Duncton Rising by William Horwood Page A

about how to dispose of dubious texts could wait until he got back.
    The aides stared unblinking at him and said nothing.
    “So,” said Snyde uneasily, “we understand each other then!”
    “May your journey be a safe one,” said Fetter coldly.
    That done, Snyde and Brother Chervil, with guards to watch over them on the way, finally set off down the southeast slopes towards the cross-under that leads moles all ways from the system. Snyde did not even look back for a second as they passed under it, and out of sight of the Wood up beyond the pasture slopes. But Chervil paused, and looked back for a time on the system that had been his home in exile for so long. He said not a word, and the guards gathered respectfully round him while they waited.
    “Duncton Wood,” he whispered at last, and from the way he said it a mole whose mind was open to such things, and knew well the ways of the Stone, might have thought Chervil was being rather more than merely wistful, and uttering two words that spoke of a liberty he had tasted for a time, had never known before, and now began to understand he might regret losing. A cold wind blew through the concrete tunnel of the cross-under and parted the fur on his haunches and back. For a moment he noticed it not, but saw only how the light of the winter sun, lost behind mists and November gloom for so many days, now broke through and caught the pale trunks of the leafless beeches of the High Wood. They seemed to shine and shimmer with the colours of life itself. Where he came from, to where he was now returning, leafless trees never seemed to shine as they shone here and now in Duncton Wood.
    “We go!” he said sharply, turning and following Snyde out through the cross-under, and passing him without a word to take the lead as the guards hurried to keep up with him.
    “Do we really need so many guards as this?” asked Snyde irritably of one of them. He had never travelled out of the system, and on the rare occasions he had imagined doing so he had thought he might be able to see the scenery without seeing what seemed a crowd of moles at the same time.
    “There’s trouble in moledom,” said the guard heavily, “and we can’t risk harm coming to this particular brother. The moles in the north are causing what the Senior Brother has called “difficulties”.”
    “Ah, yes...” said Snyde, who had no idea what the mole was talking about, but realized that he would not be likely to get more information if they saw he was ill-informed, and also that he had better make it his task to become informed as quickly as possible. “I have heard something of this...”
    “What have you heard. Brother?” asked the guard.
    “That the recusants need to be brought into line,” he said smoothly.
    The guard was suitably impressed by the unusual word but he in turn did not wish Snyde to know he had not fully understood.
    “Yeh...” he agreed.
    It was just the kind of conversation Snyde enjoyed and was good at. “Tell me, Brother, what’s the latest?” he asked confidentially. “We have had our snouts rather too firmly into library matters these days past.”
    The guard was glad to talk.
    “Well, all I know is that our brothers are well on the track of the rebel Rooster, who as you know has proved elusive and troublesome until now. What’s more...”
    The mole rambled on obligingly and told much that Snyde did not know. He listened with interest, remembering all that was said, and only at the end, reviewing what he had heard, did a thought occur to him, and fill him with sudden alarm and apprehension. For the guards kept darting astonishingly respectful looks at Chervil, and fell over themselves to be obliging when he wanted anything. All of which seemed in excess of what might be due to a mole who had been merely the Senior Brother in a cell of Newborns in Duncton Wood.
    It was then that with a start Snyde remembered that the guard had said, “We can’t risk harm coming to this