Duncton Stone (15 page)

But that was not all, not the only thing that contributed to his sense that there was something indeed special about the moles whom circumstances had put into his... care. For he had spoken at different times with each of them, and each had told him to let the others go, saying that they themselves did not matter. He found it hard to imagine such selfless courage among a group of four Newborn moles.

Madoc had spoken most movingly about why the others should be let free, ending her plea in a way that made it obvious that she knew all too well what might happen to a young Newborn female like herself when it was known she had gone over to the other side.
There
was courage.

But Whillan of Duncton had pleaded most persuasively for the others’ lives, and the fact that he had thereby betrayed that his relationship to them all, and especially Madoc, was a close and special one which they had tried to hide, Thorne did not count against him. Thorne regarded the whole situation he was in as distasteful, and if he had his way he would have let them all go. Except that he did have a feeling, made paradoxical by their apparent harmlessness, that they were important, and whatmoles they were and what they represented was subversive of the Newborns, and deeply so.

Rooster had been the least articulate of them, yet in his awesome and frightening way, the most disturbing.

“I am nothing,” he had said, “but others are all. Hurt them and you hurt
you.
Don’t. Let them go. Don’t hurt. Punish me, not them. They are the Stone...”

Now finally Thorne heard Privet speak, and knew in his heart that he listened to a great mole. “Why have circumstances put these moles my way?” he mused, when he took his leave of her to let her rest. “I was sent into obscurity and found...” But he could not yet put into words the feeling that he had found a way towards his life’s task...

By the time the moles had rested up, and recovered from their ordeal of crossing the swollen river and its flood plain, the rain had eased; but the weather had not improved, for instead of a downpour obscuring their vision and splashing at their paws they now had to screw their eyes against a fractious and bitter wind that carried flurries of stinging

hail and rain into their faces, and chilled them to the bone.

They had climbed up on to the bluff of land which marked the western side of the river valley, and they knew that it was this same bluff, a little lower perhaps, which formed the grim destination of their forced march: Wildenhope. But such was the lie of the land that they could no longer see so far, even had they tried to stare against so painful a wind; all that was visible ahead was a succession of thorny hedges and barbed-wire fences through which, endlessly it seemed, they now journeyed.

Had Thorne and his guardmoles not been constrained by the presence of captives and the Brother Adviser and his minions they might well have set off at a rapid pace and made Wildenhope before nightfall, but this could not be. In fact it was Brother Fagg who was slowest of all, much affected it seemed by the shock of his near-fatal tumble from the bridge. Not that anymole dared say so. Instead they all pretended that the frequent stops were for the benefit of all rather than mainly for Fagg. The Duncton moles continued to show the same stamina and fortitude they had before, and the grudging respect they had earned earlier was now open and sincere among the guardmoles, especially for Privet, who plodded on steadily without any faltering or complaint. The guards themselves would certainly have let the four moles talk and be together more, but Thorne’s discipline and resolve were absolute, and it was not allowed.

But though Thorne did not give one hairbreadth in the policy he had adopted for getting his prisoners to Wildenhope, he had doubts, and regrets. He was to say in later years,
*
“Privet and her friends seemed unafraid of what might happen to them at Wildenhope, with the exception of the mole Madoc, who I believe knew all too well. Some of my guardmoles believed that this lack of fear was born of simple ignorance – surely nomole who had any acquaintance with that dreadful place of punishment and elimination could possibly feel unafraid. But I believed as I believe now – that their fearlessness came from their fundamentally different and more healthy view of the Stone and what it offered a mole.

*
The quotation is from a private document found in the Cannock Library, scribed in Thorne’s own paw.

“As Newborns, I and my guardmoles had been raised to view the Stone as a source of judgement and retribution. The disciplines it offered were designed to stop us sinning, for sinning we had been told was natural to mole, and temptation great. Do wrong and the Stone will punish you; do right and it might reward you. This was what our creed had reduced itself to.

“But the Duncton moles viewed the Stone not as a paternalistic enemy, but as an equal, a friend – forgiving, loving, joyous, celebratory. It was there to help, not hinder; and a mole did best when he or she strove to turn to the light of life and believe that everything was possible. I personally had no idea then what was to befall them, or how terrible it might be; if I had then I might after all have made it possible for them to escape. But I was a different mole then, and I did not. I wanted only to discharge my duty and be gone.

“Meanwhile, as the time passed and we drew nearer to Wildenhope, even my guardmoles slowed their pace in their reluctance to deliver Privet and the others to the brothers; yet the sense of faith and optimism amongst our charges grew almost unbearable. To us, then, they seemed like pups going to the slaughter; to them it seemed the Stone spoke with love, and put a courage in their paws that put a shame in ours. That last night I did not sleep at all, but doing the rounds of the four moles I found all of them, even Madoc, fast asleep.

“In the morning I asked Privet if she was afraid and her reply I remember word for word now, as I was to remember it in the months and moleyears ahead: “Of what should I be afraid when I trust in the Stone? Only of myself, and my own fear:
that
I do fear deeply, for it is hard for a mole to be worthy of the Stone’s trust. Very hard. And I am afraid for Rooster and Whillan, who I love more than anymole; and for Madoc, who took all her courage in her paws to come with us. This journey to Wildenhope, and the one that shall follow it, has been coming for many a moleyear, for decades perhaps. It is no accident that we four moles find ourselves on this fatal and unwelcome path, nor that it is you who are in charge of us. As for my fear, I am comforted by the fact that many Duncton moles before me have faced greater dangers and worse trials than mine, and survived with life and faith intact, and found a peace and Silence at the end of their troubled paths. Well now, mole, why should not I find the same, or you? So my fear is bearable...”

“She said this almost with a smile and I felt the inadequacy of my own purpose and faith before hers. I also felt, as I had once with Elder Senior Brother Thripp, that I was in the presence of a mole whose life was touched by the Stone’s Light. It was then, at that moment, that I impulsively asked for her blessing and bowed my head to a mole who was my captive, and felt her touch on me. If she really felt fear she did not show it, but I felt it, deeply and unforgettably, arid on her behalf I felt it as savage and remorseless as the winds and rain that battered us, and the flow of the flooding river whose roar from the valley below filled our ears.”

So did Thorne later scribe of his feelings and actions in the fateful hours when Privet and the others were drawing near to Wildenhope, and to all that happened there.

That afternoon, the last of their journey, the path turned westerly and to their right, away from the edge of the bluff they had been following and for a time they lost all sight of the river. They entered rough and hummocky ground, and eventually took shelter in some scrubland.

That night the Brother Adviser sent one of his subordinates forward to alert Wildenhope to their approach, and to the importance of the moles they had arrested. There was a hard climb through rough ground the following morning, the weather still as bad as ever, and then they turned a corner and found themselves looking down a slope to a wider and more important path than the one they had been using. It ran west towards the dark mass of Caer Caradoc which was now all too plain to see, lowering in the distance, and east downslope towards a dark, humpy stretch of land beyond which the ground fell away once more to what they guessed would be the river and its valley.

But what took their attention was the group of ten moles on the path below, waiting for them in the wind and rain.

“The moles we’ll be giving you over to,” muttered Privet’s guard without enthusiasm. “Guardmoles of Wildenhope.”

Thorne called the parties to a stop and unexpectedly summoned the captives to him, so they were together again for the first time since their capture.

“You had best say your goodbyes to each other here,” he said gruffly, “for you’ll get no other chance. Once they take you over from me you’ll be isolated for good, so say what you want to each other now.”

It was the best he could do, and Privet and the others took advantage of it. While their guards looked away a little shamefacedly – though Fagg stared at them coldly all the while – the four moles embraced, and spoke blessings and prayers. It was a brief and precious time, and perhaps it was only then that they began to realize the danger they were in, from which there might be no escape. But it was all over in moments; Fagg shouted for them to proceed once more and the guards led them downslope to the waiting moles.

“Whatmoles have you there?” cried one of the Wildenhope guards. How powerful he looked, how pitiless his glance.

Thorne spoke their names, the wind snatching the words from his mouth and scattering them across the open fields.

“Lead him away! Get on with it! And her with you lot, and him, yes, him.” The captives were transferred to different custody.

“They’ll give you no trouble, so there’s no need to treat them rough,” said one of Privet’s guards.

“They’ll give us no trouble? Too right they won’t,” laughed a Wildenhope mole, “too bloody right.
These
moles will soon be giving nomole trouble!”

“You’ll need Brother Quail’s authority...” began Thorne, trying to protect them a little.

Fagg, who had been talking in an animated whisper to one of the Wildenhope moles, turned with a look of cruel triumph in his eyes.

“And they’ll get it!” he said. “The Elder Senior Brother Quail is in residence at Wildenhope
now,
so they’ll get it very soon! The Stone’s wrath does not wait for mole!”

Thorne said nothing, but only stared as his charges were led away down the path out of his control and beyond his help. He watched in silence as they disappeared.

“Where to, sir?” asked one of the guards.

“Cannock, where else!” he said sharply. “Where we should have been long since. Cannock! Let’s get out of here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And may the Stone have mercy on those moles.”

“Yes, sir,” said the mole who had been Privet’s special guard. “But sir?”

“Well, mole?”

“Permission to stay awhile, sir, and follow at a safe distance.”

“What for, dammit?”

“She might need a bit of help, sir, if you know what I mean.”

“No might about it. But she’s got better help than you or I could ever give.”

“Sir?”

“The Stone, for goodness’ sake. The Stone’s with her.”

“Do you believe that, sir?”

“I want to, mole, I want to. Now, lead us out of here, we’ve got a war to wage, and Cannock’s where it’s going to start.”

“
Yes,
sir.”

They turned upslope once more, and where one body of Newborns had met another, one touched a little by the Stone’s Light, the other caught by evil shadows, nothing and nomole was left, but for the pawprints in the soft ground, and the cruel blustering wind, and the relentless rain.

Chapter Eight

It is one of the marks of successful tyranny that its practitioners can turn events and personalities, even time itself it seems, to evil advantage. In the period of his success Brother Quail was able to do this with devastating ease. So when Maple and the others effected Rooster’s escape from Caer Caradoc and got clean away it was not quite the disaster for the Newborns that followers of the Stone liked to believe.

Tyrants like nothing better than an excuse to blame and punish, especially those who like Quail claim to act in the name of the Stone, investing themselves with the power to be its worldly judge and executioner. The Convocation of Caradoc was looking for ritual blood to spill, and having lost Rooster’s it was happy to adopt as substitute the moles Quail falsely named, blamed and sentenced as the perpetrators of the plot to let Rooster go free, all in the same breath and that same evening.