The Twyning (5 page)

I soon discovered that it was not only my bad blood that brought trouble. When I spoke, men and women seemed alarmed, children stared openmouthed.

My tones were too gentle for the ragamuffin way I looked. They asked questions. Who was I? Why was I there?

Soon I kept my talk for the animals. With humans, I said little or nothing. I was a silent shadow in their company.

“Dogboy,” they called me.

I became used to the streets. I lost all sense of time passing. I found a home of sorts.

Some years later I was working for a rat-catcher called Bill Grubstaff. A tall, whiskered gentleman in a frock coat would pass the compound, watching Bill and me as we worked.

One evening, as I returned home, he talked to me in the park. He told me his name was Dr. Ross-Gibbon. He was a scientist and was working with rats.

He asked me if I wanted to earn some pennies, helping him catch “specimens,” as he called them.

I nodded my agreement. That evening, he showed me where he lived and asked me to come by the following day.

“And what do they call you, my boy?” he asked.

“Dogboy, sir.”

He laughed. “Do they, bigod? Well, I shall call you Mr. Smith. You shall be Mr. Smith while you work for me.”

That was how I met the doctor.

. . . to speak to the Court of Governance.

Within moments of the Twyning’s announcement, as I stood before the thousands of rats of the kingdom, I knew that this time my curiosity had taken me too far. I was that most outrageous, most unthinkable thing, a ratling on the Rock of State on the day a new king was to be announced.

What was I doing there? That was the thought in my mind, and it was shared by every citizen of the kingdom who saw me.

But there was no going back.

Quell stared at me for a moment, his old face gray and sorrowful. I humbled. Then, realizing it was not enough, I rolled on my back, offering to him and to the kingdom. He darted clumsily toward me and I smelled the rot of his ancient teeth as he buried them briefly into my cheek.

I screamed, as I was expected to, and lay still.

Quell looked down at me, breathing heavily. He was old, but his revelation, when it came, was powerful.

— Your name, ratling?

— Efren.

— And the information you claim to have?

The court had moved threateningly close to me. Even if I revealed with all my force, I could only hope to reach some of them. I stood, still crouching, ready to humble if threatened.

— I have visited the world above.

— Today? While the kingdom was gathering?

I closed my eyes, and trembled respectfully.

It was Jeniel, the doe rat who had spoken earlier, who rescued me.

— Surely, Quell, why he was in the world above matters less than what he saw.

His eyes still resting on me, Quell nodded.

— Go on, then.

I thought of Alpa. What would she be feeling now as she watched her young taster after he had interrupted great matters of state? Fury? Shame? Fear, perhaps, for her own future.

I, of course, now had no future.

I crouched low. It was for my captain that I now revealed. I confessed to the members of the court that, yes, I had followed the king down the river into the world above. I told them the terrible things I had seen. The river, the two humans, the stick, the prison. I finished my account as quickly as I could.

— I returned to the Great Hollow. I believed I should do my duty as a citizen and tell the court. — I looked at the eyes around me. — He was . . . He is . . . our king.

When I had finished, Grizzlard stepped forward to face the assembly. He told them, in his own slow way, the story I had told. As his revelation reached the brains of those gathered there, an angry chattering sound arose from the throng.

I was finished. Surely there could be no escape for me now.

Grizzlard inclined his head in my direction. There was something about him, a light in his eye, that gave me hope as he began to reveal.

— Ratling, you have done a bad thing. You have left the Great Hollow at a time when the kingdom must be united.

From beyond the Rock of State, citizens revealed angrily.

— The ratling must die!

— To the Court of Correction with him!

Grizzlard turned to them slowly, and there was silence in the hollow. He looked down at me.

— You found our king. You might have remained silent but you had the courage to tell what you had seen. — He paused, then addressed the citizens once more. — The kingdom is good. Those who love the kingdom, however foolishly, should not die. A ratling, even this little cowering thing — he poked me with his nose — can grow to be great. Now he must simply show his loyalty.

From the courtiers around him, there was a chattering of agreement.

— I have an idea of how the ratling can do that.

The revelation, languid with disapproval, came from a young courtier who stood beside Jeniel. He was sleek and dark, and the absence of the slightest scar or marking on his pelt suggested that, unusually, he was not originally from the Court of Warriors.

— Swylar?

Grizzlard’s revelation was icy cold. The courtier called Swylar moved forward, then continued.

— When Tzuriel left the hollow, it was to die as a humble citizen. But now that he is in the hands of the enemy, he is our king once more. Until we know what has befallen him, there can be no other monarch.

Grizzlard moved toward Swylar, baring his long teeth.

— This is just a tactic to delay things, Swylar, so that your friend Jeniel will be queen. It is ambition speaking.

Swylar smiled dangerously.

— They shall not be pleased, the kingdom, when they are told that their new ruler put his own crowning before the safety of their beloved Tzuriel.

Quell raised his head.

— And what are you suggesting, Swylar?

— We send someone to the world above to discover where King Tzuriel is held.

— Almost certain death. — Swylar smiled, then turned to me. — There is one young citizen who will know where to start the search.

And suddenly the eyes of the most powerful rats in the kingdom turned toward one young, humble citizen.

Me?
Me?

I might have revealed. I might just have thought the word. What Swylar was suggesting was madness. I had no experience of the world above. I was not even a warrior.

There was a moment’s uncertainty in the court. Grizzlard seemed to have reached a decision.

— Perhaps he should take his companions.

— My companions?

I glanced across the hollow to the Court of Tasting, then noticed that Grizzlard was looking beyond the lip of the Rock of State, where the two young warrior rats who had escorted me were looking up at them. The court seemed to be expecting an answer from me.

— Yes. I would like them to come with me.

Grizzlard walked to the lip of the rock.

— What are your names, ratlings?

— Floke.

— Fang.

— Floke and Fang, this is your lucky day. — Grizzlard smiled sadly. — The three of you are going on a great adventure.

. . . and you shall have served your purpose to the great cause of science.”

The doctor is at the long table in his office, where he does his experiments. It is the dead of night. When we returned with the giant rat, he said to me, “We must work just a while.”

Although I am tired, there is no questioning him.

I sit on a stool in the corner of the room, watching. The doctor likes me to be here, ready to help him with the rats who are still awake before the chloroform begins to work on them.

He talks at times like this, sometimes asking questions, never expecting an answer.

“Have you seen the likes of this creature, Mr. Smith? What a big brute he is. If we can keep him alive, he will be the most famous rat in history.”

He pokes with his sharp blade at the limp body of the giant rat we found by the river.

My stomach aches with hunger and my eyelids are heavy. Now and then my head nods forward, before I snap awake. All I want now is the sixpence I will be paid, and to be on my way home.

“Give me a rat on a slab and I am a happy man.” The doctor laughs quietly to himself. “They find it strange, Mr. Smith. They say, ‘That Ross-Gibbon’s a bit of an odd one.’ ”

He reaches for his magnifying glass and inspects the rat for a moment.

“You want to know why? Because I am a man of science, Mr. Smith. The outside world is suspicious of scientists. Particularly women — watch out for the females, Mr. Smith.”

The doctor makes a small cut in the rat’s stomach.

“When I came down from Cambridge, I attended a dinner party and happened to mention to my neighbor at the table, a young lady, that I had the pancreas of an interesting water vole in my pocket. When I showed it to her, you should have heard the screams, Mr. Smith! It was bedlam! I was actually asked to leave. Such are the trials of the scientist.”

He lays down his knife and looks at me solemnly for a moment.

“Poor boy. You don’t have the slightest idea what I am talking about, do you?”

He reaches into his pocket, and just for a moment, I think he is about to pay me, but it is not money that he holds, but a dirty handkerchief with which he wipes his hands.

“Who needs women, Mr. Smith? Give me the inner workings of a small mammal anytime.”

He beckons me over.

Almost too tired to stand, I walk over to the table.

The rat is on its side, a small wound glistening red on its fur.

“Show me a rat with its organs intact and I will reveal the mysteries of the world,” he says softly.

Gently, almost like a nanny with her baby, he turns the rat on its back with a pencil. A smell of rotting flesh fills the air. He breathes in, as if it were the scent of spring.

“Is that not the most beautiful case of rodent cancer you have ever seen, Mr. Smith?”

He lays down the pencil and reaches for the knife. I watch as he cuts into the flesh in the pit of the rat’s stomach.

It stirs, opens its eyes, and at that moment gives a scream that seems to fill my brain.

I gasp and stagger back.

“Squeamish, Mr. Smith?” The doctor laughs coldly.

I shake my head. It was not a loud scream, but something about this rat upsets me.

I hear the echo of its pain in my skull.

. . . to the world above.

I felt it within me as I lay huddled beneath a small wooden shed surrounded by greenery. Somewhere, a rat was pulsing, and needed help. Nearby, Floke and Fang were scurrying back and forth in search of trails. Maybe it had not been such a good idea to take company on this mission to the world above. The two young warrior rats were bigger and stronger than I was. They had claimed that the Court of Warriors had trained them in the arts of survival, tracking, attack, and defense. But, even before the three of us had emerged into the dangerous half-light of the early morning, I sensed that they had yet to learn the lesson that even I, a humble taster, already understood.

It is never wise to attract danger to yourself.

Ignoring me, they had competed noisily with one another as they made their way from the Great Hollow upward. Without waiting, they had burst out from under the shed and set about trail finding, ignoring the presence of risk in the human-infested land that was around them.