The Song of the Winns

by Frances Watts

  Keaters’s bright eyes followed the movement, then met Alistair’s gaze with an understanding smile. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but before he could speak they heard a screech of metal, as if somewhere else in the building a door was swinging open.

  The two mice exchanged looks.

  “Do you think it’s the guards?” Alistair whispered hoarsely.

  The black mouse, with an expression of panic on his face, gave a curt nod. “They must be doing their rounds. I just hope . . .” The black mouse swallowed. “I hope they won’t beat me again.”

  “Beat you?” Alistair’s mouth was so dry he could barely choke the words out.

  Keaters inclined his head. “It’s their idea of fun,” he whispered, a tremor in his voice.

  Alistair glanced wildly around the cell, looking for a place to hide. “There must be a way out of here,” he said, trying to suppress the whimper rising in his throat.

  “I’m sure if there was, Emmeline and Rebus would have found it,” Keaters said, but he rose from the cot and moved to stand beside Alistair. His gaze roamed the cell, moving from the solid door to the high window, into the shadowy corners then back to the window and door. Suddenly he narrowed his eyes and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Is it just me, or do the bars up there”—he pointed to the small window in the wall—“look different from the bars down here?” He pointed now to the bars set in the door’s opening.

  Alistair squinted. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I don’t think—”

  “There is a difference,” said Keaters firmly. “I’m sure of it.” He pointed to the window again. “Those bars are rustier than the bars in the door. And do you know what that means? It means they’re weaker. . . .”

  Alistair, who was beginning to see what Keaters was driving at, felt a small flower of hope bloom inside him. “But how would we get up there?” he asked.

  The black mouse turned to face him, his eyes shining. “Determination,” he said.

  Alistair would have preferred a ladder, but if determination was all they had, he was more than willing to give his share. After all, what did they have to lose?

  The two mice contemplated the wall, looking for possible handholds, but there were none.

  “Typical Sourians,” muttered Keaters darkly. “Everything has to be neat and square. There’s not a single bump or crevice in the whole wall.”

  “But aren’t you Sourian?” asked Alistair.

  “What?” Keaters looked at him in surprise.

  “You said you joined FIG with Slippers Pink,” Alistair pointed out. “She told me that she joined when she was at university in Grouch.”

  “That’s right,” said Keaters. “I suppose I am Sourian—by birth. The fact is, I’ve been working for FIG for so long that I really feel more Gerandan.”

  “I’ve been Gerandan my whole life without even knowing it,” said Alistair.

  “Sometimes,” Keaters said solemnly, “I think the world would be a better place if we didn’t think in terms of Gerandan or Sourian or Shetlocker. What’s the difference between any of us, really? We’re all mice.”

  “That sounds like something my Uncle Ebenezer would say,” Alistair said wistfully, thinking of his stout, cheerful uncle. How upset he would be to learn that instead of rescuing his parents, Alistair had wound up being the third member of the family to be captured.

  “Ebenezer?” said Keaters delightedly. “Rebus’s brother? Rebus used to tell us the most hilarious stories about their escapades when they were lads. It sounds like Rebus got Ebenezer out of all kinds of scrapes.”

  “No,” Alistair corrected him. “It was the other way—” Then he stopped. Ebenezer’s stories had always sounded rather far-fetched. Who knew how much he had exaggerated? “Anyway,” he kicked at the wall with his foot, “I don’t think we’re going to be able to scale this.”

  Keaters turned his attention back to the wall. “I don’t suppose so.”

  Alistair could tell that he was losing confidence.

  “Maybe if I gave you a boost?” he suggested.

  Keaters shook his head. “Too high,” he said briefly. The black mouse’s whiskers were drooping now.

  Alistair cast desperately about the cell. If only there was something of use, but there was nothing. Nothing except the cot. The cot . . . with metal slats . . .

  “Keaters,” said Alistair excitedly, “what if we lifted the cot so it was leaning against the wall? The slats would be like a ladder.” It seemed to him like the kind of clever idea that Tibby Rose might have come up with.

  Keaters turned from the cot to the window then back again, measuring with his eyes. “It might work,” he said. He sounded cautious, but Alistair could see hope flaring in his eyes once more. “Let’s try it.”

  They stood one at each end of the cot, then on the count of three heaved together. It was much heavier than Alistair had imagined, and they were only able to inch it over in slow stages. They were both breathing heavily by the time they had got it into position. Alistair was disappointed to see that it didn’t reach the high window.

  “It won’t work,” he said gloomily.

  “Let’s not give up so easily,” said his cellmate. “Come on!” And with Alistair close behind, the small black mouse nimbly climbed the slats to perch on top of the cot.

  “Looks rather different from up here, doesn’t it?” remarked Keaters. “That window’s a way off still, but perhaps not impossible. Now how about that boost you offered me?”

  Bracing himself against the cool stone wall for support, Alistair cupped his hands together. Keaters stepped onto the makeshift stair, and stretched.

  “Almost . . . ,” the black mouse gasped. “But not . . . quite . . .”

  Alistair lowered his hands so that Keaters could step back onto the top of the cot.

  “I was so close,” said Keaters, holding his hands about shoulder-width apart. “There has to be a way.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. “Alistair, what if I stood on your shoulders?”

  “Sure,” said Alistair. “If you think it would work.”

  He squatted so that the older mouse could step onto his shoulders, then slowly began to rise. His leg muscles screamed with pain as he moved to a standing position, his hands scraping against the stone of the wall as he scrabbled for balance, his shoulders feeling like they were about to buckle.

  “I don’t know how long . . . ,” he began breathlessly, but was interrupted by Keaters’s crow of triumph.

  “I’ve got it! I can reach the bars!”

  The weight on Alistair’s shoulders suddenly eased, and he looked up to see his cellmate hauling himself up onto a narrow window ledge.

  “Hooray!” Alistair cried.

  He watched anxiously as Keaters began to test the bars, rattling one after the other. But one after the other they held firm. Alistair was barely breathing now. They’d come so close. He’d really thought . . .

  “This one’s moving!” Keaters called. He was grasping the second last bar. Alistair held his breath as Keaters grunted and gave an almighty push. “Almost . . . almost . . . yes!” The bar broke clean through, and the black mouse hastily bent both ends out to create a gap. His head disappeared as he thrust it out, then reappeared again a few seconds later.

  “It’s a long way down,” he reported. “But I reckon we could jump. What does it matter if we get a few bruises? We’d be free!” He thrust his head through the gap once more and inhaled loudly. “Free air,” he murmured. “Lovely.” Looking down at Alistair again he said, “Right, let’s get you up here.” He kneeled down and extended his hand.

  Alistair stood on tiptoes and reached up, but he was nowhere near Keaters’s proffered hand.

  “Stretch,” Keaters urged.

  “I am stretching,” Alistair said in frustration. “I can’t reach. What are we going to do?”

  “I suppose I could jump down and then try to get back into the tower to let you out,” Keaters suggested.

&nbs
p; “But what if you can’t get back in?” Alistair asked. “Please don’t leave me here alone.”

  “No, you’re right, it’s too risky,” Keaters agreed. “Besides, we’re in this together. ‘All for one and one for all,’ right?”

  “Right,” said Alistair, smiling weakly as he recognized the quote from The Three Musketeers, one of his favorite books, which he had lent to Tibby Rose. He thought of his friend, waiting on the beach with Feast Thompson for Alistair and Slippers Pink to return. Of course, they were expecting them to return with Emmeline and Rebus. Now it looked as though he wouldn’t be returning at all. He only hoped Slippers had managed to escape somehow. His gloomy thoughts were cut short by a cry from Keaters.

  “I’ve got it!” said the black mouse. “Throw me your scarf, and I’ll use it to pull you up.”

  Yes! He was saved after all! Alistair hastily began to unknot his scarf, but as he held the precious map in his hands, feeling the unaccustomed sensation of cool air on his neck, he hesitated.

  “Quick,” Keaters urged. “Throw it to me. The guards will be coming ’round with dinner soon.”

  Still, Alistair hesitated. He wanted to throw the scarf, wanted to escape this miserable cell, but something was holding him back. Keep it safe, and never lose it, his mother had said when she gave him the scarf. Keep it safe. . . . Now that he knew how valuable the scarf was, not just because it was a memento from his mother but because of the secret knowledge it contained, it was more important than ever to keep it safe. And how well did he know Keaters really? Tobias’s source had said that Emmeline and Rebus shared this cell, but there had been no mention of Keaters. Now Keaters was here and his parents were not. Then again, Keaters knew all about Alistair and his brother and sister, knew about Rebus and Ebenezer’s boyhood adventures. How could he have known if not from Emmeline and Rebus? And he even knew Slippers Pink—they had joined FIG together.

  “Throw it,” Keaters repeated impatiently.

  Alistair stood clutching his scarf, racked with indecision.

  Suddenly he heard a key scraping in the lock of the cell door.

  “It’s the guards!” Keaters yelped. “If they catch us like this we’ve had it. It’s now or never, Alistair. Throw me the scarf or I’m going without you.”

  Trembling with fear, Alistair quickly balled up the scarf and prepared to throw it, just as the cell door burst open.

  18

  Settling Old Scores

  When Alice and Alex reached the kitchen, Cook was banging pots and pans around on the stove with even more force than usual.

  Alex seemed nonplussed by the scowl on Cook’s face, and Alice took advantage of his silence to ask, “Is something wrong, Cook?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s wrong,” snapped Cook. She gave the onions sizzling in butter in a large frying pan a brisk stir then cracked an egg into a bowl and snatched up a whisk. “General Fancy-pants wants a six-course dinner for some visiting mucky-mucks. ‘And mind you make it a special dinner, Cook,’” she said, imitating the general’s high voice. “‘My guests have very discerning palates.’” Cook dropped the whisk, picked up a small knife, and with a flick of her wrist expertly minced a clove of garlic. “Meanwhile, it’s four o’clock already, the general will have a fit if his tea tray isn’t in his office when he returns, those potatoes won’t peel themselves”—she inclined her head toward a teetering mound of potatoes on the large kitchen table—“and them fish won’t bone themselves”—she waved her elbow in the direction of a bucket of fish on the draining board—“and my useless kitchen hand is in bed with the measles. That’s what’s wrong, girlie.”

  “We’ll deliver the tea tray for you, then come back and peel the potatoes,” Alex offered. His bad mood seemed to have vanished.

  “You will?” Cook looked as surprised as Alice felt. “Well . . . all right then.” She swept the garlic into the pan with the onions and gestured to a large silver tray on which was placed a plate with an assortment of cookies and cupcakes, three porcelain teacups on small saucers, three silver spoons, a silver sugar bowl, and a small jug of milk. “You can take that one, boyo, and girlie, you take the teapot. And mind you hurry back.”

  Alex carefully picked up the tea tray and Alice the silver teapot etched with a flower motif, and they headed for the stairs.

  “What did you do that for?” Alice demanded as the kitchen door swung shut behind them. “I don’t want to go anywhere near General Ashwover’s office.”

  “Yes, you do,” Alex contradicted her. “Think about it, sis: from what Cook said, the general isn’t in his office at the moment—which gives us a great opportunity to snoop around. Maybe we’ll find out something important that we can report back to FIG. All we’ve learned so far is how to shovel manure.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Alice conceded. “But let’s be quick about it. We don’t want to end up in the dungeon.” She felt a chill as she thought of that lonely young mouse Alex had described.

  They kept their mouths shut and their heads down as they reached the main hall. Sentries armed with spears were posted at every door and on each side of the giant staircase.

  “What are you doing here?” asked one of the red-coated guards suspiciously. “I thought you worked outside with Fiercely.” He looked pointedly at Alex’s muddy feet.

  “Cook said we were to deliver the general’s tea tray to his office,” Alex told him. “Kitchen hand is sick.”

  The guard sniffed at the tea tray appreciatively. “Wish she’d send a tea tray to me.” At a hiss from the sentry on the other side of the stairs he straightened and said brusquely, “Second floor.”

  Up the wide crimson-carpeted staircase they scampered to the second floor. There they encountered two more sentries, each guarding a long corridor.

  “Tea tray for General Ashwover,” Alex said.

  The guard to their right indicated over his shoulder with the point of his spear. “Last door on the left,” he said.

  The corridor was lined with portraits of mice in heroic poses: one stood on the prow of a ship in a stormy sea; another had his foot on the head of a slain dragon. But as they got closer to the end of the corridor, the portraits were all of Queen Eugenia: standing, sitting, singing, speechifying and, in one, stamping her royal foot.

  “Guess who’s the president of the Queen Eugenia fan club,” said Alex.

  He tapped lightly on the last door to the left and, when there was no response, led the way into the general’s office.

  The room was dominated by a large mahogany desk, which faced the door. Light flooded in from the two windows behind the desk, framed with brocade curtains. A door was discreetly set into the wall to the left of the desk, while to the right was the largest portrait of the Queen they had seen yet, in which, standing beside her in a blue jacket bristling with medals and lavishly trimmed in gold braid, was General Ashwover himself.

  “Shut the door behind you, sis,” Alex instructed.

  “Okay, but we have to be quick,” Alice urged again. “The guards know we’re in here.”

  Alex had deposited his tray on the desk and was already rummaging through the drawers.

  “This one’s just full of paperclips and rubber bands,” he said. He slid it shut and pulled open a lower drawer.

  Alice carefully placed the teapot beside the tray and started flicking through the pile of papers on the general’s desk. “Ah, this is more like it,” she said. “Alex, look at this—it’s an order requesting a thousand more troops be sent from Souris to Gerander.” But before she could speculate on the significance of the order, she heard voices in the corridor.

  “Alex, someone’s coming,” she whispered.

  “Quick,” said Alex. “Under the desk.”

  They had barely slipped out of sight when the door opened. Peeping out from their hiding place, Alice saw the furry gray legs of the general stride into the room.

  “Oh good,” he said, “the tea tray is already here. And I see Cook has made my favorite cu
pcakes with passionfruit frosting.”

  He moved toward the tray, revealing the legs of his two visitors. One pair of legs was silvery gray, the other coal black.

  Alice started so violently she banged her head on the underside of the desk.

  She heard a soft “Ouch” and knew that her brother must have banged his head too. Her heart racing, she turned to look at her brother. She could just make out his eyes gleaming in the shadows. “It couldn’t be,” he breathed, just as a voice said sweetly, “But, General, dear, will a thousand more troops be enough to subdue the Gerandan rebels once and for all?”

  Alice and her brother knew that sweet voice all too well: it was Sophia, and those coal-black legs no doubt belonged to Horace.

  This was confirmed when a familiar gloomy voice asked querulously, “Why don’t those rebels just go home and let us get on with it?”

  “This is their home, Horace,” Sophia reminded him. “At least it was. But soon,” she added, with obvious satisfaction, “it will be our home—and dear Queen Eugenia’s. But surely we will need more than a thousand troops, General?”

  Alice’s mouth dropped open. Her home? And Queen Eugenia’s home? What on earth did she mean?

  “No, no, you misunderstand, Sophia,” the general was saying as he rounded the desk and dropped into his chair. “One thousand troops is merely an advance party. We will have at least five thousand to accompany Her Majesty when she journeys from Grouch to Cornoliana. By the time she declares Cornoliana the new capital, and herself the Queen of Greater Gerander, we will also have several thousand more troops amassed at the border of Gerander and Shetlock, and the entire Sourian navy ranged off the Shetlock coast. Then we will give President Shabbles of Shetlock a choice: Shetlock can reunite with the kingdom of Greater Gerander voluntarily—or we will take his country by force.” There was a scraping sound as the general pulled the tea tray across the desk to sit in front of him.

  “It sounds like an excellent plan, dear General,” Sophia said approvingly.

  “Thank you,” said the general modestly, his voice muffled by a cupcake. “Her Majesty was gracious enough to say that she, too, thought it a fine plan. I was thinking of suggesting that we rename the capital Eugeniana in her honor.”