Duncton Stone (48 page)

“Mole, I do not wish to hear!” cried out Thripp.

“But they did, they did!” said Rolt, surprising himself at his boldness. How sharp the pain was of that distant, secret farewell! “The two surviving females embraced me, as they would you, if you had ever let them. First Loosestrife and then Sampion. Master, you would have been proud of them! And Privet, she would as well! It is my regret that I did not tell her the full truth of how they survived, and where they are, when I had the chance at Caer Caradoc.”

“It would not have been fitting or possible for them to stay in Blagrove Slide,” insisted Thripp, “and anyway, when I am gone to the Silence you may do and tell what you will!” His voice held a trace of bitterness; it had been a long, long time since it sounded so.

Rolt stared at him with affection and understanding.

“I never sullied your name to their ears. Master, nor that of their mother.”

“They do not know her name?” asked Thripp quickly.

Rolt looked ambiguous. “They know little of her, though I could never quite bring myself to say she was dead, as you wished me to,” he said carefully. “‘Gone away’ is a poor substitute for a mother, but ‘dead’ is surely worse. But you they honour, Master, and they know you did what you had to for their safety.”

“Rolt, I am not a perfect mole as well you know. Perhaps only you know it truly. I do not mean to be harsh, but these memories remain as painful to me now as ever they were. Do you think I did not suffer to see my pups reach out to me and I unable to put my paws to them? Do you not think I wept to see you leave Blagrove with them?

“But with moles like Brother Quail in the ascendant, what would their lives have been worth if they had stayed? To be attached to some Brother Confessor or Inquisitor, to be used, to be made to breed, to be made as nothing before the Stone. To be so forced by a creed I had myself created, but which was becoming a monster.”

Thripp spoke from out of a despair he rarely expressed, and his voice took on a terrible intensity: “It was all my hypocrisy, my weakness, the lie I told, and a day does not go by but that I ask the Stone’s forgiveness for it. But I promised Privet, she made me promise it, and you took them where they would be safe. And you were as much a father to them as I ever was.”

“Master...” began Rolt, beginning to regret his outburst.

But then there came that brief smile again, and the searching gaze of those clear eyes; Thripp’s punishment in life had always been that he did not, could not, turn from the searing truth about himself, when the Stone’s Light made him see it.

“No, Rolt, you were right to speak as you did. You may not get another chance. Tell moles only the truth about me, only that. And if I am made eliminate and you see me no more before the day of the coming of the Book, whisper a prayer for me for the many sins I committed, and the little good that I did. Now, you must go. You have great tasks to perform. Moledom depends upon you now, and no doubt it will be grateful one day. Trust Thorne, he will do right. Tell Chervil that I always loved him. Ask Privet for my forgiveness for the sacrifice we had to ask Whillan to make.”

“Master —”

“Be gone, Brother Rolt, and know that I love thee. It is my privilege that the last act I accomplish before the Crusade Council robs me of my final freedoms, but sees you, whom I hold so dear, escape to safety. Now go!”

How Rolt would have liked to stay! How he would have liked to say more! How he would have liked to embrace the mole in whose service he had spent all his adult life. But there were heavy pawsteps in the tunnels, and Wildenhope was becoming more menacing and dangerous by the hour. With one last anguished look into Thripp’s eyes, which were already retreating into that place of meditation and Silence wherein the likes of Quail could never hurt him, Rolt turned, and was gone.

So it was that Rolt escaped Wildenhope and began the long and dangerous journey northwards that would bring him to Cannock, and into the councils of Brother Commander Thorne...

Rolt and Thorne were friends of a sort, the one a political mole, the other a military one. But it was a fact that Thorne’s rise under Thripp had been due not only to his remarkable abilities shown in dealing with strife along the Welsh Borderland; Rolt had spoken highly of him to Thripp and helped bring him out of obscurity.

Thripp’s own judgement of moles was always acute, even if, early during his emergence as leader, he had misjudged Quail and underestimated Privet. But generally he knew ability when he saw it, and was quick to spot a mole who had something more than ability, which is the flair, the boldness and the resolution to carry through schemes where risk must be finely judged, and faltering and doubt invite failure.

In Thorne he saw these rare qualities, and even as Quail inexorably gained the ascendancy he had made sure that the Brother Commander held offices and was given postings which extended his experience, and kept him far enough away from Quail to be unharmed. Indeed, it was as if he was grooming Thorne for some future task; a preparation which one might almost call nurturing, for when Thorne was banished by Quail to Cannock, it was Thripp who suggested that it would be prudent to banish his closest aides and most loyal guardmoles with him – “Lest they breed dissension elsewhere’. In short, Thripp, who knew how important loyal subordinates were, made certain that Thorne went into isolation with the best of his supporters, ready for the day...

For what day? Perhaps only one mole, Rolt, knew the full truth of Thripp’s subtle scheme. While in only one mind, that of the acute and brilliant Snyde, was the suspicion beginning to grow that Thripp’s apparent acquiescence to Quail in recent moleyears had, in fact, been a clever disengagement from the worst excesses that Quail’s policies might have inflicted. Snyde was beginning to believe, and history has proved him correct, that Thripp himself was the greatest traitor to the Newborn cause, and that by assuming the guise of age and infirmity he had deliberately let Quail gain power, believing he would finally destroy himself. If this were so it makes more sense that Thripp encouraged Quail to banish the one Brother Commander who had the ability to lead the Crusades successfully.

Not that Thorne himself was yet aware of such arcane manipulations – but the subtle Rolt was, and his flight to Cannock, not only to save his own life but as agent for Thripp, was the beginning of the delicate and dangerous endeavour by the former Elder Senior Brother to begin a more overt attempt to hasten Quail’s process of self-destruction.

Rolt reached Cannock in July, and its ordered, disciplined, yet relaxed atmosphere, its clean tunnels, polite guardmoles and comfortable visitors’ quarters could hardly have been in greater contrast to all that he had left behind at Wildenhope. Thorne was away on a venture to the north and would not be back for several days, but Rolt already knew several of Thorne’s subordinates, and in particular Adkin, who was to Thorne what Rolt had always been to Thripp.

“Brother Rolt, this is an honour!” declared Adkin, once Rolt was settled in and recovered somewhat from the ordeal of his flight from Wildenhope. “The Brother Commander isn’t here, as you’ve heard, but if there’s anything...?”

Rolt looked instinctively over his shoulder, and round at the portal of the chamber, which made Adkin grin.

“This isn’t Wildenhope, you know! There’s not a spy at every corner! There used to be, mind you, but Thorne’s got a way of winkling out spies and sneaks and those kinds of moles, and they don’t last long with him. Not that we shouldn’t be careful. These are dangerous times.”

“They are, Adkin, they are,” said Rolt. “Now listen. There
is
something you can do. It is likely that before long, perhaps within days, the Crusade Council will send an order to have a certain mole arraigned as a miscreant.”

“Would that mole be yourself by any chance, Brother Rolt?”

“It might well be,” said Rolt, who had lived in the twisted atmosphere of Caer Caradoc and Wildenhope so long that he found it hard, even in friendly company, to say a simple “Yes’.

“No problem,” said Adkin, “and if orders do come I am sure that in the absence of the Commander, and knowing his high regard for you, and since you are more experienced in such things than almost any mole in moledom, we would be much obliged if you would advise us on how to deal with them! I mean, we wouldn’t want to do wrong, would we?”

The two moles grinned mischievously at each other before Adkin said, “Things are bad then, sir? I mean, really bad?”

Rolt nodded grimly.

“And the Elder Senior Brother Thripp, sir, how is he?”

Adkin looked at Rolt, guessing how the good brother must feel, for did he not also serve a mole he loved and would do anything for? Did he himself not fret when Thorne was too long out of his sight?

“The only thing protecting my master now,” said Rolt quietly, “is the Stone itself

“Then I’ll pray to the Stone for his life,” said Adkin fervently, “and there’ll be many another in Cannock wall do the same. It’s
him
they serve in their hearts, not that Qu...” He began to look ferocious.

“Guardmole Adkin!” admonished Rolt. “It is best not to say such things, not even amongst friends. But, still, I’m glad to hear you nearly say it.”

“There’s not many moles round here
wouldn’t
say it!” muttered Adkin.

Rolt was proved right – three days after his arrival at Cannock two tough guardmoles from Wildenhope brought new orders from the Crusade Council, among them the very demand to arraign himself that he had expected; but in addition was one demanding that Thorne travel to Wildenhope immediately, with the guardmoles who had brought the orders, and report for a new command.

“It might be better that he didn’t,” said Rolt, whose presence at Cannock had been kept well hidden from the messengers. “Quail will probably promote him to supreme field command on his arrival, and have him arraigned and executed the day after that.”

“More than likely, Brother Rolt! But I’ll tell you a bit of gossip the guardmoles gave me – not that they’re the gossiping kind, those two, but they opened up with a bit of food inside them. It seems that our old friend Brother Commander Squilver, who made such a cock-up of that massing here in Cannock before Brother Commander Thorne came, has now wheedled his way into seniority at Wildenhope.”

“Well, I doubt if he’ll survive for long! Nomole can, for their lives depend upon the rages and the whims of Quail,” said Rolt. “Now, what are we going to do about the guardmoles?”

“Oh, them!” said Adkin innocently. “We’ve told ’em that the Brother Commander is south of here and the quickest way to get him back to Wildenhope is to go and find him and take him on from where he is. Well, how was I to know he’s still some way north?”

But Thorne, like all great commanders, had an instinct for where he should be and when, and had cut short his current expedition to return to Cannock, where he arrived that same evening.

Rolt had known Thorne for moleyears, and though the two had never been close there was a mutual respect and liking born of the knowledge that each in his own way more than fulfilled his task, and that that task was, broadly, to seek to make real the great spiritual dream for moledom, in worship of the Stone, that Thripp had created in the minds of many of his followers. Perhaps this liking was all the greater, and more likely to turn into a mutually beneficial friendship, now that so many of Thripp’s close supporters had felt it wise to subordinate themselves to Quail and his fellow Inquisitors, or, worse, had been eliminated.

Each mole could see the changes that time and recent pressures had wrought in the other. Thorne saw immediately that Rolt, older than he, now looked older than he remembered. He was thinner, his fur had greyed, his snout had wrinkled, his paws bore the fresh scars of travel such as the paws of scribemoles and sedentary moles often bear.

“But his eyes are as bright and kind and wise as they were when he first summoned me from oblivion!” said Thorne to himself.

Rolt
was
wise, and his years in the service of Thripp had taught him to sum up moles quickly and accurately. It seemed a long time since he had seen Thorne and he was well pleased with what he found. The Brother Commander’s natural authority had developed, his face grown more lined, the set of his eyes deeper, his voice more assured in its commands to subordinates.

“He is the mole we need!” thought Rolt to himself, pleased at having thought to bring Thorne to Thripp’s attention so long ago; pleased, too, that Thripp had given Thorne such support and sound advice.

“So...” began Thorne carefully, after listening to Rolt’s version of the events at Wildenhope about which he had already heard so much from so many different sources, “... so that’s what’s really happening at Wildenhope and Caradoc. Quail is losing his grip and going the way leaders often do in such circumstances, which is towards vengeful and erratic decisions which will lose Newborn lives needlessly. It will not help him, or anymole, if he gives power to those like Squilver who made a mess of things here before I came.

“Naturally, I knew already of the Wildenhope killings. For a time it was all that anymole, whether Newborn or not, could talk about. The Crusade Council’s actions that morning, sanctioned I presume by Quail, did more damage to the Crusades than any other single act. Nevertheless,” he continued grimly, “I do not think our cause is lost. With the right leadership, discipline and determination all round, it will be possible for the Crusades to be saved, and proper order imposed in moledom. But it will not now be as straightforward as it would have been.”

Rolt nodded silently, contemplating the implications of what Thorne said. It was good to be in the presence of a mole who knew his mind, and had the ability to carry through his ideas. It was just a pity, Rolt said wryly to himself, that this most able of moles was not likely to be ready yet to be part of the radical policy that Thripp now had in mind for the Newborns.

“But you don’t look very upset about what’s happening, Brother Rolt! If I did not know that whatever your feelings about Quail you are still at heart a Newborn I might almost think you were pleased that Quail has made such a bad error of judgement.”