The derisive reply stung her as she left the jetty. "Report wot yer like, ratnose! Ublaz knows my ship always brings the best booty to 'im, an' he trusts me to unload it!"
Word of Barranca's arrival ran like wildfire around the harbor. He was popular and well liked by all the pirates on Sampetra. Grog was broken out for all searat and corsair captains, who met with Barranca aboard his ship.
Having heard from them of his brother's arrest and imprisonment, he addressed them fiercely. “Who does Mad Eyes think 'e is to lord it over us, mates? That pine marten was only a corsair like ourselves who chanced t' find this island first. Now 'e takes the best of our plunder, makes us live by some fancy set o' rules he invented, an' kills or imprisons who 'e likes. It ain't right, I tell yer!"
A grizzled searat captain called Slashback answered, "Aye, messmate, but Ublaz has Trident-rats an' Monitors to do 'is biddin'. They enforce the laws round 'ere."
Barranca whacked the flat of his sabre blade down on the table. "I remember when seabeasts were free an' the only rules we 'ad were our own. Now look at us! Wot 'ave we come to, mates?"
A tall, somber weasel captain called Bilgetail shrugged. “No one can stand against Mad Eyes an' his army."
Barranca looked around the assembly. "You, Slashback, an' you, Rocpaw, Bloodsnout, Rippdog, Flaney, yore all cap'ns, you command crews. By my reckonin' we must outnumber lizards an' Trident-rats two to one, think of that! Anere's another thing: Lask Frildur ain't 'ere no more. Who knows if'n 'e'll ever make it back? Aye, an' a score o' Monitors gone with 'im too! If ever there was a right time fer us to take over this island, it's now!"
There was a moment's silence, then Rippdog the weasel stood alongside Barranca and voiced her opinion. "I'm with you, mate! Our lives ain't our own since we been dockin' at Sampetra. That pine marten even 'as us attackin' each other if'n we don't drop anchor 'ere an' pay 'alf a cargo to 'im!"
Bloodsnout, another female corsair, joined her companion. "Rippdog an' Barranca are right, Ublaz is too greedy! He's got all the shipbuildin' an' repairin' wood piled up back of 'is palace. There ain't any good trees growin' on the island no more. Last trip my vessel run afoul 0' rocks, ripped part of the stern away. Sagitar an' Lask took all my cargo in payment fer timber to fix 'er up again. We should get wood free, whenever we needs it!"
Bilgetail nodded, moving decisively to Barranca's side. "I'll join ye. Mad Eyes is growin' too powerful, 'e executed two of my crew for arguin' with those Monitors over booty. Just 'ad 'em dragged off an' slainyou all remember it."
Heads nodded around the table. Barranca stove in the top of a cask with his sabre handle. "Dip yore beakers into this 'ere seaweed grog an' drink if yore with me, mates. Anybeast that don't dip a beaker is against us!"
The pact for rebellion was sealed as every beaker dipped into the cask.
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Ublaz stood watching the ship Freebooter from the high window slit of an antechamber. Sagitar waited apprehensively at the pine marten's side. After a while, the Emperor turned to his Chief Trident-rat.
"Slashback, Flaney, Rocpawall the captains are aboard Barranca's ship. What would you say they are doing, Sagitar?"
The Trident-rat chose her words carefully. “Mightiness, who knows what is in the minds of wave vermin?"
The silver dagger blade tapped gently against Sagitar's tunic. "I do. Ublaz knows all, that is why I am Emperor. They are plotting against me. They think I am weak without Lask Frildur. But we will show them, won't we, my strong right paw?"
The Trident-rat bobbed her head respectfully. "As you say, Excellency. I am yours to command!"
The pine marten tapped the dagger blade against his sharp white teeth a moment, before giving further orders. "Take all your Trident-rats fully armed, quickly now, and block off the end of the jetty. Do not attack, but don't let any of the captains pass. Keep them aboard the ship, and await my command."
Sagitar went swiftly off to carry out orders. Ublaz motioned to a Monitor guard. "Assemble all my Monitors in the courtyard and bring the prisoner Conva here to me."
Grath Longfletch, a daughter of Holt Lutra, should have been dead two seasons ago. She had been found three nights after Conva's attack on her family home, crawling through the mud of a half-dried stream with horrific injuries. Glinc the watervole and his wife, Sitch, dragged Grath between them to an overhang in a mossy bank, close to their den. As best they could, the voles tended the otter, but there was little the pair could do, save give her some hot soup and cover her with dry bracken.
Grath lay all season long at the very entrance to death's door, some hidden inner flame keeping her alivereliving in nightmares with loud cries the horrors she had survived. Gradually she recovered and spent her days eating and sleeping, growing slowly in strength and agility. At her request, Glinc brought a long sturdy yew branch to Grath. With a flint shard the otter scraped and fashioned it, wetting and steaming the wood over a fire. She strung it with flaxen threads, twined and greased by beeswax. Then one by one she made her arrows of ashwood, each as straight as a die, feathered with the green plumage of a lapwing Sitch had found dead upon the shore.
Then, early one spring morn, Grath rose wordlessly and strode off along the stream shallows. Glinc and Sitch followed the silent otter, watching her intently. Except for Grath's request for the yew branch, she had never spoken to them, nor them to her. Glinc and his wife seldom spoke to one another; some bank-voles are like that.
Near the northern shore both voles sat on a streambank, where it broadened to meet the estuary. On the opposite bank, Grath was a long time out of sight, inside the holt of her father, Lutra.
Emerging stone-faced and still silent, Grath set aside her weapons and went to work. Gathering twigs, root branches and stones, she piled them up over the holt entrance. She carried mud from the riverbank and plastered it over the doorway, mixing it with grass and leaves. It took her a full day and most of the night to seal up the humble cavern, making it a tomb for her massacred family.
Afterward, Grath washed herself in the stream. Silvery scar traces showed through her wet fur. Then, standing motionless in the water, she watched the gentle spring dawn spread its light across the skies, blinking as she shed tears for her kin.
Gathering her great bow and the quiverful of green-feathered shafts, Grath Longfletch waded to the far bank and took hold of the two bankvoles' paws.
"Friends, I know not yore names, but I thank ye both, for takin' care o' me an' savin' my life. I won't be back this way, so fortune care for y'both. Farewell!"
Grath shouldered her quiver and bow, then turning west she set off at an easy lope towards the dunes along the shore. Both watervoles stared at the back of the long figure until it was lost to view. Then Glinc spoke to his wife.
"I would not like to be one of the beasts that slew her kin. That creature carries death in her paws!"
Chapter 4
Extract from the journal of Rollo bankvole, Recorder of Redwall Abbey in Mossflower country.
Spring weather can change suddenly as the mind of an old mousewife choosing mushrooms. Dearie me, how it can make the most carefully laid plans go astray!
This very morning the weather was so soft and fair that Abbot Durral decided to hold our first spring season feast out of doors. Poor Durral, he spent most of the night in the kitchens, cooking and baking with his friend Higgle Stump. Strange, is it not: Higgle was one of the winecellar-keepers of the family Stump, yet he wound up as Redwall's Kitchen Friar, and Durral was once a lowly kitchenmouse, but now he is Father Abbot of all Redwall. He is such a humble old fellow, his love of the kitchens never left him.