Diana Wynne Jones’s Fantastical Journeys Collection. Diana Wynne Jones
that what makes everything so green?” I asked.
Finn nodded, pleased. He seemed pleased about most things. “Bernica is the green place,” he said, “loved of the Lady.”
“And this king we’re going to see rules it all?” Ogo panted. He was finding things heavy too.
“Oh, bless you, no!” Finn told him. “Colm rules only as far as the mountains.”
We all looked around for these mountains. Nothing. I was supposing they must be very far away and Colm’s kingdom very big, when Aunt Beck said, “Do you mean those little hills over there?” She pointed to a line of low green bulges a few miles off.
“I do. I was forgetting you come from the jagged island of Skarr,” Finn said. “Bernica is a gentle place.”
Ogo began to look contemptuous. Ivar laughed. “Those would hardly count as foothills on Skarr,” he said. “Have you had your parrot long?”
“I have had Green Greet for twenty years now, ever since old Bryan died,” Finn said. “Before that he was bird to Alun and before that to Sythe – but I never knew Sythe, who died before I was born.”
“Then he must be ever so old!” I said.
“He is. He has lost count of how old,” Finn told me.
About then we came out from among the fields and joined a level grassy road much cut up with wheel and hoof marks. This led across a wide marshy heath full of rattling rushes. I saw herds of donkeys, cows and pigs and even some horses in the distance. I wondered how anyone knew which belonged to whom, but I didn’t wonder too hard because my bag seemed to get heavier and heavier. Just as I was thinking I couldn’t carry it a step further, we arrived at the king’s house.
Ivar was not the only one of us who stared at it scornfully. Even Aunt Beck raised her fine eyebrows at the sight of messy walls of mixed mud and stone sheltered by a few miserable trees. The only thing to be said of the place was that it seemed to cover quite a lot of ground. Otherwise, I have seen more impressive farmhouses.
There was a rough wooden door in the messy wall with a fellow standing guard in front of it. He was a fine, tall young man with wavy fairish hair and an extremely handsome face. He wore leather armour on his chest and legs with a helmet on his head and he was armed to the teeth. He had a spear with a wicked sharp point, a sword and a dagger on his great studded belt and a bow in his hand. A quiver of arrows – also wickedly sharp – hung off his shoulder. I thankfully put down my bag and rubbed my sore hands together while I admired him. He was truly beautiful, except that he was scowling at us.
“What do you want?” he said. “You should know better than to come here on a Thursday.”
“So Green Greet was right,” Finn murmured. He said to the young man, “These people are a delegation from Skarr, young sir, sent to meet with the king.”
“Then they must come back tomorrow,” the young man said. “The king’s geas forbids him to see strangers on a Thursday.”
Finn turned away, looking resigned. “We’ll go back to town,” he said.
“No, we shall not!” Aunt Beck said. “I have not come all this way to be turned back like a nobody. I am Beck, the Wise Woman of Skarr, and I insist on being allowed to enter!” She drew herself up and looked really formidable.
The sentry drew himself up too. “And I am Shawn, third son of King Colm,” he said. “And I refuse to let you enter here.”
“I’m a king’s son too,” said Ivar.
“Shut up,” said my aunt. “How severe is the geas? How are you so sure it’s Thursday? And how do I know your king doesn’t just use this excuse to be lazy?”
“It is a strong, strong geas,” Shawn retorted. “And kings have a right to be lazy.”
“Not when I’m at their gate, they’ve not!” said my aunt. “Stand aside and let us through this instant!”
“No,” said the sentry.
“Very well,” said Aunt Beck. She put one hand out to the young man’s armoured chest and moved him aside. He didn’t seem to be able to stop her. He simply stood where Aunt Beck had put him, gaping rather.
I thought and wondered and thought how Aunt Beck did this and I still can’t see it. I tried to do it myself, experimenting on Ogo and Ivar. Ogo just said, “Why are you pushing me?” and Ivar said, “Who do you think you’re shoving?” and neither of them moved. Aunt Beck must have been using some art of the Wise Woman that you only get when you’re initiated. And of course I wasn’t.
Anyway, the rough wooden door seemed not to have a lock of any kind. Aunt Beck opened it with one bony knee and beckoned us impatiently through. We picked up our bags and trudged through into a small muddy yard full of ale barrels and on into the king’s house itself. The door there was standing open – probably for light, because the hall inside was very dim. There were quite a lot of people inside, all sitting about and yawning. They all jumped and stared at us as Aunt Beck led us in. The green bird on Finn’s shoulder squawked out, “It’s Thursday, King Colm. It’s Thursday.”
King Colm was sitting in a big chair at the far end. I think he was asleep until the green bird spoke. He was rather fat and his belly quivered as he sprang awake and roared out, “What are you doing in here, woman?”
Shawn the sentry came rushing in past us. “Forgive me, Father!” he said. “She would come in, whatever I said. I think she’s a witch!”
“No I am not, young man,” Aunt Beck retorted. “I am the Wise Woman of Skarr, I’ll have you know!”
“I don’t care who you are,” said the king. “Didn’t anyone tell you I am under a geas not to see strangers on a Thursday?”
“Yes, but I’ve no patience with that nonsense,” Aunt Beck said. “What do you imagine will happen now you’ve set eyes on us?”
“How should I know?” the king said. He looked rather nervously up at the dark beams in the ceiling. “All I know is that the gods will be angry.”
Aunt Beck opened her mouth. Almost certainly she was going to say, “Nonsense!” But at that moment there was a tremendous CRASH somewhere outside. People began yelling and screaming out there; hens cackled, pigs squealed and donkeys brayed. Aunt Beck said, “Well I never!” instead.
King Colm, with his face as well as his belly wobbling, got up and hurried to a door near his chair. Shawn sped after him, crying out, “Father! Be careful!” and Aunt Beck strode after Shawn. Ogo and I looked at one another, dumped our bags, and raced after Aunt Beck.
We came out into quite a big farmyard sort of place. There were sheds and huts all around it, some of which seemed to be for people and some for pigs, hens or geese. One seemed to be a hay barn. In the middle of the farmyard was a smoking hole. Steam was rising from the mud around it. People – women, children and old men mostly – were backed against the huts, staring at the hole or – if they were very young – burying their faces in their mothers’ skirts and crying. Alarmed hens and indignant goats were running all over the place, while a squad of donkeys crowded into one corner and made the sort of dreadful noise only donkeys can make.
We all hurried to the hole. In fact, we were practically pushed there by all the men crowding out of the hall behind us, Ivar among them. It was a deepish hole. At the bottom of it lay a small black smoking stone.
Aunt Beck said, almost drowned out by the donkeys, “That’s a meteorite.”
“A fallen star!” the king cried out. “Sent by the gods to punish me!”
“Och, man, don’t talk rubbish!” said Aunt Beck. “If the gods aimed it, they missed you.”
“I tell you it’s my geas!” bawled the king. “My fate!”