Duncton Stone (100 page)

“Morwenna.,” he said bleakly, looking at the youngster, who looked at him.

“She can sing, just as her father could. Sing for him, Morwenna.”

Morwenna said bold words in Welsh and Madoc translated them: “She asks who you are.”

“Who am I?”

“A mole I once knew.”

Morwenna sang and though he did not understand a word he thought it the most beautiful song he had ever heard, and it made him weep.

“It’s a song of Siabod,” said Madoc.

“It’s a song I’ll not forget,” he said, for of all the things he had seen and heard and experienced since Wildenhope, this was the first that made him think that living might be better than dying.

“I heard your father sing,” said Whillan.

“When, when,
when
?” the youngster asked imploring, pleading, angry, weeping when he would not say. Angry and wild and passionate at him.

“You had better leave, Whillan; we are the past to each other now. Our futures are different.”

Through that summer he wandered as in a dream, north and ever northwards, often in systems that knew nothing of Newborns, nor much of followers. Old, isolated, forgotten places where whatever name he used others accepted. To some he taught scribing, to some he told tales, and just occasionally, of an evening, he might try to sing the song Morwenna sang to him as if there was something in it more real than anything he knew. But his voice was cracked, he did not know the words, and gradually, as time went by, he could barely remember her young face.

May passed by, and he began to ask for Mallerstang.

“Mallerstang? No, mate, never heard of it.”

“Mallerstang? Can’t say I have.”

“Maller-what? Rum sort of name, and you don’t even know why you’re going there. Rum sort of bloody journey you’re making!”

That was the first time Whillan discovered he could laugh again. It
was
rum.

Then, days later...

“Mallerstang? Of course I know where it is. Was up that way before Longest Night.”

Whillan was south of the Western Dales and had asked the question automatically and for the thousandth time, and here was a mole who had been there.

“Historical sort of place, you know. Suffered decades ago under the moles of the Word because its moles stanced up for worshipping the Stone their way, and when a Mallerstang mole confronted you, you knew it, so they say. I’ll tell you something about that place: a mole called Merton who was raised there went south and became a holy mole in Uffington.

“Tell you what I’ll do, I’ll give you some names of moles I met, though they’re a taciturn bunch. Not unfriendly, but they don’t say much. The moles of the Word virtually massacred the lot of them and those that survived did so by taking to the fells, and that makes a community cautious. Shadows of that kind have a way of lingering. But they gave me a welcome, and they’ll give you one seeing as you’re Stone-fearing.”

“I’m nothing.”

“Well, then, seeing as you’re not a Newborn.”

Whillan was back in territory that knew about such things, but generally avoided mentioning them. The Newborn Crusades had not reached so far north.

“I’m certainly not Newborn.”

“Where are you from then?”

“Nowhere.”

“You’ll get on with them like a wood on fire, chum. You’re as taciturn as they are!”

Mallerstang lies on the western side of Ribblesdale, and Whillan reached it at the beginning of June, and as he climbed up its dry grassy bluffs, and scented the clear air, and saw the fells of Pen-y-ghent to the east across the dale he knew that somewhere here, and soon, he would find some light at the end of the tunnel he had been in. This was as far north as he would need to go.

They said little, took him in, gave him clean quarters, and set him to a task, which was delving a new communal tunnel along with other passers-by, and a couple of old Mallerstang males.

He worked hard and long, quite unaware that he was being watched and assessed, and judged to be a worthy mole. Nomole asked him questions, and nor did he volunteer answers. He was happy to have found a place to stop awhile.

By the end of June he was the longest-staying visitor there, and by July he found that the Mallerstang moles were inviting him back of an evening to their communal chamber, which few visitors ever saw. They talked quietly and shared what news there was, which was not much. The Newborns were distant and in another place, the followers like part of a family that had not been in touch for many years – familiar but strange, their world almost unimaginable. Sometimes the names of moles he knew came up — Stour, Privet, Maple – they were all mentioned in their turn, almost as legends. But Whillan never said a thing.

One day, one of the elders turned to him and said, “And what of you, mole, have you a tale to tell us?”

He knew it was an honour, and a sign that they trusted him, and that he must tell them something. A thousand possibilities went through his head. “I... I...”

A thousand tales and he could not choose one to tell.

“Tell us what’s in your heart, mole,” the elder said to him.

“I... I think I have been lost, and I don’t want to talk about the past. It turned from me and I from it.”

“You can delve, mole, better than anymole we’ve ever seen. Somemole must have taught you that.”

“A mole did,” said Whillan quietly. “I could tell you a tale of that.”

“Tell us what’s in your heart, mole.”

He told them the tale of how the Stone rose at Hobsleys Coppice, not mentioning the names of the moles really there, and when he had done they were silent.

“What’s your name, mole, that you tell a tale like that?”

“The name I gave,” said Whillan firmly.

After that he often told them tales, many tales, always anonymously, never giving the real names of moles or systems, though sometimes he might slip in the name of a mole he knew, for it gave him a sense of veracity. Fieldfare, Husk, Lavender, Bantam, Firkin, Copy Master of Duncton. These names he used, but the ones that mattered or they might recognize he avoided and never used. As for Duncton, well, he located his stories somewhere in the south, with enough variation to confuse anymole, and if sometimes they tried to guess he shook his head and frowned, and they respected that and fell silent.

He got to know only a few of their names, for the Mallerstang moles really were as taciturn as he had been told, and many were no more than faces to him, which was as he liked it. Even then it was only the males he knew – for in their community the females kept to themselves, appearing only on holy days and festivals. So it was that he first saw most of the community together at Midsummer, for like most systems he had ever heard of, they celebrated it as the time when pups born that spring passed through the portal into maturity.

He was made welcome, very welcome, yet not a part, for their rituals were much different from Duncton’s and, though evidently ancient, seemed lacking in a certain warmth. But he watched and listened, and was surprised to see that he himself was an object of interest to many of the youngsters and females, most of whom he had never seen before.

He felt lonely that evening, and began to feel he should move on. The tales he had told stirred memories and yearnings in him, and one in particular, one that had come to dominate all others. Though he had never talked of the Moors he wanted now to journey to the Charnel Clough and see where Rooster had been born. Perhaps he had not talked of it so far because Rooster’s background was, in a way, his own. But that Midsummer’s night, when the rituals were done, and moles gathered on the surface of Mallerstang, he found himself drawn in to tell a tale.

If, as he began, he noticed a good many there draw closer, and the attention of them all grow deeper, he did not let them know. He guessed it was because they had heard he could tell a tale better than most, and once he started nomole could quite tell where he would end. They had never known a mole like him.

It began simply enough with the previous tale-teller turning to him, as was their custom when one tale was done, and saying, “I’m sure there’s moles here would want to know how you celebrated your first Midsummer, mole, all the more so since here in Mallerstang this is the first occasion youngsters are allowed into the community at night, to hear us older moles tell our tales.

“So, seeing as you’re the only visitor here tonight – and a welcome one, for we know you as a worthy and serious mole if somewhat of a mysterious one” – there was laughter at this, and nudges and winks – “tell us how your home system is celebrating this holy night.”

Whillan was silent for a time, which was his way with tales, remembering always the elder’s injunction to speak from the heart.

“In my heart tonight there is sadness,” he found himself saying, “because the system where I was born and raised is under the thrall of the Newborns.”

Their silence grew deeper, their eyes more serious, and parents took their youngsters to their paws and settled them. They could sense more than a tale coming.

“We have a Stone in our system, which rises in the wood’s highest part, and at Midsummer that’s where we gather, family by family, kin with kin. The elder in my time who spoke the words was called Drubbins, and he was old and wise like...”

Whillan nodded towards the Mallerstang elder who laughed and said, “I’m old all right, but as for being wise...”

“The words we said were these,” continued Whillan:

We bathe their paws in showers of dew,

We free their fur with wind from the west,

We bring them choice soil,

Sunlight in life.

We ask they be blessed

With a sevenfold blessing:

The grace of form...

As he spoke the Midsummer Invocation he did it not from memory of Drubbins’ rendition, but from Privet’s, learned in her turn from Fieldfare. He spoke it clearly, and let himself linger over the seven graces of form, of goodness, of suffering, of wisdom... linger as Privet had lingered, teaching not just the words, but the silent meaning between them as well.

We free their souls with the talons of love,

We ask that they hear the silent Stone...

The moles who heard him were hushed and silent when he came to these concluding words, and he himself was lost in a memory that intermingled Privet and her tales – tales that he had repeated so often in the days past – with the Stone.

“When I learnt how to scribe,” he continued, quite unaware of the stir this caused, or the way one or two there seemed to come closer and peer more intently at him, “those were the words I practised on. Pumpkin, that was the mole who taught me to scribe though my mother Privet could scribe as well...”

There, he had said her name, and try as he might to pull back from it, and to talk of other things he could not deny the name he had used.

“Privet, you
did
say Privet?” an old female said to him later.

“I did,” he answered uneasily.

“And you did mean Duncton Wood, didn’t you?” said the old male with her.

“Did I?”

“We think you did. That invocation of the graces you spoke, that’s of Duncton, I’ve heard tell.”

“Yes,” said Whillan.

“Yes,” said the two moles almost as one and looking at each other. “Privet of Duncton, formerly of Crowden in the Moors. Was she your mother?”

“Adoptive mother,” corrected Whillan.

“Well then, there’s a thing! There
is
a thing.”

“Why?” asked Whillan.

“Because... well, let’s just say it’s not entirely a surprise, shall we?”

“What isn’t?” wondered Whillan.

“Were you sent?”

“Who by?”

“Hmmph! We’ll talk more of this, mole, more before...”

“Before
what
?” asked Whillan, as exasperated as he had ever been, and yet as still as well. “Yes, I was sent,” he said impulsively. “I was sent by a mole called Chervil.”

They looked suddenly afraid, almost lost.

“Mole, we had best talk.”

When there were fewer moles about they began to talk, with the elder as witness, and though Whillan said nothing more of Privet then, he told them something of his tale, until at last they said, “No more for now. Tell
them
to their face.”

“Who?” he asked again.

“You don’t know, do you?”

“I know hardly anything,” he said.

“And the name you go by, ‘Morren’, that’s not your real name, is it?”

“No,” he confessed.

“Well then, well then. We’ll sleep on it, and in the morning you can tell them to their faces, for they have a right to know. Rolt always said —”

“Brother Rolt? Thripp’s Rolt?”

“Yes.”

And suddenly, like dawning light, Whillan knew who “they” were.

“Loosestrife and Sampion,” he whispered, “daughters of Thripp.
That’s
who you mean.”

“Yes.”

“They are here?”

“In the morning they will be, for we’ll fetch them. They live on the slopes above the system, for safety’s sake. And, mole, tell nomole who they are, for only we know. And mole, what is your name?”

“Whillan,” he whispered, “Whillan of...”

“Wildenhope,” said the elder, looking deep into his eyes.

“The same,” said Whillan, knowing that he had guessed long since.

“Then sleep, mole, sleep.”

But Whillan could not, for he had spoken his own name again and it felt new and good, and he wanted to be up and about and once again of the world he had been lost to for so long.

It was a perfect summer’s morning as the sun rose across the dale and cast its rays over the slopes of Mallerstang, and Whillan saw them coming with the moles he guessed must have been their guardians. He stanced firm, watching them as they came towards him, as alike and yet different as flowers on a single stem of wild dog rose.