One dawn he went back up to the stone circle, just to see if it was as he remembered it. It wasn’t. The stones were smaller and they did not vibrate or become suffused with light. It grew dark in the time he crouched there so he must have been there a long time, since he had come at dawn. Strange… where had time gone?
Then a day came when he woke up and ran his talons through the soil and saw what magnificent things his paws were, and how wonderful they felt. One sweep and the soil crumbled and broke up before his snout; another, and he thrust it behind him. His body ached and yet he had never in his life felt its power so strongly! He played like this for hours before he knew he was playing, and then he stopped and that was the first moment since he had been caught by the Talon that he had thought of Rebecca.
He said her name aloud—‘Rebecca’—and nothing happened. ‘Rebecca!’ No reaction at all. That was strange as well. But then later he thought that if a mole said ‘sunshine’ or ‘earth’ or ‘food’, he didn’t normally react in any special way. Those things just were. So was Rebecca. ‘She was. She is. And I am,’ he thought.
He had never been so peaceful in his life.
A few days later he remembered Medlar’s advice: ‘Return to Duncton,’ he had said, ‘because that’s your home.’ He wondered if he would be able to find it, and so, when it got dark, he took to the surface and climbed uphill to where it was highest and snouted about to the east. Yes, it was there, he could still feel the pull of its great Stone up on top of the hill where the beeches were. Full of sharp buds by now, he told himself.
He could feel something else, too, as he snouted eastwards. Something troublesome and tedious: a job that had to be done. But after that he would play like a pup in love with life because finally what other way was there to be? Rebecca? He felt her to be alive, he felt that the trouble he sensed affected her, but he shook his head and sighed. How could she be alive? But the peace her love had brought him, oh! it was all about him wherever he went. Except for something troublesome and tedious…
Without another thought, he set off for it, not even looking back to the tunnel that had been his home since that terrible day in February or wondering about the cowslip that grew by it and that had given him so much pleasure: another mole would enjoy it one day.
Strange to be going home after so long. He should have felt old with all the scars and aches he had, but he had never felt more like a pup in his life. Nor had he ever felt so excited at being alive.
‘He’s changed, you know, so much nicer than what I remember… ’ So said one of the few moles who remembered Rune from the old days.
He had settled himself down well out of anymole’s way, careful not to trespass on anymole’s territory, not throwing his weight around at all—‘and he used to be pretty important, really he did, but now there’s no side to him at all. He’s a really good addition to the system…’
So, subtly, did Rune re-establish himself in Duncton. He was never abject in his approach—simply quiet, and always smiling and willing to pass the time of day if a mole wanted to talk to him.
Which they did, since he was full of knowledge and always pleased to give advice—very helpful advice—and was quite unstinting in the trouble he took. ‘Mind you, he’s not one to take liberties with—you’ve got to respect a mole like him, you know. Oh, yes, he’s the sort of mole to have on your side in a fight!’
Which was a relevant thing to say since, all of a sudden, there was a lot more fighting in the system than there had been for a long time, and not just mating fights, either. Mole seemed to be set against mole; troubles appeared where no troubles had been; there was grumbling and chatter behind other moles’ backs.
Mind you, Rune was always there to give advice: in fact, he seemed to be advising all sides at once, trying to be placatory and stop trouble, only somehow, wherever he had been, more trouble seemed to come along.
Rebecca knew what the trouble was. It was the power of evil. Rune was not evil himself but he was the catalyst for it, whose every action seemed to generate trouble and suspicion and led finally to a death of spirit, and sometimes a death of body.
For a long time he left her alone. But then the day came at the end of April when he called by and she knew what he wanted because she had seen him like that before—with a kind of cold lust in his eyes and a terrible desire about his body that made her want to shiver and groan herself clean of it.
He began to cause trouble for her, though it didn’t seem as if it was him. But somehow other moles seemed to start saying that she was no longer pulling her weight and what was the use of a healer who didn’t heal and hadn’t somemole or another told Rune that it just wasn’t fair being fobbed off with that half-mad Comfrey all the time? Though Rune himself stressed how unfair that was. But then, Rune was too fair for his own good sometimes and not all moles were as thoughtful as he was…
Now Rune began to visit Rebecca frequently, with that cold glitter in his eyes and sensual insinuations.
He made her so weary, so tired, that she wondered sometimes if perhaps the best way to combat evil was to face it with love. Was that it? Or was that obscene? She tried asking the Stone, but somehow it didn’t help her, or she couldn’t hear it, and she did feel weary because tomorrow he would come again, and the next day, and the next.
Chapter Forty-Six
Comfrey turned away miserably from Rebecca’s tunnels. Rune was there, talking. Always talking he was, and getting near Rebecca, which Comfrey didn’t like.
But Rebecca seemed tired and when Comfrey asked if she wanted anything, she had looked so sad and lost that he could have killed Rune, if he had known how. But he wasn’t a fighter. He didn’t want Rune to mate with Rebecca, not him. But Rebecca sort of shook her head and looked down at the burrow floor, and Rune looked triumphant and Comfrey knew he would have to fight or go; so he went, because only a potential mate fights.
Why did Rebecca look so sad? And why was there such a feeling of evil in her burrows, which were normally so fresh and alive, or had been until that Rune came back?
From far off down the tunnels came the sound of pups’ cries—probably one of the earlier litters whose pups were already getting out of hand. You expect that by the first week of May.
Comfrey couldn’t face the tunnels, and anyway, he wasn’t popular with the moles there now, so he went slowly on to the surface and looked for a while at the beech branches above him, which were just beginning to leaf at last. Always so late, beech leaves, but what a gentle rustle of a sound when they came!
But it was no use. Comfrey could not shake the misery out of himself, or the thought of Rebecca with Rune in her burrows. He turned without thinking towards the Stone clearing and, as so often before, went to it and crouched by the Stone. Why had he been made so weak and nervous, even when he wasn’t afraid? Why did the Stone let moles like Rune live?
He looked up at it above him, light and still against the tiny, shimmering beech leaves. Always so different and always such a mystery.
Then he heard a rustle from the northwest, which was unusual. He smelt mole, but not mole that he knew. Hesitating over whether or not to find cover, he hesitated too long and the mole came out boldly into the clearing and straight towards him.