Madder was clearly aware of the bad impression his tunnels were making, for he hurried here and there making a futile attempt to tidy ahead of the incoming moles – pushing a pile of herbs into a corner in one burrow, and back-pawing some dead worms out of sight as he ushered them all a different way. All the while he muttered excuses about being unready for moles and having no time to keep order in the way he normally liked to.
Eventually they assembled in a cluttered burrow and looked about uneasily at each other and, almost to a mole, refused Madder’s offer of food as, giving up further pretence at tidiness he attempted to be hospitable. He had gathered up a particularly neglected and suppurating worm from somewhere, its tail part all covered with dust, and was now offering it about.
“Ah! No thanks, I eat too much anyway,” said Smithills, patting his ample stomach.
“Me?” said Skint, a look of alarm on his normally stern face. “No, no, I don’t eat at this time of day.”
Smithills, always mischievous and full of fun, turned to poor Hay and said, “He’s always hungry, he’ll have some food.”
“No!” said Hay. “I mean, well....”
“Mole, I’ll have it if I may,” said Tryfan suddenly, “and Beechen will eat it with me.” To his credit, Beechen succeeded in appearing as if he looked forward to the grim prospect while Madder, clearly relieved and pleased that such a one as Tryfan himself should accept his food, attempted to wipe the dust off the worm and spruce it up a bit as he laid it before Tryfan.
It was a strange and touching moment, and while some moles there, like Dodder and Crosswort, might well have considered Tryfan foolish for taking such dubious food, most others appreciated his kindness and felt indirectly admonished by it.
But what had greater impact was the way he now gravely regarded the sorry worm, looked up at Madder, whose eyes gyrated nervously this way and that, and asked, “Would you have a grace spoken in your burrow?”
“If moles of the Word and others don’t mind, I’d like it if you did,” he said. “Yes I would!”
“Well then...” said Tryfan, silently reaching out a paw to Beechen who was looking about with too much curiosity at that serious moment, and stilling him, “there’s a traditional Duncton grace which you might like to hear. Beechen has learnt it and can say it for us.”
The moles stilled, several snouts lowered. Dodder seemed about to speak but said nothing. Crosswort wrinkled her brow as if a grace was rather a threat, while Heather closed her eyes tightly and pointed her snout in the direction of the Stone. Mayweed grinned, and Skint and Smithills settled into the easy stance of moles who knew Tryfan of old, and liked it when he encouraged the traditional ways.
Beechen waited for silence and then, in a clear strong voice, as Tryfan had taught him, spoke the grace:
The benison of ancient Stone
Be to us now
The peace of sharing be here found
And with us now
This food our life
This life ours to give
This giving our salvation
The peace of sharing be here found
And with us now
As he spoke he reached forward and touched the worm, and it seemed that the worm so unwanted, and Madder’s attempt to share it which had been so rejected, was transformed into something of which all moles there must have a part, whether of the Stone or not.
When the grace was over, Beechen ceremonially broke the worm and took a part of it to each of the moles.
“’Tis ours to share,” he said each time he proffered the food, and the followers among them replied, “Shared with thee’, while Dodder and one or two others simply took the food and whispered “Aye!” to signify their acceptance of the sharing.
Then when the last piece had gone to the last mole Tryfan said softly, “The benison of Ancient Stone be to us now,” and the moles ate their pieces in companionable silence.
They rested then, and talked among themselves, and, with Dodder on one side of Beechen and Madder on the other, he heard both their stories and learnt how it might be that in strange and troubled times such as had beset moledom, a mole of the Word and a mole of the Stone had ended up living in adjacent tunnels in a system of outcasts.
“Would you really defend Dodder as Flint said?” Beechen asked Madder quietly.
“Flint shouldn’t have said that but I might, yes I might. He may be what he is, and done the things he’s done, but he is a Duncton mole now so he’s one of us, isn’t he?”
When Beechen asked the same question of Dodder, he replied, “Young mole, I would, but keep it to yourself. In a military situation he would not know where to begin, whereas a trained mole like me would.”
Later Tryfan turned to Madder and said, “I’ve been told your surface entrances are worth seeing, mole. Would you honour us by showing them to us all?”
At this Madder looked surprised and pleased.
“’Tis true enough, Madder, isn’t it? I’ve just been telling Tryfan you’ve a way with plants and trees.” Hay spoke encouragingly.
It did not need much persuasion before Madder led them through his untidy tunnels, pushing this and that out of the way and into still more untidiness as he went, and took them into tunnels different from the original ones and delved by himself, which threaded their untidy way up among the living roots of ash and out into a place on the surface such as few of them had ever seen the like before, though many must have passed nearby on their travels through the wood.
It was most strangely overgrown: strange because there was order to it, strange because in that dry part of the wood it seemed pleasantly moist, strange because wherever a mole looked there seemed something more to see, something more to draw his eye. Strange because there, among that growth and the wondrous light it cast and the soft shadows it made, Madder was a changed mole, and one in his element. Up here in the secret places he had made for himself all the oppression of his tunnels left them, as it left him. He darted here and there, touching and tending to the plants and growth all about, and talking as he went. Even his disordered fur seemed more ordered there, unless it was a trick of light that made him look... well, as neat and tidy as neat and tidy can be. Such he seemed, such the place he had made was. The plants that formed the backdrop to this place of peace were yellow nettles, tall, proud and bright. Making them seem even brighter was the thick ivy that grew up the trunk of the ash behind and from which, too, trained it seemed by Madder himself, came a few strands of dark leaves along the ground.
“The yellow nettle’s at its best now, but it will fade soon as all flowers must. But as it does, and the sun begins to harden north again in the years of July and August, why my eyes delight in the ferns that I have let grow here....”
He pointed out a clump of fern they might not have noticed, for its leaves were still small and unopened, and it half hid itself beyond a root.
“Ferns like darkness and a little wet, and when the sun catches at their leaves and turns them shining green the darkness of their place sets them off.”
“It’s just a fern,” grumbled Crosswort, unconvinced.
“‘Just a fern’!” laughed Madder with the genuine delight of a mole who knows others are wrong but that when they see the error of their ways and drop their prejudices what a delight they have in store for themselves!
“Perhaps so,” he added, leaving the others to judge for themselves. Which they did, and found in Madder’s favour.
There were so many more things to see in this enclave of peace Madder had made by his tunnels’ exit that the moles were reluctant to follow him as he hurried on to show them other treasures.
The wood seemed to open past the fern into a path, crooked and secret. It was arched over with the russet stems of wild rose, and its floor was softened with crunchy beech leaves which gave the route a dry, good scent. As they went they lingered, for here and there the path branched up some tempting byway, or opened out into a prospect a mole could not simply pass by. He or she mus
t linger there, and stare, and think that moledom must be great indeed if in so small a space there was so much to see.
“It’s not easy to keep up,” Madder said. “Voles will use it as their run – I can’t think why – and when the wind comes from the east, which it has a lot this June-time, the under-leaves are disturbed and need attending to. So much to do!”
“Looks wormful,” said Borage.
“Wormful? Oh, I don’t eat the worms hereabout,” said Madder with faint disapproval. “That would only increase my work, wouldn’t it?”
“Er, yes,” said Borage, supposing it would.
Madder hurried on until the path opened out into a second enclave very different from the first. It was dominated by a great holly tree, whose shining leaves gave dark light to the place. Other leaves had fallen from it but lay undisturbed on the ground, brown with their points yellow-dry.
Beyond it they climbed to a raised area of ground at the top of which was some exposed chalky soil. Such places occur across the Eastside of Duncton Wood and occasionally in the high wood too. The soil seems to rise above the level of the humus, or perhaps some natural minor anticline of strata creates an exposure over whose top the wind is always sufficient to clear what leaves fall there. A process aided by the liking other creatures have for such exposed spots across the wood’s litter layer.
As the moles ascended the little rise they saw the spoor of rabbit, and there was the whiff of weasel there as well.
“We all come here,” said Madder, as if he thought moles were no different from the other creatures and were all one in the wood. “There’s three kinds of trees grow in this part, the ash, the oak and the beech, and I can see the light of them all from here. Swaying and graceful for the ash, its leaves soon gone; green and airy for the beech, its leaves the true whisper of these woods; and the oak, not so great in Duncton as in other places I visited when I was younger, but a solid presence all the same. All have their ways and, as my mother used to say, a mole never learns them deep enough.
“This is the spot I stopped at when I decided that I was going to have to stay in Duncton Wood, like it or not. I felt at peace here for the first time since leaving my home system. I thought, well, there’s no river to scent nor coots to call here, there’s no sedge to watch rise and hear the stems rustling, there’s no yellow flag opening out all pretty in the wind; nor kingfisher’s dart, nor trout’s sudden splash, nor any of the sights and sounds of the Avon that I love. But, mole, there’s new things to see, new things to hear, and many a new thing to scent. And there’s places aplenty to make good with plants as my mother taught me, and none to harass, and none to spoil.
“That’s what I said to myself when I came. And so I thought it was as I found things I’d only ever heard of. Beech tuft all slimy on the beech, and slipper orchid down among the ash, and baneberry to scent out downwind of it on a July day, and its black berries to warn a mole of sin and shame. I come here when I want to think.”
Then suddenly, to everymole’s alarm, Dodder, who had said nothing at all for a long time past, turned to Madder and said, “I must say I would not let my tunnels get into the mess yours are in. But then....”
He looked about the lovely ways Madder had led them on and added, “But I’d say you’ve got something I never had. Yes, and never will have.”
“Which is what, surprising Sir?” asked Mayweed softly, with a quick glance about and a gleam to his eye that stopped others saying anything to spoil the moment.
“Ability to make a place feel like home,” said Dodder, “and not like temporary accommodation. Your patch would scare the paws off most guardmoles because it’s got the whiff of insubordination, but I’ll be quite frank, Madder... I envy it.”
For once Madder’s paws stopped fretting at his fur and a glimmer of real pleasure came to his skewy eyes as they settled in their eccentric way on Dodder.
“You... like it then?” he said with touching and genuine modesty.
“Best place I’ve seen in Duncton,” said Dodder with certainty. And then, evidently finding it all right after all to say something nice to Madder, he dared to add, “Apart from the neighbours, of course. No imagination. Complainers. Moles of the Word or...!” Pausing, Dodder enjoyed the joke at his own expense and beamed expansively at Madder, then at Crosswort, and finally at Flint... “or moles of no particular belief at all.”
“Well said, formerly grouchy Sir!” said Mayweed, and everymole agreed, and felt relief that peace could be established between the two rivals on such a delightful day.
Others, seeming to have heard that Tryfan was about with Beechen, joined them during the course of the afternoon – among them Bailey and Sleekit – and the moles talked, and slept, and grew excited at the prospect of Midsummer by the Stone.
Skint told the story of how Tryfan, guided by Mayweed, had once rescued him from certain death at the paws of a patrol in the infamous Slopeside of Buckland. Teasel showed how, if a mole tumbled the petals off a briar stem, she could tell of his past and his future and moles queued up for the privilege.
But when Beechen tumbled the petals so a pattern might be formed, a breeze blew and the petals drifted through the wood, and far out of sight.
“What’s it mean?” said Beechen, but Teasel only smiled in a troubled way and said she knew not, and the sky was darkening, and they had all best travel on, and bide by Madder’s choice.
“We’ll go to Feverfew’s,” said Madder, a popular choice and one Tryfan greatly welcomed, for he knew that his consort would be awaiting him and Beechen, for the morrow was Midsummer, and all moles must go to the Stone.
As they wandered on upslope, for Feverfew’s tunnels lay that way, Mayweed lingered by Teasel and said, “Woebegone Madam, what was it you saw in the fall of petals young Beechen made?”
Teasel shivered.
“The night he was born his touch restored my sight, but would I had never regained it if it had meant I did not see what those petals showed. He’ll need moles near him. He’ll need us all. Nomole can go so far as he must and not need help.”
“Madam, he has us all,” said good Mayweed, and Teasel’s gaze followed his own as they watched the moles go forward up the hill with Beechen in their midst, laughing and at ease.
“He’s so young,” whispered Teasel, “and I wish Midsummer did not have to come; but it must, and a mole grows old.”
“Metaphysical Miss, a mole does, even those as humble as ourselves! And we slow, yes, yes, yes; and we worry, yes, yes; and we wonder. Yes?”
“Yes,” agreed Teasel.
Mayweed grinned and together they followed on after the others, as fast as they could.
Chapter Nine
In the moleweeks since she had reluctantly agreed to help Lucerne and Terce make preparations for the Midsummer rite, Henbane, beleaguered Mistress of the Word, confronted an enemy greater and more subtle than any she had ever faced: her own desire for the truth about herself, the Word, and the making of Lucerne.
Something was wrong but she did not yet know what. Something must be done, but of its nature or implications she knew nothing. Only a mole who has tried to face such questions can fully know the isolation she began to feel.
For Henbane had lost faith in the Word, but found no comforting substitute to cling on to, as the nightmare reality of what the Word was and had been under Rune and herself, and would more than likely continue to be under Lucerne, became progressively more clear to her. The first insight had come in that appalling moment when Lucerne had struck her; its revelations of horror continued to come upon her in the days and weeks afterwards, like ungovernable waves of flood water down a tunnel in which a mole is lost.
All was terrible doubt and uncertainty, and the pain of a mole who hates herself for what she is and what she has done which can never be undone.
Not that the sideem or even Terce yet knew it. But they mattered not to her now: it was what Lucerne was becoming that beset her, and him she feared, for she guessed that he no
w suspected her commitment to the Word and would be wary of all she did and said.
They were a blighted mother and ascendant son, circling each other as they waited for the other to make a strike, though each knowing that that moment would most likely come on, or very soon after, the Midsummer rite. Until then each needed the other and each must play the game of honeyed words and hypocrisy.
In that hiatus period in the High Sideem, the main thrust of Henbane’s thought was this: what was the nature of the education Lucerne had, and what, if any, was the weakness in him that it left behind? Where, in short, was Lucerne vulnerable?
Mixed with this was a mother’s guilt, a mother’s shame, a mother’s tortured recall of a puphood which she knowingly maimed, of a youngster she helped corrupt... and whose outcome, terrible and now unstoppable, would soon have its triumph. She knew with certainty that once Lucerne had gained the legitimacy that the rite would give, all his striving would be for Mastership, and all Henbane’s for survival, and her life.
So, as mother and son exchanged their pleasantries and smiles of hate, with Terce hovering between them both, his dissembling art experiencing its greatest test, Henbane strove to make her plans or, more accurately, strove to understand the nature of the son she had made, that she might know how to destroy him.
Her task would have been easier, and its outcome more certain of success – if filicide can ever be called “success” – if she had understood why she thought thus. But so far she did not, nor why, at the end of her life, she should even attempt to redress wrongs too great for mole to contemplate.
Henbane had not had a sudden revelation of the truth, but, rather, something harder for a mole to contemplate, which made her contemplation of it all the more courageous. For as good and evil are the light and shade of the same thing, in the same fleeting moment when Lucerne had hit her and she had seen the evil of the Word she had glimpsed as well something greater and more beautiful than she could ever before conceive.