Mattimeo

Chapter 39

“Constance, Abbot! Birds are trying to steal our tapestry!”

Brother Trugg tripped over his habit and fell as he dashed from the barricade where he had been

standing sentry duty.

“Get slings, arrows and javelins. Pull the table aside quickly!”

The defenders rushed up the stairs into Great Hall.

Three magpies were struggling with the wall fastenings of the heavy tapestry. They ignored the

charging animals, remaining intent on what they were about.

Before the Redwallers had a chance to marshal their forces and open fire, they were beset by birds.

Rooks hurtled down from the galleries, pecking and clawing. General Ironbeak and Mangiz, leading a small

force, dropped down behind them. Amid the confusion. Constance saw what was happening: Ironbeak was

trying to cut off their path back to Cavern Hole. She whirled, dealing a rook a heavy blow that sent it

spinning as it buried its claws into her neckfur.

“Back, back. Return to Cavern Hole, everybeast. Hurry!” she ordered.

Two rooks were trying to drag Sister May off by the back of her habit, but John Churchmouse thwacked

them soundly with a javelin.

“Gaahh, scat! Come on, Sister, follow me!” he cried.

Calmly the little Sister shot off an arrow. “Got him! Ha, he won’t sit down for a season. Take that, you

horrible bird! Oh, right. Come on, Mr. Churchmouse, I’ll protect you.”

Ambrose Spike took a run at a group of birds who were attacking Cornflower. Curling himself tight, he

went spinning into them like a flying ball of needles, and they rose to the air, squawking.

Constance lashed about with a frying pan, the weapon making a loud bong every time she scored a hit.

“Get out of our Abbey, you scavengers!”

Bong!

“Look out behind you, Abbot!”

Bong!

Constance hurtled at Ironbeak and Mangiz. The sight of the large badger with teeth bared made them

jump to one side. She growled and snarled like a wild beast, charging them recklessly so that they had to

take to the air. The other birds followed their leaders’ example.

Winifred the Otter saw the way clear to Cavern Hole.

“This way, everybeast!” she called.

They clattered down the stairs and slammed the table back into position and not a moment too soon.

Ironbeak saw his trap had been foiled and he chased several birds down the stairs.

“After them! They must not escape!”

Winifred and Constance were waiting.

“Now!”

Two javelins shot from the arrow slits in the barricade. One rook fell slain. Another took the javelin in

his leg. Hopping and cawing, he followed his fellow fighters up the stairs in a hasty retreat, the javelin

clattering and dragging from the limb it had pierced.

Ambrose Spike pushed a form up to the defences. “Stand on this, you archers. See if you can fire across

at those magpies.”

Several of the Brothers and Sisters took their place and began loosing shafts at the thieves. The arrows

fell miserably short, though they did have the effect of deterring other attackers from coming down the

stairs.

Constance slammed a heavy paw against the wall. “The thieving, pilfering barbarians, how dare they

steal our Warrior’s tapestry!”

Foremole tugged at her fur. “ ’scusin’ oi, marm. Whoi doant ee use our tunnels?”

“Tunnels? But how? What good would that do?”

“Hurr, you’m could come at um throo main door. They baint be aspecten that.”

“Of course. What a great idea!” Constance exclaimed. “Half of you stay here with the Abbot, I’ll take

the rest through the tunnel to the nearest exit outside. If we’re sharp enough we can launch a surprise

attack on those magpies, seize the tapestry, and go out of the Abbey and straight down the tunnel back to

here. Come on, Winifred, Ambrose, Cornflower; and, Foremole, would you come too with some of your

moles?”

“Surpintly, marm. Uz’ll give um boi okey, hurr that uz will!”

“I come, I come. Me too!”

“Nay, young maister Rollyo, you’n stay boi yurr an’ shoot arrers.”

Quickbill and his brothers were loosening the final fastenings, General Ironbeak and his fighters were on

the floor of Great Hall, and they hid each side of the wall at the top of the stairs, waiting for another foray

from Cavern Hole.

“Chakka! Block these stairs well next time, and we will have them out in the open. You, Grubclaw, and

you, Ragwing, stay by me. Try to get the big stripedog in the eyes.”

Diptail and Brightback undid the last loop from its hook on the wall. The large tapestry slid down to

the floor.

“Yaggah! We have it, brothers!”

“Redwaaaaall!”

Constance came thundering down upon them from the open doorway. Diptail lost his proud tail

feathers with one sweep of a blunt paw. Brightback and Quickbill shot into the air like startled flies.

Cornflower, Ambrose and Winifred hurriedly rolled up the tapestry while Foremole and his crew stood

whirling slings.

Mangiz spotted them. “Kragga! The earthcrawlers are over there, Ironbeak!”

The raven General sprang forward, followed by his rooks. Unwittingly they exposed their backs to the

stairs. A hail of arrows and slingstones from the barricade behind them caught the birds unawares.

Ironbeak dodged out of the line of fire, his eye smarting from a pebblestone.

“After them! This way, you wormheads, away from the stairs!”

They were halfway across Great Hall when the main door slammed and the tapestry rescue party were

gone.

The fuming Ironbeak laid about with his hard yellow beak.

“Useless, stupid blunderers! Worthless, clumping idiots! Where are those chicken-hearted magpies?

Quickbill, take those blockhead brothers of yours outside and see where the earthcrawlers have got to.”

The Abbot smiled with pleasure and relief as the long roll of tapestry was fed out of the hole by the moles.

“You acted courageously, my friends. Martin is certainly back among us.”

Cornflower turned to Foremole. “Is there a tunnel through to my gatehouse cottage?”

Foremole tugged his snout. “Aye, missus. Oi dug it meself.”

“Splendid. Sister May, would you come with me tonight? We may as well make use of the tunnels. I

have an idea. It may not defeat Ironbeak, but it will certainly give him and those birds something to think

about.”

Baby Rollo rolled himself in the tapestry and giggled as Gaffer mole tickled him. John Churchmouse

looked severely over the top of his glasses.

“Come out of there this instant, Rollo. What would Martin think?”

Mrs. Churchmouse chuckled. “He’d probably think it quite nice to have some company after hanging

alone on the wall all that time.”

General Ironbeak was in a fine fit of rage as he stalked up and down the sickbay and the infirmary. Mangiz

and the three magpie brothers stood stock-still, waiting for his wrath to unleash itself upon them. They had

failed to find any trace of the exits and entrances to the cunningly dug mole tunnels.

“Kacha! You slugbrained dolts, do you mean to tell me that you could not find a few creatures carrying

the big cloth?”

Quickbill looked down at his claws. “We searched, we looked everywhere, Ironbeak. There was not a

sign of any creature.”

“Not a sign? You speak foolishness. They are earthcrawlers, not birds. They could not fly off into the

blue. Where did they go?”

“The big stripedog charged us, General. We could not fight it. By the time you sent us outside, we could

not find any trace of them. We did not expect them to come through the doorway like that. You were

supposed to have them penned up in that place by the stairs.”

Ironbeak moved like lightning. He pulled Quickbill up against the wall and felled him with a sharp

blow from his heavy beak.

“Yaggah! Don’t tell me what I was supposed to be doing. You forget yourself, magpie. I am the leader.

Mangiz, do your visions see anything? Does your mind’s eye tell you where the earthcrawlers went?”

The crow shifted nervously. “My visions are still clouded, Lord.”

The raven eyed him scornfully. “Yach! Not the mouse warrior again?”

“Ironbeak, I see what I see. The mouse wearing armour blocks my visions and hovers in my thoughts. I

cannot explain it.”

“Hakka! Is this the Mangiz who served me in the northlands? I think this redstone house is making you

like an old thrush. The mouse is only a picture upon a piece of cloth. We have seen this, we know it is true.

I have not seen a mouse in armour striding around here, nor have you, yet you stand there dithering and

flapping. ‘Lord, my visions are clouded. A mouse wearing armour hovers in my thoughts.’ Kacha! Get out

of my sight. I will do my own thinking. You have foiled me, Mangiz.”

As Mangiz turned to go, there was a scratching and chirping in the doorway. Ironbeak leapt forward.

“Sparrows! Get them!”

The five sparrows who had been listening at the door flew off. Ironbeak and Mangiz were in hot pursuit of

them as they rounded the stairwell and flew down towards Great Hall.

“Sparrows! Get them!” Mangiz echoed his leader’s cry to the patrols in the galleries.

The sparrows fluttered and veered, not certain of where to go next. One of them was taken by the beaks

and claws of three rooks. It stood no chance.

“Sparra, Sparra, down here!” the voice of Constance boomed up from Cavern Hole.

Like four arrows straight and true, the Sparra warriors shot down the stairs and over the top of the

barricade, to land safely among their Redwall friends. A lively volley of slingstones discouraged any

pursuit by Ironbeak’s fighters.

All the Abbey creatures gathered in Cavern Hole to hear the report of the four survivors who were all that

was left of Queen Warbeak’s brave little army. They told of the long days searching fruitlessly down false

trails through the thicknesses of Mossflower country in the far south, of hawk attacks and uneasy nights

spent in strange trees, of all their adventures, right to the time they found Matthias and his friends in dire

peril. There followed a harrowing tale of the hard-won battle, culminating in the death of Queen Warbeak

and nearly all her command. Many Redwallers wept unashamedly, for Warbeak and her warriors were

great friends and true Redwallers.

There was heartfelt relief and the sadness gave way to cheers at the news that Matthias, Basil and Jess,

together with old shrew comrades and some new companions, were alive and well, still hot on the trail of

the evil one and his band who had kidnapped the young ones from the Abbey.

The Abbot ordered food to be brought for the weary sparrows, who had flown night and day to be back

at Redwall, then he informed them of developments since they had left: the arrival of General Ironbeak and

the slaying of the old Sparra folk and the nestlings by the ruthless invaders.

One of the sparrows related what they had heard outside the infirmary door.

Cornflower clapped her paws together. “I knew it. I was right! Martin the Warrior is watching over us.

Oh, I’m so glad I thought up a little plan earlier on. This makes it so much better, knowing that those

villainous birds are uneasy about the warrior’s spirit protecting our Abbey. Now I think my scheme will

really work!”

“I think you should tell us what this plan is before you decide to go off doing things by yourself, young

mouse,” the Abbot said firmly.

Cornflower explained.

Mangiz perched in the galleries with Ironbeak. Both birds were watching the floor of Great Hall below.

“General, do you think those sparrows heard us talking?” Mangiz wondered.

“Chagg! Who cares about a few sparrows? You see, Mangiz, you are worrying about stupid things. It is

as I said, you are becoming wary of your own wingshadow now. Leave me alone, since it is I who now has

to do all the thinking. You must not bother me with talk of sparrows and armoured mice.”

“So be it, Lord.”

Mangiz flapped off to the dormitories in a sulk.

Ambrose Spike and Brother Dan selected a long barrel stave and set about carving it with their

woodworking tools. As he worked, the hedgehog muttered, “A sword, like the great sword of Martin that

Matthias carries. Wish I had it here as a model. Still, I can remember fairly well what it looks like.”

“I can recall the exact details of our Warrior’s sword, fortunately,” Brother Dan sniffed.

Ambrose sniffed back at him. “See that barrel of October ale yonder? I’ve got to remember to tap it

before autumn. See those barrels of cider, I’ve got to remember to add honey to them in a day or so, or

they’ll go bitter. Now that big barrel of strawberry cordial, well, I’ve got to remember to strain it off into

jugs for the evenin’ meal tonight so that it’ll be cold and clear. So you carry on recallin’ what you like about

the Warrior’s sword, Dan. I’ve got enough to remember, thank you.”

Evening was falling with a glorious red sunset as Cornflower and Sister May, accompanied by several

moles, slipped from the tunnel exit into the gatehouse cottage. Barring the door, Foremole checked at the

windows to make sure they had not been seen.

“Nary a sign o’ burdbags, missus. We’m be safe enuff.”

Cornflower went into the bedroom and opened the chest where Matthias kept his warrior’s garb.

“See, it’s all here, Sister May, the armour and everything. All my Matthias took was his sword. He likes

to travel light.”

Sister May helped Cornflower to unpack the helmet and greaves. Laying the burnished breastplate

upon the bed, she eyed it doubtfully.

“Dearie me, it’s all very heavy. Are you sure you’ll manage to walk with it on?”

Cornflower shrugged, “I won’t know until I try, but I’m fairly strong. Give me a paw with this

shoulderplate, will you.”

Shortly afterwards, she clanked out into the living room, fully armoured.

Foremole shook his head admiringly. “Burr, you’m looken a soight a’right, missus. Oi never see’d ought

loik that. Strewth, but for your face oi’d say ’twas Marthen a-cummen back agin.”

Sister May emerged, carrying a piece of filmy gauze. “Not to worry, Mr. Foremole. I’ll make a face

mask, and in the dark she’ll seem quite pale and ghostly. I must say, Cornflower, all that bulky armour

makes you look quite large and impressive.”

Cornflower clanked about, gazing down at the gleaming metal.

“Let’s hope it fools the birds tonight.”