Duncton Stone (79 page)

He had good reason to feel satisfied. Not only was the system in order and the minor matter of the followers absolutely contained, but he had conquered what he now regarded as his greatest challenge: the reception and placing of the former Elder Senior... of Thripp.

How his heart had thumped when the guardmoles had brought Thripp into Duncton. How Fetter, as mole-in-charge, had inwardly trembled as he turned to face the mole who had once been the inspiration for them all, but was now disgraced. How he had been shocked and then filled with contempt to see how low that mole had fallen: thin, haggard, grey, his eyes cast down, hardly mole at all.

“You are Thripp?”

“I am.”

“Look at me, mole!” Fetter had dared to say, and sharply too!

Thripp had looked at him and Fetter had found himself, finally, nearly unafraid.

“My orders are that you shall be kept in the shadow of Duncton Stone. You are to be fed and watered by the same guards who have watched over you these molemonths past, and none other. Nomole shall speak to you.”

Thripp had stared at him and for a moment Fetter had felt a tremor in his heart, for he fancied he saw some strange light in Thripp’s pale eyes. But a fancy was surely all it was.

“Have you anything to say?” asked Fetter, his throat just a little dry.

“What would a mole have to say who is to be taken before Duncton Stone?” Thripp had said. “It is hardly punishment.”

“Take him there!” ordered Fetter. For a few moments Fetter allowed himself to think there had been insolence in Thripp’s voice, and a strength that was belied by the old mole’s thin body and lined face. For a moment more Fetter dared think he felt a kind of elemental fear.

Then he banished such nonsense from his mind, and watching the former Elder Senior Brother being led meekly away, had told himself, “Nonsense!”, and thought of such things no more.

Now, days later, the rightful Elder Senior Brother almost there, Fetter felt he had done well and been much blessed by the Stone. More than that, he felt a conviction that he would do better yet. Some new triumph was yet to be his. Capture of the mole Pumpkin, perhaps! That would be a final bliss. Something... he did not know what, but he had a pleasant premonition of it. So his restlessness was composed of many things, many, many things...

Voices echoing through the cross-under; a patter of guardmole pawsteps; shadows and then silhouettes.

“They are here. He is here. He comes,” said Fetter to himself, smoothing his face-fur one last time, fixing an expression on his cold face that he hoped was at once obedient, adoring, masterful, and, well... welcoming.

“Brother Inquisitor Fetter!” purred Snyde, coming first out of the shadows and off the concrete into the light, “we are pleased to see you once again.”

The loathsome form of Snyde, which Fetter remembered all too well, came forward to greet him. Snyde’s fur was glossy, and barely touched with mud at all; his eyes sparkled with confidence; his hobbling gait was spry.

“Welcome, Brother Snyde,” hissed Fetter in his politest voice.

Snyde stanced to one side and turned back to the shadowed cross-under. Fetter readied himself, his paws sweaty despite the cold.

A fat form appeared, puffing, gasping, frowning, and red of snout.

“Squelch,” said Snyde quietly, perhaps thinking that Fetter did not know the mole. But Fetter remembered him all too well from his training days at Bowdler. He proffered up to Squelch the smile he had prepared for the Elder Senior Brother.

“Yes,” said Squelch, going past them both and staring with open curiosity upslope towards the High Wood. “Awesome, oh my, it is. That’s the word, Snyde.”

“It is,” said Snyde lightly, happier than he could ever have believed to be on his own ground once more. They all turned back to the shadows.

A delay. Scurrying in the dark. Silhouettes stancing back. Then out into the light he came, slowly, peering, appalling, Quail.

“Elder Senior Brother,” rasped Fetter, his voice almost failing him when he saw what moledom’s greatest had become. Then, summoning up all his self-possession, for he needed every scrap of it, for what had appeared before him was the vilest, foulest mole he had ever seen, he said, “It is an honour, a great honour, and I am not worthy —”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Quail, reaching out to Squelch for support and waving a distorted paw in the air to shut Fetter up. “Where is Thripp?”

“He is in the shadow of Duncton Stone, Elder Sen —”

“Take me there!” ordered Quail, a terrible look of bitter hatred, and then of cruel triumph, in his eyes.

As Fetter led the party upslope towards the High Wood Squilver barked harsh orders behind them. Guardmoles came rushing, ranks formed one after another, four deep; patrols were strengthened along the dykes and conduits at either side of the cross-under. Pilgrims who had pressed forward, staring, were pushed back.

Halfway up the slope Squelch, too tired for a moment to go on, paused and looked back. From here they could see some of the ground on the far side of the cross-under.

“Who are those moles?” he asked. For there were many of them, in groups here and there, tired, and staring longingly at the closely-guarded cross-under, and up to the slopes beyond; the slopes from which Squelch and the others now looked down.

“Pilgrims,” said Fetter, too late.

“Not come for me?” said Quail. “What do they want?”

“They cause us no trouble. What they want is the mole Privet. They think she’s here.”

“And is she?” whispered Quail.

“Why, no, no, of course she is not, Elder Senior Brother,” faltered Fetter.

“She will be; oh, she will be,” said Quail, “for her time has come.”

Below them, beyond the rumble of the roaring owl way, moles cried out and seemed to surge. Then the cries faded.

“The guardmoles have them under control,” said Fetter dismissively, turning back upslope.

“Doesn’t matter if they haven’t, Pa says,” said Squelch. “The Stone is our protector.”

To Fetter it seemed half dream, half nightmare, this trek upslope with these moles and their words; and the smell, so terrible, the odour of a holy mole. The leafless wall of the High Wood swayed towards him, and Squelch and Quail uttered their ecstasies before it, and again on entering. The great beech trees opened their ranks to them, and their shadows took them in, but Quail and Squelch seemed not to see how awesome the High Wood was, or how lost they looked amidst it.

“The Stone, the Stone, where Thripp is, how far now?” said Quail impatiently.

“It is on the far side of the High Wood,” said Fetter, wishing it were nearer.

“Then hasten, hasten.”

“Brother Inquisitor, Brother!”

It was the messenger he had used earlier, come into the High Wood after them, calling out, noisy, and most unseemly.

“Mole...” began Fetter with a warning look, but something in the mole’s eyes and face silenced him, something extraordinary. “What is it?” he said faintly.

“A mole, Brother Inquisitor.”

Fetter signalled him to come close and whisper, which he did. Fetter’s eyes narrowed, he asked a question or two, his eyes glinted and then softened into what was undeniably a look of pride and triumph.

“What is it, mole?” asked Snyde.

Fetter dared ignore him, dared even to call after the Elder Senior Brother and stop him in his tracks with what was almost a command.

“Elder Senior Brother!” he cried out.

What he had to say must be important indeed.

It was.

“Well, Fetter?” said Quail, anxious to reach the Stone and face Thripp in triumph and disdain.

The great dark trees soared up towards a distant shut-off sky; deep silence reigned; green-lichened roots twisted bent and gnarled about them across the shadowed russet surface of the High Wood.

“The mole Privet, Elder Senior Brother.”

“What of her?” said Quail, his voice as sharp as the points of the dead holly tree that leaned nearby.

“My subordinates,” said Fetter, relishing the word, even loving it, “my subordinates have... apprehended her. But a short while ago. She is in our custody.”

Silence deep and blissful, everywhere.

“Where?” wondered Quail dreamily, coming back towards Fetter just a shade.

“Here, now, in Duncton, Elder Senior Brother. Back at the cross-under. This mole —”

“Yes, yes, I do believe she must be. The Worm has found a face; the Snake a name; and the Stone has delivered it to us. Brother Inquisitor Fetter...?”

“Master?” said Fetter, coming close and even braving the stench of Quail’s breath for the glory of this most glorious of moments.

“Bring her to me,” whispered Quail, his voice seeming to echo about the trees as if in a holy chamber. “Bring her to me
personally
.”

“Yes, Elder Senior Brother.”

“You know where you shall find me. I shall be with Thripp and we shall await her together, by the Stone. Snyde, whose home this once was, will guide me there, won’t you, Snyde?”

Snyde nodded. “Privet!” he said, surprised for once.

Quail laughed. Squelch giggled almost silently.

“Bring her to me by the Stone then,” said Quail, as if she was a worm to eat. Then he went on his slow and painful way, full of joy, until he was lost among the ancient trees of the High Wood.

“And you let her, by herself, without escort, unaccompanied, give herself up to Quail’s guardmoles at the cross-under into Duncton Wood?”

If ever a mole sounded incredulous and angry and nearly impotent with rage it was Arvon, interrogating Hodder, Rees and Arliss. He hopped about from paw to paw, stabbing at the air with his talons, shaking his head with disbelief, his eyes wild.

“You don’t understand...” Hodder tried to explain once more.

“Don’t understand?” roared Arvon, the walls of the chamber where they stanced shaking with the sound. “I understand all right. I understand too bloody well. Oh, I understand! What I can’t begin to believe is that you did it!”

“It is what she wanted,” Arliss said.

“What she wanted! Hear that, Cluniac? It’s what she wanted!”

“It
was
what she wanted, I’m convinced of it,” said Cluniac quietly. “Privet is after all not an ordinary mole.”

“Not ordinary! Of course she’s not ordinary! Can’t even you speak sense to me?”

He stared at them belligerently, his mouth a little open, breathless with rage and frustration. Privet, the mole for whom all moledom had been searching, the mole who... the mole who... on whom... about whom... everything whom!
These
three hapless, useless moles, who claimed to have been her protectors, had allowed her to... aided and abetted by Cluniac, a mole he thought he had got to know well, who had seemed in all respects sensible and competent. And that other mole, who started it all...

“It was what she wanted, you see, what was right for her!”

It was Rees who spoke now, and he did so quietly but firmly, thrusting his snout towards Arvon, and so far as his weakened eyes allowed it, out-staring him.

“What she wanted...?” repeated Arvon faintly, stilled a little by Rees’ calmness, and perhaps realizing that outrage was getting him nowhere, and certainly not nearer a solution to the problem posed by Privet’s disappearance into Duncton Wood, if there ever could be a solution to such a thing. He was calmed too by the continuing stillness of the others in the chamber, who stared, not with alarm, as he might have expected and perhaps even hoped, but with a kind of sympathy, which he could not abide.

Rees continued: “She did not speak, but simply looked at us and nodded, as if to say ‘You’ve brought me back safely, now it is for me to go on alone once more.’”

“Hmmph!” said Arvon, frowning but now prepared to listen, if only because he could think of no further protest to make.

“Three days we were here at the cross-under, along with the other pilgrims. None asked who we were, none guessed then who Privet was, though it was to find her that all had come,” explained Rees. “At first we could not believe it, for
we
knew who she was and thought the others would. But they were looking for somemole more striking perhaps, somemole more grand; somemole who was holy on the outside, as well as inside. Why, I don’t think they knew what they were looking for, and so they did not see her. They dismissed Privet as just another pilgrim like themselves.”

“Except
him
,” said Arvon, nodding towards an elderly mole who stanced down in one corner of the chamber looking a little apologetic. He had grey grizzled fur and a pleasantly lined face, and like the others, he had a certain peace about him. He was the one Arvon had thought of as starting it all.

“Yes, him,” said Hodder. “He came near to us just after the guardmoles pushed and shoved us upslope out of the way, when that great party of moles arrived and were allowed into the cross-under.”

“Aye,” growled Arvon: “Quail and his gang – Squelch, Snyde, Squilver. The whole lot of them.”

“We wouldn’t know,” said Arliss quietly, taking up the story, “we’ve been out of touch with such things lately. You see, although she was always silent, yet somehow you knew what she wanted... or rather, her silence made you realize what you wanted, or needed to do.”