Duncton Rising (66 page)

“It is plain to you all, I suppose, what the snake is?” said Privet quietly.

“Anyone who disagrees with the Newborns,” said Maple.

“And the darkness that drives these moles and their leaders,” added Whillan.

“Yes,” whispered Privet, frowning. “I am afraid now of what we are going to see. That poor mole...”

They knew the one she meant: the unnamed accused whom Snyde had put the talon on and who, as the day had gone by, had grown progressively more pathetic and abject.

A foul odour of retribution was in the air and the victim upon whom to inflict it was already available, waiting only for some mole to point a talon at him, and there was no doubt at all who that prosecutor would be: the Chief Inquisitor, Skua. Not that one glance, nor one hair of his sleek thin fur, nor one twitch of his sharp snout, betrayed his intent, which made him and the atmosphere all the more threatening.

Adding to the formidable build-up was the continuing silence of both Thripp and Quail, who stanced still on either side of the dais, Quail, at least, expressionless. The Duncton moles would have liked a better view of Thripp, but if anything he was even harder to see now, for Rolt and others clustered about him and the most the secret watchers could observe without betraying themselves was his flank. At some point he would no doubt address the Convocation, but the longer he delayed doing so the tenser things would become, and the greater the sense of conflict between Thripp and Quail would grow in the dark imagings of the delegates’ minds, and make a confrontation ever more inevitable.

Any thought that the Duncton moles had – or any other genuine delegates still surviving among the mass of moles below – that a Convocation meant debate and discussion, had surely now disappeared. Nomole but a mad one would have stanced up in this chamber and spoken anything that ran counter to the mood of self-righteous crusade that was beginning to develop, unless it be one indifferent to his own fate.

Subtly, the chamber’s light faded, a reminder that the

Longest Night meant the Shortest Day, and it was an extra spur towards the grim act of retribution for sin that the gathering collectively needed before the coming revels of the Night itself could begin.

Now it was the turn of another anonymous mole, one of Skua’s Inquisitors, to come forward and announce the beginning of a period of public confession that would precede an address “by the moles who have pointed their talons towards the future that we must make on behalf of the Stone” – which could mean both Thripp and Quail, and even Brother Chervil, perhaps.

Without more ado Inquisitors and other senior-looking moles went separately amidst the delegates and were soon surrounded by moles eager to make their sins and failings known to one and all. But with so many declaring themselves at once the chamber was filled with general hubbub, and it was only when there were momentary lulls that the Duncton moles could hear any of the liturgy at all, and then it was fragmentary.

They heard the confessor say, “The Stone be in thy heart... confess... in the name of the Light... Holy...”

And they understood parts of the ritual response, “I confess... sinned exceedingly... fault... fault... fault... I accuse myself...”

Not much perhaps but enough to gather from the words and the mortification evident in the faltering voices that these were moles beset indeed by things done and left undone. How dark the afternoon seemed, how dreadful the hurriedly whispered guilt of mole, how silent the Duncton moles before this display of secret shame.

Occasionally some fragment of a wrong confessed drifted up to them, “vanity... sought to hurt.... felt desire... asleep when waking I should have been...”

“Asleep when waking I should have been...” repeated Privet with a smile. “What thinking and feeling mole is there alive who should not confess to that great sin? I know I have been guilty of that for too long.”

Mysteriously, and impressively, the light in the chamber seemed to grow a little more bright as the clamour of confession died away at last and a final few moles declared themselves. As the confessors began to shift back to the dais the final words of the individual ritual were heard from somewhere across the chamber, “... forgive thee all thy sins, and kill that snake within thee, and bring thee to everlasting Silence.”

The gathering settled once again and Skua ominously turned his back on the moles to face his own Inquisitors and said, “Are there any whose confessions reveal a sin so bad, or a wrong so deep, that the forgiveness of the gathering as one is called for?”

The silence was sudden and deep, and once more apprehension filled the chamber as all eyes watched the Inquisitors to see if they would point out a mole for more public scrutiny.

“Yes,” whispered one of the more elderly Inquisitors contemptuously, “there is one who confessed to wrongful torture of a junior member of our brethren, one who confessed to that.”

“Let him come forth,” said Skua quietly, turning to face the gathering again, his eyes scanning them, for he, like all others but the Inquisitor who had spoken, did not know who the guilty mole was.

There was a stir, and a retreat among the moles across the chamber opposite the Duncton moles, at the back, very near to where Chervil stanced so still and silently. A mole glanced up with faltering paws and trembling snout, his eyes wide with fear and his mouth half opening as if he were seeking words with which to defend himself but could not find any. He seemed rooted to the spot.

“Brother Chervil, bring him forward please.” It was Quail, breaking his long silence, and his voice was deep and reasonable, yet loaded with dreadful menace.

“Brother Chervil...” This time the menace was more noticeable. It was plain that Chervil wanted no part of this game of confession and punishment, nor welcomed the clear implication that by doing Quail’s bidding he was at his command.

Chervil glowered at the moles to right and left, Feldspar nodded briefly, and the two of them came forward to lead the sinner to the front.

“Brother Chervil by himself, I think,” purred Quail, his eyes fixed impassively on the guilty mole, “I hardly think the confessand is going to seek escape, or that you, Brother Chervil, are liable to be... well, hurt by him.” He grinned evilly and there was a sycophantic titter about the chamber.

Chervil frowned, nodded to Feldspar to resume his place, and led the hapless mole slowly to the front, himself somehow made to seem demeaned and tainted by the sorry ritual.

But worse was to follow. Only at the last moment, when Chervil and what now seemed his prisoner reached the dais, did Quail raise a paw to stop them both and say with considerable force: “Has he not confessed in good faith, and were not the words of forgiveness uttered by the good Inquisitor?”

“They were,” said Skua through gritted teeth.

Quail turned and faced the gathering with an encouraging smile. Such was his personality that as one they cried out. “They were... he was forgiven... forgive him now!”

“Well then, you see. Brother Chervil, he must be left to go in peace.”

The confessand literally fell over himself in his gratitude and eagerness to get back to safety at the back of the chamber, and Chervil too tried to return, but this Quail would not have.

“Oh, now we have need of thee,” he said, still with the smile, but with menace, and now with contempt as well.

“Yes,” said Skua, “there is still the accused.” He pointed at last to the mole who had been waiting in such agony for so long.

“Yesss...” sighed the gathering with satisfaction, “arraign him now, for the snake entwined his heart and he must be tried and punished.”

“If guilty,” said Quail benignly, “if guilty, Brethren! For judge not too soon, lest you yield to the snake of doubt and lies and are arraigned.”

“No, master...” chorused the moles in reply, their whispers, which were at first a jumble of sound, transmuted suddenly into the ugly chant, “Arraign him! Arraign him! Arraign him!”

As the cry went up, Squelch, perhaps at a signal from Quail, rose up ponderously and approaching the accused, took him by the paw and led him forward, snout low, gasping, eyes hopeless, to the front of the dais near to where Chervil reluctantly waited.

“Should we?” said Quail. Then more powerfully, “Must we. Brother Chervil?”

“Kill the bugger!” some mole shouted at the back.

“Aye, he’s guilty so let’s show him the Stone’s judgement,” cried another.

Chervil turned to look at them and they fell silent before his cold and powerful gaze; while at the rear Feldspar and the others with him had moved a little closer, though whether the better to protect him, or to prevent him doing something he should not, was hard to say.

Chervil turned back to Quail and said carefully, “Brothers, he should be judged according to the laws of blasphemy and sin.”

“Judge him! Arraign him!” shouted out the excited gathering impatiently.

“Judge him. Brother Chervil?” said Quail, heaving himself up for the first time and coming to the accused, on whose shoulder he placed a paw in an avuncular way, as if he was the mole’s protector from the crowd. “Judge a brother on Longest Night? And perhaps punish him?”

Chervil said nothing –
could
say nothing – and the crowd fell uneasily silent. For the first time a look of faint yet distinct hope came to the stricken eyes of the accused, while nearby, frowning and concerned, the crooked form of Snyde sought what narrow shadows it could find to hide among. Forgiveness was not his intent, but nor was a wish to be the one who pointed the talon of accusation at a mole forgiven.

“Forgiveness is indeed a blessing,” said Skua icily, “on such a night as this.”

“Yet we must not shirk our duty, not now, not ever,” said Quail suddenly. “As I’m sure Elder Senior Brother Thripp would agree?”

Thripp said nothing from the shadows, hardly visible.

Quail seemed to be growing in size and confidence by the moment, almost, indeed, revelling in the power he had and which inexorably he was imposing.

“Yes, we must even tonight punish where punishment is due.”

“Oh yes,” sighed the gathering.

“Because I know a mole...”

“Oh,” whispered the gathering pleasurably. A punishment was coming, was imminent. Their waiting was nearly over.

“I know a mole who has sinned, in whom the snake has lived for many a long year, a mole who may confess here and now...”

“What mole, Master?” hissed the assembly.

“A mole alongflank whom
this
mole’s transgressions” – here he thrust forward the hapless accused “are as nothing, but brief shadows in a place of light.”

Quail pulled the accused to him, so close that their snouts were almost touching, and he caressed the mole’s shoulder almost intimately.

“Are you confessed before the Stone?”

“Yes, Master!” said the mole, his snout glistening with fear.

“Are you free of the snake?”

“Yes, Master,” he sobbed.

“Cleansed?” “Purified, Master.”

“Empty of guilt?”

“Freed, Master.”

“Ready for the absolution of penance?”

“Yes, Master,” sighed the mole uneasily.

“Ready for the pain which shall not defile the Silence with a cry?”

“Yes, Master,” said the mole, looking doubtfully at Squelch, who at some hidden signal from his father or Skua had lumbered across to take his place behind the accused.

“Command it. Master,” sighed the gathering, leaning forward and staring with horrid fascination at the great taloned paw which Squelch had raised slowly over the rear part of the accused’s back during these final questions.

For final they undoubtedly were – something was going to happen.

“If he cries out, if he screams, if he makes any sound at all, he will be judged unclean and killed,” whispered Boden. “Very few survive.”

“What, would you stop us?” whispered Quail accusingly to Chervil, who by a glance perhaps, or some slight movement, had indicated horror, or disapproval of what was happening. Chervil said nothing.

“For ours is the punishment of the Stone, the just judgement of the Light, the pain in the Silence that makes clean and purifies!”

With that, Quail stepped back and nodded briefly to Squelch, who without more ado drove his talons down on to the spine of the accused. The blow was hard enough to set Squelch’s flesh juddering, and he let forth an unearthly gasp as he struck. But moments later this was lost in the collective gasp of pain that came from the gathering; which was just as well, for it drowned out the cries of sympathy and shame from Madoc, Privet and the others. But this was not the worst.

The shrieked response was followed by a grim silence as all watched the stricken mole and his reaction to what at the least was a painful blow, and might easily have been a mortal one. Perhaps if he had screamed or cried out initially it was not heard against the general sound, but now, as Squelch moved back from him, his talons bloody at his flank, the wounded mole seemed to shiver briefly, and then opened his eyes to stare out at a world which was not one which any other mole in that chamber could see. A place of talons and darkness, of agony, in which the only relief was a cry, long and loud, of pain. His mouth opened to emit that cry, all leaned forward to hear it come, Squelch raised his talons once more in excited expectation of a command to kill; but with an effort of will that took that mole far beyond the evil and corrupt Newborn world in which life had trapped him, he screamed silently. No sound, no cry of agony, could have been more loud, nor more memorable, than that silent scream that no mole heard. Its suppression at the command of Brother Quail, and in the name of that perverse sect and its unwholesome ideas, before a gathering of willing moles not one of whom stanced up and condemned it, said more about what the Newborns had become than any sound ever could, or a million words.

If the mole had cried out and been killed many would no doubt have been satisfied. But this way, with pain conquered in the name of the Newborn interpretation of the Stone’s requirement, Quail could afford to look smug and satisfied. And, too, to turn and stare insolently at Thripp.