Things were being cleaned up. The toppled kitchenware had been returned to its proper places in the room. The infirmary had been restocked, the charred bedsheets replaced. All the ash had been swept from Great Hall and transferred to the gardens as fertilizer. The path leading to the Abbey had been cleared, and the space between the inner and outer walls reopened.
And the wall edge was clean, too—the temporary barrier placed immediately after the attack had been removed piece by piece as the wall shards were excavated. Teams of moles had them proceeded to dislodge the crooked edges that showed the impact's contour, stripping down the wall until the first rows of untouched bricks were exposed. The edge became straight and geometrical, cleaved with care, construction as opposed to destruction. Somehow more benign.
They'd cleared up the remnants of living matter as well. In some cases, the most distinct remaining form was a charred tail or a severed paw, unmatchable to individual or even species. These were set aside, cremated in a compartment of broken walls tones. Most of the dead, however, were largely intact and recognizable—horrible lifeless visages that no longer seemed quite the loved ones they once were.
The memorial session had to be held while the campaigners were still out seeking revenge. Practical and moral standards alike would not have allowed the bodies to remain unburied for such an extent of time. And thus they were buried—Abbot, Badgermum, Friar, Brothers and Sisters, Novices, Dibbuns—flanking the interior cleaved edges of the wall which caused their demise. The day was clear, though the autumn light was uncharacteristically harsh and cold. The entire ceremony was hardly a true ceremony, and took place with minimal verbal exchange. All present understood the inappropriateness of spoken elaboration.
Reconstruction began the next day. The West Wall was to be replaced by teams working outside the Abbey grounds, building inside to outside so as to not disturb the freshly-covered graves. There had been talk from the memorial committee of laying the first row of the new segment with exploded bits of the old, but this plan was rejected with little contest when the issue of the structural soundness of rubble was mentioned. Thus the replaced wall was to consist entirely of the new sandstone blocks that Amos and Gabbro had cut from the old quarry.
The wall was to be as it always had been. Only Ustela took issue with this. The young badger suggested that the opening be turned into a gate, another entry to the Abbey as it had been cleared. She argued that, in learning from the tragedy and in looking for warning signs, Redwall could not grow cold and lock others out. The placement and width of the gate would explain its own presence and would warrant hushed respect, but at once it would show the healing and warmth of a community that welcomed and didn't threaten, that had been injured but not damaged.
Ustela's idea was turned down. Historically, Redwall had attackers. According to record, each new era of attackers—and defenders—knew and cared little about past confrontations. Long after this current affair was over and became little-regarded history, another gate would have meaning only as another vulnerability. Furthermore, those responsible for this had yet to be affirmatively squelched. Redwall had walls for a reason. It still would have those walls.
The first and bottom row of new sandstone bricks was laid across the hole in the West Wall two weeks after the impact. The monument would come later, when there was proper time for remembrance.