Diana Wynne Jones’s Fantastical Journeys Collection

Whatever it was, they didn’t find it. They helped themselves to Ivar’s best cloak and my nice dress and Aunt Beck’s spare plaid, but they stopped when a murmur began in the watching ring of people. Some were saying, “Here they come,” and others were whispering, “Here’s the Lady Loma now.” The cheese and the garments were promptly passed from hand to hand and vanished as the queen arrived.

She was a mighty figure. I had never seen a woman so tall and so fat. She was all in red, a huge garment like a tent, that clashed with the mauve-red of her face and the ginger of her hair. And she was drunk. We could smell whisky from where we stood, and the several smaller women with her kept having to push her upright as she swayed this way and that until she fetched up against the cart with a thump. There she stood, squinting and glowering at us.

“Mercy!” I heard Finn say. “It’s the Red Woman herself!”

“What,” said Aunt Beck, “is the meaning of this, Your Majesty? I’ll have you know I’m the Wise Woman of Skarr, here on legal business for the High King, and I can’t be doing with this sort of thing.”

The Lady Loma answered, in a great slurred voice, “Hold your tongue, woman! You’re on trial for injuring my donkeysh, sho you are. Here they come. Shee. Look!”

And in through the stockade gate came trotting the whole herd of those wild donkeys, roped head to tail and led by a couple more of the grim men. There was no doubt they were the same ones that had mobbed our cart. I recognised the wicked black donkey with the upcurved hooves, second in the line. And I saw that it, and most of the others, had Plug-Ugly’s bleeding claw marks on its unkempt rump. Oh dear, I thought.

Ogo, who had rounded up more than his fair share of donkeys in his time, muttered, “How did they get them here so quick?”

A good question. And as the donkeys were driven up beside us, stinking and steaming, I was afraid I knew the answer. The Lady Loma seemed to cast a shadow across the beasts as they came near her, and that shadow showed another shadow inside each donkey, a shadow bent and skinny, with only two legs. I was pretty sure those donkeys had once been men and women. And I was very frightened indeed. I just hoped my aunt would be a bit more polite when she saw the shadows too.

But Aunt Beck didn’t seem to notice. She stared haughtily at the drunken queen. “So?” she said. “These beasts of yours attacked our cart for food. Do you blame us for beating them off?”

“I shurely do,” growled the Lady Loma. “Jusht look at the blood on my poor dumb beashtsh! You’d no call to hurt them sho! I blame you for that, woman!”

“They wouldn’t have gone otherwise,” retorted my aunt. “And if we’re to talk of blame, Your Majesty, who was it turned this herd out to starve on moss and small grasses? Who was it left their hooves in that state? Who was it never gave any care to their hides or their teeth or their health generally? I’ll tell you straight, Majesty, that herd is a disgrace to its owner!”

“It ish not sho!” growled the queen. “It ish a proud band, sho it ish.”

The two glared at one another. I could see what my aunt was trying to do. She was trying to impress the Lady Loma with her personality, the way she usually did others. But I was fairly sure it was not going to work, not when the lady was clearly a powerful witch and drunk besides. I could hear Finn whispering, “Oh, don’t, Wisdom! Don’t!” I could feel Plug-Ugly pressing himself invisibly against my legs and I didn’t wonder that he was frightened too – except that he wasn’t frightened really. He was trying to comfort me because he knew how scared I was.

“It is not proud,” said my aunt. “It’s one of the sorriest I ever saw. But, if it makes you feel better, I apologise for any damage to your herd. What recompense do you want?”

“Recompenshe!” howled the queen, swaying about so that our cart creaked and poor Moe turned her head and waggled her ears, looking most uncomfortable. “Recompenshe? I tell you, woman, there ish only one recompenshe you can make. Itsh thish!” And she lunged forward, pointing at Aunt Beck with one great mauve hand and making wild gestures with the other.

I was fairly sure she meant Aunt Beck to turn into a donkey too. But it didn’t work. Maybe it was because my aunt’s personality was too strong; or maybe it was because Lady Loma nearly overbalanced with the violence of her gestures and the women with her had to haul her upright again. What did happen though was almost as alarming. Aunt Beck’s proud face went pale and slack. Her mouth hung open and her knees gave way. Ivar and I managed to catch her before she quite fell down and we held her up, facing the queen. Ivar had a sickly, placating smile. I don’t know how I looked – accusing, I think. I saw Finn was on his knees and Ogo was bowing with his hands together like a person praying.

Lady Loma stared, squinting at us all. Then she grunted, “What a showy band indeed. Get them out of my shight,” and staggered away from the cart to go back to the big building across the yard.

“Will we keep their cart, lady?” one of the men called after her.

We’d have lost the cart then, as well as Aunt Beck’s wits, if Green Greet had not taken things in hand. He flew into the air in a great green whirl and stayed there, flapping in front of Lady Loma’s face. “Remember the curse!” he shrieked. “Remember the curse!”

Lady Loma put up one thick arm to shield her face and shouted, “And curse you too, you feshtering bird!” Then she yelled over her shoulder, “Jusht turn them out, cart and all!” After that, she went staggering away among the hens and pigs, bawling to her women, “Am I queen here or am I not? What right hash that bird? What right?”

Green Greet came flapping back to perch on the cart, satisfied. The grim men and the other people began hastily throwing our things back into the cart – minus the garments and the cheese though – while Finn trotted to Moe’s head to turn her around and, in the distance, the women made soothing noises at the yelling queen. It was easy to see that everyone was scared stiff of her. Fair enough, if she turned someone into a donkey every time she was annoyed. I was pretty scared myself. I didn’t breathe easy until I had coaxed Aunt Beck to sit in the cart and Ivar had driven it out of the stockade.

(#ulink_ae609a62-1cb7-594d-8a7c-02bc0225da48)

I had to explain to everyone what had happened, once we were back on the track. At least, Finn seemed to know. Apparently, the Red Woman was famous in Bernica. Finn kept interrupting my explanation with devout cries of, “It’s lucky we were to come off so easy, bless the Goddess!” But the boys could not seem to understand. Ivar wondered why one of the grim men had not long since run Lady Loma through when her back was turned.

Ogo said thoughtfully, “Better to put a pillow over her face while she was asleep and then sit on it.”

This surprised me coming from Ogo, but I said patiently, “No, you’d both be donkeys in an instant if you tried either of those things. She’s powerful. She’d know. She’d see your intention before you started.”

“You mean,” Ivar said incredulously, “that great cow of a woman can actually turn people into donkeys?”

“Indeed she can,” said Finn. “And does.”

“While she’s that drunk?” said Ivar.

“Yes,” I said. “She probably does it oftener when she’s drunk.”

“And she’s seldom sober, they say,” Finn added.

“But,” Ogo pointed out, “she didn’t turn Beck into a donkey, did she?”

“She tried,” I said.

“I could see she tried something,” Ogo admitted.

“They’d got themselves a neat set-up there,” Ivar said cynically – and typically. “They set the herd on travellers, then arrest them, and then take all their property, but it’s hard to see it as witchcraft. My brother would appreciate that trick.”

“Why didn’t your aunt get turned into a donkey?” Ogo persisted.

“She’s too strong-minded,” I said. “I think.”

“She is that,” Finn agreed. “She’ll be coming to herself any time soon now.”

We all looked at Aunt Beck sitting upright and empty-faced among the baggage, all of us sure that Finn was right and that Aunt Beck would rise up any moment and take over the driving from Ivar.

She didn’t.

When it came near evening, Aunt Beck was still sitting there. If we spoke to her, she would only answer if we said it several times, and then it was, “Don’t know, I’m sure,” in the vaguest voice. It was alarming.

Meanwhile, we had passed over some more low hills to where the country felt different. The green seemed a deeper green – but perhaps this was just because the rain was falling harder. When we came to a small village, Finn scuttled across to a woman who was taking a bucket to the well.

“Tell me, does Lady Loma rule in this country?” he asked her.

“No, thank the Goddess,” was the reply. “These parts belong to Queen Maura.”

We all sighed with relief. I think even Moe did. From here on we were all expecting Aunt Beck to begin coming to herself. She didn’t. She sat there. I began to feel seriously alarmed. The trouble was, Aunt Beck had of course had charge of the money. But it seemed to be nowhere in the cart. As far as I knew, none of Lady Loma’s grim people had found it, but I was not sure. I asked the others if they had seen anyone secretly taking it while we stood inside that stockade. They all thought not.

“I was watching like a hawk,” Ivar said. “I even know where they took my cloak. I know I’d have seen someone with that moneybag. It was quite big.”

“Sure, your aunt will have hidden it,” Finn said.

“Yes, but where?” I said. With evening coming on, we needed to stay at an inn and find somewhere to eat, but we couldn’t unless we had money.

“Perhaps it was inside that cheese,” Ogo suggested. I wanted to hit him.

We all tried asking Aunt Beck where the money was, but all she would say was that vague “Don’t know, I’m sure.” It was maddening.

At sunset I lost my temper. There was a good-looking inn just up the road and we couldn’t even buy a bread roll there. By this time, I had asked Aunt Beck politely, and kindly, and loudly, and softly, and just asked. I had cajoled. Ogo had pleaded. Finn had prayed to her. Ivar had commanded her to tell him. Then he had shouted. Ogo had tried putting his mouth near her ear and whispering. None of it worked. I made Ivar pull Moe up. I stamped my foot on the stony street. “Beck,” I said sharply, “tell me where you hid the money or I’ll pull your hair down!”