Chater! They stanced in silence for a time after mention of his name, thinking of him and the other friends they had left behind, or from whom they had recently become separated, and, in their own way invoking the Stone’s protection for them as Longest Night approached.
“Did you talk to the Siabod moles?” asked Whillan, breaking the long silence.
“Yes, I meant to say I did, some of them at least. At first they were only cautiously friendly, and like us seemed to be waiting to see how things work out. But when they heard you and I were from Duncton, and definitely not Newborn, they were more forthcoming – so far as Siabod moles can be. They’re a proud lot, and fierce.”
“They always were according to the texts,” said Whillan.
“Well anyway, it was plain that they don’t trust the Newborns in Caradoc any more than we do, and their leader is a mole who knows all about the history of the great battles led by Gareg in the old days of the war of Word and Stone. His name is Ystwelyn, and I’d like to make contact with him if I can.”
But Maple did not succeed in doing so before Snyde reappeared, looking excited and pleased with himself.
“I have been given a task, and one we must consider most important,” he declared. “There is to be a great account scribed of this historic Convocation and as Master Librarian-elect of Duncton Wood they have given to me the honour of co-ordinating and editing it, with a number of scribemoles to work under me. I regret that it has been decided you, Whillan, will not be one of them, for this is an honour that should be spread throughout all the systems represented here. I have already met some of the scribes who will be my subordinates.”
“You have not chosen them yourself then?” said Whillan, trying not to sound greatly relieved he was not to be involved.
“No time for that. But they are all good scribes, I am told.”
“And good little Newborns too no doubt,” growled Maple.
Snyde attempted to smile, but his eyes were like the shining points of talons. “I can tolerate only so many such remarks, mole. You would be ill-advised to make any more this night.”
“This night?” said Maple sharply, aware from a sudden retreat in Snyde’s look that he had given something away he should not have done.
“Any night,” said Snyde hastily.
“But you said this night,” said Whillan.
Snyde looked at them both with ill-concealed dislike. “Matters are well and equitably organized here,” he said evasively. “Now I have work to do, and moles to see, so I suggest for your own good you cause no more trouble.”
“We have caused none so far,” said Maple coldly.
“Well then... that’s good, isn’t it?” said Snyde, twisting his dark way from them and signalling the two Newborns to go with him. He stopped only once to look back briefly before he was gone into the crowd, and his expression was not of hatred but of triumph.
“I have the feeling that he knows something we don’t and it is to our disadvantage,” said Maple.
“And that whatever it is it may have its beginning this night!”
“This night we shall be on our guard, and keep a very low snout indeed.” Maple grinned and waved suddenly at some moles across the busy chamber, and Whillan saw that he had caught the friendly eye of the Siabod moles, who nodded grimly at them as if to say that they too were aware that there was danger about.
“That’s the mole Arvon,” said Maple, pointing to a small dark mole who might almost have been from a different system, he looked so much less impressive than the others.
Whillan and Maple moved nearer each other and almost together one said and the other agreed, “We’ll find a place to make ourselves scarce; there must be somewhere to go where nomole will easily find us, this night.”
“This night?” whispered Privet in shocked alarm, her earlier calm quite deserting her.
Madoc nodded bleakly.
“They are to be killed?”
Madoc nodded again.
“Then, mole, we must warn them.”
“Yes, we must,” said Madoc.
Through the previous evening she had enlightened Privet considerably about the true depth of the corruption and evil of the Newborns, and had shown an admirable ability to describe and analyse matters that many moles would have found too shocking to contemplate. What was more, she had shown from an account of her own actions since she had been brought into the Newborn fold against her will, great courage and resource which Privet, having herself been captive for a time at Blagrove Slide, was in a good position to judge. Now morning had come and Privet realized that time had run out and they must attempt to take action themselves, at whatever risk to their own lives.
“I was hoping you would say that. Privet,” Madoc said, “and especially since I told you all I knew. I feel relieved, but your reaction has also made me see even more clearly how wrong it all is.”
“So, we agree we must escape from here and try to get up into Caer Caradoc itself?”
Madoc nodded. “That’s probably where the male delegates have all been taken by now, so that the ones whose faces don’t fit can be dealt with tonight. Now I think I know a way of escaping. You see...”
But there was the sound of moles approaching, the echo of voices, and a most frightening chill to the air.
“Oh Privet,” said Madoc in despair, “it may be too late.”
The voices came nearer and the two females scampered to the portal and poked their snouts into the tunnel.
“They’re coming from both directions,” said Madoc. “It is too late.”
They retreated back into the chamber, their escape cut off; the pawsteps drew nearer and a mole laughed too loud outside, a mole they knew, a most filthy and corrupt mole.
“She’s in this cell,” they heard Squelch say.
“Alone?” said the coldest voice imaginable.
“With Sister Hope.”
“Do I know her?”
“You may have known her!” said Squelch, laughing in an obscene way.
As Privet and Madoc waited in silence, and the moles’ shadows cast themselves at their portal, Privet turned to her new friend, whose flank was shivering with apprehension, and whispered, “It may be late, my dear, but to a Duncton mole it is never too late, never. Remember that in the time ahead.”
Madoc nodded her understanding, and felt reassured as the fat snout of Squelch, and his deep-set eyes, showed themselves.
“Lackaday!” he said with a simper, “you have a visitor, a most important visitor. Stance up and shut up.”
“Yes, sir,” said “Sister Hope’”
Squelch came into the chamber and stanced to one side to let the next mole through, while several guards assembled outside.
Quail came in and stanced firmly before them. He was of solid build and exuded health and power, and his eyes were dark and penetrating. He had one feature that made him most remarkable, and most frightening. His head, which was large and round, was quite devoid of fur, as was much of his body. It was blue-pink, shiny, strange. It appeared smooth and unlined until any expression passed across it at which point a thousand tiny wrinkles formed and made a mole realize that there was something dead, something rotten, about the smooth skin.
“I am the Senior Brother Inquisitor Quail,” he said tersely. “Which one of you is known as Privet of Duncton Wood?”
“I am,” said Privet, holding his gaze steadily with her own.
“Well, and so you are the mole Privet who once lived for a time in Blagrove Slide? Who eschewed the Newborn way, and who comes now to Caer Caradoc and back into our power?”
Privet said nothing.
“There are few moles of whom it can be said that I am interested to meet them,” said Quail, “but you are one of them.”
Privet still said nothing.
“You once knew Rooster, I believe?”
“Did I?” said Privet.
A hard smile made Quail’s face repellent. “It is about that friendship that I wish to t
alk to you. If you tell me what I wish to know about that mole, who has caused us a good deal of trouble, I will permit you to return unharmed to Duncton Wood. If you do not you will be... you will regret it.”
His eyes grew so cold that seeing them a mole had no doubt that whatever might happen to Privet would be terrible. Yet to her now that calm returned, and she was not afraid.
“I will tell you, as I will tell anymole, all that I can so long as doing so is compatible with my beliefs in the Stone.”
“Long words those. Squelch,” said Quail, unexpectedly turning to the fat mole, “what do you make of them?”
“Short words, long words, they all sound the same to me when they turn into screams,” said Squelch, grinning cryptically. Beads of oily sweat trickled in his face-fur. The evil that had come into the chamber was palpable. “Don’t trust her, she’s clever.”
“She is a mere female,” said Quail.
“She is more than that,” sighed Squelch, a tremor passing through his unhealthy flesh.
But still Privet felt calm, staring at Quail in some puzzlement, for his eyes were not only cold – they held signs of curiosity too.
“Why?” thought Privet astonished. “Why should he be curious about me? And how does he know I was at Blagrove Slide?” For a moment the horrific thought crossed her mind that others had told him; which could only mean her friends, and that they had been tortured.
“You are thinking hard, I see,” said Quail, his eyes almost transfixing her with their power and insight. “You are wondering how I knew you were at Blagrove Slide.”
“I am,” she acknowledged.
“This mole told me,” said Quail softly, taking delight in being able to surprise her.
He stanced to one side and nodded to Squelch, who in turn signalled to one of the moles outside, who, somewhat tentatively it seemed, entered the chamber. He was little older than Privet herself, and though clearly Newborn, was mild in appearance and looked harassed, like a mole who has too many cares. His eyes were kinder than Quail’s, indeed along with regret their look carried sympathy, and a certain respect as well.
“But...” whispered Privet in astonishment, finding herself staring into the eyes of a mole she had never thought to see again.
Quail looked from one to another and said, “Of course, as a Confessed Sister in Blagrove Slide you would never have known his name. Nor, come to that, should Sister Hope know it now, but she is of little consequence. Yes, the good Brother here has told me something about you. Privet of Duncton Wood, or rather of Crowden, as you once were.”
But throughout this sardonic and teasing statement Privet had eyes only for the mole who had entered the chamber, and who, she felt sure even as she gazed into his eyes, wished to protect her now, just as he had tried to protect her from the wrath of the Senior Brother whose young aide he had been so many moleyears ago.
“Meet Brother Rolt!” said Quail.
“Brother Rolt!” she said, and against all Newborn tradition, all convention, she went to him and embraced him, at which he backed off hastily, blinking in his embarrassment, his snout turning quite pink.
“I wish that you had not come back,” he said. “You have caused us much difficulty, much dismay.”
“Come, we shall talk in another place than this,” said Quail authoritatively, “but not right now. Today I have other things to do, and preparations to make. I just wanted to see this mole who knows Rooster so well. I will talk to her a little later in my own tunnels.”
“May Sister Hope accompany me?” asked Privet, as meekly as she could manage.
“Is she safe. Squelch?” asked Quail, already half out of the portal.
“Sister Hope is most safe,” said Squelch, “aren’t you, my dear?”
“If I can help bring this unbeliever to exemplary justice,” intoned Madoc in a voice very different from the one she had been using to Privet earlier, “I shall be most glad.”
“Then come along as well, mole!”
“Be ready, be most ready,” whispered Privet to Madoc as she followed Quail out of the cell.
But for what? And when? And where?
But before and behind them the Newborns went and there was no further time to ask questions, or to answer them. Only to be aware that evil stalked their way, and if they were to avoid it they must be ready not to talk but to act.
“All is never lost to a Duncton mole,” whispered Madoc to herself again and again as she followed Privet, and for the first time in her life she understood that being of Duncton was not something of place, but of spirit, and though her flanks shook with nerves and her mouth was dry, she was as determined as a mole could be to try to find something of that legendary and courageous spirit in the hours of trial ahead.
“Oh, I will be ready,” she wanted to cry out, as she whispered her thanks to the Stone that her long loneliness was over, and that a mole called Privet, like no other she had ever met or dreamed of meeting, had come so strangely into her life here and now as if to seek her help.
While behind them both, his face furrowed with worried thought, came Brother Rolt. As he looked past Sister Hope to the thin flanks of Privet, there was, in his eyes as well, the distant glimmer of the light of rediscovered hope.
Chapter Twenty-One
The promise of coming opportunity is a song a mole can sing only so long before others tire of it, as Weeth discovered after a day of captivity.
“... and so I say, opportunity always presents itself when you least expect it; it will come, and, moles, we must be ready for it!” he confidently declared a final time to the intimidating bunch of moles he found himself in the company of, down in the securest and most escape-proof of the cells that the Brother Inquisitors had commanded be delved near Caer Caradoc in their thorough preparations for the Convocation.
This declaration of his had come after he had made an earnest but unsuccessful attempt to make the mole Rooster and the other hulking and battle-hardened moles around him talk. Alter his initial (and delighted) astonishment at discovering that he had been confined with no less a mole than Rooster himself – the famous Rooster, the Rooster of the different-sized paws, the Rooster who (he had deduced) had once had a more than passing acquaintance with that interesting and delightful female of Duncton, Librarian Privet – he was disappointed to find that to a mole they fell into a deep and malevolent silence, some staring at him, but most, like Rooster, turning their backs on him.
“Is it that I smell?” he had asked. “Is it the way I have groomed my fur – you prefer something rougher perhaps, something more in keeping with yourselves? No, it is not that. Could it be...”
Ah! A thought occurred to him, a thought that posed a problem.
“Could it be they think I am a Newborn spy?” he mused. “It could be! It is!”
Weeth skirted cautiously around Rooster until he was able to peer into his frowning face.
“I’m not a spy, if that’s what you think. I am...” But he paused, thinking some more. Rooster’s eyes had opened somewhat and were staring at him more intently than might be thought necessary, almost as if the great mole was silently trying to tell him something.
“Strange behaviour in this mole,” he thought, before whispering conspiratorially, “Would I be right in surmising that you think there is a spy in our midst who might be listening to all I say? Ah! Highly likely. I should have thought of it. That must mean that not all of these moles are of your party, as it were. Some were here when you arrived, or were brought here afterwards. You appear a somewhat uncommunicative mole, Rooster, but if you do not wish to speak at least nod your head to indicate that Weeth, that’s me, is on the right track.”
As he had whispered this, another mole, almost as formidable, had come over and joined them, and Rooster stanced a little aside for him.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Weeth continued, since neither of them spoke, “you need a lot of courage to stance here as I am doing and whisper to you two the way you look. Dear me, your look
s do not encourage a mole to speak, but as you may have noticed I am not easily discouraged!” He grinned cheerfully. “I’m annoying to some moles,” he added.
Rooster spoke at last: “Yes,” he said.
“About me, or about there being spies in our midst?” rejoined Weeth immediately, hoping to see the fire of conversation burst forth from this tiny spark.
“Both,” said Rooster.
“She said you were monosyllabic, and you are,” said Weeth most cunningly. “Words come out of you like blood out of a stone. She said.”
“Who said?” asked Rooster, just as Weeth hoped he would.
“Privet,” said Weeth so quietly that only a mole who knew the name would have recognized it. So quiet indeed that Rooster and the other mole hunched forward as if they had not quite heard and certainly could not believe, and their eyes were even more intense than before.
“Did you say Privet?” whispered the other mole.
Weeth nodded, pleased with himself. He was, he felt, establishing his credentials. “Now, let me guess!” he said, frowning in an exaggerated way, and touching his talons to his brow. “Let me think. You must be Hamble! Yes? Am I right? Let me out of my misery.”
Hamble grinned. “That’s right, and you had better tell us what you know about Privet or you’ll not move far from here again.”
“Well!” said Weeth, sounding mock-shocked. “Intimidation, and from a mole who is said to fight for the old ways of the Stone! Not the thing at all, I would have thought. But stap my vitals, there’s things I want to talk to you about. Yet your eyes are stern, your faces suspicious, and words do not come readily, even allowing for the fact that you are taciturn moles. Why, if I met me in these circumstances I would be all over myself with questions, and looking for opportunities. But no, you hold back, and I think it is because you think I am a Newborn spy.”
“Yes,” growled Rooster.