Duncton Rising

  So it was mid-April when they finally approached Crowden; the lower moorland slopes were sprinkled with flowers, and the two moles’ fur was glossy and their eyes were bright with the better air, food and exercise their long journey had brought. They mounted a rise, wended their way through the outcrops at the top of a ridge, and found themselves looking down at Crowden Vale.

  “The system lies beyond the lake below,” explained Privet, who felt unaccountable excitement and dread as she surveyed her home system after so long away. “You can see the Moors stretching up higher beyond it, and over to the east on our left flank as well. It’s from there the Ratcher moles usually attack.”

  Rooster nodded, looking where she pointed, and noting that here and there at the highest places on the horizons there were still some patches of lingering snow in dark, shadowed, north-facing sites.

  “The Weign Stones, where Wort scribed her Testimony, lie beyond the southern horizon,” she went on, pointing ahead. “And to the west, beyond the furthest point of the lake, the Moors finally end, and moledom really begins. I’ve never met a mole who’s been there, and they say they don’t speak our language there, they speak Mole. My grandmother Wort told my mother that one day she should go there to the places I’ve told you about.”

  “Beechenhill,” said Rooster. “Duncton Wood and other Ancient Systems. Gaunt said it was where delvings were. But “Mole”? What do we speak?”

  “Whernish,” she said. “It’s the language the moles of the Word spoke who came from Whern in the north. Wort spoke Mole and only learnt Whernish when she came to the Moors. Her Testimony is scribed in Mole of course, as most texts are.”

  “Can you speak Mole?” he said.

  “I can scribe it and ken it of course, but speak? Probably.”

  “You teach me, like Gaunt taught me delving.”

  “If you want,” she said. She was always surprised at how much he wanted to learn, and how willingly. She looked downslope towards Crowden and the feeling of dread returned. “Now we’re here I don’t want to go into the system at all! I feel I’ll lose you when I do.”

  “Been good, our time,” he said.

  “I’m afraid,” said Privet.

  He chuckled. “Life is. Gaunt said that. Said knowing it was hard made it easier. Wish Glee was here to see. Wish Humlock was here. I miss them. I hope I never have to miss you.”

  He turned and stared into her eyes. How she had grown to love his lined and furrowed face, his frown, his heavy, slow-seeming ways which hid a mole so sensitive and so courageous. She looked at his paws and wanted to ask him a favour but dared not.

  “Ask!” he commanded, his look warm. “Can see a hope in your eyes.”

  “Will you delve a place for us, a special place?” she said. “For us. Like you did on Hilbert’s Top only... well...” She faltered into sudden shyness.

  “Have begun already,” he muttered, frowning. “Feel its delving need. A place where we can be...”

  But he could not find the words either, and his paws delved and dug at the air, and he looked away from her over the distant Moors, shy as herself

  “Better go.”

  But even his saying that did not alter the fact that the nearer they got to Crowden the greater her dread became, even when they reached the Crowden defences and she identified herself to an astonished and delighted guard.

  “Librarian Privet! We thought you were dead!”

  “As you can see, I’m not!”

  The guard eyed Rooster with the same dismay Turrell and Waythorn had shown.

  “He’s grike.”

  “He’s a delver, and when Hamble and I left we were in search of delvers,” said Privet defensively.

  “Well...” said the guard, “you better wait here.”

  “But it’s my own system!” said Privet sharply, embarrassed on Rooster’s account.

  “Ratcher’s lot are about and we’re being careful.” Other guards came, one of whom recognized Privet.

  “Well, by the Stone, it is Librarian Privet! But who the “ell’s him?” he said, staring at the brooding Rooster.

  “Rooster’s his name and he’s grike,” said the guard.

  “Going in,” said Rooster impatiently. “Hungry and cold, and Privet’s tired. Understand?”

  “You can’t just come in here, mate!” said the guard, bridling.

  Rooster grinned, almost amiably. “Can,” he said. And taking Privet firmly by the paw and frowning in a ferocious kind of way he bore down on the guards most peaceably, and with open mouths they let him by.

  “You wait here!” said one.

  “I’ll go and get Hamble himself,” said the other.

  “Is he nearby?” asked Privet, her dread replaced by excitement at the prospect of seeing her dearest friend again.

  “Where?” said Rooster to the guard. “Heard of Hamble.”

  The two guards looked at each other wearily, and one said as patiently as he could, “Look, you stay here, chum, in the warm. We’ll get you food but don’t move otherwise Hamble will have our guts. There’s a war on. Against grikes. You’re a grike. Please.”

  By now others had come, and the news that Privet was back was running through the system like wildfire.

  “We’ll stay where we are,” said Privet to Rooster firmly. “You scare them. Rooster. It’s because you’re so big and so unafraid.”

  “Hmmph!” said Rooster, pacing about restlessly as the guards gazed at him in awe, and eased out of his way as best they could. He peered at the defences. He poked his snout into portals and out again. He touched walls, and reached up his huge paws to roofs.

  “These moles can’t delve,” he said to Privet.

  Privet smiled.

  “Feel the delving need,” he said, “like itching. Terrible all this.”

  “Keeps the grikes out,” said the first guard, more cheerful now that his reluctant prisoner was staying more or less where he should, and wasn’t causing trouble.

  “Didn’t keep me out,” replied Rooster.

  They did not have to wait long before Hamble appeared, and several others with him.

  “Privet here?” she heard his deep familiar voice saying as he approached down a tunnel. “My Privet?”

  He turned a corner, ducked under a portal, and there he was before her, big and familiar, his face just a little lined, with an expression that changed from disbelief to joy and then to astonishment as he saw Rooster at her flank.

  “Privet!” he thundered, as if angry she had been away so long; then coming to her, he took her up in his paws, and held her so close that she almost lost her breath. “Thank the Stone! Thank the Stone you’re safe!”

  Tears came to her eyes at the warmth and love in his welcome, and she felt joy that she was back with her oldest friend, and that she had so much that was good to tell him.

  “And this mole,” he said, putting her down and turning to Rooster, who was just a shade bigger than him, “can this be Rooster? They said he was just another grike, but I’ll warrant it’s Rooster you’ve brought home!”

  The two moles stared at each other, the smile fading on Hamble’s face as all Rooster did was frown and look ferocious. The stares continued in silence, and joy began to leave the reunion.

  “Am Rooster,” said Rooster suddenly, as if deciding Hamble was all right. “You’re Hamble. Privet’s friend.”

  “Yes,” said Hamble, still uncertain.

  There are some moments that go down as essential details in the tales moles tell – not important in themselves, yet, if left out others remind them to put them in if the tale is to be properly told, saying “Didn’t he...?” and “Wasn’t that when...?” This was such a moment, and one not to be omitted.

  For Rooster stared a while longer at Hamble and then, with a vigour that the assembled guard mistook for a few moments for violence, he came forward, and reaching out his paws put them about Hamble’s not inconsiderable frame and in the same warm gesture that Hamble had shown Privet, he lifted t
he warrior mole right off the ground.

  “Rooster’s happy!” declared Rooster. “You took Privet to Chieveley Dale. I brought her back!”

  Hamble laughed deeply, the guards relaxed, and as Hamble’s paws touched the ground again he laughed some more, reached out a paw, buffeted Rooster in a friendly way and said, “You’d better come and tell us your tales. By the Stone, you’re welcome, mole. And for seeing Privet back here in safety, a mole I value more than any other, you’ve instantly become a friend of mine for life! Added to which, it just happens we’ll need a delver in the coming days. In fact. Privet, wasn’t that why we set off to find Rooster in the first place?”

  She nodded, proud of them both, pleased that they seemed so willing to be friends. Yet they seemed already more than that: more like colleagues, moles whose task was the same, and whose joint presence was greater than each of them as individuals. So much so that the chamber seemed barely big enough for them and other moles.

  Rooster pointed a paw at the delvings he had appraised earlier and found wanting.

  “You need a delver. And I need a home. That’s good!”

  “It’s very good,” beamed Hamble, and he led them both off to Crowden’s communal chamber, for talk, and food, and an exchange of news. There’s moles here of Chieveley Dale who will be more than delighted at your coming. Rooster.”

  Rooster’s head lifted. “Charnel moles? Delvers?”

  “We got some out in safety, and some had come across the Moors earlier, the ones who alerted us to what was happening in the Dale. But I don’t think any of them are delvers in the sense you mean. They’re what I’m told you called helpers.”

  “No delvers?” said Rooster, snout lowering, hope going. Privet saw the loneliness in his eyes, and felt his pain. Could the Stone be so cruel as to make him the only delver to survive from the Charnel, and therefore the one on whom the responsibility for the continuance of the delving arts must solely rely? Just him? She put a paw tenderly to his flank.

  “They’ll be waiting for you in the communal chamber,” said Hamble. “Come!”

  When they reached it, a great crowd had gathered, all excited and abuzz. Their chatter fell silent the moment the new arrivals appeared, and at first Privet could see little in the gloom. Rooster went forward a step or two, peering and frowning at the group of moles, perhaps confused to see so many after so long living only with Privet. Then Hamble pointed to a far corner of the chamber from which the Crowden moles fell away to reveal five gaunt, quiet moles. They were stanced still and huddled close together as if for comfort, and all held their snouts low, not wanting to look up, riot daring to believe perhaps that a mole they loved and held in awe was come among them again. None there but Privet truly understood the nature of that moment, as the survivors of the Charnel, of the crossing of the Span, of the exodus to Chieveley Dale, and then the escape across the Moors, saw Rooster, the mole whom they already thought to be a Master of the Delve, and the whole reason for their lives, their meaning, come amongst them once again.

  Rooster stanced still before them, staring, his eyes wide and filling with tears, perhaps for the moles who were not there and who might have been. For Glee, for Humlock, for Samphire, for Drumlin, for Gaunt, and for the Senior Delvers, Prime, Terce, None, Sext and Compline. All lost, surely all dead now. That world was gone, that world was no more, and Privet alone knew she was looking at a remnant of a system gone, a last thing, a grouping that would soon be absorbed and lost for ever.

  So Rooster stared, and though he tried to speak, he wept; and his friends and helpers stanced with bowed heads before him.

  “Am safe,” he said at last, “have been lost and am now found.”

  The Charnel moles looked up, and if Privet had ever wondered in what regard Rooster was really held she wondered no more. Joy, relief, pleasure; love and awe – all were there, and more. Suddenly the five moles came to him as one, their tears as free as his own as they reached out to touch the mole whose presence would make them believe in life again. So powerful was the effect of this reunion, so full of deep unspoken meanings which others there could feel, even if they could not quite understand them all, that several of the Crowden moles openly cried too. Even Hamble sniffed a bit, and put his paw over Privet’s shoulders, and held her close as if to say, “What they feel for him I feel for you, and always will.”

  What he finally said, as the Charnel moles chattered and shared their news, was this; “I never thought you were anything but safe, Privet. Always thought you were a survivor, and so you are, and so you will be. But by the Stone I’m glad you’re safe. And you’ve come back when you’re needed, and when he’s needed.”

  “He’ll delve like you’ve never seen delving in your life, Hamble. He is what they say he is.”

  “And do you love him, Privet? Eh? Is he yours?”

  She smiled and looked coy.

  Rooster turned from the group, his paw over the shoulder of an older mole, as big as himself, with kindly eyes and a caring way about him.

  “Why...” said Privet breaking free from Hamble and going to them both.

  “This is Hume!” said Rooster proudly and with great delight.

  Privet could not but reach out her paws to him, and hold him as best she could, and say that she had heard ail about him, and how glad she was... how glad!

  But as she pulled away, another mole nudged her and spoke a greeting from behind, and though the voice had all the vigour and intonation of welcome the others did, expressing pleasure to see her back home, there was a thin sliver of ice right through it that had Privet tensing as she turned.

  “Hello, Privet,” said her sister Lime.

  Privet looked at her, but as she did, and began to speak a greeting in return, Lime’s eyes slid from hers, and travelled slowly round until her gaze settled on Rooster, great Rooster, powerful mole. Lime’s eyes filled with the desire for possession, and with lust.

  “Well!” she declared, the moment passing as her eyes came back to Privet’s, “this is a surprise. But won’t you introduce me to your friend?”

  And the chamber seemed full of voices Privet could not clearly hear, and laughter she could not quite understand, and the touches of moles she felt she did not know; and the dread increased, bleak black dread, as bit by bit. Rooster began to be stolen from her.

  “It became a nightmare,” whispered Privet, shivering as she relived those moments for Whillan, Maple and Weeth. She had somehow crept over to Whillan’s flank in this last part of the telling, as if to find warmth and comfort from him. A sad hush had come to them all, sensing as they did that good would not come of Privet’s and Rooster’s return to Crowden, or not good that mole could easily see. Only pain, for Privet, and for the mole she loved and was losing now to the others almost before their eyes.

  Maple tut-tutted now and then, and Whillan frowned a bit, and put a paw on Privet’s as if to remind her that requited love was possible. Weeth sighed occasionally and shook his head in sympathy, but then nodded as if he had heard such tales before and wondered if much good could come of telling them. Indeed, poor Whillan looked quite drained, his sensitive face filled with the passions of his adoptive mother’s story. His eyes were ageing as he understood more of the mole who had raised him, and done the best she could. She had loved, and now, he saw, she was poised to lose.

  The position in Crowden was as grim as Hamble had implied. For one thing, the system had suffered losses through murrain, and was weaker than ever before. For another, Red Ratcher had come their way almost before spring was done, to continue his lifelong war against them. Only now his clan seemed stronger, and at his flank stanced moles as big as he, who, they now discovered, were Rooster’s brothers from Samphire’s earlier litters. Then, too, the defences had become ruinous, and there were no moles who had the arts of yesteryear to build them in the complex subtle way their ancestors had succeeded in attaining.

  “We try, but somehow we don’t have the skills, or the will, or the way with the soil
and rock,” explained Hamble. “We’ve seen the problem coming for a generation, but not known what to do to solve it. So now we’re vulnerable, and the harder we try to improve the defences the worse and more confused they seem to become. That’s why the three of us set off looking for you all that time ago. Rooster.”

  But there was something worse, of which the rest was perhaps indicative.

  “We lack leadership, and that’s the truth of it,” said Hamble frankly.

  “But I thought you were the leader now, Hamble,” said Privet.

  “Me?” He laughed. “I’m a warrior, a fighter, the perfect aide for a better leader than me, if one could only be found. Meanwhile I must bully the others here, appoint the guards, and lead such elders as we have. But I’m no match for Ratcher, nor have I the will to fight as he has. I don’t say, as I should, “I’ll defend Crowden to the last breath in my body”, but instead I ask, “Is Crowden worth defending? Isn’t there something more to life than this?” Eh? You understand. Privet, you used to say you wanted to go off and explore moledom.”

  “Duncton Wood,” said Rooster. “She wants to go there.”

  “That’s right, that was the place. So I’m not the right mole to lead others in defence. You’re more the kind others will follow, Rooster, but the trouble is you’re a delver.”

  Since the Charnel moles had come not one of them had agreed to fight alongflank the Crowden moles, explaining that if they had a creed it was for peace. Delving was a peaceful art.

  “Rooster’s the nearest we have ever had to a Master,” explained Hume, not for the first time, “and Masters do not hurt others.”

  So Hamble understood that Rooster would be unlikely to fight. But at least he began to help with the defences. Even so...

  “’Tis a pity, Rooster, you look more of a fighter than a pacifist to me. You would have been a good leader. Dammit, our youngsters here already follow you about, and I’ve yet to see a mole threaten you, or even think of it.”