The Deptford Mice 3: The Final Reckoning (2 page)

He ran through in his mind all the things he would have to do: of course he would have to stock up on certain goods, it was nearly his busiest period – Yule was fast approaching. Kempe chuckled to himself and made a mental note to find larger packs to hold his wares.

Kempe thought of the feasting that took place during the midwinter festival and wondered where he ought to spend it himself. There had been numerous invitations made and he had nodded to those kind mice who had offered, but privately he knew all along where he would be at Yule: at Milly Poopwick’s place. She was a hearty, round mouse. Widowed three times she was now on the lookout for husband number four and there was always a grand welcome for Kempe there. He grinned to himself as he thought of her. Life with Milly would not be so bad after all; things were never dull while she was around. The traveller pulled himself up sharply and tutted. The idea of settling down had never occurred to him before and a startled look crossed his face. He was a traveller through and through and hated staying in one place for too long.

‘Reckon you’re gettin’ old, Kempe me boy,’ he told himself. ‘Try a day or two at me darlin’ Milly’s and see how it goes; after that there’s other deals to be struck. Once Yule’s over folk’s thoughts’ll turn to spring and the makin’ of mousebrasses.’

He sighed contentedly. It looked as though he would be kept very busy indeed and the lovely Mrs Poopwick would just have to wait if she wanted to catch him. Kempe kicked away the leaves that had drifted over the path and chortled to himself.

The pale sun hung low in the colourless autumn sky and sparkled over the surface of the rippling river. Kempe looked at the lengthening shadows of the trees and decided it was time to bed down for the night. Not far off he knew the perfect place.

It was an old stone wall close to the river bank. It was very thick and parts of it were hollow, making wonderful shelters inside. Kempe swaggered up to the wall and found the opening he usually used. It was near the ground and partially hidden by moss. The traveller cleared the moss away from the entrance and tried to enter.

A look of surprise registered on his furry face as his pack became thoroughly wedged in the gap; he had forgotten that it was fuller than normal. With a groan and a curse he tried to heave it in.

‘Drat and blast! Bother and blow!’ he ranted and puffed as he strained at the bag straps.

All his pots, buckles, pans, spoons and beads clattered and rattled. The opening was just too narrow for the fat, bulging bag. And as he was strapped to it he could not turn round or do anything useful to relieve the situation. He squirmed and struggled and cursed out loud.

‘Plague take it!’ he snarled. The pack was wedged firmly and refused to budge. The traveller went red to the ears and looked ready to burst. ‘Tis a cruel joke to play on an honest trader!’ he fumed to himself. Then with one final effort he pulled and heaved, dust fell from the stones all around and the inevitable happened. There was an ominous tearing sound and the pack split open.

‘Bless me!’ wailed Kempe as he fell headlong into the hollow wall. His wares flew everywhere, jangling raucously as he crashed to the floor. The contents of his pack spilled out and buried the alarmed mouse.

Kempe groaned and raised his head. A pink ribbon hung over one eye and he blew it away impatiently. When he saw the mess all around he gave a weary sigh. There was more clanging as he fumbled with the straps and buckles that bound him to the forlorn-looking pack which hung empty from his shoulders.

‘To be sure, Kempe laddy,’ he muttered to himself sadly, ‘there’s a tidy bit of work for you to do here before you sleep tonight.’ He began to gather up all the ribbons, silks, beads, trinkets and tassels that lay scattered in the dust.

Inside the wall it was dry and safe from the wind but it was also dark. Kempe delved into a smaller bag and fished out a candle stub. He lit it and gazed about for any treasure he might have missed. There, in the corner, something glinted and threw back the flickering light.

‘Hello,’ Kempe said thoughtfully. ‘And what may you be then?’ He stopped and picked up the object with nimble fingers. Before him was a small, delicate silver bell which tinkled sweetly as it rolled into his palm. He held the candle closer and examined the bell with interest, talking to it as though it were a lost child.

‘Not one of my little darlings are you?’ he addressed the tiny thing. Kempe narrowed his shrewd, gleaming eyes. ‘But I get the feeling as how we’ve met before, little one.’ He shook the bell and listened to it in satisfaction. There was no doubt, it had once belonged to the young mouse from Deptford he had met not so long ago. It was one of two bells she had worn on her tail. Kempe wondered about that mouse and her friends. They had been going to a place called Fennywolde when he had known them – they must have returned to Deptford and mislaid the bell on the journey.

‘I shall be passing by Deptford soon,’ Kempe told the bell. ‘That Oldnose will want stocking up on stuff, I expect. I’ll drop you off with your mistress. Stick with Kempe – he’ll see you safe home.’

The traveller shivered. It had grown very cold all of a sudden. A deadly silence descended on the world outside. He could no longer hear the sounds of birds or the wind high in the trees.

‘Storm must be comin’,’ he said and stepped through the opening once more to take a look at the weather. Everything seemed normal enough. There were no heavy clouds in the sky, yet there was a strange, charged feeling in the air as if the world was holding its breath waiting for something to happen. Kempe hummed a tune to himself as he walked down to the river’s edge.

‘Don’t pick your nose laddy or wipe it on your paw I’m not being faddy ’twill make your nostrils raw.’

It was terribly cold outside, and an icy blast seemed to be blowing down the river. Kempe shrugged at the unpredictability of the weather and made to return to the relative comfort of the wall where he could warm his paws over the candle.

His movement caused the silver bell to jingle in his fist, and as if that were a signal, the storm broke.

A vicious, icy wind bore down on him and a strange, thick fog rose up out of the river. Before Kempe had reached the wall the fog had rolled up the bank and surged round him. The traveller was uneasy – this was no ordinary mist. The fur on the back of his neck tingled as an awful sense of horror and fear swept over him.

The fog was impenetrable and it now completely surrounded him. It bit into his flesh with cold clammy fingers. He stamped his feet desperately as he groped for the safety of the wall opening but it was no use.

A deep rumbling purr began, menacingly soft at first, then slowly growing deeper and more fearsome. Kempe’s legs trembled and he could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest. There was a monster hiding in that mist – some mind-numbing terror from the deep cold regions had come to claim him. Scarcely conscious of his own actions, only of the overwhelming horror, Kempe waved his arms about in despair as he felt the monster’s freezing breath fall on him. In his paw the little bell tinkled; an incongruously delicate and beautiful sound.

There came a savage roar and Kempe cried out as the bell was torn from his clenched fist by an invisible power and he wept with fright to see it float up into the fog where an immense, dark shadow was gathering.

‘No!’ screamed the traveller stumbling backwards. ‘Leave me, please . . . I have done no harm . . . I . . .’

From the evil shape that was mounting before him there came a sneering, mocking laugh. It ended in a cruel snarl and Kempe gasped when he saw what form the shape began to take.

Then high in the smothering fog a bitter blue light flashed and a great spear of ice hurtled downwards. That was the last thing Kempe ever saw, for he felt a sharp pain in his chest before he fell to his knees and collapsed lifeless on the ground. The terrible ice spear had pierced his body and the blood which trickled out froze quickly. The shadow in the fog purred to itself and somewhere in that blanketing greyness the sound of a small, sweet bell tinkled softly.

The old empty house in Deptford looked blankly out at the wet, wintry world. The neglected building was the home of many mice, but only at special times of the year would they all come together to celebrate the various mouse festivals. There was the Great Spring Ceremony where mousebrasses were given out to those young mice who had come of age, there was Midsummer’s Eve – a particularly magical time – and finally there was the Festival of Yule.

Yule occurs in the midst of winter when cold storms batter and rage outside. It is a time of hardship for most creatures and all the more frightening because food is scarce. This is the time when the midwinter death kills the old and the very young. For many long years mice have gathered together during Yule and lit fires to keep the ravening spirits of cold and ice away.

They feel themselves to be particularly vulnerable during this season because the Green Mouse, their protector and symbol of life, is dead. Every autumn, when the harvest has been taken in and the last fruit falls from the trees, the great Green Mouse dwindles and dies. Throughout the long, dark winter months his spirit is neither felt nor seen as Death binds him close, and only when the first sign of spring appears is he reborn once more. It is through these bleak, dangerous months that mice have to survive, and those who dwell out of doors dread it.

In the Skirtings, however, Yule was much looked forward to. The mice had a plentiful supply of food from the larder of the blind old lady who lived next door and so the threat of winter was never felt as harshly by them. They would light fires to roast their store of chestnuts and mull their berrybrews. For them all the seriousness and the danger of the season had been forgotten and Yule had become a time of feasting and the telling of ghost stories.

This year the Hall had been decked out with sprigs of evergreen and bright streamers which some of the children had made. They took a long time preparing the food, and many an impatient husband received a sharp smack from an anxious wife as he tasted the mixtures when he thought she wasn’t looking. Those children not involved in making streamers mooned about sniffing the different smells which wafted through the house. There was Mrs Coltfoot’s tangerine jelly and Mrs Chitter’s spiced fruit buns, Miss Poot’s almond tart and Mr Cockle’s own berrybrew. All these wonderful smells to savour! The children smacked their lips and longed for the days to pass quickly.

A large roof slate specially kept for the occasion had been hauled out of the cupboard where the Chambers of Spring and Summer had also been stored. This they put down in the centre of the Hall and built a fire over it. That night all the mice from both the Skirtings and the Landings were gathered round the crackling flames, warming their paws and listening to tales. Some were cleaning their whiskers wondering if they ought to make another attack on the feast nearby, while others were dozing contentedly, musing on things past and long ago. Most of them, however, wanted to hear ghost stories and the younger ones turned to the stout, retired midshipmouse Thomas Triton to entertain them.

‘Take the hat, Mr Triton please!’ they begged. ‘Tell us a scary moment from your days at sea. Give him the hat someone.’

The hat in question was an old, battered thing of burgundy velvet stitched round with gold thread and beads of red glass. It had somehow become the traditional hat of the storyteller in the house and only he who wore it could command everyone’s attention. Thomas Triton stepped reluctantly into the circle of yellow firelight and placed the hat on his head. He knelt down and began his tale. All eyes turned to him and they were reminded of the fact that outside all was dark by the story he told them.

‘’Twere
a night such as this,’ he said in a deep resonant whisper, ‘not long before I went off to sea. I was staying in an old farm house. There weren’t no moon and it was bitter cold. I was much younger then – and rash – an’ all evenin’ I’d been listenin’ to stories like you are now. I was fair put out that I had no tale of me own to tell so I persuaded the best friend I ever had to come with me an’ visit the haunted barn.’

An appreciative murmur ran through his hushed audience.

‘Well, the loft of that there barn had a sinister reputation among us mice – nobody ever went there if they could help it. ’Twas said that the frightful ghost of a murdered mouse haunted the place and we were all mighty sceered of it.’ Thomas paused, and gazed solemnly round at the young, faces gaping up at him, their whiskers gleaming in the firelight.

‘So,’ he resumed, ‘me an’ my friend we leaves the safety of the farmhouse an’ makes our way to the barn. Our hearts were beatin’, fast an’ we held tight to each other’s paws. We was both shiverin’ with fright but on we went. Now, as I said before, ’twere a dark night but the shape of that barn reared up in front of us blacker than the night itself. ’Twas an ominous place and one of the bravest things we did was walk across that lonely yard to that big black shape. Anyway, when we gets there I goes in first. That barn hadn’t been used in years an’ it smelled all damp and musty. I wondered if rats lived there but my friend had a sniff round and said there weren’t none. Ah, he could smell an east wind comin’ he could – what a good nose he had! Well we look up to the hay loft where we mean to go. All is quiet an’ the only thing we can hear is ourselves breathing. I makes my way to the loft ladder and begins to climb.