Duncton Quest (93 page)

But attitudes to Feverfew and Tryfan were not as friendly, and before Feverfew had pupped they were to become downright hostile.

From the first the two moles had stayed in Feverfew’s burrows which, being on the far westside of the system, were well away from its centre and near the Library. Try fan discouraged visitors, but could not prevent all contact nor change the tradition that decreed, as it did in Duncton Wood itself, that a pupping female should be watched over, lest there was a deformity of birth which needed dealing with. Few females had the will to kill their own young.

Squail, the emaciated female deputed to watch over Feverfew, at first seemed harmless enough. Like most of the females in the system she had not pupped and therefore had little to convey to Feverfew of a practical nature. This did not stop her, at every opportunity, from warning Feverfew of the pains and agonies of pupping, and the dangers too, all of which she did with a smug and disapproving I-told-you-so look, as if she took pleasure in Feverfew’s discomforts. Feverfew might have borne this well enough, for Tryfan was nearby and able to get Squail out of the way from time to time, but that Squail was a fusser, a fiddler, a meddler in another’s burrows, always poking her snout here and lifting some object there. She was a gossip, a peeker, a listener, and neither Tryfan nor Feverfew could stand her company.

Yet they had no choice but to accept her for there was precedence in such matters, and, in any case, so many other females were involved in watching over Starling that none other than Squail seemed willing to do it for Feverfew. As for whether they needed her at all, that was the only matter on which Feverfew and Tryfan disagreed, and Tryfan lost the argument.

Even then, none of this might have mattered but for the terrible fact that not long before her ward was due to pup, Squail discovered, or said she did, signs of disease on Feverfew’s flank.

Her mouth pursed, her brow furrowed into hypocritical anxiety while her eyes looked very pleased, and she said, “Humph!” in a disapproving way. Then, saying nothing more, went off to the main tunnels to discuss things with her meddlesome and ill-natured friends.

Before Tryfan had discovered what was apaw or able to stop it, those same ill-natured females came and investigated, first demanding that he left Feverfew’s burrows, and then after mutterings about “vystytacyon forfeblit” pronounced that the disease was incipient murrain and Feverfew’s pups would inevitably be “defawtes”.

“Which means what?” asked Tryfan after the old hags had gone and he had got Feverfew to calm down. But Feverfew could not bring herself to say, and it was Spindle who translated the word into mole: deformities.

Now a shadow hung over what had been a happy burrow, and Squail positively fluffed up with the drama and tension of it all, the I-told-you-so look ever more triumphant in her puffy eyes. Yet Feverfew refused to dismiss Squail as if fearful that that would only increase the doubts and hostilities she felt; but then she would cry inconsolably, and Tryfan felt helpless and concerned.

As the final days went by the disease, which looked to Tryfan alarmingly like scalpskin, and one of a very virulent sort, got worse. Dry skin spread across Feverfew’s flank in a matter of days, and then cracked and opened bloodily, and her face thinned with worry and she seemed unable to accept comfort from Tryfan as, becoming more tired and strained, she began to settle in the birth burrow where no male must go.

It was about then, when he was at a loose end, that Tryfan one day came across Mayweed on the westside, wandering about and lost in thought. He was, he explained, exploring....

The fact was that none of Tryfan’s party had really explored the system at all prior to his recovery at the end of February. They had been too weak, or, when they had got better, too concerned watching over him to go exploring.

Even Mayweed, never a mole to crouch still when a little bit of exploration was possible, had stayed close by until Feverfew’s coming and even after that had been reluctant to wander far until Tryfan had recovered.

So it was not until March that Mayweed had started going off once more to explore tunnels long since abandoned by the Wen moles themselves, and set as his objective the task of finding the burrows, if they still existed, of the great Dunbar himself.

The Wen moles put up some token resistance to this enterprise but soon gave up, and some even offered suggestions to him as to where these might be. It was a sign of the system’s decline that none had ever bothered to look, and that even when they thought about it, none was much interested. But one thing seemed certain, and all agreed about it, that Dunbar’s burrows would be on the westside, facing in the direction of Uffington.

The reason for Mayweed’s interest, which soon overtook the earlier enthusiasm he had shown for the texts of the Library, was the haunting memory he had of the sounds – calls and summons, more like – carried by the walls in the ancient tunnels they had found on their way into the Wen, where Rowan’s sister Haize had died.

“Mayweed remembers that, Mayweed thinks there might be more of that, Mayweed desires to hear that again!” he had told Spindle.

So off he went into the Wen tunnels to explore and find out what he could. As tunnels went they certainly had a style of their own. They were smaller than the tunnels in more modern systems, and sometimes a mole had to duck low to get into a burrow off a tunnel. They were well made and must once have had remarkable windsound for even now they still carried an echo well and gave a mole a sense of where he was, as good tunnels should. Other mole movements travelled like well-made whispers, clear, distinct yet not intrusive.

They were quite complex, turning here and there, splitting off into high and lower levels, making use of the gravel and flint of that soil in an archaic way, so that a mole felt he had travelled back in time.

The communal tunnels had clearly once been well used and, though dusty and ruinous now, their corners were well polished from the passage of moles’ flanks, and the steps from one level to another rounded and worn.

As Mayweed explored he found that the tunnels to the north of the westside were older, and even found some seal-ups which, when broken into, revealed that single moles had been sealed in where they died. With mounting hope he had explored that area and yet had finally found nothing.

It was on such a day of disappointment when Mayweed must have wandered near Feverfew’s burrows and that Tryfan and he met for the first time for several days. Tryfan was glad to see him, for he was growing tired of the pupping process, Squail’s meddling, and the expectation that he should crouch down and patiently do nothing.

“Paternal Sir, nearly, humble old me can’t do much that’s useful at the moment either. Overextended Starling has no use for me now, Spindle can’t see further than his snout as he learns old mole from Paston, and you and fecund Feverfew are otherwise engaged! So Mayweed wanders and seeks a dream.”

“When you find it, Mayweed, let me know. I would like to see Dunbar’s burrows if they exist – which I doubt.”

“Mayweed will, terrific Tryfan, Mayweed will!”

“Feverfew is near to pupping now,” said Tryfan, heavily.

“Mayweed wishes her well,” said Mayweed grandly, “and hopes pups will be a fitting prelude to your long years with her.”

“Prelude? Bit late for preludes.”

“Mayweed may be single, auspicious Sir, and Mayweed may be humble, but he is not a fool. Mating is a prelude.”

“To what?”

Mayweed shrugged. “Something better,” he said. “Mayweed would definitely like to know what, but doesn’t. Mayweed is exceedingly ignorant about such things but intends to improve in time.”

“Got your eye on a female then?” said Tryfan with a grin, and feeling better for Mayweed’s company.

Mayweed smiled in a confident way.

“Long term is Mayweed’s way, like life itself. You put a paw forward on the Slopeside one day and you find yourself in a tunnel in the Wen the next day, as it were. That’s long term. Now Mayweed thinks of pairing and tomorrow it may happen. Long term, very. As for your droll question, grand Tryfan, the honest answer is “No!” I have not the precise female in mind as yet. But when I meet her I shall know, and you’ll be the second to be told.”

Later that same day, when Tryfan had gone back to Feverfew’s burrows to see if he was needed, Heath ambled over to see Mayweed and said, “I know what you’re looking for.”

“So does your humble servant,” replied Mayweed, “but it doesn’t help. Knowing is not quite the same thing as
finding.
Mayweed wishes it were.”

“Well chum, what I’m trying to say is I know where there’s some old tunnels. Very old, very comfortable. I know because I lived in them and would be still if I had not been discovered minding my own business and having a quiet worm out on the surface and enjoying the prospect of spring when your friend and mine, Starling, came along.”

“Is the magical Madam near to her big day, wonders Mayweed delicately?” said Mayweed.

“If you mean is she near pupping your guess is as good as mine since I can’t get a snout into her tunnels edgeways but that some grinning old female comes up and tells me to get lost.”

“Then take me, hapless Heath, to these old tunnels you found and let’s see what humbleness himself can make of them!”

“You’re on,” said Heath, turning eastwards.

“Forgive me Sir, twice over, but you’re going eastward.”

“That’s where the tunnels you want to see are.”

“Describe them, hopeful Heath.”

Heath did so, telling Mayweed that they were almost identical in form to the remnant of the other ancient system in the Wen, and that they had chamber after chamber of wall scribings which made strange sounds.

“Er – ahm – Mayweed wishes briefly to thump his head very hard on this tunnel roof, Sir.” Which he did, and then looked ruefully round in a generally westward direction as if to take in at one glance all the myriad of tunnels he had wasted his time exploring. “Mayweed is now ready, Sir, though if the tunnels you lead him to are definitely the right ones, which they sound to be, he may well be moved to thump his stupid head again.”

They went on a long perambulating sort of route which took in several stops for food and a laze in the sun before plunging below ground on the far eastside and then by various twofoot ducts, culverts and ancient tunnels, to another stretch of grass wasteland overlooking the Wen.

The moment Mayweed went down into its tunnels he saw he was much nearer something very old, and, even better, that the shape and cut of the tunnels was indeed almost identical to those in which they had found Haize’s body. But since they were not overlain by a twofoot structure, and since evidently Heath had lived up there for a season or two, the entrances were open and the tunnels lit.

“There’s plenty of them,” said Heath, “and they’re pretty old....”

But Mayweed was hardly listening. Instead he was staring here and there eagerly, fascinated by what he saw. The tunnels linked a series of chambers and the further into their gloomy depths he went, the more fascinated he became.

“If you don’t mind, Mayweed, I’d prefer not to come with you....”

Heath’s voice receded in the distance behind him, echoing strangely among the ancient corrugations and scribings on the wall of the chamber he was in. The tunnel was curiously contorted and confusing, and Mayweed had to pause and focus fully on where he was before he realised he had taken a turn left and gone down a level and had to retrace his steps very carefully to get back to where Heath was.

“Ah! I was saying,” said Heath, relieved to see him, “that I don’t much like the tunnels you’re going into now. They make strange noises at strange times – I know because I could hear them sometimes. So I just stayed up near the surface in the tunnels where we came in, and very comfortable they were too.”

“You never explored, helpless Sir?” said Mayweed.

“No way,” said Heath. “It’s the simple life for me, no complications. Anyway you’ll get lost, I nearly did.”

“One thing, Sir, one thing only, is Mayweed certain of: humble he does not get lost. Mislays himself occasionally, scares himself rigid often, but lost never. So hesitant Heath had better stay here while Mayweed goes exploring. He will return.”

“Well, let’s hope he does. Heath won’t hesitate to bugger off if he feels like it.”

Mayweed smiled unctuously: “Heath, Sir, will do as Heath must, Mayweed will do as he must, but if all moles did likewise moledom might as well not exist. Pathetic Mayweed suggests Heath thinks about that before he leaves, as Mayweed would like his companionship on the way back!”

With that Mayweed disappeared into the tunnels while Heath, grumbling now and then about freedom and liberty, settled down to wait.

Dusk came, and with it the sounds of ancient moles singing down in those tunnels. Night came, and the sound of females laughing. Early dawn came and youngsters called, anxious. Morning came and a tired female’s paws dragged among those chambers as if she was making her final journey to the birth burrow. Heath felt hungry, but he waited. Late morning came and a mole’s pawsteps came out of those tunnels and then, a little later, Mayweed finally reappeared.