the roofs in the morning. Hern and I climbed a tower in the middle and made sure of it.
“Now, please,” said Robin as we were all getting into the boat, “let’s decide where to stop. What kind of place do we want to live in?”
“We’re going down to the sea first,” said Duck.