Duncton Quest (50 page)

There was a deep laugh at her side.

“
Young
mole eh, Smithills?” said Skint. “She thinks I’m young!”

“And what if she does?” said Smithills, politely going to the front of this fierce old female. “That makes me young too!” He grinned in as friendly a way as he could manage to show he meant her no harm.

“Who are you?” said Maundy, her voice a little shaky. “And why threaten a harmless mole like me?”

“Begging your pardon,” said Smithills, “but we were just checking you out.”

“Checking me out?” repeated Maundy angrily. “Check
me
out? I live here. I’m here to check vow out!”

“These are dangerous times, and cross-unders like these can be traps for the unwary. Why aren’t you snug in a burrow with your friends celebrating Longest Night?” asked the one called Skint.

“I
was
until I came down here,” said Maundy. “I...” But she stopped, for through the tunnel came more moles until she seemed surrounded by them. “I came down to greet a mole, not to be insulted and threatened by strangers!”

A mole, still in the shadows, moved forward a little and Skint turned to him.

“She says she’s of Duncton,” said Skint, “and I’m ready to believe her.”

The new mole laughed, deep and happy, and there was something about him, warm and reassuring, that put old Maundy, who was perfectly willing to defend herself against a hundred moles if need be, quite at her ease.

“Well!” she said. “And who are you?”

He came out fully into the light and stared at her, and she stared back, uncertain, half recognising him, but not quite sure....

“Don’t you know me, Maundy? After all this time have I been quite forgotten?”

“Well!” she replied, excited and suddenly breathless. “But you’re —” and then she reached out and touched him in the most natural and friendly way as if to see that he was really there.

“I
am
real,” he said, laughing again.

“And so I should hope, Tryfan of Duncton. You’re late!” she said.

“Late?” echoed Tryfan.

“Late?” said Skint.

“Late?” said the others, amazed.

“That’s what I said, and that’s what I meant! Duncton moles don’t gallivant around the countryside on Longest Night, they pay their respect to the Stone, they eat a bit, they sing a bit, they stay in one place and they tell stories. And...” she added, advancing threateningly on Skint and Smithills, “they don’t go scaring old moles like me! You’re late, Tryfan, and you’d better come along because by the time we get there they’ll all be asleep.”

She turned to lead him back up towards the Wood, but then she suddenly stopped and turned back to him, her seeming anger gone. She touched Tryfan again with that same warmth his friends recognised as being like his own, and she said, “Nomole will be more welcome on this night or any other. Welcome home, Tryfan. Has your journey been long?”

“Longer than a mole’s life,” he said. “Is Comfrey —?”

“Comfrey is well and awaits you. He will greet you with joy.”

“Did he guess I was coming?”

“The Stone told him in November for sure, but I think he knew at Midsummer. We’ve been waiting, Tryfan, and we have need of thee.”

“As I of Comfrey and of you all,” he replied. Then he smiled around at his friends.

“Did I not say Comfrey would know?” he said to them.

“You did!” said Spindle.

“Comfrey knew,” said Maundy. “Now follow me and feel welcome, for there’s food and song awaiting Tryfan, and any who are his friends, in the tunnels of Duncton Wood!”

So it was that old Maundy led Tryfan and the other followers on the final stage of the journey into Duncton, at that most holy of hours, just after midnight on Longest Night, when moledom knows that a new cycle of seasons is beginning.

Some say that even as they reached the edge of the Pastures Comfrey knew Tryfan had returned, for he stopped in mid-song, snouted up at the surface, and said quietly, “I th-think you can waken the youngsters again, and c-come with me, for T-Tryfan my brother is come back.”

Then up to the surface he went, and the moles of Duncton followed him, gathering at the Stone as from over the Pastures they heard the coming of moles, and at their head was Maundy, proud and sure as any mole could be, and tears wetted her fur for the happiness she knew she brought that night to Comfrey by the Stone.

“T-T-Tryfan?” said Comfrey as his brother came out of the dark of his long journey. “It
is
Tryfan!”

And whatmole was there who did not share their tears as the two brothers, separated for so many moleyears, greeted each other with affectionate pats and friendly snouts and words of love and pleasure.

“You’ve got a few more lines in your face, you have!” said Tryfan.

“And s-so have you!” replied Comfrey.

And they all laughed, and joked, and praised the Stone for the blessing of reunion it had wrought.

Then when the greetings were done, Tryfan introduced his companions.

“This is Spindle of Seven Barrows, who has been a friend and counsellor on all my long journey from Uffington; and this Skint, who —” and one by one they were introduced: all safe, all well, all close and trusting of one another. Except for one, who had made himself scarce.

Then there was another round of introductions as Comfrey made Tryfan’s friends known to those of the system who were there, concluding, “And, last but not least, in f-f-fact most of all, my dear friend Maundy who greeted you and led you home! Yes!” said Comfrey, glad to have Maundy at his side. “Yes!” And if each touched the other, and laughed and seemed like mates why this
was
Longest Night, and a mole had best enjoy himself, and herself, and all.

“When you’ve quite done,” declared Skint, “and not wishing to be impolite, and with the compliments of the season and all that,
is there any food?

Food! There was that! And song! There would be that as well! And stories, many of those to tell! And more food! Much, much, more of that!

“Below, everymole below!” cried Comfrey, “And we’ll have a Longest N-N-Night that nomole will forget!”

But when they got below one mole was already there, crouched in the most comfortable stance, chewing the juiciest worm, surrounded by the most admiring youngsters.

“A pleasure it is, and a pleasure will be, Sir!” said the mole, with a wide and winning smile. “Got tired up there and came down here, thought it best to do so soon, Sir, I did! Yes. And no better burrow, no better youngsters, rarely better worms has this humble mole seen, or (Sir) eaten on Longest Night, not ever before!”

“Who is this?” said Comfrey, amazed at this mole who stopped everymole in his tracks with this long speech of... well... of greeting, he supposed.

“Mayweed is my name and I am most welcome!” said Mayweed, looking guiltily at Tryfan.

And then they laughed, and told Mayweed to stay in the comfortable place he was, adding that since he had eaten the first worm of all of them it would be only fitting if he told the first story, which Mayweed did not want to do at all, but if they insisted, he supposed he might try, if it pleased them, and he would, yes, he would!

So as the moles of Duncton and the followers of Tryfan found a place in that warm, friendly and crowded chamber, it was Mayweed the outcast, Mayweed the survivor, who began the story-telling saying, in the traditional way (well nearly), “From my heart, Sirs and Madams, to yours, I’ll speak and tell of how a humble mole, skinny once but fatter now, diseased once but healthier now, lonely once but befriended now, of how that mole, born in the Slopeside of distant Buckland, came by routes diverse and difficult, secret and strange, Sirs and Madams, all the long way to a system mysterious where now he is and you are, which is here and called Duncton; that’s what I’ll tell in my own simple way, if you’ll listen....”

“Yes! Yes! We will!” laughed the many, some eating, some sighing, some snuggling close to others that they liked, and Comfrey smiling at Tryfan, and Maundy smiling at them both.

“Well then, Sirs (and not forgetting Madams), I’ll begin...” and Mayweed did, beginning a story-telling such as few systems in moledom that night can have witnessed, and none could ever have forgotten.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Yet when the story-telling was done, and Longest Night past, and the excitement of Tryfan’s return with his followers was over, Comfrey soon learned that his instinct had been right: Tryfan’s coming heralded trouble for the system and perhaps the shedding of blood.

“I do not know if this danger would be on you if I had not come back here,” Tryfan said one day, “for I and those with me are outcast by Henbane, and her guardmoles will continue to seek us until they find us, for our very being is an affront to their Word. Defiance is not part of their sterile canon. But, in any case, I am certain they will come here because Henbane not only knows this is my home system, but that it is one of the two remaining seven Ancient Systems outside the orbit of the Word; the other is dread Siabod.

“For this reason, as well as my own need to see Duncton again, I have come to warn you to prepare for a dark future.”

January had come, and with it the winter blizzards, and they were snugly crouched in Comfrey’s burrow surrounded by the sweet summery smell of herbs as the harsh wind rattled and cursed at the entrances. Comfrey listened to Tryfan now as he had listened to the grim tales told on Longest Night of their fugitive journey, yet it all seemed hard to believe, for the kind of evil and change that these “grikes” brought was beyond his experience. It was true that rumours of the Word and the grikes had reached Duncton Wood, but for the most part the Duncton moles had kept themselves isolated and out of touch with the spread of the Word.

Now, to convince him that drastic action might be needed if Duncton’s peaceful way of life, centred on the Stone, was to survive, Tryfan reported in more detail some of the things he had seen, or heard from witnesses.

In Fyfield, to the west, the grikes had come the previous spring and sequestered an entire generation of pups and juveniles on the pretext that the adults in the system – and there were not many after the plagues – would learn thereby the meaning of Atonement. The youngsters were reared to the Word by eldrenes and sideem, and encouraged to report on their parents’ “wrongdoings” and “blasphemies’. Many were the deaths that followed from this and that system now was fanatically devoted to the Word.

In Frilford, a system on sandy heights above the Thames, the grikes judged each mole there for their willingness to learn the Word and be faithful to it. Again, the youngsters were encouraged to adhere to its harsh codes and disciplines, and again the parents and the elders were effectively destroyed. Only a few escaped and these were the witnesses Tryfan was able to speak with.

“We heard that the moles who failed the grike-inspired inquisition were taken out on to the flood plains of the Thames and forced to burrow into waterlogged soil, on pain of snouting. Many were so killed, or snouted. The moles who accepted the Word and Atoned satisfactorily were encouraged to watch this torture, and to mock the victims as being not of the Word. A few poor moles had been granted their Atonement by pushing others on to the flood plains to their doom. Of these most are now maddened and cast down, and are serving out their blighted lives as clearers.”

In Bladon, Tryfan reported, there had been similar campaigns against the older moles by the younger, aided and abetted by grikes, and it seemed reasonable to assume that it was in this way that throughout moledom the followers of the Stone were suppressed, and belief in the Word established.

“Yet in each of the few systems we have seen there have been protesters and rebels, for there will always be moles who are not easily subjugated,” said Tryfan. “In each system we visited, or of which we heard, there were one or two such. Some wanted to join us, but we were not ready. What I did say was that when Henbane and the others march on Duncton, then as such moles hear of it they should take their courage in their paws, and make for Duncton as speedily as they can, to inform us of what is apaw, and join with us. I believe that by this means we will have good warning of the approach on our system of the grikes, and will gather here only those moles who have true courage and fortitude. For those will be the ones we need in the future, and in their brave paws will the future lie. Let Duncton be their sanctuary and their inspiration.”