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  He resisted the urge to open an eye. It was probably what they were waiting for, with orders to shoot it out, but the trumpet blasts and the shouting made him curious and eventually he could not help himself. The rabbit was so close that it made him jump. The rabbit jumped too. It was Ambrose. The timid rabbit monk’s brown eyes were huge with terror.

  “Ambrose!” someone shouted joyfully. It came from around his belly. Esme poked her head out of the knapsack. “I’m home. You should have come. It was fantastic. I was in the castle of Lochwarren—actually inside it!”

  Ambrose blinked but said nothing, even as Esme danced out of the knapsack and threw her arms around him in greeting.

  “You look worried,” she said. It was only then that she saw the ranks of archers forming up around the square. “Oh, please,” she said. “Put those down. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  But the archers did not move. The flap of the knapsack fluttered again as Malcolm stuck out his nose. “Where’s this, then? Is this home, Lady Esme? I have to say I thought you’d get a friendlier homecoming.”

  He emerged cautiously from the knapsack. On one shoulder he supported the weight of his uncle, who limped slowly at his side.

  “Ah, my friends,” the old stoat croaked, “how good to see you. So long since I saw a good company of Santandarian archers. You are Santandarians, are you not? My archery master in Logarno was a rabbit, Jost Kanin. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”

  The jaws of the rabbit archers dropped in unison. It was as if they had never heard an animal speak before. Norman could sympathize.

  There was a brief commotion while two figures broke through the ranks. Norman recognized them immediately as Brother Timothy and Alderman Morgan.

  “Lower your bows, gentlemen,” Esme’s father commanded. They hardly needed to be told. Cuilean’s greeting had flummoxed them.

  “Esme, my dear, we will speak later of this. You’ve simply no idea of the dangers you are exposing yourself to.”

  “You mean being imprisoned by angry weasel usurpers and their heavily armed guards?” Esme asked cheerily.

  “Pardon?” her father spluttered. “Where? What?”

  Brother Timothy took it upon himself to properly greet the guests. “Welcome to Willowbraid, my friends. I am Brother Timothy. You look as if you could use some rest.”

  Cuilean nodded appreciatively. “That would be welcome. I am Cuilean, regent of Lochwarren. This sturdy young fellow is my nephew, King Malcolm.”

  Brother Timothy and the alderman exchanged a confused look. Esme’s father had not yet recovered from the shock of hearing that his daughter had been captured by weasels. The news that a legendary figure from the past was now standing before him was too much to handle.

  Esme smiled winningly again and asked, “Do we have lodgings fit for royalty? I think Prince Cuilean could do with the services of a doctor.” She turned to the regent and curtsied. “With your leave, sir, I will fetch what’s needed from the herb store. Brother Ambrose, will you help me?”

  Ambrose stood stock still, not budging from the spot where he had been standing for the past ten minutes. Again he blinked, but he managed a sort of nod.

  “You are very kind, Lady Esme,” Cuilean replied with a stiff bow.

  It took a tap on the elbow from Brother Timothy, but the nervous young rabbit finally sprang to life and hurried to help Malcolm support Cuilean. Under Esme’s guidance, they set off towards the centre of Willowbraid.

  Norman could not follow without crushing half the houses of the town, but he watched from the square as the parade formed. The rabbits of Willowbraid came out from their homes to see this marvel that had walked out of legend and onto their main street. Malcolm took it all in stride, shaking hands and kissing babies all the way down the street. He was as at home here as he was anywhere.

  Norman sat down in the square and relaxed. It was a long time since anything had gone right. He was happy to sit down and enjoy it. Father Timothy remained behind with him, making sure that he got some breakfast too. The old monk probed him for the details of how they’d made their trip, but he didn’t push too hard. He was happy to listen to Norman’s description of the town and his memories of the church at Edgeweir. Norman liked the old monk and was grateful to him for staying behind when everyone else had run off to celebrate the arrival of the stoats. He sincerely hoped that one day, he’d be able to take Timothy to Edgeweir.

  The rabbits were reluctant to let one of their honoured guests leave the celebrations, but Malcolm managed to get free by lunchtime and hurried to meet Norman back at the cathedral square. It brought a smile to Norman’s face to see his friend swaggering down the main street like his old self.

  “Well, Strong Arm, are we ready to try this again with your magic rucksack?”

  There was a lot of catching up to do, but they seemed able to do it without saying much.

  “Esme is writing up some pages for us,” Norman told him, “but I won’t be able to sleep for hours. Would you like to meet my sister, maybe?” Waiting in the square had given him time to worry about how things were going over at the Shrubberies.

  “The fearsome warrior-maiden Dora?” Malcolm joked. “Her legend is muttered across the tables of many a feast hall.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Getting out of Willowbraid was no easier than getting in. Malcolm led the way through the wicker tunnels. It was easy enough for him. He sauntered ahead at every turn and came back to tease Norman about his pace.

  “You’d be slow too if you had to crawl,” Norman barked back.

  “On the contrary, a stoat is quicker on four feet, but it is unseemly and unfit for royalty.”

  Norman knew he was right. “It wasn’t too unseemly when the wolves were after us.”

  Malcolm tutted at him, as if it were rude of him to mention it. “Don’t worry. You can show me how fast you are later. I’ll let you carry me when we get out in the open.”

  He was true to his word. As soon as they reached the meadows, Malcolm took up his customary station on Norman’s shoulder. It felt good to have him there. Despite the work they had to do, Norman felt happy. Everything seemed possible with his friend at his side.

  The way back to the Shrubberies was longer than Norman remembered, even without the detour to the empty stately home and its cathedral relic, so he was glad to see the silhouette of the unicorn on the crest of the hill.

  “Well, I can cross that off my list of mythical beasts,” Malcolm said. “That’s two of the big three: a human cub and a unicorn. Do you think we’ll meet a dragon before we’re done?”

  “I hope not,” Norman said, “but I wouldn’t rule it out.” He made the introductions when they reached the top of the hill. “This is Raritan. Raritan, this is my friend Malcolm, king of the stoats.”

  Raritan snorted a greeting. He didn’t seem any less grumpy than when Norman had met him. “I can arrange for you to meet a dragon if you like, but I doubt you’d enjoy the encounter.”

  “You heard us from that far?” Norman asked, shocked. With hearing that good, the unicorn must be aware of everything that went on in the Shrubberies. “Is Dora okay?”

  “She’s fine. She misses her mother,” Raritan replied. “You two had better climb on.”

  There was no more talking once they were up and away. Raritan was quickly at a gallop, making the landscape rush by in a blur and the wind whistle in their ears. Malcolm took up station on the unicorn’s neck, clinging to the mane and howling with glee as they hurtled through fields and vaulted over fences.

  They pulled up short of the house so that Norman could see the changes. The Shrubberies had several new additions. On the wall where Dora’s bedroom window had been there was now a castle turret. Its gleaming white stone didn’t match the rest of the house at all. It rose four or five storeys, looming over the countryside. At the top were three arched openings and a conical red roof topped by a bright blue-and-fuchsia floral flag.

  “Hey, Norm
an!” Dora shouted, appearing from behind a giant brass telescope that poked out of one of the arched windows. “You’re back. Come and see my castle.”

  “I see Dora’s still getting whatever she wants from Uncle Kit.”

  Raritan snorted his agreement and carried them across the new drawbridge at a trot, depositing them in the ornamental garden beside a fountain. Norman looked up at the statue that graced the centre of the fountain and rolled his eyes. It was a life-sized reproduction of Dora holding an umbrella to protect her from water spurting at her from marble dolphins at the four corners of the fountain.

  Dora met them at the back door. The first words out of her mouth were “Are Mom and Dad with you?” She peered around him to check.

  Her brother shook his head.

  Her face fell. She looked sad enough that Norman almost wanted to say something to make her feel better.

  “I called them about fifty times. They aren’t answering their cellphones. All I got was two more postcards from Paris.” She let them in the house and grabbed the postcards from the fridge. “Does this look like Mom’s handwriting?” she asked anxiously. She hadn’t even noticed the small, fully clothed animal that accompanied her brother and her unicorn.

  Norman took the postcards from her, sepia pictures of Paris in the olden days. Kit was slipping, leaving paper around the house like this. He read the notes. Having a lovely time in Paris. Wish you were here.

  “It looks like Mom’s.” He was by no means sure, but now that Dora was actually worried about their parents, he didn’t want to make things worse.

  At his side, Malcolm cleared his throat.

  Norman took the hint and made the late introduction. “Oh, Dora, this is Malcolm. Malcolm, meet the giantess Dora.”

  The stoat gave her one of his patented royal bows with a flourish of the cloak. “Delighted.”

  “He’s cute,” Dora said with a little pout, “but tell Uncle Kit I don’t want him. I don’t want anything else. I just want Mom and Dad to come home.”

  Malcolm gave her an offended look.

  “He’s not for you,” Norman explained. “He’s not for anybody. He’s my friend … my best friend.”

  “No fair,” Dora complained. “Why do you get to go somewhere? Why can you have friends visit? I asked Uncle Kit if I could go to Penny’s until Mom and Dad come home, but he just brought me more presents.”

  “Where is Uncle Kit?”

  Dora rolled her eyes towards the stairs. They found him in the study. Or at least they assumed it was him. He was almost hidden by the gigantic computer screen in front of him, but the slow tap, tap of his typing gave him away. The ban on paper seemed well and truly lifted, because the desk was filled with crumpled piles of it.

  “Are you writing an apology letter?” Norman asked bitterly.

  The typing stopped. “Ah, the wandering boy is back—a little late for curfew, perhaps. What’s the usual punishment for that?”

  “Why don’t you ask my mother?”

  As usual, Kit didn’t bother to answer his question. “I was just thinking of dear old Meg. I want to do something nice for her. Tell me, does your mother still like the opera? Would she prefer that to a trip to Versailles?”

  Norman decided to return the favour and ignore Kit’s question. “You have to bring them back sometime. What you’re doing is wrong. This is actually kidnapping, you know.”

  Kit stuck his head around the side of the monitor and pulled an exaggerated sad face. “Technically it’s not kidnapping because I haven’t taken you anywhere, forcible confinement maybe …” The frown on his face turned to a smirk. “But you’ve shown that you can leave any time you like. Apparently you’ve got a secret horde of paper hidden away somewhere. Would you like some of mine so you don’t have to use up your stash?” He picked up a few sheets of printer paper and offered them to Norman. Only then did he notice Malcolm.

  “Oh, it’s you!” Kit seemed genuinely surprised, and not altogether happy, to see him. “Where did you come from? Never mind that. You’re here now. We can work you in somehow.” He drummed his long fingers on the table and scratched his head as if trying to look like someone puzzling over a problem. “Actually, maybe you can help with this one, Spiny. Come on around here.”

  Norman bristled at the nickname Spiny. Only his father called him that. He didn’t like doing what Kit told him at the best of times, but at the moment, he was curious to know what the schemer was up to at the computer. He arrived around the other side of the desk in time to see him close the file that he’d had open, and to catch the title. “The Case of Madame Lecteur,” it was called. Was Kit trying to write a story? He’d closed the file too quickly for Norman to see anything more than the title, and had switched to another file that was already open on the desktop.

  “Now,” Kit resumed, “your sister seems bored, and I confess I’m having a little trouble getting past the setting and the characters on this one. Do you think it would help to introduce a dragon? It feels like we need some sort of conflict. Do you think a dragon would work? Nothing old Raritan couldn’t handle, but it would give the little princess downstairs something to do.”

  “How about a vengeful stoat prince?” Malcolm asked pointedly.

  Kit missed the jibe. “I hadn’t thought of that. Would that work, Spiny? Do you think our sharp-toothed friend has it in him to play the villain?”

  Norman couldn’t resist provoking his uncle. “I thought this story already had a villain.”

  Kit just made an exaggerated hurt face. Everything was a joke to him.

  Norman read the page in front of him on the computer.

  The Shrubberies was the most perfect place on earth. No castle was more beautiful or more secure. Its gardens were the most fragrant in the world, its moat the deepest and the fish that swam there the brightest. The banner of the unicorn princess waved brightly from its tallest tower, and from there one could see as far as the hummingbird fields and the forests of tangled bracelets. Out in the far meadows, a unicorn grazed. He was the finest of his kind and belonged nowhere else than in the Unicorn Kingdom at the Shrubberies Castle.

  This seemed to go on for several paragraphs more, but Norman noted that the file was only two pages in total. “Is there more?” he asked. “Does anything happen, or is it just description?”

  Kit seemed bothered by the question. “Well, I have to get the beginning right. There’s no point going on from a bad beginning. I have to make sure it’s just right.”

  “And what about the other file? ‘The Case of Madame Something’? Is that another story?”

  “Yes, well, that’s normal. I always have several projects on the go. You can’t govern the imagination. You have to go where it tells you.” Kit was so busy pontificating on the art of the imagination, he didn’t notice Malcolm prowling around his desk and leafing through the crumpled printouts.

  “So you’re a writer now?” Norman asked skeptically. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Malcolm had found several pages of interest and was slipping them into Norman’s knapsack on the floor.

  “You know,” Kit said earnestly, “I think I was always a writer. It’s just taken me a long time to complete my apprenticeship. I’d like to think I’ve been studying all these years. I’ve really immersed myself in the world of books, you know.”

  Norman shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Some imagination. You didn’t even make up the Shrubberies. It’s real. And Dora’s real too. It’s not right what you’re doing here. The tiara you gave to Dora is from another book. She told me. You stole it. I bet you even stole that tower and the moat and the stupid dolphin fountain. They don’t belong to you. They belong somewhere else.”

  Kit’s frown seemed real for once.

  “We’re not going to help you, you know. You might as well know that. What you are doing here is not right,” Norman repeated. “How long do you think Raritan will play along? He knows he doesn’t belong here. You’ve already made an enemy of the stoat king. Do y
ou think you could handle Raritan as your enemy?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t call young Malcolm my enemy.” Kit glanced towards Malcolm, who was now standing atop a pile of manuscript pages, scowling as if what he was reading was particularly bad. Kit paused and continued to bluster. “We’ve been through some adventures, you and I, haven’t we, Mal? We haven’t always agreed, but ‘enemies’ is going a little far. Am I right?” He tried to laugh, but it came out forced and unconvincing.

  Malcolm looked up from his reading for a moment to stare at the man behind the desk. The look he gave him left no doubt as to how he felt about their past.

  Kit had to look away. “Well,” he said, more softly, “I’m sure we’ll work it out.”

  “With Raritan too?” Norman asked.

  “Raritan is no problem at all.”

  He didn’t sound confident, but there was no point in arguing any further. There never was with Kit. He helped only when it was to his advantage or when it amused him, and he had set his mind on building this fantasy world for Dora and himself. It didn’t mean that Norman had to play along, though, and from the looks of it, Dora was getting tired of the game too.

  “I’ll be seeing you, then,” he said. Then he thought he’d put in a word for Dora. “Word of advice: if Dora is grumpy, it’s because she’s not eating right. Maybe she needs some fruit and vegetables before her ice cream.” Among other things, Uncle Kit was a terrible babysitter.

  Malcolm’s parting gesture was less kind. He aimed a meaningful kick at the tallest pile of papers, sending them sprawling on the floor. Then he strode across the keyboard purposefully, leaving a string of gobbledygook across the screen. And they left Kit at the desk with his writing and his fantasies.

  Back at Willowbraid, they had an appointment with the armourer. The talking rabbits of England had not forgotten the crafts of the Great Cities. Their blacksmith went by the traditional English name of Wayland, but he boasted of his Santandarian heritage as he laid out a selection of his finest swords for Malcolm to choose from. The stoat eyed them expertly, extending his arm and tossing each one from hand to hand to feel the weight of the blades. Wayland nodded knowingly when Malcolm made his selection. “Aye, that’s the one,” he said.