Duncton Wood

by William Horwood

  Boswell was too wise to raise this with Bracken directly, but if, as it sometimes did, the subject of healing came up, or some particular work Rebecca had been doing somewhere in the pastures or Duncton was mentioned, he would try to draw Bracken on to the subject, believing that talking might help. But it didn’t. Bracken did not seem to mind mention of her name, but he did not react to it except to utter some general comment such as, ‘The system is lucky to have a mole like Rebecca for its healer—in fact, it’s a miracle we’ve got a mole so good in succession to Rose,’ but there was something too studiously careful about these comments to convince or satisfy Boswell.

  At the same time, Rebecca was rarely seen anywhere near Barrow Vale, a fact made far more of by Boswell and Mekkins, who discussed it together, than it was worth, since in her own time Rose had rarely bothered with Barrow Vale. When moles need healing the best place to do it, she used to say, is in the privacy of their burrows, not on public view in Barrow Vale.

  Rebecca had stayed on the pastures in the tunnels she created for herself after Rose’s death, and little had changed: Comfrey still lived nearby, still strange and nervous, with a great love of herbs and plants and unwilling to let Rebecca go too far from him for too long: partly, perhaps, from his own insecurity, but also, though Boswell was never to guess it, because in his own way he protected Rebecca from despair. Sometimes he would travel off in search of new herbs, but he had a knack of making his path cross where Rebecca was— and seemed, too, to sense what herbs she needed, for often he would appear suddenly in some remote corner of one of the systems with the very herb she needed for some healing process. There was a great trust and peace between the two, and by virtue of his attachment to her Comfrey went unmolested wherever he wished in the systems, which allowed him to develop in time as wide a knowledge of where the medicinal plants of the two systems were as anymole had ever had.

  Violet had now been completely absorbed into the Pasture system and lost all contact with Rebecca and, of course, Bracken.

  But as for Rebecca coming to see Bracken, it just never happened, and it wasn’t the kind of thing a mole would want to raise with Rebecca. A healer does not have problems as far as anymole else is concerned. And even if she had, Rebecca gave no sign of it at all except to Comfrey, who saw far more than even she ever suspected.

  What was worse for Boswell was that he saw clearly how Bracken’s coldness about Rebecca affected the way he thought about the Stone. Bracken no longer revered the Stone but became inclined to make ironic or cynical remarks about it—‘It’s all an illusion, which may please some moles, but they’ll soon grow out of it,’ or, on an occasion when Boswell dared to suggest that it would be a good idea to go to the Stone to pray for rain, ‘If it sends rain, Boswell, it’ll send a flood; that’s the way your Stone amuses itself when it answers prayers.’

  As for visiting the Stone, or the Ancient System, which Boswell still desperately wanted to do in Bracken’s company, there was no quicker way to make Bracken coldly angry than to suggest it. There was only one absolute rule with Bracken, and that was that nomole was to visit the tunnels of the Ancient System, in any circumstances. They could go to the Stone if they wanted, though it was probably a waste of their time.

  Boswell was at first very frustrated by all this, not only because he loved Bracken as he had loved nomole, but also because he wanted to pursue the quest he had come to Duncton Wood to fulfil—to find the seventh Stillstone and the seventh Book, which he was convinced were there. He would talk to other moles he met about the system, seeking out the oldest ones with longest memories, trying to find clues in the stories they told that might guide him forward. He would even tell them about Uffington if they asked, or he thought it might encourage them to revive memories of their own system. He might have been tempted to visit there himself but for the sense he had that it was Bracken, and Bracken alone, who would guide him there.

  But as time went by a curious thing happened: Boswell began to lose the urgent desire he had first felt to find the seventh Book. He began to sense that there are some things, great things, which a mole should not reach out his talons for. He must learn to sit still and trust that they will come to him. This discovery served only to increase his awe of Bracken—for was it not Bracken’s very recalcitrance that made him see it? He began to wonder whether, in some strange way, the Stone was working through Bracken far more powerfully than anymole could ever have dreamed of, which made him seek ways of quietly making life as caring and loving for Bracken as he could. Nothing gave him more pleasure than the fact that, despite Bracken’s ill temper and contradictions, he never once told Boswell to leave him, but always seemed pleased in his awkward way for him to be there.

  So it was quite without seeking it that Boswell discovered his first dramatic clue to the existence of the seventh Book. It happened when he decided for himself to go to Rebecca in the pastures and see if he could not work some kind of reconciliation between her and Bracken. An idea which, had he known Rebecca better, he would never have been innocent enough to try.

  He made his way into the pastures with Mekkins’ help, the Marshender leaving him safely at the entrance to Rebecca’s tunnels. Mekkins was no fool and could guess why Boswell had come and though, being more worldly wise, he feared the attempt would fail, he felt it best to stay clear of the whole thing and let the strange scribemole try.

  He himself loved Rebecca too much to want her to stay so far apart from Bracken, and anyway, he had grown to respect Boswell, who seemed to know a lot of things, even if he was a bit daft when it came to understanding females, especially ones like Rebecca.

  Rebecca greeted Boswell with real warmth. They had not met since Midsummer Night, but her travels about the systems had brought her into contact with many moles who were wide-eyed with fascination about the strange mole from Uffington ‘who do ask the queerest questions that ever I have heard, and do tell the strangest quaintest tales if ’e’s a mind to it’.

  Boswell’s response to Rebecca was not at all what he had expected it would be. He had come full of good intent, calmly and gently to talk to her about Bracken. But the moment he saw her again and found himself in the clear warmth of her smile, any words that he had rehearsed quite left him. He gazed on her with genuine delight, his bright intelligent eyes travelling quickly around her burrow, now nearly as full of herbs and flowers as Rose’s had once been. He sensed the great reverence she felt for the life which she had pledged herself to help, and he saw far more about her than Mekkins could ever have given him credit for: he saw a brave mole whose warmth and love were real, but whose spirit bore the marks of loss as Bracken’s did, but who did not pretend to herself that it was not so.

  He saw immediately how vulnerable she was. But what he did not see, and perhaps would never understand, was how, in his company, her spirit was able to begin to soar again into a freedom it had once taken for granted. Indeed, the feeling of lightheartedness that arose in her as soon as he crouched down, looked about him curiously and then fixed his gaze directly on her, took her by surprise. She wanted to laugh for the pleasure of it. More than that, she wanted to dance! She wanted to sing and play. What she did do was to smile and feel more delightfully foolish than she had for many a long molemonth.

  ‘Why have you come to Duncton Wood?’ she asked eagerly, quite unaware that she was the first mole to ask him this simple question or that it raised a subject that made his mission of reconciliation suddenly irrelevant.

  ‘Well…’ he began, not sure where to begin.

  ‘You must have come here for some reason, Boswell! It’s a long way to come just to say hello and go away again.’

  ‘I think the Stone called me here, or told me to come,’ he said simply. He knew instinctively that she would understand what he meant by this, and he was right, for Rebecca nodded and said: ‘Yes, of course. But why?’

  ‘It has to do with what the scribemoles of Uffington call the seventh Book. You see, Rebecca, there are seven holy Boo
ks and…’ and he began to tell her, reciting the mysterious text he had found describing the other six Books, and explaining at some length why it was so important that the seventh Book should be found.

  ‘The Book will be found when it needs to be found, I expect—and anyway, perhaps what will happen is that the Book will find you.’ He knew what she meant, and of course she was right. Hadn’t he told himself that nomole can try to reach out for such a thing?

  As Boswell talked, Rebecca had grown happier and happier, for she saw clearly what it was about Boswell that made her feel so free. Every other mole she saw sought her help in one way or another, whereas Boswell, despite appearances, did not need any healing that she could give. She was free with him because he did not need her. He asked nothing of her and because of it was strong enough to face the full spirit of her love for life, as if it were no more unusual than a tree or sunshine. She sighed to herself in bliss to feel it and closed her eyes with a smile as he talked.

  It was only when he began to tell her of the seven Stillstones that went with the Books, and she realised that they were not huge stones like the one on top of Duncton Hill but smaller, that her sense of bliss was transmuted into the shiveringly awesome feeling that she and Boswell were touching something that made time and circumstance fall away into a different place.

  Boswell sensed this feeling in her, for he stopped talking at once and asked: ‘Can you tell me something about any of this?’ For the first time since he had come to Duncton he felt that the Stone was giving him its help.

  Then, very simply, Rebecca told him about what she and Bracken had seen and felt on Longest Night. She described it matter-of-factly and quite without mystery, though the fears, doubts and joys that had been a part of that night were a part of her description.

  He listened to her, trembling with the same sense of awe that she had felt, and when she finished, his first comment was: ‘So he touched that stone, which must have been a Stillstone and its light faded? He touched it!’

  ‘Does it matter?’ she asked a little nervously, because he sounded shocked.

  ‘I don’t know, Rebecca. Perhaps not. I don’t know.’

  ‘Hasn’t Bracken told you anything about this at all?’ she asked.

  Boswell shook his head. ‘Nothing. In fact, he doesn’t even like to talk about you. I’ve asked him to take me up to the Ancient System but he has ordered that nomole goes there. I think…’ But he stopped, because what he thought was something that Rebecca perhaps ought not to hear.

  ‘Yes?’ said Rebecca who, as a healer, was more used than anymole in the two systems to moles who were reluctant to finish sentences. Usually the unspoken part of the sentence was what they had come to talk to her about. She didn’t think this of Boswell, but habits die hard.

  ‘I was going to say that I think his apparent dislike of the Ancient System, which extends to the Stone, as you well know, has a lot to do with you and him… well… not…’ said Boswell, searching vainly for the right words.

  ‘Not being in touch?’ said Rebecca.

  ‘Exactly,’ smiled Boswell. ‘Yes, that’s it!’ He wanted to laugh, but Rebecca was not smiling. She was serious, and for the first time since he had been in her burrow her face expressed the sense of loss that he had sensed in her spirit when he first came.

  Once more he saw how vulnerable she was. There were times when he felt acutely his own lack of wisdom and wished he knew how to comfort a mole. He was full to bursting with the desire to say something to Rebecca, but did not know the words. But he found himself saying, ‘He loves you.’ Perhaps it was all he had come to say to Rebecca anyway.

  ‘Does he know it?’ asked Rebecca.

  Boswell shook his head: he didn’t know. He could not help wondering whether or not Rebecca knew that she loved Bracken. But then, what did those words mean unless they were expressed through the Stone, which, in the first place, they had been?

  ‘When I think of him or hear his name, I think of Mandrake,’ said Rebecca quietly. ‘I think of him trying to reach out to me by the Stone and Bracken stopping me, stopping me.’

  ‘But it was Stonecrop who killed him,’ said Boswell.

  ‘It wasn’t that,’ whispered Rebecca, remembering. ‘Perhaps a fight is better than an owl, or disease, especially for Mandrake. Perhaps that was best. No, you see, Bracken heard Mandrake. He heard him calling me and because he was afraid he stopped me going, and Mandrake was left in that… place—’ Rebecca could not go on. She cried freely, freer than she would have been before any other mole but Boswell. Boswell wished he had had the wisdom to understand.

  But Bracken and Rebecca did meet, an accidental crossing of paths in the Marsh End where he and Boswell had been talking to Mekkins one day about what everymole now recognised was a drought, and getting more serious every day.

  Bracken and Boswell were going down a tunnel. There was laughter ahead, a couple of females chatting, and then there was Rebecca, large as life, Bracken tensed and looked surly, even angry. Rebecca smiled, a shade too calmly Boswell thought, as he backed away to leave the two together.

  ‘Rebecca!’ exclaimed Bracken with false cheer, having recovered himself. ‘I hear good reports of your work—not only in Duncton but on the pasture as well.’

  ‘Hello, Bracken,’ said Rebecca quietly.

  ‘Yes, again and again I come across moles who…’ and within Boswell’s hearing Bracken launched into a shower of talk about everything but what was in his heart—his joy and confusion at seeing Rebecca again.

  She said hardly a word during this prattle, except ‘yes’ and ‘mmm’ and ‘really?’ but each word she spoke seemed slower and sadder than the last. But there was a point in their painful conversation when, for a brief moment, the light shone again. Bracken had got on to the subject of the drought and Rebecca suddenly said, ironically, ‘You should put a stop to it, Bracken. You’re the leader of Duncton.’

  Bracken laughed a little too loudly and then said, ‘I’m not the Stone, Rebecca,’ and Boswell heard her soft reply: ‘No, my dear, you’re not.’

  Bracken was silent, for he heard the love behind her reproof just as much as Boswell did, and he could not hide the sadness in his own eyes. For a moment he relaxed and looked directly into Rebecca’s eyes—and she into his. And there was stillness between them again. Rebecca had seen that look before, one September in the fading of a rainstorm when Bracken had first told her his name. He had run off then, and he did it again now, barely saying goodbye before he was gone. And Rebecca was left with only a look of understanding from Boswell to weigh against the loss she felt, the frustration at Bracken’s fear, and the feeling that in some way, surely, it was her fault. She could have done more: the same feeling she had so often and so sadly faced with Mandrake. And then she thought of Mandrake, whom she had loved so deeply, and wondered why Bracken had not heard his cries.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  In the third week of August, Stonecrop came over from the pastures to see Bracken. They talked in the elder burrow with Boswell and a couple of other Duncton moles present.

  ‘The drought on the pastures is now getting very serious, Bracken,’ started Stonecrop. ‘Perhaps you in the wood are more protected than we are, and so do not realise how critical it is becoming. The grass is turning yellow with dryness; the soil is cracking and so hard for lack of rain that our youngsters who have left their home burrows cannot burrow tunnels and are being forced to live on the surface in the few areas of longer grass that exist. Many have been taken by owl and kestrel. The stronger ones are fighting for older moles’ territory and there is death and violence in the system. Food is scarce and moles that find a source of worms are keeping it secret, or killing other moles who find out their secret, and there is a growing sense of distrust and treachery throughout the system.’

  ‘What can we do about it?’ asked Bracken coldly. ‘Our own food supply is poor and, I am told, getting worse.’ He looked round at the others for confirmation. They nodded, and
Boswell thought to himself that there is nothing like a shortage of food to turn a system violently against others and itself. He had heard of it, but never seen it at first paw.

  Bracken looked at Stonecrop unsympathetically. His job now was to protect his system and if Stonecrop was going to suggest, which it seemed likely that he was, that the Pasture moles should move in on Duncton where the food supply was better, he would have to resist it. With force, if necessary.

  ‘My predecessor, Brome, who helped you save your system and get rid of Rune—not to mention Mandrake—believed that the Stone should be accessible to the Pasture moles,’ said Stonecrop.

  ‘Well isn’t it?’ asked Bracken irritably. He didn’t like being reminded about Brome and Rune and Mandrake, not by Stonecrop of all moles. All that, and a lot more, was over. It was gone.

  ‘Does anymole live in the Ancient System now?’ asked Stonecrop unexpectedly.

  The question brought an icy calm into Bracken’s mind as, keeping his face quite impassive, he worked out what his response to the implication behind this question should be. He wanted no Pasture mole living in the Ancient System. There was something almost blasphemous about the idea. Blasphemous? Bracken thought to himself that that was a strange word for him to use. Why, for Stone’s sake, he didn’t want anymole living in the Ancient System.

  ‘If you are going to suggest that because nomole from Duncton now lives in the Ancient System that Pasture moles might now live there, then…’ He was about to say, and thought better of it, that if that was what Stonecrop meant he had better forget about it. Right now.

  However, if his time as leader of Duncton had taught him anything, it was that blunt statements of intent were sometimes less effective as a way of getting things done than ambiguity. So he finished the sentence clumsily and only half-convincingly: ‘then… this is something we will naturally need to talk about carefully among ourselves. Trust me, Stonecrop, to see that we do our best.’ But Stonecrop didn’t like the indirect mole Bracken was becoming and certainly didn’t trust him much at all. Why, it had once been so easy to talk to Bracken, hadn’t it? But he hadn’t smiled once. Where was his spirit gone?