As he disappeared into the undergrowth, Bracken felt the pain as if it were his own. There was a sense of loss and failure over the mole that made Bracken want to run after him and say, ‘No. It’s not like that, it’s not.’ Though why he wanted to say such a thing, or about what, he did not know.
The mole’s progress was not hard to follow, for he made a lot of noise and, despite his fear, Bracken followed him. He staggered this way and that, crashing painfully through some brambles and leaving a red-brown smear of blood on a young sapling he brushed against. The more Bracken watched him the less he was afraid and the more he wanted to help in some way. There must be something he could do. Fetch Rose? He would never know where to find her. Rue? Too far, and he doubted if she would want to leave her tunnels having only just refound them.
He remembered that once Hulver had told him that the juice of sanicle was good for rubbing into wounds, but he didn’t even know what it looked like, whether it was in season, or where to find it. And anyway, looking at this hurt creature, whose wounds looked all the worse for his being so big and once-powerful, Bracken thought that there was no herb that would help him now.
What would Hulver have done? He would have comforted the mole by talking gently to him. It was this conviction that made Bracken finally break cover, though he did it with some care—approaching the mole from his right side from where, given his wounds, he could more easily see and scent Bracken. He deliberately made a noise as he came near and the mole came to a clumsy halt.
‘It’s all right,’ said Bracken, ‘I will not harm you.’
The mole turned his snout painfully towards Bracken and even tried to raise himself on his back paws for a few terrible seconds.
‘It’s all right,’ said Bracken again. ‘I may be able to help.’
‘Where are the pastures?’ asked the mole. ‘Where are my tunnels?’
‘The pastures are only fifty yards more,’ said Bracken. ‘Not far.’ Bracken turned towards them and led the way, slowing down when he sensed that even though he was going at a snail’s pace, it was still too fast for the other mole. Finally they reached the wood’s edge where the long grass grew on the wood side of the fence, stirred by the wind that always seemed to come off the pastures.
The mole slumped down, snout low, and Bracken asked,
‘What’s your name?’
‘Cairn. From the pastures.’ For him to say that took a long time, for his voice came slowly and with pain.
‘Did a Duncton mole do this,’ asked Bracken, ‘because you’re from the pastures?’
‘It was a mating fight. I took a woodmole for a mate. A mole called Rune found us. Do you know Rune?’
There was fear in Cairn’s voice, for it occurred to him that Bracken might be one of Rune’s friends. But then the thought weakened into hopelessness; if he was, so what? It didn’t matter anymore. He knew he was going to die.
‘Rune!’ exclaimed Bracken. ‘Yes. I know Rune. Everymole in Duncton does.’
‘He found us several days ago and I fought him and chased him away; I should have killed him. It was my first mating fight. He brought another mole and I could not fight him. Not to win. His name was Mandrake.’
Bracken looked with renewed horror at Cairn. No living mole knew better than he what that meant. Surely there was something he could do.
Cairn seemed lost in a world of his own, for his head hung down on to the ground, tilted to one side so the wound did not touch the grass, and the only movement was his quick, shallow breathing that made one of his limp paws twist fractionally to the left and then back again with each in-and-out of his breath.
It occurred to Bracken finally that if only he could get Cairn to go a little way further up the hill to where the Stone faced the west towards far-off Uffington, the line on which he himself had automatically crouched when he had first come to the Stone and on which Hulver had died, there might be some power for comfort there.
Somehow he coaxed Cairn along, though each step was painful, until at last Bracken could sense that they were in the right place. Cairn seemed to sense it, too, for he slumped down again with a sigh. His breathing grew easier and he was happy to be able to point his snout out over the pastures he loved. It was afternoon and the sky was light, with a few high clouds and some haze far off below them over the vales.
It was peaceful there and as Bracken faced in the direction of Uffington and felt its power coming to them, with the strength of the Stone from behind, a peace was beginning to fall on the broken and suffering Cairn.
‘Tell me about the Stone,’ he whispered. ‘She talked about the Stone. She said, Rebecca told me, that she came up to the Stone after I left her to chase the Rune mole away. She talked a little about it.’
