Duncton Wood Page 52

  More than once their path crossed that of other wanderers, some looking for moles whom they could not believe were dead, while others were thin and unkempt and ate little, telling of the curse that had fallen on the world and the punishment that still awaited each one of them.

  These encounters, and the strain of the journey itself, had changed Bracken. His face fur was now lined and he had matured; at the same time he had filled out and become more powerful-looking so that he had something of the solid strength of his father Burrhead, though none of the heaviness. He was not aware of it himself (though Boswell was) but he was now a formidable mole to face, for his four paws were firmly on the ground and his gaze was often clear and direct, as from a settled heart. But recently there had come a weariness of spirit over him, especially with the beginning of spring, which only Rebecca would have lifted from him. Days went by when he would talk little, and Boswell understood from the way he looked around and ahead at each turn in their journey that he was searching for the love he and Rebecca made together.

  Boswell had changed, too, though not physically. He was still thin and jerky in movement, his eyes darting this way and that with the great curiosity about life that he had; his coat, shot through with grey as it was, was now fuller and more glossy than when Bracken had first met him in the drainage channel.

  But the biggest change was in his spirit, which became ever more simple and laughing, so that a mole who didn’t know him might almost have taken him for a fool. He saw laughter in the simplest things, and often when they were in difficulties it was his good humour that took the frown from Bracken’s face. And often, too, Bracken’s own laughter would never have started had not Boswell been there to show that a heart may be light even when circumstances are grim.

  At last, on a grey March morning after days in which the pull of Uffington had become stronger and stronger, they came within sight of the Blowing Stone. Or rather within sound, for the day was windy and the first signal they had that they had reached Uffington was the low moan of the wind in the crevices and holes of the Stone, all of which carried in vibrating waves down into the vale up which they were travelling.

  ‘Listen! That’s the Blowing Stone,’ said Boswell.

  ‘So we’re almost there!’ said Bracken, unable to believe that their long journey was nearly over.

  Their pace quickened and soon the wind carried to them a scent Bracken had almost forgotten—beech trees. They were nearly on chalk again. Soon they came to a clump of beech and as they passed into it, the familiar roots, powerful in the ground, and the dry smell of chalk and beech leaf litter and brought back to Bracken a memory of Duncton Wood, of the Ancient System and, most of all, of Rebecca. She was suddenly full in his heart again as, passing beyond the last of the beech trees, they came to the great Blowing Stone itself and crouched down thankfully in its presence.

  It stood at the edge of a field, overshadowing a hedge that grew near it, and had been weathered by wind and rain and sometimes ice into a thousand scoops and hollows, with holes in its upper parts which the moles could not see but which were the source of its moaning and hooting in the wind. It was split vertically along its natural cleavage as well, so that from some points it looked more like three stones than one.

  Looming over it was the steep escarpment of Uffington Hill itself, which rose in sheer shadows of nearly vertical, tussocky grass, many hundreds of molefeet high. A mole’s gaze had to tilt higher and higher, and still higher, before he could see the shadows end at the distant top of the hill and the white-grey March sky beyond.

  ‘Over to the west, beyond the top of the hillface, that’s where the Holy Burrows lie,’ said Boswell. ‘It takes half a day for most moles to climb it—a bit longer for me.’

  The day was drawing in, grey and cold, and they decided to stay where they were until full light before climbing the hill, eager though both of them were to get to the top. But they were tired and thankful for food and a temporary burrow near the Blowing Stone, falling asleep to the soft vibrations and moans of the Stone.

  Because the escarpment faced north, dawn was a long time coming, and even when it came it seemed gloomy and wan. The wind had died and the March grass through which they started their climb was lank and dreary. But it soon became shorter and more wiry and their hearts began to fill with excitement as, step by step, they climbed up towards the goal they had aimed at for so long. At first, Bracken took the lead, but in his eagerness to get to the top, he so outpaced the limping Boswell that finally he stopped and let Boswell set the pace, and it seemed right that Boswell should lead the way.

  The hillface grew steeper and steeper and their pace slower, and Bracken began to have the feeling that behind him there was nothing but clear air and a tumbling fall to somewhere far below. At the same time they felt the wind behind them, a wind that blew on even the calmest of days up the scarp face, flattening the grass upwards and on towards the top.

  Higher and higher they climbed until each step was accompanied by a pant and they could think of nothing but finding a talonhold in the next patch of rough grass ahead and summoning the strength to push themselves and pull themselves yet higher. The grass was tough, more like a set of long pine needles than the soft pasture and meadow grass of the valleys they had grown used to, and was a buff-yellow or brown rather than green, scorched in summer by sun and in winter by wind.

  They stopped several times for a rest before Boswell said—or rather breathed: ‘Halfway. A good way to go yet.’

  Bracken looked above him and the scarp face still looked as massive as when they had first started. They felt exposed, for the grass was now quite short and the sky loomed hugely all around them, while the soil, which showed through the grass in places, was dry and stony with flakes of chalk and flint—not easy to burrow into quickly if a kestrel happened along.

  They pressed on, the wind coming stronger and colder behind them all the time, blowing across their fur and driving it forward like the grass beneath them. On they went, the wind so battering them from behind that in the final stretch it almost blew them up the hill and they had to lean back a little into it to keep their balance.

  Then the grass changed to a short, green pasture grass, and the slope suddenly slackened to a final rolling stretch. Fifteen moleyards, ten, five, and then, as simple as you please, they were there together, on top of Uffington Hill, at the end of their journey.

  Bracken turned round, snouted into the shrill wind, and looked out on to a sea of sky, massive above and ahead of him, and below, the hazy distance of fields and grasslands, meadows and valley, trees, rivers and farmland. The wind was so strong that it took Bracken’s breath away and made his eyes water, and so noisy that talking was impossible so that Boswell had to cuff him lightly to draw his attention as he indicated that they should retreat a little from the crest of the slope. They did so, and within a matter of ten moleyards the wind dropped to almost nothing and they could see and hear and think again. Boswell turned away from the slope and waved a paw to the west. ‘Uffington!’ he said, excitement and apprehension in his voice. ‘By the Stone’s grace, and with its strength, I am back. May the Stone have preserved the moles I left behind.’

  Beyond him the clear grass swept into a tussocky distance. In the foreground it seemed as flat as the slope had been steep, though over a distance it undulated gently, in soft, delicate curves that changed subtly whichever way a mole turned and never seemed to stay the same.

  ‘Well, come on then,’ said Boswell, winding his way among old molehills flattened by wind and rain in which flakes and chips of flint were mixed with the light soil, until he came to a hill of fresh earth. Burrowing into it, he led Bracken into the Holy Burrows at last.

  The tunnels leading to the Holy Burrows were worn smooth with age and venerable use. Generations upon generations of scribemoles had trodden their way through them so that some of the protruding flints were rounded and shiny from the rubbing of flank fur, while the chalky floor was packed hard and shin
y in places as well, so that near some of the entrances the light coming in made the tunnel floor look like dimly lit ice.

  ‘We’re nearly there now,’ said Boswell, ‘though there aren’t many moles about.’

  ‘I haven’t seen any. Not a single one. But I can scent them all right. Uffington must have been affected by the plague like every other system,’ said Bracken brutally. ‘Better face the fact, Boswell.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said Boswell, ‘we’ll soon know.’

  Boswell led them on down a tunnel whose size was equal to the biggest in the Ancient System but whose sculpting was more aged—very like the simple rounds and squares of the tunnel beyond the Chamber of Roots which led to the buried part of the Stone. It sloped steadily downhill for a while before levelling off, and Bracken sensed that they had entered a deeper and somehow more sacred part of the system. It was a place to move slowly in, and with grace, and one where, if a mole spoke at all, he did so in a low voice that did not disturb the peace.

  ‘We are very near the libraries,’ said Boswell softly. ‘This is a holy place, Bracken, and it is best that you do not say anything to anymole we may meet. I do not think a mole who is not a scribemole has ever been here before, but nor do I remember anything in the writings or rules that is against it. But stay silent, move gently, and let me talk.’

  The tunnel entered a round chamber that was the confluence of three other major tunnels as well as two much smaller ones.

  ‘That one leads to the Holy Burrows themselves,’ said Boswell, pointing to one that Bracken estimated ran westwards, ‘while this one leads to the libraries.’ He led the way down it slowly. As Bracken followed him out of the chamber and into the tunnel, he could have sworn he saw a mole watching them from where, seconds before, there had been nomole, in the entrance to the tunnel to the Holy Burrows. He thought he saw him clearly, an old mole with a long lean face and thin fur, but when he really looked, he wasn’t there! Strange! Bracken looked around him, feeling that in this place time did not mean quite what it meant in other systems. But he had seen a mole! He hastened after Boswell, anxious to keep him in sight.

  The tunnel steepened suddenly, going down deeper and deeper, until it was cast into semisolid chalk in which fissures and stratum lines were visible. The air was heavy with the slow echoes of their movement but there was no windsound now at all. The tunnel levelled off again, ran to an entrance, and then they were through it and into an enormous chamber whose end was too far off to see. It was too complex and confusing a place to take in all at once, and it was some moments before Bracken could even make out its main features.

  It was not a simple oval or square but rather appeared to be a series of interconnected chambers with entrances between them big enough to allow a mole to see a lot of the next chamber. There were arches and corners in the chambers, parts darker than others, and set into each of the many walls were surfaces on which were stacked what looked like pieces of bark and sometimes flakes of hard chalk. Above these surfaces were embossments like those in the Chamber of Dark Sound. There were stacks of bark on the floor as well, or piled against walls and, as far as Bracken was able to see into the linked chambers, there were more pieces of bark piled untidily there.

  ‘Books,’ whispered Boswell. ‘This is the main library.’

  He was about to say more, and might have taken one of them down to show Bracken, when he was stopped short by a stirring at the far end of the chamber and a movement as what seemed a shadow changed into what looked like an ancient and grey-furred mole who was in the middle of a long yawn.

  ‘Well! I don’t know, I’m sure,’ the ancient mole muttered to himself, oblivious of their presence at the other end of the chamber. ‘I don’t know. If I didn’t put it where I should have, which is more than likely, then surely I would have put it here, which it seems I didn’t. How they expect me to do all this by myself I really don’t know. Come on, my beauty, where are you?’ he said, snouting back and forth among some of the books and evidently hoping that one of them, which he had obviously lost, would pop out of its own accord and announce its hiding place.

  Boswell signalled to Bracken to move back into the shadows and not say anything as he advanced slowly on the ancient mole. He got nearer and nearer, but the mole did not seem to notice, muttering to himself and peering impatiently here and there among the books, turning over one or two half-heartedly and leaving them where they fell. Eventually Boswell made a discreet scratching noise to announce himself.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the old mole, ‘I’m coming. Can’t do everything, you know. Anyway, is it that important?’

  He darted forward to an enormous book and started to pull it down, but its weight was too much for him to take it bodily off the surface. But it slid off on to him all the same and his tottering old paws struggled to keep in under control. Boswell stepped forward and relieved him of the book.

  ‘There we are!’ said Boswell. The old mole looked at him at last, peering at him with a frown. ‘I know you,’ he said.

  ‘Boswell,’ said Boswell.

  ‘Mmm, something like that,’ said the old mole.

  Boswell stepped back a little and hesitated for a moment before saying, ‘Is it Quire? Are you Quire?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Quire. ‘Now what’s this?’ he muttered, peering at the book and then running his paw across its surface. He growled and grunted to himself and then stepped back, saying, ‘Here, you tell me. I’m losing my feel. Can’t even read any more. There was a time when I knew every book in the place by position alone, but since they changed it all round and then the plague came, it’s all gone to rack and ruin. I can’t keep it up all by myself.’

  Bracken watched as Boswell examined the book. First he snouted rapidly over its surface. Then, for the first time ever in Bracken’s presence, he used his withered left paw positively. He swung it on to the book and, with a gentle caressing motion beautiful to see, ran the paw across the embossments on the book’s surface.

  ‘It’s the Avebury Hymnal, with an appendix of carols and lays,’ said Boswell.

  ‘No, that’s not the one. What I want is the Book of the Chosen Moles. You know…’

  ‘Linden?’

  ‘Do you know where it is?’ asked the old mole eagerly.

  ‘I know what it feels like,’ said Boswell, ‘at least I think I can remember.’ He snouted rapidly along the rows of books, muttering and twittering to himself, touching one book after another, half pulling out one or two, shaking his head, umming and ahhing and, it seemed to Bracken who had listened to their conversation without understanding a word of it, having the time of his life.

  ‘Got it,’ he announced finally, pulling another enormous book off the shelves. He ran his paw over it. ‘Linden’s Book of Chosen Moles, with additions by sundry paws,’ he read out.

  ‘Not before time,’ said Quire ungratefully.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Boswell.

  ‘You youngsters are all the same. Think you know it all. You wait till you’re as old as me and you’ll find nothing at all.’ He peered at Boswell again. ‘Where was it?’ he asked.

  ‘Where it always used to be.’

  ‘Damnation!’ said Quire, almost lifting himself off his paws with the violence of the word. ‘I can’t get used to the new system—always put books back in the wrong place now. I know you, don’t I? How did you survive the plague?’

  ‘I wasn’t here,’ said Boswell. ‘I’ve been away.’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ said Quire, seeming to remember but making it obvious that he didn’t. ‘Mmm. Which system?’

  ‘Duncton.’

  ‘One of the Seven! Did you get there?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Boswell, ‘I did.’

  ‘Good. Glad to have you back, especially since most of the scribemoles here went away during the plague or succumbed to it, and there’s hardly any left who know enough about the library to be much use to me. I remember you. Boswell, isn’t it? Should have told me before. Crippled but useful, as I reme
mber. Where have you been?’

  ‘Duncton,’ repeated Boswell patiently.

  ‘Good. Glad to have you back,’ repeated Quire. ‘They’re in a bit of a flummox at the moment because there’s hardly enough moles to sing the Song and even though I offered my services to Skeat, he told me I was not chosen. So anyway, you can help me here…’

  He seemed about to dragoon Boswell into work when three moles entered the chamber from one of the side chambers.

  They snouted about, saw Boswell, and there was a moment of absolute stillness as everymole looked at each other. It was Boswell who broke the silence.

  ‘May the grace of the Stone be with you,’ he said. They relaxed a little.

  ‘And with thee,’ said one of the three.

  They continued to look at each other.

  ‘I do not know you,’ said Boswell quietly, his voice echoing among the books, ‘but my name is Boswell. I have returned from a journey to Duncton Wood.’

  One of the moles darted forward and snouted at him, turned round, and signalled to one of the others, who ran out of the entrance near where Bracken was crouching in the shadows. Soon several more moles joined them, none seeming to notice Bracken, who kept quite still as Boswell had told him.

  As Boswell crouched there, the moles about him began a curious chanting, nearer speech than song, which was deep and rhythmic and to which Boswell occasionally responded. Bracken could not catch most of the words, which were in a language strange to him, but Boswell’s response seemed to be ‘And with thee, and with thee…’ the same as one of the moles had spoken to him. He only recognised the word ‘thee’ because he had heard Boswell speak it occasionally to very old moles they had met.

  The moles were all shapes and sizes, and Bracken was disappointed to see that not one of them was white. Many were grey, and some just common or garden black, like him. But he had to admit that they did have an air of authority—a strange, quiet way of carrying themselves—that fitted well with the reverential air in the place and made him reluctant even to think of speaking or making a noise. He felt as if just being there was disturbing something precious and holy.