Duncton Found (44 page)

Tryfan said no more in general, but stanced down, took food, and talked with the many who came to him in the long evening and night that followed. Throughout that time Beechen was with him, and Feverfew, and many came and touched them.

Until, when it was still dark with night, the moles made their slow way through the wood, some by tunnel and some by surface until they reached the high edge of the wood that faces to the east and south.

The roaring owl way was quiet, with just an occasional gaze coming along its length. Wind flurried at the undergrowth, beech leaves scattered down, and just before dawn, when the sky was beginning to lighten, Mayweed and Bailey returned from the Ancient System where they had hidden the text.

They went to where Beechen was stanced, with Tryfan and Feverfew at either flank, and joined them. Then, too, Skint and Smithills, Sleekit and Marram as well, and moles saw that all the seven guardians of Beechen, who had gathered at his birth by the Duncton Stone, were gathered round him once again.

In the east the sun began to rise and all moledom lightened towards dawn.

“In the days of Uffington,” said Tryfan then, “it was the tradition in the Holy Burrows for a blessing to be said when a scribemole set off on a journey into moledom. So shall I say that ancient blessing of the Stone now for Beechen, and say it with the love we all here feel.”

He turned to Beechen and placed his great paw on the younger mole’s right paw and in the whispering silence of the dawn spoke these words of the Stone:

“May the peace of your power

Encompass him, going and returning;

May the peace of the White Mole be his in the travel.

And may he return home safeguarded..”

As the moles said their last farewells to Beechen the slopes below them began to glisten with the sun in the morning dew.

Each of the guardians, but for Mayweed and Sleekit who were going with him, said goodbye. Then Beechen turned to Tryfan and Feverfew and spoke privately to them. Old Tryfan embraced him fiercely, his great body and rough paws clasped tight over Beechen’s shoulders, then Feverfew spoke softly to him last of all and told him never to forget he was “muche-luved, sow muche-luved”.

Then Mayweed and Sleekit led him away, with Bailey to accompany them a little downslope. The sun’s rays grew ever brighter as they went and the watching moles screwed their eyes up to see them go. But when the sun had risen high enough for them to look again, Sleekit and Mayweed and Beechen had gone.

All they could see was the roaring owl way, and the dewy tracks of moles in the Pasture grass. And there, stanced still, was Bailey, his right paw raised towards the slopes below.

Behind them the wind flurried at the great trees, a few leaves scattered across the slopes, and one by one Duncton’s community turned back into the wood, to seek out its tunnels and prepare itself for its time of great trial.

Chapter Seventeen

Yet summer still lingered on in Siabod, the first place from which moles might have expected it to be gone. But there it was, with fair winds and bright skies over the mountains, as if to bring a few extra days of ease to a place that might most need their memory in the times of trial to come.

The Siabod moles, scarcely believing their good luck, were in expansive mood and garrulous as they stanced about in groups at the entrances to the tunnels of high Siabod itself and enjoyed every last moment of the summer’s end.

Their leader, great Alder from the south, had good reason to be pleased. He had chosen this time as one for a gathering of all the rebel leaders of the Welsh Marches, knowing he took the risk that if the weather was hard fewer moles might come and an opportunity for uniting the rebel Welsh forces before the winter years would be lost. But the Stone granted fair weather, and over twenty leaders had come to represent systems large and small all along the Marches, each with a story to tell, each with hopes to share, each looking for support.

The high Siabod range of mountains and the neighbouring Carneddau to the north shone with autumnal colour as the persistent sun caught the green lichens on long-exposed rocks, and highlighted the mauve rafts of heather across the moor. Its rays turned black peat hags into rich dark brown, and even the sheer rock faces beyond moles’ reach, wet from earlier rains, reflected the bright sky.

The idea for the conclave had been wily Caradoc’s, who had trekked the rough way over from his lonely stronghold of Caer Caradoc in the centre of the Marches in August to persuade Alder that such a meeting was needed.

“Ever since June I’ve been on my paws, trekking first to the south and then back up to the north and now here I am,” he had explained. “I’ve talked to all the rebel leaders you know and some younger ones you don’t, and had word passed on from some I’ve never met at all. They need to come together soon, Alder, or they’ll go back to their retreats in despair and be lost to our cause.

“They’re isolated, they’re losing hope, and many have but few moles left who’ll follow them. They know that the grikes along the eastern front under Ginnell have not weakened, and still occupy the valleys below Siabod itself.

“Only two things keep them going now. One is knowledge of what you’ve done in Siabod, and how you’ve taken back the higher tunnels from the grikes so that there are still moles who watch over the holy Stones of Siabod. Pride in your achievement here makes them battle on to defend their own systems.

“The other is the whisper – no more than a rumoured hope for most – that started when the eastern star shone in spring and moles said that the Stone Mole had come.”

Alder, a great strong mole, his body creased with effort and worry, but his muscles good and spare and his fur still healthy, eased his paws along the ground. Caradoc was the mole who had greeted him so many years before when he and Marram, sent from Duncton by Tryfan, had first arrived at the Marches, and he was a mole he had come to love and respect.

Alder knew that sometimes in the dark, long moleyears of struggle in the harsh Siabod wastes the moles he led had lost touch with the very thing they fought for, which was their belief in the Stone. But there was always one mole he could rely on who would remind everymole he met of why it was they fought, and that was Caradoc.

“Mad Caradoc” some called him, “obsessive” was the word that others used. But that was behind his back or when he was off on one of his lonely treks to seek out some isolated system of moles and bring to them inspiration of the Stone, and tell them that one day peace would come and the Stone’s Silence be known. Given half a chance he would tell them too of Caer Caradoc, and how one day, within his lifetime if the Stone spared him long enough, the Stone Mole would come even there, and the once-great-system, which like Siabod was one of the ancient Seven, would be reborn.

Alder was a fighting mole, reared to the Word, trained as a guardmole, but converted to the Stone by Tryfan who rightly saw in him the makings of a great commander. That had been a long time ago, and since then his greatest friend Marram had turned his back on fighting and on Siabod, and had gone south-east once more because he believed the Stone Mole was coming.

Nothing happened in the winter years that followed but then, just when everymole was giving up hope of any sign at all, that strange star shone again in the spring.

“I tell you, mole, he is in moledom now,” Caradoc had told him then. “He
is
here. If we can hold on to our faith he will send guidance to us and we shall have something great to fight for. You’ll see!”

Caradoc had not been the only one affected by the eastern star. Old Glyder, for long the leader of Siabod, had finally turned his snout towards great Tryfan itself and gone to “touch the Stones” which Alder knew was a Siabod mole’s proud way of saying “to die’. He had been the last of the four sons born to Rebecca of Duncton in the far-off days when she had come to Siabod, and apart from Gowre, the son of one of his dead brothers, no other issue remained, all killed in the long years of fighting the grikes.

But Gowre, born the previous spring, had matured well and proved a good fighter, and before he left Glyder entrusted this last descendant of Rebecca’s offspring to Alder’s care and the lad had done well and in time might gain the respect of the Siabod moles. Alder hoped it might be so, for he had grown tired this summer past and was ready to pass on the responsibilities of leadership in Siabod to a younger mole.

Then Caradoc had returned in August and repeated his hopes of the Stone Mole, and Alder had stared at him and heard out his passionate words, half doubtful yet half in wonder, and grateful that the Stone made such moles as Caradoc to remind others of what truly mattered.

“Send out messengers, Alder, summon a conclave of leaders such as they had in the old days,” urged Caradoc. “It’ll give your younger moles useful journeys to make and I’ll guide and watch over them. Ordain that the meeting should be at the end of September before the weather worsens. And make it here, where those who come can see the Stones that rise on Tryfan. You’ll not regret it....”

Alder had finally raised his paw with a laugh to stop him saying more and said, “You’re right, Caradoc, I had something like it in mind myself, though on a smaller scale. But yes... there’s sense in such a meeting, for we have no knowledge of what strengths and weaknesses we have, and how many moles we can muster to our cause all at once should we ever need to do so. I believe that one day we shall have to do more than harry the grikes in the valleys and defend our strongholds. Just doing that means we’re the ones who gradually weaken and lose faith, while the grikes led by Ginnell sit and watch us die. He’s a clever fighter that one.”

“He was well trained by Wrekin who was a great general,” said Caradoc. “It was a pity he was on the wrong side. And now Ginnell....”

“Aye, but there’ll be a way. Two can play at waiting.”

“What is it you wait for, mole?” said Caradoc. “For the Stone itself to come trekking to your burrow and tell you to get moles off their rumps and invade the east? Eh?”

Alder laughed again and nudged a thin Siabod worm towards Caradoc.

“If we had advanced at any time this past cycle of seasons, and if we did so now, we would be defeated. Why, as you’ve implied yourself, we’re out of touch with each other and unable to do more than defend the ground each of us knows best. East of the Marches is all grike-held, or was according to the last prisoners we took. I know the grikes, I was a guardmole myself and I know our rebel moles are no match for their order and discipline. At the moment we’re good only for raiding and harrying.

“No, Caradoc, I’ll not lead moles I love to their deaths. We need something to turn us into a force the grikes will respect, but Stone knows what it will need to be, for I don’t. A different and younger leader now than myself, that’s for sure! A better cause, too, than mere hatred of the grikes and Welsh pride in defence of holy Stones. I hoped that when the Stone Mole rumour started in spring that something more would come of it, and it might guide me. But it’s faltered, hasn’t it? Our moles’ hopes were raised but to no purpose. Moles can’t live on hope, and nor can their fighting spirit. So we’re waiting, Caradoc. Can
you
tell me for what?”

“Aye, I can. ’Tis the Stone Mole’ll come, as I’ve always said he would. He’ll be the one....”

“But he’s not come, Caradoc,” said Alder mercilessly. “The reality is he’s just a dream moles speak of – and nomole better at that than yourself! I believe you, but others... no, you’ll have to produce more than words if ever we have a conclave here that’s to do more than argue with itself.”

To Alder’s astonishment Caradoc had stared at him blankly for a moment or two, tried to say something, been unable to find the words, and then lowered his snout and seemed about to cry.

“Why, mole...” began Alder, glad they were alone, for the Siabod moles did not easily understand tears unless they were of rage. “What is it? I didn’t mean....”