“Send out messengers, Alder, summon a conclave of leaders such as they had in the old days,” urged Caradoc. “It’ll give your younger moles useful journeys to make and I’ll guide and watch over them. Ordain that the meeting should be at the end of September before the weather worsens. And make it here, where those who come can see the Stones that rise on Tryfan. You’ll not regret it....”
Alder had finally raised his paw with a laugh to stop him saying more and said, “You’re right, Caradoc, I had something like it in mind myself, though on a smaller scale. But yes... there’s sense in such a meeting, for we have no knowledge of what strengths and weaknesses we have, and how many moles we can muster to our cause all at once should we ever need to do so. I believe that one day we shall have to do more than harry the grikes in the valleys and defend our strongholds. Just doing that means we’re the ones who gradually weaken and lose faith, while the grikes led by Ginnell sit and watch us die. He’s a clever fighter that one.”
“He was well trained by Wrekin who was a great general,” said Caradoc. “It was a pity he was on the wrong side. And now Ginnell....”
“Aye, but there’ll be a way. Two can play at waiting.”
“What is it you wait for, mole?” said Caradoc. “For the Stone itself to come trekking to your burrow and tell you to get moles off their rumps and invade the east? Eh?”
Alder laughed again and nudged a thin Siabod worm towards Caradoc.
“If we had advanced at any time this past cycle of seasons, and if we did so now, we would be defeated. Why, as you’ve implied yourself, we’re out of touch with each other and unable to do more than defend the ground each of us knows best. East of the Marches is all grike-held, or was according to the last prisoners we took. I know the grikes, I was a guardmole myself and I know our rebel moles are no match for their order and discipline. At the moment we’re good only for raiding and harrying.
“No, Caradoc, I’ll not lead moles I love to their deaths. We need something to turn us into a force the grikes will respect, but Stone knows what it will need to be, for I don’t. A different and younger leader now than myself, that’s for sure! A better cause, too, than mere hatred of the grikes and Welsh pride in defence of holy Stones. I hoped that when the Stone Mole rumour started in spring that something more would come of it, and it might guide me. But it’s faltered, hasn’t it? Our moles’ hopes were raised but to no purpose. Moles can’t live on hope, and nor can their fighting spirit. So we’re waiting, Caradoc. Can you tell me for what?”
“Aye, I can. ’Tis the Stone Mole’ll come, as I’ve always said he would. He’ll be the one....”
“But he’s not come, Caradoc,” said Alder mercilessly. “The reality is he’s just a dream moles speak of – and nomole better at that than yourself! I believe you, but others... no, you’ll have to produce more than words if ever we have a conclave here that’s to do more than argue with itself.”
To Alder’s astonishment Caradoc had stared at him blankly for a moment or two, tried to say something, been unable to find the words, and then lowered his snout and seemed about to cry.
“Why, mole...” began Alder, glad they were alone, for the Siabod moles did not easily understand tears unless they were of rage. “What is it? I didn’t mean....”
“Yes, you did and I’m not blaming you!” said Caradoc weakly. “It’s been hard, see, keeping my faith: hard and lonely. But something happened in June which I’ve not told you about which has made it harder still. Have you noticed a difference in me since you last saw me? Eh? Look at me and tell me.”
Few moles were better at judging others than Alder. Leaders must know how to choose the moles that follow their orders, great leaders must know best of all: as for leaders of Welsh moles, where everymole fancies himself at least equal to every other and is proud of his independence, why, to lead them a mole must be a fine judge of character indeed.
Alder was such a mole and looked at the mole he knew so well and the question forced him to put into words what he had until then only suspected might be true. But, but....
“Go on, Alder, I’ve known you longer than any here. There’s never been a lie or untruth between us, nor ever will be so far as I’m concerned. What do you see has changed?”
“But Caradoc....”
“Speak your heart to me, Alder. It’s all I ever want to hear.”
So Alder looked at him and knew what it was he saw.
“When I first met you by the Stones of Caer Caradoc I thought that never in all my life had I seen a mole so alone. In that high place, the Stones all about you, and two great southern guardmoles, intent on murder for all you knew, came along. But there you bravely stanced and faced us. Your strength of purpose has never failed in all the time since then, and your inspiration has kept our snouts pointing towards the Stone. But since June you seem....”
“Yes...?” whispered Caradoc.
“There has been a change. You’ve seemed even more desolate, even more alone. That’s it, isn’t it? You’ve been more alone.”
Caradoc’s eyes filled with tears as he nodded his head mutely, and when Alder reached out a great paw to him, his shoulders hunched and he began to sob.
“Something happened, something I have dared tell nomole, see? I know that many laugh at me and think my head’s soft with living up at Caer Caradoc with neither mate nor mole; they’ve heard me say too many times that the Stone Mole will come even to that place and that one day... one day....”
Then, just as Mistle of Avebury had unveiled her heart to Cuddesdon that summer, and told of moles who had touched the Stone in June with her and called out for her name, so Caradoc told the same story to Alder.
“I felt the Stone Mole near,” he concluded, “and he needed us, Alder, all of us. He needed us so much. But one by one we did not have the strength to keep touching the Stone, like when you’re a pup and another stronger than yourself is winning the fight and you have to give in... Well, mole, I gave in, I let go the Stone and I felt I was losing those others I fancied were doing the same. Since then, all summer, I’ve trekked the Marches seeking them and I shall feel lost until I find them.” He paused, stared intently at his friend, and said, “Well, Alder, you tell me what moles would say if I told them of it as I’ve told you today.”
“They’d say Caradoc had finally gone mad,” said Alder evenly.
“They would. And what do you say?”
Alder hesitated, for he sensed that Caradoc’s self-respect, if not something more serious, depended not just on what he said but how he said it. He looked away and over the mountains. What could he say? The mole was sincere, he believed what he had said. He... and then, quite impulsively, Alder turned back to him.
“Old friend, I believe what you say is true. I believe that the Stone Mole will come. We shall have the conclave that you suggest, and we shall hope that this elusive Stone Mole shall send a sign that will give me the strength and authority to inspire the moles of the Welsh Marches to remain steadfast through the coming winter years.”
Caradoc stared at him in gratitude.
“You really believe?” he said in wonder. “You know, Alder, what happened left me with a sense of loss greater even than that I felt when father died and left me as the only mole at deserted Caer Caradoc. It is a kind of ache in the heart and I know I shall not rest until I find those moles or the Stone Mole comes. I shall not rest....”
For a long time after he had finished Alder gazed on the strange mole as he fretted restlessly at the ground. Caradoc was tired, more tired than a mole should be, and the odd story he had told seemed to have sapped his last reserves of energy.
“You shall sleep,” said Alder gently. “And when you have recovered I shall summon as many young moles here as you think we need and you shall send them north and south, the full length of the Marches, and tell them what leaders to summon here. It shall all be as you wish.
“But more than that, we shall ask for moles to volunteer to cross the grikes’ lines
to the east and see what we can find out about this Stone Mole to guide our conclave. It is a task we can entrust to the late Fach’s last-born son, Gowre. Now sleep, Caradoc, and rest.” And as Alder’s quick and orderly mind worked on the organisation of the conclave Caradoc nodded his head silently, turned back into the Siabod tunnels, found a place to lay his weary body and, with thanks to the Stone for Alder’s faith in him, he fell asleep.
The conclave had finally gathered at Siabod in the last days of September as they had planned. The moles met in one of the high slate-walled chambers for which Siabod is famed. Those great warriors were dwarfed by the bleak, black verticals of the walls, and the drip-drip of water echoing down tunnels which slope off into freezing darkness.
Even on a sunny day there are many places where the light is grey and cold. Strangely, it is when there is snow and ice on the surface that the light in those chambers is brightest, and it glistens and shines on the water that seems forever to run on the slate at the entrances.
The windsound of the high Siabod is famous, too, for it echoes and re-echoes down the grim tunnels, and if for a moment it seems lost beyond recall it is because in the unexplored darkness of that place it has come to a void, or a corner which nomole knows or will ever see, pausing there before striking a wall once more, somewhere beyond, and it comes back hollower, more distant, more distorted than before.
An awesome place Siabod, yet quite without the sense of evil and dark sound that we who have travelled with the Duncton moles know unpleasantly well from the tunnels of Whern, and the sterile deeps of the inhospitable Wen. Nor was the place as gloomy as it might have been, since after such a warm summer and with the weather remaining fine, the tunnel air was warm and sunlight filtered in. But still, and forever, the water dripped, and there were darkening falls beyond clefts in the slate from which chill draughts sometimes blew and where nomole among those gathered, brave though they were, would ever venture near.
Alder, with an astute sense of history and occasion, insisted that many of the younger Siabod moles came to the conclave chamber as spectators, leaving a few trusty guards across the lower slopes and beyond.
As Alder took his place and looked about him he saw that the faces had changed a good deal since he had first met the moles of the Marches and Siabod. At the conclave of Capel Garmon years before, moles like Cwmifor, Manod and Wentnor of Mynd had been at the fore, but they were now dead or in retreat beyond recall. So too was the great Clogwyn of Y Wyddfa, whose acknowledgment of Alder’s skills had marked his general acceptance in Siabod. Sadly, many of the younger moles who would have been leaders now if they had survived the fighting against the grikes were gone as well: Lymore, Blaen-cwm, and, most tragic of all, the great strategist Stitt of Ratlinghope.
Yet, as the present leaders had arrived, Alder took comfort in the survival of some great moles, and the emergence of new ones. From that original meeting at
Garmon, two at least were still strong enough to hold their own in any company: Clun, a mole of stocky physique and with a ribald sense of humour, and Gaelri, one of the Pentre siblings and an able tactician who time and again in recent years had made such good use of limited numbers against greater odds.
While a third now towered above them all, in physique, intelligence and the sheer power to lead: Troedfach of Tyn-y-Bedw. As much as moles like those deferred to anymole along the Marches they deferred to him. He had come out of the obscurity of his small system in the southwestern interior, taken over the gap left by the death of Blaen-cwm, and now commanded the extensive and vital network of systems that lay south of Caer Caradoc.
Only Alder himself was regarded more highly, for, alone of anymole in Wales, he had led his moles to reoccupy a position taken by the grikes and kept them at bay; and more than that he had done it in fabled Siabod – and he not a Siabod mole at all!
There were, along with these familiar leaders, a number who had come up from the south and who led smaller systems in an area where the grikes were, perhaps fortunately, weak. Of these moles Alder was struck most by Gareg of Merthyr, a clever-looking mole with the same natural authority that Siabod’s Gowre had and, like him, still young enough to learn.
Alder heard that he had travelled the Marches in search of Troedfach while still barely more than a pup, and that great mole had trained him well and sent him south once more to gain experience.
Meanwhile, Alder and Caradoc had hoped that the small party sent out under Gowre’s leadership would have been back by the time the conclave began, and able to give information about the disposition of the grikes, but it had not yet returned. The conclave had to begin without Gowre and the talk to be wild and only locally informed. Inevitably it had been Troedfach who drew a mole’s attention, with his rough black fur that matched his growling voice, and his huge paws and shoulders that were scarred from a thousand fights. Grike prisoners had reported that his name, along with those of Alder and Caradoc, were the only three that the grikes knew, and they spoke them with respect and fear.
Troedfach’s brooding presence had dominated the conclave from the start, and at first he had argued for attack before winter, believing that a hard push east could make the grikes turn tail and run.
It was a popular stance, and one many favoured, and Alder wished he had had an ally such as Stitt had once been, knowledgeable of strategy and appreciative of the fact that once such moles as these were off their own ground and in the lower vales to the east against an organised foe they might fare badly indeed.
But Troedfach, for all his belligerence, listened to argument as well, and was generally inclined to accept Alder’s advice before his own instincts. In his heart Alder knew that if Troedfach ever wanted to he could lead a great strike against the moles of the Word, whatever Alder said.
Alder was therefore relieved when on the second day of the conclave Gareg of Merthyr was prepared boldly to disagree with Troedfach and argue for caution.
“It’s not for lack of courage or will,” he had said, “but knowledge of what we can do and can’t. If I’m to rouse the moles around Merthyr then I’ll need to do more than tell them how boldly we talked in Siabod!”
Troedfach had nodded his head in rueful acknowledgment of the younger mole’s concern and agreed that too much was still unknown for any proper strategy, though he hoped there wasn’t a mole in the conclave who doubted for one minute what he was inclined to do!
So the debate went to and fro on the second day, and as the afternoon wore on Alder and Caradoc began to despair that anything would come of it for the future, unless it be simply that these moles who so rarely met together had got to know one another better and seen Siabod.
But then suddenly a change came over the meeting as a whisper went about, an exciting rumour, and moles paused and looked at each other. One of the Siabod moles who was acting as a watcher came apologetically into the meeting, went to Alder, spoke softly to him and the great mole went outside.
As he did so the rumour gained voice: “’Tis Gowre! He’s back! And all the others who went with him but one. No, no, he would not say a thing until he spoke to Alder.
The conclave was not kept in suspense for long. Alder returned with young Gowre at his flank, and others of his small party. All looked travel-worn and weary and several, including Gowre himself, bore signs of fighting and stress, but there they were, safe enough and ready to report.
Silence fell as Alder said, “You know well of the mission on which Gowre was sent and you see him here now as I do, returned home safeguarded.”
“By the Stone’s grace!” said Troedfach.
“Aye, and his own exertions!” said another. There was rough and respectful laughter among the moles, for not one of them had not some scar or other to show for grike attentions, and all of them knew the danger Gowre must have run.
As they looked at him now they saw that his expression, and those of his companions, was grim. There was defiance in their eyes that put foreboding in a wise mole’s heart for it meant t
hat where they had been they had seen trouble, and it was coming this way.
“What he has told me briefly is of great importance to our debate, and tired though he is it is right he tells you himself...” A ripple of excitement went among the moles, and then a hush fell as Gowre moved forward to address them. He was a powerful mole of typical Siabod physique, with a proud snout and intelligent eyes. Those who, like Caradoc, knew him before that day saw the mission Alder had wisely sent him on had put a certain age into his face, and a certain necessary strength into his talons.
Gowre, evidently tired, did not waste words, or spend time reporting how he discovered what he had. The details could wait, and would make a good tale everymole would hear in time, but meanwhile the facts were clear enough.
“Ginnell is still in charge of the grikes, and his base is where it was before – opposite Troedfach’s position south of Caradoc,” said Gowre. “But for the time being there won’t be any advance or change of position – Ginnell has gone some way north.”
“Do you know why, mole?” asked Troedfach.
“Yes, we know why well enough,” said Gowre immediately, looking round at his companions who nodded their agreement, “or shall I say we know what the grikes know. There have been great changes and all the grikes are talking of them, for in June Whern got itself a new Master of the Word.
There was a flurry of surprise and talk at this news, for Gowre’s brief had been merely to find the strength of the enemy, not to investigate power at the very heart of the Word’s base. He had done well.
“Henbane is deposed. Her son Lucerne has taken her place. We understand he is heading south as his mother did before him, and that a new imposition of the Word is to come. Ginnell has been summoned north to meet this mole Lucerne, and we may presume that when he has his commands they will not include a withdrawal from these parts. We know little of the new Master except that he is greatly feared. That, in essence, is what we discovered, and....”
“And your source is a good one, mole?” interrupted Clun.
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