Duncton Tales (41 page)

But none did, and Hamble and Privet and their few friends were left with bleak looks in their eyes, and faces that had aged more in a few days than in all the moleweeks past; and would age still more in the moleweeks to come. Whilst into their hearts had come a restlessness and impatience whose satisfaction could no more be found within the confines of the system in which they had been born.

But now to the system and to both these moles came a new worry. Sickness began to go through Crowden like rank mist across a heath which, when it has gone, leaves the heather wan and fading. Once again the mood of the system swung, for none doubted that the sickness was the beginning of a form of plague, and contact with the sick refugees had brought it into the system.

It affected the older moles most, as sickness always does at autumn’s end, and suddenly both Hamble and Privet had new and more immediate concerns than refugees, for Tarn and Shire were both struck down. While Sward, if not sick, became distracted, his eyes rheumy; he wandered away towards the Moors, saying he was off on a journey to find a text. At first Privet got Hamble to stop him — he would not listen to her — but soon they realized it was all talk, and after a short time he always came back again, muttering that he had not found ‘it’, but he knew where it was, he did.

Of more concern was Shire, whose sickness filled her with lassitude, and whose voice, always so disciplined and clear, took on a querulous tone. She began to stay in her burrow and had reluctantly to accept Privet’s help with food and grooming, which she did with venomous and unpardonable criticism, while calling all the time for Lime. But Lime did not want to come, seeming to take her mother’s illness as a personal affront, worried, too, that
she
would catch the sickness herself.

In their different ways Privet and Lime discovered how shocking it was to find that a parent who has always been there and seemed so strong may in a matter of weeks or even days become weak and changed. It was as if the wall of a great strong chamber where a mole has felt so safe had suddenly collapsed, and the bitter winds and rain of the world driven in. This Privet saw more clearly than her selfish sister, and for all the anger and hatred she felt for Shire, she felt her world was on the edge of ruin now, and a change was coming of which she was afraid; yet she did not want to prevent it.

Meanwhile, in the Library, moles began to consult Privet directly, and she realized that despite her youth the training her mother had so ruthlessly given her, and her natural ability with texts, had made her indispensable. Caught as she now was between these growing duties, and caring for her ungrateful mother, Privet retreated into days and weeks of nothing but work, and hurrying along winter-bound tunnels to one onerous task or another.

Her only relief from Shire came not from Lime, who stayed as clear as she could from her former home burrow and avoided caring for her mother, but from Sward, who once he recovered himself, began for the first time in years coming by the burrows to help out with food and nesting material. At least with him Shire did not shout and criticize, and when he was there poor Privet was able to get some sleep. It was the first time she had ever seen a show of concern between her parents, or any sign that once, however briefly, they had cared for each other.

But meanwhile the sickness — moles now openly called it murrain — afflicted others in the system, including Hamble’s parents Fey and Tarn. For days they lingered near to death, suffering much, yet each striving even then to help the other.

One day at the end of October Hamble came to Privet in the Library, and seeing how he looked she went straight to him.

“My mother died this morning,” he whispered, “she just turned away and died. My father … he would speak with you, Privet. He too is weak and I do not think will last the day. Others have died these few days past, and more will die. Privet, it is murrain, isn’t it?”

“I will come to him now,” said Privet; ‘he was like a father to me when I was young.” As for the murrain, she did not know. She supposed it was.

She found Tarn weak but clear-headed, his benign and gentle face warming to see her, his paws squeezing at hers. Her father, his oldest friend, was nearby, and he grinned manically when Privet appeared.

Then, winking, he said, “The old fool thinks he’s sick. Eh, Tarn? He’s not so ill he couldn’t think to call us here.”

“My dear,” said Tarn, his voice barely more than a whisper, “I want to tell you about your mother’s coming here. Your father prefers not to talk of such things, never would, but he can listen and you’ll make him talk when the time’s right. Ask him about the Testimony your grandmother Wort scribed, and which he found at Hilbert’s Top. Aye! That’s pertinent!”

“Pertinent my arse!” said Sward.

“Well then,” continued Tarn as best he could, “tell her how we failed to keep our promise to look after Shire. We did, you know. Yet maybe … we fulfilled our task through Privet here. Aye, Sward!
That’s
pertinent and damn your arse.”

So Tarn talked, rambling, worried, feeling he had failed to keep some secret promise he had made to the Stone long, long ago. He dared talk more of Wort and told Privet how she had been concerned for Shire, of the sacrifice she had made, of what she must have given up. Of all that long-distant past he told, when Shire was but a pup and he but one Longest Night old.

Until at last he told how she had scribed in the earth at Crowden’s southern portal, her name, and the names of the seven ancient systems: Uffington, Avebury, Rollright, Fyfield, Siabod, Caer Caradoc and …

“‘… and Duncton Wood.’ That was the one, my dear, the one that there was a strange light about, and which stayed clear as day in the earth: Duncton Wood. Remember it, Sward?”

“I do,” said Sward, “old friend, I do.”

Then Tarn told of how Shire wanted to scribe down ‘Beechenhill’, but
that
Librarian Sans would not allow.

“I stanced there and made a prayer, as did your father too, and knew one day I must tell a mole those two names and how they seemed to speak out to me. Well, I never did tell Shire, nor can I now, but you, my dear … you I can tell. Those names were scribed for you …’ he began to cough, as a mole near death coughs, deep, and long and terrible.

Yet when he had calmed again he grasped Privet’s paw and said, “You remember when you were a pup they said you looked like Wort?”

Privet nodded, tears in her eyes, as much for love of Tarn and to see him fade, as for memory of how she was hurt when young.

“I came to you and asked if it was true, and you said it was not.”

Tarn nodded feebly.”

“Twas the only lie I ever told in my whole life, and I’ll unsay it now. I saw Wort with my own eyes. These months past as I have seen you become adult, and your face begin to show the cares and passions of the world, I have seen that you look more and more as your grandmother did. But mole, the Wort I saw was not the Eldrene all moles love to hate, but a mole who had learned of life, who had had courage, who had turned finally towards the Stone. A mole who gave up what she thought was the best thing she ever made, which was Shire. But you, my dear, might have been much closer to her. Why, had she been younger when you were born and if circumstances had allowed her to live here as Sward was allowed, you might have been closest to her of all. ’Tis often the way with grandparents and grandpups. Aye, you would have been closest of all. It is an honourable heritage you have and no bad thing to look like such a mole.”

“Yes,” whispered Sward, who saw that his friend was near death, “you were always the one like Wort, my dear, same eyes, same pointy snout, same
quality
.”

“Now he’s talking!” declared Tarn. “Said he would!”

His voice faded and he drifted towards sleep, but his paw kept its tight hold on Privet’s.

He started back into consciousness quite suddenly.

“Promise me something, my dear.”

“I’ll try,” whispered Privet.

“When you can, when it’s safe, leave Crowden. Don’t get stuck here as Shire was, down in the Library. There’s places in moledom you’ve never dreamed of, and tasks you never knew you could do. Find a dream to give you courage to leave Crowden and the Moors. Go to Duncton Wood, my dear, that’s dream enough for anymole, and when we saw your mother scribe it there was a light a-shimmering over it, like the Stone’s blessed Light. Promise me you’ll make it your dream.”

“’Tis so far,” said Privet, “too far for a mole like me.”

“Then go to Beechenhill, for they say that’s not so far away. Go and scribe a prayer for your grandmother, whose greatest shame was there, yet whose life began there as well. But one way or another, promise me you’ll make a dream to carry you off from here.”

With tears in her eyes Privet looked wildly about the hushed burrow, first at Sward and then at Hamble, who smiled for a moment at her, and nodded his head in assent.

“I’ll find a dream,” said Privet. I’ll try to find courage to leave.”

“Yesss …” sighed Tarn, closing his eyes and seeming satisfied, “yes. Now, I would talk with good Sward, and then with my son. Goodbye, my dear, I did my best for you, and Sward still has time to do his!”

If there was a twinkle in the old mole’s eyes as he said this, Privet did not see it, for she was sobbing, and could not but embrace Tarn with gentle passion, for she knew he was near the Silence now and he had spoken to her his last.

“I will leave you with your father now, Hamble,” she said at last, pulling away. She knew in that moment that all her life Hamble would be her friend, for what they had shared in the moleweeks past, with the grike refugees, and now with their dying parents, was bringing them out into a world that was alien and strange, and was bonding them for ever in ways that could never be sundered, whatever happened to their lives.

Before she left the chamber she went to Hamble and briefly he held her close, and she knew he was thinking the same thoughts. When she turned away from him to leave, there were tears on her fur where his face had been.

Chapter Twenty

Two days later, with Hamble at his side in the hushed burrow, Tarn quietly died, his kindly spirit drifting to the Silence as the seed of rose-bay willow-herb drifts past a watching mole and out of sight. No sooner had the news of his death reached the system as a whole than Shire, too, went into a final decline, her mind wandering and much distressed as Privet and Sward both tried to comfort her and relieve her misery.

She called continually for Lime, who after one more reluctant appearance did not come, declaring that everymole knew now that the sickness was virulent murrain and therefore infectious, and moles must let those affected by it die alone.

“It’s your
mother
, Lime, and she calls for you,” said Privet.

“I owe nothing to her or to you either, come to that,” replied Lime. “Do you think
she
would have gone to her mother, our grandmother, Wort, if to do so meant risking death? I don’t think she would and for the same reason I’ll not go to her. Anyway, parents must expect their offspring to fend for themselves and I’m staying over at the East End. Also …”

“Yes, Lime?”

These days Privet had the measure of her sister and was not so intimidated by her as she once was.

“I think I may be with pup. A late-autumn litter. I must think of them.”

Faced by what was most likely a lie or half-truth Privet could think of no more to say. And so it was that when, as November started, Shire’s last hours came, Lime was nowhere to be seen despite the pathetic call from her mother: ‘Lime, Lime, where are you, my love? You’re the only one I want.”

Privet watched over her as Sward attended to her final needs with surprising gentleness. She heard the wandering voice, and saw the bleak puzzlement because Lime had not come. Then Shire seemed to slip back slowly through her life, shouting pathetically at Privet as if she were still a pup, crooning over a Lime she seemed to think present again, but now no more than a few days old.

Shire’s gaunt face grew gaunter by the hour, and since she had not eaten for days it seemed that her body withered and grew thin before their eyes. As for her eyes and face, they expressed more and more that worry and fear they had held all her life, as if whatever it was she had feared had come now to visit her.

Yet suddenly all changed and her face relaxed, and her eyes gained a lightness, even a joy, Privet could never have guessed could be there.

“Are you taking me back to the Moors?” she said, her voice soft and trusting like a pup’s. The question was asked of Privet, to whom throughout her illness as throughout her life she had always been unpleasant, showing not the slightest gratitude for anything she had done.

But now all was changed. She reached out for Privet’s paw for the first time Privet could remember, and when she found it her touch, so unfamiliar to her daughter, was as light as the look in her eyes.

“Are you?” she said.

Privet hesitated, looked at Sward who nodded, and she said, “Yes …”

Shire spoke in whispers, of places, it seemed, she remembered as a pup; some of them she liked and others she feared, but in all of them she felt safe in the company of the mole to whom she thought she spoke.

“It’s the Eldrene Wort,” whispered Sward, during a time when Shire slept fretfully, “she thinks you’re Wort. So speak to her as if you are. She cannot have long now and it cannot hurt. If you are willing, that is … Stone knows she has done little enough for thee.”

A look of resignation came over Privet’s face and she said, “I’ll try, but I don’t know how Wort spoke, or what of. I never knew her, Father.”

“Didn’t you?” he said vaguely.

Shire stirred and smiled and closed her eyes again, her paw in Privet’s.

“You didn’t either,” said Privet.

“Oh, but I did in a way,” he said suddenly, “yes, I did. I …’ and he grinned and said, “I won’t be long. I have something for you now. Yes, I have. For you, now, this is the right time. It has long troubled me.”