“He might tell you more than he told me,” said Slighe.
A look of anger came to Lucerne’s face.
“In my own time I shall talk with him. In my own time. Now come, my dear, I wish to be alone with you.”
So Lucerne turned and went, leaving Terce to ponder something strange: for the first time since he had known Lucerne, from the moment he had seen him as a pup at Henbane’s teat, Lucerne looked... scared. Aye, that was the word for it. Scared. And well he might. Wharfe looked a formidable mole.
“Drule,” said Terce before he followed Lucerne out, “weaken Wharfe some more.”
“Yes, Sir!” said Drule.
Three days later....
“Master, will you not speak with him?”
“Not yet.”
Six days later....
“Master...?”
“No,” snapped Lucerne.
Ten days later....
“Your brother....”
“Twelfth Keeper, do not mention him again. The best place for him is where he is. Let him and that Betony rot for ever but not be allowed to die. Before he does that I shall wish him to know but two things: that Beechenhill is waste, and Harebell dead.”
“Yes, Master.”
Nor did Lucerne change his mind, or have time to. The following day a messenger came from Ashbourne, urgently and with priority.
“It is a henchmole from the eldrene Wort.”
How Lucerne smiled.
“Show the henchmole in,” he said. “I like everything Wort does, Terce. A henchmole – how very quaint! Well?” he said as the mole entered.
“The eldrene Wort sends the greetings of the Word, Master, and to say that Beechen of Duncton, the one called Stone Mole, is taken in Ashbourne and that she awaits your pleasure.”
“There, Terce, how the Word does smile on us! The crusade nearly done, this Stone Mole captured, and Beechenhill ripe to take as a female in March.” He turned to the messenger. “We are well pleased with you, henchmole of the eldrene Wort.”
“Thank you, Master.”
Three days later, guardmoles were mustered and more sent to the east and north. The Master had ordered that the final strikes must now begin. Soon they would depart, leaving Cannock with a garrison under the joint command of Drule and Slighe.
“Master mine, once we leave I do not want to come back to this dull place. It can become ruinous for all I care. Whern is our home and I miss it.”
“Mistress Mallice, get me a pup and Whern shall be yours again.”
“Master love, you know how.”
Lucerne laughed.
“Have I neglected you?” he said, his paws firm on her haunches as he quickly mounted her. His teeth were at her back.
“Yes,” she sighed, “you have.”
“I want you with pup,” he cried, coming close into her then.
“Oh, oh, oh, I may be soon,” she whispered, “I may be, my dear.”
From now, how she got them was of no consequence. So she let him make his sterile love to her and knew he might soon be pleased.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mistle set to her great task of preparing Duncton Wood for the life that she passionately believed would one day return to it with a will and many a way. And if, so far, she had but one mole living with her in the wood, well, that would change and meanwhile she must make the most of him!
Romney – a mole hesitates to say “Poor Romney” of such a strong mole as he – had already had enough shocks in a short time for most moles. Before Longest Night he had been an ordinary guardmole going about an ordinary life, but everything had changed from the moment he saw Dodder killed.
He had been stricken by what he had witnessed, and Rampion had taken him over and dragged him north towards Rollright. Then at Chadlington he had been hijacked yet again, this time by Mayweed, the maddest mole he had ever met, and Mistle, a fervent, passionate, unstoppable younger version of Rampion, and hauled back to Duncton again. There he had witnessed the suffering and death of Tryfan, who in the brief time he saw him alive Romney felt was a great mole in every sense.
Then, before his bemused gaze, the mad Mayweed and insecure Bailey had one moment been doing not a lot and the next, and without (it seemed) any thought at all, they had set off on a journey from which Mayweed did not expect to return.
“If this is how moles of the Stone live,” he grumbled, as he found himself dragged off yet again, this time by Mistle around an empty and derelict system, “then I think I prefer the more orderly ways of the Word.”
“Fine! Leave now, mole! We don’t want half-hearted moles in this system, thank you very much!” declared Mistle turning on him.
“‘We’ as you put it, are us, which is you and me,” protested Romney, who guessed that unless he stanced up to her now he would be lost and subjugated forever. “There are no others. I, Romney, formerly a guardmole, am half of us, and don’t you forget it!”
But Mistle was having none of it.
“Unless we work together for the same purpose then we and Duncton Wood will get nowhere. I realise it’s all a bit much for you and that you hardly know me, but then I hardly know you. Now, I’m a positive mole and there’s lots to do, and even more I want to do, but I don’t want to do it grumpily, miserably, or in the company of unwilling moles.”
“But...” began Romney.
“No ‘buts’ about it, as Mayweed would say, none at all! I saw ‘but’ scribed over the face of every single guardmole I ever knew in Avebury. It’s ‘buts’ that killed the moles by the Stone. ‘But’ is an attitude of mind we of the Stone do not enjoy. Look around you, Romney! Breathe the good air! See the trees! Scent the worms!”
“The air’s cold, the trees are leafless, the worms are deep!” As Romney said this, he tried his best to keep a straight face but, faced by Mistle and her excitement with life, and with a wood which the more he looked at it the more beautiful it seemed, he could not help himself, and began to smile.
Which was as well, for Mistle seemed about to burst with frustration at his “half-heartedness”, but now she saw he could laugh at himself she too began to smile, and then she laughed.
“The air is a bit cold, but it won’t be cold for ever,” she said. “And the trees will bud soon enough. And....”
“I know, Mistle, the worms will come nearer the surface when everything warms up. Yes, I can see it now, it’s all going to be wonderful – as you moles of the Stone would put it.”
“Yes, I think it is,” said Mistle seriously. “But much more than that. You see, Romney, I come from a system that has been oppressed by the Word for so long that its spirit was almost all gone. One day I’ll tell you about my grandmother Violet, but for now I’ll only say that she taught me all she knew about life, and living, and the Stone, and with her help I was able to leave Avebury. She told me to come to this system because to her, being raised with the old stories of the seven Systems, it was always the greatest system of moledom: with an awesome Stone, with a tradition of great and spiritual moles of whom Tryfan was one, but not I hope the last, and with a site and position that gives it that sense that other systems often lack – harmony and rightness.
“Now by circumstances strange and mysterious which I don’t pretend to understand, you and I, a mole of the Stone and a mole of the Word, find ourselves alone here, and it’s not even a system either of us was raised in.
“But I feel as if we have been given a great heritage that we must cherish until times change and others can come back and make their lives here once again. In fact I think we are very lucky, and that’s why I feel sad and distressed when you start moaning, because Duncton’s worth more than that. In fact, anywhere is worth more than that, but especially Duncton!”
As Romney listened to Mistle he had the growing feeling that he was in the presence of a mole who could persuade another mole to do anything. But it was more than her words – there was something grand and alluring about the way she stanced beneath the beech trees, her paw
s well set on the ground, her fur glossy and her looks magnificent and yet seeming vulnerable. To turn from her, to leave the wood, to have nothing more to do with such driven moles as these had been in his mind.
But now, hearing her, seeing her, he knew he could not leave. But he had always been the one to get others to do things for him, and other moles did not trek right over him, and... he grinned.
“We’d best get to know the system first,” he said, “and if ever I’m in doubt about what I’m doing here, just remind me of what you said today.”
She rushed to him and touched him affectionately, her face as excited as a young pup’s.
“For a moment I thought you’d leave.”
“I’m sure you’d have stayed on without me.”
“One’s alone, two’s a community, and three or more....”
“A nightmare!” laughed Romney.
“Leave them to me,” said Mistle.
“Don’t worry, that’s exactly what I intend to do. I’m a well-trained guardmole who knows all about delegation.”
“‘Delegation’,” she said slowly, enjoying the word. “That sounds something worth learning about. Will you teach me?”
“Humph!” said Romney, starting off downslope to explore the system.
“Romney,” she called after him, “do you think Beechen will come back one day?”
He stopped and turned.
“For you, mole? Yes, I do. A mole would travel a lifetime to come back to a mole like you.” He spoke with absolute sincerity.
“Romney,” she said quietly, “will you always tell me that, whatever may happen in the future and if I begin to doubt it? Always? You see, I don’t think I’m going to have the strength to do all the things I know we’re going to have to do in Duncton unless I believe that Beechen will come back to me. Is that silly?”
“No, mole, it isn’t silly,” said Romney. “I saw Beechen, and anymole could see he loved you. It was scrivened all over his face. But more than that, he is like nomole I’ve ever seen. There’s something certain about him. Why even Tryfan did not have the same certainty Beechen had. If that mole said he’ll come back then he will, and I’ll tell you that until the day I die because I believe it. Now, let’s go, because if we talk anymore like this you’ll have me in tears, and until I came to this place tears was not my way.”
“Thank you,” said Mistle, with a smile and touch that would win the heart of anymole.
“You can lead the way since you seem to be in charge round here,” he said.
Then, by now won over and thoroughly persuaded that Duncton was the place to be, and the first of many moles whose lives Mistle’s charisma and persuasiveness would win to the cause of Duncton Wood and a community of moles such as Tryfan had begun, he followed her down-slope to discover whether or not this was indeed likely ever to be moledom’s greatest system.
Mistle knew more than she realised about Duncton and the places in it, from all that Beechen, Mayweed and Sleekit had told her in their time together in Bablock Hythe.
Barrow Vale and the Stone clearing were obvious enough, though she and Romney avoided the Stone clearing in the early days, trusting that the owls and rooks would do their work, and the grim evidence of the killings in Duncton be gone. There is no dishonour or distress in a dead mole being owl fodder for it is the natural order of things, and many mole has decided when he was near his time to take himself off to somewhere open knowing that death would be followed by the stoop of claw and the flap of wing.
But for a time they preferred to go to other places, and, accordingly, Mistle was able to show Romney the Marsh End, and the Eastside, and tell him their names, and show him how it was that the Westside, being wormful, traditionally attracted the strongest moles.
When they first arrived in Duncton there had been a succession of frosts before Longest Night which had driven the worms down, and from the way the deeper levels had been cleared to ease the taking of these worms, they were able to tell which tunnels and burrows had been recently occupied.
But these were relatively few and generally the system was in a bad state of repair and showed evidence of having been long under-used, especially in the Marsh End where tunnels were frequently collapsed and a sense of order nearly gone. Elsewhere, though, the soil being drier, the communal tunnels at least were surprisingly well maintained, and retained that special quality of clear yet vibrant sound which the older systems, whose tunnels have evolved over many generations, often have.
For Mistle, used as she was to the newer tunnels of Avebury where the grikes had moved the moles from their original system, the tunnel sounds of Duncton were a revelation and a delight. Romney, on the other paw, had lived in several other well-established systems, including Fyfield for a time, and was more familiar with how good quality tunnels should be.
“But even so these are something else again, Mistle. Their lines are so pleasing to the eye, and look at the way they used buried flints to aid sound travelling! We can’t delve tunnels like them these days.”
“But we can try, Romney, we can try!”
The first winter snows were light falls across the Pastures beyond the Westside in mid-January, and the trees prevented these from settling in the wood. Then the air got steadily colder, and a north-eastern wind drove snow hard into the wood, and formed drifts against the tree trunks so that if they looked one way through the wood it seemed all light, and another it seemed dark.
They had spent a long time debating where to make their burrows, Romney arguing that the sensible place was somewhere anonymous on the slopes below the Ancient System, off the obvious surface routes but near a communal tunnel with good sound properties so they could hear the approach of other moles, and be able to make their escape if danger threatened.
So convincing was he that they even found a suitable place and prepared some tunnels and burrows there. But then, just when Romney, pleased with his set of tunnels and looking forward to his first sleep there, was settling down as darkness fell Mistle came in without a by your leave or thank you.
“We can neither of us stay here, like furtive moles in our own system! We must begin as we mean to go on, and live where it can be seen we are here, and proud to call ourselves Duncton moles.”
“Like where?” said Romney heavily.
“I don’t know yet, but nearer the Stone. I’ll find the right place soon enough.”
“Well, when you have will you let me know, mole? Meanwhile if you don’t mind....”
“Oh we’re going to look now, we’re not putting it off.”
“But....”
“But?”
Romney sighed, and grinned ruefully.
“Where do we begin?”
“Let’s start on the slopes between Barrow Vale and the Stone and work from there. The right place will emerge in time. It’s a matter of patience.”
“Tonight?”
Mistle hesitated.
“Tomorrow then,” she said, conceding for once. “I suppose we have hardly stopped for a moment since we came here, have we?”
“No, we haven’t.”
“Violet used to say a mole should know when to stop and stance still. I’m sorry, Romney. Do I work you too hard? It’s only that I want things to be right.”
“Yes, you do work me too hard. I can take it, but one day other moles may come who can’t, so you remember that. Now you stance here, mole, I’ll get some food and we’ll just talk for a change. You can tell me about this Violet you keep mentioning and about the Stone, too, because you forget I’m of the Word. There’s things I’d like to know.”
That night, for the first time, the two moles talked, the snowy wood falling into darkness above them, and only the rustle of falling twig and the quick call of tawny owl to break the silence. Mistle told Romney all about her puphood in Avebury, and something of her escape from it, and how she had joined forces with the mole Cuddesdon.
“You know I’ve hardly thought about him at all since we were separated in Hen
Wood. I just feel he’s safe and that one day we’ll meet again.”
“All these males you’re going to meet again.!”
“Only two so far,” she said. “But I think the Stone meant Cuddesdon and I to part when we did, and for me to find Beechen. I’m sure Cuddesdon got to Cuddesdon Hill and is discovering what it is the Stone wants him to do there.”
“You believe the Stone guides everything, don’t you?”
“I think it helps us along, and not always in directions we expect or think are right for us. Beechen told me that Tryfan believed that moles behave most intelligently when they don’t think about it too much. The Stone reminds them, sometimes forcibly, what’s good for them.
“The nice thing about Cuddesdon and I is that from the day we first met we decided to trust each other. That’s why I’ve not thought about him much since Hen Wood. I trust him to have done the right thing, and I know he’ll trust me to do the same. He knew I was going to make my way here one way or the other, and here I am! He’ll find me in time. It’s how moles should be, Romney.”
“It’s how we were as pups with our mother,” said Romney, who had explained that he had been raised in a Midlands system and then put into service of the Word as a guardmole and had travelled ever since. “But with the Word everymole is judged all the time and I wouldn’t say ‘trust’ is commonplace. Senior moles are watching out to see if their subordinates have done wrong. And if they have, naturally they punish them.
“Now, this mole Cuddesdon, what was he going to do exactly when he got to wherever he was going?”
Mistle shrugged and, laughing affectionately, said, “That was always a joke between us since he didn’t know himself. We agreed that the Stone would guide him. But not mate, I think. He decided he wasn’t the mating kind.”
“And you?” said Romney softly.
She shook her head and looked away and fell silent, thinking.
“Ever since I met Beechen I know I’ve wanted young almost more than anything. That, and Duncton Wood! Well, I’ll just have to wait until he comes back.”
There was a moment or two of tension in the air and then Romney relaxed and smiled.
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