Duncton Tales

by William Horwood

  A buzz of excitement accompanied Stour wherever he went, and in a matter of hours the oppressive winter atmosphere that had occupied the Library for so long was all gone, and the sense of spring, and renewed life, had come. And the sun began once more to light up the entrances of the Library, and send its shafts down through the fissures in the ceilings of the bigger chambers, and catch the dust and busy librarians in its warm rays.

  “You’ve done well through a difficult winter,” said Stour to one and all, smiling upon them, and engendering an excitement at the prospect of the journeymoles beginning soon the great and important task of taking copied manuscripts out beyond the system’s boundaries, to the distant libraries that were their destinations.

  As the days passed this new mood continued and deepened, and the Master went his rounds each day, and up to the surface too, so that early rumours that his appearance was merely that of a mole making one last show before going into final retreat were proved quite wrong; a fact confirmed by his decision to vacate the temporary burrows associated with his study cell in the Library and return once more to his tunnels on the Eastside.

  Meanwhile, many of those to whom Stour talked, especially those who had come to the Library the previous autumn and had never seen the Master, were astonished to discover that he knew not only of their existence, but of their work as well, showing both interest and knowledge.

  But though he was friendly enough, the fearsome and sometimes chilly intelligence was still there too: he was still impatient with moles who did not think quickly and respond intelligently, and plainly unsympathetic to the sometimes egocentric concerns of the younger moles in the library. Their growing up, he seemed to think, they had better do elsewhere. As for pups … but then it is with a pup we are now concerned.

  For it was not long after Stour’s emergence into the light of spring that a pup appeared suddenly and unexpectedly upon the scene, in circumstances nomole could have predicted and which would change for ever Privet’s life, and Stour’s too.

  It was the kind of pleasant spring day that hints at summer warmth and pleasures to come, when older and pupless males wish for nothing more than to find some place out on the surface to escape the irritating bleats and cries, mischief and growing clamour of the youngsters who are by then out and about in the communal tunnels and causing pandemonium.

  Stour himself had always been restless and discontented at such times, for he did not like or understand the young, and yet felt a nagging, despairing ache when he saw young parents’ pride and busy activity around their irritating offspring.

  When he was younger, and less wise, Stour had sometimes expressed such irritations and displeasure too bluntly, cuffing the innocent young out of his path, and shouting at them to go away. This had provoked hostility in some quarters towards him — a hostility that lingered still in the family-orientated Marsh End. But he had grown milder, and had come to believe that the best thing was to make himself scarce when late spring came and youngsters started to invade the system once again.

  This was one reason why he had long since chosen to live on the sparser Eastside, where most of the pupless solitaries like him lived, but even then the infant invasions took place, and so Stour, unable for those weeks to concentrate much on work, and rather enjoying the solitary pleasures of late spring flowers, and the return of birds and bird-song absent all winter, would take himself down the pasture slopes to east and south adjacent to the roaring owl way where parents, always fearful of owls and other predators, did not allow their young to go. It was the nearest Stour ever got to taking respite from his work.

  In fact, though it was not generally known, Stour had from time to time steered errant youngsters back from these exposed parts to where they should be, for even he, faced by a single lost pup, could not be utterly cold and indifferent. And if over the years moles had come to tolerate his awkwardness with the young it was, surely, because they came to see that when given the chance, and when unseen, he could show warmth. But that said, it was more often to adult moles, for the young remained incomprehensible to him, and they feared him as much as he did them.

  Yet how gently, how mysteriously, does the Stone watch over all moles, for time and again when they least expect it, when indeed they are quite unaware that its Light shines upon them and they unknowingly hear its Silence, it seems to put them in the way of change, and growth, and almost despite themselves give them the chance to find a way through the loneliness they feel. Perhaps in Stour’s long and mysterious retreat, the Stone gave him pause to think about such things, and having made him think, decided to put him to the test.

  The day in question occurred in late April, some moleweeks after Stour’s emergence from retreat, when, muttering as usual about being dispossessed of peace and quiet by the young, he deserted the Library for a few hours and went wandering as he had in his younger days down by the concrete cross-under below the south-east slopes, which takes a mole under the roaring owl way, and out of Duncton’s territory. A place beyond which he himself had only once been, but now never intended to go so long as the Library needed him.

  An echoing place, and dank and smelly too if cattle have sheltered there lately and left their spoor; or if foxes have hidden for a time, and watched for prey on the embankment nearby. For Duncton moles it held history enough for here had been the scene of battle and brave death when moles of the Word invaded Duncton Wood; and here too from time immemorial had moles awaited the return of loved ones.

  But travellers traverse the cross-under quickly, and with a shudder, glad to get through its puddled, dripping, dark way and into the light of the sky once more: to leave Duncton for the world outside, or, the other way, to see the rising slopes of the pastures that lead up to the fabled destination they have dreamed of for so long.

  It was from this dull place of passage, as he passed nearby that April day, that old Stour saw the ominous sight of a rook flap out, with something pale and limp dangling from its cruel white bill. The corvid circled up and settled on the dirty grass edge of the roaring owl way above. Its black wing angled and flapped to balance its body, its head was cocked and still, staring at the food it had found, and then its head and bill darted forward, and whatever it had found was torn apart, and swallowed.

  Stour shook his head at the sickening sight, and had started to pass on by when he heard the weak cry of an adult female come from out of the cross-under, and worse, the pathetic bleat of young. Out of the sky another rook flew and wheeled and then landed at the entrance to the place. It stalked vilely forward into the dark, its head sheening, its beak sharp, and Stour heard a renewal of the frightened cries.

  He was not a fighting mole, but something in him made him change his course and start suddenly after the rook. He knew enough to know that corvids have not much nerve: they are not brave with living things, being braver with the dying, and bravest with the dead. Aye, a rook is brave indeed when worrying a corpse.

  So Stour went quickly into the cross-under’s murk, giving a wary glance towards the rook that hunched and gulped on the parapet above, which shot up in alarm into the air on seeing him. Then, shouting as loudly as he could he ran towards the second rook which, predictably, flew up and forward and straight over the prey it had been about to attack once more. The adult cry he had heard before came forth again, weaker now, and then a bleat as well, at which Stour, without fear or hesitation, went forward to where the cries came from.

  He found a female prone and helpless, whose present situation, and how she had got into it, was easily deduced. A trail of blood along the concrete floor suggested what her mutilated right paw confirmed: that she had been attempting to cross the way above and had been crushed by a roaring owl.

  What drove her to crawl through her pain and mortal distress down the embankment, and from thence into the only cover she could find, was all too plain. For she was, or rather had been, pregnant. Two of the young lay dead and torn to one side of her, where they had been thrown in the attacks she mu
st have endured from the beaks and claws of the rooks. A third pup must have been that limp thing that Stour had seen one of the rooks carry out on to the embankment above.

  While a fourth, still alive and protected by the mole’s one good front paw, huddled blind and bleating, its flanks shivering with cold, its body blotched red with its mother’s and its dead siblings*blood.

  “Mole,” began Stour before some instinct made him turn and strike upwards at a raucous rush of black feathered death as one of the rooks returned to the attack. “Mole …”

  But what was there to say?

  The female’s eyes were closed and it was plain she was near death. Her good paw feebly sought her one remaining young, her head half turned, her eyes opened as Stour, not knowing what to do at all, stared and did nothing, not even speak.

  Yet she saw him there, her eyes widening in fear for a moment before she saw that he was mole, and not attacking her.

  “Duncton …’ she whispered, “is this Duncton Wood?”

  “It is,” he said, adding in his correct librarian’s way, even at such a moment, “or it almost is.”

  A very faint smile came to her eyes and she looked at him, or into him, in a way that was open and deep and held him quite still.

  “What is thy name?” she asked in the old way, though weakening before his eyes.

  “Stour,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said, as if she had expected him. “Oh Stour, the Stone sent you in time.”

  “What mole are you?” he asked in surprise.

  She smiled again and said, “He promised you would be here. Now Stour, take up my pup and look after him as you would look after the most precious text in your library. No, say nothing, there is no time. Let me see you take him into Duncton Wood.”

  “Mole …” said Stour, who hesitated to pick up a thing so tiny and frail as that unfamiliar, bloody, bleating thing.

  “Do it for us all, and now, for there is no time,” she whispered. “And let me see you go.”

  Then as he stared at the pup helplessly she said, “Mole, you take him up by the scruff of the neck, that’s how you carry young.” Again her eyes smiled as if she understood his doubt and fear.

  So he blankly picked up the pup, she nodded almost imperceptibly, and he turned back towards the light carrying the pup. The pup hung limp, and what Stour did next shows how far he was removed from the nurturing and natural instincts of mole, and how much of a scholar and bookish mole he was. And yet what mole, knowing the outcome of what he did next, would have told him not to do it?

  For he lay the limp thing down on the filthy concrete where it was exposed to crippling draught and searching rook and turned back towards its mother.

  “What mole are you?” he asked, for all his life’s training over texts had taught him that to understand the present a mole must know something of the past. So, surely, he thought, if the pup survived it would one day be glad that he had asked.

  “You are … Stour?”

  He nodded.

  “And Privet of Bleaklow is here?”

  He nodded again.

  “Tell her … Oh, mole, tell her not. Not yet …” For a moment Stour thought she had gone, for she closed her eyes and gasped. But then, drawn back from death it seemed by a mother’s instinct, she opened her eyes, looked at her last living young and said urgently, “Now, now, take him. Quick now, mole, take him that I may see it …”

  “But …” said Stour doubtfully, before he turned and took his burden once more. “But …”

  “Go, mole. Give him what life you can, he was made with love, and borne here in faith, and this should be his home and Privet his just mother!” Then as he turned away from her, he heard her whisper hoarsely. “Name him Whillan and know that he is blessed. This was ordained and meant to be. And you Stour, and Privet, and all of it … it was ordained. Stone, help Stour protect our pup that was made in hopeless love … yet born here to the distant sound of Silence.”

  Then there was silence, deep silence, and Stour knew the poor mole was dead and that in the shadows where she lay was a void whose name was Silence of which he was much afraid. He turned back gratefully to the here and now, suddenly aware of the need to get the pup to safety. Stour gathered all his strength together, and taking up the pup, rushed out from that wretched place and into the light of day, with the rooks wheeling and cawing greedily above him.

  He heard the rooks, but once only did he stop and look back. They were not after him yet, but were clustering, fighting, flapping over the carrion that had been a mother and this pup’s siblings. So in death, by delaying the rooks, mother and siblings helped save the new pup’s life. Then the pup bleated, and blankly Stour struggled on up the slope with his unfamiliar burden, his eyes filled with unwonted tears for what he had left behind.

  In which state of grief and shock, his instinct was to take the pup to the place where he felt most secure, irrespective of the pup’s distress and immediate needs: the Library.

  It was there, that same until-then-pleasant morning, to the astonishment of all the workers in the Library, that Stour stumbled into the Great Chamber and laid his burden down. It breathed, and its little mouth opened wide and bleated, and for all the weakness of the sound, how it carried about that great and bookish place, and turned the heads of the unsuspecting clerics, librarians and Keepers. Had a mole searched every system in moledom, it would have been hard to have found such a large collection of moles more unsuited to the mundane and thankless task of fostering a pup, as Duncton’s bookish librarians and workers. But there they were, and to them the Stone (for so it must have been) had guided Stour in his wondering distress.

  Breathless, speechless, near breaking-point and not his normal self at all, he stared at the unprepossessing sight of the pup without expression; or rather, with an expression that seemed to see only the horror that had been in the cross-under and surprise that he had been involved in such an outcome.

  The clerics clustered and whispered uselessly, “It’s a pup! The Master’s brought a pup!” And some in that quirky awkward lot even tittered and made comments, unable to comprehend that what lay before them was new life, but life that was failing and slowing, and growing dangerously chilled.

  Eventually one of the females asked, “Where did you find it, Master Librarian?”

  Stour’s reply was faltering and strange, and so much unlike himself that some there, embarrassed at the sight of the pup, and not liking to see their awesome Stour vulnerable and close to shock and tears, drifted away.

  Others whispered, and one said, “It’s dying of cold and lack of mother’s sup. Poor thing.”

  The ‘poor thing’ raised its tiny naked head and turned its blind eyes towards the only comfort it knew, which was the austere flank of Stour, and bleated once more. At which Stour realized suddenly that he was the one who must act, and fast. The pup’s mother had said … so much, and yet so little. But she had said …”

  “Fetch Keeper Privet. NOW!” said Stour. “Now! Does nomole know where she is?”

  “I shall find her, Master!” It was Pumpkin who spoke, his eyes tear-filled to see the pup, his heart full; he had a strange sense that here and now it was he who must fetch Privet, for in this was the Stone’s Light. So off he went, not knowing where she was, but a certainty guiding his pawsteps through the tunnels until he found her, huddled silent and afraid, at the very furthest point in the Library, where the ruins of the older, mysterious tunnels of the Ancient System began.

  “Pumpkin …” she said, staring at the dark depths into which no mole dared go, “I thought I heard a pup’s cry. I thought …”

  “Come, Miss Privet, come with me. You’re needed now, Miss, more than you’ve ever been …” And meekly, and staring back again and again at the ancient tunnels before whose Dark Sound she had been much afraid, she followed him.

  “It is a pup?” was all she managed to say when she reached the extraordinary sight. “A pup!” She stared at the gasping thing in utter
alarm, and then at Stour.

  “Yes, Keeper Privet, it is a pup,” said Stour brusquely, his old self coming back more strongly now his decision had been made.

  “Quite so, Master,” said Privet uneasily.

  “Well, mole, don’t just stance there. Care for it.”

  “Master?” said Privet again, in disbelief.

  “The pup, Privet, the pup,” said Stour more gently. “The Stone has sent it to the Library’s care, and we shall care for it, as if it were more precious than any text in this great place. But somemole here has to raise it. It will be your task.”

  “But Master, I …”

  “The Master Librarian has put it plainly, mole, so get on with it,” said Jwryde, who had appeared round a corner.

  “But I have much work. I cannot do it. I have not had pups. I …’ she said, Snyde revelling in her panic.

  “Now’s your chance!” he said with a laugh, grinning around at the fascinated crowd of aides.

  “Silence, Snyde,” said Stour shortly. “And you others, get to work. Librarian Privet, I am I think a reasonable mole. Today you must accept that there is reason in my unreasonableness. I ask you again to accept this task.”

  “But there is other work …’ she said despairingly, staring at the pup which had now laid its head along the library floor and was shivering and gasping for breath.

  “There is no work more important than this,” said Stour softly, going forward and picking up the pup and taking it over to her. “I shall appoint you an aide to help you with the raising of … of …

  The pup bleated weakly, and Privet dared at last to look at it.

  “It is a female’s work,” said Stour.

  “But why me?” whispered Privet, sniffling at the pup. At her touch it raised its tiny snout again, quested here and there, and then found hers.

  “Because,” said Stour, fixing her with such a look that she had experienced only one like it before, and that from Stour on the first day that they met. It was then she knew his test of her had begun, and knew too that he had not expected this any more than she had. The Stone’s Light was in it all.