The Song of the Winns

by Frances Watts

  They walked up and down the main street, which was wider than the rest and ended abruptly at a neat walled harbor. On the harbor’s edge was a tavern, and from here came the only noise in the silent town. The flurry of red shapes within suggested that this was why they hadn’t yet encountered a Sourian patrol: all the Queen’s Guards were in the tavern. Alistair couldn’t blame them for wanting to get out of the driving rain.

  They hastily retraced their steps up the main street, noting the number of small alleyways leading off it.

  “I don’t know how we’re going to find William Mackerel,” Slippers fretted. “We can’t exactly go knocking on every door in town asking for him—the Queen’s Guards would hear about it in no time.” She glanced back down the street toward the tavern. “Did Althea say anything about her cousin that might help us to identify him?”

  “She said he was crazy about pigeons,” Alistair offered.

  “Unless there’s a flock of pigeons circling his house I can’t see how that’s going to help,” said Slippers Pink. “But it’s something I suppose.”

  And so they slipped up and down the narrow streets, keeping their heads beneath the level of the windowsills and their bodies pressed against the damp stone walls.

  It was Tibby Rose who spotted the door knocker in the shape of a pigeon, and soon they were all peering through the window at a lone mouse mending a net by the fire.

  “What do you think, Feast?” Slippers asked.

  “One way to find out,” said Feast. “Let’s chance it.”

  Slippers lifted the pigeon-shaped knocker and rapped three times on the door.

  Alistair watched through the window as the mouse by the fire looked up in surprise, appeared to hesitate, then put down his needle and twine.

  The door was opened by a mouse as tall as Feast Thompson, though thinner and considerably older. He had wiry copper fur and a dour expression.

  “What d’ye want?” he asked gruffly.

  “We’re looking for William Mackerel,” Slippers Pink said.

  “Why d’ye want him for?” said the copper mouse.

  “Are you William Mackerel?” Slippers countered.

  “Mebbe I be, mebbe not. Depends who’re doing the askin’.”

  Slippers hesitated, and Alistair could tell she was reluctant to give the fisherman their names.

  The coppery mouse snorted and began to shut the door.

  “Your cousin from the east sent us,” Slippers said quickly.

  “My cousin?” the fisherman repeated, and though his expression was as dour as ever, the door stayed open. “Which cousin?”

  “Althea.”

  “Cousin Althea sent you, did she?” He sighed. “Aye, I be William Mackerel, though folk calls us Billy Mac. Ye’d better come in.” Billy Mac glanced up and down the street, then ushered them inside.

  Alistair, his fur soaked through to the bone and his sodden scarf weighing heavily around his neck, looked longingly at the blazing fire, but Billy Mac didn’t invite them to sit by the hearth.

  “Ye’ll have to stand here by the door,” he told them. “If anyone sees you through the window theys be asking questions. If I draws the curtain theys be asking questions too. There be a lot o’ curious folk in Cobb.”

  Over the fire a pot was bubbling merrily and the air was rich with the aroma of fish soup. Feast Thompson sniffed the air appreciatively, but Billy Mac didn’t offer them a bowl.

  “Delicious-smelling fish soup,” Feast ventured.

  “Fish soup?” growled Billy Mac. “Dunno what yer talking about.”

  “The soup in that pot.” Feast pointed.

  “In that pot? No fish in that pot. I gives all me catch to the Queen’s Guards. That must be mushrooms you can smell. No law against gathering mushrooms as far as I know.” He glared at Feast Thompson fiercely, as if daring the other mouse to contradict him. “Now what be your business with Billy Mac?”

  “We don’t wish to intrude,” Slippers began.

  Billy Mac grunted as if to suggest they already had.

  “We’re looking for a way to get to Atticus Island.”

  “Atticus Island?” Billy Mac laughed scornfully. “Ye come here and disturb me supper—of perfectly legal mushroom soup—to ask me how to get to Atticus Island? I can tell ye this: the surest way to Atticus Island is to be asking questions like how to get to Atticus Island. I should think ye’d best be off before we all end up there.” He raised his hands in a shooing motion.

  “Please, Billy Mac,” Alistair said. “My parents are prisoners there and—”

  Billy Mac shut his eyes and shook his head. “Why me?” he grumbled to himself. “Just a poor fisherman trying to mend me net.”

  Tibby Rose, Alistair noticed, was paying little attention to the conversation, but was studying the little parlor with bright, inquisitive eyes. It looked as much like a workshop as a parlor. The net Billy Mac had been mending was slung over a towel rack by the fire, and a thick needle was stuck into a ball of twine that rested on a stool alongside. Pots of paint were stacked unsteadily in one corner, and coils of rope were scattered among mooring buoys and crab pots. Amid all this clutter were a big comfy armchair and a dainty occasional table on which stood a collection of pigeons: ceramic pigeons and a porcelain plate with a pigeon painted on it, even salt and pepper shakers in the shapes of pigeons.

  “You collect pigeons?” Alistair asked when he noticed the copper mouse glaring in his direction.

  “And what be wrong with that? I had a pigeon for a friend once, and a better friend I never had. If I want a few keepsakes to remember him by what business be it of yours?”

  “None at all,” said Slippers Pink. “One of my best friends is an owl.” A look of anxiety flashed across her face, which she quickly masked, and Alistair knew she was remembering Oswald and the eagles. But Billy Mac was looking at her with a more kindly expression.

  “An owl innit half the bird a pigeon is, but mebbe yours is an exception,” he allowed. “What’s its name, yer friend?”

  “Oswald,” said Slippers.

  “Me pigeon friend was Bert. A beautiful speckled feller, he was. Until. . .” Billy Mac’s coppery face creased and his voice broke. “Until them Sourians got their hands on him.” He turned to gaze out the window at the dark street. “They thought he was carrying messages, you see. But Bert—he was never inter politics. I’m not saying he didn’t hate the Sourians, mind.” The expression on Billy Mac’s face was dark. “But Bert just wanted to live a quiet life. We had that in common.”

  Billy Mac shifted his gaze back to his unexpected visitors. “But now Althea has sent yer to me, and I suppose I have to help yer. She was very good to me when Bert died, was Cousin Althea.”

  “You could start by telling us what you know of Atticus Island,” Slippers suggested.

  “Dunno if you can call it an island really,” said Billy Mac, rubbing at the coppery fur on his chin. “At high tide most of it disappears. As for the prison, she’s nobbut one tower on a cliff.”

  “Could we sail across there and land in secret, do you think?”

  Billy Mac’s mouth turned down at the corners in reply. “Only one safe place to land a boat, and that’s on the far side of the island. But with the Sourians coming and going . . .” He let the sentence trail off, then added, “And there be lots o’ comings an’ goings o’ late.”

  “But surely you locals know of some way to get to the island that the Sourians don’t know about,” Slippers said persuasively.

  “I may’ve heard tell of a way,” Billy Mac said cautiously. “Folks say there’s an underwater tunnel. Least there’s a song they sings hereabouts.” He cleared his throat then began to sing self-consciously in a rough, quavery voice:

  “It’s one way in and no way out,

  When the tide turns roundabout.

  Enter where the third rock cleaves,

  But once you’re in you’ll never leaves.”

  “Never leaves ?” echoed Slippers, clearly hor
rified. “This underwater tunnel, it is safe, isn’t it?”

  “Dunno. Never swum it, have I?”

  “Why not?”

  Billy Mac looked at Slippers as if she was daft. “Why not? More like why would I. There’s nowt I want on Atticus Island. But it could be that bit’s just to scare the little ’uns. Other Bill who lives up the street reckons how he swum it as a boy. Reckons the never leaves bit is just to say that you can’t leave by the same tunnel ye swims in by.”

  “So how do you leave?” asked Feast Thompson.

  Billy gave a grim smile. “There be no song ’bout that.”

  “But Other Bill got off the island, didn’t he?”

  “Aye,” Billy Mac conceded. “But could be the place weren’t overrun by Queen’s Guards in those days. He’s older’n the cliffs themselves is Other Bill.”

  “We can worry about getting off the island after we’ve got on,” Slippers decided. “But it’s very important we get there. Do you know this place, where the third rock cleaves?”

  “Reckon I know it well enough.”

  “Would you take us there?”

  “If you be wanting to swim the tunnel, it’ll be three days afore the tide runs right for it.”

  “We have to wait three days?” Alistair protested.

  “Three days,” the fisherman repeated. “And if ye think you’re gunna stand here in me entrance hall for three days, ye’ve got rocks in yer head. Ye’ll have to find someplace else.”

  “Do you know somewhere we can stay?”

  Billy Mac barked a laugh. “I s’pose there be no point directin’ you to the inn since they’re hardly likely to give a room to four mice with no names, eh?”

  Slippers smiled briefly but said nothing.

  “There be a cave,” Billy Mac said at last. “You could bide there a time, I reckon.”

  Slippers’s smile grew warmer. “Thank you, Billy Mac,” she said. “Now if you could just tell us where the cave is we’ll leave you in peace.”

  Billy Mac sighed. “There’ll be no peace for Billy Mac if you go blundering through town telling everyone ye know me, will there?”

  “We’re not going to—”

  Billy Mac raised a hand against Slippers Pink’s protestation.

  “I’ll just have to show ye meself.” He stumped around the small parlor-cum-workroom, pulling on galoshes and rummaging through a pile of canvas until he found a fisherman’s cap.

  “Excuse me, Billy Mac,” said Tibby Rose. “Would you be able to spare some nylon twine?” She pointed to the reel sitting on the stool.

  “Spare some twine?” Billy Mac hooted in disbelief. “A poor fisherman like me can scarcely spare the time o’ day and you want me to spare some twine?” Then, at Tibby’s chastened expression, he muttered, “I might have another ball o’ the stuff around here.” He fished around in a crab pot full of odds and ends, finally dislodging the twine Tibby had asked for. Tibby crammed it into her rucksack.

  “Now let’s get ye shifted to that cave. Me mushroom soup won’t wait forever.”

  “Does it ever stop raining?” Slippers wanted to know as he opened the front door a crack and peered out.

  Billy Mac looked at the sky in surprise. “Rain? This innit rain. This be a fine summer’s eve. Just a wee bit overcast is all.”

  And gesturing to them to follow, he stepped out onto the rain-slick street.

  14

  The Palace

  Alice had thought the cathedral was big, but the palace dwarfed it. She counted ten sets of double doors across the front, with a second story that had at least twenty pairs of long windows. A third story was set across the middle portion of the building like a crown. It wasn’t as richly decorated as the cathedral—it was imposing rather than ornate—but when the sun came out from behind a cloud the drab stone gradually began to glow gold, the many windows glittering like stars, and the severe facade softened.

  Two Queen’s Guards stood sentry on either side of a pair of elaborate wrought-iron gates tipped with gold.

  “Here goes.” Alex took the letter of introduction from Alice’s hand and stepped forward, holding out the piece of paper, and addressed the sentries confidently. “Hello. My name is Raz and this is my sister, Rita, and we’ve come from Souris to work in the palace.”

  The shorter of the sentries took the letter, scanned it quickly, then handed it to her taller companion. “They’ll be needing to see Lester.”

  The taller sentry made a face, then said, “Are you sure it’s my turn?”

  “Yep,” said the first emphatically. “You’d better get that spot off your coat.” She pointed to a speck on the tall sentry’s red coat, which he hastily brushed away.

  “All right,” he said with a sigh. “Let’s get on with it.”

  He turned and marched ahead of Alice and Alex across an expanse of gravel to the palace steps, passing between statues of an imperious-looking mouse in royal robes. Alice noted that while the bases of the statues looked stained and weathered, the statues themselves were gleaming white, as if new statues had been put on old pedestals.

  “Who’s Lester?” Alex asked the sentry’s red-coated back innocently.

  “He’s General Ashwover’s right-hand mouse,” the sentry explained. “He looks after the running of the palace. And disciplining the troops.” He nervously brushed the spot on his coat where the speck had been.

  They stepped into a cavernous entrance hall. Purple and silver banners were draped from fluted marble columns, the silver sparkling in the light of dozens of enormous crystal chandeliers. The floor was a dazzling mosaic of tiny tiles in jewel-like colors, and the walls were painted with giant frescoes showing mice draped in togas plucking grapes from vines and dancing in flower-strewn gardens.

  Immediately before them a wide marble staircase swept up, branching away to the left and right, but rather than climb the staircase they turned left down a corridor near the foot of the steps. After the grandeur of the entrance hall, this corridor seemed rather shabby and narrow, Alice thought as they walked past a dozen nondescript doors—all shut—before turning right, then right again. Then they climbed a set of stairs, and weaved through several more corridors.

  “It’s like a maze,” Alex observed. “How do you keep from getting lost?”

  “You need to have a good sense of direction around here,” said the sentry, tapping his temple with his forefinger. “Plus, I’ve got one of them photographic memories.”

  They descended some stairs, and came to a halt in front of an inconspicuous wooden door. The sentry tapped on it then, at the occupant’s command, opened the door.

  A tiny mouse with neatly combed gray fur and enormous pearl earrings looked up from her desk with an impatient expression.

  “Who are you?” asked the sentry in obvious astonishment.

  “I am the Undersecretary Assisting the Head of Floral Arrangements in the Department for Banquets,” she replied loftily. “Who are you?”

  “Er, nobody,” said the sentry. “Wrong office.” He backed out of the room and closed the door behind him.

  He stood scratching his head for a moment, muttering, “Left then right then right then stairs then—hang on, did I go up when I should have gone down? That must be it.”

  He set off again, striding along corridors and around corners, up a grand stone staircase and down a shabby wooden one, finally arriving at a door that looked rather like the last one. The sentry knocked, waited, then pushed Alice and Alex ahead of him into the room. “Sir,” he began, then stopped. A dozen mice were sitting around a long table, watching a coffee-colored mouse with an enormous nose who was scrawling something on a whiteboard.

  The coffee-colored mouse turned at the interruption and glared down his enormous nose. “This meeting is classified top-secret,” he barked. “Who are you? Do you have security clearance?”

  The sentry seemed to wilt under his gaze. “I’m . . . I’m . . . sorry,” he gasped, then fled the room and took off down the corridor so fast
Alice and Alex had to run to keep up.

  They cantered up two flights of stairs and zigzagged wildly along corridors—some of them, Alice was sure, they had already been down more than once.

  The sentry was breathing raggedly and Alice and Alex were panting when a sharp voice rang out behind them.

  “Wooster! Why have you abandoned your post?”

  All three mice turned to see a mouse in a white jacket and black boots. His smooth black fur had a sheen like an oil slick.

  “Lester!” the sentry cried, almost weeping with relief. “I mean, good morning, sir.” He bent his head deferentially.

  “Well?” demanded Lester. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was coming to see you, sir. These two just showed up at the gate with a letter saying they are to work here.”

  “Showed up at the gate, eh?” Lester turned his beady black eyes on Alice and Alex. “Where is this letter?”

  The sentry handed it over. Alice watched with her heart pounding as Lester read the letter once, then a second time. Why wasn’t he saying anything? Could he tell it was a fake?

  “Very well,” he said finally. “Wooster, you may—” He stopped. “Wooster,” he said slowly, “did you polish your boots this morning?”

  “Y-yes, sir,” stammered the sentry.

  “Then why, I wonder, does your left boot have a heel print on it?”

  Wooster gazed down at his boot. “But, sir,” he said, “there’s no—”

  Lester lifted one big black boot then brought it down hard on the sentry’s left toe.

  Wooster’s eyes went very wide and he opened his mouth as if to scream, but no sound came out.

  “I’m . . . sorry. . . sir,” he gasped at last. “It . . . won’t . . . happen . . . again.”

  “See that it doesn’t,” Lester snapped. “Dismissed.”

  Wooster gave a brisk nod, then staggered off down the corridor.