Duncton Quest (73 page)

“It pleases me,” said Henbane.

“I had thought you would have left Duncton by now, WordSpeaker,” he replied, “for surely your wisdom and the guidance of the Word is needed at Buckland.”

“Perhaps,” sighed Henbane, enjoying Wrekin’s respect and seeming to need his advice and support. It was a way she had, to make moles relaxed and feel she needed them. It was hard to resist, but Wrekin had not survived so long by being fully taken in by Henbane. His eyes stayed respectful but cold.

“We have missed you,” lied Henbane. “Much has been decided and done for the future, and the position of Buckland as the centre of southern moledom is now secure.”

“What eldrene is in charge there now?” asked Wrekin, his voice betraying the distaste he felt for the eldrenes. Henbane smiled. It was a clever thing to have eldrenes in charge of systems but guardmole armies separately controlled by moles like Wrekin, with she herself in charge of both. She liked it best when eldrenes and guardmole leaders disliked each other. And she liked it most when they combined to dislike the sideem. In such an atmosphere of dislike and distrust it was, as Rune himself had once suggested to her, easiest for a WordSpeaker to maintain control, and keep absolute power.

“Eldrene Beake rules Buckland and she does it well.”

“Beake? She’s young,” said Wrekin.

“I was young, Wrekin. You were young. Youth may have the ruthlessness such an eldrene needs. Beake will do. She supplies you with guardmoles enough I think?”

“She does,” agreed Wrekin; guardmoles and spies. Sideem too, probably, though of them, she most likely does not know. Wrekin had his way of spotting spies and informers and though he had never said a word, such moles, placed no doubt by the eldrenes at the command of Henbane, had a way of having accidents under Wrekin’s command. Henbane knew it, Wrekin knew it, Weed knew it, the eldrenes suspected it. It was a game played between them, never once acknowledging its rules. “Oh yes,” said Wrekin, “there are guardmoles enough, though not of the old grike school we knew first. We need more of those and must make do with grike half-castes bred of grike stock in southern wombs. Good, strong enough, well moulded by the eldrenes, loyal to the Word, dismisses of the Stone.” Then he added with an unusual display of nostalgia, “Yet not of the old grike school of Whern, WordSpeaker.”

Henbane smiled. She liked a mole to talk.

“Well, we all miss the north, Wrekin, each one of us.”

“I am glad to have Siabod to fight for, WordSpeaker, it is good to be able to offer guardmoles more than guard duties. Many ask to go and it is easier to keep them in order that way. We will take Siabod before long now.”

“Yes, so I have heard. It is well. I would like to have had that settled before we...” But she stopped herself saying more.

“Before?” queried Wrekin, easing his squat and stolid body at its stance. These days his face was lined, and he frowned permanently from an old scar that coursed his face.

“Before,” repeated Weed from the shadows. “Before this and before that.”

“Ah!” said Wrekin, realising he had asked too much and Henbane had made a rare slip. He did his best to remain impassive. He had not even known Weed was there.

“So, all is well. All in order. All settled,” Henbane said.

Wrekin was suddenly uneasy and alert. All in order, what in order? All settled, what settled? All’s well,
too
well? Yes, he was uneasy.

“You will go to Siabod?” asked Henbane softly.

Should he? Shouldn’t he? What did she want? Him away perhaps, but away from what? Yet he felt powerless without the best of his guardmoles and they, the very best of them led by Ginnell, a mole he had trained himself and whom he trusted, were already at Siabod, or on the way there.

“I had hesitated to go, WordSpeaker, until you made your desire known.”

Henbane narrowed her eyes. From his corner Weed watched impassively, Wrekin waited, watching and listening. He was uneasy.

“My advice rather than my desire, Wrekin, is that you go. Siabod may be harder to take than we think. It may need your experience. But go back to Buckland when you are done.”

“You will be there by then?”

Henbane shrugged.

“If I am I will wish to speak to you. If I am not then I would wish to have a mole I trust at Buckland.”

“And Beake?”

“Beake will not be there.”

“Ah!” said Wrekin noncommittally. “To Siabod I shall go then. And return to Buckland.”

“Fast, Wrekin. Fast and furious. I like not such a system’s defiance. Siabod is the last of the seven, the very last. When you have taken it and subdued it, send news to Whern. Whern would know. Whern
must
know.”

Ah. So. Henbane is to go to Whern, thought Wrekin. It was likely to be so. Yes, then I had best be in Siabod with good guardmoles behind me. Yes.

“So do it,” whispered Henbane, sighing again. “Now, I am tired....”

Wrekin left, with a parting glance at Weed. Henbane turned to Weed.

“I would hear from Rune, Weed, I would know.”

“Soon now, Henbane, soon I am sure. He has been sent word.”

“Good. Good. Siabod is the last decision. Wrekin will do it well. Yet do you trust Wrekin? The mole that desires rest and dreams of home needs replacing. I would leave before September ends. I made a promise that we would.”

Then she left, and Weed was alone. He did not move. He thought.

“I made a promise that we would.” Weed smiled grimly. Oh yes, he had sent word to Rune, but it was not a request. It was a suggestion. “Order her back,” it had said. “The time is come.” For Weed knew that Henbane’s good spirits were not only to do with the fact that she had sought to conceal from Wrekin, which was that she would be returning to Whern soon, and certainly long before he ever came back from distant Siabod.

No, it was not only the prospect of that that cheered her. But also the presence of a mole every grike in Duncton had grown to dislike, including even Weed himself, whose habit it was not to dislike or to like, but as Rune had taught him, to evaluate. The pathetic Bailey had cheered her! And his evaluation of the mole Bailey was that he was trouble, for he had released in Henbane something that not even Rune had guessed was there. Something the Word had no name for, something unruly. All the moleyears of summer since the youngster had come had Weed pondered it, concluding that only Rune would know best what to do, though he, Weed, had now come to a conclusion, and would offer his advice. So Weed had sent that suggestion urgently: order her back. And he would be glad, too, to see its positive response. Like Henbane, like Wrekin, he too wanted to go home.

Bailey smirked at Henbane’s side, secure in her patronage, the grike guardmoles disguising their hatred of him behind blank stares. Henbane was angry. Chubby Bailey smirked.

Since his first coming to the Ancient System he had been happily adopted by Henbane. Others had seen it before with young male moles, but Weed, who knew her better than anymole but Rune himself, saw there was a special quality to her interest in Bailey. It was something to do with Bailey’s innocence and misguided faith in her, as if, having lost his older sister, he had elected Henbane, most evil of moles, to this trusted post. Not only that, but he assumed an access and right to her attention such as a younger brother may assume, or even a son, for there were elements of mothering in Henbane’s attitude to this innocent male. He accepted willingly enough that at times he was not welcome. But however much she rebuffed him, which she could do with savagery, he came back, secure in some mysterious certainty of his own that she must receive him.

Weed knew this because Weed had eyes to spy with, and ears to eavesdrop by; Weed was silent and secret and knew ways of learning the most secret of things, most shameful of things... and now most extraordinary of things.

For what he knew, and nomole else did, was that in private, where nomole was allowed access, deep in the burrows she had requisitioned as her own, Henbane changed. With this mole Bailey, Rune’s daughter, the most feared of all moles, the most cruel, who maimed her lovers when she had used them and then had them killed... this same Henbane became a pup again – with a pup’s rages, a pup’s sulks and... often, a pup’s laughter....

“Where
were
you Bailey?”

“Don’t know.”

“You must have been somewhere!”

“Was, but it’s my business.”

“I know you know where you were! I hate you, Bailey, and I’m not talking to you.”

(And
this
was Henbane. No wonder that Weed sent word to Rune.)

Silence.

“
What were you doing? I
asked, ‘What were you doing?’”

Silence.

“
Bailey
!” she screamed, her elegant beautiful flanks fluffing up with rage, her face fur swollen with anger, her eyes suddenly pig-like: her shining talons hooked and dangerous.

And Bailey, still smaller than her though he had grown much since he had come, and still vulnerable-looking, stared at her unmoved.

“Won’t tell if you’re not nice,” he said. “Won’t
play
with you! I was hungry, Henbane, I wanted to eat, I had to eat and I found some food and I ate it.”

“You’ll get fat!” said Henbane, ruler of moledom.

“That’s what Starling used to say.”

“I don’t care what Starling used to say,” said Henbane. “I don’t like you talking about her. You’ve got me now. I thought you had forgotten her.”

“Yes,” said Bailey quietly, “yes...” Low voices then. Tickles? Silence. Laughter.
Laughter
! Then... “I
still
don’t like you saying her name, Bailey.”

“No,” said Bailey.

Weed heard the hurt in his voice and the loss, and knew, though Henbane did not seem to sense it, Bailey remembered more of his past than he claimed. Much more. The youngster might look innocent, but he knew enough to play the game of seeming to like Henbane to the exclusion of his past, and Weed did not doubt that he remembered more than he ever mentioned.

Why at Midsummer’s Night Weed had found the youngster crying by the Stone....

“What are you doing?” Weed had asked, snout turning, for he disliked the Stone. “Worshipping, yes?”

“N-no,” sniffed Bailey. “But Duncton moles come here on Midsummer’s Night. Starling would have made me come, so I came.” He stared at the Stone and whispered gibberish as if by this southern magic he might invoke some prayers or song he felt he had forgotten.

“You came to do what?” asked Weed.

“Don’t know,” said Bailey. “Can’t remember.”

“The last such night was before you were born, so we wouldn’t expect you to, would we Bailey?”

“N-no,” said Bailey.

“Well best to run along then, the WordSpeaker will be missing you,” said Weed.

“Do I have to?”

Weed laughed.

“Don’t have to, but best to,” he said.

“All right,” said Bailey....