Of the madness that the trek to Cumnor became, Sleekit after remembered only one thing: the forgiving of a mole of the Word amidst the wind, driving rain, and a sense of rushing moles, their paws on the ground all about, trekking, trekking.
‘Stone-fool!’ a voice hissed out of the darkness.
In the wood at Appleton it was.
‘Stone-fool, he is here!’
In Appleton, at night, Beechen was stopped by a mole the others knew not. Immediately Buckram loomed up and Sleekit was there, both watching for tricks and traps since Beechen never watched for such things himself. For so wise a mole his innocence seemed strange to those who knew him, yet it was something for which those who knew him best learned to love him.
But Beechen said, ‘Mole, you helped us in Frilford. How can I help you now?’
‘I have brought a mole who seeks forgiveness,’ said the stranger.
Beechen nodded and the mole led him, Sleekit and the still-wary Buckram into the dark shelter of a rotted tree stump where the wind was quieter. A smell of fungi and dampness hung about, and then they noticed something more: the rank odour of murrain.
In the shadows there, his flanks shivering, a mole crouched low, his body afflicted by the final stages of the plague. His eyes wept pus and from his throat there came the sound of rasping, painful breathing.
‘What is thy name?’ asked Beechen gendy. ‘And what would you with me?’
The mole who had led them moved near the mole, as protective of him as Buckram was of Beechen.
‘He is my father. He desires forgiveness before he dies.’
‘For what?’ asked Beechen.
But before the mole replied Buckram came near once more and peered hard at the stricken mole.
‘Master,’ he whispered urgently, ‘I know this mole, I know him, he. . . .’
‘Let him speak for himself, Buckram.’
Beechen stared at the mole and said, ‘Whatmole are you?’
‘I am one who has been punished but not forgiven,’ whispered the mole, every word he spoke a terrible effort.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘My son said you were the Stone Mole.’ The mole stared terribly at Beechen, his flanks heaving in and out with the effort he was making to control his pain, his eyes full of suffering.
Then he said, ‘My name is Wyre. I am punished for what I have done but I desire forgiveness.’
‘Aye … Wyre of Buckland,’ said Buckram, confirming what he had first thought.
‘What hast thou done, mole?’ asked Beechen.
‘Much,’ said Wyre, ‘much that I should not have done.’ His son went to him, and tended to him, and whispered comfort to him.
‘Then, mole, if you would be forgiven, and more than forgiven, do that which you should do,’ said Beechen with sternness rather than compassion. ‘Turn your back on the Word, and turn your snout this night towards the Stone. Then all that you need shall be given to you, even in the hour of your death.’
‘Where shall I find the Stone?’
‘It is here, Wyre, here before you. Waste not my time or other moles’, or your son’s, searching for what in your heart you know you found long ago but did not have courage to take up. It is here now, mole, and you know it.’ Beechen’s voice was dispassionate and matter-of-fact. ‘Moles of the Word talk much of sin, and their creed is one of Atonement, or punishment, of retribution for sins committed. You are afflicted for the moles you and those at your command have punished and tortured in the name of the Word; your murrain is the infection of their suffering. I judge you not for this – that is for you yourself to do, and I see from your body you have done so. If you would be forgiven you must begin again and be new-born and give up all you have.’
‘I have nothing but pain to give up,’ said Wyre bitterly.
Beechen looked from Wyre to his son and then back again.
‘Mole, you have your son. Tell him to come with me tonight.’
‘I am near to death and would have my son with me.’
A look of fear came to Wyre’s eyes, stronger even than the suffering.
Beechen replied sternly, ‘Give what you have up to the Stone, turn to the Silence you have heard so long in your own heart, and you shall find the forgiveness you seek. Through me the Stone has spoken, hear it, mole, and be free.’
Then the dying Wyre turned to his son and whispered, ‘Go with him to Cumnor and hear him speak.’
‘Come,’ said Beechen softly, ‘for your father shall not need you more. Come with the other followers and learn of the Stone.’
Then back on to the wooded way to Cumnor they went, north across the heaths where the winds blew from behind and the grass and withered thistles bent the way ahead.2
Many travelled through those nights, and saw that the sky was red in the troubled mornings, red with warning and with blood.
Among those followers, hurrying henchmoles went over the heath, running from the deeds they did. Aye, done in darkness, fled by morn, and a trinity murdered where they were.
Heanor, and the other two, turning into the death the henchmoles’ talons wrought. And Smock, raised her paws in surprise, but did not find them strong enough to ward off Wort’s treacherous blows.
They were dragged privily to the Fyfield Stone and when others came (summoned by the very henchmole who did the deed) Wort pointed to the corpses and said, ‘Murdered by the Stone-fool’s aides! Treachery! Deceit! Summoned here in peace, allowed to leave in peace, and this is what they leave behind. The Word shall be avenged. The grass where the Stone-fool blessed the dead now bloodied yet again, and in his own name. Whatmole could welcome such a morning? Whatmole could sleep through nights such as these? This Stone-fool shall be punished.’
The Fyfield moles were troubled, but more by the death of Smock (though she had enough enemies to make their dismay equivocal) than Heanor and the others of his trinity. Though he was of the Word had he not let the Stone-fool make fools of them? Yet they had seen the Stone-fool leave – he must have been a clever mole to have come back again. So, puzzled still, they cleared the corpses and left Wort by the Stone.
‘Cumnor, now?’ asked one of her henchmoles.
‘Cumnor, moles. And fast. Faster than this filthy wind itself, for I will catch this Stone-fool for myself.’
‘Some call him Stone Mole. Some say he’s the one all waited for.’
‘Call him what they like, mole, Wort will see him tortured, and then dead.’
They laughed, and their laughs were ripped from out their mouths by the rushing wind and torn along towards where the Stone Mole travelled on, the laughter of scorn and hate. All, all, rushing now, to Cumnor’s high bleak hill.
On a clear day a mole who cares to pause at Cumnor, where obsessive Wort then ruled, and looks across the roaring owl way that offends the landscape far below, may see the hallowed rise of wooded Duncton Hill. It makes a better prospect than the heathy history-scarred surface beneath his paws, for which few have ever had much good to say.
Certainly that windy grey day when followers gathered there, shaking from cold and apprehension, scarcely believing that the Stone Mole would come here, as others said he would – which others? nomole knew! – the place cannot have seemed very much. Desolate, forgotten, a place of banishment for mad Wort, roaring owls incessant below, hopeless grey skies above.
The moles had come in dribs and drabs, very hesitant indeed, and gathered at first at Wootton High, which lies a little to the south. Braver spirits there, who remembered Cumnor before Wort came and knew the routes, led the followers on, singing to cheer themselves, keeping close lest guardmoles attack. Not so fearless that they did not stop again for a time at Hen Wood, and wait for others to join them and give them strength of numbers.
Even then the followers’ courage was relative rather than absolute, and on the morning when they made the final push they decided not to go to that part of Cumnor where Wort had made her base – drab Chawley End to the west of the hill itself.
Instead they went straight on north up the hill to its highest point, an open, mainly treeless place, such tunnels as it had unremarkable and stinking of fox and diseased rabbits. No Stone either. All grim.
But it was safer than anywhere else around there, and hard for guardmoles to ambush. But as it was, everything seemed to show that the guardmoles of Cumnor were taken utterly by surprise by the arrival of the followers, and that, even better, Wort was not there.
The two guardmoles stationed at the eastside of the system, which is where the followers came, could scarcely believe their eyes when so many moles appeared in force. They challenged the first they met in a half-hearted way, and then retreated out of sight back to Chawley End, the cheering followers pressing on upslope – cheering, it must be said, to see the grikes retreat for once – but not quite sure where to go, or where to stop. But there is a summit of sorts there, and there they stopped, watching as others came.
It was not long before a brood of grikes approached from the Chawley End, glowering and ferocious, and words were exchanged. But the grikes were outnumbered, and the senior ones seemed to have been told that such a meeting was not, at the moment, against the Word.
What the guardmoles did do, however, was to circle about the followers, staring hard at them as if to remember their faces and talons, and generally to intimidate them.
At first this aggression succeeded in cowering many of the moles, but before long their numbers gave them confidence and they began to support each other and to outface the grikes. When a guardmole asked a mole where he was from he answered with a laugh, ‘Duneton Wood, mate, that’s where I hail from,’ naming the one system everymole knew he could not be from.
‘That’s right, I seen him there. I’m from Duncton too!’ said another.
‘Like the others, Duncton Wood, my darling. The better part,’ said a female to raucous laughter when asked the same question.
The grikes scowled, and retreated to a distance and watched helplessly as the numbers grew. And grew.
Until by the time dusk came the grikes were so outnumbered that any idea they might have had of attack, or marshalling, or simply bullying, had quite gone, and a few were detailed to keep watch while the rest went off to more comfortable quarters.
As for the followers, a few, disheartened by the nonappearance of Beechen, left before night came, but most stanced down in temporary burrows, or took up quarters in such tunnels as still survived at the top of the hill.
Nor did Beechen come the next day, or that night; a few more left but yet more came, saying that moles they had met had heard for sure that the Stone Mole was on his way, and would soon be there. Expectation rose once more, though there was a false alarm when a small group of moles came up from Hinksey in the east, brought there by that mysterious sense that takes over moles when a gathering of significance is apaw, as if the very tunnels buzz with something going on beyond and makes them restless to find out what it might be.
It was in mid-afternoon of the third day, when the light was glooming and a good few moles were beginning to want to call it off and leave while the going was good, that a sudden rush of excitement passed through the temporary burrows and tunnels and the news spread that he was nearly there at last.
Which he was, for there below on the southern slope, he trekked steadily up from Hen Wood with two other moles close by, many more before him and others coming along behind.
How, from that distance, did they know it was the Stone Mole? It was most strange, but everywhere he went the ways across the soil, the clouds above, the line of woods to left and right, even the disposition of the moles about him, made him seem the very centre of things. If that was not enough there was a quality of light about the place where he happened to be. Wherever the Stone Mole was, moles looked first at him.
He came slowly and gracefully, but a sense of urgency ran like a wave up the slope before him. Among those who had come to hear him were a few who were not well, though ambulant. He stopped by several of these, and touched them, and murmured gently to them and, so talking and stopping as he went, the Stone Mole came among them.
A good few knew of Buckram, or had heard of him, and that he had been healed and was now of the Stone and stood guardian to the Stone Mole – or Beechen, as moles now understood him to be named. Though Beechen was by no means small, Buckram was much larger and stayed always near him, and together the two looked like a large mole that has a larger shadow. Sleekit did not always stay with him, but went among the moles, talking to them, and seeming to find out from them which ones particularly Beechen might himself like to reach out to.
Though nomole said as much, it seemed plain that for a time Beechen wished only to move among them, and come to know something of them before he spoke to them as a whole. Thus, although there was some clustering at first, the moles soon settled down and waited patiently as he went here and there, or sometimes huddled over somemole who wanted his moment of quiet and prayer. Nomole told any what to do, yet all seemed to know what was best.
Gradually, as the evening drew on, Beechen brought one mole to another, or a couple to a third, and bade them talk to each other, and help each other; some to hold, some to touch, some to repeat prayers he had made. In this way he gradually turned what had been but a gathering of different moles into a group that knew something of itself, and was, however briefly, a community.
Only then was he willing to address them. The moon was already some way above the horizon, the sky for the most part was clear, the lights of the roaring owl way spread into the distance below them, and those of the twofoot place to the east glowed in the sky. Beechen went to the highest place on Cumnor Hill and turned to face towards that one place about them that had no twofoot lights at all.
Its hill rose darkly against the sky, the roaring owl way ran round its south-eastern edge. For a time Beechen stanced staring at it in meditative silence, and one by one, or sometimes in groups of three or four, the followers crept closer to him, for they sensed that he was going to talk to them soon and tell them of things that were in his heart, and which he desired to be in theirs.
When all the moles were settled, Sleekit went to him and put her paw to his shoulder, and whispered to him as if to say, ‘Stone Mole, Beechen, these moles are ready now.’ The crescent moon was higher in the glowing sky, and a cold, light, westerly breeze came up the hill. But few moles noticed the cold, for somehow the Stone Mole had made the hill on which they gathered, and which had seemed so dangerous when they first came, seem peaceful and in some mysterious way feel like the very centre of moledom.
Round the furthest edges of the circle of moles a few others came, malevolent, eyes narrowed, dubious of what they saw. Of the followers only Buckram saw them, and feeling, perhaps, that Beechen was safe he had thought to take stance at the circle’s edge. The guardmoles saw him, his eyes watchful, the moonlight on his fur, and most knew him, and that few had talons as fierce as his could be. His presence alone was enough to stay them and to give the followers a sense of security.
Once Beechen had stanced where all could see him, he turned first this way and then that, as if to acknowledge the presence of all the moles there, and then began to speak. His voice was deep and pleasant, soft at first but then growing more powerful as his stance grew somehow more powerful, so that if this was the centre of moledom all eyes were on him, for he was the centre of the centre. Like a Stone he was, grey, shadowed, moving, talking, his form ever-changing, his words lulling yet penetrating at the same time.
‘From my heart to your heart shall I speak and tell of the place where I was born. From here you all can see it -’ And he turned again towards the dark, secret hill that rose across the vales – ‘for it is Duncton Wood. Aye, it was so!’
There was a murmur of surprise at this, for though the rumours had always persisted that the Stone Mole was indeed in Duncton Wood, few could ever really believe it, for the grikes guarded the system tightly, letting nomole in, and those inside were known only to be diseased outcasts.
‘To Duncton my mother came in the April years, guided by a mole whose story one day you shall know, and she gave birth to me before the Duncton Stone. Sleekit here did witness it -1 was born by the light of a star many of you saw, and my father was Boswell of Uffington, of whom many of you have heard.’
‘The White Mole!’ muttered a follower in awe, and others whispered in surprise at what they heard. It was now that Beechen’s voice grew more powerful.
‘Know that I am the mole called Stone Mole, come for each of you, for all of you. The time in which I was born, and in which you live, is a chosen time such as comes but once to each group of creatures across moledom and beyond. A time of testing, a time when darkness is most dark and light must find its greatest powers.
‘To show moles the way through this hard time I have come, but as I was made by mole, as I am mole, so shall the worth of my life be made by mole. What I am you have made, what I shall be your courage, your faith, aye and your fear and failure shall decide. May the Stone be with us all, may we have the strength to outface the darkness that besets us.
‘Of birth and death of body and of spirit I shall speak to you tonight by telling of Duncton Wood. For there a community did die, and yet was born again, as moles are born and die, and may be born again.
‘Know then that there was a mole called Bracken, and he had faith in the Stone and the courage to pursue it. And another called Rebecca, who had faith as well, and knowledge of love and of life. There was a September day, a rainy day, when these two …’So Beechen began to talk to them, telling them the story of the system whose outline they could see rising in the darkness behind him, and of the moles who lived and died there. Telling much of Tryfan, telling of how a community must ever watchfully strive to be true to itself and thereby to the Stone.
For some he spoke of what could only be a dream, for their lives had never known community, but only being outcast and under the thrall of grikes. For older moles, and the few who had stayed free of the heavily guarded systems and been told by their parents of the past, what he said reminded them of something they had known, or heard about.
But for all of them it touched on something that they felt they missed, a need to be more than they were – more than they could be – by themselves, the same need that had given them courage to come to Cumnor and know him.
Sometimes moles asked him questions – at first, ones of simple fact about Duncton’s Stone, of the incidence of disease there, or where his mother came from. Then, later, others asked him of Stone and faith, and what it was they must do to serve the Stone truly.
He answered all they asked, and sometimes broke off from what he said to be still for a time with a mole who suffered, or to wait while others comforted one who had discovered tears in the night and dared to weep with others near. The night deepened and sometimes from Hen Wood below them came the shrill of owl.
A few moles spoke of doubts they had, or hopes, or fears. Aye, fears came last, and so many when they did. Fear was everywhere.
Great silence was on them then, and even the guardmoles at the edges were rapt and listening, unable to keep their eyes off Beechen. So intent were they, they did not see the dark glint of teeth in the night, and henchmole talons creeping. And eyes that stared from out of the tunnel by which she had come: Wort. But Buckram saw. He did not move, but watched as Wort signalled to the henchmoles to stay where they were, and only she came forward and settled quietly among the followers, eyes as rapt as theirs but full of the hate of fear.
‘The Stone is peaceful, Stone Mole, and asks that we hurt nomole and turn our backs on violence. How then do we protect ourselves when the grike guardmoles come? How do we protect our young from the violence of the grike talon, and the eldrene’s teaching?’
There was a murmur of sympathy among the moles and Beechen nodded his understanding of the question. After thinking for a little, he told them a story, beginning in the traditional way, ‘From my heart to your heart I tell it, as it was told to me by my mother Feverfew, as it was told to her … There were once three pups, all male, and one was weak. When he sought his mother’s teat he was pushed away. He learnt patience. When he reached for the brought worm it was taken from his grasp. He learnt independence. When he strove to get to the surface one of his brothers blocked his way and got there first. He learnt there is always another way. That mole grew up in a system full of fighting and he knew he wasn’t good at that. So he went to an elder and asked what he should do. “Learn to fight,” the elder said. He went to another and asked the same question. “Leave the system and live alone,” he was told. He went to a third, “Find a mole to protect you.”
‘So he went to the Stone to pray for guidance, but when he got there the system’s healer was there before him. “Stone,” he was saying, “there’s so much fighting in this system that I need help, but I can’t find the mole I need. Stone, send me a mole who has patience, who can think for himself, who can find another way of doing something if the first won’t work.” Then the healer turned from the Stone and saw the young mole stanced quietly there and said, “Who sent you to me?”
‘ “The Stone,” the young mole said.’
Beechen paused at the end of his tale and looked at the moles on that benighted hilltop, the starlight and glowing sky upon their faces and talons. He saw that some understood his story while others searched for a meaning in it, and a help to themselves.
‘I have been asked by some how a mole defends himself against the talons of his enemy, and by others how it may be that the Stone should allow the forces of the enemy to prevail over him, even to death itself.
‘Moles, be as that youngster was – healers to your enemy. Know that the Stone does not and cannot save the lives of the just. The Stone is not a wall that keeps your enemy and his talons out, it is a tunnel, a way without portals or the obstructions of any seal, and is ever open to you and your enemy too. It is a way which you choose to be, and to raise your talons to those who threaten you is to close the way not only to them, but to yourself as well.
‘Moles see raised talons before them and they think they see the greatest danger. What they see is fear. A follower’s response should be the healer’s response – fearlessness with common sense, fearlessness with intelligence, fearlessness with joy: with such powers as these at your command the most mighty talons wither and break, the most prideful and evil mole lowers his snout and submits. But raise your talons with fear, seek to strike first, seek to hurt, seek even to kill, and it is yourself and the Stone within you you destroy. Therefore seek the healing way.
‘Yet do not be weak, for weakness is a sucking pool which attracts dark things to it; and weakness is often false. The healing mole who trusts the Stone is strong and sometimes fierce, sometimes irritable, sometimes wrong. But he is not weak and does not hide the strong talons of his spirit, or compromise his truth to placate another’s darkness.
‘Most of all the healing mole listens, and listens again, and lets those who threaten him always know he listens to the words behind the words, and he seeks to fight the talons behind the talons. Even in the face of death his eyes are bright and his ears hear. But if, at last, he is afraid, it is because he is but mole: then shall the Stone come into him and tell him he is loved.’
The night had grown cold, and the moon begun to sink. Beechen turned this way and that suddenly and said in a quieter voice, ‘There is one here who hurts me, one who loves me more than many can, and yet hurts me …’ There was a whisper of surprise among the moles, and Buckram, who remembered him saying the same thing at Fyfield, quickly came close to him and whispered, ‘Tell me which he is, Master. Show him to me.’
‘You shall know her, Buckram. Forgive her and tell her that I shall love her.’
‘But if she hurts you …’
‘Even more must you forgive her.’
‘Master …’
But Beechen said no more but went out among the moles again to talk and touch and share those thoughts they brought to him. Below them the roaring owls quietened and were still, and the twofoot lights went out, but for some across the vales and those along the ways. Then many slept, but where Beechen was Buckram did not sleep, but stayed close, watching through the night until dawn came.
As the sun rose the moles saw that there was frost across the hill, the grass stiff with it, and the moles’ breath steamy in the air. They sensed their time with the Stone Mole was almost done; they saw the guardmoles had all gone and felt the time for listening might be over and the grikes be gathering forces. It was best to go.
‘Go peacefully,’ said Beechen at the end, ‘go to your communities, bear yourselves proudly wherever you are, speak of the Stone to those that will listen, and say the Stone Mole has come among you. Live not in fear for what is to come, but in joy for what you have; but if you are oppressed, and the talons of darkness are raised against you, know that the Stone sent me to tell you it is near, through me it is close, through my words it is known.’
‘When shall we see you again?’ asked a mole.
‘You shall hear of me again. On Longest Night I shall pray for those I have met as I have met you. But I have far to go, many to see, and I shall not come this way again.’ There was a sigh of disappointment among the moles.
‘Others shall come for me as you shall go for me now, and tell moles what I have said. Darkness shall fall over moledom but my star shall be seen again. On that night you see it you shall know that I have fulfilled my task.’ There was puzzlement among the moles, and apprehension, and they looked at one another and asked what he meant.
But he said no more, but began leading them down Cumnor Hill towards Hen Wood even as the sun grew warm and the frost on the open grass melted where they passed, leaving behind them a great swathe of tracks where they had been.
More talked to him as they went, or to Sleekit, and there was scarcely a mole among the many who had come who could not go back to their communities, or families, and say they had not talked to the Stone Mole himself, or the warm and loving female at his side; hardly a one who could not tell a story or a wisdom he had told.
At first as the moles went on their way they stayed close, but gradually as they descended the hill those in front seemed to go faster, those behind slower, and those in the middle to spread out and become even more spread as fences and ditches split them up, and some took longer than others to negotiate obstructions along the way.
Beechen had told them to go peacefully, and there seemed no reason why they should not, for the sun was rising across the frosted fields and glinting on the ice that had formed in ditchwater and puddles, and the day was beautiful. Yet somewhere along the way, perhaps at that moment when most of the moles had lost contact with the group of which Beechen, Buckram, and Sleekit were the centre, hurry and even panic seemed to set in.
It was enough for one mole, fancying that in those northern-facing hollows where the cold and frost was deepest he saw dark movement, to say, ‘Grikes!’
‘Grikes coming?’
‘Attacking!’
So mole thought, or heard, and began then to hurry and rush towards what seemed the safety of the trees of Hen Wood. While others far behind, hearing shouts and thinking the dangers were ahead of them, went cautiously, and more slowly still.
While where Beechen was Buckram loomed ever nearer, ever more watchful, until, when the wood was but a short distance ahead, he disobeyed Beechen’s wish and, with a great paw at his side, hurried him towards the wood and, hopefully, away from any danger.
Buckram was well advised to be so watchful. For ahead of them on the south end of the wood, waiting with mounting impatience for the first moles off the hill, grike guardmoles lay hidden, forming a long line across the wood, with others beyond to east and west at less popular alternative routes. Centrally placed along this formidable line, at the common way by which many of the moles had first come up from Pickett’s Heath to the south, stanced Wort, her henchmoles at her flanks, watching the wood ahead, listening for sound of mole.
All along the line the guardmoles glowered and looked irritable for they did not like the instructions Wort and her henchmoles had given them in the middle of the night.
‘No aggression, no retribution, let moles pass unharmed. Stop only the three I have described to you, and when you stop them do it discreetly and let nomole see you. Get them underground, keep them there, send a messenger to one of us. On pain of death do not harm the three moles if you take them. They probably won’t be among the first to come, but be alert to allmole.’
So now they waited, and moved back and forth to keep warm, for they had been in position since before dawn and the night had been chilly, leaf litter was freezing around them, worms going deep.
‘Wish the buggers would hurry up, been up half the night already.’
‘Aye, dragged from off the hill before that Stone-fool finished all his words. Eerie as a Stone up there, I was glad to get away.’
‘Sssh! Sssh …’
‘What is it?’
‘Mole approaching. Now remember what Wort said. No violence.’
The guardmoles eyed their thick black talons and one looked at another and said, ‘What, me? You must be joking. I wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ The other chuckled unpleasantly, and they turned to watch the way moles might soon come.
And come they did, all along that line, some going so fast because they thought they were pursued that they did not see the grikes in front until they were upon them.
‘It’s all right, you silly buggers, we’re just making sure there’s no trouble, no punishments here.’
So, relieved, the first moles went through the line, and the others followed thankfully along behind, pausing only to look back and see the grikes were speaking true and letting allmole through.
So the exodus from Hen Wood began. Sometimes a follower would stop and think and go back, realising that perhaps the grikes were waiting for the Stone Mole who, unless he was warned, would come straight into the trap.
But these the guardmoles gave short shrift to, turning them back south, telling them to keep moving until they got to Pickett’s Heath where they could go unmolested.
So on they went, their uneasiness clearing, for the day was bright, Hen Wood was behind them, and in their hearts were the Stone Mole’s words: to be fearless and trust the Stone; hurt nomole and take what they had learnt back to their communities.
As these first ones broke out of the wood and headed down the slopes to Pickett’s Heath, Mistle and Cuddesdon, after an early start from a night in a sandy burrow on Boar’s Hill, headed on up towards Hen Wood half expecting that moles might come down towards them that same day.
They knew where the Stone Mole must be, for the day before they had run into a couple of those moles who, losing patience, had left Cumnor Hill before Beechen had got there. They had, of course, been negative, saying he had not come and did not seem likely to, but Mistle was not to be dissuaded and insisted they press on.
In truth Cuddesdon had not wanted to, for at last he had had positive directions to Cuddesdon Hill and knew now, from a mole who had been near it not a molemonth before, that it lay but a week or two’s journey away.
‘You go on, Cuddesdon, and I’ll find you there,’ Mistle had said. ‘If the Stone Mole is not at Cumnor then I’ll give up my search for him and follow after you to Cuddesdon Hill.’
But Cuddesdon dismissed this idea. Had they come so far towards Duncton Wood that he would now turn away from it without her? No, they had not. He would accompany her into Duncton itself, and would stance with her by the Stone and give thanks for the day they had first met, and the protection that the Stone had so long given them. If, after that, she chose to come to Cuddesdon Hill then he would not stop her, but in his heart he knew it would be only as a friend, though a much loved one. He was ever an honest mole and knew he was not the mating kind and, even if he was, Mistle was not for him. It was a different mole than him she needed, one who could give to her as much as she would bring to him – if such a mole existed, which he doubted.
So they had set off that morning over the frosty ground and begun the climb towards Hen Wood, beyond which they knew Cumnor Hill rose, where Beechen might still be found.
But, at Pickett’s Heath, they had been disappointed to meet the first moles to have come out of the wood and to hear that the Stone Mole’s meeting was over, all moles had begun to leave, and nomole should go up into Hen Wood because the grikes were there.
‘But they’re not attacking moles?’ said Mistle.
‘Not yet they’re not. But I’ve heard Wort herself is there, and she’s not a mole to stance with idle talons while followers drift by. I wouldn’t go up there, mole. There’s bad trouble apaw.’
‘Did the Stone Mole say where he was going next?’ asked Mistle.
‘Strange, that. He said he would not be this way again, he had his task to fulfil, but we would know. Said we were to go back to our communities and burrows and hurt nomole, but live out our faith in the Stone. But we’re not dawdling here. We got off quick and we’ll go on quick …’
‘How shall we know him?’ Mistle called after the mole.
‘By the older female with him, and by Buckram, former guardmole and as big as a tree. As for the Stone Mole, why, it’s his eyes. They make a mole want to be close to him.’
Even as the mole spoke to them others hurried by, and poor Mistle, disappointed, stared upslope, uncertain what to do.
‘It would be safest to stay here and wait for him. He’s sure to come this way,’ said Cuddesdon.
‘But the further upslope we go, the more likely we are not to miss him,’ said Mistle. ‘Cuddesdon, you go off to the east, both of us shouldn’t risk ourselves, but for me … for me …’
‘What’s for you?’ said Cuddesdon.
‘I want to see him. I feel so close now, I must find him.’
‘Come on, mole,’ said Cuddesdon, taking the lead. ‘Come on!’
So on they went, Mistle hurrying for once, and others hurrying down past them to left and right, none of them looking like how Mistle imagined the Stone Mole to be.
The higher they went, the nearer the trees of Hen Wood became, the stranger the looks they got, and Mistle’s need to go on became more urgent.
They had taken the most central route, which moles at Pickett’s Heath had said was the quickest into the wood, and they followed it now, having sometimes to move aside when more than one mole came towards them.
‘We’re near,’ said Mistle, ‘I can feel we’re near. It’s like it was at Avebury, that same calling, oh Cuddesdon, come on …’
Old oak tree branches closed over them as they entered the wintry wood at last and they seemed to leave the bright sun on the frosty ground behind.
‘He may be somewhere here,’ said Cuddesdon running behind, ‘but there’s grikes as well. Mistle, we must be careful!’
But Mistle was not listening, for the track was clear and easy, the slope not quite so steep and she was rushing forward now, eager, hope in her eyes, for she felt him close, he was …
The way turned, Mistle was not looking, the floor of the wood seemed to rush up at her, and she tumbled forward, straight into the paws of a henchmole.
‘Well,’ he growled in surprise. ‘Well!’
He stared coldly at her, and then loomed over her as Cuddesdon came up.
‘Look what we’ve got here, eldrene Wort!’ he said, holding on to her and calling over his shoulder.
The undergrowth at the side of the way parted suddenly, and out of it came Wort. Not small but spare, a round, innocent face spoilt by cold, narrow eyes, middle-aged, inclined to stance too close to a mole for comfort.
‘What have we got? A female!’
Snout to snout, Wort and Mistle stared at each other.
‘Why mole,’ said Mistle softly, ‘I thought you …’ It was not the way anymole spoke to eldrenes and the henchmole looked surprised, but strangely Wort did not; and nor did she react angrily but rather, for once, she seemed not quite to know what to do.
‘This is not one of the moles I am seeking,’ she said dismissively, though her gaze lingered on Mistle’s face, as did Mistle’s on hers. ‘Nor is this male. Let them be.’
‘But they’re going the wrong way,’ said the henchmole, letting Mistle go.
‘Come on, Mistle,’ Cuddesdon whispered urgently, ‘let’s get away from them.’
‘But she’s one of them,’ said Mistle. ‘At Avebury, she was one of them.’
‘Mole …’ began Wort, turning back to her, beginning to look at Mistle again, curious, hesitant, yet threatening. ‘Why are you going that way?’
Even as she spoke, two other followers came down the way, out of the centre of the wood, as if to affirm the oddity of what Mistle did. Yet it was enough to divert Wort’s and the henchmole’s attention from them, and to allow Cuddesdon to say, ‘We’ve lost one who was with us, we’re just going back to find him.’ And, with a paw to Mistle’s rump, he quickly pushed her on and got her away from more questions and further up into the wood.
‘You looked as if you had seen that mole before,’ said the henchmole.
Wort frowned and her eyes glittered.
‘The Stone is evil, many its subtle ways,’ she muttered. ‘I think I have seen her before, yes I think I can place her.’ Then she said with sudden urgency, ‘Henchmole, go after her. Bring her back but do not harm her. Quickly!’
But Mistle and Cuddesdon were not the only moles who had gone through the line the wrong way. Ahead of them a brave follower, who had already passed through the line out of the wood and seen the grikes, had felt so uneasy about going on without trying to give a warning to the Stone Mole that he had crept back and, in the confusion of so many moles, successfully gone up into the wood to warn Beechen.
He had found him and Buckram halfway down the wood, poised at a point where the floor fell away steeply, while waiting for Sleekit to recover her breath from a rush that had been too much for her.
The follower struggled up the slope, and described what he had seen.
‘Is Wort there?’ asked Buckram immediately, for he knew that mole all too well, and she ruled these parts most powerfully in the name of the Word.
‘I don’t know what she looks like, but I know there’s guardmoles right across the wood – it took me a time to find a way back through.’
‘To right and left across this route we’re taking?’ asked Buckram.
The follower nodded.
As they had talked, other moles had come on from behind until Buckram suddenly found himself in a melee of moles, none quite sure what was happening as some were convinced they were pursued from behind, while others, hearing something of what the follower said, thought that now the dangers lay ahead.
‘Right,’ said Buckram loudly, his guardmole training coming to the fore as he imposed his will on the group, ‘except for the Stone Mole, Sleekit and me, the rest of you continue the way you were going. It’s for the best for you to go on and the safest. If guardmoles come this way, jostle them but don’t attack. That will give me time to get the Stone Mole out another way.’ There was ominous-seeming crashing from below and Buckram responded to it by ordering, ‘Now go, the Stone Mole’s life may depend on it!’
Which they bravely did, turning from him and skeltering off downslope even as two moles began climbing upslope before them, a female and a male: Mistle and Cuddesdon …
Poor Mistle. Just at that moment when she had seen at last a mole so big among some moles upslope that he must be Buckram, and therefore the Stone Mole must be near, most of the moles with him detached themselves and ran confusingly towards where she and Cuddesdon laboured up the slope. Both were tired, for they had pressed on fast, rightly concerned that the henchmoles were following.
They watched helplessly as the crowd of moles pushed into them and they found themselves stopped in their tracks and even for a moment knocked backwards.
It was in those few vital moments of disarray on the slopes that Mistle saw the mole she had been seeking for so long. He was in profile, talking to a female – Mistle guessed it might be the one called Sleekit – and then she saw him turning to Buckram who at that same moment was pointing westward across the wood away from all of them.
Mistle called out, and for the briefest of moments the three moles looked their way, thinking, perhaps, that she was one of those moles who had been sent running down the slope. The mole she thought – she knew – was the Stone Mole looked directly at her then for the first time, but at that same moment Buckram looked past her and Cuddesdon, and seemed to see something further down the slope below them, something that alarmed him: a pursuing henchmole.
He turned back to the Stone Mole, pointed again westward, and, putting a paw against his flanks, almost bodily turned him that way, shouting to Sleekit to follow them. Mistle saw all this as if the moles were moving very very slowly, and she as well, so slowly that the glance she exchanged with the Stone Mole seemed to go on a long time.
Then she saw him struggle against Buckram’s paw, and that he wanted to turn towards her, to come downslope to talk to her. But again Buckram turned and urged him on. She saw his gaze on her faltering and she tried desperately to push herself on, to call to him to say, to say …
‘Mistle!’
From beyond the silence of the long moment she seemed locked into – a desperate moment in which she seemed unable to do anything but watch passively all about her – Cuddesdon’s voice urgently came.
‘Mistle, one of the henchmoles is coming! Run now!’
She turned to look behind her, and saw the rush of moles that had now passed them reach one of the big henchmoles they had met before. Fortunately he too was stopped in his tracks, for the moles were jostling him, but he was buffeting them out of the way and pushing himself on up the friable slope and leaf litter of the wood, gaining ground on them.
‘Come on, Mistle!’
Cuddesdon had run ahead and now, as she turned back to flee upslope, she caught one final glimpse of the Stone Mole, hurried westward by Buckram, looking at her as desperately as she did at him, and then he was gone from her sight.
‘Mole! Stop, mole!’ the henchmole roared from among the trees below.
‘Mistle! Up here, this way,’ called out Cuddesdon from above.
Then other followers crashed down from the slopes above, heading straight for her, and she turned first to right and then to left to avoid them.
‘Mistle!’ Cuddesdon’s voice was further off now and she was not sure where he had gone, for there were fallen trunks and branches to get round, undergrowth, a hollow in the ground, and behind her the inexorable crash of the henchmole closing on her and shouting for her to stop.
Panic overcame Mistle then, and she ran blindly on, going left round a fallen branch knowing that if Cuddesdon had gone the other way it would be hard to find him again for she could not cut back on her tracks without going towards the henchmole.
‘Mistle …’ His voice seemed far, far away, but wherever he was the henchmole was nearer, and she must flee and escape from him. On she went, on … until her breath gave out and she desperately scurried in among the leaf litter by a branch and hid, and heard the rushing, chasing, terrible shouts of the henchmole all about and tried not to let her desperate panting be heard.
He came running up nearby and stopped. She dared not move but could see his flank through foliage, going in and out with the effort of chasing her. She stared transfixed, and utterly afraid.
‘Shit!’ he said.
Then he cocked his head on one side, listened and muttered, ‘The bitch is probably hiding …’ and began to snout about the surface, checking among fallen branches and undergrowth, coming so near that she could hear his heavy breathing and almost count each individual hair of fur as he moved past her hiding place.
‘Shit!’ he said again, and then turned away and stanced down quietly in the shadows, waiting for her to move. An earwig crawled over her paw, the thin red sheen of a worm’s end thinned and disappeared into the ground she had disturbed to her right. The ground smelt damp and musty, and she thought, Think of something to stop yourself moving, Mistle, think of something! But she could think of nothing but the numbing fear she felt. Nothing else.
Only after a long wait did the henchmole, still swearing, finally leave and she felt she could breathe again. But it was not until long after, and the movement of followers through the wood seemed to have ceased, that she dared shift her stiff limbs.
Then dusk came. She felt cold. She peered out into the wood, she saw nomole, she heard nomole. The wintry wood seemed dark and malevolent and she felt terribly alone and wanted to escape it as soon as she could.
But not downslope south where the grikes might still be, nor upslope north where Cumnor was. East, then, or west. She did not know. Cuddesdon … at least he must have got away from the henchmole as well. Should she stay where she was in the hope that he might come back? Which way might he have gone? It must be east or west, she had no idea.
‘Guide me, Stone,’ she prayed, ‘guide me now where I can best fulfil my task.’ She thought of the Stone Mole, she thought of Buckram leading him away from danger across the wood – west. That way, too, the wood was lighter with the last of the sun, and she knew from experience that if a mole is in danger in a wood it is best she moves towards the light – for coming out of darkness as she does, she can see before she is seen. Yes, it’s what Cuddesdon would have done. With a sigh she turned west and hoped she might reach the edge of the dark wood before night or tiredness overtook her.
That night was bitterly cold and again dawn showed a frost across the woods and fields, and only the flap of rooks in the high trees. As the wood grew lighter a solitary mole watched three moles approach him. He was a rotund mole, a cheerful mole, a mole who for some time past had been wrinkling his brow and blowing warm, steamy breath on his paws to warm them and muttering, ‘’Tis cold!’ But he was a mole who knew how to look after himself, for he was stanced most comfortably in the warmth of a hastily made surface nest of moss and leaves.
He watched the three and said to himself, ‘About time too!’ Then he squeezed out of the nest he had made, shook his body free of loose material, and emerged from the shadows in which he had hidden and waited to be seen.
The biggest of the three, who was male and very big indeed and had the look of guardmole about him, did not make him feel confident, but he put a brave face on it and called out, ‘Good morning and greetings! Would you be Buckram?’
Buckram loomed nearer, looking to right and left in case of traps, and said, ‘I am.’
‘Your friends must therefore be Sleekit and Beechen of Duncton Wood.’
These two ranged up alongside Buckram and stared in some bemusement at the mole.
‘Amazing,’ said the mole. ‘Absolutely amazing. I have met some extraordinary moles in my time but … well, words fail me.’
He beamed at them.
‘Who are you?’ asked Buckram.
‘A friend of a friend. My name’s Tubney, his name’s Mayweed … and he is another amazing mole.’
At this they all relaxed. Beechen grinned, Sleekit fought back sudden tears and Buckram, still very much in charge, asked, ‘Where is he?’
‘Not far, or too far. There are guardmoles about and that’s why I’ve come into this wretched wood, along with several others. He spaced us out and told us to keep an eye open. Very amusing, your friend Mayweed, “Keep an eye open and relax, yes, yes, yes!” Relax? I normally do. Bablock moles such as me are not renowned for stressful living. Since Mayweed turned up, took a look about, said our system was exactly what he had been looking for all his life and did we mind if one or two moles dropped in for a shortish stay all very hush-hush and please don’t fret, this mole has been worried sick, which doesn’t suit me at all. He said that whichever one of us should have the indubitable honour (as he put it) of finding you we were to lead you to him, and he would accompany you to Bablock himself. ’
‘Well if Mayweed said it you had better do it!’ said Beechen with a laugh. ‘And anyway, I think he’ll be anxious to be with his mate again.’
Tubney looked at Sleekit and respectful surprise crossed his plump face. Then sudden embarrassment as if such an impressive and elegant old female should not be kept waiting a moment longer than need be.
‘Oh! I see! I hadn’t realised, Madam, that you’re Mayweed’s, er, partner! Well then, of course, please, yes, yes … he’ll want to see you as soon as possible, so please follow me.’
Tubney turned and waddled off as Sleekit and Beechen, glancing at each other with amusement and shared love for Mayweed, turned and followed him, with Buckram guarding the rear.
The route was circuitous, and they picked up three more moles who had also been deputed to watching duty before they passed under a small cross-under and stopped.
‘Where is he?’ asked Sleekit.
‘Supple Sleekit, beloved, look up and see your heartthrob, me!’
They looked up and saw Mayweed leering down at them from the top of the cross-under where, he explained as he scrambled and rolled his way down the embankment, he had been watching lest they did the really sensible thing and came via the minor roaring owl way they had just gone beneath.
‘Dreams come true!’ he said when he was on all four paws before them, had dusted himself off, and had greeted Sleekit with an affectionate embrace.
‘I have found a place where we may rest! Do I see gloomy languor in your stance, bold Beechen? It shall go in Bablock. Do I see frowns on your brow, ’stonishing Sleekit? In Bablock they shall flee. How far? Less than a day to reach a place a mole might seek all his (or her) life!’
‘Come on, Mayweed,’ said Beechen with some impatience.
‘Yes, yes. I see you are as tired as you look, bothered Sir. I shall not witter more!’ He turned to one of the Bablock moles and said, ‘My new-found friend, go and tell the other watchers that the moles we were looking for are come. We shall go on ahead. Away one and all! Stout Tubney, lead!’
The ground was mainly sloping fallow fields and heath, the earth frosty cold, the route westward and down into the great valley of the River Thames which stretched out below them.
It was plain from the outset that Beechen was in no mood to talk, or even to travel willingly with them. He kept pausing and staring across the great misty vale below and then up and down it.
His mood was in sharp contrast to that of the others who, with the prospect of a place of rest before them, seemed to have found new energy and cheer. Mayweed and Sleekit chattered about this and that as if they were young moles again. Buckram seemed to find much to talk about with Tubney, and so it was only slowly that they all began to realise that Beechen was not himself at all.
He stopped. Sleekit went back to him, and saw to her surprise that he looked tearful, he looked vulnerable, his face looked both young and fatigued at once. All the party stopped then as Sleekit spoke to him. Of what he told her we can only guess – of a sense that he was outcast from them perhaps, of a strange restlessness, of a desire to be alone, and … of the mole he had seen so briefly in Hen Wood, one he should have gone back to, one whose gaze he could not get from his mind. One he was going to find – yes, that was it: now!
He stanced up purposefully to set off back upslope then and there.
‘Beechen …’ began Sleekit, at her most understanding and diplomatic. But whatever she said had no effect. He had seen a female, henchmoles were coming, she was in danger, he was going to find her. And he was going alone.
‘She wasn’t “just” a mole, was she?’ said Sleekit.
‘I don’t know what she was,’ said Beechen unhappily. ‘She seemed like moledom itself to me. I wish … this is ridiculous. I’m sorry …’
The Stone Mole behaving like … like the young mole he still truly was! ‘He is mole first,’ Tryfan had said, and now they saw it. It was as if, after a long trial in which he had had to be Stone Mole to everymole, he wished now to be ‘but mole’.
Naturally all of them, and especially Buckram, were against any notion of Beechen going off by himself.
‘I saw a mole,’ said Beechen again, wishing he had more strength, wishing he could inspire himself as he could others, wishing they would all go away.
‘Female?’ Mayweed half whispered to Sleekit, who nodded.
‘Then good luck to boldness. His friend me, Mayweed, fell in love with sweet Sleekit here at the blink of an eye, at the flash of a talon! Go and find her! Bring her to us! We shall warn her against it but give her our blessing! As for danger, of course there’s danger, dire danger. But for the folly of youth the world might not change at all. Let danger be welcomed! Remember that humbleness himself trained Beechen here in route-finding from a pup, and he’ll be safe. A mole needs to be alone sometimes. Adventure! Danger! Risk! ’Tis the making of life’s blood. And if true love is the end result what a tale we shall have to tell! We shall decline into our staid ancientness in Bablock and from the safety of our pleasant place thank the Stone that we no longer feel the confusing rushes and faints that drive a mole, otherwise sensible, perhaps even divine, to rush about the place looking for that most elusive and changeable thing that graces moledom’s sunny ways – a female to love; or, worse, being pursued by that most ferocious monster a male can encounter, a female in love. But humbleness jests and leers knowingly and says to one and says to all, let the poor lad be, he’ll be unlivable with until he has been, and then when he comes to his senses he’ll be unlivable with again. But there we go, puzzling life. To Bablock then, and he can follow, downhill all the way! Ha, ha!’
Once Mayweed’s flight of romantic fantasy was over, he gave Beechen some instructions about the easiest way down to Bablock.
‘Now, I’ll watch you go,’ said Beechen, who felt much better for talking to his friends. He stanced on the bare ground as the others, with general muttering and reluctance, despite Mayweed’s words, went on down the slope.
‘But I don’t like to leave him,’ poor Buckram could not help saying. ‘He saved my life.’
‘Warm-hearted but misguided mole,’ said Mayweed, ‘he may well have done, but if you kept him here now he would make your life insufferable.’
They looked back to wave farewell, but where Beechen had been was nomole now. He had gone.
The second night after the departure of the followers through Hen Wood was even clearer than the first, and the air grew colder and colder as all warmth seemed to flee southern moles and lose itself among the winking stars.
As dawn came the leaves crackled with frost, and every blade of grass at the edge of Hen Wood was bowed under the weight of white crystals.
Mistle stared out at the pale chill scene, her back paws still warm from the earth in which she had rested through the night, but her pink snout tingling with the cold. Despite everything Mistle did not feel as lonely and depressed as she might have, and indeed a wave of entirely new feelings came over her.
What she felt most of all was an unfamiliar mix of relief and guilt. Relief to be alone, and free; guilt that she did not miss Cuddesdon more, or seem to worry for him.
But ever since she had so briefly caught the Stone Mole’s gaze, and once she had got over her panic at losing Cuddesdon, the sense of freedom had steadily increased. After the henchmole had left and she dared move off once more she had decided to press on west, for that had been the way the Stone Mole was going and perhaps Cuddesdon had gone that way too, though the more she thought about it his inclination would have been to go east towards where he had been told Cuddesdon was.
Well, that was as maybe. The Stone would decide … and with that consoling thought and tired out, she had made a safe burrow, concealed it, and slept the first night through. The next day she had woken to movement, sensed mole about, heard scurrying, seen two large moles in the distance who looked like guardmoles, and lain low for half the day.
At midday it grew suddenly colder, and the branches of the trees seemed stuck quite still against the pale blue winter sky. Silence had fallen all about and she felt, or sensed – indeed she felt she knew – that the guardmoles had gone and it was safe to move on.
The enforced idleness seemed to have cleared her mind and made her calm, and she moved out across the surface to the west slowly, enjoying the darkening violets of the late afternoon shadows, and the sharp crackle of leaves underpaw.
Rooks roosted high, stirring and flapping their wings but not taking off, and she came to the edge of the wood. She heard solitary roaring owl ahead and decided to stop once more and sleep the night through at the very edge of the wood, and take her chances out on the heathy ground beyond the following morning.
She prayed to the Stone, for Cuddesdon, for herself, and then for the mole she had seen, Stone Mole or no. Increasingly, as she grew used to the image of him in her mind, she thought of him as mere mole, male, with eyes that had transfixed her. The thought of meeting him, let alone talking to him, made her feel nervous and she said her prayers to calm herself, but the prayers slid into reveries, pleasant dreams, silly languid thoughts, summer-seeming thoughts, as winter night settled down around her. She watched the stars, listened to the wood behind her, and then sunk down into the warmer soil, and snuggled into her temporary burrow and slept.
So it was there that when she awoke the following morning, she felt fresh, alive and good. She watched the light strengthen across the heath ahead of her as the sun rose behind and filtered through the bare trees of the wood, she saw a ragged lapwing alight on the heath ahead and then take off again, she heard the rooks call and argue, she groomed, she ate, she took her time.
Then, when the air felt good and the time felt right she set off, leaving the wood behind her as if she was shedding old fur, and an old life.
‘It’s November, and cold, and yet I feel as if it’s spring!’ she told herself in surprise. She thought of Violet, and smiled. How Violet would have liked all this, all of it.
Where to go?
Ahead, my dear!
So west she went, until, quite suddenly, the rise eased, the ground fell away, and she saw below her the winding misty vale of what she knew was the River Thames. She could not see its water, for it was lost in lines of leafless trees, misty and mysterious. But north-west of where she was it stretched away and in places the trees along its banks gave way to pasture and meadow and she saw its dark line.
Somewhere on along it, she knew that Duncton Wood must be, the place that Violet had told her to go.
She turned north, and took a pleasant route along the contour line as the heath became fallow fields and hedges crossed over her way. She sensed that to veer upslope north-easterly and go too high might bring her round to Cumnor, but though the sensible thing was to go lower, down towards the river, yet she felt right the way she was.
But she did not feel sensible. She felt free, for moledom seemed to stretch out invitingly to her left flank and to her right the ground rose and blocked out the realities of Cumnor and of grikes. Strength came to her paws and she travelled faster, encouraged by the light rather than the warmth of the thin sun that rose behind her, and whose rays were too weak even to warm the ground enough to clear the frost.
A day for today, a time for now, on such a good day she had always wanted to have her first sight of Duncton Wood and now she was beginning to think she might.
Then, suddenly, she knew – she knew – she would, so on she went, seeming to be at one with the ground she touched, and the air she breathed, and moledom all about her.
Twice when dark shadows touched the sky she paused and hid: rooks perhaps, heron maybe; but they were soon gone and she pressed on.
Sometime later she paused again to rest and feed, the air cold but her body warm and pleasant with the effort of travelling. The Thames below was more visible, for the sun reached down among its trees now, and the ground ahead had dropped a little and showed the northern view. On she went, over fields, under hedges, sliding across the frozen water of a ditch, keeping high to avoid the streams that must flow from the slope towards the Thames lower down.
On, on, even faster now, for she wanted to reach wherever it was the Stone was safely guiding her with the sun still high and clear, and the day so bright.
The ground eased ahead, the slope fell off to her right, and there, past a hedge, over a small dip of pasture field, there, oh there was the hill on which was Duncton Wood. There!
The light of the sun was on it, and it seemed to rise so near that a mole might reach across the great vale that opened out below and touch it. Duncton!
‘Duncton Wood.’ She whispered the words and her heart felt full of joy. ‘Oh Violet, I got here, I got to Duncton Wood! Violet, it’s so beautiful!’ she said.
She gazed at its great slopes, and up over pastures to where the wood was thick. Then on to its highest part where the leafless beeches were shining grey, with an occasional holly tree among them to give a touch of green. So peaceful.
The hill was steepest to its left or western side, where pastures dropped down towards the river. Beyond there, moledom stretched away.
Certainty, security, a strong sense of something fitting came upon her, and a sense of purpose too.
‘I feel as if I have come home,’ she said. ‘Home from home. Violet, where you dreamed of I shall go. One day Cuddesdon will find me up there in Duncton Wood. One day …’
Mole near. Mole. She knew it but was not afraid, for the sun and the cold clarity of the day seemed to have driven fear off the face of the earth. She looked to right and to left and then behind her, puzzling because she could not see mole, yet she felt a presence.
She turned from the place she had taken stance, looked back again, and contoured on a little, her route swinging north-east. She was alert but relaxed, the sun at its warmest of the day, her fur glossy, her paws and talons sure. Mole was about. She paused to look at Duncton Wood once more, turned to continue and then suddenly saw him there, stanced ahead as she had been, staring at the distant hill.
He turned even as she stopped on seeing him, and he saw her then. They were too far off to speak, too near to shout, so for a moment they just stared, as transfixed it seemed as they had been in Hen Wood.
Then moving at the same time they started towards each other. She dropped her gaze on him then, from sudden shyness or embarrassment. She looked at the ground, she looked up again, she moved, she looked away, she dared to look once more and there he was, and there she was, smiling, each smiling, and the sun upon them both.
‘You’re the …’ she began.
‘I’m Beechen of Duncton born,’ he said. He did not want to be called ‘Stone Mole’, it seemed. He looked larger than he had in the wood two days before, he looked tired. He was smiling. He …
As so many thoughts rushed through her head she heard herself say, ‘My name is Mistle, born of Avebury …’
He came closer, his eyes were clear as purest sky, there was nothing but him before her, nothing but him at all.
‘I thought …’he began.
‘ … that we might not find each other,’ she continued for him. Her voice trailed away. ‘He’s mole, he’s mole,’’ she said to herself and relief was flooding into her. She felt her paws shaking on the ground before her, and she saw he was nervous too. More than nervous, he seemed quite terrified. So he is but mole, he’s just as I am …
‘Is that Duncton?’ she asked, seeming unable to turn her head away from him to point the way she meant.
‘Yes,’ he said looking at her as she did at him, ‘where you were looking before.’
‘Yes,’ she said still staring at him.
Somehow, clumsily, paw almost to paw, they turned together and stared at Duncton Wood, though it might have been in a cloud of mist so little did they see of it, so much did they feel overpowered by the other’s presence so near.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.
‘I have never felt fear like this before,’ he said. ‘Do you feel it?’
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
‘Yes,’ she said abstractedly.
Neither said a word, both stanced utterly still staring at what their eyes could not for the moment see.
Slowly, fearfully, shaking, his breathing sharp and irregular, he reached out his left paw and placed it on her right one.
‘Mistle,’ he whispered. It was a statement, not a question.
She looked at his paw and then dared look at him, dared because he still stared ahead. She felt his fear and it was the sweetest thing. Moledom was in their touch. She looked on him and even as she felt surges of joy and pleasure and relief she said, ‘Beechen?’
And this was a question. Many questions. A whole life of questions, a whole life beginning.
He turned to her and came closer still, and their paws reached for each other, and as the release of touch came to their bodies she wanted to cry and laugh, and run and dance. She felt at that moment that she could reach to the sun itself and yet still be on the earth; and when at last he spoke, and when she replied, it was to say as much, and much, much more.