The food snatched during the raid was handed out, not always fairly but with some effort to ensure that everyone got something. There was a nice soft-textured piece of cheese amongst the spoils, of which Ulf and Drenchie received the first bites. They feasted and toasted their missing comrade at the same time. They sprawled amongst the woodpiles, languishing, enjoying being idle after the exercise.
Ulf was standing high-nose on the topmost log, saying, ‘So, my fine band of outlaws, you did extremely well tonight. We can eat well instead of crunching on dry old spiders’ legs and dead woodlice. ‘Tis cheese, for the palates of the victors!’
He was cheered by his youthful followers. The 13-K consisted entirely of runaway adolescents from all the other tribes in the House. Ulf was from the Savage Tribe of course, Drenchie from the Bookeater Tribe, Highstander from the Invisibles who lived high up in the attic – and so on, and so on. They were eager creatures, full of righteous wisdom about how the world should be run. Theirs was the philosophy of discontented, disillusioned youth. Once they ruled the whole House, it would be a much better place to live in.
‘The old leaders should make way for us,’ Ulf was fond of saying. ‘Their ideas are outmoded. They’ve got cobwebs for brains. We – we are a shining example of mice who know what is right and good for the world.’
The 13-K loved sitting around in groups, putting things to rights, discussing spiritual enlightenment. They said they wanted a world where there was only peace; where everyone loved each other, where there were no tyrants, no despots, only mice who ruled justly and wisely, first among equals. Learning, following in the oral tradition, was to be of the highest importance in their world. A storyteller was to be a valued tribe member. The historians, the mathematicians, the philosophers – those clever mice who carried knowledge in their heads and could impart it to others by word of mouth – these were to be amongst the most revered.
In order to get such a peaceful world of light and love, the 13-K had to fight and kill for it of course.
Ulf, like many others in the 13-K, would dearly have loved to be a Deathshead, one of the House’s wandering, holy spiritual warriors who eschewed all material wants, all worldly desires, and gave themselves to Unn, the goddess of Light and Wisdom. (Though occasionally an unusual Deathshead, such as Iban, might dedicate him or herself to Yo, the god of Darkness and Ignorance). They drank only rainwater and ate iron-hard crumbs that had lain amongst the dust for centuries of nights. Followers of Unn were intent on the eradication of self: followers of Yo were expected to obliterate memory. The Deathshead were necessarily very few in number, due to their high suicide rate.
Purity of body and soul were the prime objectives of these spiritual warriors, the foremost of whom was known as I-kucheng – mediator, arbitrator, or (by those who disliked him) ‘that infernal meddling judge’.
Ulf had often told Drenchie that he wanted one night to be a Deathshead. But the physical and mental training, the mastering of skills, before spiritual enlightenment and physical superiority were achieved, was both arduous and long. There were nights of meditation to pass through; hours of renunciation; vigils to undergo; chants and verses to memorize; martial arts to master; fear of personal isolation to overcome. Furthermore, one had to come to enjoy asceticism, celibacy and seclusion. This was not an easy task for creatures whose greatest delights were food, wanton games and the riotous company of their fellow mice.
Finally, it took 350 nights to make a Deathshead and to most of the 13-K this was a lifetime. If they were going to be chaste and humble, they wanted to be so now, not when they were too ancient to be able to flaunt such virtues and bask in the admiration of others. Ulf was just as impatient as the rest of his gang, but continually voiced his intention to begin training for Deathshead ‘any hour now’.
Typically, Ulf was speaking to a group of his followers even as he ate his share of the spoils from the raid.
‘A Deathshead knows the way to Truth through the teachings of Unn,’ he stated. ‘You can only find that path when you eradicate Self. The true Deathshead doesn’t know who or what he is – he’s in a state of complete ignorance.’
Drenchie, lying limply over a piece of kindling, remarked sourly, ‘I thought the way to Ignorance was through Yo, not through Unn.’
Ulf glared at his constant companion and occasional mate. ‘Yes, well, that’s true of course,’ he said, ‘but it’s a different kind of ignorance. With the god of Darkness you don’t know anything, but with Unn you’ve deliberately taught yourself to forget everything.’
‘Sounds the same thing to me,’ sniffed Drenchie, getting the attention of the crowd once more. ‘If your head’s empty, it’s empty, isn’t it?’
Ulf ground his teeth as he chewed on some slivers of pork.
‘It’s the way to that emptiness that’s important – for the sake of purity of soul. You see, Drenchie, you’re just looking at the mental state, but you have to take into account the spiritual state too. You can be ignorant and have a soul black with sin, or, you can be ignorant and be pure.’ Ulf felt very pleased with himself at having reached this conclusion, simply by making it up as he went along. ‘You do see what I mean?’
‘Yes,’ said Drenchie, ‘you’ve got a skull full of mouse droppings.’
Ulf put on the air of condescension which he knew infuriated his mate. ‘That’s hardly a reasoned argument,’ he said.
‘I don’t give a vole’s orphan whether it’s reasoned or not,’ snapped Drenchie. ‘I know you, and I know when your jaws are just rattling for the sake of hearing your own voice. If you want to be a Deathshead, just go away and be one, don’t go on and on talking about it.’
Ulf showed her his haughty expression. ‘I shall do, one of these hours, but my gang needs me at the moment, to lead them.’
‘Huh!’ was the short answer his mate gave to this statement.
Ulf, irritated as usual by this female runaway from the Bookeater Tribe, turned his back on her and began to wander amongst the other members of the gang, lounging amongst the logs and kindling. Most of the time the 13-K did not even bother to post sentries around the woodshed. They had nothing that the rest of the house mice would want. The woodshed was a relatively safe place for mice. Nudniks came occasionally, for fuel for their fires, but Eyeball had only managed to enter the woodshed once, many, many nights past.
There were two entrances to the woodshed, one from the kitchen, the other from Tunneller’s maze. It follows then, that there were only two exits. One way led to battle, the other way to a bad-tempered gatekeeper who demanded food in exchange for right of passage. The 13-K situation was not ideal, but they were close to the kitchen and the bounteous larder, and that made the difference between life and death. If a cat did get in, then the chances of escape were very limited.
It was true that Eyeball had killed four 13-K in as many seconds during her visit, but Ulf was aware that you couldn’t be on high alert twenty-four hours a day, every day, simply because a deadly cat managed to get inside once in a blue moon. Eyeball was an act of god, like a plague. You couldn’t sit around worrying whether the plague would come or not, could you? You simply forgot about it until it happened, then you worried about it. There was no answer to Eyeball anyway. She was the fastest thing on four legs the world had ever seen. A Burmese blue, she was fond of hiding in the shadows, and the last thing you saw, before death, was her eyes widening as she struck.
As Ulf strolled among his wassailing warriors, the satisfying smell of drying applewood logs in his nostrils, he recalled that there was something which had to be done in the near future. It was time to send an expedition to secure the second cupboard on the landing. This particular cupboard belonged to the 13-K by right of conquest. All the cupboards and drawers in the House belonged to different tribes, whether they were in a particular tribe’s territory or not. Expeditions had to be sent to make sure such outposts of empire had not been used by rival tribes. Any trespassers had to be punished by a raid on the tribe
responsible.
There was usually nothing in these cupboards and drawers of any interest to mice, but it was necessary to have safe havens available when out on forays in a foreign part of the House. The 13-K knew that if they needed sudden refuge from Eyeball, or a loose nudnik, they could nip into a cupboard or drawer owned by their tribe. Likewise with the Savages, the Invisibles, the Stink-horns and the Bookeaters, who all had their safe havens, while the Deathshead went where they pleased.
Ulf called two new young mice, recent runaways from the long-tailed harvest mice in the grasses outside the woodshed, and explained all this to them – before presenting them with the startling news that they were to form the next expedition.
‘B-b-but,’ stammered one of the terrified duo, ‘we don’t know the way to the cupboard.’
‘Oh, I’m not going to send you alone,’ laughed Ulf. ‘You’ll have a guide. Miskie will go with you as far as the top of the stairs. She’ll point out which cupboard is which and then all you have to do is scuttle along the landing and squeeze under the cupboard door. Nothing to it.’
‘Nothing to it,’ echoed the second harvest mouse, hollowly.
‘Oh, and one more thing,’ said Ulf thoughtfully. ‘If you should meet Eyeball – no, on second thoughts, never mind.’
‘Oh, oh, what, what? Tell us!’ cried the first mouse, going high-nose.
‘No, it doesn’t matter,’ said Ulf, strolling away. ‘Good luck, both of you. We’ll hope to see you back in an hour or two. I’ll get Miskie to come to you right away.’
He left the two harvest mice looking as if the death sentence had just been passed on them. They were certainly regretting ever entering the House. As things stood, there didn’t seem the slightest chance of them getting out again, since they had nothing with which to bribe Tunneller, and anything they did get they would have to eat, or they would starve.
Now, harvest mice are not blessed with the most gigantic of brains. They’re seed and insect eaters and fairly simple creatures really, but with a special place in mouse mythology. It is said that in prehistory, before the coming of trees, when the grass used to grow taller than the highest oak today, a harvest mouse one day climbed to the top of the tallest corn stalk and inspected the sun at close quarters.
Then, climbing down again, she gathered together the golden stems of wheat, barley and oats, and wound them into a semblance of the sun, leaving a small hole to enter by. This today is the harvest mouse’s home, a golden ball, an exact replica of the great golden ball that hangs in the sky above the fields.
The harvest mouse then, is a landscape artist, not a great thinker. These two particular individuals had got themselves into the House, but had no idea how to get themselves out again. They needed a miracle in order to escape.
A short while later, just as dawn was breaking, the two harvest mice were sneaking with Miskie across the recent battlefield, the kitchen floor. It was their only access to the rest of the House. At any moment the two newcomers expected the alarm to go up and a dozen or more of the Savage Tribe to fall on them and tear them to pieces.
One of the harvest mice was shaking so badly he could hardly stand. It was one thing for a harvest mouse to enter the woodshed, but quite another to go into the House proper. He darted from the deep shadow of table leg to chair leg to Welsh dresser with his heart pounding in his chest and his eyes starting from his head.
Finally, after an age, they reached the hallway and ran up the banister alongside the stairs. This was all supposedly neutral territory, though the two house cats and the resident dog were not in the habit of observing any rules of this kind. The Great Clock sounded the half hour as they ascended and the more timid of the two harvest mice was so startled he slipped off the banister and landed on the stairs. Then there was the chink of bottles outside the front door as the milk nudnik came and went, which worried the fallen mouse even further.
It took him all of two minutes to gather his wits and scramble up one of the rails again, to rejoin his companions.
When the band of three reached the top of the stairs they ran down the post to the floor.
‘This is as far as I go,’ said Miskie. ‘There’s our cupboard over there.’
The two harvest mice looked along the landing, which seemed to stretch into Infinity, to find the door indicated.
‘What do we do when we get inside?’ asked one of them.
‘You have to inspect it for droppings,’ explained Miskie. ‘If you find any, first see how fresh they are, then look for signs of who left them there. Traces of paper in the droppings shows that mice from the Bookeater Tribe have been encroaching on our territory. Richness of colour and smell means the Savage Tribe have been there – they often eat fruitcake, you know.’
‘I see,’ said the second mouse. ‘And if we find you’ve, I mean we’ve, had trespassers, what happens then?’
‘Then we make a raid on the tribe responsible, to punish them. Look,’ Miskie said, glancing around nervously, ‘I’ve got to go now. I’ll see you back in the woodshed.’
The two newcomers were left on their own in the grey light of the approaching day. They remained for a long time hunched against the corner post of the banisters, looking through the gloom along the skirting-board to where the door to the cupboard stood. Every small sound, every creak and groan of the old House, had them pressing tighter against the post.
A voice in the distance sang out softly, ‘Nice honey-tasting mice – come to Little Prince.’
At that moment there was a loud clack from the front door, which made them both jump in terror. The daily newspaper had been pushed through the letter box and had got stuck halfway. A fresh draught from the outside world came up the stairs and ruffled the fur on their backs. The marauders could smell the grass and trees, the scent of flowers, the odour of the soil. It reminded them of the natural world of the garden beyond the front door. They were, after all, mice from the Outside. Out there were other mice who made golden sun-nests in the high grasses and romped on the mossy patches of the great plains.
It was a miracle!
The letter box was on a heavy spring and almost always snapped shut again, the newspaper or mail falling to the floor, to be picked up by Witless. Their escape was obviously meant to be. It was as if the god of harvest mice, the golden grain god, had poked his finger through the great door of the House, creating a hole through which the two mice could leave.
One of them turned to the other and spoke. ‘Do you think our clan would have us back again, if we went home now?’
‘I don’t really care, I’m going anyway. You coming?’
There was a short nod from his companion and then the pair went racing up the post, down the banisters, up the door panelling and through the gap made by the paper in the letter box. Once out in the morning air, with faint stars shining in the grey above them, they paused to gather their breath on the door mat. They were still shaking. There and then the two youngsters made a vow that they would never enter the House again, unless they were dragged in, kicking and screaming.
‘They’re all crazy in there,’ said one.
‘It’s a crazy house all right,’ replied the other, ‘and we’re well out of it.’
The two harvest mice believed themselves to be fortunate in escaping the House, but Astrid’s shadows could have told them that the House did not take harvest mice to its bosom, nor had any wish to keep them within its walls. The House decided who lived within its boundaries and who did not.
Recently the House had invited one outsider, a newcomer to the region, inside its walls. However, it had done so for reasons long preordained. The newcomer’s name was Pedlar and the House was preparing itself for what would follow Pedlar’s arrival.
EDAM
THE RAID BY THE 13-K GANG ON THE KITCHEN HAD to be punished by the Savage Tribe. Gorm-the-old led the retaliatory raid on the woodshed, accompanied of course by his doubles Hakon and Tostig, sporting their new scars. Captain Gunhild with her band of Immortals
endeavoured as usual to protect Gorm’s flanks and rear.
‘Assundoon! Assundoon!’
The cry went up from the Savage Tribe, invoking the gods of the Otherworld to which all warriors went, provided they died with their teeth buried in the flesh of an enemy.
At one point Gorm’s Immortals clashed with Ulf’s Chosen Ones and when the two leaders’ personal bodyguards realized they were attacking each other, they quickly parted and sought battle elsewhere. It did not do for two bands of elite warriors to be wasting their superior skills in an evenly matched fight.
Visiting the woodshed at the time of the raid, was Iban, the Deathshead spiritual warrior-priest. Deathshead were permitted by all tribes to wander amongst them at will, since they didn’t eat anything except hard, stale crumbs, and they had no designs on territory. The Deathshead were responsible for the spiritual needs of the whole community. They were the conscience of the mouse nation as a whole.
Iban had been quietly attempting to endarken some 13-K members with the teachings of Yo. He had been explaining to them that though Yo was the Dark One, and the opposite of Unn the Light One, he was not a bad god. On the contrary, Iban explained, the goddess Unn regarded Yo not as a contrast but as a complement. Yo was her mate.
However, when Gorm and his vanguard broke through the outer sentries, instead of standing still and proclaiming his neutrality, Iban tried to hurry away through an exit hole. The truth was he did not want to run into Astrid again, since he was still in a state of sin after the last time they had been together. Then of course there was Gorm himself, for though Astrid was only one member of a vast harem, Gorm would not take kindly to a warrior-priest who was servicing one of his favourite females.
Iban made his way quickly towards Tunneller’s Hole, occasionally having to pause to administer an Ik-to bite on some berserker too blind with battle-lust to notice whom he or she was attacking. Suddenly, Iban was confronted by Astrid.
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