Duncton Found (120 page)

As Woodruff had begun to mature, he would come and ask Henbane to tell him a story she had told before and as it unfolded once again would ask for details she had not previously given.

How high were the highest tunnels of Whern? Is a White Mole’s fur really white? What were the names of Bracken’s siblings? (She remembered Tryfan naming only one of them.) How far is Uffington from Duncton Wood? What sound does a mole make when he dies?

Darkness came to the questions, and sometimes prurience, and sometimes mere morbid curiosity. But most of all there was what Henbane came to see as a kind of determination for detail, for fact, for knowing that one thing which nomole can ever know –
all
that had happened.

Of the Word and the Stone Henbane naturally had to talk, but feeling absolute trust in neither, she did not make him believe in one against the other. The tales she told, the facts she gave, surely revealed as much to him of the Word and of scrivening as they did of the Stone and scribing.

Yet it was of scrivening that one day she began to teach him, since that was her better art; and of the rituals and rites of the Word in Whern he inevitably knew more than of the Stone, since she knew more of them herself.

Yet again and again she would say, “I cannot tell you all I would like since I do not know it, and you must do as other moles do and seek out the answers for yourself. You must do it in what I heard the Stone Mole describe as a warriorlike way, but if you ask me what that is I can only tell you to remember all I have told you of Tryfan, for he was surely a warrior among moles.”

When June came and after much persuasion on his part (and despite her fears), she agreed to take him out from the place they had hidden in for so long and on to the fells. For him that climb up through heather and grass towards the sky was the beginning of an exploration of moledom that could never stop; for her it was the discovery that she had aged, and was slow, and her balance was not what it had been.

It was he who turned them back, he who slowed for her, he who helped her down the final slopes. She knew then that her days with him were numbered now, and that one last thing she might do was take him on his first real journey into moledom.

By now his fur was thickening fast, and his body was sturdy. He was not as large as Tryfan had been but strong enough, with well-made paws. His eyes were good, yet cautious too, as if he knew there were dangers in the world; his look was a little earnest.

“Where shall we go?” he asked with all the eagerness and innocence of youth when she told him what she had decided.

“Somewhere not
too
far to be daunting, but not so near that we will not have adventures on the way,” she said. “You’ll learn much and we may meet other moles.”

“But
where
?”

She pondered it for several days before she decided.

“Did I ever tell you about my journey south from Whern?”

“The first or second time?” he asked. “When you were leading the moles of the Word south, or when you were fleeing from Lucerne?”

“It was both times, really. Wrekin showed me a place that first time which was a haven to me on the second, much as this place has been. I think I would like to go there now. I wonder why I have never mentioned it to you.”

He looked at her and settled down for what sounded like the beginning of a tale, but she shook her head and said, “Woodruff, I think our time for tales is over now. We must go from here and you must begin learning about moledom as it really is. This journey shall be the start of that.”

His brow furrowed.

“It’s because you felt old when we went on the fell, isn’t it?”

She nodded and sighed.

“I shall have to let you go one day, my love. Before I do I want to share a journey with you so that you remember me in a different way than... this!” She waved a paw around at the place that had been their only home and suddenly it seemed small and inconsequential to her. It was certainly time to go.

“What’s the name of the place we’re going to?” he asked.

“It’s a place called Arbor Low. It’s a circle of white and fallen Stones. It’s... a very ancient place, a good place for a mole to journey to. We’ll set off early tomorrow.”

“Arbor Low,” he repeated, “Arbor Low.”

That night he came to her and looked at her in a way she knew followed much thought and usually preceded a question he found difficult to ask, “How did my mother die?”

He stared at her, resolute, and in one so young there was something so touching about his purposefulness that she almost wanted to weep.

She stared back at him, and she saw the blood and terror of Harebell’s awful death. Her body tensed again, she saw pup after pup die, those of Mallice and those of Harebell, and she heard the screams and her eyes were fixed on one pup, instinctively cowering, the one she had protected, the mole that stanced before her now.

Henbane stared at memory and wept, and Woodruff stared at Henbane, still resolute.

“Why did she die?” he whispered.

Then Henbane knew what to say.

“My dear, when you have made the journey we will make, and seen at least a little of moledom, if you ask me that question again I shall answer it as truthfully as I can.”

“All right,” he said. And that, for now, was that.

Arbor Low lies north of Beechenhill and Tissington, on the way towards the Dark Peak. Some say that the north starts here, for after it the ground begins to rise, and worms grow scarce.

Many a legend attaches to the pale Stones of Arbor Low, which lie in a circle in pleasant rolling ground some way to the west of the deep valley of the Higher Dove. They are limestone, and all but one Stone on the western side of the circle lie fiat and white, half buried in the pasture there.

Here, the scribemoles used to say, the powers of the scribemoles ended; and the influence, if not always the full power, of the Word began. To Henbane, whose heritage was of the Word, but whose heart had been stolen by the spirit if not the ritual of the Stone, it was a natural place to come.

The ground undulates hereabout, but round the fallen Stones themselves there is a bank of earth, quite steep in parts but flat and broken in the north, with a narrower, less distinct entrance to the south.

It was to here that Henbane brought Woodruff in early June, as evening fell and the flat sides of the fallen Stones caught the light of the sky and seemed like a circle of lights in the dusk across the ground. These were the first Stones the youngster had seen, and he was as excited as a mole could be to see and touch such Stones at last, after hearing so many descriptions and tales about them from Henbane.

Naturally it was the solitary one that was still upright in the west that awed him most, and to a mole who had never seen a Stone before it was awesome indeed.

“Why are they all fallen but this one?” he asked.

“My mother Charlock told me that here a great scribemole of the past was defeated by one of the early Masters and the Stones lay flat. But this last one stayed upright against the day when the Stone prevails here once more and the Word begins to die.”

With such tales as these in his mind, Woodruff helped Henbane make a tunnel and burrows in Arbor Low, and though he was not yet as skilled as her, what he lacked in experience he made up for in enthusiasm. There were worms enough, and a few troublesome rooks that flew over from their roosts in the great stands of trees that rose on adjacent hills, the highest of which, Gib Hill, was across a shallow valley to the south-west.

There was no question but that Woodruff had matured on the journey they had made, and that Henbane had aged more. But of that journey they had much to share and talk about – the meeting with moles at Alstonefleld, the attack of the tawny owl at Steep Low when Woodruff had raised his talons against another living creature for the first time, and found they worked! There had been the failure to cross the Dove at Wolfscotedale and the trek to the north to find a better crossing point. Much else besides, but grimmest of all the roaring owls at Parsley Hay that had nearly crushed them both before, finally, they came within sight of Gib Hill and Henbane knew they were nearly there.

They settled in quickly. The days were warm and slow and suited their mood of talking and quiet. Henbane needed help with finding worms now, and even climbing up the bank about the Stones was hard, and she did it only twice. She felt as if the last of her strength had gone on the journey to get there and she had no more, yet she was not sad or low. Each day it seemed to her that Woodruff grew more and she was glad, wishing each morning that came, “One more day, give me one more day,” and when the sun set, she did not fail to thank whatever it was that held their destiny for the day just past.

The Stones were peaceful and Woodruff asked much about them, and what they meant. Nothing disturbed them except that one day Woodruff thought he saw a mole off down the western slopes. Dark and big, like those guardmoles he had seen when young.

“Which way was he going?” asked Henbane, worried.

“Away from here,” he said.

She frowned and said it was probably just a vagrant and there was nothing to worry about. But then, after all, what could they do? The hiding time was over, the living time begun and they must take their chances.

“Keep an eye out, my dear, that’s all. Caution hurts nomole.”

It was now, as well, that he asked again about his mother’s death and she told him all she remembered: with quiet passion and outrage, and often with tears on her face. A mole must know the truth, and as best she could she told Woodruff of it. Lucerne she talked about more than before, and Sleekit too, describing how her old friend and aide had defended her and gave them the chance to escape.

It was then, too, that Henbane first told Woodruff about Mayweed, for though she had never met him herself Sleekit had told her much in the short time they were together after they met again at Kniveton when the Stone Mole had spoken.

But it was Lucerne who seemed to shadow her thoughts, for he was kin of Woodruff, and of him the mole’s questions were inexhaustible.

“So he had my mother killed?” said Woodruff at last.

“He wanted power over you – or whichever pup survived.”

“Are you sure I was Harebell’s pup and not one of Mallice’s?” he asked.

“I am sure,” she said.

“But it must have been so... terrible.”

She looked away. Distress at the memory? Or doubt? He dared not ask her more.

As for Henbane, she preferred to talk of something more positive. He was nearly mature, and Midsummer was near.

“When it comes, my love, I am going to ask for something that will be hard for both of us. I am going to ask you to leave.”

He said nothing. She had spoken of it before but he knew he could not leave. His world was her. Apart from her, there were only the names of those moles she had told him her tales of. Apart from her, there seemed nothing real at all.

“I would prefer to see you go as I see you now – young, strong, purposeful, excited.”

“Well I won’t,” he said. “How could you live alone?”

She smiled weakly. She could not live alone, yet she felt he was more than she deserved.

“And anyway, where would I go to? You’re my home.”

“You’ll have to go one day, my dear,” she said, “and Midsummer is the traditional time. I wish I knew the words that Tryfan said the moles of Duncton Wood used at such a time.”

“Special words?”

“Ritual words, I think. Well, you’ll find them out one day.”

“I’ll find out lots of things,” he said. “I’ll go....”

“Where will you go?”

“To the places you mentioned.”

“Some of them may be dangerous with grikes, and if moles ever know who you are your life will not be easy. Tell nomole who or what you are, Woodruff. Just say you came from Arbor Low.”

He looked at her, and saw her frailty, and was frightened of the future that seemed suddenly so near.

“Well, now, you tell me a story for a change,” she said.

He laughed, pleased, and just as he had learnt from her he thought for a moment and lured her into a world of make-believe.