Duncton Tales Page 4

  “I must get on, Miss,” said the aide, lowering his voice and giving her another wink.

  Pumpkin shifted the text he had been clutching throughout this exchange from one paw to the other, pointed a talon down the length of a crowded, high, dark chamber, to indicate again the way she should go, and went on his way, leaving Privet to pause and take in the extraordinary scene.

  Even the approach down into the Library from the surface above had awed her, so hugely delved were the tunnels, so impressive the high arches where the main tunnel joined what they modestly called the Small Chamber.

  This great place, which was bigger by far than any library Privet had been in before, was lit from fissures in the murky roof high above, and held more texts than she had ever seen in one place. It was obvious from the hushed comings and goings of aides and librarians that the chambers that ran off it, some large, others narrow and confined, all held more material. The texts themselves were in shelves arranged in stacks, and the librarians had study places all higgledy-piggledy among them. At the fer end the chamber narrowed into a curious soaring fissure at the base of which, like ants hurrying to service a nest that lay beyond, moles came and went, their paws echoing, and their voices muffled and subdued.

  Nomole noticed Privet as she diffidently made her way among the stacks down the length of the Chamber, staring at texts when she could, but catching sight of few she knew. Why, where she came from … But she banished such thoughts. Her past was over and done with. Her life was beginning again now in the present, and her future was what she could make of it.

  For a shy mole, with little confidence left beyond matters textual, she felt she was doing well.

  “Can you tell me where Sny … I mean Deputy Master Snyde is please?” she asked one of the less busy, more friendly-looking moles.

  “No idea,” replied the mole, not looking up from the text he was working at. Abashed, Privet travelled on, arrived at the fissure that led to the Main Chamber, gulped, and followed a mole carrying a text through it.

  She emerged into a cavernous space, most beautifully lit about its high roof, where the tendrils of plants and white fibrous roots of trees carried light from without, and reflected light from surface fissures. Beneath this grand, arching roof what was surely the main part of the Library stretched away, so huge that she realized that it made the ‘Small’ Chamber she had just come from seem small indeed. The Main Chamber was hushed, organized, busy, a place to inspire a mole to work and study, and to subdue the uninitiated into awed silence. Moles of both sexes and all ages worked here, and though it seemed at first to Privet that they were scholars studying texts it was soon very plain to her that they were, for the most part, only copyists.

  “This is where …” she whispered to herself.

  So! This was where the great work of copying moledom’s classic texts was done, the texts which by an ordinance of the Conclave of Cannock over thirty moleyears before must be disseminated throughout moledom. It had been initiated by a small group of scholar scribemoles led by Stour himself, driven by memories of the war of Word and Stone, when the light of Stone was so nearly lost for ever. What the decision at Cannock meant was that this great Library, the greatest in moledom, would eventually be replicated in the eleven other chosen sites, which included the Ancient Seven.

  Most of these copies would be taken forth in the spring and summer years to the other libraries by journeymoles like Fieldfare’s Chater. It was a great enterprise, one that would take several more generations of moles to complete, but when it was completed it would mean that all moles, wherever they lived, might have access to all the scribed knowledge, history, thoughts and traditions of moles gone by. In such an enterprise, Stour had successfully argued, lay the way to the creation and preservation of freedom in moledom for evermore.

  Stancing there, with so many copyists about her, and with so many more texts in the stacks all about, Privet saw both the grandness of the conception, and the enormity of the task, and felt a renewed determination eventually to meet the Master Librarian himself.

  “Excuse me,” said Privet, plucking up courage to speak to another mole, “can you tell me where I might find Deputy Master Snyde?”

  “Seen him round, seen him there,” said the mole, pointing to a narrow gap between stacks, and scarcely looking up from the copying he was doing.

  Privet went that way, turned a corner, went on a bit towards a smaller chamber, turned to the right and realized she was lost.

  “Yes, mole?”

  The voice was quick and nasal, the mole that spoke it crook-backed, with a head laid low by his deformity, which gave him the look of one who was perpetually peering at others to find them out. He was amongst shadows, and at his flanks were a couple of moles, one male, one female, both wearing the smiles of moles doing their best to please a mole they fear and dislike.

  “I’m looking for —”

  “Me. You’re looking for me.”

  “Deputy Master Snyde?” she said carefully.

  A brief complacent smile lightened his face and he licked his mouth. He looked proprietorially at the two moles with him.

  “It seems so, doesn’t it? They sent you to me. Yes. Good. And you’re from?”

  “Rollright.”

  “You’ll be badly trained then. They’ve never got it right.”

  “I wasn’t raised there,” said Privet, as affronted as Snyde had intended her to be, “but I was there for a time. Before that —”

  To her relief Snyde waved her into silence.

  “You can scribe?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Snyde with a slight sneer, smiling again, this time coldly. “Anything else?”

  “I’m a mediaevalist, I think.”

  “Oh, she thinks she’s a mediaevalist,” said Snyde to his acolytes. They sneered dutifully, though the male less than the other. “Frankly mole, we have no use in Duncton these days for mediaevalists since the demand is for our modern texts and for copying. Must keep on with the copying, of course, and we do, we do. But as for scholarship, well, the past is dead, long live the present.”

  “The present will become the past,” said Privet, much provoked and unable to prevent herself from arguing. It was the first time since she had been in Duncton that the tougher side of Privet, the part that must have given her the strength to get there at all, had shown itself. The male aide grinned to himself, while the female looked at Snyde to see what he would do.

  What he did was to thrust his thin and wrinkled snout out into the light towards Privet, peer at her through narrowed eyes, and say, “Of course it will! How right you are, very clever, very … disputatious.” He was smiling in a most unpleasant way and his talons were kneading the ground with an almost sensual pleasure at the sudden prospect of intellectual argument.

  “And when,” he said, “does our mediaeval visitor maintain the past begins?”

  “I … I’m not sure,” said Privet slowly, unable to take her eyes off Snyde’s, which had a curious and hypnotic weasel-like quality. “I only know it ends in myth.”

  “Myth?” said Snyde, evidently surprised at this answer, and somewhat disconcerted by it.

  “The final truth of history is myth,” said Privet. “Until then it is but surmise. I feel more comfortable with the distant past but that is my failing, Deputy Master, and I know from your work that you have the breadth of vision to feel comfortable with Modern.” She was careful to allow no hint of flattery or unctuousness to enter into her voice, and she ended what she said with a short, brief, apologetic smile.

  “Ah! Good! Very good or very clever,” said Snyde. “More on this later one day. Meanwhile, we must welcome copyists, whatever their quality, for once winter sets in the supply will end. One big task to complete for Avebury, and another for the aforesaid and mediocre Rollright. What was your name?”

  “Privet.”

  “Not a name I know. Not a very nice name really.”

  “I have sc
ribed nothing that you would have seen, Deputy Master.”

  “But something?”

  Privet shrugged. “A monograph on Whernish texts at Beechenhill, and a study of scrivening styles, and an account of the lost tales of Bleaklow. Tales has become my speciality and I have a text …”

  “Bleaklow? Well … Yes …” said Snyde, clearly uninterested in these offerings. “Perhaps if you prove yourself a worthy copier you can be given a little time for your own private researches, but I stress we are rather busy with more important things … Since you appear to show neither interest nor belief in Modern I fear I cannot offer you a task in my own specialist department.” She did not choose to press her Book of Tales on him.

  He turned to the male and said, “Avens, you can show her the Library and ask the Copy Master to set her a task within her capabilities.” He smiled in a cloyingly possessive way at this weak-looking youngster and then turned to the female and said, “You can come with me now …” and low, and sneaky-seeming, Snyde slid away.

  The mole Avens turned without much interest to Privet, who saw that the moment the Deputy Master was out of sight he assumed a cocky stance as if all moledom were a bore and his great talents were wasted upon it.

  “Just arrived?” he said carelessly.

  She nodded again.

  “Well, showing you round will be a pleasant break for me, I suppose, so we might as well take our time.”

  Privet did not at first much like Avens, for she soon found he had no real interest in scribing or in texts, or any great ambitions. He had come with a journeymole from Avebury and was ‘putting in a few moleyears of study’, as he put it, before returning home.

  But at least he told Privet a good deal more about the Library, and its organization, than Fieldfare had been able to. She learned that each separate Collection in the Library had its Keeper, of whom there were nine, or ten if a mole counted the odd one out, which was Rolls, Rhymes and Tales, “of which none of us knows much since it’s separate from the main library, and its Keeper, a mole called Husk, never comes here at all, nor welcomes visitors there,”

  “I have heard much of him,” said Privet with some excitement. “I have a text of tales with me — perhaps I should give it to him?”

  “I wouldn’t bother Snyde with it, that’s for sure,” said Avens. “Husk might take it, but be warned,” he went on in an outraged kind of way, “I myself tried to offer Keeper Husk my help and advice, after the Master had suggested I might usefully adopt the task of ordering his Collection, but the old fool was abusive and rude and told me I was a fool and suchlike.”

  Privet did her best to keep a straight face at this, and rather liked the idea of a crusty old Keeper of ancient texts sending young Avens packing. She might have been tempted to do the same herself.

  No, the most important Collection is Modern, of which Deputy Master Snyde has been Keeper since his predecessor died in mid-September. He’s not an easy mole of course, but he seems to have found old Stour’s favour, and certainly knows his job. I’m told Modern’s become very well organized since he took over. Now Snyde’s about to take over the control of copying and the Copy Master is upset about it. But of course he’s another old mole and Snyde seems to know how to drive his older superiors towards an early demise and so gain promotion. But you began well with him!” There was admiration in his voice.

  “Me?” said Privet, surprised.

  “By arguing with him, about history and that. He likes an argument does our Deputy Master. Have you really researched and scribed texts on Whernish?”

  “Yes,” said Privet.

  “Well, that’s a bit different then,” said Avens vacuously. “Now, let’s find you a task … Frankly, with Longest Night just two days off, you’ve timed it well. There may be the appearance of busyness about the place, but this is calm compared to what it’s normally like. Once Longest Night is over and January begun then it’ll be all snouts down to get texts ready for the journeymoles in spring. I’m going to find myself an easy studying task and keep well out of it!”

  With this complacent comment, Avens led her back into the Main Chamber where Firkin, the doddery old Copy Master, found a librarian who needed a copier.

  “What’s that?” asked Privet of Avens before he left her to her task. She pointed up at a great dark gallery that ran high across the narrower end of the Main Chamber. A slipway went up to it, at the bottom of which a large and corpulent mole stanced quiet and half asleep.

  “That’s where the Master is. He watches us from there. His study cell is at the top of the slipway, and beyond it …’ he gesticulated in a vague and bored way.

  “Beyond it are the Books of Moledom,” said Privet.

  “Yes, I suppose they are,” said Avens without any interest at all.

  Privet looked up at the enshadowed gallery, fancying she could see movement there. A snout? Eyes? She knew not.

  “Master Librarian Stour!” she whispered to herself in awe, the greatest scholar and librarian in moledom. She had come far to get here, and if for a time she must revert to being merely copier, so must it be. One day, one day … she hardly listened as old Firkin presented her with a text and told her how she must copy it. But as she turned to begin her tedious task, her eyes looked back briefly at the high gallery, and lit up with a dream.

  In the winter months that followed into January Privet slowly began to build a niche for herself in both the Library and the system.

  She continued her copying tasks, content to adopt a low snout and avoid notice, as she thought, by anymole of importance. Pumpkin became a friend, happy to find her texts now and then when she had time to begin to get to know the vast resources of the Library. Avens, too, a witless inconsequential mole, began to see the depth of her knowledge of older texts and was happy to ask for her help in some of the work he was doing and lazy though he was, she was glad to have a mole with whom to share a worm in moments of rest from her work.

  In this way, to a small circle of less important moles in the Library, she became known as a mole who knew both scribing and scrivening, and one dedicated to her work. Her determination to copy well and accurately worked, if anything, against her ambitions, for libraries such as Duncton are often reluctant to let copyists move on to less productive research, especially of an out-of-fashion mediaeval kind. But Privet was content to be patient for a time, hoping that eventually the Stone, or luck, would bring her more interesting work.

  She grew to know and like Copy Master Firkin, too, a knowledgeable mole growing too old for his task, for he was much harried on all flanks, not least by Deputy Master Snyde. Firkin was one of the few who seemed to have any contact with the Master Librarian himself, up into whose study cell he would sometimes go for ‘consultations’. But he never said, nor ever would say, a word about these meetings, though many moles tried to get something out of him about them, and Privet much respected this discretion and loyalty towards Stour, and thought to herself that there might be more to the old mole than there seemed.

  The other Keepers she rarely met, not even Sturne in mediaeval who was a taciturn severe mole who said little to any mole.

  Her life outside the library was quiet, and often in the gloomy months of January she wondered what she would have done without the friendship of Fieldfare who, from the time they had first met, she had liked and trusted, and who had felt the same about her.

  Longest Night had passed by without incident, and Chater had not returned until mid-January. For a time after that the two females saw less of each other, for Fieldfare was a mole who liked to give time to her mate, and, in truth, Chater was not a sociable mole in winter, least of all with librarians, whose texts he was happy to carry from system to system, but whose company he was disinclined to keep. Despite Fieldfare’s best efforts he steered clear of Privet, and Privet, sensing this, kept clear of him.

  She had found some deserted tunnels on the eastern slopes near Fieldfare’s and made them comfortable enough in her austere and simple wa
y. Then, quietly, she had begun to get to know other Duncton moles. Their tradition of acceptance of others, and their willingness to let others be themselves, suited her well, and since she was an unassuming mole and a little reserved, nomole troubled her.

  Occasionally she went down to Barrow Vale with Fieldfare, and stanced down to listen to the chatter and backchat of other moles. From time to time they would try to engage her in conversation, but since she would give little away about her past, and since Duncton moles liked to know such things, she was seen as reserved and, after a time, came to be considered a dull mole with little to say for herself.

  Fieldfare, ever curious about her, tried to find out what she could, but after a time gave up trying, believing that if a mole wanted to say nothing there was good reason for it and another shouldn’t pry.

  Ironically, it was this reticence which first interested Chater in the new mole, for he knew how persistent Duncton moles could be in general (and his mate in particular) about getting information out of others and thought that anymole who could maintain her silence must have something about her.

  “It’s not that I’m not interested, Chater my love, but just that she doesn’t want to talk yet.”

  “Yet? You mean never!”

  “I don’t agree with you there, not I. A female crossed in love will always talk about it in the end, unless they wither up inside.”

  “Ah, it’s unrequited love has brought her here, is it?” he said. “Love my arse! From what I’ve seen of Librarian Privet she looks too withered up for love to me. The passion that’s brought her here, my dear, is texts. Believe me, it gets to them. I heard from that daft Avens that she scribed in Beechenhill and you can bet your life she’s here to research some tedious bloody subject or another, not simply to scribe another text to be copied. Texts breed like rabbits. Never be a stop to them. Not ever.”

  “My dear,” said Fieldfare stoutly, “I will only say that in all my years I have never met a mole I felt more certain was and is heartbroken and thwarted in love as Privet. And you’ve not seen it because you’re so prejudiced against scholars and the rest — except the Master himself of course — that you don’t give them the time of day or believe they can have hearts and feelings like the rest of us. Also, beloved, I can only say that if you had bothered to learn to scribe you wouldn’t be a mere journeymole and forced to wander mole knows where and deprive me of my proper rights to a mate.”