Duncton Rising (16 page)

“It is normal, yes,” said Chater with a grin.

“Well, then,” said Peach, affecting a lighthearted and nonchalant look, “we must, that is Spurling and I must, go off now, and as it were attend to things...”

But Chater and Fieldfare, lovers at heart as they were, were already bickering and buffeting at each other in their customary way, and chuckling too, as they turned from their friends to share a final tryst, as so often they had in the past, before Chater set off on a long journey.

“Aren’t they a bit old for that kind of thing?” said Spurling when they had gone.

“No,” said Peach, a little tartly, “I don’t think
they
are!”

Chater left at dusk, turning back towards the setting sun to retrace his steps and try, as best he could, to reach Caer Caradoc in time to warn his friends, and any other moles who were not Newborn, of the danger they were in.

“Goodbye, my own love,” said Fieldfare.

“I’ll send word,” said Chater, giving her a final embrace, “and it’ll be good word, encouraging word.”

“My love,” she whispered; and let him go.

Chapter Seven

Stow and the Bourton moles had been right about Weeth, he
was
over-talkative. At the slightest opportunity he launched off into conversation about anything that came into his head, and it was the kind of talk a mole could not easily ignore since it was quick-witted and interspersed with questions which challenged his interlocutor to show that he was listening – or provoked him to tell Weeth to talk less.

Strangely enough, Privet seemed better able to control Weeth’s output than the other two – something about her calmed him down, and she was quite capable of saying that she wished for peace and quiet, and would he please go and talk to somemole else.

It could not be denied, however, that he seemed to know the way across the dull flat vale they had dropped down into – or if he did not, he certainly had a good snout for finding a route that avoided trouble. More than once they came across Newborn patrols and yet were able to proceed unobserved, and on the one occasion they were seen, Weeth was very quick to go forward and greet the Newborns as fellow Brothers in the cause, and hope they would not long delay my aged relative, a female, and her dullard sons, who I am guiding to Evesham where they are to serve the Stone.”

Such was Weeth’s cheerful confidence, and so low did his companions drop their snouts, that the patrol seemed convinced by Weeth’s nonsense and let the party go on without any questioning at all.

“It is a matter, you know, of having an eye for what a particular mole will find pleasure in believing,” explained

Weeth without prompting, after this near escape. “Too many moles think others are persuaded by reason, but as a practising opportunist I can assure you that is not so. Moles act on feelings, inclinations and prejudices, and very rarely on reasons, though of course they like to think they are rational. Therefore, what must we do if we are to get our way, to take our opportunity?”

The three moles gazed at him without a word, very confident that if they said nothing he would answer his own question.

“We must give them a good reason for letting us do what we wish to do, and make them feel good about doing it. Take those moles we have just passed. I could see they were hungry and in no mood for trouble, or hard work. By telling them we are going to Evesham – which is where they would undoubtedly lead us if they took us prisoner, supposing that they could – we give them a reason for not stopping
US;
by appealing to their good nature by mentioning aged relatives and dullard sons (and what a good job you both did of
that,
Maple and Whillan, eh Privet?) they feel good about not troubling us.”

“Thank you, Weeth,” said Maple. “Now could we proceed in silence for a time?”

“Silence?” said Weeth suspiciously, as if he felt threatened by the word.

“You talk too much,” said Whillan. “We three like to go along in silence sometimes when we’re travelling.”

“My dear fellow, I am sorry,” said Weeth, grandly apologetic. “I talk too much, far too much. To tell the truth, I always put my paw in it in the end. What friends I make I lose through jabbering. What friends I have lost are disinclined to accept my apologies for fear that I shall jabber more. There is something about me moles wish to dislike, and having discovered that it is because I am a mole who speaks before he thinks and gets himself into all kinds of unnecessary trouble,
when
I do those things I am forsaken...”

By now Whillan was half smiling, and attempting to cover his ears with his paws in an effort to suggest to Weeth that he had said enough to be forgiven. He, Whillan, was not like other moles; he, Whillan, would forgive him – only please stop. But Weeth, carried away with his declaration, and not daring to think, perhaps, that Whillan could be so tolerant, continued.

“But do not forsake me, Whillan, for beneath my infuriating exterior beats a warm heart.”

“Be quiet, Weeth,” said Maple with cheerful authority. “In fact, shut up, mole.”

Weeth immediately fell silent, and stared at Maple with apparent gratitude on his face. He seemed anything but affronted by Maple’s uncharacteristic bluntness. But then he appeared to be about to spoil it all, for he raised one paw and said, “Sir, may I make an observation before I shut up totally?”

“I daresay you will,” said Maple.

“It is merely to suggest that you and I might work well together. I mean not only now, but after we get to Caradoc. Give me an order and I will loyally carry it out.”

“Then be quiet,” said Maple amiably.

“Be
quiet?”
whispered Weeth. “Quiet?”

He narrowed his eyes and concentrated on the word as if it had never before occurred to him to contemplate its meaning. Then, like stormclouds across a bright sun, the full implication of Maple’s command came to him. His mouth half opened in horror and then closed again in dismay. He looked about desperately for some way out of the impasse into which his own impetuous verbosity had led him, and even turned a couple of quick circles as if looking for somewhere to put himself where he might be allowed to speak. Finding none, he beat the ground with frustration as he tried to sort out the dilemma into which Maple had put him. The tension grew unbearable as the rest of them, unable to think of anything else but Weeth’s valiant effort to “be quiet” and what appeared to be his terminal struggle to cope with it, watched in amazement. Had nomole ever told him to be quiet before? Or, as seemed more likely, had
many
moles told him, but he had forgotten that they had?

Suddenly he calmed down, the stormclouds passed on and revealed the sun in his face once more as he assumed a beatific expression and said in the quietest and gentlest voice possible, “Quiet as opposed to being noisy, you mean?”

He looked triumphant with himself for having found a legitimate way to carry on talking. But Maple was not having it. He hunched forward towards Weeth in his most menacing manner and said, 1 mean, mole, that if you are to stay with us, if you are to be with us, if you are to
work
with us, we require you to learn how to adopt a low snout, and be silent unless talk is necessary, to be discreet and to remain unintrusive.”

“Unintrusive?” said Weeth immediately in his new calm voice.

Maple nodded.

“Unintrusive?” repeated Weeth to Privet.

“Yes, my dear, I think that is the meaning of what Maple said.”

“Unintrusive like non-intrusive, or, as it were, unremarkable, in its absolute and literal sense. Something like that, yes, Whillan?”

“I would try if I were you,” said Whillan as darkly as he could, for he was beginning to realize that Weeth was one of those moles who if given half a chance took a whole one.

“I shall!” declared Weeth with conviction. And there it might have seemed to Maple and Whillan that the conversation had ended, but Privet knew it had not, and understood that beyond Weeth’s ready talk and quick wit was something more, something deeper.

For as Maple led them off again, she heard Weeth whisper to himself, “I shall try!” and thinking he was not seen she saw as well how he watched after the others with gratitude that in their own way they accepted him, and liked him. As they trekked on in silence she wondered why it was that now he had joined them the party felt complete.

Weeth was as good as his word, and did not speak again all day which, the others were aggrieved to find, was something of a pity, so used had they got to him talking as they went. It was just that he did too much of it. Perhaps in time he would get the balance right.

“Ahem!”

That evening, after their meal, he finally broke his silence and when he did it was with a most startling and alarming statement.

“Ahem! Ahem!”

“Yes, Weeth?” said Maple.

“I suppose, being Duncton moles and all good at scribing, and being clever, and what with one thing like that and another, you do realize that the Caradoc Convocation as summoned by Thripp is not merely a trap, but also a sham?”

They waited in silence for him to go on; out of sheer mischief he did not, but quietly hummed to himself and groomed his paws as if all he had just done was to pass a pleasantry about the weather.

“Go on,” said Maple.

“The Great One wishes me to speak? Is this possible? And can it be that the Duncton trio does not know something Weeth knows? It can! It is! Astounding!”

Privet laughed. “Come on, my dear, tell us what you know.”

To his credit Maple smiled with something like affection at Weeth who, grinning with delight at this warm response to his mischievousness, came closer to them all in a confidential sort of way, and looked first over one shoulder and then over the other. Then, in a low voice, he said, “May I preface my remarks by observing that the one thing I was never told about Duncton moles, though it is self-evidently true, is that you have a sense of humour. Weeth likewise. Could it be our saving grace, the one unique quality the Stone appreciates beyond all others, which will, as it were, cause it to bend over backwards to help us? It could, it could!

“Now, to work. First the question of it being a trap. Well, I understand that previous Convocations and Conclaves, such as that summoned to Cannock by your own Master Stour, have always been in the summer years, to allow moles to travel there and back in temperate weather and so be away from their systems for as short a time as possible, and certainly back in time for Longest Night. This Convocation being in December means that will not only be impossible, but moles will likely be marooned in and around Caradoc by ice and snow, at least for the January and early February years, thus making them prey to Newborn persuasions of one kind or another; which, I beg to suggest, might include starvation. Oh no, you don’t suppose that Caradoc itself is exactly wormful, do you?”

“Such suspicions had crossed our minds,” said Whillan. “But what about it being a sham?”

“Well, now,
there
we move on to less certain ground. I have a feeling, supported by mere rumour and surmise and things I’ve heard, that the real action this Longest Night will not be in Caradoc, but in all the other systems so conveniently vacated by moles such as yourselves who will not be in the one place where they might be most needed – their own homes. In short, having got you out of the way by summoning this Convocation, the Newborns will go in for a quick kill in all the systems where they have cells, which is in all the important ones. Having gained control, they will have plenty of time to change things to their taste, and even get local females aplenty pregnant with Newborn pups, for it to be very hard indeed for the returning delegates from Caradoc to do much about it. Get my drift?”

“We get your drift,” said Maple grimly. These were possibilities Master Stour had himself mentioned, but coming from this mole so far along the way to Caradoc, they seemed more plausible, and infinitely more difficult to deal with. What could three moles of Duncton do in such a situation, even if they found allies among delegates from other systems?

“We could go back now,” said Whillan eventually, but without conviction. For all the dangers involved, their going to Caer Caradoc seemed inevitable. Perhaps that was the genius of Thripp of Blagrove Slide – to have persuaded moles to come to Caradoc, where he had control of them, on his terms.

“Oh, he is a genius,” said Weeth, “and the difficulty with such moles as him is that they are so
convincing.
Of course they never do their own dirty work – they couldn’t sully their paws with
that.”

“
Who does then?” asked Whillan.

“Well...” mused Weeth, “it is a moot point. My belief is that it’s the mole who lies behind the Brother Inquisitors that moledom should fear. For what would happen if
he
gained power when Thripp dies?”

“Who do you mean?” asked Privet.

“
That
mole is said to be Senior Brother Quail. He is said to have founded the Inquisitorial system, having risen up from the ranks to be the secret and malign power behind Thripp. He has none of Thripp’s charisma or popularity, but he’s ruthless and most believe he will take power. He’s probably behind the changes you’ve already seen in Duncton Wood.

“Hmmm!” mused Maple, a worried frown on his face.

“Let me tell you two things about Quail, though you’ll welcome neither of them. First, when a mole is formally condemned to death by the Newborns – a most rare occurrence, since they contrive to have moles die informally so they cannot be called a killing sect – he. Quail, likes to be there.”

“Likes to carry out the execution?” said Whillan.

“Probably,” said Weeth with distaste. “They say his look is enough to kill. And this is the mole in whom Thripp puts all his trust. Some sect! The second thing, which worries me greatly, especially if the first is true, is that the rumours are strong that Quail will be in the vicinity. Quail is coming to Caradoc. Which means that the Newborns may have in mind an exemplary death sentence or two, by way of intimidation and so forth. Nasty. Makes the hairs on my spine stir. In fact, the more I think of it, the straighter they stance! Makes me wonder why I’m not heading
away
from Caradoc as fast as my paws can carry me.”