Duncton Found (85 page)

“It was a rite,” said Romney defensively. “They won’t do it again so soon.”

Rampion laughed cynically.

“I am going anyway.”

“What do you want of me? To let you go without restraint? Of course I shall....”

“No, I want you to come and bear witness for me. You saw what happened with your own eyes, I did not. They’re a weak lot in Rollright and though my father would believe me most would not – or if they did they would not act on it. Therefore mole, if you would serve the memory of the mole Dodder you saw killed, come with me! But now, for we must travel fast so that we are there before anymole from here.”

At such a moment the direction of a mole’s life may change for ever.

“Come with me, mole!” urged Rampion again, “and you may once more find the peace that you have lost.”

“I... I shall!” said Romney with sudden resolution, and within the hour they had set off for Rollright.

Nor was Lucerne idle. For one thing he did not much like the cross-under as a place for moledom’s business. He had lost all interest in Duncton Wood and nor did he like the clay vales he had had to cross on his way there, or the sense that roaring owls were all about the south, day and night.

His original intention, which was to press on to Buckland, now seemed much less appealing than before and yet he knew he needed a strong presence there. Matters could perhaps be left in Clowder’s capable paws a suggestion already made by Terce, who had warned that Clowder was under-used and could provide the strong, military-minded mole needed to impose the kind of rule the south had not had since Henbane’s departure from it.

Wyre, it seemed, had been a disappointment, and the more relaxed policy against the Stone that Henbane had introduced through him was failing.

“No, Terce, I like it not, not at all. If I turn north again now I may not come this way again. I know so many of these systems from the scrivenings that I would like to see them with my own eyes. Mallice has a mind to see Uffington.”

“It may be wise, if unpalatable. The south does not suit me well either, but if Clowder is to be left in charge we should take a few weeks to see what it is he will be administering.”

“In any case this is the Stone Mole’s heartland and the eldrene Wort’s view is that he is most likely to be hiding hereabouts. It would be amusing to make his acquaintance.”

“It would,” agreed Terce.

The whereabouts of the Stone Mole was taxing Terce considerably, and thus far Wort had not tracked him down, though in fairness the ordination had diverted her as it had everymole else. Yet Wort was confident, and had done the right things. They had been here but a few days but already trusted henchmoles of hers had gone out in all directions to ensure his whereabouts might be found.

There had been no sighting of him in her absence and she regretted now her decision to order the Cumnor moles to lie low. A mistake, she now agreed, but then she could not have predicted the success the Word would honour her with. But one thing she had succeeded in doing was to persuade Lucerne that she would be better operating by herself and without Drule and Slighe. The Master surely had better things for them to do?

The Master had. He missed Slighe’s efficiency, and Drule’s usefulness, for there were all sorts of services that
that
mole could perform.

“Well, eldrene Wort, we have considered your request and grant it willingly and with amusement. It seems that Slighe here and my friend Drule are quite exhausted by your sincerity and zeal. Your task does, I agree, need the flexibility that one mole can have working for herself. But do not take any major decision about this Stone Mole without my permission, and know that at all times you shall have my ear.”

“My Master, I am most grateful and praise the Word for giving us a Master
so
able to decide
so
fast.”

This business done, Lucerne gave himself only one day to decide which way to go, and finally the south-west seemed best, but only as far as Buckland. Mallice would have to forgo Uffington. They would travel fast, and when they got there he and Clowder could review the plans for the next strike against followers. But Terce had been right – Clowder needed a task, and the south was more than enough. With him down here, Ginnell in the west, and himself back at Cannock, moledom would be primed for a final assault or crusade upon the followers which would make this brief business in Duncton seem like nothing.

Before he left, Lucerne briefed the sideem who had travelled with him and told them what the Word would expect them to say about Duncton: how the Stone was outfaced and bloodied by the Word.

“Did we not come in good faith, could we not have ended the outcasting of Duncton and brought it back into the community of moledom?” Lucerne declaimed to the willing sideem. “The moles’ pride, the moles’ failure to Atone and renunciate, killed the system. Let it be known wherever you go.”

These lies sown, Lucerne left for Buckland, while other sideem and guardmoles travelled back towards the midlands once more, to return to their systems and prepare for the final assault on the Stone.

But Wort stayed where she was, free now to act entirely on her own authority without the wimpish Slighe and doltish Drule to concern herself about. She would visit Fyfield and the area about it, but be ready to set off once again the moment one of her henchmoles sent news of which way the Stone Mole had gone. She felt well pleased... and yet, so guilty to feel well pleased and in need of the special chastisement her henchmoles gave her.

“Holy Word, my mother and my father, punish me for the pride I feel, drive the wickedness of vanity from my heart...” And her henchmole serviced her with his talons, that the pain might be penance for the sin of conceit she knew she sometimes felt. And as she suffered the penitential talons of her henchmole she sighed and gasped with pain, and thought of the Master of the Word, Lucerne, and imagined the beauty of him in her mind.

It was not until the evening after Longest Night that Beechen was able to escape the attentions and demands of the moles into whose presence he had come with such extraordinary effect.

Not all the Rollright moles were glad to see him, for he had spoilt their revelry; nor did all believe that he was the Stone Mole, or any other special mole come to that.

But there were enough there, including those three guardmoles whose lives he might well have saved, who felt that in his words, and presence, something that had been missing from their lives had at last been found.

Many of these found it hard, impossible indeed, to take themselves from him, and simply hung about and stared as if to leave him was to desert themselves. Others sought his help for problems of healing and comforting, and everymole that came to him he talked with, and many he touched, turning none away.

So many indeed that Sleekit and Mistle, seeing he had grown tired, tried in the course of the mid-morning after Longest Night to get him to rest, and Holm offered to lead him to a burrow where he might find privacy.

But no, he could not leave moles who still needed him, and continued to talk gently with some, and pray with others, and even to debate issues of the Stone with a few.

He declined to speak of Duncton Wood, or of the danger of grikes, or whether it was safe for him to stay in Rollright for very long, though Mayweed and Buckram, concerned as one was for Duncton and the other for Beechen himself, tried hard to make him. But Buckram was discovering what Mayweed already knew, that when Beechen was ministering to moles he seemed to disregard all else and especially his own needs. When moles that cared for him tried to make him talk of these things it was as if he did not hear what was said to him.

“Yes, yes, Buckram,” he would say absently, “but I must just talk to this mole here and I must do it now. Now is the time, Buckram, not later... now.”

Only in the afternoon, when the crush had eased and moles who still sought his counsel began themselves to say, “Stone Mole, you are tired, what I wished to ask can wait”... Only then did he agree to rest.

It was to Holm and Lorren’s lowly burrow, downslope and muddy, that he went and there settled down and ate. Even then Buckram found it impossible to make him address the matter of his safety until he had spoken at length with Holm and Lorren, and enjoyed listening to Mayweed and Holm together, a one-sided conversation if ever there was one.

“Mute mole,” said Mayweed to his old and dear friend, “you have been missed.”

Holm stared with wide eyes at Mayweed and said nothing.

“
Much
missed, slovenly Sir. As humbleness was saying to messy Madam here, ‘There’s only one Holm in all of moledom,’ and me myself would have liked to see more of him these years past.”

Holm opened his mouth to speak, thought about things a bit, and then closed it again.

“Mayweed surmises that Holm is pondering an utterance. He hopes it will be made, for Beechen the Stone Mole would like to hear your voice. And Mistle here, Beechen’s much-beloved; and Sleekit, too. We wait, we pause, we scarcely dare to breathe. Be eloquent, dusty mole, speak out!”

Holm stared at them all, eyes even wider, and then at Lorren, and blinked. Lorren shook her head, seeming to understand what it was he wanted to say but not wanting him to.

Then Holm looked desperately about, from floor to ceiling, from mole to mole, from light to shade, and then, as if grabbing it quick and placing it down in front as if it might otherwise throttle him, he spoke a word; a name.

“Bailey!” he said.

Then, that being greeted by blank silence, and seeming to gain his courage, he spoke four more words by way of explanation: “Lorren needs to know.”

“I miss him,” said Lorren. “And Starling too.”

For once Mayweed was stuck for words. Only days before he would have smiled and declared in a great many words how well Bailey was when he last saw him, one of the youngest moles in Duncton Wood. But now... but now? Sleekit, understanding Lorren’s need better, took over.

“Bailey’s your brother, isn’t he?”

Lorren nodded bleakly.

“My dear, how long is it since you’ve seen him?”

Lorren stared at Sleekit but if she knew she could not speak, but only stare at them both.

Lorren looked at Holm, and then at them all and then at Holm again. She lowered her snout and Holm shifted about uncomfortably and together they gave the impression of moles who, had they been alone, would have comforted each other but that they could not do in front of others.

Suddenly Mayweed struck the side of his head with a thump and, rolling over on his side, kicked his legs about.

“Humbleness is abject. The idiot is a fool. The fool is dim as a dead lobworm. A lobworm is better than Mayweed! Madam, strike Mayweed. Go on, hit him.”

Mayweed leapt up again, dashed over to Lorren, and thrust his flank towards her, declaring, “Mayweed is an insensitive mole, heartless mole, amnesiac mole. Let him suffer! He had forgotten that the likeable Lorren has had no news of the once-youthful Bailey since before he was a youth.

“Madam, your long-lost Bailey misses you. Notice humbleness uses the present tense and not the gloomy past participle ‘missed’, which would indicate that Bailey is deceased, inanimate, inert or, to use another word, dead. No, no, no. To continue.... Bailey misses Starling. Mayweed knows it. How? Because humbleness thinks. Bailey has never once mentioned you or your sister to him, Mayweed, not once. Which must mean he
more
than misses you. Bailey knows his moles. When you were separated something in himself was lost and will not be found again until the day you see him once again.” Mayweed stopped talking and allowed Lorren to speak at last.

“I miss him,” Lorren said, “very much. When he was young I was horrible to him, but I loved him and I just wish I had told him once, just once, that I loved him, before he, before we,
before
...” She paused, and stared, and her eyes brimmed with tears for the unrequited memory of the brother she thought she had lost in a flood.

There was nothing anymole could say and so nomole tried. But then Lorren added, “It’s different with Starling. I survived the flood with her and when we parted we both knew it would probably be forever and ever.” The others smiled, for even now, so many years later when she was a mature if not quite aging mole, when she spoke of her siblings a sibling look came to Lorren’s face – protective and guilty where Bailey was concerned, and like a younger sister when she spoke Starling’s name.