The guard seemed to guess something of Snyde’s thoughts. “He’s back in favour with the Elder Senior Brother Thripp,” he said. “You’ll know what that means.”
“I can’t say that I do, exactly,” said Snyde with his usual ambiguity.
But you surely know who Brother Chervil is?” said the guard incredulously.
Snyde stared, unsure whether or not to admit to ignorance of something else that perhaps he ought to know. Chervil was Senior Brother Chervil, that was all.
Brother Chervil is Thripp’s son,” whispered the guard, “and now his period of punishment in exile is over. We’re to take him home.”
Thripp’s son?
Chervil?
His
son?
Snyde scarcely blinked before he began to calculate, and when he did it was but a moment before the implications sank in. Then, with what growing pleasure could he contemplate that the Stone had put him in the right place at the right time with the right mole! Yes, it had!
“Truly, the Master did me a favour trying to leave me behind!” he gloated.
“Hurry up, Brother Snyde, you’re lagging and we have a long long way to go!” called out Chervil.
“Yes, of course! I will!” said Snyde eagerly, seeking with each word he spoke to put the sound of respect into his nasal voice as he hobbled and hurried his hunched and crooked way along the path which Chervil led them on.
Chapter Four
Late November found Chater and Fieldfare set fair for their journey to Avebury, and it seemed that nothing more could now hinder them. Certainly something
had
hindered them thus far, and that was Fieldfare’s slowness, for she was so long unused to journeying, so plump, so appreciative of pauses, rests, pleasing delays to admire the view, and downright stops (to catch her breath and declare, “Bless me! I never knew moledom was so big and the ways so long!’) that they spent more time stopping than starting.
Not that Chater had minded at first. He had so long wanted to have his love at his flank on a journey worth the making that it was as much pleasure for him to pause as it was for her. What was more, when they did so he was made to realize that he had spent all his working life as a journeymole travelling, yet not seeing what he travelled through, and so her slow pace suited his new-found mood of discovery and contemplation.
It must be said, however, that Chater was beginning to want to get on with the journey to Avebury, and had put his paw down about a diversion that Fieldfare had mooted, to visit the Fyfield System which lay a day’s trek off to the south-east. He had not objected too loudly, but his protest was registered, as was Fieldfare’s counter-protest.
Meanwhile, Chater would have been the first to admit that there was an exciting sense of rediscovering themselves together about the journey thus far, so that when they came to fabled places like peaceful Bablock Hythe, it seemed a positive affront to life itself to hurry on without stopping
for a few days to enjoy the place, and meet the quiet moles who inhabited it.
It was the same further upriver – for they took a route along the River Thames – when they came to Appleton, a system which had a somewhat dark record in Woodruff’s Chronicles since it was there that the Eldrene Wort first came to power and evil prominence. Not that there was much sign of darkness or evil when they were there, for the moles had put the sinister past of their system behind them, and gave a warm welcome to the two journeyers from Duncton. Chater was naturally cautious about saying who they were until he was sure that the Newborns were not about and looking for them, but the Appleton moles reported merely that from time to time the Newborns passed their way, but no cell of Newborn faith had been established in their system.
“So where do they head for when they go south of here?” he asked.
“Buckland,” they told him, “Buckland, and Avebury beyond that.”
“Hump!” mused Chater, “at least we know where not to go!”
“Where are you off to then?” they asked.
“Uffington,” lied Chater immediately, glancing at Fieldfare to keep her quiet. She did not have his professional caution in replying to the questions of prying moles, and nor would she have necessarily realized that not all moles are what they say they are, especially if they are Newborns. He could not help it if others noted the coming and going of strangers – and he would not be at all surprised if moles passed on to the occasional Newborns who came by news of other travellers, so it was unwise to give too much away.
The news of the Newborns in Buckland did not surprise him, nor even dismay him. Buckland had a vile reputation anyway, having been made notorious by the moles of the Word as a centre of torture and cruelty, and it had been his misfortune to visit it once before. It was true it was on their route, but in the undulating terrain of the Vale of Uffington it was easy enough to avoid. As for the Newborns being at Avebury, he would have been surprised if they were not – and certainly Master Stour had expected them to be there. The question would be – how many and how entrenched?
That
they would only find out when they got there. Meanwhile... Appleton, and a few more pleasant days of dawdling.
“We must go. Fieldfare/Chater kept urging.
“My love,” she would reply, It is
so
pleasant doing not a lot after all those years in Duncton raising young.”
“But...”
But how could he deny her?
Yet on the fourth day of this unlooked-for delay, when once again he sought to urge her on, the new reason she gave for staying was startlingly different, and to him rather more annoying.
“No! I don’t feel it’s right to move today. There’s a reason we should stay here and that’s why the Stone has made it so alluring in Appleton.”
“Reason my mystical arse, beloved,” said Chater promptly. “The only reason is because you’re lazy. You’re not a travelling mole. You’re —”
“Chater! You will eat your words/And only hours later he almost did. For whatmole should come into Appleton from Fyfield way, but one who when he heard that Duncton moles were visiting the system sought them out and told them that if they were from Duncton then there were two moles across in the Fyfield system looking for guidance towards Duncton Wood.
“They were asking the way to Duncton and the state they were in they wouldn’t have got farther than the nearest stream into which, having tumbled, they would be too weak to get out again.”
“You mean they are ill?” said Fieldfare.
“Half dead,
yes.
They looked like vagrants to me and I
told them to stay where they were and rest up a bit. To which they replied there wasn’t time.”
“Chater of Duncton, we are going to Fyfield!” declared Fieldfare with sudden energy. This is the news I felt coming, and these must be the moles whom destiny has put in our way. That’s why the Stone told us to wait here in Appleton – to hear about them.”
“My own sweet,” said Chater with considerable exasperation, “the Stone told nomole anything. You’ve got it into your head —”
“Are you with me or against me?”
“With you, unfortunately,” said Chater.
“Then let’s go!”
“Only if,” said Chater, not moving, “you promise on your love of me that if these so-called moles in Fyfield aren’t there we won’t go chasing after them, and if they are, then when we’ve heard them out and helped them as best we can we continue with the task we’ve been set, which is to go to Avebury.”
“Dearest Chater,” said Fieldfare meekly, “I will do whatever you think fit once we’ve talked to them. As for them being there, of
course
they will be, the Stone has already seen to it! Quite apart from which Fyfield is said to have been the birthplace of Privet’s grandmother the Eldrene Wort, and I had intended going there anyway to pay our respects.”
“Yes, dear,” said Chater grimly, and still bickering in their gentle loving way, off the two moles went.
They set off from Appleton along the south-western slopes of the Thames valley until, reaching woods nearby in which Chater had rested his weary paws on previous journeys, they turned south towards Fyfield.
The weather was fine, the sky a luminescent pale blue, so bright that it gave the wings of flocking rooks that special sheen that makes even those dark carrion-feeders worth admiring. The woods thereabout were still, and the few leaves that remained on the branches were all russet and gold, and each seemed to try to represent the many that had already fallen, and put on a final show of autumn beauty before the winter came.
Yet, though glorious the day, as they approached Fyfield itself, which had for so many decades been unvisited by all but a few vagrant moles and the odd pilgrim from systems nearby, Fieldfare felt a curious despair, a haunting sadness, quite at odds with the weather and her previous mood. Then, as they drew near the Stone itself and could see it clearly not far off, she paused in her progress.
“I can’t see moles nearby,” she said. “Maybe if we wait they’ll make themselves known. You know, in the old stories that my parents told me, Fyfield was once almost as great a system as Duncton itself But... times change.”
“What happened to it?” asked Chater, who since their journey had begun had been surprised not only at Fieldfare’s ability to enjoy the places and the moles they met, but at the fund of lore and stories she had – and which, now he came to think of it, he should have remembered she had, for she had so often repeated such tales to their pups when they were young.
“It became wormless,” said Fieldfare, “and my mother said that when that happens to a system it’s a sign that something dark and dreadful
will
take place there in the future.”
“I would have thought that being Wort’s birthplace was a dreadful enough thing to happen to any system.”
Fieldfare paused and stared ahead, suddenly feeling quite flooded with a confusing mixture of despair and hope, of great darkness and great light.
“What is it, my dear?” asked Chater immediately, for he could see that his mate’s breathing was suddenly fast and furious, and her eyes were pricking with unexpected tears.
“I... don’t... know, Chater, It’s just that when you said that, I remembered Privet’s tale, and how Wort tried so hard to do the right thing at the end, and
did
it too, and how hard that must have been for her, giving up her only pup to save its life. And then I thought... I thought...”
“My love!” said Chater, putting his paws round her, for her silent tears had turned to open sobbing and she could hardly catch her breath for the emotion she felt.
“Well...” she continued in gulps and gasps, 1 just thought that we were lucky to
have
had young, and a happy life, and to be together still. And here we are at this deserted place and it feels as if it’s waiting for mole to put things right again. The Stone feels
sad
here. And,.. and...”
“And...? My cherub?” whispered Chater, doing his best to draw out whatever was distressing her.
“I’m going to lose some weight!”
“You’re going to lose weight?” repeated poor Chater faintly, unable to keep pace with either her emotions or her thoughts.
“Yes, I’m going to eat less. I’ve been too self-indulgent all my life, I’ve had things too easy! When I think of moles like Wort and Privet, and Stour, and Husk, and
you.
Moles like you are not overweight. But me! I’m going to do something worthwhile with my life! I am!”
She pulled back from him, eyes sparkling, and a look of new-found purpose on her ample face.
“Well!” said Chater, unable to think of much to say. “Well! That’s good then! But..,” and a grim thought occurred to him: a
thin
Fieldfare. “I like you being plump,” he said.
But at that moment, with the new mood of resolve that had come to Fieldfare, it was quite the wrong thing to say.
“How you can say such a thing as that at such a time, Chater, I do not know! How you can even
think
it I can’t imagine. Sex! My mother warned me that sex is all journey-moles think about and she was right. Plump indeed! Well, I shall become thin, undesirable, and worthwhile!”
“But, beloved,” said Chater, at once abashed and affronted, “you are worthwhile as you are.”
“Yes, worthwhile for
that!”
his beloved snapped. “I sometimes think...”
But whatever she sometimes thought had to wait, for their wrangling was brought to a sudden stop by the sight of two pairs of wide and frightened eyes staring at them from one of the ruined tunnel entrances near the Stone.
“Who’s there?” said Chater sternly.
But the eyes only stared and blinked slowly, and the bright sunlight caught the shaking movement of a wan snout.
“Chater! Ssh!” said Fieldfare warningly, in a voice so determined that it seemed that she intended no delay in turning her resolve to be “worthwhile” into action. “Leave this to me. It’s the moles we were told about, I’m sure of it!”
She put a firm paw on one of his to tell him to bide his tongue and stay where he was, and then slowly, and in as friendly a way as she could, went towards where the moles had hidden themselves.
“They’re hiding from
me?”
thought Fieldfare to herself, astonished, as she advanced on them, wondering in what circumstances anymole could ever regard
her
as so frightening they needed to hide.
“What is it?” she asked gently, speaking into the shadows in which the moles cowered, and watching helpless as they retreated yet further from her, “What do you want? What’s wrong? I’ll not harm you.”
The eyes of the moles stayed wide and fixed upon her, one pair higher than the other; a male and a female, probably.
Fieldfare heard the female whisper to the male,
“Ask
them. It’s all we can do.”
I won’t harm you, mole,” said Fieldfare, trying once again to reassure them, waving Chater further back because he still had an intimidating look about him in the expectation that it was all a trick.
The male poked his snout out a little into the air and said, “Where are you from?”