‘That scar was honourably bought.’
‘I’m sure it was,’ said A-sac, who was thinking the one to be afraid of was not this fox, but the creature who gave him that scar. ‘Are you a rangfar?’ he added, remembering his lessons.
‘I might be. I might very well be. You have something against us rovers? How can you tell? Do I look seedy, dirty? What?’
‘No – no – nothing like that. Your claws are rounded, worn at the ends, more than my parents’ claws. I deduced that you must do a lot of walking. The only foxes who do that much walking are travellers.’
The rangfar glanced down at his paws.
‘Clever little white cub, aren’t you? Where are your parents? It’s nowhere near time for the dispersal. Have they disowned you because you’re a whitey? What are you doing out alone …’ the dog fox looked around, as if wondering whether anyone else was observing them, ‘… are you lost?’
‘No,’ said A-sac quickly. ‘I live in this yard. My parents are not far away. They’re just snoozing. My father is a big fox,’ A-sac puffed himself up, lifting his shoulders. ‘He’s very fond of me actually,’ he continued to babble, ‘and he once fought A-magyr, the tyrant.’
The rangfar nodded.
‘Warning me off, eh? Well, don’t worry little cub, I’m not interested in abducting you.’ He settled down, full length on the pavement with A-sac. ‘I’m just interested, that’s all. You’re an unusual-looking creature, and you have a brain and a mouth that tells me you’re going far. Let me tell you about a vixen I know, who lives in the marshes.’
‘Why?’ said A-sac guardedly.
‘Why?’ answered the rangy dog fox, ‘because you might want to hear about her, that’s why. Don’t interrupt while I’m talking – listen to your elder and betters. I’ve seen the world, cub, and I know things that would make your head spin. I could tell you stories that would have your eyes swinging from your cheeks. Stories as would turn your ears inside-out. I could tell you tales that would make your sniffer twitch with the pungey smells of death’s own earth. Listen …’
And the rangfar proceeded to talk about a vixen, a witch-fox called O-toltol, who lived away from the sight and sound of all creatures except her disciples. She lived in an ancient mound, deep in the heart of the marshes, and she had great powers. She was a priestess with eyes of fire and a mind second to none. A-gork said that the vixen kept herself isolated to preserve the purity of her profession, to keep it from being sullied by contact with ordinary foxes.
‘She would certainly take to you,’ said A-gork, ‘because it’s obvious to me that you are special and quite out of the ordinary. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that she might accept you as an apprentice – yes, I’m certain she would – if you’re interested, of course. It would be a pity to let your talents go to waste.’
Those deep, small eyes were hypnotic, the voice mesmerising.
After telling A-sac about O-toltol, the rangfar launched into parables and fables, all manner of tales that did indeed have A-sac listening intently, and wondering why his parents had not told him of the marvels of the world, and its weird wonders. Camio had told him about the Land of the Lions, and about elephants, but they seemed far away. This fox was telling about here and now.
By the time the day was over, A-sac was almost a slave. ‘Well,’ said the rangfar, rising to his feet and stretching. ‘Are you coming?’
‘Coming? Where?’
‘To see the witch.’
At that moment, O-ha appeared from out of the scrap. She took one look at the stranger and bared her teeth. Right behind her was Camio. The rangfar seemed to disappear into the dust at A-sac’s feet. A-sac had looked round on scenting his parents, and when he looked back again the fox in the ragged coat, that smelled of dried grasses and the husks of seeds left too long in the sun, the fox called A-gork, had gone.
‘Who were your parents?’ asked O-mitz of her mother one day. The little chocolate-coloured vixen cub had just begun to moult and patches of orange fur were visible on her face.
‘My parents?’ said O-ha. ‘Well, they were a pair who lived on the north of Trinity Wood – the place that is now a human parkland. In those days there was hav all around us, and the country was open and free.’
‘I like the town,’ said O-mitz. ‘Camio tells me all about the streets and houses and things.’
Camio who was listening, shrugged.
‘This is where they have to live, at least to begin with. Not much point in telling them what was – they need to know what is.’
‘My mother was killed by a tractor which ran over her while she lay asleep. It was an accident. My father went away somewhere after that. Nothing much more to tell.’
‘My parents,’ said Camio, ‘were giants …’
‘Don’t tell them lies,’ said O-ha, shortly.
He looked contrite.
‘My parents were not giants,’ continued Camio. ‘They were not as tall as oak trees, and my mother didn’t have hair as red as the sunset we saw last night. My father did not wrestle with bears and win and he didn’t jump wide canyons where rivers flowed far below…’ he received a warning signal from O-ha again, as she realised what he was up to ‘… however, they did have silver hairs on their rumps, just as I do, and you will probably have.’
A-cam said, ‘Why hasn’t O-ha got silver hairs?’
‘She has, only you can’t see them so well on her because my coat is darker. My father was a black fox and you could see the silver hairs in his coat shining …’
‘Camio!’ said O-ha. ‘A black fox?’
‘It’s true,’ he said, indignantly. ‘True. My mother was a red fox and my father was a black fox – that’s why my coat is so dark. The trouble with you provincial vixens is that you think the world begins and ends with your own parish. There are all kinds of foxes out there: bat-eared foxes with lugs the size of my bib; Arctic foxes white as the snow – just like A-sac, though he isn’t an Arctic fox, of course; desert foxes, fennec foxes – we’re the best, I hasten to add.’
‘Really?’ O-ha said in her haughty voice, but secretly impressed.
‘Yes, really,’ he replied, either not catching, or simply ignoring, her tone. ‘There are still wolves in certain parts of the world too. Where I come from they still have the timber wolf. Man hasn’t wiped them out entirely.’
‘You’ve met one of these wolves?’ she said.
‘No – not exactly, but they’re talked about – and I’ve seen them in the zoo,’ he finished, triumphantly, just as she was about to pour scorn on his claim.
‘What’s a zoo?’ said A-cam, at the same time trying to bite O-mitz’s tail.
‘A place where they lock animals up and leave them to die,’ he replied brutally.
That night, when the cubs were asleep, O-ha snuggled up close to Camio and whispered: ‘It’s all right now.’
‘What’s all right?’
‘We are,’ she said.
Somehow, without feeling any disloyalty towards A-ho, she had come to be glad it was Camio lying beside her, the father of her cubs. If she had ever thought badly of him, she had been wrong. He was a good mate and a dependable parent. She told him so.
When he did not reply, she changed the subject.
‘I’m worried about A-sac,’ she said. ‘You don’t think he’ll be persecuted, because he’s different?’
Camio shifted as though uncomfortable.
‘Well, we mustn’t fool ourselves. It’s going to be difficult for him. His white coat is hardly good camouflage, and the other foxes are bound to tease him. We’ll have to wait and see how we can help him. He seems to have a strong personality, though – he’s not the shy retiring type, and sometimes differences can be turned to an advantage.’
‘How?’
‘I’m not sure at the moment, but he’s a survivor. He’s got grit… and a certain – I don’t know.’
There was something in Camio’s tone which made her say.
‘You do know.
What is it?’
‘Well, I don’t want to upset you, but he reminds me of A-konkon a little. He’s got that same depth of perception.’
‘Oh, no, I forbid it!’ she cried. ‘I won’t have it.’
‘You might not be able to prevent it – and let’s face it, there was a lot of good in A-konkon. He was definitely weird, and had some strange ideas, but – anyway, we’ll just have to wait and see.’
After that she lay there, thinking about her young ones, wanting to protect them, forever, from all the terrible things in life, wanting to keep them as they were – innocent and happy – and never to let them go out into a world of harsh reality.
The impossible dream of all mothers.
The skills of the cubs improved as the Frashoon began to move Swittew aside. They began bringing home small prey that they had managed to catch, beetles and woodlice, and were jealous over such titbits. They learned to cache much of this extra food in places around the scrapyard, which they visited when hungry.
O-ha and Camio grew more comfortable towards one another. It was difficult for O-ha to remember a time when Camio had not been there, with his dry witticisms, his soft drawl, and his warm body. There were a hundred ways in which she thought of him, and all of them good. Most of all she saw in him the one thing she had believed he had lacked when she first met him – reliability. She now knew that Camio stood as firm as an oak tree when it came to her and his family. He was fiercely loyal to her, would not (like some dog foxes) mate with neighbouring vixens, would have stood in the way of mighty machines if they threatened her or his cubs. She knew if she were ever lost, he would spend a lifetime looking for her. If they were ever parted he would cross mountains and seas to be with her again. She knew if she were ever sick, he would stay by her side until death took her or she got well.
She realised how lucky she had been to have had two mates in her life, both of whom would have died for her.
The one cub neither of the adults worried about was A-cam. He seemed a little dense sometimes, but that had never been a great drawback for a fox. There are inventive foxes, who initiate new skills in hunting and new evasion techniques, but mostly these things are learned. A-cam, like the other two cubs, was taught all his father and mother knew.
So, A-cam was stolid and a little reckless at times, but he had none of the weirdness of A-sac, and little of the stubbornness of O-mitz. He was a playful, all-round fox, with no quirky corners to his character. When A-cam was not playing or hunting beetles, he would lie and sun himself on a warm piece of scrap metal, letting the world pass by him. Uncomplicated, he was his mother’s favourite, though his father thought him a little too staid. He wanted to impress his father, and told the other two cubs that one day he was going on an adventure which would make him famous among foxes. Then Camio would have to take notice of him. O-ha heard this remark and was concerned about her cub for a while. Then she thought, it’s just young talk, not serious. Nevertheless, she determined to have a word with Camio, to see if he could not reassure A-cam that his father respected him, without any silly expeditions or adventures.
One day, a cat wandered into the yard. It was a big bruiser, a black-and-white tom with a face like a flattened tin can. A-cam saw his chance for fame. The cat looked fat, old and slow and he thought he could run rings around this creature with his newly acquired evasion tactics.
‘I’m going to show Camio how much I’ve learned,’ he told the other two. ‘Watch me taunt this cat!’
A-sac shook his white head sagely.
‘You’re going to get into trouble, A-cam.’
O-mitz cried, ‘Don’t do it, A-cam. A-sac, stop him.’
‘I can’t stop him,’ said A-sac. ‘I’ve not been put into this world to watch over my brother. If he wants to get himself killed, let him go ahead.’
‘Killed?’ said A-cam. ‘Me?’
Until that moment he had been half-joking about the cat, but now he was determined to go through with it. He walked towards the beast which was sunning itself on a patch of earth. It knew he was coming because the nose and whiskers twitched. As he got closer, A-cam could see just how big the torn was, and he began to quake inside. However, he was aware of O-mitz’s round frightened eyes on him, and of A-sac’s contemptuous stare.
A-cam stopped outside what he reckoned was the cat’s pounce limit.
‘Cat,’ he said, ‘you’re a fat, lazy piece of mangy fur, not worth a second glance, but I challenge you to mortal combat.’
The cat opened one eye. This organ looked as if it had seen battles galore and an aeon of decadence. The cynicism ran deep in its veins.
‘Pissenlit!’ said the monster.
A-cam gave the cat a withering stare.
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
To his horror and shock, for he was convinced that cats never learned any language but their own, he received a reply.
‘It means,’ replied the cat softly, ‘that you are a fluffy bunch of seeds and I can blow you away with one puff. A dandelion of no account. Go away, before I fill my lungs with air.’
‘You – you speak …’ A-cam was trying to remember just what he had called the cat, a few moments previously, so that he could work out some explanation.
‘I speak with the tongues of dogs and of foxes. What? Did you think that cats and dogs who live under the same roof never talk to each other? Go away, ball of fluff, before your parents catch you. I should hate to have to move out of the sun to fight one of them.’
A-cam suddenly saw himself through the cat’s eyes. A tender little animal with fluffy fur, not yet formed into a fighter, still covered in cub fat.
‘I’d – I’d better go then. I don’t suppose you would care to just turn round and walk off, would you? My brother and sister are watching from that tangle of scrap over there.’
‘So that’s what it’s all about?’ the torn yawned, revealing some very frightening teeth and a cavernous mouth. ‘No I wouldn’t.’
‘Oh, well …’ said A-cam, a little dismayed. He was about to turn away from the cat, when the beast suddenly yelled in that whine that felines employ, ‘Oh no, fox! I can’t fight an animal as ferocious as you. Please leave me alone. I won’t harm any of your family.’ The sound of the creature’s voice made A-cam’s fur stand on end.
Then in a much softer tone, the tom said, ‘How was that, pissenlit? Good enough to send you back a hero? Turn round now.’
A-cam did as he was told, marching back to A-sac and O-mitz.
‘What did you say to it?’ whispered O-mitz.
‘I just told him to watch himself, if he was coming into our yard,’ replied A-cam, his heart still beating fast after the cat’s high yell.
A-sac nodded. ‘Sure you did,’ he said, and walked away.
Chapter Twenty
Camio left the earth one day after scrupulously observing the leaving-the-earth ritual, since now that the cubs were around O-ha had become stricter than ever about such things. He wanted to be out of the way when she lectured the young on ‘the right way’ to mark, drink water, eat various kinds of food, enter and leave the earth, and the rites for the dead. True, he paid lip service to these observances, but he was becoming a little bored with the repetition of chants, rhymes and songs, though he was secretly impressed, not to say amazed, at the number of euphemisms O-ha managed to find for the act of marking.
‘Just a natural thing,’ he muttered to himself as he walked along the now-established fox highway through the face, which crossed seventeen back gardens, a factory yard, a bridge, three alleys and two sets of garage roof-tops and ended up at the entrance to Trinity Parklands. ‘You mark your property – you mark your own. That’s all there is to it. Nothing to get excited about. Can’t see what the fuss is about …’
He paused at the gates. Inside there were human children playing on the apparatus, yipping away in shrill voices. He slipped into the shrubbery which ran around the edge, using it as a shield to travel to the wooded part: enjoyin
g the soft feel and aroma of the peat-bark beneath his feet, which the park keepers spread under the roses and rhododendrons. It was his intention to try to confirm some information which had come his way. He wanted to find out if Gar the badger was indeed still alive. O-ha had spoken of him often during the time they were on the marshes, and he wanted to surprise her with the good news. Of course, if the old black-and-white grouch was dead, then Camio would keep it to himself for a while, until the cubs had left the earth.
O-lan and A-lon were both dead, he knew. They had been shot in the early hours of that morning when the Unremembered Fear was abroad. Many other animals had met their deaths that night, some of them mistaken for carriers when they were immune from the disease. A-magyr was missing, believed dead, though he could have gone on one of his famous walkabouts. Camio doubted that the old fox had escaped. There were now several new characters around and Camio was gradually getting to know some of them.
He travelled through the woodland, avoiding the human paths, sniffing for marks and trails, until he came upon a fox earth. There was litter all around the entrance, and he stood amongst this and cried out, ‘Anyone there?’
Shortly afterwards a nose poked out.
It was another dog fox.
‘What?’ he said, brusquely. Camio guessed he had a mate inside the earth and was suspicious of another dog fox calling.
‘You new around here?’ asked Camio. ‘I mean, how many seasons have you seen in this parish?’
‘What business is it of yours?’
‘No need to be unfriendly, I’ve already got a mate if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m looking for a badger – big old gruff one by the name of Gar. You don’t happen to know if he’s still around these parts, do you?’
The dog fox emerged from the earth’s entrance, looking a little less aggressive.
‘Don’t know the names of any of the badgers – you’re right, we are newcomers to the parish – but I think there’s some of them living in the roots of an old blackthorn just south of here. Do you speak any mustelidae?’
‘Musta …? No, no I don’t. I hadn’t thought about that. The badger I’m after speaks some canidae so I didn’t think …’
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