Free Duncton Tales by William Horwood Page A

we have spoken of, you shall repeat it to nomole, nomole at all. The texts you learned your scrivening from, this mole Shire’s texts …”
    “None knows of them but I, Master. Nomole in all of moledom beyond the Moors where I was raised. Nor of the many scribings with them. They —”
    He raised a paw to silence her.
    “For now I would rather nomole but thee knows what they are, where they are and where they came from. It is well it is so.” His eyes grew suddenly intense and he leaned closer still and said, “This is not the only reason why you have kept your silence, this connection with the Eldrene Wort.”
    “I loved a mole, Master, with all my heart. He …”
    Stour smiled the gentlest smile. “And I once, mole, I too. Life gave me no second chance, and I have lost much thereby. I shall pray, mole, that you have your second chance with the mole you love, and if you do, that you take it with both paws.”
    “That can never be, Master, it is too late. Even if the chance comes, I would not have courage to take it.”
    “No, you might not,” he said matter-of-factly. “ I did not.” Then his voice changed once more; he stanced back and looked severe, and said, “Now, to your work, and be ready, mole, the test I give may be other than either of us can now predict. The Stone’s Light may be in all of this. I pray that it is so!”
    He spoke these extraordinary things quietly and urgently, and with a terrible intensity that held Privet transfixed after he turned from her and was gone into the inner chamber where she had seen the texts. For her part she felt … recognized. Here, in the most powerful position in the greatest Library in moledom, was a mole she sensed was utterly incorruptible. The burden that she bore, and of which until then she had never spoken except so briefly and so strangely to Pumpkin in January, was no longer only hers to bear. Whatever test he set her, however hard it might be, she knew she would seek to achieve it with all her heart. In one short interview Stour had won her loyalty and her trust.
    She turned out through the archway on to the slipway, and hoping that nomole would see her leave, hurried down into the Main Chamber.
    “Well, well, well!” said the nasally voice of Snyde, who appeared from among some shadows by a stack. “The mediaevalist and the Master meet! And what did he wish to speak of, mole?”
    “I … it is … best I speak not of it,” she replied, floundering.
    “Best, is it? Best for whom?”
    He thrust his snout up at her, and peered in the crooked way he had, narrowing his eyes, not liking her.
    Suddenly she smiled — not weakly, but strongly, the smile of one who trusts herself.
    “Why do you look at me like that ?” said Snyde, affronted by her naturalness.
    “I feel that winter is nearly over,” she said, staring him out, “and that spring is come at last.”
    He glanced up at the Master’s gallery, and then at her.
    “Tell me what he spoke to you about,” said Snyde.
    She said nothing and he peered at her unpleasantly, and then turned away, smiling in his turn, but coldly, bitterly.
    From that moment, just as she knew she had found an ally in old Stour, she sensed she had made an enemy of Snyde for life.

    Yet she had been right: winter was nearly done, and spring was in the air. Except for Fieldfare, females she had got to know were suddenly friends no more, but rivals for the males. The system went strange, and difficult, as it often does at mating time, and Privet suffered that loneliness that pupless females, desired by few, often suffer when the world about them is in love, or lust. Only Avens made a pass at her, and when she made plain what her answer was he grew cold and distant. Of all the males she knew only Pumpkin stayed as friendly as he had ever been.
    “Used to be interested in mating and suchlike, and even did it twice, but … I don’t know, it’s a lot of fuss about nothing which takes a mole’s attention from the