‘Let the birds fly high before us,
An’ our wake trail straight behind,
When yore heart is yearnin’ for it,
Home is not too hard to find.
May our way be bright an’ sunny,
Back to where the campfires burn,
There our friends an’ families waitin’,
For the warriors to return.
Are the old ones happily livin’,
An’ the young ones tall an’ grown?
We will soon see smilin’ faces,
Of all those we’ve always known.
Far we’ve travelled, long we’ve wandered,
Morn till night an’ dusk to dawn,
But there’s no place we’ll rest easy,
Save the land where we were born.’
Martin leaned over the stern rail with Viola and the Abbot, watching the tropical island of Sampetra fade into the distance. Its inhabitants – the strange lizards, searats and corsairs – were marooned, left to fight and scheme among themselves, whilst their dead Emperor, Ublaz Mad Eyes, lay stripped of his crown in a dark cellar with a poisonous snake to guard his eternal sleep. Plumes of black smoke still smudged the azure blue sky from behind the palace and from the north cove.
Tears flowed openly down Viola’s face as she listened to the shrews’ song. Abbot Durral gave her his wide sleeve to dry her eyes.
‘Hush, little maid, think of the autumn harvest in Redwall Abbey. You’ll be there with your friends to help gather it.’
The volemaid wiped her face and smiled. ‘I’ll never leave there again as long as I live, Father!’
55
SUMMER TRAILED OFF in glory as the season turned to autumn. Misted mornings gave way to mild days, shortened by scarlet sunsets and nights lit by harvest moons. Trees wore brown-gold leafy finery, promising the earth a fine crisp carpet of russet, which would whisper wistful messages as it shifted on the gentle breeze. It was the time when Tansy was visited in her dreams by Martin the Warrior of old. Dawn light filtered softly across the dormitory as she awoke with his message clear in her mind.
‘Haste to the shore, look to the main,
Be not beset by fears,
Wait faithfully for a Sea King there,
And take with you six tears.’
No creature within the Abbey walls was more eager or determined to carry out the Warrior’s bidding than Tansy. In the space of three days she had organized everything and made the journey.
Auma had given Tansy permission to take a small party with her and erect a marquee on the beach. However, the badger Mother had insisted that Skipper and his otter crew, including Rangapaw and her searchers, in company with Log a Log and the Guosim shrews, accompany the little expedition as bodyguards. Log a Log led them to the place where Waveworm had left Mossflower’s shore, and a camp was set up. Tansy took with her Craklyn, Rollo, Gerul and Friar Higgle, and much against the badger Mother’s better judgement, but after great persuasion by the hedgehog maid, Arven, Diggum and Gurrbowl. The Dibbuns were thrilled by their first visit to the seaside and promptly got into all kinds of mischief.
Rollo sat atop a rocky outcrop close to the tent, with Tansy and Craklyn at his side. Their eyes ached with two days of staring out to sea. The old Recorder polished his spectacles, drowsy in the noontide warmth.
‘Are you sure that’s what Martin said in your dream, miss, wait faithfully for a Sea King there?’ he asked. ‘What’s a Sea King?’
Tansy held the six pearls in their scallop shell case on her lap. ‘I haven’t a clue. Sounds pretty fearsome, though, doesn’t it? What d’you think this Sea King’ll look like, Craklyn?’
‘Well, my guess is that it’s some kind of fearsome monster, just like those lizards who came with the searats. The Sea King probably has Abbot Durral and Viola with him, that’s why Martin told you to take the pearls along, to ransom them both back from the Sea King.’
Tansy’s eyes strayed to a rockpool where the Dibbuns were playing. ‘Hmm, that makes sense, I never thought of it like that. Arven! Come here, you little maggot, and show me what you’ve got there!’
The little squirrel and the two molebabes carried a wooden shrew soup bowl carefully, water slopping over its edges. Approaching the rock where the friends were seated, Arven peered villainously up at them, holding the bowl up.
‘Whooo, Tansy pansy, we gorra likkle spider wot swims inna water, an’ he gonna jump up an’ bite you noses off!’
Rollo peered down at the tiniest crab he had ever seen, no bigger than a little apple pip. It scrambled sideways underwater, holding up two claws that were almost invisible to the naked eye.
The Recorder looked severely over his glasses at the giggling trio. ‘That’s no spider, it’s a baby crab, and somewhere in that pool it has a mother and father as big as I am – no, bigger! If you don’t put their baby straight back into the pool they’ll be out here in a moment and have you three for dinner!’
‘Gurr, ee do say, zurr? Purrum back ee likkle crabspoider, h’Arven, quick loik, oi bain’t gettin h’etted up by that’n’s mum’n’daddy!’ They fled squealing to empty the bowl back into the pool.
Tansy returned her gaze to the horizon of endlessly shifting sea. She stared westward, and pondered, ‘I wonder what happened to Martin and the others? I hope the Sea King hasn’t harmed them. Maybe we’ll be able to use the pearls and strike a bargain that’ll get them all returned to us.’
Gerul wandered over, munching on a hot shrewcake. ‘Sure an’ I know how t’get me ould mate Clecky back here, just keep good vittles cookin’! That great gut-tub’d smell ’em from a hundred leagues off, so he would!’
‘Aye, an’ those two sons o’ mine,’ Log a Log called over from the cooking fire, ‘they’d foller their noses down t’the gates o’ Dark Forest if’n they thought they’d find a free feed there!’
Skipper looked up from some hotroot soup he was stirring. ‘Let’s ’ope none of our friends ’as found their way to Dark Forest gates,’ he said.
A respectful silence fell over allbeasts who had heard the otter Chieftain’s words.
Night fell over the encampment. Skipper gathered the snoring Dibbuns up from the remnants of supper and their broken sandcastles, carried them into the marquee and deposited them gently on a heap of dry rushes. Smiling fondly, he watched the Abbeybabes snuggle down, still asleep, but giggling and snuffling as they settled. Rollo was deep in slumber and Craklyn was sitting with the shrew and otter crews, singing ballads and ditties. Skipper hauled himself up onto the rock, where Tansy was still seated, watching westward over the night-time seas.
‘Ahoy, miss, ruinin’ yer eyesight ain’t goin’ t’get no Sea King ’ere a moment sooner than he’s due to arrive, believe me.’
Tansy rubbed the back of the scallop shell case with her paw. ‘I know, Skip, but I feel as if it’s my responsibility, somehow. I’d hate to think of the Abbot and Viola arriving here by night, in the clutches of a foebeast, with not a friendly face to greet them. It wouldn’t be right, would it?’
The otter Chieftain nodded. ‘I know wot y’mean, young ’un, but you go off’n get yore rest now. I’ll watch awhile then post some others later. If anythin’ gets sighted I’ll wake yer meself.’
Thanking the kindly otter, Tansy went into the marquee and lay down alongside the three Dibbuns. Outside she could hear the restless waves breaking on the shore. Flickering firelight shadows against the tent wall reflected the creatures sitting around the fire outside. She fell asleep to the sound of Craklyn joining the shrews and otters in an old woodland ballad.
‘Shrum, shrum, double die dum,
Rivers may flow but the streams they do run,
Kissing the willows that droop sad and low,
Through sunlight and shadow as onward they go.
Shrum, shrum, fie upon thee,
Ye rivers an’ streams that flow down to the sea,
I sit by your banks through the long weary day,
To mourn for my t
rue love who you bore away.
Shrum, shrum, cruel is fate,
How long must I linger by water and wait,
You babble round rock and you swirl around stone,
And share your dark secrets with none but your own.
Shrum, shrum, tears may fall,
I’m bound for the place where the lone seabirds call,
I’ll build me a boat and sail down to the sea,
There I’ll search for the heart that is dearest to me.
Shrum, shrum, shrummmmmmmmmm!’
In her dreams Tansy was again visited by the ancient spirit of Martin. This time he had only one thing to say. ‘The Abbess will know what to do with the pearls!’
Morning light found a breezeless day, with heavy mist wreathing the shoreline. Everybeast was up bright and early to help with the day’s chores. Tansy and Craklyn took the Dibbuns along the tideline, gathering driftwood for the fire.
It was a strange, subdued sort of day, even the Abbeybabes seemed quieter than usual. Tansy and Craklyn kept an eye on the little ones as they looped a rope around the bundle they had gathered. Only the gentle lap of waves against the sand broke the silence where they stood, hemmed in by mist shrouds.
Suddenly Tansy felt an odd compulsion stir within her. She turned to face seaward, staring into the mist. Craklyn and the Dibbuns turned with her. Arven sounded rather fearful as he tugged her tunic hem.
‘Tansy, worra matter, sumfink out there . . .’
A great shining dark monster, dripping water and wearing a gold crown upon its head, came shuffling out of the sea, dragging in its jaws a thick rope. Casting aside the rope the beast threw back its massively sleek head and roared.
‘Haaaaaaaawm!’
As Craklyn and the three Dibbuns clung to her, Tansy could hear herself shouting aloud, ‘Help! The Sea King! Help! Help!’
Then the beach was alive with dark shining creatures of all sizes, from fully grown to little ones, all roaring as they flung ropes in the air.
‘Haaaaaaaaaawm! Haaaaaaaaaaawm!’
Armed with javelin and rapier, Skipper and Log a Log came bounding through the mist. However, they skidded to a stunned halt when a dark mountainous object rode through the fog on a wave and ground to a halt, ploughed deep into the tideline sands.
Two figures slid expertly down ropes onto the beach.
‘Sorry we couldn’t find no walkin’ sticks for ye, old feller!’
Throwing his paws around his two sons, Log a Log swept them clear of the ground, hugging them fiercely. ‘Haharrharr! You scraggy-’eaded rips, sneak up on yore ole daddy like that, would ye? Yer barnacle-whiskered pups, welcome back! You musta smelled breakfast a cookin’!’
The Seaking had come home to Mossflower country!
56
AN HOUR LATER bright rising sun had burned off the dawn mists and everybeast was aboard the big ship as it bobbed on the incoming tide. Martin, Viola and Abbot Durral held on to the paws of Tansy, Rollo, Craklyn and Higgle as if they would never let go again.
‘Rollo, old friend, how good to see your face!’
‘Father Abbot, you’re really back! And Viola too; we thought you were lost in the woods!’
‘Friar Higgle, I’ll wager you missed me in the kitchens?’
‘Missed you? Good job Teasel ain’t here, or she’d be throwin’ her apron o’er her face an’ cryin’ buckets. Oh, Durral, my friend, sometimes I doubted I’d ever see ye again!’
‘Tansy, Craklyn, is it really you? Give me a kiss, friends!’
‘Friends, that’s what we are, Viola, for ever friends!’
‘Martin, it does my old heart good to see our Redwall Warrior returned safe and well! How are you, friend?’
‘All the better for having the honour to shake the paw of a great and wise Recorder, Rollo. You’ve grown younger in my absence.’
‘Martin, Martin, all seagulls gone’d inna water, swimmed away?’
The Warriormouse untangled Arven from his footpaws and lifted him onto his shoulder. ‘They’re not seagulls, they’re called seals. Gone, you say?’
Clecky and Gerul looked over the ship’s side. Arven had spoken truly, there was not a sign of sealfolk or their Hawm anywhere.
The hare munched a chunk of warm shrewbread reflectively, and said, ‘Without so much as a farewell or a toodle-oo! Still, I s’pose there’s only me would’ve understood them, seein’ as I’m the only one jolly well up on their lingo, wot. Very odd, though, very odd indeed!’
Gerul attempted to disguise snorted laughter as a cough. ‘I’m thinkin’ ’tis no odder than yoreself with a red velvet ear, me ould mate. I don’t know wot me ould mother’d’ve said if’n she’d seen a lug like that!’
The hare straightened his red velvet ear and posed heroically. ‘Rather good, doncha think, wot! Distinctive, stylish, yet with that touch of roguish dash about it. Wish I had two, really!’
Martin turned to stare seaward, shaking his head sadly. ‘I wish the Hawm and his sealfolk had stayed longer. They were proper friends, good and true. Still, I suppose they had their reasons for leaving as they did. What are you staring at, Skip?’
‘Yer neck, matey, that’s a rare ole scar you’ve got there!’
The Warriormouse ran his paw across the wound. ‘Aye, but you should see the other feller. I’ll tell you all about it when we get back to Redwall.’
Plogg and Welko told their father about Grath, how she had found Inbar and gone to live at Ruddaring with him. Welko clapped his father’s back and said, ‘But Grath said that she’d never ferget ’er friend the Guosim Chieftain Log a Log. Ahoy there, are you cryin’, dad?’
Log a Log did not attempt to wipe away the tears which rolled down his face. ‘Of course I am, ye great buffer, that otter was like a daughter t’me, the one I never ’ad. I’m glad she’s ’appy, though I’ll miss ’er.’
Plogg pulled an object from his belt and placed it in Log a Log’s paws. ‘Grath said t’give you this to remember ’er by.’
It was a green-feathered arrow.
The Abbot stood on the forepeak with Tansy, Rollo and Craklyn.
‘Did you solve your riddle?’ he asked.
Rollo nodded. ‘Indeed we did, all six of them. Six riddles to lead us to six perfect pearls. They were to be your ransom.’
‘Ah,’ cried the Abbot, ‘now all is clear.’ He folded his paws into his habit sleeves. ‘Good! Who holds them at this moment?’
Tansy produced the scallop shell case and opened it to reveal the six rose-coloured pearls, each one lying in its niche. ‘Here they are, Father. Martin tells me that they belonged to the family of Grath Longfletch. How can I return them?’
Abbot Durral stared at Tansy a long time, then he said, ‘I have been told the pearls now belong to you!’
Tansy looked at the rose-coloured orbs. ‘But what about Rollo and Craklyn? They helped me to find them.’
The Abbot of Redwall’s voice was clear and firm. ‘Yet still they belong to you, who found the remains of that corsair which led to the first clue. The Warrior of our dreams told me they were yours. Now think carefully, young one, what are you going to do with them?’
A silence fell over the whole ship, and every eye turned upon Tansy holding the pearls. She stared at them, her mind racing back to that first day in the woods and the corsair’s skeleton, over the many hours spent searching painstakingly to gain each one, the puzzles, riddles, joys, frustrations and sorrows of the entire quest. Now it had all come down to this, a half-dozen round objects encased in a scallop shell. Her voice rang out, clear and certain.
‘These pearls are said to be rare, precious and beautiful, yet when I look at them now I see only bloodshed, greed and death. There are many creatures lying dead because of them, from the family of Grath down to countless searats and corsairs. But one touched our own lives deeply, a young Abbeymaid who was friend to us all. Piknim was slain because of these six pearls. Truly they are called the Tears of all Oceans. We have no need for things such as
these at Redwall Abbey, life is a far more precious and beautiful thing. I give back to the oceans these six tears, so that they will never cause grief or sorrow to any living creature!’
Tansy climbed to the bowsprit of Seaking, which had turned on the tide and now was moored to the shore, facing the open seas. Scooping the pearls from their case she flung them high and wide. Like six rose-tinted raindrops they flashed briefly in the sunlight, then they hit the waves and were lost to sight for ever. Tansy let the scallop shell drop from her paws. It fell with a gentle splash and sank under the keel. Slowly the hedgehog maid descended to the deck, where she apologized to Rollo and Craklyn.
‘After all the days and nights we spent searching together, see what I’ve done! I am sorry, my friends.’
Craklyn grinned ruefully. ‘Fermald the Ancient would be furious if she were here now. Just think, with one sweep of your paw you hid the pearls far better than she did with all her clues and scheming!’
Rollo nodded his head admiringly. ‘Indeed, you certainly don’t mess about when you’ve made up your mind to do something, miss. What do you say, Father Abbot?’
The good Father Abbot had quite a bit to say.
‘From the time our ship left Sampetra to sail back here, I have had the same dream over and over. Martin our Abbey spirit kept on telling me this message.
‘“She who holds the pearls, the Abbess of Redwall will be,
She who holds on to the pearls, cannot rule in place of thee,
Only an Abbess whose heart sees truth, may give pearls unto the sea.”’
Abbot Durral took Tansy’s paw. ‘Many times Martin repeated those words to me in my dreams. I was puzzled as to their meaning until today. Abbess Tansy!’
The enormity of what Durral had said caused Tansy to move away from the Abbot in bewilderment. She stood alone on the forepeak, scarcely noticing the sea, sparkling as wavelets caught mid-morning sunlight. Total silence reigned aboard the vessel.
Martin stole silently up alongside her. Drawing the great sword of Redwall, he laid it on the rail in front of her, and said, ‘I am yours to command, Mother Abbess. What is your wish?’
Pearls of Lutra Page 35