Now began great years of recovery in Duncton Wood, and moledom too. These were the years when the teachings of the Stone Mole, and the gospel of his life, were first scribed by Mallet of Grafham, and told and retold by many a mole. This the time when the Word had truly died and moledom was free again.
In Duncton Wood it was Mistle’s time. For as the years went by and the system regained its complement of moles, it was her purpose and example most of all that helped Duncton towards what it gradually became: a place to which moles might freely come, a place where moles could speak their minds and share their passions without fear, a place of scribing and scholarship, a place of devotion to the Stone.
This was the place where there was the growth of the true community that Tryfan dreamed of and for which he had prepared his Rule. An exciting place, a place of change, a place of moles who did not waste their time on feuds and lies and deceit, but lived by truth and openness, and spoke their minds with love, and stanced with humility before the Stone, and before each other.
Most of moledom’s great moles of those years passed through Duncton Wood, and brought to it their experience and wisdom. Ghyll of Mallerstang, who brought the good news of the Stone Mole to the Welsh, ended his days in Duncton Wood; Mallet of Grafham, perhaps Beechen’s greatest disciple, set off from Duncton Wood at the start of his ministry to bring the Stone Mole’s teaching across the south and west. His Life of the Stone Mole was his finest achievement.
Gowre of Siabod, he too made his pilgrimage to Duncton Wood, to see where his ancestor Rebecca had lived. Many the exciting tale he told of Glyder, and Alder, and Caradoc, and when he spoke in his deep Welsh voice, the chamber was always hushed.
Quince, mate of Wharfe, Tryfan’s son, came to Duncton after Wharfe’s death and brought with her the teachings of Mallerstang that they might be forever preserved. And many more …
When such moles came they marvelled at the richness and variety of the thought and faith they found in Duncton’s moles. Not always moles others remember now, perhaps, but real moles who lived their lives fully, and kept their faith. Here were moles like Holm and Lorren, who brought the Marsh End to life again; and Bailey, who after his return began his work of recovering moledom’s greatest texts, and teaching scribing to moles to whom in decades past it was the greatest mystery.
Through his offspring by Dewberry, who made his last years full of such content, the great tradition of Duncton’s learning was revived again, and the tunnels of the Ancient System were worn and polished by the paws and flanks of moles visiting Bailey’s library there.
Nor did Duncton’s moles stay still. Many travelled forth and took to other Systems that natural sense of faith and trust in the good nature of mole which was such a refreshing discovery to those who came to the system itself. Most famous, perhaps, was Cuddesdon, who set off at last to fulfil his task at Cuddesdon Hill and established there a community of moles dedicated to a life of what he liked to call ‘peaceful warriorship’. The number of such Cuddesdon communities across moledom soon began to grow.
Yet how quickly those years passed by! How soon it seemed that moles others had loved so much passed on! How soon others grew and matured and turned memory to history, and pointed history towards legend.
Throughout that time, most wonderfully, the grand tradition of moles seeking to recover the lost Stillstones was revived, for moles knew now of Seven Barrows and the stonefields there. And naturally, what young mole did not dream that he might travel to Uffington as Bailey had done, and thence to Seven Barrows, and be the one to find among those stones a true Stillstone, and bring it back that its light might be seen again.
Many went on such a quest despite Mistle’s warning that moles rarely find what they set out to seek. Many did come back with a stone, but few brought back a stone that touched moles’ lives as Bailey’s stone had done. Their stones were not what they had hoped. Yet, gradually through those years, always unexpectedly, and often quite modestly and without a song and dance, the Stillstones were brought into the system.
Gowre it was who brought the Stillstone of Fighting: and Quince who bore the burden of the Stillstone of Suffering. Great the moles who carried them, stirring and moving are their tales, and touching their reports of how modest Furze stayed on after Bailey’s departure and watched over Seven Barrows.
Always it was to the Duncton Stone they came and laid their holy burden down. Mistle it was who welcomed them, for she seemed the very spirit and power of mole in the place, and to her even the greatest moles deferred.
Not that it was always easy for her or the moles she watched over with such strength and love, for a true community does not stance still and often only grows through pain.
The years following the second Longest Night after Bailey’s return, when the mole Tor of Tiverton brought the Stillstone of Darkness, seemed so hard to her, so bleak. Flow much she needed lost Beechen then!
Yet she stayed strong, and soon the Stillstones of Healing and of Light were brought and Duncton’s community emerged stronger still, though by those years Mistle was growing old and slowing down.
But with six of the seven in Duncton now, she often recited the text whose words Boswell first brought to light in Uffington:
‘Seven Stillstones, seven Books made
All but one have come to ground.
First the Stone of Earth for living,
Second, Stone for Suffering mole;
Third of Fighting, born of bloodshed,
Fourth of Darkness, born in death;
Fifth for Healing, born through touching,
Sixth of pure Light, born of love.
Now we wait on
For the last Stone.
Without which the circle gapes …’
Now we wait on … Aye, it was after the Stillstone of Light was brought to Duncton’s Stone and taken through the Chamber of Roots and laid to rest with only the Stillstone of Silence left to come that the sense of waiting seemed somehow to overcome Mistle again. And since it overcame Mistle, it permeated the system as well …
It was early summer. Mistle had seen four Longest Nights through and was old, and for the first time she gave over some of the preparation of the pups for Midsummer to younger moles and began spending more time alone. That March she had heard that Cuddesdon had gone to the Silence of the Stone during the winter years, and so all the moles of her generation had died, but for Romney, now old too.
What Comfrey and Maundy had once been to Duncton Wood those two now became: valued, loved, held in awe, and their relationship as much in debate at the end of their lives as it had been when they were first in Duncton Wood. But if ever it was true that two moles were ‘just good friends’ it was true of them, and now as Mistle seemed to age faster, and sometimes to wander and be a little lost, it was to Romney that moles came and asked for help.
‘She’s out on the slopes again, and staring like she does, and won’t answer any question that I ask! You go to her, Sir, for she’ll listen to you. The evening’s setting in and there’s owls about so you go to her quick. Shall I help you there?’
‘I’ll go,’ Romney would reply, adding a little testily that he did not need help quite yet, but when he did he would not be such a fool as not to ask for it.
‘Where is she?’
‘Where she usually is.’
Romney knew where that was, and what it was she watched for. In truth it had started all those years ago when she had first heard of Beechen’s barbing, and he had found her up at the edge of the High Wood staring, as he had thought, at the cross-under, her eyes lost as she whispered that he would be there one day.
He had replied, as she had asked him to, that the Stone Mole would come back and she had said, ‘No, no, no,’ and then stopped and seemed glad of his comforting.
When Gowre of Siabod came, Mistle had taken to him and enjoyed and been interested in the tales he told; but none more so than that of Glyder, half-brother of Tryfan, and how he had retreated to Ogwen and climbed Tryfan to touch the sacred Siabod Stones at the same time she herself had reached out and touched the Avebury Stone.
But it was the strange and cryptic account of the fallen twofoot in the nameless cwm that Glyder had given at the Conclave of Siabod that seemed to fascinate her. More than once she had Gowre repeat some of what Glyder had said so that she might memorise it. ‘But the twofoots … it’s where the future is, where the Silence will be found. I knew it when that twofoot’s gaze dimmed; I knew it on top of Tryfan where the wind was still. I know it now. It’s what I’ve come to tell you. It’s why the Stones kept me alive. Listen. There are many paths to Ogwen, all easy to find. But it’s taken me all the moleyears since June to find the way out again, and that twofoot never did: so it’s got more to learn than we have. Stop the fighting, moles! Tell yourselves and your enemies the Silence will be found where the twofoots are. Aye, where the roaring owls go. Silence there for mole!’
These strange words Mistle remembered and repeated often in later years, and it seemed to Romney that she associated them with the return of Beechen to Duncton Wood. She would go out onto the slope, and the little promontory where years before Skint and Smithills had fought their last and died was where she would stance.
She liked to be there of an evening because then the gazes of the roaring owls began for the night, and she watched as they passed on their endless missions north and south.
There Romney would join her during that last summer, stancing nearby and watching over her, and knowing when to go to her and say softly, ‘Come, my dear, I think it’s time we went back to the wood. Moles worry about you staying here.’
Mistle would nod, and permit herself to be supported on one side as Romney, himself grown frail, took her back across the High Wood to her tunnels.
It was a time of day younger moles would seek them out, waiting for them in the dusk, and quietly accompanying them for a while in the hope that Mistle might relent for once and tell them a story before she went below.
June passed to July and that exciting time came when the young leave their home burrows, and travellers set off and others arrive came upon the wood. How bustling the tunnels were, how much was discussed and debated there, and how busy Barrow Vale seemed. Yet subtle, rarely spoken, was that sense of waiting that beset Mistle, and which permeated the wood and, in a way, unsettled it. It seemed as if all was hanging fire for something nameless and mysterious that soon might be.
All knew, or thought, that whatever it was it had to do with the return of the seventh and last Stillstone. A few thought it might be more even than that. A quality of tranquillity was sometimes with Mistle now, despite the doubts and fears of age that troubled her. Beyond that was a growing light, a sense of holiness.
The trouble was that ‘Stillstones’ were forever coming to the wood, brought by hopeful moles whose only claim to fame was that they had been to Seven Barrows; and truth to tell, even that was sometimes in dispute. But moles trusted Mistle, ailing though she was, and knew that if the last Stillstone came to the wood in her lifetime she would know it.
It was one warm July evening, then, that a travelling mole passed through the cross-under and set his paw, with a curious mixture of curiosity and doubt, upon the southeastern slopes.
A mole or two who were there greeted him, but he was silent, even morose. He was past middle age, and somewhat lined and grey, his eyes a little watchful, his brow a little furrowed, and his gait slow and steady, like that of a mole who has travelled far and conserves what strength he has lest he finds he must soon travel on.
Up the slopes he went, up to the very promontory upon which Mistle still sometimes stanced but nomole was there that day as the woods rose beyond, all full of rustling leaves and the hollow drifting sounds of wood pigeon.
The mole stopped still and stared for a long time at the High Wood, and then he turned and looked back down the slopes, and across the way where the roaring owls were gazing their first gazes of the dusk.
He took from under his paw a stone and placed it on the ground. For a long time he stanced there, staring out and sometimes looking at the stone. Then, with a sigh, he moved a little from that place and delved. And there he placed the stone, and covered it again, and stared about the place some more before setting off up into the High Wood.
Somewhere there some young moles saw him coming and, as was the Duncton way, came up to greet him, and ask where he was from and where he was going. But he answered them rather brusquely and they, intimidated by his size and dark presence, retreated and found other things to do.
Yet he called after them and, striving to put a smile across his face, said, ‘The Stone. Where is the Stone?’
‘It’s that way,’ they said, pointing and watching as, with a brief nod of thanks, he turned from them and went his lonely way among the trees.
It was Romney who found him by the Stone, stanced still and staring at it. The mole tried to move away but even in old age Romney was not a mole to be put off, and he had a ready smile which few moles could resist.
‘Come far?’ he asked, sensing that the mole was not easy of conversation.
‘Far enough,’ was the dour reply.
‘My name is Romney, I … ’
The mole nodded quickly, and said, ‘Romney of Keynes’, almost as if it was scribed before him and he was speaking it out.
‘There’s not many know that!’ said Romney in surprise.
‘Not many been to Keynes either,’ said the mole with the flash of smile. ‘Not much there these days.’
‘How did you know?’ said Romney curiously, but he saw immediately that the mole was not inclined to say. It seemed a lifetime ago that anymole had called him ‘Romney of Keynes’.
‘Long time ago,’ said the mole as if he read his thoughts.
‘It is!’ said Romney. ‘But I can remember it now as if it was yesterday …’
Then he found himself talking to the strange mole and telling him about his puphood, and the terrible circumstances in which he had first come to Duncton Wood.
‘Was it here that the massacre took place?’
Romney nodded. Even now it was not something he liked to talk about.
‘And where was Tryfan when Drule blinded him?’
‘I had left the clearing by then. None of us saw that. It was Lucerne and Drule alone that did it.’
‘I never knew that,’ said the mole. ‘I thought you must all have been here then.’
Romney shook his head.
‘And apart from Tryfan only one survived,’ he said. ‘Aye, that was Bailey,’ said the mole, ‘and he’s one of the moles I was hoping to see.’
‘He left us last winter,’ Romney said, ‘but his sons are alive, and Dewberry, his mate.’
A look of real disappointment and loss came over the mole’s face.
‘So, I’ve come too late, then, for Bailey. But I’ve heard he made a library here.’
‘In the Ancient System, and there’s moles will show you that. Whatmole are you then, and what’s your interest?’
‘My name’s Woodruff of Arbor Low,’ Woodruff said shortly.
It was neither a name nor place Romney knew.
There was an awkward silence, then Romney said, ‘You’re interested in the past, I take it?’
Woodruff nodded and asked, ‘Are there any other moles from Duncton’s past here now, or have they all gone?’
‘Mistle knew them all, and I myself, but there’s not many of the old ones left. You’ll find a few down in the Marsh End who knew Holm and Lorren well. The past soon goes, doesn’t it?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Woodruff tersely. ‘I think it always lingers on. Would anymole mind if I tarried a little in Duncton Wood and talked to a few moles here and there?’
‘No, mole, none will mind. You could try Kale down near Barrow Vale, he’s always been interested in the past and was one of the first pups born after Mistle and myself first came.’
‘I’d like to meet Mistle as well,’ said Woodruff.
‘She sees few moles now …’ Romney began.
‘She was mate to Beechen of Duncton.’
‘Why mole, few moles know that!’
‘My mother heard the Stone Mole preach at Kniveton, and was there when he was taken by eldrene Wort of Fyfield.’
Many moles came through the wood who told of how one or other of their parents had heard the Stone Mole preach.
‘I would like to meet Mistle,’ said the mole again. He was as persistent in his uncomfortable way as Romney was cheerfully in his.
‘Well, if she has had a good day and you’re near, then perhaps …’
‘I’d really like to,’ said Woodruff. ‘Tell her that I was in Bablock Hythe, and there’s moles there who speak her name to this day with pleasure, and that of Beechen too. Will you tell her that from me?’
For the first time Romney found Woodruff gazing straight at him, and he saw his gaze was strong yet troubled, and that he was a mole who had travelled alone too long and never quite found himself.
‘I’ll tell her that, mole,’ said Romney, ‘and if she was here she’d want to welcome you and say that Duncton is a place these days where travelling moles may rest their paws, and feel under no pressure to stay or leave.’
‘That’s well said, Romney,’ replied Woodruff with a sudden smile that lit up his creased face, and warmed his eyes. ‘And thank you for it.’
From time to time in the weeks ahead Romney heard of the mole Woodruff who was about the wood and asking questions of the past. Moles seemed to notice him, for he had a strange ability, despite his seeming awkwardness, to make moles talk about themselves, and remember things they did not think they knew. Yet he rarely talked himself, or of himself.
The only mole he seemed to strike up a friendship with was Kale, and more than once the two moles travelled about the system and Kale expounded on his favourite topic, which was who had lived where, and when. But for Woodruff of Arbor Low it never seemed enough.
‘You must have some idea where Bracken was born!’ he would say in exasperation, ‘and where Rue’s burrows were. She was the mother of Comfrey.’
But Kale shook his head and said, ‘It’s all too long ago, long before my time. I’ve never even heard of half the moles whose names you know.’
‘Well, I could tell you sometime …’
But with most other moles Woodruff was not so outgoing as with Kale. He was not quite rude when some of the more inquisitive moles of the Eastside tried to get him to tell them more about himself, but his eyes grew cold and his manner distant, and they did not persist. ‘He’s a funny mole, that one! Gives nothing away at all! ’ Yet one evening, in Barrow Vale, when moles were gathered round chatting of times past, Woodruff did give something of himself away. Enough, indeed, to make Romney, who heard it, realise that there was more to Woodruff than there had at first seemed.
It had grown late and the moles, mostly males, some of whom had been north when young, were exchanging tales real or imaginary about the days of the Word’s great power in Whern, and all it stood for.
Woodruff was listening with Kale, as he sometimes did, when the subject of Henbane came up.
‘She was a right bitch, she was,’ said one of them, ‘and it’s hard to think she was ever in Duncton Wood. But this is where old Bailey, bless him, got caught in her clutches, though it wasn’t something he ever talked about. Of course, she got her come-uppance! She was killed by her own son Lucerne, who subsequently died lost and mad in the tunnels of Whern.’
‘She caused more trouble to moledom than anymole before or since. She …’ said another.
‘She wasn’t all bad,’ growled Woodruff suddenly, ‘and as for Lucerne, he did not die in Whern. He never even got back there.’
‘Oh!’ said one of the moles. ‘That sounds interesting. Lucerne didn’t die in Whern when everything I’ve ever heard, including from a mole who knew a mole who was there at the time …’ There was a pause for meaningful and significant looks around to emphasise the strength of his evidence, ‘ … suggests that’s precisely what happened to Lucerne!’
‘Well it wasn’t,’ muttered Woodruff, obviously regretting he had spoken.
Romney saw all this and was intrigued.
‘I must say that there have always been those who said that Henbane had good qualities which belied her bad reputation,’ he said, hoping perhaps that this sympathetic remark would persuade Woodruff to say more.
But immediately another mole, who liked such arguments, said, ‘Ah, but that was part of her genius for evil, that she made moles think she was better than she was. No, that mole was wickedness incarnate.’
‘Yet Tryfan loved her, didn’t he?’ said Woodruff quietly.
‘Humph! Fooled by her more like!’ said one of the others dismissively. ‘It was only by his force of character and prowess that he got away from her grikes without more injury.’
‘I don’t think either Tryfan or Henbane ever fooled each other,’ rejoined Woodruff. ‘And he didn’t get away by his “prowess” and nor did Henbane’s grikes have anything to do with it. It was Rune’s sideem that inflicted injuries on Tryfan, and it was Rune that let him leave alive and Spindle leave unharmed. It was one of many mistakes that Rune made.’
There was silence at this, for it was plain to them all that Woodruff knew more than they did on the subject, even if what he said was not anything like the stories they usually heard.
‘You are well informed, Woodruff,’ said Romney quietly, ‘and we in Duncton like to hear the truth. Would you … ?’
‘No, I wouldn’t!’ said Woodruff brusquely. ‘I do not wish to speak of those times.’
It was a strange moment, of the kind by which a system or community is sometimes put to a test without quite realising it. A group of moles debating, a sudden outburst by one of them, and then, too often, a retreat to blandness or unforgiving silence on all sides.
But a true community responds in better ways at moments such as that. Duncton had long since become strong, and sensitive, in its groups as well as its individuals, and many of the moles in that chamber understood immediately that Woodruff’s ill temper ran deep to something that mattered much to him. Perhaps they knew that better than he did.
Silence followed his remark. Not an uncomfortable silence but rather a waiting silence, in which a mole can come closer to himself if he is allowed, and can speak his heart without fear of rebuff.
Woodruff had been in the process of stancing up to go, but so quiet was the burrow, and so friendly – so warm – that he stayed himself and settled back and stared at the ground.
Still nomole spoke.
The mole Woodruff had said ‘I do not wish to speak of those times’, then let the mole Woodruff say what it was he did wish to speak of!
‘Henbane loved Tryfan,’ he said eventually and very quietly, into the deep and caring silence in the chamber below Barrow Vale. ‘To her he was the greatest light in her whole life. I believe that to him she must have been the same, and certainly she believed so – or so I have been told.’
The hasty addition of ‘Or so I have been told’ achieved the opposite effect than that intended, which was perhaps to distance Woodruff from what he was saying, and make it seem that his information was at second paw. But the trembling passion in his voice and the conviction with which he spoke could not but make a mole think that he had knowledge of Henbane few moles had.
There was a continuing silence, and one it was plain nomole would interrupt.
Woodruff throught some more, hesitated, and then suddenly seeming to decide to talk, said, ‘Few moles know the truth of Henbane’s puphood and how she was raised by her mother Charlock on Rombald’s Moor. If they knew that they would understand how it was that Tryfan’s love was such a revelation to her, and, too, what great courage she must have needed to turn her back on the Word and on Whern as she did that grim Midsummer.’
His voice both deepened and softened as he spoke, and Romney, who sensed the importance of the moment, was touched that the mole nearest Woodruff turned to him with a smile and said, ‘There’s not a mole here, Woodruff of Arbor Low, who would not feel it a privilege if you’d tell us more of what you know of Henbane. It’s been a puzzle to me for years that a great mole like Tryfan loved a mole we have been taught to hate. So if you will, tell us what you know, mole.’
Woodruff seemed to find it hard to respond immediately to this, not because he had nothing to say – it was plain he had a great deal – but because the gentle way the mole had spoken, and the atmosphere of care and interest in the chamber was not something he was used to at all. Indeed, he looked round at them for a time, his mouth opening as if he wanted to speak so much, but was not quite able, and tears were in his eyes.
‘’Tis all right, mole,’ said Kale, ‘you take your time, we can wait.’
‘Aye, fetch a worm or two for Woodruff over here!’ said another. In this way that awkward moment passed, and it was so plain that the moles were as much concerned for Woodruff as the story he had to tell that nomole could not have felt warmed and cheered by their response. Indeed, he was not the only one with tears in his eyes. Romney had them too. For what he saw before him that night was indeed a community of moles, and one which knew well how to take into its heart a mole who some might have said was not of their number. But there they were and there he was among them, feeling safer, Romney suspected, than he had ever felt in his life. And feeling valued too.
The task that Mistle set herself finds a fruition here tonight, he thought.
Then Woodruff chewed some worm, unashamedly touched a paw to his tears, and said in the old way, ‘Of Henbane of Whern, born of Charlock and Rune, former Mistress of the Word, shall I tell as best I can, and from my heart to your heart I shall tell it that you know it to be true.’
So then began the first telling of a tale by Woodruff of Arbor Low in Duncton Wood, and the whisper soon went out that a great tale was being told by a mole who knew what he was telling, and others came quietly to the chamber, and settled down into the silence there, and listened as, once more, Henbane of Whern came alive in Duncton Wood. But now it was through a mole who had loved her and who, it was plain the more he spoke, and the more he told, and despite all appearances to the contrary, loved all moles.
A long tale it was, and the night was late when it was done, and many a mole went up to Woodruff afterwards and said, ‘That was an evening I’ll never forget, I hope you’ll tell us more when you’ve a mind to.’
‘I shall,’ said Woodruff, looking surprised and embarrassed by how warm the moles were towards him. ‘Yes, I think I shall!’
The following day Romney went to Mistle and said, ‘There’s a mole came to Duncton Wood some weeks past whom I think you should meet. His name is Woodruff of Arbor Low.’
‘Whatmole is he, Romney?’ said Mistle.
‘Just a mole I’m saying you should see.’
‘Why?’ She peered at him, half sceptical, half amused. It was not often he told her what to do, and this was the nearest he ever came to it.
‘Because,’ said Romney with a smile. ‘Because you trust me.’
‘All right, all right, I’ll meet your mole, but first tell me what you know of him …’
Woodruff came to see her that same day and stanced down close by her. Like so many before him he was struck by the beauty of her eyes, and the grace she had. But she was old now, older than he expected.
‘Why have you come to Duncton Wood, Woodruff of Arbor Low?’ she asked. Her gaze was direct and clear.
‘I wanted to see the system that most in moledom say is its greatest glory now,’ he said.
She gazed on him more and said nothing.
‘I wanted to know about the past.’
Still she said nothing.
‘I wanted to know about my past,’ he said.
She nodded, satisfied, and thought. Then she said, ‘And what were you afraid of that it took you so long?’
He stared at her and she at him, and he felt that his heart and mind were plain to her.
‘What is it you hope to find here, mole?’ she asked.
‘I … don’t know, but I know I have been much afraid of coming.’
‘Well, that’s plain enough.’
‘I was hoping that you might tell me how you began here …’ he said.
She laughed gently.
‘Yes, Romney said you’re good at making other moles talk, but I have a feeling that the story of how you began might be more interesting than our recent history,’ she said.
He smiled but said nothing.
‘Whatmole are you?’ she said suddenly, and quite fiercely, her gaze on him all the time.
‘I … don’t think I know,’ he replied very quietly. ‘I’m not sure. I …’ His snout lowered.
She reached an old paw to his, and waited until he was ready to look at her again. Her eyes were wise, and he saw there was good light about her, and peace.
‘You can tell me,’ she said, ‘and Romney here.’
Then Woodruff knew he could, and for the first time in his life he began to tell the tale of how he came to be, and all his story after the deaths of Lucerne and Henbane at Arbor Low, and how he had travelled moledom in search of an understanding of his past.
At its end he said, ‘When I was young, Henbane often told me that I should go to Duncton Wood. But I was reluctant … and yet wherever I went, whatever stories I heard or moles I met, it seemed to me that the story of these times started from here and points back to here.’
‘And now you’re here?’ she said at last, her paw still on his.
‘If Harebell was my mother then Tryfan was my grandfather …’
‘And Henbane your grandmother …’
‘And perhaps here I’ll find a sense of peace I’ve never found elsewhere,’ he said.
‘Perhaps,’ said Mistle thoughtfully. ‘Or perhaps you’re the mole to find much more.’
‘Well, I came here by way of Seven Barrows in the hope that I might find a Stillstone but instead, like others before me, I am sure, came to see that what I had carried for so long was but vanity, and I discarded it before entering the High Wood.’ He smiled ruefully.
She was silent for a time, not interested in his stone it seemed, but when Woodruff offered to leave her and let her rest she shook her head.
‘No, mole, there’s a task I think I have for you. If you’ll consider it. Yes, a task …’
Romney smiled. He had heard those words before. How many times had wise Mistle said them to moles who until that moment were floundering in life? How many moles had found their life’s way directed by Mistle’s infallible sense of what their task should be? Romney should know. She had found his task for him.
‘Yes?’ said Woodruff.
‘From what you’ve said you know as much of the history of recent times as anymole I’ve ever met. Much more, perhaps. How many moles can say that they were raised by Henbane herself? How many moles saw Lucerne die? How many moles have trekked as you have to Whern, to Caradoc, and to many places in between?
‘Not many, Woodruff of Arbor Low. How many have talked with moles, as you have, who heard the Stone Mole speak, and saw him barbed? Not many. How many know so much of the Word and can scriven as you say you can, and yet have faith in the Stone, and can scribe as well? Not many.
‘I am old now, and tired, and cannot tell the tales I’ve told much more. Nor can Romney. But when we hear others tell them, they change them, and put into them stories of their own. I’ll be a myth or legend in my own life if that goes on and our history will be lost.’
‘You’re a legend already, Mistle!’ said Woodruff. ‘So what would you have me do?’
‘You said that all the ways you went, and all the moles you spoke to, seemed finally to point to Duncton Wood. You said that here you believed the Silence might be found. Do you know what that Silence is?’
Woodruff shook his head.
‘Have you heard of a mole called Glyder?’
‘I have. And I’ve heard what he said at the Conclave of Siabod.’
Mistle looked surprised, and pleased.
‘What did he say?’
‘I heard it from Gareg of Merthyr, and it was confirmed by Gowre who was the last mole who saw Glyder alive.’
‘You are thorough, mole.’
‘It is the only way to be with truth.’
‘Aye, it is so. And what was it you heard that Glyder said, that you remember?’
‘He saw a twofoot die and it much affected him. He broke out from his retreat solely to tell moles that we should contemplate the twofoot if we would know Silence.’
‘Aye mole, so I’ve heard, so I’ve heard.’
‘But now, what task would you have me do, Mistle?’
‘Those that follow us shall need to know what happened here, and the story of our times. Bailey, son of Spindle, made a library here and had begun to collect texts from other places.’
‘Aye, there’s some I know hidden here and there which I’m sure nomole has seen.’
‘Well mole, collecting texts is one thing, scribing them another. I would like to die knowing that a mole I trust shall scribe with truth the history of our times, and of this system here. Will you do that, mole, for me?’
Woodruff was silent and thinking.
‘Will you help me, and ask others to help me?’ he said at last.
‘I will.’
‘Will you and others trust me to scribe as I judge best?’
‘We shall.’
‘Will you tell me all you know of the Stone Mole, for he is at the heart of Duncton’s story and I know too little of him. I have heard you never talk of him and yet you loved him as mole, not Stone Mole.’
‘You try me hard, Woodruff of Arbor Low, grandson of Tryfan, but I will, I will.’
He smiled.
‘And how do you know for sure I am Tryfan’s grandson, after all I’ve told you today?’ he said lightly.
‘As I remember Tryfan, you have his eyes. And his paws as well perhaps. They are a scribemole’s paws,’ she said. Then turning to Romney, she said, ‘This shall be a great task he does. Help him in whatever way he needs. But for now, leave me, for I am tired.’
All summer and into the autumn Woodruff wandered around and talked to the moles of Duncton Wood. When they knew what his task was and that he had Mistle’s blessing, they helped him all they could; and more so that he willingly talked to them of the many things he knew of moledom’s history. So it was that slowly he became the mole to whom all moles turned when there was a dispute about the past. His knowledge was so great, his judgement so sound, and the love of mole he felt beneath his sometimes awkward manner was so plain that soon he was as much a part of the system as any mole.
They would welcome him where he went, and tell him of old moles here and there who might know things he would find interesting for the history he was making, and he would seek them out and talk to them for hours, and sometimes days.
Mistle too he spent time with, though with the colder autumn weather she ailed still more, and there were days when she did not speak clear at all.
Yet she seemed to like him and since he was strong, and Romney was ailing too, it was Woodruffs paw she took when she wanted to go across the High Wood onto the slopes to watch the roaring owls.
‘The Silence is there, isn’t it?’ she would say.
‘Somewhere it is, but I’m not sure where.’
‘Not sure of anything anymore, not. even …’ she would mutter to herself.
‘Not even what?’ he would say, unable to stop himself asking questions of moles, even old ones whose minds wandered.
‘But I am sure! He is coming back. You ask … you ask …’ and then she would clutch fearfully at his paw.
‘Romney?’ he said.
‘I forgot his name,’ she said in distress. ‘I forgot Romney’s name.’ But then, growing more confused …
‘Is Romney coming back?’ she might ask with sudden fear. As if …
‘You mean Beechen … Oh yes, he’s coming back,’ said Woodruff, ‘he’ll come back one day.’
‘He said he would,’ she whispered. ‘Oh dear, he said he would.’ Then she cried and needed comforting.
As October came again and the beeches began to shed their leaves these wanderings and tears increased and it became harder for her to go to the slopes at dusk and watch the roaring owls. Then, at last, she was confined to her burrow for most of the day, able only, with pain and difficulty, to climb up to the surface and go to the nearby Stone.
Yet sometimes she was coherent, and with Woodruff and Romney at her flank would ask how Woodruffs history of Duncton was coming along, and when it would be scribed.
‘It’s still the years before you came that I cannot fully rediscover,’ he would say, repeating names that were all but lost in the hope that she might know them: ‘Mekkins, Hulver, Rue, Rose, Mullion, Cairn …’
But she only shook her head and fretted her talons.
‘When I know a little more I’ll be ready to make the Chronicles of these woods.’
‘Go and watch the roaring owls,’ she would say suddenly, ‘and he’ll be there.’
‘He’ll come back, my dear,’ said gentle Romney.
‘Who?’ shouted Mistle. ‘Eh? Whatmole’s ever coming back to me?’ And she laughed in a wild old way that tilted now towards bitterness and made them want to weep.
It was plain to the moles of Duncton Wood that Mistle had lived almost past her time, for she was sometimes senile now, and slipped into a strange savagery which was not Mistle at all. Whatmole would have thought it would happen to her? A mole must hope the Stone would take her soon, in her sleep perhaps, for she did not deserve to be what she was becoming. Not that for Mistle, whom they loved.
‘He’s coming, my dear, I know it’s so,’ Romney would still say, though she seemed not to know what he meant and if she did, and was her coherent self again, she denied that she knew who he was talking about.
But when she was young, and much in love and had faith in a mole she called Beechen and others called the Stone Mole, a mole with whom she stayed awhile in lovely Bablock Hythe, Romney had promised that to his dying day he’d tell her that her love would come back home to the system she had remade with such love for him, and so he told her still.
There came a dawn in November when the air was cold and clear. The sky was light blue, and the sun began to catch the last of the colours among the trees – a clutch of beech leaves upon a graceful branch, dew on a half-brown bramble leaf, and red berries up on the dry Eastside.
Woodruff was about early, for he had spent the night at Kale’s place, talking, as ever he did, about the Chronicles it was his task to scribe. Now, this morning, he was almost ready to start scribing at last, wishing only that he knew, he really knew, just where the task began.
‘The beginning’s here in the wood, Kale,’ he had said, ‘waiting to be found. How often I wish the tunnels and trees could talk!’
Kale had agreed, as he always did, about the elusiveness of the past, and how a mole could never quite reach back far enough to know what his true beginnings were.
So, like the good friends they had become, they had talked, and then slept, and Woodruff awoke refreshed, and ready for the day. Ready indeed, to begin. Though where … ? Well, the Stone might help!
So he had said farewell to Kale and come out into the wood, just as the sun was rising and giving everything a last autumnal glow. He was going upslope, when, on impulse, he turned back the little way to Barrow Vale, a place to which so much of Duncton’s history was tied.
Here Tryfan died, and before that had made his stand against moles who sought to kill him in the time the system was outcast. Here the plagues had hit hard, and once fire had razed the trees nearby.
‘But what else?’ he muttered to himself. ‘What else happened here that I don’t know about? If only … ’
‘If only what, mole?’ an old mole said to him.
He turned towards the morning sun and saw a mole there he had not seen before and said, ‘If only I knew more about the history of the wood.’
‘Well, I can tell you one thing about where you’re stancing now.’
Woodruff stilled. He liked to hear a titbit or a tale he had not heard before.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘It was just there, or very nearby, that Mandrake first stanced in Barrow Vale. That was a to-do, that was! He charged in from the pastures killing moles left, right and centre, stanced where you are now and roared a bit, then found an entrance and went down and challenged the whole system at once!’
‘They must have been wild days,’ said Woodruff.
‘Oh, yes, I think they were! You know about his daughter?’
‘Rebecca?’
‘Yes. She was actually raised in a burrow not far from here.’
‘Could you show me?’ asked Woodruff.
He did not need to ask, for the old mole was already up and off and Woodruff had to hurry after him.
‘There you are, just down there, that’s where Rebecca was born. She used to come at dawn to Barrow Vale and dance, which Mandrake did not like. Her mother …’ Then he talked and talked about the past telling Woodruff things he had so long sought to know, only ending with a sudden: ‘But look, come with me, there’s somewhere I’ve not seen for a long time … yes, let’s go there.’
‘Where?’ said Woodruff, finding it hard to keep up, hard even to quite see the mole, for the sun was clear and strong and dazzling all over the tree trunks and shining on the ground.
‘Mekkins’ tunnels in the Marsh End. Now, there was a mole. Which reminds me, did you ever find the Marsh End Defence?’
‘The what?’ asked Woodruff.
‘The Marsh End Defence, delved by Mayweed and Skint, I believe, and lived in for a long time by Tryfan … it’s on the way, more or less, to Mekkins’ place, so let me show you. It’s easy enough to find when a mole knows how.’
‘Whatmole are you that you know all this?’ asked Woodruff, but the mole went ahead of him in the light, and seemed not to hear, and to Woodruff it seemed suddenly best not to ask, but to listen to all the mole told him about Duncton Wood as it had been before the Word came south, before the plagues, just at the time that Bracken was born …
So Woodruff listened and let himself be led through a system that was filled with light that morning by a mole who seemed to know and love all the moles of Duncton Wood, every one.
Through the Marsh End they went, across to the Eastside, and thence to the slopes and into the Ancient System, which did not seem quite the same as the Ancient System he knew. Yet what stories Woodruff heard then and how much began to fall into place as he learnt about Bracken’s love for Rebecca, and was shown the places where so much had happened in the past.
But then, gradually, the old mole began to tire and slow, and his memory seemed to slip and his paw to falter.
‘There’s so much, so much …’ he said, his voice a little cracked. ‘Yes, yes, so much for mole to remember, so easy to forget. Now you help me along here, Woodruff, and I’ll see if I can’t show you, since we’re not far from it here, where Comfrey was born. Not many know that now! Why, I might be the only one, and you now! It was here, and his mother’s name was Rue, and she was a love of Bracken’s. Yes, that was it.
‘You know, I’m getting rather old for this, rather slow, and I’ve got to go back upslope and that’s a long way.’
‘There’s one other place I’d like you to show me,’ said Woodruff, wondering why after so long the sun was still barely risen in the sky.
‘What’s that?’ the old mole said.
‘I’d like to know where Bracken was born, because I think a lot began with him.’
‘Yes, yes it did. But it’s right over on the Westside and I don’t think …’
‘I’ll help you there, and help you back. I’d really like to know.’
‘Well, come on then.’
So, slowly, helping the mole along, his weight leaning on Woodruffs strong paw, the mole took him to a spot on the Westside.
‘There! Delve down there and see what you find.’
So Woodruff did, delving down and down, until he found himself in an old and musty tunnel.
‘Yes,’ said the mole from the surface, ‘that’s the place. That’s where Bracken was born, and I think you’re right: that’s where it all began.’
Woodruff bent his head and went along the tunnel and found a family chamber and some burrows off it. So, thought Woodruff, Bracken was born here, and from here he set off when he was older for the Ancient System, and began a quest for Silence that Tryfan had carried on, and then, and then …
He paused suddenly. There was silence. No sound of mole at all.
He turned and hurried out, anxious not to lose touch with the old mole, but when he surfaced he saw that he had already gone off limping through the wood upslope. How old he looked, and how the light seemed to shine in his fur.
‘Wait!’ Woodruff shouted, running after the mole. ‘I said I’d help you back upslope.’
‘You did,’ said the mole, and let Woodruff support him under his withered paw as they went steadily up towards the south-east with the sun in their eyes. A sun that seemed not to have moved higher in the sky from the moment Woodruff had met the mole.
‘You know a lot about Duncton, don’t you?’ said Woodruff, feeling a sense of awe coming over him, and a knowledge of who this mole was and surprise that the paw he supported was real and that he could feel it on his own.
‘I know about it in the old days but these days my memory goes, and my time here is very nearly done.’
‘You’re Boswell, aren’t you?’ whispered Woodruff, not daring to look at the mole at his side.
‘I’ve been many moles,’ said Boswell. ‘Yes, yes, many moles and I can’t remember them all. But Boswell? Yes, perhaps I am still him for now.’
They seemed to have gone right through the southern edge of the High Wood and were coming to the pastures where the sun, not filtered by the trees, was brighter still.
‘Where are you going now?’ asked Woodruff.
Boswell seemed to stumble and falter, and then he stopped and stared downslope across grass whose dew was like a hundred thousand golden stars. Beyond they could see the roaring owl way, and on it a few slow roaring owls, their gazes pale in the sun.
‘I promised I’d go back to them one day,’ said Boswell, ‘and I think perhaps they need me more than you moles do now. I think my task with you is done.’
Then he took his paw from Woodruffs and set it down as best he could upon the grass and began, slowly, to move away downslope.
At first Woodruff felt unable to move, but simply stared as if it was right that Boswell must go now. Yet it did not feel right. It did not look right. It was not …
‘Boswell!’ called Woodruff. ‘Boswell!’
Boswell turned back.
How old he looks, thought Woodruff, and how alone. That was what was not right.
‘Yes, Woodruff?’ Boswell said.
Woodruff opened his mouth but did not know what to say. He wanted to ask … he wanted to know …
Boswell began to turn from him once again.
‘Boswell?’
‘Yes, mole?’
‘Are you all right?’ Woodruff gently asked. Then he found he could move, and he did move and he went to where old Boswell stanced so shakily.
He reached a paw to Boswell and said, ‘You looked a little lost.’
‘Did I, mole?’
Downslope behind him, going north and south, Woodruff saw the roaring owls, and they glinted in the sun.
‘Not many moles have asked me if I’m all right,’ said Boswell. ‘Not many at all. Bracken did. And Rebecca. And Tryfan, too. And you, Woodruff, you asked me.’
‘Boswell …’
‘Yes, mole?’ said Boswell softly.
‘Would you wait for a little before you go? Would you promise to wait?’
Boswell smiled.
‘Why, mole, you can’t stop life itself.’
‘Just for a little, because there’s a mole here in Duncton Wood, who has waited for you for a long, long time and she’s not far from here. Would you wait for her?’
‘For how long, Woodruff?’ Boswell smiled again and looked down at his old paws.
‘I’ll find a mole who will talk to you while I go and fetch her. Just wait a little, just a little …’
Then Woodruff turned and ran back into the wood. Fast and faster, and the first mole he saw was Romney.
‘Romney, there’s a mole out on the slopes. Go and stay with him, don’t let him go. Go to him, Romney.’
‘But …’
‘I think he’s the mole Mistle’s been waiting for. Go to him.’
But he needed to say no more, for Romney turned and, as best he could, ran into the rising sun and towards the slopes. Then as Woodruff ran towards the Stone, he felt himself crying out, as if to rouse the wood, to rouse everymole in it, to tell them that now was the time when they must show their snouts and stance up for Mistle, for now was what she and they had been waiting for.
Like the sounding of the Blowing Stone at Uffington his call was across the wood that morning, and moles hurried from their tunnels and burrows and all seemed to know that it was to the High Wood they must go, and fast! Quick! Hurry now! For the light is all across the wood, and moledom waits, and Mistle, who has given them so much, needed all their strength, and all their love.
So they gather and they hurry upslope through the early morning light, across the dewy leaves, in twos and threes upslope towards the Stone. There they find Woodruff, helping Mistle, who can barely stance at all now and is muttering and wondering and rather afraid. But her paws and flanks only shake, and she stares uncomprehendingly at him.
‘He’s come back for you, Mistle. He’s here, he’s waiting for you,’ says Woodruff, his strong paws about her as the others gather and turn the way he turns her, which is towards the east, towards the rising sun.
‘Come on, Mistle. You need your last strength now, but you and he will help each other on from Duncton Wood, because he needs you too.’
Slowly, bit by bit, tree after tree, Mistle progresses through the wood, Woodruff supporting her, and her snout shakes and her eyes stare, and often her paws stumble. But all the moles are there to lend her their spirit and their strength and urge her on.
‘He came back for you, Mistle, because you were the one who had most faith, you were the one who loved him most as mole.’
‘He came back?’ she whispers, and for the first time she dares let hope be in her eyes.
‘It’s not far now, not far …’ And slowly, so slowly, they break out of the wood and into the sunshine beyond.
Romney is out there on the slopes, and with him is an old mole, waiting, his eyes no more certain than Mistle’s have been.
Leaving Boswell, Romney comes to her.
‘He came back for you as you knew he would, Mistle. Go to him.’
‘He’s not Beechen. He’s not young as Beechen was,’ she says.
‘I think he’s many moles, and I think if you can find the strength to go to him, my dear, he will know you again and you’ll know him.’
‘Then help me, Romney,’ whispers Mistle.
Romney smiles but shakes his head.
‘I am too old now, my dear, to do more than watch you go, but Woodruff will lead you to the light in which Boswell waits.’
Then Woodruff, grandson of great Tryfan, put his paw to Mistle’s and, with all the moles of Duncton Wood urging her on with love and prayers, he helped her make her slow and painful way across the slopes beyond the High Wood to where Boswell stanced waiting for her, near the promontory from which she used to watch the roaring owls.
The light was behind him, and his face was hard to see, but it seemed that as she came nearer to him he started forward towards her a little, as if he almost knew her. She too, with each step she took, seemed to know him more, and where they were a light was too, greater than the sun, for it filled the air about them all, and held the sound of Silence.
‘Beechen?’ they heard her say.
‘Mistle?’ he whispered back to her.
‘Oh my dear, I’ve missed you so much …’
Then they touched each other in the light and turned to Woodruff who stanced by them, his snout low.
‘Woodruff of Arbor Low,’ said Boswell, ‘you have fulfilled the great task the Stone ordained that you should perform. Born of violence, raised by Henbane, and traveller in pursuit of truth, you are the mole who brought the seventh Stillstone to Duncton Wood. Delve it up, mole, from whence you buried it.’
Then Woodruff, hardly daring to look at where Boswell and Mistle stanced before him in the light of Silence, delved and found the stone he had buried.
The watching moles gasped as he took it up from the broken soil and its light was upon them all.
‘Now mole, what will you do with what you carried for so long and now show us here?’
Woodruff took the Stillstone and touched it first to the withered paw of Boswell, and then to Mistle’s beloved face. Its light was great, and whiteness was upon them both, and where they were the moles seemed to see Boswell’s paw grow whole, and he and Mistle grow young again, and both to laugh as surely once she and Beechen had laughed. Then they turned, or seemed to in the light, and began to go down towards where the roaring owls went endlessly.
‘They are our task now, they are our task …’ their voices seemed to say. And then, ‘Woodruff of Arbor Low, your restless search is over, for here in Duncton Wood you are and always shall be much loved, so much loved.’
Then where they had been only Woodruff stanced, and on his lined and once troubled face was the look of a mole who knows that he is loved most true, and who knows at last from where all Silence comes.
Then he held the Stillstone up that they might see it, and carried it back into the wood, and all of them went with him to the Stone.
They gathered together to give thanksgiving and make celebration as Woodruff of Arbor Low took the Stillstone down through the Chamber of Roots and placed it with the others about the base of the Stone.
When he came among them again it seemed that all celebrations were in one that day, and mole touched mole with love, as the sun rose through the trees and they knew at last their Duncton found.