Duncton Stone (50 page)

Having heard their story Thorne did not hesitate – recognizing, it must be said, not only the need to eradicate a blot on Newborn’s reputation, but also a further opportunity to annex territory and demonstrate that Quail was unfit to lead the Crusade Council. He took a force of experienced moles and set off for Leamington at once, leaving Rolt behind at Ashbourne to discover the whereabouts of Chervil.

Nothing in Thorne’s experience prepared him for the chaos and horror of the foul and odorous chambers of Leamington. Not only had the elderly and female population of the system been crammed into them, with little food and no access to water, but prisoners from adjacent systems had been driven down into them, day after day, molemonth after molemonth. No wonder that it was not long before the guardmoles refused to go down into the main tunnels and chambers, staying instead at or near the surface, to prevent those poor moles who had gone in from coming out again.

The smell of the place was evident to Thorne and his force even some way out of Leamington – a heavy, sweet, sickly odour of death, so foul it made a mole retch. But Thorne went on, his progress unchallenged by the fat and diseased guards, and ventured down into the tunnels, and saw for himself the shame that was Leamington.

Mole had eaten mole to survive; the air was fetid and hot, and it was impossible to breathe without sucking in myriad of the tiny flies that flew and crawled in the darkness, hatched in the summer heat from the maggots that infested the dead. Yet when the bodies themselves became too rotten to eat, many moles, half mad with starvation and fear, had taken to eating the maggots instead. Others, eyes sunken, silent, lay trembling or deathly still, staring at nothing, dying. Yet more, maddened by it all, had turned violent, and killed the weak and sick where they lay, or maimed them out of some inner rage at what life had done to them.

While away from it all, on higher ground and upwind of the stench, Thorne’s guardmoles found Sickle, and the bullying, debauched subordinates he favoured, in wormful tunnels, near clean running water, enjoying the company of laughing and hysterical consorts who, it seemed, were the pick of the female prisoners.

Thorne did not waste much time on Sickle, the more because he seemed unable to understand what he was or what he had done, but only laughed, and railed at never having been promoted beyond the rank of Assistant Brother Commander.

“That old fool Dunmow told me to cleanse Leamington of blasphemy and that is what I am doing. Let the bastards and the bitches who call themselves followers die in their own excrement. Let them suffer in life as they will in death when the Stone takes them into eternal punishment. Let them —”

Thorne turned to his aides. “Arraign him and his colleagues and bring Dunmow from Ashbourne to stand trial as well; scribe down the proceedings fully; call witnesses; leave no possibility of doubt about what has occurred here. Do it swiftly and thoroughly.”

“And the punishment, sir?”

Thorne’s eyes were at their coldest. “Let seven moles decide and I will sanction their decision.”

“It may be death, sir, and the execution of such senior brothers as these surely needs the sanction of the Crusade Council itself; perhaps even Elder Senior Brother Quail.”

“We are at war, and I am in command here,” said Thorne. “If death is the sentence, death it will be, and I will take responsibility for it. Now take these scum out of my sight and deal with them as I have instructed. If the sentence is death I myself will act as executioner, that none other may be accused of doing so.”

Death it was, quick, brutal, despite the pleas, squeals and weeping of those senior Newborn brothers.

Nine times Thorne raised his right paw above their heads; nine times he plunged his talons down and killed a mole. Before witnesses, with a scribemole in attendance, that none could ever say it was done privily, or shamefully, or without good cause.

“I was only doing what I was told to do!” sobbed Sickle at the end, shaking and sweating before his awesome executioner.

“A brother takes responsibility for himself, just as he should for those in his care. It has been adjudged that you have done neither, and so, culpable thereby of murder, and of undermining the justice of the Newborn cause, you must be punished.” And so Sickle died, and much more swiftly and less painfully than many of his victims. Accounts of the outrage and Thorne’s resolute response to it filtered out into moledom, and few things did more to undermine the position of Quail and enhance the reputation of Thorne.

It was now, in the aftermath of the relief of Leamington, when the survivors were taken to clean quarters on higher ground, and the worst of the chambers where the massing occurred were sealed, that Thorne came upon Privet.

She was among those who had appeared at Leamington soon after Thorne’s coming, emerging from the surrounding countryside as life emerges after winter, some to help, some to trace missing kin and friends, many just to mourn. No doubt Privet’s wanderings had brought her into contact with followers who had kin at Leamington, and when the system was relieved she journeyed with them to serve as silent healer and helpmeet to those who needed her.

In those sombre days when the summer sun beat down on moles with shadowed hearts and clouded minds, Newborn and follower freely mixed, their mutual fear and antipathy subsumed by the horror of what had taken place, and the peace preserved by the character and discipline of Thorne’s forces. It was an extraordinary achievement, and gave the lie to the conflict and distrust between two systems of belief which had given rise to this situation.

It was in those strange days that Adkin, accompanying his Brother Commander in a review of the system and what had been achieved, passed by one of the healing chambers and caught sight of something that stopped him in his tracks.

“Come on Adkin, stop dawdling!” called out Thorne ahead of him. “We’ve much to see, and other work to do. Why, mole, what is it?”

Silently Adkin pointed a talon through a portal and down the length of the busy chamber. Thorne retraced his steps, looked, and was at once astonished and appalled. The two moles simply stared. Privet was much changed since they had known her on the fraught journey from Wenlock Edge to her captivity in Wildenhope: thinner, shrivelled, lost in a silent world of her own. But both knew her at once, less by her appearance than by the spirit of faith and truth she projected.

“By the Stone, sir, but that’s the mole Privet, the one —”

“Adkin, you better get her out of there at once and without fuss,” said Thorne calmly. “Bring her to my chamber. No, that will attract attention. Bring her to those derelict tunnels we passed through a while back; it is best we talk to her unseen by others.”

“Yes, sir,” said Adkin, still shaking his head in amazement. “Leave it to me, sir. But here? It’s unbelievable.”

“Get on with it, mole,” said Thorne with unusual sharpness. “If anymole-else realizes who she is...”

Whatever was in Thorne’s mind at the beginning of his meeting with Privet – a meeting held in dusty tunnels watched over by Adkin, to which Privet had been brought on the pretext of a mole needing urgent healing – by the end of it he had decided to let her go. Once before he had held her captive against his better judgement, and that had nearly resulted in her death, not to mention the death it seemed of Whillan, if not of Rooster. No, Thorne would not take that responsibility again.

But what to do with her? It would have helped if she had talked, but she did not. She remained silent, mostly with her eyes cast down peacefully, though occasionally and disconcertingly she raised them and looked into his eyes. Her gaze was pale and clear, dispassionate, and Thorne felt when he looked on her that he was floundering into a sea of truth from which he might not have strength to emerge alive.

“Mole, mole... what are we to, do with you?” he whispered.

But he knew that the real question her presence posed him was what he was to do with himself. He wished Rolt was there... and he found himself talking about how they had journeyed to Ashbourne, and how he had come on to Leamington. He felt he was talking to the Stone itself, and that it heard and understood his evasions, his half-truths, his hesitations.

“Mole, finding you puts me in an impossible position.”

He wondered aloud what he was going to do after Leamington: how to bring the rebels to order with a minimum loss of life on both sides; how to address the problem of Quail. He spoke of his hope that Chervil would be found, and a way become clear, but... but...

“But, mole! Where am I to put you where you’ll be safe and yet do no harm?”

The Stone... the Stone knows all, and he felt that in her presence he was before the Silence of the Stone. He must think, he must try. He could not, he would not, he...

“Adkin!”

Thorne summoned his aide, and knew that long hours had passed. Time with this mole was not its normal self.

“Sir?”

“The Stone will decide what happens to her, not I. It has probably decided already! Now listen. If she would speak she would probably tell me simply to let her go. But it is too great a risk. Anarchy looms over moledom now, and moles such as she, even unrecognized, are vulnerable. No, she needs protection.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

Quickly Thorne told him to go to where a large number of followers had been confined pending Thorne’s decision about what to do with them.

“You’ve an eye for a resourceful mole, and the Stone will surely guide you —” He stopped, for a look of amazement appeared on Adkin’s face.

“Not like you to invoke the Stone, sir, I must say!” he said, glancing at Privet and winking at her in a familiar way. She smiled.

“Well, that’s how it is!” said Thorne, for once defensive. “Now, Adkin, go and find a follower or two you like the look of and you think can look after Privet here, whether she wants them to or not.”

Adkin grinned. It was the kind of assignment he liked. “As a matter of fact there’s a couple of moles who might just be suitable, if they’re still deigning to be with us. They have a habit of scarpering, and very good at it they are. Yes, they could be the ones!”

While he was gone Thorne found himself facing the void of Privet’s silence once more. He tried to stay silent also, and could not, but when he spoke, what he Said seemed foolish and wild. It was the lack of response he could not cope with, the peaceful indifference to anything he said. Until he mentioned how it was being said that Rooster had survived the torrent at Wildenhope, and for the first time Privet responded, though still mutely. Her head came back, her eyes widened and a look of pure joy came to her face. Thorne realized she had not known: until that moment her Rooster, as allmole knew him to be, had been dead to her.

“Privet,” said Thorne, “I’m sorry, I would have told you earlier. But he did survive, it seems, and is now somewhere in the Wolds.”

She sighed, the nearest she came to speech, and it seemed to Thorne that it was a sigh from a far and distant place, a terrible, fearful place, which he himself would never have strength to reach.

“Mole, we’re going to get you away to safety, with those you can trust. I’m a Brother Commander, not the keeper of spiritual moles who’ve more to teach us by far than we have them!”

Adkin returned with two wily, fit-looking moles in tow, a male and a female. They looked wary, a little fe. arful, but also bold.

“So you’re what they call the Brother Commander of this place, are you?” said the male at once. “How you’ve got the nerve to tell moles how to run their lives when all you lot can do is murder innocent moles, and then keep us captive for no reason —”

“Mole,” roared Thorne, his usual composure disturbed by the frustrations of his strange meeting with Privet, “be quiet and listen. Now, what are your names?”

“We’ll tell you that but not much more,” said the male grudgingly. “My name’s Hodder of Rollright, and this is my sister Arliss, and you’ve no right —”

Thorne raised a paw and with a fierce glance silenced Hodder. He looked at Privet, and Hodder and Arliss did the same.

“Now listen very carefully, for I’ll say it once, and then Adkin here, and a couple of other guardmoles, are going to accompany you in safety as far as a day-and-night journey will take you.”

Hodder and Arliss exchanged a wary glance.

“This is not a trick, but instinct,” said Thorne. “The more I think about it the less I’m likely to do it, so let’s get on with it. In exchange for your freedom I’m going to give you a task. Some would think it an important task, others a dangerous one.”

“Try us,” said Hodder resolutely.

“Do you know this mole?”

They looked at Privet and shook their heads.

“Is she a follower or Newborn?” asked Hodder unenthusiastically.

“I would suggest you ask her, but she won’t tell you. She’s not a talkative mole,” said Thorne ironically. Privet smiled very slightly. “I want you to look after her, see her through to safety, watch over her in the coming troubles. Take her far from where Newborns can find her.”

“Who is she?” asked Hodder again.

“When she used to speak,” said Adkin suddenly, sensing that Thorne would not mind his intervention, “she called herself Privet; once of Crowden, now of Duncton Wood.”

“But it can’t be!” gasped Hodder and Arliss together, staring at Privet as if she had fallen out of the sky; which in a sense she had.

“Well she is, and nomole but Adkin here and myself knows it – yet. Once they do there’ll be problems that will complicate the military task I have ahead of me. I’m not much of a religious mole, and no doubt I should be, but my heart tells me I’m doing the right thing entrusting her to followers. You’re two resourceful moles, even if you landed up here, but Adkin says you keep trying to get away. Now’s your chance to do so, and perform a service for a mole all moledom has been searching for, for ill and for good.

“And if I know Privet – and I do, just a little – then I’ve no doubt that even without words she’ll help you find out what needs to be done. There, that’s it said and almost done. Take them all off my paws right now, Adkin, for if you don’t I swear I’ll change my mind.”