Duncton Found

by William Horwood

  As the sun rose up they wandered forward among the Stones, the game of trying to touch a glinting stone absorbing them. Over the plain they went, close as the closest friends can be, pointing new things out to each other, laughing, secure, lost in their pleasures, their journey for the moment quite forgotten.

  All sense of time and distance seemed to leave them until they found themselves on higher ground, north of the stonefields. It was early afternoon.

  “I think moles will come back here to live one day,” said Mistle, “and I think Seven Barrows will be occupied again.”

  Stretching away below them now the Stones rose up, one here, one there, a pattern to their randomness, and they looked like guardians to a secret place.

  Cuddesdon shivered.

  “Well! I wouldn’t want to go back down there among them. You say those six Stones are friendly to mole but they still make me feel nervous. If there’s one at Cuddesdon, and a small one too, that’ll be enough for me.”

  “There’s seven Stones for Seven Barrows,” said Mistle following him, “not six.”

  “Six,” he said, sure of himself.

  They turned back once more to see who was right, and counted the Stones.

  “Six,” said Mistle faintly, “yes, six.” Then she started forward towards them and said, “I promised that mole Furze to say a prayer for him before the Stones and I quite forgot. I must go back...” Then a cloud’s shadow drifted across the stonefields and the Stones seemed suddenly dark and formidable.

  “Must we?” said Cuddesdon.

  “I’ll go alone,” said Mistle, and though Cuddesdon protested, and tried to persuade her that there was probably a Stone ahead where they could say a prayer, she insisted on going back.

  “Stay here. I shan’t be long.”

  So back she went, alone, and feeling all the more alone as she got down among the Stones once more and found that, as before, the smaller Stones glinted ahead of her with a light that went out when she reached each one.

  “Where shall I say a prayer?” she asked herself. “Before which Stone?”

  One after another she visited them, hesitating as she stared up at their rising facets, feeling each time that the next would be better. One, two... to each Stone she went, three, four... and she was growing tired: five... six, but there was one more. She could see it, just over there, not far. She had been right: seven Stones.

  “That’s where I’ll say a prayer for Furze,” she decided, and went towards it.

  As she approached a calmness came to her, and she felt as a mole feels when she reaches out to something in the dark she cannot see, yet knows with certainty she shall find it there. The Stone rose higher than all the others, and as she turned out of the shadow at its base and into the sun she came upon a little stone which caught the afternoon’s sun within its depths and did not fade when she got nearer to it.

  It held the whitest light she had ever seen and around her other sounds faded, blocked out, it seemed, by the sound of Silence this stone made, a sound she had heard before. It was the same as that at Avebury, but this time no moles called out of it to her, and she was alone.

  She stared at the standing Stone not daring or not able to touch it. All was light and white and calm and she felt life upon her body like an ache she could not shed, nor yet wished to.

  She whispered her prayer for Furze, and then for Violet, and then for Cuddesdon, too. For so many moles, and others yet to come. She felt no fear and knew that every day would bring her nearer to the mole she sought, every day: for that the ache of life was worth the carrying, for that the Stone would help her help herself survive.

  “Help him,” she whispered. “Help them all.”

  Then as suddenly as she had found herself by the seventh Stone she found herself leaving it, hurrying away, not daring to look back. But then, as she reached rising ground, she turned and counted the mysterious Stones. There were seven, no doubt of it, and yet they did not look quite the same as they had before....

  She turned upslope and ran on and was relieved to find Cuddesdon once more, as relieved as he was to see her return.

  “Count the Stones,” she said as she reached him.

  He did so.

  “Six,” he said at last. “The same as before. Why?”

  “Did you see anything strange about them while I was down there?” she asked.

  He looked apologetic.

  “I was so afraid you wouldn’t return that I don’t think I noticed much at all. Why?”

  She tried to explain what had happened, though it sounded strange repeating it, but Cuddesdon listened gravely right to the end.

  “Don’t expect me to say anything useful because I can’t,” he said when she had finished. “But I was thinking. This mole, the one you said you had to meet... let’s go and find him, shall we?”

  “Yes, let’s,” Mistle said, suddenly glad to be away from the Stones and back with Cuddesdon. They laughed, and ran on, and did not look back again.

  After the stonefields of Seven Barrows, the Holy Burrows of Uffington seemed to Mistle inconsequential. Perhaps it was that she had come to Uffington from experiences of the Stone so deep and intense that whatever she had been told by Violet of this once most holy of systems, she saw it as it was – deserted, wasted, the spirit flown.

  True, the Blowing Stone was there, but it did not sound for her and Cuddesdon as they went by. Their past lay behind them, their future spread before them: the ruined tunnels of Uffington were but a place they passed whose time was over.

  They paused atop Uffington Hill and gazed down across the vale. Mistle looked, listened to the day and was so still, with her head a little to one side, that Cuddesdon asked, “What can you hear?”

  “The sound of roaring owls,” she said strangely. “They seem suddenly so loud.”

  They had arrived in the vale as the news of the new crusade from Whern was beginning to get about. Grikes were thick on the ground and had they not had by then such long experience of travel it seems unlikely they could have avoided being taken by them. But they did, and Mistle guided them carefully north, pausing a few days here, and a week or so there. Eager to get where she was going but taking it slowly, with that grace over time that Cuddesdon had grown to love her for. And by good fortune, and the Stone’s grace, they avoided Buckland.

  So it was, sometime just after mid-October, that they first heard the rumour of a Stone-fool, different than others they had heard about, one who preached and made healings; one who had been to a place called Dry Sandford.

  “It’s him. I feel it’s him,” said Mistle. “We shall find him soon.”

  But though the rumours increased, when they finally got to Sandford at last the Stone-fool was long gone, and they had also missed another mole, called Buckram, who had set off to find him. But another called Poplar said, “He was the one called Stone Mole all right, because I saw him heal moles. But he looked like just an ordinary mole, except for when he spoke of the Stone, and when he looked at you.”

  “Yes?” said Mistle, gazing on him.

  “Well, I can tell you his name was Beechen, and he had two others with him. Old Moles. Mayweed and Sleekit.”

  “‘Beechen’,” repeated Mistle with a half smile.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Where was this Buckram going?”

  “Fyfield... but I wouldn’t! Grikes!”

  “The Stone shall guide us,” said Mistle with a laugh.

  When they left, Poplar stared after her as he had Beechen, and he said, “She looked something like Beechen did, that Mistle.”

  Place after place they followed in the tracks of Beechen, until at last, too late, they had reached Garford.

  But not too late to learn something strange indeed, told by a mole who heard it from another mole, who heard it....

  Cumnor.

  “They’ve all gone to Cumnor, my duck, the whole bleedin’ lot of them, ’cept for me and a few who’ve got more sense. They say the Stone Mole
’s come, say he was here, but you better hurry now if you’re to find him.”

  “Did you see him when he was here?”

  The old female’s eyes lightened. “’Course I saw him, and when the guardmoles come for him, and when he faced them fierce and proud. ‘Want to talk of the Stone, do you?’ says he. ‘We do,’ says they. ‘Then I’ll come,’ says he, and he went. Next thing we know a follower comes bespattered with grime and says. ‘To Cumnor, lads, the Stone Mole says to Cumnor.’ ‘“Stone Mole”? who says he’s come?’ asked one of ours in return. ‘He was here, you daft mushroom,’ says the follower. ‘The mole Beechen, you know. Bugger me, put a worm in front of a Garford mole and it wouldn’t know what to do until somemole else came by and said “Eat”. Dim isn’t in it! That was the Stone Mole who was here, and we’re to go to Cumnor for he’s to outface Wort and preach of the Stone!’

  “That’s how it was and I’m looking forward to hearing what a fiddle-faddle of a time they have had when those that survive the grikes and the bleedin’ roaring owls get home. Meanwhile, beggin’ your pardon and nothing personal, I’m off to get some peace and quiet.”

  “I sometimes think,” said Cuddesdon, “that we shall never quite reach your Stone Mole.”

  “No, Cuddesdon, it is not we who shall reach to him, but we who must let him reach out to us.”

  “That’s very subtle, Mistle. Yes... so... Cumnor then?” said Cuddesdon with mock weariness. “Or would that be us striving too hard?”

  “Cumnor,” said Mistle. “I’m not perfect, Cuddesdon, but after that I’ll try to stop trying to find him.”

  “To Cumnor and beyond then, fellow follower!”

  For once Mistle let Cuddesdon lead the way, and she followed after him with love in her eyes, and saw something about him that she had seen more of only recently: that he went slowly now, and with grace, and had discovered that time is not against a mole, but on his side.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Of the madness that the trek to Cumnor became, Sleekit after remembered only one thing: the forgiving of a mole of the Word amidst the wind, driving rain, and a sense of rushing moles, their paws on the ground all about, trekking, trekking.

  “Stone-fool!” a voice hissed out of the darkness.

  In the wood at Appleton it was.

  “Stone-fool, he is here!”

  In Appleton, at night, Beechen was stopped by a mole the others knew not. Immediately Buckram loomed up and Sleekit was there, both watching for tricks and traps since Beechen never watched for such things himself. For so wise a mole his innocence seemed strange to those who knew him, yet it was something for which those who knew him best learned to love him.

  But Beechen said, “Mole, you helped us in Frilford. How can I help you now?”

  “I have brought a mole who seeks forgiveness,” said the stranger.

  Beechen nodded and the mole led him, Sleekit and the still-wary Buckram into the dark shelter of a rotted tree stump where the wind was quieter. A smell of fungi and dampness hung about, and then they noticed something more: the rank odour of murrain.

  In the shadows there, his flanks shivering, a mole crouched low, his body afflicted by the final stages of the plague. His eyes wept pus and from his throat there came the sound of rasping, painful breathing.

  “What is thy name?” asked Beechen gently. “And what would you with me?”

  The mole who had led them moved near the mole, as protective of him as Buckram was of Beechen.

  “He is my father. He desires forgiveness before he dies.”

  “For what?” asked Beechen.

  But before the mole replied Buckram came near once more and peered hard at the stricken mole.

  “Master,” he whispered urgently, “I know this mole, I know him, he...

  “Let him speak for himself, Buckram.”

  Beechen stared at the mole and said, “Whatmole are you?”

  “I am one who has been punished but not forgiven,” whispered the mole, every word he spoke a terrible effort.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “My son said you were the Stone Mole.” The mole stared terribly at Beechen, his flanks heaving in and out with the effort he was making to control his pain, his eyes full of suffering.

  Then he said, “My name is Wyre. I am punished for what I have done but I desire forgiveness.”

  “Aye... Wyre of Buckland,” said Buckram, confirming what he had first thought.

  “What hast thou done, mole?” asked Beechen.

  “Much,” said Wyre, “much that I should not have done.” His son went to him, and tended to him, and whispered comfort to him.

  “Then, mole, if you would be forgiven, and more than forgiven, do that which you should do,” said Beechen with sternness rather than compassion. “Turn your back on the Word, and turn your snout this night towards the Stone. Then all that you need shall be given to you, even in the hour of your death.”

  “Where shall I find the Stone?”

  “It is here, Wyre, here before you. Waste not my time or other moles’, or your son’s, searching for what in your heart you know you found long ago but did not have courage to take up. It is here now, mole, and you know it.” Beechen’s voice was dispassionate and matter-of-fact. “Moles of the Word talk much of sin, and their creed is one of Atonement, or punishment, of retribution for sins committed. You are afflicted for the moles you and those at your command have punished and tortured in the name of the Word; your murrain is the infection of their suffering. I judge you not for this – that is for you yourself to do, and I see from your body you have done so. If you would be forgiven you must begin again and be new-born and give up all you have.”

  “I have nothing but pain to give up,” said Wyre bitterly. Beechen looked from Wyre to his son and then back again.

  “Mole, you have your son. Tell him to come with me tonight.”

  “I am near to death and would have my son with me.” A look of fear came to Wyre’s eyes, stronger even than the suffering.

  Beechen replied sternly, “Give what you have up to the Stone, turn to the Silence you have heard so long in your own heart, and you shall find the forgiveness you seek. Through me the Stone has spoken, hear it, mole, and be free.”

  Then the dying Wyre turned to his son and whispered, “Go with him to Cumnor and hear him speak.”

  “Come,” said Beechen softly, “for your father shall not need you more. Come with the other followers and learn of the Stone.”

  Then back on to the wooded way to Cumnor they went, north across the heaths where the winds blew from behind and the grass and withered thistles bent the way ahead.*

  *The subsequent history of Walden, son of Wyre, is told in Tales of Longest Night.

  Many travelled through those nights, and saw that the sky was red in the troubled mornings, red with warning and with blood.

  Among those followers, hurrying henchmoles went over the heath, running from the deeds they did. Aye, done in darkness, fled by morn, and a trinity murdered where they were.

  Heanor, and the other two, turning into the death the henchmoles’ talons wrought. And Smock, raised her paws in surprise, but did not find them strong enough to ward off Wort’s treacherous blows.

  They were dragged privily to the Fyfield Stone and when others came (summoned by the very henchmole who did the deed) Wort pointed to the corpses and said, “Murdered by the Stone-fool’s aides! Treachery! Deceit! Summoned here in peace, allowed to leave in peace, and this is what they leave behind. The Word shall be avenged. The grass where the Stone-fool blessed the dead now bloodied yet again, and in his own name. Whatmole could welcome such a morning? Whatmole could sleep through nights such as these? This Stone-fool shall be punished.”

  The Fyfield moles were troubled, but more by the death of Smock (though she had enough enemies to make their dismay equivocal) than Heanor and the others of his trinity. Though he was of the Word had he not let the Stone-fool make fools of them? Yet they had seen the Sto
ne-fool leave – he must have been a clever mole to have come back again. So, puzzled still, they cleared the corpses and left Wort by the Stone.

  “Cumnor, now?” asked one of her henchmoles.

  “Cumnor, moles. And fast. Faster than this filthy wind itself, for I will catch this Stone-fool for myself.”

  “Some call him Stone Mole. Some say he’s the one all waited for.”

  “Call him what they like, mole, Wort will see him tortured, and then dead.”

  They laughed, and their laughs were ripped from out their mouths by the rushing wind and torn along towards where the Stone Mole travelled on, the laughter of scorn and hate. All, all, rushing now, to Cumnor’s high bleak hill.

  On a clear day a mole who cares to pause at Cumnor, where obsessive Wort then ruled, and looks across the roaring owl way that offends the landscape far below, may see the hallowed rise of wooded Duncton Hill. It makes a better prospect than the heathy history-scarred surface beneath his paws, for which few have ever had much good to say.

  Certainly that windy grey day when followers gathered there, shaking from cold and apprehension, scarcely believing that the Stone Mole would come here, as others said he would – which others? nomole knew! – the place cannot have seemed very much. Desolate, forgotten, a place of banishment for mad Wort, roaring owls incessant below, hopeless grey skies above.

  The moles had come in dribs and drabs, very hesitant indeed, and gathered at first at Wootton High, which lies a little to the south. Braver spirits there, who remembered Cumnor before Wort came and knew the routes, Sed the followers on, singing to cheer themselves, keeping close lest guardmoles attack. Not so fearless that they did not stop again for a time at Hen Wood, and wait for others to join them and give them strength of numbers.