Duncton Stone

by William Horwood

  Then the moles could follow the bank no more, and Rooster reappeared and shot out into sight amidst the turbulence as all the others had done. Even now he seemed huge, tossed and turned by the water though he was, and it was plain what he was trying to do as he swam and rose in the water and flailed his paws and looked desperately about for Whillan.

  But the watchers could see it was too late, and that Whillan’s body seemed to have gone down for a final time. Yet Rooster struggled on, the turbulence turning him as well, round and round as he tried, and mainly succeeded, to keep his head above the water. Then the full power of the river’s current caught him, pulled him down, shot him up, and took him out of the mayhem of the confluence and on towards the bend.

  As he reached it he seemed to realize that he would not, could not, save Whillan’s life, for he was gone now and unreachable. He turned in the water, seemed to look back at all the moles on the surface of Wildenhope, and let out a roar so loud that they heard it above the river’s raging; and then the water surged and he was gone beyond their view, surely beyond anymole’s help. Gone as Whillan had gone, from sight and hope, gone at last into violent waters like those of Charnel Clough, whose horrors had haunted his life, and seemed to have claimed him at last.

  “From the blood and the waters of their mothers’ wombs they came, guilty of sin in the original, from which the Stone offered its full and eternal salvation,” cried out Quail in a sonorous, portentous voice, as if he imagined himself to be some Holy Mole from the days of Uffington. “They betrayed the Stone’s trust beyond redemption, and are returned now unto the blood and the waters of moledom itself. Let this mole remain a living example to their guilt and shame.” Here he pointed a talon at Privet.

  “Let my fellow Elder Brothers do the same...” and one by one the other Elders raised their talons, some shiny and pointed, some gnarled and old, and pointed them at Privet. “This mole has her liberty, but of the Newborn, and of redemption, and of the salvation of truth and the love of the brethren and the sisterhood of all her kind, she is made excommunicate.”

  Only two Elders did not raise their paws. One was Squelch, who wept and crooned to comfort himself The other was Thripp, who stared in a way only one mole dared afterwards bear witness to: he stared with love, and infinite sadness.

  Then Quail turned, and one by one the brethren left, and the witnesses and the guards as well, until only Privet remained upon the Bluff. Then desultorily, in ones and twos, the guards who had chased Rooster came back, and after them Feldspar and his sons. They stared at Privet and passed her by, until only Chervil remained near her. Even now he did not show pity or remorse for what he had done, but at least he showed respect.

  Privet stared at him, and then past him at the river which had taken first Whillan and then Rooster. How long she stared, and how much she seemed to contemplate. Then she went to Chervil and reached out a thin paw to his and touched him.

  And had he been a foolish mole, or given to fancies, he would have sworn that she looked at him not with hatred, or contempt, or even fear; but with love.

  “Mole...” he began.

  But she shook her head to silence him, and turning north left him, going slowly from Wildenhope back the long, long way she had come only a few days before – when Madoc was her friend, and Whillan and Rooster still lived. Until she was gone from sight, and Chervil was alone.

  “What mole are you?” he whispered after her in awe.

  But the wind across Wildenhope Bluff, and the distant river’s roar, gave him no answer he could yet understand; and all he knew was that something of the truth of Silence had been taught him that day and it was as dark as it was light, and the journey it foretold frightened him. A journey upon which only one mole had courage and faith to venture, and her name was Privet.

  As Chervil Watched after her there was the same sadness in his eyes as there had been in his father Thripp’s; and this was not the mole of cruel resolution, and frightening purpose, who had shown himself so willing to support Quail earlier.

  Dusk began to fall, and still he stanced staring at the way she had gone, only moving when with a quick scurry and a surreptitious glance about to see he was not observed, Brother Rolt suddenly appeared.

  “Tell him it was done as he ordered, Stone help us all,” said Chervil heavily. “Tell him that seeing the mole Privet afterwards and saying nothing was the hardest thing of all.”

  “She is gone?”

  “Gone north, Stone help her.”

  “Oh, the Stone will help her,” said Rolt ruefully, “it’s the rest of us you should be worrying about.”

  Chervil allowed a small smile to play across his face in the half-light. “I am, I do. But as my father is wont to say, ‘There is a way if only we can find it.’”

  “He thinks he has found it!” said Rolt.

  “Hmmph!” growled Chervil. “Now go, Rolt, lest others see us talking.”

  “Master Chervil,” whispered Rolt gently, and the two moles looked at each other with an affection of moles where one has known the other from birth, and cared for him always, and the other knows it.

  “You were staring after her, weren’t you?” said Rolt, peering into the darkness.

  “Yes,” said Chervil, “and praying for her as you taught me to pray for moles who are brave and full of faith. But Rolt...”

  “Chervil?”

  “You’re staring into the darkness too. What is it you and my father know about this Duncton mole? You know something, that’s for sure.”

  “Nothing, I know nothing, and if I do you know better than to ask.”

  “It’s true that you never reveal my father’s secrets, so I won’t ask. But you know something. And that mole makes me feel...”

  “What does she make you feel. Chervil?” asked Rolt quietly. Dusk was advancing rapidly into night, and off to their right flank the river’s roar seemed louder.

  “I... don’t... quite know. Tell me!”

  “One day, mole, I shall.”

  “A promise from the loyal and circumspect Brother Rolt?”

  “I shall tell you when your father needs me to, and may the Stone see that I am right! For what it’s worth I suppose it is a promise.” The grass rustled about them, darkness was all around, and when Chervil looked again, Rolt had gone.

  “What mole are you?” he asked again into the depths of the night into which Privet had long since disappeared. He frowned, he muttered, he scratched himself, he sighed, and again and again he shook his head. Until at last, and suddenly, he laughed aloud.

  “Well,” he said to himself, “at least one mole has finally got the better of Quail, which shows the way forward for the rest of us!” and he went down into the deceitful tunnels of Wildenhope once more.

  PART II

  Strivings

  Chapter Twelve

  Of the many mysteries that frustrate historical enquiry few are more puzzling than the way in which rumour and truth travel moledom faster than the swiftest journeymole. Indeed, in happier days before the Newborns became so destructive a force, and Chater was still alive, the Duncton journeymole had often remarked to his beloved Fieldfare that he could not understand how it was that matters only just occurring in Duncton Wood when he left were common currency in the system he was destined for before he arrived.

  “And I don’t dawdle lass, nor do I talk overmuch!” he would add in an aggrieved kind of way.

  “Well, I don’t know I’m sure, my dearest,” Fieldfare would reply, “I expect it’s the birds.”

  “Birds be buggered, it’s a bloody mystery, that’s what it is!”

  “Chater! You know you don’t use language like that in Duncton Wood...”

  Now Chater was gone, but the truths he spoke and the mysteries he observed lived on, and the speed rumours travel was one of them.

  So it was that whispers of the killings at Wildenhope seemed to travel across moledom in April and May faster than a single mole could journey; and failing immediate confirmation
or denial by any harder evidence, they had time to breed and multiply in the atmosphere of uncertainty and fear which the Newborn Crusades from the major systems had deliberately begun to create. There were several aspects of the Wildenhope killings that caught moles’ imaginations and caused them to talk of them in pity, in anger, and, most underminingly of all from the point of view of Quail’s ambitions, in hope.

  One was the fact, so the stories went, that most of the moles arraigned at Wildenhope were Newborns of long service, who did not deserve to die. Quail’s and Skua’s cynical exercise in exemplary punishment was seen by others far distant as simple brutality, and provoked a sense of the betrayal of natural justice which overrode any fear and abject obedience Quail might have hoped the events at Wildenhope would instill.

  Another was the nature of their deaths, by drowning, which to moles is a frightening and foul way to die. It is true there had been drownings enough before as a punishment – the very fear of it was the whole point – but somehow moles throughout the land perceived those particular drownings as excessive and unnecessarily cruel.

  Further, there was the matter of the three Duncton moles involved in the killings, and here Quail’s insensitivity and historic stupidity were on display for all to discuss, whether the version of events heard by moles in distant systems was correct or not.

  The facts were (as moles heard it, in hushed whispers and in the context of outrage earlier described) that an innocent youngster of Duncton Wood, Whillan by name, had been publicly drowned by Quail’s guardmoles. Worse, his mother (as they heard) had been forced to witness it. And, just as bad and most ominous, Rooster, famous rebel and Master of the Delve, had died in a vain attempt to save the youngster’s life. It was this double connection with Duncton and Rooster, both of which held a very special place in so many moles’ hearts, that made the story so terrible – and unforgivable. Quail and Skua, though they did not then know it, had, as it were, been seen to talon themselves with their own evil; the wound might possibly heal, but it would leave a scar across their reputations that would seem revolting to any who saw them, or were asked to act on their behalf.

  If Maple was looking for allies to strengthen his so-far minute force, he found a great one in these rumours. Or, put another way, if the more intelligent and competent commanders on the Newborn side were wondering if they would find serious challenges to their Crusade, they knew, when they heard of Wildenhope, that Quail had created one and made their task more difficult.

  Yet on the Newborn side perhaps only two moles immediately understood the full implications of what had happened, and these were Thripp himself, and the recently side-tracked Brother Commander Thorne. Thripp saw, even as events at Wildenhope unfolded that day, what they might mean, and he had hoped that matters might fall out as they did. He saw with his own eyes the looks of horror, and heard with his own ears the muted cries of dismay amongst the witnesses Quail and Skua had reluctantly summoned for the occasion.

  Unlike them, Thripp guessed that their response of sympathy towards the victims would surely be repeated by many like them across moledom – if they were told.

  But here we come to the point where historical evidence helps diminish a little the mystery of how rumours travel and thrive. For we know now that within hours of the killings, Thripp had contrived to obtain from Snyde the one thing which, he suspected, would be needed to transform rumours into an idea, and then a hope, and finally an astonishing triumph of spirit, against which Quail might find it very hard to fight.

  Thripp had fully expected the opportunity to arise, but had been unable to guess what form it would take. But in his own inspired way he had communed with the Stone, and the Stone had answered him: another mole will show the way; listen to that mole, trust that mole, and act for that mole... and even as Privet, the only female Thripp had ever known happiness with, the only mole he had instinctively felt was his equal, even as she declared herself for Silence, he saw that Quail’s ambitions and the corruption of spirit he had wrought might thereby be laid waste.

  When the rituals were over, and even as elsewhere in Wildenhope Quail and his fellow Senior Brother Inquisitors agreed that the time had come to close-confine Thripp for good so that (in his senility, as it was argued) he could cause no more trouble, Thripp succeeded in achieving one last mischief; and it was the greatest of all.

  Snyde was summoned to Thripp by Rolt, Snyde “permitted” Thripp to ken from his record the precise words Privet had spoken about Silence out on the Bluff, and Snyde fatally left that remarkable text with Thripp while he scurried off to record the very meeting of Senior Brothers whose decision would by that same evening have prevented Thripp doing what he did.

  For the Elder Senior Brother was not quite as senile or ill as he pretended; as, indeed, his intervention at Wildenhope had already made clear to Quail himself; which is why, without saying so, Quail wished Thripp to be close-confined, and his few remaining loyal aides like Brother Rolt denied access to him.

  Meanwhile, in the short time left that early evening, Thripp and Rolt hurried to perform a task which more than any other would fan the rebellious flames lit by the rumours of the Wildenhope Killings, of the Duncton moles’ unhappy involvement with them and, most significant of all, of the extraordinary act of Privet of Duncton in defying Quail’s ordinance with a vow of Silence. Using Snyde’s most accurate report, a verbatim record of all that had been said, Thripp and Rolt hurriedly and secretly scribed six copies of a text that told what had happened, and quoted Privet’s exact words, including these: “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.”

  Privet had gone on to tell Quail, “I choose Silence. 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.”

  Such were the words that Thripp now chose to quote from Snyde’s record, adding his own description of the killings, and explaining to all who later kenned or heard what he scribed, that Privet’s journey into Silence was more difficult, more courageous, more important for moledom than they might at first realize. She was journeying now on their behalf, and if moles were to resist the curse of Quail’s Crusades they might find inspiration from knowing what one solitary female scribemole from Duncton was already doing on their behalf...

  The task of scribing all this down was completed by failing light and with a loyal guard posted nearby to watch out for the expected arrival of Quail’s minions, and another in the chamber itself whose task it was to hurry off with each text as it was finished to place it in the safe paws of one of the three moles whose role would be to slip away from Wildenhope that same night to deliver the precious texts to certain of Thripp’s most trusted aides in far-off systems, mainly old retired moles whose loyalty and willingness to help he had maintained through the years against just such an eventuality as this.

  Those who have seen the three surviving originals of these extraordinary and historic texts will testify to the untidy and inconsistent way they are scribed, as was only to be expected with two moles working under such pressure of time and fear of discovery. Of these three the one that best conveys the circumstances of the scribing – scholars call it the “Rollright Version” since that is the system in whose library it is now to be found – is but half completed in Thripp’s own paw, the final illegible scoring of his talon no doubt indicating the moment when the look-out gave warning that Quail’s guards were fast approaching. A mole may well imagine how Thripp’s text was taken hastily from him by Rolt, passed to the fleet-pawed guard and, incomplete though it was, sent out from Wildenhope to be finished by another paw in safety, copying from a completed version, and then distributed to do its work.

  We know now which three moles so bravely took those subversive texts from under the very snouts of Quail and his kind, and sped with them for the sake
of truth and liberty: Sugran of Stratford was one; Lloyd of Threburrough was another, and Knill of Radnor the last. Their names should never be forgotten, and their kin should ever be proud that having witnessed the killings of Wildenhope they begged Thripp freedom from the Newborn way, and he offered them something more than freedom: he gave them pride. Ordinary moles they were, in extraordinary times, who slipped out from Wildenhope with their precious burdens, and conveyed them to moles far, far away, who had them copied, and distributed them yet more widely.

  “Moles,” began that famous text, “know that at Wildenhope-next-Caradoc of an April morning on the day when Senior Brother Inquisitor Quail assumed the responsibility, awesome and profound, of Elder Senior Brother, the following event took place whereof all moles, whether Newborn or what some call follower, should take pause to ponder upon...”

  So begins the indictment Thripp scribed but to which he did not put his name, or any name, but told instead the story of twenty-two moles dead or missing, and a mole called Privet, female, past middle age, who sacrificed herself to Silence, for the sake of allmole.

  It is said that when Thorne reached Caradoc, and saw a copy of what came to be known as the Wildenhope Indictment he observed, “The Newborn Crusaders can fight and defeat any foe but this – an idea that is just and inspiring, and a mole who offers no defence, nor any attack, but the talons of Silence.”

  By the end of May the tragedy of Wildenhope was too well known in moledom for the Newborns ever to hope they might expunge it from collective consciousness, and the hope inspired by the knowledge that a lonely female had turned her snout towards a living Silence was buried too deep in the hearts of moles for Inquisitors, however skilled, to destroy.