Duncton Stone

by William Horwood

  “I did consider stopping with the Community permanently, for there is something very alluring about finding oneself amidst a group of moles who accept one unreservedly, and do not ask too many questions of the irritating kind. However, it was my habit night and day to remind myself of the task at paw, for I had come to see that there are many temptations waiting to lead a pilgrim off his path, and the feeling that something else is more worthwhile is one of them.

  “One evening, therefore, I prostrated myself before the Stone – I did this in my imagination, for the Community held no Stone in the physical sense – and in fact I was at the time lying snug in my burrow. I said, ‘Hibbott, what is the purpose of your pilgrimage? It is first and foremost to find Privet of Duncton Wood – anything else is a diversion!’ I therefore resolved to leave the next day, which I did, though not without a final interview with Sister Caldey in which she sensibly refrained from giving me any advice. Indeed, she spent most of the time asking me what I knew of the mole Privet whom I sought, which was not much beyond what allmole had heard of regarding the Wildenhope Killings. But even this she seemed not to know, and appeared inordinately interested in it, like a mole starved of food from the world beyond.

  “She was very anxious to discover if I had talked to other members of the Community about my quest, but for some reason I had not done so, except briefly when I had first arrived. In such a society as that the ‘outside world’, as I have called it, is not allowed to impinge overmuch. There is a sense that it is almost irrelevant, which is one good reason why I had said nothing of my quest, and now felt inclined to move on. Peace is all very well, solitude is pleasant in small doses, but to cut oneself off seems to me to be going too far. A small community is after all part of the larger one and each must give to the other if both are to remain healthy.

  “Finally Sister Caldey asked to be commended to Privet of Duncton Wood on the day I found her, which she felt sure I would do, and I in my turn asked to be commended to Privet should Caldey get there first, as it were. This she kindly agreed to do.

  “She said that I would be in the community’s prayers, which I took to be a comfort and honour. Then the Community of Rose, or such as were then in residence the day I left, said farewell to me and wished me well on my way, begging me to visit them should I pass nearby again.

  “Such was my meeting with Sister Caldey, whose community would I am sure have offered me much more had I been willing to dedicate myself to it. But a mole must decide where his task and destiny truly lie, and be single-minded in pursuit of them.”

  So did Hibbott of Ashbourne Chase, as good-natured yet determined a pilgrim as ever was, journey on in his trusting and ingenuous way, little imagining what impact his news of Privet would have on the Community of Rose, and what changes it would bring. During his stay there Sister Caldey had seemed her normal self, but the moment he had gone she fell into a restless contemplation such that had her companions not known her better they might have fancied her lovesick!

  For two days she refused to see anymole and then suddenly she asked if Brother Meddick might visit her. This was not possible as he was unwell and so, in some ill humour, she visited him.

  “It would be easier,” she shouted (for Meddick was a little deaf), “if we were to converse alone!” She was referring to the silent sisters who attended him. Meddick waved them away.

  “Now Brother Meddick, Silence is all very well, but there are times when a mole should talk and this is one of them. I presume you have not lost the power of speech?”

  Poor Meddick blinked a little and said in a frail and faltering voice, “I have taken a vow. Sister Caldey, I really cannot —”

  “Vow? What vow? That was yesterday. Today things are different.”

  Meddick sighed – he had seen Sister Caldey like this before, and it was wearing on others, especially when they were old and hoping for a peaceful end, as he was. Even a mole as worthy, even holy he supposed, as Sister Caldey, could be very annoying indeed. And yet... in his wise and gentle heart he was not displeased. He remembered that strange visitation so long before by the mole he liked to believe was Rose the Healer, and how she had given him the feeling that he must watch over Caldey, for even a true leader needs support and guidance. He had heard of her restlessness in the days since their visitor Hibbott of Ashbourne Chase had left – a mole who had true humility in his eyes, and an infectious if ingenuous curiosity about life. A mole who sought another, one Privet of Duncton Wood.

  “Privet...” he muttered, pleased that Sister Caldey had finally come to him. His vow of Silence had become irksome of late and she was quite right, there comes a moment when a mole must have faith enough to move on from vows and discipline, which are but external aids intended only to strengthen the will to journey on towards the Light, and should not be confused with the Light itself.

  “Privet?” repeated Caldey sharply. “What of her?”

  The two old friends stared at each other warily until by slow degrees their cautious frowns eased into smiles.

  Meddick said at last, “You know she is here, then?”

  “I thought it must be her when Hibbott first told me of the mole he is seeking. She is the new one serving you?”

  “One of those you asked to leave a few moments ago.”

  The two looked at each other in silence once again, each pondering the arrival at the beginning of June of the strange silent, middle-aged female to whom they referred: worn out, pathetically thin, beset by Stone knew what distress... and yet... all in the Community had recognized a quality in her beyond anything they had ever seen in a mole.

  She had been led to Sister Caldey, who with her normal brusqueness and efficiency had ascertained that she chose to be silent and intended to remain that way, and had deputed her to help with Meddick’s care. There is no better healing for some moles than the reminder that they are needed by those who are worse off than themselves.

  “Well, Brother Meddick. You have been closest to her. Is she the mole Privet of Duncton Wood?”

  “I’m sure of it,” said Meddick. “She is... remarkable. And I thought so from the first, before I heard the tale about her that Hibbott told.”

  “Yes...” sighed Caldey, who had no need to say that she too had recognized the special qualities of the silent mole.

  “What will it mean for us? Eh, Sister Caldey? What shall we do?”

  “She means change. Brother Meddick. That is what she means. But first she needs time and healing. She is on a journey, one that will go far beyond us before she returns. But here, for a time, she may replenish herself Perhaps it was for her coming that our Community was formed.”

  “When she goes...” whispered Meddick ruminatively.

  “... our work here is done and we shall disperse,” said Sister Caldey very firmly. “Some north, some south, some...”

  “... some to the Stone itself,” said Meddick, matter-of-factly, his head trembling, his paws a little fretful, his poor body so frail it seemed transparent in the day’s light. “I would have her continue to tend me, Sister Caldey,” he resumed, “for in her touch I feel a pathway towards peace. Call her back, tell her she is safe with us, call her now...”

  “Sister!” called Caldey from the sunny entrance of Meddick’s tunnels. “Sister...”

  The mole came. She stared into Caldey’s eyes.

  “Sister... we have reason to believe you are Privet of Duncton Wood.”

  Privet said nothing, and her face betrayed no emotion.

  “Our Community has waited for your coming for many a moleyear,” continued Sister Caldey gently, “and perhaps all moledom has. You will need strength to go forth again, and we will help as best we can. Your silence is respected. By ourselves we’re all unfortunate moles, but together we are strong, stronger than the sum of our parts. Learn from us what you will, for surely we can teach you nothing you do not want to learn; such has always been our way. Learn from us as a whole. Then take what you have learned on into your task with the
Stone.”

  Privet stared at her, utterly silent.

  “Sister,” whispered Caldey, for Meddick had slipped into restless sleep, “Brother Meddick has asked that you continue to tend him. He has taught me so much without once seeking to, and I think... I think he will teach you much that you need to know.”

  The mole nodded and for the first time to Caldey’s knowledge since she had arrived she smiled, then turned towards Meddick to continue her task.

  Sister Caldey watched her for a little longer and then, feeling at once contented and excited, she left Meddick’s tunnels, returned to her own, and began to ponder what the coming changes would mean for all of them.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There is no great mystery about why it was that despite Quail’s edict that Privet must be found, she so successfully eluded the best efforts of moledom’s Brother Commanders and reached the Community of Rose. For one thing, from the night she left Wildenhope and ever afterwards, it seemed that the Stone understood how great was her need for protection and provided her with moles who could give it. We are not talking of strong young moles given to fighting and using their strength to save her life – no, the dangers she faced were more matters of the spirit than the body, and the moles who could help her along the way were not generally the fighting sort.

  There was for example the mole (a mild male subordinate helper in Wildenhope) who had been one of the witnesses of the killings, and had seen all that happened. Until that day he had been a loyal Newborn, and had never in his life put a paw out of place where authority was concerned. But late that afternoon he overheard a conversation between two senior guards, the gist of which was that if nomole-else was going to do it, they were; which was, to follow the scribemole Privet and throw her into the river like the others, just as she deserved.

  Incredibly, considering the risk to himself involved, that same mild minion took it into his head that such a thing was certainly not right, and throwing caution to the winds, set off at once to follow Privet and warn her. Which he duly did, staying hidden with her all that night and the following day, and making sure she was not found by the two self-righteous Newborns who would certainly have killed her with no questions asked.

  Throughout this Privet said nothing, but was compliant with her helper, following him to the little scrape he made for her safety, lying low as he bade her, and setting forth once more when he said it was safe to do so.

  It was the first of Privet’s many such strange encounters and escapes in the dangerous days that followed the killings, until at last she was well clear of Wildenhope, and the vale beyond Wenlock Edge, and had become just a solitary vagrant female, who seemed mute and half stupid to those that met her. The kind of mole who has no place of her own, adrift from whatever community spawned her, and with no hope of anything much ahead but a violent, lonely, or miserable end.

  The kind of mole, indeed, that is harmed and harassed by some when she crosses their systems, but upon whom others take pity, and give a place to rest, and a little food. To all of which – and the occasional violence offered her, or aggressive questions, or total indifference – Privet responded in the same way, with a kind of dazed, bruised vacancy, as if unaware of her surroundings, or of anymole she met.

  This was the state she was in during the long days and molemonths of April into May following what happened to Wildenhope. For it is a fallacy to think that a mole in retreat is a mole at peace with herself, and in harmony with her surroundings. Perhaps in time such a pleasant state may sometimes be achieved, but never quickly, and not for long, and certainly not at the beginning of such a journey. Rooster had been right to think that where Privet was could not be easily reached by other moles. That day on Wildenhope Bluff she had chosen to begin the loneliest journey anymole ever makes, and it had at once taken her to an alien and most frightening place; only moles who have been there themselves can begin to understand, or sympathize.

  If she looked dazed, if she did not respond, if she seemed without a future or hope, it was because that was how she felt. She was lost, alone, and afraid, without help or hope of help; and if there were mountains and voids in the landscape in which she found herself, they were mountains of grief and confusion, and voids of terror and despair.

  She could function, just about, but it was an automatic kind of living. One paw in front of another meant moving; a worm was for eating; a scrape in the ground was for resting, not sleeping – there was little sleep in this world.

  Trees? They were for going round. Rain? It was for sheltering from. Roaring owls? They were for watching as they rushed by. Moles? They were... they were beings she had once known, who now loomed darkly in and out of her life, day by day, some noisy, some silent, some to move away, and a few to stop still near, for they did not impose.

  And the tears. They were for shedding. Tears for a whole life that was a burden for memory and feeling in whose huge tunnels and chasms the least thing might suddenly loom up as an unexpected and unwelcome portal to tumble her headlong in.

  A puddle of water after a storm of rain; seeing her own reflection she remembered a day when she was a pup and had looked at herself in just such a puddle, and had smiled; a smile at life which did not smile back, but brought her misery in the form of Shire, her cold mother. The tears she shed were like rain upon that puddle, and the tunnels she entered then were dark and long and she did not escape from them for many a day.

  The root of a tree at night, and she remembered being stanced down by one with her sister Lime, who had been civil for once and shared dreams of a future that never came to be.

  Where did the grief come from which the memory provoked?

  An old mole, male, big, his face-fur rough, who showed her kindness – giving her a place to sleep, worms to eat, and made her aware he was nearby but that he’d let her be. He understood. No need for words.

  Tears again, terrible tears for Rooster whom she had loved and lost, and loved and lost again. Rooster...

  Yes, the first part of the landscape Privet began to cross was one of tears, and terrible unspoken griefs for lost things she could not name, and moles she had once seen so clearly but who now... where were they now?

  To talk to her mother Shire now! To have her paws about her as she had always wanted but never had – not as her sister Lime had. How she cried, how she ached with loss; how she was tormented by the suffering itself, which was like a great torrent inside her – worse than the river that took Rooster and Whillan, worse even than that – and flowing and flowing out of her, full of the detritus and grief of a whole life, overwhelming, and she at once its source and its victim, the torrent and the mole drowning in the torrent.

  “Mole!”

  A voice spoke to her. Enemy or friend, it did not matter.

  “Mole, you can’t do that here!” A paw flew out of the air and hit her, and she stumbled on. Do what here?

  Weep, it seemed.

  “Stone, help me, I have troubles but do not know their name. Stone, help me, I am lost, but do not know where I may be found. Stone, help me, I have life but cannot bear to live it.”

  The silent Privet heard her voice crying out across the wilderness in which she was lost, cries and shouts of torment which she wanted another to hear, but which none could, for nomole was there. None to understand, none to bring respite.

  “Stone, hear me,” she cried, but even the Stone seemed not to hear, even that comfort was gone.

  Gaunt, thin, the fur of her flanks and breast cut and bloodied where she had torn and pulled at it in her grief, Privet of Duncton now stumbled eastward across moledom towards the westernmost reaches of the great and terrifying two-foot system of Midland Wen which, at much the same time, Hibbott of Ashbourne Chase was unwittingly entering from the north.

  But whereas the Stone guided him in relative safety by the elevated two-foot way that kept him clear of the dangers below, Privet, unguided, without help, desolate in her silent loneliness and torment, took a more dangerous way. F
looding underground conduits, the greasy stink of rats, unnatural lights at night, foul-smelling murk by day, these were her company and all she knew. Weakened by poisoned water, cut by she knew not what upon and within the ground, cuts which turned septic, her eyes sore and half blinded by Stone knows what afflictions, Privet was truly lost.

  “Stone...”

  But what prayers can a mole utter who feels as forsaken as she did then? What can she hope for? What dream can alleviate the sufferings of restless sleep?

  “Stone...”

  There was no Stone; there never was a Stone; nor could there ever be a Stone in so bereft a place... and yet still Privet prayed.

  “Stone, guide me...” For even here, where the Stone’s lowliest creature found herself crawling, she made room in her heart to believe the Stone must be...

  “Even here.”

  Day by day, night by night, Privet continued on her dreadful journey, the external place she was in growing progressively more like the internal place she knew in terms of its sterility, confusion and meaninglessness. Gone was the springtime babbling of brooks, gone the call of woodland bird, gone the good scent of fresh earth, or the balmy sweetness of unsullied wind.

  Here the water was foul, and ran in concrete conduits in which half-submerged dead creatures lay; here the birds were gone, but for the filthy sparrow and the faded starling; and here the wind seemed dead and fetid most of the time, or if it was not it swirled up into violent eddies that shocked her, and threw odours and detritus in her face.

  And all views were gone, but for the harsh and shining angles of two-foot places high above against the distant sky, rising from the fissures and shadows where she was lost like great mockeries of Stones.

  For long molemonths in May Privet was utterly lost, and knew herself to be physically and mentally ailing when, for brief periods of stillness, she could see the world into which she had wandered for what it was, and herself as well. Aye, she saw herself down there in an oil-coated puddle, the two-foot structures rising so far above. Her face was that of an old, sick mole, her eyes those of a dead one, her shoulders and neck pitifully thin. Ailing, then, but not yet dying.