The Heir of Mistmantle (26 page)

“Seathrift Meadow is a little bit nearer for animals who’ve had a rough night,” said Padra. “For those who are still getting over illness and injuries, it means they don’t have to get up the tower stairs, and if anyone’s still infectious, it’s better not to crowd them all indoors. It’s the sort of thing Crispin…”

He was interrupted by squeals of excitement from Tide and Swanfeather, who were pointing out to sea. The hat was still bobbing cheerfully on the waves when a ripple and a splash rocked it alarmingly.

“Ooh!” cried Apple. “Me hat!” Then the hat rose from the water with Fingal’s grinning, whiskered face beneath it, and he wore it in triumph as he swam to the shore. Scrambling up, he took it off with a flourish, shook the water from the brim, and presented it with a bow to Apple.

“Madam—oh, hang on a minute,” he said. He removed a few fronds of seaweed and a live crab from the dripping rosebuds. “Madam, your crown.”

“Ooh, what a love you are!” said Apple, and squashed him into a hug that left him gasping for breath. “Ooh, look at me now, soaked through, that comes of hugging wet otters, bless you, Heart bless you, young Fingal, you’re as good an otter as your brother and that’s saying something.” She held the hat at arm’s length. “I’ll have that as good as new, no time, it’ll need doing up new, but it did anyway, I’ve had those rosebuds since before I found our Urchin and he’s nearly a member of the Circle now, can’t believe it, can you? I think I’d better get this dried off.” She waddled happily away toward Anemone Wood.

“I wish I could be like that,” said Padra. “Made perfectly at ease and happy by the finding of a hat. Arran, there are injured otters who can’t work and able-bodied otters clearing up after the storm. Crispin must have reduced the shore watch for Catkin and Linty.”

“He’s got fewer otters and more squirrels keeping a sharp lookout for anything that looks suspicious,” said Fingal.

“And weren’t you supposed to be off duty?” inquired Arran.

Fingal shrugged and scuffed at a pebble in the sand. “I just came out to see…you know…well, nobody could sleep through that lot, and after a storm…I just thought I’d come and see…just about things, you know.”

“Fingal,” said Padra sadly. He put an arm round Fingal’s shoulders. “There’s a bit of driftwood over there, I don’t know if you noticed it.”

“Yes, I know,” said Fingal. He glanced over his shoulder at the drift wood, then looked away again quickly. “I went out early. A few of the boats were missing, and I thought mine might just have been washed out to sea or something, so I swam around a bit for a look. I found a few bits. Must have been thrown onto the rocks.” He shrugged again, with a brave attempt at a smile. “It was only a boat, it’s not as if anyone was in it.”

“Oh, Fingal, your boat!” said Arran. “Are you sure…”

“Oh, yes, I know the bits of my own boat,” said Fingal. “I’ll just have to start again. Sorry, I’d promised to take the twins out in it. They can go on having rides on my back instead.”

“I’ll help you build another one,” said Padra. “We’ll get Twigg onto it. There’s still lots of timber in the yards.”

“There can’t be, not after last night,” said Fingal. “And there’s burrows and things to be repaired. They still don’t know where Catkin is, animals have died in the epidemic, and whole families lost their homes in the landslide. It was just a boat.”

“It was
your
boat,” said Padra, and tightened his hold around Fingal’s shoulders. “We know how you feel about it.”

Fingal wriggled free of Padra’s arm. “Any chance of breakfast,” he asked, “or do I have to go and catch it?”

Later that morning, animals began to scurry, trundle, clamber, and leap to Seathrift Meadow. In the burrows high on the hillside, badly injured animals remained with those who looked after them, but the rest made their way to the meadows. After a quick bite of breakfast and a wash and fur brush, Urchin, Juniper, Lugg, and King Crispin came down from the tower.

“Put the best face you can on this,” said Crispin. “We’ve all had a long, hard night and not enough sleep, we’re all bruised and aching. You’ve done magnificently up to now. What we have to do this time is to walk down to the meadows with our fur clean and our steps firm—or as firm as can be, with a quagmire to walk on. We have to look strong and confident for the sake of the others.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said Urchin, knowing that trying to look strong and confident to convince other people is as good a way as any of convincing yourself. “Is the queen coming with us?”

“I advised her to rest and stay with Brother Fir,” said Crispin.

Urchin felt that Crispin wasn’t telling him everything. Perhaps he had things to say that would be best said when Cedar wasn’t there. He wouldn’t want to embarrass her. Urchin squared his sore shoulders and raised his chin, stopping now and again as Juniper seemed to be falling behind.

“It’s all right,” called Juniper, “I’m waiting for Lugg. I’ll catch you up.”

“Glad it’s down them stairs, not up them,” muttered Lugg, who seemed slower than usual this morning.

“You know all that shoring up we did last night,” said Juniper, “will it last?”

“Wait and see,” said Lugg, trying to get his breath. “Land needs time to settle, and it’s still soft down there. Maybe we’ll need to shore up the roofs a bit more. Last night we were holding 'em up with whatever we could get.”

Juniper remembered the previous night, with pit props crammed into place against walls and ceilings. There hadn’t been much time to think about things then, but something had puzzled him.

“Those pit props,” he said. “Some of them were just whatever branches we could find, but there was some proper wood—sawn up, with marks on it as if it had been used before, even polished wood. It wasn’t new, so I don’t suppose it came from Twigg’s yard—and besides, it would have taken too long to get it from there. So where did it come from?”

“Good question,” said Lugg. “Well, you see, in the business of what’s been happening, what with little Catkin and that, I’ve been awful busy about tunnels. All sorts of tunnels, all over this island. Old ones, mostly, that had been blocked up long, long ago and were meant to stay that way, but the king wanted 'em looked into, just in case anybody, by any chance, had found a way in but couldn’t get out again. The longer the baby’s hidden, you have to admit, the more it looks like something like that could have happened. So I’ve got doors unblocked that should have been blocked, and soon will be again. I’ve had tunnels and chambers opened out just enough to take a peek into them, in case anyone’s hiding in there. Opening 'em’s one thing, closing 'em up again is another, when you’ve got more than enough to do and half the island coming down on your head. I’ve got doors half-unblocked that I hadn’t finished before the landslide started. So, when we needed wood for pit props, I knew fine well where to find it.”

“Wood from closed-off tunnels!” exclaimed Juniper.

Lugg chuckled. “There’s no law against it,” he said. “If there was, Mistress Tay would have found it before now. Mind you, I don’t think she knows about this, so…”

“Don’t worry,” said Juniper quickly. “I won’t tell her.”

“There’s tunnels all under the tower was meant to be searched for the princess,” said Lugg. “Would have done it by now, if not for that plaguing rain and its plaguing landslide.”

“When Catkin first went missing,” said Juniper, “Urchin and I had to search the Chamber of Candles, and Hope came with us. He said there was another layer underneath.”

Lugg chuckled. “You can tell that one was trained by moles,” he said. “Oh, yes, that’s how prisoners got away from the pit, all that long time ago. There’s all sorts of ways down there, but I don’t know what they’re like. Dunno what’s fallen in and what hasn’t.” He stopped, wheezing, and waved Juniper ahead. “I need to catch my breath again. You go ahead.”

“No,” said Juniper, “I’ll wait with you.”

“Do as a captain tells you, cheeky little twitcher,” said Lugg. “Do they teach you no manners?” He waved a paw. “Get along, the king might need you.”

The rocks gleamed, and beyond them the turf was spongy with rain. Here and there, wet autumn leaves had drifted into heaps. Rose hips glowed on a thornbush. With an air of busyness and excitement the Mistmantle animals were gathering together. Those who lived nearest advised the others as to which bits would be boggy, and young hedgehogs and squirrels jumped into them anyway, just to see if they really did sink to their knees in mud. An occasional breath of wind ruffled the fur. Anxious parents hovered near their young. A few children began to play Find the Heir of Mistmantle and were instantly silenced.

Russet, Heath, Docken, and the rest of the Circle were quietly going from one group of animals to another, keeping order, listening to accounts of the damage done by the storm, and making sure everyone could see the rock where Crispin would presently stand. As so many animals had made long journeys to get here, Arran had arranged for refreshments to be served before as well as after the gathering, and aproned hedgehogs and squirrels wove their way through the crowd with mugs on trays and baskets laden with berries and nuts. Needle and Crackle were doing their best to keep the excited little ones occupied, which was difficult as the squirrels only wanted to run off and find trees to climb; and a very small hedgehog fell down a burrow, and Needle had to heave him out with Scufflen clinging to her other paw because he had been told to stay with Needle and refused to let go of her. Hope had offered to help, but in fact was staggering under the weight of a very contented sleeping baby hedgehog sucking its paw, and was telling everyone that this was his baby sister, Mopple, “and I look after her because she likes me.”

Needle, brushing down the rescued hedgehog, was wondering where Urchin was and wishing he’d turn up and help. Sepia and Scatter would have been useful, too, but they were on duty in the tower where Brother Fir or the queen might need them. It was a great relief when Urchin finally did turn up, with Jig and Fig, the mole maids.

“The king told me to find you,” he told her. “He asked me to find someone to do—well, the sort of thing you’re doing already. I found Jig and Fig.” A plump little mole caught sight of Fig and hurled itself into her arms. “I wonder where Juniper is? I can see Lugg on his way, but not Juniper. I hope he’s all right.”

“I haven’t seen him for days,” said Needle, trying hard not to be irritated. She sometimes felt a touch of resentment about Juniper. Urchin and Juniper got on so well. They were both squirrels, both boys, they’d shared adventures and dangers together. She was a girl, a neat-pawed workroom animal who’d been the one left to save Mistmantle while they found themselves in prison on Whitewings without ever meaning to go there. She could understand that Urchin liked having a brother. But she’d always been his best friend.

Never mind that,
she told herself, and gave her spines a shake. Just to show that she did care about Juniper, she waved at the kind-faced otter-wife who was looking after Padra and Arran’s twins. “Mistress Inish, have you seen Brother Juniper?”

“Funny you should ask,” said Inish, balancing a wriggly Tide under one arm and an even more wriggly Swanfeather under the other. “I wondered if he was going to see Brother Fir. One minute he was cramming leaves into his satchel, and the next he was running off to the tower.” She heaved at Swanfeather, who had turned upside down. “I couldn’t see what leaves they were, but…sort yourself out Tide, that’s your own tail you’ve got hold of…I don’t think they were anything for healing. But he was off at such a rate!”

“Thanks,” said Urchin, and wove his way in and out of the crowds to the rocks where Crispin and Padra were speaking with the Circle animals. Tay stood with her arms folded and a look of stern disapproval on her face, oblivious to a small spider dangling from her whiskers. Needle had scrambled onto the rock, and Padra was coming to speak to them both when Urchin said, “Look! There he is! Juniper!”

Padra and Needle turned to look. Juniper, with a bulging satchel over his shoulder, was hurrying lamely toward the tower.

“He should be here,” said Padra. “Go and round him up, Urchin.”

“Yes, sir, if that’s an order,” said Urchin, anxiously watching Juniper. “But I’m worried about him. With Damson dying, and”—he remembered just in time that Needle didn’t know about Juniper’s father—“and everything, I don’t think he’s himself.”