Abbess Vale watched the trout flap its tail on the surface, setting up ripples over the still pondwater. “What’s your opinion of those two stoats? Can we trust them to behave properly?”

“Oh, you mean Dingeye an’ Thura. They’m just a silly ol’ pair o’ stoats. I wouldn’t worry about ’em, Vale.”

The Abbess steered her friend around the pond edge. “I hope you’re right, Faith.”

*   *   *

A lantern was lit in the first-floor dormitory. Brother Hollyberry, Sister Nasturtium and Thrugann the otter sat together on the side of a bed. Grouped around them on the floor the young ones sat, wrapped in their blankets, eating thick slices of new Abbeybread spread with cornflower butter and elderberry jam and sipping from beakers of hot dandelion cordial. Samkim and Arula had brought the two stoats with them.

“Gwaw! This jam’s luvverly,” Thura commented. “I could eat ten o’ these, easily!”

Arula held up a paw. “Thurr be a-storytellen, ’ushed naow.”

Thura took a sip of hot cordial and scorched his tongue. “Yowch! That’s ’ot, mucker. Wot’s a-storytellen?”

Dingeye flicked him on the end of his nose. “Shut up, bottlebrain. It’s a story. I like stories.”

Brother Hollyberry leaned forward, scanning the eager young faces as he drew out his voice in a deep whisper. “Whooooo waaaants a storeeeeeeee?”

The young ones giggled and hugged each other excitedly. They elongated their voices as they chanted back, “Weeee waaaant a storeeeeee pleeeeeeease!”

The old Infirmary keeper took a sip of his drink and started.

“Old travelers tell, at the midnight bell,

When the nightdark covers all,

Mid the falling snow, when the cold winds blow,

Of the ghost that walks Redwall . . .”

A baby mole emitted a gruff squeak and hid trembling beneath his blanket. “Burrhoo, oi be gurtly afeared o’ goasters!”

A small fat otter joined him. “I’m afeared too. ’Old on ter me, matey. They won’t get us’ns!”

When silence had been restored, Hollyberry continued:

“Yes, the ghost that haunts the stairways goes slowly on his beat,

Moaning low in the moonlight’s glow.

‘Give me young ones to eat!’”

Several young mice squealed and dived beneath the bed, and Thura’s beaker rattled nervously against his teeth as he tried to drink some cordial. “I’m g-g-g-glad I ain’t a young un, mucker!”

Dingeye whacked him soundly on the head. “Belt up an’ lissen frogsbum!”

The storyteller continued his grisly tale.

“Then one night as the lightning was flashing

And the thunder was crashing out, boomz!

The beastly phantom came a-haunting

Into this very room.

When up stood a young one, pale as the ghost,

And to the spirit said,

‘How dare you moan round here at night

And wake me from my bed!’

The ghost sprang at him with a cry:

‘Whoohoo I’ll eat you whole!’

The pale mouse laughed as he replied,

‘You’ll need a great big bowl!

For I am Martin the Warrior,