“They’re not sure what to do!” became Troedfach’s refrain, and Gareg, and old Alder too, were inclined to agree.
A period of uncertainty seemed to have settled on the front. There had been a brief and exciting time in the winter when a captured mole of the Word had revealed in passing that a mole called the Stone Mole had been heard of to the east, but he knew nothing more than rumours and despite all their best efforts to find hard news nothing had come through.
Yet one thing the news of the Stone Mole, vague though it was, achieved was to make them realise how truly cut off they were from moledom. There had always been moles willing to cross the front – as Gowre of Siabod had done successfully before the Siabod conclave the previous September – but it was Troedfach’s view that it was not worth the risk. Such expeditions lost moles, and rarely brought back information which was actionable. Better in his view to interrogate captive moles of the Word – that got results.
Sometimes Gareg, under pressure from younger moles who wanted to do something more adventurous than defend a front, argued that sending a few patrols across the line would not hurt too much, and might get new and more useful information.
But Troedfach was concerned with other things. It had been his view that the longer the stasis went on the better the prospects might be for the Welsh moles, for as the winter had passed by and spring had come he had sensed a weakening on Ginnell’s part – a weakening which had started, he saw later, with that surprising retreat on Caer Caradoc on Longest Night.
It would have been nice to attribute this to the supposed Stone Mole – which Caradoc had tried to do – but the more realistic Troedfach put it down to a harsh winter and poor leadership.
Yet every time they themselves tried to break the line, whether to north or south, Ginnell or Haulke, his number two, seemed to have read their minds well.
“Maybe they’re saying, ‘They’re not sure what to do’ as well,” said Caradoc ironically, for as spring and then summer came he grew increasingly impatient with the fighting. He wanted to be up on his beloved hill and among his Stones without the impediment of patrols and garrisons. He wanted the war finished.
“You’re probably right, Caradoc,” said Alder, “but it’s one thing for defenders to be reactive and another for the aggressor. No, I’m sure Troedfach is right and they’re uncertain. Leadership from the top, that’s what’s wrong. If Wrekin and Henbane were still in charge then I doubt we’d be stancing here today, but then I doubt if Gowre would be stancing pretty in Siabod. We may count ourselves lucky that Wrekin was old by the time he got to the western front, and tired. Ginnell does not have Wrekin’s brilliance.”
“If you’re right and they’re uncertain of themselves,” Gareg said, “then we should take the initiative and attack boldly.”
Troedfach thought for a while. “Gareg is right,” he said. “As Midsummer approaches there’ll be more moles about, and some going spare, and it’s a good time to build up our strength still more. But let’s do rather more than that. Let’s have faith that my hunch is right and the Word’s leadership is faltering... Let’s send a call out across all of Wales and ask for volunteers to come. Let every system, however small, send us some moles. They won’t be fighting all along the front for years to come, but they could be part of one mighty surge forward across the line in an attempt to break the deadlock. Gareg, you’ve talked of this before, and Alder too. Let us bring all our strength to bear in one place at one time!”
Troedfach was rarely so passionate as this and the others caught his enthusiasm. He turned to Alder and Caradoc and said, “And you two could be of special use! Aye, the retired commander and the pacifist. Caradoc, if you’re with us, and I know you are, you’ll help us now. Alder’s only old when he’s stancing still.
“Therefore, Caradoc, take him off into the Marches and start getting some of the younger moles in the mood for fighting. The way to change things now is for us to come on strong, very strong. To be bold we need moles. Get them for us and we’ll show them what to do.”
“Well, you know I’m not one for fighting, but I suppose if there’s a possibility of ending this once and for all it’s worth a try. But use the moles we send well, and make your campaign short.”
“We’ll use them very well,” said Gareg. “But it’ll make sense to keep them behind our lines here so that neither the moles of the Word nor even our own moles get wind of them.” He held up his paw as they expressed surprise and went on, “That’ll be best, believe me. After all, a lot of our best information comes through moles we capture and you can be sure that if moles of ours are taken then Ginnell’s lot would find out we’re massing moles and where they are and he’ll wonder what we’re planning. No, we’ll do it secretly, and we’ll train them well too. There’s some advantages in using moles who’ve not been fighting on the line before. Easier to train!”
The others nodded their agreement and then Troedfach said, “If we get good moles, and we do our job, then I’ll tell you this: things are changing, our chance will come, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the moles you send will be back in their home systems by next Longest Night with brave tales to tell, and ready to breed pups when next spring comes around.”
“You speak well, mole, and convincingly,” said Caradoc. “But I hope it’ll all be done before next Longest Night because I’m too old to wait much longer, and Alder here’s on his last paws! But just one thing: I’ll be telling them it’s the Stone they’re fighting for, and for peace, not for power or glory or revenge. If that’s their way there’ll be no peace. Don’t forget it, Troedfach, nor you, Gareg. If the Stone is with us, and our strategy works, there’ll come a time to turn back and leave well alone, and if the Stone Mole was here that’s what he’d say.”
“I’ll not forget it,” said Troedfach.
“Nor I,” said Gareg, but the light of war was in his younger eyes, and the cruel glint that the hope of victory brings.
Caradoc and Alder were as good as their word, and through May and June moles came drifting in. Many had never fought before, some did not even speak mole, and a few were too old or too young to fight.
But there they were, full of the spirit and purpose that Alder, whose name all knew, and Caradoc, whose passionate belief all respected, had put into them. They settled willingly down to wait in those secret places which Gareg arranged behind the lines near Caer Caradoc.
“What’s good about these moles,” said Troedfach one day to Gareg, after the two had been reviewing some more recruits, “is that they’ve come believing that they’re going to be part of a great push forward, and not feeling that this is the last stand.”
“That’ll be important when the time comes,” said Gareg, “for we’ll be leading them eastward, into flat unfamiliar vales, among moles they’ll hardly understand and they’ll need to believe in themselves and the Stone. They must be disciplined as well, though, and ready to follow orders, and have the ability to act fast.”
“You’ve time yet to instil that into them,” said Troedfach. “But one thing’s certain: come Midsummer, when the grikes have seen their pups to maturity, they’ll be pushing forward once again as well. That’s when the trouble will start and our chance come, and it’ll be sudden and unexpected.”
“And we’ll be ready!” said Gareg.
So summer came with the moles of the Marches building their strength, and by Midsummer they were ready. But for quite what they did not know.
As the moles at Caer Caradoc prepare to make war against the Word, and Caradoc struggles to help them find a way towards a non-violent peace, Mistle in Duncton Wood has a struggle of a different kind – to find the way beyond the sense of loss she feels.
For already, long before news of the barbing of Beechen at Beechenhill, Mistle had seemed to know that something final had happened that would change all their lives.
In the wake of those terrible nights by the Stone during the March equinox when she had suffered so much, she had stayed subdued and wa
n. The promising spring had turned into a delightful summer about them, but she had seemed to see it not.
So it was that Romney was forced to take charge of things for a time. The projects of cleaning and renovation she had so cheerfully started he busily continued, trusting that the summer sun, and the new spirit in the air that he began to feel just then, would bring a change in her.
Yet nothing seemed to, not even the best of news. In April the first new moles had come up the slopes, the female pregnant, looking for a place to make a home and scarcely believing it when Romney told them that this deserted, beautiful, shimmering place, was the Duncton Wood.
“Where are you from?” asked Romney.
“He’s asked where we’re from!” said the mole to his quiet mate. “That’s a laugh! We’re from all over, aren’t we love? Eked out a living where we could, kept our snouts clear of grikes, and when you appeared we thought our number was finally up. Didn’t we, my duck? Yes, Sir!”
“What are your names?” asked Romney.
“Whortle and Wren,” the mole replied.
“Whortle and Wren!” repeated Romney with pleasure. It seemed to him as good a pair of names as there could be for the first breeding pair back in Duncton Wood for a very long time. “Welcome to you both! I’m Romney.”
“You look like a guardmole to me,” said Whortle frankly.
“I was once,” replied Romney.
“Yes, well, there’s a few of them about. Doesn’t have quite the allure it once did, does it? Well, I’ll be direct: if there’s no disease here we’d like to stay. Been wandering about from portal to post and Wren’s tired of it.”
“I said you’re welcome, and that means welcome to stay.”
“What’s the way it works here then, mate? Is there an elder or eldrene or what? ’Course Duncton used to be of the Stone but then... we’ll go with whatever’s going so to speak. We’re followers of a kind but that’s more for her than me.”
“There’s only Mistle of Avebury and myself here so far. And the Stone, of course. Duncton’s going to be what we make it.”
At the mention of the Stone, Wren’s eyes had lightened a little, and she spoke for the first time.
“You mean there’s no rules? Nothing we’ve got to do?”
Romney laughed.
“Mistle’s the one to answer that, but she’s not well at the moment.”
“Oh dear,” said Wren, with quite genuine concern. “With pup, is she?”
“No, no. She’s missing a mole just now... but she’d probably say that provided you tell the truth, respect other moles, give help when it’s needed, and do your bit looking after the communal tunnels and the meeting places, then that’s all the rules we need. Something like that anyway.”
“Er, yes,” said Whortle.
“‘Er, yes,’ my paw!” said Wren. “We should help others and look after the communal tunnels, but let’s start with the truth. Like where we really came from, for example.”
“Must we?”
“Begin as you mean to go on, that’s what I say,” said Wren.
“Buckland,” muttered Whortle reluctantly. “We deserted. Bloody awful place, Buckland, so we upped and left when Clowder began his strike. We were lucky to get away.”
“Strike?” Romney said. “What’s that? We’re rather cut off here, you see.”
“Against followers. You mean you don’t know? Well...” Then for the first time Romney heard about the strikes that Lucerne had ordered. Presumably the massacre at Longest Night had been the strike here. Oh yes, then he knew about strikes!
“Thing was though that the grikes thought they knew who the followers were but a lot of them kept quiet, ourselves included.
“And others, seeing what was going on, lost faith in the Word – especially in some of the systems like Fyfield and Cumnor where guardmoles betrayed each other to settle old scores. Happened in Buckland too. Aye, Clowder bit off more than he could chew and now there’s confusion all about and moles are looking after their own interest first.”
Whortle went on: “All we want is a place to call our own where we can settle down. If that includes cleaning a few tunnels then it’s not asking much, is it? Whortle’s your mole, and if he’s not then Wren here will make him be! Being with pup, she’s not her usual self. You should see her afterwards!”
“I hope I will and that you decide to stay,” said Romney with a smile, but his mind was on what Whortle had said. Moledom was in change. Mistle, these moles, he himself, and Duncton Wood were all part of it. He did not like to hear of the strikes against followers, yet he felt cheered by the sense of change; and there was a refreshing directness about these two.
“Look,” he said, “up there is the High Wood. On the far side of it is the Stone, where likely you’ll find myself or Mistle. But if you go up that way you’ll come to the Eastside and it’s reasonably wormful. You go and sort yourselves out a place and in a day or two we’ll talk again. When are the pups due?”
“Three days, maybe four,” said Wren, looking pleased to be asked. “We started a bit late.”
“Your first?”
“Mine too,” said Whortle as she nodded.
“I’ll get Mistle to come over and say hello soon, then.”
“That’s the Eastside, you said?” repeated Whortle, looking up the slope.
“That’s what he said,” said Wren. “Now say ‘thank you’. This isn’t Buckland, you know. Moles treat each other with respect here.”
“Er, thank you,” said Whortle.
Romney waved and left them to it.
“Moles treat each other with respect here,” she had said. Why, if he could scriven or scribe he’d put that right across the south-east slopes for everymole who ever came here to learn!
Mistle did not show much interest, although Romney supposed that the pair’s arrival was good news to her, and nor did she say much when Romney reported a few days later that three pups had been born. But his good cheer remained: another pair came later in April with their young, followers who had escaped the purge at Cumnor, and then in May three solitary moles appeared as well and took up burrows on the Eastside.
Mistle kept to herself and matched the quiet and hidden mood of the system in a way that Romney, who went about and tried to be of cheer and seemed the only one who knew them all, felt he did not quite manage. They often asked after Mistle, especially Wren, who was a direct and kindly mole.
By the end of May the pups had become youngsters and one day when Mistle was out with Romney she met them for the first time. She seemed glad, and smiled at them, and they were shy and silent and in awe of her; but even the adults, Romney noticed, were in awe of her.
“You’re the Mistle who lives by the Stone,” said Wren.
“My name is Mistle, yes, and I am a follower of the Stone.”
“Well, there’s a question I’d like to ask.”
Mistle looked at her and waited.
“It’s about Midsummer. I mean, are we celebrating it or what?”
“Why, yes,” said Mistle, surprised. “Of course we are.”
“You’ll be preparing the youngsters then?”
“Preparing them?” said Mistle.
“It’s what my parents had others do with us, you see, and I’ve been worried sick that my youngsters wouldn’t be prepared. Wasn’t much, I suppose, but things should be done right.”
“What did they do?”
“Told us stories about the Stone and things,” said Wren.
“I’ll willingly do that,” said Mistle. “Mole... Wren, I’m sorry I....”
“You’ve been ill, haven’t you? We know ’cos Romney told us. It’s all right, there’s time yet to get acquainted, isn’t there?”
As the youngsters played about them Mistle said, “Where are you from?”
“Buckland, but my parents came from Charney, which was a system of the Stone.”
“Did they raise you to the Stone?”
Wren shook her head.
&n
bsp; “Not what you’d call ‘raised’. They... here you, come here and stop hitting him; he’s a rascal, that one... couldn’t do much in Buckland. Just the Midsummer stories because they said that was what they remembered being done to them, but anything more....”
“Was lost?” said Mistle.
“Yes, it was all lost. Never met another mole but Whortle from Charney in my life.” She smiled a little bleakly. “You couldn’t call Buckland a home.”
“This is your home now,” said Mistle.
Wren nodded, unable to speak. She looked at her youngsters playing with the leaves, and she stared about.
“We can’t believe our luck, can me and Whortle. A great wood like this, and we’ve got it almost to ourselves. Done nothing to deserve it, have we?”
“That’s what I think too,” said Mistle. “Others will come one day and we’ll have a chance to make Duncton like a system ought to be. But that won’t be easy, Wren, and it’ll need all of us working together.”
“You can count on us,” said Wren, gathering her brood together. “Whortle really likes the place, and you should hear him tell this lot off when they get the communal tunnels dirty. I never thought I’d live to see the day! So you’ll prepare them then?”
Mistle looked down at the three youngsters and reached a paw to each in turn and smiled. They looked shyly back, one turned and thrust its face into its mother’s flank, not one said a word.
“I’ll come down and find you again before Midsummer,” said Mistle.
It was, thought Romney, a beginning and he had seen with his own eyes how a community heals its own. Yet as Mistle had implied, nothing is won easily, and that he soon discovered too.
In June, just before Mistle was going off to the Eastside to see Wren’s youngsters, one of the single moles who had come to the wood in May, came to Romney to report that she had seen some grikes peering up the slopes from the cross-under. He ran swiftly to tell Mistle.
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