58. Within the Walls and Before the Walls.

"Is there any hope left?" Belk was trying to hold his left paw extended parallel to the floor. "Trying" was the correct word. Pain no longer made him wince and grit his teeth at such an attempt but he felt a strange swelling in the upper part of his paw that refused to go away, and the shoulder just wasn't moving right.

"I'm not sure, Master." Ezri the rat healer lowered her head. "Two seasons have passed since your paw was broken. Injuries that do not heal after this long might never heal..."

"How many times must I ask to stop calling me "Master"?" answered Belk, turning away from her. "If only I had a proper Redwall healer treating my paw instead of this traitor rat, maybe I wouldn't be stuck crippled in the middle of the war…"

"Please, M... please forgive me. I did everything that was possible with my small abilities! Please harm was simply too great, and…"

Fear – no, desperation – in Ezri's voice made Belk turn back towards her again. "Stop. And I mean, stop acting like I'm whipping you bloody every time you displease me."

Ezri only nodded. Were her eyes wet? Then again, Belk saw enough liars capable of squeezing out insincere tears before. "You may go, Ezri. There are beasts who'd benefit from your help more than I. As Walmond said, all the good healers in the castle departed with the army, and none of them returned."

To Belk's surprise, Ezri hesitated. Then she spoke. "Jerbilrats, those who got wounded in the night attack, they do not want me to even touch them. I lived in the Abyss and served its Ruler, so they fear I bring curses and misfortune."

Belk shook his head. "Then let's go together and I'll try to some sense into them."

However, he could not stop himself from thinking: "About misfortune they may be right."

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As it happened, on that very evening Myns decided to ask Belk a question.

"I've noticed… you don't really seem to like Ezri at all."

Belk stopped polishing the Sword of Martin – for as long as Belk could remember not the slightest hint of rust stained its blade, and the edge remained as sharp as ever, but he still gave it all the proper care – and looked at his wife. "To tell the truth, I don't. Do you?"

"We talk from time to time, when she helps me with the cooking. I feared her at first, well, with her being a rat and all. Then I saw she fears me. Because I'm your wife, and you hold their lives in your paws."

"I don't have a choice. I offered them to go wherever they please after we crossed the desert, but with no experience of life in the forest they could not survive on their own. Or so Ezri said."

"You would have preferred them to go?"

Belk made a wry face. "Yes. They turned on their old master when he lost. What would they do, if it looks like we cannot defeat the vermin army outside of these walls?"

For a time, Myns was silent, looking at her apron that she was sewing up. "They turned on the cruel master who held them in thrall by fear, but we treat them better than that, aren't we? I told Ezri that you will always be fair to her and her rats, even if you might seem cold…"

"Treat them better… As if that always works with vermin," Belk thought. Back in Redwall he was in favor of extending the Abbey's help and succor to any creature willing to obey its rules. But that was back in Redwall, where the power of woodlanders remained uncontested. And even there he much preferred to send even the most seemingly harmless vermin back on their way once their lives were no longer in peril or direct them to settle in remote and sparsely populated parts of Mossflower. He remembered cases when this caution proved to be wildly insufficient: a bunch of rat brigands who were sheltered for a winter by Abbeymice, and went right back to robbery and murder before leaving a single day's walk between them and Redwall; a weasel family who accepted help in settling down as farmers and seemed to be peaceful, until talks of beasts disappearing in that part of the woods made Belk visit them without warning… If vermin were capable of such things with the sword of judgment, both proverbial and literal, so close to their necks, what betrayal they could conceive when chances of getting away with it seemed so much better? Or – the thought chilled Belk – was his magnanimity towards vermin showing cracks, because for once he felt that his own life and his own wife were on the line?

Belk looked at his wife. "Of course I will be fair to them. I am still a Warrior, even if we are no longer in Redwall, and I still live by the same code I always did."

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Belk and Myns were woken up in early dawn hours by frantic rapping on their door.

Belk jumped out of the bed with haste worthy of a young beast, grabbed the Sword of Martin and threw the door open, to find one of the jerbilrats behind. "What's the problem? An assault? A fire? Enemy in the castle?"

"No." The young jerbilrat female shook her head. "The Queen has returned! Through those, what they said, secret tunnels."

"What?" Belk thought he was ready for anything, but these news left him in wide-eyed surprise. Since when Southsward had a Queen?

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Belk always hoped beasts did not name him Belk the Fair mainly because of his good looks. But his looks were indeed good, even to this day, and moreso in his prime – tall, well-proportioned, fit, with long bushy tail, long whiskers, fur of deep ruddy red and creamy white, and eyes of forest green. Between that and his exalted position, just about every squirrelmaid in Mossflower lavished attention on him until he got married. Back then Belk's friends joked that he would be old before finding a bride to surpass his own handsomeness. Well, in a way they were right. Now Belk was old, or at least pretty close to that. And before his eyes finally was a squirrelmaid that definitely outshined him – nay, any squirrel he had ever seen.

Even after a lost battle, several days in the forest and several hours in the cramped underground passages, Melayna Firebright remained bright and beautiful like fire. From the perfectly pointed ear-tufts to the tip of her swishing tail, she was a picture of vibrant energy. Belk had to remind himself that while fire is beautiful, it also is dangerous. He also had to remind himself that he was a married squirrel and Melayna was half his age at most.

"So, long story short, you haven't seen Gwynfren Squirrelking's body, and haven't witnessed his death?"

"Our entire center was surrounded by vermin, all beasts around the royal standard cut down or captured," Melayna waved her paw dismissively. "Had Gwynfren been taken prisoner, vermin would have used him to make demands. He must have been cut to pieces, or his face smashed, mangled into nothing recognizable. The fight there was terrible. I searched the field myself on the second night after the battle, stalking among the unburied dead, but I found nothing of him."

Melayna shook her head, sorrow darkening her face, if only briefly. "With Gwynfren dead, I am now the Squirrelqueen by right. But my crowning can wait for a moon or two. If, by some miraculous whim of fates, Gwynfren escaped the battle we would soon hear about him."

"But there are matters which cannot wait. As if vermin around our walls were not enough, I heard that you've brought vermin, accursed rats, within my own castle? Is that true?" She crossed her paws on her chest and looked straight at Belk. Thirty or so ragged but armed and resolute-looking woodlanders, the small force she managed to gather after the battle, looked at him as well. Belk had a suspicion that so did quite a few beasts behind his back. Jerbilrats, most of which now gathered in the castle's main feasting hall had no love for the house servants of their former overlord: they merely tolerated Ezri and the rest at Belk's insistence. And of course, Walmond and remaining inhabitants of Castle Floret were not glad at all to see rats within their walls – honestly, jerbilrats seemed to be only the lesser evil to them as well, but the crowd of uncouth and rambunctious desert barbarians did not rile them nearly as much as the pawful of vermin.

"Yes, that is true," answered Belk levelly.

Melayna's tail rose high like a fluffed banner, showing her anger. "And why? Why vermin are defiling my ancestral halls?"

Belk was not sure where Ezri and her rats were at the moment and whether they heard that. If they did, they clearly were too scared to speak out. Given the attitudes of everybeast present, which Belk just weighted in his mind, all he needed to do if he wanted to make his worries regarding the rats' loyalty and integrity disappear forever with the rats themselves was to – metaphorically – step aside now.

"…I still live by the same code…"

"Those rats helped me and healed me after the toughest fight I ever fought. I vouch for their character with my life and my honor as a warrior." A thought that was more practical than honorable surfaced in Belk's mind, and he added, with indignation that was only partly sincere. "And I could never have imagined that beasts who came with me to defend this castle and did help to defend it one day would be accused of 'defiling' it just because they were born the wrong kind of beasts!"

Belk could not see jerbilrats behind him and was not sure if any of them got the hint that there is no big step between ingratitude to rats and ingratitude to jerbilrats. But Melayna before him certainly got deflated, lowering both her tail and her voice.

"Beasts told me that you were a Warrior of Redwall. Indeed, it must be the legendary sword of the Abbey on your hip, and you came to help us in Southsward's hour of direst need, guided by destiny, as beasts of Redwall did before in the times of old. I can never doubt honor of one such as you. If you vouch for these rats, I accept that. Just remember: any misdeeds they may commit would be on your head."

Belk did not like that last phrase one bit.

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Ezri was in the hall, after all. She caught up with Belk and Myns in a corridor when they were returning to their room. And before either of them could say anything, she bowed to Belk deeply.

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Enjo Greencloak's tent offered as much comfort as can be found in a war camp. Including, of course, his personal slave. Weitla the mouse kept playing the same role she had on Sea Princess, and this evening, she, as usual, had a meal – a roasted woodpigeon leg and a big mug of ale – prepared by the time sun touched the treeline and her master returned.

But this time food and drink failed to put Enjo in a good mood. His mood hardly ever was good since the failure of the night assault and Barkface's death. The stoat may have been not very bright, and certainly not pleasant to look upon, but he still was Enjo's inseparable companion since they first met as mere deck paws on a corsair ship. Weitla did not remember her master ever calling Barkface "friend", but she also did not remember him taking failures so badly before. In any case, for her this simply meant danger.

"This ale is weaker than water! Pour me some wine."

Weitla did as she commanded, swift and exact as always. Tonight this did not suffice to make Enjo forget about her.

"Weitla."

"Yes, Captain?"

"Heard anythin' interestin' from all the woodlander rabble we rounded up? Anythin' about the castle? Or did they overhear a thing or two from other commanders? Lotsa beasts forget to keep their mouths shut when only slaves are around."

The mouse shook her head. "Captives don't trust me. They call me…"

Enjo's paw shot out with the speed of an attacking viper, catching Weitla by the chin. Squeezing harshly, the rat captain stared right into her face for several seconds, his frightening eyes, the bloodshot good one and the gleaming emerald fake, meeting hers. Then Enjo let go, satisfied by what he saw. "Ye ain't seem to be lyin', lucky for ye. They don't trust ye 'cause they see ye for what ye are, my lil' favorite, and they won't forget that. Anyhow, keep tryin' and mayhap ye'll learn somethin' useful for old me from the slower ones!"

At that moment, a blood-freezing scream of pain from a nearby place in the camp reached Enjo's tent. Weitla shuddered briefly, but the old corsair only smirked. "Ye hear, other would-be kings in this camp, like that pale leech Ubel, aren't as soft-pawed with woodlanders as meself. If ye don't want 'em comin' on top, ye better make yerself more useful as me spy!"

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"I will ask you again." Ubel stepped to where Chamberlain Elmsfort, tightly bound to a long wooden bench could see him clearly. "Where is the secret passage to Castle Floret?

The old squirrel was breathing heavily, his grey fur wet with sweat. "I know no such passage! If there was one in the time of legends, it was forgotten, lost!"

"It is refreshing to hear you answer without adding 'vermin' or 'scum'. Let us see if a little more pain can improve your memory as well as manners. Rugger?"

Elmsfort's footpaws below the knees were splinted together in a simple contraption – four thick wooden planks, two on the sides of each paw, with holes for ropes to hold wood and limbs tightly. Upon hearing Ubel's word, Rugger raised a heavy mallet and with two strong, rapid blows drove another oaken wedge between the two inner planks.

Elmsfort screamed, howled and thrashed. When he finally ran out of breath, Ubel spoke again, starting in a conversational tone. "Do not worry, it may not feel like so, but your paws are still mostly intact. We are only on the fourth wedge, and whenever I tried these wooden boots before, bones never started to crack and shatter before the sixth. Usually it takes ten wedges to crush limbs completely, but with you I do not intend to go that far. You may die too swiftly, and then I would not be able to torture you again, and again, and again, day after day, until you tell where the secret passage is!"

"There is no… secret passage!"

"Rugger?"

This time a scream was short – the old squirrel lost consciousness.

"Hellgates!" Rugger threw the mallet to the tent's floor, wiped drool leaking from the hideous wound in his cheek, and looked at the white ferret angrily. "Just when I thought we might be getting somewhere! I begin to tire of sitting on my tail below unapproachable walls and twiddling my thumbs."

Ubel smiled grimly in return. "Have a little more patience. Maybe I would be able to find a way inside the castle without help from this stubborn prey creature."

"How? By finally deigning to use your almighty sorcery?"

"You may say so," responded Ubel, ignoring Rugger's obvious sarcasm.

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Elmsfort's screams were heard by the whole camp, including Seien, who at that moment was dining in his tent with Marda, Ulakhai and Zerwik, Ulakhai's young stoat minion who now usually served as a bodyguard for Seien. The young King did his best to ignore them, but Ulakhai managed to notice a hint of unwanted emotion on his face.

"You're not required to enjoy torture." Ulakhai put down his knife and spoke quietly. "I, if you're in doubt, do not. That's why I'm leaving those things to Ubel. But if you want to be a King and rule after me, you should never frown on it."

Ulakhai was looking at Seien, while Marda and Seien were looking at Ulakhai, so nobeast noticed another frown – one that briefly crossed Zerwik's face at those words.