By the weekend, everyone seemed to have forgotten about the dramatic events – everyone except Sylvester, Viola and, Sylvester assumed, Doctor Nettletree. It was as if the people of Foxglove had decided that, if they told themselves there’d never been an intruder, reality would adjust itself until this became the truth.
Sylvester arrived early at the temple for the weekly act of worship and, as always, found himself a seat at the back where he could easily vanish into the shadow of a pillar. Mom, whom he’d, as always, walked here with, sniffed at him as she went up the aisle and very pointedly selected a chair right in the middle of the front row. She knew precisely why he’d chosen such an obscure place to be during the service or, at least, she thought she did. It had been quite a few years since Sylvester had stopped thinking it was hilariously funny to poke out his tongue at High Priest Spurge during the sermon.
Today, Sylvester was in a sour mood. He watched with even more distaste than usual the various slow rites of the ceremony. His thoughts became especially acidic when High Priest Spurge – a lemming who’d taken the art of looking unctuous to a whole new pinnacle – trod solemnly to the front of the altar, from where he usually delivered his sermons. As always, his text concerned the great spirit Lhaeminguas and the glory of being chosen to go on the Exodus.
Sylvester could barely contain his anger as he listened. Ever since childhood he’d known this was all – what was Viola’s word? – twaddle. But now he really knew. He had proof and the authorities in Foxglove chose to sweep this proof under the carpet because it clashed inconveniently with the myths and legends they preferred to believe.
Or did they truly believe in the myths? Maybe they just used the myths as a way of keeping everyone in line. This was a notion that hadn’t occurred to Sylvester before, and he tucked it away at the back of his mind for deeper contemplation later. For the moment he had enough to occupy him just keeping his wrath in check – and it was important that he did so, for Mayor Hairbell had a nasty habit of planting agents in the congregation who were alert for any signs of dissidence.
But the agents couldn’t read his thoughts.
He hoped.
The Great Wet Without End does have an end. Levantes told me that, and he should have known because he’d just come from the far side of it. It’s just a . . . just a very large lake is all it really is. So Lhaeminguas was talking through a hole in his hat about this. So, if he could talk through a hole in his hat about one thing – one such important thing, how many other holes in his hat was he talking through?
High Priest Spurge’s droning eventually came to an end, and everyone shifted in their seats in relief. Just the concluding hymn and the responsorial benediction to go, and then the devout assembly could flee the temple and start tucking into a hefty lunch and copious amounts of apple wine.
The hymn was, Sylvester knew, one of Viola’s favorites, and he imagined he could single out her voice among the hundreds of the congregation.
As the last note tapered off, High Priest Spurge advanced until he was almost nose to nose with the lemmings in the front row. Rearing up on his hind legs, he raised his forepaws high to either side of him. As he spoke each line, the congregration responded as one, obediently echoing his pronouncements.
We are mindless lemmings.
Like all those of virtue,
we have forsworn independent thought,
and have devoted our lives to the following glorious leaders,
as the spirits have commanded,
We thank the Great Lemming Spirit Lhaeminguas,
for having given us leaders so noble and honorable,
as High Priest Spurge and Mayor Hairbell,
who labor for us, and for our children, and for all here in Foxglove.
It is thanks to them and to the Great Lemming Spirit Lhaeminguas that we are such a prosperous and proud community, and so shall remain for ever and ever.
It is our duty,
never to question why,
never to search and spy,
never to try to pry,
or we shall incur the everlasting damnation of the spirits.
For so it is written.
Amen.
High Priest Spurge bowed his head, as if in humility, and this gave the signal to everyone else there that they could finally begin to head for the doors. Sylvester hung back a bit, appalled, as he was after every temple service, by what he had just witnessed. Although he’d mouthed the responses – for fear that one of Hairbell’s agents might notice if his lips were still – he’d been unable to bring himself to actually speak any of them. Whether or not there were any great lemming spirits in the sky was something Sylvester didn’t think he knew enough about to judge, although he thought it exceptionally unlikely. Even if there were, surely that had absolutely nothing to do with the nauseating adulation Spurge demanded the congregation express toward those spirits, toward the town’s sleazy little mayor and even towards the High Priest himself. Yet, no one else in the temple seemed aware of this at all.
Maybe, like me, a lot of them were just mouthing the words, Sylvester told himself, but he didn’t believe it.
He hadn’t even been mouthing the real responses. Face lit by radiant piety, he’d been saying things like, Spurge hasn’t changed his underwear since this time last year.
A childish game, only one rung up the ladder from sticking his tongue out at the High Priest from behind a pillar, but it gave Sylvester much satisfaction.
He’d hoped for a word with Viola, but she was swept off by her family. Sylvester’s mother would spend the rest of the day here in the temple conducting her own private prayers for the husband she had lost. Sylvester was on his own for the afternoon.
Mom had left food out for him at home, but he wasn’t really hungry. He decided to go for a long stroll in hopes the fresh air would blow his mind clear of the gloom that always filled it after he’d attended temple.
It was the perfect day for a stroll: blue sky with streaks of puffy white clouds. On an ordinary day, it would quickly have cheered him – especially once he’d cleared the edge of town and was walking between fields, with the sunshine on his face and the smell of lilac in his nose, but today was different.
What finally distracted his mind from its blank dejection was the discovery by the side of the road of a pair of quill feathers that he could see would make perfect pens. The library was always on the lookout for new quills.
Celadon will be pleased with me, Sylvester thought smugly as he tucked the feathers into his vest pocket.
A few paces further along the road he found another pair, and he added them to his pocket. The four formed a little fence along the top of his pocket that he imagined looked quite decorative.
As he was straightening up for the second time, a movement on the road ahead of him caught his eye.
Lemmings don’t have the most acute vision. Sylvester had to squint against the sunlight as he struggled to make out what had attracted his attention.
Yes, there it was. Someone was coming toward him along the dusty road. Sylvester wasn’t frightened, even after his experiences the other night down by the river. The world was, he knew, a dangerous place, but all the really dangerous bits seemed to be a long way from Foxglove. Round here the worst that was likely to happen to a young lemming was getting stung by a wasp or scalded by a kettle.
Even so, Sylvester was puzzled by the distant figure. This was someone far larger than a lemming but, even as the shape became more distinct as the figure came closer, Sylvester couldn’t identify what type of animal it was. It looked like a fox, he decided, but foxes were reddish-brown and white, while this newcomer’s furry coat was varying shades of gray.
Whatever the creature was, it was limping.
Sylvester walked forward more slowly than before, becoming a little nervous for the first time. He drew his breath, ready to ca
ll out a greeting to the oncoming stranger, but the stranger beat him to it.
“Ahoy there!”
The voice had a foxy rasp. This must be a fox after all, just an unusually colored one. Maybe he came from another part of Sagaria where foxes were gray rather than red.
“Me?” said Sylvester, glancing back over his shoulder and then pointing at his chest.
“Aye, aye, guv’ner,” the fox answered. “I mean, ‘Yes, sir.’ There ain’t no one else on this road but thee and me. And I’m not so sure about thee.”
He laughed at his own weak joke.
“Have you hurt yourself?” said Sylvester, speeding up his stride toward the stranger.
“Hurt? Me?” said the fox. “Oh, the limp, you mean. It’s nothing, not really. I just stuck me foot in a pothole and got me ankle twisted for me pains. ‘For me pains,’ get it?” Again, that high snickering laugh. “But it’ll be fine in a couple of days once I give it some good resting, it will.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure.”
The fox was wearing simple farm clothes that were far too large for him, as if he’d borrowed them in an emergency from a much bigger friend. He’d had to jam his ears into his broad-rimmed straw hat to stop it from sliding around. His furry paws were studded with spiny burdocks. His slanted green eyes held a sadness that belied the forced cheeriness of his speech; those eyes seemed to have seen far too many things they’d rather not have seen.
Now that Sylvester was next to the fox he could smell the musty, moldy odor coming off the larger animal. Or maybe it was just the fox’s clothes that smelled that way?
“Where am I, kind sir?” said the fox.
Sylvester gave a wan chuckle. “You’re in the right place, if names are anything to go by,” he said. “This is Foxglove.”
“Ah, Foxglove. That’s the home of the lemmings,” said the fox, nodding his head wisely. “If I do not be mistaken, young fellow, you’re a lemming yourself. And a fine specimen of the lemming stock, if it not be too forward of me to be making mention of that fact.”
Despite himself, Sylvester felt his chest beginning to swell with pride. It had been a long time since anyone had called him a fine specimen of lemminghood. In fact, it might not ever have happened before.
“The home of the lemmings,” he replied. “Indeed it is. Where are you heading, sir?”
“To the nearest town in this area.”
“Well, you just reached it.”
“I’d been a-guessing that, me friend. It’s lucky for me that it should be so fine a burg as Foxglove, ain’t it?”
Something bristled at the back of Sylvester’s neck, as if in warning, but he ignored it.
“I’m sure the folk of Foxglove will be glad to welcome you, stranger,” he said dutifully, “although” – he cast a doubtful eye over the fox’s form – “I’m not sure we have any beds big enough for you to rest in.” Or doors big enough for you to get through, he added silently. But that’s a problem you can face when you come to it.
“I’m perfectly accustomed to resting myself on the good, soft ground,” said the fox.
He suddenly lurched and grabbed Sylvester’s shoulder.
“Ouch! Beggin’ your pardon, young fellow, but it’s this—” a long string of adjectives followed “—leg of mine. Musta hurt me dratted ankle worse’n I be having thought.”
Sylvester felt his knees beginning to buckle under the larger animal’s weight. “Sorry to hear that,” he puffed.
“Still, it be only a trifle,” said the fox, relaxing his grip a little. “Just a little bit o’ a twisted ankle that be hardly being any tr—ouch! Ouch! Owowowouch!—any trouble at all. I didn’t mean to be a-botherin’ you with me trivial ailments, young Master Lemming. This sheer, stark, nerve-strangling agony is the merest bagatelle, I do be assuring you.”
Again, Sylvester sensed that funny prickling of suspicion at the back of his neck. Again, he ignored it.
“Would you like to see a doctor?”
“Oh, I do be a-sure that’s not being necessary. It’s just a little—aargh! Ooya! Yikes!— twinge or two it be a-giving me, that’s all.”
“It sounds a lot worse than that.”
“Well, maybe. This doctor of yourn, is he being a good one?”
“Doctor Nettletree is the finest doctor in the whole of Foxglove.” In fact, he’s the only doctor in the whole of Foxglove, but there’s no need to cloud the issue by telling this fellow that.
“Then I s’pose I’ll be a-takin’ your advice, young Master Lemming,” said the fox, still leaning heavily on Sylvester’s shoulder. “Might I be imposing on your kindness enough to ask you to take me his way?”
“It’d be no trouble at all,” lied Sylvester gallantly. “I was just out for a walk. I was planning to go by Doc Nettletree’s cottage anyway.”
The fox grinned, showing a lot of teeth. “Then you’re a good person, you are.”
They began making slow progress back towards Foxglove. The stranger’s limp seemed to be getting worse. Sylvester did his best not to pant too loudly from the effort.
“What’s your name?” he said as the main gate of the town came into view.
The fox hesitated a moment before answering. “Fourfeathers it is they call me, young fellow. Robin Fourfeathers, and yourself?”
“Sylvester Lemmington.”
“A fine name, if ever I heard one.”
“What brings you to these parts?”
“I’m looking for a friend of mine, the very best friend a fellow did ever have. We were sailing on the silvery sea when a wave came along and tipped our boat right over, it did. We swam our own two different ways to the shore, and I ain’t not been able to catch up with him since. My bet is he’s a-lookin’ for me as hard as I be a-lookin’ for him, and that’s why we ain’t found each other yet. Leastwise, that’s the way it seems to me. Say, could you have been a-seein’ of him?”
Immediately Sylvester thought of Levantes, but surely that couldn’t be. He’d never heard of a fox and a ferret being friends. Usually the two species were at each other’s throats.
“What does he look like?” said Sylvester, stalling for time to think this through.
“He’s a ferret,” said Fourfeathers, audibly wincing for the umpteenth time as he put his weight on his ankle. “Name of Levantes. Not perhaps the most prepossessing of fellows, he ain’t, but—yaarrooo!”
The fox toppled sideways and fell into the ditch at the side of the road, clutching his leg and howling.
Sylvester had been just about to say that, yes, he’d met the fox’s friend and to break the sorry news, but all thought of this fled from his mind as he gazed down at the writhing, squirming Fourfeathers.
“I could run and fetch Doc Nettletree,” he said hesitantly.
The fox opened his eyes a slit. The green was blurred by tears of pain.
“I’ll be able to walk again in just a moment, young Master Sylvester,” he grunted. “This has happened before. It doesn’t last long, I know.”
It doesn’t sound like any sprained ankle I’ve ever come across, thought Sylvester. It’s something different, something different … and worse.
“How did you truly hurt your leg, Mr. Fourfeathers?” he said once the fox’s breathing seemed to have become a little easier. “That isn’t just an ankle you twisted when you put it in a rut in the road, is it?”
The fox’s mouth made a jagged little line. “Not exactly, no. Here, help me be getting back to my feet again.”
“What really happened?” said Sylvester a moment later, breathing heavily from the exertion of getting Fourfeathers back on to the road again.
“How far do we be from this doctor friend of yours?”
“Far enough for you to answer my question.”
“Persistent little bugger, ain’t thee?”
The fox breathed out heavily through his nostrils, turning things over in his mind. “Well, all right then, I’ll tell. I be being a mite reluctant about it because, well, of me innate modesty.”
“Modesty?” Sylvester tried to keep the incredulity out of his voice.
“Yes. Many people do describe it as a-bein’ my most endearing trait. Anyway, young Sylvester, I would ask you, once I be having told to you my story, just to carry on treating me the way you already are – not as anyone special. Not as a hero.”
“I think I can guarantee that.”
The fox seemed faintly miffed by the promptness of Sylvester’s reply, but carried on nevertheless. “It cannot have been many miles from here—”
“Why’re you lowering your voice like that?”
“To be creating a little atmosphere, youth.”
“Oh.”
“It cannot have been many miles from here that, ahead of me on the road, I espied … a cart.”
Sylvester waited. This seemed a bit of an anticlimax.
The fox, once he’d allowed time for his first, portentous sentence to sink in, continued. “A cart was not being the whole of it. There were also, standing by the side of the road, a mother mole and her diminutive offspring.”
“A mole? We don’t often see them around here.”
“Pray, do not be interrupting. There was being the mother mole, like so, and beside her the infant mole, just so.” Fourfeathers tried to show the relative positioning with his front paws but, discovering that he’d have to unhook his arm from Sylvester’s shoulder, abandoned the idea. “Here” – he bobbed his nose to indicate proximity – “you be having meself, Robin Fourfeathers, walking along in all innocence, minding me own business, in the direction of the molish duo, and there” – he squinted his eyes to give the impression of distance – “you be having the aforementioned cart speeding, hurtling even, toward the mole mother and the mole offspring, and not to mention, moi.”
“‘Moi’?”
“‘Me,’ lad. It be a manner of speaking.”
“Ah.”
“Now, you be a-knowin’ about molish eyesight?”
The Tides of Avarice Page 7
