Arthur squirmed through the rusted iron leaves of the Grille. He heaved a weary sigh and turned to pull Thomas out. The midshipmouse ground his teeth when his leg dragged against one of the metal fronds. A shudder of agony rifled up his thigh as the ugly gash wept poisoned, black blood and the skin around it turned blue. The wound was getting worse far quicker than he had expected, no doubt because of some evil enchantment on the ghastly ice spears.
It had been a nightmarishly difficult journey back through the sewers. Trying to negotiate the slippery ledges with someone who could hardly stand was an experience Arthur never wanted to repeat.
‘Come on Mr Triton,’ he said encouragingly, ‘not far now, there’s just the cellar steps to get up.’
Thomas felt as though he would faint at any moment. A black sickness was creeping over him as the infection took hold. He limped along stiffly, trying not to put any weight on his left leg. Past the dusty bric-a-brac stored in the cellar, the two figures slowly made their way to the foot of the stone stairs. Arthur looked up and wondered how they would manage; the midshipmouse was swaying dizzily, and he passed a tired paw over his worried, plump face.
‘I’ll get onto the first step and reach down for you,’ he said, leaning his ailing companion against the wall while he clambered up.
Thomas nodded but did not reply; his words were stuck in his throat, and the weight of the world seemed to descend on his shoulders. He had never felt so exhausted. Beads of cold sweat pricked his brow and ran icily down his nose.
On the step Arthur lay on his tummy and stretched his arms down. ‘Here Mr Triton,’ he called, ‘take my paws.’
‘Where . . . are you?’ stammered Thomas thickly. A shadow had fallen across his eyes and Arthur was just a grey blur that flickered uncertainly before them. Everything was growing dim, and a drowning darkness rose all around. He felt a black gulf yawn under his feet ready to swallow him whole. ‘Mouse overboard!’ he cried wildly, waving his paws in the air. ‘He’s going under, save him me boys!’
Arthur jumped down startled and afraid. The midshipmouse slithered to the floor and lay there gasping as the ice fever seized him altogether. ‘Mr Triton,’ shouted Arthur, ‘speak to me – please!’
In the sea mists and pathless oceans of his mind Thomas heard his name, but it was carried on a black, silken breeze scented with venomous death and seemed very far away.
Arthur knelt beside him. What was he to do? He looked at the festering wound and shook his head. The flesh of the leg was becoming rigid, freezing before his eyes, shot through with glacial streaks of livid blue. Soon the whole limb would be a solid block of dead ice, and then it would spread until the midshipmouse was a motionless wintry statue.
‘Don’t worry Mr Triton,’ Arthur said hurriedly, pressing Thomas’s paws to comfort him, ‘I’ll not be long, I’m going to fetch help.’
Thomas lifted his face in distress and turned it blindly to the young mouse. ‘Woodget,’ he murmured hoarsely, ‘is that you?’ Bleak tears rolled and crystallized down his cheeks. ‘Have you sailed back to me again – after all this time?’
With a last, anxious look at the broken, delirious figure, Arthur scrambled up the. stairs. He puffed I with the exertion and the breath rattled in his chest as he mounted the topmost step and threw himself against the cellar door.
The Hall was bathed in the orange glow of the fire. All around its lazy, lapping flames the slumbering shapes of blanket-shrouded mice snored and dreamed of harvest feasts. For this short while the sorrows of life were forgotten and they wandered through sunlit, daisy gardens, leaf dappled glades and golden, corn filled meadows where the food was abundant. But the sun of their sleep was pale and cold, the fruit they ate was tasteless and amid the soft snores whimpers were heard and stomachs growled. Into this troubled peace burst Arthur. He fell stumbling through the cellar door and called at the top of his voice, ‘Help, help! Wake up!’
At once the sleepers stirred and awoke. Some I covered their heads expecting the roof to fall in whilst others shook off the sleep and hurried over to see what was the matter.
‘It’s Mr Triton!’ Arthur explained quickly. ‘He’s down there, I couldn’t bring him up on my own he’s been wounded, please go and help him.’
Master Oldnose and Mr Cockle pushed through the doorway and vanished in the darkness beyond.
Gwen came running up to her son full of concern, ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Is he badly hurt?’ Arthur nodded and felt his own legs give way under the strain. He collapsed into her arms.
‘Audrey!’ called Gwen urgently. ‘Bring some water, quickly.’ She pulled Arthur near to the fire and laid him on a blanket with a pillow under his head.
Audrey scurried forward with a bowl of water and dabbed her brother’s face. ‘I’m all right,’ he told her, ‘just feel so tired, but poor Mr Triton . . .’
Gwen looked at the doorway and clenched her paws tightly. Several other mice had gone down to help bring up the midshipmouse and already they were carrying him into the Hall. She drew her breath sharply when she saw the terrible wound: his leg was now immovable, transformed absolutely into ice.
They put him next to Arthur and when the warm firelight fell on his face Thomas opened his eyes. He raised a trembling paw to the flames but the effort was too much and he descended into the black swoon once more.
‘What happened Arthur?’ Gwen asked again as she tended to the midshipmouse and tried to make him comfortable.
‘We didn’t get the mousebrass,’ Arthur said shivering at the memory, ‘Jupiter has an army of ghosts and they threw spears at us. One of them hit Mr Triton. It was only a flesh wound but it’s got steadily worse – there’s some evil magic at work in it.’
Audrey had grown very pale and silent. Now, with a small voice she asked, ‘Where’s Piccadilly, Arthur? Why isn’t he with you?’
Arthur shook his head and sobbed, ‘I don’t know. We were coming back when, all of a sudden, he went mad and charged back to the power station. Barker went to get him but I don’t know what happened to either of them.’
The anguish of loss stole in and closed about Audrey’s heart. She said nothing but sat back and stared at the fire.
Gwen did not know what to do about Thomas’s leg. Splinters of frost were now edging their way up to his waist, his breathing was faint and his face drawn, a shadow of his former, robust self.
‘It is the winter sickness,’ barked a cracked voice behind her. Gwen turned and the Starwife staggered into the light. She was haggard and shuffled along feebly; her moist, milky eyes shone orange with the flames that framed and gilded her thin fur. With her arthritic paws locked round the handle of her walking stick she glared goblin-like at the fearful gathering. She waited for the astonished whispers that rustled round on her appearance to die down and lowered her withered head.
‘The forces of Hagol have been invoked,’ she told the frightened mice in a hushed, ominous tone. ‘Ancient powers long idle have been kindled by the Unbeest and the spears of Narmoth fly once more.’ The squirrel stared at Gwen and said darkly, ‘I fear the sea mouse will die.’
‘Can’t you do anything?’ implored Mrs Brown desperately. ‘We can’t sit here and do nothing while poor Thomas, while he . . .’
‘I agree,’ said the squirrel shifting her glance, ‘it is a most painful death. I suggest we finish him off now.’
The mice of the Skirtings and Landings gasped in disbelief. How could she suggest such a thing? They were appalled by her callous disregard of the midshipmouse. Gwen said nothing but stared dumbly with shock. She did not understand how anyone could be so cold and unfeeling.
The Starwife tapped her stick on the floor with irritation. ‘You think me cruel,’ she snapped at them, ‘but you do not know what happens to one bitten by a Narmoth spear. You cannot imagine a thousandth of his torture as his body is so totally consumed by frost that it shatters. He will be aware of every crack and every fissure that splinters across his frozen body – until he dies. Is that what you would spare him for?’
For a full five minutes no-one uttered a sound and all eyes were fixed on the prone figure of Thomas. The frost was up to his middle and began creeping down the other leg. Gwen felt helpless and she stroked his chill forehead. ‘Oh Thomas, Thomas,’ she wept forlornly.
His two, sunken eyes blinked open and gazed up at her, but he did not know where he was and the face he saw was a phantom from his youth ‘Bess?’ he whispered lovingly. ‘It’s Tom. I tried for years to find you again.’
Gwen squeezed his paws and nodded. ‘It’s all right Tom,’ she said in a voice that struggled to sound bright even though the tears streamed down her cheeks as she pretended to be the lost love of his boyhood, ‘you’ve found me now. Bess is here.’
Thomas sighed deeply and he spoke in little fits of emotion. ‘Oh Bess, I never made him come wi’ me – honest. Say you forgive me.’ He gripped her paws fiercely and they shook as he quivered with the pain.
‘Of course I do Thomas,’ Gwen assured him, ‘now you get some rest my dear.’
The midshipmouse threw his head back and screamed piercingly, ‘I can’t rest! I can never rest! Bess he’s gone, Woodget’s gone and . . .’ his voice became a sob as he fought to control the passion that racked him, ‘I killed him!’
‘Oh Thomas,’ sobbed Gwen bitterly.
‘It is the madness speaking,’ chimed the Starwife’s solemn tones, ‘and so it will continue till his jaw freezes. Do your best to humour him – he is raving and knows not what he says.’ She turned away and her eyes closed guiltily, fully aware of the dark secret which the midshipmouse had struggled so hard to forget, of which she alone knew the truth.
Huddled by the fire Audrey surfaced from her thoughts. The scenes with Thomas had washed over her and the piteous cries of her mother had rung hollowly in her heart for she sensed that Piccadilly was dead and all else had faded round her. Now she roused herself and took in the awful plight of those dear to her. Arthur had covered his face, hiding his sorrow from everyone, whilst Gwen’s distraught tears fell fast down her cheeks for all to see as the ice made its way up to Mr Triton’s chest. Audrey looked on all this as though she were observing it through a window. It was a strange sensation and for a few moments she felt set apart from them and their grief, in a separate, tranquil world.
Then it was over and the babble of voices clamoured round again. She shook herself and the fragments of her heart went out to her mother. If only they could do something. She paused, there it was again, the noise died down and she was viewing her family as though she was cut off from them. Audrey did not know what was happening. She looked round nervously and there was the Starwife, regarding her with keen eyes. The squirrel glowered but Audrey’s spirits lifted, somehow she had read the other’s thoughts!
The real world snapped back and with a determined, angry expression Audrey rose and strode briskly over to where the Starwife was tapping her stick in agitation.
‘Keep away from me child,’ said the squirrel tersely, but there was a hint of caution in her voice and she backed away.
‘I know!’ hissed Audrey vehemently, ‘I don’t know how I do but that doesn’t matter.’
‘You’re demented,’ muttered the Starwife crossly, ‘the cold has unhinged you.’
She started to move over to her seat by the stairs but Audrey caught hold of her stick and held it firmly. ‘You can heal him can’t you?’ she declared furiously. ‘I know you can. I sensed what was running through that nasty, dried up old brain of yours. You were telling yourself what a waste of time it would be as we’re all going to die soon anyway. That’s right isn’t it you mean old hag?’ The squirrel pounded her stick imperiously on the floor. Up till then their conversation had gone unheeded by everyone but now all the mice looked up in surprise. The Starwife apologized for the disturbance.
‘It is nothing,’ she told them, ‘a cramp in my foot, no more,’ then she resumed the whispered discussion with Audrey.
‘What a clever creature you are girl,’ she said.
‘It’s true, I may be able to heal the midshipmouse.’
‘Then why don’t you?’ asked Audrey incredulously.
‘As you said, soon we shall all be destroyed – this I have sensed child, in much the same way as you. For days I have sought out Jupiter’s thoughts to fathom the ways of his mind and now I know at sunset tomorrow he will use my Starglass for the last time and the world will be plunged into darkness and despair – a perfect place for a spirit used to the eternal cold of the void. All life will end.’
She stood defeated and spent before the mouse.
‘What would I be saving Triton for?’ she asked hopelessly. ‘His fate may be sweet compared to what awaits us.’
‘You can give Thomas the chance to live!’ answered Audrey, outraged. ‘How dare you stand there and decide how someone should die when you have the means to save them.’ Her eyes blazed and were full of contempt for this wizened old creature who idly played with the lives of others.
The Starwife considered the girl’s words and she raised her brows. ‘You may be right,’ she admitted.
‘I will restore Triton – but only on one condition.’
‘I’m sick to death of your conditions,’ flamed Audrey, ‘what is it now?’
‘Nothing too taxing,’ said the squirrel with a curious smile, ‘I merely ask for your help in this, that is all.’
‘I’ll do anything.’
‘Then go find my bag, the one containing the herbs I used to feed the beacon fire.’
* * *
The mice were excited and held their breath expectantly as the old squirrel sat beside the midshipmouse and grandly declared her intention.