Song pulled a face at her friend. "He's right, y'know, rivermousey. You'll have to recite us one of your rivermousey poems, nice and quiet now!"
Burble's fur actually bristled with indignation. "Sure I'll recite nothin' while I'm bein' insulted. If anybeast calls me rivermousey once more I'll fight 'em. Yiss yiss, so I will! I don't call you treewalloper, do I?"
Song laughed at her bristly companion. "Call me what y'like, I don't care. Rivermousey!"
Dippler burst out laughing. "Hawhaw haw! Rivermousey, that's a good 'un!"
Burble rounded on him with a wicked grin. "Who asked you, boatbottom?"
The cabin became a verbal battleground as laughing and giggling they hurled insults at one another.
"Hohoho! Boatbottom, that's a great name for you, Dipp!"
"Ho is it now, Dannflower broomtail. Hawhaw haw!"
Gawjo joined in. "Heehee, flopears is a better name for that 'un, or popplepaws. Heeheeheehee!"
"Popplepaws yoreself, ole baggybarrel-belly! Yaha-haha!"
Torrab poked her head round the cabin door. "Be there any within to relieve the watch this day?"
She was greeted with a barrage of impudent merriment.
"Go 'way, spikybonce!"
"Aye, push off, needlenose!"
"Out in the rain with ye, soggy hog!"
"Go an' watch yoreself, squelchspines!"
The burly hogmaid grinned and called to Megraw, "What about thee, binnaclebeak?"
Dropping down from the window, Megraw spread his massive wings and glared about him savagely, raising a hooked talon. "Whit was that ye callit me, marm? Nary a beast livin' meks sport o' the Mighty Megraw!"
A moment later they were all out on the deck, soaking in the rain, gazing at the locked cabin door.
Burble sighed. "Sure, an' I wonder why 'tis that eagles don't have any sense o' humor at all. We had to run for our lives there!"
Megraw sat alone in the locked cabin, muttering darkly, "Naebeast speaks ill o' mither Megraw's eggchick. Ye'll stay oot in the elements until ye apologize tae me!"
Apart from the skies lowering darker a little, noon, twilight and evening remained virtually the same. Sheeting rain driving southward in heavy curtains over the lake surface as far as the eye could see, with a moderate wind spurring the raft ever onward toward the island. Megraw had been placated, but he deserted the cabin, choosing to stay on deck beneath a canvas awning, watching for sign of magpies. Gawjo lashed the tiller in position and joined his crew in the warm, cozy cabin, where a cheerful fire glowed within the potbellied stove.
He lifted the lid from a cauldron, sniffing the simmering aroma. "By the seasons, that smells good'n' decent. Wot is it?"
Dippler checked the contents, sprinkling in a pawful of sweet ground arrowroot to thicken up the sauce further.
"That's a seagoin' recipe, sir, called skilly'n'duff. Log a Log used t'make it for the Guosim, when we followed the waters down to the great ocean."
Torrab hovered about the young shrew impatiently.
" 'Twill soon be ready, I trust?"
Dippler added more of the arrowroot and stirred it slowly. "Aye, soon now. The skilly is a thick sweet sauce with all manner o' good things in. That big pudden floatin' about in it is the duff, stuffed with wild plums, damsons, blackberries an' chopped chestnuts, all cased up in a ball o' spongy pastry, bit like a great dumplin'. Nothin' like it to cheer up a body on a rainy ole night, you'll see!"
The entire crew voted Dippler's skilly'n'duff delicious, some of the big hedgehogs noting down the recipe for use on winter nights. The Guosim shrew recalled a comic seagoing monologue concerning the dish.
"Aboard the good ship Wobblechop,
I sailed when I was young,
First in line an' feelin' fine,
When the dinner bell was rung.
Our Cap'n 'ad a fog'orn voice,
An' boots as big as me,
'Stand by, me lads, 'ere comes a ship,
'Tis a pirate craft!' cried he.
Whoa skilly'n'duff, that's the stuff,
To keep nearby when things get rough!
The pirate Cap'n was a rat,
His name was Itchee Scratch,
Upon his nose, why goodness knows,
He wore a red eyepatch.
'Haul to, ye dozy lubbers,
I'm fat'n'bad an' tough,
An' I smells plunder on the air,
Wot might be skilly'n'duff.'
Whoa skilly'n'duff, that's the stuff,
Us waterbeasts can't get enough!
Well I tell you, me word 'tis true,
Our crew got quite upset,
To rob a sailor's dinner was,
The worst thing we'd 'eard yet,
So we put down our bowls'n'spoons,
Then armed ourselves with slings,
We slung at those ole pirate rats,
A dozen kinds o' things.
Whoa skilly'n'duff, that's the stuff,
To eat while fightin' searats gruff!
That pirate Cap'n he got shot,
By a barrel load of peas,
Wot blacked his eyes an' stung his thighs,
An' fractured all his knees.
We hit the crew with onion skins,
Big cabbage stalks as well,
With hardcrust pies an' 'orrible cries,
They splashed into the swell.
Whoa skilly'n'duff, that's the stuff,
When vermin crews you must rebuff!
As Wobblechop sailed away that day, We sang a jolly song,
The bottlenosed cook with laughter shook,
As the dinner bell went bong.
I'm old an' fat with a greasy hat,
But this to you I say,
I must've scoffed a score o' bowls,
Of skilly'n'duff that day.
Whoa skilly'n'duff, that's the stuff,
When winter winds do howl'n'puff!"
High King Mokkan slept, though not peacefully or well, that night. The Marlfox's dreams were a nightmare of disjointed visions. Lantur, the sister he had slyly murdered, kept trying to drag him ifito the pike-infested lake, smiling wickedly at him and repeating a hollow chant.
"Never trust a vixen, never trust a vixen!"
He turned to run, but was confronted by the brothers and sisters he had deserted. Their faces pale and wan, they pointed accusingly at him, murmuring, "Blood for blood, a Marlfox lies slain, somebeast must pay, blood calls for blood!"
He fled from them and, seeking safety, found himself leaping into his mother's palanquin. However, he was surrounded not by a silk curtain, but by the tapestry from Redwall Abbey. Stern-faced and fearless, the mouse warrior figure stepped out from the tapestry and raised his magnificent sword. Panic such as he had never known seized Mokkan. With the blood in his veins like ice water, he hurled himself from the palanquin. Time stood still, and the Marlfox stumbled slowly to the ground, only to find himself confronted by others. A grim-faced young squirrel wielding the same sword that the warrior mouse had brandished, a squirrelmaid armed with a rod tipped by a glowing green stone, a great black and white eagle, talons spread, beak open. Creatures he could not identify, a watervole, a shrew, hedgehogs, all gathered around him, and his mother's voice echoed mockingly in the gloom.
"Hail, High King Mokkan, last of the Marlfox brood!"
Grabbing his cloak, he hid his face in it and screamed, but the scream died to a whimper as the cloak tightened around his throat, threatening to strangle him. "No, please, noooooooo!"
Mokkan woke on the floor of his bedchamber with a silken sheet, which had become caught on a bedpost as he rolled about trying to escape the dark world of fearful slumber, wrapped tightly about his neck. Throwing open the chamber door, he glared wildly at the two water rat sentries standing immobile in the flickering torchlight. They gazed back dully at the new High King, panting, disheveled, with a bedsheet draped around his neck. Slamming the door, he retreated back into the bedchamber, taking a deep draft of wine from a pitcher and tossing aside the sheet. Then he stood at the window, letting the rain cool his fevered brow, staring out into the dark wet night. What acts of murder and treachery had his own mother committed that she too always slept uneasily? Was this what it was like to gain the power of kingship?
Chapter 33