Duncton Rising (9 page)

“My name’s Fieldfare of Duncton,” she replied. “We’re

pilgrims, sort of. We beard there were two moles trying to get to Duncton and since we’re of Duncton ourselves we thought we would come here and see if we could help. We wouldn’t advise anymole to go to Duncton at the moment, unless they were Newborn of course!”

The snout came out further into the light, and a pair of diffident pale eyes stared at Fieldfare.

“You’re not Newborn then?” the mole enquired doubtfully.

“Do I look Newborn?” said Fieldfare, not knowing whether to feel amused or slighted.

“Not very,” said the mole, adding, in a voice that could barely conceal his excitement, “er, are you
really
of Duncton Wood?”

“We are.”

“Who’s your friend? He looks fierce.”

“He’s no friend,” said Fieldfare with a smile, “he’s my mate. His name’s Chater. Chater, my love, come on over here and look less threatening and more pleasant. Smile or something, dearest. These moles think you may be a danger to them.”

Chater did as he was told, but it was only after he had patiently answered further questioning to affirm that he too was of Duncton, and benign, that the hiding mole said, “Wait a moment, I will consult my better half.”

The snout retreated and much subterranean whispering ensued, and some pattering of paws beneath, and away, and around and about. Until suddenly, and to Fieldfare’s and Chater’s surprise, several moles emerged from various points around them as if they had indeed been preparing the kind of ambush that Chater had feared. Except that these moles were so ragged and motley, so starved and thin, so weak from disease and the strains of flight from danger, that Chater could have dealt with the whole lot of them with one paw.

But physically downcast though they were, a spirit of purpose and courage was in their eyes, and pride as well, and a touching disbelief that they had found two friendly moles, and both from Duncton Wood.

As they emerged into the light of day the one to whom they had been talking came forth, and after him the mole they guessed was his “better half. She was the weakest of them all, and needed help to clamber out of the entrance, which her partner gave her most gently and caringly. But he was little more fit than she, and neither seemed able to stance straight without helping the other somewhat, unless it was that in the place from which they had fled they felt safest if they leaned against each other. Yet the others, who Chater saw numbered six more, mostly male, looked to these two for leadership, and came and gathered about them now, staring in continuing disbelief at the Duncton moles.

One or two were sobbing mutely, it seemed in relief at having found friends. One sank down on his haunches, too weak to stance more proudly. Others shivered with fever, or fatigue, and one old one leaned on another and simply stared expressionlessly at the Stone that rose a little downslope.

Then, like the rising of the sun, there came to the face of the leading male a look of pride, as if he had been on the most terrible journey imaginable and had led his weaker partner and friends on with the promise that at the end of it there would be comfort to be found; and here, when all seemed lost and his promises and encouragements all come to naught,
here
was his vindication. While on the face of his thin partner, who clung to him tightly as he supported her, was nothing but tiredness, hopelessness, and a desire to sleep.

But nothing daunted, the male said, with what last vestiges of pride and strength he had left, “We are followers of the Stone. We are
not
Newborn and never will be!”

There was a weak and ragged chorus of, “No’s” and “Never-will-be’s” at this declaration of intent.

From the way he said it, with a firm stare from which the fear had now gone, it was clear that he did not wish Fieldfare to remark upon the diseased appearance of himself and his partner – he wished to be treated as an equal.

So, though he was barely able to stance upright because of his own weakness and his companion’s need of what faltering strength he had left to stay upright herself. Fieldfare instinctively knew she must not, as yet, offer them help. Chater must have thought the same, for though he had been in the act of going to assist some of the others he stopped still and listened as the mole spoke again.

“So, if you’re followers like us, let us go to the Fyfield Stone all together, to pray and give thanks.” He looked at his fellow moles and said, “Surely, we have been led here by the Stone and these two moles of Duncton are the answer to the moleyears of prayers we have made, and a vindication of the lives lost by our friends during the journey we have made to be here. Let us therefore give thanks before we do aught else!”

Then, tenderly supporting his companion, and turning his head to hers in the gentlest and most loving way, he said, “We are joining these other pilgrims to go, as tradition demands, all together on this last short way of our journey. You can make it there, can’t you, my dear?”

“Are these moles truly of Duncton?” the female whispered.

“They are of Duncton, my dear, the Stone has sent them in answer to our prayers. Now we will give thanks and then we will ask for their advice and assistance, for allmole knows that in moledom’s hour of need, Duncton moles will help.”

“Aye!” cried the others as Fieldfare exchanged a glance with Chater which told him that
she
was not going to turn her back on these good moles even if it did mean delaying their journey to Avebury. While for his part, Chater’s look said, “Whatever promise I compelled you to make about going on after this is now cancelled.
I
am not going to be the Duncton mole who did not know where to give help when it was needed!”

The female slowly raised her gaunt head towards the Stone, surveying the very short distance which separated her from it; after a few moments, in which from the weariness in her eyes, and the shaking of her paws, it seemed she judged the distance to be great indeed in her present state, she eventually nodded briefly and looked down at the ground again.

“Well then,” said the male rather formally, surveying the ground ahead for bumps and pitfalls. “well,.,”

Then, very slowly, in imminent danger of collapsing with each short and careful step he made, and with Fieldfare and Chater just behind, the two moles led the way to the Stone. Never before in her life had Fieldfare been so grateful for her health and strength; and never had Chater felt so sombre and sensible of his own good fortune as flank to flank, and with more than one of the weak moles leaning on them for support, they all moved slowly forward. In those last few steps to the Fyfield Stone, shared as they were with moles who surely had travelled a much harder journey through life to be where they were. Fieldfare and Chater felt in the group a spiritual awe they had never shared before and a resolution to be or do something “worthwhile” rose up in them together.

Indeed, as they reached the Stone and the stronger helped the weaker forward to touch it, Fieldfare and Chater instinctively reached out a paw to each other, and turned to look into each other’s eyes, and their love deepened in this witness of it before the Stone, and they sensed that their journey to Avebury, begun so simply, continued so slowly, was now about to find in some unspoken way a deeper purpose than either of them could ever have conceived, and the beginnings of a different goal.

“Thank you. Stone, for bringing us in safety here,” the male whispered. “Thank you for bringing us into the company of these moles of Duncton. Continue to help our friends and our kin who cannot be here, but who gave us the strength to dare leave on their behalf. Help us, through these moles you have sent now, to find a way to help allmole.”

His companion seemed to gain a little strength from these words and from touching the Stone, for she succeeded in letting go of him, and stancing on her own paws, though with great difficulty. She stared up at the Stone, a terrible faith in her eyes, and she whispered, “Help them Stone, as you helped us come here. Help them.”

Then she could stance alone no more, and nor could her companion or their friends. As Chater helped some. Fieldfare helped others, so that there at the Stone’s base, they lay down, with Chater stancing guard over them while Fieldfare hurried off to find some food, wondering who they were and where they were from, and what this meeting might mean for them all.

For Pumpkin, November and the first days of December was a hard and confusing time, and made much worse by the sudden and apparently inexplicable change in Sturne’s attitude towards him. The library aide had always understood that it was hard for a mole like Sturne to be easy with others, or to know how to say a kindly or polite word to smooth some troubled moment away. He had realized too, though a little sadly, that as the years went by and Sturne rose up the Library’s hierarchy, from scholar to Keeper, he would find it even harder to acknowledge either publicly or privately that through all these years, unspoken though it was, there was a special bond between the two, unequal though they were, which had been formed that very first day they came to dedicate their lives to Library work.

Pumpkin could bear all that, knowing as he did that each Midsummer, and each Longest Night, Sturne would come of his own accord to Pumpkin’s untidy burrow and, with little said but much felt, would mark the occasion by consuming a juicy worm and, in his stiff cold way, tell some tale or other that seemed to him to have a dash of humour or spot of interest in it. This unbending of Sturne in his presence meant much to Pumpkin, and over the long years, the decades indeed, of their strange relationship, he liked to think that Sturne felt the same.

“The mole may find it hard to relax and enjoy life,” Pumpkin often said to himself, “but
I
know
he’s a kind mole in his own way, and that he means no harm by the way he looks; it’s simply the fact that the Stone forgot to show him how to grin and smile like other moles.”

If, sometimes. Pumpkin thought of Sturne affectionately in his wanderings and muttered such things as, “This is something you’ll enjoy hearing about come Longest Night,” and even mentioned him sometimes in his prayers, he did so in the real hope that one day, perhaps when Sturne was retired from the Library and able to spend more time at leisure, the Stone would grant him the peace to enjoy life a little more, and unbend, and smile.

“Why, Stone, I don’t mind saying that if you have to take from me a whole year’s smiling and being content to give Sturne a single day of real joy and happiness, because there’s only so much to go round and some moles need more than others to get them going, then you take it away from me. I’d give anything to see that mole smile a whole day through!”

Such had been the thoughts that good Pumpkin entertained for Sturne, and this was why, unique among the library aides, he never ever said a bad word about” Sturne, or willingly listened to another mole who did. Which being so, it is not surprising that poor Pumpkin was so distressed, faced as he now was by the terrible fact that Sturne’s elevation to the exalted position of Acting Master Librarian had turned him into an autocratic monster whose strictness and ruthless authority seemed to know no bounds.

Knowing him as he thought he did, Pumpkin had expected at least some token of resistance to the demands the Newborn Inquisitors were making within hours of their arrival, that certain texts be removed, notably those scribed in pious memory of Holy Beechen of Duncton Wood as expositions of his “Way”.

“There is only one true way, Acting Master Sturne, and that is the way to the Stone as promulgated by Elder Senior Brother Thripp, using the creeds and gospels of Holy Beechen himself, and dispensing with these soft and vapid accounts in your Library of what he was supposed to have said, and supposed to have meant!”

“Indeed,” Pumpkin had heard Sturne say obligingly, “and it is right that the Library be reorganized to recognize the value of Thripp’s texts.”

“
Elder Senior Brother
Thripp is the way he is formally known, and those of us who are dedicated to his mission prefer to call him by his full rank and title. But we are not so, shall we say,
dogmatic,
as to insist that others call him so, though we who have taken the vow prefer it. But, in courtesy, please call him
Brother,
if you will.”

“Of course, it was a slip of the tongue,” Pumpkin heard Sturne reply on that occasion. “I am somewhat new to the Newborn way and am grateful for all the guidance I can get from moles as experienced as yourself. Brother Fetter.”

“Dear, oh dear!” muttered Pumpkin to himself when he heard this, and more of it, and still more as the days went by, “it seems that Sturne has been turned finally their way. I fear I may have lost an ally here! Yes, indeed I have!”

When Sturne began to show that he had no patience at all with the grumbling of the library aides concerning the wholesale disposal of texts which until then had been kept most carefully, and in the driest places, to make way for modern texts which were carried up from the Marsh End of all places, all of them blathering on about the Newborn way. Pumpkin had no doubt that the Acting Master had been “converted’, or was well on the way to being.