It had started in the north and travelled steadily southwards, killing about nine out of ten moles who came into contact with it. It was regarded by the scribemoles as a judgement on moles by the Stone and, to their credit, a judgement on themselves as well when it struck Uffington, killing as many there as elsewhere.
Skeat had been the only master to survive and had accordingly, by the tradition of precedence, been elected Holy Mole—a position he had neither desired nor expected and one he accepted with reluctance. One reason for this was that he sensed, as others in many different systems had, that the time in which they lived was one of great change and destiny. They needed a Holy Mole of greater wisdom and experience than he, and one who had seen into the silence of the Stone far more deeply than he felt he had.
But with such thoughts, genuinely modest as they were, he did himself an injustice: Uffington, and through its example all systems, needed in that troubled time a leader who was strong enough to impose the unity and trust the conditions of devastation demanded, while wise enough to dispense with the rigid and sometimes inflexible rituals of the past.
It seemed that many of the plague survivors had felt, as Bracken had, that they should visit Uffington to express their thanks to the Stone. Most had been unable or unwilling to do this in person, preferring to visit the nearest Stone, from where their prayers of thanksgiving came to Uffington. That many such visits had been made was known, because some scribemoles had, like Boswell, survived and made their way back to Uffington, while a very few nonscribes had come as well. Bracken was one, but there had been others.
‘We have had a visit from a mole who knows you both and has spoken well of you: Medlar, from the north.’
So he had got here, after all! The news excited Bracken, who was now a little less awed than he had been at first in Skeat’s presence and who, since Boswell wasn’t going to ask, boldly asked the question himself.
‘Where is he?’
‘It will not be possible to see him,’ said Skeat with a certain finality to his voice. ‘May the Steyn rix in hys herte,’ he added, words that seemed to have a special significance for Boswell, who started a little at it and muttered a blessing under his breath. It was this that warned Bracken against asking outright where Medlar was, and this too that gave him the uncomfortable feeling that there was a lot about the Holy Burrows that he did not understand, and never would.
‘With your visit we have now heard from all six of the seven major systems—Duncton, Avebury, Uffington, of course, Stonehenge, Castlerigg and Rollright,’ said Skeat.
‘What’s the last one which you haven’t heard from?’ asked Bracken.
‘It’s the great system of Siabod in North Wales. Nomole has come to Uffington who knows what has happened to it in the plague. Perhaps nomole survived, but I think that is unlikely… the Siabod moles are famous, or notorious, for their toughness. Of all the seven systems this is the least accessible and the most difficult to live in.’
Bracken listened fascinated, for Siabod was Mandrake’s old system, the one where they spoke a different language, even today.
‘Is there a Stone there?’ he asked, hoping to find out something more.
‘Now that is something we would very much like to know! The records have no account of a Stone on the Siabod system itself, but there is a constant reference to a Stone or stones at a place nearby mysteriously called Castell y Gwynt, and there is a single reference in the records of Linden, referring to the travels of Ballagan to the “Stones of Tryfan” which we think is a group of the Stones in this other place. Perhaps bigger than the rest.’
‘Why’s it so important?’ asked Bracken, his mind racing with these mysteries and strange names.
‘Because while other systems come and go, the seven great systems have always been occupied and lived in. Some, like Duncton, have been cut off for long periods, but moles there have always finally come forward who have maintained the traditions laid down by Ballagan himself, as you yourselves have now. We do not know—we have never really known—if the moles of Siabod worship at whatever Stone it is that stands at Castell y Gwynt. Their language is different and no scribemole that I know has ever bothered to learn it.’
‘Does it matter?’ asked Bracken, rather regretting the question when he saw the look of patient tolerance that flickered over Skeat’s face for a moment.
