Duncton Quest by William Horwood Read Free Book Online

least.”
    “Scribed by Scirpus,” said Boswell.
    Spindle nodded quickly and continued down the last part of the passage and passed through a rounded and unimpressive entrance into a great and magnificent burrow which stretched right and left and straight ahead as far as the eye could see. Here and there, with no regularity at all, its chalky roof was supported by great black flints. There were shelves, row on row of them, but they were empty and broken, and on the floor of the burrow, wildly scattered about except in a few areas where Spindle himself had cleared up the mess, were the fragments and parts of broken bark books and records, scrolls and folios. The great Library of the Holy Burrows had been desecrated and destroyed.
    “Not a lot to see,” said Spindle. “The grikes did much damage. Dear me, yes they did.” Then with a sigh walked aimlessly back and forth quite bereft of words.
    Boswell took all this in quickly, touched a few remnants that lay nearby, and then turned to Spindle.
    “You had better tell us what happened,” he said.
    “That’s a tale and a half,” said Spindle.
    “Then there’s no better place to tell it than here and one day, perhaps, Spindle, the words you speak will be scribed in their turn,” he said, looking meaningfully at Tryfan. “So tell of it well and of your part in it, and with truth. Let it run its natural course.”
    “That I will!” said Spindle, responding to Boswell’s instruction. “From my heart to thy heart I tell it, truth by truth as I saw it and may it one day be known to all moles.”
    With which he settled down amidst the debris. Then, with a final look about them as if to confirm that they were indeed alive and he was not alone in the Holy Burrows anymore, he took a deep breath, scratched himself once or twice, peered here and there for inspiration, and then began to tell them of the disaster that had overtaken Uffington of which he, Spindle, who never thought he was much of a mole at all, was the sole living survivor.
     

Chapter Three
    “Of Seven Barrows am I, which is one of the systems on the southern side of Uffington and has long provided moles as worm-finders, tunnel-makers and clerics to service the scribemoles,” began Spindle.
    “My mother had to send one of us up to Uffington the June before last Longest Night and, as I was not much of a one for fighting or defence she sent the weakest – me!” He peered at his paws and shrugged his thin shoulders apologetically.
    “I was put into the service of the scribemole Brevis who was new to the Burrows. His only question was whether or not I had faith in the Stone.”
    “And your reply?” asked Boswell.
    “I said I had,” said Spindle quietly, with a look of absolute faith in his eyes, and gentleness, too. “I was born in the shadow of the Holy Burrows and there are many Stones about the downland of Seven Barrows. As a youngster I used to hide from my siblings among them. They protected me and I knew their strength. I know the Stone exists.”
    Spindle spoke these words fervently. Boswell nodded encouragingly and looked at Tryfan, who saw he was well pleased with the answer.
    “My master Brevis had only recently completed his novitiate and been ordained a scribemole, and I was pleased to be put with one of the newer members of the community. Not that he was especially young, however, for he had come to his vocation late in life and had made his own way from Buckland, a system to the north of Uffington. But he soon became a good scribe and scholar, his paw being a fair one, and he was kind enough to teach me a little of scribing so that I might help him in the Library – something other scribemoles rather frowned on. But though I could not read well, nor fully scribe, I could scriven notes for him and find texts as well, and this was to come in useful after the grikes had done their terrible work.
    “So, as well as I could, I did what I was asked to do and though others were better than I