Duncton Found (61 page)

“What moles are these?” thundered Beechen. Then advancing towards them, his eyes glinting in his face as the sun shines in pools of water caught in a tree’s surface roots, the guardmoles fell back utterly disconcerted by him. Then he turned to the three followers and said in a much softer voice that was full of love. “What moles are these?” Then he reached out his paws to them and, wondering, they reached out to his and whispered, “Whatmole are you? Whatmole?”

Becchen smiled and said, “Go from here and be not afraid. None here shall harm you while I am here. Go now, and speak of this, and say you came to stricken Fyfield in fear, but you left with the fear driven out of you by pride in what you are.”

The chamber was still, nomole dared speak or if they did they knew not what to say, and the three followers looked first at the guardmoles who had been assigned to them, then at the trinity of moles led by Heanor, then at Beechen once more, their eyes wide in awe.

“Are they not free to go?” cried out Beechen, again turning round suddenly and facing Heanor. “Safeguarded to come, safeguarded to go – so we were told and they. By the Word itself it was said! Well Heanor of Nidd, anointed at the very Rock itself, let us see the truth of thy Word. Let them go from here, they have no place in this!”

Heanor, now looking furious, nodded and the three turned and began to run from the chamber.

“Nay, moles, not like miscreants and outcasts, but like moles born free to go whither the Stone guides thee, and gently. Go gently, and with pride.”

“What shall we say to the followers we meet?” one of them asked Beechen as they reached the exit of the chamber unmolested by anymole.

“Tell them that thy Stone Mole has to moledom come, tell them to make ready, tell them to be peaceful, tell them to reach out and love all moles, whether of Word or Stone, as I reach out to this mole now!”

With that Beechen went forward quickly to where Heanor stanced and did what even a mole of the Word would not dare do: he touched Heanor on the shoulder.

“Go!” said Beechen, and they went, slowly, with dignity, staring back down the tunnel to catch a final glimpse of Beechen; slowly, as if they were reluctant to leave him.

Beechen stanced back from Heanor and his two companions who, utterly perplexed by the way their gathering had been taken over, had crouched up. Several of the guardmoles seemed to have come to their senses, too, and were hunching forward so that Beechen and the others seemed surrounded now by moles who meant them harm, though not a word more had been said.

It had all taken but moments, yet Beechen was breathing heavily. The gathering began to mutter and whisper grimly, a dangerous and ominous noise such as the sound a wall of hail makes as it drives towards a mole through a leafless wood.

“We asked you here to tell us of the Stone!” said Heanor, striving to regain his position at the gathering, “not to see you point a talon here, shout over there, and seek to make a mockery of moles who wish... who wish to listen, and to talk.”

Heanor’s voice dropped steadily as he said this, and slowed, and a smile returned to his face, if only a strained one. “We wished to
listen
to those moles you sent away, we....”

Beechen’s snout had fallen low, he seemed not to be listening to Heanor at all, his flanks were glistened with sweat and trembling, and he seemed suddenly even more abject than the most beset follower could be.

“There is a mole here who doubts me,” he said, turning away once more from Heanor who reacted with a gesture of exasperation, as if this mole was indeed mad. Which might have successfully made others think so to, but they could see Beechen’s compelling gaze, which Heanor could not.

“She hurts me,” said Beechen, and the word “hurt” was spoken as if in pain, and his look was of suffering. But where he looked was hard to say for his head shook this way and that. “She doubts me and hurts me and she is here, here now, among you. She hates what she most loves. Stone give her thy healing now, show her thy love! She hurts....”

Silent tears came from Beechen’s eyes as behind him Smock whispered urgently to Heanor, “This must stop! Sideem Heanor, this cannot proceed.”

Then as suddenly as Beechen had been beset he was freed of whatever suffering he had felt. Sleekit came to him, and Buckram went to his flank, a little in front, and put a great paw to his shoulder and for a moment, exhausted it seemed, Beechen leaned against him.

“I shall have need of thee, Buckram, great need of thee. Leave me not.”

“I shall not, I shall not,” whispered Buckram. “Show me the mole that hurts you.”

“She is no more, she has gone, yet when you are ready you shall see her.”

Beechen faced Heanor and said, “Sideem, I came here in good faith to tell thee of the Stone. I saw a mole with cold eyes, I heard a mole speak words that had no love or truth, and the Stone guided me and told me what to say. I spoke to three moles who feared thee, and gave them courage. I spoke to a mole who hurt me, and directed her to follow the way that leads to the Stone. I was comforted by Sleekit, who saw me born; I was supported by Buckram, a mole who loves me. In all of this you have seen the Stone and its ways.”

“Mole, you have told us nothing of the Stone, nothing at all,” said the one who stanced next to Heanor.

“’Tis just tricks and impressions and the superstitions of the past,” said the other.

“What is the code or the doctrine in this?” asked Smock. “Tell us that.”

“You call me and moles like me Stone-fools. Many times have you mocked moles like the followers who come to me for comfort from a moledom you have put in thrall. Foolish I may be, but would I speak to them if they were deaf? Would I smile at them if they were blind? Most of all, could I listen to them if they were dumb? I would not, I could not. I came here in faith to meet you and am silent before your deafness, still before your blindness, and cannot hear the void that is your speech.

“Only by this can I reach you. Yet we shall meet again. The day shall come when you shall see and hear as if you were pups once more, fresh to moledom’s light.

“Now, as those three followers have left, so shall we three leave. To the Stone of Fyfield we shall go, and speak a blessing on those whose blood is still wet and whose cries still sound in this system that was beset by moles of the Word.

“Heanor of Nidd, come to the Stone with us, be not afraid of it; and others come as well. Hear the blessing I make, remember those moles that died in faith, and then come with those others that shall follow me to Cumnor and you shall learn more of the Stone on that hard way than by talking here with smiling eyes until last Longest Night itself.”

With that Beechen turned from Heanor, and signalled to Buckram to lead him to the Stone. As the gathering broke up in confusion he left the chamber.

“That mole’s mad!” said some.

“It’s what the Stone does to them!” said others.

“Blessed Word, punish the sinner, punish the blasphemer, punish the faint-hearted” said a few, snouts low, eyes closed, stanced as if stricken by what they had witnessed.

“If he’s going to Cumnor then good riddance,” said one to another. “If I had my way I’d snout him and moles like him right now. But don’t worry, Wort of Cumnor shall do it for us.”

As Heanor and the other sideem and senior moles, outflanked at every turn of the meeting by Beechen, whispered and frowned and reluctantly hurried after him, the other moles there drifted away, chattering wildly. But out of the shadows a mole came, and at her side were dark moles, thickset and strong: henchmoles.

“To the Stone?” one said.

“We’ll be seen,” growled the other.

“At a distance we shall follow,” said their mistress, “and most carefully. I would see this mole at the Fyfield Stone.”

“Heanor should have killed the bugger,” said the first henchmole.

“Heanor should indeed.”

Beechen’s stay at the Fyfield Stone was brief and according to Sleekit’s account seemed to give him no pleasure, for he was still carried along by that passion that had overtaken him before Heanor. Buckram led him there and Beechen stared but briefly at it, an ancient gnarled Stone, taking firm stance against the moist mild southerly wind that was blowing hard from an unsettled sky, which seemed bent on blowing all things, starting with the ground around them, northwards. Barbed wire whined and rattled at a nearby fence.

Heanor and the others came along behind them, the November wind parting their fur this way and that, and were barely in earshot before Beechen spoke his grace.

Before he did so he said these words: “Here, and near here, moles have died in anguish that they were forsaken. Here, and near here, the earth was reddened by their blood. Here and near here, the Stone and tunnels trembled to their cries. Let us remember them and speak these words that through the Stone or the power of the Word they may hear them and know they are not alone nor forsaken.

“Omit not these whose cries I have heard

From thy great Silence;

Let them rest now, let them know thy peace.

Omit them not that when the wind blows

And the sun shines, and the cycle turns

Again, their cries are heard no more.

Welcome them to thy great Silence.”

“You spoke of the Word,” said Sleekit when Beechen was silent.

“Aye, mole, you did,” said Heanor.

“Because moles of the Word died here as well, Heanor. Now go, mole. Protect thyself. Pray, for darkness is on you!”

Then Beechen turned to Buckram and Sleekit and, shaking himself as a mole might shake off dirty water in which he has been forced to swim, he said, “We shall to Cumnor, which followers call “dread”, and let all come with us who will. These moles of the Word want to learn something of the Stone. By deed and not by word shall they know of it, for let all followers that are able come there. Let them rise from the burrows in which they have been forced to hide, let them test this new freedom which the Word offers, let them show their faith!”

The fierce wind blew his call before him and he turned northward towards Cumnor to follow it, and said not one word more until their paws were free of Fyfield’s soil.

While behind them, as Heanor and those with him turned back down into the Fyfield tunnels, a mole emerged unseen by anymole, and that mole and her two henchmoles watched after Beechen.

“Shall we follow?” said a henchmole. His mistress shook her head.

“Blasphemy we have seen,” she said. Then she looked back the way Heanor of Nidd had gone and added, “Blasphemy did
he
permit. A task we have with
him
in the holy name of the Word. And then!”

“What then, eldrene Wort?” whispered the second henchmole.

“Why mole, the Word’s business shall send us back to Cumnor before that fool we’ve seen, quicker than ravens fly.” They turned in their own shadows, the wind-bent grass shook, and were gone.

The November wind was indeed strong, for even the smooth surface of the river that runs south of Garford was roughened by it, while the leafless willows along its bank whipped violently back and forth over the water.

“Yet,” murmured Mistle looking at the bleak scene, “yet I feel excited and light, as I did sometimes in the summer years. Oh Cuddesdon, I’m
sure
he’s near.”

“Well he better be for then I can rest at last, leave you with him, and go on my separate and more peaceful way.”

“But you wouldn’t leave me! I mean if we found him. It would be... it would be....”

“Wonderful for some of us, Mistle, desperate for others. But I know what you mean. Since we got to these parts, and met so many who talk of the Stone Mole and say....”

“They say his name is Beechen!”

“... And say this Beechen is nearby, or has been their way already, or is coming back... and always add that we’ve only just missed him... I admit I have felt renewed excitement about my own mission. But I don’t suppose you remember what it was!”