Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

  The only other elder who knew of this work, not excepting even Comfrey himself, was Skint, who, with Tryfan, shared the overall knowledge of what the plans for the whole system were.

  Night after night Tryfan and his few companions crept down to the Marsh End, now guarded by watchers, and there they delved and dug those strange chambers and secret ways which, in time, would be known to all moles as the Marsh End Defence. At four levels they worked, secret sometimes even from each other, developing entrances and exits of such subtlety and cleverness that it was said that more than once a mole exited from the depths at which he had been working to take fresh air only to find he could not find his way in again.

  The only mole, apart from Skint and Tryfan (and Mayweed, whose wanderings could never be controlled), who moved freely was Spindle, who spent those final days in Duncton Wood talking to the old moles and collecting from them what he had collected from the refugees – the rhymes and rituals and traditions of the system, and chronicling them. If a mistake had been made in all these preparations it was that the secret library he had created was located in the south, and therefore where the conflict with the grikes would most likely be. So Spindle worked day and night scribing what moles told him, helped occasionally by Mayweed who added his own scribings of this and that he’d heard, and also the patterns of the tunnels he had found, the first time any system was ever recorded that way.

  “What is it?” Spindle would ask as he worked at this strange scribing.

  “It’s routes and ways, scholastic Sir,” said Mayweed, “to help moles to find where they are.” But where the Marsh End Defence was he left a blank on the bark, lest his scribing might be found and interpreted by alien moles.

  Sometimes then, though always briefly, Spindle would go up to the surface of the Ancient System and look about its empty glades and wish that Thyme was with him still. Thyme he had loved and lost. Then he would wonder about his son Bailey, and fret for his safety and well-being, and hope that he was safe and well. He had heard nothing of him, though he had travelled more widely in the system than most, but then youngsters are kept near their burrows at that time of year, and a male might easily never see them. Then back down would Spindle go, to lose himself and mask his sense of loss once more in his self-appointed tasks.

  Meanwhile, on the surface and in happy contrast to these grim and feverish preparations, the sweet tide of May passed through the wood, and brought to it a beauty which, though few in those stressed days stopped to ponder it, all there were to remember after as a dream which left them always yearning to return.

  Up on the Ancient System, at the highest part of the wood, the great beeches turned from bud to frail green leaf, and then from that same frailty, as if at a single breath of the scented May breeze, the leaves matured to form a majesty that rose in high green sinewy chambers of light above the brown leaf-strewn floor; high above the great Stone itself rose those great branches of green light, and put into a passing mole the thought that to be a mole, and to be in Duncton, is to be alive and to be forever in the way of summer.

  While on the southern and eastern slopes, where Alder’s watchers strove to make defences underground, the dry surface of beech leaves and scrub was broken by the rising curl of green bracken shoots, whose stems seem filled with sunlight, and whose leaves unfurled with each passing day from weakness to strength, rising higher and higher, and side by side, stiff and sure in the breeze.

  While among them, startling here and there, grey squirrel ran, and green woodpecker flitted, and sometimes the snapped frond of bracken, and the skein of its thwarted sap, showed a place where a fox had gone, pausing, marking, lightly breaking, and then scampering on from the eastern scarp over to the wide hunting space of the Pastures.

  Yet most simple and most beautiful of all was that flush of bluebells that spread down over the lower slopes budding as April ended, and flowering now in May, replacing the white layer of anemone, and flooding with blue those quiet places where, with the first warmth of spring, yellow primrose had come. While more darkly, where the fires of earlier years had not made their way, the green dog’s mercury rose, giving cover to mole and blackbird alike. Sometimes then the sun shone deeply down, lighting up some open secret place between the damp boles of trees where a purple orchid peeped, or a wood mouse paused, hesitating, nervous, brow furrowed and wondering if the moles, the masters of the wood, would ever return here, to this lovely place, where once, before the plagues, they had held sway. Until such time then he, like the other creatures, would go but nervously about, for all creatures know the balance of a wood, and wish to see the ancient order restored; and to know that the troubled years are past. In Duncton that would one day mean that moles were masters once again.

  The tranquil busy-ness of May travelled on, then, to the moist depths of the Marsh End scrub where once only the lowliest Duncton moles went free and now only the most secret crept.

  Yet there too came beauty, for a stand of ramsons brought a delving mole out to see the stars of its flowers, seeming bright in that damp place, while along the very edge of the wood itself, where it fronts onto the inhospitable Marshes beneath which Mayweed had found them a way of escape, the pink flowers of lady’s smock caught the gentle wind. Then from floret to floret, on an early summer’s day, an orange-tip butterfly dipped and fluttered, landed and was still, its wings gently rising and falling as it fed, before it rose above the pink flowers once more and the breeze caught it, and it gaily travelled out over the sedges towards the great Thames itself, but suddenly nervous, as if it sensed that the moles, whose spirit it knew as the greatest of all the creatures in the wood, were nervous too.

  So might a breeze have blown, so might an orange-tip have fluttered, and so, too briefly, might a mole have paused and wondered at the beauty of the Stone-protected wood before, with a sigh he, or she, turned, and listened, and prepared: for movement was apaw, and mole knew what it was, and that it was dark, and approaching from the west.

  Then on a day when the sun was summer-hot for the first time, and the air heavy with an evening storm, Alder himself came up from the south-eastern slopes accompanied by not one but two travel-worn watchers.

  “’Tis starting,” he said in his deep voice. “The grikes are on their way. Tell Tryfan what you have told me.”

  They had come back to the system quite independently of each other. One from Fyfield and the other from Bladon, both to report movement of grikes Duncton-ward. Steady it was and slow, for the routes were not known to the grikes and they made some false turns. The watchers, who had travelled night and day, estimated that they were at least two days ahead, but not more than four.

  “Other watchers will start coming in now, Tryfan,” said Alder, “and we’ll know more accurately what the strength and disposition of the grikes really is. But allow yourself two days and you’ll be safe enough.”

  Although Alder knew that Tryfan had several options for an evacuation from the system, he did not know the details and nor did he yet wish to know. He went on, “We’ll keep you informed of what we hear so that when the time comes you can make your decisions. The watchers are with you to a mole.”

  “Aye, and will fight for Duncton to the death,” said one of the watchers fervently, tired though he was.

  It was the moment Tryfan had waited for, and for which he and the others had planned. And that evening he summoned as many moles as he could into the great chamber near the Stone where Longest Night had been celebrated when they had first come back to the system. Then all of them had managed to get in, but now, their numbers swollen by refugees and pupped youngsters, not all could, so some crammed the tunnels leading to the chamber, and others craned their necks to peer in from surface entrances to listen to their leader speak.

  “Your time in Duncton is nearly over, for all here know we cannot fight the grikes with talons, for they are stronger than us, and more numerous,” Tryfan began. “So we will leave....”

  But mole looked at mole as a ripple of
anxiety ran over them, for most had thought the building of defences meant that they would stay for a time at least.

  “But we will leave in an order and by a route that your elected elders have prescribed, and the organisation of it will be in the paws of Maundy and her helpers, who have been trained for such work. There will be no alarm and no panic, not among moles young or old. All will be calm, and all protected as is the Stone’s will. I cannot pretend there is no danger, for there is. And some here may be asked to show courage beyond what they believe they have. But history will remember this time, and history will say that those moles of Duncton, whatever mole they were, showed courage and purpose and resource.

  “You will each have your orders and your task and we will leave this great system, which has been haven to followers of the Stone for centuries; and will be again —”

  “Aye, ’twill be so! Aye!” shouted somemole.

  “For the Stone will protect us and give us the strength we will need in the days, and the months, and the years that are coming. All of you here are followers, as I am, and you believe in the Stone, and in its great Silence.”

  “Yes we do! Praise be the Stone!” many shouted.

  “Well now, moles of Duncton, and those others of you who were born in other systems and yet honour us by making this your refuge, and us your friends, the Stone has given you a great task whose true beginning is now and in the days ahead. For you are the first of the followers who turn against the grikes of dread Henbane and say, ‘No more! You can maim, and instruct and torture, and snout, and chase to death itself, but our spirit and our purpose you cannot kill!’”

  “Aye, ’tis true every word! That’s what we think!” yelled out one of Alder’s most trusted watchers, who was not normally given to many words, and his cry was taken up and repeated loudly by others so that the chamber shook with support for Tryfan.

  “Well, the Stone will give you strength if you hear its Silence, which is what my father Bracken knew and it is what Boswell himself has showed me....”

  “Blessed be his memory!” cried out an old female.

  “Tell us what we must do!” called out another, “and we shall do it, Tryfan. Tell us where you will lead us to!”

  “Then listen and I will tell you. Grikes are ruthless, well organised and purposeful. Their guardmoles are well trained to kill and to fight. But we have made our plans, some of which you know, others of which we felt it best to keep silent about until they are effected. Some of you here will be taking your places down on the south east side, where soon I will join you. You will delay the grikes as long as you can, and you will retreat only slowly, as Alder has instructed, and this will give the best time to escape.

  “Others among you have been instructed in how to lead the youngsters to safety, though the route we finally use has not yet been decided. The longer we delay using it, the more certain will it be that the grikes believe we are all here. Then more of the guardmoles will be sent to Duncton leaving us less likely to be attacked once we are clear... Others have their own instructions, of which I have no need to talk.”

  “But where shall we go and where find refuge?” asked one mole for the many, and they were silent then, and concerned, for it is one thing to retreat, another to arrive again in a place of safety. Then also, for the first time, it was coming into the hearts of many that soon, very soon, they would leave their beloved system; and among them were some who might never return.

  “We shall go —” began Tryfan, looking around the packed and silent chamber. “We shall go —” But he stopped and lowered his snout and was silent for a time, his mouth moving in some evocation to the Stone, and Spindle on one side and old Comfrey on the other waited in silence as the others did for him to speak.

  Finally he looked up and said, “What I have to say now is most especially for the youngest of the system, and the mothers that made them, and to those who have seen but one Longest Night through, for these are our future, and to these will I speak. So let them come forward, let them by.” And one by one the youngsters, and some late ones who were barely more than pups, and many such who, for reason of their smallness and lowly status had been pushed to the back or the tunnels outside the chamber, were found space as the older moles gave way to them, and encouraged them to go as near as they could to Tryfan and the other elders. While at Tryfan’s side, Spindle stared at this throng of moles and sought to see if there was one there who might be Bailey, whom he had a wish to see, if only once.

  “I have been asked where we are to go in moledom, which seems forsaken of the Stone and overtaken or harassed by the grikes. Well, I will tell you the truth: I know not where we will be tomorrow, or the day after that.

  Nor next week nor next month, I know not. But only this: where you of Duncton now carry a memory of Duncton Wood, of a system beloved by many moles and trusted by many more who have never been here, where you carry your memory to, there will we always be. When you remember where it was that you were pups and loved, and where your spirit first grew within sight of the great Stone, there will we be. And there, in that memory, a part of which each one of you holds as a most precious thing, there will we all wait. As the leaves of the great beeches will wither and die in the autumn so will we leave this system now. But as the buds return once more, and then the leaves, and then the great glory of the trees in summer, so one day will some of us return. Distant that day perhaps, unknown yet, but in the good sweet earth of your memories will our system survive as seeds that time and love and faith will nurture, scattered though you may become, until a dawn breaks when you, or your pups, or your grand-pups, turn your snouts to the good air and say, “Now, now is Duncton ready once more, to Duncton we will go.” Then you, or your pups, or your grand-pups will come, and in the shadow of the Stone in which your faith dwells, there you or yours will know that where you have been was never far away, never away at all.”

  Then Tryfan’s voice dropped low, and the youngsters seemed to reach nearer to him as he continued. “Remember this, you who have many Longest Nights to come, and wonder why we collect here, and why we are worried, and why we talk low: there will be a time when I shall have gone, and Comfrey whom you love, and Spindle here my friend; then you may recall something dimly, something distant, a memory of May. When moles who cared for you and saw you threatened, and knew that their future lay in your hearts and paws and not their own, did their best to see you safeguarded.

  “In all the long history of Duncton there has been no time like this, though there have been troubles enough. But not a time as now, when we must leave, taking with us something which now we share, but which with the passage of time will be broken and separate, a dim thing, half seen, half felt, yet sweet and lovely and remembered as a pup remembers the contentment of its home burrow.

  “You who listen now, and are still young, look around at our faces this day here in the heart of Duncton, and know that you are loved, and remember that you were loved in the shadow and the Silence of one of the great Stones of moledom.

  “And how will you know when to return? It will be hard to know that, and perhaps it will need as much courage for some to come back as it takes us to leave. How then will you know?”

  Tryfan paused, and looked around at Spindle, and Spindle smiled and touched his friend as if to say what all there were thinking: that Tryfan was their leader, and they would follow him, and trust his words.

  “Oh yes,” continued Tryfan then, his voice stronger now, “yes you’ll know. For one is coming who will bring the troubles of these years to an end, and he will be the Stone Mole.

  “He will come, and I believe that we in Duncton, and you who have not yet even seen one Longest Night through, will aid his coming, and give it meaning and purpose; I believe that the name of Duncton will ring out to all of moledom, as the sound of a talon on true flint rings out and is heard.

  “The Stone Mole will come and the Silence of the Stone will be allmole’s and then the truest coming of all will be. When those f
ragments of memory of a system that was – for fragments are all they will be by then – turn and reverberate in your hearts, or your pup’s hearts, and tell of a place that was and is, where once moles were loved, and will be once more. Not only loved but much loved, and safe, and belonging.

  “Not much different, perhaps, this system than another, not special or different or chosen but as any other might be. But its moles never turned from the Stone. For this will the Stone Mole be sent, to give back what we lost of ourselves, and to show how moles may live true wherever they may be.

  “One day across moledom, moles will say, “Duncton? They were true moles, they helped, they had courage, they had faith in the Stone, they were never, not once, of the dark Word. Not once.”

  “Then those who follow us will feel pride. Then will those memories that you yourself made stir anew. Then will there be a yearning to return once more. Then will the few who remain dare to come back and start again.

  “So listen now: go up into your wood, go among the trees, go down into your tunnels, touch their walls, go even to the Chamber of Roots that surrounds the Stone, go into the sunlight alone and together, look, touch and remember. And then, when you have each done that, return one last time to touch your Stone.

  “For there is our beginning and ending and in its shadows will be our beginning again. It sends us on a journey soon, but one day it will guide our kin back home, safeguarded.”

  Tryfan stopped and reached to touch the nearest moles, who reached to touch and bless others near by, so that the moles of Duncton knew themselves and showed their love for one another. Then, when that had been, and in silence, they went up on to the surface of the wood, or down loved and familiar tunnels, and did as Tryfan had bid them do, which was to go out into their system and know it one last time, and remember it for always.