Cold sweat broke on him. The air was foul and clammy, and the darkness so thick that he seemed to breathe it in. His paws squelched. Keep listening. If he turned back, he might never get out—and what if he went on? What if Husk caught him? There was nobody to hear him cry out. Nobody down here except himself and a murderer. With nausea and terror, his stomach tightened.
Oh, Heart keep me, he prayed desperately. Oh, please, Heart hear me. If he ever did get out, he told himself, it would make an exciting story to tell Needle. He must ignore the dark, the smell, and the cold, and only listen, taking the next step and the next. He shut his eyes—it made no difference to what he could see—and sharpened his hearing.
A door squeaked. Opening his eyes, he thought he saw the gleam of white fur on a squirrel’s chest. Then the door creaked again, and it had gone.
A waft of chill, foul air made him press his paws over his mouth, but with it was something far worse. It was horror. Something evil was reaching for him, creeping on the air from that door, now rushing at him with festering decay and all the cruelty of hatred. Then he heard a sound that chilled him through every nerve, even before he realized what it was.
It was a laugh with no laughter in it, more like a shriek of despair. Husk’s voice was barely recognizable, but he was laughing. Instead of joy there was cruelty, insanity, and evil in the laugh.
The hideous laughter stopped suddenly. There was muttering as if Husk were talking to himself, but Urchin couldn’t hear the words. His eyes staring wide, his ears upright, his coat bristling, he backed away. The sense of horror was too appalling. Just a few steps. Then something slippery under his paw made him lose his balance, and he stumbled, scrabbling wildly at the earthen wall. It made the softest noise, but in that place of desolation it sounded like thunder. He froze, terrified. He heard steps. Captain Husk had heard him.
For a second, Urchin couldn’t move—then he turned and fled, paws fully stretched, pelting wildly through unseen tunnels. A vague sense of direction told him that if he continued forward and upward, he should come out where he came in, at the back stairs beside the Gathering Chamber. He had to escape the darkness, the smell, and the suffocating evil before they caught him and trapped him forever. Somewhere, there must be light. There must be.
A faint taste of freshness on the air gave him hope. Get out, get out, get out, went the rhythm of his aching paws, pounding onward. His lungs hurt. The tunnel was cleaner, wider. Good. There was a flight of stairs. He could get out. The surface under his paws was firmer; he was on a floor that had been swept and cleaned. He must be in the main body of the tower by now. There should be guards around—but how could he explain himself?
It was still dark, but this was the normal, safe darkness of a chamber at night. From the distance he had run and the stairs he had climbed, he must be under the Gathering Chamber. Good. There would be a window. From there he could jump down, run to the Spring Gate, and find Padra.
A great gust of fresh air met him and he gulped it in thankfully. A window was open. He gathered himself together to jump.
But his guess had been wrong. He was one floor higher up than he thought. He jumped from a window beside the Gathering Chamber, with rocks beneath it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OSTLY, THE SQUIRRELS ON SWAN ISLE made Crispin long for Mistmantle. At first, they ignored him. Slowly they accepted him, when they found he was quick at gathering and storing nuts for the winter and had a clear memory for where they were hidden. The qualities that had made him a good captain—courage, understanding, quick thinking, swordsmanship—were useful to them. But they were a thoughtless, forgetful bunch who couldn’t attend to anything for more than a second or two, and Crispin yearned for real conversation, even with Apple.
The swans were still proud and distant and called him a tree-rat, but they valued him. And there was Whisper. He seemed to be truly himself when he was with her.
Whisper was different. Crispin was sure she didn’t belong on Swan Isle at all. She helped him to find his way around and learn who was who. She listened when he wanted to talk about Mistmantle, and understood when he didn’t. More and more he wanted to be with her, and more and more, he was.
It amazed Crispin that he could accept the life of a woodland squirrel, with no tower, no ceremonies, and none of his Mistmantle friends. When his heart cried out to go home, he reminded himself that if he had never left the island, he would never have met Whisper. He was learning to live away from Mistmantle. But the thing that still twisted his heart was knowing that on his own island, his name was the name of a disgraced traitor and murderer, and there was not a thing he could do about it. On a summer evening, thinking of home as he watched Whisper splashing her face in a stream, he said, “Is there anything in the world that you really want?”
It was unusual for her to be flustered, but at this moment she seemed quite at a loss for words. She suddenly concentrated very hard on combing a tangle out of her fur.
“You say first,” she said.
“If I could have one thing,” he said, “I’d go back to Mistmantle and clear my name. And,” he added, realizing that he didn’t want to go there alone, “I’d take you with me.”
“Oh!” she said, and bent her head farther over the tangle.
“Whisper of Mistmantle,” he said, and sat looking at her. “That’s what I’d like. I’d like you to be Whisper of Mistmantle.”
The tangle was out now, but she was still combing it.
“Now it’s your turn,” he said. “What do you want?”
Slowly, she rubbed her fur dry.
“Whisper of Mistmantle,” she said.
There was no priest on the island, so on a day of sunshine and sparkling water they made their promises to each other in the presence of the squirrels and Lord Arcneck. As a token of their marriage Crispin placed his gold circlet on Whisper’s head, where it gleamed in her fur like a crown. Now, Crispin thought, he would be content to stay here.
She wore the circlet always. As winter gripped the island with iron gray skies, the gold shone in Whisper’s fur. On a bitterly cold day, they were digging up nuts from the winter store when a cygnet came, half flapping, half running, toward them.
“Crispin!” it screeched. “Come now! Please!”
No swan had ever said “please” to him before. He drew his sword and, with Whisper following, ran.
The sky above the mere was gray with snow. Ice floated in the water. The younger swans had huddled together in the reeds and were making scared, hissing noises deep in their throats while a little farther out Lord Arcneck floated on the water and struggled to hold up his lady’s head. She was almost underwater. Only her beak and the top of her head still showed.
Something was pulling her under. Crispin took a deep breath, and jumped.
The freezing water was so sharp that only the need to keep his mouth tightly shut kept him from crying out. Through the murky green of the mere he saw the thick twine of water weed caught around the swan’s leg, dragging her under. In the bitter cold he needed both paws to draw his sword and swish it down, but the weed was too thick and strong to slice through.
His lungs were bursting. He kicked his way up to the surface and crouched on the bank, gasping with cold, his teeth chattering as Whisper hugged and chafed a little warmth back into him. The ripples he had made caused a wave that passed over the swan’s head, and snow had began to fall, whole flakes that melted into the water. Snow would make the water level rise. The sword would not help him, and he threw it aside.
There was something else he could try. He rubbed at his legs, which were cramping with cold; then, his ears ringing, he dived in again.
He could no longer feel his paws, but only two stinging stars of pain as he gripped the weed. He must bite once, and hard, into the sword cut he had made. After that, he would have to kick back up to the surface before the swing-back of the weed could break his neck or fling him spinning to the depths.
Chill, stale water rushed into h
is mouth. He bit hard. With a lurch, the weed broke; the swan lifted free. Waves rocked over the mere; Crispin lost his grip; and as his eyes closed, he no longer felt anything, even the cold.
CHAPTER TWELVE
E’S WAKING UP,” said a voice.
It was a kind voice, and Urchin found he was warm and lying on something soft. Even with his eyes shut—and it seemed too much of an effort to open them—he knew he was safe. He could hear voices, and recognized Padra’s. That was reassuring. Someone was tucking a blanket, around him. There was the crackling sound of a fire, and someone was singing very, very softly, like a lullaby. For a strange, confused moment it seemed to Urchin that his whole life had been a dream and he was now waking up to being newly born, with a mother and a place of safety. But as he became more fully awake he knew he was a page with a sharp pain in his shoulder and an ache in his left hind paw.
He knew something terrible had happened. It wasn’t long ago, but he couldn’t remember what it was.
A paw was slipped gently behind his head. There was a faint scent of fur and fish.
“Urchin?” said Padra. “Urchin, can you hear me?”
Urchin forced his eyes open, blinked a bit, and saw Padra looking gravely into his eyes. “Urchin, do you know who I am?”
“You’re Captain Padra,” whispered Urchin, and the effort made his eyes close again. But presently he found he could open them and keep them open, and focus on Padra’s watching face. Urchin was lying on a soft bed of moss, and Padra was asking him if he hurt anywhere.
“My shoulder, sir,” said Urchin. He tried to touch it, and winced. “And my left hind paw.”
“Better than I feared,” said Padra. “Can you tell me what happened at the tower yesterday?”
Urchin frowned. So many things had happened.
“In the Gathering Chamber?” said Padra.
Urchin thought for a moment. “Wedding, sir,” he said. “Husk and Aspen.”
“And what is the name of the captain who had to go into exile?”
He didn’t have to think about that one. “Crispin, sir,” he said.
“And what’s the name of your young hedgehog friend?”
“Needle, sir,” he said, wondering why Padra wanted to know.
“So your brain’s in one piece,” said Padra, and the anxiety left his face. “What happened to you?”
“Give him time, sir,” said a soft voice. “Don’t rush him. Heart love him, he doesn’t even know where he is.”
Urchin didn’t even know how awake he was. He raised himself carefully on his right side, and a small mole held a drink to his lips. He didn’t know what it was, but it warmed him and cleared his head. Awkwardly, with Padra supporting him, he sat up.
The room smelled of earth, but it was dry, pleasant, and warm. The light was comfortably dim, but from the spreading tree roots above him he could see he was underground. The crackling fire he had heard was blazing in a hearth, and beside it stood a wooden clotheshorse, where very small blankets were hung up to air. On the other side of the hearth, in a rocking chair, a hedgehog sang softly to a small bundle in her arms.
From somewhere to his left there came a thin cry, and the sound of gentle shushing. Urchin turned carefully, gritting his teeth against the pain in his shoulder as the mole maid left him and bustled over to a row of tiny nests all covered with blankets, and lifted something up. A pair of very small squirrel ears showed over her shoulder. Then he heard laughter, and saw a young hedgehog and a squirrel rough-and-tumbling in a corner.
“Quiet, you two!” said the mole.
“I’ll explain all this presently,” said Padra. “You first, Urchin. I want to know how you came to fall out of a window.”
“Is that what I did, sir?” asked Urchin. He told Padra all he could, but his memory was blurred and confused. He could recall most of the previous day. He knew the queen was dead. He’d had to find Husk—he had seen him and followed him down a tunnel—it seemed to be a long way down, but maybe that was only a dream. A very bad dream. Darkness, he remembered that. But it wasn’t just darkness. Something had frightened him so badly that he ran—he had kept running….
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “That’s all I remember.”
“Were you pushed?” asked Padra.
“I don’t think so, sir. I was just…just…”
He turned his head because he could not bear Padra’s kind, steady gaze. He could hardly whisper the words for shame.
“I was running away from something, sir. I’m sorry.”
“Sometimes, Urchin,” said Padra, “running away is absolutely the right thing to do. I don’t blame you, and you mustn’t blame yourself. What were you running away from?”
“I can’t remember,” said Urchin, and shut his eyes as he searched the depths in his memory. Darkness and damp. Husk was there. Something bad.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “It was pitch dark and foul, and I don’t know. But…” Grimacing against the pain, he heaved himself forward and whispered, “Husk was there.”
“You’re sure?” asked Padra.
“Yes, sir.” He thought hard. “Without his robe…” His eyes widened, and he struggled to sit up. “My cloak! Where is it?”
“Behind you,” said Padra. “Mother Huggen says she’ll wash it.”
“No!” cried Urchin. “Nobody is to touch it!”
“All right, Urchin, I won’t let them,” soothed Padra. “Go on with your story.”
Urchin tried again to concentrate. “I found a room with fresh air—I got away, I found a window…. Did I fall out?”
“You did, Urchin, but you survived,” said Padra, and his whiskers twitched in a smile. “You landed on something soft.”
“That was lucky!”
“Not for Apple,” said Padra. “Well, a combination of Apple and snow, really. She was underneath the window enjoying the snow, and heard a thud. That was you, bouncing off the wall. Next minute, you’d squashed her into a snowdrift. But she was delighted to have been useful, and she’s all right except for a few bruises. But you should rest again, now.”
“I’m sorry for the other things, too, sir,” said Urchin miserably. He may as well get the whole wretched thing over at once.
“What other things have you done?” Padra grinned.
“Just being untrainable, sir. I tried hard.”
“What?” said Padra.
It was too much. Urchin squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away.
“You told Granite I was a dead loss and untrainable, sir,” he said, and tried to keep the tears from his voice.
“Oh, Urchin, my brave young page, we can’t have this,” said Padra firmly. “You don’t think I meant that, do you? Do you want to know why I told Granite you were useless? Because Granite, now he’s a captain, wants a page—and more to the point, he wants you. If he asks Husk for you and Husk gets around the king, they’ll find some way of taking you out of my service and into his. Do you want that?”
“No, sir!”
“No, so I’m doing my best to put him off. And I advise you to look as dim and hopeless as possible when Granite’s around.”
“Shouldn’t be too difficult, sir,” said Urchin, and wondered why he’d ever doubted Padra.
“And now, about young Scufflen,” said Padra.
“I understand, sir,” said Urchin. “There was nothing you could do. But it wasn’t just any baby hedgehog, it was Scufflen, and Needle loved him.”
“Would you like to hold him?” asked Padra.
It didn’t make sense. I’m definitely not well, thought Urchin. I must have banged my head. But the hedgehog in the rocking chair stood up, still smiling down at the bundle in her arms. Not sure what was happening, or even whether he was properly awake, Urchin held out his paws. He looked down into the solemn, sleeping face of a baby hedgehog with milk around its mouth. It hiccupped.
It was a very small baby, wearing a tiny white robe that looked as if it had been made of scraps from the workroo
m floor. Lifting a corner of the blanket, Urchin saw the curled paw.
“Scufflen!” he whispered. The baby yawned enormously, showing a milky tongue.
“I’ll find him a nest now,” said the hedgehog, taking him back.
Urchin gazed at Padra with new admiration.
“You saved him!” he said.
Mother Huggen carried Scufflen to the nests. The mole was settling the baby squirrel to sleep, and another squirrel had joined the young ones playing on the floor. Urchin’s heart lifted and brightened.
“This,” said Padra, “is the most secret place on all the island. You didn’t know I was a nursemaid, did you?”
“Do you rescue them all, and bring them here?” asked Urchin eagerly. “All the babies to be culled?”
“Not all,” said Padra. “I can’t save them all. Husk gets to them quickly. And some of the frail ones don’t survive, but at least they’re well looked after while they do live. This morning I was about to send you to find Scufflen, but you’d already done it. You told Lugg where he was, so Lugg sneaked into Husk’s chamber through a mole hole, dragged the baby away, and brought him here. Can you guess what this place is?”
It was underground, in the roots. But it must be a very ancient tree, to have such complicated, spreading roots, and so strong. The ceiling was arched and vaulted with the stretching roots. The fireplace was wide and built in stone, with a mantelpiece, and in one wall was a sturdy wooden door.
“It can’t be the Old Palace!” cried Urchin, and gazed about. “It’s real, and I’m in it?”
“The ancient mole palace—yes, Urchin, it is,” said Padra. “Did you believe it existed?”
“I always hoped it did,” said Urchin.
“Most animals think it’s only a legend, and we let them go on thinking it,” said Padra. “Those of us who know aren’t allowed to tell anyone else where it is, or even that we know. There’s Mother Huggen here, and Moth the mole.” The mole maid waved a paw at Urchin. “She’s Lugg’s daughter. Arran knows, and Fir, of course. He’s allowed to pass the secret on, and he told Crispin and me years ago. Husk always suspected that we knew where it was, and I’m sure he’s tried to find it. When you’re recovered, I’ll teach you the routes to it. We bring the babies’ mothers here to see them, but they have to be blindfolded, and of course they keep everything secret.”
The Urchin of the Riding Stars Page 9
