Duncton Found (114 page)

“You have done well,” he said.

“The Stone has done it all,” Wort said immediately.

“Ah, yes. And the Stone Mole?”

“Lucerne won’t find his holy body,” said Wort matter-of-factly.

“Why don’t you tell me what really happened here?” said Terce. “From the beginning, and taking your time.”

So Wort did, right from the beginning, the strangest, maddest tale that Terce ever heard, except for one thing. All the evidence supported the truth of it. Moles called in for corroboration after Wort had been taken away described it just the same. And all spoke in awe of the Stone Mole, describing his suffering as if it had been their own. And the strangeness of his parting, or disappearance, or whatever that was...! No corpse, no sudden recovery. Nothing, but images out of the confusion of fighting and a tired dawn of a young mole, an old mole, a White Mole.

No, Terce liked it even less. It stank of martyrdom and mystery. It stenched of just the kind of nonsense that whatever followers were left could rally round. It was rank with danger to the Word.

Yet here and soon, in this confusion, in this possible disaster, the Word would guide him. Terce trusted that. Always, always, it had been a risk, but somewhere here in all of it was a way of ending Lucerne’s mortal life and beginning the immortalisation of Rune’s dynasty.

That would be.
For now, his concern was Mallice and her coming pups, of whom he would glory to be grandfather. His task might have been harder if Drule had been here, but he was not. The guardmoles who close-guarded her were moles he knew; they owed him favours. Let her have the pups here, and soon. She would be safe.

Meanwhile he must listen and learn, and the Word would, as the eldrene Wort might once have said, show him the way.

The Word did, and very soon.

“The Master asks for your presence with him,” a messenger said. “He is up near the Stone.”

He went and found Lucerne looking smug, and a tired and travelled guardmole stanced nearby.

“Ah, Terce, the day’s good news is not over yet, for there is more. Harebell, sister of Wharfe, sister of another mole you know, is caught. More than caught indeed; she is with pup.”

“It is the season for pups,” said Terce easily.

“And mothers too.”

“Mothers, Master?”

“Old mothers. Mothers with dry teats. Mothers do grow old, Terce, very. Or had you forgotten?”

Terce was silent, thinking, frowning. Then he let out a little sigh of disbelief.

“The Mistress Henbane, Master?”

“This mole’s commander has her
with
Harebell. And others, too, of rather less interest to the Word.”

“Then we must see them!” said Terce, almost jubilant. Henbane! The Word had spoken.

“It is a little way, I fear, for they are half a day from here. They were found hiding and caught napping, literally it seems. And just as well by his account or floods would have drowned them dead, and thus denied us the pleasures yet to come. Think of it, Terce: united once more with Henbane on the very day of our greatest triumph.”

“There are matters we must....”

“They can wait,” said Lucerne sharply.

He turned to the guardmole and dismissed him with more smiles and compliments, but the moment he had gone the smiles faded.

“I know you, Terce. These matters... they will be to do with something that troubles you, and no doubt you are right to raise them and I am derelict to avoid them. Well, Terce, I like not my mother; I like not the idea of my sister, though her pups may be a very different thing. Yes, they may well be. These are matters I wish to attend to. What is yours that it is more important?”

“The Stone Mole, Master. The Stone Mole is dead, long live the Stone Mole. I tell, you Master, the Word is in danger now.”

Then he told Lucerne his fears, powerfully and convincingly, and sought to persuade him to have Henbane brought here.

“Harebell is too far gone with pup, according to that guardmole. She is imminent and my dear mother naturally wishes to stay with my dear sister, and since for now I wish nothing more than to see them, why, the Master will be the one to move.”

“As you will, Master.”

“Yes, as I will.”

Terce was expressionless and, despite all he said, inwardly pleased. The Word had sent Henbane as guidance to Terce. She was the way. The one mole in moledom who might yet conquer Lucerne.

“Is she well?” asked Terce. “The Mistress Henbane, I mean.”

“Elderly and fit, just as you always said Rune used to be. Just as one day I shall be.”

“I hope so, Master, though I shall not live to see it.”

“No, you won’t,” said Lucerne, and laughed. Somewhere here in Beechenhill, somehow for reasons neither fully understood, the relationship of the Twelfth Keeper and the Master of the Word had turned a corner into hatred.

“Oh, and Terce,” said the Master, so gently. “Summon Mallice. She shall come with us.”

“But Master, she is near....”

“Near her time? Ah, yes. But then she always wanted to meet Henbane, and – who knows? – my mother may not live too long.”

“Yes, Master,” hissed Terce.

“We shall simply have to wait,” said Sleekit firmly, frowning.

Holm frowned back, jerked his head about a bit, looked around the running muddy tunnel they were in and sighed.

“Wait,” he echoed faintly.

“Yes, wait. I thought you liked this kind of place. You
like
being grubby.”

“With Lorren, not you. You’re Sleekit, not my mate. Not nice with you. Nice with her.” Holm was indeed grubby, the grit and wet sand on the walls and floor of the limestone tunnel he had finally brought them up was thick in his fur and between his talons.

Sleekit, on the other paw, contrived to look surprisingly clean, but then at the first opportunity she was inclined to wash herself in any running water she could find, and if that was not available then drips of water were nearly as good. And failing even that, then if there was a current of air she would dry herself and shake her fur clean.

“Gets dirty again,” Holm would say.

“Lorren would love you more if you were clean,” Sleekit would respond.

But it was only friendly banter between two moles who were now living on the very edge of disaster, and needed all the lightness they could find.

Holm had led them on a fur-raising journey back through the Castern Chambers, which had involved wading, swimming, and diving through sumps and emerging in lightless pockets of air, until, miraculously as it had seemed to Sleekit, he had got them to the torrent beyond which Harebell and the others had been captured.

The water level was much lower than when they were last there, though dangerous still, and Holm had explained and then demonstrated how Sleekit must swim across, and somehow they had made it.

After that it had been a relatively simple matter of following clues and probabilities until they had found a place along the Manifold Valley where a small grike garrison was stationed. They had lain in wait and watched, and Sleekit had recognised two guardmoles she had seen during the flood in Castern.

“I hope they will not recognise me,” said Sleekit.

After that Holm had lain low, while Sleekit used her former sideem ways and risked direct contact with the grikes, claiming she was journeying northwards on the Master’s business. She felt safe enough, for the spot was isolated and unlikely to have another sideem there who might have identified her as false.

She was with them a few hours, and the fact that she was female and the grikes all male was helpful, for they soon revealed they had taken five female prisoners from the rabble who had escaped from Beechenhill and they were not certain what to do with them.

“Pupping, aren’t they?”

“All of them?” asked Sleekit.

“All but one.”

They said this oddly and she soon found out why. They knew, and this explained their caution and their doubt, that the odd one out was Henbane, former Mistress of the Word. Or that was who she said she was.

“The sideem would not by any chance know what Mistress Henbane looks like?”

“I saw her once,” said Sleekit, realising that this was at least a way to contact the captive moles. She prayed they would not reveal that they recognised her.

“What will you do with this mole if she is the Mistress?” asked “sideem” Sleekit as they went into the tunnels to see the prisoners.

“Keep her and tell sideem Merrick double quick. The others are a useful source of pups and could be used for breeding. Not many fertile females about these days...” The grikes grinned and laughed and nudged each other at the prospect. But they went serious again: sideem never laughed at such things.

Sleekit was taken to the captive moles and was able to establish where they were hidden so that Holm might find a route through limestone tunnels to it. A slim chance, but just possible.

She was careful to talk loudly just before she reached them, making clear by what she said that she was here as a sideem and, therefore, not to be recognised. She found them all being kept together in a cramped burrow, and well guarded too. Along with Harebell and Henbane was Quince and two pregnant females she did not know.

At the sight of Sleekit, Henbane, more used to hiding her feelings, stayed expressionless and, as best they could, the others took their cue from that. But even so it was all Harebell could do not to express her joy at seeing Sleekit so unexpectedly.

“Well, sideem,” said the senior guardmole, “you tell me which you think is Mistress Henbane, if, that is, any of them is.” It was a tense moment, for whatever she said would sentence Henbane to punishment and death.

Sleekit thought quickly and decided what to do. She lowered her snout towards Henbane, and said, “Mistress, I am grieved to see thee thus.”

“So she is who she says she is?”

“She is.”

“Yet you greet her deferentially.”

“A long word for a guardmole,” said Sleekit haughtily. “I hope you know its meaning, and remember that Mistress Henbane did much for moledom before her apostasy, so treat her well.”

This was the best Sleekit could do for Henbane. As she looked at them she guessed that the moles had realised when they were caught that the grikes were only keeping those who were with pup alive and Henbane had decided to give her real name rather than be drowned with the others in the stream.

Quince stared at her and Sleekit realised that she must have claimed she was with pup to survive as well....

“These others, sideem, I don’t suppose you know their names!”

It was said more as a joke than anything for before she had even framed a reply the grike guardmole said. “Don’t worry. That’s Harebell there, and that’s Quince, and...” And he gave all their names correctly and with an unpleasant proprietorial leer, as if the pups they carried were his own.

“They seem near their time.”

A look of minor alarm came over the grike’s face.

“Well, I’ve already sent a couple of moles down to Ashbourne – one via the valley, one over the hill by way of Beechenhill – to tell them who we’ve caught. They should be pleased. But we don’t want pups
here.
It’s a garrison, not a bloody birth burrow.”

“You’d better find them more suitable quarters then, hadn’t you?” said Sleekit, seeing an opportunity for getting them out of here to somewhere from where it might be easier to help them escape.

“Well... maybe,” said the grike.

“Do you know what happened to the Beechenhill moles?” said Sleekit, trying to mask any hint she may have given that she had the captives” interest in mind.

“Drowned, we thought. Drowned in Castern.”

Sleekit shook her head, and though she hated to give her friends information in such a way she felt it was for the best.

“No, killed. I heard they escaped from the chambers and most died by guardmole talons down by the Beechenhill Stone. I doubt if any got away at all.”

“Blest be the Word!” said the grike.

“Aye, blessed be the Word!” agreed Sleekit.

Sleekit emerged from the garrison and went on her way northward, being very cautious about deviating back lest the grikes were watching. It was therefore some time before she found Holm again, and they were able to seek out an alternative way into the garrison tunnels. Though they were not able to get to the chamber where Harebell, Henbane and the others were being kept they did at least succeed in reaching a point where, with a squeeze and a slide, they could see down into the main tunnel into the garrison, and overhear some of what the grikes’ guardmoles said when they were at rest.

“We must wait patiently, and an opportunity for doing something will come along,” said Sleekit. “The Master Lucerne will send moles here to get Henbane and the others, or perhaps even come himself for Henbane must matter to him. And if he realises who Harebell really is she will matter too and, I fear, need all the help we can give if she is to be saved. But at least Henbane and Harebell now know that I am here nearby and that may give them courage to try to escape.”

Holm sighed again.

“I like route-finding, not waiting,” he said. “Waiting
drags
.”