Duncton Found (109 page)

Wort looked disgruntled for a moment, but then her face cleared.

“The Word shall find a way of bringing them to us. The Word is all-powerful and will not be frustrated for long. Perhaps they will guess that we are avenging the Word through the Stone Mole, whom they value so highly, and will vainly seek to save him from his salvation in the talons of the Word.”

Merrick looked at the mole who lay injured and suffering before the Stone, and at his dead companion nearby.

“He looks no danger to anymole,” he said. “But if he is, then he should be killed forthwith.”

The truth was that Merrick felt pity for the mole, and did not want his death drawn out. A quick death would mean he could forget this troublesome mole, and more easily blame Wort for this invasion of an empty system. The more the affair dragged on the more he was concerned that the Master, presumptuously summoned by Wort in Ashbourne, might end up here in Beechenhill, and then Word knows what punishments might be meted out. Yet having come, he would make the best of what had happened, and perhaps in the end the retreat of the Beechenhill moles played into his paws. Of course, if they could get their paws on Henbane, the Master would forgive their transgressions in coming here in the first place; he would forgive them everything.

Yet as Merrick weighed up these possibilities his eyes drifted involuntarily once more, as did his mind, towards the mole who lay beside his dead companion staring at the Stone. Indeed, Merrick found he could not keep his eyes
off
the mole, for there was something about him that seemed to make everything there, even Wort herself, seem secondary to his presence. Not just visibly but mentally too. Merrick had the uncomfortable feeling that his convoluted thoughts, his sideem thoughts, were, in this mole’s presence, utterly inconsequential.

“Temptation,” said Wort, her eyes sharp upon him. “You are suffering the first temptation that the Stone Mole’s cunning creates in moles’ hearts. I see it in your eyes, sideem Merrick, you are thinking nothing else matters, that only this mole matters. I too was so tempted, but conquered it with the Word’s help.”

Conquered it! thought Merrick with an inward laugh. Mole, you are obsessed by Beechen of Duncton Wood!

Wort said, “Now pray with me, mole, and help save yourself: holy Word, I feel the temptation of the Stone thrusting its talons in my heart, I feel the caressing of the Stone upon my flanks, I feel a false ecstasy that makes me forget thy glory and power and my loyalty to thee. Help me, Word, help me!”

Merrick found himself mouthing this prayer, but even then thinking of the Stone Mole, and finding his eyes drawn to him even more.

“I do not understand,” he whispered. Which is the beginning of all understanding.

The hours were dragging slowly in the Castern Chambers and were not helped by the growing sense, gained from a darkening of what sky they could see and a heaviness in the air, that outside and above a storm was coming.

An air of dejection had come over the moles. They lay still and so far as any of them talked it was to wonder if, and when, one of the watchers might get through with news of what was happening in Beechenhill.

But one mole was not still, but stanced up and staring all about, twitching with nerves: grubby Holm.

He had been nervous from the first moment they had entered the limestone tunnels, and grown more so as they had gone deeper in. He had tried at one point to turn back but Sleekit had stopped him, and now she crouched near him talking to him softly, trying to get him to tell her what was wrong.

He was stanced nearly upright, snout whiffling and sniffling at the damp air, and looking extremely unhappy as he had done from the first.

“You can tell me, Holm, and I won’t tell anymole else unless you want me to. What’s wrong?”

He turned his head sharply towards her, opened his mouth to speak, frowned, narrowed his eyes, widened them, breathed in and out several times, and just when she thought he was once again going to say nothing, said, “Wrong? Everything’s wrong. We can’t stay here. Can’t. Mustn’t. Won’t.”

“Why not?” she said, hoping that he might be soothed by talking.

He would not say immediately, but stanced tensely and getting tenser until he spoke again.

“Explore, Sleekit, you and me,” he said.

So they did, Holm leading her here and there through the chambers, pushing his snout up even the smallest and dampest clefts in the limestone, going everywhere.

“No. No, no, no,” was all he said.

They went eventually to the higher chamber where Harebell and the others were and this he did not like either, having to paddle through the water of an underground stream to get there.

“No, no, no,” he muttered urgently to himself.

“No what, Holm?” said Harebell, smiling. Being with pup had made her calm, and the pups were clearly showing. She was stanced close by Henbane, and not so far above, but out of reach, a fissure opened to the sky. They could see the day was darker than it had been.

“Holm doesn’t like the Castern Chambers,” said Sleekit.

“Why not? Is it the cockroaches?” asked Harebell.

Holm shook his head.

“Do
you
?” he said unexpectedly, darting a look at Henbane.

“No,” said Henbane quietly, “I don’t.”

“She’s from Whern. Mayweed told me about Whern. Water’s the worry here, not the food.”

“Water?” said Harebell, puzzled.

“I think by water Holm means floods,” said Henbane.

“Oh!” said Sleekit looking around. “Oh dear.”

Holm had been with Tryfan and Mayweed when the tunnel had collapsed and so many moles were drowned.

“
Is
it flooding you fear?” said Sleekit.

Holm stared at her, nodded his head, and his wide eyes filled with tears.

“Once is enough,” he said.

“I doubt if they’d flood here,” said Henbane. Then she lowered her voice and said, “I did think about it when we came but really the risk is small, less than facing the guardmoles on the surface. But I did not mention it because moles panic so easily.”

“Floods,” said Holm.

“Holm, if I tell Squeezebelly, would that satisfy you?”

“Getting out would satisfy me,” said Holm, “but telling’s a start.”

On their return Squeezebelly listened to what they had to say, but said talking about it would hurt morale, and that he had been down here when it was wet above and the water levels did not rise.

“Depends, that does, doesn’t it?” said Holm. “Holm knows his water. Let’s leave now.”

Squeezebelly smiled and shook his head.

“No, no, but we’ll keep a weather eye open, Holm. In fact, would you do that for us?”

Holm nodded, pleased to be asked, and left them.

“He’s not usually wrong about such things,” said Sleekit.

“If we have to go up on the surface we shall all die,” said Squeezebelly wearily. “It’s as simple as that. Now, let’s see how we can pass the rest of this first day and the coming night... If there’s any sign of a real storm we’ll get moles to the higher places, Sleekit.”

The “sign” was coming.

At the Stone the wind, which had grown persistent by midday, died off again in the afternoon, and the previously noticeable heaviness to the air came back threefold.

Merrick had gone off to lead the searches for the hidden Beechenhill moles and left the eldrene Wort in possession of the Stone. She had been still and praying for an hour or more, and Beechen half conscious and limp, when she suddenly stared up abstractedly at the Stone, then at the Stone Mole, and then back to the Stone again. Then she turned and looked behind him to the wire fence.

“Henchmole,” she said softly.

“Eldrene?”

“Barb him on the wire.”

“Eldrene?”

“The Word has spoken to me at last. Barb him.”

“To die?”

“To die slow.”

“He is weak.”

“It shall be fitting that he lasts a full night and at least until this time tomorrow.”

“He may not.”

“The Word shall decide.”

One of the other henchmoles came forward and whispered to their leader who listened, nodded, and turned back to Wort.

“Eldrene, we... we have not eaten since dawn.”

“Nor have I,” said Wort sharply and frowning. “Barb him now, and leave two watching him. The rest may eat.” She glanced down at Beechen, and then immediately looked back at the henchmoles.

“Do it
now
,” she said, turning quickly away towards the Stone and beginning to mutter her prayers again.

It was a scene to which the others there seemed indifferent, but then such moments of punishment and torture upon followers had been repeated too many times in the moleyears past to attract much interest. A snouting was always worth watching, of course, but a barbing... The only interest was predicting when the mole would die. The weakest-looking often lasted the longest.

Two of the henchmoles grabbed Beechen under the paws and dragged his limp body towards the taut wire. They stared up at the barbs appraisingly and chose one which was angled upwards. Some of the barbs were corroded and there was the smell of sheep’s urine about, and a piece of fleece fretted nearby on the wire.

The two dragging Beechen looked towards the leader for directions.

“Which paw?” said one. Back paws killed quicker, front paws made it more difficult to get the victim on.

“Front paw left. She wants him living for a time and facing this way. High up. We don’t want it ripping through like with that Rollright mole we did.”

“Yes, Sir.”

They pulled him to a position directly under the fence and looked up again at the barbs above. Beechen was conscious now, but he seemed not to understand what was happening to him.

“Nearer the post where the wire’s higher,” they were commanded. “When he’s up we want his back paws clear of the ground and giving him no support.”

It was not as easy as a snouting, and Beechen was heavier than they expected, and so only at the third attempt and with a heave and shove and a helping paw from their leader did they get him in the right position. Now Beechen seemed to understand what they were doing and he was looking about as if for help.

He did not struggle, but as they pushed him up in the air and got his paw where they wanted it he gazed at the Stone and began to pray.

Then with one reaching up to hold his left paw in place, the other two girdled the lower half of his body with their paws and pulled him suddenly and violently down so that the barb caught his flesh and then drove sickeningly among the strong sinews and bones of his paw.

He let out a terrible cry at this, and again when they cruelly let him go and his body swung briefly back and forth and up and down with the rebounding of the wire, until it was still. He groaned, the immediate pain over, and his body hung angled and strange. Only the longer talons of his right back paw touched the ground. His upper right paw seemed to strive to reach over and try to gain a purchase on the wire to lift himself off it, but the effort was futile and the henchmoles evidently knew it, for they had already turned away.

“You two stay here, we’ll relieve you when we’ve had food,” said the leader.

Looking irritable and disgruntled the two henchmoles stanced down. Neither of them looked at Beechen, not even when after a short time he began to groan with pain, his mouth half open, his eyes staring terribly at the Stone.