Urchin and the Raven War (9 page)

A day passed, and the king fought to stay alive. Nobody saw the queen. She stayed beside Crispin, changing the moss, talking to him, urging him to live, praying, not telling anyone that she had never known anyone to survive a wound as terrible as this. Other Mistmantle animals had been wounded, and the healers worked steadily. Lord Arcneck and the swans were preparing to leave. Realizing how interested the queen was in mendingmoss, Prince Crown, who desperately wanted to help Mistmantle, promised to send bundles of it to Mistmantle as soon as he could find where it grew; but the swans knew little about it. It was, they said, a squirrel thing.

Mistmantle animals knew that life must go on and it was best to keep busy, so they went back to their gathering, building, and fishing, and burrows, nests, and gardens. Needle and the other workroom animals sketched designs for new Threadings. Mistress Tay, visiting the workrooms to inspect the new designs, snapped at little Myrtle and demanded to know what on the island she thought she was up to, sewing a flower in the sea? Myrtle, who hadn’t realized what she was doing, shrank down, stammered out earnest apologies, and unpicked it.

The Taloness settled on the high bare branch of a stricken tree and surveyed the ground beneath her. She had gathered together the remains of the raven army and settled for a brief rest on the first island they came to, though it was almost barren. Hardly anything lived here but snakes—writhing, treacherous things, and hardly worth eating; but the snakes themselves must be feeding on something. Sharp eyes detected small, scurrying animals, and sharper beaks finished them off. The Silver Prince strutted among the others, pushing them aside, giving orders—
Bring me that one. Kill that for me.

This would only be a rest. The Taloness jerked her head from one side to the other as she scanned the horizon. There were other islands far from here, where colonies of ravens thrived. They would gather strength, for ravens of all islands would gather to support the Silver Prince, keen to show themselves his friends. They would be willing to die for him, and some of them would have to before revenge was complete. The Archraven had thought himself the greatest leader they had ever known, but under the Taloness, the ravens would have a power her brother had never dreamed of. The Silver Prince was still too young and inexperienced to make his own decisions. She would guide and instruct him.

When they had fed and slept, she led them on to the next island where ravens lived. She made sure that the prince always flew with the sun on his wings so that he would appear silver, not gray. Everywhere they went, their followers increased.

If Crispin of Mistmantle had lived, he would regret it. She would make him wish he had died on the cairn at Swan Isle.

Pitter was determined to make the most of every day on Mistmantle. Every time a swan prepared to fly back to Swan Isle she hid, in case anyone remembered that she was still there and tried to send her home. She had made friends with a squirrel called Scatter—a great friend of the otters—who came from Whitewings, the same island that the queen came from. Scatter knew what it was like to be new to Mistmantle, and was just introducing her to some very friendly otters, when a messenger came to say that the queen wished to see Miss Pitter “at once.”

Pitter swallowed hard, and her legs felt wobbly.
The king’s dead, the queen thinks the moss killed him, she blames me, it will be all my fault, I did something wrong, they’ll put me in a dungeon….
But the messenger was smiling.

She stood outside the Throne Room door, her paw in her mouth. There hadn’t been time to brush her ears or smooth her fur. When the page opened the door, Pitter whipped her paw out of her mouth, pattered in, and saw the queen rush toward her. She managed a shaky curtsy and was saved from falling as the queen took her paws.

“Pitter!” she cried. “Come and meet King Crispin!”

The Throne Room, with its two carved wooden thrones, small tables, and open windows, was simple and beautiful. She gasped. King Crispin was there! He was seated on the throne, his face thinner than she remembered it, and the dark red seam still running from shoulder to hip. Pitter couldn’t resist a glance up at the top of his head, and was a little disappointed that he wasn’t wearing a crown. When he spoke to her, it wasn’t the ringing call of the warrior who had challenged Lord Arcneck, but there was authority and kindness in his voice, even though it was weak. His eyes seemed deep with suffering.

“Dear Pitter,” he said, “for saving my life when I was careless enough to nearly be killed, more thanks than I can express! All the island loves you.”

Pitter wondered what she ought to say. “Ooh!” really wouldn’t be suitable.

“Are they looking after you well?” asked the king. “Are you happy on Mismantle?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said Pitter, almost too shy to speak.

“I believe Sepia, the Queen’s Companion, is looking after you?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. She’s very kind.”

“And she’s shown you the tower?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” she said. “It’s very…um…nice.”

The king smiled warmly, and there was laughter in his eyes. “And the shore, have you been down to the shore?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Aware of him glancing over her head at the queen, she looked at the floor, bit her lip, and curled her claws with embarrassment. But the queen brought a chair and cushion, and she suddenly found herself sitting in a comfortable seat with the queen beside her.

“Dearest Pitter!” said the king. “I can tell you’ve lived on Lord Arcneck’s island! We do things differently here. Cedar and I are both squirrels, like you, and neither of us was born to be royal. You can talk freely with us.”

“Tell us about your home, Pitter,” said the queen. “And your family. And that moss!”

Pitter found she could speak quite freely about her life on Swan Isle. It wasn’t a very interesting subject, though, and she was glad when the queen changed it.

“Pitter,” said the queen, “King Crispin can’t remember anything much after he challenged the raven. Can you remember?”

“Oh, yes!” said Pitter. She had relived that day over and over. With shining eyes and growing confidence, she told them about the battle, and the young mole, Tipp, who had leaped from the heather with his sword in his paw.

“Then they started throwing stones at us!” she said. “And that was what made me so angry, because it was the princess’s grave!”

“The princess’s grave?” asked Crispin.

“Yes, Your Majesty!” said Pitter. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about the princess, because nobody can tell me. I only know that it’s her grave.”

Crispin looked past her as if he were concentrating on something far away.

“Near the shore?” he said.

“Yes, Your Majesty, in the clearing.”

“And I think it’s built out of stones from the shore—from that little sheltered bay that nobody goes to….”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Please, Your Majesty, they say that the princess was lovely, and she married a prince from another island, and then she died.”

Crispin became so quiet that she was afraid she’d annoyed him. Then he smiled, but the smile seemed to make the pain show even more in his eyes.

“I remember now,” he said. “I saw the ravens on the cairn—what you call the princess’s grave—and it made me angry, too. You’re quite right, Pitter. It’s a sacred place, and no evil thing should touch it. So, did I kill the Archraven on…on the princess’s grave?”

“Yes, Your Majesty!” she said, and added, not sure whether she should say this, “And that’s where the mendingmoss came from.”

The king leaned forward, sharp-eyed, though the movement made him catch his breath. “Really?” he said.

“Yes, Your Majesty. It grows very well there.”

The king smiled quietly down at her. “She wasn’t exactly a princess,” he said. “But I’m pleased they call her one. She saved me before, and it’s as if she’s done it again now. It wasn’t so very long ago. I’m surprised that they’ve forgotten so quickly, but that’s the way they are.”

He tried to stand, but there was pain on his face, and the queen stopped him. “The door,” he said. “Pitter, look at the Threading on the door.”

She turned to see the Threading hanging there. It showed a pretty young squirrel with flowers all around her, rowans, and a circle of gold on her head.

“Is that…?” she whispered in awe.

“She’s your princess,” he said. “Her name was Whisper. She was married to a captain of Mistmantle, not a prince, and she wore his circlet as a sign of their marriage. Would you like to know what the flowers mean?”

“Yes, please!” gasped Pitter.

“The rowans are a sign of love,” he said. “And there are marigolds for joy and feverfew for healing, because she brought both, lily-of-the-valley for gentleness, pink-edged daisies for laughter, and lavender for marriage.”

“There’s a butterfly by her head,” she whispered.

“For beauty,” said King Crispin. “And a hellebore behind her paw. The hellebore means danger, and the very tiny nightshade behind her right paw is treachery, because treachery killed her.” He looked at the Threading for a long time, in a quietness she knew she must not interrupt. Finally he said, “She was my first wife. The last thing I did on Swan Isle was to build that cairn over her grave.”

Pitter gasped. She looked up at him and thought there was something different about his eyes.

“Thank you for defending Whisper’s grave,” he said. Then he pressed her paw and said very quickly, “Off you go, now, Pitter. Heart keep you.”

Kindly but quickly, the queen ushered her from the chamber.

“And Pitter,” said the queen, “the swans are leaving us. We need to get you home.”

“There’s no hurry, Your Majesty,” said Pitter. “I mean, I don’t want to bother the swans—I mean…and Mistmantle …” She wasn’t sure how to say this, but gabbled out, “Please, Your Majesty, I promise I won’t be any trouble!”

Needle and Thripple found Myrtle crying quietly in a corner. When she had told them why, Needle’s spines bristled.

“I will speak to Mistress Tay,” said Thripple gently. “In future, if you seem to be sewing something different, something you haven’t been told to do, you’re not to unpick it. You’re to leave it just as it is, and they must send for me or Needle to come and have a look at what you’ve sewn. Can you remember what flower you were sewing in the sea?”