as a third rainbow shone gently into being inside the other two.
“I’ve never seen that before,” Ogo said.
“That is a promise from the gods,” Finn told us, as all three rainbows faded away.
“Promises, promises!” Ivar muttered sourly from behind.
I’d hoped the promise was that we’d reach the coast soon, but it was not so. The land went on and on after we had taken the left-hand way at the crossroads, and we had to stay at an inn again that night. Or we tried to. For some reason it was very crowded, so they directed us to a house in the village where we spent the night next door to a herd of cows. It was very restless. Aunt Beck would hardly do a thing I told her and I grew sick of snapping at her. But the food was good. We set off in quite good spirits into next day’s rain and when the clouds cleared we saw the sea again at last, just briefly, between two low hills.
We discovered then why the inn had been so crowded. People came pouring past us, faster than Moe could go, all of them in holiday clothes. The women had layers of different coloured petticoats and skirts hitched up with ribbons to show them off. The men had ribbons everywhere and hats with feathers. Most of them called out to us cheerfully, “Going to the fair, are you?” or “Bound for Charkpool Fair then?”
If it was me that answered, I said, “Maybe.” Finn said nothing. But Ivar and Ogo both called back joyfully that of course they were going. At which I sighed and looked around at us all. None of us looked like people on holiday. Aunt Beck was draggled and sagging, nothing like her usual neat self. I had made a mess of helping her do her hair that morning and she was wisps all over. Goodness knows how my hair looked, but my dress was grubby. Ogo’s fine new clothes had become worn old clothes. Ivar was mud to the waist from kicking along behind the cart. Even Finn’s ragged green robes were the worse for wear. Ah well, I thought. No one can travel as we have done and stay new and tidy. But it made me very self-conscious.
The road took us around a hill and there was the fair in front of us in a wide green meadow, with the town beyond that. Beyond that I could actually see Gallis as woods and mountains, blue with distance. Then I could think of practically nothing else but that there, quite near, was my father’s birthplace, as beautiful as he always said it was. I could hardly be bothered with the fair.
And that was silly because it looked fun. There was a mass of coloured tents and a mass of animals and an even greater crowd of people. On the grass in front of me they were dancing to a band of fiddlers. The tunes were fast and jolly and never seemed to end. People dropped out of the dance, panting and laughing, when they had had enough, threw coins into the hats the fiddlers had out in front of them, and then went to the nearest tent for drinks. As for the fiddlers, they played on and on, grinning, and amazed me and Ogo by the speed at which their arms and fingers moved.
“Oh, let’s dance!” said Ivar. “Money, Aileen. Give me money!”
“Me too,” Ogo said. There was a crowd of fine-looking girls standing nearby, obviously waiting for partners. He and Ivar were already edging that way, but Ogo stopped to ask Finn politely if he was going to dance too.
Finn laughed and shook his head. “I don’t think Green Greet would enjoy it.”
“You could leave him perched on the cart,” Ogo was suggesting, when Aunt Beck suddenly jerked her head up and glared at the dancers.
“What is this wickedness?” she said. “Stupid carrying on to music. Barbary—” She had taken to calling me Barbary, which was my mother’s name. “Barbary, come away at once. Gran will half kill us if we stay here!” And she began trying to climb out of the cart.
“Stay where you are, Beck!” I snapped at her. “Gran isn’t here.”
“Then move the cart,” she snapped back. “We can’t stay here. Gran will find out.”
Moe seemed to share my aunt’s opinion. Her ears were flopping in protest at the music and it looked as if she was working up to start braying. And when a donkey brays you can hear little else.
I hurriedly got her moving again. “Did your grandmother really forbid dancing?” I said.
“Of course she does,” Aunt Beck replied. “It’s sinful and harmful. And,” she added, thinking about it in her new strange, childish way, “it’s most undignified as well!”
Well, I knew my great-grandmother had had a name for being the most joyless woman in Skarr, but I had always thought this meant that she moaned and complained. But forbidding people to dance! That was ridiculous. “And did she forbid singing too?” I asked.
“Always,” said my aunt. “Singing is unnatural. Will you hurry up, Barbary, and get us away from this wicked place!” She half stood up, angry and anxious.
It was quite clear Aunt Beck would run away if I didn’t take her away. Between her and Moe, I seemed to have no choice but to leave all the fun.
As Moe picked up speed, Finn came trotting after us with one hand up to keep Green Greet steady on his shoulder. “What should we be doing, Young Wisdom?”
So I was Young Wisdom now, I thought. That put me horribly in charge. I tugged a fistful of coins out of the purse and shoved them into Finn’s chubby hand. “Share that three ways,” I said, “so that you and Ivar and Ogo can go to the fair. I’m going down to the harbour to ask about the ferry. Meet me there in two hours.” As I said it, Moe fairly scampered away, before it occurred to me that none of us had a timepiece of any kind. While we rattled into the first streets of Charkpool, I saw myself waiting and waiting beside the sea and the ferry long gone for the day. Still, there was nothing I could do now, so I drove on with Aunt Beck sitting like a doll in the cart behind me.
Charkpool was a very orderly place. Not what I was used to in Bernica. It was all grey stone houses and quiet, straight streets. I had no trouble finding our way to the harbour. There was a gate there and people were streaming through it, all looking as if they were coming off the ferry and on their way to the fair. I must say I was so glad to see the sea quietly lapping at the stone quayside that I did nothing for a minute but sit and stare at it, and at Gallis in the blue distance beyond, and breathe great breaths of the smell of it.
The man on the gate must have thought I was lost. “Was there something you were wanting, little lady?” he asked politely.
I think I jumped. “Oh,” I said, still staring at the sea. It was blue-green here. “I was needing to take places on the ferry to Gallis for five people and this donkey and cart. Can you tell me where to do that?”
“Yes indeed,” he said. I could see him looking to see what I was staring at. “Those ships are all out of commission these days, you know. There is no trade with Logra since the barrier went up.”
This made me feel foolish. There was quite a line of tall ships almost in front of me, which I had been seeing without seeing, if you take my meaning, while I stared at the sea beyond. Now I looked at the ships, I could see that they were all but derelict, with green slime growing up their sides and most of their rigging gone. “I was wondering why they were so rotten-seeming,” I said, to cover my foolish feeling. “Was there a lot of trade with Logra?”
“Day and night, little lady,” he told me sadly. “Ten years ago, every tide brought some dozens of ships into port, loaded with everything you could imagine. The barrier made for a lot of hardship. There’s men I know, good sailors, who still have no work – though most of them have
