The really encouraging thing was that they nearly all said that the sufferer had gone on the ferry to Gallis and found a healer there to cure them. I realised it was true, as I had heard in Skarr, that the magics of Gallis were very potent. I began to hope someone there could lift Lady Loma’s spell. So I sat clutching the big bronze disc that was our ticket for the ferry, nodding and smiling eagerly at each person, and meanwhile getting very impatient indeed. The ferry was due to leave half an hour after midday and I just could not see Ivar and Ogo tearing themselves away from the fair in time.
But they did. It was Finn who achieved it somehow. They all arrived soon after noon, when passengers were already trickling aboard the ferry, all very pleased with themselves. Finn had been at his monkly cadging. He had an armload of food and a charm bracelet which he said would cure Aunt Beck. He insisted on fastening it around her wrist, in spite of her saying, “I won’t wear that. It’s unseemly.”
Ivar was waving a pottery plaque with a blurred green bird on it. He had won a swordfight competition and was highly delighted with himself. “I beat ten other fellows!” he kept saying. “Beat them hollow!” But the real reason for his joy was that he had had his fortune told. “So I’ll be coming with you to Gallis after all,” he said, but he wouldn’t tell me why.
“I thought it was settled that you were coming anyway,” I said.
“Not to me, it wasn’t,” he said. “Not until I heard what this seer had to say.”
Ogo had had his fortune told too, it seemed. “But it was all nonsense,” he told me. And he whispered, “Ivar won because the other swordsmen were so bad actually, but don’t tell him. Even I could have won if I’d gone in for it.”
“What did you do instead?” I asked.
“Danced a bit. Went around the stalls,” Ogo said. “They had a calf with two heads and a bird like Green Greet that sort of sang. Some of the things they were selling were really good. Like this. Look.” He pulled out a rainbow scarf that seemed to be made of cobwebs and wrapped it tenderly around Aunt Beck’s neck.
Aunt Beck blinked a bit and, to my surprise, she said, “Thank you kindly, young sir.” She didn’t seem to know it was Ogo.
“And this is for you,” Ogo said, proud but embarrassed. And he passed me a flat wooden box.
“Oh, you shouldn’t have spent your money on me,” I said as I opened the box. “Oh!” Inside was a necklace of copper plaited with silver, with big green stones in it every so often. It was quite lovely. “It’s beautiful!” I said.
“It wasn’t expensive,” Ogo said, rather pink. “I watched the woman make it. She was ever so clever. And I thought you needed something to make up for missing the fair.”
“It’s the most splendid thing I’ve ever had!” I said. “Thank you, Ogo.” And I put it around my neck. It was perfect, as if I’d had it always. I felt like a queen in it.
Then we had to board the ferry. They put a wide gangplank out because there were two more carts and a pony trap beside ours, and all three of these went up with no trouble at all. Moe refused. She braced all four hooves and went stiff. Ivar smacked her on the rump and it made no difference at all. In the end, Ogo and I had to walk backwards on either side of her, hauling her bridle, with Finn and Ivar awkwardly leaning across the shafts to push on her rear. Like that, we inched on to the ferry. The sailors were fussing about the tide and the wind by the time we got her aboard. She really did not want to go. This surprised me. Up to then Moe had been such a good donkey.
They may call donkeys stupid, but in actual fact they are quite clever. Moe had stood and looked at the sea, and the ferry, and put two and two together. She must have known we were taking her away from the country of her birth. At all events, when they cast off the ropes and the sails filled and the ferry went rocking out into the wider water, the other two donkeys and the pony were given their nosebags and seemed quite content. Moe refused hers. She shook all over. Then she started to bray. Now the bray of a donkey, as I said before, is one of the loudest things in nature. It is a sort of roar, followed by a shriek of indrawn breath, followed by another roar. But the worst of it is that it sounds so sad. Poor Moe sounded heartbroken.
“Will you shut that donkey up!” the other passengers said.
“She really is heartbroken,” I said. Ogo and I tried everything we knew to comfort her. We pulled her ears and petted her and murmured consoling things, but she brayed on and on.
Finally, Finn said, with his hands over his ears, “She’s afraid of the sea, so she is. Green Greet, can you settle her?”
“Can try,” Green Greet said. And he flew up off Finn’s shoulder and landed on Moe’s head. She shook her head and flopped her ears, but he stayed on her. He started talking to her in a low, warbling murmur. It didn’t have words. It was sort of animal talk. And after a bit Moe stopped yelling in order to listen. By the time we could see Gallis properly, all lit by the sun, Green Greet had got Moe almost as quiet as the pony. He moved down her back and went on warbling to her, while the rest of us stared out at Gallis.
Gallis is very beautiful. The blue peaks and sunlit rifts full of trees assured us of this, but, when the ferry swung into a glassy bay under the nearest blue peak, none of us could really attend to the scenery. Or perhaps Aunt Beck could, jolted this way and that as she sat in the cart we all tugged and pushed. Moe did not want to get off the boat. It was exasperating.
“Typical donkey,” Ivar growled. “Shall I twist her tail?”
“No!” Ogo and I said together.
“She’s a Bernica donkey,” I said. “She knows Gallis is a foreign country.”
“Well, if you two want to be soft, slushy idiots, I’m not helping you any more,” Ivar said, and he went marching away down the gangplank. We could see him striding ahead up the rocky way that curved around the great mountain. Ogo and I exchanged looks. Both of us were hot and angry by then.
“Peace!” said Finn – which irritated me almost as much. “Let Green Greet guide Moe.”
He shoved the bird off Moe’s back quite unceremoniously. Green Greet, after an indignant squawk, flapped up ahead of Moe. He left a green feather which Ogo picked up and put in his belt for luck. And Moe took off after Green Greet in a rush. Aunt Beck swayed about in the cart as it rattled down the gangplank, and we trotted after.
There was no real jetty, just a shelf of rock with a couple of bollards on it that the ferry tied up to. Everyone had gone streaming up the rocky path, so we followed, uphill and around the mountain. It reminded me of Skarr. Most of our bays are like this, except where the towns are. The difference was that Gallis was almost violently beautiful. The path led through a mighty gorge overhung with splendid trees, where a great white waterfall dashed down the cliffs to the left. On a ledge beside the waterfall we saw the distant figure of a man in blue clothes.
“What’s he doing up there? It’s not safe!” Aunt Beck said.
“He’s playing the harp, Auntie,” I said. “I think he’s singing too.”
You could just hear the music through the sound of the waterfall. And it was the strangest thing. As the song went on, the sun came out and made the trees green-gold. The falls shone silver-white with rainbows around the water, and the rocks glowed with colours.
“Have I got this right?” Ogo asked. “Is he singing the place more beautiful?”
“I think he is,” Finn said, puffing rather. The path was steep. “I have heard many wonders of the bards of Gallis.”
I