Brian Jacques - Redwall #07 - Mariel of Redwall

Without stopping her march, she munched bread and cheese from the knapsack. A stroke of luck provided a gnarled apple tree hanging its boughs low over the path, so she plucked an early russet apple and bit into it, noting her find as a lucky omen for the journey ahead.

Woodpigeons cooed within the dimness of woodland depths, bees hummed and grasshoppers chafed out on the sunlit flatlands. Mariel began skipping, twirling Gullwhacker at her side, suddenly filled with a sense of freedom and adventure. What better than to travel alone, eat when you please, rest when you feel the need, camp by your own little fire at night and sleep snug in some forest glade! The feeling flooded through her with such force that it made her light-headed, and she began singing aloud an old playsong, known to mice everywhere.

"The winter O, the winter O,

With cold and dark and driving snow,

O not for me the winter O,

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My friend I tell you so.

In spring the winds do sport and play,

And rain can teem down anyday,

While autumn oft is misty gray,

My friend hear what I say.

When summer sunlight comes each morn,

The birds sing sweet each golden dawn,

And flow'rs get kissed by every bee,

While shady stands the tree.

The summer O, the summer O,

Amid its golden peace I go,

From noon to lazy evening glow.

My friend I told you so."

Mariel held the final note, leaping high in the air and twirling. She came down on the far side of the path, stumbled and fell. Rolling over, the mousemaid slipped down the side of the ditch bordering the flatlands.

"Tut tut, dearie meleapin' mice, what next? Though I must say, old gel, you held that last note gracefully. Hon Rosie couldn't have done better. Bear in mind, though, she wouldn't have dived nose first into the ditch. Not the done sort o' thing for young fillies. Wot?"

Tarquin lent a paw to pull Mariel from the ditch. She was completely taken aback at the appearance of the hare.

"Where did you come from, Tarquin? I never even heard you following me."

Tarquin L. Woodsorrel adopted a pose of comical outrage. "Following? Did I hear you say following, marm? Boggle me ears, I wasn't followin' you, snub-nose, I was right alongside you, mousy miss. Oh yes, seasons of trainin' y'know. Camouflage an' all that dodge an' bob, duck an' weave, disguises too. D'you want to see me become a daisy or a bally buttercup?"

Mariel was smiling as she dusted herself off on the pathside, but she chided the garrulous hare.

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"Very clever, Tarquin, but you can't come with melt's far too dangerous."

Tarquin adjusted the fastenings of an oversized haversack filled to bursting with food. "Balderdash, young 'un. Absolute piffle and gillyswoggle! I'm goin' my own way, just keepin' you company on the road to see you don't practice any more ditch divin'. Come on, step out lively now, leftrightleftrightleitright an' all that."

Mariel kept pace with him, jogging to match his lanky stride. "Well, as long as you know you can't come all the way with me ... but why are we walking so fast?"

Tarquin kept on, pawing it out at the double. "Goin' to be late for lunch if we don't move smartly. Come on now, keep up."

It was about lunchtime that they rounded a bend in the path to find Dandin awaiting them with a wild summer salad he had gathered to garnish the bread and cheese, together with a flask of elderberry cordial he was cooling beneath an overhanging willow. The young mouse waved to them.

"Hi there. Good job you made it another moment or two and I was going to start without you."

Mariel placed her paws on her hips, chin jutting out angrily. "What in the name of fur are you doing here?"

Dandin smiled disarmingly. "Oh, it's all a bit of a mystery really."

The mousemaid turned on Tarquin. "And you, how did you know he was here, you great lolloping flopear? It's a plot, that's what it is. You set this up between you!"

Tarquin sprawled on the grass and began constructing a giant cheese and salad sandwich. "Steady on there, missy, I was waitin' outside the north wicker gate for you to appear right through the bally night. Then about an hour before dawn young Dandin here pops out, so I merely told him to get a move on an'

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we'd meet him further up the road for a spot of lunch. Rather civilized, don't y'think?"

Mariel was fuming with temper, but she plumped herself down and began eating because the walk had given her an appetite. Through mouthfuls of food she berated the smiling duo.

"You can wipe those silly smiles off your whiskers. You are not coming with me, either of you. Is that crystal clear?"

They both munched away, smiling and winking at each other as they nodded agreement with the furious mousemaid.

When lunch was finished Dandin repacked his knapsack and thrust the marvelous scabbarded sword into his cord girdle.

"Rightyo, Tarkers. Let's get moving. I wonder if this pretty mousemaid is going our way. D'you think she'd like to walk with us?"

"Doubtless, old lad. We'll string along with her a piece. D'y'know, she's an excellent ditch diveryou should've seen her this mornin', looped the loop graceful as y'please, straight into the jolly old ditch on her snout."

Stone-faced and in high dudgeon, Mariel marched on between them.

Tarquin and Dandin made perilously light of the situation.

"I say, Mr. Woodsorrel, that's a strange noise those grasshoppers are making."

"Not the confounded grasshoppers, laddie buck. Sounds like some wild creature nearby grindin' their teeth."

"Hmm, not very good for the old molars, that. Temper, temper! . . . Look out, she's swinging that knotty rope thing."

By midafternoon Mariel had simmered down somewhat. She even let slip the odd smile or giggle at the

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antics of her comical traveling companions, and at one point deigned to talk to them.

"It's getting very hot. What do you say we take a rest in the shade, have a snack and then push on until dark?"

The suggestion was well received. They flopped down gratefully with their backs against a tree-topped oak. When they had eaten, all three napped for a while, but the long summer day took its toll; what was meant to be a short rest for hot dusty eyes turned into quite a lengthy sleep.

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Dandin was wakened by a paw across his mouth. He gave a muffled cry as Tarquin hissed a warning. "Ssshh, not a sound!"

The young mouse sat up carefully and looked around. Mariel was standing still as a statue, her Gullwhacker at the ready. The hare bent an ear in the direction of the woodlands opposite.

"Somebeast is stalking us," he breathed to them both. "Over there, behind that yew thicket, I'm sure. Dandin, go with Mariel to the left. I'll take the right. We'll jump the blighter an' turn the tables in our favor. Go!"

Paw by paw they crept forward, listening to the rustle of the thicket, where it was plain some creature was moving about. Skirting to the left, they made out a dark shape in the shadows. Tarquin yelled out the signal.

"Up an' at him!"

Throwing themselves headlong, the three friends pounced upon the miscreant.

"Yow! Ouch! Whoo! Eeek! Yarrgh! Lerrimgo! Ger-roff!"

Young Durry Quill watched them as they hopped and leaped about like boiled frogs, yelling in pain at the spikes, embedded in paws and bodies, that they had collected from him in their mad plunge. He twitched his nose.

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"Serves 'ee right fer jumpin' on a young lad like that. Ain't you beasts got no manners at all?"

Mariel hopped about in agony and frustration. "Ah ah! You sure you haven't brought the rest along with you? Ooh ooh! I wouldn't be surprised to see Mellus, Simeon and the Abbot leap out from behind that hornbeam yonder. How many more of you are there? Am I taking the whole population of Redwall along with me? Ow ooch!"