The Song of the Winns (12 page)

“I'm just saying good-bye to the two ginger mice in my wardrobe,” Wilbur explained. “Good-bye, ginger mice.”

Alistair and Tibby stared at him in terror, but the matron merely said firmly, “Come along now, Wilbur,” and with one final cheery wave the beige mouse disappeared.

As soon as the door to the room shut behind Wilbur and the matron, Alistair and Tibby Rose crept out of the wardrobe. Pausing just long enough for Alistair to snatch the apple from the dresser, they dashed to the doors leading onto the veranda. Alistair craned his head around the corner.

“All clear, Tib,” he said, and the two mice scurried back to the safety of the trees.

“So, good news and bad news,” Alistair said when he had caught his breath. He handed the apple to Tibby Rose.

“The bad news,” said Tibby, “is that we're in Souris.” She took a big bite of the apple and handed it back.

Alistair bit into the apple, savoring the crispness of the flesh and the tart sweet juice. “But the good news is that Gerander is just on the other side of the next ridge, and the Winns is in the valley.”

“But there's more bad news,” Tibby remembered. “The matron said that the border is lined with Queen's Guards.”

They sat in gloomy silence. Alistair tried to imagine he and Tibby waddling like ducks across the border with
feathers tied to their feet, pursued by Queen's Guards. “We're too slow,” he said. “We'll never be able to outrun the guards.” He glanced at the feathers, lying atop the sled, and was struck by a thought.

“What about the sled?” he said. “That'll give us some speed.”

“But when they see us they'll chase us on their own sleds,” Tibby pointed out. “And their sleds are probably a lot faster than ours. I think we're better off trying to stay out of sight under the cover of the trees.”

“Under the cover of the trees . . . ,” Alistair repeated thoughtfully. Tibby's words had given him the germ of an idea.

“Uh-oh,” said Tibby Rose. “I recognize that faraway look in your eyes. You're about to propose an idea based on some book you've read, aren't you?”

“Kind of,” said Alistair. “Though it's a play, not a book, and I haven't read it myself. My teacher told us about it. We were talking about camouflage in nature, and somehow he ended up telling us the story of Macbeth and reading out some of his favorite passages.”

“Hey, I've heard of
Macbeth
,” said Tibby Rose. “That was one of Great-Aunt Harriet's favorite plays. It's by Shakespeare, isn't it?”

“That's right. Macbeth starts out this brave and noble mouse, but then he and his wife get greedy for power. So he murders the king and becomes king himself, yet instead of it making him happy he's tortured by guilt, but at the same time is desperate to stay in power. Anyway, these
three witches who had predicted that he would be king tell him that . . .” Alistair paused. “How did it go? I think it was: ‘Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him.' So you see, he thinks he's safe, because a forest can't get up and walk, can it?”

“No,” said Tibby cautiously. “I wouldn't have thought so.”

“But it did!” said Alistair. “Because the soldiers who marched on his castle each plucked a branch from a tree and held it in front of them as a disguise.”

“So you're suggesting that we hold branches in front of us and walk across the border and the Queen's Guards will think we're trees?” Tibby sounded rather disbelieving, Alistair thought.

“That's right,” said Alistair. “Except we don't walk—we sled.”

“Um, Alistair, won't the Queen's Guards think it's a bit strange to see a tree sledding across the border?”

“By the time they've thought twice, we'll be gone,” Alistair said.

Tibby shook her head slowly, but Alistair could see she was intrigued by the idea.

“I wonder how we'd go about it,” she mused. “I suppose we could collect some saplings and any fallen branches and tie them upright to the corners of the sled, then fasten their tops together like a teepee.”

“I'll get the pocketknife from your rucksack, shall I?” said Alistair.

Tibby smiled. “Oh, all right. I think it's a daft idea, but somehow your daft ideas have a way of working out.”

An hour later, they were pulling what looked like a very strange tree through the forest toward the Gerandan border.

As they crested the ridge, the tree cover grew sparser, and Alistair's heartbeat started to accelerate. Queen's Guards were ranged all along the border, the matron at the Soothing Springs Retreat had said. But to Alistair's relief, the snowy slope stretching away before them was deserted. “Looks like we'll have an easy run down into the valley, Tib,” he said.

The words had no sooner left his lips than an angry cry echoed across the mountaintop. “Oy! What do you think you're doing?”

A small band of red-coated mice had stepped out from a group of trees some distance to their left.

“Tibby, quick, onto the sled!”

Tibby Rose pushed through the slender trunks to take up a position sitting on her rucksack at the back of the sled and Alistair clambered after her to sit at the front, the rough bark scraping his limbs. It was dark and close inside their tree teepee, with a sharp smell of pine, and the needles scratched his face.

“Halt! In the name of Queen Eugenia I order you to halt!” The sound of their voices was muffled now, but a quick glance through the gaps in the branches told Alistair the guards were advancing quickly, seeming to glide effortlessly toward them. They were wearing skis, he realized.

“Hang on, Tib,” said Alistair and, grasping the rope in both hands, he pushed off.

The sled was slow to move at first, and Alistair scrabbled desperately at the icy ground with his feet, trying to get traction. At last they began to gather speed until they were hurtling headlong down the mountain.

“Where are they, Tibby?” Alistair called over the rush of wind whistling through the branches. His hands held the rope tightly and his eyes were fixed on the slope ahead, watching for obstacles.

“We've lost them,” reported Tibby.

“Yes!” cried Alistair. “Tibby Rose and Alistair shall never vanquish'd be!”

They careened down the slope, every bump threatening to dislodge them. “Lean hard right!” Alistair yelled, and they narrowly avoided colliding with a tree.

Then, as they plummeted into a dip and flew out the other side, he saw a blur of red through the branches. “Oh no!” he said as the blur came into focus. “There're two guards right in front of us!”

“Barrel straight through,” Tibby advised breathlessly.

The sled sailed down the slope toward the two guards.

“Halt!” yelled the first guard.

“Get out of the way, you idiot!” his partner called, yanking him back by his red coat. “It's a runaway tree!”

Then the vista was white once more and the only sound was the
whoosh
of the wind. They flew down a steep icy funnel lined on either side with towering trees, then shot out onto a wide slope that flattened out for fifty meters or
so before dropping away again. The sled slowed to a stop.

“We'll have to pull it across this bit,” Alistair said urgently, and he and Tibby struggled free of the branches' prickly embrace.

“Wait,” said Tibby, as Alistair was preparing to climb back into position at the front of the sled. “I've got a better idea. What if we push the sled off without us? If the Queen's Guards are following the tracks of the sled's runners they'll go that way. . . .” Tibby pointed down the slope. “We'll go this way.” She indicated the forest to their right.

Following Tibby's lead, Alistair hastily untied his feather snowshoes and rucksack from the sled and slung the latter over his shoulder. Then together they pushed the sled, still bearing its tree teepee, down the slope. Alistair felt a pang of regret as it sailed out of sight.

“Now we'll get rid of the evidence.” Using one of her feathers like a broom, Tibby began to sweep away their footsteps. Then she walked backward into the trees, brushing away her footsteps as she went.

Alistair copied her, walking backward until they were well hidden by the trees.

Tibby put a finger to her lips. “Let's watch and see.”

They didn't have long to wait. Only minutes later three red-clad figures shot past them as swiftly as arrows.

Alistair turned to his friend. “Brilliant, Tibby! That's bought us some time.” But Tibby Rose appeared to be shaking uncontrollably.

“Tibby, what's wrong?” Alistair asked, then he saw that
she was convulsed in giggles. “It's a runaway tree!” she gasped, and they both collapsed to the ground in laughter. The cold of the snow was like a balm on Alistair's skin after the irritation of the pine needles and for a few minutes he enjoyed the relief that came with laughter, the feeling of all tension dropping away. But all too soon the reality of their situation came back into focus. At the speed the Queen's Guards were traveling, it wouldn't be long before they caught up with the sled and found it empty. And then they would come looking for the two ginger mice who had crossed the border. . . . His concern must have shown in his eyes, because when Tibby met his gaze her laughter faded and she stood up. Without a word, they turned and headed deeper into the forest.

They walked for hours through the trees, Alistair in the lead and, although several times they heard voices in the distance, they didn't encounter anymore Sourian patrols. The two young mice tried to keep their own conversation to a minimum, speaking only in low murmurs. As they hiked farther down into the valley, the snow became patchy, giving way to meadows of soft green grass. They came across blueberry bushes, and then a patch of small, sweet wild strawberries, which they fell on ravenously. Tibby Rose paused periodically to gather mushrooms, which she wrapped in a handkerchief and stowed in her rucksack. “I'm not going to get caught short of food again,” she vowed.

The hardships they had endured seemed a million miles away now, with the golden light of the afternoon
sun making the flowers of the wild rhododendron bushes glow a vivid scarlet against the dark green foliage, and the air full of the sweet scent of meadow flowers. Yet even though the conditions had improved, Alistair grew more and more exhausted. His eyes felt gritty and bleary. His legs, his arms, even his tail seemed heavy, the scarf around his neck weighed his head down so that he could hardly lift it. Now that the adrenaline was draining from his body, Alistair felt wearier than he ever had in his life.

When he judged that more than an hour had passed without any sight or sound of Queen's Guards, Alistair said, “It's going to be dark soon, Tib. Why don't we try to find somewhere to stop for the night? We can get some sleep, then start out early tomorrow to look for the source of the Winns.”

Tibby, he saw when he turned, was in mid-yawn. “That's the best idea I've ever heard,” she said.

It was in the sun's dying rays that they stumbled into a secluded clearing. A mix of spruce and pine trees were etched in black against a deep blue evening sky, and Alistair felt needles from the trees under his feet and heard the burble of a spring he could barely see. “This is perfect,” he said, his eyelids already closing in anticipation. He shrugged the rucksack off his shoulders and helped Tibby off with hers, then sank with a groan onto a bed of needles. Tibby flopped onto the ground beside him.

“I could sleep for a thousand years,” she murmured sleepily.

Alistair had just muttered his agreement when he was
seized roughly. His heart seemed to explode in shock and he could barely draw the breath to shout a warning to his friend.

“Tibby!” he yelled. But it was too late. Opening his eyes he saw a dark shape looming over his friend, about to pounce.

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