The Deptford Mice 2: The Crystal Prison (10 page)

‘Clever mouselet. Akkikuyu knew mouselet could do it.’

Whistling a quick tune Kempe ambled up to them, balancing with perfect poise on the rope, his many goods not affecting him whatsoever.

‘Now follow me, fellow travellers,’ he said once he was on deck. They strode over the boards and between wooden benches to where a steep flight of wooden steps plunged darkly down into an invisible blackness.

‘Down here,’ called Kempe briskly jumping on to the first step.

Silently they all descended. Twit followed Kempe, then Arthur, and Audrey and Madame Akkikuyu brought up the rear.

Audrey tried to hurry down the steps as quickly as she could. Close above she could hear the rat’s claws clicking as they caught on the steps and Akkikuyu’s croaky muttering breaths. Once the fortune-teller’s tail brushed against Audrey’s face in the dark and the mouse cried out in alarm, nearly falling off the steps altogether.

‘Hush mouselet,’ the rat cooed, ‘only the tail of Akkikuyu – fright not.’

When they were all at the bottom of the steps Kempe lit a small candle and they looked around them.

It was a storage hold. Oil drums and tarpaulins surrounded them, thick black rope snaked across the floor and a stack of folded wooden chairs was piled precariously in one comer. It smelt strongly of the river and of stagnant, neglected pools.

‘This is where we bunk tonight,’ said Kempe brightly, as though he was used to much worse accommodation. ‘And tomorrow we’ll hide here under the tarpaulin out of the way – until we change boats.’

‘Change boats?’ repeated Arthur. ‘Why? Doesn’t this one take us to Twit’s field?’

‘Bless you laddie no. Whatever made you think it did? I’m sure I said. Never mind. No, three vessels will bear us on our way. That’s the joy of the traveller, hopping from boat to boat. Knowing which one goes where and when. Why, I know the sailing time of everything along the whole great stretch of Grand Daddy Thames, from the biggest ship to the smallest barge.’

They put their bags down and Kempe disentangled himself from his rattling goods. Without them he seemed a much smaller figure.

Madame Akkikuyu hugged her knees and muttered happily to herself.

Audrey did not like the hold: it was stuffy and more like a prison than anything she could imagine. The small flickering candle flame brought no cheer to the gloomy place and the rocking of the boat made her feel sick.

Arthur and Twit sat near Kempe, each lost in their own thoughts. The fieldmouse delved into his little bag and brought out his reed pipe. He put it to his lips and blew absent-mindedly. He was thinking of his home and wondering if it had changed in all the months he had been away.

Arthur listened wistfully to the slow, solemn notes from the pipe. He too was thinking of Twit’s home. What had Kempe called it – Fennywolde? Strange how Twit had never called it by that name before – it was always ‘my field’ or just simply ‘back home’. Arthur wondered what he and Audrey would find there.

The haunting music stopped and after a short while Twit’s little voice gurgled with pleasure. ‘Good old Thomas!’ he cried. He had remembered the little flask which the midshipmouse had given to him and pulled the cork out. The exotic smell of rum met his twitching nose.

Kempe was sorting through one of his bags, pulling out scraps of material and stuffing them back again. He hummed quietly to himself – it had been a busy week for the travelling mouse, deals had been made, a good bit of trading done down Tilbury way, and in Greenwich itself earlier that evening he had done a nice little deal with a Norwegian mouse from a ship docked near that old power station. Seven little wooden charms he had got in return for two spoons and a length of buttercup yellow satin. It was these small charms that Kempe was looking for – he was sure he had put them in this bag. Ah, yes – there they were. Kempe fished them out and examined them in the candlelight.

‘Oooh,’ admired Twit, ‘they’m pretty. Can I see ’em proper?’ Kempe inspected the fieldmouse’s paws for dirt, then, when he was satisfied, handed the little carvings to him one by one.

All were figures of mice delicately done in boxwood. Every detail was correct down to the suggestion of fur. There were running mice, old wise-looking mice, pretty damsel mice curtseying and dancing and an angry mouse with a sword in his paw.

‘They’re terrific,’ said Arthur peering over Twit’s shoulder.’

‘To be sure they’re right dandy little things,’ nodded Kempe. ‘Chap I traded with says he got them from a holy mouse what lived up in some mountain or other – not that I believed him like, probably knocked them up himself – but I took a fancy to ’em.’

‘I ain’t never seen so neat a bit o’ carvin’,’ said Twit, handing them back. ‘We never had nowt like that in my field.’

Kempe raised his eyebrows and shrugged. ‘In Fennywolde – I’m not a bit surprised. I never go there.’

‘Why not?’ asked Arthur.

‘Got chased out only time I did go,’ Kempe replied, shaking his head. ‘Some pious feller it was, babbling about frippery and vanity.’

‘What do you mean?’ pressed Arthur. ‘What’s wrong with what you sell?’

‘Why nothing! I have the finest selection on all the river. But you see – and begging your pardon youngster – ’ he said to Twit, ‘there are some in this world who think we come into it empty-handed and should leave that way, with no decoration or little luxury to cheer us along. And they don’t like those of us who deal in these indulgences.’

‘But I still don’t understand why,’ said Arthur confused. ‘What harm can your wares do?’

Kempe raised his hands in a gesture that showed he too had asked that question many times.

It was Twit who answered. Slowly he said, ‘Because they go against the design of the Green Mouse.’ He spoke the words as though he was repeating’ something he had heard many times.

‘Twit!’ exclaimed Arthur in surprise.

‘Staunch Green Mousers,’ put in Kempe darkly, ‘fanatics too busy livin’ in fear of the Almighty to enjoy His bounty.’

Arthur stared at the fieldmouse, ‘But you never said,’ he stammered. ‘I thought your field was a happy place.’

‘Oh it is,’ Twit assured him quickly. ‘Most of us don’t think and reckon things like that. It’s only a few what’s hot against ’owt different an’ such.’

‘Really?’ Arthur was slightly annoyed. ‘What do you think that few will make of Audrey with her bells and lace?’

‘Oh they won’t take to her,’ agreed Kempe. ‘Specially that pious feller what chased me – if he’s still there.’

‘Oh he be there all right,’ confirmed Twit glumly.

‘Old Isaac still goes into a fume and temper when it comes to the Green Mouse design.’

‘What do you make of this, Audrey?’ asked Arthur turning round. But his sister was not there – nor was Madame Akkikuyu.

The night breeze had made Audrey feel better. She hated being cooped up in that dreary, musty hold. She had left everyone engrossed and climbed the steps once more. Audrey leant against one of the railings along the deck and gazed up at the bright stars. The sloshing of the water and the motion of the boat lulled her senses and the rich green smell of the river was brought to her on the breeze. She closed her eyes and a calm descended on her.

‘Mouselet.’

Audrey jumped at the sound of that voice behind her. Akkikuyu had followed her from the hold. The rat’s black eyes were gleaming.

‘The night – she is beautiful. See the stars – how they burn.’ She raised her claws to the heavens and spun round. ‘Oh mouselet,’ she cried. ‘Finally we are together and we shall never be parted.’

Once more Audrey felt a wave of compassion flow over her. Madame Akkikuyu was really a creature to be pitied. Audrey decided that the Starwife must be right – all the rat’s wicked memories had indeed been forgotten. Madame Akkikuyu was little more than a harmless mouse child dressed in a rat’s skin.

From the other side of the river a dog howled, breaking the peace of the night.

Akkikuyu traced a wide circle in the air with her claws and drew her breath.

‘Wolf sees death and gives warning,’ she muttered.

Akkikuyu must not linger in dark places – listen to the wolf voice, “Beware,” he says, “old Mr Death walk near”. She pulled her spotted shawl tighter and kissed her dog-tooth pendant. Whatever else she may have forgotten, Akkikuyu’s instinctive belief in the supernatural remained.

Turning to Audrey the rat added, ‘Akkikuyu have many treasures, mouselet. Things she not understand, powders in pouches, leaf and herb in bundles, secret packets that do smell most strange and a terrible trophy of a kitty head.’ She frowned as she looked into the swirling water as if all her answers lay there. ‘What they all about? Why for Akkikuyu keep such grislys? Was she doctor to have bowl for pounding and mixing? A darkness is behind Akkikuyu – too black to see.’ Her voice trailed off as she sighed with regret.

On impulse Audrey said, ‘Don’t worry, leave the past alone – look to the future, Madame Akkikuyu. There will be answers enough for you there.’

‘Oh mousey, how good it is for you to be such a friend.’ The fortune-teller grabbed Audrey and because the mouse pitied her she did not struggle as the other hugged her tightly. Large rat tears ran down Audrey’s neck.

Arthur, Twit and Kempe peered over the top of the steps.

‘We’ve a tidy way to go before we get to Fennywolde,’ said the traveller slowly. ‘We had better keep an eye on that Madame there, bad business to be sure. You can wash a rat and comb a rat but it will still be a rat. You can’t trust ’em!’

‘We know that,’ said Arthur.

‘What I says is,’ continued Kempe, ‘nourish a rat and one day it will bite your head off. Just you watch her when you get to your field young laddie – rats is always trouble.’

It was much later that night when they had all bedded down in the hold that it really began.

The mice were sleeping soundly. Arthur’s soft snores rose and fell with a steady rhythm. Kempe twitched his whiskers as he dreamed of pearls and silks flowing through his trader paws. Twit, as always, was curled up in a circle, looking for all the world like an addition to Kempe’s wooden carvings. Audrey had untied her ribbon and her hair spread around her like a fine network of fairy webs.

Nearby, Akkikuyu grunted as she wandered through her own dark dreams. She was sprawled amongst her bags and sacks, and occasionally her face would screw itself up into an expression of pain and her tail would beat the tarpaulin with heavy, agitated smacks. She rolled over and over, shaking her great head and mumbling to herself.

From somewhere in her dreams a voice seemed to be calling to her: ‘Akkikuyu! Akkikuyu – are you there?’

In her sleep Madame Akkikuyu groaned aloud. ‘Yes I am here,’ she muttered, as if in answer to the unseen thing of her dreams. ‘What do you want? Who is it? Leave me alone.’

For the rest of the journey along the river the night was to become a time of dread for Madame Akkikuyu – a time when the nameless voice invaded her sleep to call her name unceasingly.

The sunlight spread across the growing corn and cast deep charcoal shadows under the elm trees. The field was a large one – a mass of green, rippling like the ocean as the wind played over its surface and murmuring with lovers’ whispers as the breeze sighed through it. The corn soaked up the sun, drank its gold and grew tall.

The field was bordered on one side by a deep ditch that fed a pool at the far end, where the hawthorn grew thick and impenetrable. But now the ditch was dry and the mud at the bottom was cracked and studded with sharp stones. Along the side grew the tall elms and one solitary yew, dark giants rearing high over the swaying grasses and stretching into the fierce blue.

To the left of the ditch was a meadow. Too small and difficult to plough, the meadow was rich in the glossy show of buttercups and flowering grasses. An enchanted scent hung over the place – a perfect blending of wild perfumes, so strong that you could almost taste them. Beyond the meadow was a great clump of oaks, fully in leaf, like green clouds come to rest on the earth.

This small land was what the fieldmice called ‘Fennywolde’ or ‘the land of Fenny’ – he being the first mouse to have lived there many years ago. It provided them with everything they needed: an abundant supply of corn, berries from the hawthorn, water from the pool and brambles for autumn brewing. In the winter the steep banks of the ditch provided excellent shelter, and there were numerous tunnels and passages under the roots of the elms, which had been dug a long time ago by venerable ancestors. Secret holes to hide from the bitter winds and escape the midwinter death, places to spend chill dark days and spacious halls to store supplies.

During the summer it was usual for the fieldmice to move out of their tunnels and take up residence in the field – to delight in climbing the tall stems and nibble the ripening corn. So far, however, the inhabitants of Fennywolde had remained in their winter quarters. Only during the day would they dare venture into the field and woe betide any mouse not safe in the tunnels at dusk. A terror was hunting in the night.

Alison sauntered through the meadow lazily. She was a beautiful country mouse; her strawberry blonde hair hung in two creamy pony tails behind her ears. Her fur, like the fur of all fieldmice, was reddish gold but Alison’s held a secret glint that dazzled when it caught the sun. She was a curvy young mouse maid with an impish pout and large brown eyes. Her skirt was of simple cotton stitched around with humble rustic embroidery. At her breast a mousebrass dangled – a sickle moon with a tiny brass bell – the sign of grace and beauty. And this was the trouble. Alison had received the charm a year ago and it had gone straight to her head.

She flirted with the boys, flicking back her hair and flashing her eyes at them, promising sweetness. They had all fallen for her: Todkin, Hodge, Young Whortle and even skinny Samuel had been victims of her careless, dangerous glances. Those slight tosses of her head and devastating grins had been practised and scrutinised in the mirror of the still pool where she spent most of her days preening and rehearsing her powers.

The warm afternoon, mingled with the dry rustle of the grasses, was a potent drug. Alison slumped on the ground, face upturned. The seeding grass heads bobbing overhead seemed to be bowing before her beauty. She fanned herself with a buttercup allowing its rich buttery aura to wrap around her.