House of Tribes Read online

  HOUSE OF TRIBES

  GARRY KILWORTH

  www.sfgateway.com

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Gateway Introduction

  Contents

  To a Nudnik

  List of Principal Characters

  Part One: From Hedgerow to Hallway

  Stilton

  Roquefort

  Cheddar

  Brie

  Caerphilly

  Edam

  Wensleydale

  Pfeffer Kranz

  Camembert

  Gorgonzola

  Double Gloucester

  Feta

  Bûche De Chèvre

  Bel Paese

  Tomme Au Raisin

  Part Two: The Great Nudnik Drive

  Mozzarella

  Sage Derby

  Gruyère

  Pont L’Évêque

  Cambozola

  Jarlsberg

  Kümmel

  Münster

  Vestgötaöst

  Walnut Crédioux

  Part Three: Journey to the Promised House

  Trappistes

  Haloumi

  Limburger

  Bleu De Bresse

  Quark

  Website

  Also By Garry Kilworth

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Copyright

  TO A NUDNIK

  Great, grabbin’, snatchin’, greedy beastie,

  ‘O what a gob wi’ which tae feastie!

  Thou need na guzzle awa sae hasty

  Wi’ slobbering jaws!

  I canna scoff as snell as thee can

  Wi’ these sma’ paws!

  A sudden oral outburst from

  Snurb-the-rhymer (Bookeater Tribe),

  after gnawing on a book of Scottish poems

  Cheese rhymes with greed, almost.

  Old House Mouse saying

  LIST OF PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  OUTSIDERS

  PEDLAR

  Yellow-necked hedgerow mouse, hero of the novel, a wandering mouse.

  TINKER

  Pedlar’s cousin in the Hedgerow.

  DIDDYCOY

  Old yellow-necked Hedgerow sage.

  STONE

  Dormouse, lives by the garden privy, a Green who advocates getting-back-to-nature.

  TUNNELLER

  Common shrew who lives in a maze of tunnels underneath the house, bad-tempered and a ruthless fighter.

  ULUG BEG

  Ancient unknown species of mouse, hermit who lives in an abandoned tree-house in the garden.

  SAVAGE TRIBE (KITCHEN MICE)

  GORM-THE-OLD

  House mouse, chieftain of the Savage Tribe, barbarian and thug.

  ASTRID

  House mouse, high priestess of Savage Tribe, talker to shadows.

  HAKON

  House mouse, Gorm’s brother and principal double.

  TOSTIG

  House mouse, Gorm’s brother and secondary double.

  THORKILS THREELEGS

  House mouse, foul-tempered invalid.

  GUNHILD

  House mouse, fond of military discipline, eventually defects to the 13-K Gang.

  JARL FORKWHISKERS

  House mouse, self-trained assassin.

  Other members of Savage Tribe include: Gytha Finewhiskers, Skuli, Ketil, Elfwin.

  BOOKEATER TRIBE (LIBRARY MICE)

  FRYCH-THE-FRECKLED

  House mouse, leader of the Bookeater Tribe, into witchcraft and black magic.

  IAGO

  House mouse, book gourmet, expert on paper eating.

  GRUFFYDD GREENTOOTH

  House mouse, self-claimed sorcerer and magician.

  ELISEDD

  House mouse, the youngster who discovers Little Prince.

  Other members of the Bookeater Tribe include: Owain, Hywel-the-bad, Ethil-the-bald, Cadwallon, Mefyn, Rhodri, Marredud, Nesta.

  DEATHSHEAD (SPIRITUAL WARRIORS)

  I-KUCHENG

  Yellow-necked mouse, wandering judge to whom the Goddess Unn has given special duties.

  SKRANG

  Yellow-necked mouse, protector of I-kucheng.

  IBAN

  Yellow-necked mouse, follows Yo and the path of chastity, forever failing.

  THE INVISIBLES (ATTIC MICE)

  WHISPERSOFT

  Wood mouse, brash and noisy leader of his tribe.

  TREADLIGHTLY

  Yellow-necked mouse, heavy-footed doe who becomes involved with Pedlar.

  GOINGDOWNFAST

  Wood mouse, excellent swimmer, deadly enemy of Kellog the roof rat.

  FALLINGOFF-THINGS

  Wood mouse, excellent balancer, can walk a tightrope in a high wind.

  NONSENSICAL

  Wood mouse, mate of Goingdownfast.

  FEROCIOUS

  Wood mouse, meek and mild character and friend to Pedlar.

  TIMOROUS

  Wood mouse, rival and political foe of Goingdownfast.

  HEARALLTHINGS

  Wood mouse, deaf, friends with the grandfather clock, pianist.

  MISERABLE

  Wood mouse, brother of Goingdown-fast.

  STINKHORN TRIBE (CELLAR MICE)

  PHART

  House mouse, so-called chieftain of his tribe of two, flea-infested habitual drunk, reprobate and rogue.

  FLEGM

  House mouse, side-kick of Phart with all Phart’s vices.

  13-K GANG (LEAN-TO WOODSHED REBELS)

  ULF

  House mouse, son of Gorm-the-old, dedicated terrorist and dissident, leader of the 13-K Gang.

  DRENCHIE

  House mouse, Ulf’s female companion, complainer and unhappy soul.

  HIGHSTANDER

  Wood mouse, hates heights, rival to Ulf.

  OTHER HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS

  NUDNIKS

  Human beings, large useless creatures who eat enormous quantities of food.

  HEADHUNTER

  Small deadly nudnik forever torturing and murdering mice.

  EYEBALL

  Burmese blue female cat, hides in the shadows, inc
redibly fast.

  SPITZ

  Old ginger torn cat, slower than Eyeball.

  WITLESS

  Senile old spaniel.

  MERCIFUL

  Cold and deadly little owl, lives in the attics, named by the Invisibles.

  KELLOG

  Old ship (or roof) rat, lives on the other side of the water tank, deadly enemy of Goingdownfast.

  LITTLE PRINCE

  White mouse, pet of the Headhunter, cannibal.

  THE SHADOWS

  Astrid’s friends and confidants.

  PART ONE

  From Hedgerow to Hallway

  STILTON

  LIKE THEIR AGE-OLD ENEMIES, MICE TOO CAN BE consumed by curiosity.

  Pedlar had heard about the House, ever since his birth. It stood three fields away – too far away to be able to see it from his Hedgerow – but stories about the House had travelled with the travellers. Wandering rodents had entertained the hedges and ditches with tales about the House.

  It was a place where mice lived in comfort, they said, warm all the year round. It was a place where food was in plenty, whatever the season, whatever the weather. It was a place where a variety of different species of mice made nests above ground, yet still remained out of the rain, out of the wind, out of reach of the fox and weasel, the stoat and hawk.

  However, when Pedlar asked his older cousin, Tinker, about the House, he received the reply, ‘You don’t want to go near there – place is crawling with nudniks, so I hear. Dirty creatures. Never wash themselves, so I’m told. They don’t bend in the middle very well and their tongues are too short. I never heard of a nudnik even licking between its toes… must be covered in lice, they must. Fancy not being able to nip the fleas on your own belly – it doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking about the nudniks – everyone knows what bumbling oafs they are. No, I was just wondering about the House itself. You know, what it’s like inside. Here, do you want to change that piece of beet for a haw?’

  Tinker absently swopped bits of food with his cousin, as he considered the question of the House.

  ‘What would any place be like, full of greasy nudniks? I hear they have swilling contests – that’s how stupid they are – they try to guzzle as much coloured water as they can in one standing and they eat like – like nudniks.’

  Nudniks were an endless source of speculation to Tinker, who said he despised them, but never stopped talking about them.

  ‘I don’t understand how they can stand up on their hind legs all that time,’ he said, ‘and not fall over. It’s not as if they’re the right shape for such a position, is it? You would think they would crash down on their poky-out noses, wouldn’t you? I hear they only have a small clutch of fur – long stuff sticking up on their heads like a tuft of grass. Where’s the rest of it gone? Maybe they had feathers and got plucked? Maybe they’re supposed to be frogs, or something, but can’t find a pond big enough…’

  But Pedlar was bored with talk about nudniks. It was the House he was interested in. He let Tinker waffle on about his favourite subject and continued to ponder about the House in silence. He had heard that houses were the empty shells of extinct giant snails and there was no reason to disbelieve it. Certainly, from the descriptions Pedlar had heard, they sounded like tough, hollow carapaces.

  It was probably the contrast between the description of the House, and the Hedgerow, which consumed Pedlar’s interest. Although in many ways the House was the opposite of the world he knew, he had a strong feeling that if he ever entered it he would be drawn into it and held, just as he was locked to the Hedgerow now. In one sense Pedlar was rooted to the hedge as surely as the hawthorn was to the Earth: it was part of him, he was part of it. The Hedgerow was magnetic, never letting its creatures stray far out into the wilderness that surrounded it, pulling them back in with fast-beating hearts and a discovery of a fear of open spaces. Yet Pedlar knew that if one hour he could break away, by sheer strength of will, he would experience something which would awaken his soul and open his mind to new light.

  His mother had told him as a very young mouse, ‘In the Hedgerow the spirits of mice and owls are able to touch each other, just fleetingly, for an instant in time. The weasels and stoats, they are our enemies – their language is terrible to our ears, their feeding habits are horrifying to our thoughts, their forms are monstrous – yet the Hedgerow binds us to them, because this is our common home.

  ‘The Hedgerow is thick with the souls of animals dead and gone, and with birds that have flown out their time, their spirits all tangled in the networks of the blackthorn. It unites us, adds some harmony to a savage world, as much as anything is able to do so…’

  The Hedgerow was Pedlar’s birthplace: or at least the ground beneath it. Though he spent as much time up amongst the twigs and thorns as he did on the Earth, his mother actually gave birth to him in a clay chamber below the grassy bank of the ditch. There was a network of tunnels there, with chambers off them, which wood mice and yellow-necked mice shared.

  It was here in the warm security of a hay-carpeted nest, held tightly in the great paw that was the Earth, where Pedlar and his brothers and sisters first breathed air. It was here that Pedlar’s mother said of him to a neighbour, The moment that mouse was born a cockchafer came to the entrance of my nest and fluttered its wings.’

  ‘So what?’ said the neighbour, whose own offspring were, in her opinion, far more special than those of any other mouse.

  ‘So what?’ cried Pedlar’s mother. ‘Don’t you know the cockchafer is the harbinger of greatness? A wandering vole told me that Frych-the-freckled, the great sorceress from the big House, has said so herself. I’ve been given a sign. That one’s bound for greatness, you mark my words.’

  ‘Cockchafers? – beetle-brains. Frych-the-freckled indeed!’ sniffed the neighbour and went back to her own very precious brood.

  ‘You watch out,’ yelled Pedlar’s mother. ‘You might be changed into a cockchafer yourself if you take a witch’s name in vain!’

  Pedlar grew up in the Hedgerow, hour by hour, until he was a mature yellow-neck, the largest breed of mouse in the countryside. He was so named because he often traded one kind of food for another, first with his brothers and sisters, then with other mice. In this he was unusual, since most mice just ate what they had, there and then. They thought Pedlar was funny, wanting to swop a berry for a nut, but they often went along with the trade, enjoying the novelty.

  The Hedgerow itself was the whole world for many of the animals and birds that lived there. Pedlar had been to the crest of the hedge several times in his life, dangerous though it was with kestrels and harriers abroad, and marvelled at its great length. One way it dipped and rose like a shoulder of the Earth following the gentle curves of the brown and green fields; the other way it disappeared along the steep bank of a chalk down, like an adder going into a hole.

  Pedlar’s eyesight was not good, mice rely more on touch and smell, but he could sense the permanence of the Hedgerow. It was there. It had been there since the coming of trees and it would always be there.

  It was in the sanctuary of the Hedgerow, no stem of which was thicker than a cow’s tongue, where Pedlar’s great-great-grandparents had lived and died, and their ancestors before them, back to the time when all the world was grass and only mice inhabited the many-seeded Earth. Theirs were the ancient smells, the bits of fur caught on twigs and thorns, the old, old murmurs in the grasses.

  The thorned Hedgerow was a castle too, with its spiked ramparts and palisades, keeping safe its many inhabitants from raptors and four-footed predators.

  Even the predators used it for protection, when they were being chased by nudniks and their dogs.

  It was the nudniks though, who trimmed and kept the Hedgerow healthy, squaring its broad shoulder in the spring, clearing its ditch of old leaves, twisting and twining its ethers to give it the strength to withstand winds and storms. Nudniks, guided by the great Creator,
had their several uses, helping to protect the fabric of Pedlar’s world.

  In this way the Hedgerow survived as a community. It did not matter that many of its creatures, from butterfly to hedgehog, from spider to stoat, spoke in different tongues. There was a second universal language – a language consisting of alarm sounds and movements, and of odours – which served the whole population of the Hedgerow in emergencies. So that when a storm was brewing, the creatures announced its arrival to each other.

  ‘A storm’s coming, a storm’s coming,’ the blackbirds would cry in their own peculiar speech, but the meaning would be understood by all, including Pedlar, who had heard the cry many times before.

  ‘Let’s get below,’ his cousin Tinker would say.

  On one occasion, however, a determined Pedlar replied, ‘No, I want to see what happens. I’m staying up here, tucked in the fork of this blackthorn.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ muttered Tinker. ‘Dizzy as a nudnik.’

  It was just that Pedlar wanted to hear the voices of heaven in full note, not deadened by the thickness of the turf and clay above his nest. He wanted to hear the archaic, clamouring tongues of bad weather, telling tales of bygone rains. The Hedgerow was always whispering to him, trying to tell him its primeval secrets, trying to pass on the lessons of his forebears with each rustling leaf, each creaking branch. Now he wanted to witness the sky giving birth to thunder and lightning. He wanted to hear the gales screaming through the whin, and the rain rattling on the old hollow oak.