Whillan stared at the moonlit mole, wondering at the glistening that he seemed to see in the leader’s deep-set eyes. Wondering too at how Thripp spoke words like “journey” and “talk’, investing them with qualities of length and depth far beyond what they could surely have. Or could they?
“Tell them, Whillan of Duncton, that I saw the need for change, and in a meeting with a young mole of Duncton Wood, I began to see the means by which it might be achieved. Tell them what you think you saw, and one day you may know what you saw.
“But tell me...” and his eyes softened, his voice grew gentle, he looked suddenly alert, “... how is... tell me of Privet.”
“Privet?” repeated Whillan, rather surprised. Had he not already spoken of her in what he had so freely said?
“Privet,” said Thripp, “your adoptive mother. Is she the great scholar and traveller moles say she is?”
“I’m not sure,” faltered Whillan, who knew her best as the mole who had raised him, and saw her mainly in that light. “She is a scribemole before all else. Before even being a mother... or adoptive mother rather. I expect she’ll scribe of these times one day.”
“You are sure she will survive,” said Thripp quietly – it was a statement, but Whillan, nervous perhaps, inexperienced as yet, not fully aware what Thripp had really said to him, and was trying to convey, took it as a question.
“Of course she will!” he said fiercely.
“She will if moles hear her,” said Thripp gently, reaching out a thin paw to touch Whillan, and still him. “There are those who would give up the world to have been reared by that mole, as you were. The Stone was in your coming to Duncton as you did. It will be in your return.”
But even before Thripp turned from him to signal to the old mole to come over to them, and the interview was over, Whillan was asking himself exactly what he had “seen’, and why he had the feeling that Thripp had seen a great deal more than he had, and knew much of the present and the future that he was not disclosing. At the same time, to add to Whillan’s confusion, he recognized that in what Thripp had said was the arrogance of a mole who had enjoyed power and felt he had lost it; but beyond that, and this was a final attraction in the mole, was the fact that despite everything, despite his illness, Thripp was still struggling towards a right way, and seeking to cast off a wrong one.
“Of course,” said Thripp, suddenly turning back to Whillan, and interrupting his thoughts, “it all depends now on Chervil. We must hope that others see the fight. My days of influence are nearly over, if not already entirely so. The mole who once led much of moledom with his ideas can now count his true followers on the talons of one paw.”
He ruefully indicated the three old moles who attended him. “If Chervil goes the way Brother Quail wishes him to, then it has been in vain. If he turns the new reformed way, then there is a kind of hope. It is, in the end, about Silence. But where will we find that? I have failed to lead moles to it, so what mole can? I have been praying this night that such a mole will come forward.”
Whillan was reminded of the old guide’s comment about Thripp always searching for a mole who might treat him normally and unaccountably felt that in his heart Thripp hoped these two different moles, if they ever existed, might be one.
Thripp was staring at him in that penetrating way again as if he could read his thoughts.
“Sometimes we meet moles too soon,” he said, “and do not know what it is we let go on by. Remember that and be warned, Whillan: I have lost moles I did not even know I loved, and I would give anything to have them again at my flank that I might tell them that I loved them. Be warned, be watchful, lest such regrets come one day to you.”
Thripp looked suddenly weary, and the shaking that he had displayed when they had first seen him returned; his friends came to him, and tended him prefatory to helping him to some underground place where he might rest, and await the beginning of the Convocation.
“Do as my colleagues tell you, Whillan,” commanded Thripp finally, before he was led away. “And when you travel on, as you will, remember that it is the journey into moles’ hearts that matters more than the journey to strange or memorable places. Seek out moles’ hearts and listen to them, and you’ll not have regrets. And, mole...” Thripp waved a paw to call Whillan to him again, and with a glance he directed his helpers to retreat for a moment longer. “When you have no other place to go, when all seems bleak and dark, when despair descends, then, mole, there is somewhere you might go...”
Thripp’s eyes lightened again, and that simple and wonderful smile returned briefly to his face.
“Where?” asked Whillan almost desperately. He felt he had never wanted a question answered so much in his life.
“Oh, yes, I want to say its name. But... it has taken me these long years to learn that I cannot make another see the visions that I see. They have their own, and a mole cannot direct them as he wishes. But for you there is a place... remember me when all seems lost, remember my paw on yours. Pray to the Stone, trust it, and it will tell you where to go, and what to find; it will teach you what to do. Your journey to that place began so long ago – before I, or Privet, or any other mole, even guessed there might one day be a need for a mole to make it. You’ll get there, you’ll find comfort beyond the darkness...” Thripp withdrew his paw, and retreated again to the shadows and was gone.
“Will I?” said Whillan, himself returning to the shadows on the other side of the clearing.
The old mole came over to him looking fretful. “That was far too long, far too long. But if he is interested in a mole he gives them time. For some reason he was interested in you. I can’t imagine why, but there we are. Genius has its own way. Now, you and your friend had best wait patiently well out of sight – and pray.”
“You said Privet will come this way?” said Maple, glancing doubtfully towards the steep slope beyond the Stones.
“Brother Rolt will do the best he can, yes. But nothing is certain, nothing. And Chervil has proved so difficult, even intractable! He was not like that as a pup, nor ever before he went to Duncton. That place disturbs a mole.”
“This place disturbs me,” said Maple.
“Well, we have no time for that,” said the mole impatiently. “There are more important matters apaw this night. Yes, there certainly are.”
With that, and enough left frustratingly unsaid for a single night, the so-far anonymous mole turned back to the Stones, and was lost among their shadows, presumably to support what now seemed the failing life and cause of Elder Senior Brother Thripp.
While Whillan mused on the final and strangest impression that Thripp had made on him, which was that the Elder Senior Brother had given him advice which was not only wise and good, but was appropriate as well, such as only a mole who is close kin can give.
“What is it, mole?” whispered Maple later, who knew him so well.
“I feel,” said Whillan quietly, “for the first time in my life, as if I have spoken to a mole who was my own father.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The calm that had come to Privet when she had first been taken into captivity in Bowdler by the sisters, and which had been replaced somewhat by understandable fears and concerns at the appearance first of Brother Quail, and then from out of her distant past of Brother Holt, returned once more when Quail’s attendants had taken her and Madoc to a different chamber, and told them to wait. A guard was posted at the entrance, and there were others lurking about. “Sister Hope” was instructed to stay with her, and call out for help should it be needed. Quail went off in one direction, Brother Rolt another, and they were told nothing of what was to happen to them.
While Privet took the opportunity to be still, eyes half closed, Madoc was up and about and all of a flibbert for wondering and fearing what was going to happen. But Privet felt that most such worries had long since been dragged from her and sometime recently, very recently indeed, she had begun to let the last ones go. Her calm therefore was deep and co
mforting, and gave her space to feel for poor Madoc, who could not be expected to be other than she was, which was very worried indeed.
“The Stone is with us, my dear, and will see us right and I... I am sure it will do so before long,” was the best Privet could say.
She had been about to add that she felt she was preparing herself for some major change or event, but since she did not know what it was, or could possibly be, the thought would have been lost on Madoc, and have served to confuse her still further.
“How come you know Brother Rolt?” asked Madoc a little later, a fact which had enormously impressed her. Never in her life had she seen a sister embrace a Senior Brother. Relations, mating, that was a different thing, but a loving gesture, well! It added to the wonder of everything that had happened since she had met Privet, and made her even more determined to stay close by her, and follow her in all she did, wherever it might lead.
“He helped me once in Blagrove Slide,” replied Privet, “and I believe he will help me again.” But more than that she would not say, retiring into her thoughts in a way Madoc found disconcerting, and she herself simply surprising. From where had this sudden talent for being quiet come? She had no idea.
Rolt came to them not long after this, nodding to the guard outside and telling him that for the moment he was not needed.
“Brother Quail instructed me specifically to stay, Senior Brother,” said the guard.
Rolt shrugged. “Do so by all means. Brother, but with me here, and Sister Hope, I doubt that our prisoner will try anything, or if she does, that she will get far. So, if you want a comfort break on what might be a long night I suggest you take it.”
“If you say so. Senior Brother, I will!” said the guard gratefully. “I won’t be long.”
Rolt watched after him to see which way he went and the moment he was out of earshot he turned to Privet and said, “If you stay here you will not survive the night.”
“Senior Brother Chervil personally promised me safe passage.”
“Hmmph!” said Rolt, turning to Madoc and eyeing her warily as if to ask if she could be trusted. If Privet had doubts about Rolt at all they were dispelled by that gesture.
“Have you come to help me as you did once before?” said Privet.
“She is safe?” said Rolt, still cautious. He was clearly under great strain.
“She is,” said Privet.
“Then that’s one less complication. But we have little time, Sister... I mean Privet. If I may call you that now. It has been so long, hasn’t it, and we’re all older?”
Why Privet felt touched he should nearly use the title she had borne in Blagrove Slide she was not sure – perhaps because it meant he remembered those days.
“There is much I want to know, that I need to know,” said Privet. “You are well, Brother Rolt. But others... I would like to know, just something.”
They both knew she was referring to her pups, whose lives she had begged for and been refused.
“And my Brother Confessor...”
“Yes, yes, my dear, of course you want to know what happened to him. They are all well enough, what I know of them, and I want to tell you more, for the time for secrecy is gone, but this is not the moment. Later... later perhaps.” He said it with little conviction, as if he felt that there was no future, or none of which they could hope to be part. “Now listen, it seems that two moles at least wish that you escape from captivity this night. One is none other than Senior Brother Chervil who sent me here, for he has not forgotten his promise, and though he is not against Brother Quail, perhaps even for him now and against his father the Elder Senior Brother, yet he made a promise he wishes to fulfil – if the Stone allows him to. At least, so he says...”
“And the second mole?”
“Quail,” said Brother Rolt shortly. “Not that he wishes you to escape for long – just long enough for Newborn guards to be justified in hunting you down and killing you. Brother Quail feels that certain moles are best out of the way this night.”
A look of horror had come to Madoc’s eyes, but into Privet’s there came a philosophic resignation, as if this were the kind of evil nonsense of which she was getting very weary indeed.
“In fact,” continued Brother Rolt, “my “friend” Quail has sent me here now to aid and abet your escape – no doubt in his tortuous and unpleasant mind he is thinking that if I do then there will be good cause to eliminate me as well. All very labyrinthine, isn’t it?”
“It’s tiresome,” said Privet.
“Well now, what’s to do? I’ll tell you. You do escape, now, but you go by a longer way I will take you on, which Quail will not have been expecting, and when you reach the surface you will make for a destination which is the very last to which search parties will be sent: the Stones of Caer Caradoc. It is a steep climb, even a dangerous one, but we cannot change topography.”
The sound of returning pawsteps came to them, and with a final appealing look, and the comment that “Much depends on it! Follow me!” he set off with both of them close behind.
Although Privet lost all sense of direction whilst they stayed underground, for the route was tortuous and took them past occupied chambers, down narrow tunnels, and across great communal ways, when they finally surfaced into clear cold night she saw immediately where she was. For there, rising into moonlit nothingness with stars bright beyond, was the eastern face of Caer Caradoc.
“You know where the Stones rise?” said Rolt to Madoc.
“Yes, Senior Brother!”
“Go on then, go on. Hopefully moles will be waiting for you up there.”
“Which moles?” asked Privet.
“Oh, you know, Maple and Whillan. Whatmole else?”
“Weeth,” she replied. “Where’s he?”
“I have no idea. I can’t know or do everything, though sometimes it feels as if the moles about me from the Elder Senior Brother down expect it!”
“Brother Rolt...” Privet tried again to have him tell her something of the past that she had lost, and he must know about.
“Later, my dear, later. We’ll talk about all that when we have more time.”
“And when will that be? Now is the only time moles truly have.”
“Go on up there, go on!” ordered Rolt. “Save philosophy for there, and him, it can be the only hope they have.” He turned from them with a gesture that seemed to express the despair of a drowning mole, and dropped back into the Newborn tunnels and out of sight.
Privet stared forward, up into the dark, while Madoc peered to right and left, and then behind them, and listened, and looked fearful and eager to move.
“We had better do as he says,” she said, attempting to get Privet to move.
“We will, but I see no need for speed. I heard nothing behind us – and anyway, it’s what lies ahead that should concern you, Madoc.”
“I don’t want to be discovered now we’ve escaped.”
“I feel as if I have been running all my life,” said Privet, “and I don’t like it. In fact I have stopped it. I will not hurry, and if I did I would not get up that great hill without having to rest so long on the way that I might as well not have hurried in the first place.”
“Whether we hurry or not, can’t we go?” pleaded Madoc.
Privet sighed, and frowned, and then touched her new friend affectionately in the night.
“Come on then, my dear.”
“Who are Whillan and Maple?” asked Madoc as they went.
“You told me so many things and I told you nothing, did I? Well, then...” and as they began the long ascent through rough grass, and amidst the worn remnants of rafts of summer bracken, pausing now and then as Privet wished, staring about a little, and looking up at the stars and rising moon, Madoc heard something of Duncton’s tale, and of the journey to Caradoc that Privet had made with Maple and Whillan, and latterly with Weeth.
Their progress was slow, and they lost time at one point when, during a pause, they heard moles sho
uting and rushing about some way below them and they stayed still. During this halt, far above, too far to make out clearly, they heard a faint cry, which might have been a scream, and soon after a scatter of small rocks spattered down across their path.
“I have a feeling,” said Privet, “which is very comforting, that wherever we go, whatever we do, we will not be harmed this night. I feel as if I am not really here at all.” There was wonder in her voice, and curious cheer, potent enough to calm Madoc somewhat, and cause her to hurry Privet rather less than she had been.
A short while later, as if to prove Privet’s feeling right, they turned a dark corner on the climb, clambered around a protrusion of rock, and found themselves face to face with two dozing Newborn guards.
“Stone the crows!” exclaimed one of them when he saw them. “Damn me. Females! Not tonight if you don’t mind, not this night. Scarper. Bugger off. Get lost. And not up there!” And with a kick to Madoc’s well-formed rump he sent her and Privet back down the way they had come.
“Why didn’t he arraign us?” asked Madoc in wonder, when they had gone back downslope a little and out of sight.
“I should imagine it is because he is used to being “visited”,” said Privet. “We chose a bad night for love.”
“Love! You mean they thought we... and females below come... here?”
“There’s more goes on here than you know, Madoc, more certainly than you knew to tell me, most of it harmless enough I dare say. Moles are good at scenting out the worst, as you have been; less good at scenting what is better.”
“Well!” declared Madoc, not knowing what to make of this, or quite how she felt about being taken for a “comfort” to a male guard in the midst of such danger; she did not know what to make of the progress of the night so far, at all. “What do we do now?”