Duncton Tales

by William Horwood

  Of their long wait and increasing concern moles can imagine for themselves. But the days passed, the moon waxed, and the night came in when it was full and they must leave. With heavy hearts they watched its inexorable rise above the horizon, scanning the tunnels and the silvery surface that led towards Rollright, and listening out for mole. The more they waited the more Chater and Maple needed their resolve and confidence to stay just where they were.

  “He’ll come!” said Chater, time after time.

  “Aye!” said Maple heavily, shaking his head and in great distress, “but we should never have left him.”

  “He’ll come, mole. That one was a survivor from the moment he was born. He’ll come.”

  But the moon was already waning, and the dawn coming through before which they should have long since left, when they heard moles at last.

  “’Tis trouble apaw,” said Maple, stancing up fiercely. He was in the mood for a fight.

  And trouble it was. For out across the surface, running helter-skelter along, came the mole young Fiddler, fur flying, and behind him, wounded in the flank and hobbling along, was Whillan.

  Fiddler did not waste words.

  “Patrol’s behind, safety’s in front, the scribemole’s wounded, the big’un take up rear and clobber them if you have to, the old’un shove the scribemole up the rear to hurry him and the whole lot of you follow me! On to liberty and fraternity! Out, up, over, down! Away!”

  With this third-explanation, third-command, and third-rousing-speech, Fiddler, looking excited and pleased with himself, led the escape from the Newborn Brothers who chased behind.

  It was clear to Chater who the ‘big’un’ and the ‘scribe-mole’ were, which left him as the ‘old’un’, and this pleased him not one bit. But needs must, and off he went, taloning Whillan in the rump as much to express his annoyance as to hurry his young friend up.

  The route Fiddler led them on was a windy one to the west and far from that along which Chater himself would normally have taken them. It eventually left the ups and downs of the high ground and dropped into the moist coppices that lie above the River Evenlode, and there Fiddler suddenly stopped.

  “The Newborns don’t like low, wet ground that’s wooded,” he said, cocking his head on one side to listen. “Yes, listen …”

  The four moles heard much crashing about in the dry grass and undergrowth on the slopes above them. Then mutterings of deep angry voices until the noises faded and they were gone.

  “Don’t want to come down here, you see,” grinned Fiddler wickedly. “Newborns don’t like alders. Strange lot. But good fun, eh? We’re safe now.”

  “You better go back, Fiddler, you’ll be safe enough by yourself,” said Whillan. He spoke affectionately, and it was obvious real trust had built up between the two moles.

  “Don’t want to go, shan’t, and will not,” said Fiddler. “Been thinking as we ran. Glad we got chased. Good fun. You are where the action is, scribemole, and I’d like to stay with you and help you out.”

  “You can’t,” said Whillan. “We’re going back to Duncton.”

  Fiddler grinned and said, “Duncton? Good! The Newborns fear it. I’ll be useful.”

  “You can’t,” said Whillan uneasily, not wishing to send him back at all, “and you probably won’t.”

  “But I can! I can!” declared Fiddler. Life, it seemed, was a game to him.

  “Come on, Whillan, thank your new-found friend and send him packing,” interrupted Chater impatiently. “If I’d allowed all the moles who asked to come with me to Duncton Wood the place would be overcrowded. They all want to come. No offence of course, Fiddle or whatever your name is, but if I may sum up the situation: we rescued you, you helped us, we’re quits and we’re off, leaving you behind. What’s more, your friends in Rollright need a mole like you, so stay and help them.”

  Fiddler raised his paws in a look of abject agreement.

  “Yes! Quite understand. Very well put. Makes sense and sounds reasonable, except for one thing: if I can’t come with you now I shall come one day. Since Duncton is the home of liberty it will no doubt welcome me. See you later, Chater!” He giggled madly to himself, and was gone.

  “Chater, that wasn’t necessary,” said Whillan angrily. “He saved my life.”

  Maple frowned and nodded in agreement.

  “I know a good mole when I see one,” said Chater, “and that’s a very good mole, and very useful. But we can’t be too careful. If he’s as good as I think he is we’ll see him again one of these days. It never hurts to try a mole.”

  Whillan and Maple laughed.

  “You’re a rascal, Chater,” said Maple, “and Fieldfare’s got my sympathy! Now, Whillan, where are the others?”

  “Safe enough. We nearly got caught by a patrol, which is why we weren’t there when you got back. But Fiddler led us back through to where a lot of the Rollright moles live and we were safe enough there. The Newborns get worried when moles wander.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re safe,” said Chater.

  “Got a lot of information,” said Whillan.

  “Us too,” said Maple.

  “Let’s keep it until we’re well out of here,” said Chater.

  That evening, tired but safe, and on course once more for Duncton Wood, Chater led them to an old run of tunnels and burrows that overlooked the River Evenlode, and had been used in the old days by wandering scribemoles. They settled down to eat of the thin worms that they found in the gravelly soil and to listen to what Whillan had to tell them about his discoveries.

  He recounted what he had been told of the slow and steady takeover of Rollright by the Newborns, who had sent what they called a cell of moles to settle in the most lowly part of the system a Longest Night before, just as they had at Duncton Wood.

  The Newborns had kept themselves to themselves, causing no trouble at all and it was not long before two of them had gained positions as aides in the Library and another who could scribe got a task as a librarian and won the Rollright moles’ confidence.

  “They were visited by some Senior Brothers last autumn and from what they told me it sounds as if Thripp was one of them,” said Whillan.

  “Also, the Rollright moles believe that a Duncton Newborn, probably Wesley, came over and saw this Thripp.”

  “To make a report no doubt,” said Maple.

  “No doubt at all,” declared Fiddler.

  It seemed that from the time of Thripp’s visit the numbers of Newborns were increased in Rollright, and the pressure they put on the system began. Moles who resisted them disappeared and it was not long before the system was subjugated to them, and with barely a show of force at all.

  “You mean they didn’t fight?” said Maple.

  “They were persuaded that the Caradocian way was the true way,” said Whillan, “or most of them were. Anyway, the Caradocians don’t fight, they punish. They use what they call a ritual cleansing of moles needing punishment which is called a massing. On a small scale that’s what we saw them doing to the five moles by the Stone.”

  “A massing,” whispered Chater in horror and disgust.

  “Normally they do it underground,” continued Whillan as the others fell silent and listened. “They shove a lot of moles into a high-roofed chamber, panic ’em, deprive them of sleep, harry them with questions and doubts and kindness followed by blows, guard the entrance with Brothers who believe in what they’re doing, and slowly break them. Put simply, that’s a massing. The moles “punish” themselves and die of crushing, heat, suffocation and Stone knows what else. The one we witnessed was pup’s play by comparison.”

  “And they do this often?” asked Maple.

  “Enough to subdue a system. Always by surprise. And most moles survive, they make sure of that. But few are the same again and all become tractable.”

  “Don’t moles fight back, or something?” said Maple.

  “Not in Rollright they didn’t. Nor in any system I was told about. In fact there’s
only ever been one successful break-out from a massing that I’ve heard of.”

  “Yes, I was coming to that,” said Whillan. “It was to learn more about that I stayed on in the system for a time.”

  “And?” said Chater.

  “You remember when we came into the Rollright Circle and Maple broke up the massing?”

  “Yes?”

  “Then whatmole was it they thought Maple was?”

  “Rooster,” said Chater immediately. “Though Stone knows why. And you played up to it.”

  “Aye,” said Whillan, “they thought he was a mole called Rooster, the same mole you heard mention of before.”

  Chater stared and blinked, making the connection. At the mention of Rooster’s name they were all suddenly still. Stour had wanted to know something more of him and such information would make their expedition doubly successful.

  Then Whillan said, “He’s the mole said to have led the only known escape from a Newborn massing?”

  “He’s certainly the one Stour wanted to know more about. Well, I did learn more about him. He’s from an area they call the Moors …”

  I’ve heard of it,” said Chater without enthusiasm. “It’s somewhere up beyond fabled Arbor Low, the Stone circle beyond which most journeymoles agree civilized moledom ends. But it’s grike country, not safe for ordinary mole …”

  “It may be,” continued Whillan, “but that’s where Rooster is said to be from. The story goes that he came south into moledom with some of his followers in pursuit of the Newborns, and they didn’t take kindly to it and tried to get rid of him. Rooster put up some resistance and since then he’s been something of a hero to all who choose to resist the Newborns. What’s more it’s said he was caught and subjected to a massing, but he escaped. Now there are dark rumours that he or some of his followers have been caught and killed.”

  “When was all this? Recently?”

  Whillan shook his head.

  “It was during spring, about when I was born.”

  “And he’s not been heard of since?”

  “That’s it. He has. Recently. Word came to the Rollright Newborns that he was caught again, arraigned, and punished, successfully this time. Others say it’s rumours put about by Newborns. Nomole wants to believe Rooster’s dead or even in trouble because he’s the only hope most have now. When you came, Maple, moles like Fiddler believed what they wanted to believe, that Rooster is alive after all, and able to come to their aid. Even when I said you weren’t him they said that you must be part of his group and wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “He seems to inspire a following, that one,” said Maple.

  “I should think every dissenting group from the Caradocian way is hoping he’ll visit them, just as the Rollright moles did,” said Whillan soberly.

  Chater nodded. “He sounds like the leader Stour was hoping for. But if he’s been caught then a fat lot of good he’ll be to us.” The moles stared at the ground in silence, reflecting on what Whillan had reported. “We’d better get some sleep. These are things the Master will want to hear of as soon as maybe. We’ll get going before dawn.”

  “There’s one other thing,” said Whillan, before they stanced down for the night, “though I can’t make sense of it. Moles who’ve had contact with others from the north say he’s earned a title of his own. He’s called Rooster, Master of the Delve.”

  “‘Master of the Delve?’” said Chater. “That’s as strange a title as I’ve ever heard in my life.”

  “I wonder what it means?” said Whillan sleepily.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I can tell you what it means,” said Stour with great excitement in his eyes, when the last part of Whillan’s account, describing the three moles’ safe journey home was complete.

  Fieldfare too was excited and at the mention of the mole Rooster she had looked almost as if she were about to speak, certainly as if she had something important to say. But she finally did not, but only repeated at the end, “Master of the Delve …” like some incantation of past times.

  “I’ve a feeling you’ve heard the expression before, Fieldfare,” said Stour, perhaps to draw her out.

  “Only in tales and legends, Master Librarian, as told me by my mother. But, as you know, she was a northern mole originally and the Masters were last heard of up there. Yet it was not of that I was thinking. It was … no, it’s all right, Master, I’ll think more before I speak. You tell them,” said Fieldfare. Yet as he began she seemed to drift away into her thoughts, and mutter to herself what sounded like, “Rooster?” in a tone of surprise.

  “Master, what does “Master of the Delve” signify?” asked Whillan impatiently. “I’m sure I’ve heard my mother Privet mention such a thing in tales she told me when I was young, but I can’t quite remember. What does it mean?”

  “Well then,” said the Master Librarian, his eyes shining and eager, “if this mole Rooster is what the title given him by other moles implies him to be, then much of what has happened in recent times begins to make sense to me. And what’s more, this would indeed have been something Privet told you about, Whillan, and she should be told about this Rooster now, for it will mean much to her.

  “In mediaeval times and before there was a fraternity of moles who were known as the Masters of the Delve. Many are the legends associated with them, and with their coming, and some say that the first such Master was a half-brother of great Balagan himself, the First Mole.

  “Be that as it may, the Masters of the Delve were moles whose skill at delving was so great that it came to be regarded as a holy gift. They worked in small groups of five or so, and were itinerant, travelling moledom with their mates and offspring, to whom they passed on their secret skills.

  “You see, these were the moles who delved the great chambers and tunnels of the Ancient Systems of moledom — Uffington, Avebury, Fyfield and all the others. And, of course, the Ancient System beneath the High Wood of Duncton Wood itself.

  “When systems felt they were ready, or when these strange awesome moles felt a place was right to delve, they went there, guided by the Stones, and made the great works that survive in so many places to this day. Many scholars have said that moledom was at its most harmonious and reverent when these moles lived and worked. Sadly there are few records of how they delved, or what methods they used to achieve the extraordinary chambers and tunnels with such purity of wind-sound as they created.

  “Nomole in modern times has ever been able to emulate the delvings they made, nor replicate the clarity of sound which their tunnels, even after so long, retain. They were never moles for scribing, and each took a vow never to talk of the work they did. Indeed, such accounts as there are of the coming of the Masters of the Delve consistently record that they were a silent, taciturn lot, disinclined to talk, even amongst themselves.

  “Yes, their “speech” was of a different kind than ours. It ay in the beauty and the purity of what they made, and all their passions went into what they delved. Their desire to defend their work against the attacks and depredations of the corrupt, irreverent or evil was achieved in the carvings of Dark Sound. These are much misunderstood, and have been subverted to evil — usage by moles in the past like Scirpus and Rune. But in the paws and talons of the Masters, Dark Sound carving was a device to protect what they had made, to warn moles off, and to test moles’ faith and purity of heart. A mole approaching a place of such carvings hears reflected back upon himself his own darkness, his own fear, and so only pure moles, or moles of great courage and stamina, can go into such places.

  “Few dare to do so, and so through time many places that the Masters of the Delve made have become feared, and have survived.

  “I believe that we in Duncton have some of the greatest of such Dark Sound carving, deep in the Ancient System, and that the reason why even today moles fear such tunnels, is that we have lost something of our faith and have not the spiritual courage to face Dark Sound.”

  He paused and looked about t
he group.

  “What happened to the Masters of the Delve?” asked Whillan.

  “With the Scirpuscun schism in late mediaeval times following the split between Scirpus, who scribed on Dark Sound, and Dunbar, one of the greatest leaders of Uffington who ever lived, the art of delving in the old way began to die. Perhaps the spirit left it. Their work in the Ancient Systems of the south seemed done, and the groups began to die and disappear. Some believe that they travelled north to delve in the wake of the evil Scirpus, an early attempt to combat the fatal Word. It is thought that his grikes put most of the Masters of the Delve to death. Others believe too that Scirpus learnt how to turn Dark Sound carving to an evil end, and rather than teach him more the Masters submitted to death by snouting.

  “Yet a few lingered on secretly, or protected by communities that dared resist Scirpus, passing on the mysteries of their ancient skills how and where they could — to their sons perhaps, or to moles whom they judged to be of sufficient faith. The last Master of the Delve was said to live in Wensleydale, a place of pale and shining stone, and it is thought he bravely chose that place because of its proximity to Whern. He wished in some way to combat Whern’s evil with what delvings he could make, which would reflect back upon Whern the darkness that emanated from it.

  “We do not really know the truth. Many are the legends of that last mole who knew the delving art, but most say he did not die. They tell of a mole who went into retreat in a perfect place he had delved, there to sleep and await the coming of one who would know how to find a way to waken him. The stories say that in every generation a Master of the Delve is born, ignorant of who and what he is, a reincarnation of that last Master of the Delve, changed and transmuted in some way through time and place from the last great, but secret, delving that was made near Whern.

  “Many are the moles who have sought that delved place, but perhaps it exists only in moles’ minds! Meanwhile, these unknown and unknowing Masters of the Delve are born successively so that when at last the time is come when those lost arts are needed once again, a mole will be there with them in his graced talons. But the legends tell that such Masters can only fulfil themselves, and reveal their art, if they have never harmed or killed another mole. You see, a Master cannot delve who is not at peace with himself, and peace does not lie the way of killing. How few are such moles as these! How many the Masters who in a fit of anger, or from ignorance of their true natures, have destroyed for ever what they are and all unknowing left it to another to take their place.”