Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

  “There’s plenty of moles here would like to meet him,” said Hay. “They know you’re both in the system now and I think a few suspect where. But we respect your silence and there’s a good few moles take pride in the fact that even if

  Duncton’s now cursed to be a forgotten disease-ridden place of aging moles, at least there’s you two scribing and making something for the future. Perhaps in years to come, in better times, young moles will come back and pups’ cries be heard again where now only old moles die.”

  Spindle was pleased at these sentiments and invited Hay to see what work they had done.

  “Me?” said Hay in some alarm. “A text wouldn’t mean a thing to me.”

  Spindle smiled.

  “It didn’t to me once, but now I think as Tryfan does, that all moles should be taught to scribe. Living comes first, says Tryfan, then scribing; the one for knowledge of the heart and body and the other for knowledge of the mind. Come, I’ll show you....”

  So it was that Hay, an illiterate mole then, was the first to see and touch the great texts that Tryfan and Spindle made that dark winter. They were ranged on simple shelves in the dry soil of the deep tunnels of the Marsh End Defence, not far from where the light of day shafted down from the dead tree which rose above the centre of the tunnels and gave a little life to them.

  Hay stared at the texts in awe, but only with difficulty was he persuaded to touch one.

  “What’s this then?” he asked.

  “It’s one of mine,” said Spindle. “That’s the title... here...” And he ran his talons and then his snout over it and read out, A Preliminary Bibliography of the Books Scribed at Harrowdown with a Memorandum on the Final Days of Brevis and his Martyrdom with Willow, Worthy Mole of Grassington.

  “Yes, well... you must be a clever mole to scribe that!” said Hay in wonder. Then he snouted at another.

  “That’s an account of my early puphood at Seven Barrows,” said Spindle, adding with a touching mixture of vanity and apology, “I’m somewhat prolific, you know.” And then, moving on quickly as if to make light of his achievement, he took up some loose folios and said, “This is one of Tryfan’s works. This one’s entitled, The Way of Silence – Teachings of the White Mole Boswell. Of course you realise we’ll never finish all we have to do, scribes never do. I....”

  And then, suddenly, Spindle stopped and a look of constricted pain came across his face.

  Hay immediately went to his side, but Spindle, unable to speak it seemed, waved him away. After a few minutes he began to breathe more easily again.

  “Are you all right, mole?” asked Hay.

  “I... am... well enough,” said Spindle.

  “You don’t look it to me. Have you had attacks like that before?”

  “Twice before,” said Spindle, “but please say nothing to Tryfan, I do not wish to worry him. The winter has been long, and the journey here from Whern tired me very much. Please, say nothing to Tryfan.”

  “No, I won’t,” said Hay doubtfully. Then, more cheerfully, he said, “Maybe you two should have a visitor apart from me. There is a mole you can trust who’d like to see you, and that’s Borage.”

  “Well, I don’t know, I think Tryfan....”

  “You think Tryfan what?” said Tryfan joining them.

  When he heard he smiled and nodded his agreement.

  “Spindle’s always protecting me but we’ve spent enough time here alone and spring’ll be on us soon even if it doesn’t feel like it!” he said, cheerful after a long day’s work. “So bring Borage to see us.”

  Two days later Hay reappeared with Borage at his side. He was a big mole and had the good stance of one who knows what he believes but no longer wishes to persuade others how right he is. A mole who lives as he believes and trusts others will live so too. Yet, like so many other moles who had been through the harsh paws of the grikes, Borage’s body bore the signs of torture and illness.

  Tryfan greeted him and stared at him in silence and Borage seemed in awe and said nothing at all.

  “Did you not bring your mate?” asked Tryfan.

  It was one of many times Tryfan, in those molemonths and years, showed that he had reached a stillness in himself that enabled him to see into other moles’ hearts and minds.

  “Well, I did, yes...” stammered Borage.

  “Then go and get her,” said Tryfan gently.

  She came softly down into the chamber to them, and it seemed that with her came the light of a hopeful day. She was thin and diseased but bright of eye and looked at Borage with great love and tenderness. Yet she was not at peace and it seemed to Spindle, who recorded that scene, that she came to Tryfan as if she was searching for something that was not of herself at all.

  “This is Heather,” said Borage.

  Tryfan came closer and touched her paw.

  “We have heard much of Borage,” he said, “and it is an honour to meet his mate.”

  Heather said nothing but just stared, and a silence fell which Tryfan did not try to fill with meaninglessness.

  “Will you bless me?” said Heather suddenly. “Will you bless me to be fertile?”

  Tryfan laid his paw on hers again, and kept it there.

  “Long ago I healed a mole here and a mole there, but I lost my way, Heather, and I do not know that I have found it again. Healing comes from the sufferer not the healer, who is only a way for the Stone’s Silence to pass on to where it should be.”

  “Please!” she said urgently, and Borage moved nearer and seemed a little embarrassed. But Tryfan only said sadly that he did not think he could make a mole fertile who was not.

  “No,” she said, “no I didn’t think you could. Wouldn’t be right. There’s many like me and they’d all come running if they thought you could! A female starts to die if she knows she can’t pup.” She smiled briefly and with terrible resignation, and yet – as Spindle noted – there was still the light of the searcher in her eye as if, already, she was thinking there might be another way, another opportunity, and that she would never give up until she found out what it was.

  “Why do you want young?” asked Tryfan.

  “You might as well ask me why I want to breathe,” she said, “or why I want to eat. It’s a mole’s way, a female’s way, especially because a mole learns and a mole shows and a mole tells.”

  “What will you tell your young when you have them?” said Tryfan.

  How her eyes softened at that, how gentle the tears that came to them to meet a mole who used “will” not “might” and “when” rather than “if’”!

  “When I have young,” said Heather, settling down and pushing her flank to Borage’s in a friendly, loving way, “I’ll be so happy that the very first thing I’ll tell them is there’s the Stone there always, and it hears you and it knows you and it feels you whatever you may do or say. Then I’ll tell them that where they are is the best place to be if they make it so, and that’s not hard if a mole doesn’t expect the wrong things. Why there’s lots I’ll tell them. Like, for instance, that they’re lucky to have the father they have and they’re lucky to have me! I’ll tell them rhymes and stories and I’ll make sure they know the difference between their right paw and their left paw because a mole that doesn’t trips up. I’ll have to tell them that more than once: pups need telling!

  “Then as they grow to be youngsters I’ll tell them the things I’ve learnt, and hope they believe me! Mind, a mole learns best what he learns for himself so maybe I’ll just tell them I am there if they need me. Then when autumn comes and they’re nearly ready to leave the home burrow I’ll tell them that soon they’ll be on their own, except for two things: the first is the Stone, always the Stone, and the second is knowing that Borage here and me loved each other true, and the day they find out why that means they’re not alone is the day they grow up and make me proud. I’ll tell them that so they know!”

  The moles listening, including Borage, were silent when she had finished, and Tryfan’s snout was low.
So many moles he had met, so many known, and always the Stone found another that taught him how much he had to learn.

  “When I was a pup, Rebecca my mother was a healer and sometimes females came to her because they had not got with pup. I can remember something she said to them and perhaps, Heather, you would let me say that now.”

  “I’d like that,” she replied.

  So Tryfan touched her flank and spoke the words his mother sometimes said to such moles as she.

  There is a charm for the lack of pup

  But ’tis the Stone to give it.

  There is a charm for the pupless nest

  But ’tis the Stone to give it.

  There is a charm to grant mother’s love

  But ’tis the Stone to give it.

  There is a charm for father’s rite

  But ’tis the Stone to give it.

  There is a charm for mating’s joy

  Often the Stone will give it

  Aye, often the Stone will give it.

  Hear this mole’s plea O Stone

  She is pupless and does not wish it.

  Hear this mole’s plea O Stone

  She has faith, and to thee she gives it.

  Tryfan spoke the words in a quiet lilting way and Heather’s eyes closed and did not open for a time after he had finished. When they did they were bright with tears.

  “Tell nomole what I have done, Heather, and have faith, yet not so much that you do not continue the search you make! I’m afraid that these days I’m more of a scribe than a healer.”

  He smiled, and turned to Borage and they talked for a long time of Buckland and the changes there after Tryfan had led his party out of the Slopeside, and then later when Wyre had come.

  “He’s strong and dangerous is Wyre, and as loyal to Whern as it is possible to be,” Borage told them. “So long as he has power in Buckland then I doubt if there’s anything moles of the Stone will ever be able to do to establish their right once more to worship the Stone freely. The grikes are too powerful and strong. We cannot fight them.”

  “Of that, I fear I have less interest than I once had,” said Tryfan, “though I should not be popular among followers for saying so. But I believe that when the day comes for us to go out and declare our right to the Stone’s protection it will be peacefully and not through fighting. I greatly fear that in sending Alder and Marram to Siabod we have encouraged mole to fight when other ways may have achieved the same more peacefully. Talons win less than peaceful hearts, but that is a lesson I have learned the hard way. May those two moles learn it more easily than I did!”

  “But how will anything ever change now?” asked Borage.

  Tryfan shrugged a little impatiently and said, “I believe that the Stone Mole is coming and that only he can show us. We may not perhaps live to see him but he will come. Younger moles than I will follow him and show others the true way. For myself I am content to stay here in Duncton and scribe those things I have learnt that others might one day know them. Though in truth it may be Spindle’s scribing they find more interesting since he scribes of other moles and recent history, and moles prefer such tales than stories of the spirit.”

  Hay and Borage and the other two listened in silence, then Borage said, “There are many moles other than I would wish to hear you speak, Tryfan, many who would find encouragement from your words. Could you not begin now to go among us and tell us what you believe? The dangers are much less than they were – there has been such death and illness about this winter, and such despair.”

  Tryfan shook his head.

  “Once I would have done. Didn’t we do so on the way to Whern, Spindle? Remember those places we went, and the brave followers we met?”

  “I remember it all,” said Spindle, “and I’ve scribed a lot of it down.”

  Tryfan laughed and said, “I wonder if you scribed the place I remember best of all, or did you not notice?”

  The others looked at Spindle, who frowned and thought for a bit and said, “That must have been...” And then he stopped.

  “You see,” said Tryfan, “he scribes everything but the bits I remember!”

  The others laughed and Spindle grinned.

  “Beechenhill,” he said. “It has three folios all of its own.”

  They saw that he knew Tryfan well, and loved him deeply, and were touched. Such love as that had been rare in Duncton Wood these past years and the moles forced to live there had missed it.

  “Well, I hope you will go out when the weather gets warmer, because many would welcome you,” said Borage. “As for the Westside, well the moles there bluster and rant but I doubt if they’d harm you.”

  Then Tryfan grew tired and Spindle brought the meeting to a close. Yet alter Borage had gone, Tryfan talked some more to Spindle and concluded that their seclusion had gone on long enough, and anyway his scribing paw still ached and felt damaged and perhaps some exercise would do it good. Soon they would go out and meet others again, soon now.

  Just as so many moles remember the first appearance of the eastern star at Longest Night, so do many recall the strange heaviness and breathless hush that seemed to have come over all moledom in those still days in March that preceded its second appearance in the sky. And one that surely presaged a third showing, a final lighting that would mark his coming.

  But in March, although most moles were aburrow and silent with winter, enough were travelling for it to be unusual and remembered.

  Of those we know, Marram was still making his way from Siabod. Steadily and with confidence, going by the Stones that he and Alder had visited on their passage west. A little sad sometimes that his friend was not with him, but feeling that such was the Stone’s way, and Alder’s task was the ordering of resistance about Siabod and beyond, to rally moles to a call that one day might be heard across the whole of moledom. So Marram pressed on, each day drawing a little nearer Duncton Wood.

  Skint and Smithills, too, were journeying, grumbling and arguing as was their way, yet making progress south, and glad, as Skint put it, “to be doing’. What they hoped to find when they reached Duncton Wood they had no idea, but they had heard enough from grikes on the way to know that trouble was astir across the land.

  Orders had gone out from Whern, and travelled fast by messenger mole, that Tryfan and Spindle were to be found. Skint and Smithills certainly heard as much, and the information hardened their resolve to continue south as fast as they could, for old and decrepit though they sometimes felt, Tryfan might yet need their talons at his side.

  But there was more to make them speed. They found that grikes were being sent westwards, for there was news of a Siabod rising, and a successful one, and forces were being massed against incursions east. Alder was behind it, and the gossip was that Wrekin himself would be summoned out of retirement, or else that Wyre, based at Buckland, might lead moles on Siabod himself.

  War, fighting, suspicion: a bad time and a good time to be travelling. Grikes were too preoccupied to concern themselves with wrinkled moles like Skint and Smithills, but a mole had best watch his flanks and keep his snout clean.

  The sideem were about as well, travelling fast and whispering: stories of Henbane, blasphemous tales, stories of the Master being dead, stories too black even to whisper. But the sideem were searching and questioning moles, and their quarry were two youngsters, plus a thin, scarred mole called Mayweed and a traitorous sideem called Sleekit. Skint and Smithills were as silent as a seal-up.

  There were strange warnings, too, of sideem searching for a mole of moles, the Stone Mole no less, whose coming, it turned out, was dread Henbane’s fear. To the south she had sent the searchers, young, dangerous sideem, overtaking old moles like Skint and Smithills, and whispering of stars that shone and had a meaning that even the Word did not know.

  Troubled times down moledom, and times when those few like Marram, Skint and Smithills, and others similarly moved, no doubt, had best go careful and keep their purpose and objective to themselves.


  Travelling, too, was Feverfew, mole who spoke strange and suffered scalpskin. Strangest journeyer of all, with the light of that star in her eye and only her faith to see her through some of the most dangerous and tortuous tunnels of the Wen.

  Yet singly she came, without guide or help but that provided by the Stone, which is the greatest of them all, to a wasteland Starling and Heath had told her of, and thence through an arched tunnel to find a waiting mole.

  Old he seemed, and vulnerable, and he watched her come up the same filthel he himself had escaped from so long before. Where he had vowed to wait forever until Heath returned.

  Now a female came and she spoke his name.

  “Rowan,” she said, “wyl yow guid me a litel wave?”

  Which he did, with hardly a word, as if caught in a dream that now it had come made him feel his whole life had been waiting for it.

  Then to fat Corm they went, and he guided Feverfew further still, and after him came Murr, who led her through the complex tunnels on the Wen’s most westerly edge and delivered her to safety.

  Barely a word she said, yet each of those moles, and others who later said they helped her then, told of how parting from her moved a mole to tears. And when they asked her where she went, she told them it was to where a star shone down, for there would be Silence and light and a task she had to do.

  “What task, mole?” they asked.

  But she only smiled and travelled on.

  So Feverfew passed out of the tunnels of the Wen, helped by the Stone and by ordinary moles of whom only a few are now known. And she seemed to see a light others could not, until at last one winter’s day as dusk reared she began to climb up that escarpment at the top of which rose Comfrey’s Stone.