They journeyed on, and each day that passed seemed a lifetime shed since their stay at Bablock. Roaring owl threatened them, a dog and the twofoot it pulled chased after them, heron flapped and shadowed the December sky.
Yet on they went, Mayweed leading, Buckram taking up the rear. Few moles but grikes in those derelict parts, little to do but have faith they could reach Rollright by Longest Night. They were glad when the ground began to rise again, and took them off the clay vales of the Thames and back on to more sandy soils once more.
The days were shorter still, Longest Night was almost on them, they travelled close, as if all the better to keep out the cold.
One day, two days more and Mayweed took them quickly on until, on the morning of Longest Night sensing at last that Rollright was near, Mayweed grew suddenly cheerful once again.
“Tum-to, tum, tum, te-dum,” he sang tunelessly as they went along.
“My love, it’s very annoying for some, your singing,” Sleekit said.
“But I’m excited. It is Longest Night and we’re here in time. Stones are near, we’re getting there, and that means that though Mayweed has shed an acorn cup full of tears at losing his new-found friend Tubney, he is already thinking positively about the pleasure to come of meeting once again his long-lost friend, not so hapless Holm. Grubbiness himself! Yes, yes, yes!” Then he raised his voice and called out across the heath ahead, “Holm, be happy! Holm, be prepared to speak! Humble me is coming back. Humble me is almost here! Yes!”
The ground rose ahead, they climbed to its summit, and there, across a shallow vale the ground rose more. Dark and stolid the place, and Mayweed said, “Sirs and Madams, beloveds one and all, see there our destination. Rollright! Danger calls, friends beckon, what will be, will be.”
With that, and no more said at all, Mayweed led them over the heath towards the system made famous by the Rollright Stones with no sign yet of guardmole grike, or mole at all.
They approached the first entrance they saw with extreme caution – Mayweed going ahead with Buckram lest there was guardmole trouble. But there was none, none at all. Nor did they find a guardmole at the second entrance they came to, or the third. Then when they entered the tunnels, they were silent but for the echoes of their own paws.
Mayweed’s brow furrowed and his pace quickened.
“Sirs, Madams, Mayweed likes it not. No guardmoles, nomole at all, nothing. His snout quivers with apprehension. He stops, he turns and he asks Beechen and Mistle to do as he will ask them.”
He turned and faced them, and they saw how deep the concern he felt was.
“But maybe there aren’t any guardmoles on this side of the system,” said Mistle. “Especially on Longest Night.”
“Maybe, Madam, maybe. Buckram, you stay here with your charges, my love and I will go on and find out what we can. Hide here, do not move, one or other of us shall come back for you.”
Mayweed and Sleekit went carefully on, but only after they got nearer to the heart of the system, by which time they would normally long since have been challenged, did they hear mole.
Then... laughing mole, oh most jovial mole!
“Follower!” whispered Mayweed peering round.
He and Sleekit came out of the shadows and found a group of five moles having a good time.
“Greetings, brother!” cried out one. “Hello, sister. Have a worm!”
“Where is everymole?” asked Sleekit.
“At the Stones, of course. Readying themselves for Longest Night.”
“Salivating stranger,” said Mayweed, “forgive my dimness, but where are the guardmoles? Where the eldrene? Where...?”
“Oh,
them
! Gone, most of them. They left a token force at the Stones, but they’re just joining in the fun. The eldrene and the others all left
days
ago. It’s liberty for all. Eat a worm and have fun!”
“Where have they gone?” said Sleekit urgently.
The followers looked at them as if they were indeed dim.
“The bloody fools have gone to Duncton Wood,” said one of them. “The lot of them, grikes, sideem, Master-elect and some of our moles as servers. We warned them of the disease they’d get but the silly bastards went all the same. So for the first time in a long, long time Rollright moles can enjoy the Stones and have a revel and a feast for Longest Night!”
“A revel,” repeated Sleekit faintly. “A
revel
?”
But Mayweed said nothing, but only stared dumbstruck. A revel was one thing, but Longest Night was a holy night and the revels came after the reverence, not before. And grikes and sideem and the Master-elect gone to Duncton?
“Mayweed is unhappy,” said Mayweed.
“Come, my dear, this bodes ill. We must fetch the others and decide what to do.”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, because no, no, no, no, no, Mayweed is
not
happy.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
By the time Mayweed got back to Beechen and the others, dusk was beginning to fall on Longest Night. The wind hissed on the high grass hills around Rollright, and the moon showed low on the horizon beyond thin trees.
The moment Beechen heard from Mayweed that a large and powerful body of grikes had gone through Rollright and on towards Duncton Wood, a striking change came over him.
“You say the Master-elect was among them?”
“
They
said, agitated Beechen, they did,” said Mayweed.
Beechen suddenly shed that youthfulness and lightness Mistle had brought out in him, and seemed to take on once more the burdens of leadership and spiritual resolve. He moved apart from them, and looked somehow bigger, and strangely menacing.
When Mistle tried to speak to him he seemed not to hear. Instead he ignored them and snouted slowly all about as if in search of something. He seemed angry and tense, and as they watched him, they saw he grew distressed as well. Mistle went to him.
“Mayweed, guide me,” he whispered. “Mistle... and you, Sleekit... and Buckram. Guide me.”
They all went to him, and to their alarm he broke down and wept, though why he would not say. But as they sought to comfort him he finally whispered, “Father, guide us, for we are so few, and the light we bear so weak against the darkness that shall fall this night. Stone, help me, for you have made me but mole and I am weak.”
Then he reached out a paw to Mayweed, and snouting south said, “Which of the Seven Systems lies there?”
“Duncton,” replied Mayweed, “and Uffington far beyond. And Avebury to the south-west.” For a long time
Beechen stared that way. “And there?” he asked, turning north-westward.
“Caer Caradoc and Siabod, where the holy Stones of Tryfan rise.”
“Yes, oh yes,” he said. Then the Stone Mole slowly turned to the north.
“And there, Mayweed?”
“Why, bold Beechen, strange Stone Mole, not one of the Ancient Seven lies in that direction.”
“What is there?” whispered Beechen.
“Beechenhill, Stone Mole, proud Beechenhill is there.”
“Beechenhill,” whispered Beechen, and it seemed to be spoken like stars across the sky. But then, “How dark the northward way seems, how dark,” he said.
He turned back to face the direction in which he had started, towards Duncton Wood, and Mayweed said, “Stone Mole, if the grikes, and the Master-elect Lucerne, and even the eldrene have gone to Duncton Wood then... then what shall we do? I must go there myself, for they shall be defenceless and Tryfan will need me. But you....”
“Did Bablock and its moles teach you nothing, Mayweed?” Beechen said fiercely. “Tonight is Longest Night, the most holy of nights. You shall not leave us tonight but go as we all must to the Rollright Stones and pray for Silence. It is what all moles should do tonight. Only that, for it is enough.”
He stared the Duncton way some more and then, seeming to gain his strength said, “Mistle, Sleekit, Buckram, come now. Mayweed, guide us to the Rollright Stones for we are needed there. Come now.”
The trek was a rough one because Mayweed chose to go by the surface and the last stage was upslope. But if they had wished to prepare themselves reverently for the rituals to come, they could not. Long before they reached the Stones they came upon followers indulging in wild revels and ribaldry, laughing and singing, and playing jokes.
“Greeting, mateys!” one shouted to them, though Beechen tried to go on by, serious and forbidding.
“Oh! Sorry I spoke! Some moles...” The mole called out again, but he fell silent when Buckram loomed out of the shadows and glowered at him.
More moles were making merry at the Whispering Stoats, that sombre group of three stones that lean into each other a little to the south of the Rollright Stones themselves. Laughter, innuendo, males and females chasing each around, and even, so it seemed, a guardmole giving up trying to control the rabble of moles and joining in their lewd celebration.
“Look at them lot! Dear, oh dear! Hey, give us a smile then!”
The moles paused and stared as Beechen and the others went by, their quiet order in contrast to all the moles about.
“The Stones are not far ahead,” said Mayweed, “let me just...” He went to a group of revellers and asked, “Have you seen Holm or Lorren?”
“Up by the Stones I should think, doing his nut,” was the immediate reply. “He was down here just now trying to lay down the law, the little runt, and we told him to piss off. Which he did! Ha, ha, ha....”
The mole turned away from him, others stared, laughter broke out again, and Mayweed and the others moved unhappily on.
The noise up at the Stones themselves was so great that they heard it from a long way off, and when they reached them they saw a pandemonium of milling moles. Some played games even among the Stones themselves, some sang songs, the odd fight or two had broken out, and some even sought to mate in public.
Appalled, Mayweed stopped at the edge of the circle and simply stared in horror and disgust. In Rollright it seemed the holiest of nights had become the unholiest of feasts.
So busy were the moles enjoying themselves, along with at least three guardmoles they could see, that nomole saw the group in the shadows just outside the circle. None saw Beechen staring blankly, nor Mistle shocked. None saw Buckram, all protective behind Beechen and muttering fiercely to himself.
There
is
a place for revelry on that special night which marks the seasons’ greatest change when darkness gives way once more to light. But first let moles be reverent, let them give thanks for what they have had, let them turn to the Stone and be silent for a time. Only then let them make their way graciously with the rest of their community and enjoy what grateful revels they may make.
But not
this,
not the blasphemy the Stone Mole saw at Rollright. Never that again.
“Look!” said Sleekit quietly to Mayweed, pointing through the noisy throng, “Oh look, my dear.” But she could not bear to look more and turned to Mistle and Beechen for comfort.
Yet Mayweed looked, and saw, and knew what he must do.
For there in the midst of that assembly of so-called followers of the Stone, stanced by the greatest Stone of that great circle, was a grubby mole. Small he was, his fur dusty, his talons dirty. He was staring up at the Stone and trying, despite all that went on about him, to say a prayer. Which was hard, for he seemed unable to say anything. Anything at all. And mute tears were on his face, and he was unable to find the words of prayer, and at last he lowered his snout as if he dared not look at the Stone any more.
While at his flank, vainly trying to console him, was a female, grubby too, and though small herself she was bigger than her mate. Her paws were on him as if vainly trying to protect him from the noise all about them, and she was turning this way and that, shouting at the moles to be still and be quiet.
“’Tis Holm,” said Mayweed blankly. “’Tis Lorren at his side.”
Then telling the others to stay where they were, Mayweed moved into the circle and among the moles, and slowly, resolutely, began to cross towards where his old friends stanced.
Quite when Lorren first saw him would be hard to say, but suddenly her hopeless shouting stopped and she stared across the circle and was still. There was surprise on her face, and then hope, and then, as Mayweed got nearer, incredulous relief.
She turned to Holm, whispered something to him, and he too turned to look.
At first he seemed perplexed, but then his eyes filled with joy, and as swiftly as they did, his face fell with grief and shame and, like a mole gone mad, he shook his head as if to say, “Not, not now, this is not how I would meet
you
again.” But Holm was never one for words, and so he shook his head, and cried.
As Mayweed went near enough to greet them both, Holm made such a helpless gesture of despair that Sleekit gasped and gulped for the pity of it.
Mayweed reached out to them both, talked with them, and then as the revels went on unabated around them, slowly turned towards where Beechen stanced, still unseen.
Mayweed whispered more, and then a look of disbelief came over Holm’s face, and he reached to hold Lorren close, and his look turned to wonder. For out of the shadows, slowly, mightily, as if one of the Stones themselves was on the move, Beechen came.
There was no gentleness on his face, no kindliness.
Nor did he look at anymole in judgement, but rather in a terrible despair at the great Stone before which Holm and Lorren had been so pathetically stanced.
His eyes seemed to catch the shining lights of stars and moon, his fur to glow with a fearsome light, his talons to shine. Buckram, Mistle and Sleekit came behind him, and as he advanced a hush began to fall. Moles fell back from him, moles who had not seen him and still sang or argued or made a noise were shushed by those who had. Moles crept about to see him better, moles stared at him in awe.
Then as he came closer to Holm and Lorren a light seemed to cast itself across their faces, and then up on to the great Stone.
One of the guardmoles began to remonstrate, joking and wondering what was going on, but a mole who moments before had been laughing and shouting turned on him and he fell silent.