Diana Wynne Jones’s Fantastical Journeys Collection

“We shall be delighted,” said my aunt, stately as ever.

So the group went on choosing fish. I noticed that they did not pay much for it. Most fishermen seemed quite ready to give them fish for nothing. “For luck,” said each man, pouring handfuls of tiny silver fish into the baskets.

Beyond the wharf was a market. Here the party acquired armloads of bread, several crocks of butter, a lot of early apples and a great many cherries. Again, they did not have to pay much for it.

“It’s almost worth being holy,” Ogo said to me, as we went out from the market and among the grey houses of the town. There he nudged me again and pointed. I was just in time to see Plug-Ugly crouched in a patch of sun with a large fish in his mouth. He was gone when we came level with the place. “Do you think that beast is magical?” Ogo whispered.

“Yes,” I said. “He must be.”

The monks and nuns, chatting cheerfully, led us on to the edge of the town. Their House, when we came to it, was more like a barn than a religious establishment. It was lofty and dark and warm inside, with a fire in the middle of the floor in a most smoky, old-fashioned way. That fire puzzled Ivar because it was low and glowing and made of dark chunks of stuff. Ivar had only seen log fires before. “What are they burning?” he said, peering at it.

“Peat,” said Aunt Beck. “This island is made of peat, they say.”

Peat seemed to be lumps of marsh, but it served perfectly well to cook fish on. Fishes were sizzling in iron pans in no time. We were each given a heaped wooden plateful of them and nothing but a chunk of bread to eat them with. Everyone sat on the floor to eat. Ogo and Ivar kept getting their long legs in the way. I was as unused as they were to eating on the floor and I kept having to shift about, trying to get comfortable. Aunt Beck of course sat elegantly cross-legged and daintily picked up fish with bread and her fingers as though she had been doing this all her life.

“I call this dreadful!” Ivar grumbled. “It’s not civilised!” Luckily, he had the sense to grumble in a whisper, but even so, Aunt Beck shot him one of her nastiest looks. Ivar turned very red and sat with his back to her after that.

The fish was delicious. We all ate a great deal, being very hungry by then. When we were finished, a grubby rag – which Aunt Beck looked at rather primly – was passed around so we could wipe our fingers. Then the monks and nuns fetched out all manner of strange implements, and an abacus and some sheets of parchment and sticks of charcoal, and began to calculate which day of the week it actually was.

“I make it Friday,” Ogo whispered to me. “We set out on Monday, didn’t we?”

Just then the great green bird flew up into the rafters on a huge spread of green feathers, shouting, “It’s Thursday! It’s Thursday!”

Ivar and Ogo and I went off into giggles. Aunt Beck said, “I’ve heard of parrots. It would probably say that if it were Sunday. Quiet now.”

But, do you know, the monks and nuns still couldn’t decide what day it was. At last, Aunt Beck lost patience and stood up. “We shall go to the king now,” she said, “and take a risk on what day it is. Can someone set us on our way, please?”

The monk who owned the parrot stood up too. We had gathered by then that his name was Finn. “I’ll take them,” he said, “and bring them back if need be. Does anyone know what became of my sandals?”

There was much hunting around the edges of the barn and a nun eventually produced a pair of thick leather sandals. Finn stamped his chubby feet into them and beckoned the green bird down to his shoulder. “Off we go,” he said, cheerfully picking up Aunt Beck’s bag. Ogo picked up his and Ivar’s, I picked up mine, and we thanked the others and left. As we went, they were busy feeding the animals, almost as if they had forgotten us.

“Is it far to the king?” I asked as we left the houses behind.

“A mile or so,” Finn said.

I was glad. My bag was heavy. I envied Ivar striding ahead with Aunt Beck. We were taking a track that led gently upwards among dozens of small green fields, most with sheep in them, but some growing crops I couldn’t recognise. There was honeysuckle in the hedges. The air smelt moist and sweet. Every so often it rained a little – fine rain that made my eyebrows itch and Finn’s parrot shake its feathers irritably.

“Bernica is the most western of our islands,” Finn explained to me. “And we get all the rain from the ocean beyond.”

“Is 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!”