“Why were they going there? And... and who are you?” she asked.
“They had been sent by Wyre himself to assess Avebury.”
Since it was plain that she did not understand who Wyre was, and was therefore uncertain who he himself was, Cuddesdon, in his own idiosyncratic way, quickly reassured her.
“Wyre is the sideem in charge of Buckland and supreme commander of southern moledom. Can’t say I’m a close friend of his, of course, but you can take it from me that he’s a mole others obey. Most unfortunately for him, though it causes some followers I know a bit of mirth, he is unable to go out and about much at the moment since he has, so they say, galloping scalpskin. He must have been a bit too thorough about poking his snout up into the notorious tunnels of the Slopeside and caught it there. Perhaps the Word was displeased with him!”
Mistle, who knew nothing of such things at all, though she knew of Buckland, looked alarmed at this reference to the Word.
“Don’t worry, I’m not a grike if that’s what you’re thinking. Nor am I of the Word.”
Mistle gasped at this, since she had never in her life heard a mole openly admit such a thing, except for Violet.
“Why, you may ask, was I in their company?” he continued. “Answer: I’m a craven coward and when a guardmole says jump I jump. I was sent along to serve them, which mainly means food-finding and tunnel-making, both of which I happen to be rather good at.
“I am also prudent and cautious by nature, which is why I am alive today. Though come to think of it
this
...” he waved his paw about in a general way to indicate the whole adventure of their escape from the grikes... “is hardly prudent. So perhaps I’d better revert to my true self and ask who you are, where you’re from and, as old moles of the Stone ask, ‘Whither are you bound?’”
“Well, you know I’m from Avebury...
“You
say
you’re from Avebury!”
“I never lie,” said Mistle immediately. “Never ever!”
“Right! Fine! I take it back. You’re from Avebury.”
“I certainly am. And... as for where I’m going I’m not quite sure.
Can
I trust you?”
“You can.”
She giggled and said mischievously, “How do you know I’m not a grike?”
“As I know where worms are, mysteriously. You look like a fleeing mole to me, got into trouble and then out of it by the skin of your teeth.” They were silent for a little, looking in a friendly way at each other.
Then Cuddesdon exclaimed. “Avebury! Impressive that. I did not think moles got out of there very easily. One of the ancient Seven and all that, and very heavily guarded on Wyre’s orders. Like Duncton Wood, Fyfield and Rollright, it’s
watched
.”
“Well I got out,” said Mistle vaguely.
“Tell me,” said Cuddesdon.
“Well,” said Mistle calmly, “perhaps it would be better if you told me about you first.”
“Fair enough. My parents were brought to Buckland before I was born – in fact they met there and what they had in common was they came from the same system. In fact, they were the only survivors from their system. Fate played a paw in bringing them together, you see. My father died before I was born, my mother died soon after and all I know about either of them is the name they left me: Cuddesdon. It’s where they came from.”
Cuddesdon paused for dramatic effect until eventually Mistle said, “Well... do you know anything about it, like where it is?”
Cuddesdon shrugged and pointed a paw in a north-east direction.
“All I know about it is that it is over there and it has good views.”
“Of what?”
“Moledom I should think. But something in my bones says it’s a good place to start.”
“Start what?” asked Mistle.
“Something or other,” said Cuddesdon, frowning. “Something worthwhile. Yes, that’ll be it: something worthwhile. It’s not very nice having no parents, no siblings, nomole at all. Nor is it nice to have to say, ‘I was born at Buckland.’ It’s not my idea of a home system. I long ago decided to leave and find a way of getting to Cuddesdon and there start... something. I met a follower of the Stone and he made me think his way was better than the Word’s, and that gave me the idea that what I start will be a system of the Stone. But the older I get the more I realise that I don’t know anything about the Stone – at least not much. When it came down to it that mole I met didn’t know much either but what he did know sounded pretty good, and combined with what Cuddesdon’s like, with views and that, starting something there can’t be bad!”
“How do you know it’s got views?”
“My mother told me. Do you know why I didn’t mind having to go to Avebury?”
Mistle shook her head.
“Because it’s got a Stone. It’s renowned for its Stones. I mean real Stone Stones. That’s why the grikes don’t like it, and guard it so well. Well, I’ve hardly ever seen a Stone at all since the grikes aren’t keen on them and there aren’t any at Buckland. I have seen some since we left but I didn’t know what to do when I found them, and they just sort of stood there.”
Mistle laughed and crunched a worm.
“I don’t think it’s especially funny,” he said.
“I’m enjoying myself,” replied Mistle. Then suddenly and quite unexpectedly she remembered Violet, and Avebury, and felt weepy and homesick and said, “But....”
Immediately Cuddesdon raised a paw, “No ‘buts’. Problematic things, ‘buts’, with a negative life all their own. ‘But’ is a grike word, like ‘mustn’t’, ‘can’t’, ‘shan’t’, ‘sin’, ‘punish’, ‘Atone’ and, by degrees, ‘snouting’ and ‘dead’. So if you want my company no more buts. Now... I told you about me, you tell me about you. Where were you heading for before you collapsed in a heap? Was it Uffington you said?”
“Beyond it to Duncton Wood I should think,” she replied.
“Oh! Well ask a silly question and it seems with Avebury moles you immediately get a silly answer. Duncton Wood: nice place to go if you want to catch an infectious disease and live miserably until you die.”
“Violet, my grandmother, said it was a safe place for a mole to go.”
“Violet, your grandmother, must be a mole used to living dangerously if she described Duncton Wood as safe. It’s about as safe as an owl’s nest. Your grandmother must be mad.” But seeing his remark had brought Mistle close to tears again, Cuddesdon said with surprising gentleness, “I wish you’d tell me about the Avebury Stones... and Violet.”
“She didn’t mean safe from talons. She meant safe for... well....”
“Yes?” said Cuddesdon.
“For moles of faith.”
“What faith?”
“Just faith,” said Mistle, so used to keeping quiet about the Stone that she could not bring herself to mention it now, even though every instinct in her told her that Cuddesdon was a mole she could trust.
“Wait a minute!” said Cuddesdon as much to himself as her. “Don’t tell me you’re a genuine unadulterated follower? I mean a follower of the Stone? No ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’? The real thing?”
“Well...” began Mistle, her doubts about Cuddesdon fading before his evident surprise and delight. “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘follower’ exactly, but....”
“A follower is a mole who knows which way to take but isn’t sure how to do it, or where it’s going. You learn how to do it as you go and, and....”
“... And eventually it doesn’t matter where you’re going because your faith will take you there!”
“Why yes!” exclaimed Cuddesdon. “That’s how I feel about setting off to find the system where my family came from and starting something. I know it will be all right if I can only keep going even when I’ve no idea what’s coming next. That’s what faith helps you do! It’s when I’ve tried too hard to do something that I’ve failed.”
“Yes,” agreed Mistle, “and it wouldn’t have been any good me trying to predict that I’d be here with you today. I couldn’t even have imagined it, or thought that with three grikes on our tails and likely to hurt us if they found us, I’d have taken stance here in the sun by such a beautiful river feeling, well,
happy.
Violet always said there was no point thinking about tomorrow because unless you sorted out today it wouldn’t be any good anyway. Maybe being a follower helps you sort out today in readiness for tomorrow, and it’s being ready that makes it all right.”
“Violet sounds as if she is quite a mole.”
“Was,” said Mistle softly. “I think she’s gone to the Stone now; I think she must have.” She looked at Cuddesdon with a growing realisation that she would never see or talk to Violet again and tears came to her eyes once more. But though she did not cry she let herself feel sad for a time before continuing. Cuddesdon looked at her sympathetically for a few moments and then, enjoying the warmth, extended his snout along his paws and closed his eyes as the sun beat down.
“She would have liked today,” said Mistle eventually. “She would have liked
here.
She would have liked you.”
Cuddesdon half opened his eyes but said nothing, thinking his own thoughts.
“Fancy me finding a genuine Stone follower!” he said at last. “Well, that’s a bit of luck. Tell me how you came to leave Avebury, tell me....”
But he did not need to ask her more, for suddenly she wanted to talk and tell it all, and cry, and sometimes even sob; but most of all she wanted to talk about Violet, and say how much she had loved her, and that she knew she would not see her again, but all she had said, all she had taught, was here in her heart and she would never forget it, not ever....
Cuddesdon listened in utter silence, and sometimes as she spoke his eyes filled with tears as well; and when she was silent he waited patiently until she started talking again. And then, when she was finished and had been quiet for a time, she said, “I feel better now, much better.”
“I said I’d never really seen a Stone,” said Cuddesdon. “Well, listening to you I realise how little I know. I was moved, of course, but most of all – and to be quite frank – I was
enthralled
by what you said. It is incredible! I want to know all about the Stone, all about the rituals, all about the prayers, all about everything. Then I’d know how to be a proper follower.”
“But it isn’t like that...” began Mistle. “It’s just... well... it just is. It’s easy and you’re sort of making it seem hard. Anyway, you’re a follower already.”
“Am I?” said Cuddesdon earnestly.
Mistle laughed and crunched another worm.
For the first time in all the long time they had talked the sun went in, and Cuddesdon stanced up, wandered about a bit, came back and said, “We had better make a move.”
For a moment he hesitated and then he said, “Are we going to travel on together? I mean....”
“Of course we are,” said Mistle, “aren’t we?”
There was a shy silence between them, the shyness of two moles who each want to stay together but are not yet certain of the other’s reaction to the idea. They looked here and there – in fact everywhere but at each other – but the day seemed to be conspiring for them to journey on together and, as if to put a seal on it, the sun came out briefly once more.
A silver dace rose in the stream and took a fly, the circle of its surfacing travelling downstream, widening and distorting until it was lost in the watery light ahead. Then with a dash and scurried rush of wings from among dry grass a damselfly crashed and dangled for a moment from a spider’s web in the grass above them, its long blue body and black sheening wings catching the sun. Its legs battled furiously, its body righted itself, and its free wing banged at the air until suddenly it was free and hovering, and then gone over the stream, and off to the east.
“You know when you asked where I was going and I said Duncton Wood? Well, it wasn’t the whole truth,” said Mistle impulsively. “If we are going to travel together I wouldn’t want to begin on a lie. Violet said that lying is like taloning both yourself and others around you at the same time.”
“What do you want to tell me then?”
“I think I
am
trying to get to Duncton but the reason is that I’m looking for some moles I saw, or thought I saw, and I thought I’d most likely find them there. I didn’t tell you the whole story about leaving Avebury. You see, really I didn’t know I was going to leave until after I touched the Stone....”
So he listened and she told him the rest of the story, concluding by saying that she believed she had been guided from Avebury, and the moles she saw would one day be real, and they had all been trying to help a mole, and it was so hard to explain but....
“... But no buts!” She smiled. “Does it all sound strange to you? – because it does when I talk about it like this.”
“No. It all sounds no more strange than what I didn’t tell you... You see, it’s not just Cuddesdon I’m looking for, but a mole as well. He’s called the Stone Mole. It’s about all I know of the traditions of the Stone that one day he would come. Well... I’ve heard that a lot of followers seem to think he has come, and is alive. And...
I
think so too. He’s sort of in the air at the moment, and I think if I can find him, I’ll know what I’ve got to start at Cuddesdon when I get there.”
“The Stone Mole?” whispered Mistle, awe in her eyes.
“Apparently there was a star in spring, just after I was born. Followers say he came then, they say he’s come to moledom now. Surely you’ve at least heard of him...?”
She nodded, for Violet had told her that moles believed the Stone Mole would come, but she had thought it would be far in the future in another age.
“He’s really come?” she said quietly, staring at Cuddesdon in wonder and remembering the sense she had had at the Stone of them all helping another mole,
one
mole; a
particular
mole. She felt suddenly afraid.
“Will you...?”
But she did not need to ask. Cuddesdon was at her flank and holding her protectively.
“You’re trembling,” was all he said.
“Yes...” she whispered, her teeth chattering, but not with cold. “It was when you said ‘Stone Mole’. I
know
he’s come. When I touched the Stone I felt him here and that he needs us, everymole of us. And... and....”
She lowered her snout and wept, and Cuddesdon held her closer until she was ready to say more.