J. J. CoombeTales of Wending Vale

Tales of Wending Vale

Welcome to Wending Vale

There is a valley where the river wends, with a village called Wend at the bottom of it, an old stone tower on the hill above, an abbey by the water, and a coaching inn at the crossroads where the night mail comes down off the moor at ten past three in the morning.

One autumn, three young people in that valley each had their own adventure. Their stories cross, the way roads do. On one night in December, all three of them were out in the same fire.

Each book stands on its own. Read them in any order. If you spot a friend from another book walking past in this one, you're not imagining it.

The map of the Vale

North is at the top. The Thornbridge road comes down off the moor, and the river wends south to the abbey. Choose a place to see what it is and whose story it turns up in.

A painted bird's-eye view of Wending Vale. Moorland runs across the top and down the east side. A river runs down the middle from north to south-west. The Thornbridge road zig-zags down from the moor to a crossroads inn, then runs south through a long wood at the foot of a ridge to the village of Wend. The ridge lies to the east, and an abbey stands by the river in the south-west. The places are listed below the map.

Swipe the map sideways to see all of the Vale.

Every place on the map, as a list
  • To Thornbridge
    The Guild town, a hard day north over the moor, past the moor gate. The mail coaches start from the Guild hall.
  • The high moor
    Heather and bog and sky, with the Thornbridge road running across the top of it like a parting.
  • Top of Raven Bend
    Where the moor ends. Stop here and look back: the whole Vale lies below, with the river down the middle.
  • Raven Bend
    The worst hill on the Thornbridge road: three long loops off the moor, a stone wall on one side and nothing at all on the other.
  • Farmer Ashby's pond
    Take the hairpin too fast and you go through the hedge and into the pond. People say there's an old coach still at the bottom.
  • The Running Horse
    The coaching inn at Hollin Cross, where the night mail changes horses at ten past three in the morning.
  • The Vale gate
    A white bar and a little stone toll-house, half a mile down the road where the Long Wood begins.
  • The Long Wood
    Oak, holly and birch along the foot of the ridge. The Vale road runs through it for a mile and a half.
  • The old drovers' road
    A steep, narrow track for driving cattle that leaves the Vale road at a great oak and drops away into the trees.
  • Hollin Ford
    A gravel crossing on Hollin Beck, deep in the wood. Come in right of the big flat stone and aim for the split alder.
  • Low Ford
    The market crossing on the beck, flat and easy, until the autumn floods come.
  • The river
    It has no name. It wends down the middle of the Vale from the moor to the abbey, which is how the Vale got its own.
  • The western hills
    The sun goes down behind them, and so does the Hunter's star.
  • The sea
    Far away to the west: a grey line along the very edge of the world, if you can get high enough to see it.
  • The ridge
    A long dark back of bracken and gorse, rising east of the road and the tower.
  • The charcoal burners
    Turf mounds smoking in a row just under the top of the ridge, where the charcoal burners have their huts.
  • Raven Crag
    A great bare hump of grey rock above a drop, on the south shoulder of the ridge. Not to be confused with Raven Bend.
  • The ridge's tail
    At its southern end the ridge runs down in a long tail towards the river and the abbey.
  • The tower
    Master Aldric's square grey tower on its own hill above Wend, with a cart track winding up to the courtyard gate.
  • Nan Bracken's cottage
    All on its own where the meadows meet the trees: thatch like a hill, beehives, goats and a great many crows.
  • Wend
    The village at the bottom of the Vale: thatched roofs, a forge, the green, and a bell tower that rings for church and for fire.
  • The mill
    The first thing you come to in Wend from the north: a great dark waterwheel, a millpond and a cobbled yard. Tess lives here.
  • The water meadows
    Low meadows and willows along the river between Wend and the abbey. In a wet autumn they turn into a lake.
  • The abbey
    Low grey walls, a squat bell tower and an orchard running down in rows to the river. Sister Hild's record room is above the gatehouse.

One autumn, three stories

From Michaelmas to midwinter, three stories run through the same valley in the same weeks. Here they are side by side, with nothing given away that isn't on the back of the books.

Zachary
The Dragonwarden's Apprentice		 Lauren
Not Till Seventeen		 Lainey
The Song in the Cloth
Michaelmas
At the Running Horse, Lauren can drive four horses better than half the men on the Thornbridge road. She isn't allowed to. Not till seventeen.
October
Zachary sweeps ash at the tower, and isn't allowed in the stillroom.
Someone is sabotaging her father's mail coach, and the contract that keeps the family inn is on the line.
The river rises. A flood breaks open a wall at the abbey that has been sealed for three hundred years.
The first frost
Zachary rakes a heavy black stone out of the back of the furnace. It stays hot in the frost.
The night mail keeps coming down Raven Bend at ten past three.
Behind the wall, Lainey finds knotted cords that turn out to be music.
November
Four old disciplines to learn: FIRE, WATER, STAR and SEAL. Midwinter is coming.
Not one mail can be late. Not one.
The Guild takes an interest in the cords. Some secrets they would rather burn.
One night in December
The ridge catches fire, and all three of them are out in it.
Midwinter
The deadline. Learn all four, or the first dragon the Vale has seen in three hundred years grows up wild.
Who keeps the mail contract? That's in the book.
What the cords say? That's in the book.

Who's who

The Vale is small, and people get about. Here is who turns up in whose story.

Zachary

The alchemist's apprentice, eleven

Sweeps ash at the tower furnace and isn't allowed in the stillroom. Has a temper he is working on.

DragonwardenNot Till SeventeenSong in the Cloth

Tess

The miller's daughter

Brings the flour up the tower hill, has a laugh like a goose and a cough every winter. Zachary's best friend.

DragonwardenNot Till SeventeenSong in the Cloth

Master Aldric

The alchemist

Keeps the old stone tower above Wend and its great furnace. Ink-stained, quiet, and never without a peppermint.

DragonwardenNot Till SeventeenSong in the Cloth

Lauren

The innkeeper's daughter, fifteen

Lauren Hartley of the Running Horse. Knows every horse on the road by its hoofbeat, argues with everyone (mostly correctly), and is not allowed to drive till seventeen.

DragonwardenNot Till SeventeenSong in the Cloth

Brie

Lauren's cousin, twelve

A Thornbridge girl sent to the Running Horse for the winter. Adds up columns of figures in her head, and lies flat on anything. ‘I’m not helping.’

DragonwardenNot Till Seventeen

Granny Cathy

The old ostler at the Running Horse

Drove the night mail for forty years. Now she keeps the stables, and she has opinions about your hands.

Not Till Seventeen

Lainey

The abbey foundling, twelve

Hardly ever speaks. Has read every book in the abbey twice, crochets without looking, and plays every instrument the sisters own.

DragonwardenNot Till SeventeenSong in the Cloth

Tam

The newest foundling, seven

Follows Lainey everywhere and never stops talking. He can't read yet, but he can count anything.

Song in the Cloth

Sister Hild

Keeper of the abbey's record room

Tiny, very old, with ink on her nose and eyes like a robin's. She raised Zachary, and now she is raising Lainey.

DragonwardenSong in the Cloth

Nan Bracken

The old woman at the wood's edge

Lives alone with her bees, her goats and a great many crows, and remembers stories nobody else does.

DragonwardenSong in the Cloth