The Second Wave (9 page)

Marguerite looked hard at the figures.  They were similar to the patterns made with twigs and fircones that the first Greys she had met used to make their numbers.  Here was a special Grey that she might learn from.  Numbers of any kind had always fascinated her.

‘Marguerite!’

She looked up, startled at the savagery in Juniper’s voice.  He was crouched on a branch above her, quivering with rage.

‘Come up here at once. Now!’

Marguerite bristled with anger, yet dared not show disrespect to her life-mate in front of this stranger.  She could appreciate Juniper’s concern – his first life-mate, Bluebell, had been killed by Greys near that very spot only a year or so earlier.

She leapt for the tree-trunk as the Grey turned away.

Ivy left quickly, abandoning the piece of slate.  So much for equality, she was thinking.

Hickory and Sitka were discussing Crag in a hollow on the ground near the Temple Tree.

‘Do you think that Crag’s got all his conkers?’ Hickory asked.

‘It’s hard to tell,’ Sitka replied.  ‘Apart from the Reds we saw over by the pool, and his mate and son, they’re the only ones we’ve met.  We were told that the natives have funny habits.’

‘I think I preferred the old ways – our parents would just have zapped the lot of them.  Start clean, then.  None of this Sunless Pit business and sleeping on your own.’

‘I don’t like the sound of the Sunless Pit, so I’m not taking any chances.  I’m going to keep my nose clean and my tail dry.  Go along with what the old fellow says, for a while at least.  Have you seen Ivy?  She keeps sneaking away.’

Sitka looked around.  ‘We’d better be getting back ourselves, or old Tin Can will be after our tails!’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Chip’s days were fuller than ever before.  His father kept him and his mother at full stretch, working alongside the funny grey squirrels, who were so polite to both his parents and himself.  Crag had found a pile of assorted scrap metal behind an old Man-cave and had organised the full resources of his new team to carry out the task of moving all the smaller pieces up into the hollow trunk of the Temple Tree.

The Greys were now sleeping there too, every squirrel in a separate corner or bay of the hollows.  Crag did the rounds at least once every night to make sure that each squirrel, of whatever colour, was sleeping alone, and not indulging itself with the warmth of a tail for cover.

Once, when it was particularly cold and Crag had just done his rounds, Young Chip, shivering and fearing a rebuff, had crept silently to where his mother was sleeping and had crawled in beside her.  Although she must have known he was there, she said nothing and the two lay there through the bitter night, sharing each other’s warmth and jointly fearing the Sunless Pit until, at the first glimpse of light, Chip crept away to his own corner, past the Greys that he could see were all religiously observing the ‘no tail warmth’ edict.

At prayers, when Crag came to the ‘sinned in the night’ part, Chip glanced at Rusty, but her head was, like her tail, meekly lowered.

Whenever he had the chance, Chip questioned the Greys about their lives and their beliefs, but they had little to say except that they were now contrite and sorry for what their kind had done to the Reds, and had instructions to learn and to live by the local customs, which would have evolved to suit the conditions in each locality.

On one such occasion Crag had come up behind him when Chip had paused in sorting metal and was talking to Hickory.

‘Why do you call this country New America?’ he had asked, then had reeled across the scrap-pile as his father had struck him a blow across his head.

Crag snarled, ‘Don’t delay the work with useless questions.  We, and that includes
you
, have a Temple to furbish.  Fear the Sunless Pit!’

Chip, his head spinning, had gripped a piece from a broken ploughshare with his teeth and started to pull it backwards through the grass under the trees, in the direction of the Temple Tree.

Crag was thinking about his wonderful Temple.  It was far better than the one in the cave on Portland, and the Sun had provided a team of workers to help him fill it with the precious metal.  Chip’s mating could safely be left until the next year.

By then the Temple would be full.  The Sun could clearly see that he, Crag, was a worthy squirrel and would direct them to find a worthy female as a suitable mate for his son.  Not one of those Blasphemers over at the pool, with their false stories and immoral ways.  He must make sure that Chip was worthy himself by then – he was a bit of a slacker at present.

Wood Anemone the Able and Spindle the Helpful, the ex-zervantz who had left Ourland with Marguerite, had settled well as free squirrels at the Blue Pool.  Unlike the other Reds, they had no personal knowledge of how the natives had been treated by the Silver Tide and often spoke between themselves about the Greys.

They did not know of the incident involving Ivy, Marguerite and Juniper, nor about Marguerite’s anger with her life-mate.  Marguerite had been all for going over to the North-east Wood to apologise to Ivy, but had been dissuaded.

‘We agreed to leave them until after the winter.  Then we will make formal contact,’ Juniper had told her, and since it had been a purely family matter, the Council had not been informed.

‘Let’z go and zee what the Grey Wonz iz doing,’ Spindle suggested one afternoon.

‘Do yew think uz zhould?’ asked Wood Anemone.

‘Well, there’z no taboo on it, and uz’z zurprized that Marguerite juzd zent them off like that lazd autumn.  If they’z doing anything odd, uz could report back.’

Their youngsters were away somewhere having fun of their own as Wood Anemone and Spindle left for the North-east wood.  The slight feeling of unease that Spindle felt he put down to his years of being a zervant.  Now he was free, he told himself, he could do as he wished, within the Kernel Lore, and there were no Kernels that he knew about not looking at Greys.

They reached the Temple Tree clearing and watched from behind a tree-trunk as the Greys carried various pieces of metal along the paths that converged there.  They were wondering what it all meant when a native voice in an unfamiliar accent addressed them from behind.  ‘An inspiring sight, is it not?’

They jumped and turned to face an unknown Red.

‘I am Crag, the Temple Master,’ he said.

‘Greetingz, Crag the Temple Mazder,’ said Spindle, wondering what a Temple was.  ‘Uz iz Zpindle the Helpful and thiz’z uz life-mate, Wood Anemone the Able.  Uz’z puzzled by what the Grey furred zquirrelz iz doing.’

‘They prefer to be called Silvers,’ Crag told him.  ‘Are you from the Blasphem…  –  the community at the pool?’

‘Uz iz.  Uz’z the Guardianz of Beachend, in the Blue Pool Demezne,’ Spindle told him proudly.

‘That’s a fine place,’ Crag responded.  ‘Did you have a good Harvest?’

‘Yez, zuperb,’ Wood Anemone told him.  ‘Uz ztored lotz of nutz, enough to see uz all right through the worzt winter – and the zpring!’

‘I’m pleased for you,’ Crag told them.  ‘Are you Sun-worthy?

‘Zun-worthy?’ Spindle looked at Wood Anemone and then back at Crag.  ‘If yew meanz, do uz leave the eighth nut az the zun-tithe – yez, uz iz.

‘No, I mean, do you worship the Sun?’

‘Zurly the Zun doezn’t need uz to worship it,’ said Spindle.  ‘Uz would have thought it wuz above all that!  Yew makez it zound like won of the kingz uz uzed to have on Ourland.’

‘Oh, no.  The Sun needs worship, and metal to be brought to the Temple.  And repentance for your sins!’

‘What’z zinz?’ Wood Anemone asked.

‘Things you do to indulge yourselves – unworthy things,’ Crag told her.

Wood Anemone’s face showed her lack of understanding, but she and Spindle waited for instructions.  Crag’s voice carried that tone of authority that commanded instant obedience and unquestioning acceptance.  It was the voice that the Royals had always used.  The two ex-zervantz waited in silence for Crag to continue –  if he chose to do so.

Crag noted their tail-down attitude.

‘In the name of the Sun, I command you to report the position and amounts of all your community’s food reserves,’ he demanded, and unhesitatingly Spindle the Helpful, one-time zervant to the King of Ourland, gave the information.

‘There iz many lotz of hazelnutz in the copze near the Dogleg Field.  There iz lotz of chezdnutz…’ he reported as he had done to the Royals on Ourland.

Crag listened intently.

When Spindle had finished, he said, ‘In the name of the Sun, I forbid you to tell any squirrel what you have seen today, or I Crag the Temple Master, will ensure that it is the Sunless Pit for you, for your dreylings and for your dreylings’ dreylings – for ever!’

‘Iz there really a Zunless Pit?’ Wood Anemone ventured to ask the stern, high-tailed Red.

‘Oh, yes – it is an awful place where any Blasphemers, and those who disobey a Temple Master, will exist in darkness forever.  So say nothing of our meeting or of what you have seen.’

Spindle and Wood Anemone left the North-east Wood, their tails low, feeling that they had done something wrong, but they could not speak of it, even to one another.

Crag watched them go.  He was memorising each hiding place.  ‘Many lots of hazelnuts in the copse near the Dogleg Field, lots of chestnuts…’

Tansy had finished the nuts that she had been given and was hoping for more.  Several times a day she searched for a way of escape, but each attempt was as fruitless as before.

Afraid of getting muscle-weak from inactivity, she would race around the netting of the cage until breathless, then crouch in the darkness, listening to the grumblings of the ferrets in their indecipherable ‘weasel’ language.

She often recited the Kernel of Encouragement to herself, confident in her faith that the Sun would indeed come soon.  Then she tried to recall other Kernels of Truth that she had been taught.

Some were routine, just instructions on drey-building, general cleanliness and what food was safe and what was not, but as she remembered each one, with plenty of time to think about it, she realised that most Kernels had much deeper, hidden meanings and that within them they contained a complete philosophy appropriate to the whole squirrel race.  There was one that she especially liked, it seemed so apt now –

‘Fear’ sniffed at the drey,

‘Courage’ awoke and looked out –

But ‘Nothing’ was there.

Tansy was saying this for the seventh time that day, savouring its message, when the door opened and the man came in holding the bag of nuts.  Instead of staying at the back of the cage, Tansy came forward boldly and, as the lonely man opened the cage door and held out a Christmas walnut, ‘Courage’ hopped on to his sleeve, ran up his arm and, from his shoulder, leapt for the daylight and freedom.

She scampered across the yard, past the man’s Christmas dinner, which was hanging by its feet from an elder tree, scarlet blood pouring from its recently cut throat, and over the wall towards the first tree she could see.  She climbed into a fork and looked back.  The man had come out of the stable and gone across to the goose hanging from the elder tree.  She watched him swing it violently to and fro, blood splattering across the ground and up the stone wall, before he went into the house.

Greys held no terror for her now, and when she was sure that the man was not coming out to follow her, she headed directly for where she thought the Blue Pool to be, keeping to the trees wherever possible, but running openly along the ground when they were too far apart.

She spent one night in a hollow willow stump and another in a rabbit hole that was disused and damp.  Finally, on a bitter winter day, with the east-wind blowing her tail over her ears, she crossed the smelly Man-track and the railway, until only the North-east Wood stood between her and the Blue Pool.

In that cold, dank wood she smelt the oddly mingled scents of both Greys and unknown Reds.  Then, along the path, came a first-year Red dragging a tangle of rusting wire.

She called to him and he looked fearfully over his shoulder before answering.  He was tired and thin, and did not have a sleek, fat look that a well-fed midwinter squirrel should.  Tansy, realising that she herself would not be looking her best and might have frightened him with her sudden appearance, spoke to him formally.

‘Greetings.  I am Tansy the Wistful, on my way to the Blue Pool,’

‘Hello,’ said the young male, shyly.

Tansy waited for the formal response.  When it was not forthcoming, she said, ‘Are you alone?’

‘At the moment, yes.  My mother is at the Temple and my father is with the Greys at the metal-pile.’

‘Is he safe with the Greys?’ Tansy asked, and Chip looked puzzled.

‘Oh yes,’ he assured her.  ‘They are co-operative.’

Contrary to custom, Tansy had to ask his name.

‘It’s Chip,’ he told her, and she waited for the tag which would give her valuable clues as to the kind of squirrel he was.  It did not come.

‘Your tag?’  She raised an inquisitive eyebrow and her tail indicated ‘question.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Chip replied, looking worried.

A snowflake fell from the pink grey sky and rested lightly on his whiskers.  He brushed it away and looked up.

Suddenly the air was full of swirling, drifting flakes and the young male looked at Tansy in puzzlement, as though she was responsible for the phenomenon.

‘What is this?’ he asked.

‘Snow,’ she replied.  We must seek shelter immediately.’

‘What about the metal?’ Chip asked, indicating the baling wire.

‘Leave that,’ she told him.  ‘Where’s the nearest drey?’

‘I…we…we live in the Temple Tree.  It’s through there.’  He pointed to the track through the wood, now rapidly disappearing under a white blanket.

‘Take me there, quickly, before we freeze,’ Tansy commanded him.

Chip looked at the tangle of hay-wire, felt the cold of the snow penetrating his fur and, with Tansy close behind, made for the Temple.