Diana Wynne Jones - Dalemark 03 - The Spellcoats

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The Spellcoats

Diana Wynne Jones

The Dalemark Quartet Book Three

A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0

click for scan notes and proofing history

Contents

PART ONE: The First Coat

|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|

PART TWO: The Second Coat

|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|

Final Note

Now the thing that finally decided us to leave was this.

It was around dawn, though there was no light coming in

round the shutters as yet. My neck ached down one side

and my mouth tasted bad. The fire was very low, but I

could see Duck rolling and stirring in front of it. Hern was

sitting on the table.

“The floor’s all wet, ” he said.

I put my hand on the hearthrug to move, and it was

like a marsh. “Ugh!” I said. It is a noise there is no word

for.

At that, the door to the bedroom swung open and there

was Gull in his nightshirt, feeling at the frame of the door

as he had done before. I heard his feet splash in the

water on the floor. “Is it time?” Gull asked.

Harper Trophy® is a registered trademark of HarperCollins

Publishers Inc.

The Spellcoats

First published in Great Britain in 1979 by Macmillan London

Ltd.

Published in 1993 by Mandarin, an imprint of Reed Consumer

Books Ltd.

First published in the United States in 1979 by Atheneum.

Published in 1995 by Greenwillow Books.

Map by David Cuzic

reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles

and reviews.

Printed in the United States of America. For information address

HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollins

Publishers,

1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Jones, Diana Wynne.

The Spellcoats / by Diana Wynne Jones.

p. cm. - The Dalemark Quartet; bk. no. 3)

“Greenwillow Books.”

Summary: Tanaqui discovers she has the only means

to conquer the evil Kankredin who threatens her own

people and the Heathens who have invaded prehistoric

Dalemark.

ISBN 006-029873-1 - ISBN OO6-447315-5 (pbk. )

[1. Fantasy. ] I. Title. II. Series: Jones, Diana Wynne.

Dalemark quartet; bk 3.

PZ7J684Sp 1995 94-1507

[Fic]-dc20 CIP

Typography by Larissa Lawrynenko

First Harper Trophy edition, 2001

Visit us on the World Wide Web!

www.harperchildrens.com

For my sister Ursula

also by Diana Wynne Jones

Archer’s Goon

Aunt Maria

Believing Is Seeing: Seven Stories

Castle in the Air

Dark Lord of Derkholm

Dogsbody

Eight Days of Luke

Fire and Hemlock

Hexwood

Hidden Turnings:

A Collection of Stories Through Time and Space

The Homeward Bounders

Howl’s Moving Castle

The Ogre Downstairs

Power of Three

Stopping for a Spell

A Tale of Time City

The Time of the Ghost

Warlock at the Wheel and Other Stories

Year of the Griffin

The Worlds of Chrestomanci

Book 1: Charmed Life

Book 2: The Lives of Christopher Chant

Book 3: The Magicians of Caprona

Book 4: Witch Week

Mixed Magics (Stories)

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume I

(Contains books 1 and 2)

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume II

(Contains books 3 and 4)

PART ONE

The First Coat

^ »

I WANT TO TELL of our journey down the River. We are five. The

eldest is my sister Robin. Next is my brother Gull, and then my

brother Hern. I come fourth, and I am called Tanaqui, which is a

name from the scented rushes that line the River. This makes me

the odd one out in names, because my youngest brother is

Mallard—only we always call him Duck. We are the children of

Closti the Clam, and we lived all our lives in the village of Shelling,

where a stream comes down to join the River, giving plentiful

fishing and rich pasture.

This makes Shelling sound a good place, but it is not. It is small

and lonely, and the people here are dark and unpleasant, not

excepting my aunt Zara. They worship the River as a god. We know

that is wrong. The only gods are the Undying.

Last year, just before the autumn floods, strangers came to

Shelling from over the hills, carrying bundles and saying that our

land had been invaded by strange and savage Heathens, who were

driving all our people out. Hern, Duck, and I went and stared at

them. We had not known that we had any land except the country

round Shelling. But Gull says the land is very large, and the River

only the center part of it; there have been times when Gull has said

quite reasonable things.

The strangers were not very interesting. They were just like

Shelling people, only rather more worried. They hired my father to

ferry them over the River, which is wide here, and then went on

their way beyond this old mill on the far side. But, a week after

them, people arrived on horseback: very stern smart men wrapped

in scarlet rugcoats, with steel clothes under that. And these men

said they were messengers from the King. They carried a golden

stork wearing a crown on a stick to prove it. When my father saw

the stork, he said they were indeed from the King.

We stared at these men far longer than at the others. Even

Robin, who was very shy then, left the baking and came and stood

beside us with her arms all floury. The smart men riding past all

smiled at her, and one winked and said, “Hallo, sweetheart.” Robin

went very pink, but she did not go away as she used to when the

Shelling boys called such things.

It seemed these messengers had come collecting men to fight the

Heathens. They stayed one night, during which time they had all

the men and boys walk before them and told the ones who were fit

that they must prepare to come to the wars. It seems they had the

right. It seems the King has this right. I was very surprised

because I had not known we had a King over us before. Everyone

laughed. Hern pretended to laugh at me with Robin and Gull and

my father, but he confessed afterward that he had thought Kings

were of the Undying, and not really of this world at all. We agreed

that a King was a better thing to have over us than Zwitt, the

Shelling headman. Zwitt is an old misery, and his mouth is all

rounded from saying no.

The messengers told Zwitt he must go to war, and for once he

could not say no. But they also told Aunt Zara’s husband, Kestrel,

that he must go. Kestrel is an old man. My father said this must

mean that the King’s case was desperate indeed. It made Hern

feverishly hopeful. He said if they took Kestrel, they would surely

take boys of Hern’s age, too. Gull said nothing. He just smiled.

Altogether Gull was odious that evening.

Hern crept secretly away and prayed to our Undying, in their

three niches by the hearth. He prayed to them to make him fit to

go to war and swore that he would free the land from the Heathen

if they did. I know this because I heard him. I was coming to pray,

too. I must say I was surprised at Hern. He usually scoffs at our

Undying, because they are not real and reasonable like the rest of

life. It shows how much he wanted to go to war.

When Hern had gone, I knelt and implored our Undying to turn

me into a boy so that I could fight the Heathen. I am as tall as

Hern, and wiry, although Hern beats me when we fight. Robin

sighs and calls me boyish, mostly because my hair is a bush. I

prayed very deeply to the Undying. I swore, like Hern, that I would

free the land from the Heathen if they made me a boy. They did not

answer me. I am still a girl.

Then it was time for my father, Gull, and Hern to walk before

the King’s men. They chose my father at once. And they dismissed

Hern at once, saying he was too skinny and young. But Gull has

always been tall and sturdy for his age. They told Gull he could go

to war if he wished and if my father agreed, but they would not

press him. They were fair men. Of course Gull wished to go to war.

My father, now he knew he had a choice, was not altogether willing

to let Gull go, but he thought of poor old Uncle Kestrel, and he told

Gull he could go, provided he stayed close to Uncle Kestrel. Gull

came home delighted and boasted all evening. I told you he was

odious then. Hern came home trying not to cry.

In the morning the messengers went to the next village to choose

men there, giving the men of Shelling a week to prepare

themselves. For that week we were weaving, baking, hammering,

and mending for dear life, getting Gull and my father ready. Hern

was like a broody hen the whole time. He made Duck miserable,

too. Robin says I was as bad, but I deny it. I had found a way to

comfort myself by pretending I was a very fierce and war-like

person called Tanaqui the Terror of the Heathen. When the

messengers came back to Shelling, I pretended they would hear of

this person and send Zwitt to fetch her to lead our land to war. I

told it to our Undying, to make it seem more true. I wish now that I

had not done that. Sometimes I think this is what brought such

troubles on us. You should not speak falsehoods to the Undying.

Robin says we all got worse, Hern, Duck, and I, every time Aunt

Zara came in. She kept coming and thanking my father for taking

Gull to look after Kestrel, and she kept promising she would look

after us all when they were away. It was all words. She never came

near us. But I think my father believed her, and it took a weight off

his mind.

After a week the messengers came back, bringing some hundreds

of men with them. That night, before they were to leave, my father

and Gull naturally prayed to the Undying for safety.

Robin said anxiously, “I’d be happier if you took one of them with

you.”

“They belong by this hearth, ” said my father. He would not say

any more about it. “Hern, ” he said. “Come here.”

Hern would not come at first, but my father dragged him by one

arm over to the Undying. “Now put your hand on the One,” he said,

“and swear that you will stay with Duck and the girls and not try

to follow us to war.”

Hern was red in the face, and I could see he was very angry, but

he swore. That is my father all over. He never said much—they

called him the Clam with good reason—but he saw what was in

people’s minds. After Hern had sworn, Father looked at Duck and

me. “Do I need to make you two swear as well?”

We said no. Duck meant it. He had grown scared that week while

he was sharpening my father’s weapons. I was still fancying to

myself that the messengers would send Zwitt in the morning to

fetch Tanaqui the Terror.

So much for my fancies! Next morning all the men from Shelling

marched away except Zwitt. Zwitt—would you believe this!—fell ill

and could not go. What kind of illness is it that has a man in a fever

in the morning and out fishing in the afternoon? Hern says it is a

very rare and uncommon disease called cowardice.

We went with the rest of Shelling to wave the army off. I do not

think I like armies. They are about five hundred men, which is

quite a large crowd of people, dressed in all sorts of old tough

rugcoats, and some in fur or leather, so that they look as brown and

scaly as River mud. Each of these people carries bags and weapons

and scythes and pitchforks, all in different ways, so that the army

looks like an untidy pincushion or a patch of dead grass. There is a

King’s man riding at the side, shouting, “All in line there! Left,

right, left, right!” The crowd of people do as he says, not willingly,

not fast, so that the army flows off like the River, brown, sluggish,

and all one piece. As if people could become like water, all one

thing! We could hardly distinguish Father or Gull, though we

looked hard. They had become all one with the rest. And as the

army flows off, it leaves a dull noise, dust in the air, and a smell of

too many men, which is not pleasing. It made me feel sick. Robin

was white. Duck said, “Let’s go home.” As for Hern, I truly think he

lost all desire to go to war that morning, just as I did.

Zwitt called everyone together and said the war would not last

long. He said confidently that the King would soon beat the

Heathens. I should not have believed a bad man like Zwitt. It was

many months before we had news.

Life in Shelling went on, but it was small, quiet, and empty. The

autumn floods came late. They were less than usual and smelled

bad. Everyone agreed that the River was angry because of the

Heathens—and they began saying other things, too, that we did not

hear until later. The floods did not bring as much driftwood as

usual, but they washed up strange fish, which nobody liked to eat.

Though Aunt Zara did nothing to help the four of us, we did not

go short. We had vegetables from the garden, and the flour was

milled from our field.

Duck and Hern always catch fish. Duck can find clams by

instinct, too, I think. The hens were laying well, even in the winter,

and we had the cow for milk. Money for other things was scarce,

because we had just laid in a great deal of wool when Zwitt’s flock

was sheared, before the Heathens came. This I combed and spun

and dyed in the ways that my mother had taught Robin and my

father, and they have taught me. My mother taught Robin to

weave. I was too young to learn when she died, but Robin taught

me, and now I do it better than she does. It is that same wool I am

using now to weave our story. We did not find much market for my

weaving in Shelling that winter. A number of children needed

winter rugcoats. But my main—and my best—work is always for

weddings. The girls’ families buy my finest rugcoats, with stories

and poems in them, to give to the boy they are going to marry. But

there were no weddings, with the men all gone. And after we went

across the River, no one wanted any of my weaving.

The floods had left us no driftwood to speak of, so we rowed

across the River when the leaves started falling to cut wood from

the forest on the other side. No one else in Shelling crosses the

River. I asked Aunt Zara why once, and she said that the old mill

was cursed by the River, and the forest round it, and that they

were haunted by a cursed spirit in the shape of a woman. That was

why the new mill was built, up along the stream.

When I told my father what Aunt Zara said, he laughed and told

me not to listen to nonsense. It is quite a pleasure to me to sit

weaving in this same old mill, with this same cursed forest round

me, at this very moment, and take no harm. There’s for you, Aunt

Zara!

The day we cut wood, the light was rich with the end of autumn.

It was like a holiday. We broke the stillness of the trees by running

about shouting, catching falling leaves, and playing Tig. I do not

think there were any spirits who minded, in spite of what Robin

said. And she ran about and shouted with us, anyway. She was far

more as I remember her, that day, before she grew up and got all

shy and responsible. We had lunch sitting on the grass by the old

millpool, and after that we cut wood. When the River was pale in

the dusk, we rowed back over, with wood heaped in such a stack

that the boat was right down in the water and we had to sit still for

fear of being swamped. My hair was like a real bush, full of twigs

and leaves. I was really happy.

Next day Zwitt and some of the old people came to us with sour

faces. They said we were not to pasture our cow with the others in

future. “We do not give grazing rights to godless people,” Zwitt said.

“Who’s godless?” Duck said.

“The River has forbidden people to cross to the mill,” Zwitt said.

“And you were all there all yesterday. The River would punish you

worse than this if you were older.”

“It’s not the River punishing us. It’s you,” said Duck.

Hern said, “You didn’t punish my father for ferrying the

strangers over there.”

“Who told you we were there?” I said.

“Zara told me,” said Zwitt. “And you watch how you speak to me,

now your father’s away. I won’t stand for rudeness.”

Robin wrung her hands when they had gone. It was her latest

ladylike habit, but it meant she was really upset “Oh dear! Perhaps

the spirits over there are angry. Do you think we did offend the

River?”

We were not having that. We respect the River, of course, but it

is not one of the Undying, and we do not believe in spirits flocking

around being angry at everything, the way Zwitt does. I told Robin

she was growing up as joyless as Zwitt. Hern said it did not make

sense to talk of a river’s being offended.

“And if it is, it ought to punish us, not Zwitt,” said Duck.

“I only meant that it could be offended,” Robin said.

When we had finished arguing, Hern said, “It sounds as if Zwitt

was afraid of my father.”

“I wish he’d come back.” I said.

But the months passed and no one came back.

Meanwhile, we were forced to move our cow to the edge of the

River, just beside our house. We think that was why she never

caught the cattle plague all the other cows got. Hern is sure it was.

A great deal of mist came off the River that winter and hung about

the pasture. Of course our cow was grazing peacefully in the mist

most of the time, on the Riverbank, but the other people said it was

the mist that brought the disease. When some cows died, and ours

had never coughed once, they began giving us very black looks.

Hern was furious. He called them narrow minded fools. Hern

believes there are reasons for everything, and that curses and bad

luck and spirits and gods do not make real reasons. “And why is it

our fault their wretched cows die?” he demanded. “Because we

offended the River, if you please! In that case, why is our cow all

right?”

Robin tried to pacify him. “Hern, dear, don’t you think it could be

our Undying looking after us?”

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TheSpellcoatsDianaWynneJonesTheDalemarkQuartetBookThreeA3Sdigitalback-upedition1.0clickforscannotesandproofinghistoryContentsPARTONE:TheFirstCoat|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|PARTTWO:TheSecondCoat|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|FinalNoteNowthethingthatfinallydecidedustoleavewasthis.Itwasarounddawn,thoughtherewasnolightcoming...

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