Bait was silent.
‘Well?’ Whisker said, waiting for a response.
‘Ye’re right,’ Rat Bait said, conceding defeat. ‘Ye’re twice the rat I’ll ever be – you an’ Anso an’ every other Win’erbottom. An’ maybe that be the reason I left.’
‘And did you find what you were looking for?’ Whisker asked through clenched teeth. ‘Did your conquests and victories make you feel worthy to be a Winterbottom?’
Rat Bait shook his head. ‘No. No, they did not.’
‘Then how did they make you feel?’ Whisker snapped. ‘Tell me. I deserve an answer.’
‘Empty,’ Rat Bait said simply. ‘I felt empty. An’ I realised that everythin’ I was lookin’ for was everythin’ I left behind.’
‘Then why didn’t you go back?’ Whisker asked.
‘I be afraid o’ what I’d find,’ Rat Bait said. ‘I be afraid that Molly be remarryin’ and Anso be forgettin’ ‘bout his only son.’
‘Well you were wrong,’ Whisker said, his tone softening slightly. And then, almost in a whisper, ‘No one forgot about you. Molly was still waiting for you on the day she died.’
‘So Molly be gone then?’ Rat Bait asked sadly.
‘Yes,’ Whisker said, seeing heartbreak in Rat Bait’s eyes. ‘The plague took her, just before I was born.’ He glanced across at Ruby, sitting expressionlessly on the stump. She had lost her entire family in the plague and he couldn’t mention the word without thinking of her.
Ruby said nothing. Her eye remained locked on Rat Bait. With her red hood pulled low over her face and her body framed by dark green pine needles, Whisker had the sudden recollection of another story Rat Bait had once told him.
‘The Lover’s Labyrinth,’ he thought aloud. ‘The rose maze from the Pirate Cup.’
‘What ‘bout the maze?’ Rat Bait said, lines of pain etched across his face.
‘The story you told me,’ Whisker said, ‘it was about Molly, wasn’t it? She was with you in the maze?’
‘Aye,’ Rat Bait sighed. ‘Molly be the one.’
‘What story?’ Horace asked, unable to stay silent any longer.
At first, Rat Bait appear unwilling to speak, but after staring at the ground for several seconds he began to mumble hesitantly, ‘On the farm above Two Shillin’s Cove, there be a twistin’ maze o’ thorny rose bushes. The walls o’ the maze bloom with snow white roses every summer, but in the centre o’ the maze, there be a single bush o’ blood red roses. For many years, a race be held between young lovers o’ the district. The first couple out o’ the maze with a red rose in their grasp be crowned the Soul Mates of Summer …’ His voice drifted off and he continued to stare at the pine needles at his feet.
‘And?’ Horace encouraged.
It was Whisker that spoke. ‘Rat Bait entered the race with my grandmother, Molly – and they won.’
‘So what happened next?’ Horace asked.
‘Autumn happened,’ Rat Bait said bluntly, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. ‘We be married within the week – then summer ended an’ things fell apart.’
‘Oh,’ Horace said, his enthusiasm squashed. ‘That’s certainly no happily ever after …’ There was an awkward silence. Horace, still looking rather bamboozled about Rat Bait’s story, picked up the stolen fountain pen and began drawing something on a scrap of newspaper.
Rat Bait eventually continued, ‘I thought we be the perfect couple – a beautiful young circus performer an’ her dashin’ sailor husband. But like so many things in life, I be wrong. As a newly married rat, I convinced meself that I be entitled to a ship o’ me own an’ a crew to command. But when I approached Anso ‘bout it, he insisted that I serve me apprenticeship first. I kept askin’ him, an’ he kept givin’ me the same answer: Ye be too young. Ye be too headstrong. When I finally grew angry an’ demanded me inheritance, Molly, in her wisdom, took Anso’s side.’
Rat Bait sighed. ‘I hated her for it at the time, but lookin’ back, I knew she be right. I be far too reckless to handle the responsibility o’ a ship an’ its crew. But bein’ who I be, I packed me bags, scrounged whatever gold I could get me paws on, and set off to prove meself. Frustrated ‘bout how I been treated, I abandoned the name Ernest in favour o’ a name I read on a box o’ poison – Rat Bait. From that day forth I never spoke about me past with anyone. With me new identity, I served on many crews before Ruby’s grandfather, Ratsputin – who ye all know as the Hermit – offered me a position on the good ship Princess Pie.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Horace said, pointing to two family trees he had sketched on the back of the newspaper. ‘And that’s where Anso’s Forgotten Map came into your possession. And the rest is history.’
‘The story doesn’t end there,’ Ruby said, staring at Horace’s drawing and voicing her opinion for the first time. ‘From what my grandfather told us, Anso never intended for Ernest to see the map. He was afraid it would fall into wicked paws, so gave it to my grandfather, a trustworthy rat, for safe keeping.’ She rose from her seat and glared at Rat Bait. ‘Wicked paws seems an appropriate description of a greedy son demanding his inheritance, don’t you think?’
Whisker stepped forward, gesturing for Ruby to sit down. ‘What’s done is done,’ he said evenly. ‘Despite who the map was intended for, it led us to the Book of Knowledge, something we couldn’t have done without my gra –’ he couldn’t quite bring himself to say the words, ‘– without Rat Bait.’
Ruby crossed her swords, refusing to move. ‘You’ve changed your tune pretty quickly, Whisker. One minute you’re yelling at him like he’s the embodiment of evil and, the next minute, you’re telling the rest of us to calm down. Don’t I have a right to be angry with him? After all, you’re not the only one to be hurt by Rat Bait’s lies and deceit. He abandoned the Hermit on the Island of Destiny, then ran his beloved Princess Pie aground. That in its own right is enough to boil any boatswain’s blood.’
‘I can explain the ship –’ Rat Bait began.
‘I’m not finished!’ Ruby hissed. ‘On top of everything, he lied to my family and then led us to believe that my grandfather was the villain, when it was him all along.’ She narrowed her gaze at the young apprentice. ‘Or is that something you’ve forgotten, Whisker?’
‘I haven’t forgotten anything,’ Whisker said. ‘And I haven’t forgotten that we dumped all that pain and hurt behind on the island – the island of second chances.’
Ruby snorted incredulously. ‘So you’re honestly telling me you’re not mad about what happened?’
‘Sure I’m mad,’ Whisker said, clenching his fists. ‘But I’m not mad with the rat that saved us on the Island of Destiny and I’m not mad with the rat that just rescued us from the web. I’m mad with the rat that deserted my grandmother. I’m mad with
