Arvicola was a large male water vole who had a hairy face and possessed a slow, rustic voice. He was the leader of a water vole tribe that lived in the Northwest by the river. Despite his slow manner of speech and apparent bucolic manner, he was extremely clever. When the fugitives Triss and Shogg wandered into his tribe's territory, he had his voles stamp and trample a large swath of ground in a path through the woodlands, then had Triss and Shogg leave their tracks among them. He then hid the escapees in the river. The plan worked, as Princess Kurda and her Slavecatcher were fooled and followed the path the voles had left, straight into a watermeadow, thus missing both the Vole Tribe and the escaped slaves.
It is likely that the name "Arvicola" is derived from the Scientific classification for the subfamily of the vole species--Arvicolinae.