“I trust him to be for ever subordinate. In any case, he has expressed a willingness to be Newborn which appears genuine. He will do.”
Chervil blinked, “A dangerous trust. Moledom is led, and always was, by moles who were once subordinate.”
“Like me!” said Snyde, confident again. “I have bided my time and earned my place. Sturne is not made of such stuff as that.”
“And you think you wall return as Master here because...?”
“Because the Master Librarian cannot long survive his foolish venture. It is mere hubris, an attempt to live again the glories of his past when he alone summoned and carried the Conclave of Cannock. No, he cannot return to Duncton Wood as Master.”
“No,” said Chervil, “no, I don’t suppose he can. The Stone will pass judgement on him. He would have done better to stay in Duncton Wood. Elder senior Brother Thripp has made clear that the time of such moles as he is over. This place...” said Brother Chervil, looking about uneasily. For a brief moment he even looked vulnerable.
“Oh, a mole gets used to it,” said Snyde. “Now tell me straight, when shall we depart? I am impatient.”
“Soon, I think. We are expecting certain of our brothers to return to Duncton Wood to begin their work of revision here.”
“Here?”
“In our great Library, the Library of which one day you will be Master.”
“What moles are these?”
“Some Brother Inquisitors of Caradoc, three in number I am told. Trained moles, who will know what books to make more prominent, what books may stay, and what must be destroyed. They are on their way from Rollright, where they have been doing similar work, and they will direct Sturne in what to destroy and what to. save. This will be the last major library in moledom to be revised.”
“They will surely need me.,. yet I trust I will be able to go to Caer Caradoc?”
“Initially their work will simply be to make a record of what they find here, and check what records you have. Librarians, particularly those of ambiguous faith like the Master Stour, have a habit of not listing texts which others might find objectionable. Why, there was that scandal at Beechenhill when a Brother Inquisitor proved beyond reasonable doubt that the Librarian there had inclinations towards the Word, and harboured many of their most corrupting texts.”
“Yes, I have heard something of that. The Librarian concerned was named Cobbett.”
“Yes,” said Chervil, adding with cold menace in his voice, “and a substitute was found for him. No matter, the situation here in Duncton is rather different, and now the Master Stour has chosen to yield up his power to younger, more right-thinking moles, if only by default, I think that our Inquisitors will in the end, with your co-operation, make things satisfactory with the minimum of trouble.”
“Was there trouble at Beechenhill?” asked Snyde, his head twitching a little nervously, less out of fear – he was not a mole easily made afraid – than from the effort involved in attempting to weigh up the new situation he was in at the same time as protecting for himself what, no doubt, he hoped would soon be the domain in which he was officially in charge.
“Beechenhill has a reputation for resistance,” said Chervil curtly, “and is not an easy system to control if its moles do not wish it.”
“The scholar Privet was at Beechenhill for a time, I believe,” said Snyde, hoping to sow a small seed of doubt in Chervil’s mind about that mole.
“Yes,” said Chervil, “I had heard.”
“You constantly surprise me by how well informed you are. Brother Chervil, for a mole —”
“For a mole as out of the way from the centre of Newborn affairs as this?” said Chervil. “Yes, well... it is wise for a mole to be informed. But to present matters; the cataloguing of texts here will take some time and can be satisfactorily done while you are away in Caradoc provided you appoint a competent mole to deputize for you – and that you seem willing to do. After that you will be needed. Brother Snyde, but by then you will be back from Caradoc.”
“And you, Brother Chervil? Will you be coming back, or will your duties here have finished?”
“Elder Senior Brother Thripp will instruct me on my next task when we get to Caer Caradoc. I trust I will come back here in time. There is... something about Duncton that I like. It is a gentler place than Caradoc.”
His voice was almost wistful, but Snyde was never one to notice such subtleties, and did not seem to now, nor ponder what the implications of such wistfulness might be for himself.
“Yes, yes, it has its charms I suppose, but if it had no library it would be nothing at all and I would have long since gone elsewhere.”
“I suppose you would,” said Chervil, eyeing the chilling misshapen form before him and wondering how Duncton could have produced such a mole. Joy, supposed Chervil, was not a thing that had ever lightened Acting Master Snyde’s narrow eyes.
“The Brother Inquisitors should be here soon,” said Chervil, wishing to bring the conversation to an end. “When they finally come I shall brief them immediately, and we can go. You have definitely decided to appoint Sturne to work with them?”
“Keeper Sturne will do,” said Snyde.
“I am sure that Keeper Sturne will satisfy their needs,” agreed Chervil, “and I suggest you make the mole Pumpkin their minion, for fetching and carrying and so on.”
“I would have suggested him myself,” said Snyde, “no aide knows the place better than he. But 1 thought you doubted his loyalty to the Stone, or at least to the good news of the Newborn way?”
“Oh I do, I do. But the moles the Inquisitor will send are not mere aides, you know. They are trained to scent out those who seek to hide texts, or otherwise preserve them from the Stone’s burning Light. Trained in conversion too. By the time you return from Caradoc I am sure that they will have not only seen through Pumpkin’s vague support for us, but have converted it into a passionate loyalty to the cause. He will be a changed mole, and more tractable, and that will inspire other library aides here to be the same.
Meanwhile, until they come, Brother Snyde, please try to remember that patience is a virtue.”
For four more days Snyde was forced to wait, and pace to and fro, and tap his talons and snarl at aides and Keepers alike, before the assistants to the Inquisitor came back. When they did, guarded by a group of strong, silent moles, they did not smile at all: three males, all middle-aged, all dark, all with the clipped accent of the Welsh Borderland. He was briefly introduced to them, and the first two spoke their names in the same chilly voices.
“Brother Fetter.”
“Brother Law.”
“And this is Brother Barre,” said Fetter, introducing the third and most silent of the three. A powerful-looking mole with tiny sharp eyes and a curved snout that had wrinkles at its sides, as if it had been forced at birth into an inquisitive position and had never got back into its proper shape.
Snyde introduced Keeper Sturne as briefly to them, and Library Aide Pumpkin as well. Then, feeling his position demanded it, he made a long briefing speech to them all, designed to make clear that happy though he was to have such Inquisitors in Duncton, their role was merely to record. Any decisions about how to dispose of dubious texts could wait until he got back.
The aides stared unblinking at him and said nothing.
“So,” said Snyde uneasily, “we understand each other then!”
“May your journey be a safe one,” said Fetter coldly.
That done, Snyde and Brother Chervil, with guards to watch over them on the way, finally set off down the southeast slopes towards the cross-under that leads moles all ways from the system. Snyde did not even look back for a second as they passed under it, and out of sight of the Wood up beyond the pasture slopes. But Chervil paused, and looked back for a time on the system that had been his home in exile for so long. He said not a word, and the guards gathered respectfully round him while they waited.
“Duncton Wood,” he whispered at last, and f
rom the way he said it a mole whose mind was open to such things, and knew well the ways of the Stone, might have thought Chervil was being rather more than merely wistful, and uttering two words that spoke of a liberty he had tasted for a time, had never known before, and now began to understand he might regret losing. A cold wind blew through the concrete tunnel of the cross-under and parted the fur on his haunches and back. For a moment he noticed it not, but saw only how the light of the winter sun, lost behind mists and November gloom for so many days, now broke through and caught the pale trunks of the leafless beeches of the High Wood. They seemed to shine and shimmer with the colours of life itself. Where he came from, to where he was now returning, leafless trees never seemed to shine as they shone here and now in Duncton Wood.
“We go!” he said sharply, turning and following Snyde out through the cross-under, and passing him without a word to take the lead as the guards hurried to keep up with him.
“Do we really need so many guards as this?” asked Snyde irritably of one of them. He had never travelled out of the system, and on the rare occasions he had imagined doing so he had thought he might be able to see the scenery without seeing what seemed a crowd of moles at the same time.
“There’s trouble in moledom,” said the guard heavily, “and we can’t risk harm coming to this particular brother. The moles in the north are causing what the Senior Brother has called “difficulties”.”
“Ah, yes...” said Snyde, who had no idea what the mole was talking about, but realized that he would not be likely to get more information if they saw he was ill-informed, and also that he had better make it his task to become informed as quickly as possible. “I have heard something of this...”
“What have you heard. Brother?” asked the guard.
“That the recusants need to be brought into line,” he said smoothly.
The guard was suitably impressed by the unusual word but he in turn did not wish Snyde to know he had not fully understood.
“Yeh...” he agreed.
It was just the kind of conversation Snyde enjoyed and was good at. “Tell me, Brother, what’s the latest?” he asked confidentially. “We have had our snouts rather too firmly into library matters these days past.”
The guard was glad to talk.
“Well, all I know is that our brothers are well on the track of the rebel Rooster, who as you know has proved elusive and troublesome until now. What’s more...”
The mole rambled on obligingly and told much that Snyde did not know. He listened with interest, remembering all that was said, and only at the end, reviewing what he had heard, did a thought occur to him, and fill him with sudden alarm and apprehension. For the guards kept darting astonishingly respectful looks at Chervil, and fell over themselves to be obliging when he wanted anything. All of which seemed in excess of what might be due to a mole who had been merely the Senior Brother in a cell of Newborns in Duncton Wood.
It was then that with a start Snyde remembered that the guard had said, “We can’t risk harm coming to this particular brother”. No sooner had he remembered this than he recalled a remark by Master Stour himself, all that long time ago when Chervil had first come to the system so unexpectedly; “He seems a remarkably well-trained mole for what is surely a minor posting from Caradoc. There’s more to his coming than there seems.”
The guard seemed to guess something of Snyde’s thoughts. “He’s back in favour with the Elder Senior Brother Thripp,” he said. “You’ll know what that means.”
“I can’t say that I do, exactly,” said Snyde with his usual ambiguity.
But you surely know who Brother Chervil is?” said the guard incredulously.
Snyde stared, unsure whether or not to admit to ignorance of something else that perhaps he ought to know. Chervil was Senior Brother Chervil, that was all.
Brother Chervil is Thripp’s son,” whispered the guard, “and now his period of punishment in exile is over. We’re to take him home.”
Thripp’s son? Chervil? His son?
Snyde scarcely blinked before he began to calculate, and when he did it was but a moment before the implications sank in. Then, with what growing pleasure could he contemplate that the Stone had put him in the right place at the right time with the right mole! Yes, it had!
“Truly, the Master did me a favour trying to leave me behind!” he gloated.
“Hurry up, Brother Snyde, you’re lagging and we have a long long way to go!” called out Chervil.
“Yes, of course! I will!” said Snyde eagerly, seeking with each word he spoke to put the sound of respect into his nasal voice as he hobbled and hurried his hunched and crooked way along the path which Chervil led them on.
Chapter Four
Late November found Chater and Fieldfare set fair for their journey to Avebury, and it seemed that nothing more could now hinder them. Certainly something had hindered them thus far, and that was Fieldfare’s slowness, for she was so long unused to journeying, so plump, so appreciative of pauses, rests, pleasing delays to admire the view, and downright stops (to catch her breath and declare, “Bless me! I never knew moledom was so big and the ways so long!’) that they spent more time stopping than starting.
Not that Chater had minded at first. He had so long wanted to have his love at his flank on a journey worth the making that it was as much pleasure for him to pause as it was for her. What was more, when they did so he was made to realize that he had spent all his working life as a journeymole travelling, yet not seeing what he travelled through, and so her slow pace suited his new-found mood of discovery and contemplation.
It must be said, however, that Chater was beginning to want to get on with the journey to Avebury, and had put his paw down about a diversion that Fieldfare had mooted, to visit the Fyfield System which lay a day’s trek off to the south-east. He had not objected too loudly, but his protest was registered, as was Fieldfare’s counter-protest.
Meanwhile, Chater would have been the first to admit that there was an exciting sense of rediscovering themselves together about the journey thus far, so that when they came to fabled places like peaceful Bablock Hythe, it seemed a positive affront to life itself to hurry on without stopping
for a few days to enjoy the place, and meet the quiet moles who inhabited it.
It was the same further upriver – for they took a route along the River Thames – when they came to Appleton, a system which had a somewhat dark record in Woodruff’s Chronicles since it was there that the Eldrene Wort first came to power and evil prominence. Not that there was much sign of darkness or evil when they were there, for the moles had put the sinister past of their system behind them, and gave a warm welcome to the two journeyers from Duncton. Chater was naturally cautious about saying who they were until he was sure that the Newborns were not about and looking for them, but the Appleton moles reported merely that from time to time the Newborns passed their way, but no cell of Newborn faith had been established in their system.
“So where do they head for when they go south of here?” he asked.
“Buckland,” they told him, “Buckland, and Avebury beyond that.”
“Hump!” mused Chater, “at least we know where not to go!”
“Where are you off to then?” they asked.
“Uffington,” lied Chater immediately, glancing at Fieldfare to keep her quiet. She did not have his professional caution in replying to the questions of prying moles, and nor would she have necessarily realized that not all moles are what they say they are, especially if they are Newborns. He could not help it if others noted the coming and going of strangers – and he would not be at all surprised if moles passed on to the occasional Newborns who came by news of other travellers, so it was unwise to give too much away.
The news of the Newborns in Buckland did not surprise him, nor even dismay him. Buckland had a vile reputation anyway, having been made notorious by the moles of the Word as a centre of torture and cruelty, and it had been his misfortune to visit it once bef
ore. It was true it was on their route, but in the undulating terrain of the Vale of Uffington it was easy enough to avoid. As for the Newborns being at Avebury, he would have been surprised if they were not – and certainly Master Stour had expected them to be there. The question would be – how many and how entrenched? That they would only find out when they got there. Meanwhile... Appleton, and a few more pleasant days of dawdling.
“We must go. Fieldfare/Chater kept urging.
“My love,” she would reply, It is so pleasant doing not a lot after all those years in Duncton raising young.”
“But...”
But how could he deny her?
Yet on the fourth day of this unlooked-for delay, when once again he sought to urge her on, the new reason she gave for staying was startlingly different, and to him rather more annoying.
“No! I don’t feel it’s right to move today. There’s a reason we should stay here and that’s why the Stone has made it so alluring in Appleton.”
“Reason my mystical arse, beloved,” said Chater promptly. “The only reason is because you’re lazy. You’re not a travelling mole. You’re —”
“Chater! You will eat your words/And only hours later he almost did. For whatmole should come into Appleton from Fyfield way, but one who when he heard that Duncton moles were visiting the system sought them out and told them that if they were from Duncton then there were two moles across in the Fyfield system looking for guidance towards Duncton Wood.
“They were asking the way to Duncton and the state they were in they wouldn’t have got farther than the nearest stream into which, having tumbled, they would be too weak to get out again.”
“You mean they are ill?” said Fieldfare.
“Half dead, yes. They looked like vagrants to me and I
told them to stay where they were and rest up a bit. To which they replied there wasn’t time.”
“Chater of Duncton, we are going to Fyfield!” declared Fieldfare with sudden energy. This is the news I felt coming, and these must be the moles whom destiny has put in our way. That’s why the Stone told us to wait here in Appleton – to hear about them.”