Duncton Found (64 page)

“For what?” asked Beechen.

But before the mole replied Buckram came near once more and peered hard at the stricken mole.

“Master,” he whispered urgently, “I know this mole, I
know
him, he...

“Let him speak for himself, Buckram.”

Beechen stared at the mole and said, “Whatmole are you?”

“I am one who has been punished but not forgiven,” whispered the mole, every word he spoke a terrible effort.

“What can I do for you?”

“My son said you were the Stone Mole.” The mole stared terribly at Beechen, his flanks heaving in and out with the effort he was making to control his pain, his eyes full of suffering.

Then he said, “My name is Wyre. I am punished for what I have done but I desire forgiveness.”

“Aye... Wyre of Buckland,” said Buckram, confirming what he had first thought.

“What hast thou done, mole?” asked Beechen.

“Much,” said Wyre, “much that I should not have done.” His son went to him, and tended to him, and whispered comfort to him.

“Then, mole, if you would be forgiven, and more than forgiven, do that which you should do,” said Beechen with sternness rather than compassion. “Turn your back on the Word, and turn your snout this night towards the Stone. Then all that you need shall be given to you, even in the hour of your death.”

“Where shall I find the Stone?”

“It is here, Wyre, here before you. Waste not my time or other moles’, or your son’s, searching for what in your heart you know you found long ago but did not have courage to take up. It is here now, mole, and you know it.” Beechen’s voice was dispassionate and matter-of-fact. “Moles of the Word talk much of sin, and their creed is one of Atonement, or punishment, of retribution for sins committed. You are afflicted for the moles you and those at your command have punished and tortured in the name of the Word; your murrain is the infection of their suffering. I judge you not for this – that is for you yourself to do, and I see from your body you have done so. If you would be forgiven you must begin again and be new-born and give up all you have.”

“I have nothing but pain to give up,” said Wyre bitterly. Beechen looked from Wyre to his son and then back again.

“Mole, you have your son. Tell him to come with
me
tonight.”

“I am near to death and would have my son with me.” A look of fear came to Wyre’s eyes, stronger even than the suffering.

Beechen replied sternly, “Give what you have up to the Stone, turn to the Silence you have heard so long in your own heart, and you shall find the forgiveness you seek. Through me the Stone has spoken, hear it, mole, and be free.”

Then the dying Wyre turned to his son and whispered, “Go with him to Cumnor and hear him speak.”

“Come,” said Beechen softly, “for your father shall not need you more. Come with the other followers and learn of the Stone.”

Then back on to the wooded way to Cumnor they went, north across the heaths where the winds blew from behind and the grass and withered thistles bent the way ahead.
*

*
The subsequent history of Walden, son of Wyre, is told in
Tales of Longest Night
.

Many travelled through those nights, and saw that the sky was red in the troubled mornings, red with warning and with blood.

Among those followers, hurrying henchmoles went over the heath, running from the deeds they did. Aye, done in darkness, fled by morn, and a trinity murdered where they were.

Heanor, and the other two, turning into the death the henchmoles’ talons wrought. And Smock, raised her paws in surprise, but did not find them strong enough to ward off Wort’s treacherous blows.

They were dragged privily to the Fyfield Stone and when others came (summoned by the very henchmole who did the deed) Wort pointed to the corpses and said, “Murdered by the Stone-fool’s aides! Treachery! Deceit! Summoned here in peace, allowed to leave in peace, and this is what they leave behind. The Word shall be avenged. The grass where the Stone-fool blessed the dead now bloodied yet again, and in his own name. Whatmole could welcome such a morning? Whatmole could sleep through nights such as these? This Stone-fool shall be punished.”

The Fyfield moles were troubled, but more by the death of Smock (though she had enough enemies to make their dismay equivocal) than Heanor and the others of his trinity. Though he was of the Word had he not let the Stone-fool make fools of
them?
Yet they had seen the Stone-fool leave – he must have been a clever mole to have come back again. So, puzzled still, they cleared the corpses and left Wort by the Stone.

“Cumnor, now?” asked one of her henchmoles.

“Cumnor, moles. And fast. Faster than this filthy wind itself, for I will catch this Stone-fool for myself.”

“Some call him Stone
Mole.
Some say he’s the one all waited for.”

“Call him what they like, mole, Wort will see him tortured, and then dead.”

They laughed, and their laughs were ripped from out their mouths by the rushing wind and torn along towards where the Stone Mole travelled on, the laughter of scorn and hate. All, all, rushing now, to Cumnor’s high bleak hill.

On a clear day a mole who cares to pause at Cumnor, where obsessive Wort then ruled, and looks across the roaring owl way that offends the landscape far below, may see the hallowed rise of wooded Duncton Hill. It makes a better prospect than the heathy history-scarred surface beneath his paws, for which few have ever had much good to say.

Certainly that windy grey day when followers gathered there, shaking from cold and apprehension, scarcely believing that the Stone Mole would come here, as others said he would – which others? nomole knew! – the place cannot have seemed very much. Desolate, forgotten, a place of banishment for mad Wort, roaring owls incessant below, hopeless grey skies above.

The moles had come in dribs and drabs, very hesitant indeed, and gathered at first at Wootton High, which lies a little to the south. Braver spirits there, who remembered Cumnor before Wort came and knew the routes, Sed the followers on, singing to cheer themselves, keeping close lest guardmoles attack. Not so fearless that they did not stop again for a time at Hen Wood, and wait for others to join them and give them strength of numbers.

Even then the followers’ courage was relative rather than absolute, and on the morning when they made the final push they decided not to go to that part of Cumnor where Wort had made her base – drab Chawley End to the west of the hill itself.

Instead they went straight on north up the hill to its highest point, an open, mainly treeless place, such tunnels as it had unremarkable and stinking of fox and diseased rabbits. No Stone either. All grim.

But it was safer than anywhere else around there, and hard for guardmoles to ambush. But as it was, everything seemed to show that the guardmoles of Cumnor were taken utterly by surprise by the arrival of the followers, and that, even better, Wort was not there.

The two guardmoles stationed at the eastside of the system, which is where the followers came, could scarcely believe their eyes when so many moles appeared in force. They challenged the first they met in a half-hearted way, and then retreated out of sight back to Chawley End, the cheering followers pressing on upslope – cheering, it must be said, to see the grikes retreat for once – but not quite sure where to go, or where to stop. But there is a summit of sorts there, and there they stopped, watching as others came.

It was not long before a brood of grikes approached from the Chawley End, glowering and ferocious, and words were exchanged. But the grikes were outnumbered, and the senior ones seemed to have been told that such a meeting was not, at the moment, against the Word.

What the guardmoles did do, however, was to circle about the followers, staring hard at them as if to remember their faces and talons, and generally to intimidate them.

At first this aggression succeeded in cowering many of the moles, but before long their numbers gave them confidence and they began to support each other and to outface the grikes. When a guardmole asked a mole where he was from he answered with a laugh, “Duncton Wood, mate, that’s where I hail from,” naming the one system everymole knew he could not be from.

“That’s right, I seen him there. I’m from Duncton too!” said another.

“Like the others, Duncton Wood, my darling. The
better
part,” said a female to raucous laughter when asked the same question.

The grikes scowled, and retreated to a distance and watched helplessly as the numbers grew. And grew.

Until by the time dusk came the grikes were so outnumbered that any idea they might have had of attack, or marshalling, or simply bullying, had quite gone, and a few were detailed to keep watch while the rest went off to more comfortable quarters.

As for the followers, a few, disheartened by the nonappearance of Beechen, left before night came, but most stanced down in temporary burrows, or took up quarters in such tunnels as still survived at the top of the hill.

Nor did Beechen come the next day, or that night; a few more left but yet more came, saying that moles they had met had heard for sure that the Stone Mole was on his way, and would soon be there. Expectation rose once more, though there was a false alarm when a small group of moles came up from Hinksey in the east, brought there by that mysterious sense that takes over moles when a gathering of significance is apaw, as if the very tunnels buzz with something going on beyond and makes them restless to find out what it might be.

It was in mid-afternoon of the third day, when the light was glooming and a good few moles were beginning to want to call it off and leave while the going was good, that a sudden rush of excitement passed through the temporary burrows and tunnels and the news spread that he was nearly there at last.

Which he was, for there below on the southern slope, he trekked steadily up from Hen Wood with two other moles close by, many more before him and others coming along behind.

How, from that distance, did they know it was the Stone Mole? It was most strange, but everywhere he went the ways across the soil, the clouds above, the line of woods to left and right, even the disposition of the moles about him, made him seem the very centre of things. If that was not enough there was a quality of light about the place where he happened to be. Wherever the Stone Mole was, moles looked first at him.

He came slowly and gracefully, but a sense of urgency ran like a wave up the slope before him. Among those who had come to hear him were a few who were not well, though ambulant. He stopped by several of these, and touched them, and murmured gently to them and, so talking and stopping as he went, the Stone Mole came among them.

A good few knew of Buckram, or had heard of him, and that he had been healed and was now of the Stone and stood guardian to the Stone Mole – or Beechen, as moles now understood him to be named. Though Beechen was by no means small. Buckram was much larger and stayed always near him, and together the two looked like a large mole that has a larger shadow. Sleekit did not always stay with him, but went among the moles, talking to them, and seeming to find out from them which ones particularly Beechen might himself like to reach out to.