Duncton Stone (2 page)
M
UMBLE
Privet’s only male pup by her Brother Confessor.
M
YRTLE
Mate to Turrell of the Moors. Not to be confused with Myrtle, Furrow’s mate, both friends of Maple.
N
OAKES
Enterprising follower, originally from Gurney. One of rebels under Spurling at Seven Barrows.
P
EACH
Mate to Spurling.
P
RIVET
Scribemole born at Crowden in the Moors. Daughter of Shire, granddaughter of the Eldrene Wort. Is in search of the Book of Silence and has had pups by her Brother Confessor during a period at Blagrove Slide, from where she escaped to Duncton. Entrusted by Master Librarian Stour to continue the search for the lost Book.
P
UMPKIN
Stour’s library aide and a brave but reluctant leader of the remaining rebels in Duncton Wood.
Q
UAIL
A high ranking Newborn Brother from Avebury.
R
ED
R
ATCHER
Vile leader of the Charnel Clough grikes and father of Rooster, who killed him at Crowden.
R
OLT
Brother Rolt is sympathetic Newborn assistant to Privet’s Brother Confessor at Blagrove Slide.
R
OOSTER
Son of Samphire and Red Ratcher.
S
AMPHIRE
Abducted from Chieveley Dale by Red Ratcher by whom she has Rooster.
S
AMPION
One of Privet’s female pups by her Brother Confessor.
S
KUA
Senior Brother Inquisitor under Quail, and effectively his second-in-command. A pitiless persecutor of follower and Newborn alike.
S
LANE
The Senior Brother Inquisitor responsible for the Ludlow strettening.
S
NYDE
Hunchbacked scholar and deputy Master Librarian in Duncton Wood who has gone over to the Newborn side.
S
PURLING
Follower, and escaped library aide, from Avebury. He is leader to a group of refugees from Buckland. His mate is Peach. Joins Fieldfare on way to Seven Barrows.
S
QUELCH
Quail’s obese son. His extreme depravity is redeemed only by his wonderful ability to sing and make melody.
S
TOUR
Master Librarian of Duncton Wood and most famous in moledom. Goes to the Silence taking the Six found Books of Moledom to their resting place beneath the Stone.
S
TOWE
A loyal follower, and Elder at Bourton in the Wolds.
S
TURNE
Keeper in the Duncton Library and asked by Stour to bravely pretend to be a Newborn, whilst still aiding the follower side. A friend of Pumpkin’s, the only mole who knows his secret.
T
ARN
One of Chervil’s guardmoles. Son of Feldspar.
T
HRIPP
Charismatic leader of the Newborns, originally from Blagrove Slide. Has turned against Quail.
W
AYTHORN
Son of Turrell from the Moors.
W
EETH
A Newborn from Evesham turned follower. Assistant to Maple.
W
HILLAN
Adoptive son of Privet. Father is Rooster, mother Lime.
W
ORT
The Eldrene Wort was the notorious persecutor of Beechen and grandmother to Privet.
CONTENTS
Wildenhope
Strivings
Dissenters
Quail Paramount
Book of Silence
Based on Mayweed’s map found in Seven Barrows
Prologue
Forgive me, mole, but, yes... I have been avoiding you. These molemonths of summer past I have wished to be silent and unavailable. Yet I have been aware that you were asking after me. Now you have tracked me down and find me much aged since last we spoke. You left then with my tale of Duncton’s rising against the Newborns incomplete. No doubt when you returned to the Stone to hear the rest of the tale a day or two later, as we arranged, you were disappointed and alarmed to find that I had gone.
Indeed, I’ve heard you were angry, and then concerned, and set off in pursuit of me through the tunnels and glades of our once summery wood. But by the time you caught up with me a little wisdom had caught up with you, and you left me alone. You thought-and you were right-that it was best to leave things until I was ready to continue. Well, I freely confess I have not wanted to talk again to you until now that September’s come. A long time it’s been and though the sun’s been warm my old fur’s grown thin, and I have shivered even on the hottest days. Now, as autumn looms, my bones ache with the morning mists. Yet here I am at last, willing to talk to you once again, and tell you how it was that the Book of Silence finally came to Duncton Wood.
You have waited well and patiently. I fancy from your face, and even more your eyes, that you have learned much since you first came up into the High Wood and persuaded me to tell you of Privet, enabling you to scribe down the Book of Tales and then that of Duncton Rising.
How long ago it seems since you and I first talked-longer even than the tales we talked about! Does time play tricks when a mole grows old, or does he enter a new reality? Whatever... you seem to have learned a little more about life, and faith as well. And courage too, I’m sure.
No, no, tell me not of what you’ve learnt! I do not need to be told-I know; I feel it, I have heard it from others, and I see it in your face.
Now, mole, you’ve been a good companion on my journey back to the days of which I have told you, the kind that any wanderer would wish to have: attentive, intelligent, concerned, and, above all, trusting. You have dared let yourself be led by me, who am but an old mole now, and one few find time to listen to, let alone wait about for. For that I am grateful, and for your willingness to scribe down the words I speak, that others in times to come will be able to learn of these things as well.
Why then have I been so unwilling to talk to you again until now, and finish the tale you persuaded me to begin? You must know the answer to that question if you are to understand the last part of the tale I want to tell you. I have been unwilling because... because I have been afraid. I am old, I am ill now, and I fear death. I see now that this telling of a great tale to you, which concerns the final coming of the Book of Silence, is the last journey I shall ever make. I, who have journeyed so far in my life, and seen so much of moledom, and heard so many moles tell their tales, can now travel only in memory. I know that each word I speak to you now, each memory I evoke, each place I describe, each character I depict, each moment of history I recount, is one more step I shall never retrace. In speaking now to you I talk away the last moments of my life.
Yet now I see that if the mole is to know the Silence he or she must make this final sacrifice: must cast off the past, turn away from memories both good and bad, and face unflinchingly the present moment. Now, now,
now
is when we live; and we must strive not use our past as defence against the present. So as I talk to you and whisper out this tale that others may know it, and journey through its light and shade, I denude myself of all defence against the present terrible moment, the ‘now’ I have avoided all my life, the now which all moles seek to avoid. The now which Privet sought so long to flee from but which her whole life led towards.
I do not expect you to understand easily. You are young and can see the trees ahead, and the Stone beyond them, and the light beyond even that. Or think you can. It gives you hope, as well it might. But I... why, my sight is dim. I have barely strength now to raise my head to look for what I can no longer see.
Yet, strange as it may seem, I sometimes think I see more clearly than I ever did before. I see the trees, I see the Stone, I see its Light. Not as you may do, beyond yourself, there somewhere in the future, but here and now, about my frail paws, about this decayed leaf-litter on the ground, aye, and here within my heart.
So I am afraid because my life is ending. Just when I begin to see things that have eluded me for so long I feel a dread of the Silence I yearn for. This is what drove me away from the Stone where we first met, and where my telling to you began. Uncertain of myself, ill and lonely, I wandered off through the wood these long summer days past, avoiding company, seeking shadows, staring into tunnels that once, when I was young, I scampered down, but which today put fears into me, and strike me dumb.
Miserably, I came over here to the Eastside, ignoring the pleas of friends to move into less austere quarters, or to rest in my burrow when the winds blew cold and the days began to shorten. I have been rude to some and silent with others.
Until today. Until now...
The autumn leaves have begun to fall about me and perhaps in their going I sense something of my own departure.
No, no, don’t protest! It’ll be a relief, believe me. Aching bones are not much fun, and nor is failing sight. But despite the tiredness that autumn’s brought, I’ve rediscovered something of my old spirit, the same spirit that took me on many a journey, and makes me one of the few moles living who remember a life that to others is already history, if not legend!
Now I have a desire to see the Stone one last time, but I must confess I need somemole’s help to get me back there, the last journey I shall ever make. It is not quite as simple as putting one paw in front of the other and tottering back upslope to the Stone itself That I could just about manage by myself.
No, no... the journey that I wish to make must take in some savage moments of history, and confront some moles whose nature and confusion might easily put me off my course, if not subsume me entirely. This is where you come in. I need your youth and optimism. I need your faith. I need the hope that you still have. Then, too, I do not wish all I know to die with me. You and I began a journey together, a journey which without your coming I doubt that I would have started. Now I am ready to end that journey, and I wish to do it in your company. So if you’ll listen, and scribe down what I say just as you did before, I’ll be able to tell you of how Privet came back to our system, and how the Book of Silence was found. A story which will take us back to Duncton Stone in the way I most wish to return to it.