Duncton Found

by William Horwood

  “Well, they’ve not taken him yet. Maybe their talk of listening and reconciliation is sincere.”

  “Oh yes, Harrow, sure,” said his friend heavily.

  A few days later Harrow saw the mole coming quickly up the slope with news.

  “The Stone Mole,” he gasped, “he’s going to be in Kniveton tomorrow and a lot of us are travelling overnight to support him. You’ve got to come, Harrow, you’ve got to. A mole’s come up from the south who has heard him before. He says the only reason the grikes have not taken him is that so many followers travel with him that they dare not. You must come, it’s not a difficult journey.”

  “But I want to stay with Harebell and Henbane. We were thinking of taking advantage of this milder weather and making our way to Beechenhill.”

  “Bring them!” said the mole recklessly. “I’m setting off shortly. The more the merrier.”

  When Henbane heard what the fuss was about she said, “You must go and hear this mole, my dear, the more so because Harrow has been told he is of Duncton Wood. Your father comes from there and spoke so lovingly of it. Perhaps if you could talk to this Stone Mole he would tell you.”

  “I don’t want to leave you,” said Harebell reluctantly, for truly she would have liked to hear the Stone Mole preach.

  Henbane smiled.

  “Oh! I’ll come too! I got this far. A little further won’t hurt me and it’s not a great distance. I would like to hear what such a mole has to say, about the Word as well as the Stone. As for my safety, well... if there are many followers about then there’ll be safety in numbers. Provided I remain anonymous to them and any guardmole who might be near.”

  “You’ll be safe enough, Henbane,” said Harrow, always a positive mole. “And I’ll be there at one flank, Harebell at the other. But if we’re going, we’ll need to go soon....”

  They journeyed through the night and met up with many other Tissington followers as they went so that, as dawn broke and they climbed up through Kniveton Wood, the slopes were alive with moles. Progress was slow, not because the slopes were steep but because old moles like Henbane had come, aided by family and friends, and moles weak from illness and even a few who were early with pup. Everymole helped the other, and as the sun rose over distant Madge Hill there was the sense of promise and companionship, and abiding faith.

  The Stone Mole had come to moledom, and this great day he was coming here to Kniveton Edge, to speak to them and tell them of the Stone.

  Yet there was tension, too, for Harrow’s friend was not the only one who had prophesied that soon the Stone Mole would be taken. There was a sense of foreboding in the air, of preordination, a sense almost of helplessness.

  As they passed beyond Kniveton Wood they came to a valley that sloped gently eastward and was caught by the sun. This, they were told, was Kniveton Edge. It was pasture ground, and the grass was green and moist, and there was the first distant scent of spring in the air. Moles were already assembling and Harrow found a place for them – though higher up than Harebell wished to go. But Harrow was cautious, and thought that if they needed to hurry away and make themselves scarce then the higher up they were the better.

  They had not been stanced down long before they saw a group of moles, perhaps ten in all, coming up the little valley towards them. The sun was in the sky behind them lighting their way ahead, and its brightness made it hard at first to make the moles out.

  But on they came, slowly, and a hush fell over the assembled moles, their chattering stopped and they watched in growing anticipation as the group got nearer and the individual moles among them could be made out.

  It was quite clear which was the Stone Mole for whatever he did, whether it was to turn to speak to a mole on one side or the other, or come forward or slow down, he always seemed to be at the very centre of the group.

  He was in any case a pleasing mole to look on – well made, graceful, and with the kind of fur over which the light played well. If that were not enough to pick him out, a small mole went in front, as odd and grubby a looking mole as Harebell had ever seen; while behind the Stone Mole was a large scarred mole, his paws huge and his manner protective: Holm and Buckram.

  As they neared the assembled moles, several of those with them, some of whom Harrow knew to be Kniveton followers, separated and quietly joined the others, and a fourth mole in the Stone Mole’s group, an elderly female, became more visible.

  “But surely, Harebell, that mole...” said Henbane in astonishment.

  “The female?”

  “Do you know her?” whispered Harrow.

  “It’s Sleekit,” said Henbane. “Sleekit!”

  There had been doubt in Harebell’s face until Henbane said the name, but the moment she heard it she knew it must be the mole who had reared herself and Wharfe so long ago and finally left Beechenhill to travel south with Mayweed.

  “We must let her know we’re here,” said Harebell eagerly, but Harrow put a restraining paw on hers.

  “No need to draw attention to yourself, or to Henbane, and anyway it looks as if the Stone Mole’s going to speak. I’ll go down and bring Sleekit here when he’s finished.”

  It was therefore in a state of surprise and delight that both Henbane and Harebell, their eyes at first more on Sleekit, heard the Stone Mole’s first words.

  But if, to start with, this prevented them from attending to what he said, it was not long before his calm assured voice, his radiant manner and the words he spoke began to make them forget Sleekit for a time. Steadily they were drawn, as all the moles assembled there were drawn, into the address that Beechen of Duncton then made.

  He spoke first very personally of his own life: of Duncton Wood, of the moles there who had raised him, the moles that he loved, of many things close to his heart. Of Mayweed, of Skint, of Smithills, and many more. Then he spoke of Feverfew, and how it had been that she had met the White Mole Boswell in the light of Comfrey’s Stone.

  How magical it seemed to those moles of the southern Peak, this land to the south where great Stones rose, where the Ancient Systems lay, and where the scribemoles in times past had come from. How mysterious.

  “I am the son of Boswell, and the son of Feverfew, and through me soon will those who follow the Stone in humility and truth know a new light. Your ancestors called me Stone Mole, and this I am; and they said I would be a saviour, and come among you by the light of an eastern star.”

  “You have!” cried out a follower.

  “Yes, I have come among you, but not as a saviour who uses talons, or who can save what talons save – which is physical life. I have not come for a fight of the flesh and fur. Like me, those I love who travel with me, who are most close to me —” And here he turned to Buckram, and touched him with a smile – “have renounced that way.

  “That mole is stronger by far, and closer to the Stone’s Silence, who, though he has the strength of ten moles, bows down his snout before a pup and hurts no life. That mole is more a saviour who, rather than raise a talon in anger or in fear, lets his own life be taken all for love of the Stone. Yes, such moles shall be much favoured.

  “Strong moles, loud moles, dangerous moles with bigger talons than they have hearts, strong of body but not of spirit, are shadows in the Stone’s light. A gentle mole of the Word is closer to me than such a mole of the Stone.

  “I have spoken of Duncton, the place that gave me life, and whose moles taught me how to love. But I have not told what has happened to Duncton, and of that I must now speak....”

  Then Beechen told of how the Duncton moles had been killed by moles of the Word, and described what he knew from all Rampion and Romney had told him.

  Yet throughout it all he spoke with sadness about the grikes, not accusation.

  “Their deed was our deed, the blood on their talons is blood on our own... for we have all been weak and frail of spirit, and into the void of our indulgence and spiritlessness darkness has flowed as a flood over a wormful valley.

  “We a
re that flood, moles of the Word are our victims. Aye...” And here he had to raise his voice and quell mutterings of dissent... “Aye, each time you are weak of the Stone, each time you put yourself before your kin, your neighbour, and especially your faith, you become the enemy, you become the talon that draws the blood of innocents.

  “The Duncton moles were innocent. I knew them, they made me what I am: this was the task ordained them by my father Boswell. Their community made me.

  “But one mole I have not named, one mole who has passed this way, one mole whose name many of you know: Tryfan of Duncton, scribemole, as close to me as my mother Feverfew.”

  At the mention of her father’s name, Harebell reached out a paw to hold Henbane’s, and another to Harrow. All three moles listened now in terrible silence as Beechen described something of Tryfan’s sufferings as he had heard of them, and of his teachings.

  Then he said quietly, “I am told that Tryfan of Duncton was blinded by order of the Master of the Word, Lucerne of Whern.”

  A gasp went out among the moles, and it was as well that it did for Henbane half screamed, and Harebell was sobbing, yet nomole noticed them, so great was the horrified commotion at what Beechen said.

  “Now as you would love Tryfan hear me, and hear me with all the love you have. Listen, listen with all the heart you possess. And learn, learn with all the power you command.

  “Tryfan was a great mole, a mole whom those of you who have heard me speak before know I would call a true warrior. A mole whose life was spent listening with a fierce love to what others said, and listening with his heart to others’ hearts, and learning, always learning. This was a warrior mole, in the tradition of Balagan, and this mole I knew, and others here knew.

  “Yet whatmole blinded Tryfan? I tell you that though Lucerne ordered it he was not to blame, nor that sorry mole called Drule who did the deed. Not them. Who blinded Tryfan?

  “Moles, anymole who has ever turned his back upon the Stone had a talon in that blinding; anymole who does what he knows is wrong because he is too lazy to do what he knows is right, his talon was in that blow; anymole who points a talon at others long before he points it at himself – aye, his talon was there on Longest Night in Duncton Wood.”

  Silence had fallen, and nomole spoke. Harebell’s grip was tight on the paws of Henbane and Harrow. Henbane was as still as rock. Harrow barely dared to breath.

  Then, like sun breaking out across a sullen moor, Beechen smiled.

  “I believe that Tryfan forgave those moles who blinded him. I believe that whatever anger and rage and loneliness he felt in his time of pain, he remembered the refusals of moles he loved to renounce the Stone and save their lives and from that gained the strength to forgive. In that dark and tragic moment beside the Duncton Stone, Tryfan had his final test. I tell you he knew that not to forgive, not to love in that moment, would have been as great a recanting as speaking his renunciation out aloud. Greater, for forgiveness is private and unseen.

  “As Tryfan forgave, so soon must you. I shall be taken and in that taking you shall be tested. I shall be hurt, and in that hurting you shall be tried. I may be lost to you, and in that losing is your greatest temptation. Then must you all be true warriors. Your anger you shall meet with patience. Your grief you shall meet with faith. Your hatred you shall meet with love. Put your light to the darkness you find: that is the difficult way warriors must go if they are to find the Silence.

  “I was born but mole, as you were, and as a mole I shall face whatever the darkness will soon bring. Fear I shall have, pray for me. Anger I shall have, pray for me. Hatred I shall have, oh pray for me....”

  As he spoke some of the moles about him were openly crying for the fate he seemed to presage. Then silence fell, for a ripple of apprehension went among them and then murmurs of concern as they saw coming inexorably across the fell, and over the rise behind, and up from the valley below: grikes.

  Slow, steady, determined and relentless, the guardmole grikes appeared and came towards them.

  Buckram was the first to move.

  “Stone Mole, you must flee!”

  Beechen said, “Where does a mole flee to be from his own dark self? These moles are us.”

  “Then, Stone Mole, you must let us fight them!”

  Beechen said, “And make my words dry grass to break in the first harsh wind?”

  “Stone Mole....”

  “Buckram, as I love you, stance by me in peace, and be an example to all the moles who watch and listen here this day.”

  So it was that nomole moved but all simply watched as the grike guardmoles came, with a female at their head whom Beechen already knew – the eldrene Wort.

  She stopped just far enough from him that when she addressed him most of them could hear her voice clearly.

  “You have blasphemed against the Word one time too many, Beechen of Duncton. You shall come with us and it is best none try to protect you.”

  “We welcome you in peace,” said Beechen, his gaze upon her. “Take only me.”

  “We shall,” said Wort.

  “And me!” roared Buckram.

  “And me! And me!” cried many more.

  The guardmoles were astonished at the followers, that they did not fight but all offered themselves to be taken into custody, and were obedient to the Stone Mole’s desire for peace.

  “One of your own choosing can go with you,” said Wort, anxious to get Beechen and her guard away from there and not argue more.

  “Stone Mole.

  “Yes. You, Buckram,” said Beechen with a calm smile.

  Then he turned and began to embrace Sleekit and Holm and others there and say farewell, but this was soon cut short by one of the eldrene’s powerful henchmoles.

  “Come on, get on with it.”

  But when he laid a paw on Beechen to push him along the way Beechen turned towards him and gazed on him and the henchmole retreated, not daring to touch him more.

  “Come on then, we don’t want no trouble.”

  “You’re the only trouble,” cried out a follower, and several shouted out their agreement and began to move forward aggressively. Then Beechen turned to them and said, “As you love the Stone, love me and abide by my wish for peace.”

  Then they stopped, and that was all the resistance anymole made as the guardmoles jostled around Beechen and great Buckram and herded them off, and away into the Word’s custody.

  Strange the behaviour of the followers then. Some stared, some turned and ran, some wept. Harrow told Henbane and Harebell to stay where they were and went quickly down the slope and spoke to Sleekit and Holm. They turned and looked and came up the slope, Sleekit staring in disbelief at what she saw, Holm seeming simply bemused.

  But it was not a time for happy greeting, nor even to give each other the comfort truly needed as the slow realisation came on them that the Stone Mole and Buckram had been taken from them and might never return. He had warned of it, and now it had happened, they felt numb. All they could do now was to leave Kniveton Edge as soon as possible, and find consolation and hope in each other’s company later. Only in the days ahead, when the shock of the Stone Mole’s arrest had been absorbed did Sleekit begin to find joy in her reunion with Henbane, and her rediscovery of Harebell – so grown now, so beautiful.

  The first night Henbane was tired and they slept near by. A strange, comfortless night of tears that the Stone Mole seemed lost beyond recall. Harebell needed comforting, and Harrow felt distress, and those two moles came closer, and closer still, for the stars were in the night sky and a sense of fate hung in the air, and wildness too. A night when moles needed to be close, a night to fear, a night after which moles could never turn back. For some, for Harebell and Harrow, a night of clinging love in which ecstasy seemed stolen from the stars, and was but cold comfort against what the future seemed to hold.

  They had intended to return to Hunger Hill, but when they got to its lower slopes something about the place was wrong and they suspected gr
ikes were there, waiting for their return.

  “We must go to Beechenhill,” whispered Harebell, “for Squeezebelly shall need us now. Harrow, lead us away from here and back to the place where we might be safe.”

  Long was the way he took, and most circuitous, for the River Dove was in spate from thawing on the fells to the north and crossing it was dangerous. On they went, Holm helping much to scent out dangers, and spending the nights on guard. Nights that Harebell and Harrow spent close and sighed, because time and circumstance seemed to be stealing back from them the love they had just found; and Beechenhill, though near, seemed hard to reach.

  “Master, we wish to speak to you,” said Slighe.

  “Both you and Drule?” smiled Lucerne, darting a glance at Terce.

  “It must be a matter arising from the Sumps since that’s all you two have in common,” said Terce, who knew much, and deduced more.

  Slighe could barely conceal his excitement.

  “It is a small matter,” he said a little pompously, “called Wharfe.”

  “Wharfe?” said the Master silkily.

  Slighe nodded and Drule beamed.

  “Where?” said Terce.

  “Here, Master. Yes, Master. Here,” said Slighe.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Oh quite certain, Sir,” said Drule. “The mole told us so himself.”

  “If this is true, Terce, the Word is pleased with us. If not, then, Slighe and Drule, you may regret this day.”

  But Drule only grinned, and Slighe looked smug.

  “Take me to him. And find Mallice. This will please her.”

  “So,” said Lucerne softly, gazing down from an observation gallery in the Sumps an hour later, “that is my brother Wharfe.”

  “It is indubitable, Master.”

  “He looks like you, my sweet,” said Mallice.

  “Well!” said Lucerne, staring.

  “Will you not talk with him, Master?”

  “I would,” said Mallice, “out of curiosity.”

  “I know you would, Mallice. I know you well.”

  “Yes, Master mine,” she said, coming close.