Duncton Found (105 page)

Squeezebelly’s excitement at Harebell’s homecoming was soon overshadowed by the news they brought of the Stone Mole’s capture, and the fact that an attack on Beechenhill seemed certain now that sideem Merrick must know, through the guardmoles who had stopped them, that Henbane was in the system.

Henbane, on the other paw, was more concerned about what her reception might be once moles knew who she was, but Squeezebelly reassured her that she would meet with no hostility if she came in peace, though it might be best if she kept a low snout.

“Surely you can trust Beechenhill moles, Squeezebelly,” said Harebell.

But he shook his head sadly, and said he was not sure that he could any more. The pressures of the winter years, the failure of Wharfe to return and the sense of the omnipresence of the grikes had created divisions in the system which even the combination of Harebell’s safe return, Squeezebelly’s good sense and the thawing of the snows and return of milder weather could not cure.

“To make it worse,” Squeezebelly said, “something has happened which I knew was a possibility in such circumstances. Indeed, I’m surprised it has not happened before. Very few of the females have got with pup, very few.”

“The same thing happened in Ashbourne when the grikes first came, according to my mother,” said Harrow.

Squeezebelly nodded. “Yes, that’s right. I heard that too. It’s hard for a female to get with pup if she’s worried, and downright impossible if she’s afraid for her life. But that’s how we all are now, so it’s not surprising that females aren’t fertile.”

“Well, Squeezebelly...” began Harebell, unable to contain her own news longer, though she had intended to. “There’s another who is.
I’m
with pup!”

It was true enough, but as is the way of such things, Henbane was the only one to know and Harrow, though he might have guessed, was the one to look surprised. Holm stanced up, looked about in the usual way he did before speaking, seemed about to explode, and said, “Good luck. You’ll need it!” and shut up again. They were the first words he had spoken in nearly three days.

Harebell giggled and there were a few moments of lightness and cheer among the otherwise beset group.

“Well, if I had any doubts before, I have none now,” declared Squeezebelly, “we’re going to have to evacuate some of us from Beechenhill, certainly younger moles, the few females in pup, and older moles of both sexes. It’s the only way for us to survive as a community without fighting.”

“Where will we go?” asked Harebell.

“The Castern Chambers,” said Squeezebelly, quickly explaining about them to the non-Beechenhill moles there. “There’ll be a communal meeting about it, there’ll be a lot of complaints, Bramble will sound off again as he has for molemonths past, but believe me it will have to be done.”

“And what of Beechen? What can we do for him?”

Sleekit asked the question, but in their hearts all there knew there were no easy answers, and that Squeezebelly was unlikely to allow heroics.

“If the Stone Mole had been taken forcibly,” said Harebell, “it would be different. And he expressly asked that we do not take any violent action.”

“Something might be possible with surprise and a good disciplined assault,” said Henbane, who in her day had been, alongside Wrekin, a great leader in campaigns.

But Sleekit shook her head.

“I have travelled with him ever since he first left Duncton Wood and again and again he has begged his followers not to resort to violence. I have known him almost from the moment of his birth and never seen him strike another mole. He would not want moles hurt on his behalf. It is against all his teachings. The only good thing is that he has Buckram with him, and he’s a mole of resource. He might find a way to get him free. But Beechen wants no violence.”

Holm nodded his head vigorously, and then shook it.

“Yes, no violence,” he said.

“We have followers among the grikes guardmoles in Ashbourne,” Harrow said. “If, as I think, that’s where they’ve been taken, they might get help, or perhaps moles will try to get a message to us. They’re likely to know where we are now that Henbane has been seen coming into this system.”

But it was small comfort to Sleekit and the others, who could still barely comprehend that Beechen had been taken from them.

The meeting that Squeezebelly called was rowdy and unpleasant and it was as well that Squeezebelly decided that Henbane should not be there, for even in her absence it was plain that he had underestimated the hostility felt against her. Truly, the pressures were showing and Beechenhill was not what it once had been.

Bramble was the main cause of trouble, first attacking the whole notion of Henbane being allowed in the system at all, and then going on to suggest that she could be exchanged for the Stone Mole.

When Squeezebelly stopped this suggestion short, even though several other moles seemed to agree with it, Bramble went on to argue that if they were going to evacuate they should do so immediately and then the males could return and fight it out.

“Fighting is not to be our way. It is only by not fighting that we have survived, as you know well, Bramble.”

“There’s others here who agree with me,” said Bramble, indicating Skelder and Ghyll, who had changed their tune considerably since they came as refugees from Mallerstang. Their peaceable philosophy had gone, and they were all for using their fighting skills now to attack the murdering grikes.

But Quince bravely spoke up against them, and others too, and it was plain that by a small majority the Beechenhill moles believed they should leave the system, at least for long enough for the few females who were with pup to have them somewhere safe. They all knew about the Castern Chambers and they would be safe there for a time.

As for Henbane, it was clear, too, that had she not been the much-liked Harebell’s mother, and had Squeezebelly been a weaker leader than he was, she might not have survived long in Beechenhill.

Squeezebelly had been especially glad to have the support of Quince, for she had been subdued and upset since Wharfe’s departure on what would surely be a vain search for Betony, and he had feared she would go the bitter way Bramble had. But she was tougher than Squeezebelly’s son, and bore Wharfe’s loss well. She was a mole who seemed to flourish in adversity. He prayed that one day Wharfe would come back to her, for she was the kind of mole of which the future must be made.

“We shall begin the evacuation over the next few days,” said Squeezebelly finally, “and Quince shall oversee the care of the females who are to pup. We should aim to be clear of the system by the March equinox, and until then our watchers shall be doubled and warned to be especially vigilant and all moles should keep in close touch. If we need to go quickly we want no stragglers.”

“We should leave sooner than that!” said Bramble.

“We must ensure that the Castern Chambers are secure, and though I have no doubt that all the lower valley routes are watched by grikes, at least there are hidden higher exits which will give us respite from being underground. Believe me, Bramble, and you others who are for leaving now, once you get to Castern you will not want to stay confined in the chambers there for longer than we need.”

“And if Castern is not secure, do we drop this cowardly inclination not to fight?” asked Bramble.

“We shall decide that when it happens, and be guided by the Stone,” said Squeezebelly strongly, looking around the gathering for support that the discussion was now closed.

But though he did not betray his unease, yet he felt it. Was a mole really to do as his conscience and the Stone Mole himself suggested, and do nothing in the face of violence? He hoped that if and when the time came he would have the courage of his peaceful convictions, and the qualities that would be needed to lead these moles in such a crisis.

“She is with pup, Terce, the sideem Mallice is with pup!”

For once Lucerne seemed as young as his years, young and delighted, and Terce, too, was able to be pleased. At last his daughter had got herself with pup and he felt the thrill of knowing that his plans for moledom and for the Mastership were going right.

“
Everything
is beginning to go right, Lucerne,” he said.

Lucerne nodded his agreement, for it was true enough. In the last few days confirmations had come in with growing frequency from the trinities that the murderous strikes against the followers had been almost entirely successful; quietly, efficiently, and in a sufficiently coordinated way that the followers had not had time to group and fight back.

The strikes had begun ruthlessly in the south-east in February with a campaign led from Buckland by Clowder which had then spread to the west and into the Midlands just as he and Lucerne had planned. Before long the strikes had gained a momentum of their own, and as the grikes acquired taste for them they were spreading northwards. The Word was supreme.

So much so that Lucerne decided shortly before his departure for Ashbourne and Beechenhill to send word to Ginnell to begin the final rout of the Welsh Marches, strengthened as he would be by the guardmoles in the Midlands and south-west.

“Yes, Terce, all is coming right,” smiled Lucerne, “and today we shall leave for Beechenhill.”

“Whatmole shall you leave in charge?”

“Drule and Slighe can manage it between them, I think. Now, I shall go and prepare my beloved for her departure. I would have preferred her to have the pups in Whern but that is hardly possible. But Beechenhill is within a safe range for a journey, and for the future Master to be born there would be a fitting desecration of the place.”

Lucerne smiled again and left. Terce watched him go, but his pleasure in the sharing of the news that meant much to both of them slid into concern and unease. He frowned, his sleek face lined and old, his eyes wrinkled and cold, his fur thin. Austerity had made the bones of his body prominent and they formed gaunt shadows at his shoulders and rear.

Why uneasy? He did not know. Something about the reports of the strikes. Something wrong.

Too easy. No opposition from the followers at all? Was the Stone, their enemy of centuries, so weak? Terce could not believe it. The original counts of followers might have been wrong, or more had emerged since and remained undetected. No, no, something was wrong. Perhaps the followers had been better at dissembling than the sideem gave them credit for, and there were more than anymole had thought living isolated and quiet and waiting. Waiting for what? The Stone Mole was what they were always meant to say when asked that question. But what could a solitary mole do – especially one now in the safe paws of Wort?

Terce had not risen to his position of power as Twelfth Keeper by asking such questions merely rhetorically. He trusted himself that when he felt uneasy there was reason for it, and if a question asked itself in his mind it might have another answer than the obvious one.

So... what could a solitary mole do against the might of the Word? Nothing much, surely. Not even if he was martyred, and Wort would not be so stupid as to kill him before the Master got to Ashbourne. Would she? She might, yes, she might. Martyrdom then... well, there had been martyrs on both sides over the centuries. Yet Terce, who knew his history as a Keeper must, knew of nomole through the centuries who had achieved power through death. Martyrdom was a temporary thing, soon forgotten in the living affairs of moles. And yet... he was uneasy.

Did not his own task on Rune’s behalf depend on having Rune’s memory elevated to something higher than a mere history of his life? Aye, through the death of his grandson Lucerne – a death that would be his, Terce’s, greatest achievement on behalf of Rune – their dynasty would become divine; would become in moles’ minds the once-living incarnation of the Word, living on through memory, worship, and liturgy. Divine Rune! Divine Lucerne! And then the emergence, once moles had forgotten the truth, of divine Henbane. And after that, one of the pups Mallice would bear, pups of which he, Terce, would be grandfather... and thus he would be part of that divinity.

What was the matter? The western front, always a running sore. Siabod never truly taken. The followers not quite as destroyed as sideem and the Master might think. And always the memory of Wort’s warnings that the Stone Mole had a quality about him that might destroy the Word. What quality could that be? One mole...
divinity.
Terce did not move as he thought, and now was very still indeed. Barely breathing.