Brian Jacques - Redwall #15 - The Taggerung

Bodjev held his fat stomach as he chuckled. "Yikyikyikyik! Go make playplay, yew two's. I be's Bodjev. Wot be's your name?"

Tagg held out his paw courteously. "Pleased to meet you, Bodjev, sir. My name's Tagg."

Bodjev grinned as he looked the otter up and down. "Tagg? Yikyik, be's a likkle name for a big fella. So, Tagg, you an' your son be likin' snakeyfish pie?"

Tagg kept a polite smile on his face as he shook the shrew's paw. "Never tasted it, sir, but I'm sure 'tis delicious!"

Bodjev put his head on one side as he tried to pronounce delicious. "Lishus! Lishus! Yikyik, good, eh? You come a me, bring de likkle son, we alla 'ave snakeyfish pie. Plenny good!"

Tagg waded through the shallows, with Nimbalo on his shoulders. The harvest mouse was boiling with ill-concealed temper at the treatment he had been shown. "Yore son? That flap-'eaded wiggle-snouted pudden-bellied beast thinks I'm yore son? An' another thing. Wot did you think y'were doin', kickin' me tail like that? Who gave you the right"

Tagg's paw stifled any further remarks. "Safety first, mate. I was only protecting us by making friends with the Chief. Look, I know they're only tiny shrews, but there must be thousands of them, all carrying stone-tipped clubs. We might get a lot of them in a fight, but they'd bring us down in the end, just by their weight of numbers!"

Nimbalo yanked Tagg's paw from his mouth, unappeased. "So ye let 'im whack his son an' yer kicked me tail, just t'make friends. That's very nice, izzenit? We could've battled our way through, betcha an acorn to an oak we could. I remember one time when I fought me way outta a nestful of crows. Hah, slew a good few of them I did, an' I got away safe!"

The otter turned his face to Nimbalo, a no-nonsense look in his eyes. "Where's the point in fighting and slaying if you can make a friend out of anybeast instead of a foe? From now on, while we're the guests of these creatures, we might have to do a few things we don't like. But that's the way it is, mate, and I'll hear no more argument about it. Now straighten your face and smile. You look like a beetle with a bruised brow!"

The harvest mouse kept a grin pasted on his face as he replied, "An' you look like a blackbird with a boiled behind!"

Tagg smiled sweetly, answering from between clenched teeth, "And you look like duck with a webful of custard!"

"Well, you look like a stoat with a stink up 'is nose!"

"In that case you look like a bumblebee with a boil!"

"Hoho, well, you look like a ... a ... a hedgehog with a head h'ache!"

"A head h'ache?"

The two friends burst out laughing.

They skirted a small pool, with a little stream from up in the mountains spilling into it, the cascade hiding the entrance to the pigmy shrews' cave. Dodging through the miniature waterfall, Tagg and Nimbalo emerged into what appeared to be a cathedral-like cavern. It was lit by scores of firefly lanterns and torches and populated by literally thousands of pigmy shrews. The stream continued into the cavern, where it ran into a central lake. Halfway down the stream a net had been stretched under and above the water. Shrews dipped sievelike paddles in and pulled out the dead elvers. These were taken away on a small cart to the kitchen, which was merely lots of cooking fires under wide rock ledges. The cooks there were busy doing all manner of things with the young eels: stewing, baking, roasting and frying. All activity ceased at the sight of Tagg. Every pigmy shrew stood gaping wordlessly at the giant who had entered their domain. Bodjev waddled over to the cooking fires and began boxing ears left, right and center.

"Worra you stan' there for? Thissa my frien' Tagg anna likkle son. You be cookin' lotsa snakeyfish pies for us, quicknow!"

A fat little pigmy shrew pulled a batch of pies out of the crude rock oven with a large wooden paddle. No sooner had she placed them on a cooling shelf than she swung the paddle and caught Bodjev a sharp whack on his behind, shouting fiercely, "Doo a this, doo a that! Kachah! Thissa my kitchen, Daddy Bodjev. You keep 'way, likkle fat lump!"

Bodjev did a tip-pawed dance, rubbing his smarting rear. A combined snigger arose from the cooking staff. The Chieftain backed off, replying savagely, but not too loudly, "One day I bake you inna pie, Chichwife!" He turned to Tagg and Nimbalo with a rueful smile. "Yikyik, my Chichwife, always makin' joke. She love me muchmuch!"

An alcove in the cavern was sumptuously furnished, by pigmy shrew standards, for Bodjev's family and high-ranking friends. He took Tagg and Nimbalo there to dine, away from the main population of Cavemob shrews. The otter could see them from where he sat on a thick mat of springy fernmoss. Their table manners were little better than atrocious. Amid the echoing din of insult and argument, they stole food from their neighbors and engaged in pie fights of amazing savagery.

Bodjev clapped his paws officiously. Four very pretty shrewmaids appeared with lunch, and he nodded at them. "Move youselfs, daughter. Serve, serve!"

His four daughters were quite taken with Nimbalo. Ignoring their father, they served the harvest mouse, fussing about him.

"Thissa rosehip an' almond flower tea, special cold. Yikyikyik!"

"Pies good? Our Chichmum a fine fine cooker, eh? Yikyik!"

Bodjev banged his fork against his empty bowl. "Stoppa gigglin', missies. Poor Daddy be's starvin'!"

Nimbalo was glad when the four shrewmaids left him alone to serve Bodjev and Tagg. He straightened his ruffled headfur and applied himself to the food. The rosehip and almond flower tea was refreshingly cold, obviously made with snow from the mountaintop.

If anybeast had told Tagg that he would enjoy snakeyfish pies before he had tasted the dubiously named dish, he would have declared them mistaken. But the pies were absolutely delicious, round and flat with a soft white pastry crust and a filling that did not resemble anything that looked, smelled or tasted like an elver. It had a texture of oatmeal and a flavor of salt, parsley and sage. Much to the awe of his host, Tagg ate six. Bodjev's wife Chich beamed pleasurably when she was told, and came straight over to the alcove.

"Daddy Bodjev, these goodbeasts you bring here. Big fella's mighty eater. Yik yik, goldie one very hamsing. Chich like him!"

Nimbalo did not know where to put his face. Evidently his light golden brown fur appeared quite attractive to pigmy shrew females. He applied himself to some leftover piecrust. "Thankee, marm. Yore very, er, hamsing y'self!"

Chich threw her apron up over her face and giggled. "Yikyikyikyik! Lissen, big fella, when you go 'way from here, take fatty likkle Bodjev alonga wid you an' leave hamsing goldie here wid Chich. I cook lotsa snakeyfish (lies for that 'un!"

Tagg smiled mischievously. "I'll certainly think about it, marm. What d'you say, handsome goldie?"

Nimbalo scowled as Tagg chucked him under the chin playfully. "Don't even think about it, ye treacherous riverdog!"

The incident was forgotten as a pigmy shrew began battering a huge bronze gong, which reverberated through every corner of the massive cavern. All the Cavemob shrews set up a pitiful wail, then fell silent. Tagg looked to Bodjev. "What's that all about, friend?"

"Izza ole Cavemob law," the Chieftain explained in a subdued voice. "Us gotta make goodsure snakeyfish come back nex' time."

Nimbalo poured himself more iced tea. "Hmm. 'Ow d'yer manage t'do that, mate?"

Bodjev pointed upward at the high cavern ceiling. It was smooth limestone rock, with one long stalactite hanging down. All the pigmy shrews had drawn back to the cave walls, leaving the area beneath the stalactite, not far from the deep lake's edge, completely clear. In the total silence a drop of water fell from the tip, falling through the air for several seconds.