The Sable Quean (21 page)

Buckler twitched his ears, smiling easily. “Well, ain’t that a pity? You’ll just have to speak t’me. Buckler Kordyne at y’service, Blademaster of Salamandastron.”

Zwilt looked about to speak, when Buckler halted him with an upraised paw. “Zwilt the Shade, eh? I’ve heard of you. Aren’t you the one who sneaks around the countryside stealin’ babes from their mammas’ paws? A real brave warrior!”

A loud snigger from Diggs was heard clearly as Buckler continued. “I don’t think I want to bandy words with a coward like you. No, I’ll speak with her, Vilaya the Sable Quean, who lives at Althier.”

The young hare could tell by the look which passed betwixt Zwilt and Vilaya that his remark had hit home. How did he know of Althier?

Vilaya answered him, “I did not come here to play guessing games and exchange insults. No doubt you are wondering what has become of your young ones?”

Abbess Marjoram could hold herself back no longer. She leapt forward, shaking a clenched paw. “You filthy Dibbun thief—it was you!”

Before they could be stopped, Oakheart’s wife, Dymphnia, and Jango’s wife, Furm, were yelling at the Sable Quean.

“What’ve ye done with our babes, you wicked scum?” “Give us our little uns back. How could ye do such a bad thing?”

Whilst he felt sorry for both mothers, Granvy rounded on the pair, muttering fiercely, “Shuttup, both of ye. It’s not doing any good, insulting a vermin Quean like that. You’ll only bring more trouble on the little ones. Leave it to Buckler—he knows what he’s doing!”

They fell back and were comforted into silence by Sister Fumbril and some molewives. Buckler felt that the vermin had got the better of that exchange. This set him to try another tactic. He called out challengingly, “How do we know you’ve got the young uns. Where’s yore proof?”

The Ravagers brought forward three large sacks which, on a signal from Vilaya, they turned out. The little Witherspyk hogmaid Jinty, Tassy the Redwall squirrelmaid and Urfa the baby leveret tumbled forth, blinking in the sunlight.

Skipper ground his teeth, whispering to Sister Fumbril, “Keep their mothers out o’ sight. Don’t let ’em see the little uns, I beg ye, marm!”

Diggs moved swiftly up alongside Buckler. “Let’s find out what the rotters do when they see we’ve got one of their crew, wot?”

It was a standoff. Buckler realised he would have to take the gamble. He nodded. “There’s nothin’ else we can do. Try it, mate!”

Grabbing Gripchun roughly, Diggs hauled him up onto the battlements.

Buckler shouted, “This is one of yours—Gripchun, I believe. Harm any one of those babes, and he’ll pay!”

Zwilt whispered to one of the Ravagers, who passed the word on to some others. The tall sable called to the prisoner on the walltop, “Gripchun, friend, how would you like me to free you from those creatures?”

The ferret’s head bobbed rapidly. “Aye, sir, I’d like that!”

Zwilt was smiling as he raised his paw, then let it drop suddenly.

There was a buzzing noise, like several angry hornets, as three arrows zipped out from the horde. One went wide, but the other two found Gripchun. He gave a startled gurgle, then went limp. Falling from Diggs’s grasp, he hurtled from the battlements to the path in front of the main gate.

The three little captives were swiftly returned to their sacks. On the walltops, most of the defenders were ducking below the parapet, fearing further arrows would follow. But none came.

Zwilt had a brief whispered conference with Vilaya, then drew his broadsword, signalling a retreat. “We will be back here before too long. Do not try to follow or discover where Althier lies. It would be very sad for your young ones if ye did!”

Buckler tore down the wallstairs and unbarred the main gate, calling to Diggs, who had followed him, “Bar the gate behind me, stay in here—that’s an order, Subaltern!”

Drawing his long rapier, he crossed the path. Taking the ditch in a single leap, he roared, “Eulaliiiaaaaa!”

Marching at the front of the Ravagers, Zwilt and Vilaya both heard the hare’s war cry. She nodded to the tall sable.

“Go back and warn that fool off—and don’t get into a fight with him. He could be a dangerous beast.”

Buckler was waiting as Zwilt came striding over the flatland, brandishing the broadsword. “I’ve been given orders not to slay you, longears. What is it that you want? Speak!”

Buckler did his best to provoke Zwilt to fight. “You rotten, stinkin’, murderin’ coward! That sword you hold is my brother’s blade. How did ye kill him, yellow guts? By stabbin’ him in the back?”

Buckler drew his long rapier; Zwilt took a pace backward. He opened his cloak to reveal the medal hanging about his neck. Showing his teeth in a malevolent smile, he replied, “Your brother, was he? Stupid, clodhoppin’ soil plougher! No need to stab that one in the back—I cut him to ribbons with one paw behind my back. I took his pretty medal, too. D’ye like it, longears?”

The young hare’s steel made the still air thrum as he came at the tall sable.

“Put up that blade or the young ones die!” Vilaya had dropped to the rear of her Ravagers. Her eyes glittered with menace as she hissed, “I warn ye, do you want their blood on your head?”

Buckler sheathed the rapier back over his shoulder.

The Sable Quean called to her commander, “Leave him, Zwilt. Don’t waste your time with the fool. Come on.”

Buckler was quivering from ears to tailscut. He had trouble keeping his voice level. “We’ll meet again, vermin, and when we do, ’twill be your death day. I swear on my oath!”

Zwilt sneered. “Big words for a rabbet with a skinny blade. When we meet again, I’ll do to you what I did for your big clumsy brother, but I’ll do it slower so you’ll suffer longer. Now, run back and hide behind those walls with your friends.” Turning his back upon the hare warrior, Zwilt strode off to join the horde.

Filled with an incandescent rage, Buckler took a pace toward Zwilt as the world turned red in front of his eyes. What he would have done next he would never know. Vilaya’s voice stopped him short.

“Do as he says, or you will die before the young ones do. Look, fool, and obey me!”

As his vision cleared, Buckler saw what she meant. He was facing six vermin archers with shafts drawn full-stretch on their curving bows. There was nothing more he could do.

Turning, he began walking slowly back to the Abbey, where the defenders were watching him from the walltops. Suddenly an arrow skidded by his neck, furrowing a shallow wound. He heard mocking laughter from behind him and Zwilt calling, “Faster, rabbet, or we won’t get the chance to meet again—they’ll kill you!”

Shafts were zipping all around Buckler. He felt one cut sharply into his footpaw, and he fell. Picking himself swiftly up, he staggered and stumbled in a zigzag path until he reached the Abbey.

Diggs and Skipper flung the gate open, hauling him inside. Log a Log Jango shouted from the walltop, “The treacherous blaggards! Guosim, string yore bows!”

Buckler roared back at the Shrew Chieftain, “No! No! Don’t fire at them. They’ll kill our young uns. Don’t do anything!”

Reluctantly, Jango gave his archers orders to stand down. Everybeast flocked about the young hare. Dymphnia Witherspyk and her daughter Trajidia supported him to the Abbey building where Sister Fumbril took over.

“Bring him to the Infirmary. Those vermin arrows may be tipped with poison—hurry now!”

Trajidia looked aghast. “Poison! Oh, the foul fiends, and you were so brave out there, Mister Buckler, so valorous! Facing all those foebeast single-pawed. Alas, only to be fatally pierced by poison weapons!”

A swift kick in the tail from her grandmother caused her to yelp indignantly. Crumfiss pushed her onward.

“Don’t let him go, missy. Keep tight hold or he’ll fall. An’ ye can stop all the drama. Save yore moanin’ and wai lin’ for the proper time!”

Skipper watched the ladies escorting Buckler upstairs, commenting to Oakheart, “Ye won’t get near Buck, not with that lot. He’s in more danger of bein’ nursed, cared for an’ fed t’death than he is from bein’ slayed by vermin. See!”

Drull Hogwife and the Abbess hurried by, bearing a tray of food and drink as they followed the others.

Diggs sat down on the bottom stair, chunnering. “Huh, I should’ve gone with old Buck. Blinkin’ chap could starve t’death round here if he’s not been jolly well wounded, wot!”

Jango turned to Granvy. “Bad luck, losin’ yore vermin prisoner like that. Ye won’t get no more out o’ him.”

Granvy looked over the top of his rock-crystal glasses, nodding sagely. “Oh, really, d’ye think so? Well, let me tell you, my friend, I learned enough from Gripchun to put a few things together myself. You don’t get to be a Recorder of Redwall by letting your brain go idle.”

The others were immediately intrigued by this statement.

Skipper thumped his rudder excitedly. “Things? Wot sort o’ things, matey?”

Oakheart whispered confidentially, “No secrets here, sirrah—you can tell us.”

The old scribe chuckled. “Later, perhaps, when Buckler gets back from the clutches of Sister Fumbril. I’m afraid I don’t know everything yet, so I may need a bit of help and some quick-witted ideas.”

Diggs brightened up slightly. “Chap t’help with quick-witted ideas, d’ye say? Hah, you’re lookin’ at the very fellow, old lad. My quick-wittedness is legendary at Salamandastron, wot wot!”

Jango chuckled. “I’ll wager it is—tryin’ to work out how t’get more vittles than the rest, figurin’ how ye can pinch pies from the cookhouse an’ so on.”

Diggs wrinkled his ears at the shrew. “Steady on, there—that’s a jolly hurtful thing t’say about a chap, y’know. Still, I wish I knew where I could pinch a bloomin’ pie or two right now. Most unusual for me, but I do feel a bit bloomin’ peckish.”

Granvy smiled. “Right, then, shall we say after supper let’s all meet in the gatehouse?”

Diggs nodded. “Supper, a capital idea!”

 

Abbess Marjoram pushed the tray of untouched food toward Buckler as Sister Fumbril tended to his wounds. He hardly glanced at it.

She chided him jokingly, “Tuck in, young sir. Even warriors have to eat, you know.”

Buckler did not even flinch as Fumbril washed his neck wound with hot water and herbal cleanser. He sat on a sickbay bed, gazing bleakly at the wall.

Dymphnia Witherspyk looked up at him as she began bathing his footpaw. His dark mood was plain to see.

“Don’t take it to heart so much, Buck. You did all you could have done. ’Twas very brave of you.”

There was a bitter edge to the young hare’s voice. “Did all I could’ve done? Huh, I had to run away like a frightened babe. Very brave, I’m sure!”

Log a Log’s wife, Furm, passed him a bowl of hot summer vegetable soup, commenting, “Oh, I see, you’d ’ave much sooner stood yore ground and gotten shot full of arrows. That would’ve made ye feel better, eh?”

Buckler’s eyes, still hot with seething anger, swept the ladies. “That Zwilt . . . that piece of filth! He was wearing my dead brother’s medallion—aye, an’ wielding his sword, too. That tiny leveret, the one they had in a sack, I’ve never set eyes on it before, but I’ll take my oath that the babe’s my nephew. Where else would they get a little hare around here?”

Trajidia clasped her paws, declaiming dramatically, “Oh, the agonies you must have suffered, sirrah, standing there helpless in front of your tormentors!”

Catching her mother’s icy glance, she trailed off into silence. Sister Fumbril bound a neat light dressing of sanicle and dockleaf to Buckler ’s footpaw.

“There, you’re as good as new, matey. How d’ye feel?”

Buckler touched his neck, which was smeared with a healing unguent. He stood up, testing his weight upon the paw. “Better, thanks. I don’t have to stay here, do I?”

Abbess Marjoram moved the tray out of his way. “Not if you don’t want to. Could I tempt you to take a little food before you leave?”

She spoke as Diggs entered the room. The tubby Subaltern beamed, thinking the remark was addressed to him. “You certainly can, Mother Abbess, marm!”

Plonking himself on the bed, he pulled the tray to him. “What ho, Buck, you look jolly chipper. Still, I was just sayin’ to old Log a Thing, takes more’n a couple of mis’rable vermin arrows t’stop a Salamandastron chap, wot!” He swigged off the soup and wiped his lips. When he looked up, his companion had gone.

“Well, now, didn’t stop to chat, did he? My word, what’n the name o’ fur’n’feathers ails him?”

Furm shook her head. “Huh, warriors. No tellin’ wot goes on in their minds. I should know, I’m married to one!”

Diggs bit into a plum turnover. “Say no more, dear lady. Know exactly what y’mean. Us warriors are a jolly odd lot, wot, wot!”

 

Supper was a very subdued affair. Everybeast was mulling over what had taken place that day. Most Redwallers were feeling apprehensive following the appearance of a vermin horde at their very gates. They ate in silence, keeping their feelings to themselves.

Skipper finished eating quickly, then nodded to Buckler. “D’ye fancy a stroll over t’ the gatehouse with some of us? Ole Granvy reckons he’s onto somethin’ that might help with our problem.”

Buckler had hardly touched food; he stood promptly. “Lead on, Skip. Anythin’s better than sittin’ round wondering what t’do next.”

The Abbey Recorder looked about at the assembly in the little cottage. Skipper, Buckler, Diggs, Jango, Oakheart and the Abbess. He tapped his quill pen on a stack of yellowed scrolls, obviously ancient writings. “Listen now, friends, I’ve been trying to piece together a few things which might reveal the location of where the Dibbuns are being kept.”

Oakheart scratched his headspikes. “Aye, sir, but will it do any good? You may be bringing disaster on our young uns heads. D’ye recall what that scoundrel Zwilt said? If we try to follow them, or find the babes, then they’ll harm our little ones.”