Duncton Wood

by William Horwood

  Why did Rebecca look so sad? And why was there such a feeling of evil in her burrows, which were normally so fresh and alive, or had been until that Rune came back?

  From far off down the tunnels came the sound of pups’ cries—probably one of the earlier litters whose pups were already getting out of hand. You expect that by the first week of May.

  Comfrey couldn’t face the tunnels, and anyway, he wasn’t popular with the moles there now, so he went slowly on to the surface and looked for a while at the beech branches above him, which were just beginning to leaf at last. Always so late, beech leaves, but what a gentle rustle of a sound when they came!

  But it was no use. Comfrey could not shake the misery out of himself, or the thought of Rebecca with Rune in her burrows. He turned without thinking towards the Stone clearing and, as so often before, went to it and crouched by the Stone. Why had he been made so weak and nervous, even when he wasn’t afraid? Why did the Stone let moles like Rune live?

  He looked up at it above him, light and still against the tiny, shimmering beech leaves. Always so different and always such a mystery.

  Then he heard a rustle from the northwest, which was unusual. He smelt mole, but not mole that he knew. Hesitating over whether or not to find cover, he hesitated too long and the mole came out boldly into the clearing and straight towards him.

  ‘What m-m-mole are you, and where are you f-from?’ asked Comfrey as firmly as he could.

  The mole looked at him calmly for a while and then laughed aloud, not laughing at Comfrey but rather with him, as if the whole world were full of humour and there wasn’t a thing to worry about. And despite himself, despite his thoughts about Rune, Comfrey found himself laughing as well.

  ‘I used to live here in this system, you know,’ said the mole. ‘My name is Bracken.’

  Comfrey’s laugh froze in his mouth; in fact, the whole of him froze. He looked at the mole, who was scarred and looked quite old, his face lined and his fur straggly. He was big and very powerful now Comfrey looked at him closely, and his paws seemed more solidly on the ground than anymole he had ever known, except Rebecca.

  ‘Bracken?’ whispered Comfrey, without a stutter.

  Bracken nodded.

  ‘Rebecca’s Bracken?’ said Comfrey.

  Bracken laughed again. ‘Well, I was when she was alive, by the Stone’s grace I was,’ he said gently.

  ‘B-but—’ and now Comfrey did stutter and looked confused, because the whole world seemed to whirl about him and he couldn’t catch his breath, and the Stone was towering behind him and he was shaking with a mixture of pride and tears and relief all at once.

  ‘But she is alive,’ he said, ‘and she’s here, now.’

  Behind Comfrey the Stone rose into the sky and Bracken gazed up at it, his head tilting higher and higher as the words sank in. ‘She’s here, now,’ now where the Stone was, now, now where their love was, now. The trees were the same, the sounds were the same, the scent of the leaf litter was just the same as it had always been, so where had he been for so long? The moleyears began to leave him, though if anything he looked older and more solid for the knowledge that she was here, now.

  Slowly he began to hear Comfrey’s voice again as he continued to talk, his voice stumbling faster and a mixture of relief and distress running through it.

  ‘She’s in the old tunnels you burrowed yourself because that’s where she lives, but it’s not right anymore because Rune came back, who was here before, and he’s there now, and I don’t like him because it’s not right, what he wants.’ And Comfrey began to cry, because though he was an adult and a healer, he knew it didn’t matter in front of Bracken because there was nomole in the world stronger than he was, or who could help so much, except Rebecca, and she needed his help now…

  Bracken touched him gently. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. Then he turned away from the mole whose sadness he knew so well, and away from the Stone behind him, and without one trace of urgency in his step he made his way towards the nearest entrance to those tunnels he had himself burrowed so long before, thinking it was his home and nomole but Rebecca had the right to be there. Nomole.

  * * *

  Rebecca was suffering Rune’s snoutings with the thought that surely all moles may be loved finally, all arid every one; but that didn’t take away the disgust she felt or the obscenity of it and she wondered whether, if she had not been made so weary by so many moleyears of giving, perhaps she might be bringing down her talons upon him instead of crouching here like this.

  He was saying something, meaningless words whose real meaning was his triumph, and he felt like a solid shadow about her, which made her begin to weep silently, the tears becoming a protective veil beyond which Rune could do what he liked, which he was beginning to do, because she could feel his talons on her now, first at her side and then at her flank as she shuddered and wondered if every mole can be loved, or whether there are some who lose the right or for whom she did not have the power, and she felt so weak and in need of forgiveness; just as she had when this same mole had been there with Mandrake, tearing at her litter, and she didn’t have the strength to fight them. Cairn had not come. But she needed help and wanted Bracken, who would have helped her had she called out to him. So she did… ‘Bracken, Bracken, Bracken!’

  Then the burrow was filled with blood: Rune’s.

  And scrabbling desperate paws: Rune’s.

  And screams of anger and fear: Rune’s.

  And Bracken was there.

  He was in the centre of the burrow with Rebecca behind him and Rune thrown back against one of the walls, his flank bloody where Bracken’s talons had swung gently down and sent him sailing through the air.

  There was no anger about Bracken at all, just certainty and great power.

  ‘I thought you were dead, Rune,’ said Bracken matter-of-factly.

  Rune gathered himself up and lunged viciously forward to where Bracken was and yet wasn’t; when Rune got there, his taloned paw stubbed uselessly into thin air, because Bracken was round to his side and another gentle blow seemed to send Rune backwards against another wall, his neck savaged with talon cuts.

  Rune turned to face Bracken again but never pushed forward his attack: he found himself looking not just at Bracken but at Rebecca as well, and they crouched side by side, not angry or contemptuous or hostile in any way: their eyes held compassion and pity. It made Rune turn around in terrible fear, as if he were fleeing from the edge of a void, and he ran out of the burrow into the tunnel beyond.

  Bracken barely seemed to move and yet, when Rune looked round to see if he was following, there he was, right behind him, not angry but compassionate, and that was something Rune could not face. He turned away again, running and running away, twisting and turning through the tunnels and up on to the surface, anything to get away from Bracken.

  But there he was again, or seemed to be. Bracken was there waiting for him and the great soaring beech trees, sinewy and light, seemed to twist around Rune and encircle him so that he could not bear the simple shimmering of their leaves, which were somehow like Bracken.

  Rune began to run across the rustling surface of the wood, trying to control the fear he felt, to wonder at it and so control it, but he could hear Bracken pattering along behind him, a mole who seemed now only to have to raise his talon and it sent him, Rune, powerful Rune, who knew how to kill, who could hurt other moles, painfully flying through the air.

  His breath wouldn’t come and his body felt twisted and out of control with pains and wounds, and there was red blood on his fur, always glossy before but now matted with blood and sweat. The trees fell away and he was into the Stone clearing, running and turning to see if Bracken was after him, which he was, so that Rune fell behind himself, hurting himself as he twisted and fell among the roots of the tree and was pressing against the Stone which he hated, turning around with Bracken above him.

  Bracken looked down at the withered, trembling, shaking form of Rune, who was t
rying to pull himself up to face him, and then slowly up at the Stone of which he had asked so many times, in so many different ways, why a mole like Rune existed.

  Bracken raised his paws and extended his talons and mercilessly brought them down towards Rune against the Stone. Bracken’s breathing was as gentle as soft wind as his death blow fell on Rune, but his breathing stopped short when, somehow, the Stone seemed to stop his paws, for he hit them against it, he who knew how to fight, and they only scratched, squealing down on its face towards Rune, but not into him.

  Seeing death stopped above him, Rune twisted and ran from the Stone and behind him heard Bracken, angry at last, and cursing: ‘Bugger the Stone, I’m going to kill that Rune.’

  And now Rune was afraid, finally, truly, deeply afraid. He was going to be killed. And he ran on and on into the wood, away from the Stone, faster and faster, as he heard Bracken follow, whose paws sounded so calm in their running, while his paws scrabbled to get away and wouldn’t grip.

  On and on Rune ran, his strength failing rapidly, as if he was growing old and ancient all at once. He could no longer think clearly and his breath was coming in pants and gasps. Behind him he could hear Bracken getting nearer, beech leaves and leaf mould scattering in their wake.

  The hill rose to the right towards its final height, while Bracken now veered a little to his left, stopping him turning that way but too close for him to turn back. So he had to go forward towards the void of the chalk escarpment, his heart pounding in pain and each breath harder and harder to grasp hold of.

  Bracken watched Rune ahead of him and saw age creep over him, his coat now ugly and matted, his body twisted with fear. Had he once looked so pathetic to Mandrake when he had been chased, as Rune was now, over these leaves and roots, with the beech branches above, and the sky lightening ahead because there were no more trees left, just the straggly line of the sheer cliff edge?

  No, he couldn’t kill him, it was no longer necessary. So he would catch him now and stop him, because killing isn’t the way; couldn’t Rune see? So he raised his paws to stop Rune, while behind him came a shout from Rebecca.

  ‘Don’t touch him. Don’t hurt him, he can’t harm us…’

  Rune heard it, Rebecca’s voice, and hated the love in it which he could not bear to face, and where Bracken had turned once to face Mandrake, Rune ran on, the void of pity behind him far, far worse than the void ahead, which was full of air with a chalkfall far below, nothing under his scrabbling paws and a last terrible look back at moles who pitied him, whose faces and eyes and snouts rose far, far above him into the sky, as his back arched under him and his talons tried to hold on to the sky beyond them. Then darkness blotted Rune out.

  Rebecca shook like a pup, and stood as weakly as one, as relief, such a relief, came slowly into her. Bracken was still peering over the cliff edge and oh! she was frightened of him. She was shy of him. He was nomole she knew, and yet she knew him to his heart’s core.

  As for Bracken, he was only pretending to look over the cliff’s edge. She was there, behind him, his Rebecca, her voice still in the wood about them.

  As he turned finally with such love to her, she said, ‘Bracken?’ and he could hear, and she knew he could hear, that she was calling him, calling out to him and he was coming to her at last.

  He could see her, she knew he could see her, and she whispered to herself, ‘I’m Rebecca, my name is Rebecca and I’m not Mandrake’s daughter or Cairn’s mate or the healer, but I’m Rebecca,’ and oh! she could hear the whole wood behind her, rustling and free, and the birdsounds from where the slopes were and they were all part of her and he could see it and it was such relief to be seen like that because at last that’s what she was.

  ‘Rebecca, Rebecca…’

  ‘Yes, my love, that’s right, my love,’ she said, looking at the love and beauty in his eyes that saw the love and beauty in her own as they lost themselves at last within it.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  There is a point at which the gentlest touch becomes the softest caress becomes the sweetest nuzzle becomes the lightest push becomes the most loving romp in the world: but Bracken and Rebecca never found out exactly where it was.

  He would look at her in burrow or among dry leaves, and she at him, and they would wonder at the wonder of where they were. And what words they said, or never finished saying, they never knew. Except that when he said, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ it was never, never enough for him, because what words can satisfy the ache to be so wholly with another mole which even bodies cannot satisfy?

  Sometimes playful, rompish, silly, she would ask him again, just one more time, ‘Do you really love me,’ and he would hesitate and sadly shake his head and she would cry out, ‘Oh oh oh oh Oh!’ as he said, ‘No, I don’t think I do,’ with such love that it was better than him saying that he did.

  Or she would talk about a mole who wasn’t there, whom she had known, whom she really did love, yes she did!

  ‘What was he like?’ Bracken would ask, and she would think and nuzzle him and start to say, then stop, then start again, that, well (nuzzling close), describe a mole whose paws and snout and fur and scars and very soul were just like Bracken’s own, and Bracken would say: ‘Strange, I knew a female once, not far from here, who I think I loved…’ ‘Oh, what was she like?’ asked Rebecca breathlessly. ‘And did you love her?’

  But Bracken wouldn’t say but would only show, by putting his talons among her soft, grey fur and snouting at her soft as wind and strong as roots so that she closed her eyes and smiled and sighed aloud until he did it harder and she held him to her so that the mole he knew was she, Rebecca, and she was moist where he snouted and she wide and he pushing and she snouting him soft and hard so that he was hard to her with haunches so powerful to her, and claws that hurt before exquisite now, running down her back and up it, up it higher, higher, and higher until they didn’t need the preface words, or feel the ache of being two apart because he was there upon her, mole of moles, and she so proud and he as well, for his the sound of sighs and calls and cries of the only mole that held a beauty for his eyes, beneath, above, upon, below.

  Theirs was the laughter and theirs the tears of making love as days passed into night and leaves changed into stars.

  * * *

  Rebecca knew she was with litter at the very moment that it happened, because the light about them both, in the deep darkness of their burrow, was just as it had been by the Stillstone beneath the Duncton Stone: glimmering white, a halo over them, as the burrow filled with the sound of the sighs of wonder.

  Bracken knew she was with litter when one dawn he heard her burrowing nearby, at the end of one of the tunnels, and singing the kind of song that she must have sung as a pup, before he had met her. He laughed and smiled and fell asleep again, the scent and warmth of her all about him; while she heard him laugh, and knowing why he did so, laughed as well as she felt his power and strength in the tunnels all around her, giving her a kind of freedom that she’d never had.

  It was May, and the nesting leaves she began to take down to the birth-burrow she was making bore a fresh Maytime scent, each one seeming to her more and more special. She took down grass as well, and the fragrant stems and florets of ground ivy which, because they were not so brittle as the dry and delicate beech leaves, gave her litter-nest the strength she felt it needed.

  As the days passed and May grew warmer, she kept more and more to herself as she steadily extended her tunnels, which lay adjacent to the ones Bracken had originally burrowed between the Stone and the pastures.

  Bracken had reoccupied his old tunnels, the ones she had lived in for so long, and she liked the feeling that he was there in tunnels she had grown to love and where, he said, he basked in what he called her ‘delicious scent’. They spent long periods near each other, wallowing in the pleasure of having to say so little to understand so much.

  Their only visitor was Comfrey who, as the days went by, grew less and less nervous
and awkward and was able to crouch for long hours near them without even twitching his tail or looking about himself uncomfortably. Their love calmed him.

  It was only because of him that they found out about what each of them had done in their long moleyears of separation. By themselves they never talked of it, but Comfrey had always been a mole to ask questions and there was so much he wanted to know. Rebecca would tell him things very simply, almost as if nearly dying in a blizzard or travelling all the way back from Siabod were the sort of things moles did every other day. Although she rarely referred to the Stone or its providence, there was in all she said the sense that behind each incident there was its common power, whose pattern a mole might wonder at but never fully understand.

  Bracken’s stories were more dramatic, more male, and Comfrey would often shudder at the close escapes he and Boswell had had and wonder what powers the two moles must have possessed to have faced so much and come out of it all alive.

  But it was only to Comfrey that Bracken would talk like this—to the other moles in the system he was a mystery: they knew what he had achieved, but none of them could ever make him talk of it, and sometimes they wondered if a mole like him, who didn’t seem all that special, could really have done so much.

  But more often it was the fact of Bracken and Rebecca being together that they talked about, and there was barely a mole in the system who did not sense the peace and love that surrounded the two most respected moles in Duncton. Their presence together near the Stone began to bring a peace and depth of feeling to the system that contrasted almost magically with the dark dissension created by Rune before Bracken came.