Duncton Stone by William Horwood

  “Their living flesh you shall have, Master. Now eat these paltry worms as a sign of your humility, accepting them as a token of the flesh that the Stone shall give to you.”

  “Newborn shall I be!” cried out Quail hysterically.

  “That, Master, and that... Now come down below to sleep, come to sleep.”

  “With you, Brother, that I do not wake alone in the dark night.”

  Snyde submitted to Quail’s embrace that night, took pleasure in it, revelled in it, in expectation of the greater pleasures to come. Now Quail held him; soon he would hold Quail. More than hold him, and he would take him, he would have congress with him, he would!

  So were Thripp and Privet spared another night before the Stone, waiting, shivering, fed the paltry worm, given no water but that which drizzled down at dawn. He bidden to silence, she continuing to obey it, humiliated in the eyes of the guardmoles who watched over them, yet not by the Stone; nothing now to anymole but themselves.

  Quail had been right to suffer when he looked into their eyes, for theirs was an old love, strong as time, and understanding, for each had journeyed far, and each knew there was still a way to go.

  Sometime in that night, the nearest guardmoles dozed, the furthest turned away to talk, and Thripp was able to speak to Privet for the first and only time since their separate coming together to the Stone.

  “My dear,” he whispered, “I know you cannot talk, and I wish to less and less. But know this, which none could tell you at Wildenhope, not even our son Chervil, though he it was who made it be. Whillan lives.”

  “Whillan my... son...”

  Did she say this? Did the mole of Silence break her vow and speak? If so, the Stone forgave her, for its Light shone more brightly in her eyes. If not, it was the Stone spoke for her.

  “He lives. He had to seem to die, my dear. He had to seem to drown.”

  “I saw the river take him. I saw Rooster try to save him. I saw them drown. I saw no living mole.”

  “Rooster saw and Rooster lives. Whillan lives.”

  Great tears of anguish came to Privet’s eyes, for living in the Silence, which must be what he meant, was not enough. Her eyes fell from Thripp’s and she knew that the Silence was not yet hers.

  “Help me, Stone,” she seemed to say.

  “Help her, Stone!” Thripp said.

  “Silence, mole!” shouted a guardmole, coming to him and raising his paw to strike him.

  “Silence...” whispered Thripp, the Stone’s Light in his eyes too, and the guardmole fell back, abashed, his paw hurting, his eyes dazzled, his head reeling.

  Whillan lives... but what Thripp had briefly tried to say, and the hope in it, did not stop the night advancing over all of them.

  Dawn came across the High Wood, where Quail woke, screamed because he was in pain, and Snyde soothed him, ordering up the flesh of worm, feeding it him and then letting him sleep alone.

  “I have business to attend to,” whispered Snyde to his sleeping, sweating Master, “but I shall not be far, nor gone long.”

  But long enough to meet with Sturne and demote him back to Keeper as he himself assumed his right to be Master Librarian. Master, indeed, of all he surveyed, for Snyde could not resist ascending that slipway up to where once Master Librarian Stour had had his study and his gallery.

  “Stay down there, Sturne, where I can see you. And work. Work now for me. Find those texts I have commanded you find and bring them here.”

  “Yes, Master Librarian,” Sturne said heavily, and searched among the stacks for the texts of ancient liturgy and rite which Snyde had ordered.

  “Bring them here, up here, mole.”

  “They are fragile. Master, can you not come down?”

  “Bring them here,” snarled Snyde, “all of them.”

  Which Sturne did, grieving to see the dry and brittle things rubbed and worn, falling apart in his paws. Why had he not thought to copy these old texts?

  “Good,” said Snyde when the last one was laid before him.

  “And now?” asked Sturne.

  “We create a liturgy, Keeper Sturne, which shall be most fitting for the elevation of a mole to Paramount and Prime.”

  Why did good Sturne feel the first stirring of horror then?

  Why feel the impulse to strike vile Snyde dead where he was stanced, snouting and sneering, and sliding his talons amongst the folios of texts he was not worthy to touch?

  “‘Almighty Stone, fill this your servant with the light and power which you gave the white moles who have been your apostles,’ whispered Snyde. “Do you agree with my kenning, mole? Eh?”

  Sturne ran his talons over the mediaeval text twice and said, “Not quite, Master Librarian. For ‘light’ I would ken ‘grace’...”

  “Oh would you, Sturne? Would you!” said Snyde with deadly anger. “It is enough. Leave me be. Go back to your work. Summon me when Qu... when the Elder Senior Brother wakes.”

  “Yes, Master Librarian,” said Sturne.

  “Sturne?”

  “Master Librarian?”

  “Once I thought you were a fool, but you are not. You know your mediaeval texts. You are right about light and grace.”

  “Thank you, Master Librarian,” said Sturne, surprised.

  “Oh, it is nothing. I have missed fellow scholarship. I missed it much. You shall help me with the liturgy, Sturne?”

  “I shall do as my Master Librarian bids,” said Sturne, summoning up a brief smile, for he knew it was expected.

  At midday he was called back by Snyde, who kenned the beginning of a liturgy to him with proprietorial pride.

  Yet the words that Snyde spoke were not his own, but ones he had plagiarized for his liturgy from the texts that Sturne had found for him. Not that he had progressed very far with this onerous task, for it was so long since he had done real scholarship, and he had been involved in so much that was more exciting since, that the truth was he had soon tired of the task, and grown bored with it. So he had summoned Sturne back to help.

  “Yes, yes, Keeper Sturne, it shall be called the Liturgy of Paramount and Prime,” he said irritably. Though he needed

  Sturne’s help he did not disguise his contempt for him.

  “Prime, Master Librarian?” Sturne said evenly. His voice had been “even” ever since Snyde’s arrival back in the Library the day before, and his peremptory demotion of Sturne from Acting Master Librarian back to Keeper. And only Snyde could have managed to impart to the word “Keeper” so rich a quality of contempt and insignificance.

  Though “Keeper” Sturne did not mind, nor feel much surprise, yet as the day had worn on he had begun to think that nothing he had had to endure and suffer in the long moleyears since Snyde had left Duncton Wood compared to the spiritual filth he was now witnessing on his return.

  “I said ‘Prime’, Keeper Sturne, and I meant Prime. Does not that ancient and revered word mean anything to you? Eh, mole? Eh?”

  Snyde thrust his snout at Sturne’s and his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “In terms of the present day, I cannot say it does,” said Sturne, “though I believe the word had meaning in mediaeval times, in such texts as you have been... kenning.”

  Sturne’s guard had nearly dropped, for he had almost said “plagiarizing”.

  “Yes, it did have meaning in those glorious days when there was less sin in moledom, and moles knew their place. When scribemoles were revered and Uffington was great. But we must get on, as there is little time before the end of day when we shall begin. Now, was not Balagan the First Mole and Supreme? In other words he was Paramount and Prime.”

  “Yes, but it was only an idea, a metaphor, a...”

  Snyde’s eyes glinted over the texts. “Oh yes, so it was, it was. But we shall make it flesh, Keeper Sturne, don’t you see? Don’t you see?”

  “Flesh?” said Sturne, most uneasily. Horror was one thing, but this was sinking to nightmare. Snyde, he began to think, was mad.

  “And blood,”
added Snyde matter-of-factly. “The Elder Senior Brother takes to himself the pain of all of us, that we may the more easily know the Stone’s Silence in this life. The First Mole, He who was Paramount and Prime, gave allmole life. Now He is returned among us to exemplify for us the Newborn life of the spirit on this earth. His mortal body suffers and is dying and it must be transubstantiated back into the purity of the First by the anointment of the blood and the taking of the flesh. Eh? You see?”

  There was a pause, by which Sturne understood he was to make some kind of response to this horrific jumble of insanity. His mind raced, for he remembered his last promise to Pumpkin, that he would find a way of delaying matters, and staying close to Privet. Was she the blood? Was Thripp the flesh? Not much on either of them... Some distant light of normality allowed this moment of dark mirth into Sturne’s horrified mind.

  “Well, mole?” said Snyde with some eagerness.

  Sturne affected serious thought and said, “But Master Librarian, forgive me if I am slow in this matter...”

  “Yes, mole, yes? What is it?”

  “The doctrine of transubstantiation was declared a heresy by Dunbar himself. Mole’s blood, mole’s flesh, could not, he said, be —”

  “Dunbar!” said Snyde, waving his paw dismissively. “Ken the texts, Keeper Sturne, and you will see that Dunbar was the heretic. Scirpus —”

  “Forgive me, but he was of the Word.”

  “Exactly; of the Word. The Word made.”

  “Made?”

  “Flesh; everything.”

  “Transubstantiation?”

  Snyde smiled. “Good, Sturne, good. You see, we shall make a liturgy for the Elder Senior Brother, which shall be the Liturgy of Paramount and Prime, and through its mysteries first and last shall he become exalted, unforgotten. You understand?”

  “I understand, Master Librarian.”

  “Oh.. sighed Snyde, “but you and I, Sturne, might have been friends.”

  “We are, Master Librarian,” lied Sturne, the greatest lie he ever told. Or almost, for he added, “I learn much from you, Master Librarian. We have missed you.” That was the bigger lie.

  Snyde almost purred. “You have learnt much, Brother Sturne, in your time in the wilderness.”

  The wilderness, it seemed, was being separated from Snyde.

  “Master, what would you have me do?”

  “Good, good. Humility, obedience, silence, these are a trinity you display and we should include. Now, listen, for I must attend to the Elder Senior Brother, if he is to live long enough to be exalted before the Stone.”

  Snyde laughed horribly when he said this, and his eyes glistened lustfully at this implication of death.

  “I am being jocular,” he said. “The Elder Senior Brother shall live, of course. You shall help me make up this liturgy, using these texts, and your knowledge.”

  They talked technically a little while, Snyde outlining what he wanted, happy it seemed to be with a mole who understood.

  “Oh, we could have been such friends, you and I, he said once more when he had done. “Now, on with your work, Keeper Sturne, on, on!”

  “Yes, Master Librarian.”

  And in all his life Sturne had never worked so hard as in the hours of that strange morning when the chambers and stacks of the Library echoed to the muffled screams of Quail, and whispered to the scratch of Sturne’s talons as he scribed a most unholy liturgy.

  “Paramount and Prime!” muttered Sturne, frowning, and looking about the Library that he loved. “May you forgive me, Master Librarian Stour, but I sense your paw has guided mine this morning!”

  Then, from somewhere deep inside himself, Sturne dared think that it might be possible, if he should ever live through the night to come, that a day would follow when he could talk of this to his friend Pumpkin, and... laugh.

  Then the hobbling pawsteps of Snyde approached, and he called up from the stacks below.

  “Well, Keeper Sturne, well?”

  Sturne looked down, down from where the Master Librarian traditionally took his stance, down to where the twisted Snyde looked up, and said: “Master Librarian, it is finished and I have done my best.”

  “Let me see, let me see,” said Snyde, eager and breathless as he clambered up the slipway to snatch the new liturgy from Sturne’s paws. “Let me see how I can improve it, mole.”

  “Only you can, Master Librarian, only you know how,” said Sturne, his eyes as cold as death.

  Then Sturne had suffered Snyde to maul his work a little, ken it aloud, and pronounce it ready to show Quail.

  Quail awoke once more in the early afternoon, pain-free and confident. He ate and he drank and he was so unafraid that he prattled about his coming elevation to the position of First Mole incarnate, whilst Snyde talked him through the liturgy.

  “When shall it be, this ceremony? How long shall it be?”

  “At dusk shall it begin, with chant and prayers, and into night continue; and then shall be the Vigil of the Dark Night, during which you shall be made exculpate, and thy sins torn out of your heart and your mind and scattered like the dust of the dead. Then into your purified body —”

  “Purified,” sighed Quail, expelling an effluvium of malodorous breath which Snyde sucked in greedily and seemed to gulp down, trembling and shivering with the dark pleasure of it.

  “Yes, purified thou shalt be...” continued Snyde.

  Gravely ill though Quail now was, his pains and hallucinations worsening by the hour, he was not yet wholly dependent on others, or incapable of thought or mischief. Sometime that afternoon, as Snyde further busied himself in the Library with “his” creation and put the finishing touches to it with Sturne’s help, Quail signalled one of his guardmoles near and whispered the name, “Skua”.

  “Elder Senior Brother?”

  “Send him to me, for I love him.”

  The guardmole, well trained, hurried to inform Snyde of this unexpected development. Skua was, after all, disgraced and excommunicate, held alive only that he might be made sacrifice in the coming ritual.

  “He said he loved him, Brother Snyde.”

  Snyde grinned crookedly and muttered the words “Love him?” with a disbelief that almost made Sturne smile again, and hurried off once more, no doubt to dissuade Quail from any course other than the sacrifice of Skua. But astonishingly Quail was not to be dissuaded.

  “He shall utter the liturgy of Presentation and Declaration, and he shall ask the seven questions.”

  Snyde frowned, but remained calm. “He is our Brother, despite his sins,” he conceded. “You seem better, Master.”

  “We are all brothers, despite our sins, Snyde,” said Quail, for once ignoring the reference to his health, which usually succeeded in provoking a wave of pious self-pity which subsumed all else. “Forgiveness shall be mine and is mine. He shall be forgiven for the space it takes for the Presentation of my body to the Stone, and the Declaration, which is the testing of my mind and spirit thereafter before the Stone. Is it not?”

  “Yes, Master,” agreed Snyde.

  “After that I shall feast upon the sacrament of his flesh, to sustain me through the Vigil.”

  “Ah...” sighed Snyde, to himself, content once more. Skua was to be made sacrifice after all.

  “There are eight questions, Master, not seven, I think,” said Snyde to divert him.

  “I think not, Brother,” said Quail firmly, though his sudden rush of energy seemed to be in decline once more, for his eyes had that haunted look that now preceded the onslaught of further pain.

  “You think not,” repeated Snyde, knowing how useful delay could be. In any case, he had no wish to change that part of the liturgy now. It was the later parts that excited him more.

  “Yes, I think not,” said Quail impatiently, “for how can the mole who is Prime undertake to be obedient to those in authority? Remove the Fourth Inquisition, Snyde.”

  “But obedience is —”

  “Shall be an irrelevance. I shall
not argue about it, but command you to do it. Now, summon Skua that I may give him the good news that he is forgiven. Then bring to me the final version of the liturgy, that I may study it. Brother!”

  Quail’s voice had a warning tone, and he cast a glance towards his guardmole as if to say that even now, even at so late a moment in the proceeding towards his elevation, there were other moles could be made sacrifice.

  Snyde knew the warning signs well enough to bring his objections to a halt. He could wait. The pains would return. Quail would be his once more, and before long he would be his entirely, for evermore, his to...

  “... to love,” he whispered, mouth moist, eyes on Quail’s, challenging him to understand the dreadful ambiguity of what he said.

  But Quail did not. Instead he relaxed, he felt his pain, and he waited, grey of snout, yellow of eye, for Skua to come to him. He wanted to forgive: and he wanted to see this part of his sustenance at least, for he could not face Thripp or Privet again until the moment of their sacrifice. But Skua he could look at, knowing he would eat a part of him.

  “No, no, no...” he crooned when Skua came, looking most uneasy, “I love you still.”

  “And I you, Elder Senior Brother.”

  “And I forgive you.”

  At which Skua blinked, the only sign his face dared express of the hope he felt. There was yet a chance. The Stone could be merciful in great things, if not always in small.

  Skua had suffered since Banbury. Doubt had been his visitor and had not gone away. Despondency had been his friend, and would not leave him be. Despair had been his lover, and had exhausted him. All this Skua knew but now it seemed he was forgiven, and he stared at the declining form of Quail, whom he had once loved, and at Snyde, the victor over him, and welcomed hatred into his heart, most gladly.

  “What shall you have me do for you, Elder Senior Brother?” asked Skua.

  “See. Here. Look...” and Quail waved a paw at the folios that Sturne had prepared and Snyde had amended, “your part is here.”

  “I am to make the Presentation then?” said Skua, kenning the strange text. “And then the Declaration?”