“Is he coming then, and soon?” asked Lorren quietly.
“I think he is. And I think the more moles long for him, and need him, the more certain he is to come. I think Boswell is part of his coming. I think we all are.”
“Well I hope he asks us to attack the grikes when he does, for there’s plenty of moles willing to do that, and many a Stone follower to be made that way!” said Tundry.
“He will ask us to hear the Stone, not attack the grikes.”
“And what if the grikes attack us as they will – as they do – when they find us meeting together?”
“He will ask us to listen harder!” said Tryfan.
“There’s not a mole will follow him if that’s all he really says, Tryfan Sir; and there’s precious few will accept what you say either.”
“Then I must learn to speak with more love, Tundry, and that, I assure you, is a harder thing to learn than using talons more effectively. Now, I think our group is tired and we must eat and sleep. Tomorrow we will go to the Whispering Stoats, and we will give thanks to the Stone that we are all so well met, and ask that we may so meet Skint and Smithills on our journey north to Whern, even if it is to tell them something they may not wish to hear!”
Tryfan and the other two were given food then, and shown a place to rest. While Lorren and Holm watched over them, their pups stared in awe at the great mole and his two companions who had come to their tunnels and spoken of things that in all their long lives those youngsters would never forget.
Whatmole knows how the Stone’s will journeys forth, and where its grace may be felt? Perhaps it is in the longing moles have for such light and peace. But Tundry went abroad later that night, and Lorren too, and whispers went out to followers that here, in Rollright itself, a great mole slept, a mole who knew of the Stone and would give moles a blessing by it. A scribemole no less, and one whose very name it was dangerous to speak, for was he not turned against his own kind, had he not accepted the Word? Was he not captured by the grikes, had he not betrayed his friends? Lies, grike lies, all of it.
The next dawn Tryfan and the other two were quietly led by Holm back to the Whispering Stoats, and there they found others, hushed and waiting. And even as they began their meeting, more came, old moles, young moles, moles in fear for their lives, moles who had heard, and who wished to make witness, so that the enclave around those leaning Stones was thronged with hushed moles as Tryfan said his quiet prayers, and went among them, touching them and blessing them as Boswell had taught him.
Again and again moles asked him, “Is the Stone Mole coming?”
And to some Tryfan said, “Yes, he is coming now, be patient, have faith, the Stone’s Silence will be heard.” While to others he whispered, “If it is the Stone’s will you will know of him and he will make blessings on you. Trust the Stone.” Then he spoke to all of them, saying what he had said to Tundry, that the day of talons was done, the way of mindful peace was come; and before its armies the Word would die.
Then Tryfan took his leave of the moles of Rollright and was led forward by Mayweed of Buckland, who had promised to guide him north and began now to do so. While among the moles they left behind, modest courageous moles of faith, some, just a few, said, “Where he touched me is healing, this mole Tryfan is sent by the Stone! He has healed me!” And so, through those moles, and many others Tryfan was to touch on his long journey north, the Stone spoke its heralding of the coming of the Stone Mole, and spread word of the wonder of which Tryfan of Duncton spoke, and which would come.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The heart of a mole travelling north can soon begin to die. For though sometimes his route turns east or west and he finds the sun across his face, yet finally he must always leave the sun behind him, so that only his shadow stalks ahead, pausing and stopping on the many rough rises that approach, as if to warn that a wise mole should turn back.
Yet as far as the Dark Peak there is enough to scent and see to believe it is worthwhile, and wormful, to continue, and though a mole likes not the prospect ahead yet somehow the ground underpaw is rich and good; and if the sun shines not, at least the rivers and streams that flow in those parts babble him an accompaniment, and hint of good life thereabouts.
But then the Dark Peak comes, those high and worm-less moors which have deterred moles through the centuries from venturing further for lack of an easy route or friendly moles to act as willing guides. Friendly? Willing? A travel-wise mole does not say “Dark Peak” and use such words as those in one breath!
There the grey sky darkens with the turn of a sad rook’s wing, and tawny owls hold a sway they have lost in southern moledom, where roaring owl and twofoot spread their fume and noise.
So, surrounded by high moors whose peat is claggy and difficult and leads easily on to a wormless death unless a mole knows his way well and keeps his courage bold, a mole slows down and is liable to attack by creatures whose eyes slant meanly and whose mouths whisper cruelties and tell lies.
Yet a bold mole heading north must go on beyond the Peak and try to find a route through valleys where the last great, bleak spread of twofoots goes, and roaring owls, whose ways there are smaller and light up the country lurid through the night. Narrow those ways, and dangerous, and fox roams and owls sweep and bank rats kill, if roaring owl fails to take a mole first.
The air is chilly, the sun more rare, the rain colder and more heavy, rolling in dank swathes across from the west: this is the rain that drowns the worm. Here a travelling mole sees strange and desperate sights, of black slugs roaming, of moths dying and of bleached worms floating. Warnings all of them. Warnings to turn back, warnings to retreat, warnings whispered in the thick stenchy grass as the wind conspires among it to confuse a mole, and make him better prey.
Tired now, bleak of heart, whatmole would journey on, but one with great faith, or one whose heart is dark indeed, willing to turn from the sun, willing to flee towards Dark Sound?
No need even for moles to make the scribings of Dark Sound to hear it, not here. The very rocks have been contorted by a dire fate, rock of grit, rock of burnt rock, rock of slippery shale; rock that catches Dark Sound and sends it forth so that a mole may think the very earth itself attacks him.
Which, perhaps, it does.
No wonder then, that for centuries past none but the scribemoles of doomed Uffington travelled north, taking their courage in their paws and seeking knowledge to scribe into the Rolls of the Systems, that great testimony to a tradition that became sterile, which collected facts of systems and of mole, but finally forgot to listen to the longing in poor moles’ hearts.
Until no more scribemoles came, and that fastness beyond the Dark Peak became unknown to moles in the south, the source only of legend and story, myth and fear, as unexplored shadows always are.
Then from that unknown northern place came plague, like the stench of badger, dead, slow, and sure. Creeping on, unstoppable. And in its dire wake came grikes, unknown, faceless, feared, who spoke the Word and cowed moles and then killed them.
Of that we know. Of that we have seen. With that our hearts have withered, too, and wondered why, when the sun can shine and across a springtime field of grass a scented wind can run, why such darkness came and wheretofore.
But now, you moles who once said prayers for Bracken and Rebecca, and repeated them for Tryfan, travel north with him, go by the tunnels he follows, watch over him with your love, whisper blessings on him and those who travel with him: Mayweed, mole of courage, and Spindle, strange mole, wise mole, nervous for the moles he loves. Yet the one who witnessed Tryfan’s ordination to his task, and pledged himself as companion and helper, friend and follower.
Go with them beyond the Dark Peak, be fearful for them, and if your courage fails as they reach the very edge of Whern and you are afraid to travel on then wait for them, be ready for their return, for surely they will need your prayers and your good help for the completion of their task.
Yet while Tryfan pauses st
aring north at the fearsome rises where Whern begins, and before its darkness must finally descend, remember with him something of that journey north from Rollright in which, almost without knowing what he was doing, he put a hope into the hearts of many moles, and made them believe that soon now, not so long but that they could not wait for it with patience and forbearance, the Stone Mole would come.
Many are the systems that claim today Tryfan passed their way then. Many that tell of the healings he made. Many that feel they were once blessed by him. “Tryfan was here!” they say. They saw a mole afraid, who felt the loss of all he had seen and heard till then. They saw a mole humble, whose wisdom came out slow, and spoke only of peace and mindfulness, who asked the followers he met to hold back their talons from attack, to let the grikes be what they were. They saw a mole who was separated from his only mate, one he had hardly known at all; they saw a mole who understood the failures they had made because he suffered for his own.
They heard a mole who spoke of a system he loved, a home lost to him by plague and grike as theirs had been. They heard a mole speak of Boswell, the White Mole, who he believed was now in Whern and waiting for followers to show their faith. They heard a mole who knew the rhymes and rituals of the past, and who spoke them at their Stones, or their secret places, or simply in their burrows, simply and direct, as if they were sharing his private prayers with the Stone itself.
They knew a mole ordained at Uffington, the very last of his kind, a scribemole who taught scribing to those who would learn and did not make it a secret, mysterious thing at all.
When Tryfan passed their way followers flocked to him, and he spoke to them softly so that each felt it was to him or her he spoke alone. Yet when they asked what they should do he told them he was not worthy to tell them that, but that one worthier than he would come and he would be the Stone Mole; he would tell them.
Always while he spoke, Spindle the Cleric crouched nearby – a clever mole he! – and Mayweed, who made the youngsters laugh, and whose scalpskinned body and balded face could not hide the love and awe he felt for the scribemole he led north.
“Why don’t the grikes attack us?” Spindle asked, often enough. For they did not, although many moles came to the supposedly secret meetings the followers held with Tryfan on his mission north.
“They must know,” Spindle went on. “They’ve done everything else so efficiently, I can’t believe our coming is a secret to them.”
“Sensitive Spindle, humble I agrees,” said Mayweed. “Perhaps it is a plot! A thing the grasping grikes are good at. Perhaps they want us, or Tryfan here, to go north.”
“I’m sure it is,” said Tryfan, “but since we have not been harmed, and nor have any of the followers so far as we know, then we may as well continue as we are. Remember, while the grikes may need to plot, the Stone never does! If I was in favour of images of strife I know which side I would prefer to be on.”
So they had progressed, news of their coming stealing ahead as rumour does, with followers coming to the sites they found and listening to Tryfan’s words, and taking comfort from his prediction of the Stone Mole’s imminence.
“But how do you know?” said Spindle worriedly. “Suppose he doesn’t come? We’ll look rather foolish. Perhaps that’s what Henbane wants. And then, even if he does come, she can have him killed so that finally the Stone will look weak and helpless and the fight will go from the followers.”
“Well, perhaps that is what she hopes, and it helps explain the grikes leaving us alone. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you how I know he’ll come, because I don’t really know how I do. Yet I feel it is in Whern that the secret of his coming lies, and for that reason it is to there we must go.”
“Humph!” declared Spindle.
“Trouble with you is you want it in a text, Spindle, then you might believe it.”
“As a matter of fact it is in a text – Dunbar’s prophecies. But they’re so vague that they don’t really justify you gallivanting about the countryside telling moles....”
“Hardly gallivanting, Spindle! I’m exhausted.”
“You’re not the only one,” Spindle said irritably.
There is another memory we may share before we follow Tryfan on into Whern itself....
It was as they entered the Dark Peak, when they were feeling at their most beset, that Mayweed, in the way he had, found a better route for them to take. One not quite north, which veering east caught the morning sun. There the land was deep incised with meandering rivers, and though the soil was poor and acid for the most part yet, in places, it was rich and good, and among its flowers stayed the sun, and birdsong fluttered.
Mayweed had confirmed that a few Stone followers lived high and undisturbed in those parts, in a place called Beechenhill. A name Skint had asked that they remember, for there he would leave news for them. As they climbed up among its dales Tryfan had felt a great lifting of his heart, for those flowers they saw were good and fresh, and the sounds of the country were all about them as rivers tumbled in the vales below.
On the third day there, before they met anymole, Tryfan decided to wander off alone.
“But...” began Spindle, dubious.
“Beloved Sir,” said Mayweed, “we both prefer to keep you in our sight!”
But Tryfan laughed and said, “There’s something good about this place, something that fills my heart, something —” And they were astonished to see tears in his eyes, such tears of joy and sadness that an open-hearted mole may weep when he feels renewed the beauty and the possibility of life.
That day Tryfan wandered far, seeing, as he had not since a pup, the good earth all about him in all its colour and sound, its texture and its scent; in its great glory.
It was July, when the trials and tragedies of breeding and raising young are done, and the darker stresses of the winter months are still far off. July, when the earth holds moisture well, and turf springs under a mole’s paws and is full of warmth and maturing content.
July, when the sky is full of whiteness and blue, and beneath it moledom stretches forth, filled with the scent of honeysuckle and the sweet delight of rowan trees, and the hare stops upright to stare, its front paws dangling.
July, when moledom’s finest flowers bloom, and woundwort rises by the stream and rosebay where the fire has passed, and there, where Tryfan went, tormentil offers a yellow to brighten a mole on his way, and thyme a scented place to rest; while across the vale, not far for a mole to go nor so far that he cannot hear where he watches from, the green woodpecker starts and stops across the wood, knocking. Whilst nearby the insects buzz.
It was such a day in July that Tryfan roamed, the kind of day a mole desires to be alone unless a lover’s near. And if she’s not, or he is away, then when they meet again it is the day a mole remembers to ask what his lover did, to affirm they were thinking only of each other then.
Tryfan roamed that day and thought of Feverfew, and knew that if one day, by the Stone’s grace, he was with his love again he would ask her if she remembered that day, and what she did. And he knew what her answer would be: that she did remember, for the sun had shone, and the darkness of the past was gone, and she knew that day Tryfan thought of her.
Alone then, yet feeling he was not alone, Tryfan wandered up those vales to Beechenhill, and found a place that would forever be beloved in his heart. High enough to feel the sky was near, yet low enough for the vales below to still be real. High enough that rock outcropped and gave the hills a majesty, low enough that streams ran well, near and far, giving the air the life of water-sound; and warm enough that a mole less full of life than Tryfan felt that day might have stopped nearly anywhere, and crouched, and stared, to watch the rich life of that season wander by.
Until, finally, he did stop, the sun upon his back and then warming his snout as he extended it along his paws to contemplate nothing more than the good scent and sights about him.
“Ssh! He’s asleep.”
“Are you sure!”
/>
“Mmm. He’s big.”
“He’s old.”
“No he’s not. He’s just a bit wrinkled.”
“He’s scarred. He doesn’t look frightening at all.”
“Are you sure it’s him?”
“Ssh! Keep your voice down. It must be him.”
Youngsters! Tryfan stirred slowly, not wishing to frighten them.
“Hello!” he said.
They stared. Two of them, a male and female.
“Are you the mole come to teach us?”
“The mole from the south?”
“I could be,” said Tryfan. “How did you know about me?”
“Everymole knows you’re coming here. They’ve been expecting you for ages. What have you come for?”
“I wish I knew,” said Tryfan.
“Isn’t it to teach us?”
“Teach you what?”
The youngsters looked uncertain.
“Don’t know,” said one shyly.
“About the Stone,” said the other.
“Have you a Stone in Beechenhill?” he asked.
“Of course we have. It’s the best in the whole of moledom. Didn’t you know that?”
“Well I do now,” said Tryfan. “Would you show it to me?”
“Come on then,” said one of them. And off they went, leading Tryfan in the way youngsters will, by places they like, by things they want to show, through time that is their own.
“There!” they said much later. “That’s our Stone.”
Tryfan stared up at it, and then at the views beyond the pastures in which Beechenhill’s Stone stands.
“Well? It is the best, isn’t it?”
Tryfan went to it and touched it with his paw. It rose proud and golden in the sun, warm and a little rough to his touch, and it seemed to him that day that the whole of moledom radiated from it.
Duncton Quest Page 70
