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Chapter 25. Thievery is About Taking Turns

by Monika

Monika had always hated Redwall's wine cellars. They were damp and spongy underfoot, and they always smelt of fermentation and rot. The hamster folded her paws sternly, trying not to think about what she might just have stepped in. "You wanted to see me, Mister Skipper?"

The burly otter gestured to an upturned barrel. "Take a seat, Miss."

Monika vainly attempted to look down her snout at a beast nearly twice her height. "My name is Monika."

"Right then, Monika. Wot-"

"And I'll stand, thanks."

Skipper clutched at his head. "Fine. Now, I'm sure ye've 'eard about..."

"About the Abbess?" Oh, I'll wager I was one of the first. Nearly stepped on her, coming down the dormitory stairs. Had to take the side staircase on my way out...

The otter nodded gravely. "Me 'n' some of the leaders are tryin' to sort out exactly wot 'appened in all the ruckus. You were in the Great Hall, weren't ye?"

"Well, I was in the dormitories when the explosions went off -"

The otter held up a paw. "Belay a second, there. You were supposed t'be workin' scullery for the feast. Wot were you doin' up in the dormitories?"

"Er..."

-=-=-=-

Monika surveyed the Abbess' quarters, her snout creased in disapproval. For an esteemed Abbey ruler, Dittany doesn't seem to place much stock in cleanliness. The bedsheets are all rumpled, there's clothing strewn about everywhere, and stray bits of fur all over the pillows. The golden hamster sniffed reproachfully. You would think she'd never heard of a comb.

Now, then, if I were an Abbess hiding a sword of inestimable worth in my room, where would I put it?

After an embarrassing wriggle, the sword was found not to be under the bed. Hrm. Perhaps the wardrobe? It makes sense, sort of. An enclosed space within a private room, housing a sword that nobeast is supposed to know isn't where it's supposed to be...

Pudgy pink claws riffled absently through a series of dowdy garments. Fates. And I thought that these green habits were unfashionable. These wouldn't even do justice as dishrags.

Moni scratched her head. Curse it all. Curse it all to wherever accursed things least wish to be accursed to.

She looked about. There wasn't much else. An old chest squatted in the corner, but it wasn't long enough to fit the sword in, even diagonally. There was a small vanity with a mirror, which Monika couldn't stand the thought of looking into, a table with chairs, and a screen to change clothes behind. There was a lute there, too. Monika considered taking it, but luting couldn't hold a candle to looting.

I guess it's not here, then. The hamster hung her head in despair.

And something on the floor of the wardrobe caught her eye. A hinge. She prised the drawer open.

=-=-=-=-=

"Well, you see, I helped Aya deliver a pot of soup to the feast, and I spilled some on my habit. So I went upstairs to change it."

Dubiousness was written all over the Skipper's face, so Monika elected to go on the offensive. "Hey!" she cried indignantly. "You pond-jumping otters may not value cleanliness so much, since you've always got duckweed in your trousers, but I value my cleanliness! I had nothing to do with what happened to the Abbess."

Skipper held his paws to stem the tirade. "Whoa, belay there! So ye like t'be clean. That's... fine."

"You had better believe it is!"

"Alright," he said diplomatically. "Ye sure you don't want to sit?"

"Quite." Truth be told, sitting would have been quite preferable. But, sitting with a sword strapped along the length of one's spine is not a good idea. Especially if the sword is a stolen one. Especially especially if the sword's former owner has been murdered.

Skipper tried to nudge the conversation back towards its original point. "So, ye got a justly-deserved clean 'abit. Then wot 'appened?"

"Then I heard the blast from outside, and I rushed downstairs to see what happened."

"An' then?"

"As soon as I reached Great Hall I got hit, by some great big bloaty splodgy fat squirrel."

=-=-=-=-=

Unkh!

Monika smacked into the wall, followed by the floor. On the second impact, pain seared up from somewhere behind her right flank. Martin's stupid sword had sliced her! The golden hamster eased her way upright, muttering something decidedly unladylike. "Watch where you're going, fattytail!" she shrieked at the disappearing blob. It reached the lawn, and vanished into a haze of fire and smoke.

All about the Abbey, Moni could hear the sounds of disaster: infants shrieking, beasts hollering, wood crackling, stones crumbling. To the golden hamster's ears, the sounds all mingled into a single "Thud" – the door slamming shut on her plans. Dittany was dead. Beasts were fleeing, and something had exploded, and something was on fire... and there was a whole lot of blame going to be handed out.

Then she saw the lizard, carrying the replica sword.

An idea presented itself. It was stupid. It was reckless. But she forged ahead anyway, because stupid and reckless was a sore sight better than "Abbess killer".

Monika pointed through the smoke at the slinking reptile, and shouted, "Stop! Thief!"

The words felt new and strange on her tongue.

=-=-=-=-=

"And then Corsenette and some others rushed in and took the sword from her." Proving that for once it's better to be the shouter than the shoutee.

Skipper nodded. "Y'know, the lizard claims that she wasn't stealin' the sword. She was tryin' t'get it to one o' us for safekeeping."

Monika rolled her eyes. Given that the one was lazy, this created a rather unique experience for the Skipper. "She rushed towards me! I'm just lucky that I managed to fend her off."

Skipper raised his paws in mock surrender. "I'm not sayin' I believe 'er. I'm just sayin'. It kind of makes sense. After all, what sort of mad beast would want to steal Martin's sword, and invite the world o' trouble that'd go along with it?"

=-=-=-=-=

There is a trick to thievery, and that is that thievery, in and of itself, is the trick. And, as any trickster will tell you, the more often a trick is used, the less effective it is. Thievery, being a trick, is therefore better when it is done less often.

To put that another way, stealing is like alcohol. Both provide one with a warm, rosy afterglow; both satisfy a deep inner longing; and, more often than not, both inspire fits of insipid giggling. Most importantly, both alcohol and thievery must be partaken of with caution. Failure to exercise caution can lead, in fortunate cases, to the novice spending a stuporous night in a dark alleyway. It generally leads to alleyways in the unfortunate cases, too, but the sleep there generally tends to be more permanent.

To put that another way, greed is the thief's worst enemy. Greed will tell the thief to overload their sacks to an impossible weight, or to hang about a dangerous situation just long enough to pilfer one more bauble. Greed quickly turns a thief into a prisoner. In some cases, the prison is a literal one. In others, it is prison constructed from the detritus of un-fence-able spoils shackled to their ever-grasping claws.

To put that yet another way, without moderation, thievery is reduced to an exercise in collecting useless objects and death threats. After all, thievery is about getting things. And things that one gets become things that one has, and there's no fun to be had in simply having things. After all, it may initially be rather prestigious to have stolen an object of unspeakable value, but then one runs into the issue of possessing an item that nobeast will want to buy and everybeast will want to steal. The item in question must then be kept safe, which means it can never be used or shown to anybeast, and it becomes nothing more than a trouble-summoning dust collector.

Monika knew all of this. She didn't quite know how she knew it. But she knew it. Which meant that she also knew, deep within the dank and gloomy corridors of her mind, that stealing Martin's sword was a bad idea. After all, the sword was legendary. In her limited out-of-scullery time, Monika had stumbled through the Abbey's historical records as far as her limited vocabulary would allow. Redwall's recorders chronicled many tales of warriors going far and wide in search of that sword, should it ever go missing. And they always, always got it back. Usually by prying it from the cold, dead claws of the foe.

From a practical standpoint, it was even worse. She couldn't use the sword as a weapon (unless she could somehow get prospective enemies to simply run into it and skewer themselves), nor could she sell it, and she could never bear to give the thing away..

Which is why she was not stealing a sword.

What she was stealing was far more valuable. Something nobeast would ever think to think of as lost, because it wasn't actually a thing. Things were useless. Trinkets and baubles – even the wondrous sword – would eventually fade to dust, but she had taken something immortal, which Redwall's warriors could never hope to wrest away from her. She had stolen a legend. A place in the Recorders' books, all her own.

She wielded the sword, and therefore the next chapter in the legend. Martin, Matthias, and Mattimeo would have a Monika writ alongside them, forever linked in the lineage of that magical sword. However the story might end, Redwall could never forget Monika Koval, no matter how hard they tried.

=-=-=-=-=

Monika snorted. "I don't care what Missus Vikkeyragger says. She was stealing the sword, and I stopped her. You should be grateful for that."

"Alright. You did stop 'er, and we are grateful. You're not bein' accused of anything, Monika. We just needed some o' your facts to help us get things straight. And, in fact, I'm thinkin' you might just be one o' the beasts we need to 'elp out."

"Help you?"

The otter nodded. "There's about a half-dozen beasts went missin' just after Dittany was killed, and we're lookin' to 'ave 'em brought back, so we can get t'the bottom o' this. Most of the search groups have headed out already, but you might be able to join up with one of 'em if you're quick. That squirrel what hit you, she's one of the ones we're after, so if you think you can track 'er down, there'd be a nice reward in it for you."

Monika smiled. Offering her a reward was like offering a shot glass to a beast holding a keg. But it would give her a wonderful opportunity to make good her escape. She had been planning to simply wait until all of the hubbub died down and slip away, but official permission to leave was far better. By the time they figured out that Martin's sword had gone missing, she'd be well over the horizon.

She shook his gargantuan paw. "Thanks, Skipper."