Well, well, well. We meet again, readers. Way to step up and review, some of you. I even got about fifty CHANtastic reviews! Now, take your hero-worship to the next level. Tell your friends! Tell their friends, and theirs! It is said that everyone knows someone that knows someone that knows someone who knows someone famous. Or something. In any case, if you pass this to your friend thrice-removed, I think it's reasonable that Christian Bale, Stephen Colbert, and Mancow be reading Broomtail by Christmas.

Muffled thuds and twangs emanated from a locked room, augmented by muttering and the occasional curse. Afternoon tea finished at long last, Havelock smiled slightly and rapped on the mahogany door. Laurie's room was hard to find for several reasons. Unlike most bedrooms, it was located on the ground floor since the otter couldn't climb stairs easily. Not only that, it was located in the middle of the various cloisters and hallways the Abbey sported, requiring intuition, determination, and a good memory to find—that way, not any idiot could barge in and ruin the misanthropic otter's privacy. Finally, it was peaceful. There was one window and one door, but otherwise had no connections to the rest of the Abbey…just how Laurie liked it.

The sounds eventually stopped and Laurie opened the door, his injured leg raised slightly in the air and his cane propped up against the bed. "The Cellarhogs are going to be asking you about some missing wood and tools later. Just shrug and say you don't know what could have happened."

Havelock nodded, keeping a straight face, and swept into the room, slowly sitting on the edge of the large, comfortable bed. He hadn't expected a greeting, anyways. "All right. You could have just asked…"

Laurie made a face—all the answer Havelock needed. "Laurie, what exactly is that?"

"Nothing yet," the otter replied, glancing at the mass of wood, string, and thin slabs of stone slightly bigger than one of his fingers. "Give it a while, though. It'll sound great."

Once again, the Abbot accepted the evasive answer. "The Brothers and Sisters chewed me out over tea."

"Surprised?"

"Far from it. Nevertheless, I was hoping for at least one voice of reason besides my own." He sighed. "Tolerance, I'm afraid, is intolerable. This is an Abbey, not a fortress."

Laurie grunted and lay on the ground by the mass of wood, picking up a hammer again. "Tell that to Cluny, the Marlfoxes, and all the other stupid bastards that tried to conquer the damn place."

"You know what I mean. It's a place of refuge, first and foremost. If the fox tries anything, it'll be easy to toss him out on his ear. Or worse."

"Yeah," Laurie said, squinting up into the dark recesses of the creation and twanging a string. "But what these idiots are worried about is the fox trying something, and if he'll try it on them, personally."

Havelock stood and ran a paw through his graying headfur. "You are so cynical."

"Yeah, but am I right or am I right?"


After a long debate, it had been decided that the two vermin to accompany Bayrd would be Lennartney, Snake-Eyes, and Coldbare. Lenn, of course, was generally amiable to everyone and could play some nice music to loosen the Abbeybeasts up. Snake-Eyes had no musical skills to speak of, but had the best grammar out of the remaining vermin and could successfully change accents in the blink of an eye. Bayrd eventually gave in on letting Coldbare be the fourth representative simply because he once had been the first mate on a ship and new a bit about dinner etiquette.

The others, Bayrd thought, would be lucky if the woodlanders passed them the salt 'n' pepper. The searats were uncouth, the weasels were simple, and Ecks was simply scary.

Eventually, Skipper let them out (still with bad grace) just as dinner began. Flanked by otters that displayed no sense of humor, they marched up to the Great Hall.

"So, what's cookin'?" Bayrd asked cheerfully. A frosty silence answered him.

"Ah. Great. Tasty."

The reception when they entered the Great Hall was even less friendly than the otters. Mice, hedgehogs, squirrels, voles, and moles turned, glared daggers as they approached, and turned back to their steaming hot meals.

Havelock, for his part, acted politely enough, officially welcoming to the Abbey and offering them seats near him…probably to keep an eye on them, Bayrd reflected. Nevertheless, the elderly mouse was one half of the entire Redwall populace that came close to supporting them, so he'd not complain about the seating arrangements.

What he was unprepared for, though, was the buffet-style arrangement of the tables as well as the food itself. It was simply lined up so that one could heap his plate with whatever he wanted. Bayrd was used to a lack of actual meals when he sailed; you grabbed what looked edible when your stomach started growling, gulped it down, and got back to work. If you were lucky, it wouldn't have that many weevils.

This food, on the other hand, was actually cooked, prepared by beasts whose entire life revolved around churning out a whole mess of grub that was widely accepted as tasty by one and all. Bayrd was not used to that.

Hesitantly, he picked up a fork, spinning it nervously between finger and thumb, and sampled the strange looking pastry in front of him.

Oh. My. Gods.

Swallowing something so delicious was almost impossible. Ha, that's what she said.

When the brief explosion of taste-induced euphoria had subsided, he blinked and asked the squirrel next to him, "What is this stuff?"

The squirrel eyed him, aloof, and eventually replied, "It's Deeper'n Ever Pie. The moles make it."

Damn, Bayrd thought. Slap me silly and stick a pair of digging claws on me paws, its good. These beasts eat this every stupid stinkin' day. Incredible. No wonder half of them were overweight. "It's incredible," he said, honesty oozing in his words. It didn't work that well; honesty seldom oozes. The squirrel seemed to accept the compliment, though, so…more power to me, I guess. Nevertheless, the food around the vermin seemed to be disappearing much more quickly than it did at tables filled with the "noble" beasts. To Bayrd's right, Lennartney reached for a scone only to see it and the final four disappear in flashes of brown and gold fur. The mice nearby munched on their salvaged sweets with smug satisfaction.

"This blows," Lenn muttered so that only Bayrd could hear.

"Oh, dear me!" someone said loudly, shattering the angry murmurs like a hammer through a stained glass window. Heads turned to see Laurie limping into the hall, cane clutched tightly in his right paw. "Where are our manners? We have visitors!"

There was a mass shifting in seats. Even angrier glares now flew around the room. Laurie obviously wasn't popular.

"You there, Hamilton," the otter said, pausing by a table and pointing his cane at a hedgehog three times Bayrd's girth. "You've got enough food to feed a marching march hare. Give some to the poor, tuckered out, pooped, done in, exhausted, drained, hungry, dehydrated, and above all tired guests, won't you?"

When the hedgehog simply glowered at him, Laurie spun around and march-limped up to the Abbot's table, shrugging. "Very well, then. Add another chin to your already impressive collection.

"Look at this lad!" he exclaimed, clapping Coldbare on one broad shoulder. "He looks about ready to drop! When was the last time you ate, kid?"

"Um." The ferret looked ready to panic, yellow eyes flickering to Bayrd, silently pleading for aid. "Two…two days ago?"

"Gosh darn golly, is that so?" Laurie asked with overly-excited, wide-eyed innocence. "Well, it's a good thing my good old buddies here at Redwall are feeding you, isn't it? It'd be horrible if you left our Abbey and told everyone what incredibly stingy bastards—" (several mothers covered their babes' ears) "—we've got here. I'm glad that won't happen though. Right, gang?" he asked cheerfully, wheeling to face the stone-faced Redwallers.

Grudgingly, food reappeared on platters.

"Well done," Laurie said, the manic grin sliding off his face to be replaced by the more familiar grimace of world-weary depression. "I'm glad we've all learned to share."

With that, he limped off. The murmurs picked up again, this time with the disapproval directed at one of the Redwallers' own.

"We're in deep shit, aren't we?" Snake-Eyes muttered across the table in a perfect Redwaller accent sullied by coarse language.

"Look at it this way," Bayrd replied in a whisper. "They're more mad at him than they are us, and they've stopped stealing all the food."

Indeed, with the anger now channeled along a different route, things seemed to brighten at the dinner table.

"So, what's your name?" the squirrel next to Bayrd asked. Redwallers nearby engaged the other corsairs in stiff but somewhat polite conversation. A good sign.

"Bayrd. I'm a well-compensated establishment provocateur. Wrap your head around that one, eh?" He grinned and nodded greetings. "Nice to meet ya. And you are?"

"Lipwig," the squirrel answered, taking a bite of pasty and shaking off his puzzlement. Just what exactly was a well-established…er, compensated well…whatever. "If you don't mind me asking…what exactly are you all doing here?"

"Don't worry," Bayrd said, hearing the hidden question: What the hell did you do? "We didn't kill anybody or anything. Well, okay, yes, I did. But it was in a duel."

Despite himself, Lipwig was interested. "Really? What happened?"

Bayrd slowly walked him through his story, beginning with his capture and ending with that same dinner. It took him a bit longer than he thought, but that was only because he had to scan sentences and delete expletives before they came out…and of course he couldn't tell this woodlander, broomtailed or not, the details about Darkten. When he finished, the squirrel looked unsure of whose side he was on. That was good. The hares weren't here to plead their case, but Bayrd could do enough pleading to cover his entire band of merry corsairs twice over.

"Well, when are you leaving?"

As soon as I can figure out a way to outsmart those bastard hares, Bayrd thought. "As soon as we recover our strength and figure out where we'll be headed from here. It's not easy to run from Salamandastron to Redwall in one night after eating nothing and drinking a few measly gulps of rainwater."

Lipwig smiled slightly. "Well, where are you headed, then?"

"Hm…you know, I don't actually know…" Bayrd frowned. It was true. He didn't know. He could try and get a ship to get back to Darkten's island…maybe try life on land for a while…meh. He and the rest of the band could decide later. "But I'll be out of your headfur in two shakes of your bushy tail, matey, don't you worry about nothin'. In the meantime…Lenn! Play us a ditty, hey?"

After that, the dinner went well. Better, in fact, than anyone present had expected. The Redwallers, as Bayrd had predicted, softened up considerably when Lennartney played a heartbreakingly beautiful song with his lyre. Snake-Eyes, like Bayrd, engaged in conversations with actual interest behind each party's words, and Coldbare, rising so high above and beyond the call of duty that he nearly hit his head on the ceiling of utmost success, performed bloody magic tricks. The Dibbuns couldn't stop laughing at "Mista Faywut."

Despite all the charm he poured out, all the honesty he oozed to whatever degree of success, there were some beasts that would not budge from their position on the ramparts of Justice, located atop the fortress of Good. Vermin were evil. That was all there was to it. The otters, definitely, hated their guts. Quite a few of the mice were dubious, while some came to accept the vermin that night and others still refused to even look at them. The voles were about as simple as the Brothers Darkness and would believe whatever the person next to them said. The hedgehogs…well, they were drunk.

On the whole, Bayrd thought as he lay down on his makeshift bed, it could've been a lot worse.