Brian Jacques - Redwall #07 - Mariel of Redwall

Finally undone, the rope fell away from her bruised neck. Painfully she shifted the spar and rolled over onto her back. The mousemaid lay still awhile; some of the more venturesome seabirds spiraled lower. Rubbing sand and grit from her face with the back of a paw, she opened both eyes, immediately shutting them again against the glare of sunlight. Small wavelets trickled and lapped gently away from the shore; the tide was ebbing. The mousemaid ventured to explore the wound that the spar had inflicted upon her head. She winced and left it alone. Turning over again, she shielded her eyes with her paws and rested on the firm damp sand, soaking up the life-giving rays of the comforting sun. A large speckled gull landed close to her. Readying its dangerous beak, it stalked slowly forward; the mouse-maid watched it from between her paws. Within a neck-length of her prostrate body the sea gull stood upon

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one webbed foot and began bringing its beak down in an exploratory peck.

Thwack\

She swung the wet-sand-weighted end of the rope. It was knotted and her aim was good. The rope's end thudded solidly into the bird's right eye. With a squawk of pain and distress the sea gull did an awkward running takeoff, flopping into the air and dispersing its alarmed companions.

The little mousemaid began dragging herself laboriously up the beach, her throat parched, mouth dry, head aching, limbs battered almost numb by the pounding seas. She reached a tussock of reedgrass in the dry sand above the tideline. Pulling the grass about her, she lay down in the safety of its shelter. As sleep descended upon her weary body, strange thoughts flooded her mind. She could not remember who she was, she had no name she could recall; apart from the stormy seas that had tossed her up, there was no memory of anythingit was all a cloudy gray void. Where had she come from? Where was she now? What was she doing here? Where was she going? Her last thought before sleep enveloped her brain was that she was a fighter. She could beat off a large sea gull with a rope's end, even lying stranded and half-dead from exhaustion, and she had survived the sea.

She was alive!

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Dawn arrived clad in hushed rosiness upon the wake of storm-torn night. Abbot Bernard had not lain abed, he was up and about. Concern for his beloved Redwall had driven sleep from his mind; the ravages of gale-force winds and rain would need repairing. He made a swift tour of inspection, finishing up on the east battlements. Leaning back upon the strongly hewn stones, Bernard allowed himself a sigh of relief. There was not much that any weather conditions, no matter how severe, could do to the Abbey. However, there were broken branches and wrecked tree limbs overhanging the ramparts to the east and north, with here and there some ill-fated sapling or hollow woodland monarch toppled against the walls. Inside, the grounds had largely been protected by the outer structurea few crops flattened, fruit bushes in disarray and a loose window shutter on the gatehouse blown awry. The Father Abbot descended the wallsteps thankfully and went to summon Foremole to head a repair crew. They could attend to the damage after breakfast.

The calm after the storm also had its effect upon the inmates of Redwall Abbey. Young creatures tumbled out of the Abbey building into the sunlit morning. Whooping and shouting, they teemed into the orchard

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to gather fruit brought down by the winds of the gale. The otter twins Bagg and Runn frisked and bounded around the apple and pear trees to the strawberry patch, then lay on their backs, squeaking with laughter as they gobbled up the juicy fruit, inventing fictitious reasons as to why the berries were lying there.

"Heehee, look what was blown down from the strawberry trees by the wind last night. Heeheehee!"

Durry Quill, Gabe Quill's little nephew, joined them. He sat in the strawberry patch, trying to decide which was the biggest berry, eating all the possible candidates as he listened to the otters. Durry was not at all sure whether he should believe they had come from a strawberry tree.

"Strawb'rry trees, 1 don't see no strawb'rry trees. Where be they?"

Bagg coughed hard to stop himself tittering. He put on a serious face as he explained the logic of fictitious strawberry trees to the puzzled little Durry.

"Teehee, er harumph! What? You never see'd a strawb'rry tree. Dear oh dear. Why, they're great giant things with blue speckly leaves, very light of course, only weigh as much as two goosefeathers. That's why the wind blowed 'em all away. Whoosh! Straight o'er the top of the Abbey walls."

The gullible Durry looked from one to the other, half convinced.

Runn nodded serious agreement and continued the story. "Sright, I see'd it meself from the dormitory window. Way away they blowed, all those poor old great strawb'rry trees, carried off by the wind to the Gongleboo mountains where the Grunglypodds live."

A half-eaten strawberry dropped from Durry's open mouth. "Grunglyboo's mountain where Gronglepodds live, where be that?"

Under a nearby pear tree Dandin stood paws on hips with his friend, young Saxtus the harvest mouse. Both smiled as they listened to the two otters leading Durry

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Quill astray with their tall tales. Saxtus bit into a windfall pear and grimaced.

"Don't know why we came out here to eat fruit. Most of these windfalls aren't even ripe yet. Taste this pear, hard as a rock."

Dandin sat down with the otters and Durry. "No, thanks, I'll try my luck with all these berries that fell from the strawberry trees." He looked over the top of a large strawberry at Bagg and Runn. "Strawberry trees indeed! You two should be ashamed of yourselves, telling a poor little hedgehog such whopping great fibs."

Saxtus sat down with them, keeping his normally solemn face quite straight. "Dandin's right, y'know. Otters that tell lies get carried off by the big pink Water-bogle."

Bagg tossed a strawberry into the air. It missed his mouth and bounced off his nose as he remarked airily, "Oh the pink Waterbogle. We've been carried off twice this summer by him, haven't we, Runn?"

Runn giggled. "Teeheehee! I'll say we have. We told him so many whoppers he said he's not carrying us off anymore."

From the direction of the damson and plum trees Simeon's voice interrupted.

"Saxtus! Dandin! Brother Hubert wants you for your Redwall history and recording lessons. He is not getting any younger, and someday we will need a new recorder; traditions must be upheld. Come on, young scamps, I know you're there!"

The two young mice dropped flat in the strawberry patch, Dandin holding a paw to his lips.

"Shush! It's Simeon. Lie lowhe might go away."

The steady pawsteps of the blind herbalist came nearer. Simeon called again.

"Come on, you two. I know you're hiding in the strawberry patch."

Saxtus tugged Bagg's tail and winked at the young

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otter. Bagg winked back as he called out, "It's Bagg and Runn, Simeon. We're the only ones here."

Simeon appeared, chuckling. "I'm going to count to three, and if you two otters and that nephew of Quill's aren't off to the Abbey kitchen to help with the chores, I'll tell Mother Mellus to come and fetch you with a hazel twig. As for Saxtus and Dandin, unless you want me to give you an extra lecture on the value of nightshade and campion as herbs, you'll come out now and stop lying there trying to breathe lightly. I may not have eyesight but my ears and nose have never deceived me yet."

Saxtus and Dandin stood up ruefully, wiping away dew from their novices' habits. Wordlessly they followed Simeon to the gatehouse at the entrance to the outer walls. Simeon strode boldly ahead, a smile hovering about his lips.

"Hmm, pity the strawberry trees got blown away in the storm. You could have climbed up one and hidden in its branches."