Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

  It is clear from Spindle’s chronicle that he felt no jealousy of Feverfew as other moles in his position might. He saw only that she gave something to Tryfan no other mole could give, and he understood, better even than Feverfew herself, for he knew Tryfan better, that the agony of body and spirit that Tryfan suffered in those long molemonths were the accumulation of so much that had come from his past.

  For in his agonies he had cried out of things that went back to the very beginning of his life, of moments when he endangered his life protecting his siblings, of a time when he grew apart from Bracken and Rebecca and lived alone across the Pastures near Duncton Wood, of those long years when alone he protected Boswell on his journey to Uffington. Years when others saw him as a strong mole, but when he had to deny himself so that other lives were safe.

  Then, too, was the distress Spindle now found Tryfan had felt so deeply for the moles who suffered and died in Buckland’s Slopeside. And the horror of the escape from Duncton Wood for which he took the blame. Then the final blow that broke him, which was the belief that, having persuaded Spindle and the others to accompany him into the Wen, they would die by the claws and teeth of rats.

  By the side of all this was Tryfan’s doubt of his worthiness before the Stone, and the terrible loneliness any leader feels and which he had suffered all those years, for a mole needs a mate, and the whole love a mate gives.

  Perhaps, too, Tryfan of Duncton needed peace from responsibility, and time to meditate and scribe as his training had prepared him to. So now his illness enforced stillness, and through that stillness he journeyed, not alone in body for his friends were there, but in spirit Spindle knew he was alone, a solitary mole on a way of nightmare agony reaching through illness and pain for some understanding of how a mole might hear Silence.

  When those better days came, at the end of February, Tryfan said few words, but would stare out of the westward entrance Feverfew insisted he was placed near, his eyes softer now, his face thinner and older, his nature softer than it had been, as if he understood better other moles’ suffering.

  One dusktime he turned to Feverfew in that burrow of recovery and said, “Thy name is Feverfew?”

  “Yt ys,” she whispered in reply, “and you are Tryfan mowle.” It seemed to each of them that they were coming out of a long time in which they had dreamed of the other, and now were meeting in reality at last.

  “I want to go to the surface,” he said.

  Then, slowly, painfully, he hauled himself what seemed a long way to the surface as she helped him along. When they reached a point that seemed to satisfy him he snouted to the west, where the sun was setting, as to the south, their left, the lights of the Wen were beginning to come on.

  But it was the west he wanted to show her and looking at the dying sky Tryfan said, “Duncton Wood is there, Feverfew, a long way away. I come from there.”

  “I ken yt wel,” she said. “Yte yow hav jorneyied longe and fer fro ther.”

  “I want to tell you of it.”

  “Then tell me,” she whispered, her flank to his as the first star shone in the eastern sky.

  “I shall,” he said in the old way, “from my heart to your heart I shall tell you, of a system that lost its way as moledom lost its way, and of how the Stone did not forsake it, and of a few moles who dreamed of finding Silence, and helping allmole hear its sound.”

  “And when you have done that,” said Feverfew, “I shall tell you from my heart to your heart of how Dunbar has told us that the Stone Mole will come, of how he will help allmole hear that sound of Silence, and of a mole, humble and unknown, who shall be the first to know the full Silence of the Stone and show what all moles may know if they choose.”

  Then, to each other, touching each other, those two moles spoke, while the sun set in preparation for a better day, and the stars turned in the night sky far above them towards their great destiny, and that of moledom’s too.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  It was soon clear to the rest of the moles in the Wen system, as it had been to Spindle from the first, that Tryfan and Feverfew would make a pair and, if the Stone ordained it, would have young. Nor was Spindle surprised when their quiet and almost secret union seemed to have a calming effect on the others there.

  Or perhaps it was just that as matings go it was late, and the months of January and February, when mate-questing moles are irritable and easily hurt, had passed, and the other moles had better things to do now that the first signs of spring were showing, than continue their feuds when the fight was so clearly lost.

  For Mayweed and Spindle had both made their desire for singleness well known, while Starling, who seemed ever stronger and more full of life with each passing day, so terrified the craven males of Wen that, with the exception of Paston, who treated her as a father, none dared talk to her.

  So Tryfan and Feverfew paired, and the system seemed content that it should be so, and that they should have privacy as the excitement of spring took over. For exciting it was, and is, and evermore will be, to even the oldest-seeming mole, or the most insensitive. That first touch of spring sunlight in the dew, that first fresh burst of birdsong in the bush, that always unexpected green of fresh young growth, so long absent but then suddenly returned once more, new and eager. All the more poignant at a system hemmed in by roaring owls ways, concrete structures, twofoot ways and underlain by tunnels, filthy in places and sterile in others.

  But already the moles had seen spring underground in the shooting of the white roots of primroses and lady’s smock, and the slow turn of waking grubs, while on the surface the first white flowers of snowdrops and purple of crocus came, and the fresh beauty of yellow celandine. Warmer air too, and better light, among which all, slowly at first and then with growing strength, Tryfan went, and Feverfew, talking as moles discovering love will talk, of everything and nothing, from day to deepest night.

  If Spindle had feared that Tryfan would fight the obvious love he felt, pleading a vow of celibacy, racking his heart from some false sense of honour to a dead scribemole code, he need not have. Tryfan was changed in body as well as mind, and peaceful. He was thinner now, and here and there his fur was grey. But his look was strong and powerful, and about his eyes was a purpose and certainty that had not been there before. His heart had known pain, and lived through it, and his eyes looked at the world with a new simplicity. But though Tryfan’s wounds had healed he remained scarred on both paw and flanks so that when the sun caught his sides he looked older. Indeed the scars fell in such a way that he looked as if he was about to spring forward. But close to, a mole could see that the scars ran deep and the skin was bare where the fur had not grown back.

  He contrasted with Feverfew who, it happened, was the same age as he. She frowned a little, as if she had been at her texts too long, but when she looked up her face softened and her eyes were warm, and she moved with that same grace and youth Tryfan had once had, but which he had lost in the course of journeying and illness.

  Together they seemed one, and quite formidable, as if they were not just a pair together but a whole belief, a whole purpose, and one that could not be forsworn. Never was the union of two moles more clearly of the Stone. Their faith was shared, and their journey each day up to the top of the hill to face west and pray gently reestablished the habit of worship on many of the Wen moles.

  The strange thing was that neither Tryfan nor Feverfew seemed aware of the effect they had or that their simplicity in each other, and sense of a shared life that was like a shared smile, brought tears to the eyes of Spindle and Mayweed, and even, as time went on, to some of the more accepting of the Wen moles.

  Yet, there was a dark side to the system’s response to them, for jealousy was still there, and now there was fear too, for the faith Tryfan had was not routine but daily felt, and the words he used were mole not old mole, and offensive to some ears. Such darker feelings need but an excuse to harden and find expression, and where malevolence exists such excuses are quickl
y found. But not quite yet. Tryfan and Feverfew had peace to love each other for a while.

  But what of Starling? From the moment that it became obvious that Feverfew and Tryfan would pair she, most uncharacteristically, became morose, and uncompanionable. The old females understood well enough, and smiled malevolently to themselves, and slyly too, for they knew how such a female might feel in such a system at such a time. But the males did not, least of all Spindle and Mayweed, who never saw Starling that way. So while they took it into their heads to study the contents of the Wen Library, and began to record the histories of the Wen moles much as they had taken data down of the refugees in Duncton Wood, Starling took herself off to the eastside and busied herself making a burrow and tunnels in the Duncton Style: plain, serviceable, and solid.

  “We wot nat what the wynche wrocht, nor wherefore!” the old females whispered giving each other meaningful glances, for it looked as if Starling was preparing to mate. But with whom?

  One day, when the March sun shone strong, Spindle came over to Starling’s new burrows and, with much humming and haaing, told her the good news (as it seemed to him) that Feverfew was with pup. How bright was Starling’s reception to this, how overly cheerful her smiles of pleasure at the news, and how good-natured the message she gave Spindle to take back to them. But when he left her burrows he remained puzzled in his clerical way as to why she seemed irritable beyond belief and she had not offered him a single worm in all the time he had been there.

  Irritable was an understatement. Furious was more like it: that fury a mole uncharitably feels when another has got what she wants and can’t be blamed for it! For a day and a half Starling stomped about her tunnels and burrow very angrily indeed. At the end of that time she decided to tell the Stone what she thought of it.

  “Look,” she said, taking stance in quite the wrong direction since she was facing towards the Wen, but then what she had to say was so severe that whichever way she faced the Stone would hear her. “I am not a pleased mole. First you make me look after Lorren. Then you foist Bailey on to me, and did I complain? No, I did not! I looked after them until you took them from me (and you’ll have a great deal to answer for if they don’t turn up again in one piece). As if that wasn’t enough, you make me come all this way through quite horrible tunnels, with smelly old rats in them, until I end up in this really awful place with no males around at all. I mean you can’t seriously expect me to be thinking of Spindle or Mayweed because if you are that will be the final straw. No, even you couldn’t be so idiotic. So what I want you to do is to find me a male who’s bigger than me, not decrepit, can speak normal mole, and is capable of fathering the pups that I intend to have very soon. Now kindly get on with it as fast as you can as time is running out and you haven’t seen me really furious yet.”

  Having made this clear statement to the Stone, Starling went off and found a lot of food and, basking in the springtime sun and feeling very much better than before, she had a feast all by herself. Then she touched up her burrows a bit and had a good sleep.

  The following morning, bright and early, she gave herself a final groom so that her already full and glossy fur had an extra shine to it, and her talons, never the most delicate, at least looked sparkly clean.

  With that she went out on to the surface and said to the Stone, “Right, I am now ready, please do your bit.”

  A day passed, and then two. Starling was studiedly calm. A third day passed. Starling became irritable. A fourth day passed, Starling felt depressed, and wept briefly in renewed rage and frustration. A fifth day came and the sun shone bright and Starling sighed and spent the day resigning herself to puplessness.

  That evening Mayweed came visiting.

  “Go away,” she said.

  The following morning Spindle turned up.

  “I hate you all,” said Starling. “Please leave me alone forever.”

  “Er, yes, fine,” said Spindle.

  Starling suddenly and unaccountably felt hopeful. She cleaned her talons once more, re-groomed her fur, and sallied forth. Lady’s smock were beginning to flower, and some daffodils had bloomed and now caught the sun, but she did not notice them. A peculiar and terrifying purposefulness had come over her. She snouted ahead with as much focussed determination as a fox stalking prey. She seemed to sense something about.

  “Male,” she muttered. “Or sort of male.”

  She heard noises in the grass ahead and crouched down into an indifferent and nonchalant stance. She affected not to notice the world about her at all, whereas in fact nomole in the whole of history has ever been so acutely aware of the world about her as Starling was then, in particular of the snuffly sound of an innocent and unaware male enjoying a solitary meal on a fine spring morning, and humming to himself.

  Very definitely male, she decided, quietly uncrouching and advancing towards the sound ahead with a heart that suddenly beat twice as fast as usual, but with paws that stayed steady.

  “Well!” she declared to herself at what she saw as she rounded a corner on the hill, with the Wen stretched out below. Well!

  There, in the sun, eating a worm, and definitely male, was a mole. But what a mole! He was not the obvious answer to a female’s prayer. He certainly was not young, and he certainly was not large, and he certainly did not have glossy fur or especially clean talons. He was... wild. Unkempt, in fact, with fur that seemed to go this way and that in a ragged cheerful way, and a line to his limbs that was easy and muscular, and unconcerned with trivia. A travelling sort of mole who was content with his own company. He ate slowly and with relish, stared out over the Wen thoughtfully as he hummed, ate, and hummed again.

  “Hello!” said Starling, suddenly very nervous indeed.

  The mole’s reaction was total. He dropped the last of the worm, spun round, backed off, took stance with wide eyes and an astonished look on his otherwise cheerful face.

  “Stone the crows!” he said. “You gave me a fright. Don’t ever do that again!”

  “Sorry,” said Starling with unaccustomed meekness.

  “So you should be,” said the mole, and then more calmly, “so you should be. Dear me! Phew! Gave me a shock that did!” Then he settled down and looked at her.

  “You’re not very young,” said Starling.

  The mole said nothing.

  “You’re really very ungroomed,” she continued.

  The mole retrieved his food in an unconcerned way and stared at her.

  “In fact you’re a bit of a disappointment,” said Starling.

  “Do you know what you are?” said the mole.

  “No,” said Starling, preening herself as if some male mole was better than none.

  “You’re a pain in the arse,” said the mole.

  There was a very long silence indeed during which Starling attempted to resolve (but failed to) one of the many paradoxes in mole relationships, namely that when a male mole is direct and seems to be rude but speaks the truth, the female who is the object of his attentions finds him infinitely more attractive.

  So Starling then.

  “Oh!” was all she could say. “That’s a vile thing to say!”

  “Yes, it probably is, but it’s not very nice to be told you look like a rat’s dinner by a mole you’ve never met before. It’s even worse when the mole concerned is the first mole you’ve met for so long that you can hardly remember the last time.”

  “I know who you are, you’re Heath!” said Starling. “The Stone saved you because of me! That’s fantastically romantic, even if you are old.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Heath, unaccountably warming to this female who, the more he looked at and listened to her the more he liked her. “How did you know my name, and anyway what are you doing here?”

  “I bet you’d like to know!” said Starling giggling.

  “Yes I would as a matter of fact.”

  Then Starling, as if not quite believing her good luck, looked earnest and serious and said, “But friends of mine called Tryfa
n and Spindle said you had probably gone mad or something because....”

  Starling hesitated because Heath was frowning and muttering to himself, “Mad? She’s the one who’s mad. I don’t need this!” and beginning to look as if he might wander off.

  But Starling was a persistent mole.

  “They said your tunnels went sort of funny and wandery and you must have well, sort of gone strange, you know, being alone so long.”

  Heath grinned in a doltish way.

  “Do I look strange?”

  “Yes,” said Starling, “very. But I don’t mind.”

  “As a matter of fact your friends Trindle and Spiffan were right in a way but when a mole’s chased by rats for months on end, lost in horrible tunnels, short of water, and has no company for moleyears what do you expect?

  However, one day, soon after I left the tunnels you saw, I decided enough was enough. Bugger the rats, I said. Bugger the tunnels. I shall now take a more calm and philosophical view of life. Heath will become happy. So, I crouched down quietly until all my problems seemed to go away, then when they had I moved on and soon after that I arrived here. Naturally when I saw other moles were about I steered well clear of them. Moles mean trouble, moles are the equivalent of rats, tunnels and come to that loneliness. Heath had discovered the secret of happiness and was not about to throw it away. Then, today, when I’m hurting no mole, you turn up.”

  Starling considered this long speech for a time until, sighing in a contented way and utterly ignoring the implications of what Heath had said, declared, “Don’t you think there’s something very special in the air today?”

  Heath looked about dubiously, snouting here and there before he looked back at her.