Duncton Wood (5 page)

But not a single elder, including Bindle, was listening any more, for as Hulver spoke these words Mandrake stirred; as Hulver’s wise old voice carried the pride of his challenge to go to the Stone, the massive form of Mandrake loomed forward and up, until it seemed to hover above old Hulver like an owl above its prey. Each mole there crouched in frozen fear, snouts still and almost senseless, for they felt the power of Mandrake hke owls’ talons on them. Each seemed to feel an anger and terrible rage emanating from him directed at them personally. Hulver stopped in midsentence and looked round, then up at Mandrake. And Hulver backed away, his words seeming suddenly nothing but dry beech leaves in the wind. “There will be no trek to the Stone,” said Mandrake in a voice they were to get used to as time went on, a voice that made a mole absolutely certain that what it said would be
would be.
A voice that shriveled opposition in the bud. A voice whose impulse seemed evil itself.

“No mole will go, not one. If any try, I shall crush them against the Stone itself. Their blood will dry on the Stone as a warning to any others who might try, in their foolishness, to do what some of you already realize has no purpose. The Midsummer trek will not be.” Then he raised his talons massively above old Hulver as if about to strike him dead. The silence in the elder burrow at that moment was broken only by a gasp of horror from Bindle, while Rune gazed with pleasure at the scene.

But Mandrake only spread his poised talons wide in what suddenly seemed to be a blessing on them all, a friendly gesture, and he chuckled deeply as if the whole thing were but a minor difference between friends. “Come now, Hulver,” he said, his talons resting hugely for a moment on the old mole’s shoulder, “let us not argue any more. All here respect you, most of all myself. But times change and traditions must go, and I think all of us but you now agree that the Midsummer trek should be held no more, for good and honorable reasons.”

He looked round at them all and they nodded, though it would have been a brave mole indeed who shook his head at that moment. “Good! Then let us talk of this no more and proceed to other things.” With that the argument was over and the other elders sighed with relief. Some even laughed or chuckled as Mandrake had done, so great was their sense of release.

Hulver returned to his place next to Rune, muttering and miserable, the only one there without a smile in his voice. No younger mole was going to jolly
him
into accepting something he disagreed with and which seemed like a death in the system. But he had no more strength to argue. Bindle, too, was unhappy, but not so much because of the loss of the Midsummer trek as that, in some way, he felt he had let his friend down. “Times change,” he kept saying to himself, but his eyes stayed clear of Hulver’s. The others chattered, carried along by Mandrake’s dark will and their own weakness, and phrases like “Of course he’s right” and “The soil
is
very worm-scarce, as Burrhead says” and “The trek was always a bore, anyway” filled the burrow. Even Bindle began to think this, adding as his own particular justification “If we are going to build up the system we’ve got to create
new
rituals, haven’t we?”

Of them all only one. Rune, saw Mandrake’s intervention for what it truly was: a demonstration of power rather than persuasion. He welcomed it, for here at last was a mole strong enough to bring the kind of trouble to the system that he would need himself to gain the power he had always wanted. Rune knew that what they had just seen was the end of Hulver as a force in the system, and it was done without a talon scratch. As the other elders chattered together in their relief that the crisis seemed over, Rune took his opportunity to leave his place next to Hulver, where, many meetings ago, he had stationed himself, and crouched down next to Mandrake, in whose shadow he now began to thrive; an evil coupling of moles whose power and ruthlessness now began to spread through the system like black ivy on a dying elm.

So Mandrake came to power in the system. By the time Bracken was born the following spring, his power was absolute and unquestioned. Inevitably other, weaker moles clustered to his support, enjoying the prestige and power that allegiance to him gave. Moles like Burrhead, who under a strong, true leader might have been a force for good, now became one of Mandrake’s toughest hench-moles. His dominance on the westside made him especially useful to Mandrake, who flattered him with words, asked his advice (or seemed to) and even visited him in his burrow; Dogwood willingly gave his support, too, telling Mekkins pragmatically, “If you can’t beat’em, join’em.”

Bindle never became a Mandrake henchmole but slipped away from the elder burrow and relinquished his rights as an elder, deliberately making his peace with Mandrake so that he would be left alone. “I’m getting old now,” he told Mandrake, “and you need younger moles as elders these days.” Bindle went back to the eastside and kept out of everymole’s way. He felt ashamed and had neither the courage nor the heart to go and see his friend Hulver. So it was through weakness that Mandrake’s evil spread, souring even the love between two old and harmless moles.

As for Hulver, Mandrake let him live. He may have lost power at the June elder meeting, but Mandrake knew that many still loved and respected him and there was no virtue in killing him yet. Better to wait and choose a time when Hulver’s death would be seen as a natural end to the Ancient System and its ways, whose end seemed to be Mandrake’s main intent. They even let Hulver say the Midsummer Blessing that June, though he said it alone, for no other mole joined him – except Rune, who watched secretly from the shadows.

Rune stayed outside the Stone clearing – being too near the Stone disturbed him – but near enough to watch Hulver, solitary and old, go through the ancient celebration of Midsummer Night. He whispered its magic words for the Stone to hear, raising his paws so that the strength of the Stone could come into him for another year.

A soft wind ran among the trees, shaking the beech leaves so that their shiniest side caught the moon’s light like rippling water in the sky. The moon shone, too, on Hulver’s fur, which seemed new and smooth in the light. But where Rune crouched in the twisting crook of a huge gray beech-tree root that ran like a thick snake into the chalk soil, there was thick, black shadow, which only thickened when he stirred. His talons dug into the beech root as he watched Hulver, for he itched to kill him there and then.

Somewhere in the moonlit trees high above them, a tawny owl called, and Rune shivered. But Hulver, safe in the circle of trees around the Stone, seemed not to notice and carried on his chant. Midnight passed as Hulver raised his paws in a final supplication to the Stone, saying with happiness the last words of the Midsummer ritual.

He was relieved that for another twelve moleyears, at least, its words had been spoken.

But Hulver had not quite finished. He turned from the Stone and faced the west toward the Holy Burrows of Uffington. He might never go there himself, he might never have had the courage to try, but he hoped his prayers might reach that holy place. So now, with the Stone behind him to give him strength, he added a final petitionary prayer to the ritual, whispering it urgently into the night over the tops of the westside trees and out over the pastures beyond: “Send us a scribe,” he prayed, “for somewhere in this lost system he will find moles who will honor him. So send us a scribe, for now we need one. Send us the strength to fight this Mandrake and Rune, whose evil I fear.”

Rune heard the prayer, and also heard the owl calling again, uncertain if it was the prayer or the owl that up-set him. He wished again that he could kill Hulver, sensing that he was in some way more dangerous to them than he or Mandrake realized.

Still, prayer or no, Mandrake extended his power by threats, intimidation and, occasionally, by exercises in black charm. Even the independent eastsiders fell easily under his spell, for none of them – including Bindle – gave him any trouble.

Occasionally he would provoke a fight somewhere and savagely kill his opponent as a reminder of what he was capable of. More often he would encourage henchmoles to kill each other, watching the slaughter with ghastly satisfaction.

So, by the time Bracken was born. Mandrake’s power was total, and every new young Duncton mole soon shuddered at his name and knew that no mole was more powerful. In Bracken’s case rather more than most, since his father, Burrhead, was one of Mandrake’s most important henchmoles.

Yet Rebecca had far more to fear than Bracken, far more. For Mandrake was her father.

   4  

T
HE
system under Mandrake changed as a wood changes when dirty fog invades it; the trees are still there, the flowers still have color, but everything looks different and
feels
sinister.

So it was in Duncton Wood. The westsiders still fought and struggled in the usual way; the young moles went to Barrow Vale to go onto the surface as they always had; Dogwood carried on finding worms where no other mole could; owl talons still cut through the evening air to kill the careless young and weakening old; and the wood itself still swayed and stilled to the passing of the days.

But under Mandrake’s thrall, the tunnels seemed darker and burrows far less safe. Males felt threatened even in their own home burrows, while the females became dissatisfied and bitchy, wondering what mole it was that could so terrify their mates. Moles had to watch what they said, too, because Mandrake’s henchmoles seemed everywhere. Sadly, the one way of getting any security and the freedom to travel in the system was to do what Rune and Burrhead had been the first to do – declare yourself a supporter of Mandrake and do his bidding.

Not that his bidding was very specific, which was one reason there was so much doubt and suspicion in the system, even among the henchmoles. No mole ever quite knew what Mandrake wanted. He did, at least, make clear that there were certain things he did
not
want. He did not like moles who went too far from their home territory, for example, because “it makes for confusion and uneasiness.” So a henchmole who found an adult wandering too far from his home burrow felt he had Mandrake’s sanction to ask the reason why, and if he wasn’t satisfied, to fight and, if necessary, kill. In this way each area in the system became more insular and suspicious of outsiders, ready to drive away a wanderer by force with the righteous confidence that they had official sanction to do so.

What was worse, as his first winter in Duncton approached, Mandrake let it be known that he did not like a mole to go onto the surface unless it was for a good reason. “Too many of us are being taken by owls and badgers, so this is in the interest of everymole and the strength of the system” was the way he put it to Rune, who was beginning to act as his main agent.

But it happened that a great many moles went onto the surface for no other reason than that they liked the sun on their fur, or the sound of wind in the trees, or to get a breath of fresh air outside the oppressive atmosphere that the tunnels seemed increasingly to possess.

Now moles had to be going somewhere specific or grub-hunting for food or seeking a herb for some ailment or other. And if they
did
just crouch in the wood, their snouts warmed by the sun, or watching the texture of moss by an exposed root, their enjoyment was marred by having to be ever ready with an excuse in case an inquisitive henchmole happened by.

Mandrake also let it be known that he did not want any contact with the marshenders: “They bring disease to the system and have never contributed very much” was the way Rime explained it to the others. Adding, with distant menace, “The day may well come when they must be driven out of Duncton altogether, for they have no rightful place here.”

This put Mekkins, half marshender himself and an elder, into something of a difficulty, but he got round it with characteristic cunning by pretending to become Mandrake’s spy in the Marsh End camp and offering to bring back news of their doings – while still convincing them that he was their only hope with Mandrake and the other elders. But the position made him unhappy.