Duncton Tales

by William Horwood

To which the only reply Sward gave was a look, long and deep, at each of them, and a slight shake of the head. Then he turned and headed slowly upslope once more, with Hamble close behind, while Privet paused some brief moments longer and watched her father become but a vague distorted shape in the mists above and felt a curious sense of loss, as if he were leaving her for good. Then she sighed and hurried after them to take up once more her place of safety between them.

  All that day and the next they trekked on into heights more wormless and desolate than any Privet could ever have imagined. The mist never cleared, but swirled in the chilly air to catch at the back of their throats and sting at their eyes as if it were malign and wished them to turn back.

  To Privet it was a wonder that Sward pressed forward with such confidence, for she had long since grown confused as to where they were, or in what direction they trekked. Whichever way she looked there was only the white light of mist; no sign of sun or even a lighter sky to indicate where it might be. All colour was drained out of the heather and peat hags through which they passed, for their shadowless, dark brown hue seemed no colour at all but the negation of all life.

  “You wait till the mists clear and the sun comes out and you’ll see colours you’d never guess were here,” said Sward. “You just wait and see!”

  “How do you know which way to go?” she asked him.

  “By the lie of the heather and the run of the ginnels in between. The prevailing wind hereabout is westerly and you judge your direction by that. As for place, well, that’s a matter of experience. We’ll find a drainage valley and trust to the Stone we get the right one for Chieveley Dale.”

  He scratched his grizzled fur and screwed up his eyes against the mist in the general direction in which they seemed to be going. Around them the breeze hissed in the heather, and the hags loomed; now near, now far, according to the thickening and weakening of the mist. Their face-fur was wet with condensation. Each of them was hungry, though nomole mentioned the fact, for the brackish black water in the puddles and small tarns they passed was their only sustenance. They knew that this was as wormless as a place could be and that if Sward could not get them off the Tops to lower and more wormful ground to the north they would surely starve before ever they could make their way back the way they had come.

  Despite the desolation there was the sense, peculiar and frightening, that grikes might be about, a possibility confirmed by the sudden discovery of pawprints by a place where they stopped to drink, which though blurred by rain and wind were recent enough to warn them against complacency.

  Yet they saw no other sign of mole and as dusk gathered on the second evening after leaving Turrell, and they might normally have considered establishing a temporary burrow, the ground began to slope northward and they came into the beginning of the upper end of a drainage gully that Sward thought might help lead them off the Tops.

  By now Privet’s paws were as weary as they had ever been and the sudden drop through rocky outcrops and among sharp shards of scree taxed all her strength and endurance. She stumbled more than once, and cut her paws on the sharp stones, while the wind drove sharply up at her and brought tears to her eyes to impede her downward progress still more.

  “Not far now, my dear, and we’ll be at the stream’s edge and the going will be easier,” Sward called over his shoulder from below.

  “What stream?” she said dubiously, for the mist was as persistent as ever and all the wind did was blow it about some more.

  “You can hear it,” growled Hamble behind her.

  And so she could, a racing sound somewhere below which grew louder and louder until the mist cleared for a moment and she saw the blessed sight of swards of green grass along a small stream’s edge.

  Easier going! Food! Clear water! Rest! Sleep!

  Not quite! For Sward and Hamble were for pressing on to find a place less exposed than what seemed too obvious a route off the Tops for them to risk stopping near. The light had long since gathered into gloom, but after the most perfunctory of rests Privet was prodded awake again by her father; with her paws only half responding to the way she wished them to go, she tottered and dragged herself on downslope for what seemed to her half the night. Then she became aware of the sound of wind in trees, looming shapes on either side, the stream growing ever bigger, the scent of wormful soil and with a turn off their route and a shove from behind by Hamble, she followed Sward to a den of a place at the edge of a copse.

  Perhaps she ate, perhaps she burrowed, or perhaps she simply laid down her head upon her paws and without more ado fell into the dead and heavy sleep of the very tired. She did not know. But when she woke it was still pitch-dark, and there was the sound of rain on trees, and Hamble’s great strong flank was warm against her own, and gently moving with his breathing. They were in a burrow of some kind which scented fresh and newly delved. The stream’s racing roar was nearby, and somewhere across from where she lay she heard her father’s laboured breathing, and the occasional snuffle of his snout. But nothing could she see, no light at all.

  Tired though her body felt, and sore though her paws and talons were, her mind was active, even excited. They had crossed Twizle Head, they were on wormful ground once more, and soon, perhaps very soon, they would reach Chieveley Dale and begin at last the final part of their journey to find Rooster.

  At the very thought of him, and the silent repetition of his name, she felt again the stirring of curiosity and a determination to meet him. But when she thought of the second part of the tale Turrell had told, that stirring turned to the breathless excitement and nervous awe moles feel when they sense they have caught a glimpse of their destiny, and know that whatever the future may bring, and the dangers they may face, their paws are set on a journey from which there is no turning back.

  Until the day of Rooster’s birth and her banishment over the Span, Samphire had little knowledge of and no contact with the moles of the Charnel, and that nightmarish first sighting of them at the Midsummer sacrifice so many years before was mercifully now almost forgotten.

  So it was not until she was across the Span and halfway towards the slopes that rise to the cliffs on the Charnel’s dark north side that her distress and anger with Red Ratcher, and maternal need to save at least one of her pups, gave way to those fears that distant memory, and all she had heard since, had nurtured, if only unconsciously.

  But so enshadowed was the place she found herself in, so alien its rough grassy surface with huge rocks and boulders that seemed freshly tumbled from the great black cliffs ahead, that fear suddenly beset her, and a moment of paralysis. Her pup hung from her mouth as she stared nervously about her, fearful of the shadows and the slight movements, of watching moles perhaps, or something worse she seemed to see there, and only the pup’s bleats brought her back to the reality that another now depended on her, and she must do her best for it.

  She had no doubt at all she was being watched — indeed, soon after her numb pause and recovery from it, she saw in the dark lee of a huge boulder an ogreish female all swollen and vile staring malevolently at her — and resolutely decided that the best thing to do was to force herself to keep moving, and seek out a place up on the slopes above beneath the cliffs. She believed that such a spot would be unoccupied because of the danger of raven and rockfall, and that and its height would give her some vantage if Charnel moles came after her.

  Tired though she was she went steadily on, keeping to the surface and as clear as she could of rocks and boulders where moles might be lying in wait for her. On and on she went, with only one more mole seen — again a female, this one bald and so ulcerous her appearance was a blotchy red — until she gained the slopes and was able to relax a little, for she found no more evidence of mole.

  The place was dark and damp, and so steep that the soil was scattered in pockets among the boulders and rock fragments that had fallen from the cliffs above, whilst in one cranny directly beneath the cliff a pocket of snow remained in a spot where the sun ne
ver shone.

  The tunnels she made over the next few days were convoluted and most strange, running at odd angles among the jags of buried rocks before petering out on to the surface for the lack of an underground route to other soil. She did her best to give these overground runs protection by taking them under the lee of fallen rocks, but with the ravens watching above, and the continual threat of further rockfall — the sudden sounds of which she heard sporadically both day and night — it was in truth no place to rear a pup; but it was all she had.

  It seemed that others must have thought so too, for apart from occasional sightings of those same terrible hulking females she had seen on her way across the Charnel, who came snouting the slopes below her sometimes — though at dusk when she could barely see them — she was left alone.

  Gradually, as Samphire became absorbed in the hard work of raising her pup and she remained undisturbed, she put worries about these other moles behind her and concentrated on the task in paw. The weather was inclement, the tunnels liable to slippage and damage from the frequent rockfalls, the wind continual and often ferocious.

  All these factors meant that the first moleyears of Rooster’s puphood, right up to the end of April indeed, were spent solely in the company of his mother. She was not at first much encouraged by his appearance and seeming stupidity. She had hoped that the growth of fur might mask somewhat the grotesqueness of his paws and wrinkled massive head, but it did not. He was certainly large, certainly powerful, and in that he took after his father. But his head seemed over-size for his body, and his paws were deformed in the sense that one — the right — was larger, much larger than the other, though neither was small. His fur was hopelessly awry, and however much she strove to groom it, it remained so, becoming thicker, more wiry, less manageable with each day that passed. His tail was askew, twisting awkwardly to the left and to this she attributed his clumsiness, for tails help moles know where they are. Poor Rooster was for ever tumbling this way or that, or veering off from the direction in which his awkward paws sought to take him.

  All this she might have borne with equanimity if he had shown an alertness of mind, or ability to learn, or even speak, but he did not. Nor was there much sign that he would do so from his expression, which once his eyes opened remained deep and dark beneath his heavy furrowed brow. Yet love him she could not fail to do, for in his ungainly silent way he would run to the safety of her flanks when danger seemed to threaten, such as the rumble of a rockfall, or the scuttering of raven on the surface above.

  Then, too, he would stare up at her with his black eyes, and if the light caught them she fancied she saw trust in her there, and perhaps even love. From that deep instinct mothers have, which seeks no reward from a task that seems fruitless, she talked to him, telling him stories of moledom and the Stone, and as time went by and his attention on what she said seemed more sustained, about her own upbringing in Chieveley Dale. Indeed, the very fact that he did not, or could not, respond, seemed to give her courage and space to speak out her heart’s old longings for her home system and lost family, the memories of which for so long she had found it easier to suppress.

  That same maternal instinct began, too, to tell her that slow though he was to speak, and ungainly and awkward though he was in all he did, he had positive qualities which she did not remember any pup in her earlier broods displaying so young, or at all. For one thing he grew so fast that he weaned himself on to the solid food of worms and other scraps she found very early for a pup, and developed an encouraging ability to find the living worm — a talent most pups develop late.

  Not Rooster. He seemed to know when and where to find the poor thin things that the Charnel soil supported, and in this they found their first real communion, for when she praised him for what he did he chucked and purred and made those sounds she had thought he might never make, sounds that are the precursors of speech.

  Soon after this he developed a second, perhaps related ability, though one so strange to her that for a long time she thought it mere coincidence. It seemed that Rooster knew when and where rockfalls from the cliffs above would occur, long before they happened. More than that, this knowledge gave him the confidence to judge when to flee or not — and, finally, to her alarm, when to go out on to the surface and watch! It seemed then that for all his clumsiness he had his own sensitivities, and in that she found strange and wondering comfort.

  With the warmer weather of mid-April she began to allow him out on to the surface, and there the rocks, the emergent green-white flowers of lady’s-mantle and saxifrage, became his friends. While the ravens above, stooping, turning, croaking, became … well, not his enemies. As with the worms, and the rockfalls, he seemed to sense their movements before they ever made them, and learnt that a mole who turns to face a stooping raven, raising his talons before it comes too near, will cause it to swerve aside. Ravens prey on carrion, or on injured things, and fear life that confronts their beaks and claws.

  This much Samphire knew herself, though like most moles she avoided exposure to ravens and any bird too big, but she knew as well that moles like Red Ratcher disdained to cower from ravens, and went about their business unafraid of them, heaping invective on them when they came near, and raising their talons at them as Rooster, so young, had taught himself to do.

  With these excursions on the surface, in which Samphire was forced to learn to trust that Rooster could defend himself, the youngster’s speech began to develop. His voice was rough and husky, his speech slow, qualities that he never lost. He talked more to himself or to the rocks and tunnels among which he played than to her, prattling and speaking to them as if they were alive, as solitary youngsters sometimes will. And, too, early again, he began to delve little tunnels and half-chambers of his own, slowly and deliberately, and she was glad to see that his large ungainly paws were, if anything, an advantage in doing this.

  Throughout this time they saw no other moles, and nor did Samphire hear any, though sometimes it seemed as if Rooster did — a fact which, in view of his percipience with worms and rockfalls, would not have surprised her. It was always at dusk, and always in the direction of the slopes below, and Rooster’s squat and wrinkled snout would whiffle at the air, and his dark eyes narrow, and he would mount up in mock aggression as if to defend their territory against all comers. The all comers never came, and always such occasions ended with Rooster looking curious, and taking a few steps out of their family chamber in a friendly way as if he half hoped other moles would come.

  That they were moles Samphire had no doubt, and to confirm it Rooster asked what moles they were and when they would come. His defensive stance was one instinct, his fearlessness was another deeper one, and Samphire was wise enough not to seek to damage it.

  She had told him in various ways of the Reapside, and the Charnel, and that the moles in each were different. He knew that his father lived in the Reapside, but having no other experience Rooster had no expectation, nor much curiosity, to see him. Since the Charnel moles had not molested her, and seemed, if anything, somewhat afraid, she did not yet warn Rooster against them, or even say what she already knew, that they were sometimes deformed, and perhaps diseased. He would find out in his own way, and if need be she would be there to help and defend him; though, as the days of April went by and he grew bolder and stronger, she began to think that if the Stone continue to bless them both with this solitude and lack of interference, then by the time that contact with other moles was made he would be very near to being able to defend himself.

  But this was not to be. Towards the end of April the weather suddenly warmed and for a time their tunnels were wet as the great patch of snow above them and beneath the cliff finally thawed, sending rivulets of water down the slopes. There were, too, a number of rockfalls uncomfortably close to their tunnels, and one which destroyed part of them, though such was Rooster’s ability to sense their coming that he had long since warned her and removed her to safety, muttering in his laconic way, “Coming, rocks.
Get downslope.”

  The rocks did come, and the cliffs echoed with the fall, and that same evening came one of Rooster’s observations of the silent, unseen moles downslope from them. For the first time, and with only a brief, “Will see,” to his mother, he ventured out into the tunnel, and then on to the surface.

  Samphire called after him to stay near, and followed, watching his progress downslope to the shadows of the boulders there. She watched as any mother might, resolving that if there were a sudden movement, or a call, or anything untoward at all, she would rush down there to his defence; until then, she must let him begin to discover something of the world beyond the little one she had reared him to.

  But there seemed no cause for alarm, and nor did he even disappear from view, though it was plain he met and talked to a mole or moles in the shadows, for she heard his young husky voice, and some kind of a reply. But whatmole it was he saw she knew not, and nor, being a youngster, did he say when he returned, except that the mole was a ‘they’. He said no more than that, and seemed to accept what he had done, and the moles he had met, with that same calm boldness with which he had met all else in his so-far restricted life.

  It was only two days later, in the fading light of late afternoon, that Samphire saw the moles her son had met. Or rather, turned a corner, surfaced, and to her astonishment and alarm, found herself face to face with them.

  “Rooster!” she called urgently, as much for support as from any certain knowledge that these were moles he already knew. “Rooster, come here!”

  For the first time in her life Samphire experienced a new and very different quality in her strange and slowly-revealing son, and one that in time would endear him not only to herself but to many other moles, and in a way to all moledom. For Rooster came running, ungainly, awkward, but massively protective in the gentlest of ways. Indeed, her second calling of his name was barely made before he was there, a little in front of her, his great paws before him, his huge head making his young body seem bigger than it was. It was as if one of the great dark boulders that lay about that surface had come alive and taken the comforting form of a huge benign mole.