Duncton Stone (62 page)

But Hibbott came back, and Weeth left the question unanswered.

They ate and rested for a time, and talked again only much later.

“You’re some way off the path to Duncton Wood,” said Weeth.

“You know it then?”

Weeth smiled. “We’ve come from there as a matter of fact.”

“Ah!” observed Hibbott with scant interest. “Yes, it’s certainly no place to stay, from all accounts. Riddled with Newborns.”

“You could say,” said one of the followers heavily.

“But you said...” prompted Weeth, continuing his inquisition of the mole.

“I did, I did: that I was going to Duncton and in search of Privet,” rejoined Hibbott, with a faint hint of reproach in his voice. “I am, I am, but this is a pilgrimage, not an errand. I shall reach Duncton eventually I daresay, and when I stop seeking her I shall find Privet, with the Stone’s help. At this moment – and it might change on the morrow, for I am learning to think in the present – but as of now, I am still hoping I might meet the mole Rooster, for he is a friend of Privet and might advise me on how to reach her. But enough of me! I have talked too much! Yourselves, yourselves! Not mere pilgrims, it seems. Very much on an errand I should say!”

Weeth grinned. “Heading in your direction, you might say. Going up into the Wolds. But we’re travelling rather faster than you, I think.”

He gave little away, not because he distrusted Hibbott, but because Hibbott might be caught by Newborns again, Stone help him, and be forced to tell what he knew. Yet Weeth felt uncomfortable... dissembling. He would have liked to talk further to Hibbott. His account of Leamington and Thorne had been interesting enough, but his description of the female who had nursed him even more so. Thin, silent, a little more than middle-aged, peaceful...
had
she been Privet? Weeth was inclined to think so. Was this the “special thing” he had been sent to find out?

“There are others like me, you know, quite a few of us I think,” said Hibbott suddenly out of the dark, as if he had lost interest in finding out about Weeth and his friends and wished simply to spend the remaining time sharing thoughts of his own.

“Are there?” said Weeth, thinking suddenly of that female, and her cry in Quail’s den.

Hibbott’s snout, pale in the night, moved up and down as he nodded, and he came a little nearer.

“I think moledom is tired now, and wants peace. It is to Privet we look, not the others. Not the mole Maple and those like him, who perhaps you are going to. Oh, they’re needed, very much so. But we who have started our journeys already,
our
thoughts are on the Silence Privet has entered before us. There are many of us, and we travel alone. We have to, it is the only way.”

“Aren’t you afraid, mole? Alone, and Newborns about?”

It was one of the follower guards, and Weeth recognized the respect in his voice.

“No. Not in the sense you mean. I was; for a long time I was. But the Stone is ahead of me and I see its Light, and I hear its Silence and I know it protects me. I cannot hide from it, so why hide from the Newborns or anymole-else? I help nomole doing so, least of all myself. Sometimes I meet another like myself and I am comforted and feel less alone. Often such moles have no idea they are pilgrims.” He smiled. Weeth was sure Hibbott’s eyes were fixed acutely on his own.

“I’m tired,” said Hibbott quite suddenly, “and my snout is burning from too much sun. Tomorrow I shall stay in the shade. And by then you will probably be gone, as silently as you came.”

“Aye,” conceded one of them.

“Well then, watch out for Privet for me. And if you reach her before I do, tell her that Hibbott of Ashbourne Chase seeks her. Watch out for me too, for I too am heading for Duncton Stone. We all are, all of us travellers.”

“Mole,” whispered Weeth gruffly, “will you say a prayer? We would be obliged.”

“Well, I... I may be a pilgrim but I am not much of a one for saying prayers with others. I’m not sure I know how. The words, I mean.”

“Try, mole,” said Weeth.

Hibbott stared at the stars for a time as all of them settled down into a comfortable stance.

“It’s not just us four, is it, Stone?” he began. “Therefore, help us all, wherever we may be. Help us...”

Weeth heard no more, for ahead, or above in the night sky perhaps, or across the darkened vale, he thought he glimpsed for a moment the Stone’s Light, and he fancied he heard the whisper of the Stone’s Silence, and he knew that even he, even cunning Weeth, was one of those whom Hibbott had described, who were travellers alone, as that lost female had been.

“Help us...” whispered Weeth as dawn came, and he and his companions quietly rose and left Hibbott of Ashbourne Chase soundly asleep behind them; and as they went Weeth glanced back and for the first time had an idea of what that special thing might be that Maple had bid him seek out. It was, as Hibbott had suggested, that there were many more like him, many many more, and together they would be an army more powerful by far than the forces of Newborn and follower combined, and their mission was for peace, and would make the prosecution of war redundant almost before it started.

“Help us...” said Weeth again, and he felt he had never spoken two words more fervently.

Chapter Thirty

Maple now held absolute sway in the Wolds, and Newborn fears concerning the followers’ true strengths were far more justified than even Supreme Commander Squilver realized. For not only were the Wolds now entirely in Maple’s paws, and the many systems there well protected from the excesses of the Newborn Crusades that continued beyond their boundaries, but increasingly through the summer years he had subtly extended the followers’ power.

Even a mole as well informed as Squilver could be forgiven for underestimating the followers’ strength, for unlike the Newborns, who were concentrated in important systems, and linked by aggressive and visible patrols, the followers were dispersed and rarely seen together in force. The small group of which Arvon was in charge, although an elite, was one of several similar ones which operated more or less secretly throughout that summer, gathering information concerning Newborn strengths and weaknesses, and, increasingly, collecting evidence of their mounting atrocities.

Maple no longer doubted that in the end the followers would triumph over the Newborns, for their cause was right, and such evidence as he had showed that Quail was losing control of the Crusades he had begun. In that case, Maple knew, a strong military leader, with a disciplined but fair force, could establish his authority far more quickly than moles generally realized. Time and circumstance seemed on the followers’ side.

“But what concerns me,” said Maple, speaking to his most able and charismatic commander, the Siabodian warrior Ystwelyn, “is what happens if a powerful leader emerges on the Newborn side who does what I would do: gets rid of Quail, and establishes a more rigorous command, building on their considerable strengths of force and territory, and begins to repair some of the weaknesses.”

“Aye,” answered Ystwelyn, “it’ll make our task a lot harder if that happens. That mole Thorne...”

“Exactly – Thorne. You remember when we confronted him across the vale at Rowton? You remember I said that he looked formidable, and not like the usual conniving weak-willed Newborn Brother Commanders we’ve come to expect?”

“Yes, mole, I do,” responded Ystwelyn.

They were talking out on the eastern slopes of Bourton, the system in the centre of the Wolds of which the inestimable Stow, one of Maple’s toughest and most reliable commanders, was the Elder. Nomole knew the Wolds better than he, nor loved its moles and landscape more, and to him had been entrusted the thankless task of watching over Rooster, and hiding him away somewhere in the High Wolds where no Newborn could reach him.

Ystwelyn had toured the followers’ various encampments in the past few days and had returned late the night before to brief Maple about the morale and readiness of the followers. Now he and Maple had begun their talk in a shady nook, a river flowing blue and leisurely down the vale below them, and the sun growing warmer by the hour. The Siabod mole eyed Maple expectantly, for he sensed his return had been well-timed, and that in his calm and careful way, Maple was talking generally on familiar themes before getting down to business.

“Yes, I remember Thorne well. As you say, a formidable mole.”

Maple nodded, only half listening, turning from Ystwelyn to a travel-stained journeymole who waited respectfully nearby, one eye on Maple, the other on some food he was hungrily finishing off.

“Take your time, mole,” said Maple cheerfully, “you’ve earned it!”

The journeymole gratefully finished his meal, tidied himself up a bit, and then came on over to them.

“I needed that, sir! No food for two days!”

“You’ve done well and you’ll be able to go and get some sleep soon. But before you do... you’ve told me most of what I need to know but it never hurts to hear it twice, and Commander Ystwelyn likes to hear things at first paw.”

“Name’s Radish, sir, of Dorchester way,” he said, looking at Ystwelyn. He was a typical journeymole – stocky, big-pawed, scarred from scrapes he had been in, and with an independence in his eyes typical of such moles. He was older than both of them but clearly a disciplined, loyal follower, and one not intimidated by meeting the two most powerful commanders. He barked rather than spoke his words, as if there was no time for full sentences and he might have to dash off somewhere at any moment, so he might as well get on with it. But this curious manner was alleviated by the pleasing soft burr of his southern accent.

“One of Maella’s journeymoles, then?” said Ystwelyn, naming the only senior female commander amongst the followers, who had originally led a band of moles up from the south-west, done sterling work on the eastward slopes of the Wolds, and in the high summer years of July had been deputed by Maple to reconnoitre the dangerous area south of the Wolds and west of Duncton – a Newborn stronghold dominated by Avebury and notorious Buckland, both firmly in Newborn paws.

“Aye, sir. Heading here but got diverted. Long story, told Commander Maple here. But a lucky break. Met the mole Weeth, sir.”

Ystwelyn’s eyes lit with excitement and he glanced appreciatively at Maple.

“Near entrance to Duncton, just by chance. Joined them on a jaunt to Banbury, sir, at Arvon’s suggestion, sir.

Tagged along to help, observe and report. This I am now doing.”

He rattled off his story in simple direct terms, passing on all he had learnt about the state of affairs with Pumpkin in Duncton, and Quail in Banbury.

“Didn’t see this Quail myself, sir, seeing as I’m not trained in that line of night work. Waited as was ordered, and when Arvon, Weeth and the others came back in one piece, well, I was impressed, sir. Each to his own. Gave me the willies what I heard of Quail and that.

“I was to tell you that Weeth is two or three days behind me, no more. On his way back right now. He guessed you’d be in Bourton by now so he’ll not lose time finding you.”

“What’s he dallying for, mole?”

Radish grinned. “Said you’d ask that and told me to reply, quote: ‘Tell Maple I’m still looking for the special something he was hoping for, he’ll understand.’ End of quote. I think I got that right.”

Maple laughed and said, “He didn’t have to stay away until he found it, but that’s Weeth. Three days, you say?”

“No more. Maybe less, though I travel fast and he had a couple of guards with him which slows things up, one being quicker than three.”

Maple nodded. “Now tell the commander what you heard about Thorne.”

“Yes, sir. Former commander of Cannock is now established at Leamington and has control of the east and north. It’s said that a Brother Rolt, Thripp’s aide, is with him, and there’s rumours of Chervil, Thripp’s son, being there too. Just rumours, no more.”

Ystwelyn looked at Maple, serious. Thorne, Rolt, and Chervil... a formidable cabal of moles, and one capable of taking power from Quail. Things were moving fast, perhaps too fast, in precisely the direction Maple feared, for such a grouping of Newborns would surely have little difficulty wresting power from Quail if his leadership was as flawed and failing as they thought.

“When did you hear this, mole?”

“Days ago, sir, from Arvon himself.”

“And he got it from Newborns, I suppose?”

“No, sir, not Newborns.”

He looked a little discomfited, as if dealing with something unfamiliar and disliked. This was a military journey-mole, and he did not like things he could make no sense of.

“Er, he got it from what are called ‘pilgrims’, sir. Meaning moles of no fixed abode, sir.”

“‘No fixed abode’?” repeated Maple, smiling.

“Exactly, sir. Wander around they do, sir, praying and that. But a useful source of information it seems, as Arvon has found. They come from and go to places others don’t. Find things out. Not of this world, a pilgrim isn’t. Have met some. Don’t talk sense. Unreliable. Inclined to wander off, like raw recruits. So I don’t place much reliance on these reports from Leamington, speaking personally; but I pass on what I’m told and that’s what Arvon and Weeth told me,
sir
.”

Radish talked some more, but he had reported the main points, and once he had rested he could tell what remained – detailed dispositions of forces south of Duncton, and much he had learned about Buckland and Avebury – to one of Ystwelyn’s subordinates, trained to scribe down such things.

“Well done, mole. Now, take that rest you’ve earned, and be easy for a day or two. But after that...”

“Yes, sir?”

Despite his tiredness Radish spoke eagerly. Allmole at Bourton guessed that matters were moving apace and soon decisions would be made and campaign orders given.

“I’ll be ready, sir!”

“Oh! Radish?”

“Sir?” said the journeymole, turning back to Maple. Ystwelyn listened carefully, recognizing the sharp and alert tone in Maple’s voice, and the attention in his eyes. Maple had spotted something he had not.

“These pilgrims. You say you have met a few of them?”