Duncton Stone

by William Horwood

  “We shall enjoy this final part of the great journey, Snyde, we shall,” said Quail, stopping.

  “All the more shall our enjoyment be when we get there,” said Squelch, urging him on an extra pace or two.

  “We must...” began Snyde.

  “What must the Elder Senior Brother and his son do, Brother Snyde?” asked Quail sharply.

  “We must remember that the Stone grows impatient, Lord, even for the highest, even for you.”

  “Does it? I think he’s right, son.”

  “He usually is, Pa,” said Squelch familiarly.

  They dawdled on and Snyde sent orders to Squilver to prepare a final stance that evening, for they would not make Duncton that same day, though Stone knows it was not far, not now...

  The sky was black as night at times, with great storm-clouds looming up, and the jagged, ugly rumble and roar of thunder off to the right and left.

  “Soon we shall see it,” insinuated Snyde, urging them on a few steps more, up the muddy slopes of Begbroke Hill. Strangely it was not the way a journeymole would have gone, but Snyde calculated that the sight of Duncton Wood across the Thames Valley might encourage them.

  They puffed and panted, moaned and whinged, but finally, eager as weasels but slow as snails, they crested a rise and there before them across the vale, only a little further than it seemed, rose Duncton.

  “Bliss,” said Quail, and Squelch sang the most wistful of songs, which spoke of a great journey undertaken and now almost complete, and all the life that had been left behind to get where they were going.

  “It is dark and impressive,” said Quail, and well he might. This was no springtime view of a great wood in bud, nor summer scene of trees rising beyond the river vale; nor even wild and colourful autumn, for all the leaves had flown. This was Duncton from the north, with winter all but come, black and leafless, yet not so black now as the huge sky mounting up behind.

  “See!” said Quail.

  “Listen!” said Squelch.

  And a flash of lightning diffused by cloud was followed by the roll of far-off thunder. But no rain fell, and no wind blew and all was ominous.

  “All to come, all to come,” said Quail. “Let’s go on!”

  “It seems far,” said Squelch, puffing and sweating from the climb, despite the cold.

  “We will follow the roaring owl way that runs to our left paw,” explained Snyde, “and will use the cross-under that lies south-east of the hill. Fetter’s guardmoles will be there to welcome us and see us safely in.”

  “Not so far as we have come,” said Quail, pressing on.

  Squelch sighed and did not sing, but followed on. And somewhere then, along the way, they saw the first of many pilgrims, in ones and twos, in little groups, going the same way as they did, though pushed to one side by the guardmoles so Quail’s party could pass.

  “And who are they?” asked Quail.

  “They have come to see you, Master, in praise and adoration,” said Snyde, eyes filled with hatred, for he knew they came in Privet’s name.

  “They are in the way,” said Squelch, “but I suppose there are too many to kill.”

  That evening, but an hour or two’s fast trek to the north of where the party finally halted from sheer exhaustion, Squilver turned his forces to face north again at Begbroke, just where the main party had paused earlier that day. Thorne’s advance guard began the attack as the first rains came, and a close and desperate battle was engaged.

  “We need more moles!” cried a commander on Thorne’s side, but it might have been Squilver’s cry. He had sent his wearier force southward to be with Quail and now he held what ground he could, hoping that darkness and rain would bring respite.

  They did, and in that he was lucky. Reviled by Thorne though he had been, sneered at by those on the Crusade Council who had expected the “Supreme” Brother Commander to fail much earlier on, Squilver’s defence of Begbroke was as fine an achievement on a small scale as there has ever been. Outnumbered by far fitter moles, staunch in his defence, Squilver, and a thunderstorm, gained time.

  Then with bodies all about, and under cover of night, Squilver gave the order to retreat: silently, carefully, himself among the last, away downslope to the roaring owl way, and then in the pawsteps of the Elder Senior Brother’s party.

  “Now, away...” he said, sliding and slipping in the mud and down towards Yarnton, “and may the Stone grant this rain stays heavy.”

  It did, only stopping at the first glimmer of a bedraggled dawn when Thorne’s advance guards saw that the positions they had been watching were occupied now by dead moles, positioned to seem alive. Dead, wet, deserted positions, Squilver’s last legacy of a brutal battle.

  “Come on!” a commander roared, and the charge down towards Yarnton began.

  “Go on!” urged Squilver as he caught up with Snyde. “We must go on! Only get him to Duncton and they’ll not easily get us out again. But if they catch us here we’re lost.”

  Quail was dragged out of sleep, and Squelch out of somnolence, and both were urged and pushed, chivvied and chased, hurried and harried along.

  “The Worm and the Snake come fast behind, even here, even now!” cried Snyde.

  “Thorne?”

  “Aye, him. And Chervil. And Rolt.”

  “Then we must not let them take us at the last!” said Quail, doing his best to hurry his aching limbs.

  “Must, Master?” whispered Snyde with a thin smile.

  “You are jocular, Brother,” panted Quail, “you joke.”

  “I do, I do,” said Snyde, trotting along as well.

  “Squelch!”

  “Father?”

  “Stir and shift, for now our pilgrimage is nearly done and our triumph complete. The Snake is behind, but too far to take us, the Stone ahead.”

  “Stir!” muttered Squelch, padding fatly along. “Shift! I stir and you stink! I shift and still you stink!”

  “What?” cried out Quail over his shoulder, for he had not heard clearly.

  “I come!” said Squelch, peering at the steep embankment of the roaring owl way on his left-paw side and then ahead for signs of a cross-under, wondering how far it was now.

  “We must hurry, sir,” said Squilver, coming alongside, and shoving some vagrant moles out of the way, for the path was crowded now and the guardmoles could not contain all the pilgrims who went the way they did.

  “We are flying,” puffed Squelch. “Are they far behind?”

  “Within sight, sir,” said Squilver, lying only slightly, and marvelling that so grossly fat a mole could move at all. And through all their ranks something almost like panic spread as mighty and minion alike sped or waddled, trotted or tripped, ever more breathless, as behind them the Worm and the Snake loomed, and before them, spread in solid ranks just as Squilver had ordered two days before, stanced lines of guardmole, ready to herd them through the cross-under if only they could reach it, and thence into the safety of Duncton Wood.

  It was in the cross-under itself that Brother Inquisitor Fetter waited, his finest hour nigh. A mud-spattered messenger had come racing in a little earlier from the knoll on which Fetter had placed him, to report that the Elder Senior Brother’s party was in sight at last.

  Now Fetter fretted, moving restlessly back and forth, avoiding the puddles on the concrete of the cross-under’s floor; eyeing the rook that perched impatiently on the parapet above, watching over the slopes of the pastures that led up to the High Wood; listening to the sound of the roaring owls that raced by unseen above.

  Guards stanced discreetly some way off, for Snyde had ordered that there should be only himself to welcome the Elder Senior Brother: he would be tired, formalities could come later, rituals later still. Meanwhile, at least the pilgrims who had crowded at the cross-under for days past had been cleared back somewhat. Some had died in the struggle, and their bodies had been tidied away at Fetter’s insistence.

  His restlessness now was that of a mole who has waited a li
fetime for what is about to happen and is so confident of its outcome and the praise that will follow that he is eager to get on with it. Not that his bitter face and inquisitorial eyes betrayed these emotions, though if friends who knew him well had been close enough, which they were not, they might have detected some marginal softening in his face, some slight cheerful glistening to his thin snout.

  He looked here and there just a mite suspiciously, as if something might still go wrong, though all preparations for the Elder Senior Brother’s coming had been double checked, and checked again. He knew if it did what it would be, though...

  “I have planned for it! I have prepared. I hope they try!”

  What he had meant when he had said this the day before to his subordinates, he referred to again now as he repeated it to himself; the “threat” of the wretched followers led by the miscreant Pumpkin, and incarcerated up in the tunnels of the High Wood.

  Incarcerated was the word, since with the help of extra forces sent by Supreme Commander Squilver himself, Fetter had virtually every leaf and surface root in the High Wood, every known tunnel entrance and many that were simply suspected, watched, patrolled, guarded, and overseen.

  The rebels were dying anyway, that was plain. Bodies of emaciated moles had been found. Three more caught, too weak even for torture. Should have fattened them up before hauling them down to the Marsh End to face the talons of truth. Hmmph!

  “It would be a pleasure if they tried anything,” he had said; and he thought it again now, going forward impatiently and peering round the edge of the far wall of the cross-under to see if Quail’s party was in sight at last. There was movement... it was but the guardmoles... something was happening... nearly, now...

  Fetter allowed himself the final luxury of easing back into the darkest part of the cross-under, sniffing and scenting about, and then wandering over to the Duncton side and peering up towards the High Wood. Always compelling was that great wall of trees, as leafless now as they had been the full cycle of seasons ago when he had come here. The pinnacle of his career as Inquisitor, this posting. Hard work, but now the reward...

  He had good reason to feel satisfied. Not only was the system in order and the minor matter of the followers absolutely contained, but he had conquered what he now regarded as his greatest challenge: the reception and placing of the former Elder Senior... of Thripp.

  How his heart had thumped when the guardmoles had brought Thripp into Duncton. How Fetter, as mole-in-charge, had inwardly trembled as he turned to face the mole who had once been the inspiration for them all, but was now disgraced. How he had been shocked and then filled with contempt to see how low that mole had fallen: thin, haggard, grey, his eyes cast down, hardly mole at all.

  “You are Thripp?”

  “I am.”

  “Look at me, mole!” Fetter had dared to say, and sharply too!

  Thripp had looked at him and Fetter had found himself, finally, nearly unafraid.

  “My orders are that you shall be kept in the shadow of Duncton Stone. You are to be fed and watered by the same guards who have watched over you these molemonths past, and none other. Nomole shall speak to you.”

  Thripp had stared at him and for a moment Fetter had felt a tremor in his heart, for he fancied he saw some strange light in Thripp’s pale eyes. But a fancy was surely all it was.

  “Have you anything to say?” asked Fetter, his throat just a little dry.

  “What would a mole have to say who is to be taken before Duncton Stone?” Thripp had said. “It is hardly punishment.”

  “Take him there!” ordered Fetter. For a few moments Fetter allowed himself to think there had been insolence in Thripp’s voice, and a strength that was belied by the old mole’s thin body and lined face. For a moment more Fetter dared think he felt a kind of elemental fear.

  Then he banished such nonsense from his mind, and watching the former Elder Senior Brother being led meekly away, had told himself, “Nonsense!”, and thought of such things no more.

  Now, days later, the rightful Elder Senior Brother almost there, Fetter felt he had done well and been much blessed by the Stone. More than that, he felt a conviction that he would do better yet. Some new triumph was yet to be his. Capture of the mole Pumpkin, perhaps! That would be a final bliss. Something... he did not know what, but he had a pleasant premonition of it. So his restlessness was composed of many things, many, many things...

  Voices echoing through the cross-under; a patter of guardmole pawsteps; shadows and then silhouettes.

  “They are here. He is here. He comes,” said Fetter to himself, smoothing his face-fur one last time, fixing an expression on his cold face that he hoped was at once obedient, adoring, masterful, and, well... welcoming.

  “Brother Inquisitor Fetter!” purred Snyde, coming first out of the shadows and off the concrete into the light, “we are pleased to see you once again.”

  The loathsome form of Snyde, which Fetter remembered all too well, came forward to greet him. Snyde’s fur was glossy, and barely touched with mud at all; his eyes sparkled with confidence; his hobbling gait was spry.

  “Welcome, Brother Snyde,” hissed Fetter in his politest voice.

  Snyde stanced to one side and turned back to the shadowed cross-under. Fetter readied himself, his paws sweaty despite the cold.

  A fat form appeared, puffing, gasping, frowning, and red of snout.

  “Squelch,” said Snyde quietly, perhaps thinking that Fetter did not know the mole. But Fetter remembered him all too well from his training days at Bowdler. He proffered up to Squelch the smile he had prepared for the Elder Senior Brother.

  “Yes,” said Squelch, going past them both and staring with open curiosity upslope towards the High Wood. “Awesome, oh my, it is. That’s the word, Snyde.”

  “It is,” said Snyde lightly, happier than he could ever have believed to be on his own ground once more. They all turned back to the shadows.

  A delay. Scurrying in the dark. Silhouettes stancing back. Then out into the light he came, slowly, peering, appalling, Quail.

  “Elder Senior Brother,” rasped Fetter, his voice almost failing him when he saw what moledom’s greatest had become. Then, summoning up all his self-possession, for he needed every scrap of it, for what had appeared before him was the vilest, foulest mole he had ever seen, he said, “It is an honour, a great honour, and I am not worthy —”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” said Quail, reaching out to Squelch for support and waving a distorted paw in the air to shut Fetter up. “Where is Thripp?”

  “He is in the shadow of Duncton Stone, Elder Sen —”

  “Take me there!” ordered Quail, a terrible look of bitter hatred, and then of cruel triumph, in his eyes.

  As Fetter led the party upslope towards the High Wood Squilver barked harsh orders behind them. Guardmoles came rushing, ranks formed one after another, four deep; patrols were strengthened along the dykes and conduits at either side of the cross-under. Pilgrims who had pressed forward, staring, were pushed back.

  Halfway up the slope Squelch, too tired for a moment to go on, paused and looked back. From here they could see some of the ground on the far side of the cross-under.

  “Who are those moles?” he asked. For there were many of them, in groups here and there, tired, and staring longingly at the closely-guarded cross-under, and up to the slopes beyond; the slopes from which Squelch and the others now looked down.

  “Pilgrims,” said Fetter, too late.

  “Not come for me?” said Quail. “What do they want?”

  “They cause us no trouble. What they want is the mole Privet. They think she’s here.”

  “And is she?” whispered Quail.

  “Why, no, no, of course she is not, Elder Senior Brother,” faltered Fetter.

  “She will be; oh, she will be,” said Quail, “for her time has come.”

  Below them, beyond the rumble of the roaring owl way, moles cried out and seemed to surge. Then the cries faded.

&n
bsp; “The guardmoles have them under control,” said Fetter dismissively, turning back upslope.

  “Doesn’t matter if they haven’t, Pa says,” said Squelch. “The Stone is our protector.”

  To Fetter it seemed half dream, half nightmare, this trek upslope with these moles and their words; and the smell, so terrible, the odour of a holy mole. The leafless wall of the High Wood swayed towards him, and Squelch and Quail uttered their ecstasies before it, and again on entering. The great beech trees opened their ranks to them, and their shadows took them in, but Quail and Squelch seemed not to see how awesome the High Wood was, or how lost they looked amidst it.

  “The Stone, the Stone, where Thripp is, how far now?” said Quail impatiently.

  “It is on the far side of the High Wood,” said Fetter, wishing it were nearer.

  “Then hasten, hasten.”

  “Brother Inquisitor, Brother!”

  It was the messenger he had used earlier, come into the High Wood after them, calling out, noisy, and most unseemly.

  “Mole...” began Fetter with a warning look, but something in the mole’s eyes and face silenced him, something extraordinary. “What is it?” he said faintly.

  “A mole, Brother Inquisitor.”

  Fetter signalled him to come close and whisper, which he did. Fetter’s eyes narrowed, he asked a question or two, his eyes glinted and then softened into what was undeniably a look of pride and triumph.

  “What is it, mole?” asked Snyde.

  Fetter dared ignore him, dared even to call after the Elder Senior Brother and stop him in his tracks with what was almost a command.

  “Elder Senior Brother!” he cried out.

  What he had to say must be important indeed.

  It was.

  “Well, Fetter?” said Quail, anxious to reach the Stone and face Thripp in triumph and disdain.

  The great dark trees soared up towards a distant shut-off sky; deep silence reigned; green-lichened roots twisted bent and gnarled about them across the shadowed russet surface of the High Wood.