Duncton Stone

by William Horwood

  “Nothing,” lied Weeth, and Fieldfare knew it was a lie but she felt it best to say no more. There were things it was perhaps better not to mention.

  “Well, then, try not to worry, we’ll all see him right!”

  “Yes,” said Weeth heavily, watching her go and then turning back down into the tunnels where Maple stayed most of the day. Maple was there, and had been listening, but turned away when Weeth came, and would not talk. His head was low and Weeth went to him, and put his paws to him and said, “What is it. Maple?”

  Maple turned slowly to him and his face was wet with tears.

  “Mole,” he said in a shaking voice, “I can... smell myself. It is the odours that come with talon worms. It is the beginning of decay. Have you not noticed it?”

  To Maple, Weeth could never lie.

  “I have, Maple.”

  “What can I do?” said Maple, his voice full of suffering. “If it was an army of moles I could see, I would know what to do. But something inside... I feel helpless and defiled.”

  “Master, I don’t know what we can do. But there’ll be something, there will be.”

  “Weeth, you have no need to stay with me now. No need...”

  “I’m staying with you, Maple, and it’s as simple as that!” said Weeth sharply.

  Maple nodded his head as if he had known Weeth would stay but was glad to have it said.

  “For now, you’ll stay,” he said.

  “I’ll always stay,” said Weeth, his eyes full of a fight and determination that Maple himself had once had, and must surely find again if he was to live.

  Yet Maple was not the only suffering mole in Duncton Wood. Indeed, beneath the surface excitements of victory and release from the Newborns, many a mole seemed now to suffer much. It was as if in finding new life moles found space to feel their ills of body and of mind. Many were the moles who wept in those winter nights, for losses they had suffered but not grieved for before: of kin, of home, of friends, all lost, and of their youth and innocence that were ravaged by what were called Crusades. Such moles often found comfort in activity, and some no doubt were among the many who left the system. Others, perhaps nearer to their own true heart, stayed where they were, reclusive as Maple was, quiet, seeking nothing more than to live from day to day, and share community from time to time.

  In this way, Barrow Vale became the centre of Duncton once again, and moles would drift there of an afternoon and talk, and laugh, and shed a tear. What pilgrim tales were told then! What fierce stories of the fighting followers! And what sad tales, too, of loss and of slow recovery.

  The damp Marsh End remained unvisited, for there, held out of sight, were moles like Squelch and other such Newborns, whose crimes had been too great for them to be tolerated, but whom the new regime under Chervil allowed to be arraigned but not killed. Many, including Skua and Fetter and other Inquisitors, were removed to Wildenhope, there to serve out their time away from worthy moles, and if they suffered the remaining years of their lives in that bleak place, well, there was justice in it, of a sort. Forgiveness was all very well, but those who have suffered at the paws of evil need sometimes to know that evil moles do not go free. Retribution has its place.

  A few such moles stayed on in Duncton Wood, partly because their crimes were minor, and might have been committed by anymole under the thrall of Quail’s regime, partly because they had use as scriveners in the Library or as aides to the old and infirm. While a very few, and Squelch was among them, were too ill at first to move, and then stayed on.

  Squelch’s story was most strange, though then almost unknown. For vile though he had been, and complicit in much that his father and Snyde had done, yet none could deny him this – his gift for song and melody was as near to genius as living moles had ever known. Nor could there be any denying that he had a way of organizing others to sing, such as few moles have ever heard.

  Yet, even so, many demanded that he die, and so he might have done had not two things happened. One was that Whillan pleaded for him – Whillan who had survived, Whillan whose own tale was so extraordinary (moles surmised, for none had heard it yet), and Whillan had authority and was not easily denied.

  The second thing that saved Squelch’s life was his own voice – for, refusing to answer any charge against him but with “I’m guilty of it all, and more, much more,” he had giggled (as was his way) and then sung to all of them, a song of sad remorse, which told of a mole that had been warped and moulded by Quail against his will, but who despite it all had retained a sense of beauty none could deny. A mole who suffered now genuine remorse for all he had done, and whose obesity was dying on him as he suffered, so that bit by bit he became less fat, and his true form, which was not so bad, and even had a kind of faded elegance, began to show.

  So they let him live and he was grateful for that. He found a task down in the Marsh End, tending other Newborns who were ill, with a care and love beyond questioning, for it was the care and love he had longed for as a pup. In all this they did right, for it is easy to kill, much harder to reform.

  Squelch sang no more, but sometimes, of an evening, he scribed down the songs that were born inside his head. At first this was hard, for he had never been trained in such things, and knew no easy way to do it. Later, at Whillan’s suggestion, Sturne himself came to show him a way of notation that mediaeval scribemoles had used, which once learned Squelch found easy to use.

  “I don’t know why you’re kind to me,” he told Sturne.

  “It was Whillan’s idea,” said Sturne, as brief and chillsome as ever.

  “Then do you know why he’s kind to me?”

  Sturne shrugged, his face impassive. He had guessed why, or half of it, but he would never say. That was for Whillan to reveal.

  As for the songs Squelch noted down, and what their purpose, he would say nothing at all, except this: “They’re for a mole I loved, and who loved me. Long, long ago, when I was bad, when I...” But Squelch could rarely say much more than that, for he was lachrymose and as his songs had once moved moles to tears, so he was often moved himself.

  “Whatmole was that, Squelch?” those who knew him, and saw him, would ask. He would not tell them, but once, in floods of tears, he did tell Sturne whatmole it had been.

  “Her name was Madoc. I wronged her but she forgave me. Now, every day and in my head, I sing to her and wonder how she is and what happened. She... she...”

  “Mole, ’tis better you don’t say.”

  “I want to say because it is inside me and unbearable,” he said. “Anyway, I trust you, Sturne. I know you’ll not tell another mole. She...”

  Sturne sighed, and heard.

  “She had my pups, I think. But because of what I am and what I did she’ll never visit me, nor contact me, nor will they know whatmole their father was. But Sturne...”

  Sturne stared.

  “... I miss them, moles I never knew. I, who have been so bad, so cruel, so vile. I feel tender towards them. So I make my songs for them, and harmonies. Here, let me show you, here, see...!”

  Which Sturne did, and was amazed. A chamber full of texts of songs and euphony scribed in a notation few could understand, which none, in all probability, would ever hear.

  “See! But don’t tell another living mole my secret. I don’t know why I told you! Don’t tell them a mole I violated is my muse. They’ll think I’m mad and kill me after all!”

  But another already knew, and that was Whillan, who had told Sturne something of Madoc’s story.

  “Who was she?” asked Sturne.

  “A mole I once loved,” said Whillan cautiously. “Have you ever loved?”

  “I love Pumpkin,” said Sturne, “but he’s male. Of females... well, I have never known any that way. I am a scholar first and last. But...”

  Whillan saw a look bleaker than usual in Sturne’s eye.

  “You have, Sturne! Come on, you do love some female or other!”

  Sturne frowned and shook his head and said he did
not, he... did... not! And tempted though Whillan was to laugh at the thought of Sturne suffering the pangs of love, he was sensible enough not to.

  Sensible indeed, for these were rather more than the pangs of love of the manageable kind that youngsters suffer in the spring. These were real racking thoughts and yearnings of a kind that poor Sturne, who had suffered so much for so many moleyears, had no idea how to deal with. His world was texts, and if that was all he had known he would have died, if not happy, then at least not much disturbed.

  But the Newborns had come, and wise Master Librarian Stour, seeing a strength in him that nomole-else but Pumpkin saw, gave him a most formidable task, which was to pretend to be one thing while being the other.

  It was a task Sturne most gloriously and courageously fulfilled, but at terrible cost. He had seen friends die, and had been unable to speak of it; he had seen moles tortured, and had to go along with it; he had seen the Stone abused, and had had to keep his silence; he had seen the system he loved defiled and nearly destroyed, and in none but Pumpkin had he been able to confide. All that he might have lived through without saying much afterwards; it was, after all, of a piece with his unemotional and arid life. He might afterwards have simply kept his own counsel, and found outlet and satisfaction as Master Librarian among the texts he had done so much to honour and protect.

  But it was not to be that way. Instead, after the death of Quail before the Stone – a death which was part of a bloodless subversion of the Newborns under their very snouts for which Sturne was largely responsible – he was attacked, not thanked; he was nearly killed, not praised.

  It was not fear that Sturne felt as he was battered and bruised and harried down towards the cross-under that day, but betrayal by the Stone itself. Not that he did not understand why moles might have made the mistake they did; but he could not make out why the Stone did not help him.

  So he had said nothing as he was attacked, nothing at all, and suffered the buffets and talonings, suffered the jibes, and finally suffered the knowledge that he was about to die without uttering a single word.

  But to the Stone he cried out in those last moments when he thought his life was over, cried out with a passion he had never ever dared show in life. He wanted to say farewell to Pumpkin, whom he loved. He wanted to say a last goodbye to the Library he had lived for for so long. And – and this was a surprise to him – he wanted to wander one last time among the old trees of the High Wood and the Eastside, for now, as he lay with his back to concrete and about to die, he saw that he loved his system as truly as any Duncton mole, even if he had never said so, or even thought so.

  Something in Sturne awoke as he was about to die; he found that he had feelings too, real, and deep, and passionate, and he knew that, after all, he might have learned to express them if only he had had a chance.

  But there was more. He cried out to the Stone in those final moments and the Stone answered him. It sent a female to save him, Myrtle, dead Furrow’s mate. He did not know her name but how he remembered her! Her fierce cry of “No!”, her stancing with her back to him and facing all those raised talons on her own; and her purpose and her courage.

  Then Whillan had come, and she, before Sturne had a chance to speak to her and find out whatmole she was, had slipped away, and nomole knew her name. Not that he had not tried to find it out, but nomole seemed to know who she was or could have been. Perhaps he would not have cared, but in all his life, from the very first, nomole had ever protected him as she had done, not even his own mother. Just the opposite... Why else was he so severe and lacking in all molish warmth, why else?

  Unused to love, afraid of it, never risking it at all, Sturne discovered that day a mole who cared for him, and he, poor mole, found that though his wounds healed his heart did not. On the contrary, his heart had opened to the feelings he had denied for so long, and in the unknown Myrtle – or rather the dream of her, for he could have no more than that – they found an outlet. Love, loss, infatuation, confusion, self-pity, anger, and a yearning gentleness – these were the sufferings of Sturne throughout those November days, and they were terrible.

  To make them worse, Pumpkin was so pre-occupied with Privet’s great task that he, who alone might have counselled Sturne and helped him find the object of his love, if only to express his gratitude and realize that she was, after all, but a female among many and there might be others... Pumpkin was unavailable. So poor Sturne suffered his wild feelings all alone and in silence.

  Yet it need not have been like that. For at the end of November, when so many moles left the system, one at least came back. She did so diffidently, having made the trek from Rollright. It was Myrtle. She too had not forgotten that wild day at the cross-under, when some spirit whose name she knew not made her fight for the life of a mole she had never seen before. But there he was, battered and broken before her, set upon by a mob of moles, and something in his eyes that spoke of loss, rejection and nobility called to her.

  She stanced before him, she shouted out her rage, and if she was all the louder because she had not been able to do the same for her beloved Furrow at Buckland, it did not matter. She saved him, and when Whillan came she slipped away, embarrassed, and certain that such a mole would not want truck with an ignorant mole like her. Anyway, was he not Newborn? So she had set off on the lonely way back home.

  But at Rollright her paws slowed, and she could not go on for thinking about that mole’s eyes, the look in them, the need in them. She told herself that if she only knew he was all right and well it would be enough. So she turned back, shy and diffident and unsure what she would do. For days she dallied outside the system, sure that he would have forgotten who she was, or would feel obliged to thank her if she introduced herself. Then she thought of a plan; she would go to see Maple, for he had always been good to her, ever since he and Weeth had found her group north of Caradoc.

  Yes, she would go and see him, and ask after his health, and say she had come to say goodbye, and, well, did he know of... had he ever any dealings with... a mole called Sturne. That was what they said his name was: Sturne, a Newborn librarian.

  Newborn! And Newborns had killed Furrow. How could she even think...!

  But sometimes the heart guides paws more truly than the mind, and so she had dared venture back up to Duncton Wood.

  But Maple she never reached. She nearly did, but guardmoles about the place where he lived turned her back, saying he was ill and could see nomole. Then could she see Weeth, for he would remember her and might be willing to help?

  “Not seen him about at all, my dear. No, you best leave them both alone for —”

  Just then, along the way where she had been stopped, he came, large as life, severe, formidable: Sturne.

  “Evening, sir!” called out the guardmole. “He’ll be glad to see you I expect!”

  Myrtle hid away from him as he went past, her heart pounding in her chest quite painfully.

  “Who is he?” she asked, amazed to see him there, and to hear him called “Sir” as well. More than that, amazed at how she wanted to run to him, to put her paws about him, for that look in his eyes, why, anymole could see it was still there. But worse. Her heart wept for him.

  “Him? That was the Master Librarian himself, Sturne. A hero if ever there was one. A great mole.”

  “Master Librarian?” faltered Myrtle, who could not even scribe. A hero, a great mole... well then, it was no use.

  “Mole! Come back! I could tell Weeth that you were here and give him your name. What is your name? Mole!”

  But Myrtle slipped away, back by the path she had come down, for she knew that so great a mole as a Master Librarian would never want to be embarrassed by her coming to him and asking him if he was well. He had probably forgotten all about that day. He would not want to know.

  So Myrtle slept in some scrape that late November night, shivering and miserable and never knowing that not so far away, as miserable and shivering as she, a hero lay, a great mole, a Master
Librarian no less, who would have given his all to know her name, and to know that even so late in life he could be understood and loved, and that he, too, had much to give.

  November and December then was a time of suffering. But suffering is not always so plain, or harsh-seeming, as this. More often it is subtle, insidious and so unrecognized that it masquerades as the opposite to what it really is.

  Privet was suffering, though she did not know it yet. She had found the Book, she had understood that she was chosen to fill its folios, and so, with vigour, she had begun. With vigour she had continued. With vigour reached December, working day after day at her task, scribing of the many journeys that moles had undertaken in the name of Silence – some historic, some recent, and one of them her own.

  Day by day she scribed, and often into night, with Pumpkin servicing her needs of food and conversation, and Sturne providing her with the reference texts she sometimes used. A time of austerity and effort, but one she seemed to much enjoy.

  Of course she enjoyed it! The words flowed from her talons, clear as light. Words, names, places, incidents, ideas, beliefs... all leading towards the Stone’s Light and Silence. And as they came she saw ahead towards much deeper things, of which she would in time scribe too. Insights she had had, truths she had never expressed, feelings and senses that she knew – she knew – no other mole had ever scribed down before.

  Yes, she could complete the Book of Silence if only the Stone would give her time, and health.

  So what was the suffering in that?

  She did not know. She would not have understood the question yet.

  But Pumpkin did, and one night, as December came, and winter cold shivered at his flanks, he took himself up to the Stone he loved, talking to it as he daily did, saying things he could say to nomole at all.

  “Stone, it’s too easy for her and I am afraid. She scribes and scribes as if she fears to stop. I may be wrong, I probably am... but I feel her winter has not yet begun. Forgive me if I’m foolish and presumptuous. But if I’m not, help her, Stone, because I feel that beyond the scribings she has made, and will make yet, is a whole winter of suffering, and it will be Privet’s alone and nomole will be able to help her. Not me, not Rooster, not Hamble, though we all love her. Therefore, watch over her, Stone, and see that she comes home to us safeguarded. And if the Book is not to be, well, Stone, remember it’s her we love, not what she scribes.”