The Heir of Mistmantle (2 page)

The squirrel grandfathers said that the stars were better when they were young squirrels, but they always said that, just as they always said that almond shells were getting harder these days. Some dismal moles and hedgehogs who grumbled about everything said that the last few nights of riding stars had all brought something good, so this time it must bring harm. The rest only laughed and told them to go away and find something useful to do. How could the stars be a warning of harm, with Catkin’s Naming Day ahead of them? Times were good since Crispin had become king.

It was going to be an exceptionally good night for bonfires on hilltops and beaches, partly because of the long, dry summer, but also because Twigg, the carpenter mole, was moving his workshop. For many years, all the carpentry had been done from a cave near the tower, behind Seathrift Meadow, but there was much more work needed at the tower now—new frames were being made for Threadings, chairs for visitors, more comfortable furnishings for the tower animals and, of course, a cot, a cradle, and a coatrack. Twigg, who was always covered with sawdust, had needed to take on more apprentices. He was also an excellent boatbuilder, and was so much in demand that he’d decided he may as well work as near to the sea as possible without falling in. He was moving into a new workshop in a cave not far from the tower jetty. Of course, as Twigg and his assistants trailed back and forth from the old workshop to the new, there were scraps of wood, bark, and old branches being dropped and wood shavings to sweep up. The cry of “Can we have this for the bonfire, Master Twigg?” followed him everywhere.

Juniper the squirrel was helping Twigg. Juniper was training as a priest, but Brother Fir believed that novice priests should do some hard physical work from time to time. He also believed that it was cruel to keep a young animal in a priestly tower on such a day, so Juniper had been sent to Twigg.

In the old workshop, with its sharp, clean scent of freshly cut timber, Twigg was in a quiet conversation with his girlfriend, Moth. Juniper, not liking to interrupt, waited at the entrance. When Moth’s two young nephews, Tipp and Todd, came racing to the door, he put out his paw to stop them from running straight in. Todd slowed down, but the older one, Tipp, was in his usual wild rush and didn’t notice.

“Tipp!” said Moth. “Oh, hello, Todd! And Juniper! Tipp, I hope you didn’t just push past Brother Juniper!”

Tipp turned and bowed so impresssively that it looked as if he meant to throw himself at Juniper’s paws and beg for a blessing. Todd murmured “Morning, Brother Juniper,” then “What wants doing, Twigg?”

“Yes, what wants doing?” asked Juniper.

“You lads can load up the rest of the smaller tools into a wheelbarrow for Brother Juniper to wheel around to the new place,” said Twigg. “All the scrap bits of wood that might come in useful, they can go in another wheelbarrow.”

“At once!” cried Tipp. He hurled himself into the task, but as every piece of wood he picked up became a sword, a shield, or a bow, he progressed slowly. Todd worked steadily.

“If you must have a sword, I’ll make a couple of wooden ones,” said Twigg. “Blunt ones, mind, and I’ll take them off you if you do any damage with 'em. Suppose you want shields, too?”

“Yes, please!” said both moles.

“And a bit of firewood for your bonfire,” said Twigg. “I wonder how I knew you wanted that?”

“Do you want the floor swept?” asked Juniper.

“I’ll do that,” said Moth quickly, knowing that Brother Juniper’s lungs had been badly damaged in the past and fearing that clouds of sawdust would make him ill. After a few journeys wheeling wheelbarrows around the tower to the sandy new cave on the shore, with Tipp trying to help and swerving the wheelbarrows so that half the timber landed on the beach, Juniper returned to the old workshop to find it swept and clean with only a few old tools and some long timbers stacked neatly against the walls.

“They can stay there,” said Twigg. He threw open a trapdoor in the floor at the back of the cave and disappeared into it. “I’ll get the last of the stuff out of the storeroom, then we’re all done.”

“I’ll go down there with you!” volunteered Tipp.

“You won’t,” Twigg’s voice echoed back up. “I’d never get you out again.”

“Are there tunnels?” asked Todd, his eyes brightening.

“Definitely not,” said Twigg firmly. “Look out, now!” Hammers began to fly out of the trapdoor as if they were juggling themselves. “Put those in a wheelbarrow, and mind yourselves, they’re heavy.”

Juniper leaned down so that Twigg could pass the tools to him.

“I reckon there probably were tunnels down here once,” muttered Twigg. “There’s a locked door down here, and I’m sure there’s tunnels behind that, and at least one more blocked door. I can tell by the echoes and vibrations. But we won’t tell those two.”

“Absolutely not,” agreed Juniper, and turned his head to cough. “Come on, lads, we’ll get these tools loaded up.”

By evening the removal was complete, drinks had been brought down from the tower, and the young moles were armed with blunt swords and small wooden shields. Bonfires were lit. Everyone waited for sunset, watching for the first star to ride across the sky. Some of the young animals were playing their old hide-and-seek game, which began with chants of “Find the king, find the queen, find the Heir of Mistmantle.” Now and again one of them would point to the tower and shout, “She’s in there!” and they’d all shriek with laughter, finding it just as funny even after the first ten or twenty times. On the beach nearest to Mistmantle Tower, shore animals and those who worked in the tower gathered around a bonfire where fish was already cooking. Padra and Arran the otters, wearing their captains’ gold circlets and swords, broke off steaming pieces of fish for their twins, Tide and Swanfeather. Tide ate his slowly and carefully, while Swanfeather took a large bite and presently blew out her cheeks and widened her eyes with the heat.

“You shouldn’t try to eat so much at once,” said Arran. Her tufty fur stuck out around her circlet. “It’s not good manners. They’ll bring soup down from the tower soon, so leave some room for it.”

“I expect she gets her manners from me,” said Padra’s young brother Fingal airily. “I’m responsible for all her bad habits.”

“What about mine?” asked Tide.

“You don’t have any bad habits,” said Fingal; then, not wanting Tide to feel left out, he added, “You’re really good at boats. As soon as I get my boat, I’ll take you out in it.”

Captain Padra, who had a pleasant face and always looked ready to laugh, did laugh. He looked around for Urchin, who wasn’t far away.

“Urchin, I won!” he called.

“Congratulations, sir,” said Urchin, coming to join them.

“Won what?” asked Fingal.

Urchin had expected to lose, and didn’t mind at all. “Captain Padra said you’d be talking about your boat before they brought the soup,” he said, “and I said not even you could do that.”

“Oh, Urchin!” said Fingal. “I’m deeply hurt!”

“And the loser has to polish both sword belts for tomorrow,” said Padra. “But I think I should do them. I’ve already been caught out once this evening,”

“Oh, good,” said Fingal. “Who by?”

“You,” said Padra. “You just said you were responsible, and I never thought I’d hear that.”

“I only said I was responsible for…”

“Swanfeather’s bad habits, I know,” said Padra. “Fortunately, she doesn’t have many. We have another big day to come after Naming Day, so we’ll all be feasted to exhaustion.”

“Oh,” said Fingal innocently. “Is something happening, then?”

Of course, he knew perfectly well what was happening. Urchin and his oldest friend, a very sharp-spined girl hedgehog called Needle, were soon to be admitted to the Circle, the group of senior animals closest to the king. Neither of them were very senior, but they were both Companions to the King and did much of the work of Circle animals already, and the king had decided to make it official. This meant that Needle’s mother polished Needle’s spines every third night to make them gleam, and Apple, Urchin’s foster mother, had given him a pot of deep red paste for the tips of his tails and ears, which were the only truly squirrel-red parts of him. (He had thanked her very much, but he didn’t use it.)

Urchin could see Twigg farther along the beach. Wanting to ask how work was progressing on the boat Twigg was building for Fingal, he hopped toward him, but he hesitated when he saw his old friend Captain Lugg the mole and his wife, Cott, coming to talk to him.

“Here’s Urchin!” called Lugg. He was looking whiter than ever around the muzzle, walked a little stiffly, and carried a frothing mug of nettle beer in his paw.

“Twigg here says he wants to marry our Moth,” said Lugg, beaming. “Mind, I’ve told him he’ll never see her, she’ll always be looking after Princess Catkin, like she is now.” He nodded at Tipp and Todd, jumping waves on the shore. “There’s our Wing’s two little lads, and our Wren’s just got wed, and now Moth and Twigg are sorted. One of these days I’ll put my paws up and play with my grandchildren.”

The sky grew darker, and the air cooled. They were glad of the bonfires with their fierce heat and smell of wood smoke, and the soup that made you unbearably hungry when you smelled it and warm all the way down inside when you drank it. Lanterns were lit.

“Star!” shouted Todd.

“Up there!” yelled Tipp, hoping it would sound as if he’d seen it first.

There were cries of “ooh!” from the crowd, and “Where, please?” from Hope, the shortsighted little hedgehog who greatly admired Urchin. Then there was an “ouch” from Urchin as Needle, who was looking up at the stars and not watching where she was going, walked into him.

“Sorry,” she said. “I suppose I should stand still when I’m watching the stars.”

Hope’s mother, Thripple, came to take him up to Fir’s turret. They were always welcome there, and it gave the best view of riding stars. A little group of their friends gathered around Needle and Urchin as they gazed upward. Fingal joined them, suddenly quiet and awed as a large star spun from the sky, swooped, and rose again. Crackle, the squirrel who worked in the tower bakery, had taken off her blue-and-white pastry cook’s apron and joined her friends on the beach, enjoying their company as much as the stars. Sepia of the Songs, a squirrel who sang far more than she spoke and would rather watch beauty than talk about it, drank in every detail of the way the stars danced in and out and changed places, reflecting on the sea. The moon cast a rippling of light across the sea as if it invited her to walk across it.

Juniper, limping as usual, came to Urchin’s side. His dark fur still had a pleasant smell of freshly cut wood and sawdust about it. Beside him was Whittle, the squirrel pupil of Brother Fir, and Tay, the otter lawyer. Whittle was learning the history and law of the island, and worked at it intensely. As he joined them, he was muttering his latest lesson under his breath:“…a bird for freedom, a cockle shell for a priest, an archway for a home…”

“Never mind your lessons now, Whittle,” said Juniper. “Enjoy the stars while they’re here.”

“Oh, er, yes, sorry, yes, good!” said Whittle and directed his face earnestly to the sky.

The last to join them was Scatter the squirrel, gazing upward with her eyes bright and her mouth open. “Ooh!” she breathed slowly. Fingal laughed and put his arm around her.

Scatter hadn’t always lived on Mistmantle. She had arrived as part of a plot against the island, but when she’d discovered what Mistmantle and its animals were like, she had wanted to stay forever. The way she had been forgiven, loved, and accepted still amazed and delighted her even more than the riding stars did. She had become particularly friendly with the otters, and was making herself a cozy new home in a cave near the shore where she could be near them.

“Ooh!” This time they all said it at once. A storm of stars hurled themselves tumbling across the sky and whirled upward. They turned to watch them circle the tower like a flock of birds and sweep away into the night.

“Doesn’t it mean something when the stars do that?” asked Crackle. “Do you know, Whittle?”

“Um, sorry, what?” said Whittle. “Sorry, I wasn’t listening. I was going over the Threadings Code again. Sorry.”

“What’s the Threadings Code?” asked Scatter.

“You know about the Threadings,” said Needle, who worked on those Threadings, the painted, woven, and stitched pictures of the island’s stories. “Well, the details in the Threadings all mean something. Flowers and things, they all stand for something.”

“‘Angelica for holiness, wormwood for bitterness,’” said Whittle. “I’m up to that bit.”

“Don’t worry, Scatter,” said Fingal. “Ordinary animals like us don’t have to know it all. So, does anybody know what it does mean when the stars do that thing—that once-around-the-tower thing that they did just now?”

“My granny used to say that you have to look at them and think of all your hopes and dreams and ambitions,” said Needle. “You sort of keep looking at the stars and looking at your dreams as if the two go together. It’s because, when the stars go around the tower, they go out of sight and come back again, and that’s the way it can be with your hopes and dreams.”

“Look at the riding stars, look at your dreams,” said Sepia, stretching her paws to the fire. “I remember now.”

“All I dream of is having my own boat,” said Fingal. “Get looking and get dreaming, everyone!”

They smiled, but their hearts were with the stars. Urchin and Needle thought of the new life before them as full members of the Circle with all its responsibilities and demands. Urchin thought, too, of the parents he had never known. He folded his paw over the squirrel hair bracelet that was all he had of them.

Juniper gazed up steadily. There were two hopes and dreams for him. One was to serve the Heart and the island as the best priest he could be. The other was to find out who he really was.

Like Urchin, he was a foundling. Damson the squirrel had found him as a baby and brought him up in secrecy in the days when any animal with a twisted paw, like his, was put to death. He was sure that Damson knew more about him and who he really was than she had ever told him.