‘Because they have reached a point where the only way forward is sitting still. Do you remember what Medlar used to say about the importance of doing that?’
‘Is that what he’s doing now, up there?’
Boswell nodded.
‘But how does he stay alive?’
‘Other moles bring him food. It is an honour to serve a silent mole. At some time all novices take their turn in serving them.’
‘What about fouling the burrow?’ asked Bracken.
‘They use two burrows. One of them is cleaned out by the other moles. But, in fact, it is not a problem. After a while, a silent mole eats less and less and the process seems to purify him in a strange way.’
‘When do they come out?’ Bracken wanted to know next—he had never heard anything so extraordinary in his life.
‘Nomole can say. Some can only bear it for a few days, though that is very rare, for the preparation is careful. Medlar, for example, has been preparing for this for many moleyears, probably without realising it, although his case is unusual since he comes from outside and is not a scribemole in the normal way. Others, in fact most, stay in the Silent Burrows for at least two moleyears, often very much longer. Some choose never to emerge again and one day, when no movement has been heard for a full moleyear, and when no food has been taken, the Holy Mole orders that their burrow should be honourably sealed.’
‘But what do they do?’
‘Pray. Meditate. Forget themselves. Learn something of the glory of the Stone.’
‘What about the ones who come out?’
‘What about them?’
‘Well, what happens to them?’
‘They continue to live ordinary lives. You have already met one: Quire was in the Silent Burrows for ten moleyears. But do not think his forgetfulness is as a result of that—he is very old now and, for all his bad temper, much honoured.’
‘Do all scribemoles go there?’
Boswell laughed. He had never heard Bracken ask so many questions all at once.
‘No, very few. It requires great strength and simplicity. Medlar is probably the only one there now, and I think it is significant that he is not a scribemole. As Skeat has said, we live in a strange time when traditions are changing. I do not know if a nonscribemole has ever been in the Silent Burrows before, but I do not see why they shouldn’t. Getting close to the Stone is not a prerogative of the scribemoles only, as my journey to Duncton has shown me.’ He was referring to moles like Mekkins, Rebecca and Bracken himself who, in his opinion, had much to teach scribemoles. Hadn’t he learned much himself from them, and had he not still so much to learn?
Boswell yawned, scratched himself, snouted this way and that and finally wandered off to his burrow to sleep. Bracken scouted around for some food and then returned to his own burrow to sleep, his mind full of images of moles in silent burrows. Uffington was a strange place, and he was not sure he liked it much. Well, he had done his bit and come here and thanked the Stone. The Holy… Skeat had blessed him, and Rebecca as well. His half-sleeping mind transmuted the image of silent burrows into one of the burrows he and Rebecca had found under the buried part of the Duncton Stone and he remembered them lying there together, touching and caressing, the light of the Stillstone all over the place, and he smiled, for nothing seemed more pleasant or comfortable. But then, as half-dreams often will, the image slid into something more fearful as he saw Rebecca in a silent burrow alone, waiting through the long moleyears, waiting and waiting, and he wanted to go to her now and take her protectively to him; as he wanted her now, in this strange place, where he was alone with Boswell. Tears wet his face fur, but the sudden pain of their separation was so strong in his mind that he did not notice them.
‘Protect her,’ he whispered. ‘Protect her until I can return and protect her myself. ’ And with this prayer to the Stone in his heart he fell asleep.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Nomole is so strong or unfeeling that it does not suffer a time during a prolonged period of endurance when courage begins to fail and spirits sag.
Such a time came to Rebecca in March at about the time that, unknown to her, Bracken and Boswell arrived in Uffington. From the moment of their departure, she had inspired the other dispirited Duncton and Pasture moles into occupying the Ancient System with enthusiasm and determination. It was she who suggested that they should occupy the eastern half near the cliff, where the soil was a little more worm-full and the tunnels less immediately forbidding; it was she who stopped the Pasture moles from occupying one section and the Duncton moles another, persuading them instead to mix and form a united group; it was Rebecca to whom the others came with their fears and doubts, hopes and ideas, and she who nudged one mole, twisted the paw of another, spent time with a third to ensure that they lived in health and harmony.
For the other moles Rebecca was always available, always cheerful, always the one they could rely on, the one who made them see sense. And it was a task she took on willingly, for had not Rose taught her that a healer works in many different ways and will not even think about the fact that she puts herself last?
But in March, after the long moleyears of winter, her spirits were low and it became a terrible effort for her to appear, as she successfully did, ever cheerful and happy to deal with the other moles’ problems.
She had occupied the tunnels created by Bracken on the far side of the Stone near the pastures. ‘A healer shouldn’t live under the paws of other moles,’ Rose had once told her, ‘because she needs a space in which to find herself and the strength she needs to serve others.’ Rebecca not only followed this advice in choosing the location of her home burrow, but decided in March, when she felt so low, that it also meant she should spend rather more time alone occasionally. For short periods at least.
This was, however, easier said than done, since as soon as moles suspect that a healer is no longer so available as she once was, they have the habit of finding a thousand excuses to go especially to see her. And how could Rebecca turn away a female who was worried that she wouldn’t litter or an older mole whose aches about the shoulders got unbearable when it tried to burrow? Or a male who had damaged his paw right at the start of the mating season? So, day after day, always for one good reason or another, Rebecca found herself preoccupied with other moles when she should have been sitting quietly doing nothing. And she began to get more tired and more irritable; and as she did so, she felt more and more guilty about it—for wasn’t she a healer and mustn’t she therefore always be cheerful and good-natured?
But there were times when even with the best of wills she lapsed into distant and seeming coolness, and the mole who bore the brunt of this was Comfrey.
Comfrey had chosen to live away from the others down on the slopes, choosing a place on the very edge of where the fire had reached. His reason, he told Rebecca, was because there weren’t enough herbs and flowers up among the ‘boring’ beeches and he wanted to be near what remained of the wood to see if any of the plants had survived the fire.
He ranged far and wide in his pursuit of plants and almost every time he visited Rebecca, which he did when he returned from one of his trips, he would bring her something or other for her burrow. Even through the winter months he managed to find things: the red berries of cuckoo pint; gentle-scented fungi; and bright, shiny leaves of holly plants.
‘Where do you find them?’ she would ask.
He would shrug his shoulders and say he had been over beyond the Eastside where the wood hadn’t been touched by the fire. He often appeared when she was visiting in the Ancient System, with parts of plants he thought she might need, and became regarded by many of the moles there with the same affectionate awe in which they held Rebecca. Like Rebecca, he never seemed to expect thanks for what he did, regarding it more as something that just happened, like the weather.