Septimus Heap, Book One_ Magyk - Angie Sage [63]
Silas came to the rat’s rescue.
“I do not need to be booked in like a parcel, thank you, Marcia,” he said. “I will take a canoe, and the rat can come with me and show me the way.”
“Very well,” said Marcia, “but I want confirmation of order. Speeke, Rattus Rattus.”
“Yes,” said the rat weakly. “Order confirmed.”
Silas and the Message Rat left early the next morning, just after sunrise, taking the Muriel One canoe. The haar had disappeared overnight, and the winter sun cast long shadows over the marshes in the gray early morning light.
Jenna, Nicko and Maxie had got up early to wave Silas off and give him messages for Sarah and the boys. The air was cold and frosty, and their breath hung in white clouds. Silas wrapped his heavy blue woolen cloak around him and pulled up his hood, while the Message Rat stood beside him shivering a little, and not entirely with the cold.
The rat could hear horrible choking noises from Maxie close behind him as Nicko kept a tight grip on the wolfhound’s neckerchief, and, as if that wasn’t enough, he had just caught sight of the Boggart.
“Ah, Boggart.” Aunt Zelda smiled. “Thank you very much, Boggart dear, for staying up. Here’s some sandwiches to keep you going. I’ll put them in the canoe. There’s some for you and the rat too, Silas.”
“Oh. Well, thank you, Zelda. What kind of sandwiches would they be, exactly?”
“Best boiled cabbage.”
“Ah. Well, that’s most…thoughtful.” Silas was glad he had smuggled some bread and cheese in his sleeve.
The Boggart was floating grumpily in the Mott and was not completely placated by the mention of cabbage sandwiches. He did not like being out in the daylight, even in the middle of winter. It made his weak Boggart eyes ache, and the sunlight burned his ears if he was not careful.
The Message Rat sat unhappily on the bank of the Mott, caught between dog breath behind him and Boggart Breath in front of him.
“Right,” said Silas to the rat. “In you get. I expect you’ll want to sit at the front. Maxie always does.”
“I am not a dog,” sniffed Stanley, “and I don’t travel with Boggarts.”
“This Boggart is a safe Boggart,” Aunt Zelda told him.
“There’s no such thing as a safe Boggart,” muttered Stanley. Catching a glimpse of Marcia coming out of the cottage to wave Silas off, he said no more, but jumped smartly into the canoe and hid under the seat.
“Be careful, Dad,” Jenna told Silas, hugging him tightly.
Nicko hugged Silas too. “Find Simon, Dad. And don’t forget to stay by the edge of the river if the tide’s against you. The tide always flows faster in the middle.”
“I won’t forget.” Silas smiled. “Look after each other, both of you. And Maxie.”
“Bye, Dad!”
Maxie whined and yelped as he saw, to his dismay, that Silas really was leaving him.
“Bye!” Silas waved as he unsteadily steered the canoe along the Mott to the familiar Boggart inquiry: “You followin’?”
Jenna and Nicko watched the canoe make its way slowly along the winding ditches and out into the wide expanse of the Marram Marshes until they could no longer make out Silas’s blue hood.
“I hope Dad’ll be all right,” said Jenna quietly. “He’s not very good at finding places.”
“The Message Rat will make sure he gets there,” said Nicko. “He knows he’ll have some explaining to do to Marcia if he doesn’t.”
Deep in the Marram Marshes the Message Rat sat in the canoe surveying the first package he had ever had to deliver. He had decided not to mention it to Dawnie, or to the rats at the Rat Office; it was all, he sighed to himself, highly irregular.
But after a while, as Silas took them slowly and somewhat erratically through the twisting channels of the marsh, Stanley began to see that this was not such a bad way to travel. He did after all have a ride all the way to his destination. And all he had to do was sit there, tell a few stories and enjoy the ride while Silas did all the work.
And that, as Silas said good-bye to the Boggart at the end of Deppen Ditch and started paddling up