Duncton Quest (25 page)

“You have courage, Alder, for you have slept and now you have dared to waken. And before the day of thy life is done you will see the mole who will lead you to Silence.”

“What is his name?” asked Alder

Tryfan turned and looked back at the mole who had been killed the day before and said, “We of the Stone call him the Stone Mole but his name I know not. Nomole knows it yet. He is nameless and unborn.”

“But he will come?”

“Yes,” said Tryfan, “he will come. And you will know him.”

Then they returned to the sleeping chamber, again without encountering a grike patrol, and none other there, not even Spindle, knew where they had been, what they had seen, or what Tryfan had said.

Even so, during the day that followed Spindle was much puzzled, for Tryfan was silent and barely stirred, and the guardmoles seemed to have had an argument, for the one called Alder was silent too, crouched, his snout along his paws, and though his colleague Marram seemed to try to talk to him yet he said nothing. As for the two vagrants at the end of the chamber, only the male moved, carrying food over to the female and grooming her with a touching care.

Then when the male asked if he might go to the surface for some fresh air, although Marram said no, the guard-mole Alder suddenly turned and said, “Let him!” and it was an order that anymole would have been afraid to disobey. So, unaccompanied, the male went to the surface, from where he soon returned.

It was all a puzzlement to Spindle, for there seemed to be something in the burrow that he could not name or see, but which was there, something peaceful. And Tryfan knew of it; and Alder. And, and....

It was not until late evening of that day that Tryfan stirred once more, saying suddenly that they might as well find out what they could about the two silent vagrants in the corner. Moles like to know the gossip and what goes on. Spindle agreed with this happily, for it suggested that Tryfan was coming back to normal. They approached the male and, since a traditional greeting seemed out of place, simply said, “Hello.”

“Are you going to instruct us?” asked the male. His voice, like his body, was thin and unsure of itself. His eyes were filled with apprehension, but Tryfan noticed that even so he moved in front of the female, as if to protect her.

“We’re new to the system,” said Tryfan in a low voice. “We’ve only just arrived.”

The male stared uncertainly at him.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“My name doesn’t matter for now,” said Tryfan gently.

“Oh,” said the male, staring at Tryfan and Spindle, and then over to Alder and Marram who were watching them all.

“I’m not a grike, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Tryfan, indicating the two guardmoles. “We’re just visitors, herbalists in fact.”

“Ah,” repeated the male, relaxing a little.

“What’s your name?” Tryfan asked.

“Pennywort,” said the mole, adding apologetically, “That’s unfortunately what they called me. Stone knows... I mean goodness knows why. Silly name.” His speech was a lot more lively than his looks.

“Pennywort,” repeated Tryfan, laughing slightly and approaching nearer. He felt himself warming to Pennywort for there was something open about him even if he seemed nervous and awkward in his stance, his talons fidgeting and his snout unsure. But he seemed to want to speak.

“Yes?” said Tryfan encouragingly.

“Well...’There was more hesitation, another glance at the guardmoles, and then a lowering of the voice. “Well... you laughed. They
never
laugh. Not at the right things anyway.”

“Oh,” said Tryfan, considering this. Certainly there had not been much mirth about the grikes at Uffington, nor those moles he had seen in Buckland’s central burrow.

“Where are you from?” asked Pennywort.

“Fyfield,” said Spindle quickly, for Tryfan seemed slow to reply. It seemed to Spindle that Tryfan was reluctant to maintain their disguise or tell a lie. Considering the careful story about being travelling herbalists they had prepared, this was a change indeed. But Spindle was right: the experience in the central chamber had deeply affected Tryfan. He was somehow stiller, more certain. It was as if he had learnt something important and that the knowledge of it would always be with him.

“Fyfield’s to the north isn’t it?” said Pennywort.

“North east,” said Tryfan.

“A goodly system I’ve been told.” Again Tryfan was silent.

“Yes,” mumbled Spindle for him.

“Where are you from?” asked Tryfan.

“No system with a name. South of here, near Basset.”

“Both of you?” asked Tryfan, looking at the female.

“My sister and I.”

Pennywort turned to the female and Tryfan looked surprised. The female was clearly a Longest Night older than her brother.

“Different litter, same parents,” explained Pennywort reading his thoughts. “Both dead in the plague which came to us late a Longest Night ago. Thyme – that’s her name – raised me. She’s ill now so I’m protecting her. When the grikes came we kept to ourselves but we were flooded out of our burrows in February so we travelled to better ground. Met two other moles and joined them and then we ran into the grikes. Fighting. The two with us got killed. They could have killed us but they didn’t. Brought us here. Waited now for days. Thyme’s very ill but they won’t bring a healer. They say she can’t have one until she’s initiate and accepted the Word. But I know her. She won’t do that. Not ever. She won’t.”

Pennywort gazed at his sister who lay with her eyes closed, her mouth open and her breathing laboured. Her fur was matted and her paws limp and colourless, one bent back under her. Occasionally she moaned.

“I don’t know what to do,” said Pennywort finally and Tryfan saw he was close to tears. He had spoken rapidly, as if he had had nomole to talk to for a long time. Then he added: “I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” he said. “It’s got worse since we met the grikes.”

“Where were you bound?”

“To find a Stone for her to touch!” said Pennywort. “None near Basset, but I thought there might be one here somewhere. I wasn’t sure... And now they won’t let us go away.”

Tryfan looked at Thyme again. But then, as he moved a little closer, Pennywort came aggressively between them again.

He stared hard at Tryfan.

“Are you of the Word?” he asked. “No disrespect, but if you are I would rather you didn’t touch my sister.”

“I have said that I am not,” repeated Tryfan reassuringly. Thyme turned uncomfortably in her half-sleep, and Tryfan could smell her sickness, but it did not repel him. Some words of Boswell were sounding in his heart: “A scribemole’s constant task is to love, and to love the weak before the strong, the sick before the well. This is most hard, Tryfan, and takes many years to accomplish, for a mole is attracted by the light which he thinks he sees in the strong and the healthy, and he seeks to avoid the dark he imagines in the sick lest it attach itself to him. Learn to love them and to see the light they hold... for if you do it will shine brightly in your heart and lighten your way.”

Tryfan stared at Thyme but could see no great light there: only suffering and illness and the smell of despair and, perhaps, death. But then, for the briefest of moments, the sense that he was of Rebecca, who had herself been a healer, came over him and, quite forgetting the front of indifference he had been maintaining, and ignoring the possibility that the guardmoles in the distance might become curious, he reached out to touch her. Pennywort faltered and then moved to one side.

Spindle came closer too and stared down at her.

“Is there anything you can do?” he whispered to Tryfan. “For she seems a worthy mole.” But he needed to say no more, for Tryfan was already stancing himself over Thyme, and bringing his paws to her and there was stillness about him now which Spindle recognised as that of a true scribemole.

As Tryfan touched Thyme’s flank he felt within himself the power of the Stone and it was as if his body was shaken with her sickness and he too was ill. He felt her suffering as he had felt the pain of the nameless mole the day before.

Would it then always be so hard to be a healer? Was this what his brother Comfrey felt?

He turned to Pennywort and said, “I remember a blessing my mother used to say.”

“It is not allowed. They’ll stop you,” said Pennywort, looking nervously towards the guardmoles. Indeed, Alder, who had been watching them from across the burrow, got up and began to come purposefully towards them.

“The guardmole Alder’s coming!” hissed Spindle.

But Tryfan ignored this warning altogether and, to Spindle’s surprise, when Alder reached them he was not aggressive.

“Better you than me,” he said mildly. “Could be residual plague she’s got. We never wanted her in here in the first place. But —” He shrugged. “I don’t suppose a bit of old-fashioned laying on of paws’ll hurt anymole. The eldrenes should have sent somemole here before this so I’ll not be reporting what you do.” Alder went off and engaged in conversation with the other one on the far side of the burrow who, it seemed from snatches of conversation they heard, was not quite so keen on a healing going on, old-fashioned or not.

As Tryfan turned back to Thyme, Spindle too went close to her, and with such concern in his thin face that Pennywort moved not a talon to stop him.

It was at this moment that Thyme, perhaps feeling Tryfan’s presence, opened her eyes and found she was looking into the eyes of Spindle. She was too weak to recoil from the stranger.

“It’ll be all right,” faltered Spindle. “My friend will help you.”

She tried to speak but could not, and Spindle said softly, “Now don’t you say a thing. My friend...” And he looked round at Tryfan with appeal in his eyes. “... knows what to do.”

The Stone grants to all moles the capacity to heal, though few know it or, if they do, honour it. Until then Tryfan had done little more than touch other moles in friendliness, but now he felt at last the sure calm nature of healing, and understood the effort it required.

As Tryfan’s paws touched Thyme’s flanks, he found himself whispering of seven moles, seven Books, seven Stillstones and as he did so, as the Stone’s grace is sudden and always unheralded to mole, power was there and light and Tryfan began the task for which his life so far had been the preparation.

He seemed quite unconcerned by the presence of others, friendly or not, and no longer adopting the low concealing voice he had first addressed Pennywort in, he began a healing chant Rebecca his mother had taught him:

May Stone’s silence be thine

And well and seven times well may you become

The warmth of the Stone be about thee....

He spoke powerfully, and everymole in that burrow knew instantly that something strange and powerful was apaw. Hearing his voice the guardmoles looked round: “healing” was one thing but this was much more than that and now the guardmole Marram started to come across the burrow to tell him to stop.

The warmth of the Stone be about thee