And if any creature alive could ever be called Paramount and Prime it was she, as she curled on Snyde’s drifting living body to survive. Then the river moved them on, and they were gone away for ever from the sight of Duncton Wood and the Stone.
Of all the wonders of that day, none is more satisfying than this: not a single Newborn was killed by Maple’s followers, not one. Many were buffeted, many hurt, many came close to death before the anger of the crowds.
But not one died. Rather, battered and taloned, scratched and scorned – which even Maple’s leadership could not prevent – they were cast out from Duncton, and sent wandering. All but one, that is. For him there could surely be no forgiveness, nor any pity, nor help at all.
Wandering by the Library he loved, and had served so supremely in the long moleyears of darkness that had beset it, the followers found Sturne, unknowing what he really was.
He who was of Duncton and had betrayed them, and had been ever at the flanks of Fetter, ready with the cold eye and unforgiving stare.
“Kill him,” somemole said. “But not quickly.”
And so, while peace began to reign elsewhere across the High Wood, Sturne was taken and battered, pushed and shoved, harried and hounded to the Wood’s edge and then down the south-east pasture slopes, the blood of his wounds the only blood upon the grass. He spoke not a single word. He stared up at the trees which seemed to rise above him as he was pushed further from them and down the slope by a crowd of angry, vengeful moles.
“Take him to the cross-under! He is not worthy to have his blood spilled within the system’s bounds. Let’s kill him outside it!”
Perhaps he called for help, or whispered Pumpkin’s name. Whatmole-else knew that he was innocent, and one of the bravest of them all? If any guessed they were not nearby.
So, torn and helpless, he reached the cross-under and was thrown against its walls, first to one side and then another, torn and taloned by any that could get near enough to hurt him.
“He’s the mole Sturne! He betrayed Duncton! He’s going to die. He’s...”
They did not quite get him out of the system before they raised their talons for the killing blows. The crowds pressing to come in were too great, and anyway their bloodlust was up; pathetic and vulnerable, he lay unable to defend himself in a dark and puddled far corner of the cross-under.
“Pumpkin,” he whispered, and he even tried to smile, for this, he supposed, in the painless place to which he seemed to have gone, this was... well... jocular. After all they had done, such an end was either mad or... mirthful. And Pumpkin and he might have laughed, not at it, but at the idea of it.
Somewhere on the slopes above the word went about, “They’re killing Keeper Sturne! They’re killing Sturne!”
And Maple had heard it, horrified, for there must be no more killing, not now. Even one was a defilement, as he knew too well. And Pumpkin had told him the truth of Sturne.
“Stop them!” he roared, leading others down the slopes, running ever faster but seeing from the crowd, and hearing from their roar, that he must be too late.
“No!” a voice cried at Sturne’s bloody flank. “No!” it screamed.
The killers paused and stared at the female who had dared raise her talons in Sturne’s defence.
“No,” she said more quietly, moving in front of him, to stance boldly between him and their talons. “Whatmole is he? And whatmoles are you to judge him?”
By then few knew who he was, but one there did and then another.
“That’s the bastard Sturne, and he deserves —”
“I don’t give that for whatmole he is,” said Myrtle, mate of Furrow, who had died heroically at Buckland, “you’re not killing him. It’s not what Maple would want.”
“Mole, get out of our way.”
“You’re not,” she screamed, the very image of righteous anger. “We didn’t fight for this. We fought —”
“Get out of the bloody way, you bitch,” cried another of them, who, far bigger than she, was in the act of pulling her bodily aside when a strong paw stilled his own, and a mole came to her flank, and stanced by her.
“No,” he said quietly.
“And whatmole are you, for Stone’s sake?” said another, raising his talons to strike.
“My name is Whillan of Duncton Wood.”
“Whillan!” gasped one of the crowd.
“Whillan like hell!” said another.
“Aye, Whillan of Duncton Wood!” said Whillan, his eyes calm and clear, and his shoulders strong, his paws sure, his face mature.
“Whillan,” whispered Sturne.
“Leave him be,” said Whillan with authority, “and let this female go. And...”
The crowd of killers became but a crowd of moles once more, uneasy and retreating, and parting too, for Maple came then and others with him. And after him one more, bigger than the rest.
“Whillan,” said Rooster, and in that grubby, echoing, crowded, puddled place he took Whillan in his paws and held him so tight that tears came to his son’s eyes.
“Bad place to meet again,” grunted Rooster.
“Not so bad,” replied Whillan. “This is where I was born.”
They tended Sturne. Later they could climb the slopes once more, go through the High Wood, and make their way to the Stone, and Privet; and talk as they must surely do. But for now they cared for Sturne.
“Pumpkin knows it all,” whispered Sturne, “but you can’t blame them. I do seem a little severe at times. But we succeeded where we might have failed.”
“You talk less and you’ll recover more,” said Maple. “Why, if Whillan had not come...”
“It wasn’t me!”
It wasn’t him,” said Sturne. “It was... she...” He looked round at the crowd and to his dismay saw her disappear into it. “Her,” he said. “It was her. What is her name?”
But she was gone, and Maple, the only one there who would have known her, did not quite see her face.
“She saved me,” whispered Sturne again, when they got him back to his austere quarters up on the Eastside. “I must thank her.”
“Sleep, mole,” said those who cared for him, and, protesting, he did.
Then Whillan and Rooster and many others made their slow way to the Stone to find Privet, and tell Pumpkin of how near his friend Sturne had come to death, and to talk at last to Privet. And so they might have done, had not Hamble come to meet them looking just a little lost.
“Privet? And Pumpkin the library aide? You won’t find them by the Stone now. They’re not there. They’ve gone.”
“Where to?”
Hamble shrugged helplessly. “Into the Ancient System, somewhere there. Wouldn’t let me go with them. They just slipped away.”
“For what?”
“To find the Book of Silence, I should think.”
“You think right, mole,” said Rooster. “Frogbit! Frogbit!”
“Sir! Ever ready at your flank, through fair weather and foul!”
“Mole,” said Rooster, “we have work to do. Hamble, you know the High Wood?”
“As well as anymole by now, Rooster,” said Hamble, glad to be with his old friend again. “I know the parts of it that moles can get into without dying of Dark Sound like the back of my paw. As for the rest...”
“It’s the rest we go to,” said Rooster grimly. “Now. And you Whillan, you come. May need your skills.”
The High Wood seemed to have darkened again, and its great trees trembled. Somewhere, far off, there was a cry or scream. Not much, but enough to echo in the gloom all about; it seemed to tell of tunnels deep, and chambers dark, and a female who strove to reach a place beyond them all.
“Needs us,” said Rooster, Master of the Delve, a mole who had journeyed as far as anymole through darkness, and was ready now to come into his own.
“All of us!” said Frogbit.
And Hamble led them into the echoing, threatening tunnels that ran beneath the High Wood.
PA
RT V
Book of Silence
Chapter Forty-Four
Privet had not uttered a single word since taking her vow of Silence at Wildenhope; barely any sound at all, indeed, but for sighs and moans when she had been ill, or lost in nightmare sleep and crying out for help.
But of her long journey into the far recesses of her heart and mind, and her lonely grappling with her own errant spirit, we may reasonably guess. Many before had tried to trek the same path, and have given enough accounts of it to leave us in no doubt that nothing is harder for a mole to do than be still enough to hear the silence of the Stone within.
But we need no texts to know this truth – only a few moments with ourselves. Try it, mole, and you will know. Stance quietly where you cannot be disturbed, and discover what the real disturbance is; it is yourself... whatever that may be!
At Wildenhope Privet saw that if she was to find the Book of Silence she must give up all she had, including all she held most dear. Which for her was three moles most of all, all of whom were present there: Thripp of Blagrove Slide, Rooster of the Charnel Clough, and Whillan her adopted son, offspring of her sister Lime and Rooster.
Each had taught her different kinds of love and brought her nearer to the Stone. But faced by the horror that was Wildenhope, which was moledom too and therefore something of herself, and with Quail demanding that she speak and choose between those she loved, she could find no words to say.
In that terrible moment she saw something of the truth in the Stone’s Silence, which is simply this: saying nothing might say most of all. She was not fool enough to confuse her own silence with the stillness she would need to discover if she was to know the Stone’s Silence, but a mole must start somewhere, and so she started with the simplest of vows, which is the hardest to keep: silence.
The first agony was immediate, for in choosing her new path she saw that she seemed to turn from the ones she loved, and even from searching for the Book itself. She saw Whillan’s face, she knew he did not understand, she saw his loss, and felt it as her own.
“Stone,” she prayed, and it was the first of a hundred thousand prayers as she journeyed into the un-silent void which was herself, “Stone, help him understand.”
How many times she nearly died the death of spirit on that long journey, which led her by degrees back to Duncton Wood, we do not know; nor how many times she was tempted to give up and break her vow.
Yet always, when she seemed near to doing so and near spiritual death, or when some new turn threatened her mortal life, there came moles to help her, sent by the Stone. That mole who guided her to safety from the dangers of Wildenhope and Snyde’s plots. That mole from the Community of Rose who brought her out of the fastness of the Midland Wen and gave her space to learn that the best healing of a mole’s spirit may lie in the healing of another’s.
Then at Leamington, where Thorne aided her, and later Hodder and his sister Arliss, who led her off to safety once again. Then Ross, who set off in pursuit of her as a Newborn, but had to become a pilgrim to find her and lead her back to Duncton Wood.
And lastly, and now... Pumpkin, guided by Stone knows what insight and bravery to venture out on to the surface and so make his way to the Stone Clearing to be with her that Dark Night, ready to serve her once again as library aide.
“Pumpkin!” How near she came now to saying his dear name.
Now...
Now, with Quail and Snyde cast out, and Thripp gone to the Silence, a kind of chaos reigned about the Stone. Maple, unaware as yet of the danger Sturne was in, had the task of ensuring that the High Wood was secure, for though the Newborns had mostly fled, a commander never rests. Insurgence, counter-attack, treachery – this is the language a commander must know. He and Ystwelyn had to protect the followers and Duncton against such things, and negotiate with Thorne.
While Chervil, now the most experienced and commanding non-military mole alive, sensed that if peace was to be maintained, he had things to see to there and then. Peace, he felt, does not grow on trees. It is made by mole, and maintained by mole, so he immediately became busy too.
But failing them, what of Rooster her beloved, and Hamble, her oldest, dearest friend?
Many have wondered about Rooster. Should he not now have stayed close by? So long apart had they been that could he not have spent more time up there by the Stone?
The truth is that he knew it was too soon to come back to Privet. Alone of all the moles, except Thripp, and he could not now help, Rooster understood that Privet’s journey to find the Book, which must be made alone, was incomplete. He knew it, and so did she. Their love, which was still as sweet and sure as it had been up on Hilbert’s Top, if never yet fully expressed, could wait a little longer. It was enough for him that she was near. It was enough for her to know he cared and understood. So, Rooster-like, he wandered off, Frogbit at his flank.
As for Hamble, he had no wish to be anywhere but by the Stone and in the presence of two moles he held so dear: Privet and Pumpkin. So he tried to stay with her, he really did.
“I’ll get you some food,” he said, when the crowds and rush had abated somewhat, and few moles were coming up and saying, with a certain disappointment in their eyes, “Er, is it true, she’s Privet? The thin gaunt one stanced with that raggety old male?”
“It is,” said Hamble.
“Oh... And the Book?”
“No Book,” said Hamble, “not yet”.
“Oh...”
Their disappointment was palpable, and few seemed to want to approach her directly. There was something about her that was distancing, some look in her face, some sense she gave out of being alone and unreachable.
So Hamble went off to find some food and Pumpkin said, “Madam Privet, do you want some food?” She looked at him and he said, “You want some peace and quiet, don’t you? I know you do. I know a place...”
Then Pumpkin led her off; although there were so many moles about, rushing here and there, chattering like blue-tits in a bush about all that had happened, only one noticed them go, and he got it wrong.
“Went that way,” he told Hamble, pointing quite by chance towards a spot which Hamble knew led to an entrance into the Ancient System. So it seemed reasonable that they had gone that way. He searched for them but naturally he did not find them. At first he thought they would come back; then he thought they would stay safe, and then he began to have some doubts and so set off to find Rooster to see what they should do.
Pumpkin did not immediately take Privet into the Ancient System, but led her instead by ways he had been unable to trek for so many molemonths past, across part of the High Wood and then down the Slopes a little way to that unremarkable and so often unnoticed place where his own modest tunnels lay. They were in poor shape, the entrance portal having been ruined by the Newborns in some vengeful act against him, and his main chamber’s roof broken in.
“No matter, it is still my own!” he said cheerfully, “and if you know where to look there’s worms aplenty for a couple of thin old moles like us! Now you settle down there and I’ll tidy up a bit.”
It was what Privet needed, and she slept a little, waking to find the place tidier than before, and some food ready.
They ate, and Pumpkin began to tell her what had happened in Duncton since her departure nearly a full cycle of seasons before. He told the tale simply, beginning with the cleansing of the Library by the Brother Inquisitors, and then of Sturne’s great courage, and how the two of them helped Master Librarian Stour porter the six sacred Books to the Chamber of Roots.
Of Stour’s death he told, and his own later tribulations, which ended with the escape from the Marsh End, and leading the rebels into the Ancient System.
“Can’t say I ever got used to the place at all, Privet, for the Dark Sound is ever present there, you know. But, well, I know you’re going to have to go there, and it’s no good me trying to pretend otherwise. My duty as library aide precludes that kind of deceit! Got to show you where tex
ts are, and give my best advice, haven’t I?”
Privet smiled.
“So it’s no good me going on about it, the fact is there’s only one text you’re interested in now, and that’s the lost and last Book. I’ll tell you what I know, and what I don’t know, and you can decide what’s best. I’m only here to help.”
He told her of the difficulty all of them had had with Dark Sound, and how in certain places in the Ancient System it was so bad that a mole could not go on without risking his very life.
“Wanted to go on you see, carried forward by curiosity. You know me, Privet! I’ve a snout for oddities, for finding answers to old questions, for searching things out and putting them back in their right place. I am a library aide, and Master Librarian Stour trained me himself!”
Privet nodded, and smiled again.
“Dear me, your silence is a thing, it is! Makes a mole talk. Makes a mole think! Makes me say this: my snout tells me that the Book’s waiting for you to find it, Privet, right there in the heart of the system, which is protected by Dark Sound. I can lead you some of the way but you’ll have to go on alone. So there, that’s what I think.”
He crunched at a worm ruminatively and when he looked up again Privet was on her paws waiting at the portal.
“Now?” he said.
She did not answer and he knew she could not.
He looked about his tunnels ruefully. “We’ve only just got here, Privet. Does it have to be now? Hmmph! I can see it does. Scholars are so impatient!”
He went past her and out on to the surface and looked about again and suddenly “now” was all about them, and everywhere.
Now was now.
The tunnels of the Ancient System were as still as ever he remembered them, though he knew that would mean little when they reached the difficult parts. They might be as silent as death, but Dark Sound was still Dark Sound when it began.
“What was that...?”
He started and paused as their pawsteps ran ahead of them into tunnels he had never quite reached, and he heard a cry, or scream.
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