Duncton Quest by William Horwood Page B

full significance of the grike rumours was really understood at Uffington, two travelling moles arrived at the Holy Burrows whose coming was more ominous than could ever have seemed possible at the time.
    According to Spindle’s account, they gave false names on arrival, and the unsuspecting scribemoles, welcoming anymole who might give them information about what was going on in the outside world, accepted them rather too readily. Historians since then have added the fanciful report that the Blowing Stone sounded deep warning notes on their arrival, though Spindle did not remember such a thing. But it might well have done, for those moles that came to Uffington were none other than Weed, agent and adviser to the highest grike leadership; and the female Sleekit, as cunning, scheming and askew a mole as ever lived below ground, or on its surface.
    The two claimed to be on a Stone pilgrimage and to have travelled from a system some way to the north. The Holy Mole saw them and was impressed by them. Weed already had some scribing, though of a crude kind, which he said had been taught in their system more than a generation before by a scribemole of Uffington who had come there and died in it. Yet one or two of the scribemoles were doubtful of them, and Spindle overheard them expressing concern about Weed’s script which had deviations of an unfamiliar and sinister kind which they did not like. What these were Spindle himself could not properly know, not being a scribemole, but he afterwards remembered, when he had to handle some of Weed’s work and his talons ran over it, there was a certain cruelty in the style, a leftward slant, a hint, even, of dark sound.
    Of the two, Weed, as moles later knew him to be, was the dominant. Physically he was not immediately striking, being of average build and having motley fur. His snout curved a little to the left, which gave anymole talking to him the feeling that he was turning all the time. He smiled a lot, and his eyes seemed warm unless a mole could catch them unawares (which was very difficult) and see that when he was not engaged with another mole, and thought he was quite alone, they were as dark and cold as pure flint. A curious thing about him was this: when he ate worms there was not a single sound – not a crunch, not a suck, not a lick. One moment the worm was there, pink and succulent, next thing that worm was gone.
    But the most disconcerting thing about Weed, which all moles who got to know him reported on, was that it was hard, however much a mole might suspect him of evil and duplicity, not to like him. Those eyes, though cold, had intelligence, even humour, and he had a quick wit and winning way and, as fast as another mole might think, Weed gave the impression without saying or doing very much, that he thought faster, and knew more.
    When Weed wanted a mole to talk – and Weed was a mole who positively thrived on information, gossip and rumour – he would say “Yes?” in a way that was difficult, if not quite impossible, not to answer without giving more away.
    “This way here, now that’s the Lower Route, yes?” he might typically have asked – for he had a great desire to know all the routes and ways into and out of the Holy Burrows, which moles more worldly wise than the scribemoles of Medlar’s time might well have recognised as reconnaissance.
    “Yes?”
    Why yes of course it was, that one the side route, and that one the middle lower route and and and... and then, when the poor questioned mole thought he had completely finished and had nothing more to say at all, Weed would wait until the silence got embarrassing and then say, “Ye... es?” and somehow a mole could not help adding more, even things he had forgotten he knew, just to fill up that unbearable silence on the far side of which Weed waited, his eyes so pleasant.
    Sleekit was a different kind of mole and as a female her admission into the Holy Burrows caused some consternation. There were