The Twyning Read online

  — I am here to bid you a last farewell.

  The only sound to be heard was the lapping of the river as it passed through the hollow.

  — We live in a time of tumult. The victories of the past, that of the great invasion, our mighty journey across the world above, still course through our veins.

  A few of the rats closest to the platform began to chatter in excitement, but a sharp, silent reproof from the king, like a whip-crack in the brain, silenced them.

  — They are as nothing. They are as dust.

  For an instant, King Tzuriel seemed to lose track of what he was saying. Then he raised his weary eyes to the stone ceiling over his head.

  — Above us, there is change. We have information from the Court of Spies that those who have the power to harm us will not hesitate to do so. It is important that we understand that power, that we stare it in the face.

  The king paused now for so long that Quell, the most senior courtier, moved closer, ready to remind his friend and monarch what should be said.

  — I shall name it now, as my last act as king. It is . . . humankind.

  The sharp scent of fear filled the hollow. Had the approach of death turned the king’s mind? It was accepted that the greatest danger that faced the kingdom should be known but never ever named. Giving it a name gave the enemy strength.

  — Humankind. — Tzuriel looked around. — Let us not cower from the word. Too often we think in fear of the evil that struts and stalks the world above. It is, we tell ourselves, the enemy. That is all we think we need to know. It is not. The enemy is . . . human. They fear us. We fear them. Yet, in many ways, we depend upon their kind. They provide us with our food. Their habitations and burial grounds give us shelter. We need them, citizens. Perhaps they need us. If we live our lives, they will one day learn to live theirs.

  The king twitched, as if the pain within him had twisted like a torturer’s blade.

  — Please. — The revelation was growing stronger now. — I address you as a warrior who has seen too much fighting. Live your lives in peace.

  The king paused. Breathing, it seemed, was difficult. He moved forward toward the steps. His legs weak, he almost fell upon the oak raft. No one moved to help him now. Kingship was falling from his shoulders.

  Old and alone, he faced death.

  In the water around the raft, the young warrior rats looked toward Quell. The old courtier, the king’s most faithful friend, cast one final look at Tzuriel, and then turned and limped away. Those who had been holding the raft retreated, letting it go. The king gently drifted away.

  Tzuriel slipped from the raft into the water. Proud to the last, he swam rather than drifted toward the archway, where the river disappeared into the darkness beyond.

  For a few strokes, all that Tzuriel would have heard was the ripple of water, the rasp of his own breath, but then, through the whiteness, came the sound that he had last heard on the day he had become king and his predecessor, Calix, had departed. The kingdom was keening.

  He closed his eyes and swam, allowing the dark water to direct him. It was almost over. He was going home.

  . . . goes on and on.

  For a moment, the doctor looks scared.

  Then, recovering himself, he murmurs, “Interesting,” and scrambles down the bank.

  By the time he has reached the water, the sound has faded into the night.

  I hear a noise coming from the place where the river emerges from under the ground. A movement in the dark water.

  I click my teeth and point.

  A ripple. It is a creature, swimming slowly.

  I hear the doctor whisper, “What the deuce . . . ?”

  It might have been an otter or a dog, but it is a rat. I have come across many rats around the town, but this is the largest I have seen.

  The rat swims toward the doctor. For a moment, it seems to rest its chin on the bank, then hauls itself out of the water.

  On land, it lies down. Its flanks are heaving from the effort.

  The rat is dying.

  It stands unsteadily. Walking stiffly, more like a hedgehog than a rat, it crosses the towpath.

  There is loose earth by the path. It begins to burrow feebly.

  The doctor grips his walking stick more tightly in his right hand.

  Slowly, he approaches the rat.

  . . . and I had been warned of that.

  There would be a sense of loneliness, Alpa had told me, of having been abandoned by someone dearer than a parent. But then, I had also heard, there would be celebration and hope for the future as a new king was proclaimed.

  Here is the truth: I felt not the slightest stirring of joy. It seemed wrong to me, the way the kingdom had deserted our king, left Tzuriel alone to face death.

  In the Great Hollow, attention had returned to the Rock of State. Quell, the revered courtier whose coat was now almost white with age, was explaining how the Court of Governance had debated as to who should succeed Tzuriel, weighing several issues. The candidates. The moment in history. The kingdom and its needs. There was silence in the hollow. It was as if King Tzuriel had never existed, as if only the future mattered. I felt, not for the last time in my life, out of step with other rats.

  What did tradition matter at this moment when a great king was dying alone? How could citizens behave as if Tzuriel had been but a name in the past?

  Across the Great Hollow, there was movement behind the Rock of State. Quell was welcoming forward the kingdom’s most famous warrior to a surge of acclamation. Grizzlard. As he stepped past Quell and onto the Rock of State, I realized that there was to be a revelation.

  Another revelation.

  I was restless. There had been enough revealing. More than enough. What did the court, the Great Hollow, the mighty process of government, matter when my king was facing death?

  I wondered where Tzuriel would be now. Would he have found a place to die, pawed a small cradle of earth in which to await the end? It seemed a cold and lonely way to depart the world.

  As I thought, I noticed something. Along the ledge, above where a small stream issued into the river, a small crack in the brickwork was visible.

  I glanced in the direction of Alpa. My captain’s eyes were fixed on Grizzlard as he started his revelation to the kingdom. I moved backward, slowly down the ledge until the dock of my tail touched the gap in the wall.

  From where I was, I could now see that light from the world above seemed to stab the dark earth beyond the Great Hollow.

  Light is danger, as every rat knows, but something drove me on, backward along the narrow ledge. Afraid that turning would draw attention to me from the rats below, I edged toward the opening, pressing my body against it, feeling the cold brickwork scraping my skin. I pushed harder. Then, when only the front half of my body can have been visible in the hollow, something unexpected happened.

  The earth beneath my hind legs crumbled. Suddenly I was falling downward, my legs scrabbling for purchase on the sides of the narrow gap until, with a splash that would have been heard by many in the Great Hollow, I plunged into the water.

  Surfacing moments later, I found myself gazing back through the low arch under which, not long before, Tzuriel had swum. I saw the river’s course through the hollow, citizens flanking it on each side, so caught up in the occasion that many of them had let their tails hang in the cold water.

  There was no going back. For a young ratling such as myself to be in the river at any time is forbidden; to be there on a day such as this could only mean a one-way visit to the Court of Correction. I felt the tug of the current beneath my belly as it pulled me away from the throng.

  I turned and swam slowly, not knowing where the water would lead.

  I had been swimming for only a minute or two when I saw the source of the light ahead. The river was taking me toward the dangers of the world above.

  I emerged under the brightly shining moon, the mist of my breath skimming the water before me as I swam. There was a ditch
close to where the river issued from its underground course. I scrambled onto the dry land.

  Immediately I felt the trem, stronger than that of a dog or fox. The enemy. Looking upward, I saw two humans, an adult and a younger one, standing on the bank.

  The larger human was carrying a stick in his hand. As I watched, he raised the stick and stood, motionless, just long enough for me to see a sight that has remained scarred in my memory to this day.

  The stick fell, stabbing downward.

  I heard the scream. I was some fifty lengths from the scene, but where I stood in horror an acrid whiff of terror reached my nostrils.

  The small human moved closer and I saw now that he was holding a cage. He reached for the shape held under the cleft stick of the larger man, then lifted a writhing body. It was my king.

  The adult human gave a shout of cruel laughter, said something to the child, and stared into the prison for a while. Then, whistling softly, he began walking away from me, down the path.

  The child followed, the cage containing my king and the ruler of all the rats in the kingdom swinging from his left hand.

  At moments of extreme danger, a deep calm descends upon us. We see what is happening to us as if from afar, yet allow our instincts, the blood memory of thousands of years, to guide us to safety. A rat is never calmer than when alone and facing death.

  It was my body, my history, that sent me hurtling into the darkness of a crack in the bridge wall behind me. I plunged downward away from the dangerous light, along the touch-path, which, worn by the pelts, teeth, and feet of countless generations of citizens, requires no sight or even smell.

  Pausing briefly in a rest, I caught my breath. I seemed to be in the ruins of an old human burial place. Amid the rubble before me, the white of a long leg bone glowed in the darkness.

  To be truthful, the remains of a dead human have no more importance to me than a piece of flint. Alive, you are dangerous. Dead, you are food. When only your bones and teeth remain, your corpse is merely part of the earth.

  I looked downward and wondered, without too much alarm, which direction would lead me back to the Great Hollow. As I waited, I became aware of a distant sensation, not more than a tickle, in the base of my skull.

  Revelation.

  I listened. There was no doubting it; the tones of Grizzlard, low, droning, solemn, and dull, could be heard within my brain. I moved out of the rest, down a passage, and with every length, Grizzlard’s revealing became clearer.

  Following a track along the base of the wall, I reached a crevice through which the smell of life indicated that I had reached an entrance to the Great Hollow. I pushed. The wall was soft. I was pressing against flesh.

  I pushed harder. The body blocking my passage moved slightly to reveal the dark, irritated eyes of a young warrior rat, looking over his muscular shoulder. I knew I had to be brave.

  — I have urgent news.

  The warrior’s response was to turn his back to me.

  I tried again.

  — It is important that I am let through.

  The warrior revealed to another large rat that was beside him. I noticed that their backs were shaking with amusement.

  No ratling in its right mind will press a point when dealing with young warriors. The Court of Warriors is second only to the Court of Correction when it comes to cruelty. Its members pride themselves on neither asking nor responding to questions. They communicate one way to those that annoy them. With their teeth.

  But then, I was not born to be sensible. I nudged the rump once more, and revealed.

  — King Tzuriel has been captured.

  At first it seemed as if even this revelation would not penetrate the warriors’ brains, but after a few seconds, they glanced at one another and shuffled apart, allowing me to move between them.

  — What was that? — one of them asked.

  I stood on my hind legs, peering toward the Rock of State.

  — It’s the king . . . in the world above —

  But, at that moment, attention within the hollow shifted to what was happening before them.

  Grizzlard’s bold, honest, tedious revelation seemed to be drawing to a close.

  — I shall say again what I have said before. In the event of my winning the noble prize of kingship through the support of you, the inhabitants of this great kingdom, I shall be proud, pleased, and honored to continue down the path of peace trodden with such dignity by our great and beloved ruler Tzuriel.

  — To this end — Grizzlard actually raised his right paw toward the congregation — I humbly place my person at the disposal of the kingdom.

  — No.

  There were gasps from several of the rats around me. What was happening? Another revelation, louder and clearer than that of Grizzlard’s, was reaching them.

  It was a female revelation.

  Even I, a ratling unversed in the ways of the kingdom, knew that this was very strange indeed. At any one time, there are never more than two or three does within the inner court. Mothers and sisters enjoy a certain power within the kingdom as captains of some of the courts. Yet they are rarely, if ever, admitted to the Court of Governance. In matters of war and death, it is a basic rat belief that those who have brought life into the world will see less clearly than the bucks who are their husbands or brothers.

  Ahead of me, the crowd pressed closer to the platform where Grizzlard stood, caught in a rare moment of indecision and bewilderment.

  Behind him, there was a movement among the courtiers. Pushing forward, past the bulky figures of those who were in the front row, there emerged a figure who was so small that at first I thought a ratling had found its way into the court.

  It made its way forward with a busy scuttle, as if impatient with the slow, dignified gait with which, traditionally, courtiers would move on a state occasion.

  Slender, tense, female, the rat reached the Rock of State. Then, to a rustle of astonished disapproval, she stepped to the front lip of the platform, in front of Grizzlard, standing between the king-elect and his citizens.

  Attempting to exert his authority, the senior courtier Quell advanced toward the newcomer, towering over her with a glowering revelation.

  — Courtiers are required by convention to introduce themselves before addressing the gathering.

  The newcomer did not offer, nor even humble before the might of Quell. Ignoring him, she gazed toward the back of the Great Hollow.

  — I am Jeniel. But then, many of my friends know that.

  She showed her teeth, and those near the front of the crowd pressed closer to catch her revelation. There was something unusual about this Jeniel that drew them in. Even the most distinguished members of the court were uneasy when communicating to the kingdom; it was as if kingship could only be expressed by a cold and clumsy awkwardness.

  Jeniel was different. She addressed them like someone telling secrets. Although her revelation was as clear as that of Quell or Grizzlard, it was also confiding, gentle.

  — I speak to the friends I know and to those I have yet to meet, to those who know me from the Court of Translation and those who may have heard of me.

  She glanced briefly toward Quell and Grizzlard.

  — I am suggesting that there is a new way forward. My old friend Grizzlard, with all his many words, is unable to understand it. He is sharper with his teeth than with his revelations.

  A rustle of amusement spread through the hollow like the wind in the trees. One or two of the members of the Court of Governance, standing beyond the Rock of State, looked at one another in surprise. Citizens were actually laughing at the rat who would be king.

  Jeniel waited. Then her revelation continued.

  — It has always been a good thing in times of certainty to have experience and strength in a position of power. But now the world is different. There are new perils. It is the moment for change.

  Quell had heard enough. He moved toward her, his bony old body dwarfing hers. For a moment he seemed to b
e about to attack her, but instead he revealed.

  — It is for the court to deliberate these matters.

  Jeniel inclined her head slightly to one side.

  — The court? And what of the people? Many rats, ordinary rats who will fight and work and mother for the kingdom, believe that it is not right to be told from on high who is to be king, who is to live and to die in the kingdom. We are all rats together. We should listen and love one another. We can create a kingdom of the pulse, in which every citizen can share. Power is good, friend Quell, but there is something that is better. Respect for one another will make the kingdom strong. Has Grizzlard truly earned this respect?

  Grizzlard, looking uneasy, remained silent.

  — Perhaps he has. — Jeniel pondered for a moment. — He has fought many battles. But it is we who should decide.

  I felt restless. For me, the strange quarrel that was taking place on the Rock of State seemed meaningless and trivial beside the enormity of what I had just seen.

  King Tzuriel, the stick falling, the scream, the wire door to the cage slamming shut.

  I nudged the warrior rat to my right.

  — We must do something. The king has been captured.

  Something then happened that even now I find truly astonishing. The two young warrior rats glanced at one another and then began to move forward through the crowd. One, then both of them repeated my revelation.

  — King Tzuriel. He has been captured.

  — The king is in danger.

  Rats in front of them seemed to melt away, at first slowly but then accelerating, as if the importance of their message was spreading through the hollow. The three of us moved through the Courts of History, of Prophecy, of Spies, until a single obstacle remained between us and the Rock of State.

  The Twyning.

  — Yes?

  One of the many bodies of the Twyning loomed out of the mass. As it shifted its position, I noticed that the fur between it and its neighbors had been rubbed away, leaving the skin shiny and dark. Its eyes were wide, like that of the most innocent ratling.

  I revealed.