Duncton Quest (96 page)

“If we are faithful and true I think the Stone will bring us together once more,” he said.

“Myn der, yow are moche biloved. I desyred puppes with yow.”

“You are the only mole I loved or ever can,” said Tryfan.

But Feverfew touched her talon to his mouth as if it might be better to say nothing than to tell what one day might be a lie. His eyes travelled over her flanks, ravaged now by scalpskin, and he touched her there.

She smiled at him, “Have nat fer, I shalle nat dye. The Stane may heille me welle. Have nat fer myn luv, have not so.”

Yet between them was a silence they could not cross for all the words they spoke, of love, of hope of better times. And they parted as if it was a relief, each to seek what it might be that would fill that silence and make them one again.

Soon after Tryfan left the Wen, with Spindle at his side and good Mayweed making a third, to guide them northwards to the place from which old Boswell had called, north past the Dark Peak, north to dread Whern.

Heath said a quiet goodbye, touching Tryfan and Spindle as they went and pausing a final moment with Mayweed, whom he liked.

“One thing importunate me, Mayweed, would like to ask,” said Mayweed.

“Go on, mate, I’ll do it if I can.”

“Watch over the magical Madam with love, and when she says she wants to go home, you help her.”

“Heath won’t forget that. Now off you go else Heath’ll start to cry, and that’s not Heath’s way,” said Heath.

So Mayweed did, to guide Tryfan and Spindle northward from the Wen.

While down on the eastside of that dying system Starling played with her young, with Feverfew nearby. The other moles stayed clear, scared of Feverfew’s scalpskin now.

Yet often Starling’s pups played at Feverfew’s flanks and Starling let them. She had been protected too long by a mole called Mayweed, who had the scars of scalpskin, to fear it for her young. And, too, as Feverfew sang to them, she saw a healing there, and knew from some ancient wisdom mothers know, what is right and what is wrong.

It was right that her young learnt what Feverfew would teach them. It was right that Tryfan had gone for now.

Yet it was wrong that Feverfew and Tryfan were separate, quite wrong. But Starling kept her silence on that at least, and knew that one day she might, with the Stone’s help, right those wrongs she saw.

“Feverfew?”

“Myne der?”

“Will you tell my pups about the Stone when the time’s right, and me as well?” Feverfew nodded gently, thinking then of a great silence that was between herself and Tryfan, and she smiled; for there must be a way to fill it, and the Stone would find it, and Tryfan would know that too, he would!

“Will you?” repeated Starling.

“I wyl.”

“Can I listen too, or is it just for pups?”

“Yow can, my luv; yow can.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Dissent breeds its own community, which in turn makes its own burrows and finds its own meeting places. So it was now all across moledom among such followers of the Stone as remained willing to give voice to their faith.

In some places, as in Caradoc, long abandoned Stones had become the meeting points, finding new life and ritual in the secret meetings those few brave followers held. But in Stone systems taken over and occupied by the grikes, such Stones became dangerous places to be, for they were often patrolled, and moles found there were under threat of snouting.

So followers in such systems had to choose places which were less obvious, yet which could be found by moles who perhaps had only heard of them by word of mouth, whispered quickly by one believer to another at some hurried meeting where the Stone’s wonder was remembered, and its purpose praised. Often such places had to be abandoned, or went for long periods without a visit until suspicion had passed by and they could be used again.

Naturally in the seven Ancient Systems, or at least those ones like Avebury, Duncton, Siabod and Rollright which were occupied by grikes, patrols and watches over the charismatic Stones were always vigilant, especially at times like the solstices when followers like to visit the Stones. Indeed, it is said that even at times of greatest curfew or abandonment many Stones were visited by a believer at Longest Night and at Midsummer.
The Book of Martyrs
contains several names of followers who were led by their faith at such times to such Stones, knowing that their lives would be forfeit. So did the revered Herbert of Avebury die in the dark age of Clayne in that system; and

Ferris, who gave his life at Fyfield in evil Lewknor’s time; and more recently beloved Brambling, who suffered martyrdom at Seven Barrows at the talons of the grikes.

But now it is to Rollright that a mole must go, hiding amongst the stand of oaks and ash that lie a little to the south east of the Stones there, to learn of the true beginning of Tryfan’s mission north, when in courage and humility he would seek to tell allmole of the Stone as it had been taught him by Boswell himself.

Rollright has a circle of Stones as Avebury has, but naturally in Henbane’s time the circle was heavily guarded lest followers should attempt to enter at the surface to gain the healing such circles are said to give.

Yet there are other Stones at Rollright and ones the grikes overlooked, perhaps because their name makes them sound ominous and an unlikely place for dissidents to meet.

These strange Stones, which stand to the south east of the circle, lean strangely together as if protecting each other, and perhaps a superstitious mole in the past felt they were like stoats whispering to each other before taking prey. For local moles call them the Whispering Stoats.

The wind reaches only softly into the enclave they make, for they lie in the lee of the hill where the Rollright circle rises. There, secretly, dissenters met in those days, almost within earshot of the patrolling grikes, and whispered their rituals, asking that the Stone might bring its light back to moledom and grant its Silence.

Sometimes only two or three moles met beneath the Whispering Stoats, for the followers’ numbers were hard-pressed by grikes and the spies of the sideem, and many disappeared or died. Yet always others came, whose heart had been touched by the Stone’s light and who dared speak out their faith.

A watching mole in those days when Tryfan seemed lost to the followers might well have sensed a longing in such moles; for the way of dissent is a hard one, and lonely, and such a mole finds his paws taking him through the tunnel of dark night when only hope, and faith, and love may lead him on.

Is it any wonder that at such a time, when to followers the whole of moledom seemed like a dark night, that that longing for the Stone and its Silence should find its expression in a need that then of all times,
now,
the Stone Mole might come? Oh, now, Stone, send him that he might help us... such was the prayer a watching mole might have heard spoken in the shelter of the Whispering Stoats....

Tryfan, Spindle and Mayweed found, as so many travellers have, that the return journey is the swifter and easier of the two. Mayweed had taken a northern route out of the Wen and it proved a wise choice, for though the obstacles and dangers were many yet the routes were fast, and before many days had passed they were back to wormful soils and safe halts while Mayweed decided on the next stage.

They had left in May, and by mid-June were clear of the worst of the Wen and able to veer north west towards Rollright. It was Tryfan’s hope to reach it by Midsummer for he believed that though the meeting with Skint and Smithills at Longest Night was past, and it was unlikely that they would have waited for so long, yet it was probable that they had arranged some message for them knowing they might themselves go to Rollright then or, like themselves, send a messenger.

But though they had started swift they began to slow as June progressed and by Midsummer were still some way outside the environs of Rollright. But at least Tryfan knew of the Whispering Stoats from Boswell, for such knowledge is part of the lore that scribemoles traditionally learn as part of their training in the lines of the Stones themselves, so they had an objective.

Spindle and Mayweed had both noticed that Tryfan, who had been quiet ever since his mating with Feverfew and the terrible events of her pupping, had become even quieter since leaving the Wen, though “quiet” is too passive a word for the state he was in.

If they had expected grief and a sense of loss in him for what he had left behind, they did not find it. Nor was his silence a matter of fatigue after the rigors of the Wen period. It was, rather, the nervousness or doubt that a mole may experience before embarking on a course for which he or she may not feel quite ready, but which circumstances dictate must now begin.

Spindle, who knew Tryfan so well, gave his support in ways few moles would easily have understood though he often seemed to go his own way and followed his interests. Yet when Tryfan needed him he was always there, as he had promised Boswell he would be, and though he never said as much in his own chronicles of his life with Tryfan, we may guess he understood that as Tryfan travelled nearer to that Silence that he sought, the demands on Spindle would become greater and more difficult to fulfil. So perhaps Spindle’s reported irritability on the journey between the Wen and Rollright reflected his own unspoken nervousness of the trials that lay ahead; and his growing realisation that they would be great indeed.