Duncton Tales (51 page)

“You don’t know who Hilbert was, then?” said Sedum.

Samphire shook her head, her puzzlement increasing, but neither mole said more and she continued to tell of how the moles of Chieveley Dale were slaughtered, and she was the sole survivor, brought into the Charnel for the personal gratification of Red Ratcher himself; of how she learnt to tolerate Ratcher and his love for her, and finally of his rejection of her and her sole surviving pup, and her banishment across the Span.

It was a sombre telling, and one which more than once brought tears to the eyes of her listeners — tears which were more eloquent of their sympathy and trustworthiness than words could have been; tears, indeed, that eventually brought out many sweet memories of a lost past she had kept hidden too long, and bitterness at a wasted life that she had not expressed before.

Yet, along with the tears in her listeners’ eyes was excitement too. This was especially true of Drumlin, who by the end looked more amazed than anything else, as if some kind of prayer she had offered up in times past but long since given up hope of receiving an answer to, was being answered now.

“… Of course,” Samphire concluded, “I was very nervous when I crossed over to the Charnel. You see, I saw the sacrifices when I first came and I was told that pups who are not deemed fit to cross the Span are thrown into the Reap —” wasted” is the crude word Ratcher uses.”

Drumlin winced, and nodded. “Yes, we know that they see it as a kind of summer entertainment,” she said quietly, “and us Charnel moles as deformed cruel moles who wield dark powers in our talons of which they are afraid. No doubt too they fear that they will catch disease from us, or bring down upon their snouts evils they cannot combat with the strength and ruthlessness that they regard as such virtues. But Samphire, the truth is very different: we are the moles who are cursed by their presence, and the diseases that beset us and now threaten us with extinction, come from
them
.”

“Are you going to tell her?” said Sedum suddenly, breathless, tired, frowning. “She doesn’t know a thing, Drumlin, can’t you see that?”

“Tell me what?” said Samphire, wishing suddenly that Rooster was near, and feeling impatient and suspicious of these two moles who seemed nice enough, but gave nothing away and said such strange things about delving and Hilbert’s Top.

Why, despite what Drumlin said, she had
seen
the sacrifices at Midsummer, and through the years she had seen the bodies of deformed and wasted moles in the Reap, and washed up sometimes on the Reapside; and since she had lived here in the Charnel, had she not seen moles being forced upslope towards the Creeds, to take part in some primitive rites that ended in their death and disappearance?

“I don’t believe there can be any truth about this place, and the moles who live in it, but a horrible one; and even if you carry out your rituals and sacrifices in the name of a faith of your own, I don’t like it. Your assumption that moles must die if
you
decide they cant live is not one I would make. ’Tis not of the way of the Stone by which I was brought up in Chieveley Dale.”

“The ‘Stone’,” whispered Drumlin dreamily, as if that were a thing far, far from the Charnel. Then she whispered ‘Chieveley Dale,” as if that place were further still.

Samphire decided to say no more, but stared in what she hoped was an unyielding way at Drumlin, and waited for her to do something other than not answer questions and ask ones of her own all the time. Then Drumlin smiled in the most disarming way, drew a little nearer as if in conspiracy, and asked what proved to be her last question of Samphire for a long time.

“You mean us no harm, do you, Samphire? You really were banished here, and not sent to spy on us? You —”

“Is that what you thought, all of you,” cut in Samphire wildly, “that I was hostile to you, and a minion of Red Ratcher? Is that why I’ve seen nomole at all in the time I’ve been here but those you are taking to sacrifice up by the Creeds? Is that …”

But she could not go on, for she felt suddenly very alone, rejected not only by the Reapside moles, but by those of the Charnel as well. Whilst, silly though it seemed, the sight of Rooster upslope and absorbed in his games with Humlock and Glee reminded her that whatever happened, very soon he would have grown up and away from her and she would be left alone for ever in a place that was as alien as any place could be. The thoughts flooded into her as the tears flooded out. All this time raising Rooster, afraid for him, afraid for him
still
, and not another adult mole to talk to and now these two thinking she was a spy when it seemed to her they had come to talk to her for no other reason than to spy on
her
.

So she wept, then stopped, only to start again even more deeply when she felt come around her the motherly paws of Drumlin, and heard her whisper soft words of comfort and explanation.

“My dear, in the circumstances it was natural for some of us to be suspicious of you, and to fear you.”

“But n … n … not
all
of y … you?” said Samphire through her tears, seeking some comfort where she could find it.

“Some of us felt your coming meant something very special, and that
you
were sent to us by the Creeds to help us,” said Drumlin, still embracing Samphire, who in her turn clung on to Drumlin, goitre and all, as if to let her go was to be abandoned for ever.

“I’m just an ordinary mole,” mumbled Samphire.

“An ordinary mole from Chieveley Dale,” said Drumlin, a little ironically. Then pulling back a little and looking up at their three youngsters, Drumlin added with strange wonder in her voice, “But perhaps it is not
you
who were sent but
him
.”

“Rooster?” said Samphire, her face all wet with tears as she too looked upslope.

Rooster was delving once more, but this time with Humlock at his flank as he tried to guide the silent mole’s paws in the act of delving. Meanwhile Glee stanced before them both, urging Humlock on with words he could not hear and actions he could not see, hoping that somehow or other he would understand what his friends were trying to make him do.

But it was no good, for the moment Rooster took his paw away Humlock fell still once more, and his snout lowered as he hunched back into the position that seemed to exclude the world from himself, and himself from the world.

“But he must learn how to do it!” Glee said, loud enough for the adults to hear. There was desperate sadness in her voice, and mute appeal in the way she looked at Rooster.

Rooster stayed still a moment more, and then he separated from his two new friends and went upslope a little and stared up at the cliffs, and then round and up the valley towards the three dark scars of the three Creeds. Perhaps he was praying, perhaps just thinking, but whatever it was it seemed plain that in his own dark ungainly way he was trying to find a way forward for Humlock.

Then, in a resigned yet thoughtful manner, he turned back to the two moles, and reaching them he raised his two great paws to touch them both in a way that was so gentle, so expressive of concern and determination, that he looked not like the clumsy youngster he often seemed to be, but a much older mole whose power of spirit and purpose made watching moles forget entirely that his head was misshapen, and his paws grotesque.

So striking was this sense at that moment that Drumlin and Sedum drew instinctively closer to Samphire, and, indeed, their paws reached out to each other in such a way that they echoed that same triumvirate of shared concern they saw in their youngsters above them.

“It is your Rooster who’s been sent,” whispered Drumlin, “and the power of the Creeds is with him …”

“… and the Stone is with them all,” added Samphire, thinking perhaps that she must offer hope of the Stone’s trust in the other two, and not yet understanding Drumlin’s meaning.

The Reap roared, ravens turned and scuttered high above, the clouds moved in the sky beyond, as Drumlin said, “My dear, there comes a time when a mole must trust another unreservedly, as I now, having heard what you have said, and seeing the love of mole and gentleness that abides in the son you have reared here in the Charnel, will trust you.

“Let our youngsters play on, and seek out for themselves a way forward that may be perhaps for us all, as I try now to answer the questions you have raised about delving, and about the moles of the Charnel.”

When Turrell had reached this moment in his account of Rooster’s life a tear had coursed down his face at the thought and memory of it; and a solitary tear coursed down Privet’s now.

Blankly, she stared out beyond her outstretched paws, seeing not Chieveley Dale, but that former time in that place unvisited by her, where Rooster was born and raised, and where now a secret must be revealed … Yet even as she thought of it and its consequences there came a rough brutal shout from the Dale below and Privet was jolted back to reality by the renewed perils of the present moment.

The shout she heard was from one of the grikes below her as he reared menacingly up from his cover to confront two moles, both young males, who had broken out of a hidden tunnel upslope of him and were now trying to make a run for it towards the forest, and the very place where Privet now stanced.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Privet stared in mounting horror as the two fleeing Chieveley moles struggled across the rough ground towards her, the huge grikes in close pursuit. Her heart beat painfully in her chest and she could not even catch her breath as she tried desperately to think what she should do.

From where she stanced it was plain that the two moles were no match for their pursuers, either in speed or size, and to make matters worse other grikes were already running up from the lower slopes in response to the shout.

It seemed to Privet that pursuers and pursued, racing upslope as they were, would all shortly converge on the very spot where she had until now laid watching and unseen. If the grikes had come alone she would simply have hidden until they were gone; and if the two Chieveley moles had not been seen, she would have attracted their attention in some quiet way and led them off unnoticed.

But with them all coming together in the open, what was she to do? What
could
she do? Hide, and abandon the moles she and the others were committed to help? Or show herself, and risk capture and perhaps the lives of the very moles she wanted to save?

Even had Privet been able to find a clear answer to these questions in so short a time, the situation suddenly changed again and she was faced by new dilemmas. For more Chieveley moles emerged from secret exits off to her left flank somewhere up near where her father had deployed himself, and were making a dash for the forest with grikes in pursuit of them as well.

Privet glanced downslope to her right in the hope of seeing Hamble, and getting some guidance from him about what to do, but he was out of sight. Meanwhile, though the two Chieveley moles were much nearer now, their pace had slowed as they struggled to cross the rough ground adjacent to the forest, and she could see that their bodies were thin and wasted as if they had had too little food, and their eyes were wide with fear. Then one of them made the mistake of turning to look back and see how near the grikes were, and stumbled sideways with a hopeless cry as he did so. His companion paused, turned, saw how near the grikes were, and then rushed on desperately.

It was then, wishing to give him encouragement and with no thought of her own safety or of the consequences of what she did, that Privet involuntarily stanced up to cry to the moles to try to press on to the cover of the trees. But the moment she rose out of the undergrowth she knew it was a mistake, and perhaps a fatal one. The approaching mole paused in alarm at what seemed the new threat ahead of him, the grikes pressed on ever faster behind, barely pausing in their stride as they looked up, decided that Privet was the enemy as well, and charged resolutely on.

They caught up the mole who had stumbled and dealt him a disabling sideways talon thrust before they came on, the one in front pointing ahead first at her, and then at the fleeing mole as he grunted, “I’ll get ‘er, you get ’im.”

To her credit Privet stayed still and upright on the spot from which she had risen from the undergrowth, not from the utter panic she might well have felt — in fact a deathly calm had overtaken her — but from a wise appreciation of the fact that if she was going to dodge the grike and have some chance of escape, she had best do it at the last possible moment, when, she hoped, he might have such momentum that he would carry on by her and straight into the bole of the dead tree near where she had stanced and towards which — surprised at her own coolness — she now backed.

She saw the slower of the two moles tumble and lie still from the taloning he had suffered, she saw the second grike come on as the first passed by the faster of the moles and headed straight for her. Then, quite unexpectedly, she heard her father’s voice cry out from far upslope: This way! Now!”