Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

  “Grubby places, roaring owl haunts,” grumbled Skint. “But maybe you’re right. How far off is it do you think, and how long will we have to wait?”

  “It’s not far, but we may have to wait days. We must give him every chance.”

  “And if he doesn’t come? If he hasn’t survived?”

  Tryfan’s face went serious.

  “We will decide that when it happens. He is a worthy mole.”

  They regrouped and set off immediately, approaching the river cautiously where, to their surprise, they found an easy surface route well shielded by grass. Here and there they left markings of their passing in the hope that Mayweed might find them and follow on.

  There was much life about – badger by the smell, and rustling hedgehog, but nothing ominous. There was also mole, for they came upon more than one hill, fresh dug as well. They decided to pass these by, making their pawfalls heavier to disguise the fact to those below that they were moles. After what Henbane had said, the fewer who knew they were about the better.

  As they progressed the lights of the roaring owls got brighter, and their turning across the landscape gave the grass and trees above them a lurid magnificence which disturbed Tryfan and Spindle more than it did the others, who had seen it before.

  “Just don’t look into the eyes of roaring owls,” warned Skint, “because they mesmerise you, and keep as shielded as you can when they pass close by for the vibration is so great they can leave a mole senseless for a moment or two, and vulnerable to attack.”

  The noise got louder, and the route yet closer to the river, which flowed dark and deep beneath them and on ahead, catching the great yellow lights that hung above the roaring owl way where it crossed over a stone bridge.

  “Where shall we go from here?” asked Skint. “There’s no more sign of mole.” The ground was flat and grubby, covered by soggy grass which smelt unpleasantly of dogs and twofoots. They kept to the peripheral shadows and Tryfan led them round towards the base of the bridge.

  “I think this is the place to which Mayweed will come: the first clear mark on the river downstream of where we were. Let’s explore first and then find a suitable place to wait.”

  Above them the bridge rose high and noisy, twofoots came and went, roaring owls turned and lit up, and left their heavy smell. Skint looked about uneasily.

  “Never did like this kind of thing. Never got used to it. Hard for mole to live here.”

  “Well, we’ll have to wait here a day or two at least,” began Tryfan. Then he paused and stopped, and snouted.

  “Mole!” he said. “Look!”

  Ahead, on the worn and dirty grass, was a fresh hill.

  “Solitary,” said Skint, “and just begun. Shall I explore?”

  But it took only a moment.

  “This is not a real hill. Just the semblance of one....”

  It was an old mole trick to attract a mole to where he could be seen, and then attack him. Even as Skint and Tryfan turned from the hill a voice said from the shadows: “Don’t move!”

  “Who...?” began Tryfan rearing up to fight.

  “We are not your enemies. Go to the bridge. Do it. Now.” There was something authoritative and sympathetic in the voice and they obeyed, not looking back.

  The bridge loomed nearer and its base was in deep shadow and beyond it the river was a moving blackness. As they reached the buttress of the bridge, the air became dank and cold and the ground was wet. Then it became hard and unburrowable: concrete. Nomole likes that.

  “Further in, out of the light,” the voice behind said.

  Above them, where the bridge arched high, there was a sudden echo of the pattern of their pawsteps on the ground.

  Tryfan stopped. Ahead of them there was the shifting of paws and then a shining of snouts. Moles. Friendly it seemed.

  “Right, this is as far as any of us goes until we know who you are and what your purpose with us is,” said Tryfan, bunching instinctively with the others lest they were attacked.

  “Good,” said the mole, “very good. You are welcome.”

  As Try fan’s eyes adjusted to the light he saw that the mole looked familiar, though it was hard to say quite how. But even as he thought this, one of the moles ahead came forward and said, “Hello, Sir! Pleased to see you, Sir, most welcome and glad I am and you are. Surprise for you, pleasing it will be!” and he laughed.

  An appealing voice. An unctuous voice. A most beloved voice!

  “Why, it’s Mayweed!” cried out Tryfan going forward with pleasure and surprise.

  “It’s more than Mayweed, Sir” said Mayweed, “and not just me!”

  “But how... what...?” the others asked in admiration.

  “Mayweed hid, Sir, and then Mayweed ran when the searching started. Mayweed ran fast as a hare, didn’t he? All the way over to the stream, nasty and wet that was, and on to the Slopeside and there Mayweed stopped and had a think and ate a red worm. Mayweed said to himself, Tryfan won’t die, not meant to. Tryfan will go down to the river by the badger runs, and over the tumbling stream, oh yes, Mayweed knows, no need to say! It was so?”

  Tryfan nodded with a smile.

  “Then Mayweed thought: no time at all to lose, none whatever. Get going while Henbane and the others are away. So Mayweed went off down the tunnel to the Slopeside and Mayweed remembered moles you talked of and moles you liked named, if he remembered right, Pennywort, Thyme and a guardmole you trusted named Alder and Mayweed got those moles, didn’t he? All by himself he got them!”

  Tryfan’s heart leapt! Thyme! Alder! Pennywort! Mayweed had brought them?

  They’re here?” he asked.

  “Yes, Sir, tired but free.”

  Out into the light they came, timid Pennywort, then Thyme, and then Ragwort, the mole who had been deputed to guide them to the visitors’ burrows.

  Then from behind them the mole who had commanded them to come under the bridge, and who Tryfan had half recognised, came forward. It was....

  “Alder?” asked Tryfan, uncertain.

  “Aye Sir, me Sir. Doing my best and nervous, but Mayweed here said you would see us right, Sir.”

  Tryfan looked at them all, welcomed them, and then Alder, reading his thoughts said, “My friend Marram wouldn’t come, though we tried hard to persuade him. But he won’t report us, Sir.”

  Tryfan was dumbstruck. All these moles safe, all followers now, all depending on him, looking to him to lead them.

  “We are well met,” he said, “and our cause is right. Now for the moment I would like to collect my thoughts alone, and then we can discuss what we shall do...” and he went to the river’s edge and looked into its dark flowing depths and thanked the Stone that so many were safe.

  Thyme went close to Spindle.

  “Well!” she said. “I thought I would not see you again!”

  “Er, no,” faltered Spindle, embarrassed by her direct gaze, and surprised at the transformation in her since they had first seen her. She had fattened out and was comely.

  “Um... you’ve changed,” was all he could say.

  She laughed. “And you’re even thinner, if that’s possible. Spindle’s a good name for you!”

  “Yes,” sighed poor Spindle, who had always found it hard speaking to females. They took his breath away, especially ones like Thyme. “I suppose I am. Not the best of diets in the Slopeside, and up on Harrowdown.”

  “I hoped I might see you again,” said Thyme softly.

  “Well here I am then!” said Spindle looking this way and that.

  At which Thyme laughed.

  “Better see if Tryfan’s all right,” muttered Spindle turning from her. Then he went off awkwardly and she watched after him, smiling.

  It seemed an age that Tryfan stared into the darkness of the great river. Above them the roaring owls quietened, and fewer showed their shining eyes into the night. Then the great yellow lights over the bridge suddenly faltered and went out. Occasionally the voices of twofoots sounded for a moment o
r two, and one came down to the shadows of the bridge to leave its spoor there, and show what its territory might be.

  Its breathing was heavy, its step clumsy and heavy, and the moles shrank and backed away into deeper shadow sickened by its smell. Then it was gone, a roaring owl roared and shone, and went away into the night. And all was silent.

  Tryfan turned and faced them, and they came to him, staring at him in the dim light of stars and masked moon.

  “Outcasts are we now,” said Tryfan, speaking slowly and deliberately, “with little strength but that we make for ourselves as one. But I believe that if we trust each other, and have faith in the Stone, then what was started today at

  Harrowdown will be known in time throughout moledom, and will begin the ending of the Word.

  “But long will the struggle be, and much suffering will we have to bear.” He paused and looked at them one by one, to see if they faltered or were irresolute. He saw only trust and faith.

  “Now listen,” he said boldly. “To Duncton Wood will I lead you, by ways known only to scribemoles, which Boswell taught me. And there we will gather others and make an army of Stone followers whose purpose will be to put the Word to rout.

  “But that will only be the beginning. For we followers will prepare ourselves for the coming of one who will help us hear the Silence of the Stone. For it is ours to hear if we have strength, and courage and good purpose. The mole that will come in our time will be great and good, and for him must we be ready.”

  “What is his name?” asked Thyme.

  “In the old books and prophecies of Uffington he is called the Stone Mole, but his name nomole knows, nor will they know it until he is among us.”

  “What is he?” asked Pennyworth her brother.

  “One more than all of us. One who has Silence and can forgive. Wisdom is his and love; purpose and kindness. By him will the burden of the grikes be lifted, with him will the last snouting be; his coming is the Stone’s blessing on mole, our time is the age that has been chosen.”

  They stared at him, wondering. He spoke powerfully and his words echoed in the bridged space above them.

  Then one by one Tryfan touched and blessed each mole there, as a scribemole should, and he spoke their names. “Bless thee, Alder... and thee, Thyme... bless....”

  “He’s not just a mole,” whispered Thyme to Pennywort, “that’s for sure.”

  “N – no, I don’t think he is,” replied Pennywort.

  While in the darkness there Thyme let her flank touch Spindle’s, and Spindle did not draw away.

  “Are you scared?” she asked him.

  “No,” he said simply. And she looked at his talons and gaunt flanks and felt strangely touched.

  “Spindle!” she said, her voice a little more commanding.

  He turned to her in the dim light. And she to him.

  “Then why are you shaking?” she said.

  He grinned a little sheepishly.

  “Not used to being touched,” he said.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” she whispered.

  “No,” he said settling his flank to hers, “it doesn’t seem to.”

  “So when do we leave?” called out Skint above the chatter.

  “Now!” said Tryfan. “Now we leave!”

  At which he turned out from under the bridge, climbed up the bank at its side, and, passing silently over its wide reach, started to lead the followers on their long trek east to Duncton Wood.

  PART III

  Duncton Wood

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Duncton Wood is the most easterly of the seven Ancient Systems of moledom, and today, as ever since the events with which the Duncton Chronicles are concerned, it is the most beloved.

  Yet even now it remains one of the more mysterious of the seven and certainly the least visited, for it is cut off from other systems, being surrounded on three sides by the great sweep of the Thames and its associated marshes; while on the fourth it is bounded by an enormous way for roaring owls which travelling moles are disinclined to cross. Yet passing under it is difficult for the only route is by a huge and echoing concrete cross-under, used by cows, in which a mole feels much exposed.

  The ancient Wood itself, which is beech and ash in its highest parts and oak lower down, is on a hill which rises majestically from the clay vales of those parts, and the river and way are sufficiently distant that the moles of Duncton rarely hear the roaring owls and never visit the river. To the west are the Pastures, wherein live the Pasture moles, who are no friend of Duncton though they share its isolated site.

  When Tryfan’s parents, Bracken and Rebecca, were young, the active system was for the main part located on the northern lower slopes of the hill. Indeed the Stone for which Duncton had been famous, and whose holy powers had made it one of the seven, stood neglected among the great beech trees at the top of the hill, guarding the deserted tunnels of the lost and forgotten Ancient System.

  It was to those tunnels that young Bracken turned and found inspiration to lead his system back to its beginnings; and later, with Rebecca, to lead the moles of Duncton through the period of their trouble of which, perhaps, their neglect of the Stone was a precursor. But whatmole can tell? It is enough that Duncton was torn by feuding and strife and two moles emerged for a time as the evil leaders of the system: Mandrake of Siabod, Rebecca’s father, was one; Rune the other, known now to be of Whern and a Master of Dark Sound. Evil was he, and enemy to Bracken, lusting after Rebecca and might have had her had not Bracken protected his own. So Rune and the sideem, of which he was the spiritual leader, had reason to respect Duncton... and reason to wish it destroyed and the moles there forever dishonoured. Their rule was ended only by the coming of the plagues, and the fire which destroyed many trees on the Wood’s lower slopes.

  So that by the time Tryfan was born, Rune and his doings seemed little more than a bad memory, and the survivors of the troubles were content to follow Bracken and Rebecca up into the Ancient System and there, under their guidance and following the example of their love, established an order that venerated the Stone with simplicity and faith; and celebrated the festivals with merriment and story-telling, especially those of Midsummer’s Day in June and the greatest of them all, Longest Night, which comes in December and marks the seasons’ great turn from darkness to light.

  So it was into a bruised but hopeful system that Tryfan had been born, and a once-venerable one; and one whose Stone gave him a sense of purpose and love, and whose parentage gave him strength and courage.

  When the seventh Stillstone was found beneath the great Stone of Duncton, and rescued by Boswell, it was natural that Tryfan, the born leader of his generation, should accompany old Boswell back to Uffington.

  Natural too that Tryfan’s half-brother Comfrey, born of Rue and Bracken but nurtured and raised by Rebecca, should take over the mantle of healer and leader, timid though he seemed then and unsure of himself. But what he lacked in outward strength he made up for with an inner-peace and love, and trust – he it was who had given Rebecca the faith to leave Duncton in search of her beloved Bracken when he most needed her, and it was Comfrey who led the Duncton moles in her absence, and gave them hope in the long years following her final departure with Bracken to the Silence of the Stone. Much was the timid-seeming Comfrey respected, and much loved.

  When his younger half-brother Tryfan had left with Boswell, Comfrey’s last words to them as they left were but a whisper, and a stuttered one, for his birth had left him with that defect: “M-m-may they return home safeguarded,” and he had laughed, which was a rare thing for him, for he had trust that the Stone would protect them on their perilous journey. And one day, perhaps, one day, the brother he most loved would come back at last....

  It was November, and from over the Pastures came the kind of blustering cold wind Comfrey liked, driving the odd remaining leaves on the trees before it, and reminding a mole that if he has not got his winter tunnels ready he had better do so, for the rains and
the cold were coming, and snow too perhaps before another moleyear was out, and the time of keeping down and out of sight was on paw.

  “Turn, tee, t-t-tum,” hummed Comfrey to himself as he bustled around his burrow near the Stone, wrinkling his snout as he looked about and indulged in his favourite pastime, which was to jumble up his pile of herbs and seeds into a new and even more sweet-scented untidiness.

  Then overhead a mole stumped and, entering down one of his burrow’s entrances, called out, “Comfrey, are you there?”

  Which of course he was, he always was when he was needed, for that is the healer’s first art, taught him by Rose and then Rebecca: to be there when needed. Sometimes moles came visiting just for the sake of it, for they liked the comfort of his tunnels, and the sense of harmonious disorder.

  “C-c-come down!” called out Comfrey, continuing his task and muttering to himself as he did so: “Now where... w-w-where are those wre-wretched... no, not here. There, yes. Oh no, not there. I know, or I think I know...” How Duncton moles would laugh with pleasure at his absent-mindedness, not knowing it was his way of making them feel at ease, and relaxing them so they might find healing in just being. For he knew well that healing is not in the herb, but in the manner of the paw that gives the herb, and the heart that receives it.

  “Cold wind, Comfrey,” said his visitor.

  “Is it? C-c-cold, Maundy?” He was glad to see her for of all Duncton moles he felt most content with her, and knew that she had least need of healing or advice or anything much else.

  “I think so,” said Maundy.

  “Oh!” said Comfrey, vaguely puzzled. He didn’t remember it being cold when he was out on the surface a little while before. He just remembered it ruffling his worn fur pleasantly, and bending the trees and shaking their branches above his head. He remembered thinking the season didn’t matter much to a mole of the Stone.