Sometimes she came up on to the surface to be alone, to stare at the Stones that rose in the distance, among which, like all the others in their group, she never quite dared to roam. Chater himself had often told her the tale of how they were uncountable – “A mole sees six, yet history says there are seven there, and when two moles seek to show which ones they saw it always seems to be a different six...” – and how these were Stones best stared at from a distance, for wraiths of old moles roamed there, bringing whispers of the past, and dreams of what might have been. “Moles only go among the Stones of Seven Barrows to die,” Chater had once warned her. Well, she had no intention of going there now!
“What might have been, Chater!” she whispered aloud, her eyes shining in this pretence of talking to him. “I miss you so much, my dear, and I know that you miss me...” There for a time she could have in imagination what she might have had in reality, and experience what might have been, and she could shed those tears that she had always concealed from other moles, even her beloved Chater. She had mothered so many for so long that she did not even realize that the tears were for herself, a reminder that she too might, just once in a while, need to be cared for by somemole else. Cosseted, nurtured, attended to, pampered without reserve. Just briefly, only for a time – but sometimes!
But on the afternoon of the eve of Longest Night just such a mood suddenly gave way to something darker, and a feeling of terrible foreboding came over her. Quite unable to account for it, and feeling increasingly restless and ill at ease. Fieldfare went up to the surface to be alone for a time. Perhaps fresh air would do her good, perhaps she could stare across the stonefields of Seven Barrows and find comfort, as so often before, in the stones themselves.
The foreboding deepened, and to try to escape it she stared at the Stones and even ventured a little towards them, to try as she had before to see if there were really seven; but there were not. Just six, some near, some far, one off to one side, another to the other side, but further away, except that surely that one had not been there before?
“Six!” she declared finally after the third recount, smiling to herself for doing something she knew Chater would have done, and thinking fondly of how they would have fallen to arguing about which six there were, beloved, my dear, my dearest... my love. Oh my dear, you need me, I know you need me now...
Through her sudden desperate tears she saw that far across the fields beyond the last Stone rooks flocked, no more than black specks in the wintry sky. Fieldfare watched them with a sudden clutching fear, which left her breathless, in pain, and almost beside herself.
Chater needed her, not sometime, but now.
She tried to call out to him, to reach him, and invoked the Stone’s help, at first vaguely in a general plea, but then more specifically. He needed her now, he was calling her name, and she must find a way to reach him. She looked at the Stones in the distance and in a low, intense voice, quite unlike her normal speech, she prayed to them to help her reach him.
“Now, now, now...”
She might have continued this strange and hopeless-seeming prayer, but that she heard a shout from some way behind, and one of the elderly watchers waved a paw and came hurrying.
“Glad you’re here. Fieldfare,” he gasped, all of a dither. “There’s moles approaching from the north-east.”
“Newborn?” she said quietly, calming him down. But her own heart was not calm: Chater needed her.
“Could be moles seeking sanctuary with us,” said the old watcher hopefully.
“Did they see you when you came running to me?”
It had been agreed that in such circumstances watchers must not show themselves.
“They might have, they gave a wave, they... seemed all right. I didn’t think...”
“It’s all right. Now listen, I’ll go to them and draw them away from here. But you go quickly and warn the others.”
“But what if...?”
“If they saw you, my dear, they’ll come searching if somemole doesn’t go to them. If they’re Newborn, well, I’m sure it will be all right. The Stone will guide me.”
“Fieldfare, I’m frightened, I —”
“Go on, mole, you’ll be safe if you go back now. Go, now...”
So she sent him on his way to safety, and without a thought for herself and with Chater’s need pushed to the back of her mind, turned towards the north-east, climbed a rise, and saw their approach. They were big, and male, and Newborn, and too near to escape from for long.
“You, mole! YOU!” one of them shouted as he sighted her and broke into a run.
She ducked away back out of sight to gain just a moment’s time, and then turned in a direction opposite to Seven Barrows and all her friends, towards the Stones.
“Oh, Chater my dear, it’s I who need you now,” she thought, as the danger of her situation came to her and she tried her best to run.
“Too old, too plump, too...” and even at such a moment, with the rough grass tumbling up towards her and catching at her paws, and the sounds of the two moles reaching the rise above her and shouting, even now she managed a wry smile.
“I told you I was too plump, beloved, and that I ought to lose some weight, and how right I was! Oh dear, Chater, is it going to end like this with you so far away and needing me, and me so far away and needing you?”
“Mole! You there! Stop now!”
Their shouts were nearer, and so aggressive that she nearly stopped obediently. She half turned as she ran, stumbled as she reached flat ground, and saw them a little way above her: big, strong, angry.
“It’ll be all the worse for you when we catch you, mole!” The voice was harsh, mocking, vindictive.
But then suddenly, and not for the first time that day, the Blowing Stone sounded, not as loudly as Fieldfare had grown used to, but loud enough to frighten the Newborns who were afraid of such things. The guardmole hesitated and, taking her opportunity. Fieldfare pushed herself on towards the first of the stones, recovering herself as her paws crunched on to what the moles called the stonefields, where the grass thinned and old fragments and shards of flint and hard chalk lay across the ground. Even on a dark day splinters of crystalline rock glinted and glistened across those fields. It was here that the Stillstones, which complemented the Books of Moledom, had been found.
But such thoughts were far from Fieldfare’s mind now as she felt her chest tighten, and her breath begin to grow short and desperate, her limbs heavier by the moment. The moles were almost on her now, their paws crunching over the stones, their panting powerful and angry, and ahead the first of the Stones seemed to now recede from her.
“Oh Chater, I can’t reach the Stone, I can’t go on, I...”
“Beloved, you never give up when you’re being chased, never!” she had often heard him say when he described the adventures of a journey, and the dangers. “You’d be surprised how often something turns up just when you’re giving up all hope. No, no, never give up!”
“But I can’t, Chater, I just...”
“Mole! Stop right there!” a Newborn roared from behind her, and she felt his talons clutching at her left flank and ripping her skin, as gasping, breathless, tired, and near defeat, she tried to run a few more steps, two more, one more...
“Got you! Bitch!”
The mole’s paws held her, tumbled her, and then the two of them were over her, angry, breathing heavily, mocking.
“Runs fast for a fat mole!”
“Would have been better if she hadn’t run at all!”
She stanced up and faced them. She looked to her right and saw the Stone. It was so near, so near.
One Newborn followed her glance and then looked quickly away, frowning and angry.
“Get away from there! Go back this way!”
She did not move, eyeing them warily as she realized with surprise that they were afraid of the Stone. Of course, Newborns were!
“Don’t try it, mole!” said the other, reaching out towards her.
/> “Chater!” she called out, as if he could hear. Oh, she needed him now, for the Newborns had her and they were moving round to block her from running to the Stone’s sanctuary.
“Plump Madam! Boldness is needed!”
Plump Madam?
She looked around in surprise. There was nomole here but these two, waiting for her to move and eyeing the Stone uneasily. Plump Madam? Whatmole spoke like that?
“Humbleness, who knows something about finding routes, suggests you concentrate on the task in paw! Be bold I say, be brave!”
She looked around wildly and then she saw him by the Stone, in its shadows, grinning in a friendly way, his fur patchy.
“Yes, yes, fair one, Fieldfare! It is I, invoked. I, summoned up. I, lingering in shadows, sliding in and out of Silence, by this Stone.”
“Mole,” growled one of the Newborns, coming no closer, his voice betraying his unease about the holy place they were in, “you better come with us now, or else.”
“He sounds unsure of himself!” thought Fieldfare in amazement. How could anymole be frightened of the Stone? Even if, in its shadows, moving, grinning, disappearing, speaking, a mole so familiar to her, so much loved by her, whose name she could just now not remember, was beckoning her.
“Fat Fieldfare, be bold, and come to me. I cannot come to thee! Come, come, come...”
Then Fieldfare felt the fragments of the stones at her paws, and saw the light of the day upon the Stone, and knew that if she turned towards it, it would shine upon her face and guide her, help her be brave, teach her to be bold.
“Mole!” cried the Newborn, his voice strangely desperate.
But she ignored him, and with the light full upon her, and the grinning, patchy, marvellous mole dancing with glee in the shadows and beckoning, she advanced towards the Stone.
The Newborns shrank away from her, their faces full of fear as if she was contaminated, which she supposed she was – by the Stone, and her own faith in it, and... well, by the mole who seemed to be summoning her to his phantom flank.
“That’s right, plumpness, fat one, comely Fieldfare, you show them! Or, as moles of the younger generation might put it, ‘Go for it, fattie!’”
Well, why not! If faith and the Stone’s Silence were the only reality, life was an illusion and she could go right through it! And Fieldfare did, boldly, and bravely, right up to the Newborns, her eyes proud and fierce and full of a pity for them which they did not seem to wish to see.
“Madam,” said her guide in the shadows, “what a worthy one you are! Me? Humble Mayweed! Dead as dead can be! But invoked to be your guide amongst these Stones. For a moment I thought, “Chater’s beloved isn’t going to make it!” but you proved humbleness wrong, which is not the first time, he is sure. Nor the last.”*
*Mayweed was the great route-finder of the Duncton Chronicles, and much loved by all who knew him.
Behind her Fieldfare was dimly aware that the Newborns were retreating, shouting to each other, frightened, puzzled, and wondering where she was for she had been there, right there before their snouts.
“I’m here!” she wanted to say, “here among the Stones.”
“Follow, Madam, for he needs your love. Me, I’m just here to see you get there. Follow!”
Yes, yes, yes she would, now, in among the shadows of the Stones whose deeps and darks, whose greys and pale shinings held the magic light of Longest Night which was so near, and here so powerful and full of joy.
“Follow, don’t dally!” Mayweed called, and she smiled and followed him, or rather the shadows amongst the Stones where he seemed to run, for she had trusted the Stone, and for a time it would keep her safe.
Much later, as night fell, Noakes, disconsolate, trailed his weary way back from Uffington, and almost all the moles of Seven Barrows, led by Spurling, waited for his coming. Fieldfare had saved them all by leading the Newborns away from their tunnels, but when they went out looking for her she was nowhere to be seen.
“Let me go back towards where the Newborns were seen coming from,” the bold young Noakes had insisted. “I’ll be quicker alone, and safer too!”
Spurling let him go. They could not just let Fieldfare be taken, yet they could not risk other lives.
So Noakes had gone, and they had waited, all the joy and good spirit arising from the preparations for Longest Night on the morrow gone. Fieldfare taken! The very heart of their community had been ripped out.
Noakes knew what he was about and ran and searched across the ground, using the rises to advantage, looking ahead and hoping to catch sight of the Newborns and Fieldfare. On and on, tirelessly he ran that afternoon, knowing that time was of the essence. If he found them he might be able to help, even get her free. Why, he would give himself up to them if they would let her go! He would!
Then he had seen them, two of them. Arguing in loud voices, trailing along, angry, half-frightened of where they were. And Noakes crept after them, listened, and knew that Fieldfare had escaped in among the Stones. She was safe... or was she?
So he ran back, fearful for her, only reaching the stonefields again as dusk deepened towards the night. He had stared across the Stones, and even ventured in among them calling her name.
It was no good, Spurling, I couldn’t hear or see a thing. But she’s definitely not with the Newborns, that’s good news at least.”
“We could try to find her,” said Spurling, distressed beyond words.
Noakes shook his head. “Not now, but I’ll get some of the young moles organized for the morning. We’ll keep a watch and call out for her through the night. If she’s among the Stones she’ll be safe. Come the dawn we’ll find her, Spurling, we will!”
He wished he could believe it. He washed that when he had stared among the Stones on his return they had not seemed so silent, so forbidding, so ungiving. He wished he had more faith.
“Aye, mole, that’ll be for the best,” said Spurling. “But I might join you later, when I’ve settled the community to some semblance of rest. Longest Night’s coming, the seasons are turning, and there’s hope for us all in that...”
Chapter Nineteen
When Weeth was taken out of Privet’s sight and into custody by the silent Newborn guardmoles, she wondered why she felt no fear on his behalf, or on her own. Even when the grim-faced female Newborns put their paws roughly to her flanks and hurried her through the entrance by which they had been stancing guard, and then down and away from all further contact with her friends, she felt no trepidation.
Instead a certain calm came to her, and it was a feeling she recognized and could turn to, as if it were an acquaintance she had travelled with for a long time past but had not yet had the chance to get to know better. Now she felt that they were at the beginning of a long journey they were to make together, and she would do well to become more familiar with... it?
She smiled at her hesitation, for she had almost thought of “calm” as a fellow mole, but then, when she considered further, and reflected on the many emotions that had stirred her since she had first begun her tale in the privacy of Fieldfare’s burrows in Duncton Wood, feelings were like fellow travellers – bit by bit, for better and for worse, a mole should make an effort to get to know them. Otherwise they remain dark shadows she is afraid of and life’s journey is diminished by the simple fear of facing them.
This calm she now felt had to do with a growing sense that all this rushing about, all these cold-eyed Newborn moles, all this striving, were of no great importance at all.
“Is it fatalism I feel?” she mused, doing her best to keep up with the sister in front, and to comply with the insistent pushing of those at her flanks, and behind. “No, no, it is more generous than that! Why, I don’t feel badly about these moles at all...”
“Hurry, Sister! Stop dawdling!” said the mole at her left flank, who had mean, chilly eyes.
“... I almost feel affection for them!” she concluded, amazed at the discovery. “They’re so trapped in themselves, so
unfree, and that’s why they’re pushing and shoving at me!”
There was a sharp jab in her rump which brought tears of shock and pain to her eyes.
“Get on, mole!” said the one behind.
Privet stopped suddenly, and the one behind bumped into her, while those at her flanks looked outraged and pulled at her to continue.
“Why?” said Privet quietly. “Why harry me, and hurt me? Is moledom really going to change if we arrive wherever we’re going a few moments later than we would otherwise have done?”
“The Senior Brother said we must do it quick.”
“Do what quick?” said Privet, feeling calmer still, and thinking that the most they could do was jab her more and the hurt would only be short-lived. This talking, this looking into the eyes of these moles, this breaking through to who they were was much more important than a little pain. She had done it with Chervil, she could do it with them.
She was jabbed again, this time by the one in front who had hurried on, not realizing at first that her charge had stopped, and had now been forced to return. She looked outraged and puzzled, and a little nervous.
“Come on!” she said, grabbing Privet.
“It’s because you want to get me away from my friends as soon as you can, isn’t it?”
“We don’t know about that,” said the mole, her anger lessening before Privet’s calm. “The Senior Brother said we must get you into Bowdler just as quick as we can.”
“What’s your name?” asked Privet; the feeling of affection for these poor driven sisters had returned to her, and with it the memory of how when she herself was entrapped in Blagrove Slide she had been grateful when moles used her name. I’ll come without complaint if you tell me your names.”
She had turned in the direction she had been going to look squarely at the first mole, and the ones behind tried pushing her and hitting her in their efforts to get her moving, so hard indeed that she slewed to one side, and winced with pain even as she stared into the eyes of the mole she was addressing.