For once Drule looked surprised.
“All, Master?”
Lucerne nodded coldly.
“Master, it will be our pleasure. We have ensured already that the moles of this squalid place are watched. Now, none shall live.”
Lucerne smiled bleakly.
“For myself, I shall leave at dawn before your pleasant conclave. Terce as well. But there should be one sideem here to witness it.”
“The sideem Mallice, Master?”
“Yes, why not? And do not dally long when it is done. Give her your protection and bring her on along the way. Now leave me, for we have much to do and orders to send.”
“Yes, Master,” said Drule softly, his eyes alight.
The infamous Bloody Conclave of the Rollright Stones needs no further mention here. Word of it is enough to chill most good moles’ hearts, details of it would be gratuitous. The Duncton massacre had been but the preface to the succession of bloody pogroms of followers that started now at Rollright, and spread forth across moledom from that time on, a tidal wave of calculated violence against which its innocent victims had little defence. On the crest of this vile wave Lucerne journeyed back to Cannock where he received an unctuous welcome some moleweeks later, in the manner tyrants like: effusive, smiling and most eager to see the Master pleased.
But lest the violence against the followers seems absolute, know that always at such times a few escape to tell the tale. All across moledom, nameless even now, there were followers who were not quite caught by the tightening squeeze of the Word’s vengeance. Some by luck, some because they were overlooked, some by foresight and cunning, some by courage. One day, perhaps, their tales will be told.
Of Rollright know only this: that before Lucerne had even come, sturdy and faithful Rampion, wise already to the ways of the grikes, knowing what had happened at Duncton Wood, rallied a few followers and, with Lorren at her flank, got them out to safety before Drule’s killings by the Stones.
As for the east, and north-east, Lucerne decreed that they would be spared for now. Let the rest be killed and the guardmoles gathered, for, as Lucerne himself said in his homecoming speech at Cannock, “if Duncton was the preface then shall Beechenhill be the epilogue! We know the Word’s intentions for that place. To there shall we go last, but most mightily!”
A mole can therefore imagine, that that was not a good time for a follower to be wandering the heaths of Cannock Chase.
A disastrous time, in fact, to be poking his snout about those entrances on Cannock’s eastern side that lead down into the doleful depths of the Sumps.
But it was just then, and to there, that Wharfe had come in his desperate search to find Betony, and there he was taken by guardmoles. Though not without difficulty, for it took five to restrain him fully, not counting the two he killed and three he concussed before he was subdued.
“Name?” said a senior guardmole when he was finally taken into the Upper Sumps.
“Brook,” lied Wharfe, looking around at the dark damp place into which he had been brought and where he had good reason now to think that Betony would be.
“Brook,” said the guardmole indifferently, scrivening the name in his clumsy way and nodding to his subordinate to take the mole away.
“Usual, Sir?”
Oh yes, a mole who had killed two, one of them the guardmole’s friend, would have the usual all right, and plenty of it.
“In here,” said one of the four guardmoles who carried him bodily along and cast him into a sealable cell in the Middle Sumps. Once there, as usual, they taloned him; then, as usual, they let him starve a while; then, as usual, they took him to the noisome burrows at the north end of the Sumps and half drowned him for three days. Then....
“That Brook? Surviving?”
“Tough he was, broke yesterday. Weeping, abject, usual things....”
“Clean him up a bit, just enough. The sideem Slighe is coming down today.”
“We’ve a couple of youngsters for him.”
“Only males will do.”
“Aye, both male. He’ll like ’em.”
“Good.”
Slighe came and looked in on Wharfe.
“Name?”
“Brook. It wasn’t my fault....”
Slighe looked at the mole coldly. Large, strong once, but weak now it seemed. A pity he had killed guardmoles or else he could have been used.
“It never is ‘my fault’,” said Slighe. “Where from?”
“Youlgreave,” lied Wharfe.
“What were you doing here?”
“Looking for worms.”
“You’re lying,” said Slighe, and turned and left.
“Five days more here,” Slighe told the senior guardmole, “and then put him down. He’s lying, that one, and no fool. He’s not hurt as badly as he seems, so hurt him more. Then Middle Sump him and put a peeper on to him. Now, what else have you for me?”
“Two, Sir, waiting for you now.”
“Parents?” said Slighe, his voice a little higher, his eyes shining, his small mouth moist.
“Were followers, Sir.”
“Good,” squeaked Slighe.
Slowly, with a filthy thrill of anticipation, Slighe went back down the tunnel... and that same day Wharfe heard worse sufferings than any he yet had. He had to listen as, in a burrow not far off, two young things pleaded, first for their lives, and finally to be allowed to die untouched any more....
Much later Wharfe heard them die, and cursed the Stone for not helping them. And then cursed Slighe and swore to see him dead.
Five days later, Wharfe, his body weak but his spirit as resolute as it had always been, was taken to the Middle Sumps and found bedlam in the murk. Communal cells, murderous, maddened moles, wickedness incarnate, and all the sound and filth of moles reduced to beasts.
From the first moment Wharfe was shoved into that place he guessed what he must do and did not hesitate. He stanced up to his first attacker, buffeted his second to the ground, and picked out the third and nearly throttled him.
“Leave me alone or you shall die,” he said loudly, rounding on them all.
“Bastard!” said one, retreating.
“Don’t hurt me,” whined the second, coming near.
The third stared, scratched at his sores and laughed like the mad mole he had become.
Wharfe soon discovered that his was not the only way to survive. Some weaker moles formed gangs, some used their infectious sores as threats, some chose to huddle in such filth that nomole went near them, and some, like him, were too strong (so far) for others to come near.
In truth, it was the guardmoles who were the greatest danger to life and limb, coming when they felt like it and dealing out their blows. Or throwing in the suppurating worms which they called food, and watching as the prisoners did battle for them.
The Middle Sumps consists of a series of interconnected tunnels in sandstone which, since they are lit only by fissures at their higher end, slope down into near darkness. To this bottom and most fetid end, where water oozes and a stream of mud and filth flows slowly in the dark, the weaker moles were driven. The stream flows into a heaving pool, often more mud than water, which sucks and slurps away into some grim depth, and once a mole is lost in that he or she is lost for good.
The poor wretched moles who eke out their lives there do not attack each other, or anymole else, but live in a shivering, wretched darkness, cold, hungry, grateful for the scraps that come their way, hopeless. Some even, it seems, lived on the bodies of others.
It was not until his third day down there that Wharfe finally went searching among these ragged things called moles to find his Betony. For hours that became days he reached out a paw to moles who shrank away from him, or he stanced to watch some muttering form that might once have been a mole, hoping that among them he might find the poor mole he sought.
“Betony?” he would say, but they only shied away.
“Betony?” and they stared.
??
?Betony?” Silence.
Until at last:
“Betony?”
“Wharfe?”
Where did that voice come from? From his declining mind?
“Wharfe?” Why would the tormented voice not leave his head?
“Wharfe?”
What was this broken, scarred and noxious creature that came out of the cloven rock, where the chamber was its lowest, and stared at him?
“Betony?” he barely dared to say again, for it could not be her. Not this thing with but one talon left on one paw and three on the other, whose back paws dragged upon the rock.
“Betony?” he whispered once again, too frightened of what he had found after so long a search to go forward towards her.
“Bet...?”
“Yes,” she said, and in her eyes, which was the only part of her he recognised, he saw the one thing he would not have thought to see: remorse.
“Forgive me,” she said, “their tortures were too great.”
Why, she must think... she must fear... she must believe that he was there because of what she had said.
“Oh Wharfe,” she cried, as he took her broken body in his paws and whispered, “Yes, Betony, it’s Wharfe. I shall take you from here and back to Beechenhill, back where you belong...” And whispering on, not letting go of her, letting her weep her dry croaking tears, he did not see the peeper peep, and turn, and go, and whisper to the guardmoles for the favour of a sodden worm:
“His name is Wharfe, not Brook.”
“His name is Wharfe, Sir. The one sent down three days ago.”
Slighe stared.
“Wharfe?”
“Seems so, Sir.”
“Bring him up here again, and summon guardmole Drule.”
“He’s busy, Sir, if you know what I mean.”
Slighe’s face hardened.
“Get him,” he said brutally.
Harebell had borne the trek from Beechenhill to Tissington with Harrow through snow and ice, without a thought, and crept past grikes on the alert without a qualm, but only when she began to climb the final slope towards her mother’s hideaway did she begin to feel real doubt.
She was glad Harrow was with her and he seemed to understand her feelings, for he said nothing as she stared up the slope ahead to the rough nondescript and hidden place where her mother was.
“I feel quite scared,” she said.
“I’ve told you already, Harebell,” Harrow said with a reassuring smile, “she’s just an old mole. Well....”
“Yes! Well!” said Harebell ruefully.
They spoke easily to each other, and their looks were direct and frank. Each had learned to trust and respect the other on their long trek, and more than that, each had begun to want the other. It was the time for young, and they were free and adrift in a world of danger, and excitement too. Harebell did not underestimate the danger of their enterprise, but the further she had got from Beechenhill, especially when they crossed the River Dove on to new ground, the freer she had felt, and a little wild too.
In truth, they had taken a slow way, under the guise of it being more safe. But the company of each other was sufficient reward for what hardships they faced, and when it was time to sleep, then for safety’s sake they had slept in the same burrow, getting closer every time, revelling in the privacy they had and the freedom that two moles, young and attractive and unwatched by other moles, can feel when darkness comes and they are sleeping close. Then, rather more...
But in truth, neither could quite believe their luck. To Harebell, Harrow was surely the most – well – male mole she had ever had the pleasure to be near, and he scented good, very good. The first male indeed that she had ever met whom she felt might stance well alongside Wharfe. How she longed for the two to meet.
While Harrow, who had felt lonely in dull Tissington, had never for a moment dreamed as he set off for Beechenhill that his strange journey would bring him into the presence at one and the same time of the famous Squeezebelly, and a mole he could not keep his eyes off called Harebell.
“Harebell,” he had whispered stupidly to himself, “now that’s a lovely name.”
They slowed as they climbed the final slope towards Henbane’s tunnels.
“Did you tell her why you went off to Beechenhill?” whispered Harebell.
“More or less, though it was only a hunch.”
They went on a few more steps before Harebell stopped again.
“I’m terrified,” she said. “I’ve never got used to the idea that Henbane was my mother. Was! Is, Harrow, is! Oh! You’d better stay here and just let me go on....”
Then Harebell went on until the slope eased off and she saw an entrance ahead.
Assuming Henbane was there, she guessed she must have heard them approach, and probably their voices too.
“Hello!” she called out, feeling foolish. Is that what a mole says to the mother she has never seen? Is that what a mole says to she who was once the most powerful mole in moledom?
“Hello,” said a voice.
Even as she heard Henbane’s voice, even then, Harebell knew it would be all right. Something was good about it, something of the Stone was there with them.
She turned a little and saw Henbane stanced on the surface a little to the left of the tunnel entrance among some fallen gorse. A place, she supposed, from which she might have made an escape if it had been necessary.
“Hello!” said Harebell again, too nervous to smile, and feeling too emotional to speak. Harrow had said she was an old mole, but that was because he was male and had not noticed something more important. She was... a most elegant mole. She was nearly beautiful.
“Oh!” said Harebell, surprise in her voice, “I didn’t know what to expect.”
Then a soft smile came to Henbane’s face, and Harebell saw that her mother was beautiful. And more than that there was something about the way she stanced, and the presence that she had, that she recognised from the way Wharfe was. It was authority.
“I heard you come with Harrow,” said Henbane. “Whatmole are you?”
“My name is Harebell,” said Harebell. “I am....”
“I think I know whatmole you are,” said Henbane, a slight quaver to her voice.
Which one said “daughter” neither after remembered, but one of them did and both stared, struck dumb, and still, and much moved.
“I...” began Henbane.
“Harrow came to Beechenhill and brought me back here.”
“And your name is Harebell?” said Henbane.
Harebell nodded and still neither mole moved, but each continued to stare at the other as tears came to her eyes.
It was Henbane who looked away, and Henbane who first wept aloud. It was Harebell who moved, and Harebell who came forward and reached out to touch her mother for the first time.
She put a tentative paw to Henbane’s face and gently touched the tears there and said, “The one thing I didn’t expect was that you’d be beautiful.”
Henbane, her face lined, her fur flecked white now, but her gloss still good, looked up with that cracked and vulnerable smile a mole has on her face when she weeps and yet feels safe and released by tears, and said, “My dear, what I have missed in you. How much I’ve missed.”
They looked at each other in silence again until, suddenly, Harebell said, “Sleekit brought us up. And Mayweed.”
“Sleekit?” whispered Henbane smiling. “It was the best – the only good – decision of my life to ask her to take you. And she found the courage for it. Is she at Beechenhill then?”
Harebell shook her head.
“No, she went south with Mayweed.”
“There’s so much to ask... so much! The other....”
“Wharfe.”
“He was male?”
“You didn’t know?”
“There was no time, you see... Oh, there’s so much to talk of.”
Harrow came up the slope saying, “Well! There probably is but can’t you do it down in the
warmth, and get some food at the same time?”
Henbane laughed. A strange, comfortable, familial laugh, and one she had never laughed before.
She turned to lead them down into the tunnel and Harebell whispered fiercely and excitedly to Harrow, “You didn’t tell me she was beautiful!”
“You’re beautiful, too,” he said irrelevantly, but he was glad he did, very glad, as she turned, laughing, and they followed Henbane down into the warmth below.
For some days none of them was inclined to want to start the trek to Beechenhill. For one thing Harrow was tired, having done the journeys there and back in quick succession. Then, too, the weather remained difficult, the cold staying on, and the slopes icy.
But most of all, having found each other as they had, Harebell and Henbane had no desire to move, but wished to stay where they were and to talk and share the time they had, telling each other of the things in their lives that mattered. But of the Word they did not speak, nor of the Stone.
On good days the two females would stretch their paws over the fell behind Henbane’s tunnel, and Harrow would leave them to it and travel the little distance down to the mole who had first told him of Henbane’s coming and who remained the only one to know that Henbane, and now Harebell, were there. The Stone had chosen well, for he was a trusty mole and one who knew all the news and gossip, Harrow was certain that he would tell nomole of the moles hidden up on Hunger Hill.
As followers they had much to talk about, for in those days the news in Tissington was all of the Stone Mole, and the chances of him being taken by the grikes in Ashbourne.
“No doubt of it, Harrow. If he goes on the way he is their patience will wear thin and he’ll be taken. Dammit, he’s said to be coming nearer this way every day, and our sources tell us there’s a lot of very senior, and very nasty-looking, sideem and guardmoles about in Ashbourne now.”
“Where do you think the Stone Mole’s headed for?”
“The whisper is Beechenhill. But that’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s got a Stone and the place has stood out against the Word all these years. But no way is he going to get into Beechenhill without being attacked or taken.”