There is no doubt, none at all, that without Mayweed to lead them, Mistle and Romney would not have reached Duncton Wood alive.
Grikes seemed everywhere along the route they took, and the first they came across – but a few hours after they left the others at Chadlington – were four thickset guardmoles hurrying rapidly along, and clearly under orders not to dally in their northward journey.
Mayweed heard them before he saw them and, always ready for such problems, made sure they were well hidden in the scrubby ground they were then crossing, and the guardmoles went on their way none the wiser.
‘I hope the grikes won’t catch the others up,’ whispered Mistle doubtfully.
‘Humbleness trained Holm himself,’ said Mayweed. ‘They will be more than all right!’
It was typical late December weather, wet, gloomy and cold, and as they neared Duncton at last their route took them alongside the roaring owl way under which they would finally have to pass if they were to get into Duncton Wood.
They had already passed under it after leaving Rollright, but there the cross-under is almost underground and rises further off from the way itself. This was the first time Mistle had been so close to so large a roaring owl way and, with the embankment rising on their right, the sound of the roaring owls heavy and sending a rain of dirty spray out over the steep slope above as their gazes rushed by, she was awestruck, and stopped more than once to look.
‘Dangerous it is, Madam, never go up there unaccompanied. Moles die on roaring owl ways.’
‘Do they talk? Like moles?’ asked Mistle.
‘They roar,’ said Mayweed, wanting to get on, ‘like owls.’
‘And their gazes, what do they look at?’
‘The way ahead, humbleness should think, but sometimes when they cross the countryside in the distance on smaller ways they gaze all around.’
‘Do you think they think, like moles?’
‘Persistent Madam, Mayweed doesn’t know. He avoids them like the plague but if he must use a roaring owl way route he looks down at the way, and breathes out of the corner of his mouth away from them, to minimise the fumes. He hopes they think, but if they do they never seem to change their minds, which negates their thinking, doesn’t it? No good thinking if change does not result.’ But the approach of more grike guardmoles ahead of them ended the conversation abruptly and Mayweed once more led Mistle calmly into hiding and the grikes went unknowingly past.
‘Madam Mistle and Romney Sir, follow closely now because we’re near to the cross-under. Rather a dirty route I fear, through a pipe, but it takes us to where we can observe what moles are about without being seen.’
They followed him silently, and for Romney, who was the biggest of them, it was a tight squeeze, and he could see nothing much ahead but Mistle’s tail and an occasional flash of light at the pipe’s end far ahead.
When they reached the end Mayweed watched and waited for a long time before he would get out. But when he did he leapt nimbly down, snouted about, went straight into the centre of the cross-under and said in a voice that echoed off its concrete walls, ‘Astonishing, incredible, amazing, I never thought I’d live to see the day!’
They followed after him and saw that the cross-under and beyond into Duncton Wood were quite unguarded with not a mole in sight.
‘Remember, Madam, if we’re stopped we’re Romney’s prisoners and we’re to act dumb and pretend to be followers and if there’s real trouble run in opposite directions and hope for the best.’
But no moles appeared as they hurried through the wet and echoing cross-under. Everywhere had a derelict air and looked forlorn. The sound of the roaring owls was muffled and apart from the drip-drip of water from the way above on to the concrete floor of the cross-under, the only sounds were the ugly caws of distant rooks high on the slopes above.
Despite Mayweed’s natural desire to get up through the High Wood and to the Stone as quickly as possible, Mistle could not help stopping and staring upslope in awe at the system she had only seen from a distance with Beechen.
They were nearing the top when Mayweed called out from above in a distressed voice, ‘Mistle Madam, please, please come.’
She went quickly up to him and saw that he was looking ahead up the slopes to just below the edge of the wood itself. The rooks they had heard were pecking there, and then rising a little into the air, stooping at each other and then dropping in an untidy way to the ground again and stalking about. Four of them. It was all too plain that they were feeding off carrion, and that the carrion was the dead bodies of moles that lay scattered about a little promontory or knoll that jutted out of the slope.
‘That’s the place the two moles I mentioned made such a fight of it,’ said Romney grimly. He and Mayweed eyed the feeding rooks uneasily, but Mistle, well-used to surface travel, went boldly ahead, saying, ‘They’ll fly off if we make ourselves obvious enough. Come on, Mayweed.’
‘Oh Madam, Mayweed knows that,’ muttered Mayweed. ‘He was not born yesterday. It’s what the rooks are feeding on that distresses him.’
‘Come on,’ said Romney with surprising gentleness, ‘let’s get it over with.’
They followed quickly after Mistle and reached her flank as the rooks, irritated and made noisy at their approach, rose and hovered low, their white bills dangerous, before suddenly angling into the light breeze and disappearing up into the trees beyond.
They found themselves surrounded by a scene of stark devastation, the bodies of moles scattered all about, and some of them dismembered by the rooks.
‘Stone, may they be at peace and brought to your Silence safeguarded,’ whispered Mistle, a look of pity on her face. She put a paw out to stop Romney from going to Mayweed, who had gone ahead among the bodies and was searching for his friends.
‘Let him be,’ she said. ‘It’s best he’s alone at such a moment. He’ll call us when he wants us.’
Rarely had Mistle seen so touching and pathetic a sight as the thin and ragged form of Mayweed wandering disconsolately among the bodies of fallen moles, reluctantly looking at each one to see if it was Skint or Smithills. ‘I wish Sleekit was here,’ said Mistle, ‘it’s her he needs.’
‘He’s quite a mole is Mayweed.’
‘He’s a great mole,’ said Mistle passionately, ‘and if you knew what he’d done in his life, and the moles he’s helped …’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ said Romney placatingly, looking unhappily over the bleak scene.
They saw Mayweed stop on the furthest point of the promontory where several bodies lay, they saw him peer down and then pull away the large body of a younglooking mole. Then he stared down at two bodies that lay so close they seemed to be touching each other, and they heard him sob, and stance still a long time, staring.
Then he looked round and Romney said, ‘Go to him, mole, you’ll know best what to say.’
She went, and as she reached him Mayweed gestured at the two moles she knew must be Skint and Smithills. Both had suffered terrible talon wounds to face and flanks.
‘That’s good-natured Smithills,’ said Mayweed, pointing to the larger of the two, ‘and that’s Skint who found me in a seal-up in the Buckland Slopeside. They were never apart those two, and even now …’
Mistle gazed down at them, and guessed that they must have fought for each other back to back to the very last.
But there was something more than that. After they had been overwhelmed and the grikes had moved on, Smithills must still have tried to protect his old friend before he died because his broad back showed signs of having taken many talonings.
‘They came from Grassington,’ said Mayweed, ‘and knew each other as pups. They were my friends.’
Mayweed wept some more and Mistle stayed comfortingly close to him, as she imagined Sleekit would have done. She stared at the dead moles, and wondered how it was that two such old moles as these had found the strength and courage to have battled so hard as they had done.
Mayweed sighed and said, ‘Mistle Madam, there’ll be other sad sights today, but I feel I’ve wept my tears now and am ready to move on.’
They looked on up the slope and saw that already the rooks were circling out of the leafless trees and coming down their way again.
‘Come on, Madam, and you, rough Romney, this mole Mayweed is ready now to go on up into the High Wood and leave the rooks to do their work here.’
The rooks flapped and snapped above them in the sky as they moved on with heavy hearts towards the trees of the High Wood.
How sombre the wood seemed to Mistle as Mayweed led them through it, not at all as she had imagined it when Violet had first spoken to her of Duncton. The towering grey-green trunks of the beech trees utterly dwarfed them, and the smooth rustling floor of fallen beech leaves, which seemed half golden even in that dull winter light, stretched endlessly in all directions about them. The only relief was the occasional raft of dog’s mercury stalks, and a sporadic holly bush which had rooted in the deep leaf litter.
‘Wondering moles, the Ancient System lies beneath us and is not a place to venture down without extreme care, so don’t. The Stone rises straight ahead on the west side of the wood.’
‘Aye, I remember the direction well enough,’ said Romney, ‘but the wood itself looks a lot grander in the daylight.’
Mistle said nothing, for she was full of apprehension as well as having a curious and contradictory sense of excitement now she was among the trees. It was what they would find that concerned her, not the wood itself which, despite its size and the way it made a mole feel small, gave her a sense of belonging quite unlike anywhere she had been on her long journey here.
‘I was meant to come here,’ she kept saying to herself, ‘and I was meant to come without Beechen at first so that I can get to know it in my own way. He said he’d come back, and I know he will, and I know that if I’m true to the Stone then this system will look after me.’
The trees ahead thinned, they clambered over the surface roots of another beech tree, the ground dropped away slightly, and there, before them through the trees, they saw the great Stone of Duncton, its colour greener and more brown than the beech trees, but its surface having the same strange shining quality they held.
Remembering Mayweed’s reluctance to go first on to the Pasture slopes, Romney went to the front saying, ‘I’ll take the lead, for it’ll not be a pleasant sight about the Stone.’
On they went, past the last tree before the clearing and then out through the undergrowth before the Stone itself. Mayweed kept his snout low, and Mistle could hardly bear to look.
But when they did so it was somehow not so bad as it had seemed on the slopes. There were bodies there, and owls and rooks had been, but somehow the trees surrounding them, and the Stone especially, put them into a different proportion. The clearing was peaceful, nature would take its course and the bodies would be gone.
‘Madam and Sir, if Tryfan has survived then where is he?’ said Mayweed. ‘For he is not here.’
Mistle stared up at the Stone whose face seemed to catch light in strange and subtle ways, even on a dull day like this. Romney shifted about uncomfortably.
Mayweed snouted about a bit, stanced with his head on one side, ran hither and thither and finally came back, stopped, turned, and stared north out of the clearing.
‘Please to follow me,’ he said, ‘and quietly.’
As dusk fell on Longest Night and the grikes came, Bailey had not been in the Stone clearing, but hurrying over the surface of the Ancient System in the company of Marram.
He should have been at the Stone but he had grown bored and, seeing Marram setting off to tell Skint and Smithills that everymole was waiting for them, had gone along to keep him company.
Neither had suspected anything was wrong until they reached the edge of the High Wood and heard shouts and commands coming from the slopes below. Bailey had peered out from the cover of the wood with Marram and been faced by the most terrifying sight coming up out of the gloom below that he had ever seen.
Dozens and dozens of grike guardmoles came inexorably up towards them. Even as they saw them they heard grikes crashing into the wood on either side of them and knew it was too late to even attempt to get down and reach Skint and Smithills, assuming they were still there.
‘We must go and warn the others,’ said Marram, turning and starting back the way they had come.
But it was too late, the moles on either flank had heard them and even as they rushed back towards the Stone clearing the grikes turned to cut them off, hissing commands to each other. Bailey felt he was about to die.
‘Hide there!’ commanded Marram, ‘There! Now! And don’t move whatever happens, whatever happens.’ Then, shocked and in a daze, Bailey scurried into the shelter of some roots and dog’s mercury. Even as Marram turned from him and had moved no more than a few paces away, he was confronted by grikes coming from all directions.
Bailey heard a strong confident voice say, ‘Here’s the one we heard.’
‘What’s your name, Stone-lover?’ said another.
‘Marram, I …’
Then there was a sickening thump, a weak diminishing cry, a grunt, and then the grikes rushed on as more came up behind them and Bailey’s world seemed to turn mad around him.
He began to shiver and shake, and as moles went here and there and all about, he covered his head with his paws and kept them there for what seemed an interminable time.
Then as things fell silent and the last of the grikes seemed to have run past, Bailey heard a rasping voice he did not at first recognise.
‘Bailey!’ it called, and it might have been death itself speaking his name.
He dared to peer out of his hiding place and saw poor Marram stretched out and dying.
‘Bailey,’ rasped Marram, ‘hide. Go down into the Ancient System. Hide. One must survive: you. Hide.’
‘But Marram, b-b-but …’
‘Bailey …’ It was the last word Marram said, for he coughed and died even as Bailey reached out to him.
Nothing can describe the talon-crumbling, mind-numbing, heart-stopping panic that Bailey then felt. Not a thought did he have for Tryfan and the other moles in the clearing nor, as he turned and rushed blindly from Marram, for anymole else but himself. He ran about, stumbled over roots, crashed into fallen branches and then, when he heard a grike call out, ‘Whatmole’s that?’ he tried to scrabble at the leaf litter and chalky soil beneath him and make good his escape.
‘Hey! You!’
He gave up trying to delve and dashed off, first here and then there until he tried to delve once more, desperate to escape from the death that seemed about to descend on him.
Once more the ground was too hard. He heard moles coming for him and he ran blindly on again until he scented the ground below was more moist, and he delved down and succeeded in tunnelling out of sight. His breath came out in grunts of fear despite all attempts to silence it, his mouth was full of soil and he pushed wildly on. Then he stopped, listened, realised nomole was following, pushed a paw forward and found himself tumbling headlong into a pitch-black tunnel.
‘Where’s the bugger gone?’
He heard death’s hard voice on the surface above, soil and litter dropped down into the black space around him, sweat poured down his face, and then the voices were gone.
He stayed quite still until the cold began to get at him and, feeling his way along in the blackest tunnels he had ever known, he began to explore. Had he not been to the Ancient System before, which he had as a pup in Henbane’s day, and more recently when Mayweed had shown him where his father Spindle had hidden his own and Tryfan’s texts, he might have felt more nervous, for the windsound is most attenuated and strange, and that night seemed full of rushing above, and ominous cries and screams.
At first he did not know where he was or where he could go, but after a long and increasingly miserable wandering he came to a tunnel he knew, lit by moonlight. He decided to go to the secret place Mayweed had shown him and somehow he got himself to it: a burrow hidden among the roots of a beech tree, itself empty but leading most cleverly by way of a tilted flint through a concealed entrance to a safe burrow for texts.
There he stanced down and stayed still, listening, very afraid, unable to move more. Finally he dozed off, only to wake when new sounds came: moles laughing and joking, their voices guttural. He knew them to be grikes.
He realised that they were leaving, but he did not dare move. Fear of them had been replaced by fear of what they had left behind. It was not until two long, wretched days had passed that thirst and hunger finally drove him out of the chalky burrow and from among the bark texts where he had felt safest, and up on to the surface. He crept about, gulped down some water he found in the interstices of a tree root, and grubbed timidly about for some food, starting at every slightest sound.
The wood was silent, the trees still, the place felt dead. Eventually, not knowing what else to do, he went timidly to the Stone, and what he found there was unspeakably worse than anything he could have imagined. It seemed that everymole he had ever loved was lying there, cold, stiff, frosted over, taloned and crushed to death before the Stone.
He stared numbly about him, at the wide empty clearing, at the bodies, at the Stone, and at the bodies again. Feverfew, Madder, Teasel all crumpled … they were all there, all dead.
‘Bailey … ?’
For a moment his heart seemed to stop and he half screamed in fear.
‘Bailey …’
The voice was familiar and yet unlike anything he had heard before, coming from a place Bailey had no wish to go.
‘Bailey,’ it said. And if Bailey could have died himself he would have done so then, so fearful was he of turning and peering into the shadows from which that voice came. But then he heard the slow drag of steps behind him in the gloom and terror made him turn and stare in horror at the bloody apparition that came.
Tryfan, blinded. His face and what had been his eyes all open and raw, his face fur no better than gore, his paws bespattered with his own blood.
‘Is it Bailey?’
‘Yes,’ whispered Bailey. ‘What have they done to you? What have they done to Duncton?’
‘I knew you were safe, Bailey. I knew you were hiding. Where did you go?’
How could he speak so calmly? Bailey answered him, not knowing where to look. Blankly he told him about Marram, and about how he had hidden in the Ancient System.
Only after that did Bailey come to himself sufficiently to ask of Tryfan himself, and what had happened.
‘I am in pain, though not as much as it was. The cold has helped me, Bailey. I have found food, for my snout is unharmed, but I could not find water. Take me somewhere I can drink. You must guide me …’
Slowly, pathetically, still barely aware of what was happening, Bailey led Tryfan along to where he himself had found water and helped the old mole drink.
‘Now keep me warm, Bailey, for I must sleep, and then I shall need your help. Do not be afraid, mole.’
‘I feel ashamed,’ said Bailey suddenly.
‘No, mole, there is no time for that now. The Stone has protected you as, in its own terrible way, it protected me. We still have our tasks.’
‘But you can’t do anything,’ said Bailey bitterly.
‘There is one thing I can do, and I shall need your help to do it, but I must sleep first … Now keep me warm …’
Bailey did his best for the mole who had given so much of his life to so many, and for the next few hours he felt each painful breath, each suffering shudder as if it were his own.
Once during that first night, Bailey found himself crying for Tryfan and the old mole stirred and woke and said, ‘Bailey, do not cry for me. I can bear this pain and darkness. I bore it before when Rune’s sideem hurt me in Whern; oh yes, I can bear it … weep not for me.’
Dawn came and Tryfan stirred and said, ‘Now find me food and lead me to the place to drink again. ’ When Bailey had done that, Tryfan said, ‘Now listen, mole, and do as I say. You have seen the texts hidden in the Ancient System and on what they are scribed. Go now to the Eastside and find me some bark of silver birch. Do it now. I shall not move, but wait for you impatiently. Go now …’
Bailey went, and got the bark, and came back and found Tryfan stanced where he had been before.
‘Now, mole, guide my paw to the bark and keep it still for I must scribe one last time. Why, I thought the Rule I made was the final thing but it cannot be! One day moles shall live in this place again, one day a community will be here. They must know what happened, and be warned of what can be. They must know that not one single mole who lived here renounced the Stone. Not one! Scribing of it is what your father Spindle would have done. Then help me, as he would, and if my talons slur off the folio, buffet me and keep me to my task.’
Then, despite everything, Tryfan found the strength to scribe a final text, so that future moles might know of the events that had led up to that Longest Night, and on the night itself. In all of scribemole history, perhaps, no text is more moving or more fearful for the mole who snouts it than that one, scribed, it seems, from the heart of a dying mole. Rough, hard to make sense of in places, torn, scribed out of pain by a mole who believed in the future.
With passion and anger was it scribed, and yet, strange as it has seemed to some, it never once scribes badly of the Word or even of the grike guardmoles. Rather it talks of a mole called Lucerne, and one named Drule, and how they lost their way, led others astray, and why that might have been.
It tells of moles who would not renounce the Stone even in the face of death, and names them all, one by one, and describes each affectionately, their good parts and their bad. It finally commends the mole Bailey, who helped the scribemole make his final testament, and asks for the prayers of those who follow. It counsels moles to reflect that even when all seems lost to mole, all hopeless, the Stone may yet bring comfort and encouragement to moles with faith; and as Bailey had come out of the darkness to help him, so others struck down may hope that they are not abandoned.
For two days Tryfan made a scribing which got progressively more slow, and Bailey knew him to be a dying mole, for towards the end he could barely move his paw and Bailey had to hold his talons as he scribed.
‘ … And you shall not be abandoned, for the Stone is with you and at your flank, and attends you. Wait and you shall hear its Silence. This was scribed by Tryfan of Duncton, ordained by Boswell in Uffington.’ So ends the final testament of Tryfan.
When it was done, Tryfan said, ‘Now, mole, I have completed it and it is well. Take it to that hiding place you know, and then return to me, for I have one last request to ask of you. Hurry, mole, for the darkness comes on my mind and I begin to be afraid. Hurry now.’
Then poor Bailey took the text and hurried into the tunnels of the Ancient System and back to the hidden place where his father and Mayweed had long since made their secret library. There he carefully put the text, and sealed the place up once more to make it hard to find.
When he reached Tryfan again he found him only half conscious and muttering, and afraid of some imagining that had come to him. Indeed, when Bailey reached him and touched him poor Tryfan started as if Bailey was his enemy and began to defend himself, thrusting out this way and that.
‘It’s only me, Tryfan. It’s Bailey.’
‘Bailey?’ said Tryfan with relief. ‘I thought, I thought …’
‘It’s me,’ said Bailey. ‘I won’t hurt you.’
Tryfan gripped his paw and said, ‘Bailey, mole, take me down to Barrow Vale, take me there.’
‘It’s a long way, Tryfan, and you’re weak.’
‘Take me … please.’
The painful, slow journey took a night and half a day, but at last they reached Barrow Vale.
‘I’ll wait on the surface, not below.’
‘Wait for what?’ whispered Bailey.
For the first time since he had found him, Bailey saw Tryfan smile. Then he looked conspiratorial.
‘For a mole who’s coming to me,’ he said softly. ‘He always said he would come when I needed him. He will come now.’
‘Whatmole, Tryfan?’ asked Bailey, looking about the deserted place and knowing in his heart that nomole could come now.
‘A mole who is much loved and most loving. He will know that Tryfan needs him.’ Then Tryfan shook and shivered and out of his lost eyes there came what might once have been tears, but now it seemed all blood.
Bailey thought to ask Tryfan some questions, to take his mind off his thoughts and fears.
‘Tryfan, tell me about my father.’
‘Of all moles I have ever known, I loved Spindle most of all. He was a mole I met at Uffington and …’
There on the surface in Barrow Vale, Tryfan began to talk about his life, with Bailey staying close to him as he slowly began to sink towards a place of darkness of which he was afraid. Sometimes he seemed to feel he had slipped into it, and all sorts of images of horror and fearful things came to him, and he fretted, and shook, and tried to fight Bailey away. But Bailey stayed close, and talked to him, and sometimes Tryfan would emerge once more into a safer world where the darkness did not close him in.
Sometimes, too, he would say, ‘Is he here yet? Is he come? I need him now, Bailey, I need him at my flank to guide me on. Is he come?’
But Bailey could only hold frightened Tryfan close and do his best to comfort him, and whisper his hope that soon that mole would come … soon.
So a long night passed, and then a day, and then another night, a night when owls stooped close, yet still Tryfan would not go underground. The best Bailey could do was cover him with leaf litter to keep him warm, and hope the owls, who scented blood, would not dare come too close to a living mole.
Yet sometimes Bailey had to leave him while he fetched food, and poor Tryfan cried feebly out and seemed to think that he had been utterly deserted. Then when Bailey came back Tryfan would say, ‘Is it you come at last, mole? I have needed you!’ And when Bailey said, ‘It’s Bailey,’ he knew he was not the mole Tryfan meant.
So Tryfan clung on to life, but full of fears and doubts, and the belief that he was lost and in a place of darkness, shaking and crying out and even then, feeble as he had become, stancing vainly up to Bailey.
‘Help him, Stone,’ prayed Bailey. ‘Take his suffering from him, bring him safely to thy Silence. Help him now …’
Then in the afternoon of the second day in Barrow Vale, Bailey, only half awake, heard moles coming. Down through the wood from the Stone, more than one mole, but Bailey was almost too tired to care. He felt they must be grikes but he was not afraid now, and if a hundred guardmoles had appeared at the edge of Barrow Vale, he would have stanced in front of Tryfan and defended him to the last.
Indeed, he stanced forward towards the coming moles and, though never a fighting mole, cried out, ‘Halt! Come no further or I shall … I shall attack!’
It was a brave effort, but words are one thing and deeds another, and poor Bailey knew the moment the great guardmole came into view that he had no chance.
‘We’re hurting nomole!’ he said, still trying to sound as bold as he could, and keeping himself between Tryfan and the mole. Then another appeared, a female, and stared at him. Then, finally, Mayweed appeared and Bailey’s mouth fell open in astonishment and relief.
‘Mayweed,’ he said. ‘Oh Mayweed!’ and gesturing to Tryfan with his left paw as he held him with his right, he cried.
Romney and Mistle crouched down some way off and Mayweed went forward quietly to where Tryfan lay near Bailey.
‘Bailey, mole,’ said Mayweed gently, ‘I shall look after him now. Go to my friends and rest. I shall guide him now.’
Even as Mayweed spoke Tryfan stirred and snouted weakly up and reached out a rough old paw and felt Mayweed’s face and flanks. The wood was quiet about them as Bailey crept away and stanced with Romney and Mistle.
‘Mayweed, I told him you’d come,’ said Tryfan.
‘Torn and wounded Tryfan, Mayweed is here now and here he’ll stay.’
‘I’m in darkness, Mayweed, and cold and much afraid.’
‘Much-loved mole, keep your paw on my flank and listen to my voice, and you’ll not get lost.’ Mayweed did as Bailey had done and surrounded him with leaf litter to keep him warm. He looked at his torn eyes and shook his head.
Tryfan was quiet for a long time until he said suddenly, ‘You’ve been gone so long.’ His voice was calmer than it had been, and he sounded more secure.
‘Humbleness has been rushing about doing things, but didn’t want to be gone so long.’
‘Beechen …’
‘He has gone north to preach of the Stone.’
‘They came and hurt so many moles.’
‘Mayweed knows.’
‘Even Feverfew, Mayweed, even her. But not one of them renounced the Stone, not a single one. Bailey’s safe, but Marram died and Skint I don’t know …’
‘Died fighting, he did, with you-know-who defending his rear.’
‘Told him not to fight. Skint never listened. Loved Skint. Smithills too … all of them died. Not you, Mayweed. You know how to survive. I’ve missed Spindle these hours past.’
‘Great mole, myself I know that, humbleness knows lots of things.’
There was another long silence, and Tryfan’s breathing grew heavier and more laboured. But then he spoke again.
‘What do you know, Mayweed, eh? Tell an old mole what you know.’
‘Humble Mayweed knows a thing or three. Knows Tryfan loved and was loved more than most; he knows he loved moles others did not love, like Henbane, like himself. Mayweed knows lots and lots and lots …’
‘Mole, don’t leave me,’ whispered Tryfan, now frantic again and afraid of something that wasn’t there. ‘Wanted to be here in Barrow Vale when I left. Nomole now, Mayweed, nomole to carry on. What’s to become of Duncton Wood, who’s to show them the way to go?’ Tryfan began to cry, terrible weak sobs.
For a moment Mayweed was at a loss, but then he turned to Mistle and signalled her over.
‘Terrific Tryfan, I’ve got a mole with me, one you’d like to know, a female …’
‘No,’ whispered Tryfan, though whether he was denying something he feared, or saying that he did not want to meet another mole was hard to say.
Mayweed brought Mistle closer and, raising Tryfan’s frail paw to her face, got him to touch her. Slowly, fumblingly, Tryfan felt Mistle’s face, and then her flanks.
‘Who is she, Mayweed?’
‘She’s Beechen’s love.’
‘Ohhh ’
No words can describe the sound of pleasure that Tryfan gave when he heard this, and he said, ‘Come here, mole, let me touch you again.’
He caressed her face with touching tenderness and said, ‘Tell me your name.’
‘I’m Mistle of Avebury.’
‘And you’re Beechen’s love?’
‘Yes. He wanted me to come to Duncton Wood because – because he thought … he said my task was here until he comes back.’
‘He said your task was here?’
‘Yes,’ said Mistle.
‘Hear that, Mayweed? Beechen’s sent a mole to carry on until he comes back. He will, my dear, when his task is done, but you know that.’
Mistle nodded, unable to speak.
‘It’s a good system, Mistle, but it’s seen hard times. One day it will be found again.’
‘I know,’ whispered Mistle, ‘and Beechen will be here when it is.’
‘And you, Mistle?’
‘I’ll wait for him always.’
‘Is she beautiful, Mayweed?’
‘Inquisitorial Sir, she’s a marvel of mind and body. Beechen is a lucky mole.’
‘I think he is.’
Tryfan grew tired then and began to sleep once more, and Mistle crept quietly back to the others. Then Tryfan awoke, much troubled, and spoke in a jumbled way of Stillstones and Seven Barrows.
‘You must go there, Mayweed,’ he said.
‘It’s a long way for a humble old mole like Mayweed. Why, it’s beyond Uffington itself.’
‘I went,’ said Tryfan, ‘and you must. She’s been, I could tell. You’ll find everything there just as Spindle and me left it. The Stillstones are all there waiting to be found. Their time’s coming soon … Seven Stillstones, Seven Books made … soon now. Beechen’s Mistle here, you there. Yes. It’s all coming right now, Mayweed, it’s coming right and Duncton’s trial is nearly over. The Stone guides us well …’
He slept some more and dusk came, bringing with it a cold breeze that whispered through the wood and among the branches above.
With a sudden start Tryfan awoke again and seemed much afraid.
‘I’m here, Tryfan.’
‘It’s dark and dangerous, it’s always been so dark and it never stops, not ever …’
‘Listen to my voice, good Tryfan, great mole, listen …’
‘Where are you? Guide me, guide me.’
‘I’m close, I’m just ahead. Follow me, Tryfan, you’re nearly there where the darkness ends, follow me …’
Tryfan gripped Mayweed’s paw and seemed to stare up at the sky, and then around, fear on his wounded face and his breathing growing faster.
‘The way is so hard but Boswell made me go on it. He did, he did, and I was not worthy. I’m so frightened. How did you learn the way, Mayweed?’
‘Great Tryfan, I learned the way from you. You’ve just forgotten it for a moment, that’s all. Now, Mayweed is here, just here, and the darkness is nearly ended, so follow him a little more. You are so much loved, Tryfan, by so many moles.’
Darkness was coming to the wood, and the two moles huddled together right in the centre of Barrow Vale.
‘Stone, help him,’ prayed Mayweed for his friend, ‘embrace him with thy Silence.’
‘Why, Mayweed, that’s what Boswell prayed when he ordained me scribemole so long ago.’ There was a pause and the listening moles were astonished to hear Tryfan chuckle sofdy and then say, ‘Mayweed, you’re a clever mole. Humbleness my paw! I knew you’d guide me at the end …’ His voice sounded young again, and firm, and snouting forward a little he added, ‘Do you know, I think we’re almost there … yes, it’s just ahead now, isn’t it?’
These were the last words that Tryfan of Duncton, son of Bracken and Rebecca, last scribemole ordained in Uffington ever spoke aloud. His friend and guide, the great route-finder Mayweed, held him close as he neared his end, and whispered, ‘Terrific Tryfan, you can find your way there now without me. You can, you know the way.’ Then, with a contented sigh, Tryfan stirred one last time and breathed his last.
Yet Mayweed held him for some time more until, at last, he was ready gently to lay the scribemole’s head on the leafy floor of Barrow Vale and very slowly, very quietly, went to where the others stanced.
Where Tryfan lay they saw a slow light come in the dark, not powerful like the sun, or shining like the moon, but gentle, soft, and quiet. A great light that came over Tryfan in the heart of Barrow Vale, and gathered him into its Silence.
During the days that followed they were all subdued. Mayweed seemed suddenly to have grown old and grey, as if the death of Tryfan had robbed him of anything to live for.
Bailey was disconsolate with grief and shame, for he felt he had been a coward and had no right to live. Romney, too, was low, seeming to think that the emptiness of the wood and the lack of mole life there was his own fault. The sound of feeding rook and calling owl seemed to fill the wood.
The grey, cold weather continued into January until one morning they woke to find the lightest powdering of snow on the surface of the wood between the trees. The sun broke through and suddenly the wood looked beautiful once more. Rooks flapped and were gone; the owls fell silent once again.
That morning Mistle went to the Stone and, with the sun on her flanks, stanced before it to pray in silence for a long time, her snout low. When she had finished she looked up and her eyes were bright, clear and purposeful.
She went and found the other moles: Bailey stanced by a tree doing nothing, Romney fretting at a worm halfheartedly, Mayweed asleep.
‘I want to talk to you,’ she said to the first two, and then prodded Mayweed awake. ‘And you as well, Mayweed.’
Reluctantly, and looking truculent, they gathered round her.
‘Somemole here’s got to say it, so I shall. Duncton isn’t a system for gloomy moles. Gloomy moles don’t look right here. Now I am not and have never been a gloomy mole. One day my Beechen is going to come back, and when he does I want him to come to a system sparkling with life. So, what are each of you going to do towards that?’
She looked at each of them in turn.
Bailey shrugged and said he didn’t know.
Romney said he’d do anything to make amends, even if it included trying to be more positive, but that wasn’t easy in the circumstances.
Mayweed said, ‘Magnificent Mistle, you are a felicitous fillip to this mole, who is not by nature gloomy either. No, no, no. He has a thought and will utter it. What did Tryfan mention before he died? Well?’
‘He mentioned Seven Barrows,’ said Mistle, ‘and he was right to say I have been there. The Stone must have told him that. He said you should go there.’
‘Got it in one, Madam Mistle. “Go there, young mole!” he more or less said. Well, Mayweed may be old but he’s not one to vegetate and would prefer to die while he’s route-finding rather than stancing still. So … Seven Barrows and Stillstones seems a good way for Mayweed to go in search of death! Humbleness has therefore decided to be off. Oh yes, and he’s taking Bailey with him.’
‘But –’
‘But, but, but, but, but,’ said Mayweed. ‘Me, Mayweed, really doesn’t want to know. Trouble with you, Bailey, is you have never got over losing Lorren and Starling all at one go. Very careless that. Still, Lorren’s alive and well as I told you, and Starling could be too. Come with me, see the world and come back when you’ve got yourself sorted out. You’ll be no good here and that’s a fact, a very gloomy fact, eh, Mistle?’
He grinned and she laughed. The sun shone in the wood about them.
‘And Romney?’ said Mistle wryly. ‘Since you’ve got it all worked out, Mayweed, you better tell us what your plans for him are.’
Mayweed leered.
‘Best way of ridding yourself of guilt is to work so hard you don’t think about it. Work him, Mistle, work him hard! Plenty to do, and one day moles will come back to this place that’s been a home to me and find it just right. I won’t come back, but others will.’
‘But –’
‘Bothered Bailey, don’t bother. I’ve heard it all before. If you say “but” once more we’ll leave immediately. Be warned!’
‘When will you go?’ said Mistle.
‘Before I think about it twice.’
‘I have been to Seven Barrows,’ said Mistle. ‘It was magical.’
‘Amazing Mistle, if I was younger I could love you, but as I’m not I’ll merely say they didn’t make moles then like they do now. Except, of course, for Sleekit who is one in a million.’ He smiled that happiest of smiles, which is that of a mole who has known true love and has no need to speak of it.
‘But,’ said Bailey.
‘Ah! The third “but”. The moment has come. Goodbye, Madam, goodbye, Sir, I don’t want to leave you but I think Bailey ought to go. A long journey suits him. Last time he lost weight. This time he’ll find himself. Farewell one and all!’
‘Er, goodbye, Romney. And you, Mistle,’ said Bailey.
Mistle gave them both a warm hug and started to go a little way with them.
‘No, Madam, no, Sir, do not accompany us! Mayweed hates goodbyes and a route-finder likes to leave others standing exactly where they are. It gives him a sense of identity. Ha, ha, ha. Perturbed Bailey, get your snout straight and your paws set, Mayweed’s going to make a mole of you at last!’
With that they set off across the wood, and were gone into the morning sun.
‘Just like that!’ exclaimed Romney, wondering. ‘You moles of the Stone are like nothing I’ve ever known.’
Mistle was smiling after Mayweed and Bailey, with tears in her eyes.
‘So what do we do now?’ said Romney looking around and feeling a little daunted.
‘Why Romney, we work, that’s what we do! To make Duncton live again, to make Beechen know that the Stone is loved and cherished in the system in which he was born.’
‘But if …’ began Romney, sounding one last doubt.
‘But he will, he will come back,’ said Mistle fiercely. ‘He told me that he would, and so he will.’ And that was an end of that.
Then she put her paw to Romney’s, and said warmly, ‘Come, let us explore the system to which the Stone has sent us. Let us see the place that is our home.’
The winter sun was all about them, and the leafless trees of Duncton shone bright; and if the breeze made any sound at all, it was like whispered welcomes among the trees and tunnels from old moles of faith and courage, filled with joy to see their young back home at last.