Duncton Stone

by William Horwood

  *It is one of the great losses to Newborn research that of all the Newborn archive material rescued from Caradoc and Blagrove this Book is one of the few that are missing. The indefatigable Bunnicle of Witney has argued convincingly that the Book was destroyed or stolen by moles wishing to keep secret their former status as brothers. But see Cluniac of Duncton’s chilling theory (in his North of the North, and Other Adventures of a Traveller) which proposes that a group of Newborns, led by a Brother Inquisitor, whose survivors and offspring settled in an unidentified system “North of the North” has possession of the Book of Brothers’ Names, which they retain as an icon to evil glories past.

  Brother Normand might once have been a strong enough mole, but like so many of the others he was now thin and haggard, and his eyes were pinched with pain. He came slowly forward, half dragging his hurt limbs, half pushed by his two guards, and he did not raise his eyes to look at Quail, whose task it was to pronounce the sentence.

  The wind hissed among the stubbly grass of Wildenhope Bluff, and the distant river roared, as Quail said, “You are guilty of blasphemy and the breaking of vows, and judged beyond saving. In the name of the Stone you will be taken from here by your guards and punished in the fitting way. From the blood and the waters of your mother’s womb you came, guilty of Sin in the original, from which the Stone offers its full and eternal salvation. You have betrayed its trust beyond redemption, and will be returned now by your brother guards unto the blood and the waters of moledom itself Quail’s voice was strong and terrible, and a shudder of chill horror went through the gathering, and especially the witnesses.

  The final part of the ritual now took place as Skua came forward and intoned what appeared to be a cruel formality: “If any there be would stance in the place of this mole and beg his liberty let him come forth. If it be not granted then that mole too shall receive the punishment.”

  Before so cold-eyed a set of Elder Brothers and so ruthless an Inquisitor as Skua, it would have been a brave and foolhardy mole who came forward then. The wind blew, the river roared, and none came. The last chance of the mole who had been Brother Normand was gone. As he uttered a feeble, and hopeless, “No!’, his guards put a paw on either side of him, turned him towards the river, and hustling him down the slope of the Bluff they led him along the raised way across the flooded meadowland. It looked almost as ordinary as a mole setting off from a system, but this journey was final and from it the mole would never return.

  Brother Normand was taken to the spit of land which ended in an embankment above the river, with the tributary rushing in on the right flank. Sometimes he seemed to falter, at others he looked back wildly at the watchers on the Bluff, his eyes wide with mounting fear and despair, his mouth opening in what might have been cries for help, which could not be heard at that distance above the river’s roar.

  The end when it came was sudden, peremptory, and sickening. Indeed those watching – and it was impossible not to, and therefore impossible in some way for the watchers not to feel the guilt of responsibility for what they witnessed – could scarcely believe what they saw. One moment the mole had reached the end of his last trek, and the next the guards on either side of him had grabbed his paws and with a heave he was able to resist only momentarily, hurled him into the raging torrents of the river below.

  “So in the midst of life we are in death,” cried Skua in ghastly exultation; “to whom can we turn for help, but to you, Stone, who are justly angered by our sins. To you then we turn for judgement and just punishment. We entrust our Brother Normand to the talons of thy punishment, that thy cleansing blood of retribution and thy waters of wrath may drown the snake of temptation that has entwined his heart and spirit beyond the help and recall of his Elder Brothers. Take him, and do thy will with him.”

  To this pitiless litany was Brother Normand cast into the river, disappearing from sight as he fell below the lip of the bank, before long moments later, Skua’s words chasing after him on the wind, he suddenly reappeared in midstream, turning and struggling in the rushing water before reaching the fiercest of the turbulence and white water where tributary and river met in murderous affray.

  There he was sucked down, tossed up, turned helplessly this way and that, before going down one last terrible time, limp, paws helpless, snout submerging, body battered, lost for ever to the living world. Then the waters where he had been closed on themselves in waves and spray, and were gone out of sight around the river’s bend.

  The guards stared after their victim, their strong young forms silhouetted against the torrent beyond, and then turned to take the path back to the Bluff where the shocked watchers stanced. Nomole spoke for a moment, nomole looked at another, but some wept silently, and one of the witnesses sobbed quietly to himself.

  “Next!” cried out Skua with busy relish, turning to the next terrified victim as if he were a recruit to a Newborn Crusade.

  The brother was brought forward by his guards.

  “Now, Brother Retter, you have sinned, most grievously sinned and your time of reckoning has come. Elder Senior Brother Quail will pronounce sentence...”

  And the nightmare of drowning began once more, to meld in with the one that followed, and then the next, and then another once again. A nightmare journeying to death, and not only for the victims but for those who watched. Nomole is untouched who witnesses such murder as occurred that April morning at Wildenhope. Those who were innocent before are left innocent no more, those who had confidence in life emerge with their confidence shaken; those already brutalized, as Quail and Skua were, end up more brutal still. Life once taken is irrecoverable, and all the witnesses to that day, however free of guilt, became part of a collective shame. It was as well that the sun did not shine, nor the birds sing, nor anything but the killing waters move that long morning: for what happened then was an affront to light, to song, to any hope at all.

  A mole might think that a certain boredom would set in by the fifth or sixth victim, or the tenth, or the fifteenth, but it did not. Rather, tension rose higher and more unbearable as the line of waiting victims grew ever smaller.

  The atmosphere had somehow darkened with the twelfth victim, the first to be sentenced “without commendation’; and it darkened still further with the nineteenth and twentieth, for these were the two Skua had pronounced were to be “deprived now and for eternity of Silence’.*The names of these two are known to us. Brothers Arum and Boden, the only victims so far to show that the spirit of revolt was alive, for they cried out Thripp’s name and asked for his blessing, and muttering, with raised paw, he gave it, while their dear friend Brother Rolt could only weep, and look away.

  *Snyde’s record states that “the sky was lowering and pale, with strange streaks of lighter cloud. But, as the punishments neared their climax, and the Duncton moles’ sentencing drew nigh, the sky darkened rapidly, and cast the scene on the Bluff in gloom. This was deemed most fitting, as if the Stone itself had cast the shadow of its vengeance upon the Duncton moles.”

  Whether or not the Newborns had the right to so deprive moles of Silence seemed of little consequence – the Inquisitors believed they had. Nor did anymole come forward to vouch for them when Skua finally enquired if any wished to. With heartbreaking cries of faith in the “true Newborn way” the two moles were led separately between the flooded meadows to the river-bank and hurled into the torrent, disappearing from sight for a time as the others had done, and then reappearing as mere flotsam, beyond anymole’s help, as the waters swirled them away for ever.

  It was with sickening relish that Skua and Quail now turned their attention to the remaining prisoners, Privet, Whillan and Rooster. They were unceremoniously pushed forward by their guards, some way apart from each other. Privet was still and quiet, Whillan furious, scarcely believing what was going on, and Rooster dangerously angry on behalf of the other two.

  “Not them. She’s all right. Not Privet, not Whillan. Good moles, can’t you see?” He muttered and ranted these sent
iments and more, pushing and shoving against the restraint of his four guards to such effect that with a nod Chervil drafted in three more guardmoles to help. The more that gathered about him the more menacing and powerful he seemed. Whatever happened, this was not a prisoner who would easily go to his death, or let the others go either.

  In contrast to his father, Whillan looked weak and helpless. It is true he had matured since leaving Duncton Wood the previous autumn, even more so since the escape from Caer Caradoc, and his mating with Madoc. But the guards deputed to him were older and more physical, and perhaps the rough treatment he had received initially on the Edge, at his capture, and the hard march to Wildenhope, had taken their toll. He looked young now, tired and vulnerable; but his eyes blazed with intelligence and just outrage and he stared at Skua and Quail defiantly.

  And then there was Privet, so still compared to either of the two moles now caught up with her in circumstances of tragedy whose repercussions will echo down the ways and tunnels of moledom’s history for evermore. We can well believe Snyde’s report of a looming darkness over that sad scene, and another witness has left us a memorable description of Privet in the moments that marked the end of all her past life, and her acceptance of a task whose nature she was now beginning to comprehend more fully.

  “Her eyes,” that brave witness later scribed, “had been lowered until then. Now she raised them, and it seemed to me that they reflected those pale streaks that made the darkened morning sky so strange. At Quail she looked, at Skua; at Chervil she stared and at Thripp. At all of us she seemed to look, her eyes growing more clear and light the deeper they looked into the palpable evil of that day.

  “Anymole could see she was losing all fear for herself, and of the death that might be hers. It was poor Whillan she loved, and great Rooster she wished to protect, and now she began to see the only way she could do this. To me, her eyes were the portals into the heart of a mole who knew she must reach out with love; not to those she loved the most, but to those who were the most evil there, whom she had least reason or inclination to love.

  “Sometimes I wonder if that morning really grew dark at all as their sentence was pronounced, or was it rather that the light of Silence that began to come then to Privet of Duncton, simply made it appear so...?”

  So Privet seemed to some that morning, and now she waited for Quail’s pronouncement of their sentencing with a resignation that suggested she guessed already what it must be.

  “The Brother Inquisitor has told you three already that in the case of moles who are not in the true way of the Stone we Elder Brothers prefer not to sully our office by sentencing you ourselves. In such cases Elder Senior Brother Thripp has ordained that where three such miscreants are arraigned only one of them shall suffer punishment. But one of the others must choose which that mole shall be.”

  Here Quail paused, to let his words sink in. Whillan stared in puzzled disbelief; Rooster groaned and struggled; the eyes of Privet grew more bright and awesome.

  “Of course,” continued Quail with studied and terrible matter-of-factness, “if you cannot collectively decide who is to make the choice of which mole is to die – then we are empowered to choose for you...”

  He smiled cruelly, and glanced at Skua and then at Chervil. Both nodded, as if to confirm what he had said. Then Quail hunched forward, the bald skin at his shoulders wrinkling into folds as he raised his head a little and stared down at them.

  “Therefore, choose.”

  “Choose,” whispered Skua, his voice as deathly sterile as an icicle.

  “Choose,” whispered other Elder Brothers, “choose.”

  “Choose,” almost sang Squelch, giggling. “Oh yes, you must.”

  “Choose, choose... choose!” sneered the guards, and even some of the witnesses, even some of them. There was a madness come that day. Their voices died away and only the distant roar of the river remained, and the harsh shrill of evil in moles’ hearts.

  Whillan turned and stared at Privet, and then round at Rooster. His flanks trembled, and his eyes were wild.

  Perhaps Quail hoped for discussion among the three, a discussion that could only be a punishment in itself – perhaps that was what the Elder Brothers had hoped. But Thripp? Had he really prescribed such a law? If he had not, why did he not say so? A mole could only think from his silence that he had, he really had.

  “Privet,” said Whillan quietly. “She is my choice to choose whatmole will die. She herself must live.”

  “Must be,” growled Rooster, suddenly chuckling at what seemed to him life’s comedy. “Can’t be anymole-else. Whillan knows. Always was her. Always will be. I love her, so does he.”

  In Rooster’s way it was a speech of love, and of pride too, for a mole could tell he was proud that Whillan had spoken first, and chosen as he had. Of course it must be Privet who would do the choosing, foster-mother of one, beloved of the other.

  “Then it must be the miscreant Privet, whatever she herself says!” exulted Skua, evidently pleased with the way things were going. What would moledom make of a scribe-mole too cowardly to offer herself for punishment? Oh yes, Elder Senior Brother Quail had done well to remember so obscure, so subtle a law as this one. By it would Rooster one way or another be destroyed, and Privet too. Nomole could live in the normal world after making the choice she must now make. She would be pitied yet reviled. As for Thripp, he had promulgated this law, even if it had never been intended...

  “So choose which of your fellow miscreants should die, and which should live,” said Quail. “I await your decision with interest. We all wait with interest!”

  There was contempt and triumph in his eyes, and morbid fascination in many other moles’.

  “Choose?” repeated Privet, her voice quite clear and steady.

  “Yesss...” sighed Skua, “thy will be done!” And he even laughed, silently and mockingly.

  “Choose,” said Privet musingly, quietly now, and then fell silent.

  “If you do not do so, Sister, they must both die.”

  “I have chosen,” said Privet. Her eyes were pale now, so like a pale luminescent sky that many there averted their gaze rather than stare into them. Then there came to her face a look of relief, and she suddenly seemed younger and seemed struck with wonder, as if she had found what she had been seeking for so long. She turned to the two guards on either flank, and so calm yet powerful was her gaze that they seemed to fall away from her as she stepped forward towards Quail.

  “You see, Elder Senior Brother Quail, finally we must all choose. It is not difficult, especially for a mole who bit by bit has lost everything, as I have. Here, this morning, we have witnessed the brutal darkness which will always be with mole, and we know it, even you Quail, and you Skua and —”

  “Do not address us so, Sister!” said Skua sharply.

  But Quail raised a paw to silence him. For the first time that morning he looked interested. Sister Privet, it seemed, had surprised him.

  “Go on,” he purred.

  “There comes a time when we moles must stop seeking the Silence of the Stone as if it is beyond ourselves, or beyond the present moment, or beyond the present place. We must choose to simply... stop.”

  “So which mole have you chosen?” asked Quail, frowning now and beginning to feel a fool.

  “Oh, that!” said Privet in a voice that dismissed the impossible choice he had posed her as if it was nothing at all. Then she added, as if realizing he did not understand, “It really is not important, Quail, which I choose, or whether I choose or not. If it were I would not do it, and as it isn’t I will not pretend it is.”

  “Choose, mole,” said Skua fiercely.

  “The choice I have made has been much harder than so simple and ridiculous a thing as choosing between moles I love. I love all moles, even you, Quail, even you, Skua. Perhaps even Brother Confessor Thripp as once he was. You think to undermine me by making me choose between moles you know I especially love. You do not understand that the
choice would be as hard or as easy whichever two moles you presented me with! I would die for each of them just thinking about it, as I have died in my heart for those moles your beliefs have killed today.”

  “Choose, Sister!” roared Quail, suddenly angry, his smooth exterior beginning to break down. “You have talked long enough.”

  “I talk because I am afraid of the choice I have made, mole. I talk because I fear the journey I must begin. I talk...” For the first time her voice faltered. “I pray that one day, when the Light of the Stone is manifest to moledom, and your little puny darkness is gone into the past, I pray I may be able to talk again.”

  “Choose!” said Quail with open venom for this mole whose strange quiet words held the others about him spellbound, and insidiously attacked not only his authority, but, astonishingly, that of the whole Caradocian Order. Though how, or why, few could yet see.

  “Choose?” said Privet finally. “Oh yes, I choose! I choose Silence!” As she said the word even the roar of the river seemed to cease and not a single guardmole tried to intervene as she went first to Rooster and then to Whillan and embraced them tenderly. Then she turned back to Quail and said again, “I choose Silence, and pray the Stone will help me, for surely no mole can.”

  “Silence?” shouted Quail, perturbed but not yet understanding the profound decision Privet had made. “Silence? That is not the choice we mean!”

  “You choose that, and both of them shall die!” cried Skua, almost spitting at her, and thinking that by “Silence” she simply meant to try to avoid the issue by saying nothing.

  Yet three moles, apart from Whillan and Rooster, already seemed to understand the possible significance of what she had done. One was Thripp himself, who looked at her now with profound surprise, and strange hope, as if in the way she had chosen to take he saw, as other moles might not, the only possible course of action, or rather non-action, that those still resisting the Newborns all over moledom might follow. He looked like a mole for whom a lifetime of prayer had been answered.