The Song of the Winns

by Frances Watts

  The voice grew closer, still shouting, and Alice could make out the distinctive rhythm of boots marching in time.

  “It’s a Sourian patrol,” she breathed.

  “Left, left, left, right, left . . .”

  Then the boots were on the bridge, clip-clopping on the wooden boards, and she heard someone mutter in an undertone, “What’s that disgusting smell?”

  She held her breath until she heard a voice reply, “It must be the river. Eeeuw! I’ve heard a lot of bad things about Gerander, but I never expected the rivers to stink.”

  “No surprise really,” said the mouse who had first commented.

  “I suppose,” said the second.

  And then they were gone.

  When the clatter of heels had faded, Alice and Alex walked into the river and hastily washed the manure off their fur. Then they crossed the bridge and set off down the road, which followed the course of the stream, walking briskly, but not so briskly that they were in danger of catching up with the patrol.

  Finally, Alice was able to share some of the thoughts and fears that had been occupying her mind since they had overheard Sophia and the others in General Ashwover’s office.

  “Alex,” she said, “did you hear what Sophia was saying about the ginger brat with the scarf ? That must be Alistair!”

  “I don’t know,” said Alex. “Maybe they were talking about another ginger mouse with a scarf. Why would Alistair be an heir of Cornolius and not us?” He had clearly been doing some thinking too. “And I should think I’d know if I was an heir of Cornolius.”

  “Maybe we are,” Alice said slowly. “Remember how Lester talked to Sophia about settling old scores? And then, when she saw us under the desk, she didn’t seem all that surprised. It’s as if we were already on her mind. And Lester—remember all those questions he asked about our father and about Tornley? It’s like he suspected we weren’t who we said we were and he was trying to trap us. But why should he suspect us?”

  “Which leads us to the most important question,” Alex said. “Who’s the traitor? Who’s Songbird?”

  They walked on and on, the stream burbling away beside them, speculating as to Songbird’s identity, but not getting anywhere.

  “The only thing we know for sure,” said Alice finally, the realization yawning before her like a dark abyss, “is that Songbird knows a lot about FIG’s operations.”

  “We know one other thing,” Alex reminded her. “We know that the Sourians have a hostage. It must be that mouse I saw in the dungeon.”

  Alice put a hand to her mouth. “You’re right!” She stopped. “Maybe we should have tried to rescue him?”

  Alex grabbed her arm to hurry her along. “Keep walking, sis. We’ve lost our chance.” His voice was somber. “There’s no way we can get back into the palace now. And you’ve forgotten something: we need to get back to Stetson as quick as we can. We have to let FIG know that someone called Keaters has set a trap for Alistair and that Zanzibar is in danger—before it’s too late.”

  They picked up their pace as the road swept around to the left, then ended at an intersection with a larger road.

  “I know this road,” Alice said when she had glanced left and right. “It’s the one we walked along the night we first arrived in Gerander. That hill in the distance there, away to the left, that’s where Captain Scorpio’s camp is. If we turn right, it’ll take us almost all the way to the field where Claudia let us off.” She looked over her shoulder to where the sun was creeping toward the horizon. “I just hope we make it there by sunset.”

  “Let’s pick up the pace then,” said her brother, and they began to run, passing golden fields, some newly shorn and dotted with haystacks and others screened from the road with cypress trees.

  “I think the field where we’re meeting Claudia is just up ahead,” Alice panted. “The silhouette of those cypresses looks familiar.”

  They were almost to it when, in the distance, they saw a block of red coming toward them.

  “It’s another patrol,” said Alex with a weary groan. As they darted off the road and into the nearest field he urged, “Into that haystack, sis.” And they dived in.

  The hay poked at Alice’s arms and legs, making her itch, and she wriggled in discomfort.

  “Keep still,” Alex hissed. He was peering at the road, and Alice shifted forward till she too had a clear view.

  The patrol was getting closer, and Alice’s heart almost stopped when she realized that the guards were actually searching the haystacks. Had they been seen? She watched in horror as a guard suddenly plunged his spear into a neighboring haystack. “Alex, look!”

  “Uh-oh! This way,” said Alex, and the two of them backed out of the haystack—right into a pair of Queen’s Guards.

  “Ha!” the first guard crowed. “I told the sergeant I saw a couple of mice running for the haystacks.”

  “Didn’t think we were smart enough to look on both sides of them, eh?” said the other.

  “Papers,” the first one demanded, holding out a hand.

  “We, er, we don’t have any,” said Alex.

  “Don’t have any papers?” The guard smiled, showing a row of pointed teeth. “Then you are in a sticky situation, aren’t you?” He called over his shoulder, “Sergeant! Over here, sir.”

  The rest of the patrol rounded the haystack, and now Alice and Alex were surrounded by six red-coated guards, each holding a spear in a threatening pose.

  “They were backing out of this haystack, and they don’t have any papers,” said the sharp-toothed guard. “They’re in a lot of trouble, aren’t they, Sergeant?”

  “I’ll say they are,” said the sergeant. “Who are you, and what are you up to?”

  “We’re . . . we’re. . .” Alex stopped.

  As the guards drew closer, looking ever more menacing, Alice did the only thing that occurred to her: she burst into tears.

  The guards looked taken aback.

  “Stop that,” the sergeant ordered, but Alice didn’t.

  “It’s all my fault,” she sobbed. “We’re orphans, you see, and we were sent from Souris to work in the palace. . . .”

  Through her tear-filled eyes she saw that most of the guards had lowered their spears.

  “But L-l-lester . . . ,” she hiccoughed.

  “Yes?” said the sergeant, leaning forward. “Lester?”

  “Lester was so mean that we . . . that we . . . ran away,” Alice finished with a wail.

  The sergeant straightened. “Ha,” she said. “Don’t talk to me about Lester. I was posted to the palace for a year, and I found myself hoping that a Gerandan spy would sneak in and assassinate him.”

  “Please don’t send us back there,” Alex begged, putting an arm around Alice’s shoulder as she continued to whimper. “We just want to go home to our grandparents in Tornley.”

  The sergeant tilted her head to one side to study them for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. As far as I’m concerned, we never saw you.”

  “But we’ll have to put it in the report, Sergeant,” said the mouse with the sharp teeth.

  “Put what in the report, Ringbark?” asked the sergeant.

  “About the two mice that we found hiding in the haystack,” said Ringbark.

  “What two mice?” said the sergeant, tipping a wink at Alice and Alex, who crept silently backward until they were hidden in the haystack once more. The other guards were trying to stifle their laughter.

  “Those two mice!” shouted Ringbark in frustration, turning to point at the spot where Alice and Alex had stood.

  As Alice and Alex pushed their way through the other side of the haystack and took off down the road, they could hear the roars of laughter of the patrol.

  When at last they pelted between the trees at the edge of the field where they would rendezvous with Claudia in the balloon, Alice turned toward the west and caught the glint of the sun above the trees.

  “We’ve made it!” said Alice, and Alex punched the air with
his fist. “Yes! Stetson here we come!”

  Then there was a movement in front of them, and another kind of glint. With a sickening sense of dread, Alice recognized the silvery gray mouse who stepped out from behind a slender trunk, recognized the silvery glint of metal from the knife in her hand. Sophia.

  Alice looked around wildly, thinking to turn back, only to see a coal-black figure with a mournful expression step out of the shadows behind them. It was Horace.

  “I wouldn’t bother running,” Sophia said. “I think you’ll find Queen’s Guards treat FIG spies with rather less sympathy than Sourian orphans. My bag, please, Horace dear.”

  Horace hurried over, carrying Sophia’s large bag. Still holding the knife, and with her gaze fixed firmly on her two captives, Sophia fished in her bag and produced a coil of rope.

  “Tie them up, will you, dear?” she said to Horace.

  “You won’t get away with—” Alex began, as Horace wound the rope around his wrists, but Sophia interrupted him.

  “Please spare me the clichés,” she said with a yawn. “I’m really not interested in anything you have to say.” She peered into the depths of her bag and produced two lace handkerchiefs with the letter S embroidered in one corner.

  She shoved one into Alice’s mouth, the other into Alex’s.

  “You know, Horace dear, what I really don’t like about these two—and there are many, many things,” she added, looking at her captives with distaste, “is the amount of extra work they cause us. Now I suppose we’ll have to go all the way back to the palace with them. What a bore. Unless . . .” Her expression brightened and she asked, “Horace, I don’t suppose you remembered to pack my magic carpet, did you?”

  “Your magic . . . ?” Horace cast an anxious glance at the bag. “I’m sorry, Sophia, I . . .” Horace stopped. “That was a joke, wasn’t it?” he said gloomily. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

  Sophia laughed delightedly. “There, there, Horace. I’m only teasing. You couldn’t possibly believe that I own a magic carpet!”

  Alice knew how Horace felt. She didn’t believe in magic carpets herself, yet she wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find out that Sophia had one.

  “It would be handy to fly, though,” the silvery mouse said thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose you two know where we could find a hot-air balloon?”

  It was as if the silvery mouse was a mind reader, Alice thought in dismay. Or . . . as if she knew about their rendezvous. But how could she? And then Alice remembered: Songbird. The traitorous Songbird who was revealing all FIG’s secrets to the Sourians must have told Sophia and Horace about the hot-air balloon, which would land in the field at sunset.

  Almost as soon as she’d had the thought a big blue shape appeared over the trees. Oh no! Go back, Claudia. Alice put all her energy into the thought, willing the pilot to turn around lest she be caught too.

  Sophia looked up. “Now I wonder who this could be?”

  Alice watched mutely as the unsuspecting pilot worked the rope to let hot air out of the valve and the balloon began to descend. Down, down, down . . . and she saw that the pilot didn’t have the tan-spotted fur of Claudia. No, this pilot was white. And with a sudden jolt she recognized him: the pilot was Solomon Honker! They were saved!

  She turned to look at her brother, widening her eyes and raising her eyebrows to indicate her relief. If anyone could take on Sophia and Horace it was Solomon Honker.

  The balloon bumped along the ground and came to a stop a few meters away. Solomon Honker switched off the burner and climbed out of the basket as the balloon slowly began to deflate.

  As he walked toward them, Alice thought he looked different somehow. He wasn’t wearing a bow tie, for one thing, and he didn’t have either the cantankerous expression of their teacher or the friendly demeanor he’d had when they saw him in the cafeteria. If anything, he seemed more like the serious mouse who had bid them farewell in Stetson. But when he spoke, his manner was decidedly jaunty, and his words stunned Alice with the force of an electric shock.

  “Anyone need a lift to Grouch?”

  21

  Back to the Source

  Alistair! Oh, I’m so happy you’re okay.”

  Alistair climbed out of the boat and waded through the shallows onto the shore where Tibby Rose was waiting impatiently.

  “You were gone so long and I thought—” She didn’t finish her sentence, but threw her arms around him. “I just couldn’t bear it if anything had happened to you.” Then she took a step backward. “But, Alistair, where are your parents?”

  Alistair felt as if the sand he was standing on was about to cave in. Since the moment he had discovered Keaters in the corner of the cell, his focus had been on escape—escape from the cell, escape from Atticus Island. He hadn’t thought ahead to this moment, when he would be standing on a beach, having returned from Atticus Island . . . without his parents. He opened his mouth to speak—then found he couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come.

  “Alistair?” Tibby’s voice was quieter now, her eyes filled with concern.

  “They . . . they . . . they weren’t there,” he croaked finally, his words barely carrying over the pounding of the surf. Suddenly he was aware of a chill breeze ruffling his salt-encrusted fur, and he began to tremble with the cold. “Th-th-they . . . they weren’t there, Tibby.” And now his voice was cracking.

  He felt a warm, solid hand on his shoulder and looked up into the sympathetic gaze of Feast Thompson. “They weren’t there, Feast. They weren’t there!” He was trembling violently now, his body so racked with shivers he could barely stand. The crashing waves, the wind, the sand beneath his feet all seemed to recede.

  As if from a great distance he heard Slippers Pink say, “Feast, quick, catch him. I think he’s going into shock.”

  He wanted to assure them that he was okay, but he felt so far away from his legs, his voice, that he didn’t know how. And then a black fog engulfed his brain and he was falling.

  When he opened his eyes he was lying beside a crackling fire, staring at the shadows of flames as they flickered on a wall of rock. He lay quietly for a few moments, taking in the scene. Tibby was sitting next to him, a book in her hands, his scarf stretched across her knees. The colors glowed in the firelight, and Alistair knew she must have washed it. On the other side of the fire, Slippers Pink and Feast Thompson were talking in low voices.

  “Good book?” Alistair rasped.

  Tibby glanced down and saw his open eyes and smiled.

  “Great book,” she said, slamming it shut.

  He sat up, swaying for a moment as a wave of dizziness washed over him.

  “Where are we?”

  The hum of conversation from Slippers and Feast had stopped, and his voice sounded uncommonly loud, echoing in the stone chamber.

  “Hey there, stranger,” said Slippers softly. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m okay,” said Alistair, though it wasn’t exactly true. He felt numb, like all the emotion had been wrung out of him leaving him dry and empty.

  “We’re back in the tunnel,” Feast told him.

  “Feast carried you all the way,” Tibby chimed in. “While you two were on Atticus Island, we did a bit of exploring, and we found a path through the scrub that meant we could get back to the tunnel without having to go through the town.”

  “After you fainted, we decided we’d better make a hasty exit from the beach in case Keaters and his friend had a rendezvous planned with the Queen’s Guards,” Slippers explained.

  Alistair nodded. It made sense. Keaters was working for the Sourians, after all.

  “So what do we do now?” asked Tibby.

  “We have to go to the Cranken Alps,” Alistair broke in. “To the prison there. That’s where my parents are now, Keaters said.”

  “Alistair,” Slippers said in a reasonable tone, “we can’t go to the Crankens. It’s too dangerous.”

  “But we have to rescue them,” Alistair protested. “That
’s our mission.”

  “Our mission was to find the secret paths and rescue Emmeline and Rebus from Atticus Island,” Slippers corrected him. “We’ve found the secret paths and we’ve been to Atticus Island.”

  “But my parents . . .” Alistair could hear how his voice was rising, and struggled to control it. “Tibby and I have crossed the Crankens before,” he said. “We can do it again.”

  “But you were lucky, Alistair,” Slippers pointed out. “You only had to traverse a couple of valleys. The prison is deep in the mountains, and none of us is equipped for that.”

  “Nor are we equipped to take on a whole garrison of Queen’s Guards,” Feast added.

  “Besides,” Slippers continued, “we don’t even know if Emmeline and Rebus are there.”

  “Keaters said they were,” Alistair argued.

  “Keaters is not exactly renowned for his honesty,” Feast observed drily.

  “But if they’re not there,” Alistair began, then stopped. If his parents weren’t in prison in the Crankens, where were they? He had been told they were alive and in prison on Atticus Island. If they weren’t really in prison on Atticus Island, did that mean . . . ? He swallowed as his mind followed the sentence through to its logical conclusion. Did that mean they weren’t really alive?

  Shoulders slumped, he stared into the fire as Slippers said, “We walked into an elaborately constructed trap. The question is, how did Keaters know we were coming?”

  “There’s that leak Tobias was talking about.” Feast sighed heavily. “If even Timmy the Winns can be caught. . .”

  Alistair slumped further at the reminder of Timmy the Winns.

  “We have to face the fact that no FIG operation will be safe until that leak is plugged,” Slippers said. She stood up. “We have to go back to Stetson and tell Tobias what happened,” she decided. “Until we know who the traitor is, it’s just too risky to continue.”

  “And if the traitor is in Stetson?” Feast asked.

  Slippers shuddered. “That’s just too dreadful to contemplate.”

  Alistair shuddered too. Alex, Alice, and his aunt and uncle—possibly all the family he had left—were in Stetson. He got to his feet. “Let’s hurry,” he said.