But then finally, towards the end of the day, when Boswell was growing tired and Tryfan was afraid he would disappear into his burrow and the opportunity would be gone, he summoned up his courage and started: ‘Boswell?’
Boswell crouched down and gazed at him. But said nothing.
‘Boswell… Bracken told me once that you had a master called Skeat. He said he took you to Uffington. He said you admired him more than anymole and that he taught you.’
Boswell nodded: ‘And very hard he made it for me sometimes!’ he said, remembering Skeat with an affectionate smile.
‘Boswell?’ began Tryfan again. ‘Could I… I mean would you… teach me? As a master?’
Boswell looked at Tryfan for a very long time, just as once, long ago, Rose had looked at Rebecca when she knew that Rebecca would become a healer and had wished she could take from her shoulders some of the suffering that that would bring.
‘Yes,’ said Boswell simply. ‘Though always remember that it is not I who will teach you anything at all, but the Stone.’
The relief on Tryfan’s face was better than seeing the sun rise in the morning or the look on the face of a pup who rediscovers his mother after he thought she had been lost for ever.
‘Well… I mean… what must I do?’ stumbled Tryfan.
‘Learn to hear the silence of the Stone,’ said Boswell.
They sat in silence for a long time before Tryfan, emboldened by Boswell’s agreement, asked another question. ‘Why have you come to Duncton?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Boswell. ‘I thought I knew. I thought it was to find the seventh Book, and to take it and the seventh Stillstone back to Uffington. But now I find I’m waiting for something, but I don’t know what. The Stone will show us finally, as it always does.’
This sense of waiting now began to grow stronger and stronger in Duncton. It was like the buildup to Longest Night, or Midsummer, only much slower and subtler, yet infinitely more powerful.
Winter set in and January grew colder, and then the snows and freezings of February came. The Duncton moles grew used to the presence of Boswell, who would often go among them, Tryfan in close attendance, and tell them tales of the Stone and of many legends which only scribemoles know.
There were only two things he would not do. One was show them how he scribed—‘for that is something a mole must prepare himself for and these tunnels are no longer the place: you have far finer things here!’ The second was that he refused to tell them about his travels with Bracken, or to talk about Rebecca—about whom he was often asked.
But apart from those things, there was nothing that Boswell would not do for other moles, or tell them—although the winter affected him badly and Tryfan had often to make sure that he rested and did not overexert himself.
Still the system waited, and as February advanced and the very first stirrings of still-distant spring were felt in the restlessness in the tunnels, there was the feeling that something, something, would happen soon in the system. Something.
Only two moles in Duncton seemed utterly unaffected by this strange tension—Bracken and Rebecca. They lived more and more quietly and joyously near each other and there were long periods during the winter when neither was seen. All moles respected their privacy, and even Comfrey, always one to pop in and see Rebecca, stopped visiting them. Sometimes, though, Boswell would talk to them, indicating to Tryfan that it was best if he did so alone, and Boswell would be especially still and quiet for days afterwards.
All around them the system they had loved, and to which both had contributed so much, seemed to be waiting; but they, who had once been so sensitive to its moods and changes, never seemed to notice.
The bitter weather of February ran on into March until, after several days of more changeable weather, there came one of those dawns that take a mole by surprise and revive the hope that there can be such a thing as spring. Life need not, after all, be permanently damp and cold.
Rebecca knew it even before dawn came and, leaving her burrow only moments after she awoke, went up on to the surface and over towards the Stone clearing. The wood was still dark when she arrived, but it began to lighten as she found a place to settle down as the mauves of the last of night gave way to the first greens and dark pinks of the dawn. On the wood floor, beneath the leafless beeches, the shadows were still black in the deepest root crevices of the trees, but already some of the leaf litter and fallen twigs and branches were catching the new day’s light that came from the east.
