Fellowship of the Talisman

4

Duncan woke in the night and for a moment of panic wondered where he was. There were no points of reference, just a musty darkness with some flicker in it — as if he might be in some limbo, a waiting room for death.

Then he saw the door, or if not a door, an opening, with the soft wash of moonlight just beyond it, and in the fire-lit flicker, the bulk of Tiny, lying stretched out before the opening. Tiny had his legs pushed out in front of him, with his head resting on his paws.

Duncan twisted his head around and saw that the flicker came from a low-burned fire upon the hearth. A few feet away lay Conrad, flat upon his back, his toes pointing upward and his arms flung out on each side. His great barrel chest went up and down. He was breathing through his mouth, and the sucked-in then expelled air made a fluttering sound.

There was no sign of the hermit. Probably he was on his pallet, over in the corner. The air smelled faintly of wood smoke, and over his head, Duncan could make out the indistinct shapes of bunches of herbs the hermit had hung up to dry. From outside came a soft stamping sound. That would be Daniel not far away.

Duncan pulled the blanket up beneath his chin and shut his eyes. More than likely it was several hours till dawn, and he could get more sleep.

But sleep was reluctant to come. Much as he tried to shut them out, the events of the last few days kept parading up and down his mind. And the parading of events brought home again the rigors of the adventure he had embarked upon. In this hermit cave it was snug enough, but beyond the cave lay the Desolated Land with its freight of evil, with the burned-out village only a mile or so away, the church the only building standing. Not only the Evil, he reminded himself, but a band of evil men headed by the Reaver, who were out to track down his little party. For the moment, however, he could forget the Reaver, who had gone blundering off somewhere ahead of them.

Then his mind went back to that last day at Standish House when he’d sat with his father in the library, that same room where His Grace had told the story of the script writ in Aramaic.

Now he asked of his father the question that had been roiling in his mind ever since he’d heard the story. “But why us?” he asked. “Why should the manuscript have been in Standish House?”

“There is no way to know,” his father said. “The family’s history is a long one and not too well documented. There are large parts of it that have been entirely lost. There are some records, of course, some writings, but mostly it is legend, stories from so long ago and so often told that there is no way to judge the truth that may be in them. We now are solid country folks, but there was a time when we were not. In the family records and in the legendary tales there are many wanderers and some shameless adventurers. It could have been one of these, traveling far, who brought home the manuscript. Probably from somewhere in the east. As part, perhaps, of his portion of the loot from a captured city or stolen from some monastery or, less likely, honestly purchased for a copper or two as a curiosity. There could not have been much value placed upon it, and rightly so, of course, for until it was placed in the hands of the fathers at the abbey, there was no one who could have known the significance of it. I found it in an old wooden crate, the wood half gone with rot and with mildew on the documents that it contained. The manuscript was tossed in among other odds and ends of parchment, most of which were worthless.”

“But you saw or sensed some significance in it. Enough to take it to the abbey.”

“No significance,” his father said. “No thought of any possible significance. Just an idle curiosity. I read some Greek, you know, and I can make my way in several other languages, although but poorly, but I’d never seen the like of the manuscript before. I simply wondered what it might be and was somewhat intrigued by it, and I thought that perhaps I should put some of those fat and lazy fathers at it. After all, they should be called upon occasionally to do a little work for us, if for no other reason than to remind them where they get their keep. When there’s a roof to be repaired at the abbey, we are the ones they come to for the slate and the expertise to put it on. When they need a load of hay, being too trifling to go out and scythe it on their own, they know where to come to get it.”

“You must say this for them,” said Duncan. “They did quite a job on the manuscript.”

“Better that they should be doing that,” his father said, “which, after all, is useful work, rather than producing precious little conceits that they employ to spell out the happy hours of someone or other. All scriptoria, and I suspect the scriptorium at our abbey most of all, are filled with artistic fools who have too high an opinion of themselves. The Standishes have held this land for nigh on a thousand years, and from first to last we have given service to the abbey, and as those years went on, the abbey has become more grasping and demanding. Take the matter of that keg of brandy. His Grace did not ask for it, but he came as close to asking as even his good offices allowed.”

“That brandy is a sore point with you, my lord,” said Duncan.

His father whiffled out his mustache. “For centuries this house has produced good brandy. It is a matter of some pride for us, for this is not a country of the grape. But through the years we have pruned and grafted and budded until we have a vine that would be the pride of Gaul. And I tell you, son, a keg of brandy is not come by easily. His Grace had best use this one sparingly, for he’s not about to get another soon.”

They sat for a time not speaking, with the fire snapping in the great fireplace.

Duncan’s father finally stirred in his chair. “As we have done with the grape,” he said, “so have we done with other things. We have cattle here that run to several hundredweight heavier than most cattle in other parts of Britain. We raise good horses. Our wool is of the best. The wheat we grow is hardy for this climate — wheat, while many of our neighbors must be content with oats. And as it is with the crops and livestock, so it is with people. Many of the peasants and serfs who work our acres and are happy at it have been here almost as many years as the family.

Standish House, although it was not known then as Standish House, had its beginnings in a time of strife and uncertainty, when no man’s life was safe. It began as a wooden fort, built upon a mound, protected by a palisade and moat as many manor houses are protected even to this day.

“We still have our moat, of course, but now it has become a pretty thing, with water lilies and other decorative plants growing in it, and its earthen sides well landscaped with shrubs and slanted flower beds. And stocked with fish that serve as sport or food for whoever has the mind to dangle a baited hook into its waters. The drawbridge remains in place as a bridge across the moat. Ritually, we raise and lower it once a year to be sure it still will work. The country has grown a little more secure with the years, of course, but not so one could notice. There still are roving bands of human predators who show up every now and then. But with the years our house has grown stronger and news of our strength has spread. Not for three hundred years or more has any bandit or reaver or whatever he may call himself dared to throw himself against our walls. A few hit-and-run raids to snatch up a cow or two or a clutch of sheep are all that ever happen now. Although I do not think it is the strength of our walls alone that has brought about this security we enjoy. It is the knowledge that our people still are a warrior people, even if they be no more than serfs or peasants.

We no longer maintain an army of idle and arrogant men-at-arms. There is no longer need to do so. Should there be danger, every man of this estate will take up arms, for each man here considers this land his land as much as it is ours.

So in a still turbulent society we have created here a place of security and peace.”

“I have loved this house,” said Duncan. “I shall not be easy, leaving it.”

“Nor I easy, my son, at having you leave it. For you will be going into danger, and yet I do not feel any great uneasiness, for I know that you can handle yourself. And Conrad is a stout companion.”

“So,” said Duncan, “are Daniel and Tiny.”

“His Grace, the other night,” his father said, “carried on at some length about our lack of progress. We are, he said, a stagnant society. And while this may be true, I still can see some good in it. For if there were progress in other things, there’d be progress in armaments as well. And any progress in arms would spell continual war, for if some chieftain or piddling king acquired a new implement of war he need must try it out against a neighbor, thinking that for at least a moment it would give him some advantage.”

“All our arms,” said Duncan, “historically are personal arms. To use them one man must face another man at no more than arm’s length. There are few that reach out farther. Spears and javelins, of course, but they are awkward weapons at the best and once one has cast them he cannot retrieve them to cast them once again. They and slings are all that have any distance factor. And slings are tricky things to use, mostly inaccurate and, by and large, not too dangerous.”

“You are right,” his father said. “There are those, like His Grace, who bewail our situation, but to my mind we are quite fortunate. We have achieved a social structure that serves our purposes and any attempt to change it might throw us out of balance and bring on many troubles, most of which, I would imagine, we cannot now suspect.”

A sudden coldness, a breath of frost sweeping over Duncan, jerked him from his review of that last day. His eyes popped open, and bending over him, he saw the hooded face of Ghost, if face it could be called. It was more like a murky oval of swirling smoke, encircled by the whiteness of the cowl. There were no features, just that smoky swirl, and yet he felt he was staring straight into a face.

“Sir Ghost,” he said sharply, “what is your intent to waken me so rudely and abruptly?”

Ghost, he saw, was hunkering beside him, and that was a strange thing, that a ghost should hunker.

“I have questions to ask your lordship,” said Ghost. “I have asked them beforetimes of the hermit and he is impatient of me for asking questions that do not fall within his knowledge, although as a holy man one might think he had the knowledge. I asked them of your huge companion and he only grunts at me. He was outraged, me-thinks, that a ghost should presume to talk to him. Should he think he might find any substance to me, I believe he might have put those hamlike hands about my throat and choked me. Although no longer can I be choked. I have been choked sufficiently. Also, I think, a broken neck. So, happily, I now am beyond all such indignity.”

Duncan threw the blanket off him and sat up.

“After such a lengthy prelude,” he said, “your questions must be ones of more than ordinary importance.”

“To me,” said Ghost, “they are.”

“I may not be able to answer them.”

“In which case, you’ll be no worse than any of the others.”

“So,” said Duncan, “go ahead and ask.”

“How come, my lord, do you think that I should be wearing such a getup? I know, of course, that it is a proper ghostly costume. It is worn by all proper ghosts, although I understand that in the case of some castle ghosts the habiliment may be black. Certainly I was not dressed in such a spotless robe when I was strung up from the oak. I was strung up in very filthy rags and in the terror of being hanged I fear I befouled them even further.”

“That,” said Duncan, “is a question I cannot answer.”

“At least you accord me the courtesy of an honest reply,” said Ghost. “You did not growl or snarl at me.”

“There might be someone who has made a study of such matters who could give you an answer. Someone of the Church, perhaps.”

“Well, since I’m not likely soon to meet someone of the Church, methinks I can then do little about it. It is not too important, but it is something that has bothered me. I have mulled upon it.”

“I am sorry,” Duncan said.

“I have yet another question.”

“Ask it if you feel you must. An answer I’ll not promise.”

“My question,” said Ghost, “is why me? Not all people who die, not even all whose lives are ended violently or in shame, assume a ghostly guise. If all did, the world would be filled with ghosts. They’d be treading upon one another’s sheets. There’d be no room for the living.”

“Neither can I answer that one.”

“Actually,” said Ghost, “I was not a really sinful person. Rather, I was despicable and no one has ever told me that despicability is a sin. I had my sins, of course, as has everyone, but unless my understanding of sins is faulty, they were very small ones.”

“You really have your troubles, don’t you. You were complaining when we first met that you had no proper place to haunt.”

“I think if I had,” said Ghost, “I might be happier, although perhaps it is not intended that a ghost should be happy. Contented, perhaps. It might be proper for a ghost to feel contentment. Contentment, certainly, cannot be proscribed. If I had a place to haunt, then I’d have a task to do and could be about it. Although if it included the jangling of chains and making whooing noises, I would not like it much. If it was just slinking around and letting people catch small glimpses of me that might not be bad. Do you suppose that not having a place to haunt, not having a job to do, may be in the way of retribution for the way I lived? I don’t mind telling you, although I would not tell everyone and would not want you to bruit it about, that if I had wanted to I could have done some work, making an honest living instead of begging at the church. Light work, of course. I was never very strong; I was sickly as a child. I recall that it was the wonder of my parents” life that they managed to raise me.”

“You raise too many questions of philosophy,” said Duncan. “I cannot cope with them.”

“You say that you are going to Oxenford,” said Ghost. “Perhaps to confer with some great scholar there.

Otherwise, why would one go to Oxenford? I have heard that there are many great doctors of the Church gathered there and that among themselves they hold much learned discourse.”

“When we arrive,” said Duncan, “we undoubtedly will see some of the learned doctors.”

“Do you suppose some of them might have answers to my questions?”

“I cannot say for sure.”

“Would it be too forward to ask if I might travel with you?”

“Look,” said Duncan, becoming exasperated, “if you want to go to Oxenford you can easily and safely travel there yourself. You’re a free spirit. You are bound to no place that you must haunt. And in the shape you’re in, no one could lay a hand on you.”

Ghost shuddered. “By myself,” he said, “I’d be scared to death.”

“You’re already dead. No man can die a second time.”

“That is true,” said Ghost. “I had not thought of that. Lonesome, then. How about my loneliness. I know I’d be very lonesome if I tried to travel alone.”

“If you want to go with us,” said Duncan, “I can’t think of a thing we can do to stop you. But you’ll get no invitation.”

“If that’s the case,” said Ghost, “I shall go along with you.”