Duncton Stone (55 page)

Food? Usually she did not seek it unless it was placed before her.

Heat and dust? What were such trivial discomforts to a mole whose journey seemed to have been greater than a thousand lifetimes, and still had more than a lifetime to go?

“She’s old enough to be our mother,” observed Arliss some days after their fugitive journey had begun, “and yet I feel we’re mothering her.”

“And fathering,” said Hodder drily. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so protective towards a mole in my whole life, except you.”

He looked at his sister with bright clear eyes, and if she knew that he had never been moved to speak so to her, or express his love for her so directly, she did not say so. As she hugged him close she thought to herself with gratitude that while Privet’s silence might be strange, and hard to live with day by day, it was a powerful force that brought forth good, and stripped away pretensions and embarrassments that got in the way in ordinary life, even for such close siblings as she and Hodder. Faced with such discoveries, how could Arliss and Hodder not begin to love Privet, and feel a burning and passionate need to keep her safe from threat and danger while she pursued the task she had taken upon herself?

So far as the two had different roles, Hodder’s was to route-find and scout ahead, while Arliss stayed close by Privet, observant of her needs, and not just for food and shelter, but for companionship as well. For sometimes, and once for more than a day and a night, Privet was struck still and weeping, seemingly beset by fears and horrors she found in the lonely place that she was in. Then would Arliss gently lead her to a snug, safe scrape, and Hodder be watchful for danger thereabouts.

Perhaps the Stone, aware of the siblings’ need to learn to understand Privet and come to terms with their own personal discoveries in her company, had at first directed their paws by safe and peaceful ways, for in those initial

days and weeks they met with little trouble.

They led Privet south by way of routes overlooking the Cherwell valley, whose soft green ways and water-meadows are the natural route from the midlands to Duncton Wood. But higher up the valley sides, on tracks Hodder had heard of from his father, and explored on their journey north from Rollright, they met only a few over-curious vagrants, a patrol they easily evaded, and the Newborn system of Upper Gaydon, into which they made their way by mistake, and found it hard to leave without causing untoward interest.

It was mid-June before they experienced real difficulty, and that was when, with some misgiving, they dropped downslope near muddy Wardington, where they ran straight into a rapacious rabble of Newborns. Fresh from making massacre and mayhem at nearby Banbury, and led by Jugly, a minor Inquisitor of the cruel and brutal kind then beginning to take local control, these fearsome moles were on the way north for the easy pickings they believed they would find there.

Hodder, realizing his mistake too late, found himself prevented by the wet and muddy ground from leading Privet and Arliss away from the danger. Overtaken by an advance group, herded up with some other strays and vagrants much as ants herd maggots for their later exploitation, it was all too plain that their position was serious.

The usual claims that they were good Newborns on their way to “serve in Duncton Wood” did not cut much ice with moles whose pastime was murder, and whose pleasure was rape. It was as well for Arliss that Jugly was already satiated with another wretched victim, who having been used and abused now lay half dead, too weak to scream, her eyes deadened with shock and the realization that she could not survive much longer.

“Aye, you can take
her
, lads, if you want,” declared Jugly brutally, as he eyed Arliss with lascivious interest, “but
this
one I’ll have later.”

The vile leader watched with weary amusement as two of his colleagues, great tough moles with scarred faces and the arrogant ease of bullies surrounded by others of their kind, beat Hodder into the ground because he protested too much.

Yet, most oddly, Privet they ignored. Indeed it was almost as if, as a recovered Hodder later observed, they were afraid of something about her. It would have been hard then to say quite what it was, for she looked thin and insignificant, just a dried-up pupless female with lowered snout who could do with a bit of flesh on her body. The kind, in fact, that such ravaging Newborns frequently abused for a moment or two and then left to wander bereft, often badly injured, and die, forlorn and forgotten.

But this was not to be Privet’s lot it seemed, not among these Newborns. When the quick-thinking Arliss, ignoring her own mortal danger, asked if “her old mother” might stay with her, a ruse which served not only to keep Privet nearby but also to take the moles’ attention away from Hodder, Jugly nodded indifferently. He called his guardmoles off, leaving a couple to watch over Arliss and the others, along with some poor moles who had been rounded up, and moved on. Except that...

“But don’t think I won’t be back, for
you
,” he rasped at Arliss, “so you lot keep your frigging paws off of her.”

Shoved and harried, they found themselves in a little dell along with ten or twelve other captives, with just three guards to keep an eye on them all. Escape seemed unlikely – some of the moles were too shocked to talk or even move, several were bruised and injured like Hodder; only a couple showed defiance, and all were very apprehensive indeed. Nor did the site help, for it was a steep-sided little place, with muddy slopes to three sides and a turbulent stream rushing noisily along the fourth, giving the air a cold, dank feel.

The guards watched them idly, quite evidently irritable and bored, eager no doubt to join their colleagues in whatever savage pillaging of the local system they were undertaking. One of the stronger moles tried arguing with them and was severely taloned for his pains. Hodder meanwhile, his wounds bloody but superficial and his natural fortitude soon overcoming any shock he felt at the battering he suffered while trying to protect the other two, assumed an abject and miserable stance while using his sharp eyes to reconnoitre the ground. Arliss, understanding what he was about, tended Privet, or simply looked afraid, wandering here and there among the group to assess their strengths and weaknesses, and the possibilities for escape.

“One thing’s certain,” whispered Hodder when the guards weren’t looking, “we’re not going to hang about here waiting for that foul leader of theirs to come back and... and...”

“No,” said Arliss firmly, “we’re not. I’ve already told Privet that, and though she didn’t say anything of course, there was a determined look in her eyes.”

“What about the others here, have you had a chance to talk to any of them?”

“’Ere you two, shut up your talking!” cried out one of the guards.

“He’s not well and needs tending,” responded Arliss boldly, partly because it was her nature to be bold rather than meek, but also because experience told her that a resolute mole is often a mole who survives.

“He’ll need a sight more than tending, he will, if you don’t...”

The guardmole started towards her, Hodder prepared to defend her yet again, but one of the others pulled his friend back.

“Leave her be, mate; she’s the one Jugly’s got his beady eye on. She won’t give trouble after that!”

The guardmole retreated and he and his friends laughed knowingly and winked at each other. The sky suddenly seemed a little gloomier, and the day colder.

“Yes,” whispered Arliss later when the guards were preoccupied once more with their own talk and things had settled down, “those two over there are game for a fight, and that one...” (she pointed to a large male who had been injured as Hodder had and stanced now scowling at the ground), “... he’s ready to have a go, he told me. We could —”

“We could indeed,” said Hodder resolutely, “and we will. I’ll have a word with him myself. Get Privet near you so you’re ready to help her make a dash for it when the moment comes. The sooner the better, I reckon.”

Arliss grinned conspiratorially. She and Hodder had been in many a scrape together, and when that fierce and determined look came into his eyes, and his voice lowered to its present subdued snarl, she rather pitied the moles he was up against. As for being “ready when the moment comes’, it was one of the great strengths of the two of them that they understood each other so well that they acted together in moments of crisis, almost telepathically. It had been like that when they were pups, and remained so now.

Arliss drifted as inconspicuously as she could over to Privet’s flank, while Hodder, staggering and dragging one paw lamely behind him, went up to the guards and begged them to allow him to go down to the stream to drink.

“Get on with it then, and no funny business,” one said, and Hodder limped slowly back, his route taking him past the moles Arliss had pointed out, to whom he simply whispered, “It’s now or never, so you wait for the signal and go for them. Otherwise we’re all dead.”

He did not dally, sensing that once the warnings had been given it was best not to let the moles he was about to lead have time for doubts.

He got his drink, washed his wounds, staggered about a bit more, and then meandered back, seemingly half dazed. Arliss watched his every move, and she saw others doing the same. She had warned Privet to be ready and had seen a flicker of response.

“Just follow me!” Arliss had told her, hoping she would.

At such moments surprise is a potent force, especially when an attack by one brave mole is followed by the charge of a mass of angry and aggrieved moles, ailing and injured though they may be.

Hodder chose his moment well, suddenly rising up from his abject stance and crying out, “Here, you!” in a loud voice. This served not only to bring the guardmole swinging round nicely into taloning range, but acted as a rallying cry to those hardy moles already alert and willing to follow. No doubt fear as well as anger put power into their paws, for” no sooner had the hapless guardmole turned and been taloned hard in the face by Hodder than those behind him charged to his flanks, and those that remained soon found courage to do the same. What might have been an untidy tussle turned into a bloody rout of the remaining guardmoles, and three of their companions who came running.

Arliss did not dally. With a firm, “You’re coming with me!” she took a hold of Privet and hustled her upslope away from the now triumphant prisoners, over a ridge and out of sight amongst the undergrowth alongside the stream beyond.

She had no need to worry that Hodder would not know what she was about – and nor did she fear for his safety. He would send their fellow prisoners on their way and, returning after the two of them, soon catch up with them. Such was the trust and understanding between the siblings that when Arliss at last saw what she was looking for she felt no need to mark the place.

The stream tumbled over a waterfall above them, and after a slippery scramble through vegetation and between wet rocks the two females reached the edge of the pool from which the water flowed. Here, after a further struggle over loose stones, and a short swim across the pool itself, they reached the far side of the stream and greater safety.

“We’ll wait here,” said Arliss, pulling Privet down into lush grass, “he’ll be with us soon enough.”

He was too, appearing suddenly on the far side from where they had just come, bloodied but seemingly not seriously hurt. Arliss called softly to him and Hodder made his way across and sank down into the grass facing them, his fur dripping, the congealed blood of the guardmole he had taloned still red across his face, and a look of excitement and triumph in his eyes.

“Well? All got away?” said Arliss.

Hodder nodded, too breathless to talk for a few moments until, calming down a little, he described how the guardmole he had struck fell down, the other prisoners charged, and the escape was achieved.

“We’ve given the others their chance,” he said, “and we can’t do more. I knew you’d come this way so I just followed as soon as I could.”

They were suddenly aware of Privet, staring silently into Hodder’s eyes. Her own were dark and still as the deep pool they had crossed and before her gaze Hodder fell silent, his own eyes a little furtive, his breathing still heavy, and oddly troubled. He frowned.

“Had to do it that way,” he said. “Had to be decisive!”

His voice was defensive, and Arliss looked from him to Privet and back again, aware that some unspoken interrogation was taking place between them. Privet might be silent, but sometimes her silence was loud, and questioning.

“If I hadn’t taloned him the way I did...” began Hodder again. “I mean... he...”

Hodder’s snout lowered, and he looked distressed.

“Did you kill him?” asked Arliss quietly.

Hodder was silent; Privet stared; Arliss waited.

“Might have been better if I had,” muttered her unhappy brother. Then, after a pause, and as if sharing a guilty secret, he added, “I think I blinded him. His fellow guardmoles fled, and so did the other prisoners and I was left. It was just him and me. He asked me, he said...” And now Hodder looked up at them, real anguish in his face.

“What did he ask you?” whispered Arliss.

“He asked me to kill him. He was crying out in pain and shock, and he said if I didn’t his mates would, now he was no use to them. “Better you do it”, was what he said. I couldn’t say anything, but just came here and left him where he was.”

Hodder looked filled with guilt and distress.

Then, as he and Arliss stared at each other mutely, Privet suddenly rose up out of the grass, and began to make her way back towards the pool. So quick and determined was her movement that she had reached the water’s edge and was preparing to re-enter it before Arliss could get to her flank and restrain her.

“It’s all right,” called out Hodder with sudden decision. “I’ll go back for him.”

Relief and purpose was in his face as he brushed Arliss’s half-protest aside and went back into the water and re-crossed to the far side of the stream. Then he was gone back down slope and out of sight the way he had come with such alacrity but a short time before and, as it had seemed, such triumph.