House of Tribes

by Garry Kilworth

  Skrang shrugged. ‘Neither, really. What did you come here for, anyway?’

  ‘Ancestral voices told me to come. I had to obey their call and leave the Hedgerow. Then I found the House sort of pulled me towards it.’ Pedlar deemed it wise to keep to himself exactly what the voices had said.

  Skrang nodded. ‘Ancestral voices? You must have been chosen for something important. I wonder what? So, now you’re here you might as well make the best of it. You need to find a tribe to take you in. You’re a yellow-neck, like me, so you won’t find it easy to fit in with the house mice. You look a bit too old to begin Deathshead training, but I expect the Bookeater Tribe would take you in. They’re not a prejudiced bunch, though a bit woolly-headed. If you don’t mind a crowd of fuzzy-brains, you might well do all right with the Bookeaters.’

  Pedlar considered this and then said, ‘Can’t I just be on my own, like you are?’

  ‘I’m not on my own, I’m a member of the Deathshead. We’re a semi-religious sect. It would take too long to explain what and why we are, but you wouldn’t survive very long as a solitary mouse. You need the protection of a tribe. The only thing is, the Bookeaters don’t often get cheese.’

  Pedlar shrugged and sighed. ‘I don’t know much about cheese – I seem to remember now that there were myths about it in the Hedgerow – but apart from that… Anyway, the Bookeaters sound as good as any I suppose. Can you speak to them for me?’

  ‘I’ll do better than that. I’ll take you to them,’ said the spiritual warrior. ‘And you don’t need to thank me for it. It’s what I’m trained for, to help other mice. How did you get into the House by the way. Did you pay the gatekeeper?’

  ‘I came through the maze without any food. I had to fight Tunneller.’

  ‘And you won?’ said Skrang, her eyes widening.

  ‘We fought each other to a standstill.’

  ‘Now that is impressive,’ the Deathshead said. ‘Follow me.’

  Skrang led the way along the hall, to a place where there was a knot missing from one of the floorboards. She slipped down this hole, which was partially obscured by the edge of a thick rug, and motioned Pedlar to follow her. Once inside, in the cavity between the cellar ceiling and the ground, Skrang explained the hole to Pedlar.

  ‘That missing knot is known as the Gwenllian Hole, after a priestess of the Bookeater Tribe. Throughout the House there are mouse holes named after dead mice, some of them secret, some of them for public use. All rooms have one single passage leading to Tunneller’s maze, in case of emergencies. The Gwenllian Hole is public too, anyone can use it, and it will get us to the library eventually.’

  ‘The library?’

  ‘A place full of books, where the Bookeater Tribe hold sway.’

  ‘I don’t know what books are, but I suppose I’ll soon find out. What about the Savage Tribe? Are they nearby?’

  Skrang said, ‘Not too far away. They live in the kitchen. They rule the divine never-empty larder.’

  ‘Why are they so feared?’

  ‘Because they’re strong fat warriors. They have to be strong fat warriors to protect their great wealth. And while they have the copious larder, they’ll always have the food to help them become strong fat warriors. It’s self-fulfilling.’ Her voice suddenly softened. ‘Just a moment…’

  Skrang stopped dead, in a place where electrical wiring ran in bunches alongside a beam. Pedlar followed suit and stayed absolutely still, looking at Skrang for some indication as to why she had halted so abruptly. He soon got it. A shadowy figure glided in front of them, along a narrow passageway of flooring timbers, which crossed their own channel. It was big – much bigger than the two mice – and Pedlar felt a chill run down his spine. Then the shape was gone, in amongst the dusty timbers, vanishing in the jungle of beams.

  When he felt it was safe to breathe again, Pedlar said, ‘What was that?’

  ‘That was Kellog,’ replied Skrang, moving on.

  ‘Sorry to be stupid, but who’s Kellog?’ asked Pedlar, feeling that the longer he stayed in the House, the more of its dark secrets arose to trouble him.

  Skrang said, ‘Oh, sorry, I was forgetting you’re new. Kellog is a roof rat. He’s probably on his way to collect tribute from the Savage Tribe. They’re the only ones rich enough to pay him. His nest is in the second attic. The Invisibles – they’re wood mice in the first attic – they have all sorts of trouble with Kellog. You won’t see much of him in the library – he never goes into the rooms – always stays within the walls and between the floors, in case he’s seen by nudniks.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a roof rat,’ said Pedlar, hurrying to keep up with his companion. ‘We used to have common rats and coypus, in the ditches where I lived, but not roof rats.’

  ‘Another name for them is ship rats: they sometimes call themselves that.’

  ‘What’s a ship?’

  ‘I don’t know. You ask a lot of questions, country mouse. I don’t know the answer to everything. From what I’ve been told, a ship is something like a nudnik travelling box, only it goes on water. Don’t ask me why, because I’ve no idea. Ah, here we are at the entrance to the library. Look, I’m going to have to introduce you to the leader of the Bookeaters, then leave you, because my friend I-kucheng will be waking up soon and I want to be around when he does. If he starts wandering I’ll never be able to find him.’

  ‘He sounds a bit senile,’ said Pedlar.

  Skrang stopped and looked at Pedlar, before saying sharply, ‘He’s a fine old mouse, and he knows more than you and I and a dozen other mice put together. There’s nothing wrong with I-kucheng’s mind, believe me. His eyes and ears, yes, but not his brain.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Pedlar apologized. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just making an observation.’

  They came to a vertical area and began to climb after that, using sloping props and struts to ascend the timber-framed cavity wall enclosed on either side by plaster. There seemed to be a vast array of crosspieces, braces and girders to climb, with Skrang navigating through this forest of lumber, until finally they reached an exit hole.

  Instead of going through the hole, Skrang called out.

  ‘Hello there!’

  ‘Who’s that?’ cried a voice. ‘State your name and your business.’

  ‘It’s the guard,’ whispered Skrang to Pedlar. Then she called, ‘It’s Skrang, the Deathshead. I have brought someone to see Frych-the-freckled.’

  ‘Who? Who have you brought? How many?’

  ‘One. A yellow-neck by the name of Pedlar. A mouse from the Outside.’

  There was a grumbling from the sentry, then she said, ‘You’d better come on in then, I suppose.’

  Only then did Skrang go through the hole and Pedlar followed her.

  Pedlar found himself in a very strange country. He was high up, standing on some blocks, looking down into an oak-panelled room with a dusty-topped walnut desk below. In front of the desk was a large creature, half as high as a doorway, with a loose skin. It had white hair on its head and face. It seemed engrossed in one of the oblong blocks. Pedlar had no doubt this was a nudnik. He was a little disappointed in it, and certainly not impressed. The nudnik looked like a great stupid beast. There were mice playing not three limbs length away from where it sat, and it was obvious that they had not been noticed.

  ‘It’s not as big as I expected it to be,’ whispered Pedlar.

  ‘What?’ asked the guard, a house mouse with a disdainful expression on her face.

  ‘The nudnik.’

  Skrang explained. ‘Perhaps it’s because it’s folded up at the moment. That’s how they sit, sort of bent in two places: at the legs and in the middle. When they stand up and walk they’re twice as tall.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Pedlar, not convinced. ‘Still, it’s not as striking as I thought it would be.’

  ‘Can’t pander to your expectations,’ said the guard, sniffing. ‘Fact is, nudniks can be quite aggressive sometimes, if you catch
them in the right mood. I take it you haven’t seen one before?’

  ‘Not as such,’ said Pedlar, still staring at the frumpy-looking creature in its creased skin. ‘This is my first sighting of one, though I’ve heard them, and very recently ran through the legs of one. I didn’t look up because it was expedient not to, at the time. That one looks a bit pale around the head and paws, doesn’t it? I mean, it looks like it’s already dead.’

  ‘No,’ the guard confirmed. ‘It’s alive all right, even though it isn’t moving. Watch – see? See? It moved, ever so slightly. That skin it’s got on its back isn’t its own – they steal them from somewhere. We know they put on stuff made out of sheep’s wool, and some of them wear fox furs – all sorts of other animal coats. Its real skin is that whitey-grey stuff on its face and neck. You get white ones like that, and some of the senior Bookeaters say there are black ones sometimes. Then there are all sorts of shades in between. The size varies a bit too.’

  ‘I’ve heard there’s a shrunk one around, called Headhunter.’

  ‘No, Headhunter’s a juvenile. That’s different again,’ said the guard, knowledgeably. ‘Headhunter will be as big as that one down there, one hour.’

  ‘Heaven forbid,’ muttered Skrang.

  Pedlar lost interest in the nudnik and glanced around the rest of the library, letting his gaze fall briefly on an object below a chair which looked remarkably like a sleeping hound, then let it travel over the whole scene. It was an extraordinary place, full of interesting items.

  There was little furniture, but what there was consisted of highly polished hardwood. Pedlar had learned about furniture from travellers, so he knew the common stuff like chairs and tables, and carpets, curtains and beds, things like that. Some items he did not recognize. There were strange things like giant flowers, sprouting from small tables, which the guard explained were called lamps. They provided artificial light, such as that which had appeared suddenly in the cellar.

  All around the walls, hiding the panels in many instances, were these blocks, just like the one on which Pedlar was standing. The outsides of these blocks were of many different colours, though mostly of sombre hue, and they varied in size a great deal. They smelled musty and leathery. Pedlar could sense the spirits of the forest were amongst them, but in a slow and lugubrious form.

  ‘Books,’ said Skrang and, being asked, ‘That’s why they’re called the Bookeater Tribe. Books are made of paper, thin sheets which taste a bit woody, and these sheets are covered in things like dead insects, all laid out in rows. The nudniks often come in the library to look at the books for some reason. It doesn’t seem to excite them at all, so it’s got nothing to do with sex. And they don’t eat the books, like we do, so it’s nothing to do with food either. They seem to get some sort of mystical benefit from staring at the dead insects on the page. Sometimes you see their lips moving and sounds come out. Quite eerie.’

  Pedlar looked about him in wonder. Everything in the room was covered in a thin layer of dust and there were marks in the dust where mice had run. Even the shaft of sunlight from the smeared window-glass was full of dancing dust motes. It was a quiet place too, the sort of place where a mouse could fall off to sleep.

  A second Bookeater mouse arrived to escort him down from the high place. During their descent the lump under the chair moved and Pedlar was horrified to see that it really was a dog.

  ‘There’s a hound down there,’ he warned the other two.

  The escort looked at him in disdain and Skrang said, ‘He hasn’t been here long.’

  Skrang then explained to Pedlar, ‘That’s Witless, a spaniel. In all the nights he’s been around the House, he’s never managed to catch a single mouse. Insects are more his mark. He’s all right at snapping wasps and flies out of the air, but when it comes to chasing us, he’s hopeless. He doesn’t even bother to try these hours.’

  ‘So I see,’ said Pedlar, as below them a mouse sauntered past the floppy-looking dog, with hardly a glance towards it.

  When they were halfway down the shelves of books, they dropped down between the wallpaper and the back of a row of thick volumes. It was this space, between the books and the walls, that the tribe used as their hidden territory. There were droppings everywhere. Out in the wild Pedlar was used to having some droppings near his nest, but this place was covered with them. He also passed several nests, made of paper, in which mothers were suckling their young. On the whole, the Bookeater Tribe looked a thin, emaciated bunch, and Pedlar wondered whether this was really the right home for him. He wondered, too, whether these Bookeaters were the ‘many’ referred to in the dream message from his ancestors.

  Finally, they came to another nest where a female was feeding her young ones. Skrang introduced the mother to Pedlar.

  ‘This is Frych-the-freckled,’ said Skrang, ‘leader of the Bookeater Tribe, and one of the most feared mice in the House. Even Gorm-the-old is scared of her.’

  The mother twitched her whiskers and stared at Pedlar without speaking. She seemed to float on a boiling mass of pink bodies, squirming beneath and around her. She seemed unperturbed by their strugglings, moving this way and that to let them get at her milk.

  ‘I’ve heard of you,’ said Pedlar, excitedly. ‘My mother told me about Frych-the-freckled. Aren’t you a famous sorceress or something? You must be ancient.’

  Frych, Skrang explained, was a highly respected witch as her mother and grandmother had been before her. Their sorcery was legendary. They had terrible magic at their clawtips.

  ‘Who is this yellow-neck?’ said Frych. ‘Give me his name that I may know the secrets of his heart.’

  The enchantress looked down on Pedlar with piercing eyes. Pedlar shuddered, noting that Frych’s head-fur was covered in whitish spots, the residue of some conquered disease, and this probably accounted for the additional part of her name. He was impressed by her presence, her charisma. He didn’t doubt she could turn him into a gnat with a flick of her tail.

  ‘My name is Pedlar,’ he croaked.

  ‘Ped-lar,’ she seemed to savour the syllables, rolling them around in her mouth as if she meant to swallow them immediately afterwards. ‘A strange name – a Hedgerow name.’

  ‘Yes, yes. That’s where I come from.’

  ‘Pedlar,’ she said slowly, staring deep into his eyes and nodding her head. ‘You are bound for greatness.’

  ‘That’s what my mother said,’ cried Pedlar, ‘when the cockchafer flapped its wings over me.’

  ‘Ah, the crispy cockchafer’s wings?’ said the visionary. ‘Then you are surely ordained for some mighty achievement.’

  ‘Frych,’ said Skrang, interrupting this exchange, ‘I can’t stay long, because I have to get back to I-kucheng. Pedlar’s from the Outside and as you can see by his yellow collar he’s one of my own species, but he wants to live with your tribe. He fought Tunneller to a standstill. Can you take him in?’

  Frych shifted a little to allow her six offspring to get a better grip on her, then turned to Pedlar with narrowed eyes.

  ‘You bested Tunneller?’

  Pedlar was beginning to wish he had laid Tunneller out cold. It would have saved a lot of explanations.

  ‘Not bested, just equalled.’

  ‘Well, that’s enough, isn’t it? A hero’s a hero. If you walk away from Tunneller with all your parts still attached, you must indubitably be a hero. Welcome, Apodemus flavicollis to the humble residential halls of the Mus musculus, the mice amongst the tomes. You have the appearance of a robust and zealous warrior. Such creatures as you, displaying the banner of friendship, are eternally desirable and I offer salutations with agreeable zest.’

  ‘What?’ said Pedlar, blinking.

  Skrang whispered aside, ‘It’s the books she eats. Fills her with these long words. Doesn’t know what half of them mean, herself. All the Bookeater elders are the same. Basically, she likes you and wants you to stay.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Pedlar, wondering in panic whether he was going t
o have to make a reply in the same vein. ‘Er, a great many thank yous, Frych-the-freckled.’

  ‘You are most exceptionally acceptable – such aristocratic address and manners. Skrang, deposit the flavicollis with us and ascend the shelves. Our felicitations to your friend, the estimable I-kucheng.’

  After which, Skrang said goodbye to Pedlar and left him with the Bookeater Tribe.

  First, Pedlar found a place to sleep out the day, behind some books bound in hide. He was very weary from his journeys and adventures. The smell of the books reminded him of cows.

  Later, when he woke, Pedlar began by getting to know his environment. He ran around the backs of the shelves, noting escape holes and retreats, just in case they became necessary. He met a great many mice, some of whom spoke in the same lofty tones as Frych-the-freckled, though the younger mice were less pedantic.

  There was Gruffydd Greentooth, Owain, Mefyn, Hywel-the-bad, Ethil-the-bald, Rhodri, Marredud, Nesta, Cad-wallon and a dozen or so others. The two he took to instantly were Ethil-the-bald and Rhodri, two mice about his own age, not yet walking around with their mouths full of pretentious words, though they did come out with the occasional longy which often stunned themselves as much as it did the listeners.

  That hour Pedlar had his first taste of a book.

  ‘Which ones are the best to nibble at?’ he asked Ethil and Rhodri.

  ‘Well,’ replied Ethil, ‘the old ones are obviously softer and easier to masticate – sorry, to chew – but the newer ones have more goodness in them. It’s up to you. If you’ve got a good strong mandible, then I’d go for the new books.’

  ‘Show me where,’ he said.

  ‘This way,’ Rhodri said. ‘Glossy or plain?’

  ‘Plain I think, to start with,’ replied Pedlar. ‘Maybe I’ll try glossy later.’

  Thus he was led to a shelf where the books smelled of fresh printer’s ink and crisp paper. He began to nibble at the pages with some suspicion, but after a while found that they were quite palatable. True, it was not a wholly satisfying meal, but it was as good as chewing on seeds. It filled his stomach and took away the hunger that pinched him inside.