Читать книгу Diana Wynne Jones’s Fantastical Journeys Collection - Diana Wynne Jones - Страница 20

A boy in a grey coat was sent rushing off, with instructions from Gronn to fetch “a decent lunch” as well as these cousins of mine. The lunch arrived first. We all, including Gronn, sat on the grass to eat rolls stuffed with crab and big bunches of grapes. Ivar, Ogo and I had never eaten grapes, though we had all had raisins. Gronn was explaining, in a very satisfied way, that grapes grew in profusion in the south of Gallis. I think he then went on to tell us they were dried into raisins to send to Skarr, but my cousins arrived then and I am not sure.

Rees was good-looking and fair-haired, taller and older than Ivar, and he seemed the most easily friendly person I have ever met. His sister, my cousin Riannan, was the very same girl who had won The Singing. I was awed. Close to, she was staggeringly lovely. I wondered how someone could have such huge blue eyes and delicate features – not to speak of a marvellous shape – and yet be so modest, even a little shy. Riannan smiled, looking down at the grass, then looked up, first at me, then at Ivar. After that, she looked nowhere else.

Ivar stared back. His face, with the thin beginnings of a beard, turned slowly crimson and then pale. And Riannan still stared. It didn’t seem to matter to her that Ivar’s hair had grown all shaggy or that his once-good clothes were now stained and old. It was plain that she thought he was perfect. And Ivar thought the same of her, all trim and lissom as she was, in her blue-green tunic with the starry brooch flashing on the front of it.

“Listen now,” Gronn was saying, when I brought my mind back, “we have this lady Beck who has been unfortunate with the Red Woman of Bernica and needs some healing help.”

Rees gave Aunt Beck the same sort of professional, summing-up look that Aunt Beck normally gave other people. “A spell, is it?” he said.

“Indeed, yes,” Gronn said. “A spell she has half resisted. Do you think Wenda could handle it?”

“My mother can handle most things,” Rees said, grinning.

“Well then,” said Gronn, “this is what I’m suggesting – that you take them all back with you to the Pandy, introduce Aileen to her aunt and her Uncle Bran and so forth, and see what your mother can do for Beck.” He said to me, “Wenda is my second cousin and there is no one more capable of lifting spells than she is in all Gallis. If you set off now, you can avoid the crowds at the way stations. Will that suit you?”

“Oh yes, perfectly,” I said, flustered. “Thank you.” I saw that Aunt Beck was sitting there in the cart not attending to anything, with a crab roll still in her hand. “Eat your lunch, Beck,” I snapped half-heartedly. I was so sick of shouting at her.

“Well now,” Gronn said, brushing crumbs off his rounded front, “I shall go back to my duties and leave you with my blessing.” He smiled and made gestures in the air, which I supposed was his blessing, and then wandered gently away. He seemed to be down on the greensward and in the distance near the white building before he had taken three steps.

The magic of Gallis again, I thought.

“No need to hurry,” Rees said amiably. “Anyone care for some more lunch?” He held up the cloth bag he was carrying.

“Yes, please,” Ogo said. He was always hungry.

Plug-Ugly was always hungry too. He advanced on Rees, tail swinging, and stood on his hind legs against Rees’s knees with one large paw stretched towards the cloth bag. Rees laughed.

As Plug-Ugly’s paw touched the bag, there was the tiniest hissing. I saw two bright red eyes staring from the cuff of Rees’s sleeve.

“Oh, have you got a pet rat?” I said. My cousin Donal had a rat when he was younger, which he used to let climb about inside his clothing. And the truth was, I was prepared to be interested in anything to keep my mind off Ivar and Riannan.

Rees laughed again. “No, not a rat,” he said. He shook his arm a little and a tiny red lizard ran out, long and thin, and raced up his sleeve to his shoulder, where it coiled around and glared down at Plug-Ugly.

“Oh!” I said.

“Her name is Blodred,” Rees said. “She’s a dragon-lizard.”

“They’re very common here in Gallis,” Riannan said. “A lot of people make pets of them. Rees has had Blodred since he was five years old. Don’t you have them in Skarr?”

“No,” we all said.

Finn added, “Nor in Bernica, but I’ve heard of them. I think it may be too cold for them north of Gallis.”

Ogo leant above me to look closely at the lizard. It really could have been a tiny dragon. It had a sort of frill that looked like wings on its faintly pulsing red sides. “Does she fly?” he asked.

“No, not really,” said Rees. “Those are not proper wings – just skin she can spread a bit and glide on. And,” he added proudly, “they come in all colours, but red is the very rarest.”

We all sat down again and had more lunch. Ivar and Riannan sat close together and talked to each other in little broken sentences. As far as I could tell, she was asking about Ivar’s life on Skarr and he was trying to compliment her on her singing. In between, they stared at one another as if they were seeing the most marvellous thing in the world. And they both blushed a lot.

All in all, I was quite glad to concentrate on making Aunt Beck eat. Then I was pleased that Plug-Ugly was behaving rather badly and trying to take crab away from people. I don’t think that there had been any crab in his life before this and he discovered he had a passion for it. I had to shout at him – not that it made much difference. After that, I kept my attention on Blodred, who was eating tiny shreds of crab she held in her delicate red fingers. I even watched Green Greet pecking away at an apple turnover.

It was a relief to me when Rees said we had better get moving.

“Aileen, you drive,” Ivar said.

So I climbed into the cart and took the reins, while Rees went ahead with Ogo and Finn to show the way. We went through uplands of perfect beauty, where streams poured musically over rockfalls covered with wild flowers, while blue peaks towered behind; and all I could think of was Ivar and Riannan walking behind, talking in murmurs and laughing. There were gaps in the peaks we went through, where I could see the sea, blue as Riannan’s eyes, or lakes in valleys or, on one occasion, a huge golden view of Gallis stretching away southward, full of fields and distant orchards. Moe did not like this. She shook her ears and made it plain she was not used to mountains. But all I could think of was Ivar and Riannan walking behind.

We stayed that night at a way station. It was a sort of barn with wooden bunks and a hearth in it. There was another hearth outside where you could cook any food you had brought with you and a well for water. We sat outside and ate crab again. Gallis is so beautifully warm that we could have slept outside if we’d wanted to.

There are no inns in Gallis, Rees told us. There are wine shops and drinking places down on the plains, all carefully regulated by the priests. You can only drink within certain hours, he said. “But it’s much more relaxed than it used to be, now Gronn is Holy High Priest,” he told us. “Gronn’s long talks with Gareth made quite a difference to his outlook.” Then he told us other customs of Gallis which I now forget. I was trying not to notice Ivar attending only to Riannan. Aunt Beck simply sat. Finn yawned. Ogo was the only one who really listened to Rees.

We went on next morning through more lovely mountain scenery. The way was steadily uphill and Moe was not happy. Ogo and I had to take hold of her bridle on either side and positively haul her along. Rees and Finn drew further and further ahead. Ivar and Riannan, though loitering, were well in front too.

“Oh, come on!” I told Moe crossly.

“I’m doing the best I can,” Aunt Beck said from the cart.

“I didn’t mean you!” I snapped. Then I found I was crying. Big tears ran down my face and I gulped as if I were choking.

Ogo said, “Don’t be unhappy, Aileen.”

“I can’t help it!” I snarled. “Here’s my aunt gone back to childhood and left me to manage everything, and we keep travelling and journeying, and I haven’t the least idea how we’ll get to Logra, and I don’t think I’ll find my father! Ever!”

“Oh, we’ll get there,” Ogo said. “Somehow. After all, we have the Beast of Skarr on our side and the Great Bird of Bernica. And now we even have a Dragon of Gallis too, though I admit she’s a bit tiny.”

I stared at Plug-Ugly plodding ahead of me up the track, long legs, small head, ugly markings and all. Not to speak of smelling of crab. I shoved my sleeve across my wet eyes and stared again. “You don’t mean—”

“Yes, I do,” Ogo said. “You can’t deny he’s fairly magical. And Green Greet talks sense, not like other parrots. Green Greet knows what he’s saying.”

“I suppose you’re right,” I said, beginning to feel rather awed. “We might have at least two of the Guardians with us then.”

“So we’ll get to Logra and find your father,” Ogo said, “if he’s still to be found. And I had a feeling you were quite enjoying being in charge—”

“Not when I couldn’t dance at the fair,” I said.

“But most of the time,” Ogo said. “Come on. Admit it. And you shouldn’t make yourself miserable over Ivar, you know. He’s not worth it.”

I hadn’t realised my feelings had been that obvious. “I’ll have you know, Ogo of Logra,” I said, “that I chose Ivar long ago to be my husband!”

“I know,” Ogo said. “But you were small then and he seemed quite grown-up. I’ve been hoping for years you’d see your mistake.”

“Mistake!” I almost shrieked.

“Gran always says you make mistakes,” Aunt Beck said from the cart.

“Be quiet, Beck,” Ogo said. “Yes, a mistake. You have brains, Aileen. Ivar’s really quite stupid. You’d be bored stiff if you had to be with him all the time. I know I am. He seems to think that being a prince makes him perfect.”

I thought about this. I suppose I had never credited Ivar with brains. Donal was the one with brains, and I had always known this was the reason Mevenne preferred Donal to Ivar. But she gave Ivar anything he wanted, all the time. All the children at the castle knew there was no point having a disagreement with Ivar. He would go to his mother and she would punish the person who disagreed with him. Thinking about it, I saw that this was Mevenne’s way of making it up to Ivar for the fact that she was not very fond of him.

My earliest memories of Ivar were of being faintly sorry for him. Mevenne spoilt him rotten, but she never hugged him as she hugged his brother. Aunt Beck, who was not a hugging kind of person, hugged me whenever I needed it and, when I was small, she even used to take me on her (very bony) knees. Mevenne never did that to Ivar. But I believe Ivar thought he was her favourite. How silly!

“But Riannan is so beautiful!” I wailed.

“So are you,” Ogo retorted.

I stared at him. “She has hair like ripe oats,” I protested.

“Your hair,” said Ogo, “is just the colour of the toffee the castle kitchen makes on feast days. You should let it go loose oftener because it’s all curly.”

“It would get in my way,” I said. “And she has big blue eyes.”

“Your eyes are quite as big,” Ogo said, “and they are green most of the time. I’ve never seen anyone else with eyes your colour.”

“But I’m so short,” I said. “Riannan’s nearly as tall as you.”

“Quite a beanpole,” Ogo said impatiently. “If you’re determined to think of yourself as an ugly midget, go ahead. But don’t expect me to sympathise.”

I found I was laughing. “All right, all right,” I said. “But there is one thing. I can’t sing. And you heard Riannan.”

“Yes, she can sing,” Ogo said, “but she’s not a Wise Woman, is she? And I don’t suppose her voice has much to do with the way Ivar’s feeling.”

I laughed again, a little. We walked on. We must have gone nearly half a mile before it occurred to me to say, “Thank you, Ogo.”

He grinned down at me. “You’re welcome, Aileen.”

He had made me feel so much better that I even began to look at the scenery. It was all rugged rock. There didn’t seem to be a bard around to sing it beautiful, so it was as plain as Plug-Ugly and as gaunt and grey. I found it very comforting. It reminded me of Skarr.

Shortly, however, we came into an upland that was nearly level, where the grass was a normal kind of green. There were sheep grazing it everywhere. They wandered on to the road and stared at us and bleated. Around a bend there was fencing with cows behind it, and around the next bend there was a large rock. For some reason there was a rope wrapped around this rock with what looked like a small ship’s anchor spliced to the end of it.

“Are they afraid the rock will fly away?” Ogo wondered.

“You never know, with all the magic in Gallis,” I said.

As I said it, we came around the rock and saw that the rope led to a small shed uphill from us.

“No, it’s the hut that might fly away,” Ogo said.

Rees and Finn were waiting just beyond the hut. Ivar and Riannan joined them just as we saw them. They all turned and watched us coming.

“Welcome to the Pandy,” Rees said when we drew level. He gestured uphill to the left.

There was a big old farmhouse there, surrounded by more sheep and nestled most comfortably among rocks and stone buildings. Someone in one of the doorways saw us coming and shouted and went dashing to the back of the house. By the time we arrived, the farmhouse door was open and Rees’s mother and father were coming out to greet us, with, behind them, quite a crowd of farm workers and serving women.

“She won The Singing!” someone shouted. “I knew she would!”

Riannan’s mother rushed to embrace her. Then we were all introduced and a massive cowman reached into the cart and picked Aunt Beck out of it. She was carried into the Pandy sitting demurely across his great arms, just as she had been carried to the boat in Skarr. Indoors, we were all made very welcome. I think I have never felt so much at home as I did in that house.

The main room downstairs was a vast kitchen, very light because it was whitewashed. The wide windows looked out to the south-west. There was a fire in the big hearth, despite the warmth of the day, and the cowman installed Aunt Beck in a cushioned chair beside it before going crashing out through one of the several outside doors. There were big black beams in the ceiling with things hanging from them – Green Greet flew up there at once, where he sat gravely inspecting a string of onions. Plug-Ugly made straight for the fireside. Four sheepdogs and a whole crowd of cats instantly made room for him, most respectfully. He threw himself down in the best place and, in my memory, the rest of the day was filled with his rumbling purr.

I saw all these things in snatches because I was being passed between my uncle and aunt, who kept saying, “Really Gareth’s daughter! You have quite a look of him!” and, “You have your father’s eyes, did you know?” and so forth. It made me feel quite tearful. Wenda, my aunt, was almost as lovely as Riannan, except she was older of course and her hair was darker. My uncle’s name was Bran. I kept looking to see if he resembled my father, but it was hard to tell because he was very tall and had a full beard besides. I think he had the same slight air of majesty that I remembered in my father, as if he were above most people without meaning to be in the least. Rees’s younger brother Brent had the same air.

It was very strange to find so many unknown relations. And shortly there were more. People came flocking in from the houses down the other side of the hill, all on purpose to meet us. Each one would say to me things like, “I’m your father’s second cousin twice removed, see,” or, “I’m your grandmother’s niece, you know.” There were so many of these that I am quite unable to recall them all. The only ones I remember were the Dominie and the priest, who stayed to supper, and they were relatives too. The Dominie was Wenda’s sister and very learned, even more erudite than the priest, who was Bran’s cousin. Really, it reminded me of Skarr, the way everyone was related, and I had to struggle with another attack of homesickness.

All these visitors caused a great bustle of hospitality. Wine was brought out and tea was made, and Wenda and the two maidservants became very busy handing around olives and salty biscuits to go with the drinks. Ivar’s face when he first tasted an olive was a picture. His cheeks sucked in, his mouth and eyes screwed up and he said desperately, “Where can I spit this out? Please!”

Riannan collapsed with laughter, but managed to say, “In the fire of course, silly!”

Ogo said, “Oh, I remember these!” and took handfuls. He really loved them. And so it seemed did Aunt Beck. Ogo sat on a stool beside her chair and carefully took the hard little pipstones out of olive after olive for her. The fire hissed with a bombardment of olive stones. I think Ogo ate two for every one he gave Aunt Beck.

Finn sat quietly in a corner, eating everything that was offered. Well, I always thought Finn could eat anything. Me, I preferred the salty biscuits, although I imagined I might just acquire the taste for olives in time. Green Greet came down from the beams to share the biscuits with me.

In the intervals of all this, Finn, Ogo and I were at the windows, fascinated. Bran’s farmland stretched away downhill into the sunlight in gentle shelves. The grey-green trees nearest were where the olives grew. But there were vineyards and orchards of more normal fruit beyond, and field after field of crops of all kinds – I recognised barley and hay, but many were plants I had never seen before. The most fascinating things, though, were teams of little fat horses pulling carts of produce to the barns. They were not exactly carts. They had no wheels. Each one seemed to float ponderously behind the team pulling it.

“How can that be?” Finn wondered.

I wondered too. But mostly I was thinking that Bran in his way had a kingdom out there, full of distant relatives, rather like my distant cousin King Kenig.

When all the visitors had gone except the priest and the Dominie, there was supper served around the huge table. While I was busy bullying Aunt Beck to eat, Ogo got very bold and chatty and kept asking questions. One of the first things he asked was what were the astonishing carts without wheels.

“Oh, those,” Rees said, “are a magical invention of my father’s. Neat, aren’t they?”

I looked at my uncle, thinking, So he’s a magician too!

Bran grinned. “Took me a while to think them up,” he said. “They’re easier on the horses. But I still haven’t found a way to stop them swivelling about.”

“They need careful driving,” Riannan said. “I can’t do it.”

“No, my girl,” Bran said. “I’m still shuddering at the way you crashed my first one into the big barn.”

Riannan went very pink and said nothing more. Ivar, who would have laughed loudly at anyone else, looked at her sympathetically. “I can see it’s an art,” he said. I found I still seethed a little at that.

Ogo went on asking things, but the question I chiefly remember was when we were eating piles of pancakes covered with jam and honey for dessert. Ogo said, “Do you ever get snow here?”

“Not often,” the Dominie said and, typically of a teacher, went on, “Gallis lies in a warm air current from the southern ocean, you see.”

“But when it does snow,” Ogo said, “what do the bards do?”

“Oh, they get really busy,” Rees said, laughing. “They swarm around singing it all thick and white and picturesque, with beautiful icicles on every waterfall.”

“Not on my farm, they don’t,” Bran said, and he and the priest exchanged slightly grim looks. I could see that he and the priest disagreed about the activities of the bards.

All through the meal, Wenda had been looking at Aunt Beck in a deep, thoughtful way. “This is quite a strange spell she’s under,” she said to me. “But I’ll see what I can do.” And, when supper was done, she took Aunt Beck away somewhere else in the house. The Dominie and the priest left as if this were a signal and the rest of us helped the maidservants clear away. While these girls sat down for their supper, Bran sent Brent to bed and led all the rest of us into a small parlour. Someone had lit a fire there as if we were expected. Plug-Ugly padded after us and laid himself down in the warmth again.

“Right, Rees,” Bran said. “Are you set on this?”

“More than ever,” Rees replied. He had – somehow – come alight. I could see he had been holding himself in ever since we first saw him, and from probably before that.

If Aunt Beck had been there and in her right mind, she would have said something like, He’s been hiding his light under a bushel, hasn’t he? Now he was himself. His eyes shone and he sat as if he were ready to leap out of his chair.

“What I’m going to talk about is something very secret,” he said. “The priests would call it ungodly.”

Finn shifted about as he sat. “Are we in a conspiracy then?” he asked. Green Greet leant down from Finn’s shoulder to stare into his face.

“Yes, I think so,” Rees said. Blodred suddenly popped out from under his collar and stared at Finn too.

Finn swallowed. “I see that this is important,” he said. “Would my goddess object?”

Bran said, with a small chuckle, “Be easy, man. One thing I have learnt over the years is that what the priests say and what the gods think are quite often different things. We have a prophecy to guide us here.”

“Ah,” said Finn.

Rees leant forward eagerly. “This is something I’ve been wanting to do for years. I want to rescue my uncle who was stolen away with the High Prince. I’ve been working on the practical way to do it all this year.” He looked at me. “You want to see your father again, don’t you?”

I felt as if a huge hand was squeezing my chest. I didn’t know if it was excitement or terror. I managed to gasp out, “How – how—?”

“Now you are here, you can help,” Rees said. “I was going to take four people from the Pandy, besides Riannan to sing us on, but you four are perfect. Will you agree to come?”

“Yes, but how are you planning to get through the barrier?” Ogo said. “Nobody else can.”

Rees laughed. “We fly in,” he said. “Over the barrier.”

“But,” I said, “but isn’t the barrier like a dome over the whole of Logra?”

“It can’t be,” Rees declared. “If it was, Logra would have run out of air long ago and the fishermen have seen people alive there. But, if it is a dome, we just fly back here and think again. See, the wind sets from the west at dawn, which is when we’ll go, and it sets from the east at sunset, so it will bring us back to Gallis.”

“What kind of wings do you plan to use to fly to Logra?” Finn asked. “It’s a fair way to go. We’d have to flap for miles.”

“Over the sea too,” Ogo said. “Some of us could drown.”

Rees laughed again. He was almost hugging himself with delight. “No wings,” he said. “I have made a balloon.”

We all said, “What?” Even Ivar, who was in a corner with Riannan and not listening to a word up to then, came to himself and demanded to know what Rees was talking about.

“It rises by hot air,” Rees explained, “and is made of silk. In Gallis, we float small silk balloons at Midsummer by lighting a candle underneath. That gave me the idea. But I put one of Bran’s floating carts under mine to help it fly. It will work.”

“Have you tested it?” Ogo asked.

“Only in miniature, unfortunately,” Bran told him. “You can just imagine what the bards and the priests would say if Rees went flying across Gallis without permission. We’d be turned out of the farm. But the small model worked like a dream. Flew like a kite. We told Gronn it was a kite.”

“So,” Rees said, “my very first flight will be tomorrow at dawn. Are you all willing to come along? I need two pairs of people, see, to man the bellows to keep the hot air going.”

Bran sighed a little. “And he needs his dad to stay at home and pretend Rees and Riannan are walking to the coast with you all. You are all going, aren’t you?” I could tell he was itching to fly too and knew that he couldn’t. He was as enthusiastic as Rees about the plan.

So were we all. Rees had carried us away with him somehow. When I look back, I see it was a crazy idea. We didn’t even know if this balloon-thing would work, let alone if we could get all the way to Logra in it. But I was on fire with the thought of seeing my father again and I could see Ogo ached to fly home to Logra. But why should Finn agree? Or Ivar? And they both did. Riannan I could understand. She admired her brother so, and I think she wanted to prove that she could sing magically enough to soar through the skies.

“What are our plans when we get to Logra?” Ivar asked, just as if he were a practical person.

“Land in a field somewhere near the main city. What’s it called?” Rees said.

“Haranded,” Ogo put in.

“Yes, Haranded,” Rees said. “And go in on foot to find Gareth and – what’s that prince called?”

“Alasdair,” I said.

“Alasdair, yes,” Rees said. “I can’t imagine they’ll be guarded very closely after all this time. Then we take them back to the balloon at dusk and fly away. I’ve laid in enough fuel for the return journey, see.”

And that was all our plans. We had got this far when Wenda came in, bringing my aunt with her.

“So you have truly decided to risk it?” she said, looking sadly around at our faces. “Ah well. Beck can stay here with me. I’ve done what I can for her for the moment, but it’s going to be a long job, I think. And of course we’ll look after your donkey while you’re gone. But, if you change your minds in the morning, we shan’t think the worse of you.”