Duncton Stone (20 page)

“Right in, submerge yourself, and don’t let the force of the water take you, for we’ll not be in a hurry to save an old crone like you.”

She was wet, cold, and desolate when they led her back to the cell, and already dreading the long wait she now expected before mole spoke to her again. She felt her strength already seeping from her, and reality slipping towards the unreal life of isolation and horror.

“Stone,” she began to pray, as she was pushed back into the cell, “give me the strength to survive.”

But survive as what? The mole she had always been, journeying from place to place, from system to system, in search of new moles, new tasks.
That
mole?

“No, Stone, not that any longer. Give me courage to be the mole for whom you have set a task that journeying mole can only vaguely see, but which frightens her, and brings a panic to her breast. It is near now, this task, and you must try to help a weak mole, all withered, all crone-like now! You must help that mole cast off her old self that she may have courage to venture forth to the task she knows awaits her.”

For a long time then Privet was silent, and still, and there was peace around her in the cell, and purpose, and sometimes her eyes half closed, her mouth moved and whispered fragments of thought as if she were searching through her mind and heart to find the true way.

“Stone,” she whispered as the afternoon waned into twilight, “it was the Book of Silence I came looking for, so long ago when I was young. It was for that I left Duncton. And now it is towards it that I reach, frightened and alone, for none goes with me on this path, none at all.”

Tears trickled down her face; exhausted, hungry, and feeling terribly alone, she closed her eyes and slept.

Pawsteps approached along the parapet above, coming down through the evening light. Whispered voices, whispered echoes. Guards slipping away from their post, compliant. Three moles approaching, and a head looming over the parapet to peer down at the exhausted Privet.

“This is the mole, this is the one.”

“The mole Privet?”

“Yes.”

“She has... aged. Her haunches are thin, her coat bedraggled with time.”

How soft the voice, how gentle.

“We have all aged, Master.”

“I must go down to her.”

“It may be the last chance, Master. But, remember, time is short.”

“So... this is Sister Crowden.”

“
Was,
Elder Senior Brother: she is Privet of Duncton now. Remember, you have but little time... I will watch out for you. The guards will be biddable for but a short time.”

Thripp slowly descended the winding way to the level of the portal into the cell. His eyes were bright, and his step firm, though he felt it prudent to stay near the wall, lest he needed support. His heart thumped in his chest. He peered at a guardmole, who studiously ignored him and then moved discreetly away. Then, with some difficulty, he clambered over the narrow threshold and found himself stanced before the sleeping Privet.

“Sister Crowden! Wake up, Sister Crowden!”

Whatever deep dream or dark unconscious place Privet was in was cut across by that old familiar authoritative voice. She stirred, she struggled to wake, even as she heard her own voice say obediently, “Brother Confessor... I... I did not mean to sleep...”

For a moment before full waking she felt safe, she felt joy. Then loss, and fear, and all the years since Blagrove Slide crowded in and she awoke.

“Brother Confessor... it is you...”

She found herself staring into his clear eyes; he had aged, and grown thin and troubled.

“Sister Crowden...”

“My name is Privet now,” she said, wanting to reach out to him, this mole she had once loved. This mole had shown her ecstasy. This mole...

“What is your name? I never knew it, never.”

Even as he hesitated momentarily she recognized the thin body, the greying fur, the gentle voice. In Caer Caradoc had she seen and heard them.

“Thripp,” he said. “I am Thripp.”

“Thripp! I should have known when I saw Brother Rolt again. So you are Thripp?”

He nodded as if it was a curse. “The years have...” he whispered as he reached for her.

And the years since then might not have been as, for a time, they held each. other close.

“Thripp...” she whispered.

“Privet...” he said.

Two moles in awesome pilgrimage, whose paths crossed once before, and crossed now, and would again, each knew, one more time.

“There has been no other,” he said. “Never another Sister Crowden, Privet of Duncton, only you.”

“One other for me,” she whispered, “one other love.”

Their voices were whispers, their tears conjoined, their time thus too brief.

He understands,
she thought
, as Rooster does
.

She judges not,
he knew.

“Master,” cried out Rolt from above, “there’s little time...”

They pulled apart, staring, amazed.

“Our pups. Brother Confessor, you promised they would live. Rolt said...”

“I kept my word as best I could.”

“As best...?” Her voice trembled. She wanted to hear it from him.

“One did not survive, but three still live.”

“Which?” Her voice was sharp now, almost hard, the voice of a mother, readying to protect her young.

“The one that died was Brimmel...”

Privet sighed with pity and dismay. So many years had she held on to the memory of her four young and now she must take her leave of Brimmel, whose bright eyes she remembered looking into hers.

“Not...?”

“Painlessly,” said Thripp. “She did not suffer. Loosestrife lived, the liveliest of them all, and little Sampion.”

“You used the names I gave.”

“I did. And the male, Mumble, I called him that as long as I was able. A strange name, Sister Crowden, but who am I to question the names so erudite a mother gave her young? When he became a brother we changed it to something more suitable.”

They looked at each other and almost smiled. “Chervil, my son,” whispered Privet.

“It is so,” he said.

“I have spoken to him,” she said. “Of them all he is the one I knew as an adult.”

“The others...”

“I would meet Sampion and Loosestrife if I could.”

“May the Stone grant it to both of us. I last saw them as pups. I think that Rolf told them your true name...”

“Master! Pawsteps!” It was Brother Rolt’s voice from above. The sounds echoed down into Privet’s cell and then faded. “We must not stay long.”

“Sister... Privet... listen to me and try to trust me.”

“I shall,” whispered Privet, hoping she could.

“We know of your love for Rooster, and of his relationship to the mole Whillan. But we have little power here in Wildenhope. We shall do what we can, but you must trust us as you trust the Stone. They shall live, but in ways and places you may not like. They shall live on.”

“Let my life be forfeit before theirs.”

“On your life mole all moledom may depend.”

“But I am only Sister Crowden!”

“No, mole, you are Privet of Duncton Wood now, and time will prove you to be greater than us all. Try to forgive me, Privet – for all I have done to you.”

“It is for the Stone to forgive, only the Stone. Hear its Silence and you will be forgiven.”

The sound of more pawsteps...

“Master, we must go!” called Brother Rolt urgently.

“What were you to me?” wondered Privet aloud.

“I am Thripp, and that is all I am. Neither Brother Confessor nor Elder Senior Brother. And you, Privet of Duncton Wood, born of Crowden, daughter of Shire, granddaughter of the Eldrene Wort, you gave me all that has been worthwhile in my misguided life.”

“And our son?”

“Our son, our only son, Chervil, may the Stone guide him...”

Chervil... Thripp... all turned in Privet’s mind and she knew the Stone’s task was almost on her. Her son Chervil and Thripp and Loosestrife and Sampion lived. The walls of the cell turned, as the season, as her task.

“Chervil will one day be worthy,” she whispered. “Our son will be worthy.”

“I wish it could be so, but...” said Thripp, uncertain.

The last light faded even as these words were said, yet they stared through the darkness at each other in silence, as if they could see each other now as they had never been able to through the long years since their parting.

“Privet,” he whispered to her, as if he had never said the name before.

“Thripp,” she replied.

“Now, come, Master, come...” called Rolt.

And the last Privet heard was Thripp’s voice saying, passionately, fervently, and with that same resolute conviction that had inspired a generation of moles to follow him, “There will be a way through this darkness, there will be a way... May the Stone help us find it in time. Trust in what happens to the others, Privet, and guard yourself, for on you now all depends.”

She heard his pawsteps departing as other, heavier ones hurried near.

Then in the black depth of her cell Privet prepared herself for the morrow; she whispered the names of all her young, the one that had been and those that lived still...

“Brimmel, and Sampion and Loosestrife and Mumb... and Chervil. And you Whillan, you as well, my dear.” And a fearful joy was in her heart as beyond them silence called her, and she knew how she might go to it.

Chapter Eleven

The captives could hardly have known it, but the rain through which they had journeyed to Wildenhope had stopped almost since their incarceration. But the sky had stayed for the most part lowering and grey, and the river full, and dangerously fast.

Not that the respite from rain helped them, for when one dawn soon after their arrival they were brought up one by one to the surface by guards, it began to spit down again. Rarely can moledom have known so gloomy and dispiriting a scene; the succession of moles, many ill or suffering the effects of torture, and others demented by isolation alone, were brought together on top of Wildenhope Bluff that morning, and told to keep their snouts low and their eyes cast down. Those that succeeded in glancing about quickly saw moles much like themselves, oppressed and with little hope. It was plain enough that punishment was in the air, but most seemed too broken-down to care.

Privet, Rooster and Whillan managed to catch sight of each other in the crowd and nod a gesture of encouragement – but of Madoc there was no sign, and nor was she there, as Snyde’s list of the victims that day shows. She had, in fact, been detained below on Squelch’s orders, and her name and arrival expunged from the records. Madoc now no longer officially existed at all. While huddled among the broken moles were Thripp’s old aides Arum and Boden, their bodies defeated, but faith in Thripp’s way still shining in their eyes.

All was grey, all oppressive, and while they waited a cold wind sprang up from the west, forcing guards and prisoners alike to turn their snouts eastward towards the spit of land which marked the confluence of the river and its tributary from Caer Caradoc. The river flowed shiny grey across the sodden landscape, except where the smaller stream met it and made a race of white and yellow water, which surged and sucked and ran on all swollen and murderous southward to a curve and then shot out of sight.

Despite the warning to keep their eyes to the ground the continuous dull roar and sheer force of the river drew a mole’s gaze, furtive at first but then grimly fascinated, as a helpless mole might watch the preparations of the creature about to prey upon it.

The Elder Brothers finally appeared, all of them, the great and the good of the Caradocian Order. Quail now unchallenged at their head, Skua at his left flank, and other older ones gathering round him. While to their rear and at one side, less conspicuous than he had been at the Convocation at Caer Caradoc, was Squelch, beaming and content.

To the other side and more prominent was Chervil, not quite part of the favoured group. His face was set in a dark impassive glower, and he was flanked on one side by Feldspar, his guardmole, and on the other by Feldspar’s two stolidly powerful sons, Fallow and Tarn. Snyde’s record of this grim event makes the following subtle comment on Chervil’s presence: “At the Convocation in Caradoc, Chervil, son of Thripp, had also appeared flanked by these guards. But on that occasion they looked as if they were his captors; at Wildenhope they looked as if they were his bodyguards, obedient only to him.”

In the interim Chervil had won the three moles’ confidence and loyalty, and their presence served to increase the impression of power and authority he manifested. This was reinforced by his obvious health and strength – his eyes were glittering bright, his black fur glossy, his powerful talons shining – and light seemed to favour him so that he had the fascinating appeal possessed by many consummately powerful moles.

We may well imagine the glances Privet gave him, knowing as she now did what he was to her. But not a single sign of feeling towards him did she betray, not fear even. She must trust the Stone, and that meant giving up fear as well as hope. She must trust...

The impression of power Quail conveyed was more direct and brutal than Chervil’s, and perhaps more immediately chilling. He, too, benefited from the presence of acolytes about him, in particular the sharp-snouted, mean-eyed Skua. If the grey light of the day seemed to enhance Chervil’s strength, it made Quail’s bald head and cold eyes almost lurid in effect, and the myriad of lines and creases in his features were curiously frightening, as if even age dared not quite disfigure him yet was creeping up to take him unawares.

Snyde took a stance some way from the main body of moles, and on a little rise of ground, the better to view proceedings and report on them. He had come with two of his most trusted minions and after a brief consultation they both discreetly melted into the crowd of moles, one among the victims, the other among the Elders, where, no doubt, they would observe, eavesdrop, and report back later to their mentor.

It is to one of these perhaps that we owe our image of Rooster who, as striking as ever, was the only one it seemed who was not so overawed as to be biddable and still. He moved restlessly, his shaggy grotesque head (as it seemed to the observer) jerking and shifting, his eyes here and there, unable to simply look down, or just stare at the river. And sometimes he groaned, or mumbled, and his paws patted and squelched at the wet ground.