Diana Wynne Jones’s Fantastical Journeys Collection

“Gareth,” I said. I know I spoke as proudly as Ivar. “I remember him as quite tall.”

“Gareth,” Holy Owen said. “Him. He is well-known here for going against all the advice of all the priests. It is also well-known that he was snatched away with Prince Alasdair and taken to Logra.”

“I know,” I said. “I hope to find him some day. But you cannot deny that I am half a citizen of Gallis, and I lead this expedition. I think you must let us all through, holy sir, and bless us on our way.”

There was a long silence. We all looked tensely at Holy Owen, who did nothing but stare at the gate and pull his moustache. Moe began to flick her ears and stir impatiently. At length, Holy Owen went “Hm, hm” – twice for a change. “There is still a problem,” he said. “If you were all from Bernica, I might solve it myself by sacrificing this donkey. But with people from both Skarr and Logra, I— Yes, I must seek advice from Holy High Priest Gronn. We are lucky. He is presently in this area adjudging the The Singing. I will send a messenger to him. Meanwhile, I must ask you all to stay inside the gatehouse until word comes back.”

And this is what happened. We all protested. We argued. Ivar drew his sword. But more guards came out of the stone building before he could use the sword and that was that. I grew angrier and angrier. I could see just why my father had left Gallis and come to Skarr. By the time we had been surrounded and urged into the courtyard inside the gatehouse, I was so angry that I felt a kind of power in me.

“Stop that!” I shouted to the guards who were unhitching Moe from the cart.

They stopped. They stared at me and then at Holy Owen. “And why should they stop?” Holy Owen asked me.

“Because I don’t know what you’re going to do with my donkey,” I said.

“Nothing, only take it to the stables,” Holy Owen said.

“How can I be sure of that?” I said. “When only five minutes ago you were talking of sacrificing her! I insist on going to the stables with her and making sure they look after her properly!”

Holy Owen sighed. “You Wise Women must be quite a pest to the kings of Skarr. No wonder they turned you both out. Very well.” He turned and beckoned to another, younger priest. “Go with her to the stables and make sure she behaves herself. You, guards, take the rest of them inside.”

“I’m coming to the stables too,” Ogo said.

I was very grateful. I felt myself beaming at Ogo as I said to Ivar, “Can you take care of Aunt Beck then? Find her somewhere to sit.”

Ivar scowled at me. But he nodded and took hold of my aunt’s arm.

Aunt Beck said, “Let go of me, boy! I can walk on my own.” And she went stalking ahead of Ivar to the dark doorway of the building.

“Queer sort of stroke,” the young priest said as I led Moe off to the stables at the side. He was all dark hair and long nose with a drip on the end. I didn’t like him. His name was Lew-Laws, it seemed. I was glad Ogo was there.

By the end, I was very glad Ogo was there. The guard who was supposed to see to Moe obviously had no idea how to treat a donkey. I was forced to push him aside and look after Moe myself. Lew-Laws did nothing but lean against the side of the stall as if the whole matter was beneath him. Ogo loomed over the guard. This was the first time that I realised that Ogo had become very big indeed while we travelled, and very useful that was. Ogo loomed at the guard to fetch clean water. Then he loomed again to make sure he got Moe a decent amount of food, while I brushed her down and oiled the places where the harness rubbed her.

“Her hooves need trimming,” Lew-Laws remarked unpleasantly. “Aren’t you going to see to those too?”

Ogo, in the friendliest way, came and leant against the wall next to Lew-Laws and loomed over him too. “I tried to do that in Bernica,” Ogo said. “She doesn’t like it. She kicks, but do find a file and try if you want.”

Lew-Laws eyed Moe’s hind hooves and moved away along the wall. “Not important,” he said.

We left Moe pretty comfortable and let Lew-Laws take us into the house to a small room where Holy Owen sat at a table writing. Someone rushed in with a chair for Aunt Beck as we arrived.

“Good,” Ivar said. “At last. I kept asking.”

Aunt Beck sat down in the blank way that was now usual with her. I was disappointed. For a moment, I had thought she was back to herself again. But no.

I went and put both hands on Owen’s table. “How long will your message to Holy High Priest Gronn take?” I asked him.

“Hush,” he said. “I am just now writing it. The messenger will be with him before midnight. I should have his reply by morning.”

“You mean you’re going to force us to spend the night here?” I exclaimed.

“Of course,” he said. “Now tell me, this bird. Your monk calls him Green Greet. Why is that?”

“Because that’s his name,” I said.

Holy Owen shrugged and wrote. “I always heard,” he muttered as he wrote, “that Green Greet was the great spirit of Bernica. Lord of the West. It’s as bad as people calling their lizards Dragonlady, if you ask me.”

He blotted the letter, folded it and gave it to one of the guards.

“Make the best time you can,” he said, “and be sure to explain that we need an answer by the morning.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Looking back on it, I see they did not treat us too badly. It was just that I disliked Holy Owen and, before long, I disliked Lew-Laws even more. Holy Owen went away after he had given the guard the message and we did not see him again. But Lew-Laws stayed with us all the time. He had obviously been told to keep an eye on us and he kept sighing about it as if it were a real burden.

“What do they think we’re likely to do?” Ivar whispered angrily to me. “Make off with their valuables?”

“What valuables?” I said, looking around the bare stone room. We never knew the answer to that one, but, as I said, we were not badly treated. Supper was delivered to the room and it was a truly delicious fish stew. There were tastes in it that I had never met before.

While I was bullying Aunt Beck to eat it, Ogo said to Lew-Laws, “What are these lovely flavours? I remember something like this from Logra.”

Lew-Laws sighed. “Herbs,” he said. “I hate them. They grow the things down south where they grow the vines and the olives and things. I wish they’d never been invented.”

Lew-Laws was like that all the time. A wet week. Nothing pleased him. By bedtime, I was truly depressed. I could not see our mission succeeding. I could not see any way Aunt Beck could be cured. “Take your stockings off, Beck!” I shouted at her, and I saw myself shouting at her like this for the rest of both our lives.

It was like that again in the morning. I shouted my aunt into her clothes and we went back to the bare stone room to find Lew-Laws making faces as he drank some kind of hot herb tea that went with the bread for breakfast. When Ivar and Ogo had come yawning in, Lew-Laws sighed and said, “High Holy Gronn needs to see you. The gods alone know why. I am to take you to The Singing as soon as you have eaten. For my sins.”

“Are you very sinful?” Ogo asked, mock innocently. Ivar tried not to laugh.

Before Lew-Laws could answer, Aunt Beck said, “Where’s my porridge? I can’t start the day with bread.”

“Ah,” Lew-Laws said. “If I knew where to find porridge in Gallis, I would be a happy man, my good woman.”

“No, really? A happy man?” Ivar said.

Lew-Laws pretended not to hear. “Bread,” he said, “is what we eat here, woman. It’s stale of course, but that is what there is.”

“Eat it, Beck,” I said. “You’ll be hungry if you don’t.”

“Then I need butter,” my aunt said. “And honey.”

Finn came in at this point with Green Greet on his shoulder. “Green Greet will eat the bread for you,” he said. “They’ve no seeds of any kind for him in the kitchen. No nuts either. And did you know,” he asked Lew-Laws, “that some great beast got into the kitchen in the night and ate all the fish stew in the cauldron?”

Plug-Ugly, I thought. Oh dear.

Lew-Laws sighed. “It is not my place,” he said, “to criticise the gods, if they choose to deny us fish for breakfast—”

“Where’s my butter?” said Aunt Beck.