Author: William Horwood
Category: Childrens
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While in one place only across all of moledom the sun shone again that day, bringing to life the wet faces of its pale scars and high fells. At Whern it shone, and on Lucerne its light fell, and his eyes narrowed against it and liked it not.
He turned back underground, his eyes dark and his mouth cruel, his body bent towards a future grim that would start where he himself began, by the still pool of the Rock of the Word. So to there he went, and found Henbane.
“What shall you do?” she said, for the day of dark and sun, when her only pup had hit her, was a day when life turned and set itself anew.
“I like not the light, nor the Stone,” Lucerne whispered across the dark pool to the Rock of the Word. Then he was silent as he began to plot the final fading of the light, and the destruction of the Stone.
“Its fall shall be your ministry,” she said. “I shall not oppose your accession when the time comes.”
“No,” said Lucerne evenly, “you shall not.”
Lucerne turned and stared into her eyes and, powerful though she was and still remained, his gaze was the greater, and she looked away. At the Rock? At tunnels that led to where nomole knew?
“Leave me,” said Lucerne.
Neither Rock nor tunnel was it that she saw as she left. But rather a memory, as faint and uncertain as the light that tried to glimmer at the fissure high in the roof above. A memory before any she had ever caught before. A memory born in this very chamber, when she herself was born. A memory of a momentary shaft of light, lost in the fell years when Charlock her mother and Rune her vile father bore down upon her. Lost until now. And knowing it Henbane, for the first time since that nearly forgotten time when she was still wet from her mother’s womb, faltered.
“Leave me!” roared out Lucerne.
Which Henbane did, scattering the sideem that clustered about the higher tunnels, breathless, desperate for the surface and what it had which Whern could never have. Which was light, light of a June day almost done, light that follows the cleansing rains of a storm.
“Light,” said Henbane softly as if she saw it for the first time, and she wept for what she was and what Lucerne had now become. Wept for the life and lives she had lost, and could never find again.
“Help us,” she whispered as she watched the light of that day fade now across Whern, and all moledom too, and saw the darkness come. But whether her prayer was answerable, whether by the Word or something greater than the Word, nomole could know. Moledom faced at last itself, and the answers would lie in what it did, and how.
Chapter Six
As the rain finally eased across Duncton Wood and gave way to a cool evening, Tryfan began to tell Beechen of the events that led to his birth there before the Stone.
Feverfew stayed on as witness to the truth of what Tryfan said, and sometimes when his memory was doubtful or faulty gave her own account, for history is never certain, and its tellers rarely perfect.
Again and again on a particular point of detail Tryfan would say, “You’ll need to look at Spindle’s account of this, for he was the one who insisted on scribing things down and leaving good records behind, and though many of the texts were hidden where they were scribed and must one day in more peaceable times be recovered, when he settled in the Marsh End with me he scribed more general accounts of things as they had been, saying that one day it might be useful. Sooner than he thought, I imagine! The pace of moledom has increased since I was your age. But even so, between us Feverfew and I can tell you of the things that matter most and the details can wait until you know scribing....”
Of his journey to Uffington Tryfan spoke, and of Boswell; of the coming of the grikes and the long eclipse of the Stone’s light by the darkness of the Word; of the journeys with Spindle and the exploration into the heart of the Wen where he first met Feverfew. Then after that to Whern, and the return to Duncton and the star in the sky that presaged Beechen’s birth.
As night fell and the moon rose, Tryfan told Beechen with affection of the many moles, many still unknown and their tasks still unfulfilled, who carried in their hearts the light of hope and faith that one day a leader would come to show them the way out of the darkness which, as many were beginning at last to see, they had helped make for themselves. So he led their talk to the Stone Mole’s coming.
“You know who the Stone Mole is, don’t you, Beechen?”
Beechen nodded, and stared at the moonstruck Stone.
“It is me, isn’t it?” he said simply. Then he added with a touching humbleness, “But I am just mole. I’m not special. But....”
As he paused Tryfan went closer to him on one flank and Feverfew on the other, and all three stared at the Stone and the dark sky beyond.
Beechen continued softly: “Sometimes I seem to know I’m more than me and it makes me frightened, but excited as well. I feel there are moles waiting for me but I don’t know where or how I am to find them. When I touched the Stone I knew that some of those others were there helping me. But....”
Beechen turned to look at Tryfan, and then at his mother, and there was fear in his eyes, and tears. By that light he looked barely older than a pup.
“I don’t have to leave yet, do I?”
“No, not yet,” said Tryfan, barely able to contain the confusion of feelings he felt before Beechen’s mixture of fear and simple acceptance of a task whose difficulty and greatness he already sensed. “You’ve things to learn, things that we in Duncton can teach you. Your task for now is to listen to other moles you meet and learn from what they say and what they do.
“In the old days youngsters left in the years after Midsummer – those at Duncton went out on to the Pastures and a few, like myself, left the system altogether. I first left Duncton in September and I think your time to leave will be when autumn comes as well, but the Stone will guide you on that. Perhaps some of us will come with you, for you will have much to do and will need help as I did. But there too the Stone will help you as it helped me find Spindle and Mayweed and many others I grew to love. Why mole, leaving’s a fear-making thing but ’tis a challenge as well, and there’re moles waiting to cross your path and bring you much you never dreamed of.
“But meanwhile you must take leave of your mother for the short time to Midsummer, during which I will take you about the system so that you get to know its tunnels and the moles who live here. We shall live in the Marsh End, and before Midsummer comes you shall learn a little of scribing. Afterwards you shall learn much more, and it may not be easy for I sense there is but little time. The summer years, perhaps, but not much more. I had longer than that with Boswell but never felt I had learnt enough! But for now get some sleep. Dawn comes and we must take our leave soon.”
At one time Tryfan had assumed that the Stone Mole would come ready made but now he understood that his own task with Beechen was to prepare him as best he could, with others’ help, for whatever challenges might present themselves. For that it was certainly better he left his home tunnels and lived among other moles.
Tryfan’s natural protectiveness towards Beechen had already made him fix on the Marsh End Defence tunnels as the best place for him to be. It was the repository of all Spindle and he had scribed through the long winter moleyears before this summer, and in the atmosphere of texts and learning Beechen must find out all he could of what moles had made of the Stone, and what, too, they had unmade.
“Anyway,” Tryfan told Feverfew a little later when Beechen had gone to sleep, “now that summer’s here I feel a scribe’s need to go back to the work I left the day Spindle died and this youngster was born. I’ve a lot to do and he can help me do it and learn a thing or two as well. There’s plenty of moles down Barrow Vale and Marsh End way who’ll be glad to meet him, and he’s a friendly inquisitive youngster and will learn as much from them as anymole else.”
“I shall miss yew tway,” said Feverfew, “yette does a moule nede silence and tranquylitie after the pasciouns of the sprynge. Watch ovre hym wel, my der, and youseln also.”
“I shall, Feverfew. Nor should you wander far. Midsummer’s the time the grikes get active once more and no doubt some will venture into Duncton and poke about. Well, you know the system’s ways and how to avoid strangers, and Skint, who knows the ground along the roaring owl way better than any mole, has got watchers organised so we’ll not be taken by surprise.”
They dozed together for a while, paw to paw, flank to flank, snout snuggled into the other’s fur, and dawn light crept through the trees into the rain-damp wood and bathed the sleeping moles in its softness until the rising sun warmed their fur and dried the moisture at their paws, and they awoke once more.
After grooming and a peaceful meal together, the three said a short prayer to the Stone and set off downslope. The confusions of the day before seemed to have left the trees and undergrowth and they were soon back to the runs and tunnels that had been their shared home since April.
The two males said a brief farewell to Feverfew and then, turning from her, set off downslope once more, the feeling of sadness soon leaving as the rich lower slopes of Duncton Wood opened out before them, and a new and important part of Beechen’s life began.
Tryfan’s return to Barrow Vale after so long away, and with no less a mole than Beechen the Stone Mole at his flank, was soon observed and caused great excitement. There had been much talk over the time since April of what Beechen might be like, and those few sightings of him that had been made – and what guardians like Bailey, Sleekit and Mayweed had said – had only added to the sense that he was a mole the system might well be proud of, and one worthy to carry the hopes of the many old and beset moles who had felt until his coming that time and circumstance had passed them by, and they had been outcast to oblivion and hopelessness.
So when word went out that Tryfan and the youngster were fast approaching Barrow Vale – no, had arrived in Barrow Vale – many a mole put all thoughts of summer tunnel delving, modest exploration and a spot of worm-finding to one side, and under the guise of coming to say hello, came to have a good look at how Beechen had turned out.
Tryfan, less sociable now than he might once have been, was not well pleased by the crush of extended paws and pattings on the back, but he took it with rough grace and was glad to see that Beechen was warm and friendly to all he met, though a little too dazed before so many to say much.
A few familiar faces were among the throng, and these Beechen was especially glad to see: Bailey was there, a mole he much liked and whom he knew had a special place in Feverfew’s heart since he had been appointed by Boswell to watch over her coming to Duncton Wood. There, too, he met the quiet but impressive Marram, who wished him well and said that when Tryfan judged the time right he would be glad to tell Beechen about guardmole ways – he had been a guardmole once – and about Siabod where he had journeyed and lived awhile.
“Siabod!” said Beechen. “I’d be glad to hear about that place!”
They lingered longer than Tryfan might have wished in Barrow Vale and though the intention had originally been to travel on through to the Marsh End that same day, it was decided eventually to stay where they were for the night. Others did the same and as the evening evolved into a night of quiet reunion and story-telling, and later some mirth and revelry mixed (it must be said) with maudlin nostalgia for times past but not forgotten, Tryfan was glad that they had stayed. It did Beechen good to listen to others talking, and to hear the old songs and know what a strange outcast system of moles he had been born into and from which he might yet learn much.
The moles gathered in the great community chamber of
Barrow Vale itself where once, Tryfan explained, the elder meetings of the system were held and where the great and notorious Mandrake held court; and where, too, the sinister Rune, then young, first gained power in a southern system and learnt the weaknesses and the strength of followers of the Stone.
“Before my time,” growled Tryfan in memory of those days, “but Rune desired my mother and she desired him not. For that, much later, I had punishment enough!” He waved a paw across his scarred face and the moles were silent and serious, for there was not one there but Beechen himself who had not a suffering story to tell about moles of the Word; and the bitterest were those who had been grikes or guardmoles themselves, and whom the Word betrayed.
The chamber of Barrow Vale, so long deserted after the plagues came, was in use again, its floor dust-free and its entrances clear. The sense of age and history that the place had came not so much from the earthen walls as from the roots of the trees on the surface above which gave support and delineation, and in many places – the more comfortable ones – were polished by mole passage or use as resting places, and here and there were pitted and roughened by the sharpening of talons.
Friends of Tryfan, like Bailey and Marram, and Sleekit too who joined the group later in the evening, formed the inner circle of moles near Tryfan and Beechen, along with a few bolder souls who wanted a good look at the youngster. But by far the greater number were those quiet and modest moles, many aged now, who encircled the inner group. Though they spoke little their eyes said much, for they watched Beechen with a touching eagerness and loyalty, and listened to the general talk in some awe.
When Beechen went among them, as he did later with some worms, they were embarrassed and abashed, but mostly pleased that he came so close.
Yet all was not quite peace and tranquillity, for moles do not mix easily in large numbers, and arguments sometimes flare.
One mole in particular seemed to attract a general opprobrium and his name was Dodder. He was an old guardmole, and a senior one at that, who seemed irritable with moledom and inclined to argue with anymole near him, and provoke hostility in others.
“You’re not stancing here, you mean old bugger,” said another to him when he first came down from the surface.
“Wouldn’t want to, Madder. It’s bad enough having to share a chamber with you let alone a patch! You and your kind is what moles like me gave our lives for.”
“Humph!”
And so on. But outbursts like these were short-lived and as moles finally dozed off and judgements of the night were made, most agreed that it had been a successful coming out for Beechen, and the youngster had acquitted himself well. As for the business of the “Stone Mole” and that, well, a mole got carried away in April by the light of a strange star for he seemed normal enough a mole now he had grown, didn’t he? Nothing exactly holy about him. In fact, truth to tell, it was a bit disappointing that he was so normal....
But when morning came and everymole had to get on with their day, a good few forgot their shyness of the evening before and came forward and modestly wished Beechen well, and, having heard he was to learn scribing down in the Marsh End, they whispered that they hoped Tryfan did not treat him too hard and that he got out into the fresh air from time to time.
“Thank you,” faltered Beechen, not sure what he was thanking them for and wondering what they knew or guessed about Tryfan that he did not.
Moleyears later, many remembered their first meeting with Beechen at Barrow Vale, and would say, with that nostalgia tinged with sadness that attaches to memory of a world lost beyond recall, “He were but a youngster then, with eyes as wide as a starling’s bill for moledom all about! Whatmole would have thought...?”
But whatever mole did think, one at least had special reason to remember those early days, and his story, but briefly told, must be enough to show that even then Beechen, for all his “normality” and youth, had been touched by the Stone and was already, though he himself probably knew it not, reaching out to touch moledom’s heart.
It happened that morning, soon after they set off from Barrow Vale, that they came across a mole, a thin old male, hiding to one side of their route in the gloom of some nettle stems, as if he had been waiting for them to pass so that he might catch a glimpse of them. It was not the first time it had happened – indeed, Tryfan was used to it on his own account for many of the outcasts ha
d had experiences so violent and sad that they were timid and half-broken things; and if disease had touched them as well, they were embarrassed yet pathetically eager for acknowledgement.
Though Tryfan was no longer a mole who bothered much with the niceties of social behaviour – perhaps because he could not see as well as he once could – he always found it in his heart to greet such moles, though if he could he avoided protracted conversations with them. But a greeting, and a touch, and a moment’s warmth did not seem too much to give.
On this particular day, and after the fingerings in Barrow Vale, Tryfan was more than eager to get on. Certainly, there was timidity in the mole’s gaze, but it was mixed with curiosity and longing too. Tryfan had seen the mole on the night of Beechen’s birth but did not know his name, and he had not been among those in Barrow Vale the night before.
“May the Stone be with thee, youngster,” said the mole who, to Tryfan’s relief, did not attempt to say more, or come any closer. Indeed, they were almost past him before Beechen stopped and turned and stared back at the mole.
“Come on, Beechen,” said Tryfan, fearing another delay.
But it was too late, and Beechen had gone back to the mole and greeted him.
His face was ravaged by scalpskin, and his paws were swollen, bent and evidently painful. He looked both surprised and alarmed as Beechen approached and half turned to get away. But Beechen was too fast for him and the old mole stopped and his face broke into an uncertain smile.
“’Twas just to wish you well, mole. Just to see you.”
Beechen stared and said nothing, and the mole said nervously, “They say you’re named Beechen. Not a name I’ve heard before but sturdy enough all the same.” The mole spoke clearly and well despite his natural diffidence. His accent was local and Tryfan guessed that he had been brought to Duncton from a nearby system.
“What’s your name?” asked Beechen.
“Me?” said the mole. He seemed to hesitate, which was strange since a mole ought to know his name even if he was diseased and inclined towards forgetfulness. “My name? ’Tis... why, I don’t know. I...” and his voice slipped into a fading unhappy cackle as if he regarded himself as so worthless he had even forgotten his own name.