Duncton Stone (87 page)

“Those worms have your name scribed on them!” said Pumpkin.

“Well, you ought to know, seeing as you’re a library aide and knows about such things!” said the mole. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll eat them as best I may and what’s left can be shared out between you all, for a wise mole accepts a gift in the spirit in which it’s given.”

He ate, and truly, not one who watched him felt envy or greed or disappointment when he ate the lot, and slept afterwards as he might have done when a pup after the feast of Longest Night.

“Bless him,” said Elynor.

“Bless us all,” responded Pumpkin, “and may the Stone continue to give us such blessings, and the strength to do right, to be strong, and to have faith that one day all will be well in Duncton Wood once more. And may the Stone give its protection to all those we love: Maple, who is fighting for us; Weeth, his friend, who so courageously came here to see us – may he be safe; Cluniac, Elynor’s son and the mole who saved my life; and that mole Noakes, who came to us from Seven Barrows where Fieldfare helps refugees survive as we are here, Stone be with both of them; and Privet and all the moles she loves.

“And Whillan, her son, in whose life as you all know I have faith. Wherever he is, whether in the Silence as most moles say, or somewhere in moledom, safe and struggling, as I believe... Stone, give him strength.”

So Pumpkin had prayed that night when their hard-pressed community found extra food for one of their own; and so he had often prayed before, and since.

In all that time, with the exception of Cluniac, none had guessed the vital role that Sturne had played in giving Pumpkin the information he needed to lead his friends from one peripheral tunnel to another, or to bid them lie low and still for a search would be on for several days yet; or to say that it would be unwise to go worm-hunting after dark out on the pastures, for that area was under special scrutiny.

If any guessed that he had such a source of information, none declared it, and nor did any ever question him when he said, even when much danger was about, “Well, I think I’ll just pop up to the surface to contemplate the stars and have a little time alone.”

“My dear, I wish you wouldn’t go,” Elynor might sometimes say.

Pumpkin would only smile at her, as he did at Hamble, or any other mole who tried to stop him. Then he would say, “This is
our
system, our High Wood, not
theirs,
and I will assert my right to be free in it, if only for a little time, and at night, and in shadows.”

This was the nearest Pumpkin ever came to a lie, and even then it was half true, for he was asserting his right, and he did pause and contemplate the better past, and what he hoped would be the better time to come. But then he would creep away surreptitiously to make a rendezvous with Sturne, and learn what he could that might help towards their continuing survival.

Then, at the end of October, after many previous failures to reach their meeting-place near the library because so many guardmole patrols were about, Pumpkin succeeded in seeing Sturne again, and heard for the first time that Thripp had been “delivered” to Duncton Wood and was now being kept up in the Slopes nearest to the Stone, and that Elder Senior Brother Quail was expected very soon.

“Keep going, Pumpkin,” urged Sturne, “for now all must surely change. I have heard that Quail’s forces are in disarray since Brother Commander Sapient went hurrying south following Avebury’s fall to Maple.”

“Avebury! No longer in Newborns’ paws! Blest be! Oh, blest be, Sturne!” cried out Pumpkin, so far unable to contain himself that he threw his paws about the chilly exterior of Sturne and... well... embraced him.

“Yes, yes, that may be, that may be, Pumpkin!” said Sturne, always most discomfited by such demonstrations of emotion. “But over-excitement is not going to help.”

“Joy, not excitement!” interjected Pumpkin.

“Well, yes, of course... joy...” said Sturne, the word so unfamiliar to him that he could hardly get his mouth round its soft and happy sound. I had forgotten that it is so long since we were able to meet that you did not know about Avebury. Fetter is naturally very worried indeed. He sees it as a threat to his hope that he will be host to Quail here, and honoured in some way. Having heard that Senior Brother Skua is out of favour with Quail, perhaps Fetter is hoping that he will be promoted.”

“Ah...” said Pumpkin, never much interested in such intrigues.

“Suffice it to say, much is changing and we need to keep in touch. Therefore, I shall strive to be...” and here they made a further arrangement which, though dangerous, was a feasible way of getting information daily to Pumpkin if something of significance happened. So it was that when at the beginning of November something of the gravest significance happened, Pumpkin knew about it that same day.

“I haven’t got long,” whispered Sturne from out of the gloom of the ruined side tunnel that was their meeting-place.

“What’s apaw, Sturne? There seem to be more guardmoles about than ever, and though we’ve tried to get to the Stone since I last saw you, it has been quite impossible. Is Thripp still there?”

“He is. But it’s Privet...”

Pumpkin’s heart sank, and the world began to darken, for it must be bad news.

“Mole,
Pumpkin
,” said Sturne, coming forward to give support to his lifelong friend, “she’s alive. She’s
here.
She’s —”

“Here in Duncton?” gasped Pumpkin, the tunnel swimming darkly about him once more.

Sturne held on to him, surprised at how thin he was, how old he seemed.

“What have they done to you?” he whispered, as Pumpkin came round for the second time. “May the Stone bring such evil to an end soon. Yes, mole, she’s in Duncton Wood. In the High Wood.”

“Here in the High Wood?” repeated Pumpkin faintly. “I must go to her!”

“You’ll do no such thing, mole. They’ve taken her to the Stone, and I fear the worst, for Quail now is here as well.”

“Quail...?” whispered Pumpkin; all this news was too much to take in.

“Aye,” said Sturne grimly, “Quail himself, Stone help us. And Snyde, and all their brood of hangers-on and evildoers, and guardmoles whose talons drip with the blood of innocents. Now listen. Small and weak though the few moles you lead are, they are all Privet has, along with myself. I do not know what we can hope to achieve against such numbers of malevolent moles as Quail commands, but we must do something. We have a little time, a day or two perhaps, for Quail is ill and was tired from his journey and must rest. Snyde is anxious that he looks his best for his ritual before the Stone.”

“Snyde’s here too? It sounds as if every evil mole in moledom has descended upon us. Hmm... Well, even if we could, we must try to do nothing by force,” said Pumpkin without hesitation, “for that is not Privet’s way, and nor was it the Master Librarian’s.”

“No, mole, it was not,” agreed Sturne. “But what other means we have at our disposal I do not know.”

“Faith, moral strength, purpose of will, liberty of thought,” whispered Pumpkin, “these are all that are left to us. But they are everything, I think, if only we had a mole strong enough and wise enough to lead us. But...”

“You, Pumpkin, you are that mole.”

“Me?” said Pumpkin, always surprised when anymole dubbed him leader, or even wise, for humility was his second name.

Sturne nodded. “For myself I can promise only this, Pumpkin. I will not raise my paws in aggression against anymole, not even Quail himself. But I shall get as close to Privet as I can, and if any try to harm her I shall put myself in the way of their talons.”

Pumpkin looked at Sturne, and regretted that nomole-else heard his words, or saw what courage and purpose his friend showed.

“Now, you had better go back to the rebels. I know no more than I have told you – except that it would seem that Quail is planning some ritual or other before the Stone, involving himself, and for this he may need to consult not only Snyde, but me as well. So I may be able to delay things a little.”

“The more time the better, Sturne, that we may have space to find
something
we can do.”

Few communal debates in moledom’s long past can have been more touching, nor more significant in its moral history, than that between the hard-pressed and physically weak followers who had hidden so long around the tunnels of the High Wood, about what they might do to help Privet. Let there be no doubt in anymole’s mind that old and starved though many of these moles were, there was no lack of desire to be up and away across to the Stone, whatever the consequences.

“There may be only a few of us, and we may not have much fighting experience, but by the Stone we can have a go at saving Privet!” cried out one old female who was so weak she could hardly put one paw in front of another – yet her brave words brought forth a cheer, and a surge towards the nearest exit.

“Moles!” cried out Hamble, the only one among them who could lay claim to any real fighting experience. “I must remind you that I was sent to Duncton from Caer Caradoc by Privet herself, and she did not send me to kill moles, or even to fight them. I had grown sick and tired of such things, and she sent me to warn against violence. Her journey into Silence is, no doubt, many things, but one of them is a journey into the peaceful way of change.

“By all means set off towards the Stone if you must, but even if you survived –
even
if you achieved your objective of ‘saving’ Privet – she would not thank you for it, and nor would you feel better. No, no... that cannot be the way.”

The moles nodded their heads ruefully, even the female who had made the initial call to action, and pondered what they might do. That “pondering”, which lasted all night and into the next day and refused to be hurried, or to move to a quick decision because time was passing, is surely one of the high points of Duncton’s history.

Moleyears before, Master Librarian Stour had inspired a few moles to begin a search for peace, a search that might or might not have to do with the Book of Silence; now, here, finally, it came down to this: a few moles, mostly old, asking themselves what power there was that might be greater than force, and if it existed, did they possess it? It was a debate for all moles, and all time, but it was especially mindful of the modern history of Duncton, which had been concerned to protect the idea of tolerance and freedom and peace against the dogmas of the Word, and of the Newborn; but in the course of which violence had too often been used in the name of the Stone.

In the long course of that history, moles recorded, and many more unrecorded no doubt, had stanced up for the non-violent way: Boswell and Beechen; Rose; Mayweed in his special way; Tryfan, who had discovered the path of peace only through suffering and pain; and the Master Librarian of Duncton Wood, wise Stour.

Then, finally, Privet, a wandering female scholar from the north who came in search of a Book that might not even exist, and found in her pursuit of it, at Wildenhope, a violence so absolute and shocking that she had chosen the way of Silence, which is the hardest way of all.

These great names were all invoked in that long dark night when Pumpkin and the others, fearful for Privet and themselves, uncertain, without guidance other than that they could give themselves, harried by the sense that time was running out, debated what they might do.

Dawn came to a chamberful of tired and distressed moles, a dawn they felt that might well be the last for the mole who had set out from Duncton Wood in all their names, and now had come back to it in silence, and in grave jeopardy. Many had been the suggestions, but none had found favour with them all, and now, as grey light lit their tired faces, and uncertainty reigned in their tired minds, there seemed no way forward left to them.

“We must rest and sleep if we can,” said Elynor at last, “for one thing we have agreed upon, though future generations – if they ever know of our discussion and our plight – may blame us for inaction: we have agreed that we shall act together. Therefore, let us rest our bodies and our minds and hope that in slumber a solution may come to us which has evaded us in waking. It often does.”

“Aye,” said Hamble wearily, “that’s true, it does. Though how I’ll sleep knowing the peril that Privet is in...” He yawned, and others did the same, and some he saw were already lowering their snouts to their paws, and beginning to close their eyes.

So sleep came to them that morning – the morning of that great day – when busy crowds assembled outside Duncton beyond the cross-under, and Thorne was preparing his army for action. And they slept even as Maple was leading the followers and pilgrim army ever nearer, and Rooster was approaching from the east. Whilst nearer still, unknown to anymole, Arvon and that pawful of warriors still alive at his flanks, were making their hindered bloody way up through the tunnels and byways of the Eastside towards the Slopes.

So the hours passed in the cramped chamber where Pumpkin and his friends lay in fitful rest, until the sky darkened, and they woke to the sound of a far-distant chant, rhythmic and strange, that told them that many moles were nearby, somewhere down on the south-east slopes or beyond.

“Beyond! They’re beyond the cross-under – and there’s more than a pawful, I tell you.”

It was Hamble, fresh back from a stealthy journey by tunnel and secret shadows beneath fallen treetrunks, smelling of the musty odours of the fungi and rotted leaf-litter in which he had had to crawl.

“I’d tell you if you’d believe me, but you won’t.”

“Tell us,” said Pumpkin.

“If my ears did not mistake that chant it sounded first like ‘Maple’ and then, more recently, like ‘Rooster’.”

“Could they really be here, so near?” asked Elynor.

“They could,” said Hamble, “and I want to believe they are.”

“Well then, friends,” she continued, “our time for decision has come. We have argued all night, and wisely we have rested. Now there is no more time. If we can agree a course of action we shall follow it. If not we shall do nothing. There is no dishonour in doing nothing.”