Eulalia! (4 page)

Mullein twirled his moustache briskly, and stood both ears to attention, always an obvious sign of his displeasure. “Hmph! So that's why I'm not allowed to sally forth with the Long Patrol, sah, a confounded maid is the one for the blinkin' task, accordin' to your sources. Hah, I question the wisdom of a load of long-gone badger spirits. I mean, what possible use would one maid be in the midst of an invasion upon Redwall, eh, wot?”

The ancient badger patted his friend's paw. “Now, don't get your whiskers in an uproar, Mull, I'm bound to obey the voices of past mountain Lords. So, how do we choose this maid whom we must send to solve our problems? Any suggestions, Major?”

The discussion was interrupted by a series of urgent knocks upon the door. Mullein rattled his sabre hilt. “Yes, stop knockin' the bloomin' door down. Come in!”

It was Corporal Thwurl, a tall, droopy hare, with a mournful countenance. His nose was swollen, one ear was askew, and his left eye was a puffy slit. He saluted Mullein. “Major, sah, wish to report, sah, ruckus in the mess, sah, Assistant Cook's gone bonkers, sah!”

Lord Asheye rested his forehead against the windowsill, sighing wearily. “Not Mad Maudie again. Deal with it, would you, Major Mullein? No, wait, bring her up here. We'll see what she has to say for herself this time!”

When Corporal Thwurl left, Asheye and Mullein waited in stony silence for several moments. Then sounds of a tussle echoed up the stairway outside. Apparently it was the offender being brought to the forge room by four guards. She was very vocal.

“Yah, gerroff, you swoggle-toothed bounders! If I could jolly well get free I'd biff your snouts off! Just you wait, I'll poison your porridge, I'll sabotage your salad, I'll destroy your duff, I'll…I'll…wahoo!”

Stuffed into a floursack, which was fastened at her neck, the miscreant was hauled into the room and dumped upon the floor. There she struggled, coming out with more colourful oaths at all and sundry. Mullein drew his sabre, roaring.

“Silence, marm! Be still, ye fiend, cease that din!” He slashed downward, neatly severing the drawstring of the sack, and releasing the young haremaid. Lying flat on the floor, she wiggled her ears and threw the Major a salute. “Most kind, sah, thank ye!”

Mullein silenced her with a glare, turning to Thwurl. “What're the facts, Corporal, make your report.”

The droopy-faced Thwurl pawed tenderly at his nose. “There was complaints h'in the mess, Major, h'about the soup. It was too 'ot, sah, this h'assistant cook 'ad loaded it with red pepper, wild ransom, an' that 'otroot stuff, wot otters likes to h'eat.”

The assistant cook interrupted from her prone position. “Too hot, my auntie's pinny! Barley soup's as dull as blinkin' dishwater, it needed livenin' up!”

Lord Asheye growled out from his windowseat. “Silence, miss, stand up straight, to attention! Corporal Thwurl, carry on with your report, please!”

“Well, sah, h'I told 'er wot h'I thought of 'er soup, an' she struck me on the nose with 'er ladle, sah, then she went h'on to further h'assault me, an' several h'others, sah. We 'ad to subdue 'er by stuffin' 'er h'in a sack, sah. Whereupon she continued to shout h'insults at h'us, an'…”

Major Mullein waved Thwurl to silence. “Yes, yes, I get the general drift, Corporal. Assistant Cook, what have you to say for yourself, do you wish to refute the charges, wot?”

Assistant Cook Mad Maudie (the Hon.) Mugsberry Thropple fluttered her eyelashes endearingly at him. “Only to say, Major, that I'd do it all again if that puddenheaded oaf said nasty things about my soup, only next time I‘d punch him in his other eye, too, so there!”

Lord Asheye shook his great head sternly. “That's quite enough of that, miss. Corporal, you and the guard may leave now. Major Mullein and I will deal with this, thank you.”

When the escort had departed, the badger resumed his seat on the windowledge. He spread his big paws despairingly. “Maudie Thropple, what are we going to do with you, eh?”

Mad Maudie, as she was known to the mountain hares, shifted guiltily from one paw to the other, murmuring, “Really, I don't know, m'lord, what's anybeast goin' t'do with me, that's what my old pa used t'say.”

Major Mullein waggled his ears knowingly. “My old friend, rest his memory, Colonel Thropple. What a gallant and considerate creature he was. Don't you remember any of the lessons he taught you, Maudie?”

The young hare smiled brightly. “Oh indeed I do, sah, Pa taught me to box, an' I've been Regimental Champion of the Long Patrol for six seasons now!”

Mullein squinched his eye into a jaundiced stare at her. “We know that right enough, m'gel. You've also been on more charges than any other hare I can recall. You've served five terms in the guardhouse, and had three final warnings about your conduct, wot!”

Maudie stared at the floor. “Sorry, sah.”

The Major's tone hardened. “Sorry, is it? Well, let me tell you, missy, sorry's not good enough this time. You've tried the patience of everybeast on this mountain far too long, ain't that right, Lord Asheye, sah?”

The badger nodded. “Yes, it is, Major. Maudie, you leave us no alternative. It gives me no pleasure to drum you out of the Long Patrol. At dawn tomorrow you will leave Salamandastron!”

In the stunned silence which followed, Lord Asheye listened to the haremaid's tears splashing on the forge room floor. There was a loud sniff from Mullein, then he approached the Badger Lord and whispered in his ear.

“I say, sah, we've never drummed a hare from the jolly old regiment. Couldn't ye find some alternative for young Maudie? I've known her since she was a mite, the daughter of my old comrade Colonel Thropple. I used to bounce her on my lap when she was nought but a babe.”

The Badger Lord could not explain his next statement. The words tumbled unbidden from him. “I think there's a lot of good in you, Maudie Thropple, so in memory of your father's fine name, I'm going to give you one last chance. The Major and I have decided that you shall go on a most important mission. It will be both dangerous and demanding. Are you willing to go?”

Mad Maudie scrubbed the tears from her eyes with a floury paw. “Oh, rather, sah, say the bally word an' I'm off like a flippin' lark after a ladybird!”

Major Mullein was still registering surprise at Asheye as he spoke to the haremaid. “Right, off y'go, pack a light kit an' weapon, apologise to the Corporal and those others you biffed, then report back here for instructions.”

As the forge room door slammed shut, Mullein wheeled upon the Badger Lord. “What'n the name o' blue blazes made y'say that, sah?”

Asheye shrugged. “I don't know, Mull, but I think Mad Maudie's the one who'll get the job done. Don't you see yet? She's the maid who will fulfill my dream!”

Abbot Daucus was a brisk, energetic mouse in his mid-seasons. On this particular afternoon his energy was being sorely taxed, as he searched Redwall Abbey high and low, accompanied by Granspike Niblo, the plump, old hedgehog who was Abbey Beekeeper. Daucus paused at the foot of the attic stairs, waiting for Granspike to catch up with him. Both creatures, panting heavily, sat down together on the stairs. Daucus scratched at his scrubby, ginger-tinged beard.

“Well, marm, apart from these attics, that's the whole of the Abbey building we've been through, from the wine cellars to the dormitories. I don't think we've missed anything, have we?”

Granspike stared enquiringly at the Abbot. “The kitchen larders, he could've hid himself there?”

Daucus discounted the suggestion. “No, I searched them myself, whilst you were going through Cavern Hole. Confound that young Prink, where does he get to? More important, where do our goods and chattels go, where does he hide them?”

Granspike rose wearily, dusting her apron off. “Dearie me, Father Abbot, I was wrong an' you were right. We should never have taken Orkwil Prink into Redwall. Both his parents were a bad lot, ramblin' an' thievin' like wild-beasts. 'Tis true enough, what was said about 'em, a Prink'd steal the eyes out o' yore head if'n you didn't watch 'em. Four seasons of that rascal is more'n enough for any Abbey. Aye, an' Master Prink has sorely tried everybeast within Redwall. I think he's run out o' sympathy from all, includin' meself!”

Daucus patted the good hedgehog's spines carefully. “It's not our fault, Gran. We couldn't refuse a young 'un a roof over his head and food. It's his mother and father I blame, deserting him and running off like they did. Ah well, no use going over all that again, come on, let's go and take a look through the attics.”

He picked up the lantern they had brought along and began climbing the spiral staircase. They had ascended only a few steps, when a deep, rumbling voice echoed up to them from the lower dormitory floor.

“Bee's you'm up thurr, zurr h'Abbot, wull ee bestest cumm daown. Oi've founded ee likkle scallywagger!”

Daucus immediately recognised the caller, Foremole Burff, the leader of Redwall's quaintly spoken moles.

Granspike Niblo's voice went squeaky with relief. “Thankee, Mister Burff, we'll be right down!”

Foremole Burff was waiting on the dormitory landing. He tugged his snout respectfully. “Zurr, marm, you'm axcuse oi furr not coomin' up thurr, oi'm gurtly afeared o' tall places!”

Knowing the moles were soildiggers, and afraid of heights, Daucus smiled understandingly. “I'm not too fussy on them myself, Burff. Did I hear you say that you'd caught Orkwil? Where is he now?”

Foremole Burff pointed a hefty digging claw in a downward motion. “H'in ee gate'ouse, zurr, an' he'm gurtly well guarded, burr aye!”

As the trio trooped downstairs, Granspike shook her head. “In the gatehouse, I might've knowed it. Father Abbot, we should've searched from the outside and worked inward, ‘stead o' doin' it the other way about.”

Daucus heaved a long sigh. “Not to worry, the main thing is that young Prink has been caught.”

By the time they had reached ground level, and were crossing Great Hall, others were hastening to join them, everybeast speculating.

“Has he been apprehended, the villain?”

“Aye, Skipper's holding Orkwil in the gatehouse!”

“So that's where he was hiding?”

“No, they just took him there so he couldn't escape.”

“Well, where was his secret hiding place, d'you know?”

“No, but we'll soon find out, come on!”

Out the Abbey door they paraded, down the front steps onto the gravelled path between flower beds and lawns. A high sandstone outer wall ran foursquare around the Abbey grounds; it had a walkway on top, and battlements. Each section of the wall had a small wicker gate built into it, with the exception of the main threshold gate. This was the western ramparts, containing the big oaken main gate; it had a gatekeeper's lodge built against the wall. Either side of the gate, two flights of stone steps ran up to the threshold walkway. More Redwallers had congregated around the gatehouse area.

Abbot Daucus paused at the gatehouse door, surveying the crowd who were gathered there. He frowned. “Have you nothing else to do but hang about here? Friar Chondrus, no meals to prepare, Sister Atrata, no patients to attend in sickbay? Please disperse and go about your chores. The Elders and I can deal with this matter. You will all get your goods back, I assure you.”

A group of Dibbuns, Redwall's Abbeybabes, was seated on the bottom of the wallstairs. Daucus cautioned them, “I hope you little ones aren't thinking of climbing those steps to the walkway?”

A tiny squirrel named Dimp shook his head severely at the Father Abbot, answering for his companions. “We all be h'Elders, us goin' inna gate'ouse, an' 'ave a word wiv naughty Orkwilt!”

Granspike shooed them off with her apron waving. “Ho no yore not, liddle sir, time for you lot t'get washed up for dinner. Folura, Glingal, tend to these Dibbuns will ye.”

The two identical otter sisters began herding the Dibbuns to the Abbey pond. The babes squealed and ran off, in an attempt to escape. They stood little chance against the swift ottermaids. The Redwallers around the gatehouse had duly dispersed.

Daucus smiled approvingly at his companions. “Good. Shall we go in now?”

Orkwil Prink's usually sunny disposition had deserted him. He sat on the floor of the gatehouse with Rorc, Skipper of Otters, and Benjo Tipps, the big hedgehog who was Redwall's Cellar Keeper, standing either side of him. There was a rope tied about Orkwil's waist, each of his custodians held an end. Also in attendance were Fenn Bluepaw, the Abbey's squirrel Recorder, and an old watervole lady, Marja Dubbidge, Redwall's official Bellringer. The hubbub from outside had ceased, creating a silence inside the little gatehouse, which was heavy with foreboding. The young hedgehog's head drooped miserably, he stared at the floor, not daring to raise his eyes as the new arrivals entered.

Abbot Daucus pulled up a stool, and sat facing the miscreant, studying his demeanour, before turning to Benjo Tipps. “I understand from Granspike that he was discovered hiding in your cellars, is that correct?”

The stout Benjo tugged his headspikes respectfully. “Aye, Father Abbot, 'tis where he was. Though I don't know why I never knew it afore today. My ole eyes ain't all they was, an' my hearin' could be a lot better. Young rip! Must've been comin' an' goin' as he pleased, an' all without my knowin'.”

Daucus consulted Foremole Burff and Skipper Rorc. “So, Granspike says you found him hiding inside an old barrel, was any of his hoard there?”

Orkwil raised his eyes and spoke for the first time. “I never kept any of it in the barrel, sir, all's I had there was a few vittles, a lantern an' my notebook.”

Daucus made a gesture at the rope around Orkwil's waist. “Remove that thing, Skipper, I don't like it. He isn't going to run anywhere now. What's all this about a notebook, Orkwil, why did you need to keep a notebook?”

Fenn Bluepaw glared over her small spectacles at the young hedgehog. “So that's where my season songbook disappeared to! I bound it myself, specially, and I hadn't written a single song in it yet. You rogue, I wager you helped yourself to my best charcoal writing sticks, too. Rest assured I'll count them, when I get back to my study. I know exactly how many I had!”

The Abbot interrupted his Recorder. “Miz Bluepaw, this isn't getting us anywhere, kindly hold your peace. What was the notebook for, Orkwil?”

Freed of the rope halter, Orkwil felt better, some of his former easy manner returned. “Oh, the notebook, Father, that was to keep track of everything I borrowed….”

“Huh, borrowed?” Marja Dubbidge snorted. She was immediately silenced by a glare from the Abbot, who beckoned Orkwil to continue. The young hedgehog warmed to his subject.

“Aye, borrowed. I never meant to keep anything for good, after awhile I'd return it. Like your silver belt buckle, Foremole, sir.”

Foremole Burff wrinkled his velvety snout. “Boi okey, oi never h'even knowed et wurr stole'd, oi found it t'uther day, unner moi pillow!”

Orkwil spread his paws magnanimously. “You see, I give it all back, sooner or later. What I do is, when I borrow something I list it in my notebook. Then when I return it, I cross it off the list. Though one or two things I hold on to for a long time, because I like them so much. Sorry, Father.”

Daucus continued his interrogation. “And where, may I ask, are all these missing items, if they're not in your barrel?”

The young hedgehog twiddled his paws, grinning mischievously.

Skipper's rudderlike tail clipped Orkwil's ear. The big otter warned him with a growl, “Mind yore manners, Master Prink. Speak proper to the Abbot, an less o' yore gobbledygook!”

Granspike still had a soft spot for Orkwil. She tut-tutted at Skipper, and placed a paw about the young one's shoulders. “I think wot he means, Father Abbot, is that there's writin' in his book, tellin' us where t'find all the goods he took. Ain't that right, Orkwil?”

The grin reappeared on Orkwil's face, he nodded. “That's right, clever old Gran!”

The old hogwife suddenly snapped. She smacked him hard on the cheek, shouting, “Don't ye start gettin' smart with me, young hog! Clever ole Gran, indeed. Who was it found ye half-starved an' weepin' out in the woodlands, after yore no good ma'n'pa had run off on ye, eh? Who was it brought ye to Redwall an' begged to get ye taken in? An' this is all the thanks I gets for it!”

Orkwil broke down then, he sobbed and hugged Granspike. “Oh Gran, Gran, I'm sorry!”

She took his tearstained face in both paws. “Why, Orkwil, why? Wot made ye do it?”

Abbot Daucus passed him a kerchief. “Come on, young 'un, blubbering doesn't solve things. This isn't the first time you've been caught thieving. Now don't give me that injured look, you know as well as anybeast here, thieving is the only name for it. Sneaking away the property of good, honest Redwallers, and holding on to it for as long as you please. What other name is there for it? Why do you do it?”

Orkwil Prink shook his head in bewilderment. “I don't know, Father, whenever I see anything I like, well…well…I just have to have it, so I take it!”

Fenn Bluepaw was heard to mutter, “It's in his blood. From what I've heard his parents were both the same, shifty, feckless robbers!”

Skipper interrupted her. “Yore wrong, marm. Robbers are those who hurts others to take wot they wants. Orkwil never hurt nobeast.”

Marja Dubbidge was on Fenn's side, she argued back, “Mebbe he didn't beat us up t'get our goods, but he still hurted us. I was very hurted when he took my best knitted mittens. You did, didn't you?”

Orkwil nodded. “But I was going to give 'em back.”

The watervole pointed an accusing paw at him. “Then where are they, eh? Yore a nasty, young sneak thief!”

At this point, Abbot Daucus felt things had gone far enough. He stood up, kicking the stool aside and raising his voice. “Silence! This is not the way Redwallers are supposed to behave, stop all this bickering right now!” There were shamefaced murmurs of apology from some, then the peace was restored. Daucus waited until he had calmed down sufficiently to continue. “You will all receive your possessions again in good time. Orkwil, speak truly now. Is there anything you took which cannot be returned? Tell me.”

The young hedgehog shook his head slowly. “Not that I can think of, Father, only food from the kitchens, and some cider from Mister Benjo's cellar.”

Benjo Tipps recalled the two flagons of Special Pale Cider, which he had been storing for the Midsummer Feast. He bit his lip, and held the silence. Then Daucus put the question to them all.

“Orkwil Prink has admitted what he has done, it isn't the first time he's been caught stealing. We've never had any Redwaller thieving from his friends before. Now, what do you say we do about it? Other times I've put him to scouring pots in the kitchens, or confined him to the dormitory, but it seemed to have no effect on him. So I ask you, what is his punishment to be?”

There was a momentary pause, then Marja Dubbidge was heard to whisper to Fenn Bluepaw, “I'd send that young villain packin', away from our Abbey, 'tis all he deserves!”

Granspike Niblo uttered a strangled sob. “Oh no, don't say that, give 'im a chance!”

Foremole Burff spoke, contributing his sensible mole logic. “Oi'd send 'im aways from ee h'Abbey, but only furr wun season. May'aps 'twill teach ee young 'un a lessing.”

Abbot Daucus shook his mole friend's paw heartily. “Thank you, Burff, that's the ideal solution. Are we all agreed on that?”

Everybeast held up their paws, with the exception of two, Fenn and Marja. The Abbot stared levelly at them, Skipper and Benjo glared at the pair, Granspike gazed pleadingly at them. For a moment, nothing happened. Then bit by bit, the Recorder and the Bellringer raised their paws. The Abbot gave a beaming smile.