Brian Jacques - Redwall #09 - Salamandastron

"The season is dying, Mara. I feel that summer is gone and the autumn is upon us. The leaves will turn gold and brown."

"So they will, Samkim. Nobeast can stop the turn of the seasons. I think you are lonely and far from home. What is Redwall like in the autumn?"

"Oh, it's a happy place to be at anytime. Autumn is harvest time: the fruits and crops are gathered in, October ale is made, chestnuts are candied in honey. We sit up late in Cavern Hole around a great fire, enjoying supper and listening to the stories and songs of bygone days. The mornings are quiet and misty. Leaves rustle in Mossflower Woods, and you can feel the dew on the grass between your paws, smell the bread and cakes being baked in the kitchens, lie in the orchard on a sunny afternoon and eat a russet apple or a ripe purple plum. Oh yes, Redwall is like no other place."

"You must love your home very much, Samkim."

"Aye, the Abbey is everything to me. What about you, Mara'? Salamandastron is a fine placedon't you like being here?"

The badger maid ran dry sand from the rocks through her paws. "It is all I can rememberI grew up with the mountain. This morning I feel that I have a certain fondness for it,

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but I can never make it my home again. There are too many unhappy memories hovering around it. Lord Urthstripe put his mark upon that mountain. The graves of creatures we knew look lonely here by the great sea, and it will take a lot of healing. Time alone can do it, though I would not be happy staying here to grow old. Even today I noticed the change in Urthwytehe is becoming a badger Lord. The life here is not for me."

"Then what will you do, Mara? Where will you go?"

"I will follow my dream."

"Ah! The dream you dreamed last night of Martin the Warrior?"

"Samkim, how did you know .. . ?"

"Because I, too, had a dream. Martin came to me also. He told me to stay apart from the others today and I would see the Guardian of Redwall Abbey come to me. Is it you, Mara?"

The badger maid turned and looked at him. "Martin said in my dream that this was my destiny. He told me that I will be happy at Redwall, happier than ever before."

Samkim took hold of her paw. "So you will be. Come on, let us go home, Mara of Redwall!"

42

Though the season was well advanced, Abbess Vale stoically refused to hold any Nameday feast. Each day she had posted lookouts on the ramparts, and they watched until torches were lit and lanterns shone with the onset of night. Through sunny days, cloudy days, and days when soft drizzle and mist hung low over woodlands, the vigil continued, still with no sign of Samkim or Arula returning.

Sitting in the gatehouse one windy morning, Abbess Vale and Faith Spinney took hot mint tea and nutscones with cream as they embroidered a bedquilt together.

Faith took the spectacles from the end of her nose and massaged her eye comers gently. ' "My ol' eyes get tired pretty quick these days, Vale. 'Spect it'll be with standin' out on yon wall all yesternoon."

The Abbess looked rather severely over the top of her glasses. "Faith, what have I told you? There are lots of younger ones happy to do lookout dutyyou have no need to be up on the ramparts in all weathers."

The hedgehog lady poured more tea for Vale. "But I wants to be first to see 'em. 'Sides, it keeps me out of Dumble's way. That infant's become a reg'lar liddle terror."

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"Indeed he has." The Abbess nodded in agreement as she picked up a stitch. "Everywhere I turn he's following me, bullying away in his north country speech for a Nameday feast."

"The Hautumn of the Heagle, you mean." Faith chuckled.

Vale threw her paws up to her ears. "Honestly, if I hear that name once more I'll tan the little villain's tail!"

The little villain in question was hatching a conspiracy, together with Thrugg, MacPhearsome, Friar Bellows and several others. It had been brewing for three days. Secret meetings in the cellars with Foremole and Tudd Spinney standing guard, clandestine gatherings in the dormitory with Brother Hollyberry watching the door, and whispered conferences in the orchard were becoming the order of the day at Redwall. Dumble made the participants swear deathly oaths that Abbess Vale and Mrs. Faith Spinney should not know a thing until the time was ripe.

The kitchen fires burned late, heating the ovens as extra cakes, pies, flans and pasties were baked to a golden turn. Bands of moles plundered the orchard regularly, and young ones were seen coming and going, muttering furtively to each other as they covered for others who wheeled great cheeses from the storerooms, lugged forward big barrels of October ale and strawberry cordial from the cellars and grunted beneath mysterious bulky sacks as they strove to move them in secret.

Around lunchtime the wind dropped, and so did Abbess Vale's head. She fell asleep in the armchair by the fire. Faith Spinney covered her with the quilt they had been working on and stole quietly out of the gatehouse.

The sun was breaking through scudding cloud masses as the Wild King MacPhearsome flapped his wings and did a short run. The golden eagle nearly collided with Faith as she came out of the gatehouse. He pulled up short and stalked off huffily to the start of his intended launch. Faith followed him.

"Sorry, Your Majesty. Did I disturb your exercises?"

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MacPhearsome sniffed the air, hopping from one foot to the other. "Och no, wee lady, Ah'm just off for a stretch o' the wings, ye ken. Mah fithers need a guid wind rufflin' 'em."

Swaying from side to side, he dashed forward and launched himself into the air. Faith shook her head in bewilderment as she watched the huge bird soar gracefully.

"Whatever you say, I'm sure! Dearie me, I wish I could understand one single word from that bird's beak."

Hollyberry watched from the sickbay window, explaining the scene to Foremole, who was sitting on a bed tucking into a huge wedge of yellow celery-studded cheese.

"He's about to start his second run nowhold on, he's talking to Faith Spinney. I can't hear what he's saying. There he goes, up into the air! Faith's looking up and saying something. Let's hope MacPhearsome hasn't given the game away to her."

Foremole wrinkled his nose. "Missus Spinney doant un-nerstand heagly burds. They'm can't talken propply. Doant *ee wurry, zurr Berry'olly."

The five shrew logboats were on a broad open expanse of the Great South Stream. Mara sat side by side with Samkim, paddling steadily, as well as any two shrews. The badger maid could hear Arula telling Pikkle of Redwall feasts as they sat paddling in the prow of the boat opposite.

Pikkle kept interrupting with what could only be described as groans of delight at the mention of each fresh dish.

"Yurr, an' then they takes the meddyo cream an'"

"Whoo, my growlin' tummy! Don't tell me, let me guess, they take the jolly old meadowcream an' spread it thick over the damson pudden an' chuck lots of those candied chestnuts on top, wot?"

Arula blinked earnestly, shaking her head in amazement. "Bohurr aye. But 'ow did 'ee knoaw, zurr Ffloger?"

Pikkle rubbed his stomach. "The name's Ffolger, of thing, not Fflogeran' if it's absoballylutely anythin' to do with tucker, you can bet an acorn to a boulder that a Ffolger'll

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know about it. We're professional gluttons, y' see."

Mara splashed him with her paddle. "I can vouch for that, Arula!"

"Back water, ship paddles! Bows 'n' slings at the ready, Guosssom!"

Mara looked up to see a massive bird of prey beating its wide wings close to the water as it sped towards the logboats. Swiftly she brandished her paddle in the air as Samkim drew his sword and stood by her.

Log-a-log roared out further orders: "Don't fire until it tries to attackit may not be hunting!"