Duncton Rising (40 page)

It was a mob of rooks too, turning and diving at something on the flanks of Rockgreen Hill above Ludlow, which caused Chater to deviate from his route to investigate, and so be caught right near the end of what many have described as one of the swiftest treks any journeymole ever made.

How far he had travelled, and how fast, following after Privet and the others into the Wolds in his desperate effort to catch them before they reached Caer Caradoc, and warn them of what he knew. By the time he reached Bourton he had begun to tire, but there Stow gave him news of his friends, and he in turn reported all that Spurling had told him.

“Tell Maple when you find him,” said Stow, “that already moles have begun to gather across the Wolds in expectation that they will have to do their duty and stance their ground against the Newborn threat. If he needs us we will not fail him, and if he wishes us to follow him we shall do so!”

Thus encouraged Chater had journeyed on night and day, night and day and night, snatching sleep only briefly here and there. Once he had dropped down into the Vale of Evesham he had gone yet faster, up the valley of the Teme in the pawsteps of his friends, picking up information along the way which told him he was gaining on them rapidly. Then on he had gone, ever faster, fooling two parties of Newborns he encountered, and gaining useful news from them too.

But at Ludlow he had grown tired, and careless, and when he saw the rooks he went over towards where they preyed, thinking that there he might find moles to give him information. He found moles all right, dead ones, the same indeed that had been strettened days before by the Newborns, torn to pieces now and scattered over the field; the remnant of a head sunk in a pool of water, and fur caught in the basal stem of a withered old thistle plant. It was there he was caught, there questioned, and might have been killed had he not been forced back on to the tale he had always planned to tell if all else failed.

“I’m part of the Duncton delegation to Caer Caradoc,” he said, rightly suspecting that no Newborn would dare harm him if that were true, not then anyway.

A Brother Inquisitor was found, one going that day Caer Caradoc way, and his story seeming at least plausible, Chater was taken along by Newborn guards, once more at a fast pace since the Brother was anxious to get to Caradoc before Longest Night. The only part of his story that was not believed was how recently he claimed to have left the area of Uffington – “Not possible,” he was told, “nomole could travel that far that fast.” When they neared Caer Caradoc Chater was detained as his friends had been before him, without explanation or interrogation. That was, it seemed, the Inquisitors’ way – detention and uncertainty soften up a mole.

At last a Newborn came who said, “You’re to come with me.”

“Where to?”

“Ours is not to reason why,” said the guard, going on ahead of him, and though Chater was not one to follow another meekly and without questioning, it was hard not to in a tunnel when two were prodding him along from behind with sharp talons.

“Just asked,” said Chater, thinking to himself that this was beginning to have the feel of as bad a situation as any he had got himself into in all his long days as a journeymole. Just then he felt, inexplicably yet powerfully, the presence of Fieldfare with him, urging him on, giving him support, praying for him, and he followed on down the dark tunnels with the Newborn guards determined that to the end he would try to do his duty to his friends, and to his faith.

“At least I’ve told Stow of Bourton what I know,” he consoled himself, “but by the Stone I would have liked an opportunity to warn Privet, Maple and Whillan...”

The tunnels seemed suddenly dark indeed.

It is reasonable to think from such evidence as we have that it was on that same day, at that same time, that Fieldfare found herself alone out on the surface of Seven Barrows, staring over the rough grass towards the Stones that rise so mysteriously there. The weeks had passed since her escape with Spurling, Peach and the others up Uffington Hill, and without further incident they had made their way to Seven Barrows, and found it safe, quite free of Newborn mole.

What was more there had been a few more vagrants about who had joined their number, and they had formed a little community, and in their rough and ready way, under Spurling’s sensible guidance, created a system of simple interlocking tunnels and places for watchers to stance unnoticed by any alien moles that came nearby, such that only a force of mole, deliberately looking for them, would have found them out.

They had decided to over-winter where they were, and then, when spring came and travelling was safe once more, to send out a few of their number – Noakes early on volunteered to be one of them – to go and find out what was apaw in the vales below Uffington Hill, and if they might yet dare venture back to Duncton Wood. It was a dream of all of them to go there, and one that would sustain them well through the hard winter years.

Meanwhile they shared their lives and memories, and, almost without realizing it, after the stress of moleyears under the paws of the Newborns, they could allow the special Silence of Seven Barrows to seep into their hearts, and shine out as a new-found peace from their wrinkled, care-worn eyes, as such a light
should
begin to shine, in the days and hours immediately before holy Longest Night.

Amongst their number Fieldfare had become quietly pre-eminent. Like the maternal mole she had always been, she was the one who knew how to care for those who needed attention; the old, the ailing, those who had lost moles they loved in spirit or in body to the Newborns and now had time to discover that there were great empty, lonely, spaces in their hearts. To these moles loving Fieldfare gave help and succour, and in truth, by doing so, as Longest Night approached she found a way to escape the aching void she felt in her heart for the mole she loved, and missed more and more.

Sometimes she came up on to the surface to be alone, to stare at the Stones that rose in the distance, among which, like all the others in their group, she never quite dared to roam. Chater himself had often told her the tale of how they were uncountable – “A mole sees six, yet history says there are seven there, and when two moles seek to show which ones
they
saw it always seems to be a different six...” – and how these were Stones best stared at from a distance, for wraiths of old moles roamed there, bringing whispers of the past, and dreams of what might have been. “Moles only go among the Stones of Seven Barrows to die,” Chater had once warned her. Well, she had no intention of going there now!

“What might have been, Chater!” she whispered aloud, her eyes shining in this pretence of talking to him. “I miss you so much, my dear, and I know that you miss me...” There for a time she could have in imagination what she might have had in reality, and experience what might have been, and she could shed those tears that she had always concealed from other moles, even her beloved Chater. She had mothered so many for so long that she did not even realize that the tears were for herself, a reminder that she
too
might, just once in a while, need to be cared for by somemole else. Cosseted, nurtured, attended to, pampered without reserve. Just briefly, only for a time – but sometimes!

But on the afternoon of the eve of Longest Night just such a mood suddenly gave way to something darker, and a feeling of terrible foreboding came over her. Quite unable to account for it, and feeling increasingly restless and ill at ease. Fieldfare went up to the surface to be alone for a time. Perhaps fresh air would do her good, perhaps she could stare across the stonefields of Seven Barrows and find comfort, as so often before, in the stones themselves.

The foreboding deepened, and to try to escape it she stared at the Stones and even ventured a little towards them, to try as she had before to see if there were really seven; but there were not. Just six, some near, some far, one off to one side, another to the other side, but further away, except that surely
that
one had not been there before?

“Six!” she declared finally after the third recount, smiling to herself for doing something she knew Chater would have done, and thinking fondly of how they would have fallen to arguing about which six there were, beloved, my dear, my dearest... my love. Oh my dear, you need me, I know you need me now...

Through her sudden desperate tears she saw that far across the fields beyond the last Stone rooks flocked, no more than black specks in the wintry sky. Fieldfare watched them with a sudden clutching fear, which left her breathless, in pain, and almost beside herself.

Chater needed her, not sometime, but
now.

She tried to call out to him, to reach him, and invoked the Stone’s help, at first vaguely in a general plea, but then more specifically. He needed her now, he was calling her name, and she must find a way to reach him. She looked at the Stones in the distance and in a low, intense voice, quite unlike her normal speech, she prayed to them to help her reach him.

“Now, now, now...”

She might have continued this strange and hopeless-seeming prayer, but that she heard a shout from some way behind, and one of the elderly watchers waved a paw and came hurrying.

“Glad
you’re
here. Fieldfare,” he gasped, all of a dither. “There’s moles approaching from the north-east.”

“Newborn?” she said quietly, calming him down. But her own heart was not calm:
Chater needed her.

“Could be moles seeking sanctuary with us,” said the old watcher hopefully.

“Did they see you when you came running to me?”

It had been agreed that in such circumstances watchers must not show themselves.

“They might have, they gave a wave, they... seemed all right. I didn’t think...”

“It’s all right. Now listen, I’ll go to them and draw them away from here. But you go quickly and warn the others.”

“But what if...?”

“If they saw you, my dear, they’ll come searching if somemole doesn’t go to them. If they’re Newborn, well, I’m sure it will be all right. The Stone will guide me.”

“Fieldfare, I’m frightened, I —”

“Go on, mole, you’ll be safe if you go back now. Go, now...”

So she sent him on his way to safety, and without a thought for herself and with Chater’s need pushed to the back of her mind, turned towards the north-east, climbed a rise, and saw their approach. They were big, and male, and Newborn, and too near to escape from for long.

“You, mole! YOU!” one of them shouted as he sighted her and broke into a run.

She ducked away back out of sight to gain just a moment’s time, and then turned in a direction opposite to Seven Barrows and all her friends, towards the Stones.

“Oh, Chater my dear, it’s I who need
you
now,” she thought, as the danger of her situation came to her and she tried her best to run.

“Too old, too plump, too...” and even at such a moment, with the rough grass tumbling up towards her and catching at her paws, and the sounds of the two moles reaching the rise above her and shouting, even now she managed a wry smile.

“I
told
you I was too plump, beloved, and that I ought to lose some weight, and how right I was! Oh dear, Chater, is it going to end like this with you so far away and needing me, and me so far away and needing you?”

“Mole! You there! Stop now!”

Their shouts were nearer, and so aggressive that she nearly stopped obediently. She half turned as she ran, stumbled as she reached flat ground, and saw them a little way above her: big, strong, angry.

“It’ll be all the worse for you when we catch you, mole!” The voice was harsh, mocking, vindictive.

But then suddenly, and not for the first time that day, the Blowing Stone sounded, not as loudly as Fieldfare had grown used to, but loud enough to frighten the Newborns who were afraid of such things. The guardmole hesitated and, taking her opportunity. Fieldfare pushed herself on towards the first of the stones, recovering herself as her paws crunched on to what the moles called the stonefields, where the grass thinned and old fragments and shards of flint and hard chalk lay across the ground. Even on a dark day splinters of crystalline rock glinted and glistened across those fields. It was here that the Stillstones, which complemented the Books of Moledom, had been found.

But such thoughts were far from Fieldfare’s mind now as she felt her chest tighten, and her breath begin to grow short and desperate, her limbs heavier by the moment. The moles were almost on her now, their paws crunching over the stones, their panting powerful and angry, and ahead the first of the Stones seemed to now recede from her.

“Oh Chater, I can’t reach the Stone, I can’t go on, I...”

“Beloved, you never give up when you’re being chased, never!” she had often heard him say when he described the adventures of a journey, and the dangers. “You’d be surprised how often something turns up just when you’re giving up all hope. No, no, never give up!”

“But I can’t, Chater, I just...”

“Mole! Stop right there!” a Newborn roared from behind her, and she felt his talons clutching at her left flank and ripping her skin, as gasping, breathless, tired, and near defeat, she tried to run a few more steps, two more, one more...