Chapter Seventeen: Wartime

 

Titus’ heart was heavy as he surveyed the Council Chamber in the moonlight. The fragrant grass was beaten flat. The crocuses were bruised. The stone benches were overturned in places. And here and there, weary animals huddled together for warmth, too afraid or too exhausted to go home for the night.

“You’re better than this, Titus,” he said to himself. “It should not have happened this way.”

The Forest Council had been a disaster. In the end the rooks reluctantly agreed to give asylum to the forest creatures. Tomorrow, the animals would begin moving their winter stores of nuts and berries, and their innumerable children, into the Rookery. But it was an uneasy alliance for many of the animals, and Romulus’ violent protests did little to help the situation. Titus hung his head. “You’re better than this.”

“You’ve done the right thing, friend,” Arthur said, walking toward Titus across the platform.

“No, you’ve done the right thing. Arthur, I can’t do this. I can’t pretend anymore. I’m no more the Lord Wickersham than I am a fish!”

Arthur laid a paw on Titus’ shoulder. “Don’t say that Titus. It’s not true. You are every bit the leader of the rooks, every bit the son of your father, and of his father before him.”

“How can you say that? You know as well as I do that the Rookery is in this sorry state because of my terrible leadership. We barely even function as a flock anymore. The only reason we’ve lasted this long is because of you. If you hadn’t been here to tell me what to do, the Rookery would have crumbled long before now.”

“Titus, you are stronger than you imagine. You come from a long line of noble rooks, and their blood runs in your veins—but that doesn’t matter much, does it? What matters are your choices. And, regardless of what you have chosen in the past, now—when it really matters—you are choosing well. Don’t despair. All will be put right.”

“I wish I had your faith, Arthur. I wish I had your courage,” Titus sighed.

“You do, my friend. I think you’re going to surprise yourself.”

Early the next morning, the forest creatures arrived in droves. Burrows and holes were dug around the edges of the Rookery floor, and piles of hay were gathered from nearby farms to keep everyone warm. That afternoon, the rooks began to painstakingly seal the hole in the top of the Rookery’s central hall, and did the best they could to patch the places in the roof that had been damaged by the fire.

Within a week, the Rookery had been transformed from a palace to a wartime bunker. It was well stocked, and well defended. The rooks took turns watching the sky through hatches in the Rookery’s roof, ready to sound the alarm the moment the inevitable attack began. The foraging animals had brought with them enough food to keep the Rookery well fed throughout the winter, should they come under siege. And an army of very brave beavers kept the Rookery supplied with wood from the forest, and day and night, the comforting glow of a merry bonfire warmed both the animals’ bodies and souls.

The early weeks of winter were spent pleasantly enough, considering the circumstances. At night, the elders would sit around the fire discussing the olden days while the little ones tottered around in the hay, and by day, Arthur kept the animals busy with games and stories, and, of course, with afternoon concerts on his piano.

During the long October days, the piano became a symbol of hope to the animals, in many ways. At first, only the few members of Arthur’s fledgling choir gathered around when he would play. Sometimes they sang along, and sometimes they sat quietly as the soft notes carried a sense of peace throughout the Rookery. But as the days and weeks passed, more and more animals gathered around the instrument. Titus was always there, and, slowly but steadily, many of the rooks began to float down from their roosts to hum quietly along.

By early November, Arthur’s choir had grown to a hundred voices or more. Moles and weasels, rabbits, otters, turtles and rooks came together every day to sing, and before long they began to give evening performances of the songs they had learned.

Not everyone approved of the choir, Romulus least of all. He turned his back on their performances, and squawked his irritation loudly throughout their afternoon rehearsals. But the music continued—not just as a diversion for the captive animals, but as part of Arthur’s master plan.

Though Arthur had not told his friends, every action he took was filled with purpose. His daily story times were not just a re-telling of the same old fairy tales; the stories he told were new to almost everyone. Every evening, the animals gathered around the fire to listen to tales of the Rookery—the story of the rooks’ first victory over the hawks, the exploits of their first patriarch, Albert the Vanquisher, and the long but educational tale of the construction of the moat (by permission of the beaver, of course). Arthur filled their minds and hearts with images of the first rook weavers and their patient work on the Rookery, and drew the smaller animals and rooks alike into the grand story of the palace they now called home. The music Arthur wrote for the choir was much the same—stories of the courage and honor of the early rooks, and stories of the animals of the forest working together to achieve great things. And all the while, the animals and rooks were slowly, steadily swelling with pride, with honor, with loyalty to the Rookery and loyalty to one another.

Snow began to fall in mid-November, tempting the animals sorely. It had been weeks since most of them had left the Rookery, and the delicate crust of newly fallen snow outside absolutely begged to be played in. It pleaded with them to escape; to have snowball fights; to run and slide down Abbot’s Hill into the soft, wet snow bank; to slip and slide along the thin ice of the stream. But they mastered their longings, for the hawks were never far from their minds. And day after day the sentries watched the sky, not for falling snow, but for the danger they all knew would come.