The Usual Suspects

[Passion of the Mice]

The Usual Suspects

[Passion of the Mice]

A red headed mouse stumbled half blind down a rickety staircase, trying to remember why he was up so damned early. Whiskey fumes lingered in his wake, despite ample application of soap and talc to every part of him. He wove through siblings and skirted around armchairs and dressers until he found himself in the kitchen. The Hewes household ran like clockwork, and when you wanted to find anybody, all you had to do was look at the cuckoo clock over the AGA.

“8:04, everyone’s favourite time of day…,” he grumbled.

Wednesday morning’s bustle Dult tried to forget. Fortunately, for him, he escaped the endless chores required of the other members of the household because he had a ‘proper job’. Guilt managed to find him all the same, and as he poured himself a glass of water, he plucked up the courage to face his mum.

Mrs Hewes was always in the kitchen, or so it seemed. Mid-week was when she liked to prepare all the weekend’s meals in advance, so as to allow here extra time for charitable deeds, nagging, and visiting the local church on Sunday – all fifteen of them, like a lace and tweed zombie apocalypse. He put the glass back into the cupboard, sighed, and caught his reflection in the glass panels of the crockery cupboard.

“Good enough.”

He strolled across the kitchen and approached the open door to the survivalist’s larder.

“Good morning mum,” he chirped as he entered.

Before he could smile, the pinafore-clad matriarch of 12 Mews Lane, the Underdrift snapped about and pointed at her son accursedly. Dult knew precisely what the finger meant without any need for further clarification.

“Yeah, I know I am due on shift soon,” he objected.

“Take your brother to Father Clinton’s on your way.”

The mercenary buried his hands in his pockets, abash, and skulked out of the larder and back into the steamy kitchen. Whilst the mother son duo shared a warm relationship, it only showed itself long after midday was over and Mrs Hewes had at least one gin and tonic in her. There were many mouths to feed, bedsheets to launder, and neighbours to visit before the strained family ties of the Hewes household got a look in.

“Which one?” he asked aloud. He rubbed his temple, trying to remember which of his troubled siblings warranted a trip to the community agony uncle.

Whilst the small folk were not as bonking-prolific as their diminutive counterparts were, their families were inexplicably larger than the tall folk. Dult had, at last count, six siblings and twelve nieces. Given the relative youth of his younger brothers and sisters, there was still plenty of time before birthdays were a daily occurrence and Yuletide was financially backbreaking.

“Oh!”

Jark. Youngest of the Hewes menfolk. Redder than Dult, and intolerably obsessed with innuendo, Jark found himself frogmarched to Father Clinton’s twice weekly for etiquette and ethics ‘education’. His mum thought it might make a man of him, but Dult knew all too well that the only thing to knock some sense into the scamp would be an unexpected brawl as consequence to his sharp tongue.

[Passion of the Mice]

The Underlift is less of a town, more of a series of hamlets connected by clusterfucks of crumbling brickwork and passageways. It covers a good square mile of the Citadel’s foundations, built long ago and nobody quite remembers why. Perhaps in the formative years of the Ai’bron order, a plucky young mouse strolled up to the Abbot and asked politely to rent a ‘nice little hovel’ for himself, and forgot to mention every time he added a new relative or twelve.

By now, Dult and Jark knew their way to wherever they needed to go purely on instinct. As they made small talk, they wove through the parade of women in blue bonnets and schoolchildren scuttling in packs to classrooms. Most of the passageways connecting the streets stood six feet wide and five feet tall, smoothed and arched with claws, tools, and a little bit of gunpowder to give a homely feel to what amounted to a hollowed out brick.

“What are you learning about today?”

Jark sniffed.

“Don’t play coy.”

“Semiotics.”

Dult chuckled.

“Semantics. I remember those. If he puts on his spectacles and moves even an inch towards the bookcase behind his desk, you fake the worst case of diarrhoea imaginable and get out of there.”

“What’s dia-rhea?”

The brothers exchanged glances, and fell silent until Mrs Otley from number 9 was out of earshot.

“The shits.”

Jark pretended to gag but made a mental note. He had often wondered what the Father kept in the locked glass fronted bookcase. If it required ‘special books’ to prove his already dull points, he did not want to stick around long enough to find out.

“Were you goin’ today?”

They padded on, crossing a small still waking up market square and scuttling down Drain Alley (when it rains, it smells like cabbage), and out into the warrens between their own hamlet, and the neighbouring Middleton.

“I’m heading up top to do a shift on the docks.”

The Redwall offered their services to the City Watch in exchange for supplies, a badge of office, and the power to cudgel twatbags without getting a cudgel back for their efforts. Wherever there were shortfalls in the ranks of the Watch, Dult was sure to volunteer. Though it grew to be tiring in the quieter months, the constant barrage of petty crimes and mysteries – donuts, too, made sure the Hewes boys kept going back day in, day out.

“Can you get me a Rodden pie?” Jark’s eyes glinted. His whiskers twitched. His tail flicked.

“I’ll see what I can do. Won’t be home till long after you’re supposed to be in your nest.” Three days on, three days off afforded Dult some much needed escape from the home life. “I will sneak it in if you don’t leave blasted crumbs all over and give the game away.”

“Weren’t me,” his brother protested.

“Nobody else gets baked contraband, unless you’re blaming your sister again?”

“She ate the whole thing!”

Dult rolled his eyes and pointed ahead. A trundling cart approached, and they split to skirt around it.

[Passion of the Mice]

“Mornin’ Maurice!”

Maurice, hearing his name, looked up from his stoop and smiled with a singular broken fang. Dult tipped his invisible cap and hurried on.

“Keep up those lies and you’ll end up like Master Felder there.”

Rumour had it Maurice tried to steal from the wrong people in the wrong part of town at the wrong time. He never left the Underlift (though few mice did so willingly anyway), because if he did…

“Teach me p’s and me q’s and ‘go up in the world’.” Jark recited the same advice his mum gave him every opportunity she got. “I know, I know.”

When Dult was certain he had finally gotten through to Jark he let the moral lessons die a death and pulled his cloak over his waistcoat. Two sharp corners brought them to the first street of Middleton. Here, the passageways were plastered and painted sky blue. Cracks and crumbling facades gave the impression of clouds, and planters with bunches of daffodils and snowdrops hung from every lamppost which stood between each circular door.

“Which house is it again?” He looked at each door as they passed, trying to remember.

Jark pointed ahead, to the left side of the street and slowed his pace. The same hesitation (contrary to his constant bullshit bravado) that made him hide in the coats back home returned. Dult prodded him forwards. Jark resisted. Dult poked, Jark budged. It took the mercenary a good five minutes, with a disapproving audience of curtain twitchers and homemakers on the way to mass to get his brother standing, hair quickly flattened with wet paws before his tutor’s home.

“I’m not leaving until you knock on the door, say hello politely and pretend like you’re interested.” The same flat tone he used to be serious urged his brother to lift the brass mouse head knocker on the door and bang it heavily against the oak.

Father Clinton was a retired priest, taken to the task of teaching wayward mice the way of courteous behaviour. The small folk liked to joke that the good father was unwittingly responsible for those miscreants turning into lunatics and murderers, but mostly, the literary bombast he plied as his trade knocked the desire to break things out of people.

“Do it again.” Dult twiddled his thumbs beneath his cloak.

Jark raised the knocker and slammed it twice. He stepped away from the door, double-checked his hair and tried to stand straight. He gave up after a few seconds and resumed his ‘street-gang’ slouch.

The brown door shuddered and creaked open. Mothballs and garlic rolled out into the street in a wave of old man smell and a promise of tedium. Dult smiled. Though the house was far from inviting, it had a nostalgic atmosphere that reminded him of his youth.

“Come in!” a distant voice shouted.

Jark stepped onto the porch stone and looked over his shoulder forlorn. Dult knew the look on his brother’s face. Had he not been through it himself, or been a pushover they would have bunked off together.

[Passion of the Mice]

“Go on! He doesn’t bite.” Much, he wanted to add, but thought better than to make himself later than he already was for a cheap joke. Jark disappeared.

Satisfied his brother was out of trouble for at least an hour; Private Hewes puffed up his chest and continued his commute. The bang of the Father’s flap settled his stomach, and let him return to the matters of the day (besides getting four siblings dressed, making dinner, and trying to get himself sober quick enough to not look like he had been dragged through a bramble patch backwards for a briefing nine o’clock sharp).

Middleton soon turned into a sloping warren that served as a final distraction between before the Underlift turned into the Cloister. Churchgoing smallfolk used the alcoves and abandoned tombs (still cluttered with mice skulls and dried flowers to long forgotten great grandnieces) to pray, reflect, and occasionally mack. Today, fortunately, Dult would not be breaking up midnight flirting or chasing toddlers out of sarcophagi.

Today was the first day of the Harvest Festival. Radasanth seldom gave any thought to nature or Thayne, but when it did, it did so in style. The streets densely packed with merchants and shoppers were dangerous any time of the year when you were three feet tall. When they were full of drunks, revellers, and flagellants, it was a death trap.

“Dult Hewes,” he said loudly and clearly for the gate guard to hear. At the end of the final passageway two imposing looking mice stood, pole-arms crossed over an iron portcullis. "Leaving for work.”

The pole-arms parted and the portcullis clanged to life. It rose on rusty chains, leaving Dult and the Simpson Twins to exchange pleasantries about making bread for their loved ones and keeping the streets clean.

“Back late?” Jessica asked with an eyebrow raised.

Dult nodded glumly.

“Pint?” Peter enquired.

Dult had few friends outside his family. Of those he counted as companions, the Simpsons were as close to ‘best mice’ he had. Both built like brick shithouses, the Underlift was the safest place for small folk on the planet. They had the scars to prove it.

“If Old Harris lets you in his bar after midnight I’ll arrest the lot of you,” he quipped. The thought of a pint made his mouth water, but the closest he would get today would be the smell of gin infused urine on his boots.

“Shame,” Peter sighed as Dult nodded and walked out into the Citadel foyer. “Friday?”

The stagnant air of the Underlift turned to wax and sand as the mercenary met with daylight, cocky gladiators, and the first bouts of the day. He looked over his shoulder and gave them both thumbs up.

“Where the pikin' else would I be?” he said by way of parting, and crossed the flagstones to the titanic gates of the Citadel.

[Passion of the Mice]

The over world changed a mouse. As soon as he stood outside, Dult became reposed; he stood taller, and tried not to look like he was afraid. The quaint backwater gossip mongering of the Underlift turned into an eternal war with politeness. Beneath the Citadel’s arch, which was a mountain to Dult, he found a brief moment of peace, the in-between calm of not being here nor there.

Soon as he crossed the threshold into the guard post, that would soon fade. A crushing, ever-present desire to save-every-bloody-body would take over. For twelve hours, even in the calmer moments patrolling the docks before the revelling got started, something could jump out and stab, kick, and/or bribe him at any moment. He loved it. He really sodding did.

“Cephalonia samaras,” he said, satisfied the view of terracotta rooftops and crumbling bell towers burnt into his memory. It would keep him grounded through caffeine jitters and patrols. Magic swelled in his fingertips.

As though it had always been there, a black hole stood on the base of the archway to his left. It gave off no heat, took in no light, and reminded Dult of a weasel’s arsehole (though why, he would never explain). He straightened his cloak, padded from foot to foot to shake away the last lethargy of the morning, and strolled brazen into the portal.

From the Citadel to the office took four mouse holes. Though few mice bothered to learn the ins and outs of their talents, Dult had come to realise the reach of his portals were limited. One sat at the foot of his bed, connected to important places around the Underlift in a series of well-timed and well-hidden pathways. Those afforded him a degree of secrecy and privacy just good enough to get a bit of shuteye if his siblings kicked off (they always kicked off).

To get to work, though, took a lot of ducking and diving and paying of backhand bribes to different people in the bewilderingly complex social structure of Radasanth. He popped up behind a baked good stand in the eastern part of the city, paid for Jark’s supper, and made a brief detour to a pub by the north gate to take protection pay. He could have made a large profit, had Father Clinton not caught on and turned Dult’s extracurricular activities into a charitable donation.

Half an hour later, a tuft of ginger hair protruded from under Dult’s desk. He scrambled out of the hole and clambered up the pile of book-steps to take his seat on the rickety wooden, wood-wormed chair assigned to him the day of his passing out parade. Precisely three seconds later, a gruff looking otter appeared behind him, arms folded, tail whipping the dusty floorboards.

“Dult!”

Cool as a cucumber, the mercenary pushed himself about to face his superior. The chair squeaked, always well for a giggle from his comrades, and the day began proper.

“Yes sarge?” he asked innocently.

“Briefing. Ten minutes prompt.”

[Passion of the Mice]

The Watch House nearest the Senate recently became Radasanth’s policing headquarters. There were nine in all, spread out equidistant across the city. Dult and many of the Redwall recruits stationed here to be central to the never-ending stream of small folk that came in through a slightly smaller door to the right of the main entrance. A wizened, yet jittery owl called Lorraine welcomed them with the sort of greeting you got from distracted, egotistical receptions anywhere you went.

Spread over four floors, the building creaked and rumbled with the sound of chairs scraping, telegrams buzzing, and people protesting their innocence day and night. Dult and the duty patrol officers served the public on the first floor, where the Sergeant called meetings and the coffee was always flowing. The big folk had the second and third.

“I’ll be right there,” he replied, knowing that despite the otter’s absence, his keen ears picked out everything on the floor of note. He should be a hawk, by all accounts.

A quick check of his desk for paperwork and matters-to-do-or-get-fired confirmed he had no excuse to avoid the briefing. Reluctantly, he pinned his badge to his lapel and made his way across the room to the glass chamber at the centre. Everyone could see the supposedly busy and efficient City Watch finest planning the day’s arrests and logistical problems. Inside, it was awash with bad hygiene and swearing.

“Get your arseholes in here!”

Deputy Sergeant Winston, a badger with the face of an arse himself stood in front of the blackboard, chalk in one hand, and coffee pot in the other. He did not go in for cups, or manners, or generally being anything other than a cock.

“Dult reporting,” the mercenary chimed as he slipped in and sat on the back row next to his partner.

“I hope you’ve had a pot yourself,” the squirrel said with baited breath. “He’s been like this since dawn.”

“My mum says coffee’s for wastrels.”

The squirrel sniggered.

“Here,” he held out a paw and Dult took the mug greedily. He drained it, passed it pack, and when the Sergeant entered the room all eyes to the front.

“We have lots to do today, First Precinct. Listen up.”

Like a strange double act, badger and otter went through the plans for policing the Harvest Festival. First Precinct always took on the docks during celebrations and state visits, so when they covered the ‘bigger picture’, the Sergeant’s favourite turn of phrase, they stated handing out assignments to the partners in order of best to worst.

“We’re covering cargo again,” the squirrel said softly.

“Dult and Hoar are doing the ship manifests, and then patrolling the docks through the revel.”

Dult rolled his eyes. The caffeine kicked in just in time to make him take it on the chin.

“Yes sarge!” the duo barked in unison.

[Passion of the Mice]

The owls at the front, who always got the best job of sitting on top of tall shit and doing bugger all whooped and clapped sarcastically. Dult gave them the obligatory daggers and slipped out of his chair to fetch himself a cup, and Hoar a refill from the breakfast table.

“You have two hours before you hit the streets. I do not want to hear anything about murders or drug busts unless I see a clear connection to the festival. I do not care if or Sei Orlouge himself appears at the head of the procession in the buff. Do your jobs. Go home to your families. Clear?”

Dult pocketed a donut in each of his cloak’s pouches, and walked back to his seat with a cup in each hand. Though the coffee served in the precinct was strong, unsweetened, and coarse, the smell beat the last reluctance to be anywhere else but here out of him.

“Yes sarge!” the room barked, a chorus of overweight rabbits and do-gooder hedgehogs.

Hoar took his coffee and they clinked mugs to toast another boring afternoon. They exchanged smug glances. Just because the Sarge did not want to hear about it, did not mean they could not do anything about naked faeries or herb peddlers on the sly.

“Dissssmissed!”

Waiting for the others to filter out and back to their desks, Dult made polite conversation with Hoar about all the normal boring morning stuff. Unlike Dult, Hoar moved out from his parent’s house and enjoyed a modest hovel in the merchant district – a flat amongst four squeezed in between a butcher’s and a hairdressers.

“Still on for Friday?”

“Course Hoar, game night completes me.”

Six members of the City Watch sat around a table in Weird Norm’s basement was a remarkable sight. They kept it amicable for at least an hour, before dice rolls, beer suds and slagging off their bosses became the week’s best sort of end.

“Come on.”

They stood, left their cups on their chairs and trailed out onto the office floor. Tails swishing and flicking behind them, they walked to the exit, and trotted down the stairs still exchanging jibes and threats to ‘ruin’ the other and perhaps for once break even (wagered Scrabble was a vicious affair).

“Well, you did roll enough sixes last week to let me just have a little-. Bit. Of. Hope.”

Dult chuckled. They shuffled up to the armoury porthole and waited in line. A badger, two turtles and a female sparrow hawk booked their weapons out in front of them. Through the caged window, the mouse saw his father’s sword on the rack and smiled.

“Don’t throw up in my lap this week and I’ll see what I can do.”

Hoar frowned and buried his hands in his pockets. Dult rolled his eyes, the same old mannerisms marking their pre-patrol routine. Whilst it got a bit dull sometimes, they worked well enough together to forge the sort of friendship that did not go pear shaped over a bit of vomit.

“Next!”

[Passion of the Mice]

“Hoar and Dult, Clarissa.” The mercenary smiled at the clerk, though he knew nothing save for home time could wipe the blood-boiling scowl off the mole’s face.

Clarissa, without looking up, trundled around the armoury to retrieve their particulars. They were shooed away, swords in hands, before they could say thank you. They looked at one another, shrugged, and went on their way.

From there, Dult and Hoar spiralled down through the watch building and emerged into the elevenses sun. A constant river of people, big, small, weird and wonderful bounded up and down the Watch House steps. Complaints came. Complaints left. Peace rather got by on tender hooks.

“Do you want to walk, or shall we try the mouse hole again?” Dult pulled Hoar out of the way of a rampaging dark elf, apparently too concerned with his own ego to notice the city officials stood politely by a lamppost.

“We can try, I haven’t had breakfast yet.” The squirrel twitched, remembering the last time he had flattered Dult by trying to help him ‘come to an understanding’ about his shifty business. “But if I end up in a cellar somewhere, I’m coming for you with a knuckleduster.”

A done deal, Dult turned to the sandstone archway that surrounded the small-folk entrance to the building. It was just wide enough and strong enough to take one of his spells, and by now so sodden with the remnants of a hundred other mouse holes he’d together as a network of exits hidden all about the docks (and every tavern in the city that didn’t shit on mice).

“Cephalus samaras duo!”

The swell of power, like a strong rum hitting an empty stomach filled Dult’s fingertips and ran up both arms. A black portal appeared, absorbing the sun’s light and the wonderfully pungent aroma of cobbled, open sewer streets.

“Right. Let’s go.”

Dult disappeared, leaving Hoar to pluck up the courage to face-potential-death-again. In a neat waistcoat and red scarf, he looked like just another small folk. Everyone that walked past tried their absolute best to not notice two marsupials, watch badges or not, disappear into the wall. Resigning himself to the longest day of the year, the squirrel approached gingerly, sniffed the deep dark hole, and fell into it.

Trying to describe what the mouse hole looked and felt like defied words and logic. You became everywhere, nothing, and a little bit drunk all at once. Just like that, you appeared in a bucket of infinite darkness, climbed out of the well, and all done and right again. Three times, three torturous times they had tried to get it right, and every time Hoar spent a good hour with the room spinning and his dinner all over his breeches.

“Up you come,” Dult’s tail tip appeared in the circle of light. Hoar took it, and the mouse pulled him out with a heave ho.

“That…that pikin’ worked?” Hoar blinked. He patted his stomach.

[Passion of the Mice]

“Remains to be seen. If you feel off let me know and I can stand well clear.” Hoar had earned the nickname Geyser for all the wrong reasons. “I tried reworking the incantation after my little run in with the sorcerer’s guild.”

Hoar tried to forget the duo’s less fortunate arrests. The ‘Mad Alchemist’ took over their entire summer last year, in which they found themselves covered and exposed to every dangerous spell-casting substance and poultice known. It took three months before either of them could smell properly, and regrow their eyebrows.

“Noice!”

“I thought you’d approve. Let us go to the harbour master’s and see if anything is happening. The quicker we distract ourselves with somebody trying to kill us, the quicker this sodding day is over.”

“Agreed. Who do you think’s going to show themselves this year?”

Side by side, squirrel and mouse stood tall and walked proudly out of the secluded garden courtyard and into the thoroughfare, which connected the north gate to the western docks of Radasanth. Titanic oaks lined the road, where the cleanest cobbles (by virtue of nobody giving a shit about boats), juddered their spines and did away with another centimetre of boot sole.

“Oh lord, I don’t know.” Hoar pretended to count on his fingers. “There’s too many.”

Every precinct had its familiar faces. With fifteen years on the force between them, Hoar and Dult had first name basis with most of the city’s re-offenders. Occasionally, invited to tea by worried parents, they had to convince the well to do that yes, one day Timmy would grow out of his larceny streak – tell them it was all going to be okay.

“Morty the Mauler?” Dult smiled fondly, the cat burglar (literal), lulled homemakers into a false sense of security, and when he was indoors being fed kibbles, he swiped their jewels (and their faces, naturally), and scuttled back out to his next trick.

“No. He is doing time in Lornius for trying to steal the necklace of some red headed bigwig in Scara Brae.”

Bugger, Dult thought. He said goodbye to a gold coin he now owed to Peter. Morty was a sure bet for big festivals. Wine made mincemeat of women’s ability to resist puppy and cat eyes.

“We’ve got the Johnson Twins, though they’re more likely to be starting brawls and blaming other people than anything clever.”

“I can get behind that. What about the Jadet Jigger?” Dult, very rarely, grew quite fond of some of the criminals in his city. The Jadet Jigger was a deranged, yet harmless own who took to dancing and laughing maniacally (quite in the nude) at any party that would put up with him.

“If he shows up, he’s pikin’ yours!” Hoar winced.

They left it at that. The road burst into colour as ticker tape, bunting smothered the last of the oaks trees, and then just like that, the docks loomed. In the distance, a graveyard of sails welcomed them to the task. Hands on belts, eyes glistening with excitement, the best double act in town marched on to come face to face with Radasanth’s usual suspects.