Duncton Quest (43 page)

Tryfan took him to the very base of the Stone while the others fell back like guardians around a place of holy rite. They saw Mayweed leaning against Tryfan, and they saw Tryfan raise himself to stare at the Stone.

“Guide me,” he whispered up to its heights. “Help those who suffer on this special night for it is the Longest Day, the shortest night, and yours is the power to help a mole who is hurting and adowned.”

Then was Tryfan silent, waiting for guidance, letting his mind free as Boswell had taught him, trusting the Stone. Nomole knows how long that Silence was, not even Spindle who was there and part of it. But in it peace came slowly and settled on Harrowdown and Tryfan lay Mayweed down and turned to the others.

Tonight we are none of us at our home system, yet all of us think of it, and the good rituals we were taught when we were pups. In Grassington, in Wharfedale, at Seven Barrows, yes, at Buckland before the plagues; and at Duncton Wood. Yet there is one mole here who had no home system that a mole could truly call such and has been alone. Born in the autumn, born in darkness, lost until the clearers found him. And this has been his first Midsummer, this is its night.

“In days gone by, for generations now, in my own home system of Duncton Wood, this was the night when moles who had not seen the Stone before were shown it. For them was an invocation made, and it was one my father learnt of Hulver, an elder once of Duncton and as good and brave a mole as ever was. My father taught it me as he taught it to my brother Comfrey that we might teach it to others in our time.

“This night my brother will be saying it at Duncton, as I say it now for you, and especially for Mayweed who is of us, and with us, and trusted by us. And I ask him to say it now, as I say it, that his spirit may find truth in it, and his body rest, and his heart know love....”

Then Tryfan turned to Mayweed, and put his paws on Mayweed’s hurting flanks and back, the moon’s light striking them white and black, and said, “These are the words my father taught me for this night....”

While far across the vales beyond Harrowdown, far to the east, that same moon’s light fell on a different Stone, a taller Stone, the great Stone of Duncton Wood. And it fell on a mole there, an untidy vague-seeming sort of mole, but one with a face full of concern, and paws that might touch another with healing and with love.

Why Comfrey had come back up to the Stone he did not know, for the rituals of that night were over, and all was joking and jollity underground. Yet up he had come, called out he knew not why, except that somemole he knew called him, somemole he missed, somemole he loved.

But which or why he knew not at first, except that he was of the Stone and calling, and that he and his needed him.

So old Comfrey had come and crouched by the Stone and, as was his stuttering way, whispered this and that to it, and had touched it, and been patient.

But now he knew what he must do and he spoke those words Bracken had taught him and which he had said once already that night when the youngsters were gathered about. But he said them again willingly, for somewhere was another, and one who had not heard them yet, and before he spoke them he said, “Oh St-Stone, if it’s T-Tryfan that’s calling me, t-t-tell him I know, t-tell him I’m here, yes tell him that. Now l-let me see. I think I know them, always think I’ll f-forget but I d-don’t. Don’t d-dare! Now....”

Then Comfrey raised a paw to the Stone, and instinctively turned west, for that’s where the call was from, and he began to say the words allmole should say that special night of nights:

“By the shadow of the Stone,

In the shade of the night,

As they leave their burrows;

On your Midsummer Night...”

“Well,” muttered Comfrey interrupting himself, “I kn-know perfectly well they left their burrows long ago and are now asleep as their elders and betters get on with some song, b-but I have to say it aright!”

“We the moles of Duncton Stone

See our young with blessing sown...”

And there was ardour in Comfrey’s voice now and no more hesitation and he turned from the Stone and spoke the words to the west, to where, he felt sure, a mole needed the help the words gave....

“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

The grace of goodness

The grace of...”

Then, as Tryfan whispered the words far, far away his half brother Comfrey spoke them too and Mayweed began to find the strength to repeat them, and more than repeat them, to say them, stronger and stronger so that Tryfan’s voice fell away and the other moles there watched and listened in wonder as at the Stone in Harrowdown Mayweed gave to them something they would not forget. He gave them a blessing out of darkness, a blessing out of pain, and from doubt he spoke in faith....

“The grace of suffering

The grace of wisdom

The grace of true words

The grace of trust

The grace of whole-souled loveliness.

“We bathe their paws in showers of light,

We free their souls with talons of love,

We ask that they hear the silent Stone.”

So is it chronicled that Mayweed spoke, though from where he found the words, or the strength, or the Silence to so speak nomole knows. But to the east he turned, and the light was on his face and though suffering was there, there was knowledge too, and hope, and his loneliness was gone. For a moment he had heard Silence and in that moment he was healed, and the darkness of his puphood was gone from him, and he could love and trust.

Then all the moles at Harrowdown were silent, and many others across Moledom too, including good Comfrey, who watched that short night through, until when dawn came Mayweed was helped to his burrow and then the others went silently to theirs, to sleep and let a new sun shine.

Which, when it did, brought discovery of healing at Harrowdown, of Mayweed, whose hurt was gone and whose sores would dry and heal; of Smithills, whose scalpskin began to clear; and of old Willow, who found in the days that remained to her a peace that gladdened the hearts of everymole there.

Chapter Nineteen

So Midsummer passed at Harrowdown and each one of them there, even Mayweed now, was quiet and peaceful, content to wait two or three weeks longer until Tryfan decreed that it was time for them to move on from the environs of Buckland.

“But we better not wait too long,” warned Skint, “because I know the moles of the Word – nomole better than I. They’ll see our desertion as blasphemy and will not stint to find us. We’ll be outcast, which means that no system can harbour us without fear of punishment and snoutings. So we best get away before they send out orders.”

But Tryfan was cautious, arguing that the grikes had not pursued Spindle and himself very rigorously after they left Uffington, and probably the last place they would think to look now was at a little system like Harrowdown, so close to the Slopeside.

In any case, there were no signs at all of searching guardmoles or patrols and their hiding place had gone undiscovered this long, and the grikes had other things to occupy themselves with now.

Of the events by the Stone, and the healings, Tryfan said nothing and the others little, and though few of them yet knew he was a scribemole all instinctively felt his authority and accepted it. For Skint and Smithills and the others it was enough that they were free of clearing and the Slopeside, and able to make each day their own for a time.

After a day or two of rest following the healing of Mayweed, Tryfan went to Brevis and said formally, “Much have thou to teach me and there is little time.”

“What can I teach thee?” said Brevis, respectful of the younger mole, “for thou art a scribemole beyond need of my knowledge.”

“Of scribing itself canst thou teach me, for there I have yet much to learn that Boswell did not teach me.”

Which Brevis did, in that high wild place called Harrowdown, teaching all he knew to Tryfan as if there was indeed little time left and too much to learn. Long days of quiet instruction in the ancient texts of the Holy Burrows, such as Brevis was able to remember, summarise and pass on, so that the sound of talons on bark and soil filled their burrows.

It was then that Spindle persuaded Tryfan and Brevis to begin to teaching him scribing, a skill that Mayweed was allowed to learn as well; but more than that, he suggested that Tryfan should consider developing new texts which would be very different from the spiritual and academic studies that had been traditional in the Holy Burrows, and which were all that Brevis knew, important though they were.

So it was that, for a time that late June and early July, Harrowdown became the centre for rediscovering an old kind of record-keeping, one that recorded the memories and experiences of ordinary moles. It was then that Brevis himself made his
Memoranda of Grikes in Buckland
taking down in their own words the stories of Skint, Smithills and Willow, and instructing Tryfan and Spindle in the making of such accounts, and showing how a scribemole must listen to another mole, and let him or her speak their own words true without prompting or alteration.

It was then that the mole Willow dictated to Spindle, that he might practise his new skill, her
Songs and Rhymes of Wharfedale,
the finest collection of such material gathered from a single source, and a Book (for such it be) which preserves for ever the name of Willow of Wharfe.

Tryfan made several Memoranda and Briefs of his own in that rich period of scribing, the most important of which was the seminal
Teachings of Boswell, White Mole.
But there were other texts too, including the extraordinary
Escape from a Seal-up
,
The Tale of Mayweed of Buckland
which is scribed by Tryfan to Mayweed’s dictation, and
Tryfan’s first
Annals of Duncton Wood
.

Spindle was much concerned with the preservation of these texts, for he argued that they would not be able to take them safely with them when they left Harrowdown, and accordingly he showed Smithills and Skint how to create a small deep burrow for their preservation, until such time as it might be possible for them to be recovered and taken to a place worthy of them.

It was a time of extraordinary activity at Harrowdown, for each mole sensed that their time there was short and there was much to do. Each helped each other, all but Willow took their turn to watch out for danger, while Mayweed, pleased to have a role to play, began to explore the northern environs which were the slopes leading down to the Thames, in an attempt to find a quick route of escape away from the area of Buckland.

Sometime then, too, Skint and Smithills came to the two scribemoles and Skint said, “Well now, if we’re to go with you when you leave this place, it might be a good idea if you told us something of this Stone of yours, as we’ve told you what we know of the Word. Not saying we want to be believers in the Stone, but we’d be better off knowing something of it, eh Smithills?” Smithills nodded his agreement.

So it was that Tryfan made his first formal teaching of the Stone, though unwillingly, for he felt himself to be unworthy. But both Brevis and Spindle urged him to talk with Skint and Smithills, and he did so by morning and by sunlight, by evening and by dusk, and the others listened – Willow, quiet and peaceful now she was clear of the Slopeside, and Mayweed, too, staying as always a little to one side, listening from a tunnel of his own, or from some shadowed nook where he felt comfortable to be unseen.

So time passed until there came a night when the air was warm and the sky was covered in stars, and somewhere beneath them Tryfan sensed the great flowing of the