She glanced quickly round and ran to the platform’s edge. Across the row of potted plants, their whiskers touched.
“Bernard!” breathed Miss Bianca.
“But you shall not attempt the Black Castle alone!” cried Madam Chairwoman. (Bernard and Miss Bianca must have missed a bit.) “I now call for a volunteer to accompany and support our heroic Norwegian friend!”
Instantly, simply to prove himself in the slightest degree worthy of Miss Bianca’s regard —
“I’ll go!” shouted Bernard.
Miss Bianca drew a deep breath. Admittedly such a warmth of welcome — how different from the send-off in Norway! — had gone a little to her head; but she was influenced even more by the look on Bernard’s face.
“And I will too,” said Miss Bianca — changing her mind again.
2.
They received all last instructions in the committee room. (An old carriage lamp next door, tossed down into the wine cellar by a long-ago postilion. Generations of Prisoners’ Aid Society members had made it extremely neat; in fact it was much more comfortable than the main hall, with walnut-shell chairs for everyone.)
“To pay compliments anew would be superfluous,” said Madam Chairwoman briskly. “Therefore to business! You will travel by provision wagon. As you all know — or as we must inform our Norwegian friend — the Black Castle is provisioned but once a year. Once in each year, and only once, its gate opens to admit wagons from the country with flour, bacon, potatoes and so on. Thanks to Miss Bianca, we are just in time to catch them. They will halt at the Town Gate, to pick up cough-cure for the jailers, and there you must be ready tomorrow morning at five o’clock sharp. I believe the journey takes about two weeks; within two weeks,” said Madam Chairwoman impressively, “you will all three be inside! The luck of the mice go with you! Any questions?”
Miss Bianca shook her head. She relied entirely on her male companions. Nils, as usual, for his part seemed perfectly content to take whatever was coming as and when it came. Only Bernard spoke up.
“What do we do, exactly,” asked Bernard in his painstaking way, “once we’re in, to get the prisoner out?”
“That I leave to you,” said Madam Chairwoman blandly. “I can’t be expected to think of everything!”
3.
It was next morning. Outside the Town Gate, in the soft, misty autumn dawn, the great cases of cough-cure stood ready for loading. (The Black Castle was so damp, its jailers had coughs all the year round.) And Nils and Bernard and Miss Bianca stood ready too. If they huddled rather close together, and if Miss Bianca’s teeth chattered a little, it was probably because the dawn, besides being soft, was also rather chilly.
Nils had on his sea boots. Though Bernard thoroughly pointed out their uselessness, and indeed inconvenience, he wouldn’t be parted from them. “It’s no use arguing,” said Nils. “Without my sea boots I wouldn’t feel myself. That’s how us Norwegians are.” Miss Bianca smiled at him understandingly: she felt the same way about her silver chain. Bernard had pointed out the unsuitability of this too, he feared it might attract robbers; but without it Miss Bianca wouldn’t have felt herself . . .
She carried only a small hand valise containing toilet articles and a fan. (There had been little time for shopping.) Bernard had a stout cudgel and an iron ration of sealing wax tied up in a large spotted handkerchief.
“Hark!” exclaimed Miss Bianca.
There was a jingle of bells, and suddenly, out of the dispersing mist, loomed an enormous wagon. Four great horses pulled it, their heads bobbing and bowing somewhere up in the sky; and from far above even them, a loud rough voice bellowed “Whoa!”
The wagon halted.
“All aboard!” cried Nils.
He ran swiftly up a trailing rope. Bernard seized Miss Bianca’s valise and helped her to follow. Scarcely had they found shelter between two flour sacks when a series of shuddering thumps told them the cough-cure was aboard too; then came another loud shout, a whip cracked, and off the wagon rolled, on its way to the Black Castle.
6.
The Happy Journey
THEIRS was the leading wagon. Behind rolled five others. All six were loaded with flour, bacon, potatoes and black treacle, but the first carried in addition cough-cure, chewing gum and cigars. These last luxuries were for the jailers — the cough-cure for the common sort, the chewing gum and cigars for the Head. So loaded, and bound for so terrible a destination, it might have been expected that the journey would be terrible indeed, and Miss Bianca was prepared to cry herself to sleep every night, in the little tent Bernard arranged for her among the flour sacks.
But not a bit of it.
It wasn’t impossible to be happy, it was impossible not to be happy — as the great wagons rolled and swayed on their way, bells jingling, harness glinting, under a strong October sun, through a countryside scarlet with turning leaves and gold with stubble fields. How tuneful those jingling bells, how bright each star and crescent winking from martingale and brow-band! — and the ribbons, too, plaited into mane and tail! Red and yellow and orange, the colors proper to autumn, how they enhanced a chestnut or dappled beauty! But best of all was the rhythm of the six great wagons rolling together, keeping distance yet ever in touch, like six great ships at sea. “Us should have sails set!” shouted Nils, running up the tailboard. “Five capital craft in line astern — and us aboard the Admiral’s!”
It was astonishing how quickly the mice felt at home. They had the whole place to themselves, for the wagoner sat on his high seat in front and only once a day cast an eye over the load to make sure all was shipshape. They soon knew the names of their four horses, which were King, Prince, Emperor and Albert. Albert was Miss Bianca’s favorite. (He had a very noble, serene expression. Miss Bianca was convinced, she told Bernard, that Albert had not exactly come down in the world, but had renounced the world. — She imagined him winning prize after prize at horse shows, before recognizing their vanity and humbly devoting his great strength to better things.) As to food, of course, no mice could have been better off: the whole wagon was simply one great running buffet!
That was by day; each night, all six wagons drew up in company, and the six jolly wagoners, after they had built a fire and eaten a great meal, told stories and sang songs. Not even Miss Bianca found their voices rough, then, as in beautiful deep harmony they begged their loved ones, also their favorite inns, never to forget them. (As one touching melody followed another, Miss Bianca’s eyes were frequently wet with tears — really just as she’d expected them to be, though for different reasons. These were enjoyable tears — as the saddest songs were enjoyable to the jolly wagoners.) Each night she and Bernard and Nils slipped out of the wagon and crept closer and closer to listen, and if any item had the slightest rhythm of a sea chantey, Nils would join in; and afterwards they would all stroll back from the concert together, under the glorious moon. It was just like being at Salzburg.
Nils and Bernard had become very good friends. They hadn’t much in common, but each saw that in whatever peril lay ahead, he could rely on the other’s stanchness. — They never discussed this peril, or made any sort of plan for their great task of prisoner-rescuing. As Nils sensibly pointed out, it was no use crossing bridges till they came to them, and besides, they were having such a happy time, it seemed a pity to cast a shade over it.
2.
Sometimes fieldmice came to visit, and then indeed was the peace of the wagon shattered. Whole villages swarmed up at a time — mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, and of course the children — all chattering and arguing and gossiping and passing remarks. They never stopped asking questions, and never waited for an answer.
“Where are you bound, and why?” chattered the field-mice. “My goodness, what a quantity of sacks! Unbelievable! Where do they all come from? And what’s in those boxes? I say, Amelia, look at this fellow’s boots! What’s he wearing boots for? And look at the lady’s necklace! My word! Look at this other fellow’s feet, why isn’t he wearing boots
too? Couldn’t he get any big enough? Ha, ha, ha!”
“Pay no attention,” said Miss Bianca to Bernard. “They are only simple country folk, with no opportunity to learn manners.” She didn’t mean to be overheard, she spoke behind her fan, but fieldmice have very sharp hearing, and at once they all took umbrage.
“No manners, indeed!” they chorused. “Hear that, Amelia? The lady says we never learnt no manners! Hands up who goes to dancing class! Hands up all who know strawfoot from hayfoot! My word, she should see one of our barn dances! Come on, let’s give one now!”
And they actually began dancing Sir Roger de Coverly there on the floor of the wagon — hands across, back-to-back, down-the-middle and all the rest. They began — but in half a minute they were all doing something else again: jumping on and off the cigar boxes, nibbling at the sacks, sliding down the treacle tins, and never for one moment ceasing their chatter.
“How strange! One always thinks of country folk as being rather stolid,” said Miss Bianca. “I think I shall lie down a little . . .”
Bernard had found her a delightful veranda between two of the upright slats that formed the wagon’s sides, where she could rest in the afternoon and still look out at the changing landscape. It was considered Miss Bianca’s private place, but she often invited the other two to share it, and Bernard at least never refused. (Nils preferred a spot higher up, on what he called the poop.) Miss Bianca and Bernard had many long conversations there, and told each other all about their past lives.
“What you must have seen,” marveled Bernard, “of Courts, and Embassies! I’m afraid my society must seem very dull to you.”
“Not at all,” said Miss Bianca. “There is nothing more tedious than a constant round of gaiety. What you have to tell, of life in a Pantry, is far more interesting.”
They talked in this way for hours, Miss Bianca describing things like musical evenings when the Embassy ballroom was decorated with six hundred pink roses, and Bernard describing things like Sports Day in the Pantry. (The biggest race twice round the top china shelf, five points penalty if you touched china.) They told each other their earliest recollections: Miss Bianca’s of waking up on a pink silk pillow, and Bernard’s of helping to roll home a walnut . . .
It was a happy time. By night songs and stories, by day agreeable conversation, and ever the beautiful landscape unfolding on either hand — it was a happy time indeed. If only it could have gone on forever! But the days passed, the wagons rolled, and presently the country began to change.
3.
“The country’s changing,” said Bernard uneasily.
“Aye,” said Nils. “We’re out of the Mediterranean.”
Miss Bianca at least knew what he meant. Bare heath and crooked firs, instead of fat farmland and scarlet maple — indeed they were approaching colder waters . . . She shivered a little, and put her fan away in her valise.
That was on the eighth day out; on the tenth, they entered The Barrens.
Here there were no trees at all, nor any sort of vegetation, only rocks and boulders strewing a great flat stony waste. The wagon trail still ran broad and plain, but the horses didn’t like it; every mile or so they stopped and balked at something white under their hoofs, and the wagoners had to jump down and pull them past.
“What is it that alarms them so?” asked Miss Bianca curiously.
Bernard didn’t want to tell her, but she persisted and he had to. “Bones,” said Bernard grimly. “The bones of the prisoners who died on the march to the Black Castle.”
Miss Bianca shuddered, and asked no more. Some of the bones had fetters still upon them, for as a prisoner fell so he was left to lie. Then the crows came down and picked him clean.
Albert was the bravest horse, but even he trembled all over. His bells trembled too, not jingling any more, but giving out a faint, mournful, funereal chime.
The fieldmice had vanished long since. In The Barrens, there was no life at all.
At night, the wagoners sounded like people singing to keep their spirits up. Nils and Bernard and Miss Bianca stayed in the wagon.
On the twelfth day, the trail began to climb. The boulders closed their ranks until it was like driving between rocky walls, and then between rocky bluffs, and then between great cliffs. High as the trail climbed, these cliffs rose ever higher, beetling overhead like storm clouds made solid; and here the bones lay thicker.
This lasted for two days more.
On the fourteenth day, quite suddenly, the summit was reached, and all dropped away before the one highest peak of all, which was the Black Castle itself.
They had arrived.
As though the very mountain split, an enormous iron gate swung slowly open, and the wagons rolled through.
7.
The Black Castle
IT was an appalling moment, and an appalling place.
Behind them was the huge buttressed gateway; on all other three sides of the courtyard great grim black walls, windowless, reared up quite out of sight. There wasn’t a scrap of creeper or greenery upon them. Between the paving stones underfoot not so much as a toadstool sprouted. All was iron-hard, iron-chill, and black as old iron.
The air was like the air in a well. Not so very high up in it, a few carrion crows silently hovered.
In silence, as though the Black Castle awed even them, the wagoners began to unload their wagons; there was no need for orders or instructions, they had done the job before, and were only too anxious to get it over. The kind horses nickered and whinnied uneasily; but no human sound was to be heard save the coughing of the jailers waiting to get at the cases of cough-cure.
“What do we do now?” whispered Miss Bianca. The three mice had run down at once, and were now huddled together beside a wheel.
“Wait, then follow the best boots,” muttered Nils.
There were boots stamping and shifting all round them — great cruel jailers’ boots, black as everything else in the Black Castle. Even Bernard turned a trifle pale, but he nodded bravely.
“You be leader,” he whispered.
They waited for what seemed like hours — Nils meanwhile scrutinizing attentively each pair of feet that passed. All seamen have an eye for a boot; and even though these weren’t the sort he was used to, he had soon made up his mind. When at last the wagons filed out again, and the jailers began to disperse —
“Follow me!” cried Nils unhesitatingly.
Miss Bianca cast one longing farewell glance towards the tailboard of the last wagon. Even as it passed the gate, sunlight seemed once more to fall upon it; the wagoners were already calling and shouting to each other again, as they headed back into the jovial, sunlit countryside. How glad they were to be going! “And how glad I should be!” thought poor Miss Bianca.
She very nearly ran after them. The gates weren’t yet quite closed. By running as fast as she could, she might have just caught up; and have run up on board again, and been carried back to safety and civilization . . .
“Miss Bianca,” called Bernard urgently, “do please hurry!”
She sighed; and followed duty’s higher call.
2
“See any hole?” muttered Nils.
“There, by the stove,” whispered Bernard. (He was much cleverer than Nils indoors.) “Run in quick, Miss Bianca!”
A moment later they were all looking out, from at least temporary security, upon the Head Jailer’s private sitting room.
For that was where the best boots had led, before stamping out again — and how luckily! What Bernard had spotted was actually the only mousehole in the Black Castle. The walls of no single other apartment were wainscoted. From the dungeons below to the battlements above, all was either natural rock or bare granite blocks. (Even the jailers’ bedrooms weren’t so much as whitewashed.) As yet, of course, the mice didn’t realize their good fortune; they barely glanced at the quarters they were in future to know so well, before examining the larger quarters outside.
“Oh, how pretty!” brea
thed Miss Bianca in surprise.
At first glance, the Head Jailer’s sitting room was pretty indeed. The upper part of each wall, above the wainscot, appeared to be hung with the most charming varicolored paper — all reds and blues and browns and yellows. “Just like butterflies!” added Miss Bianca admiringly. — Then she shuddered. For when one looked closer, they were butterflies, each cruelly impaled by a lethal pin. Very many, as their poor broken wings showed, hadn’t even died in a killing-bottle. And they covered half of every wall! The Head Jailer must have been collecting them, and tormenting them, for years and years . . .
He had evidently other horrid habits as well. Strewn all about the floor were cigar butts and the wrappers off packets of chewing gum: as though he couldn’t live without something in his mouth, and hadn’t been brought up to tidy as he went along.
“I’m so sorry, but really I feel quite faint,” said Miss Bianca.
“Go and lie down a bit,” said Bernard kindly. “It looks quite clean inside. — At least he’s shortsighted, don’t you think?” he added to Nils, as Miss Bianca thankfully withdrew. “He didn’t notice us under his heels?”
“He’s too fat to see past his own stomach,” said Nils crudely. “So far as he’s concerned, I’d say we could run where we liked. But it’s to be hoped he doesn’t keep a cat . . .”
The words woke in Bernard a most uncomfortable recollection . . . of an old, old member, at that meeting of the Prisoners’ Aid Society when everything started. Hadn’t he referred, quite positively, to the Head Jailer’s cat? “Twice natural size, and four times as fierce” — Bernard recollected the very phrase.
“He keeps a cat all right,” said Bernard gloomily.
At that very moment — for the Head Jailer liked to leave his own door open — Mamelouk lounged into the room.
With splendid presence of mind Bernard yanked a cigar butt across the entrance to the hole, thus masking all mouse scent, and above this malodorous barricade he and Nils peered anxiously out.
The Rescuers Page 4
