Chibb the robin watched the little procession of woodlanders marching southward. He had no doubt that they were coming to visit him. They were carrying food. If they were not coming to see him, then what right did they have wandering about Mossflower carrying bags of candied chestnuts?

He was different from other birds. For the sake of his little fat stomach, Chibb had overcome all barriers. Greed was the one motive that drove him to sell his spying skills to others—greed, tempered with wisdom. Chibb would never sell his services to Kotir, as he had narrowly escaped being eaten by weasels and such on more than one occasion.

The woodlanders used Chibb whenever they had cause to, sometimes to locate a missing young one, more often than not to find out what was going on in other parts of the forest. Chibb did not come cheaply, however. The fat robin had a fondness amounting to a passion for candied chestnuts.

He watched the party below him: Martin, Lady Amber and a young Loamhedge mouse called Columbine were in the lead; Gonff and Billum the mole trailed behind, both carrying small barkcloth bags of candied chestnuts. Chibb could not take his bright eyes off the bag that Gonff was bouncing playfully in his paws.

“Ha, candied chestnuts, eh, Billum. What’s the good of giving these to old Chibb, just for a skinny bit of spyin’? I’ll bet me and you could scoff these between us and get their spyin’ done for ’em easy enough.”

The trusty mole caught the bag in midair as Gonff tossed it. He crinkled his velvet face in a deep chuckle.

“Ho hurr hurr! Liddle wunner they send oi t’keep watch on ’ee, you’m a villyen, Maister Gonff. Keepen ’ee paws outten ’ee chesknutters, or oi tells Miz Bell offen ’ee.”

Gonff threw up his paws in mock horror and ran to catch up with Martin, complaining aloud. “The nerve of Billum! Fancy not trusting honest old Gonff—me, that was sent on this mission specially to keep an eye out for greedy moles. I’ll bet I end up getting scragged by you lot, trying to keep those chestnuts safe. There’s no room for an honest thief these days.”

Martin chuckled as he watched Columbine from the corner of his eye. The pretty young fieldmouse was laughing merrily, obviously taken by Gonff’s roguish charm. Martin encouraged her by putting in the odd word or two on his friend’s behalf.

“Be careful of that fellow, Columbine. He’s not one of your Loamhedge order. If you don’t watch Gonff, he’ll steal the whiskers from under your nose.”

Columbine’s eyes went wide with amazement. “Would he really?”

Gonff winked at Martin. Cartwheeling suddenly, he shot across Columbine’s path so close that he brushed by her face. With a squeak of shock she put up her paws. Martin shook his head seriously.

“You see, they don’t call Gonff the Prince of Mousethieves for nothing. Have you counted your whiskers?”

Columbine put her paws up then dropped them smiling. “Oh really, you two!”

Gonff bowed and produced two thin strands. “What do you think these are, O wise beauty?”

Columbine’s mouth fell open. “But, I didn’t feel a thing.”

Billum had caught up. He chuckled and scratched his snout. “Nor oi wagers you didden, missie. They whiskers is offen Gonff. Tha’s ’ow you’m never feeled owt.”

Lady Amber pointed at a long-dead elm covered in ivy. She held up her paw for silence. “Hush now. This is Chibb’s home. We don’t want to frighten him off. Gonff, you do the talking.”

Gonff rapped upon the trunk of the elm and shouted up toward a hole left by a broken branch, “Hey, Chibb! Come out, you old redbreast. It’s me, Gonff.”

There was no response, Gonff tried again. “Come on, matey. We know you’re in there. What’s up? Don’t you want to earn some candied chestnuts?”

Billum opened one of the bags and selected a large nut. “Harr, may’aps you’m roight, Gonffen. Us’ns could ate chesknutters an’ do ’ee job ourselfs.”

The mole popped the dark sugar-glazed nut into his mouth, licked the sweetness from his digging claws and chomped away with an expression of rapture on his homely face. “Umff, gurr, oo arr, mmmmm!”

Much to Columbine’s amusement, Gonff did likewise, imitating perfectly the mole speech and gesture.

“Hurr, oo arr, Billum, these yurr be furst-clarss chesknutters. Hoo arr, that they be.”

They had eaten a nut apiece when a bout of nervous coughing erupted from the branches of a nearby rowan. “Err, harrumph, ahem hem!”

Chibb puffed out his chest importantly, ruffling his feathers to increase his stature. He paced a branch with wings folded behind him in a businesslike attitude. Politely he cleared his throat once more before speaking.

“Harrumph, ahem, ’scuse me. Let me warn you before we proceed any further, if anyone eats another nut I will judge it an insult, then of course you will have to take your business elsewhere, ahem.”

“Please consider what I say before answering.” Martin responded in an equally formal tone. “I have been authorized to make you an offer. Here are our terms: you, Chibb, will spy on Kotir and find out what plans are being made by Tsarmina against the woodlanders of Mossflower. The Corim wish to know all details of any reprisals or attacks directed at our creatures. For this you will be paid two bags of candied chestnuts now and a further two bags upon bringing back your information. Is that agreed?”

Chibb cocked his head on one side. His bright eye watched Gonff as he picked crumbs of chestnut from his whiskers with his tongue. The robin coughed nervously.

Columbine had assessed the situation correctly. She interrupted in a more friendly tone. “Of course the nuts will be carefully counted, Mr. Chibb. The bags will be completely filled. I will see that four more nuts be added as an interest for the two that have just been eaten, and another four added as evidence of our good faith in your well-known skills.”

Chibb shifted his claws and fixed Columbine with a quizzical stare. “Ahem, hem, you are the one from Loamhedge they call Columbine. I shall do business with you, harrumph, ’scuse me. These others are not required for our dealings.”

Lady Amber breathed a sigh of relief. Chibb could be incredibly pompous and stubborn; thank the fur for the good sense and initiative shown by Columbine.

The robin flew down and bowed courteously to the Loamhedge mouse. “Aherrahem! There is, however, one small matter that may cost an extra nut or two . . .”

Billum nudged Gonff. “Oi ’spected thurr moight be, hurr hurr.”

Chibb ignored the mole. “Harrumph, yes, there’s the question of the eagle, Argulor. Ahem, as you know, he is back in the area of Kotir. This puts an, ahem, element of risk upon my espionage activities.”

Columbine nodded in agreement. “Indeed it does, Mr. Chibb. I appreciate this. Should you be attacked or injured in any way by large birds, we propose in doubling your fee. Do we have a bargain, sir?”

Chibb was almost dumbfounded by this generous offer. He held out a claw to Columbine. “Er ahem, a bargain, Miss Columbine. A bargain indeed!”

Paw shook claw. Lady Amber interrupted to give details of the spying mission to the robin, Gonff tossed the two bags expertly up into Chibb’s home in the elm, and goodbyes were made all around as the friends departed. A few paces into the undergrowth Lady Amber held up a paw.

“Hush! Listen!”

Silently they tried to stifle their laughter as the sounds of Chibb reached them. The robin was stuffing himself with his fee, coughing with excitement as he crammed candied chestnuts into an already overflowing beak.

“Ahemcawscrunffmmmharrumphcrunch!”

Martin held his sides as tears from stifled laughter ran down his cheeks. “Hahaha, oh dear, listen to that. Oh, the little glutton! Columbine, whatever possessed you to offer him a double fee like that?”

Columbine leaned up against a tree, helpless with mirth. “Well I, oh, heeheehee, I could have offered him ten times the fee, if I’d have thought, ohahaha. Imagine a robin coming back to claim a fee after being attacked by a golden eagle, hahaheeheee. There wouldn’t be enough of him left to make a smear on Argulor’s beak. That eagle could scoff Chibb in a half-mouthful, hahahaha!”

*  *  *

Tsarmina stood at a barred window in full view of Argulor’s perch.

“I’m here, you great feathered blindworm,” she called.

Argulor took the bait; the fierce instinct of his ancestors would not allow him to do otherwise. The eagle launched from his perch with a blood-chilling screech, diving like a great winged missile at his insolent tormentor.

Tsarmina danced triumphantly and laughed aloud at the sight of the half-blind eagle smashing against the barred window. “Haha, you blundering old feather mattress. Dozy farmyard fowl.”

Argulor struggled awkwardly on the narrow window ledge, trying to marshal his wings into a proper flying position to regain what was left of his dignity. The great eagle slipped from the sill, landing on the ground. He had to resort to an ungainly lopsided shuffling run to attain flight.

Tsarmina purred aloud and dug her claws into a rug, opening and closing them, reveling in the pretense of pinioning helpless woodlanders in her needlelike grip, puncturing imaginary hides. Suddenly she whirled over, tossing the rug high in the air. Leaping upon it, she rent it fiercely with her savage strength. Fragments of the flayed rug flew about the room as she ripped and slashed. Hairs and fibers floated in the sunlit shafts from the bars, dancing with golden dust motes on their way to the floor.

Filled with exuberance, the big cat paced restlessly. Soon a bunch of woodlanders would be marched in, sniveling and bound, to await her pleasure.

And what pleasure! Some she would deal with personally; otters, yes, she would take them down to the Gloomer’s lake and see how well they would swim bound up and weighted with stones—that would teach them manners. There were one or two squirrels that could do with jumping lessons from the battlemented roof of Kotir. As for the rest, well, there were always plenty of good hard work and the cells.

*  *  *

Tsarmina sprang down the stairways and the dripping passages of her fortress, heading for the cells, where sunlight seldom penetrated. Two stoat guards tried hastily to come to attention as their Queen hurtled past, but they were knocked spinning sideways.

Picking himself up from a pool of slimy water, one of the stoats rubbed his head where it had banged against the wall.

“By the fang! What d’you suppose is wrong with her, this time?”

His companion felt gingerly at the sore beginnings of a lump on his snout. “Huh, your guess is as good as mine. One thing I do know, she’s not down here for the good of our health. We’d better get straightened up before she comes back this way.”

Tsarmina ran from cell to cell, peering through the bars at the hostile interiors as she muttered aloud, “Yes, good, this is ideal. They’ll soon learn obedience down here. Males in one cell, females in another and young ones in a special prison all of their own, where they can be heard but not seen by their parents. Haha, I must remember that: heard but not seen. Well, what have we here, all alone in the darkness?”

Gingivere was fading into a gaunt skeleton. The once glossy coat was ragged and graying, his whole body had an air of neglect and decay about it, except the eyes. They fixed Tsarmina with such a burning intensity that she was forced to look away.

“Well, well, my one-time brother, I thought perhaps that you had perished by now in this unhealthy atmosphere, dark, cold, damp, with little to eat. But cheer up, I’ll find you an even darker and deeper prison when you move out to make room for the new lodgers I’m planning. How would that suit you?”

Gingivere stood clasping the cell bars. He stared at his sister.

Tsarmina shifted nervously. Her previous mood of euphoria rapidly disintegrating, she became irritable.

“Never fear, my silent, staring brother. I can soon fix up other arrangements for you. A sword, perhaps. Or a spear during the night to deepen your sleep.”

Gingivere’s eyes burned into Tsarmina, and his voice was like a knell. “Murderer!”

Tsarmina broke and ran, pursued by the voice of her brother like a spear at her back.

“Murderer! You killed our father! Murderer! Murderer!”

When the sounds of Tsarmina’s flight had died away, Gingivere let go of the bars and slumped to the floor, hot tears pouring from his fevered eyes.

*  *  *

After their trek through Mossflower to find Chibb, the little party were ready for food. Now that all the woodlanders were billeted at Brockhall, mealtimes were like a constant feast, so many different dishes were contributed. A pretty posy lay in the middle of the festive board symbolizing the coming together in springtime to oppose the reign of Kotir.

Gonff was conscious of Columbine watching him. Bella had given the little mousethief permission to sing grace, and he stood up boldly and sang aloud,

The woodlanders began passing food. As Gonff sat down, he winked at Columbine, showing no sign of modesty.

“Good, eh? That’s an ancient chant that has been sung through the ages. I composed it a moment ago for today.”

Gonff was so pleased with himself that Columbine could not help laughing with him at his outrageous statement.

Martin had sat at many tables—farm tables, inn tables, and, more often than not, any handy flat piece of rock where he could lay his food. Now he sat back and surveyed the board before him with wonder. Bulrush and water-shrimp soup provided by the otters; a large flagon of Skipper’s famous hot root punch; hazelnut truffle; blackberry apple crumble; baked sweet chestnuts; honeyed toffee pears; and maple tree cordial, a joint effort by hedgehogs and squirrels. The Loamhedge and Mossflower mice had combined to provide a number of currant and berry pies, seedcake and potato scones, and a cask of October ale. By far the biggest single offering was a colossal turnip ’n’ tater ’n’ beetroot ’n’ bean deeper ’n’ ever pie with tomato chutney baked by the Foremole and his team.

Normally a solid trenchermouse, Martin would have stuck to deeper ’n’ ever pie, but Gonff encouraged him and Columbine to sample some of everything.

“Here, matey, how’s that for October ale? Columbine, try some of this hot root punch. How d’you like seedcake? Try some of this, both of you. Come on, have a wedge.

“Hey, Martin, d’you reckon you’d get the better of one of these toffee pears? Come on, get stuck in, stuck in, hahaha.

“Put that hot root punch down, Columbine. You look as if your face is on fire. Try some of the maple tree cordial.”

Ferdy and Coggs sat nearby, hero-worshipping Martin and Gonff.

“Tell you what, Coggs. If ever I come across a broken sword I’m going to hang it round my neck, just like Martin the Warrior.”

“Huh, fancy trying to keep old Gonff locked up in Kotir! I’ll bet he could come and go with both paws tied. You know, I think I look a bit like Gonff.”

“Of course you do. I look like Martin—pretty quiet and very brave—or I will be when I’m older. Just wait and see.”

“Come on, matey. We’ve eaten enough. Let’s go off together and invade Kotir before we get sent to bed. We can slip away quietlike.”

In the hubbub and confusion of the feast, nobody noticed the two baby hedgehogs take their leave.