Duncton Found (101 page)

So convincing was he that they even found a suitable place and prepared some tunnels and burrows there. But then, just when Romney, pleased with his set of tunnels and looking forward to his first sleep there, was settling down as darkness fell Mistle came in without a by your leave or thank you.

“We can neither of us stay here, like furtive moles in our own system! We must begin as we mean to go on, and live where it can be seen we are here, and proud to call ourselves Duncton moles.”

“Like where?” said Romney heavily.

“I don’t know yet, but nearer the Stone. I’ll find the right place soon enough.”

“Well, when you have will you let me know, mole? Meanwhile if you don’t mind....”

“Oh we’re going to look now, we’re not putting it off.”

“But....”

“
But?
”

Romney sighed, and grinned ruefully.

“Where do we begin?”

“Let’s start on the slopes between Barrow Vale and the Stone and work from there. The right place will emerge in time. It’s a matter of patience.”

“
Tonight?
”

Mistle hesitated.

“Tomorrow then,” she said, conceding for once. “I suppose we have hardly stopped for a moment since we came here, have we?”

“No, we haven’t.”

“Violet used to say a mole should know when to stop and stance still. I’m sorry, Romney. Do I work you too hard? It’s only that I want things to be right.”

“Yes, you do work me too hard. I can take it, but one day other moles may come who can’t, so you remember that. Now you stance here, mole, I’ll get some food and we’ll just talk for a change. You can tell me about this Violet you keep mentioning and about the Stone, too, because you forget I’m of the Word. There’s things I’d like to know.”

That night, for the first time, the two moles talked, the snowy wood falling into darkness above them, and only the rustle of falling twig and the quick call of tawny owl to break the silence. Mistle told Romney all about her puphood in Avebury, and something of her escape from it, and how she had joined forces with the mole Cuddesdon.

“You know I’ve hardly thought about him at all since we were separated in Hen Wood. I just feel he’s safe and that one day we’ll meet again.”

“All these males you’re going to meet again.!”

“Only two so far,” she said. “But I think the Stone meant Cuddesdon and I to part when we did, and for me to find Beechen. I’m sure Cuddesdon got to Cuddesdon Hill and is discovering what it is the Stone wants him to do there.”

“You believe the Stone guides everything, don’t you?”

“I think it helps us along, and not always in directions we expect or think are right for us. Beechen told me that Tryfan believed that moles behave most intelligently when they don’t think about it too much. The Stone reminds them, sometimes forcibly, what’s good for them.

“The nice thing about Cuddesdon and I is that from the day we first met we decided to trust each other. That’s why I’ve not thought about him much since Hen Wood. I trust him to have done the right thing, and I know he’ll trust me to do the same. He knew I was going to make my way here one way or the other, and here I am! He’ll find me in time. It’s how moles should be, Romney.”

“It’s how we were as pups with our mother,” said Romney, who had explained that he had been raised in a Midlands system and then put into service of the Word as a guardmole and had travelled ever since. “But with the Word everymole is judged all the time and I wouldn’t say ‘trust’ is commonplace. Senior moles are watching out to see if their subordinates have done wrong. And if they have, naturally they punish them.

“Now, this mole Cuddesdon, what was he going to do exactly when he got to wherever he was going?”

Mistle shrugged and, laughing affectionately, said, “That was always a joke between us since he didn’t know himself. We agreed that the Stone would guide him. But not mate, I think. He decided he wasn’t the mating kind.”

“And you?” said Romney softly.

She shook her head and looked away and fell silent, thinking.

“Ever since I met Beechen I know I’ve wanted young almost more than anything. That, and Duncton Wood! Well, I’ll just have to wait until he comes back.”

There was a moment or two of tension in the air and then Romney relaxed and smiled.

“Well! I don’t think I’m going to get very far with you!”

“Romney! You and me?” She seemed genuinely amused, and Romney looked a little rueful.

“It would be natural... wouldn’t it? I mean there’s nomole else.”

But Mistle only laughed more.

“It’s not that I don’t like you, but, well, I’ve found my mole. And anyway....”

“Anyway what?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m not having ‘nothing’ from a mole who always speaks the truth a little too directly on every other subject.”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“What’s obvious?” said Romney.

“It was obvious to me, anyway.”

“
What
was obvious?”

“Rampion! She likes you!”

“Rampion
?”

Mistle nodded, feeling pleasantly sleepy.

“But she’s gone back to Rollright.”

“Don’t worry, she’ll come here. You’re too good a mole for her not to. Anyway, Duncton needs your pups.”

“Mistle, you’re impossible!”

There was friendly silence for a time until eventually Romney said again, “Do you really think so? I mean about Rampion?”

“Yes,” murmured Mistle.

“She’s quite a nice mole.”

“Very nice,” repeated Mistle, almost asleep.

“I never thought of
that
,” said Romney to a sleeping burrow. “Rampion?”

Snow fell yet again that night, but evidently deep in the hearts of moles, deep in the soil and deep among the roots of trees, spring was beginning to stir.

“She’s quite a good looking mole, in fact,” said Romney to himself sometime in the night, feeling Mistle’s friendly flank next to his, and glad to be alive.

An ominous calm settled over Caer Caradoc in the weeks after the victory over the moles of the Word, but hostilities all along the western front soon increased as Ginnell responded to his defeat by putting pressure on those points where he felt the Welsh followers were weakest.

The greatest pressure was felt north of Caer Caradoc in that area controlled by Gaelri, the second of the Pentre siblings, and more than once he had to ask Troedfach to send moles up from Caradoc.

Neither side seemed quite to have the numbers it needed to risk continuing an attack too long if the opposition proved at all effective. Nevertheless, despite reinforcements, Gaelri’s defences nearly failed towards the end of January and was only saved by a timely deterioration in the weather which forced the attacking and more exposed moles of the Word to retreat.

Caer Caradoc itself was not attacked again, and after the vulnerable period after Longest Night, when Troedfach hurried to get moles in place up there, it was secure though by no means impregnable, for its top is extended and would need far more moles than Troedfach could afford from the main front to make it truly safe.

“They’ll come again when spring starts and the weather turns mild,” said Gareg one day as he stanced with Troedfach high on the top.

“I do not understand why he fell back on Longest Night,” growled the old campaigner suspiciously. “A few more hours and he’d have had us. He’s not a mole who likes that kind of defeat and if I was him I’d be planning even now how to take it back. He’s no fool and he knows that we’ve to hold the place, which keeps moles caught here getting cold and dispirited. Have you thought what he might do?”

Gareg screwed his eyes against the bitter wind and looked out east over Word-dominated moledom.

“Often,” he said tersely. Troedfach nodded, pleased. Gareg was proving his promise as a commander and strategist – a mole who did his best to think as his enemy might.

“Ginnell will begin a heavy and sustained attack against Caradoc at the same time as mounting another some way from here, attacks which will leave us guessing which the main one is. If we increase our strength on Caradoc we weaken ourselves elsewhere, and he’ll go hard for us there. If we do the opposite he’ll take Caradoc – or try to.”

“I agree, I’m sure that’s what he’ll do. But what should our response be?”

“What we’ve always tried to do: what the grikes least expect, but this time in a different way. If he is attacking us in two places then one thing is sure – he’ll be weak elsewhere and we can break him there. Perhaps it would not matter if we lost Caradoc again, or another place as well, if we were able to advance rapidly through his line. Supposing then all our force was to attack half of his before he could regroup? Why, we would have a greater victory than we have ever had.”

“Gareg, you young moles have spirit! I hope I live to see the day of such a victory, and look into the eyes of Ginnell whom I have fought so long.”

“And what would you say to him, Troedfach?”

“Say? No, mole, we’d discuss and find out where we went right and wrong. I have no quarrel with Ginnell as a mole, only with the Word he represents.”

“On the other paw...” said Gareg, staring eastward as far as he could see.

“Yes, mole?”

“Nothing, Troedfach. A young mole’s ideas, that’s all! Another time if you’ve the patience for it.”

“Your day will come, Gareg, I know it will. When it does, mole, remember that it is for the Stone we have fought all these long years, not for ourselves.”

“I’ll not forget.”

One result of this conversation was that Gareg was deputed to organise swifter messenger moles along the line, so that Troedfach received news of attacks more quickly than he had before. It was a good exercise for February, a period when little normally happened in those parts, the winter having set in and moles finding surface travel difficult. A good time for tactical attack and harassment, but nothing more.

Yet in a small way the new messenger system soon proved its worth, for news came in from Gaelri’s way that Ginnell had sent moles along the line and up towards Siabod, whose long valley was the only real break in the line. Troedfach sent some more moles that way, to help reduce the movement of the grike guardmoles.

The reason for this movement was soon apparent when, to Troedfach’s surprise and pleasure, no less a mole than Alder appeared at his emplacement west of Caer Caradoc one day accompanied by a few hardy Siabod moles, all old friends.

“We expected to see you months ago, see?” said Troedfach.

“We had trouble on Siabod’s lower slopes, for it was not as easy to clear of grikes as we expected and I doubt that even now we have done so. Ginnell knows his stuff and sent moles in to reinforce the place.”

“We knew of it, and tried to slow them down.”

“Enough came to make our task impossible. But Siabod’s in no danger and I’ve left the place in Gowre’s paws. He’s glad to be left alone to do it, and he’ll not let us down. I wanted to see the view from Caer Caradoc again.”

Alder had been kept well informed about Caer Caradoc. Now Troedfach pointed a rough paw at the great hill.

“There you are, mole. Do you want to stroll up it before or after you’ve groomed and eaten?”

Alder’s wise gaze travelled slowly up the steep slope to the outcrops at the top.

“After, I think,” he said and laughed.

But the weather worsened and he was content to stay with Troedfach and talk of old times, and watched with approval as his old friend delegated the complex day by day business of organising the line to Gareg.

“You’ve a good one there, Troedfach.”

“He is. He’ll help lead us to victory one day, and he’ll do it well.”

“I wish I could see that day. I wish....”

He fell silent, his old head lined and grey.

Troedfach said slowly, “What is it, Alder? Why did you really come?”

“I’m tired, Troedfach, too tired now. All these long years in Siabod, so many memories. I had hoped to leave before Longest Night but that was not to be for Gowre was not ready to take over. But now, I’ve handed Siabod back to a Siabod mole, and one of Glyder’s kin.”

“Did Glyder...?”

Alder nodded.

“Aye, he did. Gowre got him back to Ogwen and stayed with him to the end, which was not long coming. He was not alone when he died. But that’s a reason I’ve come here... I wanted to tell Caradoc of it personally. Those two had something in common, something nomole else but me knows about. Where is the old rascal?”

Troedfach grinned.

“About. He’s not changed, but wanders here and there telling younger moles about the Stone and the traditions of the Marches. He was much upset by the way Caer Caradoc was taken, not liking to see bodies up there among the Stones. He’s not a fighting mole, see?”

“Not fighting with talons, no, but of the spirit he’s one of the greatest fighters I know.”

“He lives for the day when Caradoc is free for anymole to wander. If he had his way moles would live up there again, or hereabout and trek up there to worship at the Stones.”

“Does he still believe...?”

“The Stone Mole? Aye, he claims he’s coming here. Up that slope you’ve been avoiding climbing, that’s where the Stone Mole will go.”