Duncton Rising (43 page)

“Your voice gave you away, you spoke the name differently. And the other thing I was going to say was that you were once like me, weren’t you?”

“Like you?”

“In a Newborn system. A sister. It’s obvious. You wouldn’t have asked if I meant their real names when I asked what they were called. You have escaped, haven’t you?”

Privet studied her closely for a time and said finally, “Madoc, you are
definitely
an intelligent mole. I have a feeling that the Stone wishes us to talk.”

“I have a feeling,” said Madoc quickly, and with another of her secret mischievous grins, “that we have already begun to do so.”

“Well, then, my dear, we shall continue while we can.”

“What with?”

“With a lot of questions which I think I need to ask, and which you need to answer, because I have a feeling there is not so much time left.”

“No, there isn’t,” said Madoc, “because Longest Night is tomorrow, and that’s when it’s all going to happen, isn’t it? That’s why they wanted you out of the way down here with us females.”

“Is it?”

“Is that the first question?”

“Of many, my dear,” said Privet stancing down, feeling suddenly quite sure that she might be “out of the way’, but she was in the right place, at the right time, with the right mole, and that if she was going to find an answer to the question she had asked herself about how she might do something “exemplary” it might well be here that she would find a clue to what it was.

Chapter Twenty

But there were moles other than Privet who had the feeling that same dull afternoon that questions they had so long been asking might soon be answered – though perhaps not in a way, or a place, of their choosing.

After a long and impatient wait in the chamber where they had been isolated, Whillan and Maple had been forced against all their instincts and wishes out to the surface, and from there up the steep side of Caer Caradoc, utterly impotent against the power of their escort of six guards. Naturally they protested at Privet’s and Weeth’s absence and demanded to know where they were, and why the promise to return them had not been kept, but it got them nowhere.

It is hard to demand anything for long of moles who do not reply, but stare all stony-eyed and say, with a faith and conviction that subordinates intelligence, that “it’s for everymole’s own good” and “for the best”.

“
What’s
for everymole’s good? Should we not be free to judge what’s best for
us?”

But their protests waned the higher they climbed, and they resolved to stay resolute and together, and do what they could when they reached the top of Caradoc itself So angry and concerned were they on their friends’ behalf that they had no time to think about what might have concerned most others, and should perhaps have most concerned them: their own safety among such tough expressionless moles as those that forced them on.

Yet even Whillan and Maple, brave as they were turning out to be, and unconcerned with personal safety, could not but think the Stone was giving them due warning of real danger on the top when, a little way before they reached it, black rooks gyred along Caradoc’s steep south-eastern edge, their wings ragged, their grey beaks sharp as they opened to emit rasping calls. Then, at the top itself, which mole should be waiting in the shadow of a rock, with a flocking of flapping rooks all about making such a din they could not hear his first words of hypocritical greeting, but Snyde himself.

The flattish summit of Caer Caradoc stretched beyond him, roughly rectangular, the other longer side straight ahead. Nothing but sky was visible beyond it, adding greatly to the sense that here at Caradoc they were on top of moledom itself. To the left flank, or south, the ground dropped away slightly, covered in tussocky grass, while to the right, or north, it rose up to end in an impressive cluster of Stones, russet in colour and stolid of form; the place to which a mole’s eye was most naturally drawn.

“Ah, so good to see you,” smirked Snyde.

“Where’s Privet, mole?” demanded Maple immediately, looming over him so fiercely that the Newborn guards put out paws to restrain him.

“Ah, yes. It was decided, that is to say that Senior Brother Chervil felt it best, that she would be safest away from here during the Convocation.”

“Why?”

“She
is
a female. Tempers may rise during the coming debates and most moles here do not expect or think it right that females should participate. They get emotional. They can’t think straight.”

“You didn’t warn us of this,” said Whillan. “And you know it to be untrue of Privet.”

“My dear mole,” said Snyde, doing his best to sound avuncular, “I did not know this would be the decision. I am but one delegate among many.”

“Where is she?”

“I understand she is safe,” said Snyde slowly. He plainly did not know where she was, and yet he tried to say the word “safe” with reassuring conviction. “Senior Brother Chervil himself told me that and I think it is true.” Strangely, he sounded disappointed, so perhaps it
was
true.

“And Weeth?”

Snyde’s eyes hardened still more. “As a disaffected Newborn he is not welcome on Caer Caradoc, and in any case he is not an official part of any delegation.”

“He is with me,” said Maple.

“You!” said Snyde, his eyes contemptuous. “You are not part of Duncton’s delegation.
You
are a mere protector of moles, Maple. I do not wish to seem disrespectful, but your role is somewhat limited and, now we have arrived, redundant. Nevertheless, I felt it only courteous to arrange for you to be allowed up here with us in these coming days of deliberation, though clearly your role will be merely that of an observer. But, well, since a number of other systems have much larger delegations than our own – a matter that Master Stour could have taken my advice on if he had bothered to consult me...” He paused, clearly expecting a look of acknowledgement or even a word of thanks from the infuriated Maple, whose experience on the journey of late had been one of increasing frustration. Maple only stared stonily at him, so Snyde turned to Whillan and fixed him with his smug, weaselly gaze.

“You, mole, may take Privet’s place and, if I give permission, you may perhaps say a word or two,” he said, turning away so dismissively that Maple, for one, would have forgiven Whillan if he had seized the jumped-up little scholar by the snout and unceremoniously hurled him over the steepest side of Caer Caradoc. To Whillan’s credit, however, he barely showed displeasure on his face, though his eyes narrowed dangerously as he nodded his understanding of what Snyde had said.

“I will only speak if you suggest it. Deputy Master,” he said.

“And Weeth?” said Maple. “Where is he?”

“Where he should be,” said Snyde, “with other potential trouble-makers in a cell, from which he will not be released until the Convocation is finished and dispersing. And before you raise the matter, Maple, I have complete assurances that he will be safe, though why I should have felt it necessary to petition on behalf of a mole who is not of Duncton I cannot think. Now, follow me, for we have been assigned to quarters and are to be briefed by one of the Senior Brother Inquisitors before long.”

With this, Snyde led them off, accompanied by some of the Newborn guards, passing by other groups similar to themselves who were hurrying to and fro on the surface before dropping down into entrances, as they now did, to the great airy, arched tunnels underneath. Here pawsteps echoed everywhere, and there was the muted muttering of voices in tunnel and chamber, at comer and turn, in ante-chamber and side tunnel, talking and whispering and falling silent meaningfully as others went by, as moles do in the days and hours before a great Convocation begins.

“Oh, and do not try to wander,” said Snyde with forced casualness, and a tight smile. “The Elder Senior Brother Thripp has given instructions that nomole is to leave once they have arrived.”

“And what moles will enforce that?” asked Whillan as innocently as he could, and casting a glance at Maple.

“Senior Brother Inquisitor Quail’s minions and guards, I expect,” said Snyde, “but that need not worry us, need it?”

“Of course not. Deputy Master,” said Maple heavily, his eyes already assessing the route they were taking, and pondering future options for escape.

As they followed on after Snyde they heard the cawing of rooks out in the sky above the surface, and at one of the entrances they passed, Whillan drew Maple’s attention to a high and noisy flocking of rooks above the hill. They flew about in fractious and fretful excitement, and kept diving at each other as if they had seen a vision of bloody carrion across Caer Caradoc, and were already squabbling over which was to take up the first morsel of the coming carnage.

Their passage over Caer Caradoc and through some of its tunnels told them a good deal about the arrangement of the hilltop system, and eventually brought them to a communal chamber busy with moles from whom they soon learnt a great deal more.

There was not a female in sight, and earlier impressions they had gained of the Newborn society being male-dominated, which Privet’s account of Blagrove Slide had suggested, were now amply confirmed. Whillan and Maple had lost track of the various ranks of the Newborns – the brothers, the Inquisitors, the senior Brothers, the minions, not to mention the delegates – but it was obvious enough that there were moles of all these ranks present, huddled in whispering cabals in corners, or going purposefully about the adjacent tunnels in ones and twos. There was a general air of final preparation, and occasionally the normal chilly reserve of the Newborns was broken by some rushing or panic-stricken mole who, it seemed, had discovered some problem or other which he was trying to put right before the morrow.

Here and there Whillan saw dusty, travel-stained moles, and from this and their more relaxed and frankly curious manner, compared to the neat and generally expressionless Newborns, it was easy enough to make out which were delegates from afar like themselves.

These moles kept together, and though it was unfortunately true that Snyde attracted a lot of attention – partly from his curious and twisted appearance, but also because he had the dutiful attentions of one or two Newborn brothers – it was a group of dark, large, rough-looking moles who drew the most glances for a time. Though they seemed to try to talk in whispers, yet their voices were deep and growly, and their laughs rasping yet melodious.

“Siabod moles, it seems,” whispered Maple, after he had managed to have a brief conversation with another visitor nearby where they had stopped. “We must make ourselves known to them. The Siabod system was friendly to Duncton in the old days.”

“Mandrake came from there,” whispered Whillan, invoking the name of the fearsome Siabod mole the resistance to whose tyranny in Duncton more than a century before, many historians claim, marks the true beginning of the emergence of modem Duncton as a force for good in moledom.

Maple nodded, and they stanced together making out what they could of the confusing busy-ness about them as they waited for Snyde to find out from the Newborn officials where they were to have quarters.

Their wait continued, and as evening advanced more moles arrived, and they found that provided they did not attempt to reach the surface they were permitted a degree of freedom to wander about and talk to others, though not the Siabod moles, who had gone off for a time. They were able to piece together the expected arrangements for the Convocation the next day, and found consolation and some reassurance in the fact that amongst the visitors were a good few like themselves, who were not of the Newborn persuasion at all. Many expressed the same fears of the outcome of the Convocation, and gave reports of minor repressions in their systems as the Newborns had gradually gained support in recent moleyears – usually among the females and moles in less wormful areas – until they had ascendancy. In only a few cases had there been physical repression, though most moles had heard, if only indirectly, of the harshness of the exemplary punishments meted out to those who, having committed themselves to the Newborn way, had strayed from their vows or the rigours of the routine rituals.

Snyde returned and took them the short distance to their quarters, which turned out to be a recently-delved chamber accommodating four – themselves and a Newborn guard. If that was not enough to serve as a way of watching over them, their chamber was separated from those of other visitors by tunnels and chambers occupied by Newborns.

“I think we should not take this as a sign they are spying on us in any way,” said Snyde in all apparent seriousness, “but rather as an expression of the Newborn wish that strangers such as yourselves (I think they accept me as an equal they can respect) may gain by fraternizing with them in these few days of harmony and intercourse. Now, if you don’t mind, I believe that Senior Brother Quail himself wishes to see a number of us more senior delegates, and to give us a task.”

“‘Harmony and intercourse’!” repeated Whillan ironically when Snyde was out of the way again. “That’s a laugh. I wonder what his task can be, and whether he’ll take advantage of the opportunity to report us as blasphemers to Quail himself.”

“Well, while he’s gone I suggest we get off our rumps and find out what we can from other moles in the main communal chambers,” said Maple.

They decided to separate and talk with as many different moles as they could before meeting up again later to find out what each had discovered.

It turned out that the air was thick with rumour and surmise, but enough different sources, including a few Newborns who proved open to conversation, agreed on a few basics for the two Duncton moles to be able to work out what was likely to happen officially, and unofficially, in the next few days.

The Convocation itself was to be held in a great chamber some way from the Stones, which had been specially delved for the occasion. It was to start in the middle of the following morning and its first day would end with celebrations for Longest Night. Thripp would be formally declaring it open and though the matters to be discussed remained unclear, it seemed they had to do with the ordering of moledom’s major and minor libraries, and the Newborns’ desire to rationalize the existing texts in them so that all moles, wherever they might be, would have the same opportunity for study and education. At the same time, there would be some public confessions made, presumably by moles who wanted to set an example to others of piety, or show remorse for sins committed.