The Spellcoats
The third book in the epic fantasy-adventure series from ‘the Godmother of Fantasy’, Diana Wynne Jones. Now back in print!‘I had not seen how they hated us till I heard them shout. It was terrible.’Tanaqui and her family have always known they were somehow different from the other villagers. But when the great floods come and they are driven from their home, they begin to realise the part they must play in the destiny of the land.As Tanaqui weaves the story of their frightening journey to the sea and the terrifying, powerful evil of the mage Kankredin, she realises the desperate need to understand the meaning of it all. Can she fit the pieces of the puzzle together in time to halt Kankredin’s destruction?
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First published in Great Britain by Macmillan London Ltd in 1979
This edition published by HarperCollins Childrenâs Books in 2017
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Copyright © Diana Wynne Jones 1979
Map illustration © Sally Taylor 2017
Cover artwork © Manuel Šumberac
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Diana Wynne Jones asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780008170684
Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780008170691
Version: 2016-12-21
For my sister Ursula
Contents
I WANT TO TELL of our journey down the River. We are five. The eldest is my sister Robin. Next is my brother Gull, and then my brother Hern. I come fourth, and I am called Tanaqui, which is a name from the scented rushes that line the River. This makes me the odd one out in names, because my youngest brother is Mallard â only we always call him Duck. We are the children of Closti the Clam, and we lived all our lives in the village of Shelling, where a stream comes down to join the River, giving plentiful fishing and rich pasture.
This makes Shelling sound a good place, but it is not. It is small and lonely, and the people here are dark and unpleasant, not excepting my aunt Zara. They worship the River as a god. We know that is wrong. The only gods are the Undying.
Last year, just before the autumn floods, strangers came to Shelling from over the hills, carrying bundles and saying that our land had been invaded by strange and savage Heathens, who were driving all our people out. Hern, Duck and I went and stared at them. We had not known that we had any land except the country round Shelling. But Gull says the land is very large, and the River only the centre part of it; there have been times when Gull has said quite reasonable things.
The strangers were not very interesting. They were just like Shelling people, only rather more worried. They hired my father to ferry them over the River, which is wide here, and then went on their way beyond this old mill on the far side. But, a week after them, people arrived on horseback: very stern smart men wrapped in scarlet rugcoats, with steel clothes under that. And these men said they were messengers from the King. They carried a golden stork wearing a crown on a stick to prove it. When my father saw the stork, he said they were indeed from the King.
We stared at these men far longer than at the others. Even Robin, who was very shy then, left the baking and came and stood beside us with her arms all floury. The smart men riding past all smiled at her, and one winked and said, âHallo, sweetheart.â Robin went very pink, but she did not go away as she used to when the Shelling boys called such things.
It seemed these messengers had come collecting men to fight the Heathens. They stayed one night, during which time they had all the men and boys walk before them and told the ones who were fit that they must prepare to come to the wars. It seems they had the right. It seems the King has this right. I was very surprised because I had not known we had a King over us before. Everyone laughed. Hern pretended to laugh at me with Robin and Gull and my father, but he confessed afterwards that he had thought Kings were of the Undying, and not really of this world at all. We agreed that a King was a better thing to have over us than Zwitt, the Shelling headman. Zwitt is an old misery, and his mouth is all rounded from saying no.
The messengers told Zwitt he must go to war, and for once he could not say no. But they also told Aunt Zaraâs husband, Kestrel, that he must go. Kestrel is an old man. My father said this must mean that the Kingâs case was desperate indeed. It made Hern feverishly hopeful. He said if they took Kestrel, they would surely take boys of Hernâs age too. Gull said nothing. He just smiled. Altogether Gull was odious that evening.
