Bailey’s good nature got the better of his gloom and, casting his misery aside, he shouted, “Over here! Come here! The shore’s here!”
That seemed to help, and after more shouts and directional calls from Bailey, out of the dark waters floundered a mole.
“Here, take my paw,” said Bailey.
“Where?”
Bailey reached down from his precarious pawhold on the shore and got his talons to the mole who floated and spluttered there, and pulled him out.
He was muddy. He was grubby. He was slimy. He was Holm.
No, so far Holm’s Longest Night had not been of the best. He had always intended to join Lorren at Longest Night and had duly reached their burrow in Rollright some days before, feeling pleased with himself. On the long, dangerous journey from the north he had often rehearsed what he would say at the moment of return and decided that “I’m back!” would do well. But it was all wasted. She was not there, and the few moles he found were only able to tell him that there had been a massacre by the grikes and most Rollright followers had been killed. But Holm’s worry and distress lasted only moments. Lorren and Rampion killed? Impossible. Not them! Rampion would have got her mother to safety and when she could she would... she would....
Holm had a long think.
“What would Lorren think I’d do?” he rightly asked himself. Go to the Marsh End, that was it! But time was short, impossibly short, and the only way to reach it by Longest Night was to do something nomole had ever done before. Now that was a thing Holm had often wanted to do. And what had nomole done before? Why swim across the Thames, of course!
Do that, and he’d make it by Longest Night. But go the long, safe boring way by the cross-under to the south and he’d be too late. To see Lorren’s face as he arrived home on Longest Night was almost worth drowning for!
All he knew about the venture was what he had learned when he had tried it when he was young: the river flows fast and it was best to go a very long way upstream and hope for the best.
Which is what Holm did, and having done so, he wished himself luck, dived in and set off. The end of the journey we know, the middle he preferred to forget. Being afloat in darkness, not being able to see, feeling the numbing cold, wondering about pikes at his paws which the legends said had teeth as big as foxes... it was all too horrible, and there was nothing heroic about it at all.
Yet on he struggled, on he was swirled, on he swam until, very tired, he found himself caught up in rushes, his limbs numb with cold, and he knew he was about to drown.
“Help!” he had cried. “Help!”
“Over here!” a voice unexpectedly shouted back, and so, floundering and muddy, very, he ended the adventure nomole had had before.
The two moles looked at each other blankly, and all the more blankly because many moleyears had passed since they had last seen each other, and then Bailey had been barely more than a pup. Yet each found something vaguely familiar in the other.
“Hello. I’m Bailey.”
“H... H... Holm,” said Holm, his teeth chattering with cold.
Holm! Bailey peered closer. Yes, it was possible, it was even likely. This waterlogged and muddy mole certainly looked similar to the mole Bailey remembered. The one who rarely spoke.
“Holm!” he exclaimed. “It is Holm!”
“B... Bailey?” said Holm. “Starling’s Bailey? Lorren’s Bailey?”
“Yes!” said Bailey masterfully. “Now come on, you’ve got to keep moving to keep warm. Let’s get you back to the Marsh End.”
The Marsh End! The bliss of those two words to Holm! The tears he shed!
“What’s wrong?” Bailey asked.
“H-H-Happy,” Holm said.
“Aspen juice is what you need,” said Bailey when they got to a warm burrow. “Or foxglove root. Leave it to me.”
The trouble is that both are intoxicants for mole, very. There was no trouble finding them but it was hard to stop imbibing them. And since Holm was cold and must for health reasons, Bailey thought he would as well. Just a bit. Just enough. Just... too much!
“Bailey?” said Holm.
“Holm, my friend?” replied Bailey cheerfully.
“What were you doing waiting for me on the River Thames is what I’d like to know.”
“Holm,” said Bailey, “you know what I think? I think that’s the longest speech you’ve ever made. Have some more.”
Holm did.
“Well, what were you doing?”
“If I told you you wouldn’t believe me,” said Bailey grinning widely, for his mouth seemed beyond his control.
“Bailey, old chum, try me,” said Holm.
“I was about to kill myself.”
For a moment Holm managed to look like his old self. He stanced up, stared, and after several attempts said, aghast, “You weren’t!”
Bailey nodded in a roundabout sort of way.
“Why?”
“Because... because... well, because. Something about being ashamed of myself.”
Holm half laughed.
Bailey grinned again.
“No!” said Holm falling backwards and wagging his paws with nearly uncontrollable mirth.
“It was when I saw Starling at the Stone earlier this evening,” said Bailey mournfully.
Holm’s paroxysms increased.
“Lorren’s there too,” said Bailey very sadly.
Holm’s paws stretched out in an almost terminal rigor of laughter. His breathing became irregular. His eyes streamed tears. Then for a brief moment he pulled himself together and said, “You know what? If you’d succeeded I’d have had to break the news of your recent death.”
Bailey clutched his stomach at the thought, his whole body shaking with laughter he could not control as he spluttered, “Starling would not have been pleased!”
The two moles lay breathless, aching with mirth, until at last, Holm stanced up and said, “Bailey, you’re coming with me. Now! While you’ve got the courage! You can’t avoid your sisters forever! Come on!”
Which Bailey did, letting the little mole lead him back up through the wood which he had been sure he would never see again.
Up and up they went, and it seemed a very long way, and their paws were very tired but there was so much to joke and laugh about. Then at last, shushing each other lest there were moles about, they tottered into the Stone clearing and found themselves in a waiting circle of moles.
Not just that, but a glowing light as well. A beautiful light.
“Whash that?” said Holm.
“Mine,” said Bailey.
What laughter was there then! What community! What love, what pleasure, what great joy as Starling and Lorren greeted their brother once more, and he greeted them most boldly.
Then he moved aside and presented Holm to Lorren and said, “He’s back!” and Lorren said, “You haven’t changed a bit!” and embraced him warmly, mud and riverweed and all.
When they all discovered that in a sort of way Holm and Bailey had each rescued the other from the cold talons of the Thames, somemole shouted, “That’s a tale we want to hear more of, and now!”
“And how you carried the Stillstone here, bold Bailey! That’s another tale!”
Ah, the Stillstone. Duncton’s community fell silent before it. Awe and a sense of holiness were suddenly with them.
“Tryfan told me once that Boswell found the seventh Stillstone under the Stone itself, through the Chamber of Roots,” said Bailey. “I think this is the first Stillstone, which is of Earth.”
They all stared at it glowing on the ground.
“What else did Tryfan say, Bailey?” asked Lorren.
“Well, he said that only a special kind of mole could go through the Chamber of Roots for a Stillstone,” said Bailey. “I think he went once when he was very young, and again to help Boswell.”
“And I think perhaps, Bailey, that since you’ve brought the Stillstone this far, you could take it down through the Chamber of Roots now, and put it
under the Stone for us all,” said Mistle quietly.
“Me?” said Bailey, looking around with some concern. The last mole’s eyes he met were those of his sister Starling.
“I think you’re the only mole here who can take it there,” she said, and proudly too, not like an older sister at all. “We’ll all wait for you here.”
Then Bailey slowly took up the first Stillstone once more.
“There are others there in Seven Barrows, all waiting for moles to bring them here. Mayweed told me that, and I want to tell you about him and what happened there. And I shall. But first.
Then he took the Stillstone and went to one of the entrances into the Ancient System and disappeared from sight.
The moles encircled the Stone, and as their flanks and their paws touched and they called on Mistle to say the last prayer of the night, all of them knew that Longest Night had truly come to Duncton Wood again.
The first Stillstone had been brought back by one of their own, and in time, in their lifetimes perhaps, all of the Stillstones would surely be brought here, even the seventh and last, which is the Stillstone of Silence.
“O Stone,” Mistle whispered for them all, “from the darkness of the years, bring us to the Silence yet to come....”
Chapter Forty-Two
Now began great years of recovery in Duncton Wood, and moledom too. These were the years when the teachings of the Stone Mole, and the gospel of his life, were first scribed by Mallet of Grafham, and told and retold by many a mole. This the time when the Word had truly died and moledom was free again.
In Duncton Wood it was Mistle’s time. For as the years went by and the system regained its complement of moles, it was her purpose and example most of all that helped Duncton towards what it gradually became: a place to which moles might freely come, a place where moles could speak their minds and share their passions without fear, a place of scribing and scholarship, a place of devotion to the Stone.
This was the place where there was the growth of the true community that Tryfan dreamed of and for which he had prepared his Rule. An exciting place, a place of change, a place of moles who did not waste their time on feuds and lies and deceit, but lived by truth and openness, and spoke their minds with love, and stanced with humility before the Stone, and before each other.
Most of moledom’s great moles of those years passed through Duncton Wood, and brought to it their experience and wisdom. Ghyll of Mallerstang, who brought the good news of the Stone Mole to the Welsh, ended his days in Duncton Wood; Mallet of Grafham, perhaps Beechen’s greatest disciple, set off from Duncton Wood at the start of his ministry to bring the Stone Mole’s teaching across the south and west. His Life of the Stone Mole was his finest achievement.
Gowre of Siabod, he too made his pilgrimage to Duncton Wood, to see where his ancestor Rebecca had lived. Many the exciting tale he told of Glyder, and Alder, and Caradoc, and when he spoke in his deep Welsh voice, the chamber was always hushed.
Quince, mate of Wharfe, Tryfan’s son, came to Duncton after Wharfe’s death and brought with her the teachings of Mallerstang that they might be forever preserved. And many more....
When such moles came they marvelled at the richness and variety of the thought and faith they found in Duncton’s moles. Not always moles others remember now, perhaps, but real moles who lived their lives fully, and kept their faith. Here were moles like Holm and Lorren, who brought the Marsh End to life again; and Bailey, who after his return began his work of recovering moledom’s greatest texts, and teaching scribing to moles to whom in decades past it was the greatest mystery.
Through his offspring by Dewberry, who made his last years full of such content, the great tradition of Duncton’s learning was revived again, and the tunnels of the Ancient System were worn and polished by the paws and flanks of moles visiting Bailey’s library there.
Nor did Duncton’s moles stay still. Many travelled forth and took to other Systems that natural sense of faith and trust in the good nature of mole which was such a refreshing discovery to those who came to the system itself. Most famous, perhaps, was Cuddesdon, who set off at last to fulfil his task at Cuddesdon Hill and established there a community of moles dedicated to a life of what he liked to call “peaceful warriorship”. The number of such Cuddesdon communities across moledom soon began to grow.
Yet how quickly those years passed by! How soon it seemed that moles others had loved so much passed on! How soon others grew and matured and turned memory to history, and pointed history towards legend.
Throughout that time, most wonderfully, the grand tradition of moles seeking to recover the lost Stillstones was revived, for moles knew now of Seven Barrows and the stonefields there. And naturally, what young mole did not dream that he might travel to Uffington as Bailey had done, and thence to Seven Barrows, and be the one to find among those stones a true Stillstone, and bring it back that its light might be seen again.
Many went on such a quest despite Mistle’s warning that moles rarely find what they set out to seek. Many did come back with a stone, but few brought back a stone that touched moles’ lives as Bailey’s stone had done. Their stones were not what they had hoped. Yet, gradually through those years, always unexpectedly, and often quite modestly and without a song and dance, the Stillstones were brought into the system.
Gowre it was who brought the Stillstone of Fighting: and Quince who bore the burden of the Stillstone of Suffering. Great the moles who carried them, stirring and moving are their tales, and touching their reports of how modest Furze stayed on after Bailey’s departure and watched over Seven Barrows.
Always it was to the Duncton Stone they came and laid their holy burden down. Mistle it was who welcomed them, for she seemed the very spirit and power of mole in the place, and to her even the greatest moles deferred.
Not that it was always easy for her or the moles she watched over with such strength and love, for a true community does not stance still and often only grows through pain.
The years following the second Longest Night after Bailey’s return, when the mole Tor of Tiverton brought the Stillstone of Darkness, seemed so hard to her, so bleak. How much she needed lost Beechen then!
Yet she stayed strong, and soon the Stillstones of Healing and of Light were brought and Duncton’s community emerged stronger still, though by those years Mistle was growing old and slowing down.
But with six of the seven in Duncton now, she often recited the text whose words Boswell first brought to light in Uffington:
“Seven Stillstones, seven Books made
All but one have come to ground.
First the Stone of Earth for living,
Second, Stone for Suffering mole;
Third of Fighting, born of bloodshed,
Fourth of Darkness, born in death;
Fifth for Healing, born through touching,
Sixth of pure Light, born of love.
Now we wait on
For the last Stone.
Without which the circle gapes....”
Now we wait on... Aye, it was after the Stillstone of Light was brought to Duncton’s Stone and taken through the Chamber of Roots and laid to rest with only the Stillstone of Silence left to come that the sense of waiting seemed somehow to overcome Mistle again. And since it overcame Mistle, it permeated the system as well....
It was early summer. Mistle had seen four Longest Nights through and was old, and for the first time she gave over some of the preparation of the pups for Midsummer to younger moles and began spending more time alone. That March she had heard that Cuddesdon had gone to the Silence of the Stone during the winter years, and so all the moles of her generation had died, but for Romney, now old too.
What Comfrey and Maundy had once been to Duncton Wood those two now became: valued, loved, held in awe, and their relationship as much in debate at the end of their lives as it had been when they were first in Duncton Wood. But if ever it was true that two moles were “just good friends” it was true of them
, and now as Mistle seemed to age faster, and sometimes to wander and be a little lost, it was to Romney that moles came and asked for help.
“She’s out on the slopes again, and staring like she does, and won’t answer any question that I ask! You go to her, Sir, for she’ll listen to you. The evening’s setting in and there’s owls about so you go to her quick. Shall I help you there?”
“I’ll go,” Romney would reply, adding a little testily that he did not need help quite yet, but when he did he would not be such a fool as not to ask for it.
“Where is she?”
“Where she usually is.”
Romney knew where that was, and what it was she watched for. In truth it had started all those years ago when she had first heard of Beechen’s barbing, and he had found her up at the edge of the High Wood staring, as he had thought, at the cross-under, her eyes lost as she whispered that he would be there one day.
He had replied, as she had asked him to, that the Stone Mole would come back and she had said, “No, no, no,” and then stopped and seemed glad of his comforting.
When Gowre of Siabod came, Mistle had taken to him and enjoyed and been interested in the tales he told; but none more so than that of Glyder, half-brother of Tryfan, and how he had retreated to Ogwen and climbed Tryfan to touch the sacred Siabod Stones at the same time she herself had reached out and touched the Avebury Stone.
But it was the strange and cryptic account of the fallen twofoot in the nameless cwm that Glyder had given at the Conclave of Siabod that seemed to fascinate her. More than once she had Gowre repeat some of what Glyder had said so that she might memorise it. “But the twofoots... it’s where the future is, where the Silence will be found. I knew it when that twofoot’s gaze dimmed; I knew it on top of Tryfan where the wind was still. I know it now. It’s what I’ve come to tell you. It’s why the Stones kept me alive. Listen. There are many paths to Ogwen, all easy to find. But it’s taken me all the moleyears since June to find the way out again, and that twofoot never did: so it’s got more to learn than we have. Stop the fighting, moles! Tell yourselves and your enemies the Silence will be found where the twofoots are. Aye, where the roaring owls go. Silence there for mole!”
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