Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

  He moved with the grace of a mole who, though aware of others near, yet makes his own way and is unconcerned and unafraid of others or of life. There was about him the gravity of a mole who has travelled and suffered, and he did not hesitate to pause and look at mole cast down or linger near one too weak to raise her snout.

  These he saw, and others too, others more belligerent. Oh yes, they came that day, they had heard that Tryfan had come out. Up they hurried, along they came, around the corners they peered, yet Tryfan went on his way, with Spindle at his side or just behind, stopping once when a couple of large, distorted males gibbered and grinned and threatened not to let him by, crouching down when another shouted some obscenity from out of the wildness of his maddened mind.

  As they went, a few grew bolder and dared come closer to him, whispering his name, glancing at each other with pleasure and a little awe that he had seen them, or smiled at them. A few blind moles seemed confused but others whispered to them saying, “It’s Tryfan himself, come out of his Silence and he’s going to Barrow Vale like they said they did in the old days before... before... before! You follow me and you’ll get there. Yes, he’s just ahead, come on!”

  Until there were so many moles behind, in side tunnels and ahead, and such general bustle and excitement that Tryfan led the way to the surface, and for the final part of their journey trod his way among the leaf mould of the autumn where the green shoots of Spring had started.

  Sometimes he paused, still barely conscious, it seemed, of the many about him, and he stared up at the budding trees and over at the clusters of aconite among the surface roots.

  “See,” he told Spindle, “spring always comes in the end, and I do believe it has come here at last. Yet look, see that burnt tree? That was from the fire that caused this part of the system to be deserted, though before my time.”

  “He says that these trees were marked by fire before his time...” shouted some moles to their aged ailing friends, as the chatter increased about the two moles and others said, “Sh! We want to hear him speak!”

  Then Tryfan paused, and many paused with him, and, looking ahead among the trees to where there was a dip in the ground and an open space surrounded by older trees, he said, “Look, Spindle! Barrow Vale!”

  Not a single mole there but did not stop quite still when he said that, and stared ahead where he stared, at that circle of trees which defines what, for so many decades, had been the true heart of the system. All stayed still as Tryfan went forward from them, his hurt paws a little clumsy, his form heavy now and his fur rough and in places grubby.

  Forward to the very edge of Barrow Vale, to stare up at the trees about him, where no leaves yet showed but much life seemed certain. Then to look across that secret place and see the shoots of dog’s mercury rising, and all over the green shiny leaves that soon, when April came, would open out to frame the bluebells they still hid.

  Nomole spoke, all were hushed, all seemed to understand the meaning of that moment for Tryfan.

  “A mole forgets,” he said quietly, “how beautiful his home system can be. Here to this place, when I was young, my mother brought me and she told me of the system that she loved. Here my father led me, and showed me which entrance was his favourite. Here we ventured as siblings from the Ancient System, whispering because the place was so deserted, peering down tunnels where we should not be.

  “Here too,” he continued, signalling to Spindle to join him, “a mole I learned to trust, and respect and love, this mole here, first spoke his love for Thyme, and here mated. A mole I call as good a friend as anymole will ever have.” There was a sigh among the many there, and that sense of trust and love that seemed a palpable thing between Tryfan and Spindle was among them all.

  Then, as if reluctant to tread on memory, yet purposefully, like a mole who knows he must make his way, Tryfan of Duncton, Spindle at his side, passed through the circle of trees about Barrow Vale, stopped in its centre and slowly turned full circle to take in the beauty of the place.

  Then softly, quietly, and looking about them as if there was a magic in the air they must not disturb, the following moles joined them.

  “Speak to us, Tryfan!” several shouted out. “Tell us of the past here, and what will happen to us.”

  But Tryfan said only that he would not, and preferred to go among them, and touch them, and ask that they did the same this spring day, that they felt the ground beneath them and knew they were as one. Which they did, talking quietly among themselves as Tryfan spoke to each in turn, and met for the first time those old, despairing moles who had been his unseen companions through the long mole-months of winter.

  Heather was there, and Borage; Hay and Teasel, and many others.

  “Will we go to the Stone?” asked several.

  “Aye, we’ve never been there.”

  “Westsiders won’t have that!” warned a mole.

  “They’ll talon you if you try!” predicted another.

  Even as they talked they saw that the Westsiders, warned of what was happening, had come in force and had taken stance on the far side of Barrow Vale. A grim silence fell.

  Although there were fewer of them than those who had gathered about Tryfan, they looked a good deal stronger mole for mole. It was plain that many were grikes, presumably the survivors among those guardmoles who had first come to Duncton and been under Eldrene Beake.

  Although many of those in Barrow Vale were plainly intimidated, and backed away, or disappeared down tunnels, others took stance and stayed their ground, calling out threats on the one paw and whispering to Tryfan and Spindle on the other that they would cover them until they escaped.

  But Tryfan would have none of it, and nor would he allow any but Spindle to accompany him as he disengaged himself from those who had been with him and slowly approached the front line of Westsiders.

  “We are here in peace,” he said clearly, “and invite you to join us.”

  “Invite us, does he?” said one.

  “Who does he think he is. Invites us!” jeered another.

  “Talon the bastard!” said a third.

  Tryfan moved nearer and took a bold stance.

  “Which is your leader?” he said. His voice betrayed no nervousness at all, and at his side Spindle crouched firm.

  “What’s it to you, mate?”

  “I would talk with him.”

  “Oh, would you now?” said a large mole near Tryfan who seemed beside himself with rage. “What about? This?” With that he pushed forward and taloned Tryfan in the face, a blow that caused a terrible gasp and sigh among all those who had followed Tryfan to Barrow Vale, and which made Spindle come quickly forward to attack the mole, which he might have done had not Tryfan stopped him.

  “There has been enough bloodshed in moledom these past years, we have no need of it here,” he said, wiping a run of blood from his face fur.

  He moved forward again, staring hard at the mole who had struck him, and said with authority, “Your leader, mole?”

  “He’ll come when he wants to, mate, and meanwhile you bloody back off or you’ll get more talon-thrusts like that last one.”

  Tryfan shook his head and then, as the moles behind him began to call out aggressively and move nearer, and the Westsiders to rear their talons and get ready for a fight, Tryfan astonished everymole there by turning his back on the grikes. Then, facing the moles who supported him, as the Westsiders looked on and felt foolish, Tryfan said, “I have seen enough fighting in my time never to want to see more, or to have moles raise their talons on my account. I ask that not one of you, not a single one, comes forward to protect me now, whatever may happen. My protection is my faith in the Stone. These moles that threaten me have suffered as we all have. Their anger is ours. Is there anymole among you would raise his talons if they strike me? – for if there is I would rather he strike me than hurt another.”

  So strongly did he speak that there was not a single mole in Barrow Vale who did not lower his talons and crouc
h down peacefully, and the only sound they made were mutterings and whisperings to the Stone.

  Tryfan ordered Spindle to join them, which he did most reluctantly, and then he turned back to face the Westsiders.

  “Come,” he said, “take me to your leader.”

  “We’ll take you to our frigging leader, chum!” said one of the grike Westsiders aggressively, buffeting and taloning Tryfan forward among them. With each buffet and hit there was a groan from the moles in Barrow Vale, and a few started to rear up in anger, but Spindle’s stance calmed them, and none came forward.

  Then they saw Tryfan taken, and shoved down an entrance into the Westside. As he went, many told the ailing ones what was happening and a single female voice, cracked and old, broke into a chanting song. Old it was, and of the Stone, and gradually others joined in and its rhythmic sound followed Tryfan down as a kind of comfort into the Westside tunnels.

  There are several accounts of what happened that day in the Westside, and most tell of how Tryfan subdued the Westsiders and by the power of his personality alone converted them to the Stone. But sensible moles seek a more realistic version than that, and it does exist as it was recorded not by Spindle but by a mole Tryfan had perhaps forgotten, but who had reason to be grateful to him, and who was there in those Westside tunnels that day, though not involved in the initial attack on Tryfan.

  There was no leader, or at least no single mole in charge. Anarchy was the Westside way by then, and it had been a mob of moles coming out on a spring day to find trouble, just as the Marsh End moles had come in a group to find comfort and peace.

  They took Tryfan down, harried him along as once he had been harried in Buckland, and in a communal chamber began to berate him and ask him questions.

  Some guessed already that he was Tryfan, but others sought confirmation of it from his own mouth. And when he gave it, their mood turned even uglier and rage was in their eyes, and bitterness in their talons.

  “You’re a bastard, Tryfan, and you’re going to regret you ever came back!”

  “Tryfan is he, this scarred remnant? The Tryfan?”

  “Your moles killed my mate when we came to Duncton,” said another, coming forward and hitting him several times.

  But Tryfan struck not a single blow in reply, which seemed to enrage them more, and there went up a cry, “Snout him! Take him up to the Stone and snout him! Snout the bastard!” But even then, it is reliably said, Tryfan did not seek to fight or hurt another mole.

  He was dragged up the slopes he had known so well as a pup, though never in his grimmest nightmares could he have imagined that this painful, brutal, progress to punishment would have been the way he came back to the Stone he most loved.

  As he went, others in those tunnels heard the commotion and came to see what was happening, and a dreadful parody of Tryfan’s earlier progress to Barrow Vale now occurred as mole after mole joined the rabble chase, and he was pushed and shoved, up those beloved communal tunnels and then out on to the surface until he was dragged into the circle of trees about Duncton’s Stone.

  There, long, long before, had his own father faced the talons of Rune and Mandrake’s henchmoles. There had he first met Boswell. There, in the shadow of that great Stone, had he and Boswell said farewell to Comfrey and set off for Uffington.

  Now he lay before the Stone, and pain was on him once more. But they say that from the moment those grike Westsiders got him there they themselves grew nervous, each one holding back from hurting him more, yet all shouting for the snouting of him, and for his blood.

  They say that Tryfan turned from them and faced the Stone, and began to speak to it. Then a hush came and they heard his words.

  “I was never worthy,” he whispered, certain of his coming death, “yet I did the best I could. Let Spindle be safe. Let the others go free. Let these moles be forgiven for I understand their anger. Let nomole be hurt this day in consequence of my own suffering.” Then he added what nomole heard: “Boswell, I have failed you.”

  There was silence about the circle of trees and he turned to face his murderers and stared upwards to see once more the sinewy grey-greens of the high rising branches of the beech trees there, whose buds were pointed, and whose leaves would soon be free. Sun caught them, spring was with them there, and he felt then a pity for mole and he did not want to die.

  He looked at the circle of angry faces and saw the malevolence, which seemed continually to grow as others who had heard what was happening had come running to see him die. He looked slowly round that circle, whose collective voice muttered and whispered his death to come saying, “Snout him! Snout him!” and he knew then how that nameless mole in Buckland must have felt as he was marked to death by the grikes at the order of Eldrene Fescue.

  He knew, and he remembered what he had done, and how the Stone had showed him how to touch that mole that he knew he was not alone.

  Then Tryfan spoke out to that mob as they came closer for the kill saying, “Is there not one among you who can show pity on a mole before he dies, that he knows he is not alone? Of the Word or of the Stone, moles are but moles in the end. Is there not one?”

  Then as the moles all about began to laugh and jeer at this last hopeless call, a voice spoke out among them and said, “Aye, there’s one, there’s one will take stance by you, Tryfan of Duncton. One will see you’re not alone.”

  Then from out of the mob’s ranks broke a mole, weak looking and frail, a mole who suffered murrain. He came slowly forward, oblivious, it seemed, of his own weakness against the mob’s group strength, unafraid of the talons that were rearing up, unconcerned but with the mole he came forward to touch and give comfort to.

  Tryfan saw him as a dream, and knew him not. Male, thin, broken, sore-ridden, not a mole he could remember.

  Yet such was the mole’s quiet courage, such his resolution, that the mob fell back a little, and even more so when the mole took stance in front of Tryfan as if to protect him and turned to face them.

  “Why ’tis Thrift!” cried one.

  “You’re one of us, mate, stop acting daft!”

  “Aye,” said Thrift, “I’m one of you and of the Word. But before that I’m mole, and never would I sleep easy to see this mole cut down. There’s others here saw what this mole did when first we came to Duncton Wood.

  “Others here saw him save my life and risk his own in doing it. Others here know well enough what he did for me that day....”

  Then, out of his suffering, Tryfan remembered a mole he had saved, with Smithills in the fighting, northeast of the cross-under. Saved to tell Henbane that if she wished to find the Duncton Moles she must find Silence. This mole? Time and disease changed the look of moles, but perhaps it did not change their hearts.

  “There’s not a mole here could have stood alone against Tryfan of Duncton in his day, and I’ll warrant the scars you see across his face were made not by a single mole in fair fight but by a rabble such as you.”

  “By the sideem,” said Tryfan in a low voice.

  “You hear that, mob?” cried out Thrift. “These scars are sideem scars and yet he survived. So, those of you who remember what he did for me who wish to kill him now come forward and kill me first!”

  As he said this Tryfan came forward and mole of the Word and mole of the Stone crouched side by side. But nomole came forward, and the mob was outfaced. Some backed away, some came forward and touched Thrift as a mark of respect, some seemed to pretend they were not even there, but most quietly left and afterwards barely remembered anything of that brave and dreadful scene but the Stone that rose up behind the two moles and caught the sky’s spring light in its depths.

  Then Thrift said, “Mole, that’s twice I’ve met you, and twice I’ve stared death in the face in your presence. You make a mole nervous!”

  Tryfan smiled.

  “Then may our third meeting be more auspicious than these first two, Thrift. And I have a feeling it will be.”

  “It’ll have to be quick for I�
�ve not long to go,” replied Thrift bravely. Tryfan saw that it was so, for Thrift’s murrain was badly advanced though his sight was still good.

  Then the two moles made their way back down the slopes and were joined by the Marshenders led by Spindle.

  “Well, Spindle, you missed the fun for once,” said Tryfan lightly, “That was one way to welcome the spring!” And others laughed when they heard it, and passed it on, and that day the moles of Duncton Wood knew they had a brave mole in their midst and one they could trust; one who faced all moles equally and meant no harm to any of them.

  “Spindle, tell the moles of the Marsh End to take their courage in their paws and mix with the Westsiders – now while moles are confused and uncertain. Now is the lime before moles retreat back behind the barriers they made. Tell them! It is the final preparation. It is! The last thing we must do. Tell them, and insist on it.”

  Which, with Hay’s help, Spindle did, and from that day the moles of Duncton started the slow communal healing that was needed before they might become one again.

  But quite what Tryfan meant by the words “final preparation” Spindle did not at that moment guess, and nor in the days ahead would Tryfan explain. As spring advanced mole met mole at Barrow Vale, and mole began to wander free again, even up to the Stone itself.

  But though in this way fear left the system, despair was left behind. Despair at the pointlessness and great sadness of a spring for moles without pups in a world busy with every other creature’s young. Despair and a kind of madness as females wandered searching for what their bodies could not find. For that Tryfan knew no remedy except to pray, and not all moles were so minded.

  While to those who, like Hay or Teasel or ailing Thrift, and many others who cared to ask, Tryfan could only say that somewhere in moledom soon the Stone Mole would make himself known, and then a Silence that would help each system face its troubles would be found.

  Yet finally, perhaps, it was too much to hope that moles would have the same faith Tryfan had, or the same long patience.