Duncton Stone

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by William Horwood


  Which meant that Quail’s and Skua’s declaration at Wildenhope that Privet, though made excommunicate, was not to be harried by anymole, was not a command that zealot Newborns could accept, or even believe. Here, in the flesh, was a mole by herself made anathema. How dare anymole defy the Elder Senior Brother and turn to Silence? The declaration said to have been made by him about not harming her could not be true. No, no... it was a coded command meaning the precise opposite – she must die!

  How many Newborns said that to themselves when they heard about Wildenhope. And yet,.. She must live!

  Aye, and how many moles, followers and Newborns alike, said this too, moved as they were by her story, and aware of the danger of zealot assassins eager to prove their allegiance to the Stone by killing one whom they were not worthy even to touch!

  All over moledom that early summer as the rumours abounded, Thripp’s Wildenhope text was kenned ever more widely, and the Newborns and their opponents began to commit themselves to coming Crusades and conflict, a great many moles were asking the same question: “Where is Privet of Duncton Wood?”

  Some wished to know so that they might find her and kill her on Quail’s behalf, driven by the insensitivity and arrogance of their fundamentalist Newborn beliefs, thinking that was what the Elder Senior Brother really wanted; others that they might protect her from the moles who wished her dead.

  But a few, a very few for now, were moved by something deeper and more mysterious than a desire to punish or protect: the sense that in turning from the busy-ness and madness of the daily world towards Silence, Privet was doing something they themselves would like to do, but knew not how. If they found Privet, such moles thought, they might find an answer to a question that is asked at some time in the heart of everymole. The history of those times, and perhaps of any other, might well be scribed in terms of these three groups of moles: punishers who wish to destroy what they most fear, protectors who in being busy for another may avoid being still for themselves; and pilgrims, who alone and generally unguided turn their snouts to a journey with no clear end but the discovery of truth.

  In our history now, which tells of the discovery of the lost Book of Silence, we have punishers aplenty in the form of Newborn moles, and protectors enough (we hope!) in the form of Maple, his supporters, and all their kind. But pilgrims? They are still somewhat thin on the ground, with only Privet, her whereabouts unknown, treading that lonely path.

  Therefore let us redress the balance in a symbolic way by choosing one mole, one ordinary and unremarkable mole, from out of the annals and records of those times. Let us name him, locate him, and trace the progress of his life from the moment (he would have said) it truly began, to the moment (he would surely have agreed) when it found a kind of culmination. By this we may learn much about our response to the spiritual history of Privet, for are we not all ordinary moles who, when all is said and done, are seeking answers to questions only the Stone itself seems able to help us with?

  We need not detain ourselves for long now with this new-found “ordinary” companion along our way – it is enough to, as it were, greet him, acknowledge what he is about, and, from time to time, discover where he has got to, in the hope that on that great day we find (or do not find) the Book of Silence, he is there alongflank us, to share what moledom shares.

  The mole we arbitrarily choose is Hibbott of Ashbourne Chase, a small, unremarkable system not far from Beechenhill. His modest story is known only to a few scholars, yet it deserves a wider hearing just because it is ordinary, and thus representative of those times. We can tell it because when he was old, and grey, and those historic years were done, and all things resolved (as one day they were), Hibbott of Ashbourne Chase scribed his story down, and the text, until now all but forgotten, was lodged in the library of Beechenhill.*

  *Copies of Hibbott’s My Pilgrimage are now in all the major libraries of moledom.

  For now we need only concern ourselves with the opening words of his delightful account: “I, Hibbott of Ashbourne Chase, lately a pilgrim mole in search of peace, recently returned to this my home system after many years away, hereby declare my wish to tell my tale that others may know that if ever they have the impulse to say, “I can’t abide this humdrum life any more and will venture forth to find something new!”, they would be well advised to do so.

  “It did me no harm, indeed it would have done me some harm to stay at home chafing; I believe it will do them no harm either! Therefore, let them ken my tale, and decide for themselves whether or not to follow the impulse to become a pilgrim.

  “It was on a May day that there came to the Chase a travelling mole who told us that Privet of Duncton, now too well known for me to describe but then unknown to the likes of North Country moles, had turned to the Silence following the murder of her son Whillan and companion Rooster by the Newborns at Wildenhope. I was strangely affected by this story, as if it pointed me in a direction I had been seeking all my life. I therefore resolved to leave the Chase, and all my kin and friends, and go forth to seek out this Privet and ask her about the Silence.

  “Naturally my friends sought to dissuade me, saying, “You’ve been a sensible mole all your life, Hibbott, why do something so wild and foolish as to go where you’re not known and loved?” To which I could find no easy reply except to say that a mole had best do something wild and foolish at least once before he dies.

  “Since nothing they could say would dissuade me from the course of action I had decided on, my many kin and my good friends decided to accompany me for the first part of my way, my five dearest and closest friends coming with me as far as the Ashley Brook, which marks the end of Ashbourne Dale, and is as far south as most moles from the Chase ever dare venture.

  “Here they embraced me, and prayed for me, and tears flowed amongst us almost as noisily, and fulsomely, as water in the Brook itself. Only when I promised to come back one day if ever I met this mole of Duncton called Privet, and discovered the answers to my questions about Silence, would they let me go – which at last, these promises ringing in their ears, they did.

  “It was a warm, sunny day, a true May day, and the worms were astir below and the white blossom in the hedges above as I began my journey. I was then somewhat past my middle years, and plump, and I had never raised a talon in anger, in envy or in bitterness in all my life, and I knew I never would. No, I was a contented mole with a discontented mind, who had discovered in Privet of Duncton’s search for Silence a calling to my first, and last, and only pilgrimage...”

  Let us leave Hibbott there for now, and resume our wider history, though never forgetting that that same history would be nothing, nothing at all, but for brave good moles like him!

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was not until some days after Midsummer that word of the Wildenhope outrage and Privet’s retreat reached Fieldfare, Spurling and the other refugees who had stayed hidden up by Seven Barrows beyond Uffington Hill since the previous winter. The news was brought by a party of moles led up from the Vale of Uffington by young Noakes, the mole who had shown such enterprise and bravery on the initial trek to Uffington, and many times since.

  Already aware of the violent Crusades that were now taking place in many systems, perpetrated by zealots out of Avebury and Buckland, Noakes and one or two others had made journeys down from the safety of Seven Barrows in the hope of finding moles they might help, and to coordinate some kind of local resistance to the Newborns. There had been some close calls, and Noakes had been wounded in one affray with guards, but all had turned out well, and the cautious Spurling’s concern over the young mole’s dangerous enterprise had been appeased by the results: fourteen more recruits to the refugees at Seven Barrows, many of them strong young males.

  The redoubtable Spurling had remained the fugitives’ leading elder, with Noakes as the mole now in charge of day-by-day affairs; but it was about Fieldfare that the community really centred. As the numbers had grown, relatively few remembered Chater, and most kn
ew Fieldfare only as the strong dependable Duncton female, versed in the old stories and little rhymes, in whose cheerful face and nurturing nature was refuge indeed for moles who had fled kin and home, and seemed to have nothing new to hope for.

  It happens that the growth and development of the Seven Barrows community is exceptionally well recorded, since among its members were several scribes from Avebury, and former library aides. With time on their paws through that long winter it is no wonder that they scribed down their experiences, and frequent reference is made to Fieldfare, “the first one among us whom all respect and love’.*What emerges is that after her experience amongst the Stones on the surface near Seven Barrows Fieldfare seems to have become rather more than simply a kind, nurturing mole. The light of destiny had touched her and put a fire into her spirit which warmed the hope of all that community.

  *From Prudele of Yenton’s text A Winter Chronicle.

  As the account by Balyf of Ock puts it, “In those dark days of doubt and despair, when most of us had times of gloom, there was one mole to whom all could turn and did so: our beloved Fieldfare. She was a mole a little past her prime, whose body showed the signs of a busy life and a well-pupped one, softened by her liking for the fat worm and juicy mushroom. But there was something in her spirit so young, so alive, so full of faith that all would turn out right, that she was the very heart of our hope. Beyond which she knew much of tales and communal pleasures, and all the history of Duncton Wood from where she came, and a howling winter night was not the same if a part of it was not filled by her gentle and confident voice talking to one or other of us.’**

  **The scribemole Balyf was responsible not only for Fugitive to Silence, the autobiography from which this quotation comes, but also for Fieldfare’s Book of Duncton, his verbatim record of her conversation and tales.

  It is quite clear that the moles in Seven Barrows were well informed of the intentions of the Newborns, and the real purpose of the Convocation at Caer Caradoc. At what point Fieldfare and the others began to consider what their role might be once winter had fled and the Newborns began their Crusade nomole can say, but they must early on have” decided to improve their defences, for by spring a sophisticated system of redoubts and interlocking tunnels was in place. Moles interested in such matters who have surveyed the site since report that the dispositions of tunnels and trenches were similar to those used at Duncton against the moles of the Word, and it may be that Fieldfare knew these well enough to pass on information to the delvers at Seven Barrows.

  At the same time Noakes appears to have gathered about him a number of young, trusty and venturesome moles in the expectation that they would be useful as spies and watchers of Newborn activity. In short, the fugitives at Seven Barrows were not idle, but readied themselves as best they could for the coming struggle.

  Then, as March came, they found they had something more than their own lives and liberty to fight for. Among their number were three females who found a mate and wished to get with pup.

  “Best possible thing!” declared Fieldfare. “There’s nothing like having pups to make a group of moles become a community, and to strengthen their resolve to defend what’s right!”

  Until now the only source of interest and gossip apart from this were the doings of Noakes, always up and off on some foray or another; Spurling was perhaps too ready to grumble and advise caution.

  “Anyway, my dear,” said Fieldfare wisely, “you’re never going to stop a mole like Noakes from doing what he wants to. He’s a brave mole and does all followers credit!”

  “You are right, of course,” responded the elderly Spurling warmly, “but I’ve never been one to take risks if I can avoid it, nor encourage others to do so!”

  “Take risks! Why, Spurling, since the Newborns forced you out of Avebury you’ve done nothing but take risks. You take a risk being here!”

  There was more than warmth in exchanges such as these – there was respect, and liking, and fond familiarity too. So much so that few at Seven Barrows doubted that now a decent interval had elapsed since the death of Spurling’s mate Peach, these two friends would soon get together and inhabit adjacent burrows, if not the same one.

  Spurling was far too discreet a mole even to mention such thoughts to anymole-else, but from the look in his eyes when Fieldfare was about (a look which lingered after she had gone off on other business) there was little doubt that he had hopes. However, it must be said that Fieldfare herself had given him no encouragement, having said from time to time that there could never be another mole like Chater, and he could not be replaced.

  “And in any case, my dear,” said Spurling to Fieldfare, to whom he had in his gallant and proper way made quite clear his feelings about how good and sensible it would be if they shared a life together, “we cannot be entirely sure —”

  “Oh – he’s dead,” she replied clearly and calmly, “I know it as sure as I know I’m alive. I would like to know how he died, and that he had fulfilled his task of warning Privet, and that he was with friends when he went to the Silence. I do not like to think he was alone, or in pain, though I would prefer to know than not know, whatever the truth is.”

  “For your sake I hope you are mistaken.”

  “I know you do, Spurling, and I know that though you have affection for me —”

  “More than affection, Fieldfare, far more than that!” he rejoined passionately, his wrinkled eyes and thin gaunt face lighting up with the emotion he felt.

  “Well then, more than affection. I know that if Chater did come back you would be happy for me.”

  “Of course, my love for you —”

  “No, Spurling, don’t use that word. Not yet... No!” replied Fieldfare, her snout turning quite red, and her kind eyes moist, as she stopped Spurling going too far too fast – though she was happy, and reassured, that such a mole as he might love her in that way. “Not yet,” she breathed, thinking too that flattered though she was, and distantly tempted, perhaps after all Spurling was not quite her type.

  “Oh Chater,” she would whisper later in the privacy of her burrow, “how I miss you! There’ll never be another like you, and though I know you’d not want me to be alone, because you know I’m not happy if there’s not a mole to love, and nurture and fret about, well those days are done, and I’m content to live on memories.” And if, at such moments, tears came to her eyes, they were not truly unhappy tears, for she never forgot for a moment that it was a blessing to have been loved as she had been, and to have lived as she had.

  “Yet I miss another’s touch, my dear...” she dared to whisper to herself, sniffing and snuffling and easing her comely body into sleep.

  Now Noakes had returned yet again, and this time with news of a massacre at a place called Wildenhope, and rumours that the lives of Whillan and Rooster had been lost, and Privet’s as well perhaps.

  There are some moments in a community’s life, of received news, of crisis, of individual triumph or tragedy, which catch the season’s mood, and serve to crystallize it, and transmute it into action. The return of Noakes that June with news of the Wildenhope outrage was one such for Seven Barrows, as it was for so many systems in moledom at that time. Just as in far off and unknown Ashbourne Chase, Hibbott had stanced up and declared himself ready to be counted, and set off on his pilgrimage, so now the refugees of Seven Barrows searched out a way to do the same.

  Collecting together as a community, with Spurling and Fieldfare in charge, they heard an account of all that was known of the Wildenhope massacre yet again, and then debated the many courses of action that suggested themselves – from attacking the Newborns in a body, to doing absolutely nothing. How that debate raged! How angry and distressed some moles became! But all listened and many spoke, until, it seemed, the ideas were all exhausted.

  “What about you, then, eh Fieldfare? What do you think?” called out one of the younger moles at this juncture.

  Fieldfare smiled and shook her head. She never minded expressing a
n opinion if she thought it might help, but on this subject she wasn’t sure what to think. In a few short sentences she said as much, suggesting she could see that several different points of view had their strengths, though she would not want to harm anymole, including Newborns, if there was a better way of protecting freedom – a comment that drew a consensual mutter from many of her listeners.

  “Be that as it may,” she concluded, “there is one among us who’s seen and heard a lot more change and strife than most of us, and in his own time has used his paws to good effect, if all I’ve heard is true.” She was thinking of one of the oldest moles at Seven Barrows, named Raistow, who had bravely followed other refugees from the system of Buckland, aged though he was. He was rarely seen these days, being ill and infirm, but had roused himself from his burrow for this great debate, and had so far listened to all the arguments in silence.

  “Aye,” continued Fieldfare, “I’m thinking about Raistow of Buckland who’s come up here today despite the fact his paws aren’t what they were. There’s a lot of us would like to hear what you’ve got to say, Raistow.”

  This was greeted with a murmur of approval, especially among the older moles, who nodded at each other and peered round to where old Raistow was stanced. Some of the youngsters were less respectful, feeling that they did not want another mole rabbiting on and getting into arguments and they continued to chatter, until some “Sshh’s” quietened them. But it was the grave and dignified manner in which Raistow spoke that silenced them completely.

  “I’ll say my piece,” he began, “because that’s what a mole should do if he feels he’s got something worth saying. “Stance up, speak up and then shut up!” That’s what my mother used to say. Mind, I was going to speak, but there was so much chattering, so much wrangling, that I was beginning to think it wasn’t worth it!”

 

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