House of Tribes

by Garry Kilworth

  ‘That can still be arranged,’ said Pedlar. ‘I’ll go and fetch Whispersoft.’

  He pretended to go to the exit hole, but Little Prince cried, ‘Yes, you would, wouldn’t you? You’ve always hated me!’ He whined, ‘Nobody knows how unhappy I am…’

  ‘You’ll be dead unhappy, in a moment,’ muttered Treadlightly. ‘Come here, Pedlar. Eat some more of the apple before this greedy-guts scoffs the lot.’

  But at that moment there was a caller at the door. It was a lean and haggard-looking Ulf, son-of-Gorm. The leader of the youthful rebels did not even pause in the entrance, but just blundered in. He sat high-nose on the threshold, making the light within dim.

  ‘Hope I’m not interrupting?’ he said, his voice sounding shallow and wasted.

  Little Prince melted into the shadows at the back of the nest. He was still in the same filthy state he had acquired when they first entered the attic. His little red-rimmed eyes were possibly the only feature which might give him away. Certainly he was thinner, his cheeks hollow, his ribs like the ripples on the surface of the water tank.

  ‘No, no,’ replied Pedlar, his heart racing a little. ‘Not at all, Ulf. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I just wondered if you might tell me where you found the apple, on the off chance there might be another one. I’ve searched high and low for food tonight and Drenchie’s done the same. We haven’t a crumb between us.’

  ‘Sure – look, if you take a northerly direction from the privy, you’ll come to the garden wall. There’s a crab-apple tree overhanging the wall, from the spinney beyond. If you sort of scrabble around at the base of the wall—’

  ‘Hello,’ cried Ulf. ‘Who’s that in the back of your nest – I don’t know you, do I?’

  Little Prince crouched low-nose in the shadows and was silent. Treadlightly said nothing. Pedlar wanted to say something, but the words stuck in his throat. Ulf remained speechless too, apparently waiting for the mouse at the back of the nest to say something. Time dragged on for several long moments. Finally when the quiet became unbearable Little Prince edged forward a fraction, went half high-nose. Pedlar swallowed hard and closed his eyes.

  Then he heard Little Prince say incomprehensibly, ‘Konnichi wa! Goschiso-sama deshta, totemo oish-kat-ta dess. Chiz-keki, mmmmmmm!’

  ‘Pardon?’ said Ulf, blinking.

  ‘Hajime-mashte, dozo yoroshku!’ cried Little Prince, and added a little chuckle at the end, as if he was appreciating some joke that Ulf had just told him.

  Ulf frowned and turned to Pedlar.

  ‘Who is this? What’s he saying? That’s Canidae language, isn’t it? The language of the dogs and foxes?’

  ‘Ah, yeeees,’ murmured Pedlar. ‘He appeared to be lost, so we took him in. I – er – found him in the garden. From what I can gather he was – ah – trapped in one of those crates the furniture was packed in, when the nudniks came to collect it all. Must have been a crate from a far-off place! Doesn’t speak a word of Rondentae, poor fellow. Reason being, near as I can fathom, he was – er – he ate some strange books.’

  Ulf was peering into the dimness at the back of the nest. ‘Must have been strange to make him forget his mother tongue!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pedlar, warming to his subject. ‘He’s even got a canid name. Eh-he, he calls himself.’

  Ulf turned to Little Prince. ‘Er – sugoi!’ He turned back to Pedlar, ‘Only dog word I know,’ he confessed. ‘It means welcome or good, or something.’

  ‘At-chi e it-te, Shukurim,’ cried Little Prince, as if delighted.

  Ulf continued to stare at the mouse in the back. ‘Funny-looking fellow, isn’t he? What’s the matter with his coat?’

  ‘He’s got – er – scurvy,’ said Pedlar. ‘Lack of vegetables and fruit while he was in the crate. It discolours one’s pelt, you know.’

  Ulf seemed reluctant to leave. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better get off. See if I can find one of those crab apples, before I get scurvy too. I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Sayonara!’ sang Little Prince.

  Once he had gone, Treadlightly turned to the two males.

  ‘Between you, you’ve managed to make up a story that will have every mouse in the House around here within the hour! Are you bonkers, or what? Couldn’t you at least have made up a plain tale which would bore the skin off everyone? Instead, we have the most exotic episode since a water vole wandered in here from the well outside and told everyone she was a pygmy coypu.’

  Little Prince said, ‘Don’t be angry with Little Prince – he panicked.’

  ‘What did all that mean anyway?’ asked Pedlar. ‘All that mumbo jumbo? Was it really Canidae?’

  ‘I learned it from Witless,’ said Little Prince proudly, ‘before he went doolally in his old age. When Ulf said, “Welcome”, I said, “Get lost, cream puff!” ’

  ‘You didn’t?’ cried Pedlar, delighted.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ crowed Little Prince.

  Treadlightly interrupted them, ‘You say you knew Witless when he wasn’t senile. How old are you then?’

  ‘Little Prince is one thousand and twenty-five nights old next birthnight.’

  ‘Over a thousand nights old?’ cried Pedlar. ‘Surely that’s not possible, mice only live for five hundred nights – six hundred at the most. You don’t look even that.’

  ‘Tame mice live longer than wild ones,’ said Little Prince proudly. ‘You rough wild creatures all die like mayflies. Tame mice have been known to live two and a half thousand nights. Why, look at Ulug Beg…’

  ‘Ulug Beg is a tame mouse?’ cried Treadlightly, amazed at these revelations.

  ‘Ulug Beg is my mother,’ murmured Little Prince.

  There was stunned silence in the nest for a moment, before Treadlightly and Pedlar recovered.

  ‘I thought he – she – I thought Ulug Beg was a buck?’ said Pedlar.

  ‘She likes a little mystery,’ replied Little Prince. ‘My mother escaped some one and half thousand nights ago.’

  Pedlar said, ‘But he’s – she’s not white like you. She’s a sort of dark-dirty-grey mottled colour.’

  ‘So am I at the moment,’ murmured Little Prince.

  This took only a few moments to sink in and then Pedlar twitched his whiskers and flicked his tail.

  ‘I see what you mean. She’s become permanently filthy and stained from being out in the open, amongst the dirty leaves, for so long. This is some eye-opener, Little Prince, I hope you’re not lying.’

  Little Prince looked shocked.

  Treadlightly said, ‘I suggest we keep this to ourselves. Gorm would have a fit if he knew he had taken advice from a tame female mouse!’

  ‘I agree,’ said Pedlar. ‘Ulug Beg – herself – wouldn’t want it spread around the House. She prefers to be thought of as some mythical creature older than the Ancient of Days. I suggest we honour her desire to leave the truth undisclosed.’

  ‘Lovely speech,’ murmured Little Prince, returning to the back of the nest where he curled up and fell asleep.

  Pedlar felt that ever since they had discovered Little Prince abandoned in his cage, something or someone had been nagging at him to keep the white mouse alive. He wondered if it was his ancestral voices trying to reach him again? Trying to convince him that Little Prince had some use, and that use would be needed by the mice one hour? All Pedlar knew was that he had to keep Little Prince from falling into the claws of others.

  Treadlightly, however, warned Pedlar that there would be trouble ahead.

  True enough, within the hour there were half a dozen mice around the nest, enquiring about the ‘stranger’ of whom they had heard. They wanted to meet him but Treadlightly told them there was nothing doing. ‘He’s very ill,’ she told them, ‘with – er – scurvy. We’re not sure that it isn’t catching. We don’t want to start a plague, do we?’

  The crowd’s curiosity seemed to wither after this remark and they hastily shrank away from the entrance to the nest.

  Later, Trea
dlightly regretted starting the story about the plague, because the leaders of the tribes called an inter-tribal Allthing and announced that if the stranger had a catching illness, he ought to be cast out, into the wilderness, and probably Pedlar and Treadlightly with him, because they would be bound to have caught it by now. It took all of Pedlar’s oratorical skills to convince the leaders that he and Treadlightly were only being extra cautious, that they were sure the stranger hadn’t got the plague, but it was better to be over-safe than very-sorry.

  This was accepted after a lot of argument, but with reservations. Gorm-the-old ordered that Treadlightly, Pedlar and the stranger Eh-he were not to go anywhere near the young of other mice, until the stranger’s condition had improved.

  ‘And you can keep him away from me too,’ growled Gorm.

  Pedlar confidently assured Gorm that Eh-he would come nowhere near him.

  After the Allthing, tribal curiosity in the stranger died a natural death. Pedlar and Treadlightly’s nest was no longer besieged. They were able to get on with life in peace.

  And a miserable life it was throughout the House. Mice were now reduced to eating chalk and plaster from the walls, glue from the fittings, pieces of matting, sacking and lino, and – when they could find it – old bits of soap from the bathrooms. Food became an obsession, giving rise to strange dreams of animated vegetables, walking chunks of cheese, slithering sausages. There were several deaths, especially amongst the young. It was a time of nightmares, a terrible holocaust. Mice began to lay blame for the catastrophe, but never at the right door. They picked on unpopular mice, rather than Gorm and the other leaders, to berate and attack.

  In the search for scapegoats, there were many instances when even members of the same tribe would accuse one another.

  ‘Why didn’t you stop me,’ roared Gorm to Ketil. ‘Why didn’t you tell me the plan was stupid?’

  ‘It’s all Astrid’s fault,’ Ketil cried in defence. ‘She’s the one who should have stopped you – she knew. We didn’t.’

  Mice were frightened to walk the boards of the House alone, for fear of being attacked by fellow mice.

  Happinessandlight, of the old Invisibles, was scrabbling around Merciful’s hole one night when he was pushed by an unknown assailant. He fell to the ground outside and fortunately landed in a rose bush, escaping serious injury.

  Mefyn and Nesta of the Bookeaters were accused of being cat-worshippers by some of the old Savages.

  ‘We caught them in a corner,’ cried Elfwin, ‘meowing.’

  Gytha Finewhiskers said, ‘It was probably their black magic that caused the larder to become empty. We ought to bite them to death. We ought to—’

  ‘Yes,’ shrieked Highstander, of the old 13-K. ‘They’ve been conjuring up cats disguised as beetles. Have you noticed how the numbers of beetles have increased? That’s because they’re not beetles at all, but cats! Kill the dirty cat-worshippers. Smash them dead!’

  ‘We were only discussing where next to search for food,’ complained Nesta. ‘We weren’t meowing at all.’

  ‘Liars!’ cried the gathered rabble, moving in on them as one.

  ‘Stop!’ pleaded Pedlar, trying to get some order back into the scene. ‘The beetles have increased because there’re no nudniks to keep them down—’

  ‘Hurt him too!’ cried some of the crowd. ‘Hurt the interfering Outsider!’

  It was, surprisingly, the filthy mouse Eh-he, from the nest of Pedlar and Treadlightly, who saved Nesta and Mefyn from being slaughtered by the mob.

  ‘Let those who have never wished to be a cat themselves, take the first bite,’ he called in sweet, clear tones.

  This stopped them. There was not a mouse amongst them who had not, at one time, dreamed of being a cat and ruling the world. All had, in their secret moments, wanted to be big and immensely strong, armed with long fangs and crescent claws.

  ‘I thought you only spoke dog,’ accused Ulf, pointing to Little Prince.

  ‘He does – normally,’ Treadlightly said, stepping in. ‘He has these – these bouts of lucidity when he can remember the rodent language.’

  They all stared at the dirty creature.

  Little Prince stepped forward.

  ‘I have never wished to be a cat,’ he said, ‘so I shall take the first bite.’

  He nipped the two offenders smartly on their rumps. Mefyn and Nesta howled. The mob roared in approval.

  ‘You’ve really never wanted to be a cat?’ cried Ulf, to the mouse he knew as Eh-he.

  ‘Well,’ said Little Prince, cocking his head coyly to one side, ‘only a little cat.’

  There was another roar and mouse began talking to mouse about this strange newcomer and his clever remarks. While this was going on Mefyn and Nesta were encouraged to creep away by Pedlar. Shortly afterwards, Little Prince was hustled back to the half-eaten nest in the attic.

  ‘That was a good thing you did back there,’ said Pedlar to him. ‘You put yourself at risk for others.’

  ‘I must have been crazy,’ Little Prince replied. ‘I was just repeating something from an old parable told to me by my mother Ulug Beg.’

  ‘Crazy – but good,’ said Pedlar, nodding.

  The troubles however, continued. Even leaders did not escape completely. On the night of the full moon there was a riot. It started somewhere in the lean-to woodshed and spread quickly throughout the kitchen and library, then up into the attics. Hollow-eyed mice went on the rampage, destroying nests, attacking anyone who would not join them. Gorm-the-old and Skuli were caught in the open kitchen and had to fight for their lives. Each gave an excellent account of himself, despite vastly superior numbers, and sent one or two rioters away with bleeding wounds.

  Property damage was enormous, there were one or two more deaths, and many mice fled the House for good, including Gorm’s one remaining brother-double, Tostig. Pedlar, Treadlightly and Little Prince were fortunately not in the House at the time of the riot, but searching for crab apples at the end of the garden. They heard about it when they returned to the attic, to find what remained of their nest in tatters. There had been looting and a few bits of their nest material had been stolen. Some sawdust, found in an old stuffed toy and used to cover the floor of the nest, had been eaten in mistake for cereals. Somewhere in the House a mouse was doubled-up with stomach cramps and Pedlar thought it served it right.

  Principal offenders amongst the rioters were the cellar mice, Phart and Flegm, who quickly became the chief inciters to violence and wanton destruction. Their ranting and raving had initially stirred to action the youngsters in the lean-to, and then they had headed the great surge of mice that rolled like a wave throughout the ground floor.

  ‘Kill, maim, torture!’ Phart had screamed. ‘Destroy, loot, rape!’

  Later, Phart was to deny these chants, saying it was someone in the crowd imitating his voice. So the two reprobates got away with it once more.

  The riot had frightened everyone, including the rioters themselves. It showed how normally disciplined ordinary mice could go out of their heads and on the rampage simply because they were starving. When things had cooled down, the majority of the rioters were ashamed of themselves. They viewed the mess they had caused – which included a lot of their own nests too – and were contrite.

  It’ll never happen again, they told each other.

  Pedlar, Treadlightly and Little Prince set about rebuilding their attic nest, with Little Prince moaning about how his muscles ached and how he needed more fuel for his energy banks if he was going to do hard labour for the rest of his natural life.

  The mice thought if they were good the larder would once more be favoured by the gods of cornucopia and their prayers for food answered.

  This was not to be.

  WALNUT CRÉDIOUX

  THE GARDEN REMAINED WHERE IT WAS ONLY BECAUSE winter was approaching. Astrid informed the tribes that once the spring came again, the garden would enter the House. Since her credibility had returned, with the ever-e
mpty larder testifying to her old claims of being a visionary, mice listened to her.

  ‘Nature wishes to reclaim this House, and the House wishes to go back to Nature,’ she said. ‘The process is inevitable. The bricks will crumble, the concrete will crack apart under the terrible force of weeds, and vines will crush the rotting wood. The inside will become the outside, and once the roof blows away in the gales, fieldmice will enter the House and occupy our holes. We are no longer welcome here…’

  ‘No longer welcome?’ said Phart to Flegm. ‘Who would want to be? I need a nice comfy warm House, I do – nudniks and all if it has to be that way. Naychur? You can keep it! We’re civilized house mice, we are – not ruddy primitives.’

  One night Gorm-the-old called an inter-tribal Allthing in the cupboard-under and every mouse was invited, from the smallest and most insignificant, to important mice like Frych-the-freckled, Whispersoft and Gorm-the-old himself. Pedlar was there at Gorm’s express wish; tribal survival was at stake and Gorm was prepared to acknowledge anyone or anything that could save the hour.

  Even Little Prince was there, in his disguise as the mouse Eh-he. No-one was turned away. This concerned the whole future of the House-mouse nation.

  Despite the fact that the tribes had been trimmed, there was still quite a crowd in the cupboard-under. They jostled against one another and trod on each other’s tails until Gorm opened the meeting.

  ‘You all know why we’re here,’ he rumbled. ‘It’s time to make a decision and we’d better make it quick. A feral cat’s been spotted prowling around the House. Where there’s one, more will follow. I repeat, we’ve got to do something and we’ve got to do it now. I’ll hand you over to Gunhild.’

  Gunhild went to the centre of the circle.

  ‘Listen up, chaps,’ she said briskly. ‘As Gorm said, it’s time to make a decision. I like decisions – nice clean things, decisions. No faffing about, just a sharp yes or no—’

  ‘Get on with it then,’ groaned someone in the crowd.