Girry flicked a paper pellet he had made through the window. “Huh, there’s no sense in saying that I’m not, sir.”
The Librarian Recorder turned his attention to Tribsy and Brinty. “Has your interest become dulled also, friends?”
The young mole yawned. “Hoo urrh! Oi’m a-doin’ moi bestest, zurr, but ’tis ’ard wurk, a-studyen’ gurt ole books.”
From where he was slumped in his chair, Brinty nodded to the open window. “There’s a lovely sunny day going to waste while we’re stuck in this gloomy library. ’Tisn’t fair!”
Sister Snowdrop sniffed meaningly. “That’s because you lack a true scholar’s dedication.”
Girry slouched over to the window, scowling rebelliously. “That’s alright for you to say, Sister. You’ve been studying since long before we were born, but we’re still young. We want to be outdoors in the summer days, like all the others. Hah, I’ll bet Tiria’s having a great time right now, travelling on a long journey and having all sorts of adventures probably. Somebeasts have all the good fortune!”
Brinty pouted. “Aye, and here’s us, swotting away and getting old’n’dusty. What did her letter say—‘Leave thy Redwall friends to read that tale of ancient life’? Ancient life! Huh, that’s what we’ll become sitting round here!”
Snowdrop looked to the letter. “That’s exactly what it says: ‘Leave thy Redwall friends to read that tale of ancient life, when Corriam the castaway took Mossguard maid as wife.’ ”
Tribsy sighed. “You’ m read that twoice afore, marm. But et bain’t gotten us’n’s much furtherer.”
Snowdrop tapped the letter decisively. “But these lines mean something important, I’m sure!”
Old Quelt made a suggestion. “Snowdrop, why don’t you and I ponder on this awhile? Meanwhile, our young friends can pop down to the kitchens and ask Friar Bibble to pack a picnic lunch for five. Then we can all meet up at the Abbey pond to do our work. Perhaps the open air will do us good.”
Cheered up by the idea, the three young ones were already making for the door. Brinty called out happily, “That’s the stuff, Mister Quelt. We’ll ponder by the pond!”
The ancient Recorder thought for a moment, then chuckled. “How very droll, ponder by the pond. I like that!”
Many other Redwallers had the same plan. Taking lunch by the pond was quite popular on warm summer days. They spread out around the bank, ever watchful of the Dibbuns, who were drawn like magnets to water. The little ones frolicked gleefully in the shallows.
Hillyah Gatekeeper and her husband, Oreal, were constantly calling out warnings to their twin babes.
“Irgle, come back here. Don’t go too far out, d’you hear me?”
“Stop splashing that water about, Ralg, you’ll soak us all!”
Quelt opened the hamper that the three young ones had brought. “Oh, I say, Bibble’s done us proud! Damson pie, hazelnut crumble, sage and turnip pasties, celery cheese and dandelion cordial. Hmm, I would have enjoyed a cup of tea, though. Cordial always makes me dozy at lunchtime.”
Molemum Burbee came promptly to Quelt’s rescue. “Yurr ole zurr, ’ave summ tea out of our new h’urn!”
The Abbess and Burbee had replaced their lost teapot with an ingenious new invention. It was a small copper boiler, which Brother Perant had donated to their cause. Lycian and Burbee had cleaned it up and mounted it on a little trolley. The urn had a small charcoal heater in its base, enabling them to have a constant supply of hot tea wherever they went, always on tap.
The five puzzlers had plenty of help from the pondside diners. Interest was aroused as they gathered around to hear Girry read again the two relevant lines from Tiria’s letter.
“ ‘Leave thy Redwall friends to read that tale of ancient life, when Corriam the castaway took Mossguard maid as wife.’ ”
Brinty opened up the discussion to their audience. “Well, does anybeast understand that?”
Sister Doral put forward a timid enquiry. “Er, excuse me, but who is Corriam the castaway?”
Tribsy replied through a mouthful of pastie. “Us’n’s doan’t be knowen, marm. That’s whoi we’m arskin’.”
Snowdrop leafed slowly through the Geminya Tome. “Let’s see if there’s any reference to it in here, shall we?”
As they waited on Snowdrop’s study, Hillyah Gatekeeper began rocking back and forth, eyes shut and paws clenched.
Oreal, her husband, looked quite concerned for her. “What is it, dear, are you feeling ill?”
Hillyah opened her eyes. “No, it’s just something that flashed through my mind a moment ago. Ralg, I’ll not tell you again, stop splashing that water about! Oh dear, I’ve gone and lost it again, just when it was right on the tip of my tongue. Most annoying!”
Abbess Lycian poured tea for the harvest mouse mother. “What was it, Hillyah? Were you trying to recall something?”
Hillyah wiped little Irgle’s snout distractedly with her apron hem. “Oh, pay no attention to me, Abbess. It probably wasn’t important anyhow.”
Brinty shouted excitedly as he watched Snowdrop turning the pages of the Tome. “There it is, there it is! No, not there, turn back a few pages, Sister. Stop there! Middle of the page. Do you see? There’s that name, Corriam!”
Finding the line, the little Sister read aloud. “ ‘Corriam’s lance, a gift from Skipper Falloon of the Mossguard. See T.O.A.L. Chap two, F.W.’ ”
Old Quelt polished his glasses hastily. “Let me see that, please. What else does it say, Sister?”
Snowdrop showed him the page. “Nothing else. This was only a note jotted in the margin. All the rest is about the great sword of Martin the Warrior, stuff that we already know, not relevant to our puzzle.”
Girry munched on a slice of hazelnut crumble. “What’s a Chap two supposed to mean, I wonder?”
Quelt answered promptly. “It’s merely short for chapter two. Most scholars know that. T.O.A.L. and F.W.—they’re the letters that are baffling me.”
Hillyah startled them all with a whoop. “I’ve got it! T.O.A.L., Tales of Ancient Life! That’s what I was trying to remember. I’ve seen it somewhere before, I know I have. It’s a book!”
Oreal smiled helpfully. “Where did you see it, dear?”
Hillyah tugged at her apron strings in frustration. “That’s the trouble. I can’t remember!”
Oreal hauled little Ralg from the pond shallows. “Well, don’t get upset about it, my love. You’ll recall everything sooner or later, you usually do. Listen, I’ll see to our babes. Why don’t you go and have a lie-down on the bed in the gatehouse? That always helps.”
Hillyah’s eyes widened in realisation. “Of course, the bed! Come on, you scholars, I’ve got something to show you!”
She bustled off with a crowd in tow, relating to the Abbess, who was keeping pace with her, “When Oreal and I first moved into the gatehouse, long before the twins were born, you understand.... Well, my goodness, that place was in a dreadful mess, after lying empty half a season after Old Gruggle passed on. He was never the tidiest of mole Gatekeepers, but you couldn’t imagine the dust and disorder! So I rolled my sleeves up and went straight to work on it. The first thing I tackled was that big bed in the corner. I think it was put there when the gatehouse was first built, a great, solid old thing. There must’ve been a hundred seasons of dust and fluff underneath it. Anyhow, there I was, flat out underneath the bed with my broom, sweeping and cleaning. Sneezing, too. That was when I saw it.”
Girry leaped over a flower bed as they hurried across the lawns. “What was it, marm?”
Hillyah explained eagerly. “The bed fitted square to the walls in one corner. I noticed that the leg that fitted into that angle was broken off short. It was propped up by two thick books. One was called Gatewatcher’s Poems, written by somebeast named Porgil Longspike, and the other was Tales of Ancient Life, by Minegay. They’re still in the same place, I never got round to asking Brink Cellarhog if he’d make a new bedleg for me.”