Book 1
Chapter 1
Extract from the journal of Germaine, Mother Abbess of Redwall Abbey.
It is a perfect summer afternoon today, almost so that I almost did not wish to take the time to sit down and write down today's happenings in my journal. Construction on our great Abbey never ceases; it has been said that it will be finished in the end of three seasons. Spring will be the perfect time to complete the Abbey! It reminds me so much of the old Loamhedge Abbey. Loamhedge-- it must be seasons deserted now. I only hope that our Redwall Abbey will stand to be as old as I am. Not that I am dead yet, as somebeasts seem to think. They're always yelling in my ear, thinking I must be deaf or something. Well, enough of that confounded yelling and I soon will be! I thank the seasons for my seashell trumpet that I keep in case I cannot hear what somebeast is saying (they seem to have a liking to whispering). The day hasn't shown itself yet when I
really needed my trumpet; I just keep it with me in case...[At this point in the page is a great stain, most likely an old inkstain acquired sometime during the journal's long life in the gatehouse.]
...still off on their journey to the northern coast. Columbine has taken care of me while our Warrior Martin is gone, besides looking after her little Gonflet (he's the roguish ringleader of our Abbeybabes, or Dibbuns as we call them). Poor Columbine, she never ceases to worry about her mousethief Gonff, although she tries to hide it. But she can never fool me. Few beasts can. Martin wanted very much to learn what had become of his father, Luke, as I think I recall his name being; nobeast around here has ever seen him nor known much about him. I for one would like to know more about our Warrior Martin. Well, it was only natural that Gonff, his always-singing lifelong companion, and Dinny Foremole, should go along with him to the shoreline caves he had once lived in as a Dibbun. I feel sorry for that hedgehog maid Trimp in the company of a thieving mouse and a flattering mole.
I certainly wouldn't mind being along with those four on an adventure, except I don't think my old bones could handle it. Now as for Martin, he is a true Warrior. Not anybeast can do what he has done, such as defeating the evil wildcat Tsarmina and surviving all those ghastly wounds she gave him. In the words of a mousethief, specifically Gonff, Martin was so close to death then that he could touch it (or steal it, like one would expect a mousethief to say). I guess his miraculous survival is just one of the many mysteries surrounding that mousewarrior. Many mysteries, yes, I could tell the very day I met Martin, our great founder at Redwall, that there was much about him that none of us would ever know in ours or our children's lifetime...
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A creak on the gatehouse door announced the coming of an intruder to the privacy of the old, dusty room. Quickly, Leslie the young mousemaid slammed shut the ancient record book from which she had been reading and transferred a loose stack of papers on top of it. "What have you been doing in here, Leslie? I'm the onlybeast who should have to be stuck in the gatehouse on a day like this," chuckled Brother Lucas at the ironic situation.
"Would it be asking too much for you to knock before sneaking in and scaring a beast like that?"
"Now, hold it, little missie, I always knock, especially when I know that somebeast is here in my gatehouse day after day instead of helping Friar Gringle in the kitchens."
"Don't change the subject, Brother Lucas. Friar Gringle can go one fine without me getting in the way all the time."
"That's not what he said; and besides, now you're changing the subject."
"Oh?" Leslie slowly made her way away from the old record books, hoping to make it to the door.
"Yes, I asked you what you were doing," Lucas began, but noticing the uncomfortable look on the mousemaid's face he ceased his persistence. "Never mind, Sister Polly sent me to look for you. She says she needs somebeast to help pick the apples from the orchard before Friar Gringle goes and bakes a pie with no filling. Go along now, I told the Friar that's why you couldn't help in the kitchens today."
Leslie gratefully brushed past Brother Lucas and went outside, closing the door behind her so he could have the room to himself for his daily task of the Abbey recording. "Thank you, Brother Lucas," she called as the door shut and she made her way down the steps of the outer wall to the orchard.
Brother Lucas eased his way into the old gatehouse chair; he imagined that his joints must have been creaking along with the chair's. What had Leslie been so interested in when he came in? Certainly she wasn't just organizing the books like she often said she was; she had purposely left a stack of papers strewn on the desk. Carefully, Lucas restacked the old browned papers and stowed them away on an empty space on a shelf. Beneath them he found an old journal that had once belonged to one of the Abbey Recorders past. Blowing the dust of many seasons off the torn cover, he turned to the very first page of what he found was the journal of Abbess Germaine, the very first Abbess of Redwall Abbey. Long-forgotten events of bygone seasons found their way into Lucas' mind as he flipped through the ancient book...
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Klunk!
"Yurr ee go, mizz Poley, oi'm caught ee vermint," Grubo called up in the rustic molespeech as he shuffled with his basket to get under Sister Polly again. The mouse called down to him from the tree.
"I wish we could get some more help here, Grubo, it's not as easy as it looks."
"Ee be roight, mizz Poley, ee lukk loik ee bushytailed skirrel, hurr hurr!" Sister Polly was about to reach for another apple when she lost her footing on the branch she was perched on and landed right on top of the young Lingen Reguba.
"What's going on here, Sister Polly, pretending you're an apple? You mice sure have a strange way of doing things, don't you?"
"Oh, Lingen, when did you get here? We're trying to pick some apples for the pie Friar Gringle's making for tomorrow. You're a young spry squirrel, perhaps you can lend us a paw. Oh, I wonder where Brother Lucas is with young Leslie," Polly worried as Lingen bolted up the tree with Grubo's basket, which Grubo was not very pleased about.
"Yurr, ee give'n ee barsket back 'ere, zurr Lingah, oi's usen et furst!"
"The way you two were going about it, you would have taken all day and half the apples would have been bruised, me moley matey. There, that should be enough." Lingen lowered the basket down to the scowling mole below with his tail. Leslie the mousemaid walked over to the orchard from the gatehouse just as Grubo nearly tripped over the root of the apple tree, causing Sister Polly to take the apple-filled basket from him before he dropped it.
"Here we go, little Grubo, let's let Leslie take the basket to Friar Gringle, shall we?" she said patronizingly.
"Hurr, oi bain't likkle, mizz Poley, oi'm not been a Dibbun for ee'm 'ole seezun! Et be moi bruvver Dribber who'm be the likkle'n naow."
Leslie, who know in between the lines that Sister Polly was making her take the basket to Friar Gringle because she hadn't helped pick the apples, resignedly took the basket from her. Right as she turned to leave the orchard, a large red object covered in leaves dropped out of the tree right in front of her. Her first thought was a giant apple, but she knew better when its tail reached up and picked an apple, pulling it down to its mouth nonchalantly.
"Lingen Reguba! You nearly gave me another four seasons, scaring me like that!" Lingen merely munched happily on his prize apple, a silly grin across his furry face. Leslie looked over her old squirrelfriend, who had grown in both directions since he left the Abbey. "My my, you have gotten to be a rather, um, healthy-looking squirrel, haven't you?" she said, trying to stifle giggles. Polly rolled her eyes, only to turn and find Grubo had disappeared again. As she threw up her paws and ran after the elusive mole, Lingen tossed aside his empty apple core and indignantly addressed Leslie the mousemaid.
"Now see here, you pompous little mousebabe, I'm fit as a mole fiddle. And furthermore, I can still beat you to the kitchens any day of the season!"
Before Leslie could react, the spry squirrel took the basket right out of her paws and scampered off for the Abbey building. Struggling to catch up, the mousemaid called after him, "That's because you know there's food in the kitchens. I'd bet you've been there more often in your lifetime than the Friar himself, that's how you can get there so fast!"