“They did,” said Maple heavily.
“They’re right, I do ask rather a lot of questions. I am a curious mole.”
“And are you going to delay us by asking a lot of questions now, or can you let us by so we’re not seen by the Newborns up on the hill?”
“There is one question I wouldn’t mind an answer to, as a matter of fact,” said Weeth, who was a sturdy, compact mole with a ready grin and an easy energetic air.
“What’s that?” said Privet.
“It’s the question that every Newborn this side of Caer Caradoc has been asking,” said Weeth, “since they discovered that a delegation had been sent out from Duncton and was on its somewhat obscure way across the Wolds in the form of you three moles.”
“And what’s the question?” said Maple, advancing on Weeth and leading the other two into the shadows.
“Where’s Master Stour? That’s the question. Because if he’s not with you, and I see no sign of him, where is he and what’s he doing, and why is he doing it?”
Maple seemed about to say something, but with a magisterial dignity Weeth raised a paw to silence him.
“Oh, please don’t answer me,” said Weeth, with apparent alarm. “The opportunity lies in not answering. You see, it now seems that everymole who is anymole in moledom is intending to turn up at the Convocation of Caradoc except the one mole who makes it all worthwhile for. sinister Thripp to have summoned it: the good old Master Librarian Stour himself. Most intriguing, and redolent with opportunity. That’s why I sought you out, and have been following your progress for some days past. I am so glad you decided to come the way I thought you should – no doubt to stay clear of the Newborns for a few days longer?”
Whillan nodded, impressed by Weeth’s perspicacity.
“I will lead you on,” said Weeth grandly.
“And why should we follow a mole we don’t know we can trust?” said Maple, wondering what it was about Weeth that made him likeable.
“Oh, you shouldn’t and you can’t!” said Weeth, “and yet you will. I will lead you to Evesham and it will take three days. In that time you can assess me for yourselves. Regard me as an opportunity, a kind of resource to draw on.”
“And what are we to you, Weeth?” said Privet.
“The opportunity, the one I have been looking for all my life. The one of the decade, of the age, that’s what you are. Three moles from Duncton Wood, coming in all innocence to the Convocation of Caer Caradoc, without a hope of achieving anything at all but your own obscurity and probably your deaths! Amazing. Impressive. Just what I was always led to expect from Duncton moles. When I heard who you were, and what you were, and where you were going, I decided I would tag along, because this was it!”
“And if it isn’t?” said Maple.
Weeth grinned winningly. “Ah! Yes! That is a possibility. I might, as it were, have backed a pup, or three pups! I might be wrong. But like all opportunists I am also an incurable optimist. If the sense of destiny which your coming inspires in me proves mistaken then life will, I imagine – I confidently hope – offer me another opportunity to make up for my failure with you.”
“We’ll have to see, won’t we?” said Maple. “So lead us on, Weeth, and let’s find where your destiny leads us.”
“Incredible, inspiring,” muttered Weeth as he turned downslope. “This mole’s decisive, this mole backs hunches, this mole’s an opportunist too but doesn’t know it. “Maple and Weeth”! Sounds good! Sounds right. This must be the one, the opportunity of a lifetime!”
Without more ado Weeth turned confidently, and led them amongst the trees towards where the hill dropped even more steeply. Ahead the world seemed to open out, as far below, extending north-west, the Vale of Evesham stretched out. Beyond it a line of hills rose up, and behind them one darker than the others.
“Caradoc,” said Weeth; and it was all he needed to say.
Chapter Six
It seemed to Pumpkin that there was no air to breathe, no sound to hear, nothing, nothing to grasp on to in his tunnels as he tried to comprehend what Brother Inquisitor Fetter had said so calmly, so matter-of-factly, so chillingly.
Drubbins dead? But how could that be? He had been alive a few days ago, before Pumpkin had become ill. But then – when Pumpkin had left the good-natured old mole he had looked as if he was in fear of his life.
“Frightnehned,” repeated poor Pumpkin now, struggling to make sense of the confusion in his mind; his throat was so swollen and painful with his cold that just to speak was agony, and what he did get out was slurred.
Then, “Hewgh are yewhh?” he asked.
He looked through runny, puffy eyes at the moles who had come unbidden into his tunnels, and knew only too well who they must be. The Newborn Inquisitors, that’s who. The one in command, chewing the worm, was Brother Fetter. The other two were Brothers Law and Barre, the latter the cruellest-looking of the three with tiny eyes like bloodied talon-points.
Pumpkin felt a stab of fear as his mind suddenly cleared and his thoughts came out of the fug they had been in to a place where everything seemed all too plain, all too terrible.
They had asked him about Drubbins, and said he was dead. They were grouped around him, uncomfortably close, one of them eating a worm and all of them fixing him with stares such as he had never seen before. Was this the beginning of the kind of treatment poor Drubbins had suffered at their paws? Had they brought him death as well?
Had it already begun? And if it had, what was he to do? He felt scared stiff. But angry too. Yes, angry!
“Why’s Drubbins dead?” he asked.
“‘Why’s Drubbins dead. Brother,’” said the Inquisitor.
Pumpkin looked blank.
“You’re to call us “Brother”, Library Aide Pumpkin. You understand?”
Pumpkin stared, and did understand. If he called them “Brother” it showed them respect, but took something away from him. It meant they were making him behave as they wanted. Everything, every bit of him, protested at calling them “Brother”. He didn’t like moles who barged into his modest little burrow without a by-your-leave or thank-you; he didn’t like being crowded; he didn’t like them not showing him respect, even if he was merely a library aide and they were... whatever they were.
“Yes, Brother,” said Pumpkin as meekly as he could, because he wasn’t a fool, and he remembered Master Stour saying that his lot might be hard, and if he must pretend to be what he wasn’t the Stone would understand.
“Say it with respect, mole,” said the Brother Inquisitor.
“Got a cold,” said Pumpkin, gulping painfully, “throat hurts, difficult to say anything.”
“Brother.”
“Brother, Brother.”
“Well? And what have you to say about Elder Drubbins, as he was called here?” “I — “
“You are about to say you know nothing about Elder Drubbins, but we know you do. We know you talked to him only a few days ago, and he told you that he had suffered somewhat at our paws.”
Pumpkin had been about to deny all knowledge of Drubbins recently, that was true. What was also true was that the Inquisitor was clever and there was no point in telling him lies. He – or rather they – knew things. But what things?
Pumpkin stared on and waited, surprised at the sudden clarity of his thinking, and the fact that his fear had subsided, subdued by his anger. They were here to find something out, probably something they did not know; which meant they could not be sure that he knew it. He could pretend to be stupid, as he had done already since they had arrived.
“Well, mole? We’re waiting.”
The Brother Inquisitor’s eyes flicked for a moment to those of his friends and then back at Pumpkin. Shiny black talons kneaded the ground at his paws.
“Saw Drubbins before I became unwell. He looked ill and scared. He —”
“And now he’s dead. Did you kill him?”
Pumpkin had recourse to silence again, but his heart was thumping.
Drubbins really dead? Good Drubbins, wise Drubbins, best-elder-of-them-all Drubbins.
“How did he die?” asked Pumpkin.
Suddenly the meaner-looking of the other two. Brother Barre, came forward, grabbed Pumpkin, and as the others cried out “No, Barre! Not yet! Give him...” Pumpkin found himself being dragged bodily out of the burrow and up to the surface.
“You’re a blasphemous little bastard,” snarled Barre ferociously, “and I’m going to show you the consequences of your thinking.”
“But —”
“We’ll go and see Drubbins and see if reality makes you tell us what happened.”
“Aarghl” gasped Pumpkin, every muscle and bone in his body aching, and his head swirling, as he found himself forcibly taken across the Wood towards the Eastside.
“Where...?”
“To the cross-under, you little turd,” said the Inquisitor.
The cross-under? That was a long long long longhhhh... way way away, and Pumpkin’s body felt so weak, his paws rolling one after another after another and hurting, the Inquisitor’s grip on him painful and the trees swaying by and behind him and he reaching out his paws to hold on, to stop, to try to rest, just for a moment so his eyes could close and free his head from such pain and confusion.
“Rest, Brother Pumpkin, rest...”
A great grey sky loomed up from between the trees ahead, and the ground fell away into the Pastures, which went down and down and down to the cross-under, dark and dripping wet and cold. Probably something frightening was huddled and bloody there. Oh! Had poor Drubbins been driven to kill himself? Had he stanced in the path of a roaring owl rather than face the Newborn Inquisitors?
“Rest, mole, no need...”
How good the voice of the first Inquisitor sounded, almost like a friend, and his touch, which had replaced that of Barre, instead of being a pulling, savage grip, was support, all gentle, kindly and alluring. He could say yes to a mole like Fetter now. Ah, then, was that how the Inquisitors worked – one nice, another vile?
“Rest...” Fetter’s voice said hypnotically somewhere above Pumpkin.
Rest... and the grassy slopes down below fell away because he did not need to go down them but was allowed to stop, to remain here at the edge of the Wood. Pumpkin felt like crying with relief because there was no need to go to the cross-under, no need to see whatever dark thing was there, no need.
“Well, mole?” It was Brother Fetter again, firm and sure of himself. Pumpkin strove to open his eyes and saw a mole, grey and vile violet in the bright light of day. “What do you see?”
Pumpkin blinked, looked again and widened in shock at what they saw – Drubbins, dead. His mouth was set open, the teeth worn and stained, the snout violet, like a bruise, and the eyes red, puffy and only half-closed.
“And is it the Elder Drubbins?”
There is a quality of decency that brute malevolence cannot recognize, for if it did it would wither into something weaker, and a little better. A decency that is simply a powerful sense of what is right and what is wrong, which is so ingrained in some moles” hearts that it is as integral as the innermost growth rings in a mature oak tree.
Pumpkin stared at Drubbins” corpse and knew it was wrong, quite wrong that he had to do so like this; wrong, all of it; wrong, these moles. Wrong! He had been breaking down, but now he was made strong once more by the wrongness of what they tried to do to him. He stared at poor Drubbins and saw the marks of taloning to his chest and wondered what it was in moledom that could make trees as beautiful as those that rose up above them all, whose roots curved out and wound along the ground, the bark grey, the lichen shining green, yet could also make a mole die as Drubbins had; and moles like these... these nothings, who were seeking to bully and break him too.
That sense of decency arose in good Pumpkin’s heart and mind, and tears came to his eyes to see such an elder as Drubbins brought to such an end.
“Well, Brother Pumpkin, and why did you do this?”
“Brother” Pumpkin shook his head slowly and lopsidedly, because he wanted to seem stupid, and frightened, and confused, but what he was doing was quietly and most clearly saying farewell to Drubbins on behalf of Duncton Wood and its community, and commending a mole who had given so much to his fellow moles, to the Silence and everlasting sanctuary of the Stone.
“Did talk to him,” said Pumpkin at last, as pathetically and weakly as he could. He was surprised to feel pity for these moles; pity that they should lead such evil, pointless lives. They could not, they must never win their war against the followers of the Stone.
“Did he tell you about Stour?” said the Inquisitor. How soft and gentle his voice now, and how eager, too eager.
“Master Librarian Stour,” said Pumpkin, as a librarian’s aide would.
“Yes, Brother, Master Stour. Well?”
“Drubbins said he had been frightened when he talked to you. He told me my master had gone to Caradoc and left Sturne in charge...”
Pumpkin blathered on, telling things which were true, the kind of things a stupid mole might think Inquisitors would like to hear. He was pleased to notice out of the corner of his downcast, abject eye that the brothers were beginning to look bored, at which point he ended abruptly by saying, “Don’t like Sturne.”
“But as your Acting Master, you will obey him?”
Must,” intoned Pumpkin.
“And us, for the Stone’s well-being in this place?”
“Yes, Brother,” said Pumpkin as eagerly as he could.
But oh dear, oh dear, oh no... his attempt at idiocy seemed not to have worked, for Barre came to him then and gripped him once more, saying words that the others did not gainsay: “I’ll take him down to the Marsh End for final education.” Then Pumpkin did feel fear, deep, deep fear, and all began to swirl in darkness once again as he was taken unresisting away from the Wood’s bright edge, away from that body, to start downslope towards the misty and dreadful Marsh End where Fieldfare had so nearly been lost to the High Wood for ever.
Then suddenly a different voice spoke out: “Brothers, I heard you might be here. I would suggest this mole stays with us. We have need for skilled Library Aides if the Stone’s work in the Library is to be completed by Longest Night.”
Pumpkin knew the voice but in his fright and further confusion at being stopped yet again he could not remember the name. He opened his eyes and found himself staring into the chill regard of Keeper Sturne. There was a look of contempt on Sturne’s face.
“Wanth to workh in Library,” said Pumpkin, “thash all.”
“If you say so. Brother Sturne,” said Barre, almost hurling
Pumpkin from his grasp. “But I don’t trust moles like him. Alien spirits can rise again. The snake in the doubting heart is hard to dislodge.”
“I shall watch him with due care,” said Sturne, “and when his task is done I agree that it will be well if he is educated in Newborn ways.”
“Yesh,” said Pumpkin, relief flowing into him, and feeling that saying something positive might help; “educaishe me ash mush as yewh ligh.”
“He’s ill anyway,” said Sturne. “Perhaps you can detail one of the Brothers to take him back to his quarters until he is fit to serve our cause in the Library.”
“Yesh, yesh,” said Pumpkin, slumping on the ground before Sturne. Why, despite all, did he feel reassured by Sturne? Just because he had saved him from being taken to the Marsh End, or was it something more?
“Drubbins is dead,” he said, tears pricking at his eyes. But Sturne’s eyes stayed clear, and cold, and quite dispassionate.
“Recover yourself quickly, mole, your skills are needed. We will take it as errant and perverse if you do not report for duty very soon.”
“Oh I will, I will, shurr,” said Pumpkin most eagerly, as Sturne firmly led him away.
The next Pumpkin knew was finding himself huddled and confused on the surface back near his burrow, with an image in his mind of Brother Barre stanced over Dru
bbins’ body, his eyes blank, black and cold and Pumpkin thinking that it was he who had killed Drubbins, definitely, but the Stone was where retribution would be, must be, could only be. Moles must not take punishment of others into their paws, only the Stone could do that. Silence would be that mole’s hell.
A few days later – Pumpkin never could remember how many – he woke feeling better, and clearer, and knowing he had been taken to the void, and held over it, and had survived, and would survive now, must survive.
“I must go to the Library today, and report for duty to Keeper Sturne,” he said to himself.
So he did, but taking it slowly, for his paws and limbs felt very weak, and the distance to the Library seemed very great. He had never in his life felt so alone, so beset by doubt and fear, as in that journey back to work across the surface of the High Wood.
“Stone, help me do what’s right because I’m not the strong mole you seem to think I am. I’m just Pumpkin, Library Aide, nothing more at all than that. So if you’re going to put hard tasks my way give me support, show me how to be strong.”
How modest was Pumpkin’s prayer, how full of humility, how Pumpkinish.
“I’ve been ill, Keeper Sturne,” he said, when he finally dragged himself down into the Library’s Main Chamber.
“I can see that, mole,” said Sturne, staring at him almost without expression before giving him the briefest of smiles.
Wait a moment, thought Pumpkin to himself. Almost without expression; that was how Sturne looked. Which meant there was something in his expression, something good, something hopeful. Now that was a strange thing, for that little bit of Sturne’s response that was not cold and expressionless was... sympathetic. Then insight came to him. “He’s all right,” thought Pumpkin, in utter astonishment. “Sturne’s all right. Sturne’s not Newborn. Sturne’s strong, like Stour. Sturne knows.”
Such was his relief at this so-welcome discovery that poor Pumpkin, overwrought as he had been by the dreadful events of the days past which had left him feeling so isolated and weak, could not help himself at all, but cried with relief