Duncton Found

by William Horwood

  The mole was called Mistletoe, but from the first she was known as “Mistle”. When May had come, and Mistle was beginning to speak well and learn the world about her, Violet had asked Warren to let the youngster leave the nest and live in her old burrow, to help her now she was infirm and found it hard to take worms and clear out summer tunnels.

  Which Warren agreed to, persuading his dull grike mate that one less pup was one less mouth to feed, and his old mother had earned some help in her last moleyears.

  Then, when Mistle had come, Violet found ways to begin to tell her of the Stone; subtly, gently, and, as is the way with youngsters when adults treat them as they would themselves, Mistle understood the special nature of such talk and that it was secret to herself alone.

  When June came Mistle unexpectedly asked her grandmother, old now, blind, and unable to travel far, to take her to see the Stones.

  “Hush, my dear, that’s not for us to speak of.”

  “But you’re not afraid of them like other moles, are you? I’ve heard you speak to them.”

  “And what think you of that, my love?” said Violet, not denying it. She knew she talked to herself these days, and to the Stones as well, no doubt.

  “I... I don’t know. I don’t think I’m afraid of the Stones.”

  “Have you told others you’ve heard me speak to them?”

  “No!” said Mistle vehemently. “They wouldn’t understand, though I know you do.”

  “Understand what, my dear?” said Violet softly, her voice trembling. She felt the Stone was guiding them.

  “That the Stones are there. They always have been. They’re like the ground itself or the sky. And... and....”

  “Yes, Mistle?”

  “I... I... I’m frightened,” whispered Mistle, her mouth trembling. “It’s... I mean... what they teach about the Word being the only way is wrong. I feel it’s wrong because the Stones are. I...” And then she wept, and told Violet her fears and how recently they had mounted up in a confusion inside her. “And that’s why I wanted you to take me to the Stones, so I could see for myself and decide whether they’re old superstitious things like the eldrene says, or something else. Do you know what I mean?” There was anguish on Mistle’s strong face, and courage, too, and though Violet could not see it her paws touched Mistle and she felt it in her.

  “Shush, mole, and let me tell you what I have not dared tell anymole since I was barely older than yourself. I am of the Stone. Before it was I raised and by it shall I die.”

  Mistle looked relieved and came closer to Violet, and touched her as she spoke.

  “The night you were born there was a star in the eastern sky and I knew that night hope was rekindled across moledom, and nurtured in many old hearts like my own. A few days later when I was able to touch Warren’s first litter, I felt the Stone speak to me as I touched you. You have been touched by the Stone, my dear, though why and what for I cannot say; and why it spoke to me, who is not much of a mole and has not long to live, I do not know.

  “But there you were, my dear, and I prayed that the Stone might grant that you could come to me so I might teach you what I can. A light shone the night you were born, and your life will be lived by that light, and true to it you must be.”

  The two moles were silent and close for a time, as if they were in the presence of a truth that needed no words more. Then Mistle said, “When I cried it wasn’t just because of what the eldrene teaches, and what I felt about the Stones being. It was something more than that, and it makes me so afraid. It’s something that’s coming, and sometimes I dream about it, sometimes I feel it when I’m awake. But it’s like something I have to touch to know but I can’t reach it, and when I do I won’t have the strength...” She wept again then, and Violet held her and knew that what her granddaughter was beginning to sense was a task she would have, as all moles have though few know it.

  “You shall have the strength, my love, for the Stone gives to nomole a task that he or she cannot bear. You shall have the strength and courage.”

  “Will you tell me about the Stone?” asked Mistle.

  “I shall teach you all I know, all that I was taught, and all that living has taught me. But you must listen and learn well, for there is not much time....”

  “Are there other places that have Stones? Are there systems where moles are free to touch them? Will you tell me about them?”

  “I’ll do that right enough, and pray that one day such rights as we once had will be ours again. Now come close, mole, for I’ll whisper the first thing you must learn, which are the names of the seven Ancient Systems, each of which has a Stone or Stones.”

  “Is Avebury one of the Seven?”

  “It is, my dear, and as faith in the Stone lives here still in you and I, so I believe does it live in all the others, and waits for a time which I think may be just beginning. Now, these are the other names... There’s Uffington to the west of here, and Fyfield beyond that. Then secret Duncton and grand Rollright which with us makes five. The last two are far to the west, and one’s Caer Caradoc and the other Siabod....”

  So secretly did ailing Violet begin to tell young Mistle what she knew, interweaving her tales with the lore of the Stone, and telling of its rhymes and rituals.

  “The only one of those I’ve heard of is Duncton,” commented Mistle. “It’s where outcasts and miscreants get sent.” She shuddered, because even if she was too young to have known the purge of diseased and outcast moles, most who remembered it did not fail to talk of the horrors when, at the behest of Henbane herself, Avebury and other systems had sent their worst on a trek westward to Duncton Wood. The pathetic or the troublemakers were sent there still, and allmoles felt that Duncton loomed over them as a threat, the sentence to which was a sentence of death.

  Violet nodded silently and said, “I remember all that well enough, but even so I’ll warrant there’s moles to trust in Duncton still. ’Twas always a place of mystery and magic in my parents’ tales, and they said it has a Stone the equal of any of ours, and we’ve a good few as I hope you’ll one day discover! Mayhap Duncton’s as bad now as they say, mayhap not. But, mole, I’ll say this – the Stone has its ways and gives its protection as it knows best. I’ve never left these parts, but if ever I had been able to do so, of all the other systems it would have been to Duncton I’d have gone.

  “Now, listen you,” added Violet playfully, to mask the seriousness she felt, and the sense of wonder, too, “I’m going to teach you some words you’d best remember, for nomole else in Avebury knows them. They’ve been spoken for generations and are as much a touching to the past that made us as these touching paws of ours make us one. I’ll tell you a secret, my dear: all my life I’ve spoken these words every time I should, but since the grikes came, which was when I was young, I’ve said them just to myself, hoping that one day there would be a mole to pass them on to. Now I’ll teach them to you and pray that one day you’ll have space to say them before the Stones themselves, or others you’ve taught will.”

  “What words are they?” asked Mistle, her eyes wide.

  “Words to wake the day with, words for Longest Night: words to eat a worm by and words to heal the sick; words that make foolish moles forget themselves so the Stone is free to do its work through them, words to settle the young; words to win another’s love when love seems strange; and, aye, words of Midsummer when moles thank the Stone for bringing their pups safely into adulthood.”

  “When will you start teaching them to me?”

  “Today, now....”

  So Violet began, day by day that June, to teach all she knew and could remember. Until one morning, this morning, the very same upon which Tryfan and Feverfew led the Stone Mole towards the Duncton Stone, the same as that when Caradoc settled down before the Stone he loved for the right time to reach up and touch it; this morning a strange and abiding calm came to old Violet. She went to fetch Mistle to her side but had no need to for Mistle came running out of the lovely morning
sun, as if she already knew.

  “I heard you calling!” said Mistle.

  “Did you, my love?” whispered Violet, who had not called at all.

  “What can I do for you? Food? Clearing? Grooming? Learn more words?” Mistle giggled, for she had learnt so much she sometimes joked of it and anyway, this morning, why, it was strange and special and a mole shouldn’t do anything much but be.

  “I want you to show me the morning,” said Violet softly, “and describe all you see. My poor eyes tell me only that the light is bright, but my heart tells me more. Take me up into it towards the Stones, and be my sight.”

  “But the guardmoles...” said Mistle doubtfully.

  “They’ll let us be. The Stone will see to it. The day I’ve waited for so long has come sooner than I expected, but I’m ready now and you’re to help me.”

  “What day? Help you do what?”

  But Violet was already off and up towards the surface, huffing and wheezing and a little uncertain of her way. Yet she struggled on and Mistle, much concerned, ran after her and caught her up.

  “We’re to go to the Stones, my dear. Now, this morning. ’Tis sooner than expected, but I want to touch them before my time’s done.”

  “What do you mean?” cried out Mistle, suddenly frightened, though as fearful of the frailty that seemed about her grandmother as of the dangers of trespassing where moles were not allowed to go. “We can’t go there. ’Tis not allowed,” she added, trying to restrain Violet. But both moles paused as a male voice, deep and gruff, said, “What’s that, lass? What lies ahead where you two may not go?”

  It was Warren blocking their path across a field into which Mistle could not quite see, though she sensed there were great shadows there, and more, much more.

  “Stones, mole, that’s what,” said Violet. “Stones that sent you here today to let us through. Stones that’ll show you your task as well one day.” Violet spoke firmly, even a little roughly, as a mother can when she’s old and her son is grown.

  “You’ll neither of you go any further, for amongst the Stones I can’t protect you. Now....”

  “Then there’ll be the blood of a mother and a daughter on your talons, Warren, and guardmole though you be I know that could never be your way. If you can’t come with us, then bless us and say goodbye for to the Stones we’re bound as you too should be. There’s light all about today, and it protects us and guides us. I’m old and unafraid and I’ll touch the Stones once more, and show them to your lass.”

  Poor Warren, strong though he was of limb, felt weak before his mother’s words and the day’s clear light. Troubled, too, and much afraid, for he loved them both and would not see them harmed.

  “Go then, and I’ll watch over this way the best I can until you come back. There’s not many grikes about, nor guardmoles, and I don’t even know why I came myself.”

  “The Stone sent you,” said Violet with a smile. Then she touched her son, as he did her, and Mistle touched him too.

  “I’ll watch over you,” he called after them, “but be quick about it.”

  So Mistle led Violet on the way among the Stones whose lights and shadows fell before them and made a way where time seemed to have no purpose, and where each Stone they passed whispered its strength into Mistle for the days and the years of the life she would live; a way whose light and direction would lead her not only to the very heart of this history of Duncton Wood, but on to the heart of the Stone’s purpose itself.

  They came at last to the Stone Violet instinctively knew to be the one within whose orbit she was raised. High it rose, and the sun was golden on its flanks, the sky blue beyond and white where drifting cloud went by.

  “Will you touch it?” asked Mistle, still awed but unafraid.

  “For now we’ll crouch before it, and later, perhaps, when the time is right, we’ll touch it, you and I, and this old body will have done its work and seen the Stone’s Silence into another mole’s heart.

  “That’s it, you see, my dear: we may not be much in ourselves – too troubled by life and one thing and another – but we always carry Silence somewhere in our hearts and, however humble we may be, and unfulfilled, we can pass the feeling of it on. Mayhap one day a mole will come who can know that Silence and still live. That’s what my good father told me, and it’s what I’m telling you. So crouch now and listen out for Silence, and when the moment comes we’ll touch the Stone.”

  “Can I touch you while we wait?” asked Mistle.

  Violet did not reply, but only nodded and looked tired, the sun seeming almost too bright for her old skin and fur.

  “Are you all right?” asked Mistle going closer and seeming in a subtle way almost to grow up as she spoke these words.

  “I’m tired, my dear, and I’ve been from the Stones far too long. But I’m here now and you’re with me, and we’ll just stay until it’s time to touch the Stone.”

  Then paw to paw and flank to flank they waited, old and young as one, and Violet’s Stone rose silently before them, its shadow shortening towards itself as the sun rose higher still.

  Chapter Four

  Now we turn our snouts to Rollright, another of the ancient Seven, and a place where a mole lived who was much liked by Tryfan and his friends, though they had not met for many a moleyear.

  His name was Holm and he was a muddy, marshy mole who lived in comfortable squalor with Lorren, herself of Duncton born. Both had survived the coming of the grikes under Henbane and the tragic evacuation of Duncton Wood that ensued. Holm was without siblings, but not so Lorren, and since those days she had seen neither Starling her sister nor Bailey, whom she remembered fondly as a stolid and determined younger brother.

  But that was past, and now, today, this bright day, we are in Holm and Lorren’s burrow, and find Holm silent. He usually was, leaving words to Lorren, who liked to talk. But when Holm spoke he said what he meant and all moles knew it. A mole of few but pertinent words, and one renowned as a route-finder, taught by no less a mole than great Mayweed himself.

  Holm was small, and when he was not muddy he was dusty. He had ways and methods of his own – darty ways, quick jerky ways, ways by which a snout followed by a head popped round a corner and stared. One moment he was there, listening to Lorren saying that it was an especially nice day atop and did a mole’s heart good to see it and bless me if it wasn’t just the kind of day Starling and young Bailey would have liked if they were here, which they were not... and the next moment Holm was gone to the surface, only his tail and back paws showing as he snouted out the good sun. Then with a wriggle he was all gone, but still near, up above, and Lorren gazed at the burrow’s roof as Holm moved about.

  She was as proud of Holm as he of her, and even if she had never in all their days together quite managed to get their burrow in neat and tidy shape, why there was happiness there.

  A shambly, untidy, dusty kind of happiness which made for dishevelled but obedient youngsters, each of whom loved their parents and carried good memories of them when they left to make their own way. All were moles who had learnt about the Stone and even if they became persuaded of the Word by Rollright’s unusually easy-going eldrene, whose disapproval of followers was accompanied only by stern warnings, they felt sufficient love and loyalty to their parents not to inform on them, but rather to put their faith in the Stone down to eccentricity; and in Rollright, the eldrene made such indulgence easy, for her guardmoles chose a comfortable life and let sleeping weasels lie.

  So Lorren had had her broods of pups, and she and Holm had been left unmolested by the grikes, and were content now to have lived through their first adult spring without young, and find the muddy peace which they had long looked forward to....

  Holm suddenly reappeared, eyes bright and staring. His mouth was open a little and he looked uncomfortable, even desperate. He was preparing himself to speak. Lorren waited.

  “Got to go,” he said. “Stones. To them. Rampion to guide.”

  “Rampion?” said L
orren. “But we haven’t seen her for weeks. Too busy with her young.”

  Rampion was their daughter by an early litter, and she loved them both dearly and came often to see them when she had time. She lived to the south of the Rollright Stones, and was one of the followers who at times of ritual covertly visited the Whispering Stoats, the cluster of Stones that lie south of the main circle which itself was banned and too dangerous for mole to visit. The Stoats had become the followers’ meeting place.

  “To Stoats she’ll go today, but then to Stones. Must not, must she?”

  “Well, no, though why you should think... I mean, how you could know?”

  “Not without me to guide her,” said Holm, cutting her short.

  Then suddenly he was gone and Lorren was left staring, aghast. A bit of sunshine wasn’t an excuse to go gallivanting off to the Stones where a mole could get hurt by guardmoles, if not worse.

  But barely had she opened her mouth to call after him than his head popped back down the tunnel and he blinked at her.

  “Holm won’t be seen. Holm was taught by Mayweed. Holm’s safe as burrows. Don’t fret. Holm loves you.”

  Then he was gone and poor Lorren was crying, for it was not his way to say his love out loud, though she knew it to be true, and he only would have done so if there was something to fear. Then she grumbled a little to herself, for he must have known his words would make her cry.

  “Must tidy up,” she said purposefully to herself, sniffing and wiping her face with her dusty paws. “But he’s a good mole, the best, and one day the Stone will grant his greatest wish.”

  It was a touching tribute to those two’s care for each other that when Lorren prayed it was of Holm she thought, and she usually ended up asking that one day he might be allowed to meet Mayweed once more, in whose company the part of him that was a route-finder felt most at home. That would be a day!