Urchin and the Raven War (35 page)

“Daddy,” she said, “when I was tied up there”—she pressed against his fur as she said it—“I saw something in the mists, before the stars started. It might have just been the sunset in the mist, but it really, really looked like the Heartstone.”

Crispin thought for a while. “It may be that you saw how the Heart is with you and cares for you, even when it doesn’t seem much like it,” he said. “Tell Juniper. Sweetheart, the choir is going to sing tonight, especially for Fir. Shall we go around to the battlements, where we can hear them? They should be just about ready by now.”

The choir was not ready at all. Sepia had decided that they should wear their white robes tonight, and had assembled them in one of the maids’ rooms. Moth the mole, whose two little daughters were in the choir, had come to help. Hope’s sister Mopple and Needle’s brother Scufflen led the choir into the maids’room, and Sepia stared in astonishment.

“Captain Padra said they should have a wash when they’d finished sliding,” said Scufflen. “So they did.”

The little choristers lined up to be given their robes. The hedgehogs simply looked a little soft about the spines, and the moles, freshly washed and dried in the breeze, were not quite as smooth as usual. The otters looked gently fluffy. But the young squirrels had frothed out until they looked like auburn thistledown. Their curved red tails were twice their normal size and three times as big as their bodies, and the smallest of them were almost spherical.

“Sweet!” said Moth. A small boy squirrel glared up at her. “Not you,” she added quickly.

“Please, Sepia,” said a little girl squirrel called Daisy, “we got very messy so we had a really good wash and we ran around in the sun to get dry and it was windy and we got all footed.”

“Footed, Daisy?” repeated Sepia.

“Our tails went foofy,” said the little squirrel. “And I can’t get my robe on.” Molted hairs lifted above her as Sepia wriggled the robe over her head and settled it on the soft fur. It seemed to float over her.

“It’s like dressing a cloud,” said Moth. “A little squirrel-red cloud.” Daisy, her large eyes wide above the white robe, slipped a claw into her mouth and gazed up at Sepia.

“I want Brother Fir to have a present,” said Sepia, and looked around quickly. “Excuse me.” She ran down the wall, picked a few stems of pink sea thrift, ran back up again, and took Daisy by the paw.

“First,” she said, “Daisy and I are going to take these flowers to Brother Fir, as a present from us all. Then we go to the battlements and sing.”

Fir was, as Sepia had hoped, awake. Daisy pattered on clawtips to put the flowers into his paw, and curtsied. For a moment she stood, the candlelight shining softly on her fur, and her claw slipping into her mouth—then she turned and ran back to take Sepia’s paw.

Brother Fir smiled. Sepia, seeing the wise love in those eyes, thought she had never in her life seen so beautiful a smile. The sight of that tiny squirrel, robed and fluffed with sea thrift in her paws, would be one of Fir’s last sights on Mistmantle.

And this would be the last sound. She led the choir to the battlements, took a few deep breaths because she couldn’t sing if she wanted to cry, raised her paw, and gave them their first note. As they sang, it seemed that the air shivered.

At sunrise, Brother Fir died quietly in his sleep. Crispin and Cedar went to kneel at the bedside where he lay. Animals went about their work quietly with thanksgiving and sorrow. Hope went to find Thripple, and they clung to each other, not needing to speak. Juniper put on his priest’s tunic, went down to the Chamber of Candles, and prayed.

He had crossed the sea. He had made friends and faced the secrets of his past. He had even, in the last few days, seen one of Mistmantle’s darkest times. Now it was time to be not just Fir’s assistant priest, but
the
priest of Mistmantle. The thought of never looking into those deep, wise eyes again was heavy. He thanked the Heart for his friends, but knew that, in the future, he must face depths and darknesses that not even Urchin could understand.

He laid his heart before the Heart. What else could he do?

None of the choirs sang at Fir’s funeral, but only Sepia, singing the lament for a priest. On the golden summer evening animals gathered on the shore, watching the procession leave the tower and cross the sand to where Juniper stood, the waves lapping at his hind paws as he stood by the long, sleek Parting Boat waiting empty, on the ebb tide, moored in place by four ropes held by otters. A fire had been kindled as near as could be to the water’s edge.

Brother Fir’s body lay dressed in the tunic Needle had made for him long ago, the pink sea thrift in his paws. He looked as if he slept as they carried him—the king and all three captains—across the sand to the boat, escorted by moles. The queen followed, and the Circle animals, Sepia and Hope, who had cared for him, and Corr the otter, because Fir had so enjoyed his company at the end.

Fingal slipped from the procession to the Spring Gate and appeared with Urchin close behind them. They had talked about this earlier that day.

“You don’t have to go,” Fingal had said. “Fir would understand.”

“I do have to,” Urchin had answered. “It’s as much for Juniper as for Fir.” And Fingal hadn’t tried to talk him out of it, but only offered to prop him up, so Urchin had stood at a distance with Fingal, resenting his own weakness as he leaned on his sword and saw animals dab at their eyes. He was growing fitter and stronger every day, but he longed to be fully well again.

Sepia’s song was carried away on the breeze. Gulls cried. The withered body was lowered lovingly into the small boat and covered with a white sheet, and Juniper raised his paw.

“Dear Brother Fir, servant of the Heart and of the island,” he cried, “may your heart fly to the Heart that made you. We honor you with our fire, lament you with our songs, and lift you on our hearts. Be joy. Be peace. Be love. Be free!”

He took a brand from the fire and held it high, the flames leaping and trailing smoke. As he placed it on the boat, the otters released the ropes. In bright flames and lapping water, Brother Fir’s body drifted away toward the mists. Urchin remembered the first evening he had spent in Fir’s turret, and closed his eyes.

Cedar was the only one who noticed Crispin suddenly shudder. She glanced swiftly at him, wondering what was the matter—then she looked away, knowing that he would not want anyone else to notice.

Crispin closed his eyes and opened them again. For a moment it had seemed as if he had been following Brother Fir into the mists. It had lasted for only seconds, but it had been so real that he was surprised to find himself on the firm sand of the shore. It was as if he were being called away.

He understood, and wondered how long he had left.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

HE NEXT MORNING
, animals gathered in the Throne Room. The king and queen were there, the three captains, and Needle, Juniper, Mother Huggen, and Urchin, who still needed help to get up the stairs. Urchin’s left arm was still bandaged, but Cedar had carefully washed the blood from his fur and the bracelet. They talked briefly of crops, supplies, and repairs.

Finally Crispin said, “I think all of us in this room have worked it out now. Corr found the raven ship because he’d swum under the mists without realizing it. He may have been swimming under the mists and back all his life without knowing what he was doing. Fir’s prophecies came true in him. For the first time in many, many generations—and I find it breathtaking that it’s happened in our lifetime—the island has a Voyager, an animal who can come and go freely through the mists. The Heart alone knows where his adventures will take him.”

“It’s amazing!” said Juniper. “It’s like the past coming alive.”

“I assume that we don’t want the whole island to know,” said Padra. “Not while he’s so young. Everyone would be goggle-eyed at him.”

“We should definitely keep it quiet,” said Crispin. “Catkin finds it hard enough to be singled out as a princess. Needle, if little Myrtle draws a circular boat in her Threadings, deal with it discreetly.”

“Certainly, Your Majesty,” said Needle.

“Oh, and if anyone can’t call the Threadings Code to mind,” said Crispin with a quick teasing smile, deliberately not looking at Urchin, “a circular boat is the sign of a Voyager. A circle comes back to its beginning, and a Voyager always comes back to Mistmantle. The other question is whether Corr himself should know who he is.”

“There were prophecies about me,” said Urchin, “but I didn’t know about them until I was a bit older than Corr is now. I think it’s probably better that way. If I’d known, I would have felt I had to live up to them.”

“Or tried to fulfill them,” said Juniper. “That could have been catastrophic.”

“He’s to stay here as a tower animal,” said Crispin. “We can keep an eye on him and tell him his true nature as soon as he’s ready. Urchin, train him as a page, will you?”

“Why me?” cried Urchin, and added, “Your Majesty.”

“Because it’s an order,” said Crispin, and grinned. “I’ve told him to report to your chamber.”

When the meeting was over, Crispin closed his eyes against the pain in his old wound and relived the morning long ago, the morning after a night of riding stars, when he had stood in the waves at the water’s edge with Fir behind him, scooping up something that looked like a starfish. In that moment, he had held the future of Mistmantle in his two paws.