“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.