While they were enjoying the food, Mara noticed a black stone on a leather thong hanging over the fireplace. She nudged Tubgutt.

“Is that Log-a-log’s famous Blackstone?”

Tubgutt rose from the table. Going over to the stone, he touched it and bowed low reverently. “Aye, this is the Blackstone of all the South Stream shrews.”

Urthwyte leaned back and stretched out. Unlooping the stone and its thong, he swung it back and forth, a mischievous grin hovering on his big face.

“Oh, this? I took it from a shrew who trespassed on our island a long time ago. The little rascal took off like a shot. He must’ve thought I looked like some kind of ghost in the dark. Ha ha, most creatures do, y’know. I used to play with this stone—dreary-looking old thing, isn’t it? You can have it if you like, Mara.”

He passed the Blackstone over, noting with a smile the gratitude on her face.

The badger maid accepted the stone, winding the thong around her paw. “Thank you very much, Urthwyte. This stone means a lot to the tribe of Tubgutt, and to the father of the shrew you took it from.”

Loambudd served Pikkle a great chunk of pastie. “So that’s what two boatloads of shrews came all this way for, a simple black pebble on a string. Well I never. We thought they’d come to settle here—that’s why we got Urthwyte to sound his ghost cries last night. I hoped it’d frighten them off.”

Ashnin nibbled a fennel leaf, watching Mara with shrewd eyes. “But you never came here just for a piece of stone, missie?”

Mara took a drink of the cool mintwater. “No, I came because Log-a-log the shrew leader wanted me to. Once he gets the Blackstone back, his authority as Guosssom leader will be complete. Then he will take me and Pikkle to the sea in his logboats to help Urthstripe in his fight against Ferahgo.”

“Ferahgo the Assassin?”

Urthwyte’s voice roared out like thunder as he threw back his big chair and reared up, a picture of massive ferocity, all traces of his former gentleness gone as fury blazed from hot angry eyes set above savagely bared teeth.

Ashnin and Loambudd rushed round the table. They clung to the white badger’s paws, trying to pull him back down into his chair. He was yelling at the top of his voice, “Ferahgo the Assassin! Ferahgo the Assassin!”

The three friends helped to calm him down and get him seated. He was shaking and trembling all over, the food in front of him forgotten.

Ashnin slipped a small quantity of powder into a beaker of cherry cordial and gave it to him. “Here, drink this all up and go outside. Take a nap in the clearing and you’ll feel better. Go on.”