I created the vixen Vodola in the spring of 2001 as part of the cast of the ensemble fanfic "The Answer." A month or so later, I ended up using her as my character for Redwall Online Community: Survivor (or ROC:S), the first of the many Redwall survival writing contests that have followed in its wake. Vodola survived the trials and tribulations of that contest, as did her fellow castaways Pyr and Cayenne, and this is a follow-up fanfic set sometime after they'd settled at Redwall at the conclusion of ROC:S. I was inspired to write this in response to the war in Afghanistan after 9/11. If your enemy is a shadowy terrorist group that mingles with the populace and moves in small groups, is the best way to battle them really leveling entire mountain ranges with B-52 carpet bombing? Perhaps, as we look back on those events from here in 2013, finesse would have been more effective in the long run than brute force. Thus, this story.
THE SCALPEL AND THE BROADSWORD
Something terrible had happened at Redwall Abbey.
Before the graves had even been dug, before the blameless victims had even been laid to their sad rest in the earth, the Abbey defenders were mobilizing for vengeance. The mouse Champion Alvernon stood by the south wallgate, the majestic sword of Martin strapped across his back. With him, impatient to be underway in their quest for retribution, stood Taraquigg the hedgehog with his club and cleaver, and Sturdivant the hare archer with his yew longbow and a full quiver. The grim trio, with the fires of revenge and justice and righteous anger burning in their eyes, were eager to be off while the trail of the murderers was still warm.
Abbess Tristesse and Brother Travis, the Abbey Recorder, saw them off through the wallgate as the dying day faded to solemn twilight. There was no doubt that justice would be done, that the evildoers would be made to pay with their lives, and that the scales of right and wrong would be put in balance once more. That was the way it had always been when wicked vermin inflicted death upon the good creatures of Redwall. The Abbeydwellers might be peaceful woodlanders when left to their own devices, but rile them up with an overt act of villainy, and there would be Hellsgates to pay ...
The young vixen Vodola huddled up on one part of the walltop that overlooked the Abbey grounds on one side, and the southern meadow outside the wall on the other. She wanted not to look, to avert her eyes from the militaristic expedition departing from her recently-adopted home. But it was impossible to keep her gaze away from the chilling sight. She herself was trained as both fighter and assassin (although she'd had to forsake the latter vocation upon becoming a resident of Redwall), but nothing in her experience had prepared her for the deathly purpose that had possessed the pursuers. She had no doubt that they would kill the villains without hesitation when they caught up to them.
A few short seasons before, she might very easily have been one of those villains, or at least mistaken for one. And even though the band that had committed this day's evil were known to be rats, Vodola could not help but wonder what would befall a vixen such as herself if that hapless creature were to cross paths with these searchers in their present single-minded, bloodthirsty state.
Vodola wished with all her heart that her two trustworthy companions from her shipwreck experience were with her now. But Cayenne had accompanied all of Redwall's otters to the coastlands for their annual autumn seaside jamboree, and Vodola's fellow vixen Pyr had been called away to her home court of Canto Attia on political matters. As much as the Abbeydwellers had extended Vodola the full measure of their hospitality, she was still learning to live with woodlanders, and at a time like this she garnered her measure of uncertain stares. Now that it was Redwallers against vermin, with death as the only possible outcome, where would her loyalties lie?
The mousechild Hendy came up to Vodola. Earlier that day - before the crime had been committed by the wandering band of rats who had gained entry to the Abbey when they asked for food and drink - Vodola had used her surgical skill and a scalpel from her healer's kit to remove a splinter from the mousemaid's paw. The vixen had soothed Hendy's anxiety by explaining as she worked how different tools were called for in different circumstances. "To remove this splinter from your paw," Vodola had said, "it would be silly to use a broadsword. This scalpel works much better - don't you agree?" she'd asked as she slipped the offending sliver of wood smoothly out of the flesh and held it up for Hendy to see. "There. All done."
Now Hendy said to Vodola, a tear glistening in the corner of her eye, "Why do some creatures do such bad things?"
Vodola opened her mouth to explain how somebeasts acted out of desperation, and some were just too lazy or stupid to know any better, and some truly were blackhearted and evil. But the question in Hendy's eyes demanded an answer less literal.
"I don't know," Vodola said, shaking her head.
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The tracks of the fleeing rats were easy to follow, even after night fell. The murderous rodents weren't making the slightest attempts to cover their path, almost as if they were daring the Redwallers to pursue them. It was nearly midnight when Alvernon, Taraquigg and Sturdivant came to the encampment. A bright fire burned at the center of the clearing, and half a dozen rats lounged around it, drinking and laughing and singing and talking loudly.
In the darkness, Alvernon wordlessly paw-signaled to his two fellow hunters. They nodded, and silently spread out to take up their positions around the enemy camp. The tracks had led here, and now the villains were practically celebrating their wicked deeds with song and cheer. It turned something inside the Redwallers hard as stone. Such bald audacity would be paid for in blood.
Alvernon waited for Sturdivant to unleash his first shaft. The arrow took an unsuspecting rat between the eyes, killing him instantly.
"Redwallllll!" the mouse warrior and his hedgehog companion shouted as they burst into the clearing, their weapons swinging with the full force of their wrath. Taraquigg's club smashed the skull of an older rat who'd been sitting against a log with his back to the attack, then crushed the knees of a younger rat who belatedly reached for his sword. The crippled rodent fell to the ground screaming in agony. Alvernon, meanwhile, slashed open the belly of a sturdy female who dared to oppose him with a thick treebranch in her paw. Sturdivant's second arrow found the shoulder of another young male, who fell clutching at the wound and wincing in pain.
The remaining rat of the gang, a young female, made no move to run or fight as the brief battle unfolded before her. As she watched from her perch on a low stump while one after another of her compatriots fell beneath the woodlanders' onslaught, she put her paws to her face and began screaming, her eyes wide with horror. The screams and cries of the others subsided to gurgles and groans, but the uninjured ratmaid wailed like a banshee, struck immobile by the sight of the carnage illuminated by the flickering firelight.
Her screams cut through the listeners' skulls like a knife. Alvernon strode forward and dealt her a vicious slap across the snout to shut her up. It took two more hard smacks before she tumbled from the treestump and lay upon the ground, apparently knocked out.
"Mercy! Mercy!" a rat voice begged. It came from the male who'd taken Sturdivant's second arrow in the shoulder; he lay upon the ground staring up at the Redwallers with terror-filled eyes.
Alvernon strode over to him and pressed the tip of his sword against the rat's throat. "Why should we spare a single one of you? You, who deceive your way into our Abbey, kill our friends and steal our cherished belongings?"
The rat sputtered and stammered, his fear outweighing his pain.
"What have you done?" a new voice cried from the other side of the clearing. Alvernon and Taraquigg glanced up to see another female, this one tall and distinguished, standing there staring at them with accusing eyes.
Sturdivant had by this time stepped out of the shadows and into the clearing himself. Moving like lightning, the archer hare notched another arrow to his bowstring and sighted the drawn shaft at the newcomer's chest. She immediately raised her paws in surrender. "Shall I take 'er down, Verny?"
"Only if she moves." Alvernon regarded the seventh rat, his blade not straying from the pinned male on the ground before him. "Only four of you came to our Abbey," he demanded of her. "How many of you are there? Speak true, or this hare will decorate your heart with an arrowhead."
"You ... you're Redwallers?" she asked incredulously.
"How many?" the mouse warrior demanded again.
"S-s-seven. Just us seven."
"And whose idea was it to steal from our Abbey and murder three of our order?"
"Murder? We've never been to Redwall! We were on our way there to peddle our services!"
Alvernon was on the verge of nodding for Sturdivant to slay her, but Taraquigg's voice stayed him. "Alvernon? Alvernon, I don't recognize any of these rats as the ones who were at the Abbey today ... "
"I told you we've never been to Redwall!" the female rat repeated. "We're a family of peddlers and grinders. We sharpen knives, mend tools, barter goods ... oh, great besotten fur, what have you done to my family?"
Sturdivant lowered his longbow, letting the string go slack. His face was uncomprehending.
The younger female rat on the ground began screaming again. The male with the arrow in his shoulder crawled over to her and cradled her in his paws. Alvernon did not try to stop him.
Taraquigg grabbed up a flaming fagot as a torch and bustled off into the undergrowth. "Hold on, I'll be right back," he told the dumbstruck mouse.
The seventh rat walked slowly into the clearing and stood looking at her family - a husband with a crushed skull, a daughter with her belly sliced open, a brother with an arrow buried in his forehead, a son with his knees irreparably smashed. Now that the Redwallers knew where to look, they could make out the peddler's cart in the darkness, off to one side of the camp. It was clearly from there that the rat matriarch had come upon hearing her kin in distress.
Taraquigg returned to the clearing, throwing the burning bundle into the fire. "I picked up the tracks again, on the other side of the camp," he reported to Alvernon. "The ones we were after must've come right through here and kept on going ... "
"No," Sturdivant muttered in disbelief. "It can't be ... "
The hedgehog hung his head, not meeting the gaze of any other beast. "I think we've made a terrible mistake ... "
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There was no question of continuing the pursuit, not after that. The Redwallers realized they had taken innocent lives - or at least, innocent of the crimes for which they'd mistakenly been killed. It would not even be possible to bury the dead (whose names, the Redwallers learned, had been Strodt, Birk and Marolda), for the injuries of the survivors demanded they be borne back to the Abbey as quickly as possible. The young male rat Kessock, whose knees had been shattered by Taraquigg's club, was hastily loaded into the back of the rats' cart, moaning in agony. They were much closer to the main road than the questors had first realized, having followed a convoluted course through the deep woods in their pursuit of the murderers, and the three Redwallers grabbed the cart by the pull-rods and hauled it out onto the path. Turning north, they bore their load in grim silence.
The rat matriarch, Silfa, marched woodenly behind the cart, eyes red with rage and anguish. On one side she supported her daughter Bissada, who'd finally ceased her screaming and now could only mewl and sniffle like a lost babe. And on her other side Silfa supported Bissada's fiance Lorryn, who'd taken the arrow in his shoulder. In spite of his injury, Lorryn insisted on walking so that Kessock could have the cart to himself, and so that the Redwallers might be able to get them to the Abbey in the best possible time.
The walltop sentries saw the sorry procession coming up the road in the hour before dawn. The alarm was raised, the bells were rung, and the Abbess was waiting at the main gate to greet the returning warriors.
When she heard their tale, Tristesse blanched and clutched at the side of the gate tunnel to keep from collapsing.
Then she looked to the surviving rats, started to say something, stopped, then waved for them to enter the Abbey. "Come in, come in," she bade in a small and shaky voice. They were the only words she could bring herself to say.
Kessock and Lorryn were taken right up to the Infirmary, where Brother Joshua and his staff ministered to their wounds. They labored valiantly to set and splint Kessock's legs, but their efforts were in vain; it was clear to everybeast there that the rat would never walk again. With Lorryn they had more success, successfully extracting the arrow from his shoulder without causing further injury. Lorryn's shoulder was properly cleansed and bandaged, and the rat was declared out of danger.
Silfa's daughter Bissada also wound up in the Infirmary, feverish and disoriented. A nasty welt was rising under her fur where Alvernon had repeatedly smacked her, but more than that she was suffering from shock. She was given a bed next to her brother Kessock, where both were soon slumbering under the effects of sleeping tonics Joshua gave them.
At noon, while the rest of the Abbey took a subdued midday meal out on the lawns, Tristesse and Alvernon met with Silfa in the Abbess's private study.
"No words can express the depths of my sorrow over this incident," Tristesse told the female rat. "I can tell you I am sorry, but those words seem hollow and empty in light of what has happened. There is no way we can bring back the lives that are gone, so the best that I can do is offer you that which is most precious to us: this Abbey is yours, for the rest of your seasons if you so choose. You and the others may live here, sleep in our beds, eat our food and drink our beverages. You will be provided with new clothes, as often and as many as you please, and we will provide you with whatever other comforts we may. You will not be asked to lift a paw at any time to help with the chores of this Abbey. You will be our lifetime guests, and your every need will be provided for. I am sorry, but that is the best we can do."
"Will my son live?" Silfa asked stiffly.
"We will do all for him that we can. Brother Joshua is a highly capable healer."
Silfa sat glowering in silence for a moment. "I lost my husband, my brother and my daughter last night. Right now they are lying out there in the woods, food for the flies. I want them given decent burials."
"Of course. I will send a team to take care of that immediately. I can have the bodies brought back here for burial on the Abbey grounds ... "
"No," Silfa shook her head. "Not here. I want them buried where they fell. Where they were murdered." She pointed a trembling claw at Alvernon. "And I want him to dig the graves."
"It will be done," the mouse warrior said softly, not meeting the rat's gaze.
"That is all you can do for me now," Silfa sniffed. "I will think about your offer, Abbess. We had planned to come here today to offer you our wares and services. We'd all looked forward to enjoying Redwall's famous hospitality. Now I don't know if I can stand the idea of staying in this Abbey for one moment longer than I have to." And with that she stood and stalked out of the study.
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That afternoon, Vodola overheard Brother Travis and some of the other Abbeybeasts talking in the orchard.
"They shouldn't have been there, and that's all there is to it," Travis was saying. "No honest beast would be carrying on and cavorting in the woods in the middle of the night like that ... "
Vodola thought to herself that Redwall's otters had often done just that - and none of them had ever been killed by marauding vengeance-seekers. In fact, the jamboree that the otters were currently celebrating along the coast probably had its moments of revelry far more boisterous than anything the rats had been doing the previous night.
"Well, if you ask me, I don't think we can just assume they're totally innocent," said Sister Nalley. "I mean, they are rats, after all. Wouldn't surprise me at all if they're related to the ones who did the killing and thieving here yesterday. Or in cahoots with them, at the very least."
"And let's not forget that the tracks Alvernon was following led straight to their camp. Why, they probably helped the villains get away. I bet they all laughed when they heard Redwallers had been murdered!"
"Yes, and even if they were totally blameless, they surely must understand that we'd suffered a loss of our own. Perfectly understandable mistake. They've no right to hold it against us ... "
"I cannot help wondering," Vodola intruded into their conversation, "if yesterday's culprits had been foxes instead of rats, and our Champion had come across me in the woods last night, would I still be alive?"
The others looked at her wide-eyed and open-jawed. "Why, Vodola," Travis said, "you'd have far more sense than that, getting mixed up in such a sordid affair. I mean, you're hardly an ordinary vixen, you know ... "
"I'll take that as the compliment you intended it to be," Vodola said levelly. "But it evades the question. Those beasts were killed last night because they were rats, and for no other reason. They were not villains - we have gone through the items in their cart, and their travelling band appears to be precisely what they claim to be - and our tragedy of yesterday had nothing to do with them. They had as much right as anybeast to be camped where they were, and to be singing, and laughing, and whatever else they wanted to do that was causing harm to nobeast else. I think the Abbess and Alvernon both realize this. I'm surprised you don't too."
Sister Nalley narrowed her eyes at Vodola. "Just which side are you on?"
"Ever since becoming a Redwaller, I have tried to be on Redwall's side whenever possible. This Abbey stands for certain things. Last night, I believe the spirit of Redwall was violated."
"Fine words from you - assassin!"
Vodola refused to be goaded. "I was only in training to be an assassin. The only creatures I've ever actually killed - at great personal risk to myself - were ones who were planning war against Redwall. Perhaps you'd prefer I'd let them have their way?"
"Now, now, Vodola," said Travis, "there's no need to get in a huff. We're all upset about this ... "
"Yes, I can see that, Brother Travis. But that is no excuse for the kind of talk I've been hearing here."
"We'll talk as we please," the Recorder mouse said curtly. "And if you think that's a freedom that you can curtail if you don't happen to care for our words, then maybe you don't know as much about our ways as you like to pretend."
"I was merely offering my views. As long as you are free to speak as you wish, I'll assume that liberty extends to me as well." Vodola turned and walked from the orchard, seeking the solitude of her private room. For the first time since her earliest days at the Abbey, she didn't feel much like a Redwaller.
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Days passed, and the season grew older.
A wheelchair was made for Kessock, once he was over the initial pain of his injuries, so that he could be pushed around the Abbey and its grounds by willing helpers. Those helpers usually ended up being his fellow rats - Silfa, who remained aloof and cold toward the Redwallers, or Bissada, who behaved pleasantly enough but refused to speak a word since coming to the Abbey, or Lorryn, who had fully recovered from his shoulder wound and seemed the only one of the four who was willing to face the reality that what was done was done, there would be no bringing back the dead, and they should all make the best of the situation and go on from there.
Vodola was the only Abbeydweller Kessock would allow to guide his wheelchair. One afternoon, after Silfa and Lorryn had helped the vixen carry Kessock and his wheelchair up to the walltop, where the crippled rat often liked to look out over the surrounding countryside, he and Vodola were talking.
"I'll never walk again, will I?" Kessock asked her.
"That is what Brother Joshua tells me. I know a little of the healing arts, but not as much as he does, so I would believe him in this matter."
Kessock locked gazes with Vodola. "How do you stand it here? The way they treat you ... "
"I am treated quite well here," she replied. "A few of the older brothers and sisters are still suspicious of me, given my species and history, but old ways die hard."
The rat's eyes lingered on Vodola. "You look ridiculous in that habit. Do you really imagine that helps you fit in here?"
"For your information, this habit was the uniform of my old school, where I spent many seasons before coming to Redwall. I would be wearing it today, whether I lived at this Abbey or not."
Kessock looked out over the battlements. "Sounds like an interesting life you've led ... and you're even younger than I am, if I measure you right. We led a fairly simple life ourselves. Journeying from place to place as we pleased, nobeast to tell us otherwise, offering our goods and services where they were needed. The most exciting things that ever happened to us were when we ran into bands of villains ... or goodbeasts who could be just as cruel toward us, just for being rats."
"There has been strife between vermin and woodlanders for so long, it is hard for most creatures to think in other terms. You cannot expect to simply snap your paw and make everything the way you would like it to be."
"That sounds like a speech you have given to yourself many times, probably on lonely nights when you are alone in your chamber here." Kessock heaved a sigh. "The way I would like it to be is the way it was before, when we had our lives to live as we chose. When we were free, with all the good and bad things that went with that."
"You are still free," Vodola said, and regretted her words almost as they left her lips.
"Free? I cannot even walk! Never again will I wander the lands as I once did. Sometimes I wonder if my sister Marolda and my father Strodt and my uncle Birk are the lucky ones, sleeping beneath the ground in the woods."
"You shouldn't say that. Your mother Silfa and sister Bissada still care for you very much. And the Abbess will see to your every need. Most creatures would give their right paw to be able to live at Redwall."
"Most creatures have a choice in the matter. I cannot live in the outside world anymore - this Abbey's warriors saw to that. I will have to dwell here until my dying day ... being wheeled about like an old invalid, or carried from room to room like a helpless babe. I am a Redwaller for life - whether I want to be or not." Kessock's gaze went to the Abbey grounds below them, where a number of the woodlanders were walking to and fro. "And I suspect I hate that prospect even more than most of them loathe having me here."
Vodola held her silence, not sure what to say.
Kessock looked her in the eye. "Why do some creatures do such bad things?"
Vodola started to defend her adopted family, to say that Redwallers were generally very decent sorts and admirable in most ways, but she saw that Kessock would never be able to see them this way. Not after that night in the forest.
"I don't know," she said simply.
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It was not long thereafter that Bissada poisoned her brother.
Sister Nalley found Kessock lying on his bed one morning, his peaceful expression of serenity contrasting with his bloated face and slightly protruding purple tongue. The mute ratmaid Bissada lay curled next to her crippled sibling, gazing at his lifeless form with a look of sisterly devotion. Sister Nalley screamed murder and ran to fetch somebeast in authority.
In the Abbess's study a short time later, Silfa told Tristesse and the other Abbey leaders, "Yes, Kessock wanted to die. He asked me yesterday if I would do it, but I refused. My courage was not great enough to take the life of my only son. I am glad my daughter had the strength to do what I could not. Kessock was suffering, not being able to walk. He could never have been happy that way. This is for the best."
"Normally, anybeast who committed such a deed as this would be banished from Redwall for life," Tristesse said sadly. "But I have promised that you can all live here for the rest of your days, and the circumstances were admittedly unusual. I suspect Bissada was only acting out of love for her brother, although she will not speak even to defend herself, so we will never know for certain. Silfa, my condolences to you on this latest loss."
"Abbess!" Brother Travis protested. "You're not going to allow her to remain at Redwall? A poisoner, a ... a murderer! Who might she kill next?"
Silfa looked ice cold daggers at the mouse historian.
"Now, Travis," Tristesse interrupted before either could speak further, "Bissada had a very specific reason for taking Kessock's life. I'm sure she considered it an act of mercy. And I am just as certain that she is not a danger to any of the rest of us. She stays, because I gave my word that she could. And the Abbess of Redwall does not break her word lightly."
"Nothing light about this," Travis muttered under his breath, but did not press the point.
Tristesse turned to Silfa. "I will have Kessock buried on the Abbey grounds, just as we would with any Redwaller. Unless you have another preference?"
Silfa shrugged forlornly. "Might as well. Looks like this will be my son's last home, whether he wanted that or not."
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But Redwall was not to be Silfa and Bissada's final home.
The rat matriarch informed the Abbess at dinner that evening that she and her daughter would be leaving in the morning, and they did not intend to return.
This unexpected announcement was followed by an even more surprising one from Lorryn. "Abbess," he said, "I have been betrothed to Bissada since ... well, since long before that night in the woods. I plan to leave with her in the morning, but when I do, I want it to be as her husband. I assume you have the authority to perform marriages?"
"Lorryn, my daughter's got a skull full o' crushed acorns," Silfa told the male rat. "She's not been right in the head since seeing her kin murdered, and may never be again. Why'd you wanna tie yourself down to that?"
"Because I love her," Lorryn replied simply.
A sad smile lifted Tristesse's mouth. "Ah, love. That is a word I wish was spoken around here more often these days. Yes, Lorryn, I will wed you and Bissada. If she agrees, of course, although in all honesty she does not seem to be in much of a state to agree or disagree with anything these days, poor child. Do you want me to perform the ceremony right away?"
Lorryn thought a moment. "We only just buried her brother today. I think it can wait until the morning."
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Lorryn and Bissada were wed on the lawn inside the main gate, in a hasty ceremony during which the bride spoke not a word and at times did not even seem sure what was going on. Morning dew wet their footpaws, the tears of dawn clinging to the green blades and adding their own touch to the bittersweet occasion.
When the ceremony was done, the three rats visited the grave of Kessock once more to say their final goodbyes. And then they were gone, Lorryn and Silfa hauling their peddler's cart while Bissada, mute and childlike, rode in the back. Extra food and drink, enough to last the trio a season or more, joined the new bride and their bartering goods and tools in the back of the cart. Farewells were made to few of the Abbeydwellers, and those few were short and grudging. Not even Vodola received a fond parting.
The last that any Redwaller saw of Silfa, Bissada and Lorryn was as dwindling figures far up the north path, not looking back. And thus was closed one of the most unfortunate chapters in the Abbey's history.
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Except for Vodola.
For many days afterwards, there was an unspoken tension, an awkwardness between her and many of the other Abbeybeasts. It was in the meals they ate together, in the chores she helped perform, in the furtive glances and unexpected pauses of conversation. Perhaps some beasts felt a renewed sense of distrust over the vixen, while others carried shame over the events of that season and were uncertain how to share that shame with a fellow Redwaller who was not a woodlander.
One morning the mousechild Hendy came to Vodola again on the walltop as the vixen was gazing out over the Western Plains. "Wotcha doin, Mizz Vodie?"
"Waiting for the otters to return. The Abbess says it should be any day now. I miss my friend Cayenne. I could really use her to talk to now."
"Is she gonna be sad when she hears what happened here?"
"I'm sure they'll all be. About the brothers and sisters we lost, and about those rats too. It was a great tragedy, for everybeast involved."
"Are you sad, Mizz Vodie?"
"Yes. Yes, I am."
Hendy came up to the vixen and put her paws around Vodola's waist. "I don't wantcha to be sad. You're a nice fox."
Vodola smiled wistfully and gently ruffled Hendy's headfur. "Thank you. Thank you very much. I needed to hear that."
Together, vixen and mouse stood on the west walltop, paws around each other, awaiting the otters' return.