Her four guests did likewise, each giving their verdict. “Bo urr, ee’ll ’ave to tell Oi the ressipery furr ee hunny drink, marm. Ole Corksnout wudd h’enjoy et!”
“Oh, it’s wonderful, I’ve never tasted anything like it!”
“I told you, Perrit, absolutely delicious, eh, Skip?”
The Otter Chieftain refilled all five beakers. “Ye can say that agin, young Dwink, a real pretty drop o’ stuff. Well, mates, good ’ealth to one an’ all!” They quaffed their drinks down swiftly.
Dwink took the beakers. “Hahaha! My turn now…. Oops!” He chuckled as he dipped the drinking vessels into the big urn. “Nearly toppled in! Hahaha, that’d be a good idea, it’d save havin’ t’fill these beakers up. We could all jump in for a drink!”
The drinks were downed with alacrity. Skipper refilled them, commenting, “Yore shore ’tis only made of honey an’ springwater, missus, nothin’ else?”
“Nay, nought but honey and springwater, just as I said, you see.”
Blodd Apis topped them up again. Perrit took a good swig. She blinked owlishly, staring into the urn. “Funny an’ stringdaughter, eh, very nice!” She hiccupped as she supplied them with more.
Dwink slopped liquid down his front, swaying to and fro, he sighed happily. “Y’right, Ferrit ole mate. S’nice, veryveyveyvey night. Hahahaha! G’night….” Letting the beaker slip, he curled over, asleep.
Perrit hiccupped again, then giggled. “Heehee, Drink’s dropped his dwink. Wait, tha’s rot, night. Heeheehee. Whoooogolly me!” Flopping down alongside Dwink, Perrit closed her eyes. Within moments, she was snoring in the most unmaidenly manner.
Skipper staggered about, eyes rolling as he tried to focus on Blodd Apis. Grabbing his javelin he wagged it at the ancient hog. “You…you did sump’n to that drink, didn’t ye? Hah! If’n anythin’ happens t’my mates, I warn ye, missus.” The Otter Chieftain took a step forward, tripped over his own javelin and fell flat, banging his head on the sandstone ledge. He lay there, senseless to the world.
Repeatedly, Foremole tried to rise from a sitting position. Each time he slumped back clumsily. He watched Blodd Apis removing the leather sling halter from her neck. “Yurr, marm, bein’ ee h’assistant cellarbeast at ee h’Abby, Oi’m a-knowen ’bout drinks.”
Taking Foremole’s half-filled beaker, Blodd Apis finished it off in one swallow. “Then ye know ’tis not poison. Never heard of mead, have ye? Mead is just honey an’ springwater mixed. When it’s been sealed up for a season, mead becomes strong, you see. Aye, the longer ’tis stored, the stronger it gets. I gave you an’ yore friends my Special Ten Season Mead. I’ve lived all my life on mead you see, so I’m used to it. Hah, but otherbeasts aren’t, ’tis far too strong for ’em!”
Foremole blinked blearily, his head dropped. “Hurr, marm, you’m an ’ole villyun, aye, a gurt trickybeast. Fie on ee, you’m maked uz drunken!”
From her garlands of moss and festooned bee carcasses, Blodd Apis drew forth a woven grass bag. She emptied the contents of the small receptacle onto the ledge. There were two objects: one, a hollow reed tube, stoppered with beeswax at either end to contain the liquid inside. The other was the pigeon’s egg–shaped emerald. It glowed with fabulous green light as she stroked it covetously. “Fools, this is no serpent’s eye, ’tis the Green Star of the Woodlands. Only a Queen may possess it, you see!”
Foremole raised his head with an effort. “Ho no, marm, that’n bees ee surrpint’s eye, an’ et doan’t berlong to ee at all, burr nay!”
Blodd Apis hastily stowed the emerald in her bag. Foremole was still trying to rise, when she kicked him back down. There was a wicked glimmer in her eyes. “Stupid soildigger, do ye think the Queen of Wild Bees would let anybeast take the Green Star from her? Both you and your friends will be dead by sunset, you see. Now you will know what it is to feel the Death of a Thousand Stings!”
The threat of all of them being slain immediately lifted the mead-induced stupor from the good mole. However, he decided not to let the malignant old hedgehog know. Sprawled on his back, he blinked feebly at her. “Burr, you’m wicked rarscal, wot bees you’m plannen?”
Crouching close to Foremole’s face, Blodd Apis showed him the hollow reed tube. She shook it, so he could hear the liquid inside. “You see this, it is the juice of many wood ants. They are the enemy of my bees. If I were to splash you with just a drop of this juice, you would be attacked and stung to death by my bees, you see!”
Foremole gave a gentle, rumbling snore, as if he had fallen into a drunken slumber. Blodd Apis kicked him scornfully. “Hah, sleep on, mudbrain, ye will soon wake for the last time, very painfully, you see!”
For such an ancient creature, the hedgehog was surprisingly strong and resolute. Foremole watched, through half-lidded eyes, as she dragged each of his friends clear of the ledges and surrounding yews into the open. Skipper, being the biggest, was the most difficult. About midway between her den and a small stream, Blodd Apis ceased hauling the otter by his rudder. Next came Perrit, she was a lot easier to lug along. Foremole’s brain was racing as he saw her tugging Dwink along by his long, bushy tail. An idea came to him when he spotted Dwink’s crutch, which had fallen at the foot of the sandstone ledge. He began crawling toward the slumped forms of his companions, muttering aloud drunkenly, “Burr, Oi must foind moi friends, whurr do they bees, mus’ foind ’em, hurrrr!”
Blodd Apis stood over him, sniggering. “Well, you see, here’s one I don’t need to drag along. Come on, soildigger, here’s your friends, you see, over there. This way!” Prodding her victim with one paw, she carefully held up the hollow reed vial in the other.
Foremole crawled clumsily forward, stumbling over the shallow ledges as she goaded him on. “Clumsy oaf, not that way, over there, you see?”
Foremole Gullub rolled over the final ledge, then lay flat on his stomach, hiding the crutch, which he had grabbed, under him. Closing his eyes, he snuffled, and commenced snoring once more.
This peeved the old hedgehog. Bending down, she cuffed the back of the mole’s head. “Don’t ye go asleep on me, there’s your friends, over there, you see!”
Knowing his life and the lives of others depended on him, Foremole acted swiftly. Rolling over, he struck out with Dwink’s window-prop crutch. The blow landed hard and true, smashing the reed tube in the hedgehog’s paw, splashing her with the deadly liquid. A few drops fell on his paw. The buzzing noise was beginning to fill the air as Foremole scurried wildly to the stream and threw himself in.
The screams of Blodd Apis rose to an insane pitch as her bees descended upon her. Hundreds upon hundreds of the maddened insects attacked her savagely, diving, buzzing, stinging.
Foremole popped his head out of the water, to take a breath. Blodd Apis was not to be seen, she had vanished, still screeching, under the swarming masses of enraged bees. Foremole scrambled out onto the bank. He ran to his friends, splashing water upon them, and smacking out with hefty digging claws.
“Wake ee oop, zurrs! Skip, mizzy Perrit, Dwink, rouse you’m selfs. Oh, do ’urry! Yooch!” Stung on the ears, Foremole was forced to dive back into the water. A small cloud of bees hovered, humming, over the spot where he had gone down.
Skipper sat up groaning, his face wet with bankmud and streamwater, and his snout smarting from Foremole’s digging claw. “Ahoy…wot’s goin’ on?…Wake up, mates, look at that thing yonder!”
Foremole’s head broke the surface again. He spat out water and a bee, bellowing, “They’m slayin’ ee ole ’ogwife, get ee away!”
Whilst they had not yet been stung, Skipper shook Dwink and Perrit into wakefulness. “We’d best weigh anchor sharpish, mates, those bees have gone crazed!”