Duncton Rising Read online

  “Meanwhile, there’s other moles to think of and worry about for whom these prayers will not go amiss. There’s your old friend Drubbins for one, who’s the only other apart from me of those whom Master Stour entrusted with his final thoughts and instructions before he went into retreat, who was ordered to stay in Duncton Wood. Now Drubbins isn’t looking too well these days, which isn’t surprising as he’s having to deal with the Newborns, whom he doesn’t like, all day long, and do his best not to betray his friends in the Wood. Give him strength. Stone, give him your love.

  “Then there’s the five good moles who left the Wood at Stour’s bidding, to try to see what they could do to right matters, and find out something about the lost Book of Silence, and, if they could, bring it back to Duncton. There’s not one of those five that I, Pumpkin, Library Aide, am not proud to call a friend, proud to know, and proud to think that on the glorious day when they come back home again they’ll seek me out and say, ‘Pumpkin, we’re glad to see you once more, and to see that some things in our beloved system don’t change and are dependable!’”

  Once more tears came to Pumpkin’s eyes, indeed they trickled down his grey face-fur as he stared at the Stone, and visualized this reunion of moles who loved, trusted and respected each other, and might one day – if the Stone granted it – be all together once again.

  “I’ll say their names. Stone, if you don’t mind, though I’m sure you’re growing tired of my repeating them in my prayers to you. But in this time of trial and loneliness my prayers here in the Stone Clearing are what keep me going, and saying the names of my friends helps me believe that they’re alive and well, and will come home again one day, safeguarded. There’s Fieldfare and her beloved Chater, both commanded by the Master Stour to go in the direction of Avebury and muster support for the Stone, or at least remind moles of the dangers of the Newborn creed. There’s Maple, strong Maple, who I’ve always thought had a destiny to lead moles in battle, for when he was a youngster didn’t he come to me and ask to be shown texts about campaigning, battles and the like? Didn’t I myself help him with the difficult words, and take him about this Wood and show him where the great battles of our own past were fought? I did! I ask you to look after him, and see that he fights justly and truly, as I told him great leaders do. And you see to it, too, that when the time comes, he knows when to pull in his talons and say “Enough is enough”!

  “Then there’s Whillan, who does not seem old enough to be gallivanting about moledom at a dangerous time like this – but that’s what the Master ordered, and so it has to be. Now, Stone, I remember the day he was carried into the Library by the Master himself, who had found him down at the cross-under beneath the roaring owl way with his mother dying and his newborn siblings all killed by the rooks.

  Bless me, but I’ve never seen a sight like it, nor want to again, as when that poor pup, struggling for breath, shivering with cold, and bleating his little life away, lay on the Library floor with all those old books about him, and nervous aides wondering what the Master was about bringing him there. From that day I watched Whillan grow, and when, like Maple before him, he came to me to learn scribing and explore the Library, why, it was the nearest I ever got to having a pup of my own. Of course, I’d never admit this to anymole, but I feel I contributed something to Whillan’s rearing, and I can’t believe you would want him to come to harm in the wide world beyond this system of ours having, as it were, had such a hard and tragic time getting into it. But there’s not a day goes by but I worry for him, and I hope you’re watching over him, for he hadn’t had time to grow up and find himself before the Newborns came and the Master ordered him off into moledom to do what he could for the Stone’s cause. Protect Whillan well, Stone, for there was always a special light in his eyes, and a certain set to his snout that said to me that this was a mole among moles; one whose destiny would carry something of your Light, and honour your Silence.

  “Lastly, there’s Privet, scholar Privet, who you know well enough without me having to tell you that I learned to love and respect her more than any other of the scribemoles that came through the portals of the Library. She’s a great mole. Stone, and all the greater since Stour insisted that it was she who reared and nurtured Whillan, despite her protests. That was a heart-warming thing that was, seeing a prim and proper scholar like her coming to grips with a mischievous pup such as Whillan was.

  “Aye, you do work in mysterious ways. Stone, making moles grow and deepen in themselves, as if you’re preparing them for tasks only you know are coming their way. I never in all my life worked for so wise and modest a scholar as Privet, excepting the Master himself, of course. She could scribe Whernish as well as Mole, she could ken a mediaeval story as well as a modern one, and despite her chilly exterior she could make moles love her and be loyal to her – even journeymole Chater, who never had much time for scholars.

  “But off she went as well, with Maple and Whillan to watch over her, the scribemole who I believe the Master knew would one day, somehow, find the lost Book of Silence and bring it back to Duncton Wood. All that will be very well, but all I ask on her behalf is that when her task is done you give her time and space to find the one thing that eludes moles unless they live right however good their scholarship: happiness. For that was something that was lacking in her eyes, and on her thin and troubled face, even when young Whillan was at his most endearing; even then she seemed to fear it could not last. But that’s it, isn’t it, Stone? She never feels, not ever, that happiness can last, or the friendship of another mole, and so fear of the future destroys her pleasures in the present.

  “And we know the reason, don’t we. Stone? Or part of it at any rate... Its name is a mole’s – Rooster, Master of the Delve, a most mysterious mole, most striking. Not the kind of mole I would like to meet on a dark night, or down in a ruined chamber served by ancient tunnels. But there we are, there’s no accounting for love, and it seems that he’s the mole she loved and lost. A mole, I fancy, she could do with finding once again to tell him... Well, an old mole like me who’s never had a mate and never will, won’t presume to put words into her mouth for what she should say to a mole such as Rooster, should she ever find him. But Stone, please an old mole, and bring those two together once again; if you do, I’ll die happy, with my faith in your essential goodness fully restored!

  “So there they are, the moles I wish to pray for this miserable dawn, and those on whom I believe a great deal may depend. Watch over them. Stone, guide them, help them, show them your Light and let them be touched by your Silence.”

  Pumpkin was silent for a time, and seemed to have finished; the wind flurried on about him and the dawn’s light brightened a little towards another morning. Yet he looked up once more at the grey Stone, so silent, so unyielding, so forbidding, and half opened his mouth to say something more. Then he seemed to have second thoughts, and shook his head and turned forlornly away, as lonely and isolated a mole as any who had ever come to the Duncton Stone for prayer and guidance.

  Yet even as he headed east out of the Clearing, to cross the High Wood to begin another wretched day in thrall to the Newborn Inquisitors, he paused, and scuffed at the leaves a bit, and turned round to face the Stone once more. A watching mole would barely have seen him, for Pumpkin’s grey and wizened form was almost lost in the huge shadows and shapes of the beech tree roots.

  “There’s another mole, isn’t there, Stone? One I should pray for as well...”

  Pumpkin looked reluctant, and grumpy. He frowned again, and pursed his mouth with distaste at having to even think about this other mole; then a look of annoyance came into his eyes and he found something different to say, something which justified avoiding adding to his prayers a mole for whom, it seemed, he felt rather less love than he felt for the others, but to whom he still had some kind of duty.

  “Can’t pray for ever without a bit of encouragement,” he said, his eyes dropping from the Stone to the damp beech leaves which covered the Clearing’s
floor. “I need a sign to keep me going, a hint that something good is on the way. Nomole prays for me, you know. I mean, I know that Master Librarian Stour said it would be hard, but I didn’t think it would be this hard. It’s not that I’m blaming you. Stone, because of course allmole knows you’re above blame, just as, if I may say so, you are above praise. You are, and we’re the ones who have to struggle and strive, aren’t we? Not that you should construe that as criticism, though I admit that if I had a choice between being a Stone or a mole I would, this particular dawn, choose to be a Stone.

  “The simple fact is that I feel I am not up to the task you have set me. I feel I should remind you that I am a mere library aide whose position until now has demanded only that he fetches and carries for scholars and scribemoles, tendering advice when he is asked, and keeping order for those who have not time for such tedious work. Is it reasonable, this Library Aide humbly asks, that he should be required to fulfill some other task whose nature, whose beginning and ending, whose demands, remain unspecified and mysterious? It is not!”

  Pumpkin, now thoroughly roused on his own behalf, even took a step or two back towards the Stone before he continued.

  “Now, Stone, I do not wish to bargain with you, but if I may say so, this particular mole would be motivated rather better than he is if you could apply a small part of your infinite and eternal wisdom to finding a way to show me that I am on the right track. This would help. So, too, would some hint that I am not alone in my struggle and that there are other moles about who share the burden. Yes, that’s it, that’s my personal petition to you this dawn: send a sign!”

  Pumpkin continued to stare boldly at the Stone for a moment or two longer before, his ire dying, he retreated back into the modest and kindly mole he truly was and looked meek and apologetic.

  “Well,” he added feebly, “that’s about it. Well, all right, almost it.”

  How forbidding the Stone was, how silent, how great the void into which a mole of faith, as Pumpkin was, must utter his prayers!

  “As for that other mole, and you know the one I mean, it is very hard for me to add him to my prayers. Why, he came to the Library the same day I did so many decades ago, and as he’s risen and gained seniority and honours I’ve stayed just an aide, and I don’t begrudge it, I really don” t. Sturne always had talents for study and scholarship that I did not have. And when he’s come to my burrow, as he has from time to time at seasons of celebration because he and I have no other moles to share such occasions with, I’ve been pleased with his taciturn company, and I’ve been happy to hear his attempts at being merry. But, Stone, it’s hard, it’s so hard, now the Inquisitors have made him Master of the Library in the proper Master’s place, and he’s accepted all they say, and their ways, and he daily orders me to destroy text after text and never once shows any remorse or guilt.

  “But, Stone, I feel that of them all he’s the one who needs your help most, the one I should pray for above others. Therefore, Stone, give your help and guidance to Keeper Sturne, lead him back to thy good ways, and may the day come once more when he and I can share a worm or two in companionship, and look back at this time as a nightmare which is long gone and forgotten. Because you see. Stone, whenever others have said bad things about Sturne (and many have over the decades, I assure you, because he’s not a mole who endears himself to others, or makes friends), I have never once let those comments pass without supporting him, and saying that there’s something good in him, something solid, something true, and I say it again now, to you. Stone. Help him now in this time of trial, for even from our first day in the Library I felt that for all his talents with texts, you had given me something he did not have, which was a capacity for contentment, for happiness. Stone, Keeper Sturne has never given me or any other mole a reason to call him friend, but I count him among my friends, and pray for him now.”

  Pumpkin bowed his wrinkled head towards the Stone, evidently glad to have got over his reluctance and spoken out on behalf of Sturne. He paused a little, nodded with new-found ease and contentment, and turned for the last time from the Stone and was lost among the great trees of the High Wood, as modest, as good, as loving a mole as there could be. One well worthy, indeed, to represent the legendary qualities of the moles of Duncton Wood, who have stanced boldly by the Stone in times of doubt and faithlessness, and uttered their prayers, and raised their paws in defence of the Light, and the truth, and the Silence, which are of the Stone.

  But it seemed that he was right, for as he went there was nomole to say a prayer for him. None to petition the Stone on his behalf, or to speak aloud of his qualities, and commending them to the Stone, ask it to guide him through the great shadows that now beset him on all sides, and bring him through safeguarded.

  Yet perhaps there was something more, and perhaps though he knew it not, those dear lost friends he had prayed for uttered their prayers for him that same dawn. For as he turned his back and wended his way wearily through the High Wood, the light about the Stone grew bright, and a warm spirit met the flurries of the cold wind and turned them and chased them away, a spirit of grace which danced from the Clearing after Pumpkin. So that when it caught up with him, and he was all unawares, its Light seemed to shine on his old fur, and its Silence to accompany him, to catch up with him, and be with him.

  So much so indeed that he stopped and stared about in wonder, as if he half sensed something was there. His mild eyes were caught by a Light he could not see, and his loving heart was comforted by a Silence he could not quite hear. But something was there, something...

  “Send a sign!” he had prayed, and at least he now under stood with the certainty of his great and simple faith that a sign might come.

  Then Library Aide Pumpkin continued on his way, his step light for the first time in days, and a hum of pleasure mounting in his throat. For he realized that when all was said and done, and however grim things seemed, he was still what he most wished to be in the place he wished to be it; a library aide in what all his life had always been the greatest Library in moledom.

  “And it will be again, it will!” he said to himself before resuming his cheerful humming, and thinking that even on a grey November dawn when there is as little hope among the trees as there are leaves, there was surely nowhere as beautiful in all moledom as the ancient High Wood of Duncton.

  Pumpkin’s doubts and concerns about the state of moledom and the safety of his friends, not to mention uneasiness at his own dangerously isolated position in Duncton Wood, were well justified by recent events.

  The slow insidious build-up of the Newborn presence in Duncton Wood, which had begun twenty moleyears before with the arrival of a small cell of Caradocian moles preach ing the creed as promulgated by the sinister Thripp of Blagrove Slide, had reached its culmination only shortly before Pumpkin spoke his long petitionary prayer before the Stone. Newborns had come up from the Marsh End one night, and though they may not originally have intended to go as far as they did, had killed old Husk, Keeper of Rolls, Rhymes and Tales, and had deliberately destroyed his great collection of texts.

  But wise Stour, Master Librarian of Duncton Wood, had long since foreseen better than anymole what was coming. Having been raised in Duncton Wood, the system more dedicated than any in moledom to the rights and freedom implicit in worship of the Stone – which rights include the freedom not to worship the Stone – he foresaw the inevitable consequence of Thripp’s self-righteous movement, which was increasingly quick to condemn those who were deemed not to subscribe to the strict Caradocian way, and even to punish them.

  Master Librarian Stour had long believed that once the Newborns had gained power and felt confident that none could easily stance in their path, then they would inevitably begin to censor moledom’s great libraries of any texts that might be construed as liberal, or in some way undermining the “true” Caradocian way. It had been against such possibilities, which his study of history had shown repeated themselves with grim regularity, that Stour had
advocated long before, and then brilliantly carried through, the policy of copying and disseminating texts to twelve different systems in moledom, believing that their general availability – indeed their continuing existence – would thereby be assured. This policy, for which he won agreement at the famous Conclave of Cannock, which was convened soon after his appointment as Duncton’s Master Librarian over four decades before, was as much as moledom could have done to safeguard its texts, ancient and modern, but Stour can have little thought that its efficacy would have been tested in his own lifetime by such a censorious movement as that of the Newborns.

  Yet finally the question had been, as the moles of Duncton had grown increasingly aware, exactly when Thripp and those close to him would decide to make a claim for control of moledom as a whole – in the name, naturally, of truth, justice and freedom. Stour had expected that when it came to Duncton Wood it would be in a form more subtle and less cruel than proved to be the case with the attack on Keeper Husk. But then, in the past, other more worldly Duncton leaders might have gathered intelligence from systems beyond Duncton Wood, guessing that the Newborns were unlikely to make a bid to control one of the greatest systems of moledom until long after they had secured their positions in other lesser systems.

  But Stour was first and foremost a scholar and librarian, not a military or political mole. And yet... as those few moles who like Pumpkin were not yet intimidated by the Newborn presence reflected on such matters, they could not but admit the fact that the Master had never really been “only” a librarian, and concede the possibility that his seeming indifference to the rise of the Newborns over the previous two decades might conceal a deep and thoughtful strategy.

  Certainly Pumpkin himself now believed that the reason for the only other retreat the Master had made into the tunnels of the Ancient System (in the spring years prior to the present crisis) was his need to reflect on the best way for Duncton moles to respond to the Newborn move to take control when it came. Pumpkin was sure that Stour was not interested in wars – the decades of peace that followed the terrible war of Word and Stone a century before reflected moledom’s general desire to avoid such conflicts again. Nor were there many systems in moledom that did not still harbour the bloody ghosts and shadows of the war of the Word, in tunnels that had been sealed up to hide the massacred dead from sight: such tragic tunnels, their corpses turned to skeletons, all intertwined with the roots and tendrils of trees and plants from the surface above, were found from time to time, a reminder to living moles of the dangers of war and religious strife. Few vales and rises, few quiet places in woods and by streams, had not heard the cries of the victims of the Word.