Duncton Rising (33 page)

“There, there!” said Pumpkin, easing her off him as best he could and feeling the embarrassment such gentle unmated old males as he often feel in the face of female warmth. “You had better explain what all this is about.”

“That’s easily done!” she said, taking his paw and leading him to the cover of an oak tree’s roots. “You see, there’s quite a number of moles down here in Barrow Vale, and scattered about the system too, maybe up to twenty in all, who’ve kept their faith so far despite everything they’ve suffered. Some others have been lost...”

She named four moles who had fallen foul of the Inquisitors and had disappeared.

“They take them out into the marshes beyond Marsh End,” she said darkly. “But that was in the early days when they made examples of a few. As you’ve seen, most moles have acquiesced.”

“There are always a few who will resist! Especially in a system like Duncton Wood.”

“There are, there are. And in addition to those there are a few in hiding, including some of my own kin. There are moles who don’t want to pretend, and young males for whom the Newborns seem to have a perverse predilection. Humph!” Anger was mixed with contempt and disgust. “Now, you seemed surprised when I said there were many who had heard of your conversion!”

“Well, yes, I am,” said Pumpkin blinking. “For one thing I am merely a library aide, and for another I have done my very best these last months to adopt a low snout.”

“Let me tell you, “Brother” Pumpkin, that you are very well known indeed. Why, all Duncton knew of Pumpkin, library aide to Master Librarian Stour, long before the Inquisitors showed up. When they did, and the Master Librarian went into retreat again in the Ancient System, and Privet and those others went off on their mission —”

“You seem remarkably well informed, mole.”

“This
is
Duncton Wood; moles with their snout to the ground can put twice two worms together and make four. Of course, when that Sturne took over...” and here Pumpkin was greatly relieved to see from her look of dislike that at least Sturne’s cover was intact, “we asked ourselves, “Isn’t there anymole in the Library will stance up to them?” There was one of my sons up there, a junior aide called Cluniac.’
*

*
This is the same Cluniac whose early exploits as a spy against the Newborns have been eclipsed by his courageous exploration in later, happier years of the lands beyond moledom. See his own account North of the North, and Other Adventures of a Traveller.

Pumpkin hastily raised a paw to stop her telling him the mole’s name – too late. He felt the less he knew the better.

“All I’ll say then was that he came down to Barrow Vale one day and says, ‘There’s Library Aide Pumpkin declaring himself Newborn, but if he’s Newborn I’m an owl. You can tell he’s not by the twinkle in his eyes. The Inquisitors can’t, and nor can other Newborns, because they don’t have a Duncton sense of humour.’”

Pumpkin grinned and said, “And I thought I was doing so well.”

“You have, you have! But
we
were
sure
you weren’t Newborn, and your example over these long months has given us few who have pledged to resist the heart to continue to do so. The Newborns suspected, mind, but you never gave them cause to doubt you for one moment, and you could not be replaced. Though how you could work alongflank such a one as that Sturne I can’t imagine.”

“Oh, with difficulty,” said Pumpkin, hoping that in the shadows where they talked the twinkle in his eyes would not be observed. “A most unpleasant mole, that one!”

“So we believed, or chose to believe, that you alone of the senior workers in the Library were resisting the Newborns, and what heart that gave us. Oh Pumpkin, you can’t imagine how good it was to know you were
there
! Without you few of us would have survived this long.”

“Without me?” repeated poor Pumpkin faintly, as she squeezed him tight once again and then let him go all ragged and breathless.

“But then we heard the terrible news you had converted, and then when you came here, it seemed to be so.”

“Well, now you know I haven’t,” said Pumpkin mildly, “and nor, as I said before, was I. Ever.”

“That will mean so
much,”
said Elynor.

“But it would not be a good idea if others knew for
certain
that all this Newborn business of mine is a pose,” said Pumpkin. “I would prefer it if I had to speak to no other mole about it.”

“None but me shall know for certain,” replied Elynor. “It’s enough they think it might be – that will keep them going. But for how long?”

“How many moles feel as you do?”

“Just over twenty, with those in hiding.”

“Well, then we must do what we can for them.”

“Of course, the reason the Newborns were pleased by your conversion was that they suspected you but could not quite prove it. Now they think they’ve got you.”

“Yes, yes,” said Pumpkin, suddenly uneasy to be out in the open with a mole who, for all he knew, others might suspect was a doubter. “You must do what you will with what you know. If you think it best to tell them that I remain untainted by Newborn thinking then do so – but I shall deny I ever talked to you, and you should deny it too.”

“Mole,” said Elynor with sudden concern, “it will get worse, you know, far worse. They have been concentrating on the Library so far, but now that’s done they’ll be giving us recalcitrant moles their full attention.”

“I know it will be hard. I know others have already died, and many disappeared. Perhaps I shall be among them.”

“If
you
stance strong, Pumpkin, us others will. We’ll be there beside you in spirit.”

“Like true Duncton moles!” Pumpkin’s eyes were suddenly alight with excitement, for he was beginning to realize that in its eternal wisdom the Stone worked its wonders in the simplest ways, and through ordinary moles surviving extraordinary circumstances with faith. In modern times Duncton moles had never failed to play their part, and in his own small way he would now make sure he did not fail to play his.

“Keep in touch with me then,” he said quietly. “Only you, mole, none other. I shall deny all others.”

“Then may the Stone be with thee,” said Elynor more quietly still, watching after the grey mild form of Pumpkin, a little stooped now, and a little slow; she thought she had never known a braver nor a truer mole than he.

There now began in Barrow Vale a struggle of spirits which, though it was as powerful and awesome in its way as any war, was silent, secret and unspoken. The Inquisitors Fetter and Law had heard of Barre’s apparent success in turning Pumpkin to the Newborn way, but they had their doubts. The curing of souls, especially intelligent ones that have erred almost from birth and been reared to a culture as insubordinate and liberal as Duncton’s, is never an easy matter, and it seemed to them unlikely that of all of them Brother Barre should be the one to succeed with Pumpkin. Fetter himself had always believed Pumpkin to be less dim and ingenuous than he made out, if only because as library aides go he was one of the best – and Master Librarian Sturne did not suffer fools for long.

Therefore Fetter instructed that despite his age and protestation of faith Pumpkin’s education should be of the most rigorous and ascetic kind. He suspected that the solid core of resistance they had met in Barrow Vale had always focused on one mole, though only now did he think it might be Pumpkin.

“Kill the bugger then,” said Barre.

“Ah now. Brother, we do not want martyrs here. If there is a mite of weakness in him, and if the snake is coiled in his heart, we shall find it.”

In the terrible winter days that followed, when bitter winds gave way to a snout-numbing rain, and that froze into a savage frost. Pumpkin was singled out for the harshest possible treatment. Permitted no sleep, deprived of proper food, he was humiliated again and again in the communal chamber of Barrow Vale as he stumbled over the lines of creed and liturgy he was forced to learn. His paws grew thin, his cheeks grew hollow, his eyes red-rimmed and staring, as day by slow day one Inquisitor after another intimidated and bullied him. He was laughed at and reviled, and more than once his snout was bloodied and he was made to crawl away publicly from the severe talonings and buffets they meted out to him.

It was not enough that he proclaimed theirs the true way, for they said the snake of doubt was still hidden in his heart, and that insubordination poisoned the blood that flowed in his veins.

“Admit you are wrong, mole! Admit your hypocrisy! Confess the sins of pride and resistance!”

But though poor Pumpkin was declining in health before their eyes, he never once weakened in his resolve to call the Newborn bluff. The harder they hit him, the louder his declarations of faith in their ways; the greater the humiliations they imposed on him, the more willing he seemed to declare his humility and unimportance before the wise Newborn way; and the more horrible their punishments, the more passionate his protestations that they
must
be right since the Newborn way was
always
right.

But the true insubordination of Pumpkin’s brave stance was this: the more he declared the wonders of the Newborn way, the more he demonstrated to those who knew of his masquerade how rotten, and how vile it was; the more he agreed that theirs was the way to liberty of spirit in submission to the Stone, the more he showed the withering narrowness of that kind of faith. Yet more than all of that: the more he confronted their assaults with agreement and acquiescence, the more he gave heart and encouragement to those twenty or so moles in Duncton at that time who stayed fast in their attachment to the old ways of the Stone.

It was a resistance, and a most courageous one, that the Newborn Inquisitors could not easily deal with because it was silent and undeclared, and the more they tried to “educate” the more they had the sense that they were failing in some indefinable way on which they could not put a talon.

Not that many of the senior Newborns ever understood the problem – Brother Barre, for example, remained convinced for a long time that Pumpkin
was
converted simply because he said so so fervently. But Quail’s appointment of Brother Fetter to Duncton Wood had been a wise one – Quail knew his history, and felt it likely that if there was going to be resistance, systems like Duncton and Avebury were likely to spawn it, and therefore sent his very best Inquisitors to these.

“I smell the odour of deceit and mockery in this system,” hissed Fetter late one night, “and the more these Duncton moles like Brother Pumpkin declare themselves Newborn the less convinced I am. Proof is what we need, and proof is what we shall find, and when we do then the Stone shall demand resolute action.”

“My snout tells me something similar,” said Brother Law, “and never have I known the snake to be so subtle in his twinings as in this system. We have cleansed the Library, and now we must cleanse the mole, however final we must be.” The way he pronounced “cleanse” was like talons scratching down the face of a broken flint.

Brother Barre opened his mouth to disagree, and then slowly closed it again, his pig eyes blinking – perhaps, after all, they were right.. How disappointed he would be if his judgement of Library Aide Pumpkin had been wrong, as his fellow Inquisitors were beginning to think. But if so, Brother Pumpkin would soon find death a happy release from the pains and tortures of just punishment for having made a fool of him.

Yet, despite these suspicions, the Inquisitors did not act directly on them, perhaps out of respect for Sturne, who had so long protected Pumpkin from their attentions. Instead they decided to allow Pumpkin to return to the Library, thinking no doubt that he might give himself away and confirm their suspicions. At the very least his education had now become counter-productive, and as Sturne had frequently remarked, the Library could ill afford to manage without so valuable an aide.

Not that the Inquisitors could bring themselves to announce Pumpkin’s “release” kindly. Oh no, they had to twist their talons in him one more time. One day, with no warning, he was taken forcibly from Barrow Vale and marched upslope to the Library to “help” Sturne.

When he arrived it was not easy to separate Pumpkin from his Newborn guards, but even Newborns will weaken if offered a worm and a cosy place to eat it; awed and impressed by Sturne’s chilling presence they were happy to yield Pumpkin to his care for a short time. Thus able to talk, the two old friends caught up with each other’s news, their low whispers masked by the hissing wind-sounds out of the tunnels of the Ancient System nearby.

“Pumpkin, this cannot go on. You look thin and ill, and your body bears the signs of brusing buffets such as a young mole could not long withstand, let alone an old one.”

“I am beginning to wonder when it will end,” admitted Pumpkin in his mild way. “The joke is wearing a bit thin.”

“Now listen. Inquisitors Fetter and Law do not believe you are genuine and it is now only a matter of time before Brother Barre decides to punish you. You really must escape back upslope soon and we’ll find somewhere to hide you.”

“Splendid!” muttered Pumpkin, his old spirit of irony and good humour evidently not all gone. “What a good plan. “Escape upslope” to where I wonder?”

“The Ancient System,” said Sturne matter-of-factly. “You can hide there as the Master did.”

“Ah!” said Pumpkin, exasperated and annoyed. Sturne did not seem to appreciate that hiding in the Ancient System was not something he relished. “Sometimes, Sturne, you can be very difficult,” said Pumpkin irritably. “Now you listen to me. Have the Newborns you know, like Brother Barre and the others, betrayed any knowledge of how many moles in Barrow Vale are resisting them?”

Sturne shook his head. His eyes were a little gentler than they had been – Pumpkin was one of the few who had ever treated him like an ordinary mole, and he did not mind being admonished by him. He knew he was stiff and formal and nomole more than he wished to know how to be what he was not.