Duncton Rising (67 page)

The accused sighed long and deep, his haunches striped where blood dripped down; he pulled himself forward, half turned and had not Chervil stepped out and caught him he would have collapsed to the ground. But there he was, still mute, and forgiven.

“But there is another?” whispered Skua, looking not at Quail but at the gathering.

“Oh, yes,” said Quail, his look still smug and self-satisfied. It was all going so well, and he was in command, and nomole but he knew quite what was going to happen next. Nor was he going to pause and let others – Thripp perhaps – take the initiative; not that it would have been easy with the gathering, having now tasted the pleasures of forgiveness and blood, wanting more, and something terminal perhaps before the festivities of Longest Night began.

Quail signalled to the rear of the chamber where there was an entrance that had been guarded throughout the proceedings by four impassive henchmoles.

“Let him be brought before us,” said Quail, and an excited chatter passed among the gathering as moles turned to catch a glimpse of the third and final accused of the afternoon.

When he came, half supported by his guards, his size and appearance brought all chatter to a halt. Huge he was, his snout twisted and angry, his great face furrowed deep with creases and scars and his strange wild eyes glancing here and there, half dazed, dulled, and seeking to interpret what was happening to him. Quail opened out his two front paws in a hypocritical gesture of welcome – indeed, he even smiled, and his bald head shone with pleasure and delight as all asked whatmole it was.

But a terrible gasp from Privet indicated that she knew the mole, and all too well.

“It’s Rooster,” she whispered, horror struck. “My Rooster..

“Brother, have you come to make confession?”

“Have,” mumbled Rooster.

Then the Stone be in thy heart and in thy mouth, that thou mayst truly and humbly confess thy sins before this gathering of thy brothers in the Stone, in the name of the Stone and its Light and its eternal Silence.”

There was a long pause while Rooster steadied himself and seemed to try to speak. Quail frowned and at his flank Skua hissed, “Has he not been prepared?”

“He has, Chief Inquisitor,” faltered one of the guards, and turning to the mole he jabbed a talon in his flank and whispered audibly enough for others to hear, “you know what to say, you bastard, so say it.”

Rooster raised his head, looked at Quail, peered round in a lumbering, lopsided way to right and left and said slowly, as if thinking of each word and only able to get it out when he believed it, “I confess to Stone Almighty, before the whole company of blessed brothers, and to thee, Quail..

“Brother Quail will do,” purred Quail.

“... and to thee. Brother Quail, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word and deed; through my fault, my own fault, my own grievous fault. Especially I accuse myself that I have... I have...”

But the words he had evidently been forced to learn by the guards had ended and he was on his own at the edge of the void of confession, not knowing how to continue. His great snout bowed, his flanks heaved with stress and strain, and his paws, huge and misshapen, tore at the ground as he glanced sideways as if looking for help or for escape.

Above him, masterful and so dangerously benign. Quail smiled a little and contrived to look compassionate.

“What is your name. Brother? Begin with that. A name is a good beginning to sincere confession.”

“Am Rooster,” said Rooster, “am that mole.”

A sign of recognition and excitement passed through the chamber.

“Oh my dear,” whispered Privet, unseen but so near, “oh my love, what have they done to you?” And she might have cried out, and made him know she was there had not Whillan held her tight, and Madoc too.

While to Maple’s face, unseen by the others, had come the bold and resolute look of one born to lead, who now sensed his moment for decision and action had arrived, and he must think, and analyse, and plan, for a chance had come, and it must be grasped and used.

“You must not speak or draw attention to us here,” Maple commanded Privet. “Whatever happens you must not. In this turn of events we have a chance and I begin to see some light.”

“But Maple —”

“Trust me now, Privet. Surprise will be everything.”

Below them the gathering had whispered and muttered to itself when Rooster spoke his name, perhaps as those who knew it explained to others that this mole had long been an enemy of the Newborns. The snake was in
his
heart, all right, and nothing he might say once he had finished his pathetic confession would rob them of their just reward, his punishment and death.

“Yes,” said Quail subduing them, “this is Rooster, whom some blasphemously claim to be not
a
Master of the Delve but
the
Master.”

“Nooo!” cried out Rooster. “Am nothing now, nothing any more.”

“No?” whispered Quail. “Then will you confess?”

“Will,” faltered Rooster, his voice breaking into slow and terrible sobs which echoed deeply round the chamber; “have journeyed far, have known all darkness, am ready to confess; am ready now.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

All across moledom, as the afternoon darkened towards Longest Night, moles were making their preparations for the celebrations to come. Some, in obscure systems whose names appear nowhere on the rolls of history, did so in the quiet old way, with faith for the future, without regret for the past, their devotions untouched, it seemed, by the ravage of dispute.

Others, including those in all the seven Ancient Systems whose name allmole knows, did so under the thrall of Newborn ways, the simple and easy rituals of the followers displaced now by dogma and close organization. All fun and love of the occasion lost to dutiful ritual and the fear of doing things the brothers would deem wrong. Here and there, even in the midst of Newborn rules and sanctions, a few followers bravely persisted in their own secret celebrations, old moles teaching the young traditional prayers and incantations to the seasons’ turn, praying that their harmless faith might find a way to survive and live on.

In this history of the coming of the Book of Silence we too may pause as Longest Night approaches, and share the company of three different moles whose thoughts that afternoon dwelt upon Caer Caradoc, and the Duncton moles in danger there.

The first, and the nearest, was Weeth, who, since he had been separated from Hamble, had not been idle. He was not a mole who minded being cast upon his own resources – indeed, until he had met Maple and the others his whole life had been self-centredly dedicated to fending for himself. Meeting Maple, listening to Privet, talking to Whillan, Weeth had caught a glimpse of a different life, one dedicated to the Stone and the good of mole. Being practical he had seen at once that to pursue this noble dream he must attach himself to a mole who was going places, and he had no doubt, none at all, that that mole was Maple.

So when he had separated from Hamble and the injured Chater to lead the pursuing Newborns off the scent, his first thought was this: “Once I’ve got rid of this lot where do I find Maple so that I can help him? He may well need me!”

It must be said that nomole could have been more surprised than Weeth himself that such altruistic thoughts should have entered his head as he ducked and weaved his way through the undergrowth in the lee of Caer Caradoc, making noise enough to be sure that he was followed. He knew well that but a short time before, in such dangerous circumstances as these, one taste of liberty and he would have been off and away from danger as fast as he could go, without a moment’s thought for anymole, however much they might have needed his help.

“But no! A committed mole am I!” said Weeth to himself as he huddled painfully into a clump of spiky spear-thistles and watched the Newborns flounder by and out of sight. “Now what must a mole do? What was I taught when I was young? Why, that a mole must take his opportunities where he can. Therefore Weeth, accept that this sudden and unexpected turn of events – namely that I am here, at liberty, within reach of Caer Caradoc and
no mole knows where I am
 
–
offers the opportunity of... surprise! That’s it! I can appear where I will without anymole expecting it and thus achieve maximum effect.

“Do I retrace my steps and seek to find Hamble and Chater? Or do I go to see what assistance I can be to Maple? The latter, I think. Therein is my commitment. I must not spread myself too wide, there is not enough of me, A paw here, a snout there and a flank across the way is not what I call commitment, and is unlikely to be of real help to anymole. It is the whole body or nothing, and so, Maple, Weeth is at your command!”

At this point in his monologue, Weeth had spoken aloud, and he now raised his head as if expecting a response from Maple himself. When none came Weeth continued, “So! I must scribe my own orders! I must use my initiative! I must attempt to rejoin my commander and render what assistance I can. But, where? How? And when?”

The day was already well advanced and Weeth had pondered long and hard before deciding where he must go: “Caer Caradoc! If Maple has been able to he will have gone there and I can join him. If he is unable, well, he will wish me to go and make what observations I can and report back. Therefore Caer Caradoc it is!”

He set off without delay and reached the eastern lower slopes of Caer Caradoc without difficulty, though with some danger, for there were patrols about and moles scurrying here, there and everywhere. But dodging these, Weeth had reached the climb up to Caradoc itself safe and unseen.

He ate a little, rested, and then began the ascent. He could see the rough dark shapes of the Stones high up to his right, and the easier, flatter top of the hill above and to the left, and, since he found evidence of mole routes that way opted for the rough, unrouted way to the right beneath the Stones, just as Privet and Madoc had done earlier.

Privet had seen and heard some of the violence of the night before, and now, in the cold light of day, Weeth saw the results of it. Rooks circled and flapped where the bodies lay, paws twisted and turned and dead mouths wide open to the winter sky. Some were by themselves, others together in black huddles, all still and strange, for so close were they entwined that it seemed some of the corpses had three front paws and some two heads.

Weeth had seen death before and its presence here only served to increase his resolve to find Maple. To his surprise, there seemed no living mole about at all and so he took time to examine the dead to see how they had died. It did not take him long to conclude from the lightness of the talon wounds on many of them, and the signs of bruising and crushing on their bodies, that they had been thrown, or pushed, over the sheer rock face above, and tumbled to their deaths on the scree beneath before rolling downslope to where he found them. That such a killing of moles should be done so openly, and the evidence left for anymole to find, suggested that the Newborn murderers felt they had little to fear. Rooks swooped down, their eyes black, their claws grappling, their harsh cawing wild across the slopes. Weeth stared and knew he would not forget.

He decided to contour the hill and strive to ascend on the north side, and set off once more. But the ground grew rougher and steeper and as he rounded the curve of the hill and saw its northern face he gasped. It was steep and forbidding and at its highest point rocks outcropped in vertical buttresses, all unscalable. Time had passed and he felt tired so he descended to gentler slopes to rest and eat of the scrawny worms he found beneath loose rocks that had fallen from the heights above.

Then as he retraced his route at a lower level he came across a sight more terrible in its special way than that he had seen earlier: a dead mole he recognized as one of Rooster’s friends, savagely wounded about the head. But the blood on the grass and rocks about the place showed that he had not died easily, and had dragged himself to his final resting-place.

“Weeth is getting nowhere but into despondency,” he muttered to himself. “Weeth must decide...”

But the decision was made for him. Just as he was leaving the dead mole he heard the sound of struggle and fighting some way along the route he was retracing, and creeping silently along to see what was apaw, he witnessed the tail end of a fight. The victors were six tough Newborn moles; the vanquished a single bleeding mole, Rooster: roaring and struggling, but beaten half unconscious into submission. Weeth came to the scene in time to hear one of the Newborns say, “Thank the Stone we found him or it would have been
us
who’d have to atone. Brother Skua’s instructions are to take him up above.”

“He’ll never make it!” said one of the others.

“We’ll make him make it,” said the leader grimly. “He’ll be needed to make a confession to the brothers before he gets himself back down the slope again.”

“He’ll come down a bloody sight faster than he’ll be going up!” one of them said laughing.

“Come on then...”

“Will,” said Rooster, heaving one of them off him. “Will come!”

“This is called opportunity,” said Weeth to himself from the shadows, “for Maple may be at the end of the route Rooster is now upon, and
there
I believe will be things to do. Opportunity is all a matter of the point of view; one mole may say “Rooster, there you go!” and another “Maple, here I come!” and the strange thing is we are both, Stone willing, going to the same place.”

Weeth turned his eyes upslope towards the top of Caer Caradoc, fixed it with a sharp good-humoured gaze and, watching after where the Newborns led Rooster, quietly followed them in the shadows behind, to take what opportunity came his way.