Chapter 1
No Thank Yous
Just an afternoon's walk from the Abbey of Redwall, there was a meadow where the maids liked to go to gather wildflowers. One sunny and pleasant spring day, it saw rather a large group of Redwall's young females. But they were not there to make flower crowns or daisy-chains for themselves. They were hard at work. The countdown had begun toward the event of the season. Byron Merif, champion of the abbey, was getting married. There was to be a massive ceremony and feast for which the better part of Mossflower would come out of the woodwork. The Guosim would emerge from the Moss, and Skipper Dillon's crew, too. A number of Long Patrol hares would abandon whatever weasel or rat they were after at the moment and fly to Redwall as fast as their feet could carry them. For Byron, they would. The abbey would be bursting.
Sister Gertrude, who was running the show, wanted bright yellow things to decorate the altar tomorrow, and the ambitious Friar Milton required dandelions for the salad and wild rose petals to top the cake. The maidens, embiggened by the task, spread out gleefully over the meadow to seek these very important flowers. Maids of Redwall, in times of peace, often had little in their lives that made them feel valued, or excited.
But one of them, a young mousemaid called Nadine, felt neither valued nor excited. She was not much of a maid, but others called her that if they wished to be polite. She hung back under the tree line, in the shadows, and watched her friends disperse. It was a good opportunity to get away from them. She thought ahead and decided she would need a stream. To wipe her face later.
She found one nearby, a small stream that she could have jumped across, but full with the spring rains and the comforting gurgle of water. She collapsed beside it, and began to cry.
I am a stupid, stupid creature, she thought, weeping. It was a relief to be able to cry, finally, to fully wallow in her misery. This was why she volunteered to go pick flowers in the first place - to get out of the abbey so that she could for once sob freely.
Every time she thought of him, she was disgusted. Disgusted by his face, which to her was no longer handsome. She could not believe she had ever considered him handsome. His eyes were uneven, now that she thought of it—and beady. His kisses were clumsy and wet. The crooked way he smiled was no longer charming, but smug and vile. She was disgusted, not only by him but disgusted at herself for being taken in.
And now he was marrying someone else.
She lost herself to her aching throat and the powerful sobs that seemed to tear through her body. It wasn't until the rat stood in front of her that she even noticed him. She felt something move at the edge of her senses and looked up suddenly. And there he was, a toothy, gaunt beast, dressed in a tunic full of holes. He was a dark blot in what was otherwise peaceful and well-tamed greenery.
If Nadine wasn't in such a bad mood, she might have been scared.
"What do you want? Can't you see I'm busy?" She drew toward her basket, which she had tossed on the ground earlier. There was a little knife in it for cutting stems.
The rat produced a handkerchief. It was ragged, but of a bold tartan pattern, cut from some prouder creature's clothing. Nadine stared at it in disbelief. She was acutely aware of the snot running down her face now.
"Thank you," she said, taking it reluctantly. She blew her nose.
"Yew ought not t' say it," replied the rat. He had an accent that Nadine couldn't place. Northern, maybe. The 'say' was like 'sae' and the 'it' was like 'et'.
"What?"
"Don't thank nabeast. He might take ya oop on the obligation. Don't thank him, lest yer prepared to do his biddin'."
Nadine looked at him appalled.
The vagrant held out a paw. "Alms fer a weary traveler?"
"I—I don't have anything."
He pointed at her neck. Nadine clutched her necklace protectively. It was one of the few things she possessed herself, that single pearl drop. Then the rat drew a knife, and she became angry. He had cornered her because she was vulnerable and alone, played nice, and then turned nasty when she wouldn't give him what he wanted. Nadine was getting rather tired of malebeasts.
She dove for her own knife, screaming at the top of her lungs, "Thief! Help! HELP!"
There were surprised cries in the distance, followed by the cacophony of the entire party rushing to her aid. The rat stepped back uncertainly. Shortly, the other several maids arrived in a flurry of skirts and aprons and novice robes, and Nadine relaxed and stood straighter. She met eyes with the creature, before he bolted. He was really a smaller beast than what he seemed.
"Are you alright, Nadine?" Holly, a young vole, put a reassuring paw on her shoulder.
"Fine," Nadine replied, letting out the breath she was holding. "Thanks." She looked back at the group assembled behind her, their looks of concern and pity. "He was, uh, trying to rob me."
"You shouldn't have wandered away like that," said Fiora, an ottermaid. "What if he had done something worse? How could we face the abbess, after that? They'd never let us outside again!"
Nadine looked toward the stream. "I just wanted some water. Can we...why don't we just keep this quiet for now?"
Fiora gave her a suspicious look. "And why's that, Nadine? Something more go on here that we don't know about?"
There was a snicker from the crowd. Nadine was not sure who it came from exactly. She felt the stinging in her eyes that warned of tears coming, and swallowed to hold them back. She looked helplessly at Fiora. If the otter noticed Nadine tearing up, she pretended not to. Being stabbed would not have hurt as much as this, thought Nadine. Had they always hated her so? Nadine tried to think back to a time when these were all her unwavering friends, when she and Fiora would float leaf boats in the abbey pond, and capture fireflies after dusk.
Her voice raw, she replied "It would just worry beasts. Like you said, they might make us stay inside from now on."
Fiora grunted in assent and turned away, grumbling something that sounded like the word stupid, and the others followed her back. Nadine played fretfully with her necklace and shuffled after them. She discreetly wiped away the tears that trickled out now. Maybe the rat had a point. She regretted saying thanks. All it did was make others feel superior. Nowadays, everything she said and every move she made seemed to be fraught in ways she didn't understand. Did beasts talk about her? What rumors abounded behind her back?
Did Byron talk? she wondered, with a fresh desire to throttle something. Well, they can all go jump in the river.
Nadine resolved to tolerate their disapproval no longer. Now was a fine time to leave Redwall. The abbess would never let an inexperienced mousemaid venture out alone without protection, and in any case Nadine did not want to have to explain her reasons for leaving to any authority. She schemed to slip out quietly, a day or two after the wedding, without a fuss. But there was at least one beast, a friend who never stopped being a friend, who deserved to know that she was going.