“I know the very person,” Kars Adon said, and he sent lordly ones in all directions to find this man. “Then you spoke of weaving,” he said to me. He was very respectful. Of course weaving to his mind is the mages’ art. “Should I ask our messenger to bring you this weaving?” he asked.
“Oh yes!” I said. And then I told him why it was so important. It was something I had never dreamed of myself doing. But he had been open with me, and we were both children of the One. He was equally in danger from Kankredin. I told him of the first coat and how it had loosed Kankredin’s bond. “But I don’t know what I have to do to unbind him from Cenblith’s,” I said. “Have you any idea?”
Kars Adon was at his most awkward at this. He wound his fingers in his cloak and twisted about. I think the reason was that he had hoped for just this from my weaving and was ashamed of making me tell him. “I know nothing at all of magery,” he protested.
“But nobody knows about this,” I said. “And you can look at it fresh.”
I think he was flattered. He considered. “What did you give our Grand Father in the first coat?” he said.
“Kankredin’s spell broken and our journey down the River,” I said. “The second one starts with the King telling us how the One was bound and what happened when we came up the River.”
Kars Adon thought deeply. “Would it be,” he said at last, “that you are to give him back his bonds and the entire River with it? And perhaps the story of how you discovered this?”
You know, he is right! I knew it as soon as he said it. This is why I am weaving this now. But it is still not quite the whole story, and I know I must go on.
I had not finished thanking Kars Adon for his cleverness when someone came up to us saying, “They say you want something from me, young lord.”
We looked up, and there was Uncle Kestrel bending his shaking head to Kars Adon in the most respectful way. “Uncle Kestrel!” I shrieked. I jumped up and hugged him.
“Ah, now, I thought it might be you in our midst,” he said. I put a kiss on his beak of a nose. It came to me that my grandfather looks a little like Uncle Kestrel, which is a good thought. It seems that Uncle Kestrel and all the rest of Shelling were forced to run away from Kankredin the day after we left. The River flooded backward and drowned most of the houses. Zwitt was so frightened that he made them go by land to the mountains, while we, because of the winding of the River, took much longer to reach this place.
Kars Adon told Uncle Kestrel to go to our King’s camp and arrange a meeting as soon as possible, and he gave him strict instructions to bring my loom and yarn back with him. Uncle Kestrel was a little surprised to be chosen, but it was a good idea. Robin would believe him, and the King would believe Robin. “That weaving,” said Uncle Kestrel. “I do nothing but fetch her that weaving.” He agreed to go. He keeps his independent manner, but he thought the world of Kars Adon.
I had a lumpy bed that night in a tent with some Heathen girls. They chatter just like our girls when they are on their own. They told me that Kars Adon had asked every one of our people who came to his dale whether they knew the family of Closti. And when Uncle Kestrel came, he had exclaimed, because Kars Adon reminded him so of Hern. Kars Adon spent several hours asking Uncle Kestrel all about Shelling and about Hern. The girls were a little shocked that their Adon, as they call him, should be so interested in natives. I was pleased. I thought all was going well.
In the morning, however, I heard that Uncle Kestrel had not brought my weaving. Our King had made conditions. He agreed to talk and named a place, but he said he would exchange my weaving for the One. He knew I had the One.
“But I haven’t got him anymore!” I said to Kars Adon. “I gave him back to himself.”
“That won’t matter,” Kars Adon said. “We can explain. The important thing is that he has agreed to talk.” He was overjoyed at that. He set out soon after dawn with me, and Uncle Kestrel and seven of his anxious lordly ones, to go down to the place the King had named, near the lake.
So it was that I have seen every inch of the River, and my coats between them contain it all. As we climbed down past the waterfall, I made myself look at it, although the height and the noise made my head turn round. It streams down hundreds of feet, not wide, but with enormous force, into a great rocky basin beneath the mountain. We climbed down to it over moss and hanging ferns, perpetually wet with the clouds of spray. That day Kankredin was so close that the basin had become a place of white waters, where the fall wound back on itself, up and round, as if it were trying to climb the mountain again. The din was enormous, and there were rainbows at the edge of the winding water as big as rainbows in the sky. Everyone stared at it, shaken. No one liked to say the name of Kankredin, but he was in all our minds.
Beyond that the water boils down to the lake through a curving ravine, in a chain of basins as blue as the eye of a Heathen, and white bubbles fight up through it. The ravine opens into a grassy space just before it reaches the lake. There, between slants of rock, the King was waiting. They were before us, not having had far to come. We came there feeling deafened. Even there the noise was loud. I could not think why our King should choose a place where we could hardly hear ourselves speak.
He was sitting on a stone, smiling at us. He even smiled at me. My loom was behind him, between Hern and Jay. Hern seemed to try to smile at me, too. In spite of what Duck said, he was sure I was drowned until Uncle Kestrel came. But I could see there was something else on Hern’s mind. As for Jay, he half closed his eyes and gave me a look of detestation which I find it hard to forget.
Our King did not get up. That was to show Kars Adon he was usurper and invader, which was true enough. Kars Adon bowed to him politely. Our King bent his head, twinkled, and began to shout the names of the important ones with him. The first was a stranger to me, an agreeable-looking man in the rugcoat of a headman.
“This is Wren,” bawled our King. “And this”—he pulled Hern forward—“is Hern, my young brother-in-law.”
Brother-in-law! I thought. I stared at Hern. Hern heaved up his shoulders, spread his hands, and looked “Tell you later.” But I did not need to be told. Wren was a headman. Robin was a Queen. Poor Robin. Poor Tanamil. Then I thought: But they hadn’t got my rugcoat. I think it’s unlawful! I missed the first part of what was said because of this. When I listened again, Kars Adon was leaning forward, shouting earnestly into our King’s face.
“We can’t afford to be enemies,” I heard above the thundering water. “We must make a treaty and unite against Kankredin.”
“Treaty?” shouted our King. “You come to my land, kill, lay it waste, dispossess me, and then you bleat of treaties!”
“Things are different now,” yelled Kars Adon. I lost his voice in the noise. It came to me in fragments: “… make amends … proud future … kingdom together … one tongue … same Undying.”
Our King’s voice carried better. “Who cares about all that? That child Tanaqui stole Oreth from me. I want the One back. She can have her weaving in exchange for the One.”
Kars Adon was pleased the King should talk of the One. “Our Grand Father,” he yelled, pointing a finger at my loom, “is the most urgent thing we must talk about.”
“How dare you shout at me!” thundered our King. “Have you got Amil?” He looked at me and knew I had not got the One. It must have shown in my face. He stood up. I see now that it must have been a signal, though at the time I simply thought he was angry.
Next I knew, the King and everyone except Hern had snatched swords from beneath their rugcoats. I had never seen fighting before. It is swifter and more beastly than you would believe. The worst of it was, Kars Adon, Hern, and I stood stupidly aghast, not believing our King’s treachery. Before we moved, three of Kars Adon’s lords had lost their lives, and most of the rest of the King’s men were jumping down from the rocks where they had been hiding. Uncle Kestrel was hobbling frantically round us, with Jay slashing at him as he ran. Jay impeded our Ki
ng, or Kars Adon would have died that first second. The King had to make a second stroke at him, and his sword moved to do it as swift and deadly as a snake.