The Second Wave (8 page)

‘Did you say that you were sent here by the squirrels over at the pool?’ Crag asked.

‘Yes.  They said we were to spend the winter here, but did not tell us that you would meet us.  They were polite to us, but understandably suspicious.  Well, here we are, sir.’  He waited expectantly.

Crag surveyed the Greys.  They looked big and powerful, and had strong teeth.

‘Follow me,’ he said, and led them off in the direction of the derelict haywain.

Tansy crouched in the corner of the dark cage.  It was daytime, for she could see the winter light under the door, but it was too dark for her to make much sense of her surroundings.

The day before, her captor’s leather-gloved hand had taken her from the net and thrust her into the empty cage that had last been occupied by the pine marten.  It was impregnated with his terrifying scent, but even this was submerged by the rank odours rising from the only other occupants of the cages, a pair of ferrets who snuffled and prowled about or slept noisily somewhere below her.

Tansy was still shaking with fright and her mind was going round in circles.  She must get out to find Marguerite and the Woodstock to save the Ourlanders from the pine marten, but before she could do that she must get out to find…

The stable door opened and cold air rushed in.  A man’s dark eyes peered through the wire at her as he bent down to look into the cage.

‘Come on, my lovely,’ he said, the words meaningless to Tansy.  ‘I’ve brought you some special food.’

In his hand was a paper bag containing a variety of Christmas nuts bought from a stall in Wareham market.  He opened the cage door slightly and tossed in a handful, then closed it quickly.  Tansy hid her head under her paws until he had gone out of the stable, leaving her once again in the cold darkness.

The nuts smelt strange and foreign. She felt for them in the sawdust of the cage floor and was puzzled by the waxy feel of the shells.  The hazelnuts she knew, and the walnuts, but the strange three-cornered ones were new to her.  She gnawed at the end of one until she could taste the oily kernel inside.  She ate only a little of it then opened a walnut, the flavour immediately bringing back memories of the celebration of the passing of the Longest Night, and the feasting the squirrels enjoyed when they knew the Sun would soon return with the warmth of spring.

Her spirits lifted by the man’s gift, she tried every side of the cage for a way out, then crouched in a corner and recited to herself the Kernel for Encouragement –

‘When all is darkness

Squirrels need not fear for long,

The Sun will come soon.’

She searched again for a way to escape.

Blood was getting restless.  He had finished eating the peahen that he had most recently killed in the church, had played with the feathers, slept for a full day and night and had then awakened with the squirrel-lust on him.  He came down the bell-rope, passed the rows of dozing birds on the pew-backs and padded out into a grey winter day.  He sprang up on to the gravestone of an earlier, human, inhabitant of the island and peered about, sniffing.  The air was clear of squirrel-scent, so he made off towards the leaf-pile in the swamp.  All hunters hope to find new quarry where they have successfully killed before.

Only the tails of his two previous victims were there.  He sniffed at these until his mouth watered and his mind was filled with nothing but the urge to taste the blood of a squirrel.  He ran up the trunk of an aspen tree and started his search.

Blood picked up the recent squirrel-signs in Beech Valley.  There were newly gnawed cones under the pine trees, fresh scratch-marks on the beech trunks and the tantalising smell was everywhere.

The pickets, though, had seen him coming and quickly spread the word.  The females, the youngsters and the older squirrels had hurried off towards Woodstock Bay, whilst the fit males had watched Blood’s movements from a safe distance.  Soon they put their plans into operation.  One, Just Poplar, showed himself and tempted Blood to follow as he led him from tree to tree and up the valley, keeping just far enough ahead of the pine marten to be safe, but near enough to keep Blood bounding through the branches at his fastest rate.  Just Poplar knew that neither of them could keep up this pace and this knowledge was part of the plan.

When he tired, he slipped behind a tree-trunk and the role of ‘tempter’ was taken over by one of the ex-zervantz, Maple, previously called Maggot.

Maple was strong, fit and fresh, and set a merry pace to keep the marten from realising that he had been duped.  The plan was progressing well, the chase curving round and back towards the church.  Even the last leap had been judge to perfection.  Maple sailed over the gap between two trees that he had estimated was too wide for the heavier marten.

Blood, angry and breathing hard, glared after the departing high-tailed squirrel, gave up the chase, came down the trunk, went into the church and slaughtered a peahen.  It was tame stuff, this, the stupid bird putting up little resistance as his teeth bit deeply through the feathers of her neck, the squawk of protest cut off in mid-call.

He ate his fill amongst the drifting specks of down, then climbed wearily up the rope to the bell-tower to sleep the remainder of the day away.  Those squirrels would not catch him out with
that
trick again, he vowed to himself.

Ivy did not like the regime that Crag had imposed or the feeble way in which Hickory and Sitka accepted it.  They might have instructions to learn the strange customs of the natives, but this metal collecting was a bore.  Hickory and Sitka seemed ready enough to carry out the instructions of the Temple Master, but whenever she had the chance, she would slip away from the work party and go off on her own.  Sometimes she would go across to the Blue Pool and watch the Reds there, unobserved, from a distance, just to confirm that the one who called herself Marguerite
was
treated as an equal by the red males. It was clear that Crag had nothing but contempt for Rusty, his mate.  Whenever she watched here, she could see that Marguerite was not merely treated as an equal but was held in very high regard.

Ivy had found a thin flat piece of grey stone near the haywain which, when she scratched it with another stone, bore a mark.  One day, after deserting the working party, she went to where she had hidden this slate and drew the only marks that she could remember on it -
for one,
for two,
for three and
 for four.  This was how the Greys had counted before the Grey Death came, and she realised with a start that she was now probably the only Grey who remembered these marks and this way of counting.  The idea troubled her.  If she died, all the knowledge of numbering would have died with her.  She knew so much more about so many other things as well.  There ought to be a way to record everything she knew, but how?

She wiped the slate clean and did a random line – 
 

(ASCII code for A.)

She was looking at the shapes, her head tilted to one side, sensing some hidden meaning in these, when she heard a sound behind her and turned to face Marguerite.

Ivy was surprised to see how small this Red appeared against herself now that they were together on the ground.  She did not feel in any way threatened.

‘Hello,’ she said ‘I’m Ivy.’

‘I’m Marguerite the Tagger.  I came to observe your party and found you on your own.  What are you doing?’

Ivy’s tail rose.  She was flattered to find a senior squirrel interested in her scratching.

‘We count thiss way,’ she said, drawing
 
 
 and
 on the piece of slate again.  ‘But I have jusst drawn
 and it seemss to be telling me something.’