Free Urchin and the Raven War by M. I. McAllister Page B

said eagerly. “Can I see your boat?”
    She didn’t seem to have a clue about how to mend a boat with rushes and sap, but she was willing to learn, pulling up reeds and warming sap over the fire as Corr told her how to do it. She brought enormous bunches of reeds, half of which were too soft or too hard, and he had to rescue the sap before she could overheat it and set it as hard as rock; but she was trying her best to help. Spreading the sap over the reeds on the upturned boat was something she found unpleasantly messy, so she held the reeds in place while Corr did it.
    “They do this differently at the shore near the tower,” she said, leaning away from the sticky mixture as she watched. “They use bark and things.”
    Corr looked up suddenly, getting sap on his paw.
    “The tower?” he said. “You’ve seen them mending boats at the tower?”
    Lapwing looked most uneasy. It was as if she hadn’t meant to say that.
    “Not the tower, exactly,” she said. “The shore near the tower, the jetty and all that.”
    “That’s close enough!” said Corr. He smoothed the last of the rushes into place, washed his paws in the sea, and sat down beside her at the side of the boat most sheltered from the wind. “You’ve been to the tower! Have you ever seen King Crispin?”
    Lapwing laughed. “Yes, I’ve seen him,” she said, then suddenly stopped laughing and changed the subject. “I used to live near there, but, anyway, what I was going to tell you was, there’s a really good boatbuilder there. Twigg the mole. If you can get there, he’ll sort out your boat.”
    Corr sat up straight and turned to face her. “Do you really know these animals?”
    She shrugged and wriggled a bit. She’d come a bit too close to giving herself away.
    “I told you,” she said, “I used to live around there.”
    Corr took a deep breath. Suddenly, he had a new friend who had set eyes on King Crispin, Captain Padra, and Fingal of the Floods. And …?
    “Ever seen Urchin of the Riding Stars?” he asked breathlessly.
    “Oh, him!” she said, and laughed again. “He’s really nice. You’d like him.”
    “What’s so funny?” asked Corr.
    “Nothing,” she said.
    It was all too much, really. Lapwing had brought him within reach of his dreams. He felt he was pushing his luck, but she didn’t seem to mind him asking about tower animals.
    “Brother Fir?” he asked.
    “What about him?”
    “Well… is he all right?”
    “Last I knew, he was getting very weak,” she said. “He never leaves his turret now.” She saw the disappointment on his face, and added, “But if you want to see him they might let you go up there to visit, if he’s not too bad, and if you don’t stay long. Is the boat dry yet?”
    It wasn’t, and they were hungry. Lapwing gathered berries and nuts while Corr fished. Brindle joined them and brought bread, and together they cooked supper over the fire. As darkness fell, they sucked stickiness from their paws. Brindle went to settle down to sleep in a shallow burrow, and Corr and Lapwing curled up against the boat.
    “If you do want to see Fir,” said Lapwing, “don’t wait. I don’t know how long he’s got.”
    Corr lay gazing at the sky, considering this. He remembered Filbert talking about all the things he’d never got around to. Don’t wait, Lapwing had said. He wanted desperately to visit Brother Fir, but not to arrive at the tower with nothing to tell, no adventures, and empty paws.
    “I should take him a present,” he said. “Do you know what he’d like?”
    Lapwing rolled over in her cloak. “I’ll think about it,” she muttered, and appeared to fall asleep.
    She wasn’t asleep. She just didn’t want to go on talking about the tower.
    When Catkin first came to the bay and took on her new identity as Lapwing, she’d been just a little homesick. Then she had made friends, become accustomed to the place, and settled in, and been quite happy until that terrible day when they had all