Duncton Stone (17 page)

Nor were the moles allowed out to the surface for grooming and ablution. Instead they were taken separately and in silence out of their cells, along a tunnel downslope into a cold damp chamber at the far end of which an underground river swiftly ran. Here they had to drink and wash, and then go to the furthest and darkest part of the stream, where it disappeared into rock, to pass water and faeces into the flow. It was clean, effective, and chilling, and left a mole feeling as icy and bereft mentally and spiritually as physically. Each prisoner who first came was warned against trying to escape or drown themselves by diving into the stream, though what might happen if they did nomole said. The threat was enough.

We know now that some hundred and twenty moles could be held in these extraordinary and efficient cells at Wildenhope, though few were ever there very long. Most passed through a system of holding, of sapping strength, or re-education, and of release or summary execution in the manner which Wildenhope was to make its own, and to which, regretfully, this account must shortly come.

The existence of a few long-term prisoners was rumoured by moles who dared speak of the place in any detail – former guards were expressly forbidden ever to mention it, but inevitably some did – and there were tales of moles forgotten except by guards, and now made pale and weak and withered by time. Perhaps some remembered the horrors of the Sumps of Cannock Chase, where many were so abandoned, and imagined the same of Wildenhope. There were terrors enough to make us hope that so cruel a place of loss and abandonment did not exist in the sterile labyrinths of the Newborns’ Wildenhope. Certainly there was a continual supply of young males and females, ready, available and unwilling to satisfy the varied appetites of senior and privileged Newborns, such as Quail’s son, Squelch.

This was the place into which Privet and the others entered, and where without word or promise of release they were summarily incarcerated. There, alone and seemingly abandoned, each had to wait, and struggle with the nightmare in which they found themselves as best they might.

They naturally did not see, and could not possibly have known, that the area of cells was but one part of the excavations, albeit one of the cruellest. Elsewhere, in higher tunnels delved in wormful soil at the western side of the bluff, were the administrative chambers of Wildenhope. Here the guards relaxed, and the mole who was responsible for the day-by-day running of the place gave his orders and meted out his discipline. This mole, the Governor, was always a Senior Brother, who for the period of tenure of his office was referred to by title rather than by name.
*

*
Snyde’s records obligingly give the names of all the Newborn governors of Wildenhope, drawn from what sources nomole knows. The Governor during Privet’s incarceration was Brother Tern, elder brother of Inquisitor Skua. The most infamous governor of all was, of course. Quail himself...

But with Quail’s ascendancy the Governorship lost some of its power for a time, simply because of Quail’s decision, following the Convocation, to move his own administration and that of the Inquisitors to Wildenhope, which was rather better placed than Caer Caradoc for supervising the kind of Crusades that he had in mind for the coming spring and summer.

By chance this move had taken place but a short time before the capture of Privet, Rooster, Whillan and Madoc, so that there was no delay between their arrival and Quail’s knowledge of it, since he was already at Wildenhope. Present too, and by now almost a prisoner himself, was Thripp, along with Brother Rolt, the one remaining aide allowed him, who had been at his flank in Caer Caradoc and had given Privet and the others such assistance, along with Boden and old Arum.

Many historians believe that it had been Quail’s wish, with the help and collusion of Skua, to eliminate Thripp at Caradoc, or perhaps to “disappear” him at Wildenhope – where the coincidence of the Governor being Tern, an ally of Quail, seems a peculiarly happy one for the Quail contingent. But Quail appears to have abandoned his murderous intent, at least for the time being, probably because the continuing popularity of Thripp amongst the brothers would have made it dangerous, perhaps fatal, for Quail to move against him too soon.

Then, too, though Thripp’s present frailty made him a virtual prisoner of Quail, yet we know it to be true – as we have already indirectly seen – that he was by no means a spent political force. Plots and counterplots were the order of those days and Thripp, though physically weak, appears to have been much engaged in them. The one mole now had real power, the other a true following, and the two represented a schism that put the Newborn heart asunder for those few, those very few, who knew of it.

At the time of Privet’s coming to Wildenhope the struggle had come to turn on the loyalty, or otherwise, of Chervil, Thripp’s son. The question was, of course, loyalty to whom: to his father and an old idealistic dream, or to Quail, and a new, tempting reality? At the Convocation, as we have seen, Quail was already in the business of testing Chervil, for whom he had a natural dislike and distrust, given his paternity. Yet in the highest councils of the Newborns, now almost wholly supporters of Quail, two things about Chervil could not be denied: one was that he had shown no liking or inclination to sympathize with Thripp and his softer ways (as they were perceived); and secondly, that among the younger generation he was unquestionably the ablest and most charismatic mole, commanding the respect and affection of his peer group in a way that went beyond the fact that he was Thripp’s son – though that helped.

Quail, who in Chervil’s younger days had been appointed his mentor, had long recognized this. In truth, he had held Chervil in high affection and esteem, seeing in him all the potential for strong leadership and powerful command that was lacking in his son Squelch. When Thripp had commanded that Chervil be sent to the obscurity of Duncton Wood, beyond Quail’s influence, the bald-headed Inquisitor had been hurt and furious, and had conceived a hatred for the Elder Senior Brother out of proportion to the act.

Chervil’s return to Caradoc had therefore been monitored carefully by all the Senior Brothers, partly for the malicious pleasure that came from knowing that if Chervil favoured one of the rivals he would cause dismay to the other, and also because in terms of the resolution of the power struggle, if he lived up to his potential as a youngster, much might depend on him.

But Quail need not have feared – Chervil’s reputation for toughness preceded him. Quail’s spies sent back reports of the mole throughout the moleyears he was away and his moral rectitude and ruthlessness in pursuit of the Caradocian way could not be doubted. Quail had been especially pleased that on his coming to Caradoc it was to him and not Thripp that Chervil first paid his respects. True enough, he went to Thripp soon after, as any dutiful son might to a father who was ailing, but Quail’s spies left him in no doubt that the meeting went badly. Old Thripp had tried to win his son’s support and foment disunity, but Chervil had stayed firm. By this Quail was well pleased.

He was less happy however that Chervil kept his own counsel and was disinclined to come out against his father – which would have greatly eased Quail’s elimination of him. Instead he stayed, as Quail saw it, insolently independent, as if he had his own eye on ultimate leadership.

“Which I have no doubt he has,” said Skua matter-of-factly, “but what’s the harm in that? Eh, Brother Quail?”

“It’s insubordinate, Brother Skua,” replied Quail, eyes narrowing evilly.

“It’s natural,” observed Skua. “He will be a useful ally, and finally a useful subordinate.”

“He would do better to show respect,” growled Quail, not altogether unpleasantly.

“He might – but then perhaps he is only waiting for his father’s demise. Many of the younger brothers would look askance if he publicly supported you against his father so soon. Watch and wait and be patient, and the young pretender will be yours to command.”

“And what do you say. Squelch?”

It was a peculiarity of Quail’s conduct of affairs that he liked to have his loathsome son Squelch nearby, though moles no longer thought it peculiar, they were so familiar with it. Perhaps since Quail indulged nomole-else it did not matter that he indulged such a one as his rotund and pathetic son who emitted the sense of evil inadequacy as stinkhorn fungi drip foul-smelling poison that only the lowest and filthiest of creatures are attracted to. It was Quail’s habit to turn to Squelch with a question or two at moments of doubt, usually rhetorically, though Squelch was capable of, and often gave, a perspicacious reply.

“Me? I say nothing today,” said Squelch on this occasion, “because I choose to sing.”

His father laughed and said, “You sing then, and sing well, for I must decide about Chervil.”

“Chervil’s my friend,” said Squelch, “and he you never ever harm, not ever. Never, never, never...”

The last word became almost a hysterical high-pitched scream before, disconcerting only to those who had never seen such a performance before, Squelch modulated his tones into the perfect pitch of his falsetto singing voice, and he sang a song of how green spring leaves held the glory of summer sun for too short a time and then withered, and were scattered by the autumn winds.

Quail beamed with pride. Whatever else his strange son might be, however disappointing, he had a genius for song, and when he sang, inappropriate though the moment so often was, he touched the hearts of those who heard.

Yet he had spoken a truth of which both Quail and Skua were well aware: whatever else Chervil was or might be, he
was
Squelch’s friend, perhaps the only friend he ever had. They had been raised as youngsters together and shared in those secret talks and games that good friends know while they are innocent and incorrupt. How often had young Chervil defended his awkward friend; and how often had young Squelch turned the sound of skylarks and the hum of bees into the music of his lovely voice, and lulled the stronger and sterner of the two towards a gentler world that Thripp’s harsh testing ways might otherwise have stolen for ever from Chervil’s black and glittering eyes.

It had been Chervil who had pleaded Squelch’s case to both Thripp and Quail, saying that he could never hope to be a disciplined brother as the rest of them would be, but that he had a gift for song and melody that was, surely, of the Stone. This was a little before puberty, and just before the harsher training of the youngsters was to begin.

“Training will kill him!” Chervil had said to his father and his tutor. “He’s not made for it... there’s something better for him than that.”

It had been the last time Chervil had been able to fight for his puphood friend. Soon after he had begun his own rigorous training, while Squelch had been allowed – uniquely in the Caradocian order – to roam, to dream, to indulge, to sing.

“Is it what you truly want’? Eh, mole? Is it?”

So had Thripp asked him one day, when Quail was there. And Squelch, already approaching adolescence, had darted an intelligent glance from one to another, and then smiled and said, “Elder Senior Brother, may I speak to you alone?”

It was a surprising request, for Squelch had never before stanced against his father, but Thripp, not entirely willing, granted it. The two talked all morning, though what about none ever knew but Brother Rolt, Thripp’s attendant. Afterwards Squelch was granted leave of absence from training as and when he wished, and was given the task of creating songs for Newborn rituals, such as those brilliantly performed at the Convocation. In all other matters he was to be free to do as he wished, answerable only to Quail.

Soon after this Chervil began his training, and later still he was sent off to Duncton by Thripp. Now he had returned, and one of the minor curiosities of Caradoc was to see how he treated his former friend – the one a mature and impressive leader in the making, the other a corrupted obesity who had grown into a monster who despoiled male and female youth, yet made songs of a beauty moledom had never heard before.

The answer had been that Chervil had far outgrown his former friend, and did not talk to him or show him respect. This was an aggravation to Quail, who regarded it as part of Chervil’s disrespect to him. Yet still Squelch wanted Chervil’s esteem and love, and reacted to any threat, real or imagined, to his old friend and protector, violently and with dismay.

So... “I will not hurt him, as you put it,” Quail had to say. “Why should I? He’s a mole who will lead the Caradocian order one day!”

“We hope,” insinuated Skua.

“We do,” said Quail. “If he behaves himself, and demonstrates his loyalty to me rather more than he has so far done.”

Which he certainly soon would, and in a most cruel and terrible way.

And then, most auspiciously, the mole Rooster was caught once more.

“And others too, I hear,” purred Quail, smiling on Fagg.

“Three others. Elder Senior Brother. Two youngsters of no consequence named Whillan and Madoc, and a third, the female scribemole and librarian from Dunction, Privet.”

“Ah, yes...” whispered Quail, “I think my good friend Snyde knows
that
mole.”

“I do, Master,” said Snyde, “and warn you against her. Whillan I would kill without delay. A troublemaker. Ignorant. As for Madoc, never heard of her.”

“I have made enquiries, but...”

Squelch giggled. “I know
her
,” he said. “She’s one of ours, of Bowdler, lovely, curved and Welsh. I’ll have her if I may, father, for my very own.”

“You may,” said Quail with teasing ambiguity, and how they all smiled, and how their eyes and teeth shone in the evil light of their council chamber.

Chapter Nine

The arrival of Privet and the others at Wildenhope did not cause quite the stir among the Newborns that Duncton historians have subsequently liked to imagine, and not as much as Brother Adviser Fagg, wishing to advance his career, had hoped. Privet herself was then almost unknown to Quail and his Inquisitors and in truth she was more curiosity than threat, for how could a female threaten the mighty brothers – even if her ability to scribe, and her reputation as a scholar, aroused interest?