Duncton Stone (83 page)

Whilst on those fields, many followers lay dead and were never identified. Whilst others were dead, and known. Spurling, who would have been Fieldfare’s mate, died uttering her beloved name. And brave Furrow, he died, defending Myrtle who lived, proud to tell the tale. And two senior commanders, Whindrell and Runnel, the latter the lifelong friend of Stow, they bled their lives away in the fields of victory.

Aye, and brave Noakes, younger than most, yet a mole who had given a lifetime of bravery and service to the followers’ cause. Somewhere in the tunnels he was lost, and fought a final battle on his own, against what odds nomole can know, and died unknown and never found.

Two days passed, and the victors barely moved, but to wander those red fields and search the dykes, to find what friends they could, or listen to the grim, grey wind, and wish they heard more than silence on its breath. They heard no voices that they knew; nor any laughter from friends who would never laugh, or cry, again.

Just the desolation.

They heard the last plaints of lapwings, and the croak of rook and crow; they knew only loss, and wondered why victory caused such pain.

This, they blankly knew, was the Battle of Buckland.

These, they saw, were the rotten fruits of victory.

Those were the days and the hours that Weeth, and Maple, and Ystwelyn and many more, swore nomole must ever glorify, nor praise, nor ever let moledom forget.

Until, on the third day, Maple, his wound sore but healing, the stinging internal pains dying into a new and deeper pain, the guilt of what he had done invisible to all but himself, and Weeth, and Ystwelyn: great Maple, destroyer Maple, triumphant Maple, led them away.

But as he looked back one final time to the fields where the Newborns had been crushed and vanquished, and where now rooks flew and darted down to feed on the dead, Maple said, “In what we did in Buckland there is no sound of Silence. There is no Light. There will be no Book of Silence found in this war that we fought.”

Then Maple led a silent army of moles away from Buckland, and across the vales towards the south-east, not to seek victory, but to ask forgiveness at the Duncton Stone.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Hibbott was glad to leave the frenetic atmosphere around the cross-under by Duncton Wood, and head instead for Cuddesdon. Naturally he knew of its venerable past, and how a religious community had been established there a century before.

No doubt, too, he had heard from other travellers that the place was of little account to the Newborns, and it was therefore likely to be a safe, as well as an interesting, sanctuary for a short time. Perhaps, in his innocence, Hibbott believed that he might return to the cross-under after a few days and find, miraculously, entry no longer obstructed by guardmoles.

However it was, off he went. He seems to have made good time for a middle-aged mole, reaching Cuddesdon somewhat before dusk and clambering up its slopes quite openly, so that if anymole was about he might be easily seen.

As it happened a mole was very much about, and that was Purvey, the sole surviving brother of the massacre first reported by Chater a long time before, and the same who had welcomed Hamble on his arrival from Caradoc, before he ventured on into Duncton Wood.

Hibbott introduced himself and explained that he had come simply to see a system that had in its time been a famous centre for study and contemplation, and any relics and texts that might be there, adding, “... or old tunnels, and chambers and suchlike, which a pilgrim like me is always curious to see.”

“Old tunnels? Old chambers?” said Purvey dismissively.

“There are a few, I suppose, but hardly worth mentioning. The library chamber is the only thing worth preserving, though even that needs improvement. I had rather thought you had come to see our new tunnels, and new chambers.”

“I was not aware...” began Hibbott, eyeing Purvey’s weedy stature and very much doubting whether such a mole could even think of creating anything new at all. He looked about the bleak slopes of Cuddesdon and wondered if solitude and isolation had affected the mole’s mind, and given him delusions of grandeur.

“But I’m always happy to see anything new, if you want to show me that is,” he said.

Purvey was only too eager to show him, then and there, before Hibbott even had time to get the grit and grime out of his talons and find some food. Which Hibbott, gentle mole that he was, yielded to without complaint.

Delusion it certainly seemed to be, for he was led over a rutted, ruined surface, and past caved-in tunnels and chambers which spoke of the former glories of Cuddesdon of which he had heard, but promised nothing new at all.

“Not here, not here, mole,” said Purvey, hurrying him past part of a tunnel and a glimpse of a subterranean arch which he would have liked to explore further, “there’s nothing worth seeing down there. No, it’s all this way, on the south side, here.”

They mounted a slight slope, turned a bend amongst some bedraggled undergrowth, and there came into view a sloping area of ground across which, to Hibbott’s astonishment, spread a whole host of recently delved mounds of soil and rock particles. It looked as if an army of moles had been at work.

“This way,” said Purvey, beaming with proprietorial pride.

Hibbott was led underground by way of a subtle slipway, from whose depths he heard the softest and most pleasant of wind-sound, like the running of a distant brook in summer. The lighting was varied and surprising, taking him from light of day into near-darkness and then, almost before he knew it, round a corner into light again to a wide, arched tunnel, of a style and solidity he had never seen before.

“We thought this would be the entrance into the first of the chambers,” said Purvey, hurrying busily forward, talking almost like a mole with a new mate in the process of creating a new burrow ahead of a spring birthing, and not a religious brother whom Hibbott had taken to be celibate.

When Hibbott went through the portal at the far end of the tunnel he found himself in a deeply delved chamber, full of light and shade, whose subtle lines and curves took a mole’s eye on and on and then around, and all the way back again. The wind-sound was still gentle, balanced, and whispered of tunnels and chambers beyond, one way and another, and peacefulness. It all made Hibbott want to stance down and contemplate.

“It is remarkable,” said Hibbott, stopping and looking about appreciatively. “When did you...?”

“Me? I do nothing! I provide them with food and a place to rest, and they delve. Don’t
talk
much, mind, which is a shame, even when they’re not delving.”

“What moles are they?” asked Hibbott, setting forth again through the chamber to reach the other end, for he fancied he heard the sound of moles that way.

“Oh, you mustn’t disturb them, whatever you do. He shouts and roars if you do..

“He’s not...” began Hibbott, suddenly thinking what-mole it might be that shouted and roared. Not that he had at
him
on the one occasion they met.

“Rooster, that’s the one.”

“And his assistant, Frogbit?” said Hibbott with delight.

“You know them!” exclaimed Purvey. “Then you’re a delver yourself?”

Hibbott explained that he was not, and that he was only too happy to pause awhile until the delving was finished. He knew enough about such things not to wish to disturb work in progress.

But he did not have to wait long, for dusk had already begun to fall; the sounds beyond became sporadic, and eventually pawsteps approached and Frogbit appeared, looking dusty and dishevelled.

“Oh,” he said, seeing Hibbott and not seeming to recognize him.

Hibbott reminded him who he was, and how they had met in the Wolds; Frogbit, mute and wide-eyed, stared at him and when he had quite finished, and after a silence, said, “I know. I remember. He’ll be pleased. Said you went ahead of him, now we’ve caught you up.”

“Er, yes,” said Hibbott, unsure what all this meant.

“No good going to him. Delving’s not gone well for days past. Reached a natural end, I say. But what am I? Only his assistant!”

“An end!” exclaimed Purvey in alarm. “But you’ve only just begun. I mean the grand scheme, the Great Chamber, the —”

“Beginning’s the most difficult bit,” said Frogbit matter-of-factly. “Delvings grow by themselves after that. Others do them. You’ll see, I expect. Hibbott’s coming’s the end for now, I reckon. That’s what I think. Could be wrong. Often am with Rooster, but getting better. Know what I mean?” He grinned briefly and said, “He’s coming now. No he’s not, he’s stopped. Thinking he is, about the northern portal. Difficult, bit of a bodge, that is.”

Whether Rooster had been coming Hibbott did not know, since he did not appear.

Purvey leaned towards Hibbott and whispered, “He’s usually right. Queer fellows, delvers. Ears like snouts: hear things you and I can’t.”

They all fell into a pleasant silence, so relaxing that as the light faded in the chamber Hibbott’s eyes began to droop and sleep was beginning to come over him.

Then Rooster appeared, quite suddenly, as if he had been lurking just out of sight and had decided to surprise them all by rushing in. One moment he was not there and the next the chamber seemed full of him.

“Hibbott the pilgrim mole we talked to at Bourton’s here,” said Frogbit.

“Hibbott,” said Rooster coming near and peering hard at him. “Why? Privet?”

Hibbott told him of Privet’s coming to Duncton, and, as best he could, the situation around and about Duncton: pilgrims massing, Thorne coming from the north, rumours of Maple and the followers fighting the Newborns in the south, and Quail safely beyond the well-defended cross-under through which Privet had now gone.

“Privet’s near end of her beginning, like us here and now, and I should be there,” said Rooster at the end of it all, most mysteriously. “You’ve come to get me.”

“Have I?” wondered Hibbott.

Rooster nodded, scratching his face from which the reddish dust of soil came up in clouds and made Purvey sneeze.

Frogbit blinked in surprise and said, “Bless you.”

“Did she have the Book?” asked Purvey, dabbing at his snout. “I mean...”

“She did not seem to,” said Hibbott.

“No,” said Rooster, “no, no. Not outside Duncton. Inside. That’s what Duncton
is
.”

Hibbott looked uncomprehendingly at Rooster, who frowned as ferociously as ever, though his eyes were warmer and his stance easier than before.

“You tend, if I may say so, to talk oddly,” said Hibbott. “What do you mean by ‘Duncton
is
’?”

Rooster ignored this altogether and grumbled to himself instead, finally declaring that he was hungry, at which Purvey bustled off and found some worms.

“Duncton,” said Rooster finally, “is where we must all go. Is where the Book of Silence must be, which we are, all of us, even...”

Rooster cast around for somemole or other who might be generally considered not to be part of “all of us”, or only a very peripheral part, and Frogbit offered up a name.

“Snyde?” he said.

“No,” said Rooster, “Snyde’s important. Can’t have Silence without him.”

“Quail?” tried Purvey.

Rooster shook his head and said, “Like Snyde. Would be nothing, all of us, without him.”

“Then, how about me?” said Hibbott, perfectly happy to be peripheral.

Rooster laughed generously and patted Hibbott on the back with his great right paw, so that Hibbott was nearly flattened on the ground and Frogbit had to come hurrying and help him up and dust him down.

“No!” said Rooster. “Like Rowan’s descendant.”

“Who’s he?” asked Hibbott.

“Long time ago, was Rowan,” said Rooster. “Spindle and Mayweed knew him in old days, when modern times began, when Book of Silence began to be again. Before I was born. Rowan lived in the Wen.”

Light dawned on Purvey’s face and he said, “My, you have a good memory, Rooster, sir, not many would remember him. He was
very
insignificant.”

“Nomole is insignificant. That’s what I meant, not even Rowan’s descendant.”

“But who is he?” asked Hibbott.

Rooster shrugged and Frogbit said, “Who knows? Rooster doesn’t know. I don’t. You don’t. Purvey mole doesn’t. Therefore, peripheral. But important all the same, like the delving at the edge is important to the part in the middle.”

Rooster nodded approvingly and said, “Frogbit’s learning. One day Frogbit will have learnt. One day Frogbit will be a delver true, through and through, from snout to talon, from head to heart. That day gets nearer and will suddenly be.”

Frogbit was so surprised and embarrassed by this unexpected eulogy that his snout blushed bright red, and he tried to hide it between his paws.

“So, Purvey mole, we must go,” said Rooster not unkindly. “Must go to Duncton now that Privet’s come to ground. Nomole is alone, though all must travel alone. Now Privet needs all our help.”

“But what about the delving still to be done, the Great Chamber, the southern tunnels, the lower extension, the... the...” Purvey’s voice faded as his dreams seemed to crumble before his eyes.