Urchin and the Raven War (10 page)

Myrtle screwed up her face in such concentration that Needle worried.

“No,” she said. “I didn’t even know what it was when I was sewing it. Sorry.”

“Never mind, dear,” said Thripple. “You’ve done a lovely piece of work. That’s a beautiful sea.”

Needle examined the Threading, but Myrtle had unpicked her own work so neatly that it was impossible to see what flower she had stitched in the sea. And why in the sea? It troubled Needle. She slept badly that night.

The news spread across the island that the king was recovering. It reached the ears of a gray, hoarse-voiced mole whose name was Grith. Grith growled softly in his throat when he heard of it. He had reasons to wish Crispin had died from the wound that tore through him on Swan Isle.

Grith was a good spy. He had learned the skill from his brother, long ago.

CHAPTER SEVEN

HE MORE
C
ORR EXPLORED
, the more he was astonished.

He found narrow inlets, where sandbanks reared up and willows dangled their fingers in the water. There were wide, shallow bays rippled with the tide and scattered with tiny shells. The next day he found dark rearing rock faces clothed with green weeds. The next, there were pale cliffs with waterfalls. Getting to Mistmantle Tower was taking him far longer than he had expected, but it was fun. Lonely, though. He often met other animals, who told him about the war and the return of the army, but a friend to share the journey with would be good. Another day was drawing late, and he had found a sandy bay surrounded by cliffs, with a sloping path. There would be time to explore that path before dark. He was climbing up past rough bushes when a cry startled and stopped him.

“Let go, raven!” cried a young female squirrel. “Evil death wing, I will fight you to the last drop of my blood!”

Raven!
Ravens had nearly killed the king! Corr ran, pushing through brambles that scratched and tore at him, realizing as he did that he had nothing to fight with. Picking up a stick, he lurched on until he saw the squirrel perched on the branch of a tree, pelting down beechnuts as she cried out her challenges. She darted back, flattened herself against the tree trunk, then began her attack again.

She must have scared off the enemy, thought Corr, who couldn’t see a single raven in sight. But there might be more of them hanging around, waiting to attack—in the treetops, probably. The squirrel now skimmed down the tree, snatched up a fallen branch, and brandished it like a sword.

“As long as I breathe,” she cried, “I will defend this island!”

“And so will I!” called Corr as he ran to her side.

The squirrel shrieked, dropped the branch, and picked it up again. It was bigger than she was.

“Who on all the island are you?” she demanded, raising the branch.

Corr looked from one side to the other, and finally up at the sky.

“I thought you were fighting ravens,” he said. “I can’t see anyone.”

The squirrel glared at him. “I was practicing,” she snapped.

“Practicing?”
repeated Corr.

She gave a little twist to her face and wriggled her shoulders.

“It’s very important to practice,” she said crossly. “You have to be able to react if you’re attacked.”

Her self-importance made him want to laugh. “Do you attack each other much here?” he asked.

“I’m talking about enemies,” she said, sounding very superior. “Real enemies. It’s no good waiting for them to turn up and then realizing you don’t know what to do.”

Corr glanced around in case any other animals were nearby. If this squirrel belonged to a family as big as his own, there could be any number of them like this—but he saw only a male hedgehog, who smiled brightly, waved a paw, and appeared to ignore them.

“Are all the squirrels around here like you?” he asked.

She put her head on one side. “Not exactly,” she said. “It depends on what you mean.”

“I mean, bossy,” said Corr.

The squirrel’s ears twitched. Her eyes flashed.

“Bossy!” she repeated.

“Well, you—”

“Just go away, can’t you!” She threw away the branch and turned her back on him to kick the tree.

Corr shrugged. If she felt like that, he may as well go and explore a bit farther, and maybe have a chat with that hedgehog who’d just given him a friendly wave. He’d leave the squirrel to throw a tantrum at her imaginary ravens. A few hedgehogs and squirrels came past, picking berries, playing games, and carrying birch-bark boats, and he was soon chatting with them. They told him that this was Curlingshell Bay, and the hedgehog he’d seen was called Brindle, and invited him to go with them to sail their boats in rock pools. (He didn’t tell them that he’d just had an argument with that squirrel, in case she was a friend of theirs.) But as the boats floated along, it didn’t look as if anything exciting would happen. Nobody fell into the pond, so there was no chance of a brave rescue. The biggest adventure he’d had today was a row with that bossy little squirrel. Now he came to think of it, that had been fun.

It was getting late, so he’d stay the night here. He’d catch some fish, and look about for strong reeds and sticky sap for patching up the boat. He was on his way back to the shore when he heard a sort of squeaking from behind a gorse bush. It might be none of his business, but he couldn’t help taking a look.

It was that squirrel again! But she wasn’t angry now. This time she was curled up, holding her tail in both paws and crying quietly. Corr knelt down beside her. She dried her eyes on her tail.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Go away,” she said, but he didn’t because she might not mean it.

“You said I was bossy,” she said with a sniff.

“Sorry,” he said again.

She finished drying her eyes. “I don’t mean to be bossy,” she said.

“Of course you don’t,” said Corr. She was probably born that way and couldn’t help it, and he shouldn’t have teased her. “It was really good, the way you ran down that tree.”

She shrugged modestly.

“You don’t live here, do you?” she said.

He told her about his journey, and his aim to go to the tower at last. He left out the bit about wanting adventures, in case she laughed at him.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Corr,” he said.

“I’m Lapwing,” said the squirrel. “Are you staying here long?”

“I want to go on in the morning,” he said, “but my boat needs patching up first.”

“Can I help?” she said eagerly. “Can I see your boat?”

She didn’t seem to have a clue about how to mend a boat with rushes and sap, but she was willing to learn, pulling up reeds and warming sap over the fire as Corr told her how to do it. She brought enormous bunches of reeds, half of which were too soft or too hard, and he had to rescue the sap before she could overheat it and set it as hard as rock; but she was trying her best to help. Spreading the sap over the reeds on the upturned boat was something she found unpleasantly messy, so she held the reeds in place while Corr did it.

“They do this differently at the shore near the tower,” she said, leaning away from the sticky mixture as she watched. “They use bark and things.”

Corr looked up suddenly, getting sap on his paw.

“The tower?” he said. “You’ve seen them mending boats at the tower?”

Lapwing looked most uneasy. It was as if she hadn’t meant to say that.

“Not the tower, exactly,” she said. “The shore near the tower, the jetty and all that.”

“That’s close enough!” said Corr. He smoothed the last of the rushes into place, washed his paws in the sea, and sat down beside her at the side of the boat most sheltered from the wind. “You’ve been to the
tower!
Have you ever seen King Crispin?”

Lapwing laughed. “Yes, I’ve seen him,” she said, then suddenly stopped laughing and changed the subject. “I used to live near there, but, anyway, what I was going to tell you was, there’s a really good boatbuilder there. Twigg the mole. If you can get there, he’ll sort out your boat.”

Corr sat up straight and turned to face her. “Do you really
know
these animals?”

She shrugged and wriggled a bit. She’d come a bit too close to giving herself away.

“I told you,” she said, “I used to live around there.”

Corr took a deep breath. Suddenly, he had a new friend who had set eyes on King Crispin, Captain Padra, and Fingal of the Floods. And …?

“Ever seen Urchin of the Riding Stars?” he asked breathlessly.

“Oh, him!” she said, and laughed again. “He’s really nice. You’d like him.”

“What’s so funny?” asked Corr.

“Nothing,” she said.

It was all too much, really. Lapwing had brought him within reach of his dreams. He felt he was pushing his luck, but she didn’t seem to mind him asking about tower animals.

“Brother Fir?” he asked.

“What about him?”

“Well… is he all right?”

“Last I knew, he was getting very weak,” she said. “He never leaves his turret now.” She saw the disappointment on his face, and added, “But if you want to see him they might let you go up there to visit, if he’s not too bad, and if you don’t stay long. Is the boat dry yet?”

It wasn’t, and they were hungry. Lapwing gathered berries and nuts while Corr fished. Brindle joined them and brought bread, and together they cooked supper over the fire. As darkness fell, they sucked stickiness from their paws. Brindle went to settle down to sleep in a shallow burrow, and Corr and Lapwing curled up against the boat.

“If you do want to see Fir,” said Lapwing, “don’t wait. I don’t know how long he’s got.”

Corr lay gazing at the sky, considering this. He remembered Filbert talking about all the things he’d never got around to.
Don’t wait,
Lapwing had said. He wanted desperately to visit Brother Fir, but not to arrive at the tower with nothing to tell, no adventures, and empty paws.

“I should take him a present,” he said. “Do you know what he’d like?”

Lapwing rolled over in her cloak. “I’ll think about it,” she muttered, and appeared to fall asleep.

She wasn’t asleep. She just didn’t want to go on talking about the tower.

When Catkin first came to the bay and took on her new identity as Lapwing, she’d been just a little homesick. Then she had made friends, become accustomed to the place, and settled in, and been quite happy until that terrible day when they had all stood craning their necks and watching the swans return. She had known something was wrong as soon as Urchin had arrived to take her home.

Urchin had stayed calm and focused, but he had not pretended that everything was all right when it wasn’t. As he hurried her home to the tower, he had told her how ill her father was, how serious things were, and why she must go home so urgently. Since then, her father had recovered and she had been sent back to continue living as a normal animal. But this time, leaving had been hard. More than the first time, she missed her parents, her tower friends, her chamber, the aromas of cooking from the kitchens, the familiar Threadings, and the floating calls of music when Sepia and her friends rehearsed. She longed for her own bed and the people who loved her most. A tear squeezed its way through her closed eyelids. She must not think of that first sight of her father, King Crispin of Mistmantle, Crispin the Seafarer, the Swanrider, lying wounded and as helpless as a child. Instead she tried to think of what present Corr could take to Brother Fir. She fell asleep thinking about it, and woke in the morning knowing the answer.