king gave a great relieved laugh. “Splendid!” he said. “They will have the gods with them then. Go with my blessing, Finn Fitzfinn. And be careful,” he added to my aunt, “that this monk doesn’t eat and drink you out of all my money.”
So that was that. Half an hour later, we drove out of the king’s back gate in a neat little cart, with Aunt Beck driving a neat little donkey with a black line all around her like a tidemark. The people who hitched the donkey to the cart didn’t seem to think she had a name, so I called her Moe. I don’t know why, except that it suited her. There was food in the cart and jars of ale and, as she drove, my aunt kept smugly patting the fat purse on her belt.
The way was very level and green, first through more of the little fields and then through wide-open boglands. Moe trotted cheerfully on, pulling the rattling little cart, while we took turns to ride. There was only room for two of us beside the person driving. I don’t think Moe could have pulled all five of us anyway. She certainly couldn’t when we came to the hills. There, everyone except Aunt Beck had to walk.
But, while we were on the levels, Aunt Beck was very talkative. She had a long discussion about religion with Finn, while Ogo sat looking glum and mystified and Green Greet kept saying, “Mind your own business! Mind your own business!” until, Ogo said later, he wanted to wring the bird’s neck.
When it was Ivar’s turn and mine to ride, Ogo went striding ahead to cool off and Aunt Beck said to Ivar, “You were mighty slow coming out of the hall when the meteorite fell. What kept you?”
Ivar shrugged. “It sounded dangerous out there.”
“It was. Someone could have been injured,” Aunt Beck said. “You could have helped them.”
“Someone in my position,” Ivar said, “being a king’s son and all, has to be careful. I could have been killed! I don’t think Bernica’s gods take much care of people.”
“But they do,” said my aunt. “That thunderbolt didn’t hurt so much as a chicken! What are you being so careful of yourself for, may I ask?”
Ivar was surprised she should ask. So was I, as a matter of fact. “I could be king one day,” Ivar said. “At the rate my brother carries on, I could be king tomorrow.”
“If you think that, you’re a greater fool than I took you for,” Aunt Beck snapped. “Your brother Donal is a very canny young man and one that lands on his feet like a cat, I may tell you.”
“I don’t think it exactly,” Ivar protested.
It seemed to me that Aunt Beck was trying to show Ivar up in the worst possible light. First, he was a coward to her and then he was stupidly ambitious. Without waiting for what she might make him out to be next, I interrupted. “Aunt Beck, what made you think of going to King Colm?”
Aunt Beck, as I hoped, was distracted. “It was our obvious choice, Aileen,” she told me. “We were in a strange land with no money, no food, no transport, and we had a task to do. All kings are supposed to be generous, provided you can give them a high enough reason. And, as you see, it worked – although I must say,” she went on in a most disapproving way, “I’d not expected to find a fat man snoring in a smoky barn and clinging to his geas as an excuse to be lazy. If I were his wife now – and I think his queen must be as bad as he is – I wouldn’t stand for it longer than a week.”
And she was off on a tirade about King Colm and his court that lasted until we reached the first of the hills. She seemed to have noticed far more details than I had. She mentioned everything, from the dust on the king’s chair to the squalor in the farmyard. I remember her going on about the gravy stains on the king’s clothes, the laziness of his household, his underfed pigs and the ungroomed state of his horses, but I didn’t attend very hard. My attention kept being drawn to a softness and a throbbing by my shins.
I kept looking down, but there was nothing in the cart but our bags and the food. In the end, I reached down and felt at the place. My fingers met whiskers, a cold nose and a couple of firm, upstanding ears on a large round head. It was as I half expected: Plug-Ugly. Invisible. Who would have thought such an ill-looking and magical cat could have such very soft fur? I couldn’t resist stroking him – he was like warm velvet – and I could easily do this unnoticed, since Ivar was staring moodily over the edge of the cart, highly offended by Aunt Beck’s accusations, and Aunt Beck herself was haranguing the landscape.
Actually, Finn was listening to her as he trotted beside the cart. “Hold your horses, Wisdom!” he protested as Aunt Beck moved on to the tumbledown state of the huts in the farmyard. “Why should a king be grand? Give me a reason.”
“For an example to the rest,” my aunt retorted. “For standards of course. And talking of standards …” And she was off again, this time about the responsibilities of a king to set an example to his subjects.
Plug-Ugly purred. He rumbled so loudly I was amazed none of the others heard. Or maybe Green Greet did. He interrupted Aunt Beck’s discourse by saying, “Claws and teeth, claws and teeth underneath!”
But no one took any notice, except my aunt, who turned to the parrot and said, “If that’s aimed at me, shut your beak, my good bird, or you’ll be sorry!”
Green Greet rolled his wise eyes around to her and stopped speaking.
The hills, as I said, were hard for Moe the donkey, and for Finn, who puffed and panted and went pink in the face, but like nothing to the rest of us. Bernica is a low country, with lumps in it, and nothing like the deep slopes of Skarr. As Moe toiled up the hill, I looked around at the green, green landscape dappled with moving patches of sun from among the moist purple clouds, and I thought I had never seen such lovely countryside. It came on to rain near the top of the hill and at once there was a rainbow arching over it all. I found it glorious.
“Pah!” said Aunt Beck. “Wet.”
I could tell she was in a really bad mood. When Aunt Beck gets like that, the safest thing is to keep quiet, but none of the other three seemed to understand this. Finn said soothingly, “Ah, but Wisdom, the rain is what greens our lovely island so.”
Aunt Beck made a low growling noise. She hates being soothed.
Then Ivar asked innocently, “Where are we going? Do you know the way?”
“To the next town of course!” Aunt Beck snapped. “Cool Knock or some such name.”
“Coolochie, Wisdom,” Finn corrected her.
“And of course I know the way!” snarled my aunt. “I was here as a girl, for my sins.”
“But—” said Ivar.
Ogo tried to help. “The prince really means,” he said, “what is our route? Don’t we have to make for Gallis?”
This got him in trouble from two directions. Ivar said, “Don’t speak for me. Dolt!”
Aunt Beck glared at Ogo and snapped, “Naturally, we do, you
