Duncton Found (123 page)

So it was that Romney was forced to take charge of things for a time. The projects of cleaning and renovation she had so cheerfully started he busily continued, trusting that the summer sun, and the new spirit in the air that he began to feel just then, would bring a change in her.

Yet nothing seemed to, not even the best of news. In April the first new moles had come up the slopes, the female pregnant, looking for a place to make a home and scarcely believing it when Romney told them that this deserted, beautiful, shimmering place, was
the
Duncton Wood.

“Where are you from?” asked Romney.

“He’s asked where we’re from!” said the mole to his quiet mate. “That’s a laugh! We’re from all over, aren’t we love? Eked out a living where we could, kept our snouts clear of grikes, and when you appeared we thought our number was finally up. Didn’t we, my duck? Yes, Sir!”

“What are your names?” asked Romney.

“Whortle and Wren,” the mole replied.

“Whortle and Wren!” repeated Romney with pleasure. It seemed to him as good a pair of names as there could be for the first breeding pair back in Duncton Wood for a very long time. “Welcome to you both! I’m Romney.”

“You look like a guardmole to me,” said Whortle frankly.

“I was once,” replied Romney.

“Yes, well, there’s a few of
them
about. Doesn’t have quite the allure it once did, does it? Well, I’ll be direct: if there’s no disease here we’d like to stay. Been wandering about from portal to post and Wren’s tired of it.”

“I said you’re welcome, and that means welcome to stay.”

“What’s the way it works here then, mate? Is there an elder or eldrene or what? ’Course Duncton used to be of the Stone but then... we’ll go with whatever’s going so to speak. We’re followers of a kind but that’s more for her than me.”

“There’s only Mistle of Avebury and myself here so far. And the Stone, of course. Duncton’s going to be what we make it.”

At the mention of the Stone, Wren’s eyes had lightened a little, and she spoke for the first time.

“You mean there’s no rules? Nothing we’ve got to do?”

Romney laughed.

“Mistle’s the one to answer that, but she’s not well at the moment.”

“Oh dear,” said Wren, with quite genuine concern. “With pup, is she?”

“No, no. She’s missing a mole just now... but she’d probably say that provided you tell the truth, respect other moles, give help when it’s needed, and do your bit looking after the communal tunnels and the meeting places, then that’s all the rules we need. Something like that anyway.”

“Er, yes,” said Whortle.

“‘Er, yes,’ my paw!” said Wren. “We should help others and look after the communal tunnels, but let’s start with the truth. Like where we really came from, for example.”

“Must we?”

“Begin as you mean to go on, that’s what I say,” said Wren.

“Buckland,” muttered Whortle reluctantly. “We deserted. Bloody awful place, Buckland, so we upped and left when Clowder began his strike. We were lucky to get away.”

“Strike?” Romney said. “What’s that? We’re rather cut off here, you see.”

“Against followers. You mean you don’t know? Well...” Then for the first time Romney heard about the strikes that Lucerne had ordered. Presumably the massacre at Longest Night had been the strike here. Oh yes, then he knew about strikes!

“Thing was though that the grikes thought they knew who the followers were but a lot of them kept quiet, ourselves included.

“And others, seeing what was going on, lost faith in the Word – especially in some of the systems like Fyfield and Cumnor where guardmoles betrayed each other to settle old scores. Happened in Buckland too. Aye, Clowder bit off more than he could chew and now there’s confusion all about and moles are looking after their own interest first.”

Whortle went on: “All we want is a place to call our own where we can settle down. If that includes cleaning a few tunnels then it’s not asking much, is it? Whortle’s your mole, and if he’s not then Wren here will make him be! Being with pup, she’s not her usual self. You should see her afterwards!”

“I hope I will and that you decide to stay,” said Romney with a smile, but his mind was on what Whortle had said. Moledom was in change. Mistle, these moles, he himself, and Duncton Wood were all part of it. He did not like to hear of the strikes against followers, yet he felt cheered by the sense of change; and there was a refreshing directness about these two.

“Look,” he said, “up there is the High Wood. On the far side of it is the Stone, where likely you’ll find myself or Mistle. But if you go up that way you’ll come to the Eastside and it’s reasonably wormful. You go and sort yourselves out a place and in a day or two we’ll talk again. When are the pups due?”

“Three days, maybe four,” said Wren, looking pleased to be asked. “We started a bit late.”

“Your first?”

“Mine too,” said Whortle as she nodded.

“I’ll get Mistle to come over and say hello soon, then.”

“That’s the Eastside, you said?” repeated Whortle, looking up the slope.

“That’s what he said,” said Wren. “Now say ‘thank you’. This isn’t Buckland, you know. Moles treat each other with respect here.”

“Er, thank you,” said Whortle.

Romney waved and left them to it.

“Moles treat each other with respect here,” she had said. Why, if he could scriven or scribe he’d put that right across the south-east slopes for everymole who ever came here to learn!

Mistle did not show much interest, although Romney supposed that the pair’s arrival was good news to her, and nor did she say much when Romney reported a few days later that three pups had been born. But his good cheer remained: another pair came later in April with their young, followers who had escaped the purge at Cumnor, and then in May three solitary moles appeared as well and took up burrows on the Eastside.

Mistle kept to herself and matched the quiet and hidden mood of the system in a way that Romney, who went about and tried to be of cheer and seemed the only one who knew them all, felt he did not quite manage. They often asked after Mistle, especially Wren, who was a direct and kindly mole.

By the end of May the pups had become youngsters and one day when Mistle was out with Romney she met them for the first time. She seemed glad, and smiled at them, and they were shy and silent and in awe of her; but even the adults, Romney noticed, were in awe of her.

“You’re the Mistle who lives by the Stone,” said Wren.

“My name is Mistle, yes, and I am a follower of the Stone.”

“Well, there’s a question I’d like to ask.”

Mistle looked at her and waited.

“It’s about Midsummer. I mean, are we celebrating it or what?”

“Why, yes,” said Mistle, surprised. “Of course we are.”

“You’ll be preparing the youngsters then?”

“Preparing them?” said Mistle.

“It’s what my parents had others do with us, you see, and I’ve been worried sick that my youngsters wouldn’t be prepared. Wasn’t much, I suppose, but things should be done right.”

“What did they do?”

“Told us stories about the Stone and things,” said Wren.

“I’ll willingly do that,” said Mistle. “Mole... Wren, I’m sorry I....”

“You’ve been ill, haven’t you? We know ’cos Romney told us. It’s all right, there’s time yet to get acquainted, isn’t there?”

As the youngsters played about them Mistle said, “Where are you from?”

“Buckland, but my parents came from Charney, which was a system of the Stone.”

“Did they raise you to the Stone?”

Wren shook her head.

“Not what you’d call ‘raised’. They... here you, come here and stop hitting him; he’s a rascal, that one... couldn’t do much in Buckland. Just the Midsummer stories because they said that was what they remembered being done to them, but anything more....”

“Was lost?” said Mistle.

“Yes, it was all lost. Never met another mole but Whortle from Charney in my life.” She smiled a little bleakly. “You couldn’t call Buckland a home.”

“This is your home now,” said Mistle.

Wren nodded, unable to speak. She looked at her youngsters playing with the leaves, and she stared about.

“We can’t believe our luck, can me and Whortle. A great wood like this, and we’ve got it almost to ourselves. Done nothing to deserve it, have we?”

“That’s what I think too,” said Mistle. “Others will come one day and we’ll have a chance to make Duncton like a system ought to be. But that won’t be easy, Wren, and it’ll need all of us working together.”

“You can count on us,” said Wren, gathering her brood together. “Whortle really likes the place, and you should hear him tell this lot off when they get the communal tunnels dirty. I never thought I’d live to see the day! So you’ll prepare them then?”

Mistle looked down at the three youngsters and reached a paw to each in turn and smiled. They looked shyly back, one turned and thrust its face into its mother’s flank, not one said a word.

“I’ll come down and find you again before Midsummer,” said Mistle.

It was, thought Romney, a beginning and he had seen with his own eyes how a community heals its own. Yet as Mistle had implied, nothing is won easily, and that he soon discovered too.

In June, just before Mistle was going off to the Eastside to see Wren’s youngsters, one of the single moles who had come to the wood in May, came to Romney to report that she had seen some grikes peering up the slopes from the cross-under. He ran swiftly to tell Mistle.

“If they mean no harm they are welcome,” said Mistle calmly, and asked Romney to go and meet them. As he went he remembered wryly the first time grikes had come and how Mistle had dealt with them. Now it was him she sent. She was not the mole she had been then and he wished he knew how to bring her out of the lonely place in which she had lost herself.

The grikes, three in all, were not unfriendly, indeed they seemed a little intimidated by Romney’s bold and unexpected appearance at the wood’s edge as they came up the slopes. But then Romney was skilled in such things, and knew that sometimes a bold appearance at the right time is enough to keep trouble at bay.

“This is Duncton, isn’t it, chum?”

Romney nodded.

“Just wondering where the Stone was. Just curious, that’s all, and as we were passing by....”

“It’s not far,” said Romney. “I could show you.”

“Many living here?” one asked as they went.

“A few,” said Romney cautiously. “Where are you off to?”

“Buckland. Replacements. Shouldn’t be here really.”

They were not talkative, and indeed the deeper among the beech trees they went the more nervous and uncomfortable they became.

“You sure this is the way?” said one.

“It isn’t an ambush if that’s what you mean. Duncton isn’t that kind of place.”

“Bit of a spooky kind of place, isn’t it? How far’s this Stone now?”

“Not far.”

Nor was it. When they got there they went to the Stone but seemed hardly to want to stay, peering hurriedly up at the Stone, and around the clearing.

It was at this moment that Mistle appeared.

“Welcome,” she said.

“Yes, well, thank you,” said one of the moles. They looked almost guilty.

“Is this what you wanted to see?” asked Romney. “Just this?”

“This is where that mole Beechen came from, isn’t it? The one they called Stone Mole?”

“Yes,” said Romney quietly. He dared not look at Mistle. “Why?”

“Just curious, after all the stories about Beechenhill. As we were passing we thought we’d have a look.”

“What stories?” said Mistle. Her face was expressionless.

The grikes looked increasingly uncomfortable.

“Well, when he was barbed and that, and he made the weather change and brought moles out of the ground where he hung; and how after the barbing the Stone sent the Master mad. A mole dreads to think what’s happened since. We just wanted to see Duncton for ourselves.”

Mistle seemed to sway where she stanced and then smiled briefly and said, “Tell my friend what you know. Tell him.”

Then she was silent, and the grikes did not know what to say, and she said to one of them with a shaky laugh, “You’re stancing just where the Stone Mole was born.”