Duncton Rising (25 page)

“But why?” asked Whillan, very puzzled. “Why would anymole want to do that? Surely, they would have better persuaded you of the justice and wisdom of their beliefs by treating you well.”

“My dear,” said Privet, “what I am going to describe to you has nothing to do with wisdom or justice, but everything to do with evil, and cunning, made worse because it pretended to be benign. Also, it was carried out by the most dangerous moles of all – those who believe themselves absolutely right, and any that argue with them not only absolutely wrong, but inspired by evil
and therefore not worth arguing
wi
th.”

“
Sounds like moles of the Word in former times,” said Maple.

“That is exactly what the Newborns are like,” said Weeth quietly. “Now, madam, continue your tale as you remember it, and leave out nothing, for I have a feeling that before long each mole here may have to face some of the realities you are about to describe, and it is as well each is prepared.”

Privet nodded, and frowned as she pondered where best to resume.

“You must understand that when I reached Blagrove Slide I had no reason to think that I was entering tunnels out of which I would find it very hard to find a way, and that when I finally did I would be as nearly broken in body and spirit as anymole could be. Nor could I have possibly believed then that when I
did
leave I would have lost something more dear than life itself.”

“Your pups!” whispered Whillan.

“Yes... but now you are going to ask what happened in Blagrove, and how the Newborns worked on me to reduce me to the state I have just described. To which I must reply, I do not truly know, for the way they led us there so exhaustingly put us into a state of mental fatigue from which I never escaped, so that my memory of all of it is weak and nightmarish, as if the images I have from that appalling time were of another mole than me.

“The place itself I remember as unremarkable and nondescript, lying at the southern end of the Harborough Downs. It has only one earlier claim to notoriety that I know of: scholars of the war of Word and Stone will remember that it was here that the vile prosecutor of the Word’s ways, Drule, committed a mass murder of a quarter of the system’s moles. Drule forced the females to choose which of their kin could live, and which die, only half being permitted to live.”

“It is true,” said Maple, “and if I recall the contemporary accounts, if the females refused to choose then
all
their kin were done to death. This was punishment for resistance made by some of the females against the Word.”

“I did not remember all that history then,” said Privet, “but perhaps something of those shadows lingered there and affected the surviving moles. Certainly it was an event I heard the Blagrove Newborns recall again and again, as if it were something they could not forget, even so many decades later when all those living at the time were long dead.

“The brothers who brought us to Blagrove apologized for the haste that had left us so fatigued, saying there were celebrations they must take part in and they could not miss them on “pain of punishment”. I remember that phrase – I was to hear it often afterwards. I know that we were not the only females brought by brothers into Blagrove and, in fact, some who were there already tried to tell me to escape while I could. I could not understand what they meant, or why they looked so drawn and ill and seemed so anxious that we did not report what they said.

“One of the females I had come with
did
tell the brothers what they had said, and she was much praised – and the pathetic creature who had given us the warning was chastised in front of us and held up before the Stone as a reprobate, and then taken away. I saw her no more, and learnt to bide my words.

“I know that I was never told the names of any of the brothers we met in Blagrove, except of those who first “collected” us – that was the term they used – which later proved false in any case. Newborns are never to be trusted with the truth. However, there were two moles whose names I heard spoken, and they were the names of senior elders, most notable and revered of whom was Thripp. In Duncton, among us traditional Stone followers, he is sometimes referred to as the “sinister” Thripp, but amongst the Newborns he was seen in a very different way. He was revered by all, his name spoken in hushed whispers, and he was held in affection by allmole.

“However, the other mole whose name I heard of was Quail, a chilling elder brother. The first shock when I saw him was that he was not particularly old – not much more than I was. He was at one of the rituals I later attended and I heard him referred to then, though I had already heard of his reputation, as the feared executioner of Thripp’s commands, and that is not the wrong way to describe him. He was quite striking – well-built, with bleak eyes and a face whose skin seemed drawn tight about his snout and eyes and mouth, and yet was lined as if it had aged prematurely. His fur was balding and patchy, as if he had some obscure disease. He looked old yet vigorous at the same time. His gaze settled on me just once, and though I looked down meekly I swear I could feel it on me still, like the juice of an acerbic plant upon a cut.

“But moments like that were very rare, and Thripp himself I never met, nor ever saw so far as I was aware. For the most part I remember being set to menial tasks, always in the service of the brothers, female serving male –
always
was that the pattern there. When I asked to be instructed in the worship of the Stone – oh yes, I was soon reduced to asking in those terms – I was chastised and told to wait until they told me I was ready.

“On it went, day after day, with never a moment’s rest, which was the secret of their successful conversion of us to their ways – such resistance as we had initially was driven out of us by exhaustion, and by being punished and isolated if we transgressed in any way. Since we were never told what the rules were it was hard not to transgress at times, and so we ended up in fear of thinking or doing almost anything that we were not told to do. My mind got to wandering as I went about my tasks, and I began to speak aloud to myself, for company perhaps, and I reverted to Whernish in what I thought were dreams. I talked to Rooster and called for Hamble, as if one of those moles from my past would come to my aid. Even Cobbett seemed of my “past”, as if all former life had drifted far from me, and only the present mattered.

“Now I say I spoke in Whernish, and I think that this indirectly saved my life, for one of the brothers heard of it, and I was summoned to a Senior Brother and asked what it was I spoke. I saw no reason to lie, not realizing that Whernish was perceived as the language of the Word, and speaking it put me in mortal danger. Some instinct prevented me from telling all my tale, and though I spoke of the Moors and Crowden, I never mentioned matters of scribing, or Rooster and delving, or Beechenhill. I knew I was in dire trouble, and had broken some rule of theirs. By then I was anxious to be favoured, for the other females I had come with had long since become Confessed Sisters, and various transgressions had meant that I had been isolated, and felt without friends.

“I have little doubt now that the Senior Brothers watched over us carefully, and knew the state each of us had reached, and when the right moment for conversion to the Newborn way might be. In retrospect, I suppose I was rather slower, or more resistant, than some.

“I said that I feel my Whernish was the saving of me, despite the initial inquisition I suffered for it, and the real fears I felt as a result. For a time I was left alone, but one day I was summoned to meet a Senior Brother and naturally I went with considerable apprehension. Indeed I was crying and shaking, certain that something terrible would happen. The young brother who led me there I had not met or seen before. He was more friendly than some and spoke with an accent I could not identify, nor can I now remember it well enough to say I have ever heard another speak it. It was warm and rolling in its intonation, and he was somewhat similar, except he seemed harassed. He led me through unfamiliar tunnels and eventually I found myself in the presence of the Senior Brother.

“‘You are Sister Crowden?’ he asked.

“I nodded; naturally, he did not give his name.

“‘You stance accused of speaking Whernish, mole. Is this true?’

“‘It was the dialect I was raised to,’ I explained, adding hastily I was of the Stone.

“He waved me into silence and I instantly obeyed. I must confess at once that I felt a certain attraction to the Senior Brother. He was less formidable than some, less accusatory, and he asked his questions in the manner of a scholar, much as some of the moles at Beechenhill might have done. I waited in silence until he spoke again, and when he did I was astounded to hear him ask me a question in Whernish.

“‘How came you here?’ was what he said. How came you here... He spoke it in a measured careful way, and not as a native – perhaps as I myself spoke Mole! Yet to hear it at all moved me deeply, and I burst into tears.

“At this he frowned and turned away, clearly much displeased, and I rather desperately controlled my emotions.

“‘Sister Crowden, you do not need to cry. Now, tell me of how you were reared to the Stone.’

“I told him gladly, my resistance all but gone as I described the Crowden system, and the grikes and Ratcher’s clan, and how we sought to protect ourselves. I described the Weign Stones, and our simple rituals, and much else. Yet every time I came near to talking of Rooster, or delving, or the Eldrene Wort, I found some instinct warned me off, and nor did I tell the true reason I left the Moors – how could I without mentioning Rooster? Nor did I even mention I could scribe – I knew enough to guess that sisters could never do that!

“He listened in silence, his eyes pale and still on me, and I remember feeling fear and fascination at the same time; I sensed that he believed I was holding something back, but did not know what.

“When I had finished he continued to stare at me in a most unnerving way. Then suddenly he said in a sharp voice, ‘Sister, do you wish to confess anything to me?’

“Confess? I wished to confess that I was lost and lonely, and afraid, afraid even of the world outside; I wished to confess that I needed love, and even as these words tumbled out of me I knew them to be the wrong things to say and felt I was letting slip my chance of ‘proper’ confession and finding the protection of a Senior Brother. But I spoke of “confessing” to feeling desperate.

“He smiled with pity and shook his. head and said, ‘No, Sister, I mean a confession of sins, of transgressions against the Stone.’

“‘But I have not...’

“He suddenly grew cold, so very cold, and disappointed too, so that I felt that if I had sinned it was against
him.

“I wanted desperately to say something different, to beg his forgiveness and his favour, but he peremptorily turned from me without a word, the first mole who in all that time had shown any care for me, and as he left he turned back and said, ‘Mole, none of us is without sin. Examine your heart, confess your sin, open your heart to the Stone’s mercy.’ Oh how I wanted to cry out a confession,
any
confession, that he might not leave me alone and lost once more. Eventually the young brother came and led me back to my burrow, and would not answer my pleas to know if I might see the Senior Brother again.

“I wish I could report that I resisted these assaults upon my reason and sense of truth, but I could not, I could not. It all became so confused after this, or much of it. I have lost the sense of that time, but I know that when I saw the Senior Brother again I was so afraid of being dismissed once more that I freely confessed to the first thing that came to my mind. Or rather, the
second
thing, because the first would have been an admission that I had lied by default about Rooster, and delving and the Charnel and all of that. That I
would
not tell. So I made something up, some trivial sin or other, and I remember thinking that it did not matter what I said, I knew it was all trivial and all nonsense, but at least I would have his favour.

“Now, I believe he knew I was making false confession. How often must Senior Brothers have seen weak and desperate sisters like me, eager for their attention and concern, willing to say anything! So why did he not press me harder? Well, I think now that it is the
act
of confession that the Newborn brothers seek most of all, not the nature of what is confessed. Indeed, they may even think it better that we do tell lies in confession. You see, a mole loses something of himself by laying himself so open to another – how much more does he lose if he lies in the name of the Stone? The sorry guilt! Yes, they weaken moles and they twist their minds to make acts of overt subjection, both mental and physical, and confession is the talon-thrust they use into our inmost being.

“It was only later that I came to suspect that each one of us sisters was assigned to a Senior Brother according to his particular suitability to weaken us and mould our minds.

“The clue to my vulnerability lay in my Whernish, and so they found a Senior Brother who could speak it, and so reach into me. It says much for their skill and subtlety that despite what he later did to me I
still
remember him not as a tormentor, or even corrupter, but as the only mole in that nightmarish place who ever comforted me. Except perhaps for his young assistant brother, who had a kind of gentleness very rare in Blagrove Slide.

“I wish I knew my Senior Brother’s name, but of course we sisters were never permitted to call them anything more personal than brothers, though in those shared moments when we were together, we would make up names for our Senior Brothers, and speak in a juvenile pubescent way of how “ours” was better than the others, and how we loved them, and they were surely beginning to love us...

“‘Mine’ – I am sure now he had other sisters than me! – was perhaps two Longest Nights older than me, and intelligent enough to deal with my doubts in the course of the instruction he gave me without imputing to me the sin of transgression simply for having them. It was not long before he persuaded me that the Newborn way to the Stone was the only true way, and led me towards asking if I might become a Confessed Sister.