Duncton Rising (27 page)

“He turned to the Brother Confessor and smiled and said, ‘Forgive me, but she would insist on speaking out the names she wants to give her pups and I felt it might be a comfort...’

“‘It is well enough, if a little indulgent,’ said my Brother Confessor, turning to ken the names. But even as he did so I sensed that no matter what the reason why the Brother Assistant wished to protect me, and whatever he was protecting me from, if I allowed a lie to live about my pups, even before they were born, I was no true mother in the Stone. That was the moment in Blagrove when I began to find strength to become a mole again.

“To make it worse, my Brother Confessor was repeating the names to himself, playing with the sound and thought of them as I had so often done, and a slight smile was on his face as he whispered them to himself, half turned from me, of course, because it would never do for anymole to see him expressing feelings in that way. Yet I knew what I must do.

“‘Thank you. Brother, for seeking to protect me and my pups from the transgression I may have committed,’ I said quietly to the assistant, ‘but I would not be a true mother to them if I allowed their father to be so misled. It was I, Brother Confessor, who scribed their names.’

“‘You!’ he said, astonished.

“I nodded, and so complete was his disbelief and horror – horror that I could claim such a thing, for still I do not think he believed it – that I reached up my paw and scribed before his very eyes my favourite name of all the four, which was ‘Loosestrife’. How I had dreamed of her, a female pup such as I had never been, beautiful, a pup to be proud of, a pup to make a mother feel her life was given meaning by making her.

“He stared in silence, seemingly appalled at what I had done, and affronted too, as if thereby I was no female mole at all, but an alien mutant thing with which he wanted no intercourse lest she infect him with something unspeakable. In that look I saw the face of dogma and rule challenged by a fact which opened wide the hypocrisy and myopia of its thought, and showed it to be the nonsense that it was. In his narrow world females could not scribe; they were not intelligent enough, they were not
able
to.

“‘You
scribe
?’ he said. Nothing can convey the profound horror and shock in his voice.

“‘Yes,’ I replied. He turned to his Brother Assistant.

“‘You did not do this?’ he asked.

“The brother could only shake his head. I saw that my confession meant punishment for him. ‘Leave us. Brother,’ said my Confessor, turning to me with a look of such savagery that I felt deep fear.

“‘What do you scribe?’ he asked. ‘A few names, that sort of thing?’ I think he hoped that I had learnt just a few words by rote, and that in some way this might affirm his prejudice that females could not scribe ‘seriously’.

“‘I scribe Whernish and I scribe Mole,’ I said. ‘I was Librarian at Crowden, as my mother was before me. I —’

“‘Enough, mole! It is against the Stone for females to scribe!’

“‘It is no such thing,’ I said, ‘any more than it is against the Stone for mothers who can scribe to carry your pups!’

“‘What did you say?’ he thundered, almost shaking with rage. It was the first time I had ever seen him angry and it did not suit him, he was not that kind of mole. The respect he normally warranted came from the power of his personality, not his voice.

“‘I said,’ I shouted back at him, for I was angry too, ‘that you have one standard for yourself and another for females, and I know of no Stone law that supports that unequal notion!’

“‘You dare tell
me
how the Stone’s commandments are to be interpreted?’ he said a shade more quietly.

“‘Moles are equal before the Stone, and it is reasonable therefore to assume they are equal before each other!’

“I was getting more spirited and confident by the moment, and I swear I heard something of my mother Shire’s voice in my own! I have said already that I felt a land of love for my Brother Confessor, though of a different kind than the passion I felt for Rooster. Now, as I watched him frowning and muttering to himself, and then pacing about the cell and glaring at my scribing and then at me, I knew why it might be I loved him, and it was not just because he had made me with pup or woken new feelings in me. No, it was because I saw in those moments of anger and argument that he had heard and understood what I had said. He had
listened,
and listening is a rare gift from one mole to another, and to be greatly valued. It takes effort to listen, and a kind of love; and even more for a mole to keep his mind open to a new idea, and accept the need for change within himself. It takes humility to listen well and such listening is a gift because it imparts to the recipients the feeling that their ideas are heard, and that therefore they are real moles, worthy of attention. It is not only pups who gain confidence when they know they are truly heard, it is all of us!

“So now I sensed my Brother Confessor heard me, and was accepting something of what I said, and for that I felt a renewed surge of love for him. I went to him and he let me touch him with affection – indeed, I saw his eyes half close, and heard him let out a sigh, as if he wished to yield up to the same impulse of acceptance and harmony as I did.

“‘Mole,’ I whispered familiarly, ‘we are as one before the Stone; can you not feel it to be so?’

“‘As one?’ he whispered in response. ‘Would that it were so easy, Sister!’

“‘It
is
,’ I said passionately, my paws gripping his as I tried to turn him that he might look into my eyes. I felt I was in some strange way fighting for the lives of my – of
our –
unborn young. If only I could get him to understand the way I felt.

“I wish I could say now that I saw clearly then how dangerous and destructive the Newborn way was, and would become, but I did not. I was young, confused, carrying pups, and driven by instinct, not reason. It is to my Brother Confessor and not myself that I owe what happened next...”

“Except that without your willingness to resist...” said Weeth, interrupting her, yet rather sorry that his excited involvement in her tale had made him do so.

“You are right, Weeth. But that is how moles who care for each other carry each other along.”

“But he... he...!” expostulated Whillan.

“Raped me?” said Privet matter-of-factly. “Perhaps he did use his position and implicit knowledge of the Stone to seduce me. But I cared not then, and I do not now. I regret not the seduction, but its outcome.”

“So what happened?” said Maple heavily, glowering at the other two as if to warn them against interrupting again.

“My Brother Confessor turned to me, gently took my paw from his as if such affection was improper, and he said, ‘Sister, supposing two moles, a male and a female, were to meet in some anonymous place, not knowing each other’s name, and in the certain knowledge that they would never meet again, then what might they talk about?’ He smiled at me then, such a gentle smile.

“‘They would speak what was in their hearts,’ I replied, ‘and perhaps they might answer each other’s questions.’ I think perhaps my voice faltered when I said this because young though I was, what he was suggesting was plain enough. For the first time, and probably the last, he was opening his heart to me, one mole talking to another with all fears and prejudices cast aside. I sensed that it was most dangerous for him to do so, and therefore courageous – and not only in the sense that his superiors, like the awesome Thripp or malevolent Quail, might find out. It was
personally
courageous – he was willing to risk something of himself.

“I can’t remember quite what I said, except that I felt nervous, and pleased that a mole was willing to do this for me. With Hamble I had talked without thinking, the intimate talk of instinctive friends; with Rooster I had touched some deep love and destiny which had proved far beyond our power to understand or control. But with this mole I was faced for the first time in my life with a new equality of mind, a chance to explore a place I had never been, and to which I might never go again.

“‘Well then,’ he said, evidently as nervous as I, ‘we are two moles, one falsely called Sister Crowden and the other somewhat pompously entitled Brother Confessor. In reality we are anymoles, and I swear. Sister; that what we speak of now shall be a secret to my heart for ever.’

“We talked then of whatmoles we were, except that we did not give our names. But of our different faiths we talked, of our backgrounds, of our hopes. Of Rooster I told him, and of the Eldrene Wort; and he told me of his strict upbringing at Blagrove Slide without affection or love of any kind. I understood that I was the first female he had ever been close to – none other had he ever known. Worse! I was an experiment, for he felt that as other brothers had females, so should he. That pups should be the result seemed to have taken him by surprise. In the hierarchical structure of Blagrove Slide he had risen from the lowest ranks to his present seniority, and his mother had made him disciplined, and led him to moles who taught him to scribe, from whom he had learned the Whernish he had spoken to me.

“‘Was this what made you choose me as your Confessed Sister?’ I asked him.

“He shook his head and explained that the Stone had guided him to me, and he took my speaking Whernish as a sign that he had understood its wishes right. Of that he said no more.

“We talked about our doubts and fears about faith, neither commenting much upon what the other said, but, rather, just letting the other talk. I remember he told me, ‘I was reared strictly before the Stone, my mother being of low rank in Blagrove, having come to it after a history of vagrancy in her family which dated back many decades to the time of the war of Word and Stone. The only detail she ever told me of that past was that originally her kin came from a place called Mallerstang in the north, of which she had heard good things, and at the mention of which her eyes would soften. Enough of
that
! she would say, those days have gone.
*
Now we must strive to do right by the Stone, and to show up by our example the errors of others in worship, and establish for ourselves a worthy position in Blagrove Slide, which has admitted us wanderers into its care, and whose concern we must repay.

*
See
Duncton Found
.

“‘Aye, my mother was determined we should do right, and of her offspring I was the one determined to do most right! One day, before the Blagrove Stone, after prayers and confessions for which my siblings and peers used to mock me, I saw the right way forward! I knew the Newborn way to be the only one, and with my mother’s encouragement I followed it earnestly, taking my training from the best and most sincere moles I could find. If discipline was to be imposed, I imposed it most harshly on myself! If a mole needed chastising, I felt his sin as my own! If some offence had been committed and no culprit found, I was the one who offered myself for correction! How mistaken those notions were, and how unpopular I became.’

“‘I would have thought that a mole like Brother Thripp would approve of such sincerity!’

“My Brother Confessor laughed and said that
he
did,
he
certainly did, but they were early days of the Newborns and better ways had to be found if more moles were to follow the Newborn creed.

“He told me: ‘Spring came, my first, and I fell in love with a mole who felt as sincerely as I did about matters of faith. But my mother warned me against her, saying she was evil, and that my desire for her was a sinful temptation to distract me from the Newborn way.
That
was the destiny I must follow. My mother made me promise as she died that I would never know a female until I had seen the truth of the Stone and known its living Silence. Many were the females I wanted, but always I heard my mother’s cold voice warning me against temptation, and reminding me of my promise. How often I wept and felt guilt for my sinful thoughts.’

“‘And yet you dared take me.’

“‘How nervous I was, how afraid. But the Stone led me to you, or you to me.’

“‘And your mother, and your promise...?’

“‘Her voice faded before what you gave me, and that promise, I saw, was unfairly drawn from me. I feel no guilt in our mating – a mole must be able to throw off the weight of the past to be Newborn.’

“‘You speak as if your words are those of Thripp himself!’

“He smiled at me and said indeed they were, the Elder Senior Brother surely spoke the truth and there was no harm in quoting him.

“So did we talk, about those things and much that was more personal which I shall never reveal, even if I could remember it all. I recall better the sense I had that this exchange with him would surely never be repeated, and it was all the more precious for that. For much of the time I forgot the pups I was carrying –
his
pups, ours – but towards the end I remembered them or, in their way, they reminded me of themselves.

“‘You look afraid,’ he said to me then, and when I hesitated he added, ‘remember that tonight, just tonight, we can say the things deepest in our hearts. Fear not. Sister Crowden, none shall ever know what you say tonight.’

“‘And if Thripp commands you, or Brother Quail? If you are brought to confession, as I presume even Brother Confessors must be!’

“He frowned and said quietly, ‘Only the Stone shall know the truth. Only the Stone does know the truth.’ How bleak his look, how heavy his doubts! I thought to myself that if ever a female was to have pups, this was the mole to have them by! Somehow he seemed to show all his heart, and it was like an open wound that would not heal. Again and again I said to myself, ‘I love this mole, yet I love Rooster more. The one has given me pups, but the other has given me something of his heart for ever. Oh, to love this mole...!’

“‘Speak your fears,’ he said.