The other mouse, getting on a bit in nights by his gait, suddenly looked up and stared at Tinker.
‘Is that you?’ said the other mouse. ‘Is that my country cousin, Tinker?’
‘Pedlar?’ said Tinker, astonished. ‘I thought you were either lost or dead.’
‘I think I’ve been one and the other’s not that far behind.’
‘Well, after me, if you don’t mind,’ said Tinker. ‘I’m quite a bit older than you, after all.’
‘You’re welcome,’ said Pedlar. He looked around him with weary eyes. ‘Am I glad to be home!’
Tinker said excitedly, ‘Did you ever get to the House? Where have you been? What’s happened to you? There are stories and rumours of course – news travels along the Hedgerow – but who can believe them? I mean, they may have been spread by weasels. Come on, tell…’
‘Oh, I got to the House of tribes all right, and that’s a long story in itself. But the most astounding part was getting home, here to the Hedgerow, after I found the Promised House.’
‘The Promised House? Oh, Pedlar!’
‘It seems like another world now,’ said Pedlar. ‘You wouldn’t believe the encounters I’ve had. I’m lucky to be alive, lucky to be in one piece. I am in one piece, aren’t I?’ He looked down at himself.
Staring at his cousin, Tinker said, ‘You seem to be whole. A couple of bent whiskers. Can’t see any bits missing, except maybe the tip of your tail. What happened to that? You must tell me everything – every little detail. Start with the House of tribes – what was it like? Full of greasy nudniks?’
‘Let me get settled in. Let’s go down to my old nest…’
Tinker laughed. ‘Your old nest? That went long ago! A doe moved in, then a buck after her. Good grief, did you think we were going to leave your chamber empty, on the off chance that you might appear on the horizon one night?’
‘No,’ said Pedlar, a little put out, ‘no I suppose not. Well, let’s go to your nest then. You can put me up for a few hours until I get sorted out. But first I have a ritual to perform.’
Tinker waited by the burrow while Pedlar took a mouthful of water from the ditch and went looking for the wild rosehip he had buried many nights ago on his departure. At first he couldn’t find it, but then he remembered where the primrose marker-beacon was and found the spot.
To his great joy there was a shoot growing out of the Earth from the seed he had planted. This was a sure sign that he was welcome back. It was new life and meant that he, Pedlar, was responsible for one more strand in the immortal Hedgerow. He had added to the world in which he lived and one day that wild rose might be a stalwart part of the Hedge, necessary to its survival and eternal there-ness.
He deposited his mouthful of water on the new plant and then returned to Tinker.
Tinker was standing by the entrance hole, below the curlie-wurlie. There were two fat young mice lying near him, staring insolently at Pedlar. No doubt they had watched him water his wild rose shoot.
‘Where d’you think you’re off to, mouth-waterer?’ growled the bigger of the two yellow-necks. ‘Y’know, I might just go and nip off that succulent shoot for my supper. How about that?’
Pedlar looked at Tinker, whose expression told the wandering mouse that all was not well with the burrow.
‘I think,’ said Pedlar pointedly, while still staring at Tinker, ‘that would make me very upset.’
‘Oh yeah?’ said the big mouse’s companion. ‘And another thing. Think you can just walk into our burrow without so much as a by your leave—?’
Pedlar leapt swiftly, and extremely agilely for his age, and gripped the bigger mouse by the throat. The attack was so sudden the two bullies didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late for them. The attacked mouse immediately rolled on his back, submissively, his eyes full of terror. Pedlar then let him go and grabbed his companion by the base of the tail, a very sensitive part of the anatomy. The mouse squealed in pain. Satisfied, Pedlar jumped back beside Tinker and surveyed the shaken bullies through narrowed eyes.
Two or three more hefty young yellow-necks had emerged from the burrow’s exit hole, having caught the action, but they just stood high-nose and stared.
‘The name’s Pedlar,’ said the returned hero. ‘See that you remember it. I don’t answer to any other. If I hear you calling me anything else you’ll find I can become very upset. And I don’t like being upset. Being upset upsets me even more. I’m sure you understand me.
‘Another thing, that wild rose shoot is a sacred plant – we all know what happens to mice who eat sacred plants, don’t we?’ growled Pedlar. ‘They suffer horrible dreams about what might occur if they come across the owner of that sacred plant.’
It could have been Gorm-the-old speaking.
The two shaken bullies, knowing they had escaped death or serious injury by a whisker, said nothing. They saw that this mouse Pedlar was totally unafraid of them, and since they ran the burrow on fear that meant they were upstaged. Here was a mouse to be taken at his word.
‘You,’ said Pedlar to the main bully, ‘find another burrow. If I smell your scent round here again, I’ll know you’ve got tired of living.’
Pedlar then shrugged his broad shoulders and turned his back saying, ‘Now, we were going to your nest, Tinker…’
‘How do you know they won’t attack you?’ whispered Tinker, ‘while you’re not looking.’
‘Because I’ve scared the tails off them,’ muttered Pedlar, ‘and they’re confused. They don’t know who I am or where I come from and that’s my advantage. It’s nothing to do with strength and everything to do with the mystery of strangers. The big one will either leave or come to beg my pardon – in any case he’s lost credibility with his gang.’
‘He might decide to fight you, one to one.’
‘Then he’d lose,’ said Pedlar emphatically. ‘And he knows it. Or at least, he thinks there’s a chance he might lose, which is the same thing.’
‘I’m very impressed,’ said the happy Tinker. ‘Very impressed.’
‘Don’t be, bullies are just a wearisome fact of life, Tinker. Now, the House was one thing, and the Promised House was another thing, but as for the journey back? An odyssey! Let me tell you… no wait, I’ve got to get something to eat, then some fresh straw for my side of the nest, settle in a bit – then I’ll tell you…’
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Also By Garry Kilworth
Novels
In Solitary (1977)
The Night of Kadar (1978)
Split Second (1979)
Gemini God (1981)
A Theatre of Timesmiths (1984)
Abandonati (1988)
Cloudrock (1988)
The Voyage of the Vigilance (1988)
The Street (1988) (writing as Garry Douglas)
Hunter’s Moon (1989)
Midnight’s Sun (1990)
Frost Dancers: A Story of Hares (1992)
House of Tribes (1995)
A Midsummer’s Nightmare (1996)
Shadow Hawk (1999)
Angel
1. Angel (1993)
2. Archangel (1994)
Navigator Kings
1. The Roof of Voyaging (1996)
2. The Princely Flower (1997)
3. Land-of-Mists (1998)
Collections
The Songbirds of Pain (1984)
In the Hollow of the Deep-Sea Wave (1989)
In the Country of Tattooed Men (1993)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My grateful thanks go: to Bernard Hall and Reg Mason for the superb plan of the 1930s style house, providing me with a map of mouse
country; to Barbara Faithfull for the excellent key to the map; as always, to Andrew, for sparking off ideas during our regular Friday-night Indian take-away meals; to my agent, Maggie Noach, and to Patrick Janson-Smith, whose encouragement during this project was invaluable, even to a seasoned writer; and finally to my beloved Annette, who has had to put up with talk of mice during breakfast, lunch and dinner for over a year without complaint, and indeed offered much helpful advice on various aspects of the story.
Dedication
This book is for Suzi Sutherland, a singer of songs.
Garry Kilworth (1941-)
Garry Douglas Kilworth was born in York in 1941 and travelled widely as a child, his father being a serviceman. After seventeen years in the RAF and eight working for Cable and Wireless, he attended King’s College, London University, where he obtained an honours degree in English. Garry Kilworth has published novels under a number of pseudonyms in the fields of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Historical Fiction and Children’s Fiction, winning the British and World Fantasy Awards and being twice shortlisted for the prestigious Carnegie Award for Children’s Literature.
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Garry Kilworth 1995
All rights reserved.
The right of Garry Kilworth to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2013 by Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 11433 3
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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