Duncton Rising (68 page)

As the first hint of dusk darkened the eastern sky that same Longest Night Fieldfare sniffled and snuffled in the shadows of the Stones of Seven Barrows far to the south, and woke. She could not be sure, but it was the haunting note of the Blowing Stone that had woken her, and she lay with her eyes closed for a moment longer, wondering if it had been warning her, or offering inspiration. Then she remembered the events that had led to her being among the Stones. She knew she had been chased by two Newborns; she knew, or thought she knew, that she had been helped by a mole who spoke and looked like the fabled Mayweed, great route-finder at the time of the war of Word and Stone.

He could not be alive, of course, but, well... it was the time of Longest Night, this was where Mayweed had gone to the Silence, and whatmole was she to doubt that in some form or another he had come to help her? That was the kind of mole the tales said he was!

With a sudden hard conviction, Fieldfare felt certain that her Chater was dead. She had sensed it coming for several days past and the day before had felt his slow decline into Silence as if it were her own, as she had wandered out among the Stones of that mysterious place and ended up being chased in amongst them. She knew well the legend of the Barrows, and of how it was that while any normal mole could count six Stones there, some were graced to discover a seventh, taller than the others no doubt, and a place of discovery and peace.

Unable to think of any other way of diverting the Newborns she had run out across the stonefields beyond the Barrows. She had hoped, perhaps, not only to save her friends and her own life, but also in some vague despairing way that if she could find the seventh Stone she would be able to reach out to her Chater one last time and, touching him, know that he was safe in the Silence and merely waiting for her. Moles like he and she should not be apart for long.

She felt his death now and wept before the Stone where she found herself Then she wandered a little, remembering past and happier times, weeping for her love and wanting so much to touch him once more, just once. Strong Chater, irascible Chater, journeymole Chater, who she had always believed would come back but who now never would. And yet she felt he would want to let her know, to send his love to her. He loved her so much he would not want her to be alone.

“My sweet love, you’re coming home to me, aren’t you?” she whispered, but as the tears fell from her cheeks to the great Stone against which she now rested her head, she knew in her heart that he was not, not really.

“But
here,
my love, you could come here, for a journeymole might linger for a time about these Stones, and say farewell to the moledom and the mole he has loved. Mightn’t you, my dear?”

Later, much later perhaps, she continued her thought in a way younger moles might not have understood, being unfamiliar with the stories and legends of modem history on which a Duncton mole like Fieldfare had been reared.

“Mayweed did! He lingered here! He came and found the one
he
loved and lost to the Silence, as I’ve lost you. He did, loved one! So
you
could!”

She counted the Stones hopefully in the half-light, but she could make out no more than six spread out across the Pastures west of Seven Barrows.

So she grieved, content to be alone in such a place, and touching the Stones as if each touch was a happy memory of Chater to which she now said farewell. Sometimes she smiled, and sometimes wept through that dusktime of memories.

“Longest Night will soon begin and I must return to the others,” she had whispered sometime earlier on. “The Newborns will surely have gone and it’ll be safe to return. Anyway, Spurling and the rest will have been out searching for me... There’s work to be done, for they seem to think the tales and legends I tell of Duncton Wood are worth scribing down. Just fancy that, Chater my dear, your Fieldfare with her name on a text. Fancy!”

But she lingered on, unwilling to say a final goodbye and turn back to the future, and so the first shadows of dusk had touched the sky.

“Fieldfare! Fieldfare, are you there?”

It was young Noakes at the far distant edge of the stonefields, calling for her.

“Fieldfare!”

She rose at last to go, sniffing and wiping away a final tear.

“Comely Fieldfare!”

But neither the voice nor the turn of phrase sounded like Noakes’ now.

“Lachrymose mole!”

Nor was it far off, but nearby, among the shadows. She turned, awed by the sudden light that seemed among the Stones, yet not fearful.

“What mole is it, and whither are you bound?” she whispered in the shadows, not daring to look up.

“It’s not whither I am bound that matters, says this modest mole, for he may lay claim to having got here; no, Portly One, it is you who should ask whither she is bound.”

“‘Lachrymose mole’ – ‘this modest mole’? – ‘Portly One’? Why, there’s only one mole in all moledom’s history who ever spoke like that,” she said.

“And modest Mayweed is his name!”

“But Mayweed, you’re...” she said, still not looking up, though the light was brighter now, and his presence nearer.

“Dead? Finished? Done for? Totally and utterly gone? In a manner of speaking, in a mortal sense, this is true. But this is Longest Night, the time of the seasons’ turning, and you, clever and well-fleshed as you are, have chosen to stance right at the very place where the seventh Stone stands. Therefore, we may if we choose come out of the Silence for a time and say a brief hello!”

Mayweed
here?
Now? A dead mole come alive? So, what she had imagined the afternoon before about a mole helping her was true. Still Fieldfare dared not look up, but stared instead at her front paws and wiggled her talons about to see if they were real. They moved and she seemed as normal, except for the awesome light that shone upon her fur and gave it a silvery look. But Mayweed? Why, he
did
speak just like the storytellers of her youth
said
he spoke – as indeed
she
made him speak when she told tales of his route-finding exploits and of his friendship with Tryfan, Spindle and the other great moles of those days (of which he was himself one of the greatest).

“Pondering Plumpness,” he continued, “tell me of what you think!”

“I was thinking —”

“Madam, you can raise your eyes and look at me, I will not flee. I will not leave you as I left you yesterday, but then, fair Fieldfare, I had a journey to make and a mole to find who had been calling for you. Now, raise your eyes.”

Slowly she did so, and there, in the lee of a great Stone, he stanced once more as he had the day before – thin, with patchy fur, and eyes more mischievously alive than any she had ever seen. As for the light, it was an aura about him, and round the Stone as well.

“Plumpness was pondering on what?”

“Chater, my beloved.”

“Yes,” said Mayweed, his eyes sympathetic, “he has found the Silence now, or nearly so. A mole dies and must then journey for a time. Sometimes he needs a guide and it seems I am Chater’s. He knew you needed help, you know, and so I brought him to you in a land of way. I had to leave you for a time to go and get him and guide him here.”

“Is he here now?”

Again Fieldfare looked at her paws and prodded at the dry grass to see if she was awake; she seemed to be, except that beyond the circle of the light there was a kind of dimness, as if nothing existed but the here and now.

“If madam will do me the honour, modest and humble though I am, of taking my paw – yes, thus, with dignity becoming to our age and sorry status – I will show you...”

She did so and did not even flinch when he led her towards the Stone he had been near and then (as it seemed) into it.

“So, flummoxed Fieldfare, here we are, and you can see your Chater one more time as I lead him on to where he was always journeying, which is the Silence.”

She dared to look in the direction he pointed and saw the dark and stolid form of Chater, looking not at her but forward, towards a Light nomole can ever describe in words. She saw he had been hurt in the chest, but knew that he was in pain no more.

“My dear...” she said, for he looked so alone, “My love...” But he did not, could not, look at her.

“I must go to him, Fieldfare, for he hears your love’s call and knows it comes from the Silence. Your beloved voice leads him on, not back. It is his final comfort.”

“But I am
here,
Mayweed,” she whispered desperately.

“The love you two made was born of true Silence, Mistress Fieldfare, and one day you will return to it. Out of the Silence we were born, into the Silence we will return.”

“Mayweed, can I... can I come with you now to be with him?”

Mayweed turned to her, and his eyes were the Light itself, and his voice the Silence as he slowly shook his head and said, “Madam, you have still a task to do and moledom needs you: and clever Chater knew it. His task was done: he told moles what he needed to, and he helped save Rooster’s life that moledom would not lose its Master of the Delve before his work was complete. Nor is your task yet quite over. Therefore, turn back now of your own choice, turn back and do what you must. The time on the mortal world outside the seventh Stone will seem but brief before you come back once more and journey into Silence. Chater will await you.”

“Care for him. Mayweed.”

“I shall, and he shall watch over you. Fulsome Fieldfare, go back to the life you are not yet ready to leave.”

“And be bold?” She even dared to smile when she said this, for they were Mayweed’s words, a long time before, to another mole in this same place. Or so the story went.

“Be bold indeed, Fieldfare – bold and comely!”

With that he turned, or seemed to turn, to Chater and together the two moles went slowly into the Stone’s Light.

“Bold and comely!” Fieldfare found herself whispering aloud, and with a smile, as the light about her faded and she found herself out by the Stone where she had been stanced before Mayweed came. It looked like any other Stone.

Any other Stone? She reached out and touched it, and then, suddenly alert, slowly circled round and counted all the other Stones, one, two, three... and there were seven. There were!

“Fieldfare!” It was Noakes, calling to her still, from so far away.

Such light as was left was fading with each moment, and the winter breeze was fretting in the grass.

“Longest Night is come,” whispered Fieldfare, feeling tired and content. “Now I never need to worry about my Chater again and one day, when the Stone wills it, I shall join him. Meanwhile I have a task to find, which, I suppose, I must fulfil – and in a bold but comely way!”

“Fieldfare!”

“Yes,” she called, turning from the Stones at last, “I’m ready now.”

Out of the dark she came, slowly and gracefully, as the loyal and determined Noakes, the first to go searching for her the day before, and now the last to seek for her before giving up, called one last time.

“Fieldfare?”

“Yes,” she said again, coming ever closer to him; he was unable to believe what he saw – that she was alive, and unhurt, and...

“I have been to see my beloved, my Chater,” she said, her eyes alight with love, and sadness, and relief that all was done as it should have been. Nomole so loved as he, so good, so true, should go to the Silence all alone.

“But he wasn’t alone, you see my dear, he had me to say farewell; and Mayweed, he was there to guide him on into the Light.”

“They thought you had been taken,” said Noakes with tears of relief coming to his eyes, “even Spurling thought so. But I knew...”

The two moles held each other, both in tears; one because his prayers had been answered and Fieldfare was safe and well again, and the other for knowing that her love had been blessed with a final farewell in the Stone’s Light.

They sniffled, and they snuffled, and they talked as moles do who have shared something secret, and Noakes asked, “What was Mayweed really like? I mean...”

“He was like the tales they tell of him, rather thin, rather patchy, and with a toothy grin and a grand way of talking.”

“Fieldfare,” said Noakes, “we better go down to Seven Barrows. There’s a lot of very unhappy moles there, quite unable to celebrate because they think you’re dead. Well you’re not, and you better go and show them so. But, Fieldfare?”

“Yes, mole,” she said, feeling suddenly very tired.

“Well, I’m just an adventuring kind of mole I suppose, and I never thought about the future until these hours I’ve spent watching the Stones for signs of you.”

“You could have come among them, my love. You might have found me sooner.”

Noakes shook his head. “No, that didn’t feel right, though I thought about it. And anyway, I knew you’d be safe if you were out there among the Stones. But the future... it didn’t seem possible to have one without you. I never wanted to see anymole alive so much as you!”

Fieldfare held him close in a warm and motherly way. “Mole,” she said, “I don’t think anymole has ever said such a nice thing to me on Longest Night, not ever before. And do you know...?”

Noakes shook his head. His face-fur was wet with tears, his eyes wide, and he looked even younger than his years.

“Well, I think if you hadn’t called me, I might not have been able to come back. I didn’t want to, I wanted to stay with Chater, and to go on with him into the Silence. But you called and Mayweed said that perhaps I ought to go back.”

They were silent a little longer as above them, one by one, stars came out. Then together they turned towards Seven Barrows, whose curving shadows loomed ahead in the darkness, and a watcher saw them.

“Halt! Whatmole goes there?”

“Noakes!” called Noakes, “and a friend!”

“A good friend!” called out Fieldfare.

“What do you mean “a good friend”?” replied the watcher dubiously, coming a little closer. “Why it’s... but bless me you’re... by the Stone, I do believe... no, no it can’t be!”

“But it is!” cried Noakes triumphantly.

“It’s me. Fieldfare,” said Fieldfare, and she had never felt so glad to be alive.