The Fellowship of the Talisman (19 page)

“Junk,” he said contemptuously and tossed the pouch aside.

“And now the sword,” he said. “A blade carried by a gentleman. Much better, I suppose, than the poor iron that we carry.”

He stepped to one side and drew the blade from Duncan's scabbard. Squatting down in front of Duncan, he examined it with a practiced eye.

“Good steel,” he said, “and serviceable. But where is the gold, where are the jewels? I would have expected a scion of the nobility to carry a better piece than this.”

“Gold and jewels are for ceremony,” Duncan told him. “This is a fighting weapon.”

The Reaver nodded. “What you say is true. Sharp and with a needle point. Very good, indeed.”

He flicked the sword point upward, thrust it forward an inch or two to prick against Duncan's throat.

“Let us now suppose,” he said, “you tell me what is really going on. Where is the treasure that you seek? What kind of treasure is it?”

Duncan said nothing. He sat quietly—quietly while every instinct screamed for him to pull away. But if he flinched from the pointed steel, he told himself, there would be no purpose served. Flinch away and one flick of the Reaver's wrist would have the point against his throat again.

“I'll have your throat out,” the Reaver threatened.

“If you do,” said Duncan, “you'll foreclose ever finding out.”

“How true,” the Reaver said. “How very true, indeed. Perhaps skinning you alive would be a better way. Tell me, have you ever watched while a man was skinned alive?”

“No, I never have.”

“It is not a pretty sight,” the Reaver said. “It is done most slowly, a little at a time. There are various methods of procedure. Beginning at the toes or sometimes at the fingers. But that is tedious work for the skinner, who must be very careful since the technique is quite delicate. I think I might prefer, if I were the skinner, to begin at the belly or the crotch. Although quite complicated, I think I would prefer beginning at the crotch. That is a very tender region and it usually brings fast results. If we were to do it on you, where would you prefer we start? We'll accord you the courtesy of making your own choice.”

Duncan said nothing. He could feel the sweat popping out along his forehead and he hoped it didn't show. For this, he sensed, was not idle talk. It was not meant to frighten him into talking. This butcher meant to do it.

The Reaver appeared to be in deep thought, mulling over the situation.

“Maybe it might be better,” he said, “if we did it first on someone else and let you watch a while before we started in on you. Perhaps that great oaf over yonder. He'd be a good one to do it on. He has such a splendid hide. So much of it and in such good condition. Once a man had it off him, he could make a jacket of it. Or that piddling hermit, tied against the tree. He would scream louder than the oaf. He would squirm in agony. He would scream and ask for mercy. He would call most piteously on the Lord. He'd put on quite a show. Although I am undecided. The hermit's skin is so wrinkled that it would seem scarcely worth the effort.”

Duncan still said nothing.

The Reaver made a deprecating gesture. “Oh, well,” he said, “it's too late in the day to talk about it now. To do a first-rate skinning job good light is needed, and the sun's about to set. First thing in the morning, that is when we'll start. So we'll have the full day for it.”

He lumbered to his feet, tucked Duncan's sword beneath his arm, patted his bulging jacket pocket, and made as if to turn away. Then he turned back and looked at Duncan, grinning at him.

“That'll give you the night to think it over,” he said. “We can talk again, come morning.”

He shouted to his men. “Einer and Robin,” he bellowed, “you stand first watch over this precious haul of ours. Don't take your eyes off them. And I want no marks upon them. I want no injury to their hides. I want the pelts perfect when we strip them from them. And should you fail—should you let them, by some mischance, get away, or should you, in your fumbling way, abuse them in any way at all, I shall have your balls.”

“Reaver,” said Duncan, “you are misinformed. There is no treasure. Our journey is not a treasure quest.”

“Ah, well,” said the Reaver, “later we can judge as to that. Although I fear, if you finally should convince me that I am mistaken, it may be difficult to stick your hide back on you.”

He walked a few steps out beyond the edge of the grove to reach the beginning of the strand and again raised his voice in a bellow.

“Cedric, for the love of Christ, why so far away? I said set up the camp nearby.”

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.”