“What do they intend?”
“Thripp has summoned a Convocation in Caradoc.”
“We know this,” said Chater.
“Ah, but do you know why? I’ll tell you. Come Longest Night or thereabouts, when most major systems still dissenting from the Newborn way will have sent their most trusted moles to Caradoc, the Newborns will rise up in each of them and take control. In some places they have probably already begun to do so. It will be done in the name of the Stone, and the same censorship of texts that I myself have been involved with for mole years past in Avebury will be conducted in all the systems.
“No doubt too the infamous Brother Inquisitors, who are now under Brother Quail’s sole direction, will have done their work, weeding out moles in whom they smell dissent and, as they would have it, blasphemy. Such moles will be “educated” in right thinking – a little intimidation here, a little massing there. The pups this coming spring will be taken from their rightful parents and taught the cold Newborn way – harsh discipline and no love at all warps a mole for life. Well, that’s how it is, that’s how it will be.”
Fieldfare and Chater had listened with increasing gloom to this chilling eye-witness account of the emergence of Brother Inquisitor Quail and the takeover of this part of moledom by the Newborns, for it mirrored some of their own experience, and confirmed only too starkly that all suspicions about the Newborns were amply justified.
“It’s as grim as we had imagined,” said Chater. “But, Spurling, when we first found you in Fyfield, or soon afterwards, you gave us to understand you wanted to go to Duncton Wood to warn it. What of? Is there something more you’ve not yet mentioned – something we haven’t guessed?”
“What I’ve said so far is fact, more or less,” answered Spurling sombrely. “The rest, I’ve got to say, is intelligent surmise based on things we’ve heard, or conclusions we’ve drawn, and though I can’t say for sure these things will happen, it’s a fair bet they might. Well, now, I said to myself that Duncton moles have stanced up for others in the past, and the least we could do, privileged (if that’s the word!) as we were to be privy to some of Quail’s secrets, and having contact with some of the moles like Fetter, and a loathsome mole called Barre, who are his most trusted Inquisitors, was to try to warn your system.”
“Failing that,” said Chater grimly, “warn me, and Fieldfare too, and we’ll decide if there’s anything we can do about your “surmises”.”
“Let me just conclude what I was saying about Quail,” continued Spurling. “He went through a period of illness in which he nearly died, during which he lost all his fur. He is bald now, and frightening, and since he blamed his sickness on an infection received from a female, he conceived a hatred for all females, and began to exclude them from the Newborn hierarchy, as much as he could. In Avebury his successors – the first he appointed direct, and those following I am sure he had a paw in sending from Blagrove and then Caradoc – were especially brutal towards females.”
“That’s when they began killing the female pups,” said Peach suddenly, “though they denied it. But they did, I know they did.”
A cold shiver went through Chater and Fieldfare on hearing this unwelcome confirmation of something they had heard murmurs of before but which, in truth, nomole had wanted to believe.
“Aye, the Newborn sect favours males,” said Spurling matter-of-factly, “and it’s a short pawstep for them to say that is what the Stone decrees, and a short step after that to say that females are inferior, and so it goes on and on, until at last moles gain power who so despise and fear females that their birth is sometimes deemed unwanted if there are too many of them, and they are done to death. And not, as you might think, by the Brothers themselves.”
“No,” said Peach, “’tis the mothers that do it, to curry favour for their male pups you see, and with the Stone. So female pups often die, and those that survive occupy a servile role.”
Spurling was silent for a time, perhaps feeling through the shocked reaction of Chater and Fieldfare a reminder of what he had felt more strongly before he became used to what the Newborns” beliefs really entailed. Exposure to evil blunts a mole’s senses.
“Our system became the focal point for Newborn activity in the south,” he continued. “That’s how I understand it, anyway. I learnt that moledom had been divided up by Thripp into areas, each of which was to be evangelized from one of the twelve systems.”
“Including Duncton Wood?” said Chater in astonishment.
“Oh, especially Duncton Wood,” said Spurling. “Very especially Duncton Wood. I understand —”
“You seem to understand a lot,” said Chater with some respect. “I cannot say that in my travels I was much aware of any of this, only that the Newborns seemed to be establishing themselves everywhere I turned. But they were not very aggressive or dominating.”
“That’s where Thripp has been so clever, don’t you see?” said Spurling passionately. “In my opinion what he and his kind are trying to do is no different from what the moles of the Word so nearly succeeded in doing all those years ago, and from which our grandparents rescued us: to take over moledom for their ends. The moles of the Word sought to do it from sheer malevolence and hatred of the Stone, but the Caradocians, as the Newborns like to call themselves, seek to do it for reasons of spiritual power. Judging by what we know, and what moles we have gathered together who feel like us have seen, the end result will be no different.”
“You mentioned Duncton Wood and surmises,” said Chater.
“Yes, I did. I believe Thripp’s intention is to make Duncton the centre of his sect, the core of the Newborns in moledom. He began in Blagrove Slide, which is not much of a place, I understand. With Quail’s help he moved almost his entire system to Caer Caradoc and took that over, by what means, and with what resulting deaths, I leave to your imagination. No doubt one day a scholar will scribe that grim tale, but I for one will not wish to ken it. He moved there because he wanted to occupy one of the historic systems, and Caer Caradoc has always been weak, and ripe for takeover. His movement is given weight by calling itself the Caradocian Order, which sounds a lot better and more authoritative than Blagrovian Order, or merely Newborns.
“But such a mole’s ambitions know no bounds, and he has had the treacherous Quail at his right flank to feed him thoughts. As a matter of fact Thripp himself is said to be a mild mole – charismatic in his way, persuasive in his words, but unwise in his choice of Quail as a Senior Brother, and perhaps duped by him. Of course Caradoc is a long way off, and marginal to moledom’s history. It suited his purpose to begin with, but as he realized that moledom’s systems could be easily taken over by the right combination of organization, intimidation and authority, his dreams evolved into a desire to conquer a more important system, or one which would occupy the hearts and imaginations of all moledom. None better than Duncton Wood.
“I tell you, Chater, that is his intention, but unlike the moles of the Word, who made their purpose and objective plain, Thripp has kept it secret. I would hazard that nomole but Quail himself knows it for certain.”
“Then how do you know it?” asked Chater reasonably.
“I don’t know it at all. I offer it as a surmise, as a reasonable prediction of what such a mole would wish to do when he has discovered how easy it is to gain power. Stay in peripheral, wormless Caer Caradoc? No! Go back to Blagrove Slide? Impossible to conceive! But Duncton Wood... now there’s a system to end up in control of as the achievement of your life! Eh Chater? Fieldfare?”
The two moles stared at him with grave concern. It sounded all too plausible.
“What I do know with rather more certainty is that it is the intention of the Newborns – perhaps without Thripp’s direct involvement or knowledge, but through Quail’s direction – to take the advantage that the Convocation offers of placing elders and librarians from all the main systems at their mercy: to kill them, or to “disappear” them. Aye, I do not think that when the wint
er ice and snow has thawed off Caer Caradoc we will see any of the dissenting delegates to that pretence of a Convocation still alive. Nor even dead. They will have... gone. And in that time, and it has probably already begun. Newborns in each of those systems from which they came will have taken control.”
“You have evidence?”
“I and others have heard things said at Buckland, which is where Quail has trained his Inquisitors, and often draws fresh blood from.”
The moles stared at each other numbly, contemplating this dark prospect.
“But there is worse,” said Spurling.
Peach nodded and whispered, “Yes, tell him everything. Tell him what you know.”
“Well?” said Fieldfare, who could never bear secrets, especially awful ones, to be withheld.
A look of extreme distaste passed over the mild and serious face of Spurling.
“We understand that the promise given to the Inquisitors who have, as it were, been trained up for this wholesale takeover of moledom’s systems, is that they will be allowed to do what, until now, it has been the secret privilege of the Senior Brothers to do.”
“Which is?” said Chater impatiently.
“To impregnate the females. Oh yes, it has long been known to us in Avebury that the Senior Brothers” perk is the right of intercourse with the females they dominate. The fact is that most of the more trusted Newborn guards are the product of unions between a relatively small number of Senior Brothers, and their victim females, who are called Confessed Sisters. It is part of Thripp’s theory of things that moles who believe as he does are right, and the rest wrong; that rightness or wrongness carries with it, or not, as the case may be, the right to mate, to produce young. My last surmise, therefore, is this: next spring a great many females throughout moledom will be carrying the pups of Newborn fathers, and those pups —”
“But this is...!” Words failed Fieldfare, she was so outraged. In her exasperation she turned to Chater and almost buffeted him as if he were the embodiment of Newborn lust and ill-intent.
“I’m not having it, beloved! This cannot be allowed. We can’t stance here doing nothing. What are you thinking of!”
“It’s the danger to our friends who’ve been sent all unknowing by Stour to their deaths in Caer Caradoc that I’m thinking of, dearest,” he said with gritty determination. “I’m sorry, my love, I’m a journeymole who until this moment was more or less in retirement, but there’s no way I, Chater, journeymole of Duncton, can do nothing about this!”
“Well spoken, Chater!” said Fieldfare, looking round proudly at Peach as if to say that now they would see what her mate was made of
“But...” said Chater, “I sort of swore that I would never leave your flank again, my sweet. And when Chater swears a thing it’s sworn!”
“I wouldn’t be happy for you to stay at my flank for one moment longer than you should if duty calls, and duty does call, it calls very loudly indeed,” said Fieldfare. “It’s telling you to do something.”
“But what?” said Spurling, somewhat bemused by the volatile turn the conversation between Chater and Fieldfare had taken.
“It’s telling me, Spurling, as Fieldfare well knows, to get my arse to Caer Caradoc and warn my friends of what you say might be apaw. I’m a journeymole, and going long distances alone is what I’m trained for and best at. I wouldn’t be happy kicking my paws up in Uffington in safety when I could be helping others elsewhere. But Fieldfare – why, that’s her sort of thing, isn’t it, dear? And I’m not being funny. She’s good at keeping the home tunnels clean, so to speak, until the wanderer returns. She’s used to it. She’ll do it for you all in Uffington like she did it for me in Duncton.”
There was silence, until Spurling said, a little apologetically, “So, what exactly does that mean?”
“Put plain and simple, it means my Chater is off on a journey. When he goes, how he goes, is his business and he’s good at it. But from a lifetime’s experience I would guess he’ll be gone before this day’s ended. Am I right, my precious?”
“You are, my own love.”
“Which also means, and I hope you won’t take offence, but on occasions like this time is short and moles like us do not stance on ceremony, that Chater and myself would like to spend a little time together.”
“Alone, you mean?” said Spurling faintly.
“It is normal, yes,” said Chater with a grin.
“Well, then,” said Peach, affecting a lighthearted and nonchalant look, “we must, that is Spurling and I must, go off now, and as it were attend to things...”
But Chater and Fieldfare, lovers at heart as they were, were already bickering and buffeting at each other in their customary way, and chuckling too, as they turned from their friends to share a final tryst, as so often they had in the past, before Chater set off on a long journey.
“Aren’t they a bit old for that kind of thing?” said Spurling when they had gone.
“No,” said Peach, a little tartly, “I don’t think they are!”
Chater left at dusk, turning back towards the setting sun to retrace his steps and try, as best he could, to reach Caer Caradoc in time to warn his friends, and any other moles who were not Newborn, of the danger they were in.
“Goodbye, my own love,” said Fieldfare.
“I’ll send word,” said Chater, giving her a final embrace, “and it’ll be good word, encouraging word.”
“My love,” she whispered; and let him go.
Chapter Seven
Stow and the Bourton moles had been right about Weeth, he was over-talkative. At the slightest opportunity he launched off into conversation about anything that came into his head, and it was the kind of talk a mole could not easily ignore since it was quick-witted and interspersed with questions which challenged his interlocutor to show that he was listening – or provoked him to tell Weeth to talk less.
Strangely enough, Privet seemed better able to control Weeth’s output than the other two – something about her calmed him down, and she was quite capable of saying that she wished for peace and quiet, and would he please go and talk to somemole else.
It could not be denied, however, that he seemed to know the way across the dull flat vale they had dropped down into – or if he did not, he certainly had a good snout for finding a route that avoided trouble. More than once they came across Newborn patrols and yet were able to proceed unobserved, and on the one occasion they were seen, Weeth was very quick to go forward and greet the Newborns as fellow Brothers in the cause, and hope they would not long delay my aged relative, a female, and her dullard sons, who I am guiding to Evesham where they are to serve the Stone.”
Such was Weeth’s cheerful confidence, and so low did his companions drop their snouts, that the patrol seemed convinced by Weeth’s nonsense and let the party go on without any questioning at all.
“It is a matter, you know, of having an eye for what a particular mole will find pleasure in believing,” explained
Weeth without prompting, after this near escape. “Too many moles think others are persuaded by reason, but as a practising opportunist I can assure you that is not so. Moles act on feelings, inclinations and prejudices, and very rarely on reasons, though of course they like to think they are rational. Therefore, what must we do if we are to get our way, to take our opportunity?”
The three moles gazed at him without a word, very confident that if they said nothing he would answer his own question.
“We must give them a good reason for letting us do what we wish to do, and make them feel good about doing it. Take those moles we have just passed. I could see they were hungry and in no mood for trouble, or hard work. By telling them we are going to Evesham – which is where they would undoubtedly lead us if they took us prisoner, supposing that they could – we give them a reason for not stopping US; by appealing to their good nature by mentioning aged relatives and dullard sons (and what a good job you both did of that, Maple and Whillan, eh Privet?) they feel go
od about not troubling us.”
“Thank you, Weeth,” said Maple. “Now could we proceed in silence for a time?”
“Silence?” said Weeth suspiciously, as if he felt threatened by the word.
“You talk too much,” said Whillan. “We three like to go along in silence sometimes when we’re travelling.”
“My dear fellow, I am sorry,” said Weeth, grandly apologetic. “I talk too much, far too much. To tell the truth, I always put my paw in it in the end. What friends I make I lose through jabbering. What friends I have lost are disinclined to accept my apologies for fear that I shall jabber more. There is something about me moles wish to dislike, and having discovered that it is because I am a mole who speaks before he thinks and gets himself into all kinds of unnecessary trouble, when I do those things I am forsaken...”
By now Whillan was half smiling, and attempting to cover his ears with his paws in an effort to suggest to Weeth that he had said enough to be forgiven. He, Whillan, was not like other moles; he, Whillan, would forgive him – only please stop. But Weeth, carried away with his declaration, and not daring to think, perhaps, that Whillan could be so tolerant, continued.
“But do not forsake me, Whillan, for beneath my infuriating exterior beats a warm heart.”
“Be quiet, Weeth,” said Maple with cheerful authority. “In fact, shut up, mole.”
Weeth immediately fell silent, and stared at Maple with apparent gratitude on his face. He seemed anything but affronted by Maple’s uncharacteristic bluntness. But then he appeared to be about to spoil it all, for he raised one paw and said, “Sir, may I make an observation before I shut up totally?”
“I daresay you will,” said Maple.
“It is merely to suggest that you and I might work well together. I mean not only now, but after we get to Caradoc. Give me an order and I will loyally carry it out.”
“Then be quiet,” said Maple amiably.
“Be quiet?” whispered Weeth. “Quiet?”
He narrowed his eyes and concentrated on the word as if it had never before occurred to him to contemplate its meaning. Then, like stormclouds across a bright sun, the full implication of Maple’s command came to him. His mouth half opened in horror and then closed again in dismay. He looked about desperately for some way out of the impasse into which his own impetuous verbosity had led him, and even turned a couple of quick circles as if looking for somewhere to put himself where he might be allowed to speak. Finding none, he beat the ground with frustration as he tried to sort out the dilemma into which Maple had put him. The tension grew unbearable as the rest of them, unable to think of anything else but Weeth’s valiant effort to “be quiet” and what appeared to be his terminal struggle to cope with it, watched in amazement. Had nomole ever told him to be quiet before? Or, as seemed more likely, had many moles told him, but he had forgotten that they had?