Duncton Stone (22 page)

*
Snyde’s record states that “the sky was lowering and pale, with strange streaks of lighter cloud. But, as the punishments neared their climax, and the Duncton moles’ sentencing drew nigh, the sky darkened rapidly, and cast the scene on the Bluff in gloom. This was deemed most fitting, as if the Stone itself had cast the shadow of its vengeance upon the Duncton moles.”

Whether or not the Newborns had the right to so deprive moles of Silence seemed of little consequence – the Inquisitors believed they had. Nor did anymole come forward to vouch for them when Skua finally enquired if any wished to. With heartbreaking cries of faith in the “true Newborn way” the two moles were led separately between the flooded meadows to the river-bank and hurled into the torrent, disappearing from sight for a time as the others had done, and then reappearing as mere flotsam, beyond anymole’s help, as the waters swirled them away for ever.

It was with sickening relish that Skua and Quail now turned their attention to the remaining prisoners, Privet, Whillan and Rooster. They were unceremoniously pushed forward by their guards, some way apart from each other. Privet was still and quiet, Whillan furious, scarcely believing what was going on, and Rooster dangerously angry on behalf of the other two.

“Not them. She’s all right. Not Privet, not Whillan. Good moles, can’t you see?” He muttered and ranted these sentiments and more, pushing and shoving against the restraint of his four guards to such effect that with a nod Chervil drafted in three more guardmoles to help. The more that gathered about him the more menacing and powerful he seemed. Whatever happened, this was not a prisoner who would easily go to his death, or let the others go either.

In contrast to his father, Whillan looked weak and helpless. It is true he had matured since leaving Duncton Wood the previous autumn, even more so since the escape from Caer Caradoc, and his mating with Madoc. But the guards deputed to him were older and more physical, and perhaps the rough treatment he had received initially on the Edge, at his capture, and the hard march to Wildenhope, had taken their toll. He looked young now, tired and vulnerable; but his eyes blazed with intelligence and just outrage and he stared at Skua and Quail defiantly.

And then there was Privet, so still compared to either of the two moles now caught up with her in circumstances of tragedy whose repercussions will echo down the ways and tunnels of moledom’s history for evermore. We can well believe Snyde’s report of a looming darkness over that sad scene, and another witness has left us a memorable description of Privet in the moments that marked the end of all her past life, and her acceptance of a task whose nature she was now beginning to comprehend more fully.

“Her eyes,” that brave witness later scribed, “had been lowered until then. Now she raised them, and it seemed to me that they reflected those pale streaks that made the darkened morning sky so strange. At Quail she looked, at Skua; at Chervil she stared and at Thripp. At all of us she seemed to look, her eyes growing more clear and light the deeper they looked into the palpable evil of that day.

“Anymole could see she was losing all fear for herself, and of the death that might be hers. It was poor Whillan she loved, and great Rooster she wished to protect, and now she began to see the only way she could do this. To me, her eyes were the portals into the heart of a mole who knew she must reach out with love; not to those she loved the most, but to those who were the most evil there, whom she had least reason or inclination to love.

“Sometimes I wonder if that morning really grew dark at all as their sentence was pronounced, or was it rather that the light of Silence that began to come then to Privet of Duncton, simply made it appear so...?”

So Privet seemed to some that morning, and now she waited for Quail’s pronouncement of their sentencing with a resignation that suggested she guessed already what it must be.

“The Brother Inquisitor has told you three already that in the case of moles who are not in the true way of the Stone we Elder Brothers prefer not to sully our office by sentencing you ourselves. In such cases Elder Senior Brother Thripp has ordained that where three such miscreants are arraigned only one of them shall suffer punishment. But one of the others must choose which that mole shall be.”

Here Quail paused, to let his words sink in. Whillan stared in puzzled disbelief; Rooster groaned and struggled; the eyes of Privet grew more bright and awesome.

“Of course,” continued Quail with studied and terrible matter-of-factness, “if you cannot collectively decide who is to make the choice of which mole is to die – then we are empowered to choose for you...”

He smiled cruelly, and glanced at Skua and then at Chervil. Both nodded, as if to confirm what he had said. Then Quail hunched forward, the bald skin at his shoulders wrinkling into folds as he raised his head a little and stared down at them.

“Therefore, choose.”

“Choose,” whispered Skua, his voice as deathly sterile as an icicle.

“Choose,” whispered other Elder Brothers, “choose.”

“Choose,” almost sang Squelch, giggling. “Oh yes, you must.”

“Choose, choose... choose!” sneered the guards, and even some of the witnesses, even some of
them.
There was a madness come that day. Their voices died away and only the distant roar of the river remained, and the harsh shrill of evil in moles’ hearts.

Whillan turned and stared at Privet, and then round at Rooster. His flanks trembled, and his eyes were wild.

Perhaps Quail hoped for discussion among the three, a discussion that could only be a punishment in itself – perhaps
that
was what the Elder Brothers had hoped. But Thripp? Had he really prescribed such a law? If he had not, why did he not say so? A mole could only think from his silence that he had, he really had.

“Privet,” said Whillan quietly. “She is my choice to choose whatmole will die. She herself must live.”

“Must be,” growled Rooster, suddenly chuckling at what seemed to him life’s comedy. “Can’t be anymole-else. Whillan knows. Always was her. Always will be. I love her, so does
he
.”

In Rooster’s way it was a speech of love, and of pride too, for a mole could tell he was proud that Whillan had spoken first, and chosen as he had. Of course it must be Privet who would do the choosing, foster-mother of one, beloved of the other.

“Then it must be the miscreant Privet, whatever she herself says!” exulted Skua, evidently pleased with the way things were going. What would moledom make of a scribe-mole too cowardly to offer herself for punishment? Oh yes, Elder Senior Brother Quail had done well to remember so obscure, so subtle a law as this one. By it would Rooster one way or another be destroyed, and Privet too. Nomole could live in the normal world after making the choice she must now make. She would be pitied yet reviled. As for Thripp, he
had
promulgated this law, even if it had never been intended...

“So choose which of your fellow miscreants should die, and which should live,” said Quail. “I await your decision with interest. We all wait with interest!”

There was contempt and triumph in his eyes, and morbid fascination in many other moles’.

“Choose?” repeated Privet, her voice quite clear and steady.

“Yesss...” sighed Skua, “thy will be done!” And he even laughed, silently and mockingly.

“Choose,” said Privet musingly, quietly now, and then fell silent.

“If you do not do so, Sister, they must both die.”

“I have chosen,” said Privet. Her eyes were pale now, so like a pale luminescent sky that many there averted their gaze rather than stare into them. Then there came to her face a look of relief, and she suddenly seemed younger and seemed struck with wonder, as if she had found what she had been seeking for so long. She turned to the two guards on either flank, and so calm yet powerful was her gaze that they seemed to fall away from her as she stepped forward towards Quail.

“You see, Elder Senior Brother Quail, finally we must all choose. It is not difficult, especially for a mole who bit by bit has lost everything, as I have. Here, this morning, we have witnessed the brutal darkness which will always be with mole, and we know it, even you Quail, and you Skua and —”

“Do not address us so, Sister!” said Skua sharply.

But Quail raised a paw to silence him. For the first time that morning he looked interested. Sister Privet, it seemed, had surprised him.

“Go on,” he purred.

“There comes a time when we moles must stop seeking the Silence of the Stone as if it is beyond ourselves, or beyond the present moment, or beyond the present place. We must choose to simply... stop.”

“So which mole have you chosen?” asked Quail, frowning now and beginning to feel a fool.

“Oh,
that
!”
said Privet in a voice that dismissed the impossible choice he had posed her as if it was nothing at all. Then she added, as if realizing he did not understand, “It really is not important, Quail, which I choose, or whether I choose or not. If it were I would not do it, and as it isn’t I will not pretend it is.”

“Choose, mole,” said Skua fiercely.

“The choice I have made has been much harder than so simple and ridiculous a thing as choosing between moles I love. I love all moles, even you, Quail, even you, Skua. Perhaps even Brother Confessor Thripp as once he was. You think to undermine me by making me choose between moles you know I especially love. You do not understand that the choice would be as hard or as easy whichever two moles you presented me with! I would die for each of them just thinking about it, as I have died in my heart for those moles your beliefs have killed today.”

“Choose, Sister!” roared Quail, suddenly angry, his smooth exterior beginning to break down. “You have talked long enough.”

“I talk because I am afraid of the choice I have made, mole. I talk because I fear the journey I must begin. I talk...” For the first time her voice faltered. “I pray that one day, when the Light of the Stone is manifest to moledom, and your little puny darkness is gone into the past, I pray I may be able to talk again.”

“Choose!” said Quail with open venom for this mole whose strange quiet words held the others about him spellbound, and insidiously attacked not only his authority, but, astonishingly, that of the whole Caradocian Order. Though how, or why, few could yet see.

“Choose?” said Privet finally. “Oh yes, I choose! I choose Silence!” As she said the word even the roar of the river seemed to cease and not a single guardmole tried to intervene as she went first to Rooster and then to Whillan and embraced them tenderly. Then she turned back to Quail and said again, “I choose Silence, and pray the Stone will help me, for surely no mole can.”

“Silence?” shouted Quail, perturbed but not yet understanding the profound decision Privet had made. “Silence? That is not the choice we mean!”

“You choose
that,
and both of them shall die!” cried Skua, almost spitting at her, and thinking that by “Silence” she simply meant to try to avoid the issue by saying nothing.

Yet three moles, apart from Whillan and Rooster, already seemed to understand the possible significance of what she had done. One was Thripp himself, who looked at her now with profound surprise, and strange hope, as if in the way she had chosen to take he saw, as other moles might not, the only possible course of action, or rather non-action, that those still resisting the Newborns all over moledom might follow. He looked like a mole for whom a lifetime of prayer had been answered.

Brother Rolt’s response was more emotional and personal. He knew what the path of Silence might mean for a mole, and perhaps he had contemplated it for himself from time to time, but had shrunk back from so final a sacrifice. Now tears rolled freely down his face as he stared at the thin, unassuming simple figure of Privet among those aggressive and angry moles, and understood that nomole would be more alone than she in the place she had now turned towards.

One other mole responded in a way that suggested he understood what Privet had done. Squelch. For he now began to sing quietly, a strange and haunting song that told of a solitary heron, grey and black as that Wildenhope morning, which opened its wings and rose slowly over the rushing waters of life, and left them behind to begin a journey to a distant and long dreamed-of land.

“Well?” roared Quail, simply not believing that a mole could defy him (as he saw it) in so simple and direct a manner.

“You have been warned, Sister Privet!” hissed Skua again.

But Privet had said her last and Silence
was
her way now. She stared at her interrogators and at the sky, and when Whillan whispered ambiguously, “They won’t let you do it this way,” meaning perhaps they would kill her, she stared at him too. Not without love, not without concern, yet, in truth, not with much interest either. These moles,
whatever
moles they might be, she was beginning to leave behind. She had rejected responsibility for them, and left them to find their own way. She had stopped striving for them, realizing at last that a mole cannot do it for another, it being hard enough to do it for herself – even assuming the Stone wanted a mole to strive at all, which she was already beginning to doubt. But her mouth moved in silent prayer, for guidance perhaps, and she was restless to be away from that place of troubled moles and be by herself at last.

Many who hear this part of Privet’s extraordinary story attribute to her a kind of cowardice, in that she did not show enough concern for the danger, all too real, in which she had now placed both Whillan and Rooster. One saved, argue such moles, is better than none. Why could not Privet see that? But she had seen and sensed a greater truth; that a day had to come in the long decades of struggle towards the Stone’s Silence when a solitary mole must have the courage to commit herself to Silence,
whatever
it might mean. That the day, the moment in question happened to be when one of the two moles closest to her might have benefited from her help was no longer the point.