Duncton Rising (59 page)

“Let’s kill the buggers and have done with it,” said the biggest and most brutal of the three, who was only prevented from coming forward and doing the deed by the restraining paws of the other two, who seemed less certain of themselves.

“Best to wait. Best to let Brother Fetter decide.”

“Oh aye? And let half Duncton reach here first and spirit these two blasphemers away?”

“That one’s not going anywhere!” said the third, pointing a talon at Stour. “He’s just a pile of skin and bones. He’d die the moment you touched him.”

“Let’s do the bastard then!” said the murderous one. “Let’s just bloody do it!”

Again, the two more nervous guardmoles had to restrain their fulminating friend, but this time they did it with less vigour, and it was plain to Pumpkin that they would not curb him much longer. Meanwhile, Stour was lapsing into long silences, and his breathing was becoming laboured, and from time to time he reached out a paw to Pumpkin for comfort and reassurance.

“It’s all right, Master, our friends will soon come,” he whispered, unwilling to take his eyes off the guards and stance down to Stour lest at his doing so they finally lost all restraint.

As the situation grew increasingly tense dawn began to flood the Clearing with light, the shadows faded, and the grey roots of the beech trees and the russet carpet of fallen leaves began to gain colour. There was no sun, but even without it the Clearing seemed filled with light, which made the dark fur of the Newborns, and their anger, all the more striking in contrast to the light, and the peace around them.

“Right! I’m waiting no longer!” roared out the belligerent guardmole suddenly, pushing his colleagues aside and advancing on Pumpkin.

“I’ll have you for a start, you little hypocrite!” he said, buffeting Pumpkin so hard in the face that the aide fell back, his snout bloody. “You’re that mole helps Keeper Sturne in the Library. Just you wait until he hears what you get up to when his back is turned!”

Brave Pumpkin came forward once more, despite the shock and pain he felt, protesting on Stour’s behalf, pointing out that the Master Librarian was ill, and that the Stone Clearing was a place of sanctuary and always had been.

“Nomole should be hurt here!” said Pumpkin.

“Well, it’s not a sanctuary to me!” said the guardmole, shoving Pumpkin back violently against the Stone and bending down to grab at Stour. But whatever he was about to do, he never did, for one of the other guardmoles gave a warning shout; he turned, and saw, growing ever larger by the moment, a gathering crowd of moles.

Most were old, most were breathing heavily from running, but all looked fierce and formidable. Individually there might not be much to them – no more indeed than to a mole like Pumpkin – but together, and increasing in numbers, there was something frightening about them. Worse, from the point of view of the three Newborns, the advancing dawn threw a light upon their faces that seemed to gather in their eyes, so that they looked more formidable still.

“You can try to hurt that mole if you like, mate, but I’m getting out of here,” said one of the Newborns, trying to run to one side. But the High Wood was filling with moles, from the Eastside and the Westside, and up from Barrow Vale, and they were advancing with menacing purpose.

“The Master Librarian’s over there...”

“He’s with Library Aide Pumpkin, near the Stone...”

And the guardmoles found themselves overwhelmed by moles whose interest was only to watch over a mole who had been their Master Librarian for so many decades, and to whose flank they had now been summoned for support and help.

“He’s dying...” one whispered.

“Look how thin he is!” said another; and the guardmoles found themselves part of that crowd, taken over by it, helpless within it, and witness alongflank it to Stour’s last moments.

Pumpkin turned to Stour and held him as best he could, listening to the difficult breathing, helping him say his final words of prayers he had spoken for so many years.

“Guide him into thy Silence, Stone, for he has served thee with all his heart, with his mind, with all his body,” said Pumpkin at the end, a prayer echoed by many in the great hushed crowd that gathered now about the Stone.

“Guide him, Stone...” moles whispered.

“Show him thy Light...”

“Give him thy peace...”

Then Pumpkin’s head bowed closer to Stour’s, and his paw reached out to touch his beloved Master. Then, quietly, breathing was no more, his body still, and his spirit gone into the Silence of the Stone.

How long did Pumpkin weep at his Master’s flank? Nomole can say. But others reached their paws to him at last, and utterly ignoring the Newborns who had gathered and yet had dared not interfere with the mourning of so many moles, disobedient though they were, they led him away to safety.

The guardmoles watched in furious silence; Brother Inquisitors Fetter and Law let their cold eyes glance from face to face so that they might remember which moles to punish, beginning no doubt with Library Aide Pumpkin. Then, as suddenly as it had filled, the Clearing emptied, leaving only the body, now needed no more, of moledom’s greatest Librarian.

“Give them two days, maybe three,” hissed Fetter, “and then we’ll eliminate the perpetrators of this... this obscene blasphemy. His colleague Brother Inquisitor Barre advanced across the Clearing, reached out an insolent paw to Stour, and contemptuously turned his body over.

“So this... this thing... was Stour? He tricked us! And others must have known. Moles will pay for the success of your “retreat”!” said Barre. He raised a paw to strike Stour’s dead face and then dropped it. “I can’t be bothered,” he said for the benefit of the guardmoles watching. The truth was that even in death Stour’s features were noble and intelligent; and anyway, his eyes, which stared, seemed alive, so full were they of the strange Light of that awesome place.

“Aye,” whispered Barre to Fetter, “moles will die for this!”

Behind them, unseen. Acting Master Librarian Sturne slipped away, so grief-stricken that he knew that he could not have maintained his pretence of being Newborn in those moments of loss. Instead he wandered for a time through the High Wood, as many others did, saying nothing, grieving, knowing that the seasons had indeed turned, and brought change. With Stour’s passing, Duncton would never be the same. And now, from what Fetter had said, many Duncton moles were in greater danger than ever before.

Morning advanced and Sturne remembered Pumpkin. He hurried through the High Wood, making sure that nomole saw him, and made his way to Pumpkin’s tunnels. He found him there as he thought he would, staring into nothing, his eyes red, and his face-fur wet with tears. But there were no tears in Sturne’s forbidding eyes, no tears upon his tired, etched face.

“But there is a grief in my heart, Pumpkin, such as I never thought I could feel. There is grief to lose so great a Master...”

“... and so great a friend,” faltered Pumpkin.

“I wish,” said Sturne very quietly, “that I could weep as you do.”

“They’re not just tears of grief,” said Pumpkin sombrely, “but tears of joy as well. Those mixed kind are the best of all, and one day you’ll find it in your heart to weep some, you see if you don’t.”

“Joy at such a moment?” wondered Sturne.

“Yes,” said Pumpkin, “for he fulfilled his task. Joy, too, that we knew him; joy that he cared for so many and for us; joy that we shared in his task and that so great a mole as he trusted you and me. These are the comforts I find as I mourn the loss of such a mole in the days and years ahead.”

Sturne looked at Pumpkin; he was secretly so very proud to call him a friend, and there was admiration and a land of love in his eyes – though he did not let Pumpkin see it.

“He began what we must finish,” said Pumpkin. “It is our task now. The Book of Silence is coming... he said that not long before he died.”

“Yes...” said Sturne, who was thinking he had said rather more than that, more perhaps than Pumpkin quite realized.

Suddenly, and impulsively. Pumpkin turned to Sturne and throwing his paws round him sobbed on his shoulder, so that, undemonstrative though Sturne was, the Acting Master Librarian could do nothing but support his friend while he wept. Which he did for quite a long time until his sobs quietened and then unexpectedly turned into something like a chuckle.

“You will one day,” said Pumpkin breaking free, and not in the slightest bit embarrassed by his outburst of emotion.

“What?” said Sturne, scowling.

“Weep,” said Pumpkin. “Do you good!”

“The Master’s gone back to where he wanted to be,” whispered Sturne, and if he did not quite weep then his voice broke a little, as without thinking he reached out a paw to

Pumpkin for comfort. “Let’s pray for him together a while longer in silence.”

“Yes,” nodded Pumpkin, who had already said his goodbyes but understood that Sturne was slower off the mark where matters of the emotions were concerned; “and then I’m sure the Master won’t mind if we eat a worm or two in his memory!”

Pumpkin was indeed starving and after such a night of fear and effort, and such a dawn of emotion and grief, he could not but believe that sorrow and fond memory, and hunger and good food, might be worthy – and welcome – companions.

But the morning’s trials were not yet over. Their silence was broken by shouts and crashings through the Wood above.

“That aide lives hereabout,” a rough voice called.

“Over
here,
I’ll warrant,” said another, right above their heads.

“Sturne,” said Pumpkin with sudden realization of the danger they were in, “you must say you’ve come to arrest me! It’s the only way they’ll not suspect you now!”

“But... but...” said Sturne, appalled, yet even as he uttered his whispered protestations the noise of Newborns above grew louder and he knew that Pumpkin was right.

“No, I’ll not come, I’ve done nothing wrong!” Pumpkin began to shout hysterically. “I won’t. A mole’s free to do what he likes before the Stone! I won’t!”

And Sturne, realizing what he must do, grabbed poor Pumpkin roughly, and pulled him bodily out of the tunnel and delivered him to the very paws of Fetter and Barre.

“And not a moment too soon!” said Sturne angrily. “He would have escaped if I had not come here immediately I heard.”

“Your promptness does you credit, Brother!” said Fetter, his cold eyes on Pumpkin. “The others we’ll arraign in two or three days – they’ll not get far, even if they try. Meanwhile, we have questions to ask this mole, not least to do with how it comes about that Stour survived so long. Somemole or moles must have helped him.”

“Aye,” said Sturne angrily, “and I think I know who did!”

“Well, well,” said Fetter, “we’ll find out soon enough once Brother Barre begins to ask Aide Pumpkin a few questions, down in the privacy of the Marsh End.”

Barre smiled cruelly. Sturne stared, his mind racing to think of a way of helping Pumpkin.

Pumpkin stared at them all as boldly as he could. His Master had just died, and he had never in his life felt so afraid, and so alone. Willing paws grabbed him, and hustled him off downslope.

“It seems your trust in that mole was misplaced. Brother Sturne,” said Fetter. “Or did you suspect him?”

“Never,” said Sturne with an appearance of absolute conviction, “did I ever suspect that mole of treachery!”

“Well, well,” said Fetter, “we all make mistakes. It may help you come to terms with things if you accompany me now to witness the way we Newborns eliminate “mistakes” like that mole Pumpkin.”

“With pleasure,” said Sturne evenly, casting his eyes up through the leafless trees as if to find comfort, or inspiration; for now they were going to need one, or the other.

PART IV

Caer Caradoc

Chapter Twenty-Seven

There was, finally, nothing simple or easy about Chater’s slow decline into a gasping, wretched death, during the day that preceded that Longest Night. Nothing romantic, and certainly nothing that showed that the nature of a mole’s death reflects the nature of his life. For that good, sturdy, much-loved mole, who had served Duncton so well so long, and had received his death-blow in the course of duty to others, surely deserved to be loved and comforted at the end by Fieldfare, the one mole whose name he constantly called, and who could not be there.

In his last hours, from midday to later afternoon when the air began to chill, and the sky to darken. Privet and Hamble tended him as best they could, while Madoc, who had seen violent death, but not the slow dying of a friend in the paws of another, saw to their needs of food, and watched out for Newborns.

What made his weakening so difficult to accept or comprehend was that his wounds seemed so slight – barely more than the punctures in a mole’s skin when he has had a brush with a dry bramble stem. But he had bled internally, and slowly, and strong though he was, and much though he had to live for, the life ebbed painfully out of him; his breathing became thick and troubled, and he gasped for air and held on to the paws of Privet and Hamble as if to assure himself he was not alone as he died.