The Twyning

by Terence Blacker

  “For example,” says the doctor, “I happen to know that my assistant, Mr. Smith, occasionally works for a rat-catcher who supplies beasts for sport in certain public houses.”

  Thank you very much, Doctor.

  “Impossible.” Mr. Robinson speaks up. “Rat pits are illegal. If this young man has been a party to them, we should send him to have a word with members of the local constabulary.”

  There are murmurings of agreement around the table. Then, to my surprise, Mr. Petheridge speaks up. “In war, sometimes one has to use people who are not at all times on the right side of the law,” he says.

  “Out of the question,” someone mutters.

  “Mr. Smith?” The doctor turns to me, then addresses the meeting. “Would it be acceptable to question the boy?”

  Mr. Woodcock looks surprised by the idea that I am able to understand questions. “Make it brief,” he says.

  The doctor beckons. I approach the long table and stand at the end of it, my hands behind my back. My thoughts are of one thing only: policemen. There is danger here for me and for Caz.

  “Rat pits, boy.” Mr. Woodcock’s mustache bristles like the hackles of a dog about to attack. “Tell us about the rat pits.”

  I remain silent.

  “The lad has friends — accomplices, shall we say?— who regularly attend pit days at public houses,” says the doctor. “In those rooms, whether we like it or not, are gathered the men of the borough who know exactly where to find the beasts. They also have the dogs that have been trained to hunt and kill them.”

  “A ready-made army,” adds Mr. Petheridge.

  All eyes are on me.

  “Boy?” said Mr. Petheridge. “Are you going to speak up? Or should we call a policeman right now?”

  I am so afraid at that moment that my guts feel as if they are turning to water. I think of the pit, the men, the dogs. Anyone betraying the ratting fraternity is likely to meet a sorry end.

  “I fear that this meeting is going nowhere,” says Mr. Woodcock. “The council can have nothing to do with lawbreaking.”

  The doctor is looking as if at any moment he would stand up and throttle me.

  There is no choice. I have to speak.

  “I know a man,” I say. “He is a rat man.”

  “Come on, lad. Spit it out.” Mr. Woodcock opens a timepiece on the table before him, glances at it, then snaps it shut.

  “What do you mean by a rat man?” asks the doctor.

  “He knows rats,” I say. “Where to find them. How to catch them. It’s his job.”

  “Name, boy.” There is a dangerous look in Mr. Woodcock’s eye.

  “Will he get into trouble?”

  “Just give us the name. Or you’ll be in the hands of the police.”

  “Will he get into trouble?” I repeat the words with more determination in my voice.

  “If he is on the side of our campaign, no harm will come to him,” says the doctor. He turns to Mr. Woodcock, who seems to think for a moment, then nods.

  “No notes will be taken of this part of the meeting,” he says.

  I swallow hard, then say the words.

  “His name’s Bill. Mr. Bill Grubstaff.”

  . . . movement. It is why the citizens in the kingdom who can never move, those whose tails are forever entangled as part of a twyning, are loved and revered above all else in the kingdom. Fat and helpless, they have their own mystical wisdom, which is beyond any revelation or act. They remind every citizen of the dangers of staying still.

  I thought of the world below every day.

  My limbs ached to take my Malaika there. I wondered what we would find there, who had died and also who had lived. I thought of Floke and Fang. Where was Queen Jeniel? Did Swylar still live? What of my captain, Alpa?

  — Sleep, Efren. Rest. You are still too weak. There will be time for this later.

  Malaika lay beside me, warming, soothing, feeding me now and then.

  Was I revealing without knowing it, or did she sense where my mind was wandering?

  The better I knew Malaika, the more I worried about her. At some stage in her life, she had lost the restlessness that drives us forward. She had gone over to the enemy without knowing it. When I revealed stories of the kingdom, she heard but did not understand. I was telling her of a foreign land. Her home was with the humans. That home, I now discovered, was full of hidden perils. One day, as I was beginning to get stronger, I sensed something strange was happening to me.

  It was after sunrise. Patches of daylight had entered the mountain where I found myself. Suddenly above me was the whiteness of danger. The smell, even to me in my weakened state, was overpowering, sickening.

  It was a human. The enemy was upon me. It held me in its grip. I was too weak to escape but managed to bite the flesh. The hand released me but then returned.

  Strange.

  A bite is normally enough to keep a human at bay.

  There was human noise all around me. Malaika moved closer to me.

  — You are safe, Efren. She is our friend. Listen to her.

  Listen? What was Malaika telling me? All I could hear was the human noise. It was as repulsive as the human smell.

  — What do you mean, listen?

  I turned and writhed, but then rested, panting, in the enemy’s grip.

  It was then that the strangest, most impossible thing overcame me.

  Another voice. Not a noise, not outside, but within the brain. It was calling my name, calming me.

  A revelation, like the one I had heard when I had first arrived at this place.

  Now, though, I knew it was not a feverish dream.

  A human was revealing to me.

  I could not answer. I would not answer.

  It called again.

  — Efren. It’s only me. I’m Caz.

  . . . makes me feel sick to the stomach. As I make my way to work for him the next morning, I am fearful as to what I have done to his life. At the town hall, I believed I might be helping him. There would be money to be made in the war against rats. He has worked for the council before.

  But in my heart I know that I was most afraid for myself. If the police take me away now, what will happen to Caz?

  Entering his compound, I try to forget what I have done. Bill glances up from the seat in the yard where he is hunched over a bucket, skinning moles.

  “Word travels fast on these streets,” he says with an odd little smile on his face.

  “Is there any work for me, Bill?”

  He nods in the direction of mole pelts. “You can clean those, and hang ’em out, if you like. Then chuck the rest to the rats in the well.”

  I take out my knife and sit on the ground. I reach for one of the skins, then tidy up the remains of the flesh from the inside of the pelts.

  “What word on the streets?” I speak as casually as I can manage while I work.

  Bill smiles. “We’re back in business, lad. Molly came by last week. They want two hundred beasts for next Wednesday. Pit days are on again.”

  My surprise must be obvious, because Bill gives a gruff little laugh.

  “There’s no stopping sport, boy,” he says. “The pit’s part of life. Even when”— he pauses to extract the pink corpse of a mole from its covering — “things happen.”

  “What about Jem Dashwood?”

  “Molly says he’s going to behave. He’s kissed and made up with Charlie Buckingham. The pit is bigger than any man.”

  “That’s good.”

  “It is.” He picks up the bloody remains of two skinless moles, wanders over to the well, and lifts the lid. There are screams of hunger as he throws the corpses to the rats below. “We’ll need some more beasts. Tonight?”

  “Tonight.”

  It is as if nothing has changed. Bill is happy.

  “It’s going to be the best pit day ever,” he murmurs to himself.

  When I say nothing, he glances at me. He knows that seeing the massacre at the Cock Inn has troubled
me. “This time,” he says, “nothing will go wrong.”

  Maybe because he has noticed something different about me today, Bill starts telling me stories of great pit days of the past, as if these tales would wipe away my memories of men stamping on beasts.

  “Did you ever hear about the time the fighting monkey Jacko Maccacco tore the entrails out of a dog pitched against him at Westminster?”

  “I didn’t, Bill.”

  He tells me the story.

  “Of course, the rummest bout I ever did see was when that great setter from Warwickshire, Sam Wedgebury, backed his son, Boy Wedgebury, just under twelve years of age at the time, against a thirty-pound dog. I must have told you that one.”

  “Never heard that one, Bill,” I lie innocently.

  He tells me. The boy won.

  “Every pit day tells a story,” he says, opening up another mole.

  “I know that.”

  “It will be good this time, Dogboy. You’ll see.”

  But my betrayal is with me, like a dead chicken hung around the neck of a guilty dog. There is no getting away from the smell of it — not today and not during the nights that follow when we are out hunting rats.

  It is a cold, still day when we return to the Cock Inn, bearing four cages full of beasts. The back room of the pub is heaving with life. Every setter and trainer, every gambler and sportsman of the town seems to be there.

  There is merriment, laughter, in the room as we enter. Tonight, there will be no rows or fights or stamping upon beasts, just the best of sport.

  I try to concentrate on my work, but from the minute I enter that place, I am waiting for the moment when, all because of me, a boy of the streets, everything changes for the ratting fraternity.

  It is just before the first bout that my worst fears come true. Standing at the bar, apart from the main throng of gamblers, are Mr. Petheridge and the doctor. They are a little too well dressed, not quite drunk or loud enough to be your normal sportsmen, but there is too much excitement in the smoky atmosphere for that to be noticed.

  The doctor catches sight of me and touches his forehead, like a man tipping his hat. I look away quickly.

  Soon it is time for the first bout in the pit. It is quickly over, one of Mr. Barstow’s older dogs easily winning a fifty-rat bout over Nipper, who belongs to a setter from out of town. I am just gathering up the dead beasts when I notice that the doctor and the MP are no longer at the bar.

  I breathe more easily. They have gone. I’m saved. Moments later, though, as I am about to count out the beasts for the second bout, a silence descends on the bar, broken only by the whining of dogs.

  Molly is walking toward the pit, her face unusually grim. Behind her are Mr. Petheridge and Dr. Ross-Gibbon.

  When they reach the center of the room, the landlady points to the chair. Mr. Petheridge, with a nervous glance in the direction of the bloodstained pit, stands on it. I notice one or two of the setters edging toward the door.

  “Gentlemen, I pray you will not be alarmed if I tell you that I am your local MP. ”

  Bill, standing beside me, swears quietly.

  “I have been enjoying the sport.” Mr. Petheridge puts on one of his sickly public smiles. “I have always been a great supporter of gaming, with, er, beasts.”

  Something about the way he says the word “beasts” seems to annoy the men around the pit. They are as good at reading a liar as they are at judging a dog.

  “What’s ’e doin’ ’ere?” someone says, loud enough to be heard by everyone in the room.

  “I am not in this tavern to bring problems to sportsmen like your good selves.” Mr. Petheridge is more at ease now. “When I have finished speaking, I shall look forward to the second bout.” He glances down at the piece of paper he holds and clears his throat like a music-hall turn. “I have it on good authority that Drongo is worthy of a wager.”

  There is a rustle of laughter from the corner where the dog Drongo’s setter is standing.

  “You gentlemen are doing a good and useful thing,” says the MP. “Yes, I am not joking. You are. It may be not entirely legal as the law now stands, but while you have your sport, you are helping to rid this borough of the great scourge of rats — a growing problem in our city. And here is the reason why I am speaking to you this evening.”

  The MP pauses dramatically, and at that moment, one of the dogs starts barking.

  “He wants to get on with it,” someone shouts.

  “We all do,” says someone else. “Spit it out, mate.”

  Mr. Petheridge raises a hand for silence. “Before the next election, I have promised the good people of this borough that I shall clean our streets, our houses, our gutters, of the great, unhealthy menace of rodents.”

  “You’ll be lucky,” mutters a man standing on the far side of the pit.

  “How shall I do this? With your help, gentlemen. No one knows more about the rat than those gathered in this room. My colleague Dr. Ross-Gibbon”— he extends an arm in the direction of the doctor — “is a world-renowned expert on the creature’s behavior. But we need practical help. There is someone here, I happen to know, who has better knowledge of where the beasts live than almost anyone else in this town.”

  Oh, no.

  A few people look furtively toward Bill. His head shrinks onto his shoulders, like that of a nervous tortoise.

  To my utter despair, Mr. Petheridge looks over in our direction and smiles. “That will be Mr. Grubstaff. ”

  Bill growls miserably.

  “Then there are setters who know how to hunt them, and dogs with a very special talent for killing them,” says Mr. Petheridge.

  Now he has the attention of the room. Even the dogs seem to sense that this is no time to whine or bark.

  “I’m talking about the greatest rat hunt this city, or any city, has ever seen. Instead of competing with one another, you shall be working together. It will be you and your magnificent dogs against the rat.”

  “What’s in it for us, then?” It is Charlie Buckingham who asks the question that is in everyone’s mind.

  “Pits will be legal once more.”

  There is a murmur of surprise.

  “And”— the MP looks again at the piece of paper he holds in his hand — “ah, yes, there will be a reward. One pound — yes, one pound — for every fifty rats’ tails brought to my friend Dr. Ross-Gibbon. Anyone up for the challenge?”

  Buckingham shrugs and raises a finger. Others nod and mutter their interest.

  “Let us enjoy the sport, then,” says Mr. Petheridge, smiling. “After that, any setters who are interested in this supreme test of their dog’s skill can see me.”

  “No.” Bill speaks quietly. “I don’t like it.”

  “And that,” says the MP, looking hard in our direction, “includes Bill Grubstaff. ”

  It is the end of sport for that night — the end of real sport, that is. I count out the rats, the dogs are released, the killing is done, money paid out. But it is as if the news of a greater game, offering money and glory, has made that evening’s contests seem small and pointless.

  It is toward the end of the evening when what I had most been dreading happens. I am collecting the dead beasts from the second bout when the doctor and Mr. Petheridge approach Bill.

  Working in the pit, I keep my head down, making much of a business of putting the beasts’ corpses in the sack.

  The three men talk for a few minutes, the doctor now and then making notes. There are handshakes — hearty from the doctor and the politician, awkward from Bill.

  I tie up the sack and make my way to Bill. Even by his standards of misery, he looks unhappy.

  “Done?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “Best be on our way, then.”

  He picks up the empty cages.

  “What I want to know,” he mutters, “is who told ’em.”

  . . . and nothing a human does is to be trusted without question. Humans were, are, and always will be the en
emy.

  The youngest ratling will learn this truth with its mother’s milk. In the life of a rat, death is never far away. The hatred that humans have for us is a daily reality. There is no understanding why they are naturally evil. It is enough to know that they are.

  And yet here I was, growing stronger by the day. My head was full of something that seemed like a human revelation. The enemy had a name. Caz. The only doe I had ever loved, Malaika, would rest in her hand. I would even see her sleep there sometimes.

  From the moment I grew fur, citizens had looked at the white mark on my head and mocked me for the trace of fragile blood it revealed. Now I feared that the fragile in me was allowing me to grow too soft and trusting.

  I had to leave that place. I would save Malaika from the enemy, and together we would return to the world below. The kingdom is good. A ratling can grow to be great. I had seen enough of the reign of Jeniel to know that citizens were not threatened only by humans. There would be a danger in returning, but I had no choice. It was my home, and I was needed there.

  And yet . . .

  The sounds and smells of humans nearby were now almost a comfort to me. The revelations of Caz began to seem almost natural. I confess that I was glad to feel them within my head.

  — How are you this morning, Efren?

  — My legs are stronger. I can drink.

  — Stay with us. We are all a family here.

  What could I say? How could I explain that I knew of human trickery, of the deadly danger of them, that all I wanted to do was take Malaika away to the safety of the world below.

  When she asked me again and again to stay, I would not reveal in reply. Eventually Caz would go away.

  One night, Malaika and I went on a little journey out of the mountain. It was not forever (I knew that Malaika was strangely tied to these humans), but she needed to see me away from this place. With me, and back in the kingdom, she would begin to understand freedom, the true way of the rat.

  I was still weak, so we were unable to travel far. Malaika showed me the eating places where humans left portions of their unfinished food. She took me to a spring where we drank and rested, then to a small wood where, she said, we would find eggs as the year grew warmer.