Book of Silence #03 - Duncton Stone by William Horwood

Author:William Horwood [Horwood, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DeadMan Oct 2011
Published: 1993-04-30T22:00:00+00:00

PART IV

Quail Paramount

Chapter Twenty-Eight

It is with the deepest regret that I must interrupt this tale... just as Privet has set forth on the final stages of her historic return to Duncton Wood, and Thorne and Chervil seem bent on a powerful alliance whose objective is to displace Quail!

Just as, indeed, Maple is set fair to expand his power from the Wolds, whilst the rebels in Duncton Wood, led by bold Pumpkin, are readying themselves for a confrontation with Quail himself...

In short, this tale seems interrupted at its very crux, when all things are poised to turn and change in readiness for the discovery of the truth of the Book of Silence. Yet interrupt it I must, for I have no wish to delude you, who have been so loyal and steadfast a companion on this long journey towards Silence, and have shared with me these discoveries, which together constitute the last tale of Duncton Wood.

For I would not have you think that the voice that takes up the tale from now until its end, is the same you heard before. Sadly, it is not so, it cannot be so...

You will recall that at the start of the text now called Duncton Tales, which is the first part of what historians know as The Book of Silence, I came to Duncton Wood. I was a young mole then in search of life and knowledge, and the answer to a question: “What is the truth of the Book of Silence?” Up by the Duncton Stone I found the aged mole who began to tell me the answer – which telling, with his permission, I scribed down, first as “Duncton Tales”, then as “Duncton Rising” and latterly as “Duncton Stone” – upon the journey of whose telling we are currently embarked.

In the course of time, and the many days and months, and the moleyears of that memorable summer that I spent in the wise company of that good mole, he became my master. I know not when that happened, but it did.

I served him as best I could – fetching him food, helping him to places where he might drink, finding new quarters for him when (as it often did) the mood took him to move on. I did what I could for the wisest mole I ever knew, whom only myself ever called “Master”.

I was much distressed when, for a long time, between the scribing down of “Duncton Rising” and the commencement of “Duncton Stone”, he chose to separate himself from me, saying he needed time to think and to contemplate what he knew (though I did not) would be the final part of his journey to the Stone’s Silence. More than that, he understood that through a period of separation and estrangement I might mature and so be ready to scribe down the last part of the tale. That, at least, was how I reconciled myself to the fact of separation from him.

In that difficult time when he refused to see

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