Duncton Rising (45 page)

“Short words, long words, they all sound the same to me when they turn into screams,” said Squelch, grinning cryptically. Beads of oily sweat trickled in his face-fur. The evil that had come into the chamber was palpable. “Don’t trust her, she’s clever.”

“She is a mere female,” said Quail.

“She is more than that,” sighed Squelch, a tremor passing through his unhealthy flesh.

But still Privet felt calm, staring at Quail in some puzzlement, for his eyes were not only cold – they held signs of curiosity too.

“Why?” thought Privet astonished. “Why should he be curious about me? And how does he know I was at Blagrove Slide?” For a moment the horrific thought crossed her mind that others had told him; which could only mean her friends, and that they had been tortured.

“You are thinking hard, I see,” said Quail, his eyes almost transfixing her with their power and insight. “You are wondering how I knew you were at Blagrove Slide.”

“I am,” she acknowledged.

“
This
mole told me,” said Quail softly, taking delight in being able to surprise her.

He stanced to one side and nodded to Squelch, who in turn signalled to one of the moles outside, who, somewhat tentatively it seemed, entered the chamber. He was little older than Privet herself, and though clearly Newborn, was mild in appearance and looked harassed, like a mole who has too many cares. His eyes were kinder than Quail’s, indeed along with regret their look carried sympathy, and a certain respect as well.

“But...” whispered Privet in astonishment, finding herself staring into the eyes of a mole she had never thought to see again.

Quail looked from one to another and said, “Of course, as a Confessed Sister in Blagrove Slide you would never have known his name. Nor, come to that, should Sister Hope know it now, but she is of little consequence. Yes, the good Brother here has told me something about you. Privet of Duncton Wood, or rather of Crowden, as you once were.”

But throughout this sardonic and teasing statement Privet had eyes only for the mole who had entered the chamber, and who, she felt sure even as she gazed into his eyes, wished to protect her now, just as he had tried to protect her from the wrath of the Senior Brother whose young aide he had been so many moleyears ago.

“Meet Brother Rolt!” said Quail.

“Brother Rolt!” she said, and against all Newborn tradition, all convention, she went to him and embraced him, at which he backed off hastily, blinking in his embarrassment, his snout turning quite pink.

“I wish that you had not come back,” he said. “You have caused us much difficulty, much dismay.”

“Come, we shall talk in another place than this,” said Quail authoritatively, “but not right now. Today I have other things to do, and preparations to make. I just wanted to see this mole who knows Rooster so well. I will talk to her a little later in my own tunnels.”

“May Sister Hope accompany me?” asked Privet, as meekly as she could manage.

“Is she safe. Squelch?” asked Quail, already half out of the portal.

“Sister Hope is most safe,” said Squelch, “aren’t you, my dear?”

“If I can help bring this unbeliever to exemplary justice,” intoned Madoc in a voice very different from the one she had been using to Privet earlier, “I shall be most glad.”

“Then come along as well, mole!”

“Be ready, be most ready,” whispered Privet to Madoc as she followed Quail out of the cell.

But for what? And when? And where?

But before and behind them the Newborns went and there was no further time to ask questions, or to answer them. Only to be aware that evil stalked their way, and if they were to avoid it they must be ready not to talk but to act.

“All is never lost to a Duncton mole,” whispered Madoc to herself again and again as she followed Privet, and for the first time in her life she understood that being of Duncton was not something of place, but of spirit, and though her flanks shook with nerves and her mouth was dry, she was as determined as a mole could be to try to find something of that legendary and courageous spirit in the hours of trial ahead.

“Oh, I
will
be ready,” she wanted to cry out, as she whispered her thanks to the Stone that her long loneliness was over, and that a mole called Privet, like no other she had ever met or dreamed of meeting, had come so strangely into her life here and now as if to seek her help.

While behind them both, his face furrowed with worried thought, came Brother Rolt. As he looked past Sister Hope to the thin flanks of Privet, there was, in his eyes as well, the distant glimmer of the light of rediscovered hope.

Chapter Twenty-One

The promise of coming opportunity is a song a mole can sing only so long before others tire of it, as Weeth discovered after a day of captivity.

“... and so I say, opportunity always presents itself when you least expect it; it
will
come, and, moles, we must be ready for it!” he confidently declared a final time to the intimidating bunch of moles he found himself in the company of, down in the securest and most escape-proof of the cells that the Brother Inquisitors had commanded be delved near Caer Caradoc in their thorough preparations for the Convocation.

This declaration of his had come after he had made an earnest but unsuccessful attempt to make the mole Rooster and the other hulking and battle-hardened moles around him talk. Alter his initial (and delighted) astonishment at discovering that he had been confined with no less a mole than Rooster himself – the famous Rooster, the Rooster of the different-sized paws, the Rooster who (he had deduced) had once had a more than passing acquaintance with that interesting and delightful female of Duncton, Librarian Privet – he was disappointed to find that to a mole they fell into a deep and malevolent silence, some staring at him, but most, like Rooster, turning their backs on him.

“Is it that I smell?” he had asked. “Is it the way I have groomed my fur – you prefer something rougher perhaps, something more in keeping with yourselves? No, it is not that. Could it be...”

Ah! A thought occurred to him, a thought that posed a problem.

“Could it be they think I am a Newborn spy?” he mused. “It could be! It is!”

Weeth skirted cautiously around Rooster until he was able to peer into his frowning face.

“I’m not a spy, if that’s what you think. I am...” But he paused, thinking some more. Rooster’s eyes had opened somewhat and were staring at him more intently than might be thought necessary, almost as if the great mole was silently trying to tell him something.

“Strange behaviour in this mole,” he thought, before whispering conspiratorially, “Would I be right in surmising that you think there is a spy in our midst who might be listening to all I say? Ah! Highly likely. I should have thought of it. That must mean that not all of these moles are of your party, as it were. Some were here when you arrived, or were brought here afterwards. You appear a somewhat uncommunicative mole, Rooster, but if you do not wish to speak at least nod your head to indicate that Weeth, that’s me, is on the right track.”

As he had whispered this, another mole, almost as formidable, had come over and joined them, and Rooster stanced a little aside for him.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Weeth continued, since neither of
them
spoke, “you need a lot of courage to stance here as I am doing and whisper to you two the way you look. Dear me, your looks do not encourage a mole to speak, but as you may have noticed I am not easily discouraged!” He grinned cheerfully. “I’m annoying to some moles,” he added.

Rooster spoke at last: “Yes,” he said.

“About me, or about there being spies in our midst?” rejoined Weeth immediately, hoping to see the fire of conversation burst forth from this tiny spark.

“Both,” said Rooster.

“She said you were monosyllabic, and you are,” said Weeth most cunningly. “Words come out of you like blood out of a stone. She said.”

“Who said?” asked Rooster, just as Weeth hoped he would.

“Privet,” said Weeth so quietly that only a mole who knew the name would have recognized it. So quiet indeed that Rooster and the other mole hunched forward as if they had not quite heard and certainly could not believe, and their eyes were even more intense than before.

“Did you say
Privet?”
whispered the other mole.

Weeth nodded, pleased with himself. He was, he felt, establishing his credentials. “Now, let me guess!” he said, frowning in an exaggerated way, and touching his talons to his brow. “Let me
think.
You must be Hamble! Yes? Am I right? Let me out of my misery.”

Hamble grinned. “That’s right, and you had better tell us what you know about Privet or you’ll not move far from here again.”

“Well!” said Weeth, sounding mock-shocked. “Intimidation, and from a mole who is said to fight for the old ways of the Stone! Not the thing at all, I would have thought. But stap my vitals, there’s things I want to talk to you about. Yet your eyes are stern, your faces suspicious, and words do not come readily, even allowing for the fact that you are taciturn moles. Why, if I met me in these circumstances I would be all over myself with questions, and looking for opportunities. But no, you hold back, and I think it is because you think I am a Newborn spy.”

“Yes,” growled Rooster.

“There’s an easy way to find out if a mole is Newborn: ask him to do something Newborns are constitutionally incapable of, namely, cursing their beloved Thripp. They find that really hard, though I dare say there are a few who have been trained by Quail himself to say such things.”

“Go on,” said Hamble.

“Well, for example, it ought to be patently obvious, even to untutored eyes such as your own – I use the word relative to myself only and not in general judgement of you, but you must understand I am well-trained in spotting Newborn spies since until recently I was one myself – that mole over there,” here Weeth pointed a talon at a harmless-looking mole stanced quietly in one corner, “is in fact Newborn, poor idiot. He has been put in here amongst you to pick up what tidbits he can, but I hope your reluctance to talk to me indicates that you have identified him, and the fact that there is at least one other like him in our midst. Namely, him.” Here, Weeth pointed out another mole, very different from the first, being large, affable, and at that moment in conversation with some of the moles who appeared to be of Rooster’s captured party.

“Ah, I see you don’t believe me. Unloved and unrespected Weeth is used to it, and it saddens him. But there we are. So... how to tell a Newborn spy? Go and ask him to repeat “Thripp is a blasphemous shit” or words to that effect. Try it.”

Rooster looked wearily at Hamble, and Hamble turned and went to the first mole, loomed over him, and asked him to repeat precisely what Weeth had said. After a few moments of discussion Hamble came back.

“He wouldn’t.”

“Try the other one, do,” said Weeth.

By now the gist of Weeth’s efforts was being understood and the second mole he had pointed out, having found his attempt to sidle up towards the narrow portal out of the cell blocked by the very moles he had been talking to, was confronted by the same proposal.

“Thripp,” he began falteringly, the use of the name without the title sticking in his throat, “Thr... is... he is... Thri...”

“Well mole, what is he?” asked Hamble.

“Long live the Elder Senior Brother Thripp,” cried out the mole suddenly and with considerable courage, raising his talons as best he could against the blasphemous moles he had sought to infiltrate.

Several pairs of hefty paws grabbed hold of him, some by the head but more at the rump, and propelled him without further ceremony towards the cell’s portal where two guards, hearing the commotion, suddenly loomed, talons raised.

“Moles,” cried out Hamble, “this is one of your kind and we don’t want him in here. Take him, before some of my less civilized friends lose patience.” The spy was thrown bodily through the portal. The others turned their attentions next to the smaller of the two who, and again with impressive courage, had cast off his look of abject inconsequentiality and raised his paws to the mighty foes about him.

“’Op it!” said one of Rooster’s moles benignly, and not without respect. The mole did.

In the silence that followed Weeth turned his gaze on the far recesses of the chamber and said, “Any more spies about? Speak now or for ever hold your peace!” He grinned into the shadows before muttering to the silent Rooster, “They normally come in threes, you see.”

For a moment more nomole moved, but then one detached himself from the group he was with and said, “You are all cursed, you are evil, you will be judged wanting before the Stone!” And, as boldly as he could, he too headed for the portal, and the safe welcome of the guards beyond.

“Leaves
you,”
said Rooster, moving at last as he loomed hugely over Weeth, whose grin faltered into a kind of brief falsetto laugh.

“Me? Yes, me
and
you,” he said.

“Are you Newborn?” said Rooster, reaching out the bigger of his paws, grasping Weeth by the neck and raising him slowly off the ground until his eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“You said “Privet”,” said Rooster fiercely. “Know “Hamble”. Know
me.
Whatmole are you if not spying like others?”

Weeth felt himself released, and tumbled towards the ground, his throat rasping and stars spinning somewhere overhead; he knew, or rather
felt,
what he must do and opportunity be damned. He had never felt more certain of anything in his life.

Though he landed clumsily the energy of thought and the desire for action were in him, and gave him strength to spring back to almost his normal confident self; hoarse though his voice was, and painful his eyes, he thrust his snout without demur up towards Rooster’s and eyed him angrily.

“Privet didn’t need proof,” he said.
“She
knew a good mole when she met one. Violence does not bring out the best in a mole, and it does not bring out the best in me...”