Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

  If Holm’s information was right, then two days behind might perhaps give travelling moles five or six days’ grace before they were actually overtaken. Tryfan believed that they would reach the highest part of the rise they were on well before then, and there they would know what to do, and how best to disperse.

  Strangely their spirits lifted, for after several days’ climbing they had got above the clays on to chalk country. The tunnels they found were old and good and soils were light and airy, so all of them but Holm, who liked marshy soil, felt safer. None was happier than Spindle, who had been brought up on such ground and knew its special ways, and the flowers that grew there.

  “Look!” he called out to Tryfan early one morning. “Look!” And there, rising in the grass ahead, with the first light of dawn catching at the shiny wings of waking rook and the glistening leaves on the beech trees about, rose two harebells, the delicate pale blue heads nodding against the sky above. He paused and said quietly, “That’s what I remember when I was a youngster, flowers such as these among the great Stones that rise about Seven Barrows.”

  “You’re not so old now, Spindle,” said Tryfan.

  “Older,” said Spindle. “Like you, like Mayweed even. We had best all of us do what we have to do while we can!”

  “I think we shall now,” said Tryfan, breathing the air deeply. “These are good parts, and they feel safe, too, for there are Stones about here... not far now, not so far....”

  A feeling Comfrey later confirmed, for Tryfan fell back to join him on part of the way and he said, “D-d-do you sense it, Tryfan? D-d-do you?”

  “A Stone?”

  “Maundy doesn’t but I d-do.”

  “He’s always sensing Stones is Comfrey,” said Maundy at his side. “Says there’s a Stone round every corner for the mole that knows how to look.”

  “There is!” said Comfrey, sounding rather like a pup. Tryfan noticed that he went unsteadily now, and had aged these last weeks, quite terribly. His eyes were paler, and he seemed to stare here and there as if lost.

  “I want to die by a Stone,” said Comfrey, more to himself than the others.

  “You’ll not be dying yet, Comfrey!” said Maundy with a quiver to her voice and a look to Tryfan of helplessness.

  “I’ll see my m-moles to safety first,” said Comfrey. Then, as if to prove that he would, he found a little extra energy and went on ahead of them both, and Tryfan watched his brother, and saw that his fur was grey and thin, and his flanks hollow, and his pawstep frail. He saw, too, youngsters go to him, strong young things, their fur good and their spirits high, and how they instinctively gathered around Comfrey and talked with him, helping him along with their growing strength.

  At Tryfan’s side, Maundy’s eyes warmed with pleasure to see it.

  “You should have had young with him, Maundy,” he said.

  “Oh, we did, Tryfan, we did... you can see them there, and here...” And she reached out a paw to touch a youngster nearby. “There’s more to having young than breeding them, much more. Comfrey was the best father the system could have had when you left with Boswell after the plagues, and there’s not a single member of the system who’ll forget him, or the things he taught them of the Stone.”

  “None will forget you Maundy.”

  “Well, maybe not. Maybe not,” she sighed. Then she suddenly stumbled and fell against Tryfan’s strong flank and he stopped and helped her as, for a moment, she seemed dizzy and weak.

  “What is it?” he asked, much concerned.

  “Don’t tell him,” she whispered, “don’t fret him with me....”

  It seemed to Tryfan as if all the world he loved and that was familiar to him was breaking, or stumbling as Maundy had, and it was leaving him and he, despite the effort and discussion and plans they made, was to lose them all. He stopped the group then and insisted they all rested, feeling that whatever darkness was behind and uncertainty in front a mole must try to be still sometimes, and at peace.

  It was a hot day, a day to be still, and the youngsters gathered around old Comfrey, and he told them a tale, a legend he said, about a mole who lived long, long ago whose name was Rebecca, and whom he loved more than anymole he ever knew but one.

  “Who was that?” asked Lorren.

  “He won’t tell, silly,” said Starling, “but we could guess!” Which, being Starling, she did, and correctly, looking across the burrow they were in to where an old female dozed, her breathing a little troubled, but a look of contentment and peace on her lined face.

  “Maundy?” whispered Lorren. “He meant Maundy?”

  “Yes,” nodded Starling, “I think so.”

  When Comfrey had finished his tale, and packed off the youngsters to the deep corners of the temporary burrow to sleep the day through, Tryfan watched as he came over to Maundy and tenderly snouted her, caressed her back, and lovingly fetched her some food, though she seemed able to eat little of it. Then Tryfan saw Comfrey settle down by her, and the two old moles rest their snouts along their paws side by side, with youngsters all about, and sleep.

  Tryfan stopped the trek short again that evening, after setting off only an hour or two before and in spite of the dangers of delay, for Maundy was much weaker, as were two other elderly moles. A little later Maundy asked that she might be helped out on to the surface, with just Comfrey for company and Tryfan to watch over them.

  A clear dusk came and to the east the Wen gazes were great across the sky; while where the sun set, to the west, they saw, or felt they saw, rising beyond the deeps of Otmoor, Duncton Wood itself.

  “I feel so tired my dear,” Maundy said softly to Comfrey, and he, with no words to say, came closer still. “You look tired, too,” she added, nudging him, “but you’ll see them all to safety, won’t you?” And as he nodded she rested herself against him, staring back in the distance to the system they had loved. Then, gently, she fell into sleep. Then, slowly, into something more than sleep. Comfrey looked helplessly over to Tryfan with tears in his old eyes, and Tryfan came and looked at Maundy and touched her gently. Though she stirred she did not waken, but rather seemed to nestle closer to Comfrey, ever closer, and Tryfan saw tears on his brother’s face.

  Then Tryfan left them, and saw that nomole disturbed them as through the next few hours of the night, Maundy’s flank grew cold to Comfrey’s, and he knew she was no more. Leaving her beloved Duncton had been her ending, but she had done it to be at Comfrey’s side, and had wished to be with him as long as she was able, and among their own.

  It was there they left her as dawn came and the sun rose in the east. But Comfrey judged he should leave her facing west, back towards Duncton, for that would have been her wish, to see the sun’s light rise one last time on those beloved slopes and trees. So Comfrey watched, with Tryfan at his side, and then they turned away and headed east.

  Comfrey said, “There’s a St-Stone ahead. Not far. A day or t-two. I want to get there, T-Tryfan.”

  “You’ll get there, Comfrey, and much further than that.”

  “The St-Stone is as far as a mole ever needs to get,” replied Comfrey.

  A day and a half later, on a pleasant afternoon, with the wind fair and the white clouds high in a blue sky, and all the sounds of June about them, a watcher came in, accompanied by Alder. They came through the high dry grass of the chalk, and the air was good and sharp. They might all have been a million molemiles from nowhere. But at night now the eastern skies were bright and garish and the air was beginning to stress frighteningly with the sense of twofoots and roaring owls. But for now they might have been isolated, as Alder came with bad news.

  “Grikes?” said Tryfan.

  The watcher and Alder nodded.

  “Half a day behind, maybe less,” said the watcher. “From Thame way.”

  “Many?”

  “Too many,” said Alder.

  “Then we must hurry,” said Tryfan. “There is a Stone ahead, not far. Hours only. Beyond it I think that these heights fall away
at last, and down there we shall disperse, as we have already arranged.”

  “There’s many too tired to rush,” said Alder.

  “They’ll die if they don’t,” said Tryfan. “Bring your watchers in now Alder, bring your own group up fast and I will tell the rest.”

  Down the lines and among the moles it went: hurry now, grikes coming fast, here by nightfall. Dangerous. Hurry and we might escape. Tryfan says....

  Bless them all, if there was one mole who got the others going for those last few miles to safety it was old Comfrey: calm, never panicking, never complaining, but finally stolid and determined to get ahead, and inspiring other moles, young and old, by his indomitable will to overcome their fatigue and fear and go on, up the final miles, through the grass and over the sheep pasture, past hawthorn and under fences. Until the ground began to level, and progress was even faster, and ahead now they could feel, each of them according to their ability, the presence of a Stone. Oh yes, and Comfrey was so tired, but the Stone was there, not far now, and his moles around him: the Stone towards which he had journeyed all his life.

  “Why, my M-Maundy’s there ahead of m-me!” he whispered, as the evening sun shone all about and seemed to make his eyes shine bright with joy and love.

  “She is, Tryfan, there ahead in that Silence around the St-Stone. She is!”

  The others fell back as Tryfan helped Comfrey forward those last few yards towards a solitary stone which rose at the very edge of that great rise they had been steadily climbing for days. The fading light was warm upon it and it seemed to offer hope to everymole that saw it.

  The surviving moles of Duncton Wood had reached the heights of the Chilterns and stared eastwards towards the advancing night. As darkness came the sky lightened strangely ahead, high diffused light, orange and yellow... and the vale ahead, where the Wen started, why, it twinkled with a thousand twofoot eyes, perhaps even a million, far, far, far into the distance, light here and there, lights strange and mysterious, the gazes of roaring owls and twofoots, the lights of danger....

  “And yet, from here,” whispered Comfrey as he and Tryfan settled by the Stone, “it looks beautiful, not dangerous. Why I almost wish I was c-coming with you myself.”

  “But Comfrey....”

  But Comfrey lay a paw on Tryfan’s flank, as if he would be supported, and the paw was frail and shook with age, as if age was overtaking him ever faster, and tiredness too, and he had no strength to argue more with Tryfan over what the Stone desired, which he knew, because he could hear it, and it was clear as the air tonight, and beautiful like those lights, if a mole knew how to look and hear. There was light more beautiful than those that stretched away in the distance beyond them to the rising sound of Silence.

  “Tell the youngsters,” whispered Comfrey, for he seemed unable to speak above a whisper now, and his flank shivered against Tryfan’s strength as his brother came yet closer to him to warm him for he seemed so cold... “Tell them to be brave, and to remember all they can of the system they’ve known, because one day, one day....”

  “Yes, Comfrey?”

  “Will you t-tell them?”

  “I think you’re telling them, Comfrey,” said Tryfan gently, for the youngsters had come softly forward in the night and gathered around the two of them, with the old Stone rising above them, and the sky so strangely lit ahead.

  “Yes. Well. Yes... just to remember, the thing to remember is what Rebecca told us. You remember... that a mole must be much loved, yes much loved, and what we in Duncton, tried to do, was to teach a mole that; and we did it through stories and touching and so many ways, but most of all we did it through the Stone, for that is where love can be, there, to touch if a mole has courage and has been shown. It isn’t hard, Tr-Tryfan and Rebecca showed m-me how. She loved me. And when I was old, Maundy loved me too. You know, maybe you don’t, yes you do because you’re Tryfan aren’t you?... You know Rebecca wasn’t my mother, Rue was, but she let Rebecca have me and Mekkins... oh yes, tell them that. Tell them to go back one day because that’s where they started, and a mole must never forget where he started or he forgets something important of himself; but if they can’t go back let them tell their pups, tell them to weave stories about a system they once knew, to which their pups can return and proudly be, and touch the Stone I loved, and Bracken my father loved. I miss him, Tryfan, and I miss Rebecca, but most of all I miss Maundy. Is she waiting for me Tryfan, waiting just beyond the beginning of the Silence so I can join her and we can start that journey together? Is she? Tell them that they won’t do much good going round in circles, tell them to go forward, oh so many things, but they’ll have to learn, won’t they?... You’ll show them, Tryfan, as we were shown. You will.”

  “Yes, I’ll try,” whispered Tryfan... and there was Silence then, and great light across the sky, and darkness behind where Duncton had been, and many came to touch old Comfrey and he looked into the eyes of each of them with love. Then Lorren came. And last of all the youngsters came Starling.

  “You’re much loved, Starling,” whispered Comfrey.

  “And Bailey, say it for him, please,” she said.

  “Yes,” whispered Comfrey, for he could not manage more, “Yes... B-B —”

  “Bailey,” said Starling.

  “Mmm,” said Comfrey. Then the night came deep, and Tryfan knew they would be safe for a time longer yet as the youngsters about them went to sleep, and the adults watched over them.

  Cold, stiff, dawn just distant, Tryfan stirred.

  At his side, warm, thin, Comfrey sighed and said, “Let me watch you go now, Tryfan, for you will be safe down there, let me see you all go to safety... and leave me here.” His eyes allowed no argument.

  Then quietly the moles stirred and got up and one by one led by Smithills and Mayweed they left that Stone and set off down the steep slope to gather one last time together far below where they would disperse as they had planned.

  Old Comfrey saw them go. Until just Tryfan was left, and Comfrey stirred wearily and said, “G-g-go on, Tryfan, they need you now, and they will love you as we were loved.”

  Then Tryfan touched his brother one last time and turned and followed the others down into the dawn not seeing where his pawsteps went for the tears he shed for the passing of so much he had known. He looked ahead into the far distance to the Wen, where nomole had been for centuries. And he was afraid.

  Yet as he went on down he knew at last with certainty what moles would travel on with him and how it must be. Only three others. Spindle for one, Mayweed for two, to guide them, and help them, and make them laugh. And last would be Starling, bright youngster, the future. Mayweed would not go without her anyway, but with her, why, she was the brightest of her generation and the Stone would protect her into the Wen and out of it! Yes, they were the ones.

  Later, far downslope where the vale levelled off, Tryfan found himself surrounded by the moles one last time. All were ready to go now, many north, many south and just the four of them eastwards into the Wen.

  A youngster asked, “Please, Sir, what was that Stone where we left Comfrey?”

  “That was Comfrey’s Stone, the only Stone in the whole of moledom that is named after a particular mole,” said Tryfan. So simply was that place named.

  “Why?” asked Starling.

  “So he won’t be forgotten.”

  “Well, I won’t forget him,” said Starling, “and nor will Lorren neither.” Then she thought some more and added, “And Bailey won’t when I tell him!”

  “You’re sure he’s alive, aren’t you Starling?”

  “Bailey’s my brother so he must be,” said Starling.

  “‘Comfrey’s Stone’,” whispered a youngster, looking up at the great height they had climbed down so quickly.

  “Yes,” said Tryfan. “Remember that place, for I think that one day, a long way off perhaps, something that moledom will never forget will happen there. Remember that Stone! Tell your kin of it!”

  As they stared
upwards they saw the light of the rising sun touch the great scarp face, and at its top, where the Stone stood, the sun seemed to cast a point of light so bright that it took a mole’s breath away.

  “Did we climb down all that way?” asked Lorren in awe.

  “Of course we did,” said Starling.

  “You see,” whispered Tryfan, “that is Comfrey’s Stone, and a mole that can reach it, and touch it, will surely one day find his way home... Now, go as we have planned. Go secretly, carefully, this way and that way, go with moles you know and trust, go now....”

  Then they did so, quietly, some touching their farewells, others saying them, to north they went and south, Lorren with Holm, for she was older now and could say farewell to her sister Starling, for there comes a time for sibling goodbyes. Then Alder was gone with Marram, strong into the day. And good Smithills, reluctant to leave his friends and saying how they would meet soon enough, up in Rollright, and Skint would tell them all his news....

  Until only Tryfan was left, with Spindle, much moved by the partings, and Starling tearful but brave, and Mayweed, near her, four moles to go east.

  “Come then!” said Tryfan.

  “Tryfan, Sir, and splendid Spindle, and bold Madam Miss, Mayweed is honoured, Mayweed is thrilled, Mayweed will not let you get lost!” said Mayweed.

  “Come!” repeated Tryfan; and Spindle smiled, and Starling’s heart raced with the excitement of it all as she tried to look adult and nearly succeeded.

  While running behind the three of them, Mayweed looked this way and that, as was his habit, for a mole had best remember where he has come from if he is to find his way back. Then, one by one, they were gone, among the trees, towards the heart of the Wen.

  While watching over all the moles of Duncton as they lost themselves in the vales far below, by Comfrey’s Stone, was a wise and loving mole, still now, so still; and a light greater than the sun’s was on him.