House of Tribes

by Garry Kilworth

  Little Prince could see out of the window from his cage. He stared down into the garden, observing the comings and goings of the creatures who inhabited it. Last night he had seen two mice tightrope-walking along the washing line. They were obviously visiting the abandoned treehouse. Little Prince knew the ancient mouse called Ulug Beg lived in the treehouse – it was amazing the amount of information tortured mice spewed out – and Ulug Beg was an old sage who had eaten the Book of Knowledge and knew everything.

  Ulug Beg was something else to Little Prince, too, something of which the rest of the mice in the House were completely unaware. It was a secret between Little Prince and the gods, and Little Prince wondered if even the gods still remembered it.

  The important thing was, however, that mice only visited Ulug Beg when they had something serious to ask of the ancient creature.

  ‘What we need to do,’ murmured Little Prince, ‘is get a mouse now, so that we can torture the sweet thing.’

  What usually happened was that his master started doing things to the mouse, with needles and boiling water and bunsen-burner flames, and the mouse would puke in terror before shouting everything it had ever learned in an effort to save its life. In their agony the victims somehow got the mistaken idea that if they gave Little Prince the information he wanted, Little Prince could stop the torture. Little Prince encouraged this idea, for he learned all their secrets this way.

  ‘The difficulty, once the secret is learned, is imparting what I know to this stupid nudnik,’ murmured Little Prince to himself. ‘He has the brain of a cow.’

  Little Prince, like most mice, believed that the larger the creature, the smaller its brain. An ant was one of the most intelligent creatures on the planet, though it was despised for its obsessive nature and its manic work ethic. Mice were happy with their allocation of brains and considered all larger creatures to be dunces of varying degrees.

  ‘Then the sweet little sugars came back again,’ mused Little Prince, staring at the washing line. ‘Then they came back again but without the Ulug Beg creature with its nasty smelly crinkled coat. Perhaps Ulug Beg is dead? All mice have to die some time. Perhaps she’s just a pile of dust by now.’

  Little Prince had seen Ulug Beg in the past, crossing the washing line with a mouse that had obviously been sent to fetch him. Previous to last night, there had always been only one mouse acting as messenger and guide to the antique sage. Yet last night there were two mice. Little Prince had recognized one of them. It was the one who got away! Never had a mouse escaped the Headhunter before that yellow-neck, Pedlar, had slipped out of his clutches. Master had been plenty mad. He had almost cooked Little Prince in the steaming broth in his rage. Little Prince had almost been boiled alive because of that Pedlar creature!

  Now the yellow-neck was into some intrigue, some conspiracy, which involved all the mice in the household.

  ‘I hate that yellow-neck with his sweet-honey face,’ said Little Prince in a pleasant tone. ‘I want his eyes to melt in my mouth. I want to lick his liver. I want to crack his gonads between my teeth. He will be my confectionery…’

  The cage was rattled again and Little Prince realized he was talking too loud. It was that yellow-neck which did it to him. Pedlar was always getting Little Prince into trouble. Pedlar was a thorn in Little Prince’s paw. Pedlar kept Little Prince awake at night, having to plot and scheme uselessly.

  ‘I bet his tears taste like nectar,’ murmured Little Prince. ‘I bet his blood is molten sugar. I’ll make him weep before me. I’ll make him bleed.’

  Little Prince worked this refrain up into a tune which he hummed to himself until he saw the Headhunter give him one of those looks.

  CAMBOZOLA

  ‘WE MUST CONJURE PHANTOMS, APPARITIONS, spectres and wraiths from the very extremities of the supernatural world,’ cried Frych-the-freckled. This ghost business was right up her alley. ‘I personally will endeavour to devour any volume in the library which has the appearance of being a work containing information on ectoplasmic radiances or phantasmic disturbances. The very walls of the House must reek with hauntings.’

  At times she would get so excited by the prospect of calling forth the spirits of the night, that she would leap to her feet and rush to a book with her young still clinging and dangling from her teats.

  Gorm’s lot saw the thing happening in a very practical way, with mice making ghostly noises, but keeping out of sight. They were going for what Frych would have called ‘the poltergeist effect’. The first of these efforts was extremely successful and involved a mouse running the full length of the Welsh dresser’s top shelf, while a nudnik was close by, and knocking down every plate displayed on that particular shelf. Since the dishes were balanced on the slant, their bottom edges resting in a groove, they were easily dislodged. They dropped and shattered, bounced and broke, all around the dismayed nudnik.

  It was evident to the hidden mice watching that the nudnik was puzzled as to the reason for the phenomena, because it stood there and scratched its head, staring at the devastation. Other nudniks arrived and chittered and chattered, throwing up their hands, walking amongst the broken crockery. While this was going on, a saucepan was pushed from another shelf, behind the nudniks, and fell to the tiles with a loud clatter. Again, the chittering in alarm and the walking around. A broom was then sent toppling over like a felled tree, to crash on the floor behind the nudniks, and cause them further consternation.

  After this, the mice retreated, in case one of them was seen and the cause of the disturbance identified. Nudniks were stupid creatures, but they still had some brains.

  In the library, the Bookeater Tribe had great success with Witless, the senile spaniel. They rushed out, nipped him on the tail, and rushed back to a cranny again. Witless then started shouting obscenities at the corner of the library, where unseen mice were sniggering, causing the old nudnik with Witless to stare at the empty space at which its dog was barking. Once or twice, the nudnik unfolded itself and got up from the desk, to walk to an area of the room and peer with a puzzled expression at… nothing.

  Finally, the white-haired old creature unfolded itself for the last time and left the library, throwing a worried glance around the room. As it did so, several mice heaved a book off the shelf, sending it crashing to the floor. On the cover of the book was a picture of a nudnik skeleton, grinning skull and all. Witless lolloped across the room, grabbed the book in his teeth, and with wagging tail presented it to his master. The old nudnik’s eyes started from its head when it removed the book from the dog’s jaws. It took the volume with it and quickly closed the door.

  The heroine of the hour, amongst the Invisibles, was Hearallthings, who had the idea of making the Clock strike a peculiar number of times at the wrong hours. Thus when three o’clock arrived, Hearallthings flicked a ratchet twice with her claw and the Great Clock struck five.

  At midnight one night when the nudniks were still up, she even got it to strike thirteen, by leaping on the clapper once the regular chimes were over, and producing an extra very loud DOOOOOOOOOONG that reverberated throughout the House. This had the nudniks rushing from the living-room and staring at the Clock with wide and frightened eyes. While they were standing there, Hearallthings stepped on a rachet and made the hands go whizzing round on the face. Then she trod again on the chimer lever and the Clock chimed another five times. Finally, for good measure, she jumped on the release mechanism and the Clock unwound itself with a rattling groan and then was still.

  There was great unease amongst the nudniks after that. Lights were left on, on the landing and in the hallway. The Headhunter had his light on all night. The mice were particularly pleased to find that the Headhunter was scared of ghosts. It was the cause of much satisfaction amongst them. Thus encouraged, during the night Fallingoffthings swung on the chain that hung from the cistern in the second toilet, making it rattle and clang against the metal pipes for at least an hour.

  The mice considered it significant that no nu
dnik came to investigate the cause.

  SHROPSHIRE BLUE

  As the hours passed, the mice became more and more inventive at producing strange noises. Since most of the nudniks in the House were hard of hearing, the noises had to be reasonably loud. Scratching and scraping within the wainscot proved to be a useless exercise. It had to be a full-blown bang or clump, or a series of startling sounds, to grab nudnik attention. The Headhunter of course heard everything, but the Headhunter had little power amongst the nudniks. Terrifying as he was to the mice, he was all but ignored by his own kind.

  Hywel-the-bad found that if he clung to the knob on the wireless set, and swayed around enough, the device would switch itself on. He was delighted to find that if it sent forth its incomprehensible blather when no nudnik was in the parlour, the great beasts would come running and stare at the gadget as if it were alive. It was especially rewarding when he managed to switch it back on again immediately after they had turned it off. They shrank from the apparatus with pale faces, sometimes making whimpering noises to each other.

  Thorkils Threelegs had not earned a reputation for high intellectual powers during his time in the world, but it was he who discovered that visual arrangements could be just as frightening as strange sounds to the nudniks. One morning there were four letters delivered to the House. Before the nudniks discovered these missives Thorkils had arranged them in a neat row of white rectangles on the hall mat. Gripping each letter by a corner with his teeth, Thorkils dragged the envelopes around until they were as straight as a line of cups on a kitchen shelf. The old nudnik who found them stared first at the letters, then at the letter box, then back at the letters again. Finally it let out a piercing shriek.

  Apparently the nudniks didn’t like untidy piles sorting themselves out into orderly rows.

  ‘It seems we’re winning,’ Pedlar said to Treadlightly, in their nest in the attic one hour. ‘The nudniks are nervous and ready to bolt. You can tell. The air is full of tension and worry. We’ll soon have the House to ourselves.’

  ‘I sometimes wonder if that’s going to be a good thing,’ said Treadlightly, with a little frown.

  Pedlar, who had never experienced anything as exciting as the Great Nudnik Drive, wanted Treadlightly to be as enthusiastic as he was about the whole thing.

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, I’m concerned about Astrid’s warning.’

  Pedlar nodded. ‘No-one has greater respect for Astrid than I have,’ said Pedlar, ‘despite what they’re saying about her and Iban, but even oracles are wrong sometimes…’

  ‘What?’ cried Treadlightly, suddenly fully awake. ‘What about Astrid and Iban?’

  Treadlightly had instantly gone high-nose and had knocked her head on the beam that formed the roof of their nest. She seemed not to mind this. Incredibly it was the gossip she was interested in, rather than discussions about the Great Nudnik Drive.

  Pedlar looked at his mate quizzically. She was an adorable mouse and quite irreplaceable in his life, but sometimes he wondered about her level of gravity. He was a bit of a snob about such things. He liked to think they were both a bit above tittle-tattle. In the Hedgerow there had been no time for such decadence as unfounded rumours and he found it difficult to accept the readiness with which mice in the House received idle talk and passed it on. They seemed genuinely excited about such things and his own dear Treadlightly was no exception.

  ‘Tell me, tell me, tell me!’ his mate was squealing.

  Pedlar saw there was no possibility of keeping the information to himself.

  ‘Well, as you know, Iban and Astrid have been, well, seeing each other for some time now, behind Gorm’s back…’

  ‘Oh, go on, go on,’ urged Treadlightly.

  Pedlar sighed. ‘Some does amongst the library mice discovered what was going on and threatened Iban with exposure if he didn’t…’

  ‘Didn’t what?’

  ‘Didn’t do the same for them.’

  Treadlightly’s eyes went wide and round.

  ‘You mean to say that Iban has been with all those frustrated old biddies from the dusty book shelves?’

  Pedlar went a little stiff and starchy. ‘If you wish to put it that way, yes.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ cried Treadlightly. ‘The poor mouse! And poor Astrid. Does she know?’

  ‘I, er, I don’t think so – she faintly suspects something is wrong but doesn’t actually know – and let me add, I don’t think we ought to tell her.’

  ‘He’s a silly old fool!’ snorted Treadlightly. ‘If he had any sense he would renounce his celibate Deathshead status, face up to Gorm, and take Astrid into his nest. That’s what any sensible buck would do, isn’t it?’

  ‘But they’re not like ordinary mice, those two,’ explained Pedlar. ‘I mean, one talks to Shadows and sees visions, and the other follows a god of Darkness and Ignorance, and fails in his faith with every small step he takes. They’re just not commonplace rodents, like you and me.’

  She nuzzled up to him and licked his whiskers. ‘You’re not commonplace. You’re an extraordinary mouse,’ she whispered into his mousey ear.

  The practical Pedlar, not at all displeased by her show of fondness, protested, ‘Actually, I’m pretty ordinary you know.’

  She nuzzled into his warm coat once again. ‘Not at all ordinary,’ she whispered, nipping the furry bit behind his cheek.

  LEICESTER

  It was while Pedlar and Treadlightly were snuggling up together that the main heroine of the Great Nudnik Drive emerged. Quite by accident she discovered the instrument that was to effect the final retreat of the useless creatures from the House. The Great Clock in the hall had just struck 3 a.m. Hearallthings had been resting inside it, waiting for the chimes that gave her so much pleasure with their vibrations. She stretched and then made her way out of the rosewood clockcase, to the hall below. There she paused and drank in the atmosphere of the small hours. All the nudniks were in bed, asleep, and most mice were up and about.

  Hearallthings was of course an Invisible, despite the fact that she spent much of her time in the hall Clock, and so she began to make her way towards the Gwenllian Hole, intending to use the mouse passageways to reach the attic. However, before she could enter the safety of the hole, Spitz appeared on the stairs. She smelled him and turned to run. He either saw or heard her and instantly gave chase.

  Hearallthings dashed along the hallway to the parlour door, which was slightly ajar. She ran through the gap as fast as her legs could carry her and then searched frantically with her eyes for a good hiding place. All the cupboards were shut. Spitz entered the room, the blood-lust evident in his eyes. Hearallthings shot across the centre carpet and under the piano stool. Spitz leapt, hitting the stool and sending it skating across the floor. Hearallthings dashed to the piano pedals and by a miracle managed to squeeze between the left pedal and the frame, finding herself inside the instrument.

  She scrambled up the innards of the piano, until she found herself amongst the felt-covered hammers. There in her agitation, she ran up and down, causing the hammers to strike the wires. Gradually the vibrations they caused had a calming effect on the mouse and she slowed her pace along the hammers. She could not hear the sounds she was making of course, but she felt them, and they were almost as good as the chimes in the Clock.

  When she had regained her composure, Hearallthings scampered up to peep over the edge of the piano at the point where its lid was raised. She wanted to see if she could catch a glimpse of Spitz. Like all mice, her eyesight was not good, but she hoped she might be able to notice movement in the moonlit room.

  What she saw astounded her.

  The room outside the piano was bathed in light. Standing in a semicircle around the piano were all the nudniks, their mouths agape, their eyes starting from their heads. They clutched each other, looking absolutely terrified. They stared at the piano as if it were a live thing, ready to jump on them and swallow them all whole. The piano app
eared to be a monster which threatened their existence.

  It was then she realized what she had done.

  She had created sound without a nudnik sitting at the piano keys. The mice in the House all knew that the piano sent forth sounds – sometimes excruciating sounds, especially when the Headhunter was sitting on the stool and smashing his chubby fingers down on the keyboard – but only ever with a nudnik plonking the white and black oblongs.

  Now Hearallthings had found a way of producing those sounds without a nudnik. No wonder they were scared. Perhaps they thought the piano was playing itself? Or even, that a ghost was pressing the keys? Hearallthings was delighted. She ran back to the hammers and bounced along them, full of glee. She leapt from minor heights, down on to the deep vibrant notes. She trickled her feet up and down the tinkly ones. She plonked along the middle in Treadlightly style. The tremors went through her body, filling her with a feeling of well-being. This was her great contribution to the cause – greater even than the thirteen chimes on the midnight hour – and she was going to enjoy it, safe from the cats in her piano fortress.

  The other mice in the House all heard the piano playing itself, and though the sound was not a tune, it was not discordant either. There was a faint melodic touch in the way the notes ran together. It was as if someone were searching for a song, but couldn’t quite find it. When they learned it was a mouse who had produced the running sequences of notes, they were all most impressed. Gorm was heard to remark that Hearallthings was superior even to him in her ability to create pleasant sounds, which caused one or two whiskers to twitch. No one had ever heard Gorm utter praise of this kind, especially when it was to the detriment of his own skills.