The Fellowship of the Talisman

From a short distance away Old Cedric’s piping voice answered him. “Here there was a small patch of grazing for the horses—we’ll want to keep an eye on them—and a good supply of down wood ready for the fire.”

  The Reaver grumbled underneath his breath, then said, “Well, I guess it really makes no difference. These ones are securely bound. The Devil himself could not work them free. They’ll be closely watched and we are just a step away.”

  Einer, the one who had been made to change his seat to make room for Duncan and Conrad that night at the manor house, said, “We could drag them into camp. It would be a pleasure.”

  The Reaver considered for a moment and then said, “No, I don’t think so. There’ll be two men at all times watching over them. Why should we waste our strength? Besides, here they’ll have quiet to get their thoughts together and know their proper course, come morning.”

  As he went down the strand, others trailed after him. Einer and Robin, two lusty louts, stayed behind.

  Einer said to Duncan, “You heard what he said. We want no shenanigans. I am under orders to make no marks on you, but at the least tomfoolery I’ll feed you sand until you choke.”

  Conrad asked, “You all right, m’lord?”

  “No talking,” Robin, the guard, told them. “You are to keep your mouths shut.”

  “I’m all right,” said Duncan. “So is Andrew. I don’t see Meg.”

  “She’s over toward the left, not far from Daniel. They have him tied up between two trees.”

  “I said no talking,” Robin screamed, taking a quick step forward, brandishing a rusty claymore.

  “Easy,” Einer cautioned him. “The Reaver said no marks.”

  Robin pulled back, let the claymore fall to his side.

  “M’lord,” said Conrad, “it seems we face great peril.”

  “I am sure we do,” said Duncan.

  The manuscript was still where it had blown, tangled in the tiny shrub, held there by the pressure of the wind.

  15

  There was something stirring in the clump of willows at the outer edge of the grove. Duncan sat bolt upright, staring at the spot where he had seen the stirring, or thought that he had seen it. Watching intently, he could not be sure. A fox, he thought, although it seemed unlikely that a fox would creep in so close. Or perhaps some other animal, some small roamer of the night, out to find a meal.

  The clump of tangled willows screened the Reaver’s camp. Through the interlacing branches Duncan could see the flare of fire. Earlier the night had been loud with the shouting, the laughter and the singing of the men about the fire, but as the night wore on, the noise had quieted down.

  The moon had risen earlier and now stood halfway up the eastern sky. The keening he had heard before still came intermittently and he now was certain that the sound came from somewhere in the fen.

  His wrists were sore from straining against the ropes in the hope that he could loosen them, might even slip them off. But he no longer strained against them, for there was no give to them and he was convinced that there was no way of working free of them.

  There had to be a way to escape, he told himself, there simply had to be. For hours he had racked his brains to find the way. A sharp stone, perhaps, against which he could scrape his bonds, abrading them, finally cutting through them or damaging them so much they could then be broken. But there seemed to be no stones, only sand mixed with a little loam and clay. By intricate contortions he probably could slide his bound hands beneath his rump, double up his knees and thus be able to reverse the position of his hands, pulling them under and over his legs, getting them in front of him, where he could get at the rope that bound them with his teeth. But that, he knew, would be impossible with the two guards watching. As a matter of fact, he was not sure at all that it could be done. Or it was possible that if he could crawl to Conrad, either he could chew through Conrad’s bonds or Conrad chew through his—more than likely Conrad chew through his, for Conrad had bigger teeth and a stronger jaw. But that, too, would be impossible with Einer and Robin watching.

  He built up fantasies of rescue—of Snoopy coming back and being able to sneak up and cut the bonds of one of them, who could then engage the guards while Snoopy went on with the freeing of the others; of Ghost coming in and then streaking off for help, for any kind of help; of Diane plummeting down astride her griffin, armed with her battle axe; even of the Wild Huntsman and his pack of baying dogs, forsaking his eternal chase across the sky and rushing in to help. But none of this, he knew, was about to happen.

  The chances were that there’d be no escape or rescue, and when morning came … But he refused to think of that, he shut his mind to it. It was the sort of prospect a man could not plan against. Thinking of it in those small chinks of time when he could not block his thinking of it, he admitted that it was unlikely he could stand up, in any decent sort of way, against the torture. And the worst of it, he thought, was that he had nothing he could tell the Reaver that would forestall the torture.

  For there was no treasure, there had been no thought of treasure. He wondered how the Reaver had picked up the idea they might be after treasure. Although, come to think of it, that would be almost automatic for a man of the Reaver’s stripe. Ascribing his own motives and expectations to other men, it would not be unusual for the Reaver to sniff out the scent of treasure or the drive toward a treasure in anyone he met.

  Tiny had quit his struggling some time before, although he had kept it up for a long while, and now lay quietly on his side. For a long time Conrad had not stirred; knowing Conrad, Duncan thought, he might have gone to sleep. Andrew hung against his tree, limp, the ropes supporting him. From the Reaver’s camp came muted sounds of revelry, although more subdued than they had been in the evening.

  The manuscript still was entangled in the low-growing shrub, the wind still fluttering the edges of its pages. Duncan ached to make some effort to conceal or hide it, but feared that any effort he might make to do so would call attention to it.

  The guards had not been relieved and were getting restless. Quietly they had talked it over between themselves, wondering aloud if the Reaver might have forgotten to send out their replacements.

  With some surprise, Duncan realized that he was hungry and thirsty. Thirst he could understand, but the hunger puzzled him. Surely a man in his position, facing what he faced, should not think of hunger.

  How many days, he wondered, since he and Conrad had left Standish House? It seemed half of forever, but when he counted back it was only five or six, although he could not be sure. Somehow, when he thought of them, the days got tangled up. So little time, he thought, to get into so much trouble; so much time to have gone so short a distance on their journey.

  Robin said to Einer, loudly enough for Duncan to catch the words, “They should have sent someone long ago to take our place. Probably, by this time, the lot of them are besotted on the wine that was given for all of us. And us not with a taste of it.”

  “I would not mind a cup of it,” said Einer. “It is seldom that we have wine. I had been looking forward to it. For months we have drunk nothing but ale until it lies sour upon the stomach.”

  “I have a mind,” said Robin, “to go and get a gourd of it for us. In a moment I’d be back.”

  “The Reaver would take the ears off you if you left your post.”

  “The Reaver, whatever else you may say of him,” protested Robin, “is a reasonable man and not one to exact undue suffering from his men. If I went and spoke to him of it, he might send out someone to take our place. He’s simply forgotten how long he’s had us out here.”

  “But the prisoners!”

  “Not a one of them has stirred in the last hour. There’s naught to fear from them.”

  “I still don’t like the sound of it,” said Einer.

  “I’m going to get that wine,” said Robin. “It’s not fair to keep us out here while they lie guzzling. I’ll be back in the shake of a wee lamb’s tail. They all may be so
sodden they’ll take no notice of me.”

  “If there’s any wine left.”

  “There should be. There were three casks of it.”

  “Well, if you’re determined, then. But hurry. I still think it is a foolish thing to do.”

  “I’ll be right back,” said Robin.

  He wheeled about and disappeared, moving hurriedly, blotted from Duncan’s sight by the clump of willows.

  Wine, thought Duncan. Who could they have encountered who would give them wine?

  A faint rustling came from the willows. The fox, or whatever it might be, was still there, or had come back again.

  Einer, who must have heard the rustling, started to turn, but the figure that rose out of the willows moved too fast for him. An arm went around his throat and metal flashed briefly before it disappeared with a thud, sinking into Einer’s chest. The guard straightened momentarily, gurgling, then slumped and fell, to lie huddled on the sand. One foot jerked spasmodically, kicking at the earth.

  The man who had risen from the willows ran toward Duncan and knelt beside him. In the light of the moon, Duncan caught a glimpse of his face.

  “Cedric!” he whispered.

  “As I told you once before,” Cedric whispered back, “a small stroke here and there.”

  The knife in his hand sliced through the bonds that held Duncan’s hands, then he turned to the feet and slashed the rope that held the ankles. He thrust the knife toward Duncan.

  “Here,” he said, “take this. You’ll have need of it.”

  The old bee master rose and started for the willows.

  “Wait, man!” whispered Duncan. “Stay and go with us. If the Reaver finds you out …”

  “Nay. My bees. The bees still have need of me. They would be lost without me. And no one will notice. They all lie as if dead, badly in their cups.”

  Duncan surged to his feet. His legs seemed dead beneath him, numb from being bound so long. Old Cedric was already gone, vanishing in the willows.

  Duncan ran to Conrad, pushed at him so he could reach his arms.

  “What goes on, m’lord?”

  “Quiet,” Duncan whispered.

  He cut the cords that bound Conrad’s arms and handed him the knife.

  “Free your legs,” he said, “then cut loose the others. The second guard is coming back. I’ll take care of him.”

  Conrad grabbed the knife. “Thank dear God,” he said.

  As he ran toward the willows, Duncan could hear the shuffling tread of Robin returning, floundering through the sand. Duncan stooped to scoop up the claymore that Einer had dropped. It was an awkward, heavy weapon that did not fit his fist. His numbed fingers had some difficulty grasping it, but finally he managed to get a good grip on it.

  Robin began talking to Einer even before he rounded the willows.

  “I took an unbroached cask of it,” he crowed triumphantly. “No one noticed. Or I don’t think they did. All of them are slobbered.”

  He grunted, shifting the cask from one shoulder to the other. “We have enough to last out the night,” he said. “More than enough to last the night. There’ll be some left over we can wash our feet in if we feel the urge.”

  He came around the corner of the clump of willows, and Duncan stepped swiftly forward. The stroke had no finesse, no fanciness, no swordsmanship. He simply crashed the edge of the claymore down on the top of Robin’s head. The skull split with the sound of a ripe melon popping; the rusty iron stopped only when it reached the breast bone. The violence of the iron striking the heavy bone set up a vibration that made Duncan’s forearm tingle. Robin made no sound. He fell like a tree before an axe. The cask hit the ground and bounced, rolling for a ways, its contents slopping in it.

  Duncan bent over the body, reached for the hilt of Robin’s blade and jerked it free. Then he ran for the manuscript, and with the two weapons tucked beneath his armpit, held by the pressure of his arm, he picked up the manuscript, folded it once, unneatly, and thrust it inside his shirt, where it lay against his skin.

  Andrew was free, staggering about on unsteady legs, and so also was Meg. Conrad was bending over Tiny, carefully cutting the cords that held the big dog’s jaws together. Duncan ran for Daniel, roped between two trees. As he approached, the horse shied away. Duncan spoke to him softly. “It’s all right, Daniel. Take it easy, boy.” He slashed at the ropes and as they came free, the horse lunged forward, then stood trembling. Beauty, already freed, trotted up, dragging the rope that had been her halter.

  Conrad was moving toward Duncan, and Duncan held out one of the claymores toward him. Conrad raised his hand to show he had his club. “They left it lying there beside me.” Duncan tossed one of the claymores to one side.

  “What the hell’s the matter with Andrew?” he asked. The hermit was stumbling about, looking at the ground.

  Duncan hurried to him, grasped him by the arm. “Come on,” he said. “We must get out of here.”

  “My staff,” gasped Andrew. “I must find my staff.”

  He made a sudden lurch forward. “Ah, there it is,” he said.

  He grabbed it up and thumped it on the ground.

  “Where to, m’lord?” asked Conrad.

  “Back into the hills. We’ll have a better chance there.”

  Conrad sprinted forward, snatched up Meg, threw her on Daniel’s back. “Hang on tight,” he said. “Stay low so a branch doesn’t scrape you off. You’ll have to cling with all your might, for you haven’t got a saddle. I don’t even know where the goddamn saddle is.”

  16

  They halted in the clearing on the top of the rocky ridge where they had stopped the night before to watch the Wild Huntsman careen across the sky. The moon was low in the west and a few birds were beginning to stir and twitter in the woods below them. Meg slid off Daniel, grateful for the halt, and Andrew sat down on a small boulder.

  “They’re all beat out, the both of them,” Duncan told Conrad. “Maybe we should hole in here and wait to see what happens.”

  Conrad looked around. “Good place,” he said. “We could get our backs against those rocks and hold them off, should they come upon us. Better than being caught out in the woods.”

  He held out his wrists for Duncan to see. They still carried ugly red welts from the bonds and the skin was abraded and bleeding. “I notice yours are the same,” he said.

  “They tied us tight,” said Duncan. “If it hadn’t been for Cedric …”

  “He should have come along with us. If the Reaver finds him out …”

  “Maybe he won’t find him out. All of them were dead drunk. Someone had given them three casks of wine. And of course, they’d have to try to drink it up. Who in the world would have given them wine?”

  “Maybe they found it. In one of the burned homesteads.”

  “No. Einer, or was it Robin, said someone had given it to them.”

  “You asked Old Cedric to come along with us?”

  “That’s right. He said he couldn’t. That his bees had need of him.”

  “Ghost didn’t show up last night.”

  “Maybe he did and saw what had happened and went tearing off to try to locate Snoopy.”

  “Had he come down, he would have scared the Jesus out of those two guards. They’d have lit out.”

  Duncan shook his head. “What good would it have done? Even so, Ghost could have done nothing to cut us loose.”

  “Yes,” said Conrad, “maybe that is it. Maybe he did show up and then left again. But what do we do now, m’lord?”

  “We’ll talk it over, think about it,” Duncan said. “I don’t know quite yet what we should do. Maybe find a place to hole up until the situation clears a bit.”

  “If it clears.”

  “We have to do something. We have no food, no blankets. Nothing. And the Reaver took the wizard’s amulet.”

  “Small loss,” said Conrad. “Just a pretty bauble.”

  “It may be more than that,” said Duncan. “It may be a powerful t
alisman. It may have provided us protection. We were able to escape the enchantment, we defeated the hairless ones with ease, the werewolves turned tail and ran. It may have been the amulet that brought all these things about.”

  “It gave us no protection from the Reaver.”

  “That is right,” said Duncan. “It did not help us against the Reaver. But I am sure it helped us with the others.”

  Andrew rose from his boulder and came over to where they were standing.

  “I know,” he said, “what you must think of me. There was no time for it to be done before, but now that we have a breathing space perhaps you may want to castigate me for the dereliction of my duty. I was the one who should have kept the watch. You left me on guard against any seeming danger. But I dozed. I caught a catnap, I am sure of that. That must have been the manner in which they came upon us, with me nodding while I should have been a-watch.”

  “So that is how it came about,” rumbled Conrad. “I had wondered briefly on it, but had no time to think any further. So you were fast asleep. Why should you have needed sleep? You slept all the night before, slumped in Daniel’s saddle.”

  “That is true, of course,” said Andrew. “But it was not restful sleep. It was not the kind of sleep you judged it to be. Dozing was more like it. Not sound and solid sleep. Although I do not offer that as an extenuation of my failing. It all comes of a certain weakness in me, a weakness of the body. My mind may tell the body to perform, but the body fails. I am of not such stuff as martyrs may be made.”

  “And you also,” said Conrad, “have a mouth that keeps running on.”

  “Think no further on it,” Duncan said. “To each of us our weaknesses. In the end, it turned out all right.”

  “I shall endeavor,” Andrew said, “to recompense for my failure in this instance. I shall try the harder to do my bounden duty as a soldier of the Lord. Henceforth, I swear to you, you may depend upon me in all surety.”

  “If it would make you feel any better,” Conrad said, “I would be delighted to kick you in the rump. That might ease your conscience, which seems to be so sorely smarting.”