Duncton Stone

by William Horwood

  “Sing,” she whispered, immobile on the floor, her strength utterly taken. “Sing to me.” It was, she knew, what he did best – and that would be all she ever told her pups about him. The song, the beautiful song he would sing, and never the circumstances. Why should pups know their father for a monster, when a part of him is perhaps something more worthy?

  “Sing?” whispered Squelch, heaving himself off her and wishing that Snyde was not privy to this part of their dialogue as he realized to his surprise and horror that his victim felt no more fear, nor even pain; not even disgust, only pity.

  “Yes,” she commanded, turning to him and looking into his eyes with a sympathy he found exquisitely unbearable.

  “What about?”

  She took his paw and put it to her flank. “About what you might have been if you had not been made what you are.”

  He was gifted to understand what she meant, and spontaneous tears rolled down his cheeks.

  “Sing?” he sighed.

  “Sing for the sake of your unborn young,” she whispered so the voyeur could not hear.

  “My young?” he sobbed, feeling her flank and forced to a vale of shame and self-pity he had never visited before.

  Then sing he did, in that beautiful high-pitched voice, a song to the life he had made but which he would never – must never – know. And Snyde heard, and stared, and scribed, but did not understand the smallest part of the tragedy and triumph he was witness to.

  When Squelch was done he was quite drained, and then Madoc knew she must talk to make him know her, make him want to save her, and tell him of things which, if he had tried to torture out of her she would have resisted telling to the last. Things which seemed a betrayal, but which, she knew, in a way mysterious and as harmonious as his song, the Stone willed him to know – as well as that anonymous observer who watched and heard all they did together.

  Of Privet she spoke; of Whillan; and of Rooster. All, all she told, of their different loves and struggles and finally of how it might be that Rooster was Whillan’s father, and Privet his aunt. In all of Madoc’s story it is these revelations which remain most inexplicable and controversial. None can doubt that she was an intelligent and resourceful mole, so that the claim of naivety cannot be sustained. She must have known, or guessed, the terrible use to which Newborn Inquisitors might put such information. Some describe the revelations as an appalling betrayal, for which Madoc had to suffer appropriate punishment. A few point out that from this “betrayal” all that was good that happened after really stemmed.

  But judgements are an irrelevance when the Stone’s Light shines. All we can do is accept reality for good and bad, and trust that if a mole claims that it was the Stone that directed her to speak as she did, then she is telling the truth.

  It is not hard to imagine the feverish excitement with which the spying Snyde heard these revelations. Knowing the modern history of Duncton as uniquely well as he did, in which the pattern of the Stone’s Silence was in all things, he understood what Squelch could not: that if Rooster and Privet were blood-related through Whillan, and one was a Master of the Delve and the other a scholar and scribemole of rare ability, then it might surely be in Whillan that the future for the Stone followers lay. In him, therefore, was the greatest danger to the Newborns. From which the starkest and simplest decision followed – the mole Whillan was better dead than living.

  “He must die, Elder Brother Quail, he must be stopped!”

  Oh, yes, after it was all over Snyde had barely paused to thank Squelch for letting him witness the punishment of Madoc before he was busily off to Quail to tell all he had heard, and to stress that the recently-caught Privet, Rooster and Whillan might have more significance for the Newborns than had been thought.

  “If I may say so,” continued Snyde, turning and ducking his twisted head as if pre-empting criticism and doubts from Quail, Skua and the other Elder Brothers before whom he spoke, “there is a kind of fatal pattern to events regarding Duncton – I hesitate to use the word “harmony” for moles as wrong-headed as the followers – and this matter of Rooster, Privet and Whillan makes me feel very uneasy. Rooster escapes dramatically, and now appears as a captive once more; Privet, a harmless-seeming mole turns out to come from the Moors and to know Rooster of old; the mole Whillan is son to Rooster and his mother is Privet’s sister. And here they all are, together, harmless-seeming, but reminding me of times in Duncton’s recent past when the kinship between moles was intertwined with events, and harmless-seeming moles proved far more formidable than their foes gave them credit for.”

  Quail’s bald head wrinkled at the thought, for by now he had a great respect for Snyde, and knew him for a subtle mole well versed in the labyrinths of history, and, therefore, of treachery and the workings of the Snake. Skua, too, looked thoughtful, his instinct telling him that there was a truth in Snyde’s words, even if its precise nature and implication were hard to define.

  “So?” whispered Quail. “What do you suggest?”

  “The mole Whillan is the danger,” hissed Snyde, feeling the exquisite delight of the machinations of high council, coupled this time with the personal and malicious pleasures that came with hurting Privet through her foster-son, whose abilities in scribing, whose obvious intelligence, whose very body, whose potential, Snyde had long hated. “In the Duncton tradition it is always youth that comes to the fore and saves the day. Whillan should be disappeared.”

  “He has sinned sufficiently to warrant it,” said Skua, eyes glinting.

  “And what does Brother Chervil think?” purred Quail, whose face suddenly had the relaxed and purposeful confidence of one who has seen the way forward, and is waiting his moment to reveal a decision made while others continue to talk.

  Chervil frowned, his eyes flicking with distaste from Snyde, then to Skua and Quail with respect. He was the youngest among them, but there was nothing youthful about him. He had matured since his dialogue with Privet on the journey from Duncton and now looked formidable indeed. Quail might be more frightening and powerful, and Skua more threatening, but when Chervil spoke his words had authority, and an appeal to allmole that made even those two listen with interest and respect.

  “I think the mole Whillan should be rather more than “disappeared”,” he said with conviction. “He should be seen to die, and his death should be made known to the Duncton moles who still call themselves followers. As for what Brother Recorder Snyde calls “patterns”, I defer to his assessment. I sense he may be right. I think however that if we are to win the hearts and minds of the remaining followers to our Newborn way we should be seen to be as publicly merciful as we are firm with moles like Whillan. We may take with one paw, but we must be seen to give with another. Therefore the mole Privet should be spared. But Rooster... now there we have a problem, Brothers. If we kill him we risk him becoming a martyr to the followers’ cause. If we let him live we risk him rallying followers to his flanks.”

  “Therefore,” said Quail, interrupting forcefully as leaders sometimes must, “we must neutralize him.”

  He paused just long enough for the Elder Brothers to look at each other, and wonder aloud at the point he had raised before he pushed his shining head forward, asserted his authority with a glance, and said, “There is a way of doing that I think, once and for all. But it will mean bringing forward to tomorrow the punishment of the blasphemers we had planned for a few days hence.”

  “You mean all of them?” said Skua.

  “Yes, that is what I mean,” replied Quail decisively. “Let the punishments be on the morrow, and let the judgement of Whillan and its execution be the final one. The moles Privet and Rooster may witness it.”

  So Whillan’s elimination was agreed. But as preparations began for that awful event, a mole went hurrying from the Council chamber, unremarked, and the brother he went to find was Rolt. This was one interview that Snyde and his spies did not record, even if they knew the burden of what was said: Privet was in captivity, and on t
he morrow her son would die, and Rooster in some foul way be “neutralized’.

  Learning which Rolt went hurrying to Elder Senior Brother Thripp, in the obscure part of Wildenhope in which he was confined, and told him of the recapture of Privet and the others, and how their fate had been decided.

  As Thripp listened to what Brother Rolt had to report the tremor ceased in his body and a fire of hope and faith came to his eyes. And this, strangely, is what he said: “She is come then, come back to me, and our prayers have been answered. Now, Rolt, now is the time for us to think, to pray, to act. You must take me to her in the cell where they have her. Take me now!”

  He spoke almost feverishly, as if Privet’s coming to Wildenhope was an act of willing return to him personally, rather than part of an involuntary process of captivity and finally punishment.

  “It will be dangerous, Elder Senior Brother, very dangerous.”

  “Ah, but there will be a way, the Stone will show it to us. It is the least I can do for her.”

  “But I have told you. Arum and Boden are to be punished along with others of your followers tomorrow. In any case, Master, you are still too ill to be wandering around Wildenhope avoiding guards and seeking prisoners in cells whose location you do not know.”

  “Am I, Brother Rolt? Am I not better? I think I am! Bold is best, and there are still many who will follow me, or at least turn a blind eye to what I do. Come, let us hasten to her. I owe it to Privet now. She has been the only joy of all my life.”

  “You are too ill, Brother,” pleaded Rolt, faltering before the purpose and passion of the mole he had served and loved like no other in his life; he knew as no other could what Privet alone had been to Thripp once in years gone by in Blagrove Slide. “Instruct me in what to say to her.”

  Thripp suddenly smiled, and for a moment he looked almost young and well again. “Why, Brother Rolt, if I knew what I was going to say, I would willingly tell you. My head aches, my bones and muscles ache, my very soul aches as they have for moleyears past. I would like nothing better than for you to go for me, but there are some errands a mole must run for himself And anyway, now is the time of curing and healing; now I see a way. My ailment has been of mind, not body. My dearest... my Privet, is my cure. Come, now, let us go together and put our trust in the Stone.”

  With help from the devoted Rolt, Thripp rose slowly from the litter where he lay and went with difficulty to the portal of his chamber. As he came out into the tunnel beyond it a guard on duty snapped to attention.

  “Forgive me, Elder Senior Brother, but you’re not meant...”

  Thripp silenced him with a stare that seemed to cut through to his very heart.

  “I do forgive you, mole. Now, Brother Rolt and I have a short journey to make, and a cell to find, and you will see us safeguarded there and back. We go on the Stone’s business.”

  “The Stone’s business?” repeated the guard, spellbound by Thripp’s gaze, and voice, and being, as so many had been before him.

  “Oh yes,” said Thripp, “its most holy business.”

  “Then I will, I will,” said the guard, his training and his loyalties quite deserting him, as for the first time in his life he had the feeling that he was playing a part, however minor, in a mission for the Stone, and that the mission was a holy one.

  “How do you do it. Master?” muttered Rolt admiringly. When he wished it, Thripp could charm a worm out of a rook’s cruel bill.

  “Faith, Rolt, and passion and conviction, that’s all you need, and the world is yours. In combination these are most fatal qualities. Of them all faith alone is what moles need. Now... is Privet really here at last?”

  “She is, Master,” repeated the good Rolt.

  “I am... afraid. Will she know me? She knew me not at Caradoc!”

  “I made sure she could not quite see you, Master. But now she will see you face to face, and surely she will know you.”

  “And then...?”

  Rolt shook his head and stared at the thin, ill form of his Master.

  “Then? Elder Senior Brother, I cannot tell.”

  “Well then, we must find out.” And Thripp went forward with a lightness in his step, such as he had not shown in many a moleyear.

  Chapter Ten

  Privet suffered the inevitable roughness and ribaldry of the Newborn guards well enough; she could tolerate such behaviour, and coarse comments about her being “too withered and thin to take a mole’s fancy’. Such slights would almost have been a comfort if they had not also got Madoc in their paws, who most certainly was neither too withered or thin to avoid their unwholesome attentions. But as she suffered doubts and agonies for Madoc, so too did she for Rooster and Whillan, who since the probable truth of their blood relationship had been realized, had come to mean even more to her, separately and together, than before.

  The cell they put her in was at least clean, and once there she was left alone and unmolested. But the guards’ silence was unsettling, as was the fact that the cell was roofless, and the bright light that came down from the high roof beyond, and the occasional silhouettes of moles whose faces she could not see as they peered down on her, left her feeling vulnerable.

  Her only recourse was to prayer and contemplation of the sorry situation they had got themselves into, though this was made hard for her by the steady distant roar of the river. From the first moment she had heard it on top of the Edge it had upset her, as if in its never-ending tumult was a warning, an omen of some coming event that she ought to ready herself for. She had faith in the Stone, never more so – a faith that had been greatly bolstered in their present predicament by her conversation with Thorne, who unwittingly confirmed what she had always believed – that the Newborns claimed the allegiance of at least some moles who, at heart, would not thwart the followers’ desire for freedom of worship and liberty of thought and speech, if only a way could be found of reaching into their hearts with the power of love. How that was done was the Stone’s business! But meanwhile a mole must live in hope.

  Which proved difficult as the tedious hours wore by; the night seemed never-ending, morning passed slowly, and still no word of any kind came, nor even food. She was hungry and thirsty, and even the strongest mind needs food and drink to sustain its balance. Her first meal, such as it was, was thrown down to her in silence from the parapet above late in the morning, and though she called up for word of what was happening, and that she was thirsty and must attend to her natural needs no answer came back immediately. But later, when she was eking out the little food they gave a voice said from above, “If you must foul your cell, do so, but you’ll be taken to drink and wash and groom in good time.”

  She was taken later to a low extensive chamber in which a chill stream ran, and there drank and did all she must under the insolent gaze of two silent guards.

  “Right in, submerge yourself, and don’t let the force of the water take you, for we’ll not be in a hurry to save an old crone like you.”

  She was wet, cold, and desolate when they led her back to the cell, and already dreading the long wait she now expected before mole spoke to her again. She felt her strength already seeping from her, and reality slipping towards the unreal life of isolation and horror.

  “Stone,” she began to pray, as she was pushed back into the cell, “give me the strength to survive.”

  But survive as what? The mole she had always been, journeying from place to place, from system to system, in search of new moles, new tasks. That mole?

  “No, Stone, not that any longer. Give me courage to be the mole for whom you have set a task that journeying mole can only vaguely see, but which frightens her, and brings a panic to her breast. It is near now, this task, and you must try to help a weak mole, all withered, all crone-like now! You must help that mole cast off her old self that she may have courage to venture forth to the task she knows awaits her.”

  For a long time then Privet was silent, and still, and there was peace around her in the cell, and purpose,
and sometimes her eyes half closed, her mouth moved and whispered fragments of thought as if she were searching through her mind and heart to find the true way.

  “Stone,” she whispered as the afternoon waned into twilight, “it was the Book of Silence I came looking for, so long ago when I was young. It was for that I left Duncton. And now it is towards it that I reach, frightened and alone, for none goes with me on this path, none at all.”

  Tears trickled down her face; exhausted, hungry, and feeling terribly alone, she closed her eyes and slept.

  Pawsteps approached along the parapet above, coming down through the evening light. Whispered voices, whispered echoes. Guards slipping away from their post, compliant. Three moles approaching, and a head looming over the parapet to peer down at the exhausted Privet.

  “This is the mole, this is the one.”

  “The mole Privet?”

  “Yes.”

  “She has... aged. Her haunches are thin, her coat bedraggled with time.”

  How soft the voice, how gentle.

  “We have all aged, Master.”

  “I must go down to her.”

  “It may be the last chance, Master. But, remember, time is short.”

  “So... this is Sister Crowden.”

  “Was, Elder Senior Brother: she is Privet of Duncton now. Remember, you have but little time... I will watch out for you. The guards will be biddable for but a short time.”

  Thripp slowly descended the winding way to the level of the portal into the cell. His eyes were bright, and his step firm, though he felt it prudent to stay near the wall, lest he needed support. His heart thumped in his chest. He peered at a guardmole, who studiously ignored him and then moved discreetly away. Then, with some difficulty, he clambered over the narrow threshold and found himself stanced before the sleeping Privet.

  “Sister Crowden! Wake up, Sister Crowden!”

  Whatever deep dream or dark unconscious place Privet was in was cut across by that old familiar authoritative voice. She stirred, she struggled to wake, even as she heard her own voice say obediently, “Brother Confessor... I... I did not mean to sleep...”