Duncton Wood (74 page)

It was not a simple oval or square but rather appeared to be a series of interconnected chambers with entrances between them big enough to allow a mole to see into the next chamber. There were arches and corners in the chamber, parts darker than others, and set into each of the many walls were surfaces on which were stacked what looked like pieces of bark and sometimes flakes of hard chalk. Above these surfaces were embossments like those in the Chamber of Dark Sound. There were stacks of bark on the floor as well, or piled against walls and, as far as Bracken was able to see into the linked chambers, there were more pieces of bark piled untidily there.

“Books,” whispered Boswell. “This is the main library.”

He was about to say more, and might have taken one of them down to show Bracken, when he was stopped short by a stirring at the far end of the chamber and a movement as what seemed a shadow changed into what looked like an ancient and gray-furred mole who was in the middle of a long yawn.

“Well! I don’t know, I’m sure,” the ancient mole muttered to himself, oblivious of their presence at the other end of the chamber. “I don’t know. If I didn’t put it where I should have, which is more than likely, then surely I would have put it here, which it seems I didn’t. How they expect me to do all this by myself I really don’t know. Come on, my beauty, where are you?” he said, snouting back and forth among some of the books and evidently hoping that one of them, which he had obviously lost, would pop out of its own accord and announce its hiding place.

Boswell signaled to Bracken to move back into the shadows and not say anything as he advanced slowly on the ancient mole. He got nearer and nearer, but the mole did not seem to notice, muttering to himself and peering impatiently here and there among the books, turning over one or two half-heartedly and leaving them where they fell. Eventually Boswell made a discreet scratching noise to announce himself.

“Yes, yes,” said the old mole, “I’m coming. Can’t do everything, you know. Anyway, is it
that
important?”

He darted forward to an enormous book and started to pull it down, but its weight was too much for him to take it bodily off the surface. But it slid off onto him all the same and his tottering old paws struggled to keep it under control. Boswell stepped forward and relieved him of the book.

“There we are!” said Boswell. The old mole looked at him at last, peering at him with a frown. “I know you,” he said.

“Boswell,” said Boswell.

“Mmm, something like that,” said the old mole.

Boswell stepped back a little and hesitated for a moment before saying “Is it Quire? Are you Quire?”

“Yes, yes,” said Quire. “Now what’s
this?”
he muttered, peering at the book and then running his paw across its surface. He growled and grunted to himself and then stepped back, saying “Here, you tell me. I’m losing my feel. Can’t even read any more. There was a time when I knew every book in the place by position alone, but since they changed it all round and then the plague came, it’s all gone to wrack and ruin. I can’t keep it up all by myself.”

Bracken watched as Boswell examined the book. First he snouted rapidly over its surface. Then, for the first time ever in Bracken’s presence, he used his withered left paw positively. He swung it onto the book and, with, a gentle caressing motion beautiful to see, ran the paw across the embossments on the book’s surface.

“It’s the Avebury Hymnal, with an appendix of carols and lays,” said Boswell.

“No, that’s not the one. What I want is the Book of the Chosen Moles. You know..

“Linden?”

“Do you know where it is?” asked the old mole eagerly.

“I know what it feels like,” said Boswell, “at least I think I can remember.” He snouted rapidly along the rows of books, muttering and twittering to himself, touching one book after another, half pulling out one or two, shaking his head, umming and ahhing and, it seemed to Bracken who had listened to their conversation without understanding a word of it, having the time of his life.

“Got it,” he announced finally, pulling another enormous book off the shelves. He ran his paw over it. “Linden’s Book of Chosen Moles, with additions by sundry paws,” he read out.

“Not before time,” said Quire ungratefully.

“Sorry,” said Boswell.

“You youngsters are all the same. Think you know it all. You wait till you’re as old as me and you’ll find you know nothing at all.” He peered at Boswell again. “Where was it?” he asked.

“Where it always used to be.”

“Damnation!” said Quire, almost lifting himself off his paws with the violence of the word. “I can’t get used to the new system – always put books back in the wrong place now. I know
you,
don’t I? How did
you
survive the plague?”

“I wasn’t here,” said Boswell. “I’ve been away.”

“Oh, yes!” said Quire, seeming to remember but making it obvious that he didn’t. “Mmm. Which system?”

“Duncton.”

“One of the Seven! Did you get there?”

“Yes,” said Boswell, “I did.”

“Good. Glad to have you back, especially since most of the scribemoles here went away during the plague or succumbed to it, and there’s hardly any left who know enough about the library to be much use to me, I remember you. Boswell, isn’t it? Should have told me before. Crippled but useful, as I remember. Where have you been?”

“Duncton,” repeated Boswell patiently.

“Good. Glad to have you back,” repeated Quire. “They’re in a bit of a flummox at the moment because there’s hardly enough moles to sing the song and even though I offered my services to Skeat, he told me I was not chosen. So anyway, you can help me here...”

He seemed about to dragoon Boswell into work when three moles entered the chamber from one of the side chambers.

They snouted about, saw Boswell, and there was a moment of absolute stillness as everymole looked at each other. It was Boswell who broke the silence.

“May the grace of the Stone be with you,” he said. They relaxed a little.

“And with thee,” said one of the three.

They continued to look at each other.

“I do not know you,” said Boswell quietly, his voice echoing among the books, “but my name is Boswell. I have returned from a journey to Duncton Wood.”

One of the moles darted forward and snouted at him, turned round, signaled to one of the others, who ran out of the entrance near where Bracken was crouched in the shadows. Soon several more moles joined them, none seeming to notice Bracken, who kept quite still as Boswell had told him.

As Boswell crouched there, the moles about him began a curious chanting, nearer speech than song, which was deep and rhythmic and to which Boswell occasionally responded. Bracken could not catch most of the words, which were in a language strange to him, but Boswell’s response seemed to be “And with thee, and with thee... the same as one of the moles had spoken to him. He only recognized the word
thee
because he had heard Boswell speak it occasionally to very old moles they had met.

The moles were all shapes and sizes, and Bracken was disappointed to see that not one of them was white. Many were gray, and some just common or garden black, like him. But he had to admit that they did have an air of authority – a strange, quiet way of carrying themselves – that fitted well with the reverential air in the place and made him reluctant even to think of speaking or making a noise. He felt as if just being there was distrubing something precious and holy.

It was strange and exciting for him to see Boswell in this setting, for he saw how well he fitted here and, as it seemed to him, what enormous peace and authority emanated from Boswell. Bracken might not be able to tell what was being said, but he could sense that no mole there was going to attack Boswell and that was all he was really worried about. When the others had first come, he had been ready to leap forward and defend Boswell to the death.

Without warning, the chanting suddenly stopped and all the moles seemed to relax. Especially Quire, who had been fretting about behind Boswell and now said to one of the moles, “I’ve got it, here it is, the book
he
wants.”

But before there was time to reply, there was a stir and a sound from one of the side chambers. Two older-looking moles came forward, both with calm, severe expressions on their faces, and their look about the library brought an immediate hush to all the moles there. They stepped to either side of the chamber entrance and a mole came forward in whose presence Bracken felt an immediate awe. He wanted to lower his snout in a gesture of submission and, indeed, he did so, but he could not help keeping his eyes open at the extraordinary scene before him.

The mole was old and thin, with a frail, silver-gray coat of fur that was patchy in places and the most kindly eyes that Bracken had ever seen. Bracken had seen him before, or thought he had: he was the mole who had seemed to be at the entrance to the Holy Burrows watching them as they entered the libraries. As he entered the chamber, the other moles cleared a path between him and Boswell, and Boswell, snout low, stepped forward a few paces toward him. And then they had a chanting exchange in the language Bracken could not understand.

“Steyn rix in thine herte,” said Boswell.

“Staye thee hoi and soint,” said the Holy Mole.

“Me desire wot I none,” replied Boswell.

“Blessed be thou and ful of blisse,” finished the Holy Mole. A blessing, thought Bracken. That’s what it was!

Then the Holy Mole smiled and Boswell stepped forward, and for a moment they nuzzled each other.

“Well, Boswell, so you have returned. By the Stone’s grace you have come back!”

Boswell seemed unable to say anything, but looked at the Holy Mole almost with disbelief in his eyes.

“Yes,”. said the Holy Mole, “it really is Skeat, your old master. Look what they’ve done to me!” He laughed, a delightful laugh, very like the one that Boswell, in his moments of puppish delight in something, sometimes let forth.

“Well, well... I said the journey blessing when you left and here you are, so many moleyears later, to prove that a mole may trust its power. Have you nothing to say to your Skeat? Those few of us left who remember you are going to want to hear your story very much; and those others here, whom you will not know, will surely profit by it.”

“Skeat, I.. As he said this, there was a slight gasp among the other moles and Skeat raised his paw, smiling.

“You’re meant to call me Holiness, but... these are strange times and anyway, if I’m not mistaken, you were relieved of your vows.” TTien Skeat spoke to all of them rather than to Boswell, and said “Remember he has not been here for many moleyears – perhaps more than twenty, and has forgotten our ways. But then it is not our ways or rituals that express the truth in the Stone but what is in our hearts. The Stone has sent Boswell back to us, for what purpose none can tell, though I have my own ideas. But the Stone will not mind if he calls me Skeat, or any other name for that matter.”

Turning to Boswell he said, “However, bringing a mole who is not a scribe into the Holy Burrows is just a trifle daring, even for you, Boswell. Who is he?” With that, Skeat turned slowly to where Bracken crouched in the shadows, thinking no mole knew he was there.

If a yawning crevice could have opened up and swallowed him there and then, or if the rows of books could have all collapsed on him, hiding him from view. Bracken would not have minded in the least. Fifty marauding moles, twenty weasels, ten owls... anything but the sudden exposure to the gaze of all those scribemoles.

He stepped forward reluctantly, out of the darkness by the tunnel entrance, hardly daring to breathe and, not knowing what else to do, he kept his snout low and waited.

“His name is Bracken,” said Boswell, “and without his help I would not be here now and nor would there be anything to report of my quest for the Seventh Book.” At this there was a sudden excited buzz of whispers among the moles. The Seventh Book! So Boswell was one of those who had gone in search for it so long ago, thought the new scribemoles who were wondering what this was all about. They gazed on Bracken with awe.

“He has also come to give thanks to the Stone for a mole who survived the plague. I have reason to give thanks to her myself, as many moles have.”

Skeat stepped forward toward Bracken, going up to him and touching him gently on his right shoulder, just where another mole had touched him once, long, long before, after they had met by the Stone. The feeling he had then was the same as he had now, and he looked up into Skeat’s eyes as if no other mole existed. He was close to tears.

“What is the mole’s name?” asked Skeat gently, so quietly that it was almost like a private conversation.

“Rebecca,” whispered Bracken.

“May the Stone protect her and bless her with strength. May you both have strength for the trials to come.”

No other mole heard him say this blessing, not even Boswell, and Skeat himself was surprised to find himself saying it. But there was something about this mole Boswell had brought to Uffington that made him see again something that he had often thought, though most scribemoles and even masters forgot it: the Stone very often works through moles who are far from Uffington’s peace and prayer, who may themselves never understand the Stone or, indeed, may not even trust it. Such moles may show a courage far greater than many a scribemole shows in their pursuit of truth and their fulfillment of the task the Stone has set. Their pain and suffering may be as deeply felt and as spiritual as a scribemole’s, or one who worshipped the Stone. Skeat sensed that Bracken was just such a mole.

Skeat turned back to Boswell and said “And what of your quest for the Seventh Book? Did you succeed...?” His question tailed off into nothing and an excited hush fell over the scribemoles who were listening.

“I have not found the Seventh Book,” said Boswell, a ripple of disappointment running round the moles in the library, “but Bracken of Duncton” – they all looked at Bracken – “has, I believe, seen the Seventh Stillstone. He knows where it is and has shown me.”