Duncton Stone (90 page)

“Yes, Master,” agreed Snyde.

“After that I shall feast upon the sacrament of his flesh, to sustain me through the Vigil.”

“Ah...” sighed Snyde, to himself, content once more. Skua was to be made sacrifice after all.

“There are
eight
questions, Master, not seven, I think,” said Snyde to divert him.

“I think not, Brother,” said Quail firmly, though his sudden rush of energy seemed to be in decline once more, for his eyes had that haunted look that now preceded the onslaught of further pain.

“You think not,” repeated Snyde, knowing how useful delay could be. In any case, he had no wish to change that part of the liturgy now. It was the later parts that excited him more.

“Yes, I think not,” said Quail impatiently, “for how can the mole who is Prime undertake to be obedient to those in authority? Remove the Fourth Inquisition, Snyde.”

“But obedience is —”

“Shall be an irrelevance. I shall not argue about it, but command you to do it. Now, summon Skua that I may give him the good news that he is forgiven. Then bring to me the final version of the liturgy, that I may study it. Brother!”

Quail’s voice had a warning tone, and he cast a glance towards his guardmole as if to say that even now, even at so late a moment in the proceeding towards his elevation, there were other moles could be made sacrifice.

Snyde knew the warning signs well enough to bring his objections to a halt. He could wait. The pains would return. Quail would be his once more, and before long he would be his entirely, for evermore, his to...

“... to love,” he whispered, mouth moist, eyes on Quail’s, challenging him to understand the dreadful ambiguity of what he said.

But Quail did not. Instead he relaxed, he felt his pain, and he waited, grey of snout, yellow of eye, for Skua to come to him. He wanted to forgive: and he wanted to see this part of his sustenance at least, for he could not face Thripp or Privet again until the moment of their sacrifice. But Skua he could look at, knowing he would eat a part of him.

“No, no, no...” he crooned when Skua came, looking most uneasy, “I love you still.”

“And I you, Elder Senior Brother.”

“And I forgive you.”

At which Skua blinked, the only sign his face dared express of the hope he felt. There was yet a chance. The Stone could be merciful in great things, if not always in small.

Skua had suffered since Banbury. Doubt had been his visitor and had not gone away. Despondency had been his friend, and would not leave him be. Despair had been his lover, and had exhausted him. All this Skua knew but now it seemed he was forgiven, and he stared at the declining form of Quail, whom he had once loved, and at Snyde, the victor over him, and welcomed hatred into his heart, most gladly.

“What shall you have me do for you, Elder Senior Brother?” asked Skua.

“See. Here. Look...” and Quail waved a paw at the folios that Sturne had prepared and Snyde had amended, “your part is here.”

“I am to make the Presentation then?” said Skua, kenning the strange text. “And then the Declaration?”

“Yes,” said Quail, happy to hear Skua’s dry clear voice again. He was so much easier than Snyde, who confused him.

“And then?” asked Skua.

“We shall make sacrifice,” said Quail, his eyes never leaving Skua’s.

“And after that?” said Skua, indifferently it seemed. “What mole shall utter the prayers before thy ordination, if not...”

Quail winced and said, “Oh, you, mole, you do it.”

“But, Master, I...” hissed Snyde, furious. What of the sacrifice?

“Skua shall do it. The more he does the greater I shall love him, Brother Snyde.”

Which could mean anything.

The two enemies looked venomously at each other over the misshapen, swollen head of Quail.

“And whose paw is this, Elder Senior Brother,” asked Skua, indicating the text of the liturgy, “for this is not Brother Snyde’s, which we all know so very well?”

“A mole called Sturne. A Keeper.”

“He scribes well. He seems to know his texts.”

“He...” began Snyde, trying to stop Skua going on. But Skua was not to be stopped now, and nor did Quail wish it.

“And what part shall this Keeper Sturne play in the Holy Rites to honour you?” asked Skua, sensing this might weaken Snyde. “It is not the tradition that he who utters the Declaration should proceed to the liturgy of ordination. Is that his role?”

“Master, I...” snarled Snyde, for the ordination was his role, his glorious role and could not, must not be taken from him.

“Fetter... will know Sturne,” gasped Quail, the pains returning. “Ask him. Summon them both. Skua, do it for me.”

“As I love you, Master,” said Skua smoothly, nodding to one of the guardmoles who had always been an ally, “they shall be brought to your holy presence now.”

“Not holy yet,” said Quail with false modesty.

“Most holy is he to us,” replied Skua unctuously, “who the Stone hath chosen to be Paramount and Prime.”

“I like that,” laughed Quail delightedly, “let it be part of the liturgy! ‘Most holy is he to us who the Stone hath chosen to be Paramount and Prime’.”

He sang the. words, so far as his cracked and weakening voice allowed of singing, and then he said, “Summon my dear Squelch as well. He shall make a song of those words you spoke, Skua, and play his part as well.”

“I am honoured, Master.”

So it was that Sturne was there in Quail’s chamber when the final decisions were made about what the liturgy would be, and what the form, and whatmole would play which part.

Snyde got his way over the ordination at least, and that seemed enough to him. But Fetter, being inferior in rank to Skua, must precede him in anything he did, and so to him was allotted the task of the Ministry of the Word, which is to say certain readings from ancient molish texts, and more modern ones, and the singing of a canticle, which Fetter would first speak, and Squelch then sing.

Sturne was left with what seemed the lesser task of uttering the introit to the Vigil of the Dark Night, which preceded the Commendation and Committal of Quail’s pain-racked body to the Stone before the ordination. That would occur with the dawn light, when he would be made Prime at last.

“Whatmole shall conduct the Commendation and Committal?” whispered Snyde, hoping that it might be he, thereby bringing him back into the centre of affairs.

“Shall I do it?” said Sturne with due humility, “for it is meet that a mole who does not know thee personally should conduct you out of the perdition of this life into the mystery of Paramount and Prime.”

“Is it meet?” asked Quail.

“It is most meet,” concurred Skua, pleased to be the cause of a further diminution of Snyde’s role.

“It is so,” added Snyde, “and meet too that one should welcome you into the ordination at dawn who knows you well, for we shall be joyous then.”

“Good, good,” said Quail. “Keeper Sturne, you are a mole of sense.”

“And the sacraments of blood and flesh, Elder Senior Brother?” said Sturne, suddenly forceful.

“Those! You utter them, for the rest of us will be quite lost by then!”

It was Quail being jocular, and they all laughed, except the guardmoles in the shadows all about. But Snyde frowned once more, for in that last decision he sensed danger, though why he did not know. Perhaps Sturne was more than he seemed.

Quail said, “I shall sleep a little, and then we shall not delay more. Is all else ready?”

“It is, Master,” Fetter was the first to say. The day was darkening.

“My pains have almost gone,” said Quail. “I am minded not to sleep at all, but to begin now.”

There was absolute silence. Discussion was one thing, now reality loomed. Snyde glanced at Skua and Skua at Snyde, and Fetter at them both, all assessing, all calculating.

It was Sturne who dared take the initiative once more.

“Why not, Master?” he said gently. “There is no time like the present, and we are eager to celebrate the coming of Prime.”

“Even I cannot advance the coming of the dawn when the Vigil shall be kept, but you are right, Keeper Sturne, it is a celebration and as such will give me strength for the Commendation and Committal, and the Vigil that follows... and I like you. Stay close by me. We shall begin now.”

“Now?” whispered Snyde.

“Yessss,” said Quail, “for I am weary and I would begin before the pains return, which in sleep they might. Sturne advises well. Now it shall be. Yet, I am nervous.”

He looked about them all, with that fearful look that sometimes crosses the face of a female about to pup who has never pupped before, not unlike the expression that may cross the face of a mole about to suffer punishment or execution.

“Moles, help me through the trial to come.”

They all murmured that they would, but only one there felt a vestige of pity, slight though it was, yet pity all the same.

“We shall,” said Sturne once more, wondering how it might be that after so long living in the Newborn darkness he should feel pity for this most foul and vile of moles. Perhaps it was that he saw the tyrant become his own most pitiful victim.

He followed along in the procession that now left the Library, and headed towards the Stone Clearing through the morning light. He did feel pity and shame, but then he put that all behind him, and hardened his heart as he repeated to himself that part of the liturgy that he was especially to speak, and pondered the coming Vigil of the Dark Hour, which is the vigil unto death. He contemplated some of the words...

“Renew in him, most loving Stone, whatsoever hath been decayed by the fraud and malice of the Snake and the Worm, or by his own carnal will and frailty...”

Even as Sturne repeated these words to himself in readiness for the rite to come – and there were many more of the same in the liturgy he had put together for Snyde – the sky seemed to darken further and ahead of him Quail cried out in pain, mortal and profound. Then he who would be Paramount and Prime faltered, and staggered, and put his paw out to one he still trusted most of all – Snyde, who stanced firm, though to Sturne, watching from the back of the procession, it seemed that Snyde was only as firm as rock that has been twisted, turned and contorted, and so malformed by the fires of the deep.

Sturne saw how massive was the deployment of guardmoles in the High Wood, for they were everywhere he looked, in every shadow, by every gap. But as the procession wound on in among the larger and more formidable beech trees of the High Wood, he could not but think that with their massive roots and trunks, and leafless branches thrusting up towards the darkened sky, they were surely guardians of something far more ancient and venerable than a mole who sought to be Paramount and Prime.

Chapter Forty-Two

Although Squilver had been among those in the procession to the Stone, moments before the Clearing was reached moles came running up from the south-east slopes with news of the first sighting of Maple and the followers. Thorne’s coming he already knew about, and that threat was contained, but the arrival now of Maple, half expected for several days, was not good, and most inconvenient.

We do not know if Squilver seriously expected to long survive the coming of Thorne and Maple, though probably he did. The news of Sapient’s death had, perhaps, given him some pleasure, even hope. That mole’s departure from Banbury had forced the Elder Senior Brother’s retreat and now the Stone had arraigned him, judged him, and found him wanting, and his death was a just punishment.

Possibly Squilver hoped that a war would be fought between Thorne and Maple which would so weaken both of them that if he could stay within the sanctuary of Duncton Wood he might live on as Supreme Commander. We do not know...

Nevertheless, Maple had arrived at Duncton inconveniently soon, and we know that Squilver left the High Wood reluctantly, before the ceremony really started, giving very strict instructions that he should be informed when it began so that he might hasten back. Meanwhile – and for this commentators on his conduct as Supreme Commander give him praise – he made sure that the guardmoles about the High Wood were very well deployed indeed.

One other thing we know, which gives a historian no pleasure to relate. At about the time that the procession started off from the Library, Arvon and the few moles he still had under his command made their last brave bid to reach the High Wood and the Stone. They were caught and held only shortly before Squilver’s reluctant trek back through the High Wood and so it was before the Supreme Commander himself that they were brought.

He looked at them and wondered whether to spare their lives long enough for them to be used in the sacrificial rites that he knew would soon be part of Quail’s elevation. But his mind was on the imminent arrival of Maple, and dealing with three captured rebels was an irritating diversion.

“Kill them,” he said, “and let them lie where they fall as warning to others who may seek to come this way. No,” he said, turning back for a moment, “put their bodies out at the edge of the trees above the pasture slopes down to the cross-under. They will be more easily found.”

His words were as brief and brutal as the talon-thrusts which, but moments later, put to their deaths Arvon of Siabod and the last two moles he led. They had lived by the talon, and themselves had killed moles, as they were killed then.

Stolid, silent, with what last memory of Siabod’s mountains, or what last sight of the soaring branches above their heads, we know not, they died as such warriors so often die: not in glory, not in light or triumph, but somewhere; anywhere, unremarkable, ordinary, unmemorable, forgotten. Moles who seek that site in the High Wood today look for signs of it in vain. Trees are trees; roots, roots; and the rotting surface litter of the wood always looks the same, though it is always changing.

Before he died, did Arvon think of what the moles Rees and Arliss had told him, that Privet would not have thanked him for rescuing her? Did he wish he had seen Ystwelyn one more time? Or did he, perhaps, think finally of Cluniac, who he had trained in the covert arts he knew so well, but whom, despite every entreaty, he had refused permission to accompany him back into Duncton?