Duncton Stone

by William Horwood

  “Pumpkin,” he replied. “And yours?”

  “Rose.”

  “That’s a good name,” said Pumpkin.

  “I’m Hawthorn, Pumpkin,” said the other one with Whillan.

  Whillan grinned, and had trouble holding them both still.

  “And what’s his name?” asked Pumpkin, turning to the other male, who stared at him with big eyes from the protection of Rooster’s huge right paw.

  “That’s Brimmel,” said Rose.

  Pumpkin stared at the youngster, who stared back. If ever a mole had his grandmother’s eyes and face, Brimmel did. Black eyes, and a thin face whose expression was a shade uncertain.

  “Where’s Loosestrife?” asked Brimmel.

  “With Privet,” said Pumpkin. “I think they need some time alone together.”

  “Will you show us your tunnels?” asked Hawthorn.

  “Not just now, no,” said Pumpkin firmly. “But I could show you the way up to the High Wood if... well, if...”

  Whillan nodded his consent. “I’ll go in a little later,” he said. “And Rooster too.”

  “But I can’t take them alone.”

  “You showed me the High Wood alone,” smiled Whillan, “and I’m sure you can show them.”

  “But Fieldfare could help.”

  “Fieldfare’s off home with me, Pumpkin,” said Hamble, and she was too, only it was Fieldfare who was leading the way.

  So it was that Pumpkin and the youngsters went exploring the Wood: looking past roots, staring up at the trees, shaking the red flowers of campion. Playing hide and seek amongst the violets and dog’s mercury.

  “Pumpkin? Is the Stone near here?”

  “It’s not far, but I’m not taking you there. Whillan and Loosestrife will do that.”

  “Which way is it?”

  It was Brimmel who asked, and that was almost the first time he spoke.

  Pumpkin pointed a talon through the trees. Hawthorn and Rose peered for a moment and then wandered away, but Brimmel stared for a long time, and took Pumpkin’s paw.

  “The Stone’s big, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Pumpkin.

  “Is Privet dying?” asked the youngster. “I heard Hamble say she might be and that’s why we travelled all night. It was very dark and I was scared. Is she?”

  “I don’t know,” said Pumpkin.

  “Will you take me to her?” asked Brimmel. “My father said you were her aide.”

  “I’m not sure that I should,” said Pumpkin gently.

  “Rose will go with Loosestrife. Hawthorn will go with Whillan. That’s how it always is. So I want to go with you.”

  “I’ll ask,” said Pumpkin.

  “What are you two talking about?” asked Rose inquisitively when she and Hawthorn came back.

  “It’s... a secret,” said Pumpkin, feeling a tremor of gratitude in Brimmel’s paw as he did so, and thinking that it was a very long time indeed since he told any mole that something was a secret.

  By the time they went back down the Slopes it was mid-afternoon, and Whillan was calling out for them. They scampered to him, and then to Loosestrife who was resting in the sun. She looked drained, but strangely happy. Rooster emerged from the tunnel, growling at the youngsters, playing the fool.

  “She’d like to see the pups,” he said.

  Rose went first, with Loosestrife.

  Hawthorn second, with Whillan.

  And Brimmel had a choice, and chose Pumpkin.

  Down they went when his turn came, paw in paw: Brimmel, quiet and serious, Pumpkin unsure what to expect. It had been a long, strange day.

  “How are you, Privet?” asked Pumpkin.

  “Tired,” she said. “So many moles today, and now another one.”

  “Last one,” said Brimmel.

  Pumpkin saw that she looked better; her eyes seemed a little brighter, her snout shinier than it had been.

  Brimmel went to her and they looked at each other seriously.

  “My mother called me Brimmel,” he said, adding very reluctantly, “in memory of her sister who died a long long time ago!”

  “She told me,” said Privet, smiling at him. “Brimmel’s a Moorish name used for male and female alike. It’s a good name.”

  “Are you going to die? Hamble said...”

  Pumpkin tried to shush him but Privet waved a paw to let him be.

  “What did Hamble say?”

  “Said you were dying. Also, he said he’s known you longer than any living mole.”

  “He has. He’s my oldest friend.”

  “I didn’t want you to die.”

  “Why not?”

  Pumpkin would have left them to themselves, but he felt that if he moved, other than to the shadows of the chamber, he might disturb some special communion he sensed between them.

  “Because.”

  Privet smiled.

  He went on: “Because Whillan said you would teach me scribing like you taught him. And that mole Pumpkin, he would teach me too.”

  Privet glanced briefly to where Pumpkin stanced, her look as soft as the way she reached out and touched Brimmel’s paw.

  “He will, if you ask him.”

  “Will you, Privet?”

  “When?”

  “Now!”

  Never had Pumpkin felt such a silence. Nor, as he thought, had he ever held his breath so long.

  “I could... begin,” said Privet, “but we have nothing to scribe on.”

  “Oh!” said Brimmel, disappointed.

  “Except... Pumpkin, where’s that book?”

  She said it as if it was any book.

  “It’s just by you,” said Pumpkin.

  “I’ll get it,” said Brimmel eagerly.

  “But you can’t, it’s too —”

  Privet waved a paw to tell Pumpkin to stay where he was.

  “You get it then, Brimmel.”

  The youngster climbed half over her to reach it, put a paw to it, and pulled it into the light as easily as if it were almost nothing at all.

  “Can you scribe anything at all?” asked Privet.

  “My name, of course,” said Brimmel.

  “Well then, Brimmel, let’s start with that. Open the book.”

  It was big for a youngster but he managed it, crying out in disappointment when he saw how old and used the first folio was.

  “It’s full!” he said. “And this one, and this one, and this...”

  He turned the folios as if it was a game, which to him it seemed to be. He went right through the Book and then turned back the folios.

  “There’s only this one with any space to scribe my name,” he said. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “My name,” she whispered.

  “Oh!” he said, disappointed once again.

  “I’ll score it out, and put a scribing right round it so you’ve got clean places to show me how well you scribe.”

  “All right,” said Brimmel.

  She reached her right paw to her name and without any hesitation and with swift clean strokes she scored it out. Then, with a single fluent circling of her paw, she scribed around it, and it might never have been.

  “There,” she said. “It’s gone. Now, my love, you scribe your name for me.”

  He did so, again and again and again, each time with increasing pride and pleasure, his scribing a little awry, the first attempts clear of each other, the last ones on top of each other so that it became impossible to make them out individually at all.

  “Privet,” he said, when he was tired and had finished and closed the book, “what book is this?”

  “It’s the Book of Silence,” she whispered, the light of the Book shining on her face, and on Brimmel’s too.

  “Is it a secret between you and me and Pumpkin, what we’ve done?” asked Brimmel.

  “The Book isn’t, but I think that what’s inside must always be,” she said. “Now, Brimmel, put the Book back where you found it, because it’s late and I am getting tired.
”

  Brimmel lifted the Book and put it back by the wall near Privet.

  “It’s heavy,” he said panting. “Can Pumpkin bring me to see you tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” she said softly, her eyes closing. “Goodnight, my dear.”

  “Goodnight,” he said, turning from her and taking Pumpkin’s paw and whispering loud enough that she heard him too, “she’s tired and wants to go to sleep.”

  “Then we’d better let her, hadn’t we?”

  “Yes,” said Brimmel, scampering away through the portal, and pulling Pumpkin with him out of the chamber, which glimmered now with Light, and was soft with Silence.

  Chapter Fifty

  In those contented, balmy days from May Day to Midsummer, Pumpkin was a truly happy mole. From the coming of Loosestrife and her youngsters, and particularly of Brimmel, Privet’s recovery continued, with none but she, and Pumpkin and young Brimmel, guessing at its deepest cause.

  Unless Rooster did, in his ragged, mysterious way. But if so, he never asked about the Book of Silence, and nor did any other mole, so that there it lay, half-forgotten as it seemed, untouched by anymole, there where Privet slept.

  For she was not well yet, and stayed at Pumpkin’s whilst her health improved, and, as Fieldfare put it, nature put some plump back on her bones. Which meant that for a time at least, few tunnels were as busy as Pumpkin’s, nor were anymole’s quite so welcoming.

  Moles came from far and wide to visit Privet, and pass the time of day, and to see Pumpkin as well, for he, along with Sturne, was as great a Duncton hero as ever lived, for they had defied the Newborns, kept the old ways alive, and would be an inspiration for evermore.

  Mind, the visitors that came had to like it or lump it if youngsters were about, for there was something about Rose, Hawthorn and Brimmel that brought others along too. Up from the Barrow Vale they came, the youngsters of that spring and early summer, to play in the Slopes’ shadows, and to wander up to the old High Wood.

  Gone were the fears of the Ancient System, for the Dark Sound now seemed light, and moles knew that the great Stone was nearby and would always protect anymole who had faith in it, and courage to live true.

  A new kind of pilgrim began to come towards the end of May – quieter moles than those who had given such formidable support to Maple’s great army of followers in October and November. Thinking moles from near and from far, who had been stirred by those deep impulses that first drove Hibbott to take the route southwards so long before.

  The hopes and intentions of these moles varied, some wishing to tell Privet what an inspiration her journey into Silence had been – even if (as they thought) the Book of Silence had not been found. No matter, the Newborns had been vanquished, and more important, a new spirit of faith in the old way of tolerance and trust been found. Thripp’s original vision of a new moledom had been a long time coming, but it had come.

  Nothing gave Pumpkin greater happiness in those slow days of early summer than to see such moles arrive in Duncton Wood, and make their reverent way up to the Stone. Then afterwards, of a warm and lazy evening, to hear the tales they had to tell – for Duncton was a place where old tales could be told, and new ones made, for there were moles who knew how to listen, and how not to interrupt.

  Sometimes Pumpkin himself might be induced to tell a tale, though being a modest mole it was not something he did willingly. But with the right encouragement, and especially if moles he liked and knew, like Hamble, and Sturne, were thereabout, he would talk of his long life, and of the many famous moles he had known and loved.

  None more so at the beginning than Master Librarian Stour; and none more so at the end than Privet. Though, it must be said, she had a rival for his affections, and that was Brimmel. By mid-May, when her recovery was well underway, Whillan and Loosestrife took their leave and returned to Cuddesdon, promising to come back again in June so that their young could take part in the famous Duncton Midsummer ritual.

  Meanwhile they took Rose and Hawthorn with them, but they yielded to Brimmel’s entreaties that he might be allowed to stay behind and live with Pumpkin and Privet – to help the one aid the other while she recovered fully, and to learn something of scribing too.

  So Pumpkin’s tunnels were busy, more than they ever had been, and Brimmel brought life and love and laughter to them both. As for Rooster, he came by almost daily, and began to teach the youngster something of the delving arts. Or rather, he would talk and thrust his talons about, to Frogbit’s promptings, and Brimmel, sensibly silent and attentive, would take in all he could.

  “Way to learn, eh, Frogbit?”

  “Best way!” agreed Frogbit, whose skills were becoming much in demand.

  Of the many comings and goings at that time, a few gave Pumpkin very special happiness. None more so, perhaps, than the afternoon a shy and diffident female appeared asking for Privet.

  “She’s sleeping, mole, but you’re welcome to rest here yourself until she wakes. You’re dusty and you’ve travelled far.”

  “Yes, I have,” said the female, who looked over her shoulder from time to time as if afraid of whatmole might come. “Will she sleep long?”

  “You could talk to me if you wished,” he said, for she seemed to have something on her mind.

  “No, it’s Privet I’ve to see, so I’ll wait here in the shadows if I may.”

  Moles came and went. Brimmel brought in some friends, and Rees happened by and the female kept herself out of the way, always looking a little nervous when new moles appeared, and then relaxing when she saw they were not... well, whatever mole it was she seemed afraid of.

  But Privet did not wake until late afternoon, and by then a good few moles had come to visit for the evening, since it felt a good one for telling tales. So that when Privet appeared and the mole came forward to talk with her, she found that, Duncton-like, there were many eager listeners to hear what she had to say.

  “We can talk in private, mole, if you prefer,” said Privet.

  “Well, it’s about Maple that I’ve come.”

  “Maple, our Maple!” cried out everymole.

  “Yes, the great commander, him,” she said.

  “This sounds like a tale worth hearing,” declared Pumpkin, “and since there’s many a mole here knew Maple, and they are much concerned for him, well perhaps...”

  “It’s all right,” said the female, “I don’t mind. It’s just that Maple promised to send a messenger and, well, I’m the messenger.”

  “What’s your name, mole?” asked Privet.

  “My name? I’m Myrtle of Broseley, and my mate was Furrow who died in the battle of Buckland.”

  “And you’ve been sent by Maple?”

  Myrtle nodded.

  “And he’s... well?”

  “Oh yes, he’s well.”

  “Tell us, mole, tell us in your own way.”

  Which she did, and held them all enthralled by her story of Maple’s recovery at the Redditch Stone. Telling them how, with great difficulty, he and Weeth journeyed there, not reaching the Stone until March. There they waited, and there an old mole came.

  “Sister Caldey,” said Privet.

  “How do you know?” asked Myrtle, and others too.

  “I knew her once. She’s a mole would go to the Redditch Stone when she was needed. Why, she had been there herself when she was as ill as poor Maple became. Tell them, Myrtle.”

  She did, and told how she herself, for reasons she did not divulge, had gone to the Redditch Stone with the intention of joining the Community of Rose.

  “I had this idea I could be most useful to moles as a healer, and heard that the Community was meeting together again sometime after spring. As it happens I was wrong in that they were not to be there until June. But I don’t need to tell Duncton moles that the Stone works in strange ways and when I got there I found a good few moles. You can imagine how shocked I was to find among them two I know Weeth and Maple – moles to whom I owe my life, with whom I served in the Wold
s, along with my mate Furrow, Stone rest his soul. Well now, Maple was pitifully scraggled, all sores and odours and swellings. “Course nomole would go near him but Weeth, so I tried to help as best I could...”

  “You did not worry about your own health?”

  “Worry? With Maple? Why that mole gave new life not just to my mate Furrow and me, but to all moledom too. If he’d had contagious murrain it wouldn’t have made any difference at all to me.

  “But Weeth explained it was talon worms for which, as allmole knows there’s no known remedy, so we made him as comfortable as we could and started praying – it was all we could do. He only had a day or two to live at most.

  “Then, the second evening, like a mole out of mist, only it was out of the evening sunset, there comes this old female called Sister Caldey who founded the Community of Rose years back. She came up to Maple and she laid her paws on his head and started talking to him, soft as petals her voice was. Talked to him and he began to cry like a pup and Sister Caldey said to me ‘Mole, will you help?’ and to Weeth the same.

  “Well she led us all to a bright clear stream nearby and we went into it. There we went to him and we laid our paws on him too and then the others who had been afraid came and soon he had all of us touching and praying and weeping, and splashing about. I can’t say how long it went on but he cried out for a long time like thorns were being pulled from all over his body.

  “Sister Caldey called out invocations and prayers in the Stone’s name, saying for the Stone to help him as he was grieved with sickness and needed help and then... well and then...”

  “Then what, mole?”

  “The worms,” said Myrtle grimly. “He was purged of them like sickness from a pup. Out of him they came, from every part of his body, but we kept on in faith and that stream cleaned him and protected us and it took them away. After that he slept.

  “Sister Caldey was gone next day as easy as she came and she said as she went, ‘Now you are a community once more, and he whom you healed will be a leader among you and a good one too, for he has suffered worse than most, and understands suffering...’ She came with the sun and she went with it.

  “In the molemonths after that Maple recovered and his fur grew back and all his strength. Some stayed in the Community, some didn’t. I decided not to because I had things to see to. Anyway, Maple told me that I should go to Duncton Wood and I could be his messenger, which I hope I have been... So now the the Community of Rose is in good paws, and their work goes on, ministering to the many moles who suffer and are ill, whether of spirit or of body.”