Duncton Tales (17 page)

“But before I do that I want Chater to tell you of his recent experience in Cuddesdon. What you will hear will shock you, and in the normal course of events would strengthen your stated resolve to fight back. Indeed you might, once you have heard what Chater has to say, feel that to the simple will to resist might legitimately be added the right of revenge. But I pray each one of you, keep an open mind about the best course to take until after you have heard Chater’s account, and my own conclusions.”

The chamber grew hushed and the light of the afternoon a little faded. Somewhere nearby wind rustled at dried leaves, and flurried, and leaves scuttered across the surface of the Wood over their heads. Finally all eyes were on Chater, who cleared his throat and looked about a bit, smiling in a consoling way at Fieldfare.

“Could make it long, could make it short, but I’ll make it middling,” he said, one paw rising momentarily to his injuries as if he were unconsciously preparing to remind himself of the circumstances in which they had been suffered. “You all know that the religious community of Cuddesdon was founded there by a mole of the same name at the end of the war of Word on Stone. It was a place of worship, study and refuge for moles who have a preference for celibacy and the life of worship.

“We journeymoles go there from time to time, as much to collect texts originated there as to take copies, for it is not a main or even minor library; but unlike most its moles are inclined to scribe of matters religious and spiritual and the Master here feels that such texts should be disseminated. ’Tis not more than three days’ journey from here, on a rise above the vales to the east, a good warm spot as ever was, but not one much visited.

“The last time I was there was a full Longest Night ago when I was a bit younger than I am today. There were no more than thirty moles there then, mainly males, and from all I’d heard, and all I’ve learnt since, I’d say that until a few weeks back the number had not changed much at all. When I first went they welcomed me and kept me there longer than I should have allowed …’ he smiled wryly at the Master and then at Fieldfare.

“No matter. The moles were kindly moles, generous, peaceful, and harmed nomole. Studious they were, and scribed most beautifully, even I could see that! They made texts it was an honour for a journeymole to carry. But that’s all done, all over, isn’t it? Aye. Cuddesdon’s finished now.”

There was a stir of alarm and dismay among Chater’s listeners before they looked uneasily at each other, and then back at him to continue.

“I’ll make what I’ve got to say next brief, for it’s not a matter gives me any pleasure to talk on. Now, it’s my habit to get near a destination the evening before I visit it, have a good night’s sleep, and then start off at dawn fresh and ready for anything, for a journeymole never knows what he’s going to find when he gets where he’s going. Cautious buggers we are, and just as well sometimes. Like at Cuddesdon a few days back …

“As I said, the place is on a rise and I had stopped down in the vale overnight, and climbed up the westerly slopes as dawn broke. It’s a hard climb and autumn dew doesn’t help, so I took it nice and slow. First thing I noticed when I reached the flatter part at the top was there was neither sight nor sound of mole, which was a change from my last visit. The Cuddesdon moles are — or were — in the habit of wandering about of a morning doing their contemplations and prayers but there was not a mole in sight. “Something’s up,” I thought to myself. “Something important that’s keeping them all out of sight.” But being cautious I hid the text I was carrying somewhere safe, just as I was trained to do when I was no more than a youngster, before I went to find a mole to tell me what was going on. It was just as well I did.

“Down into the tunnels that Cuddesdon himself delved a hundred years ago I went, and snouted about, and scented a dry, miserable, mean-spirited kind of scent that I thought was trouble. But I was too late to get out and away to somewhere I could observe without being seen, for I had been heard. I’d no sooner turned than I heard the faint thumping of signals above, and the patter of snurtish paws of sneaking moles. Ominous, heavy patterings.

“‘Chater, my lad,’ I said to myself, ‘there’s trouble apaw in this system. Better ready yourself to face it out.’ Just then a couple of moles came down a side tunnel and cut off my retreat, and two more down the tunnel up which I had been heading. I looked them up and down and did not like what I saw. Sleek, glossy, young, male, and all smiling the same way and enough to make you sick. Smile smile smile, from eyes that looked all dead.

“‘Hello!’ says I, as cheerful as I could make it.

“‘Welcome Brother,’ says they, and I swear they all said it together like they were one mole split into four copies of each other. Welcome my arse. They were as welcoming as an owl’s talons in May.

Then one of them, or all four of them, said, ‘Brother, why are you here?’

“‘To visit the Cuddesdon moles,’ I replied. They approached me as one, so that if I turned to face two of them the other two were looming behind, if I turned the other way then the others were at my back. Not one of them was bigger than me but all four seemed more than four times as big. Now whilst Chater does not appreciate intimidation, Chater is not a fool.

“‘We
are
the Cuddesdon moles now,’ they said. ‘But —’

“‘But what, Brother?’ says they, smiling and arrogant.

“But nothing, but bugger off out of there. Chater’s not a bloody army. But then, I said to myself, if the Cuddesdon moles are in trouble Chater can at least find out about it, so I smiled back.

“Well, they asked me some questions as to why I had come and I told them, lying through my teeth, that I had lost the text in the vale below crossing a stream and I had come to beg the pardon of the Cuddesdon moles et cetera and so forth.

“‘We have no need of texts unless we ask for them,’ they said. Then: ‘Are you truly of the Stone, mole?’

“I told them I was worshipful, yes, and went to the Stone at times of ritual and said my bit, but no, I wouldn’t say I was exactly
ardent
. So they warned me that a mole is nothing without sincere fear of the Stone and wittered on without even the ghost of a smile for half a day, not letting me eat or sleep and staying that close that I swear there wasn’t a moment in all that long time when one or other of them wasn’t touching me, and pressurizing me, until even my mind was beginning to go rough at the edges with their talk. I adopted the old trick of acting dim, and it finally worked because they got fed up with me and let me go in the mid-afternoon, with the warning to get back across the vale as quick as I could and not dally on the way.

“They didn’t give me any chance to look about the system and see if they had the real Cuddesdon moles sealed up somewhere in the place, but I thought as I traipsed off downslope, “Sod this for a lark, the Master would not wish me to return to Duncton without some idea of what’s going on.” Then there was the undelivered text to recover before they found it. Then there was my pride. All in all I decided a short sleep in the vale followed by a little nocturnal investigation would not go amiss. After all, thirty moles just don’t go missing without something being seriously wrong.”

“Chater, my love!” interrupted Fieldfare. “You never said you were like this, taking risks and all.”

Chater grinned mischievously.

“My own angel,” he said in reply, “if I had told you over the years one quarter of what a journeymole does delivering texts you’d have died a thousand deaths.”

“Not any more he doesn’t, dear one,” said Fieldfare firmly in reply. “Not ever!”

Chater grinned again, and looked roguishly charming.

“Well,” said Fieldfare, “not without me.”

Fat lot of good you would be,” said Chater cheerfully.

“Not
never
!” said Fieldfare.

“Get on with it, Chater,” growled Drubbins.

“To cut a long story short …”

“Not for the first time,” muttered Maple with a grin, and with evident respect for his old friend.

“… I went back and was caught.”

“Oh!” said Fieldfare, nonplussed.

“But not before I got round a lot of the tunnels and confirmed there were no other moles there, whether Cuddesdon moles, or the Newborn lot. I also discovered that the Library, not a large one when I saw it previously, was depleted. That was evident because there were gaps in the stacks. Some moles, and I could guess which ones, had gone through the shelves removing texts. Where to and what for? I soon found out, and discovered too the likely explanation of what happened to the Cuddesdon moles. I got caught, as I say, and the smiles on their faces were quick in disappearing when they saw who it was ferreting about “their” tunnels.

“I was accused of disloyalty, abuse of trust, and affronting the Stone — yes, plenty of affront in Chater, brothers and sisters! And then … when I protested and said I was only doing what anymole would have done who had half a care for the good moles of Cuddesdon as once was, they asked if I dared question their Stone-given right to judge me. When I said nomole is judge, only the Stone, they talked about appointees, rights, arraignments, and Stone knows what. But late at night or early in the morning is no time for arguments about lore and language.

“‘Eff off,” I said eventually, driven to crudeness, and it was the best thing I could have said. It provoked them into revealing that beneath their smiles and words, they’re violent. They called it blasphemy, swearing like that to the true-born representatives of the Stone and then as sudden as a talon thrust
a fifth
mole appears, a bit older than the rest.

“If the others seemed cold he gave off a chill like ice. When I saw him I
was
frightened. He stared, solid and dark, eyes like tunnels a mole doesn’t want to go down, and powerful, like few moles
I’ve
ever seen.

“‘Get him out of here and off the hill. Stretten him!’

“‘Stretten him?’ I said to myself. ‘I don’t like the sound of that!’

“‘Yes. Senior Brother Inquisitor Fetter, anything you say!’ they says as one. Fetter, that was his name. Then before I knew it I was harried down the eastward slopes out of Cuddesdon, through brambles and briars, over pasture, over stony ground, pushed bodily down a ledge, and as I went and began to lose consciousness I noticed that they didn’t hit me so much as push me in the direction of obstacles enough to maim a mole, or wound him. But I wasn’t so. far gone as I didn’t hear one of those self-righteous bastards —”

“Chater!” expostulated Fieldfare. “Not in front of the Master!”

“… say, ‘He’s tougher than most of those Cuddesdon moles we …’ but more I didn’t hear. Too busy avoiding being blinded in the hawthorns and spear-thistle they were shoving me through. It was enough to make me realize what “strettening” was, and is, and what moles suffered it before me. The Cuddesdon moles, that’s who. “Strettening” is the Newborns’ word for roughing up a mole to death.

“In that nightmare journey down the hill, I saw not one, not two, but
three
bodies of moles, or rook-torn parts of bodies. Aye, the Cuddesdon moles were murdered down that hill or, if they were not murdered there they were finished off by the same moles who greeted me with thick snouts and narrow eyes and treacherous talons.

“‘He has blasphemed and was arraigned,’ said one of the Newborns when they tumbled me into a miserable group of Garsington moles waiting near the River Thame that runs along there. “Let the Stone judge him.”

“With that they left me surrounded by that group of moles, and without looking back headed up the hill again, to their gentle meditations, and worthy worshipping of the Stone, and contemplations on peace and the true way.

“I was in no condition to fight, and didn’t try to. Escape was going to be my only way. If my treatment had been rough so far, it immediately got worse, for they shoved me downslope some more to the river.

“‘It’s to be a drowning then,’ says I to myself, ‘or a swim!’”

“You’re a good swimmer!” said Fieldfare suddenly, stanced up in alarm and staring blankly at the far side of the silent chamber as if she could see it all as it happened and had forgotten that it was a tale she was being told, and by Chater himself. “Oh, beloved, I hope you escape!”

“I wouldn’t be telling this story if I hadn’t, you daft old thing,” said Chater. “They got me to the river, or rather to its muddy foreshore, and I knew it was now or never. So I turned and in a quavering voice begged to be allowed to live. Just to get them off their guard. Moles like others begging them to do things and they relax. The Garsington moles fell for it and smirked at each other, obviously thinking they could have a bit of fun with me. I did not give them time, but talon-thrust the nearest as hard as I could in the snout, and lashed out with a back paw at another one’s groin. Squelch and yelp. Bastards! A third roared so I thrust him in the eyes for good measure and then I turned towards the river, floundered through the mud for dear life, thinking of my Fieldfare here to urge me on, and dived into the river. And guess what I saw just before I dived? Guess what gave me a firm paw-hold to dive from?”

“Not bodies?” whispered Privet, appalled.

“Aye, bodies,” said Chater heavily. The rotting, stinking, corpses of the poor Cuddesdon moles. Well, that gave me strength, that did, for I wasn’t going to let myself be killed and nomole ever know what had happened to the others. You’ll never guess what came to my aid just in time? Texts! Aye,
texts
. The Newborns must have brought them down the hill just like they dragged the Cuddesdon moles, and dumped them in the river to destroy them.

“Well, they saved me by being there. Gave me something firm to put my paws on, which I did, pushed hard, and dived clean into the river. One dived in after me and lunged to hurt me and that’s where I got this injury to my face. But as my Fieldfare rightly says, I can swim. Journeymoles have to be able to. And swim I did until I was well clear of Garsington, and clearer in the head as well. After that I laid low a bit and then, keeping clear of any system and with the help of a vagrant mole I met who knew the area well, I made my way back to Duncton and straight to the Master. That’s the long and short of it, and that’s what the Newborns are up to in Cuddesdon, and probably other systems as well. And if we’re not careful it will be what they’ll be up to in Duncton before long.”