Duncton Found (102 page)

“I hope for his sake he’s younger than me!” said Alder, smiling.

Caradoc came back from a journey south some days later, having trekked through snow and ice and into the teeth of a gale or two to get there, though how he guessed Alder had come he did not say. Many moles believed that the Stone told Caradoc things.

“Bless me, it’s Alder himself back here again!” he declared, embracing his friend. “You’re looking older.”

“I am old,” said Alder. “I’ve retired. Siabod is in the capable paws of Gowre who, no doubt, has taken to it well. I think he was pleased to see me go. I’ve been asking Troedfach to find me a task here but he’s no use for me either.”

“The Stone shall find a use for one who has served it better than any in all Wales these many years,” said Caradoc passionately. “You stay here, Alder. This is the place to be now. Caer Caradoc will be clear of fighting one day soon and we’ll live to see my dreams come true.”

“They will, Caradoc, I believe they will.”

Troedfach grinned and stanced up to make a diplomatic exit so the two old friends could talk privately, saying, “Aye and I hope they do, Caradoc, but I’ll leave you two together.”

When he had gone Alder came closer to Caradoc and said quietly, “Mole, there’s another reason I’ve come here to see you. Glyder is dead. He died before Longest Night up in Ogwen, and young Gowre was with him.”

Caradoc nodded sadly.

“I know it, Alder, I felt it
here
,” he said, thumping his breast. “Here, see? He was the first to die of those of us who touched the Stones in June and helped the Stone Mole. Don’t ask me how I know, but I do. One by one the seven Ancient Systems shall be free again, one by one. And each in their different ways shall be won back for open worship in the Stone.

“It grieved me to see my Caer Caradoc won with blood, but the Stone must mean something by it. New times are coming, Alder, and we’ve helped them along, and that’s an honour. But I want to live to see it, see? I want to be up there by the Stones and know it’s true. I’d like to hear the sound of pups playing in the wind where I once played. And I want moles like Troedfach and Gareg and yourself, fighters all, to go back to your systems when you’ve done here, and make peace there among your communities with the same skills you’ve shown making war.”

“I know it, Caradoc,” said Alder, “and you’re right. I was saying to Troedfach that I’m tired and so I am. I feel I’ve never had a home.”

“But Siabod, that’s been your home.”

Alder shook his head.

“Glyder’s home. Gowre’s home. Not mine. I’ve been its guardian and protector, but a home is where your body and your spirit feel at peace.”

“Dreams, Alder, and for a mole like you! You
are
getting old, mole, and your brain’s beginning to rot. You’ve told me yourself all the places you’ve been in your life – Siabod, Duncton, Buckland... Stone knows what before that.”

“I should have given this up long ago and gone back east as Marram did. He was right, you know: there comes a time when the fighting must stop and a mole must reach out to his enemy in peace and say, ‘No more, we are friends now’.”

Caradoc saw how distressed Alder really was and let him talk on a little more before saying, “Tomorrow it’s a climb for you up Caer Caradoc. I’ll lead you on ways which will avoid the ice and you can see the finest view and breathe the clearest air in all moledom. Why mole, we’ll find ourselves a couple of mates, tell moles of Stone and Word to clear off, and make as fine a home as any you’ll find elsewhere. We’re not so old we can’t make pups!”

“You’ve never had pups so far as I know, Caradoc.”

Caradoc grinned, a little shyly.

“Never met the right mole. And never the time.”

“Well, if you wait for the Stone Mole to come it might never happen,” said Alder.

They laughed and talked some more, enjoying the evening slowly, as good friends do, their laughter and argument a cheering thing for moles like Gareg and Troedfach to hear, and their conversation inspiring to those moles who, when night came, had the sense to gather round and listen to what Alder and Caradoc had to say.

Next day Caradoc was as good as his word and, refusing the offers Gareg and Troedfach made to accompany them, he led Alder up the slower but easier western flanks of Caer Caradoc to explore its highest parts, and to stare over towards the east.

The garrison was glad to see Alder, and its young commanders showed him how they had placed their limited number of moles. They were astonished at how quickly he understood the strengths and weaknesses of their deployment and predicted where future likely attacks might come from.

“Aye, Sir, we have the occasional skirmish. The grikes like to keep us occupied and guessing.”

“It’s a hard position for them to take right enough, but you’re vulnerable to a concentrated night attack.”

Caradoc listened with a grin on his face. He was amused to see how quickly Alder had reverted to the campaigning mole he truly was and knew that, though he claimed otherwise, Alder missed commanding Siabod but was too good a leader to cling on to a command that needed a younger mole.

Alder came over to Caradoc and asked, “Did you really live up here when you were young or was it lower down where it looks more wormful?”

“Lower down,” said Caradoc, taking him to the northeast side and pointing out pastures bounded by a river. “Down there, see, which is occupied now by grikes. It’s wormful and was lived in until the plagues came. In the old days it was the younger moles’ task, led by an elder, to come up here for a while and learn things about the Stone. The top will support a few moles well enough, and it does a mole good to live for a time above the world. Makes him get things in proportion.”

Alder looked about a little more, at the Stones and then across the sloping top.

“When Marram and I came you kept us so busy meeting other moles that I don’t remember looking about like this. It’s a fine place.”

“It’s the finest! I tell you, mole, stop here awhile.”

“I’ll do that with pleasure until the winter clears. But then... perhaps I’ll always be a traveller. Perhaps I’ll drift back to Siabod. Perhaps I’ll go down to Tyn-y-Bedw, where Troedfach comes from, and have a rest.
He
says
that’s
the finest place.”

“Stop still, mole, and you’ll be content.”

“You’re a one to talk, Caradoc. You’ve wandered the Marches all your life. Despite your fine talk you’re no more likely to settle down now than I am!”

The two moles continued to argue and talk until, the day drawing in, they began their descent to Troedfach’s emplacement once more, to get back aburrow, and watch the winter through.

So Alder came to Caer Caradoc, to share the military life with moles he loved and felt most comfortable with. On clearer days he wandered off with Caradoc, but when the weather was bad he stayed underground, and many a mole was sent by Troedfach to talk with him, and to learn the many things that his conversation and experience told them. None more than Gareg when he had time, who respected a mole like Alder and enjoyed his company.

The Marches, like the rest of moledom, were gripped by winter, until at last the rough tunnels of Troedfach’s position began to drip with thawing snow and ice. A busy time then, an exciting time, a time to go out on the surface with energy once more and enjoy the approach of spring.

“And a dangerous time,” warned Troedfach, and moles like Alder and Gareg knew what he meant. A time for the resumption of fighting once more.

“But a time of promise,” said Caradoc to himself, adding a prayer to the Stone: “Make it the time when promises come true, the fighting begins to end and Caer Caradoc can become my home once more.”

Even February’s cold and cruel progression through Duncton Wood – when starving foxes falter in the night and are found frozen at the wood’s edge when morning comes, and ragged birds peck at the barren soil – did nothing to dispel the excitement and purpose from Mistle’s determined heart.

She and faithful Romney got to know their system well, and though they heeded Mayweed’s advice and avoided the Ancient System, they got the measure of everywhere else, and Mistle made her plans for the system’s reoccupation.

“What reoccupation? By what moles?” demanded Romney – not in doubt, for he had given up doubting Mistle, but in curiosity.

“
Duncton
moles, of course! And if you ask me what moles they may be I’ll tell you now! Moles of good heart, moles of good faith, moles of good humour, and moles with paws and spirits willing to work and make this place alive once more.

“I don’t know where they’ll come from or who they’ll be, but come they will and they’ll be made welcome by you and I and by these tunnels in which for now we wander all alone.

“Barrow Vale, where Tryfan died, shall be the centre of the community once more, and the Stone shall be loved and often visited. At first I shall not allow moles to settle just anywhere and that’s why we’ve had to get to know how the tunnels run, so I know where moles must go.”

Romney laughed.

“You mean you’ll organise everymole here?”

Mistle grinned.

“Only at first, just to get them started. Somemole’s got to do it and ensure we don’t have those arguments and divisions which Beechen said he had been told by Tryfan were common here before the plagues. In those days the Westsiders didn’t talk to the Eastsiders, the Marshenders were regarded as scum, and hardly anymole bothered with the Stone at all.

“There was a system of elders, but it became dominated by a mole called Mandrake, and then Rune who later became Master of the Word.”

“Rune was
here
?”

“It seems so. Henbane was, too, for a time. And most recently Lucerne, of course... There’s something about Duncton that attracts moles, Romney. Even moles like them.”

She might have added, too, that there was something about Duncton Wood that changed moles as well.

But if Romney had not changed by then, he certainly did when March came, and the snow began to thaw, the wood’s great trees dripped and ran wet, and its floor began to rustle and bustle and seem to shine and glimmer with the new-found life brought out by the warmer winds and brighter light.

Then, one day....

“Mistle! Mistle!”

Romney ran upslope through the wood from Barrow Vale, a different mole than when he had first come. His fur was rougher now yet glossier, his eyes brighter, his movements easier and more confident.

“Mistle!”

Mistle too had changed, and the fairer weather suited her. She came out to greet him and he stopped before her, breathing heavily and half laughing.

“What is it?” she said, laughing too, for his humour was infectious.

“Come with me! What I want to show you isn’t far,” he said, and turning, he led her back the way he had come.

She hurried after him, and the light of the sun was caught in the budding trees above them, and shone in the new bursts of leaves that were breaking out along bramble stems which, when they had first come, had all lain moribund but whose last dead leaves had now fallen away.

Past these he went, turning across towards the Eastside among a shooting bed of pert dog’s mercury, the shining green of their leaves bright across their path, and then great rafts of new shoots of bluebells down the gentle slopes below them. While between them the leaves of wood anemone were showing, dark, more delicate, their flowers still hidden too.