Duncton Found (50 page)

“You are right, Master,” whispered Terce soothingly.

At times like this Lucerne’s manner became so intense and his eyes so fierce that he trucked no argument or obstruction, and it would have been a brave mole who confronted him. Terce knew well his Master, and his frustrations. He noted, too, the positive reference to Henbane and observed now, as he had in the moleyears since Henbane’s flight from Lucerne’s life, that when Lucerne was at his most serious and intense he invariably mentioned his mother in this way, as if forgetting the contempt and hatred for her which he claimed to feel, and often expressed, and instead revealing the ambiguity of his attitude towards her.

“The Word always has a solution,” said Lucerne finally, “and through me it shall be found. That is my task. Now tell me, Terce, what do you know of the Rolls of the Systems at Uffington?” He asked this last question without pause, but Terce knew from his calmer expression that Lucerne had passed the peak of his anger and frustration and was himself once more. In all his experience with Rune, with Henbane, with other Keepers, Terce had never met a mole more capable of clearing his mind and heart of things that a moment before had seemed to overwhelm him, and move on positively to focus on something else.

“The Rolls?” repeated Terce, collecting his thoughts and smiling with sudden pleasure to be servant of such a Master.

“Slighe mentioned them to me,” said Lucerne impatiently.

“Our understanding is that in Uffington’s heyday it was every scribemole’s task to go forth into moledom and bring back a report on the systems he visited. These reports came to constitute the great Rolls of the Systems, kept in the libraries of the Holy Burrows. Perhaps unwisely, the library was destroyed by the Mistress Henbane’s henchmoles.”

“Very unwisely I would say. What were the Rolls used for?”

Terce looked surprised.

“Control, of course, though the scribemoles would not have called it such. Their existence made it possible for successive generations of scribemoles to know the history and disposition of each system – what mattered to it, what moles had been important to it and so forth – and so be able to judge how best to act when problems arose.”

“Information
we
might have used,” said Lucerne acidly. “Should we not now do the same?”

“In a manner we do. The reports of the sideem are filed and stretch back over the centuries, though until Rune’s day they were but modest things and irregularly kept.”

“If you mean some of the scrivenings I’ve seen in Whern they were useless, Terce. We can do better, and if we are to consolidate the power that we have and maintain it well we
must
do better. We cannot rule without knowledge. We shall make a Scrivening of the Systems to match any Rolls ever made. It will inspire travelling sideem to know that their reports are part of something that will last forever.”

“Where shall it be kept?”

“Whern. Only in Whern. The mole – the Master – who controls such a scrivening shall hold great power for the Word. It shall give idle sideem something to do, and never-ending tasks on which to employ sideem with whom we are displeased. It shall be most useful to us.”

Terce nodded. “Slighe and myself will arrange it,” he said.

In such ways, through the autumn years of September and early October, was Lucerne’s strategy for the crusade developed and its continuing success ensured. Doing everything with patience and order, and so far with only sufficient violence to consolidate his power among the sideem, Lucerne succeeded in gaining in strength even as he learned about moledom.

By mid-October most of those new sideem who had set forth with specific reporting tasks had come back, and the gist of their reports been made known to Lucerne and the Keepers. Although some key questions had still not been answered, and he had yet to meet with Ginnell, or learn the truth of Wyre, Lucerne seemed to have instinctively felt that the time to give a more specific and uniting task had come. He knew that winter would soon be on them all and that if sideem were to reach the further destinations he would want them to go to, he must lose no time. What was more, the gathering sideem were growing restless for all knew they would be given new tasks and most were impatient for more important ones than they had before.

Lucerne was inclined to act quickly, and it was Terce who urged caution.

“Wait until we have word from Clowder, wait for Mallice’s return. They were moles anointed with you, they will wish to be involved. And Ginnell... he may feel disregarded if he finds the sideem went forth without due consultation, especially if guardmoles are involved.”

“You are right,” said Lucerne suddenly, “and I am overtired. I shall give them a little more time. Why is Mallice not yet returned?”

“You miss her, Master?” said Terce.

“I do, Terce. But she is your daughter – do you not fear for her? Her task is a dangerous one.”

“I trust the Word, Master. I know it will protect her.”

“I trust it will. But I
am
tired, and Cannock begins to bore me. Reports, interrogations, planning... I shall leave it for a time. You shall take my place.”

“But Master...” began Terce, much alarmed, for Lucerne had never been far from him, and never beyond his control. Nor did Terce enjoy the idea of absolute power.

“I have need to find the Word again,” said Lucerne quietly. “Now where is Slighe? Guardmole, summon him!”

Slighe, who was never far away, came hurrying in.

“Master?” he asked.

“I am leaving Cannock for a short time...” Slighe’s face showed the same alarm that Terce’s had and Lucerne laughed aloud. “I shall be safe enough! The Word shall care for me! Now listen... our planning is almost done. When I return it will be to set the next stages of the crusade in motion, and once it begins I fear it will have a life of its own and we who lead it shall not get much rest. So, briefly, while I have time, I shall seek my way with the Word.”

“Surely Master...” said Slighe unhappily.

“But...” tried Terce again.

“Meanwhile I have a task for you and Slighe which will keep you occupied enough not to worry about me, Tutor

Keeper.” He smiled as he used this old way of addressing Terce. “In consultation with the new sideem, but in secrecy of our true intent, you shall together begin to group the sideem and guardmoles into threes. Each group shall be able to act independently and alone, and each must contain the skills of scrivening and of fighting. For this reason one at least shall be sideem, one at least guardmole. The third may be either, or simple helper, according to your judgement. Place all the new sideem in this way. Slighe has already made scrivenings of the different systems according to their loyalty to the Word and the strength of Stone belief within them. The systems must each have a group of three moles nominated to it; begin to match them to each other, though I shall make the final choice on my return. So, that is all. If the Word wills that Clowder, Ginnell and Mallice return while I am gone, then brief them thoroughly. I shall wish not to waste time when I return.”

“It shall be done,” said Terce.

Lucerne raised a taloned paw.

“Do not have me followed, Terce. I would be alone. Not even Drule.” Terce flicked a glance at Slighe and looked apologetic. Sending a trusted guardmole to follow the Master had been exactly his intent.

“I mean it, Terce. Whatever mole you send after me I shall kill and that would be a waste,” said Lucerne at his most charmingly chilling. “Like anymole, the Master has need to be alone at times. Now I shall leave.”

“Master?”

“Yes, Slighe?”

“Just for the scrivens... have these groups a name?”

Lucerne paused and thought.

“Call them trinities. It is a fitting name and the sideem shall like it.”

“Trinities,” whispered Slighe, playing with the word.

“Trinities,” repeated Lucerne, and with that he left.

So began the trinities, the most hated and feared of all Lucerne’s creations.

So began as well that extraordinary and mysterious interlude in which, briefly, Lucerne was lost to the sight of all the moles of the Word in Cannock, not excepting even Terce himself.

“Keeper Terce? A question.”

“Scrivener Slighe?”

“Where has the Master gone?”

“The Master seeks a mole I fear he shall not find: his mother Henbane. It is a need he does not know he has. When Mallice is with him he forgets that need, for she ministers to it. Now she is gone that ache has returned. He will not find Henbane, I think, but no doubt he’ll find a female soon enough. Some little slip of nothing who’ll not know the mole who’s come to her.”

“I do not like not knowing where my Master is,” said Slighe.

“Nor I, Slighe, much more nor I. It was a mistake that I let Mallice go so far from him and for so long. I shall not permit it ever again.”

“But he is Master, he can do as he wills,” said Slighe.

“No, Slighe, he is the Word’s servant, and he cannot. Do not forget that.
Never
forget it. Upon your understanding of that will lie the final fulfilment of your task for which, I may remind you, I preferred you myself.”

Slighe stared at Terce and blinked. His eyes were empty of emotion.

“We have a task, Senior Keeper,” he said at last.

“Scrivener Slighe, we have.”

It was in the few days that Lucerne was gone that first Clowder and then Ginnell came at last to Cannock. Terce briefed them on all that had been happening and made his own record of their news.

“Tell nomole of this, Clowder,” he said, when that mole had finished his description of the terrible events for which he had been responsible in Ribblesdale, beside which few massacres in mole history compare except, perhaps, that in Weed and Fescue’s day on the Slopeside of Buckland when the clearers were all killed and Tryfan and other followers barely escaped.

Ginnell, a grizzle-furred mole of spare body and few words, and an impressive grasp of the strengths and weaknesses of moles of the Word and Stone alike, gave detailed reports to Terce as well.

Neither mole could credit that Terce did not know where Lucerne was.

Terce merely sighed and shrugged, saying, “He wished to be alone. He is
mole
as well as Master, Clowder.”

“Humph!” said Clowder.

“Nomole knows where the overall commander
is
?” said Ginnell incredulously.

“He knows where we are,” said Terce.

“Well!” said Ginnell, who expected moles, even Masters, to be where they said they would be.

“He will soon be back,” said Terce.

“Aye!” chuckled Clowder. “He will! The Master, or rather the Keeper Lucerne as he still is, is probably with Mallice, and if not with her then with a wench, and a young one. He likes them so! Eh, Terce?”

“It is possible,” said Terce carefully.

“Well, when he comes back let me know,” said Ginnell.

“We will,” said Clowder. “Mole, we will.”

Clowder knew his friend and Master well, but Terce, who had made him what he was, knew him better.

Even so, until now, the truth of Lucerne’s brief disappearance from Cannock that October has not been known. We can only make a surmise from a certain record made much later by a certain mole whose name... whose name is best for now left unspoken.

However it was, however it will be, that mole much later, when the events of this history became but shifting shadows and passing light across forgotten fields, had good reason of his own to venture forth into the moors that lie north-east of Cannock Chase. Good reason to talk to moles along the way, good reason to point his snout upmoor and press on and answer when a mole asked, “Greetings, mole, whither are you bound?”

“To see the Five Clouds. Can you direct me to them?”

“Aye, mole, you’re not far off. A day to the north-west of here and you’ll find them. Keep to the streams, there’s food along their way.”

It was not mole country, yet that mole pressed on and saw at last five overhangs of millstone grit darkening the skyline above and beyond. In their lee, far under them, he met a mole he had sought for many a molemile past. She might have been as old as the dark grit that overshadowed the isolated but homely tunnels she and her kin had made. Dark though her fur, overhung the place, yet her eyes were bright as speedwell.