The Heir of Mistmantle (36 page)

Yarrow and Hobb looked at each other for help, and Yarrow coughed noisily. They were still lost for words when Quill nervously raised a paw.

“Please, Your Majesty,” he said, “I’ve had time to think about it. And”—he glanced up at his father—“Dad said I should always listen to my elders, and so I am. Your Majesty, I’m listening to what you and Captain Padra and Brother Fir said, and you all say you saw Captain Husk fall and he’s dead. So if that’s what you say, Your Majesty, it’s good enough for me. If you want me to go down there, I’ll do it, because I don’t want anyone thinking I’m afraid.” (Urchin suspected that he
was
afraid, but he was prepared to go anyway and was being extremely brave.) “But I don’t need to. Your Majesty’s word and everyone else’s here is good enough, sir.”

“Good lad, Quill,” said Crispin.

“And all that goes for me too, Your Majesty,” said Yarrow quickly.

“And me, Your Majesty,” said Hobb.

“But in the case of you two, it doesn’t matter,” said Padra briskly, “because you’re going down anyway. Don’t worry, we’ll be with you. And we’ll be far better equipped than Juniper was when he first went down.”

Yarrow suddenly had a fit of coughing, turning his head away and pressing a paw to his chest. “I’ll do my best, sir,” he croaked.

“And when we get back, we’ll have hot cordials to warm us all up,” said Padra. “Urchin, send a message to Apple and ask if she could kindly spare some of her apple and mint cordial. No cough can survive that.”

Following the upheaval of sickness, quarantine, landslide, and rescue, the workrooms were pleasantly back to normal. Hedgehogs and squirrels sang softly to themselves as they stitched, wove, and painted. Moles fetched and carried and wound wool on shuttles. In the late afternoon there was a pleasant hum of warmth, work, and good humor. Thripple had been patiently teaching a new apprentice hedgehog to hem velvet while, in the passageway outside, Hope and Scufflen played skittles with empty bobbins and a pebble, but now she had called the little ones in, and they all seemed to be very busy with a large sheet of canvas.

At the window, Needle was making the most of the light before it faded and finishing her design for the Threading of Captain Lugg. She marked in the cloak, the sword, and the round head. Whittle, who had learned all he had to learn about fouldrought, had gone back to learning the Threadings code and was surveying various half-finished Threadings while muttering, “brown for moles, heather for strength, rue for sorrow, oak for a captain…” and holding out his paws if anyone needed to wind wool.

“That’ll do,” said Needle at last, and surveyed her work. There didn’t seem to be anything in the Threadings code that really said what everyone felt about Lugg, and as she was now a leading Threading hedgehog, she felt a lot of responsibility. There was a soft knock at the door, and Sepia hopped in with a homespun garment in her paws, the color of oatmeal.

“Mistress Thripple, Needle,” she said, “what should we do with this?”

Thripple came to join them as she shook it out and spread it on a table by the light of the window. It was a priest’s tunic, very neatly stitched and almost finished, with the freshly woven smell and feel of new fabric about it. But a pattern of juniper berries at one shoulder was not complete, and a dark blue thread hung loosely across them.

“Where did this come from?” asked Thripple.

“It was in Damson’s burrow,” said Sepia. “She must have meant it for Juniper’s ordination, but she never finished it. I thought I might do it myself,” she added, plucking at the loose thread, “but I’d only make a mess of it, so I brought it to you.”

“Hold it up to the light, please,” said Needle. Sepia held the tunic up to the window, and Thripple came to look over Needle’s shoulder.

“We can’t tell how she meant it to look,” said Needle. “But it wouldn’t be difficult to finish it, with a berry here and a bit of twig there. Should I work it out on a piece of scrap fabric first? The hard thing would be to do it so that nobody could tell the difference in the stitching, but…” She stopped, with a feeling that somehow she was saying all the wrong things. Thripple put an arm around her.

“Do you think,” she suggested, “that we should leave it exactly as it is?”

Sepia laid the tunic down, and Needle smoothed it lovingly. Nobody else could complete it quite as Damson would have done. It was her gift, the best she could do for Juniper, as she had always tried to do her best for the injured and abandoned squirrel who had come to her care. Husk had tried to kill every baby born weak or even slightly deformed or shortsighted, and Padra, among others, had risked everything to save them. And now they were just right, those children. What did a curled paw or short sight matter? If some in the community were weaker than others, or slow, or not very bright, there was no harm in that. They were part of Mistmantle, just the way they were. Nothing was ever finished, nothing was ever completely correct. For all the animals of Mistmantle, for the weak and the badly formed, for Thripple with her lopsidedness, and for the unfinished pattern of juniper berries, their imperfections made them perfect.

“We should leave it like this,” she said. “It’s a different kind of finished.”

The autumn day was mild enough for Brother Fir to make the long journey down the tower stairs and onto the shore. Juniper took the stairs very slowly.

“Getting back up won’t be a problem, Brother Fir,” said Juniper. “Any two of us could carry you, or one strong one.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Fir. “I was afraid you might plan to sling me over your shoulder and take the stairs two at a time.” He stopped by a window. A lot of small animals, including Hope the hedgehog and members of Sepia’s choir, were scurrying busily about on the rocks below the tower, and more were struggling down the hill carrying something clearly much too heavy for them.

“Are they organizing a game?” suggested Juniper.

“Maybe,” said Fir. “But they look purposeful.” He raised a frail, thin paw toward them. “Bless them. Hm.”

Slowly, they made their way to the Spring Gate. Fir raised his head and sniffed, breathed deeply, and smiled with deep contentment.

“Fresh sea air,” he said. “Wonderful. And here’s Urchin!”

Urchin was on the way from his chambers with little Swanfeather the otter holding his paw. He usually carried her on his shoulder, but she was getting heavier now and didn’t know how to stay still. He walked with Fir and Juniper to the water’s edge, which was about as far as Fir could manage in one go, and where there was a convenient rock to sit on. Fir settled down there with his cloak wrapped about him, sometimes with his eyes closed, sometimes looking out to sea with intent enjoyment, swaying a little. Swanfeather pulled at Urchin’s paw.

“Come on, then,” he said, and turned to Juniper. “I’ll take her down to the jetty. She might find some of her friends there.”

“We’ll join you later,” said Juniper, “if Fir feels up to it.”

“Hm!” said Fir. “You two, if you have things to do, run along. I’m sure one of these good animals can heave me back to the tower. Are those little ones still busy at whatever it was they were doing?”

As Urchin and Juniper looked around, something that appeared to be a coarse sheet wafted around the corner of the tower. As it came nearer they saw that it was a piece of canvas or coarse linen with small feet propelling it along the shore.

“It walks,” said Juniper.

“And it giggles,” said Fir, as smothered laughter came from beneath it. As the canvas and its bearers came nearer, they could see Hope, little Siskin from Sepia’s choir, Scufflen, and maybe a dozen small animals carrying it along the shore. It sagged now and again and dragged in the sand.

“Shall we give them a paw?” said Urchin, but when he and Juniper ran down to join them, Siskin waved them away.

“We can manage!” she piped up breathlessly.

“Yes, thank you, Urchin, thank you, Brother Juniper, we can manage, thank you!” panted Hope. “We’re doing this by ourselves!”

“Here’s Apple, too,” said Juniper. “Hello, Mistress Apple!”

Apple was waddling toward them, a good-natured smile on her face. She hugged Urchin, then Juniper.

“Morning, Brother Fir,” she said, “good to see you up, or should I say down, I mean outside, I been offering to help them young 'uns, but they won’t have it, they want to do it all theirselves, bless them, hello little Swanfeather, are you coming to Apple then, ooh, what a lovely hug, I’m all wet now, hello young Fingal and everyone, don’t go away, Fingal, I think they might need you.”

The procession of small animals stopped, laying the canvas carefully down and spreading it out on the shore. There was a ripple underneath it which suddenly stopped and changed direction, then Todd, the mole, scurried out.

“Fingal?” said Hope uncertainly.

“I’m here,” said Fingal, and knelt down in front of him.

“We brought you a sail,” said Hope, “because of what happened to your boat, so I asked my mum and she helped us to make it.”

“That’s wonderful!” exclaimed Fingal. “What a beautiful sail! Thank you all very much!” And he hugged Hope so hard that he had difficulty removing a prickle from his paw. “And thank your mum for me, Hope—no, I’ll go and thank her myself—this is so kind!”

Too touched and delighted to find enough words, he hugged the nearest animal, Todd, who quickly wriggled free.

“Don’t go thanking her yet,” he muttered. “We got something else for you.”

They all turned to look up again at the tower. More young animals were processing from the tower, carrying a huge fallen tree trunk like a battering ram. Padra’s little son, Tide, was doing his best to help, and the procession was led by Tipp the mole, brandishing a stick as a sword.

“Timber patrol!” he yelled. “CHARGE!”

It wasn’t so much a charge as a stagger, with all the other animals running to meet them halfway. Panting for breath, Tipp ordered, “Present tree trunk!” and they laid it down before Fingal. Tipp bowed deeply.

“A tree trunk rescued from the storm,” he announced. “To build your boat, Fingal.”

“How wonderfully kind of you all!” exclaimed Fingal. “Thank you!”

Juniper and Urchin glanced at each other. They understood that new wood was no good for boat building. Boats must be made from seasoned timber that would withstand hard weather. Fingal would know that, of course, but he was on his knees hugging the young animals as they crowded round him. Fir hobbled forward and bent stiffly to take a good look at the log.

“What do you think, Fingal?” he asked. “I’m no expert on boats, but I’m sure this is just the sort of wood we used to build rafts with. Did you ever have a raft, Fingal?”

“Oh, yes!” said Fingal. “Somebody made me one when I was small, my parents, or Padra, or all of them. Rafts are great fun. You can’t take them into deep water, but they’re wonderful for the shallows. You need a long pole to push yourself around with.”

“Did you ever fall in?” asked Urchin.

“That’s the best bit!” said Fingal cheerfully. He pushed at the log. “A bit more wood, some rope, moss, a few empty barrels from the cellar…”

The little animals were scattering in all directions, all saying they knew where they could get some rope, or moss, and one saying his grandpa was the cellar otter’s best friend, and he’d give them barrels if he asked them. Before long three of them came back, giggling and squeaking and rolling a barrel which seemed to be getting away from them at a dangerous speed, and gabbling out to Urchin that they’d just seen Whittle the squirrel, who said the king wanted to see him.

It was a pity to leave when the raft-building looked like such fun. Urchin left Swanfeather in Fingal’s care and ran back to the tower with sand in his fur.