Urchin and the Heartstone (26 page)

On Mistmantle, Padra lay wide awake, folded around Arran as she lay folded around two tiny, curled baby otters. He couldn’t help watching constantly, observing their tightly shut eyes, the soft paws pressed against small round faces, the thin down of their first fur. Now and again one of them would wriggle or rub its face or sneeze, and his heart turned over with love. Sooner or later he would have to sleep, but he couldn’t sleep yet. He couldn’t bear to miss a squirm, or a squeak, or the twitch of a whisker.

They hadn’t yet named the little girl, but the boy would be Tide. It was a good water name for an otter and had something to do with Urchin. The tides had first brought him to Mistmantle, and maybe they would turn his way again.

Needle, Fingal, and Sepia herded the excited little choristers to the song cave. Needle was asking about Arran and Padra’s babies, and Fingal said they were boring.

“Boring?”
said Needle.

“They don’t do anything. Except one of them hiccuped. When they’re bigger I can take them down the waterslide.”

Sepia and the small squirrels were scampering ahead. There were squeals of delight as they made slides on the frost.

“Too cold for the waterslide today,” said Sepia. Seeing her cloak, she pounced on it and hugged warmth into it as she waited for Fingal and Needle to catch up.

“It’s never too cold for a waterslide,” said Fingal. “Come on, squeakers, get inside where you won’t fall over.”

“We never fall over!” squealed a young squirrel before hitting the ground with a thump. He was trying to explain that he did it on purpose, as Needle and Sepia ushered them into the song cave, and Needle called sharply, “Stop!”

The little squirrels froze with wide-eyed fear on their faces and their paws pressed to their sides. Sepia stood still with her paws around the shoulders of the nearest ones.

“What is it?” she whispered urgently.

“Pawprints!” said Needle.

Sepia sighed with relief and bristled with annoyance. “Is that
all
?” she said. “Hedgehogs are always coming here.” She steered her choir around the pawprints as she looked down at them. “There was somebody here the night after we came looking for the Heartstone. I heard something, and there were hedgehog pawprints when I came out. And Sluggen and Crammen were outside.”

“Please, Sepia,” said a small squirrel, “Fingal says Captain Gorsen brings his girlfriends here.” There were spasms of squeaky giggles.

“It’s true!” said another. “My sister said she saw him coming here.”

Sepia shrugged. “It’s anybody’s cave, not just ours. Now, choir. Low voices—that’s you, Swish, and Fallow and Grain, on the left. Siskin…no, you don’t have to stand beside Fallow. I know she’s your best friend, but I need you on this side….”

It took some time for Sepia to organize the small animals, during which Fingal took to the water, and Needle, curious to know if Gorsen really did take his girlfriends there, explored a cleft in the back of the cave. There was a lot of twisting about and looking over shoulders, and squeals of “What’s she looking for?” and “Ooh, look, he’s going in the water,” and some squirrels begging to be allowed to play in the water, and another one, called Twitch, was crying because she didn’t want to go in the water, and her older sister snapped at her that nobody said she had to, and Twitch cried even more, while somebody asked if they could play “Find the Heir of Mistmantle.”

Finally Sepia tapped her hind paw on the ground for silence and raised a claw to conduct, but they had hardly sung the first note when Needle whispered urgently, “Sepia! Come here!” She was half wedged into the cleft in the rock, beckoning furiously.

Sepia sighed quietly. “What
now
?”

“It’s important! Fingal, you too! Quietly!”

Needle squeezed through an impossibly small gap, said “Sh!” again, turned sharply right, left, and right, and disappeared into almost total darkness. After that, she didn’t say “Sh!,” but only found Sepia’s paw in the dark and squeezed it, which meant the same thing. From an intake of breath behind her, Sepia knew that Fingal was about to speak, so she felt for his mouth and pressed it shut.

Needle smelled earth, tree roots, and stone. The caves must be linked to a tunnel network, and the tree roots had formed a narrow split in the rock ahead of them. Through it, she heard a hedgehog voice. At first it was impossible to understand any words, but from the tone of voice the hedgehog seemed to be giving instructions.

“Throne Room…” She heard that clearly, then something about “attack.” But it couldn’t be, surely? Then came the words that made her skin shiver and her fur stand out—

“…
when Crispin is dead.”

She felt her fur bristle, and pressed a paw against her chest. Silently they slipped back the way they had come, back to the dimly lit cave with the chattering squirrels, who were now chasing around the cave and daring each other to jump into the water.

“No!” commanded Needle so sharply that they were instantly still and silent. “Stay where you are and don’t make a sound!”

Needle, Fingal, and Sepia huddled together at a little distance. From Fingal’s face, even he was taking this seriously. He looked like Padra.

“They’re planning to kill the king!” whispered Needle.

“But who’d want to?” said Sepia.

“Whoever they are, they must have found a way to the Throne Room from there,” said Fingal. “The tunnels must link to the one I found on the other side of the lake. I’ll go by water and get to Crispin before them.”

“It would take too long!” said Needle. “It took all night last time!”

“That’s only because I tried to climb back up first, and Hope needed to rest and be carried. We’re wasting time.”

“You might get caught,” warned Sepia.

“I might not,” said Fingal, and disappeared down the waterslide.

“I’ll go through the trees,” said Sepia. “I’ll be faster than hedgehogs in tunnels.”

“And I’ll go through the woods,” said Needle, “but we should send this lot home first.”

Sepia clapped her paws together. “No practice today!” she called. “Something important has to be done. Never mind what, Siskin. Have a race home!”

There were a few squeals of protest, but soon Sepia had left them far behind. Needle bustled them from the cave and toward the wood, trusting the smaller ones to their older brothers and sisters and to Damson, who lived nearby and had come to see what all the squeaking was about. There were still squeaks from those who wanted to go with Sepia, but she was far ahead: bounding and leaping from one bare tree to the next, twisting and balancing with her tail as dry twigs snapped and branches bent and sprang, her breath in clouds of mist around her, stopping only when she absolutely must gasp for breath. The chill winter air hurt her lungs. Never had she flown through the trees so swiftly, never had she raced so furiously over the bare forest floor, never, never before had her paws trembled like this with exhaustion. By the time she reached the tower her throat rasped with thirst and her paws ached and shook.

In the winter afternoon, the light was already low. To exhausted Sepia, the walls of Mistmantle Tower looked so forbidding that her courage failed her, but they were the quickest way to the corridor outside the Throne Room. She took a deep breath and gathered herself up for the climb. On the third attempt she managed the leap that sent her clawing and scrambling up the stone, tumbling in through a window, and staggering to the corridor where Gorsen and Lumberen stood on duty. They weren’t agitated, they weren’t fighting off intruders! She wasn’t too late!

Crispin sat straight-backed on the throne, his head and tail upright, his paws on the carved arms, his face stern. Brother Fir sat on a low stool beside him. A young mole page, Burr, stood on duty beside a table where wine and biscuits had been set out, a fire crackled low in the grate, and untouched on the hearth lay the sword the envoys had offered to Urchin. Tall, dignified, and fierce-eyed, his silver chain about his neck, Lord Treeth stood before Crispin.

“So,” said Crispin patiently, “you are still complaining of your rooms, your lack of freedom, and the visits of Mistress Tay. Your rooms are among the finest on the island. Of course you are not allowed your freedom, after what you did when you had it. As for Mistress Tay, she is a very learned and distinguished otter. You should consider yourself honored by her company. Doesn’t it while away your imprisonment?”

“That is hardly the point, Your Majesty,” said Lord Treeth sternly. “We should not be captives here at all.”

“The point,” said Crispin, “is that Urchin of Mistmantle should not be a captive. Please don’t tell me again that he went of his own accord.”

“Now slow down, little Sepia,” said Gorsen outside the Throne Room door, stooping over her with a waft of scented soap. “Take a deep breath and start again.”

“But there isn’t time!” insisted Sepia furiously. “It’s very urgent!”

“So you think you heard hedgehogs, Sepia? Tell me again—this is important—tell me exactly what you heard them say.”

“They said there’d be an attack, and something about ‘when Crispin is dead,’” said Sepia. Lumberen laughed, and she wanted to hit him.

“You’re sure of this?” asked Gorsen gravely.

“Yes, I’m sure!” she cried, and beat her paw on the floor.

“Then it doesn’t amount to much of a plot, does it?” he said, and smiled kindly. He leaned closer and softened his voice. “They must have been discussing what happens when His Majesty dies—he will one day, you know—and who would lead us if we were attacked. You’ve been a brave young squirrel, Sepia, but I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”

Sepia burned with embarrassment. Gorsen might be right, and she was a silly young squirrel with too much imagination, turning snippets of gossip into a plot against the king. But it hadn’t sounded like a chat between hedgehogs, and she knew every animal had the right to see the king.

“All the same,” she said firmly, “I want to tell the king at once. We mustn’t take chances.”

“No, we mustn’t take chances,” agreed Gorsen as his paws closed on her throat.

Crispin offered wine to Lord Treeth, and saw him look down his nose at Burr the mole as he poured it. Burr was nervous, and his paw shook so that the wine splashed a little. He mopped at it with a napkin as Lord Treeth gave a low sigh.