“Lucky for me you didn’t understand him,” Jay said. He was all merry with relief. “Speak to your sister for me—quickly, soon. Tell her I can’t knowingly go against the King, so it’s up to her to marry me before the King declares himself. You say that. Tell her she’s the sweetest girl I know.”
Then he went. I sat and stared at Robin’s yellow face. She bounced up out of her pillow as soon as the door had shut.
“What shall we do about this?” I said.
“Jay wants the One,” Robin said, “just like the King. Oh, I wish I was dead!” It was the first time she had said that, but I know she meant it. She plunged down on her bed, crying, and rolled about wretchedly, tipping the cats off.
“No, stop,” I said to her. “I’m thinking of something. I almost have already.” I dashed off to find Hern, as I had meant to before Jay came.
Robin called tearfully after me, “Tanaqui, I’m sorry. All I seem to do is complain at you. You’re so patient.”
Patient! If Robin only knew. “I’ve nearly hit you a thousand times,” I called back, and went flying out into the blue evening.
Hern was sitting moodily against a tree. Beyond him the King’s campfires sent merry streaks down into the water of the millpond. I could hear people singing. “Hern,” I said, “when Gull and Father went to war, what did you swear to the Undying?”
“I said I’d free the land from Heathens,” Hern said sourly. “Ha-ha! Go away.”
“Oh,” I said. I could not see what the One could make of this oath. Mine was easier. I had asked to be sent to war as a boy, and Ked had indeed taken me for a boy because I was wearing Hern’s clothes. “Another thing,” I said to Hern. “That Heathen girl on the roof who told us about the tides—what was she wearing?”
Hern scowled. “A sort of blue rugcoat—No. She couldn’t have been. Heathens don’t wear rugcoats. I don’t know.”
That was it. “Tanamil wore one,” I said.
“Kars Adon would probably say he’d gone native,” Hern said gloomily, showing where his thoughts were. There has been no news of Kars Adon since the broken bridge. “Go away.”
I went away and looked at my rugcoat under the lamp. When Robin asked what I was doing, I said I was sewing it up and I would go to bed soon.
“I looked at it,” said Robin. “It’s beautiful. But why do you use that strange word for river? I keep thinking you’re talking about the One.”
It was like a great light cast. “Robin,” I said, “I knew you’d help me!” She meant Tanamil’s sign for the River. It is not unlike the sign for brother. I had often noticed that. Now I plunged outside for a handful of rushes from the millrace and wove them together furiously under the lamp. I wove the two signs of my own name: Tan—aqui. I weave it here to show. See: together, rushes; apart, younger—sister. Then I took more rushes and wove again: Adon, Amil, Oreth, the One’s secret names. Adon is as much as to say Lord, the difference of a thread. Oreth I do not see so well. It is a sign for weaving, or knotting, but not the usual one. But Amil is River, all but a thread. I took all the rushes undone except that name and the front of my name and held them together in front of me.
So now I know. I have been weaving it until late at night because Robin is still too upset to sleep. And I still cannot believe that we are wrong and everyone else is right and the One is indeed the River. But I know what I must do. I must find Duck. He has the Lady inside his shirt.
3
Duck was nowhere. I took the lamp and went upstairs to bed in the end. And the first thing I saw was the Young One, thrown out of my bed on the floor. I rushed to pick him up. He is so worn and old that I was afraid Duck had damaged him. Duck had thrown him out. He was in my bed asleep. He says he prefers it to sleeping in a tent. I held the Young One under the lamp and made sure he was not broken. The light made the smile move on his worn clay face. Then I shook Duck.
“I’m not asleep,” said Duck. He was in his maddening mood. “The King told me about needing an heir, too.”
“Then why didn’t you come down when I shouted for you?” I said. “I want to know what you swore to the Undying.”
“Do you?” he said. I told you he was maddening.
“And I want Mother,” I said.
Duck had thought he was the only one who understood. He was annoyed. “You can’t have her,” he said, and sat up against the wall with his arms wrapped round himself.
“She’s my mother, too,” I said. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need her.”
“You’re not having her,” he said. “I found out before you did, and she’s mine.”
I was too angry to argue anymore. “You selfish little beast!” I shouted, and jumped on top of him. We wrestled and struggled. “I need to talk to Mother!” I shouted. Duck at the same time screamed that the Lady was his and I was stealing her. Half the boards came off the trestles of the bed. We crashed to the floor. I heard Robin call out weakly from downstairs, and the door latch rattle as Hern came in to find out what the noise was. I had my hand on the Lady by then. Duck had my hair in both hands and was shaking my head about.
Then, through the noise we were making, we both heard the River door open below. Robin screamed. Duck and I stared at one another without m
oving, and Hern said, “I don’t believe it! I just don’t believe it!” just as he did at the net of souls. We heard light footsteps walking from the River door.
Neither Duck nor I remember how we got to the ladder. We were halfway down it before my mother reached the middle of the room. Hern was backed against the other door. Robin was upright in bed, with her hands to her mouth. And the River door was open where I had left it shut.