Duncton Wood Page 65

  Sometimes he would peer back at the cliffs and slopes down which he had fallen and wonder if Celyn and Bran were still in the east beyond them and if they thought him dead. Some days he would pick his way among the tussocks of fescue and scurvy grass down to the clear cwm lake and drink at the dappled water, whose surface reflected the distant peaks that lowered over the cwm.

  Often he would think of Rebecca, with whom he had never even mated, and of what the power of their love had been—and still was, since it lived on inside him.

  But as the summer advanced into June he grew restless, for this was only a haven, not a home, and he wanted to go back finally to where beech trees soared in sunlight and oak trees rustled and the soil was rich. He wanted to see the white of chalk dust on his talons again.

  But perhaps what made him finally make the move to leave the cwm was the thought that Boswell at least might still be alive and might have got back safely to Uffington. In any case, he felt an obligation to return to Uffington and tell them that he had reached the Siabod Stones and worshipped the Stone and even seen the Stones of Tryfan, which nomole could ever reach.

  When he finally left the cwm and made his way down into the valley beneath it, he could not bear to turn north to trek a way back round to Siabod, because he feared the memories there would be too bleak. He had done what he had promised to do and now turned south, to make his way finally back to Uffington through other valleys and by way of other systems.

  And so it is that systems south of Siabod to this day tell of his passing—Rhinog, Cader, Mynydd, Faldwyn and back to Caer Caradoc, through which he and Boswell had originally passed. He saw that system after system was beginning to recover from the plague, while they saw in him a strange, wild mole with a terrible loss in his eyes but whose power of spirit was so great that none dared oppose him. As he passed through their tunnels he asked for little and said less, just telling them his name was Bracken of Duncton and that he had been to Siabod and was going to Uffington. While they wondered if he was a scribemole or special in some other way.

  They were right to see loss in his eyes, for once he was back to gentler country, where the plants were familiar and trees grew tall again, and the river water no longer froze in a mole’s mouth, he missed Rebecca more and more. The sun did not shine but that he thought of her; no shadow fell on him but that he ached for the comfort of her touch. But now that she was gone the only thought that sustained him through the moleyears it took him to travel back to Uffington was the hope that he would find his beloved Boswell safe and well in the Holy Burrows.

  * * *

  He reached them finally in December, climbing up past the Blowing Stone as he had once before and entering the tunnels at the top of the escarpment like a forgotten shadow.

  But they remembered him and clustered about him, chattering with excitement, eager for his news. ‘Tell us! Tell us!’ they exclaimed, as he was led through the great holy tunnels to where the Holy Mole was. ‘Is Boswell safe?’ was all he wanted to know, but nomole seemed to hear him.

  So, in great excitement and with an unaccustomed celebration in the Holy Burrows themselves, he found himself facing the Holy Mole himself, who was a mole he knew and remembered with love. It was Medlar, who had been in the Silent Burrows and who had come out on Skeat’s death and been made Holy Mole.

  Medlar looked on him in silence and saw, without a word being spoken, how much the mole he had taught to fight had suffered, and learned as well. Not being a scribemole, Bracken did not know the traditional greetings and another scribemole there said the words for him:

  ‘Styn rix in thine herte!’

  ‘Staye thee hoi and soint,’ intoned Medlar.

  ‘Me desire wot we none,’ said Bracken’s proxy.

  ‘Blessed be thou and full of blisse,’ smiled Medlar into Bracken’s eyes.

  They brought him food and made him rest before he began his tale, but when he did, he told it all quietly and with truth, as a warrior should, and they came to know that he had indeed fulfilled his promise to them. It was Medlar himself who raised the question uppermost in Bracken’s heart: ‘And Boswell, do you know what finally became of him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Bracken, ‘more than what I’ve said. I had hoped… I thought he might be here.’

  The scribemoles listening fell silent, one or two muttered a prayer of blessing, and the Holy Burrow in which they crouched grew still.

  ‘He is,’ said Medlar softly. ‘He did come back and he told us of your courage in leading him so far. He told us how you must have faced Gelert the Hound after he had been injured. All of us here have prayed for you many times, Bracken, and hoped the day would come when you might return.’

  ‘But what happened to Boswell?’ whispered Bracken, for there was nothing else that mattered to him anymore.

  ‘Come,’ said Medlar, ‘I’ll show you. For though few moles have ever been where you will go, I know that it is right that you should see. If you were a scribemole I would simply tell you, but you are not, and there are things that some moles such as you had better see and accept than wonder about for the rest of their lives.’ Then he added very seriously: ‘But you must promise me, or the Stone itself, that you will say not one single word in the place where I shall take you.’

  But before Bracken began to nod his head and say, ‘Of course,’ Medlar went on: ‘This may be your hardest trial, Bracken, harder than anything you have yet faced.’

  So, full of awe and fear, Bracken followed Medlar beyond the Holy Burrows into a tunnel that went west for two molemiles until he was inside the holy place where he had once crept unasked and heard the secret song.

  The tunnels led down to a place where the soil was almost white with chalk and there was the deepest silence he had ever heard. There were one or two novice scribemoles there, who moved about with great peace and grace and silence and seemed to protect the tunnels into which Medlar led him. Until, at last, there stretched before him a great chamber, on one side of which were a series of simple burrows, some unoccupied with open entrances and many long since sealed. But there was one whose seal was fresh.

  Medlar pointed to this one, and Bracken understood that his Boswell was inside it and had come of his own accord to live in the Silent Burrows.

  Silently Medlar led him into a smaller tunnel at the end of the chamber that led to other smaller burrows running behind the bigger ones, each of which had a tiny entrance, no bigger than a paw, where food was put so that the moles who had chosen to live in absolute silence might stay alive. Griefstricken, Bracken gazed at the little opening that was the only contact that his Boswell now had with life. Never, ever, had he felt so desolate.

  He returned to the main chamber and stared at the bleak, sealed walls, aching to dash his talons against them and cry out to Boswell to tell him that he loved him and had wanted to see him, and hear his voice, and feel his gentle touch once more. To tell him that Rebecca was gone from him and there was nomole left now who loved him as she and Boswell had.

  Unable to move, unable to talk, unable to tell Boswell that he was there so close, Bracken found that all he could do was to weep and say a bitter prayer that Boswell, at least, might find peace.

  ‘How do you know that he’s all right?’ asked Bracken when Medlar had led him back to the Holy Burrows.

  ‘He takes his food,’ said Medlar simply. ‘He has been there ever since he came back in August. He asked that he might be allowed to go there, for he felt that though he had failed in his quest for the seventh Stillstone and the Book, he might find something there that would bring him closer to the Stone.’

  ‘But why?’ cried out Bracken bitterly. ‘That isn’t where life is! Not there in that dead, lost place.’

  ‘No,’ said Medlar, ‘but for some moles it may be the place where life is found. Always remember that the trial Boswell is now facing alone is the equal of any you have faced. You can fight another mole or a blizzard and know that you have won; but you should know, Bracken, h
ow hard it is to face yourself in silence and seek out the truth that is inside your heart and soul. So pray for him, and try to bear your loss with compassion for him.’

  Later Medlar said, ‘He told me that he knew where the seventh Stillstone was, and what the subject of the seventh Book is. Do you?’

  So Bracken told him what he and Rebecca had seen beneath the Duncton Stone, and how he and Boswell had talked about the seventh Book.

  ‘It was a long time ago, and though we told him where it is, I don’t think he knew what the Book’s subject was. I don’t think so… but perhaps something has told him since. Will he ever come out of the Silent Burrows, as you did, Medlar?’

  ‘Only the Stone knows that. Nomole—not even I!—can ask him. Many moles never come out, and their burrows are finally sealed. We believe that such moles have found the silence of the Stone. Others know, as I knew, when to come out, for their task may be different. As for Boswell, nomole can know. But trust the Stone if you can, Bracken, as I have learned to do.’

  Bracken was silent for a long time, and the two moles crouched together, the sacred peace of one bringing peace for a while to the restless heart of the other.

  ‘What shall I do, Medlar? What is there left to do?’ asked Bracken eventually.

  Medlar smiled and touched Bracken’s paw. ‘If I thought you might become a scribemole I would say so. But I do not believe that this is your way. Go back to Duncton, Bracken, and make your home there again.’

  ‘But Rebecca is gone, and so much of the wood burned down… what is Duncton for me now?’

  ‘I cannot tell you,’ said Medlar, ‘but I know it is a question that does have an answer. Go back to Duncton and give the moles there your love and wisdom, as you say Rebecca once did.’

  To Bracken it seemed bleak advice, but what else was there to do? He was grateful to Medlar for having the wisdom to show him the burrows in which Boswell was now sealed, though their silence seemed to him a terrible thing and a cold kind of holiness. ‘Oh, Boswell,’ he murmured as finally, not even waiting to regain his full strength, he left Uffington and turned east into the restless November wind, towards Duncton.

  * * *

  Rebecca’s return to Duncton Wood had been as much a miracle to the Duncton moles as her departure had been a mystery. She had come back off the pastures one autumn day as easy as you please, in the company of a wiry kind of a mole called Bran who spoke with a harsh accent and whose laugh, when it came, was as cunning as a wind in gorse.

  He stayed a while, seemed unimpressed by what he saw, wouldn’t say a word about Rebecca’s journey or what she had been up to, and then, when November came, finally left.

  Her return established once and for all time Comfrey’s status as a mole whose eccentric isolation and abstracted habits seemed to have given him special gifts of wisdom and foresight. He had always said Rebecca would come back. Now he found the reverence they held him in embarrassing because there wasn’t anything special in what he did or said: he just listened to the Stone. And anyway, Rebecca was never going to leave Duncton for ever, just like that: so there seemed no call for any fuss and bother.

  He accepted Rebecca back rather as a pup takes it as a complete matter of course that his mother will return, even if she’s been gone a rather long time. And for most of the moles her return was just a nine days’ wonder. She was their healer, wasn’t she? A mole could always turn to her. In fact, come to think of it, it was just a little bit cheeky of her ever to have pushed off like that for so long…

  Longest Night passed, the second since the one with Bracken, and chill January ran into freezing February. The cycle of seasons again.

  Bit by bit she told Comfrey what had happened, and on those days when he knew that she was mourning Bracken, who must have been lost up on the slopes of Siabod looking for her, he made sure he was close by and quiet, just so she knew that she was loved.

  But always, at the back of his mind, was the fear that the day would come when she would slide down into that black despair he had seen once before, and he wondered if he would have the strength again to see her through.

  ‘If it’s going to come, then let it come,’ he used to mutter to the Stone as he passed it by on leaving her burrows. And there came a day, at the start of February, when it did.

  * * *

  There is a way to kill a mole that is so unimaginably cruel that even an owl might quail before the thought of it. Moles who live in systems plagued by it call it, quite simply, the Talon. But most, living in woods and distant fields as they do, have no name for it, and when, by terrible chance, they happen on it, or it on them, then their imagination can barely take in its harsh reality.

  It is called a harpoon trap. It has long, sharp prongs set on a spring which are poised above a tunnel in which a pawplate is set. The tunnel is blocked. The mole reopens it, touches the plate and down plunges the unseen Talon, which pierces and squashes at one and the same cruel time. A lucky mole dies at once. But through the paw, or shoulder, or flank, many unlucky ones are impaled, often too shocked even to struggle, and death comes on them with agonising slowness.

  By February, Bracken had reached a system on the chalk no more than twenty moledays from Duncton. Drawn as ever by the ancient sarsen stones that follow the chalk, he came one day to a field that seemed almost too good to be true. Open and flat, used as pasture for sheep in the summer and rich with worms as a result, and empty of moles. Off to one side of it stood a great circle of stones, which gave him comfort for he liked their presence, and since he liked to travel in stages—resting at a good place when he could find one—he decided to make the field his own.

  It already had a few old tunnels in it but no sign of mole at all. Perhaps he should have been suspicious; perhaps he was tired, and as he came nearer and nearer to Duncton, his mind was excited at approaching so near his home system after so long away and wondering what he might find.

  The field was good and he enjoyed prospecting it and then finally starting his tunnels over near the Stones, where another mole had left off. One day, two days, four days passed, and a heavy hoarfrost came. The ground grew white and hard, and as the worms tunnelled down deeper he followed suit, throwing up on the surface great heaps of reddish soil conspicuous against the frost.

  He ate well and slept long, putting off renewing his journey as long as he could. Then a day came when he found a tunnel burrowed out the evening before, which was blocked and smelt strange. Badgers? Rabbits? Weasels? He shrugged and sighed and started to build it up again, ignoring the strange smell, for he had scented more dangerous things than that.

  A forward step, a shiny, sinking flatness where the floor should have been, a click of steel, and from above came a piercing, lunging shock, so painful that he seemed himself to be the scream he screamed as it entered his right shoulder and impaled him to the floor.

  To what does a mole turn when a prong of steel thrusts through his body and sticks him to a tunnel floor, cutting through his veins and arteries and breaking through the joints and bones on which so much of his life depends?

  As the agony came piercing into him, Bracken began a cry for help no other mole could ever have understood, for it was distorted with such terrible pain; it was a name, the only name that finally, when he had come right to the edge of life itself, he thought of as protection: ‘Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca,’ he screamed. And even though he knew that she was dead, he cried out her name that she might come to him, to help her love; his love, Rebecca.

  * * *

  Like the other moles in Duncton, Comfrey heard Rebecca’s terrible scream of pain echo down the tunnels of the Ancient System that February day. But while the others quailed before it and ran to their burrows in fear, he turned towards it, running, running to help Rebecca, crying out that he was coming, running into her screams.

  He found her out on the surface, running wildly this way and that among the roots of the leafless trees, crying out and sobbing, ‘No, no, no, no,’ an
d writhing in a terrible pain and saying, ‘Help him, help him, oh help him,’ and not seeming to see Comfrey or hear him as he asked what it was, what was wrong, what he could do, what was hurting her, and he tried to hold her still to find out what it was—because he could see nothing.

  But she was racked with pain, and ran in sobbing agony here and there as if she was trying to find something, or shake something off, and then screaming Bracken’s name over and over and saying, ‘Help him, help him, help him,’ her breath coming out in great gasping sobs of pain, her face contorted with it as if she were possessed by an evil that she could not fight.

  ‘Rebecca, Rebecca,’ Comfrey shouted at her to try to stop her, but the more he called her name, the worse she seemed to get, until her talons cut and dug into the roots she passed and leaf litter flew from under the crazed scrabbling of her desperate paws.

  Then she was into the Stone clearing and running randomly around it, not caring if she hit herself on the great roots by the Stone, dashing her talons on the ground and thrashing them in the air and shouting, ‘Help him, help my Bracken, help my love,’ and then dashing against the very Stone itself, her paws and talons scratching and splintering on it as she shouted or screamed, ‘I can’t help him, I can’t help you, I can’t, so help him, help him’—and there were tears of grief and pain down her twisted face and sweat on her flanks, and her breathing seemed to fill the Stone clearing with its pain. And Comfrey watched in horror as she cried, ‘Oh help him, he’s Bracken, he’s still alive, so help him.’

  * * *

  The turf above Bracken was torn open and white light from the sky added to his agony. A smell of roaring owl thrust down to the steel that impaled him and picked the trap and Bracken up bodily together. It grasped him firmly and then pulled him off the Talon, down a tunnel whose sides were his own exposed nerves, and though he was free of the Talon, the pain became worse as he was held up in the air, limp as death, and bloody. There was the growl of a voice whose language he could not understand, a mocking voice of contempt and dislike.