Urchin and the Rage Tide (12 page)

“He’s in the tower,” said Spade. “They made a chamber into a cell for him. Can’t spare enough animals to guard him, though.”

“Ruffle,” said Mother Huggen, “go out and hang up the next lot of washing, there’s a love.” Ruffle sprang to her paws at once, picked up the basket, and darted out from the burrow.

“Looks as if she’s woken up at last,” observed Moth.

Until the floods had drained and the ground had settled, very few animals were allowed near the shores and the tower, but Ruffle seemed determined to try. Captain Docken saw her hurrying through Anemone Wood toward the tower.

“Heart keep you!” he said. “Where are you off to?”

“Um—I—I’m going to—to the tower to see the queen, sir!” she stammered.

“You won’t find the queen in there,” said Docken. “She’s staying at the burrows just now, with everyone else.”

“Oh,” said Ruffle. There was an embarrassed pause; then with a shy smile she shuffled forward to go around him. “Still, as I’m here, I could go to see my auntie.”

“And where does your auntie live?”

“Oh, near the tower, sir. Very near.”

“There’s no aunties near the tower just now, love, and no uncles, neither,” said Docken. “It’s all out of bounds. Your auntie will be in the burrows. When I come off duty, you come back with me and we’ll find her. Who’s your auntie? I might know her.”

“Oh, she’ll be all right, sir,” said Ruffle quickly. “I’d better go.”

Docken watched her go. Ruffle was probably harmless in herself, but he had a feeling that she was up to something. Why did she really want to get to the tower?

Two animals who could always go to the tower, or more or less anywhere else they liked, were Urchin and Needle. In the workrooms, they spread out the Threading that Needle and Oakleaf had brought from the cave. In a room below, somebody was shouting and banging on the walls.

“Is that him?” asked Urchin.

“Mossberry? Yes,” said Needle, and pulled a face. “He can keep it up for hours. I wish they’d find somewhere else to put him. Padra says if we ignore him he’ll stop it, but it hasn’t worked yet.” She smoothed out the Threading. “Hope’s gone to bring Myrtle here.”

Myrtle’s last piece of work had been a picture of Queen Cedar, sitting on a mossy stone in the wood with Mistmantle Tower in the background. Hope brought in Myrtle, who was drying her eyes on a pawful of moss.

“Have you found Furtle and Ouch?” she asked, and sniffed.

“Not yet,” said Needle. “We need you to help us. Can you tell me anything about this Threading?”

“It’s Queen Cedar,” said Myrtle.

“Yes, we know it’s Queen Cedar,” said Needle with great patience. “What we mean is, do you see anything in the picture that you didn’t put there?”

“Will you look at it very carefully for us, please?” asked Prince Oakleaf.

Myrtle finished drying her eyes and peered at the Threading. As it was lying on the floor she trotted around it a few times, stopping and starting and tipping her head to one side to look at it from different angles.

“That boat,” she said at last. “That round boat.”

“Good girl,” said Needle with a glance at Urchin. That was the sign of a Voyager, but they already knew about that. “Anything else?”

“There’s a circle thing,” said Myrtle. “I don’t think I did that.”

Urchin and Needle bent to examine it. The circle in the moss was hard to distinguish at first, but once they had recognized it, it looked obvious.

“A ring means safety,” said Urchin, “but there’s nobody in the circle. Who’s being kept safe, Myrtle?”

“I don’t know,” she said, and screwed up her face as she tried to concentrate. “I suppose it must be the moss. It must mean that it’s nice safe moss, please, Mistress Needle.”

Needle suppressed a sigh. “Here’s a bit of spare canvas and some charcoal,” she said. “Can you draw a picture for me?”

While Myrtle drew, Needle glanced around the workroom, hoping that Urchin wouldn’t notice and ask her what she was looking for. Sepia had been making a yellow-gold velvet cloak for Urchin, and had consulted Needle about it—Sepia had felt the color would suit Urchin better than the usual squirrel green. Needle had found the velvet for her, and had been helping her with the collar, which was tricky to sew. Hadn’t she left it in one of the top cupboards? She was sure she had. Perhaps Thripple, or one of the other seamstresses, had moved it. It was a lovely cloak. Sepia had even lined it and waterproofed it with resins, and for her sake Needle wanted to finish it, whether or not Sepia ever…
Don’t think about that
. To stop herself thinking about Sepia, she looked over Myrtle’s shoulder to see what she was drawing.

“An almond,” she said, so suddenly that Urchin jumped. “That’s your sister and brother with an almond, isn’t it?” Myrtle nodded and Needle turned to Urchin and Oakleaf. Almonds meant secrecy.

“That’s not a lot of help,” she said softly. “It probably means that Furtle and Ouch are somewhere secret, but that’s the problem.” She glanced over her shoulder again, then whisked around to look at what Myrtle had drawn next, and snatched at Urchin’s arm.

“Urchin!” she whispered. “She’s drawn a hellebore!”

Hellebore for danger.
Urchin squeezed Needle’s paw.

Priest, captain, king.
In Mossberry’s cell, there was silence at last. He lay on the floor with the phrase chanting itself in his head.
Priest, captain, king.
He had thought he was meant to be priest of Mistmantle, but to be priest was not enough. Priests of Mistmantle were quiet, gentle animals. If he could be a priest he would be a priest who ranted, shouted, raged, and made the animals fall to their knees before him—or rather, before the Heart, of course. He should be respected like a captain and honored like a king because the Heart spoke to him. It was his destiny. He must be priest, captain, and king. A fiery priest, a feared captain, an adored king. Such an animal would be the greatest figure in Mistmantle’s history, and it was his destiny.

He sprang up. “Priest! Captain! King!” he shouted.

Docken’s voice called back to him through the door. “Make up your mind,” he said. “Do you want to see Brother Juniper? If you want a captain, you can talk to—”

Mossberry picked up the chair and hurled it at the door. “We have no priest, no captains, no king!” he screamed. “Priest, captain, king,” Mossberry muttered. It was his destiny to be all three—or was there something even greater and stranger for him? Perhaps the task before him was not only great, but terrible.

Furtle and Ouch had always loved exploring. Being a bit on the small side even for their ages, they were easily overlooked in a crowd, which they liked, because it meant that they could slip away without being noticed. On the night of the rage tide all the young hedgehogs had been in the hillside burrows listening to Mother Huggen’s instructions—
Nobody is to go outside at all, that is the king’s orders, do we all understand? You’ve been brought here because it’s safe. If any of you were to go running off, we might never find you again.

Furtle and Ouch had only half listened. Ouch had heard the bit about not running off, but that was all right. He’d walk. You could see much more if you walked. So at the very first chance, he turned and trundled slowly and happily toward a mossy patch against the wall.

Furtle had taken in rather more of Mother Huggen’s talk than Ouch had, but she had always looked after her little brother. She’d thought she’d better see where he was going.

Ouch had prodded at the moss first with his snout, then scraped at it with his paw. He was most excited to find a crack in the wall behind it. It was very small, but there was just enough room for two tiny hedgehogs to squeeze through if they went one at a time and flattened their prickles.

“Oh, look!” exclaimed Furtle.

Ouch had found the most beautiful cave. It was wide and rocky, with white stone and twisted pale tree roots gleaming against the walls. A spring trickled down from a rock.

“I like it here!” said Ouch. “It’s a bit too crowded in that big room, isn’t it?”

Furtle twisted around to look. She could see a few prickles and hear Mother Huggen’s voice, though she couldn’t make out the words.

“They don’t know where we are,” she admitted, “but we know where they are, so that’s all right. We’ll hear if they call us.”

Having sorted that out, they’d had a wonderful time. They had made their own little burrow out of pebbles and earth, but Furtle said they would need moss to make beds, so they went to find some. They hadn’t needed to look far. A little more exploring had brought them underneath a spreading tree root, where the moss and soft earth gave way easily when they tugged at it. This had also released a clump of fat pink worms, which were delicious. By the time they had eaten and made their nests, Ouch was so very tired that his eyes could hardly stay open, so Furtle wrapped him in soft green moss and sang him to sleep. He had looked beautifully cozy like that, so she had wriggled in beside him. Warm and fed, they had slept deeply. The slow, fine trickle of sandy earth in the burrow was softer than a lullaby, and had not disturbed them at all.

“I’m so sorry, Captain Padra!” said Mother Huggen, and wiped her eyes with a corner of her apron. “I don’t know how I managed to lose Furtle and little Ouch. I’ll never look their mother in the face again.”