Duncton Found (115 page)

“Then use the time to clean yourself, but do it quietly. And while you’re doing it consider ways of getting moles out of here under pressure, for we may need to.”

Holm sighed some more, dejectedly looked at his fur, and wondered where to start.

Lucerne, Terce, a few guardmoles and a very pregnant Mallice reached the garrison as dusk fell, and while Mallice was close-guarded in a quite separate tunnel and burrows – against her will but “for her own protection” – Lucerne and Terce went immediately to see Henbane and Harebell.

“See” was the word, for just as he had with Wharfe, Lucerne preferred to spy on them from a distance first and then retreat, delaying direct contact until it best suited him. He stared at them unseen for an hour or more before he left.

“I shall speak with them later,” he said, and Terce saw that he looked excited and cruelly pleased, “but now I will visit Mallice.”

“Master, I should like to come too,” said Terce carefully. So far he had made no comment about Lucerne’s rough treatment of Mallice, feeling, perhaps rightly, that his loyalty was being tested.

“No, but be ready this night.”

Lucerne found Mallice out of sorts, irritable, and tired. She was in a high, rough, damp chamber, and it was cold. What little nesting material there was was mouldy and lank.

“Master mine,” she whispered, “send Terce to me, I am near my time. I cannot have my pups in here. Send him to help me.”

“He is engaged,” lied Lucerne, “and I have need of thee alone.”

“But I am near my time, my dear.”

“I said I have need of thee, and I will have thee.” His eyes were full of hate.

“But... no!”

“I have seen my mother and my sister this night.”

“And, my love?” said Mallice, hoping for a diversion.

“I hated to see them close. I hated to see them talk. I hated all of it, Mallice, and now... I have need of thee.”

His voice had become thin and strange, almost pleading. She knew him well. Seeing Henbane had not agreed with him. Seeing Henbane with Harebell had agreed with him even less.

“Gently then, my dear,” she said, and near her time and heavy though she was, she proffered herself to him.

Then that perverse mole took her one last time, and for a moment forgot his mother, and for a moment more forgot his sister, and for a brief moment forgot even himself.

“Master mine,” she tried to sigh as if she had enjoyed herself.

“Now have your pups,” he said, “have them well.”

“I shall, my dear, I shall, but send Terce to me.”

“He does not want to come. He says you disgust him now.” Lucerne laughed, a laugh to put fear into another’s heart. “Your fat body disgusts him. And it disgusts me too.”

“My... dear... please send him.”

“It’s company you want, is it, mole? I’ll send you moles to keep you company, oh yes I shall!” He laughed again. “When your pupping starts I want to know so tell the guardmole.”

“Am I captive then, my love?”

“Are not thy pups captive of thy body? Not for long perhaps, but certainly they are victims.”

“Of what?” she said sharply.

“Of thine infidelity.” His eyes narrowed as hers widened.

“Infidelity to thee?” whispered Mallice.

Lucerne only laughed and left with no word more, while she, uncertain, shrank back with a paw to her flank and wondered how long she could delay before she must say that her pupping was begun.

Lucerne instructed the guardmoles, who were moles of Terce’s choice, to admit nomole to those tunnels,
nomole,
on pain of death and then went and summoned the senior guardmole of the garrison, who was plainly a mole of purpose and ambition. Yet he wished once more he had Drule here. He was the mole for
this.

“Master?”

“Senior guardmole... I need two moles obedient to the Word and to their Master.”

“We all are here.”

“Obedient and unquestioning.”

“What must they do, Master?”

“Obey me only.”

“I am one, and I can find another. Tell me what we must do.”

“If I asked you to kill your own mother would you do it?”

“If the Master asked it, yes I would.”

“And pups?”

“My own...?” The grike faltered at this.

“Not thine. A follower’s brood, and bastards.”

“I would, and another here would too.”

“Be ready for a summons from me this night. Speak to nomole of this, for it is business of the Word. Do it well and the Word shall be pleased.”

“Yes, Master,” said the grike guardmole, eyes purposeful.

Such opportunity for advancement might come but once in a lifetime and he intended to take it with all paws.

Darkness falls in the deep, incised valley of the Manifold like a close and clinging dankness that catches at a mole’s throat. Things move muffled, the hazed moon moves slow, stars seem too far away, the night crawls; screams are barely heard.

Terce did not sleep, but lay angry and thinking. The Master had ordered him not to see Mallice and then said, “Be ready this night!” But for what he did not know, and so he did not sleep. Something with Mallice?

What was plain to Terce was that from the time the Master had spied on Henbane and his sister Harebell he was cold with sibling envy. And Mallice was in danger, that was plain as well.

How hard the Word tested him! How small the difference between triumph and disaster yet might be. But how sweet and divine the triumph when it came. So Terce was restless, waiting, expecting his summons.

A scream, barely heard in the distance, sometime in the night. Mallice’s? Perhaps. Terce had never felt so ready for new life as he did now. “I shall be the grandfather of the new Master of the Word, and his name shall be divine. I shall...” Terce waited, ready for it all.

Henbane was awake, listening to Harebell and knowing her time was very near. Her movements were heavy now, her breathing shallow and a little desperate.

“I am afraid,” whispered Harebell in the dark. “What will they do to my pups?”

“I was afraid, my dear, when it was my time, yet here you are. I shall see that they will live. I am here.”

“I am glad you are,...”

In the cloying darkness Henbane heard her daughter, and shed tears for her. She knew her fear.

“Help us,” she prayed to that great unknown to which she gave no name, neither Word nor Stone, “help us all. I shall be their grandmother, show me what best to do.”

“Mother,” whispered Harebell again, “I think my pupping will soon start.”

“I am here, my love, I am close.”

In the distance, down the tunnels, muffled, they heard a scream.

“Holm!”

Holm stanced up in the dark.

“The scream is from where that Mallice went. She’s pupping. Something will happen now. Be ready.”

Holm’s eyes were wide open, and they stared unblinking at a murky tunnel wall.

“Very ready,” he said.

Yes, the screams were Mallice’s and hearing them the guardmole came.

“Have you begun?” he said. “The Master....”

“I have, mole,” she sighed between the pains, “tell him.”

Running paws in the dark, another scream. “Oh yes,” whispered Lucerne, Master of the Word, all to himself. “Mallice has begun and soon they shall all be punished of the Word, and all Atone. Eldrene Wort, you would be proud of me!” He was laughing aloud when the guardmole came.