Duncton Tales (73 page)

“Come on, Fieldfare, you’ve got to move, more might come. You must
try
because I haven’t got the strength to take you any further. More Newborns might come, or the others might come back.”

So, in response to his urgent pleas, she came out of the fear she had been in.

“Where are we?” she began.

“As far from your burrows as I could get you before you collapsed,” said Pumpkin, somewhat ruefully. If
her
chest had been thumping earlier from fear,
his
was heaving in and out now from the unaccustomed and unwelcome effort of pushing and shoving a female mole twice his size through the Wood.

“I didn’t go upslope towards the Library,” he explained, “because that’s the way they went, thinking they’d find you there. I didn’t go east because that would have brought us to the Wood’s edge and with nowhere left to go, I didn’t go north downslope because that’s where they came from. So I brought you westward. And anyway …”

As he explained himself in his roundabout and pedantic way, Fieldfare had time to catch up with herself, realize she was all right and they were both safe; having passed through the death of extreme fear she was beginning to feel the surging courage of rediscovered life.

As this welcome change came over her, Pumpkin had looked slowly westward, and interrupted himself in a strange voice and with those words: “And anyway …”

His breathing slowed, light came to his eyes and with it a look of purpose quite different from that which had overtaken him when Fieldfare had been in such peril. Now another kind of strength entered him, and he stanced up, mouth half open with his unfinished thought and sentence, looking like a mole who has caught sight of something among distant trees, something he cannot see clearly but for which he has searched for a long time.

“What is it, Pumpkin?” asked Fieldfare.

“It’s Rolls and Rhymes, yes, it’s there. We must go there. It’ll be all right if we go there.”

“Then let’s go there!” said Fieldfare, now quite ready to do whatever the brave and courageous and most purposeful Pumpkin advised her. He had been right thus far and she had no reason to think that the Stone would not see him right to the end.

“Work to do …” he muttered, “lots of work …” and away he busily led her, out of the temporary shelter he had found and on through the Wood towards where once old Husk had lived.

But they had hardly started before scattered drops of rain came down, now before them, now behind them, now to their right and left. Then the rain stopped and wind flurried by. Then a few drops of rain fell once more, and the sky darkened with heavy clouds that were the tide of time.

“Must get there quickly, Fieldfare, to save what texts we can,” said Pumpkin, and Fieldfare saw that his eyes still held the light of a task ahead.

It was that same rain which woke Privet, Whillan and Chater from the strange sleep they had fallen into.

They had left the clearing after Husk’s death and final passage to the Stone’s Silence, but their plan of going to Rolls and Rhymes had soon faltered, and it was not Privet who slowed them down, but Chater.

Just as, unknown to each other, Pumpkin in one place, and Maple in another, had had revealed to them a glimpse of the Stone’s Light and need for their support, so Chater had as well. The strongest had weakened, for not long after leaving the clearing he had paused and said he felt … Well, he knew not what he felt: strange; tired; sick.

But to Privet it seemed that the light in his eyes was more alive than anything she had seen there before, and to Whillan this sudden faltering of Chater was all of a piece with the mystery of that morning, when the Stone rather than themselves seemed to be directing them.

“Can’t go on, Privet, must rest for a bit,” Chater had said, astonished at his own feebleness, and wishing to reach out for something that lay ahead of him at the same time as he wanted to find a temporary burrow and close his eyes and yield up to the heavy tiredness that inexplicably beset him. It was Whillan who took charge, finding a scrape that would serve to give them shelter from the adversities of the day, where they might rest until Chater was recovered.

But what began as rest for Chater drifted in no time at all into sleep for all of them, and huddled together in fatigue they slid into a dreamless darkness, and the Stone watched over them.

Until, towards midday, the plop! plop! plop! of rain on the leaf-litter just above their heads woke them with a start, and they knew as one that they must go to Rolls and Rhymes immediately. It was just that they had needed time to pause.

So it was that by the time they arrived at the ruins of Rolls and Rhymes, Pumpkin and Fieldfare had been there all morning, and long since discovered that there was little left to save but the few broken fragments of texts and folios which had by chance found shelter from the torrential storm under some fallen branch or projecting root when the Newborns had done their destructive work. But almost all the precious material had been scattered out on to the open surface, and exposed to wind and rain the long night through, and was now sodden, broken, indecipherable — lost to moledom for ever.

When he had first seen the ruined tunnels of the place, and the destruction the Newborns had so effectively wrought, the light of hope that had shone in Pumpkin’s eyes had faded, and he had wept. But then his long training in the care of texts had reasserted itself, and he had wandered here and there, sifting out the few remnants that made sense to him, while Fieldfare kept watch, and encouraged him as best she could in his work.

They knew what they were doing, Deputy Keeper Privet,” he said sombrely. When he heard of Husk’s death he openly broke down and cried, as much for what seemed the death of a lifetime of work as for Husk. “They made sure the rain got to everything, and even waited to see that it did, pulling out texts which were protected by others so that all suffered the same fate,” he said, his normally cheerful and positive voice as near to bitterness as any of them ever heard him get. “But at least Keeper Husk is in the Silence of the Stone, which is a blessing in such a troubled time as this seems to be. We have that to be thankful for.”

But it was cold comfort, as he and Privet wandered miserably around the site, while Whillan peered here and there in the hope of finding something that had been overlooked and might still be preserved, and Fieldfare and Chater watched over them all, together again, one ever the comfort of the other.

“I shouldn’t have left you, my beloved,” said Chater miserably, alternately punishing himself by insisting that Fieldfare repeat what had happened and tell of the narrow escape she had had, and congratulating Pumpkin on his bold fooling of the Newborns and ‘that bloody Bantam’.

The Newborns had done their work of destruction so well that it was at first quite difficult to work out the line of tunnels that both Privet and Whillan had once known so well, but they persisted in clambering over the open exposed ground in the hope that they might at least find that the Newborns had not penetrated into Husk’s inner sanctum, and found and destroyed his Book of Tales.

“If we could just find that,” said Privet, “then his work will not have been in vain. Nomole but he knew what was in that great work, except for those few of us honoured to hear him tell a tale or two. If only we could find …”

But though at last they worked out where his scribing place had been — now just a heap of rutted earth and a mess of obliterated texts — nothing more seemed to be there at all.

“All gone,” whispered Privet at last, “all but the few things you found, Pumpkin, before the later rains came and finished off the work.”

But what were they? Nothing of consequence at all.

“We could try delving in the spoil in the hope that a few texts have been covered up,” said Pumpkin, and they did, but nothing did they find.

Or almost nothing.

For just as Whillan and Privet were giving up, and Chater was suggesting that they should make their way to the Library before darkness came, Pumpkin unearthed the first complete unbroken folio they had found.

“Why, it’s one of the discards from his Book of Tales,” said Privet in astonishment, smiling ruefully, and explaining that these were things she herself had specially preserved, and of all things to survive …

“At least they are in Husk’s paw, and a relic worth keeping if only for that!” she said.

“And the text he’s scored out is clear enough,” said Whillan, running his snout and then his paw over the folio.

“Perhaps there are some more where you found this,” said Privet.

“Aye,” said Whillan, going forward to delve, “perhaps there are some more.”

Then, most uncharacteristically, Pumpkin grew quite fierce, reaching out a paw to hold Whillan back and saying in a voice that was both warning and plea, “No, Whillan, that’s my task!”

It was not only Privet who saw the light of purpose come to Pumpkin’s mild eyes, for Fieldfare saw it too and instinctively grasped Chater’s paw with her own as if she sensed as well that something was apaw now in that place, and it was more than mole.

“Let Pumpkin delve, Whillan,” said Privet quietly. And delve he did, and found the discarded folios from Husk’s great work all but complete, neat, dry, as good as when Privet herself had set them to one side. Pumpkin took them up carefully and laid them out for Privet to examine.

The wind had died, and a still, pale afternoon was on them before Pumpkin came back with the last of the discarded folios. He was tired and needed a rest and the food they gave. Then, paw-weary though he was, he bravely said, “I’ve strength enough in my old paws for one last trek this day! If you’re in front, Chater, and Whillan’s behind, and the rest of you around, I’ll get there!”

“And where would that be, mole?” asked Chater jocularly, respect in his voice.

“Why, the Library of course!” said Pumpkin. “That’s where we must go! And if you don’t mind indulging an old Library aide I’ll carry these folios myself. There’s a right way of doing even the humblest tasks!”

The Library it is!” said Chater, and off they went through the gloom of the still, damp afternoon.

Chapter Thirty-Four

“The Master is in his scribing cell,” said Keeper Sturne impassively when they arrived in the Main Chamber of the Library. “He instructed me to inform you that you are to ascend to consult with him. Even you, Library Aide Pumpkin. Even you. He needs me not it seems!”

There was bitterness and defeat in his voice, and hearing it, and believing that he knew its cause, Whillan thought it a pity that some moles seemed never quite to fulfill their ambitions, and so lived perpetually dissatisfied. Sturne held his gaze as if he knew his thoughts, and Whillan looked down discomfited, hoping that if ever the day came when he reached a point in his life when hope declined and ambitions seemed all spoiled, he would not be as bitter as this mole Sturne.

“Deputy Master Snyde has been sent for and will be here before long,” continued Sturne. “The Master wishes to see you now.” Then as they mounted the ramp he added tersely, “The mole Maple and Elder Drubbins are there already …”

“Why is the Library so empty of mole?” asked Privet, pausing for a moment and turning back to look down at Sturne. “Where are all the aides and scholars?”

“When he came today the Master ordered that they go to Barrow Vale for the Meeting on the morrow.”

“And you, Sturne?” said Privet. She had always regarded him with respect, if not with affection, for though he had little to say to moles as mole, he was a true scholar and lover of texts, and the truth was all he cared for.

Sturne shrugged. “The Master wished it, and Meetings are only a place where moles talk, not a place to think.”

“Are they, Sturne?” she asked.

He stared up at her impassively, frowned, pursed his mouth and turned back to his text.

“You will call us when the Deputy Master comes?”

Sturne looked back and nodded brusquely before turning his back on them.

They found Stour talking quietly to Drubbins, with Maple deployed near the entrance through which they came, as watcher perhaps, though when they arrived he appeared to be dozing, his powerful head extended comfortably along his paws, his eyes closed. Though there were now so many moles crammed into the study cell, somehow its habitual hush imposed itself so that when Stour finished talking to Drubbins, a deep silence fell and they all waited expectantly for him to speak again.