The Wildenhope outrage had elevated Privet to an almost mythical status, and certainly a mystical one, for what follower could not empathize with her, and feel that if a thin, middle-aged female could stance up against the Newborns then they themselves could, and to the very death. Now Rooster had come along, and he was not a disappointment. The extraordinary tale of escape and survival Weeth had first recounted to the followers was soon known all across the Wolds, and if it was a little exaggerated here and overstated there, well, nomole was going to gainsay it. But, in fact, such propaganda was unnecessary, for Rooster was so over-sized and extraordinary a mole, and one who in the course of his escape seemed to have found an inner calm and contentment evident to all who met him, that he was now his own best advocate.
Somewhat against Rooster’s own wishes Maple assigned two of Ystwelyn’s best moles to guard him, for there was little doubt that he would be a target of the Newborn forces when they heard of his survival.
Three things helped increase the effect his presence made on the followers: first, the fact that he was, or had been, Privet’s companion – “mate” was not a word moles liked to use; second, his delving, an art he now practised as he felt inclined; those who were able to see his work talked about it in tones both hushed and reverential.
Lastly, regarding the impact Rooster had on others, was the warmth and simplicity of his manner: he said little, but what he said he meant; his furrowed and lop-sided smile was always welcoming, yet when he wished to be alone he made no pretence that he wanted anything else, but said, matter-of-factly, “Leave me, must think, must try to delve.” Then only Frogbit dared go near him, providing him with food, with delving help, and sometimes with silent company.
So that those who watched over him – and as Maple knew well, there was some truth in the notion that
all
the followers now massing in the Wolds watched over Rooster, just as they daily prayed for Privet on her difficult and mysterious journey – made sure that Rooster had peace and privacy. When he ambled in among his new-found friends, his fur awry, his paws clogged with soil, his brow furrowed in thought, if he did not wish to talk they did not disturb him, sensing that for one who had journeyed through the dark places he had there were often times when all he demanded of others was that they let him be.
One of the reassuring things about Maple’s command was the sense he gave those who followed him that he knew what he was doing, and that he did nothing that had not been carefully planned; often what he did seemed obvious and inevitable only when it was achieved.
A few days after Rooster’s coming he had ordered the followers to disperse into four groups, explaining that to concentrate so many moles at one point was dangerous, and presented practical difficulties with food, water and grooming.
“As a community disperses itself over its territory to the best advantage,” he said, “so the followers will now do the same, only coming together when its separate commanders under myself decree that it must be so.”
These commanders, four in number, were not the moles others might have expected him to choose. Ystwelyn, and Arvon, for example, he kept as his immediate subordinates, saying that he needed the former for his excellent advice, and the latter because there was always need of a brilliant independent leader of smaller groups, and, anyway, “you’re not a mole likes the tedium of day-to-day command, Arvon!” – which the Siabod mole acknowledged was indeed true.
Stow took overall command of the two groups of Wold moles, with Runnel, his long-term second-in-command, as the leader of the smaller of the two. Stow was the acknowledged expert on how a large number of moles could keep a low snout in a concentrated area, and in the time they had all been together he had willingly imparted his knowledge to those who had been led to the Wolds from Rowton.
Of these, Whindrell had emerged as a doughty leader, and one others trusted, and though he could not boast the experience of Stow, nor claimed to, he was much liked, and could be severe on those who were lax and ill-disciplined.
The last of the four commanders was the female Malla, or Maella as some more accurately call her, a mole from the deep south-west who spoke with a burr to her voice; though not large, she was fierce, not to say ferocious, and, as many said, “worth three males at least’. That might or might not have been true, but certainly the band of moles she led up from her own territory at the end of May would have accepted no other leader, and nor, once they were used to the idea, would those whom Maple put under her command, which included his early travelling companions, Furrow and Myrtle.
Myrtle was no slouch herself when it came to being fierce, but in Maella she found more than her match, and was soon happy to serve as her assistant, in much the same way as Weeth served Maple – a role in which she took great pride yet appeared meek as a Iamb. Furrow her mate, having found his confidence under Maple in the crossing of the two-foot bridge, soon made himself something of a specialist with the ins and outs of roaring owl ways and the territory of two-foots, who now held no fear for him.
Stow’s and Runnel’s groups stayed up in the Wolds; Whindrell and his motley of moles moved northwards into the lower slopes towards the Midland plain; while Maella’s force was sent eastward to the dangerous and busy vales across which many routes lay; their role was to spy upon the Newborns’ movements, and provoke confusion and incident, from which they disappeared into the night, often along the two-foot ways by which Furrow, and those who trained under him, had led them.
While between them all went the moles who in some ways, as Maple often said, were the bravest and most unsung of all – young males and females, swift of paw and quick of mind, who acted as messengers and journeymoles and kept communication between the groups alive. Maple himself, Ystwelyn and the others, moved between these four main groups, appearing and disappearing without warning, always seeming to know when and where they were needed, keeping morale high, watching their moment, and slowly and steadily, almost without the Newborns realizing it, expanding their territory.
And what of Rooster, Master of the Delve? At the suggestion of Maple, and with some gentle persuasion by Weeth, he was put into the care of the moles under Stow, who undertook to hide him high in the Wolds in some place only those closest to Stow could locate.
“I’ve talked it through with him,” Stow told Maple before the forces went their separate ways, “and I’ve an idea of the sort of place he’s looking for. Mind, how long he’ll agree to stay with us is another matter, but I think he’s got it into his head at last that there’ll be Newborns sent out to kill him once Quail knows he’s alive. Don’t you worry, Maple, the moles of the Wold won’t let you or Rooster down. It’s an honour to watch over that mole.” For so matter-of-fact and stolid a mole, Stow sounded almost fervent.
So the forces under Maple were divided for safety’s sake, and the better to confuse and extend the Newborns, and make them wonder quite where the followers were, and when their next assault on a major Newborn-held system would be.
“Do
you
know, Maple?” asked Ystwelyn in the quiet days that followed the departure of Stow and all the others.
Maple smiled enigmatically.
“Do you, sir?” asked Weeth, when he and Maple were alone.
“Aye, I do,” said Maple, “I know the place, but I don’t know when. Now listen, Weeth, there’s a task I have for you and it will be dangerous, but you’re the mole to do it.”
“A task!” declared Weeth, with just a little less than his usual enthusiasm. There was an air about the way Maple said this that was even more serious than usual.
“And this time it’s one for which I’m going to insist that Arvon and a few tough moles accompany you.”
“Arvon!” repeated Weeth. Oh dear, this sounded like a dangerous task rather than an enjoyable venture. “Will he not be needed here? I’m so much better working alone.”
“He’ll be needed rather more where you’ll be going, if only to get you in and out alive. He’ll be the military muscle and enterprise, you’ll be the negotiator.”
Weeth grinned feebly. It sounded as if real responsibility was coming his way, and he did not like it.
“To where,” he said carefully, “do you wish me to go?”
“I have discussed the matter at length with Ystwelyn,” said Maple, “and we are agreed that it is time a visit was paid to Duncton Wood.”
“Ah!” said Weeth in a thin voice, and with a thinner grin. “When do I start?” His voice and his grin were both fading fast.
“Today.”
PART III
Dissenters
Chapter Twenty-One
As Weeth set off on one of the most perilous assignments of his eventful life, another mole was coming to the end of the most dangerous of his: Noakes and his two companions from Seven Barrows had not only reached Duncton, but had infiltrated the High Wood, and now he was wondering what to do next.
Not that it had been easy reaching Duncton Wood, or sneaking past the Newborn guardmoles posted in well-organized positions by the cross-under at the bottom of the south-east slopes. But that done, and with Fieldfare’s detailed description of the topography of Duncton in mind, they took a direct route up to the High Wood, and hid themselves in one of its obscurer corners, impressed by the ancient, soaring beech trees, and the awesome quiet they imposed on the floor of the Wood beneath them.
Noakes’ leadership throughout the journey had been exemplary – bold, resourceful, and energetic, and his companions, both as young as he, had until now regarded their task as adventure rather than risk. But now they were in the hushed High Wood of moledom’s most renowned system, with Newborn patrols no doubt nearby, a certain sobriety descended upon them, and they wondered quite where they went from here.
Noakes himself had long since dismissed any notion of bold pretence, such as arriving at the Library with some concocted story that he was a visiting mole seeking guidance on scribing and scholarship; bright and clever he might be, but he did not know the first folio of a text from its last, nor its bottom from its top, and
that
ruse would not work.
Nor was he prepared to risk his life or that of his companions pretending to be Newborn. This trick had worked for them several times, but in a system long since in the thrall of Brother Inquisitors it was unlikely to succeed. No, the strategy he decided to adopt was one demanding nerve, and a degree of perspicacity, not to mention patience.
“We know where the Duncton Stone is because Fieldfare told us,” he said, peering through the soaring trees in a westward direction and thinking that he had never in his life felt himself to be in such a holy kind of place. “Well, my plan is this: I’m going to find the Stone this evening under cover of half-light, and there I’ll wait until a mole appears to pray before it, as surely somemole will. I shall watch him, and I shall decide whether or not he’s a follower. For one thing we do know is that the Newborns are afraid of the Stone and see it as a force they’ve got to appease, rather than a grace that’s on their side. So, I shall wait, and trust that a mole will come along who can guide me to this great mole Pumpkin, wherever he may be.”
“It’s risky, Noakes,” said one of his friends.
Noakes shrugged and grinned, scratching his glossy flank.
“Life’s risky, but I say to myself, if a mole’s not safe by the Duncton Stone, where is he safe! As for you two, you stay here and you don’t move until I get back. Dig yourselves in; use this deep litter of beech leaves to cover your tracks. Resist the temptation to burrow deep, for somewhere beneath here, as Fieldfare has warned us, are the tunnels of the Ancient System of Duncton Wood and they are protected by Dark Sound. Nomole knows we’re here, and nomole’s going to find you. As for me, if I’m not back within three days – though I
will
be, I assure you of that! – then you must decide on a course of action for yourselves.”
“Can’t we come with you?”
“You could do, and maybe you should do, but instinct says that this is a task for one mole alone. Trust me, it’ll be all right.”
Which they willingly did, not because they were themselves afraid to accompany him, but because so far he had been proved right in most of the decisions he had made, and where he was wrong he had shown the quickness of thought and the resourcefulness to escape and survive. But even moles like Noakes, upon whom the stars usually seem to shine, could be wrong, and he was wrong this time. As he set off towards the Stone, a grey and grizzled shadow with sharp eyes and a doubting snout separated itself from the roots of an imposing beech tree nearby, and followed him silently.
Meanwhile, as his companions dug in so they would not be observed, they were being carefully watched by another shadow, this one grey-black and younger than the first: a shadow so close that it could hear their every word; a shadow that was trying to decide if these infiltrators were followers or very clever Newborns.
In normal circumstances Noakes’ plan would have been a reasonable one, but these were abnormal times and he could not know that a secret and extraordinary battle was being fought across the deserted spaces of the High Wood. The aggressors were a group of well-trained Newborn guardmoles, operating out of the system’s Library under the direct leadership of Brother Inquisitor Fetter. Their quarry were the moles who had escaped Barrow Vale under Pumpkin’s leadership back in December, who, bolstered by the timely arrival of Hamble, now eked out a dangerous existence in the Ancient System itself, harried by Newborns above and Dark Sound below.
Twenty moles had originally escaped, including Pumpkin himself and these along with Hamble made twenty-one. But of these five had since died – four elderly moles had succumbed to the privations of their new life, and a younger one had been killed in a fight with Newborn guards near the Stone. Two more had been caught and were believed to be alive down in the Marsh End, where after a period of torture both had been broken and given away the numbers and general position of their besieged friends up in the High Wood.