Duncton Tales (6 page)

Stancing there, with so many copyists about her, and with so many more texts in the stacks all about, Privet saw both the grandness of the conception, and the enormity of the task, and felt a renewed determination eventually to meet the Master Librarian himself.

“Excuse me,” said Privet, plucking up courage to speak to another mole, “can you tell me where I might find Deputy Master Snyde?”

“Seen him round, seen him
there
,” said the mole, pointing to a narrow gap between stacks, and scarcely looking up from the copying he was doing.

Privet went that way, turned a corner, went on a bit towards a smaller chamber, turned to the right and realized she was lost.

“Yes, mole?”

The voice was quick and nasal, the mole that spoke it crook-backed, with a head laid low by his deformity, which gave him the look of one who was perpetually peering at others to find them out. He was amongst shadows, and at his flanks were a couple of moles, one male, one female, both wearing the smiles of moles doing their best to please a mole they fear and dislike.

“I’m looking for —”

“Me. You’re looking for me.”

“Deputy Master Snyde?” she said carefully.

A brief complacent smile lightened his face and he licked his mouth. He looked proprietorially at the two moles with him.

“It seems so, doesn’t it? They sent you to me. Yes. Good. And you’re from?”

“Rollright.”

“You’ll be badly trained then.
They’ve
never got it right.”

“I wasn’t raised there,” said Privet, as affronted as Snyde had intended her to be, “but I was there for a time. Before that —”

To her relief Snyde waved her into silence.

“You can scribe?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Of course,” said Snyde with a slight sneer, smiling again, this time coldly. “Anything else?”

“I’m a mediaevalist, I think.”

“Oh, she thinks she’s a mediaevalist,” said Snyde to his acolytes. They sneered dutifully, though the male less than the other. “Frankly mole, we have no use in Duncton these days for mediaevalists since the demand is for our modern texts and for copying. Must keep on with the copying, of course, and we do, we do. But as for scholarship, well, the past is dead, long live the present.”

“The present will become the past,” said Privet, much provoked and unable to prevent herself from arguing. It was the first time since she had been in Duncton that the tougher side of Privet, the part that must have given her the strength to get there at all, had shown itself. The male aide grinned to himself, while the female looked at Snyde to see what he would do.

What he did was to thrust his thin and wrinkled snout out into the light towards Privet, peer at her through narrowed eyes, and say, “Of course it will! How right you are, very clever, very … disputatious.” He was smiling in a most unpleasant way and his talons were kneading the ground with an almost sensual pleasure at the sudden prospect of intellectual argument.

“And when,” he said, “does our mediaeval visitor maintain the past begins?”

“I … I’m not sure,” said Privet slowly, unable to take her eyes off Snyde’s, which had a curious and hypnotic weasel-like quality. “I only know it ends in myth.”

“Myth?” said Snyde, evidently surprised at this answer, and somewhat disconcerted by it.

“The final truth of history is myth,” said Privet. “Until then it is but surmise. I feel more comfortable with the distant past but that is my failing, Deputy Master, and I know from your work that you have the breadth of vision to feel comfortable with Modern.” She was careful to allow no hint of flattery or unctuousness to enter into her voice, and she ended what she said with a short, brief, apologetic smile.

“Ah! Good! Very good or very clever,” said Snyde. “More on this later one day. Meanwhile, we must welcome copyists, whatever their quality, for once winter sets in the supply will end. One big task to complete for Avebury, and another for the aforesaid and mediocre Rollright. What was your name?”

“Privet.”

“Not a name I know. Not a very nice name really.”

“I have scribed nothing that you would have seen, Deputy Master.”

“But something?”

Privet shrugged. “A monograph on Whernish texts at Beechenhill, and a study of scrivening styles, and an account of the lost tales of Bleaklow. Tales has become my speciality and I have a text …”

“Bleaklow? Well … Yes …” said Snyde, clearly uninterested in these offerings. “Perhaps if you prove yourself a worthy copier you can be given a little time for your own private researches, but I stress we are rather busy with more important things … Since you appear to show neither interest nor belief in Modern I fear I cannot offer you a task in my own specialist department.” She did not choose to press her Book of Tales on him.

He turned to the male and said, “Avens, you can show her the Library and ask the Copy Master to set her a task within her capabilities.” He smiled in a cloyingly possessive way at this weak-looking youngster and then turned to the female and said, “You can come with me now …” and low, and sneaky-seeming, Snyde slid away.

The mole Avens turned without much interest to Privet, who saw that the moment the Deputy Master was out of sight he assumed a cocky stance as if all moledom were a bore and his great talents were wasted upon it.

“Just arrived?” he said carelessly.

She nodded again.

“Well, showing you round will be a pleasant break for me, I suppose, so we might as well take our time.”

Privet did not at first much like Avens, for she soon found he had no real interest in scribing or in texts, or any great ambitions. He had come with a journeymole from Avebury and was ‘putting in a few moleyears of study’, as he put it, before returning home.

But at least he told Privet a good deal more about the Library, and its organization, than Fieldfare had been able to. She learned that each separate Collection in the Library had its Keeper, of whom there were nine, or ten if a mole counted the odd one out, which was Rolls, Rhymes and Tales, “of which none of us knows much since it’s separate from the main library, and its Keeper, a mole called Husk, never comes here at all, nor welcomes visitors there,”

“I have heard much of him,” said Privet with some excitement. “I have a text of tales with me — perhaps I should give it to him?”

“I wouldn’t bother Snyde with it, that’s for sure,” said Avens. “Husk might take it, but be warned,” he went on in an outraged kind of way, “I myself tried to offer Keeper Husk my help and advice, after the Master had suggested I might usefully adopt the task of ordering his Collection, but the old fool was abusive and rude and told me I was a fool and suchlike.”

Privet did her best to keep a straight face at this, and rather liked the idea of a crusty old Keeper of ancient texts sending young Avens packing. She might have been tempted to do the same herself.

No, the most important Collection is Modern, of which Deputy Master Snyde has been Keeper since his predecessor died in mid-September. He’s not an easy mole of course, but he seems to have found old Stour’s favour, and certainly knows his job. I’m told Modern’s become very well organized since he took over. Now Snyde’s about to take over the control of copying and the Copy Master is upset about it. But of course he’s another old mole and Snyde seems to know how to drive his older superiors towards an early demise and so gain promotion. But you began well with him!” There was admiration in his voice.

“Me?” said Privet, surprised.

“By arguing with him, about history and that. He likes an argument does our Deputy Master. Have you really researched and scribed texts on Whernish?”

“Yes,” said Privet.

“Well, that’s a bit different then,” said Avens vacuously. “Now, let’s find you a task … Frankly, with Longest Night just two days off, you’ve timed it well. There may be the appearance of busyness about the place, but this is calm compared to what it’s normally like. Once Longest Night is over and January begun then it’ll be all snouts down to get texts ready for the journeymoles in spring. I’m going to find myself an easy studying task and keep
well
out of it!”

With this complacent comment, Avens led her back into the Main Chamber where Firkin, the doddery old Copy Master, found a librarian who needed a copier.

“What’s
that
?” asked Privet of Avens before he left her to her task. She pointed up at a great dark gallery that ran high across the narrower end of the Main Chamber. A slipway went up to it, at the bottom of which a large and corpulent mole stanced quiet and half asleep.

“That’s where the Master is. He watches us from there. His study cell is at the top of the slipway, and beyond it …’ he gesticulated in a vague and bored way.

“Beyond it are the Books of Moledom,” said Privet.

“Yes, I suppose they are,” said Avens without any interest at all.

Privet looked up at the enshadowed gallery, fancying she could see movement there. A snout? Eyes? She knew not.

“Master Librarian Stour!” she whispered to herself in awe, the greatest scholar and librarian in moledom. She had come far to get here, and if for a time she must revert to being merely copier, so must it be. One day, one day … she hardly listened as old Firkin presented her with a text and told her how she must copy it. But as she turned to begin her tedious task, her eyes looked back briefly at the high gallery, and lit up with a dream.

In the winter months that followed into January Privet slowly began to build a niche for herself in both the Library and the system.

She continued her copying tasks, content to adopt a low snout and avoid notice, as she thought, by anymole of importance. Pumpkin became a friend, happy to find her texts now and then when she had time to begin to get to know the vast resources of the Library. Avens, too, a witless inconsequential mole, began to see the depth of her knowledge of older texts and was happy to ask for her help in some of the work he was doing and lazy though he was, she was glad to have a mole with whom to share a worm in moments of rest from her work.

In this way, to a small circle of less important moles in the Library, she became known as a mole who knew both scribing and scrivening, and one dedicated to her work. Her determination to copy well and accurately worked, if anything, against her ambitions, for libraries such as Duncton are often reluctant to let copyists move on to less productive research, especially of an out-of-fashion mediaeval kind. But Privet was content to be patient for a time, hoping that eventually the Stone, or luck, would bring her more interesting work.

She grew to know and like Copy Master Firkin, too, a knowledgeable mole growing too old for his task, for he was much harried on all flanks, not least by Deputy Master Snyde. Firkin was one of the few who seemed to have any contact with the Master Librarian himself, up into whose study cell he would sometimes go for ‘consultations’. But he never said, nor ever would say, a word about these meetings, though many moles tried to get something out of him about them, and Privet much respected this discretion and loyalty towards Stour, and thought to herself that there might be more to the old mole than there seemed.

The other Keepers she rarely met, not even Sturne in mediaeval who was a taciturn severe mole who said little to any mole.

Her life outside the library was quiet, and often in the gloomy months of January she wondered what she would have done without the friendship of Fieldfare who, from the time they had first met, she had liked and trusted, and who had felt the same about her.

Longest Night had passed by without incident, and Chater had not returned until mid-January. For a time after that the two females saw less of each other, for Fieldfare was a mole who liked to give time to her mate, and, in truth, Chater was not a sociable mole in winter, least of all with librarians, whose texts he was happy to carry from system to system, but whose company he was disinclined to keep. Despite Fieldfare’s best efforts he steered clear of Privet, and Privet, sensing this, kept clear of him.

She had found some deserted tunnels on the eastern slopes near Fieldfare’s and made them comfortable enough in her austere and simple way. Then, quietly, she had begun to get to know other Duncton moles. Their tradition of acceptance of others, and their willingness to let others be themselves, suited her well, and since she was an unassuming mole and a little reserved, nomole troubled her.