“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.”
5
They had great slabs of ham for breakfast, with oaten cakes and honey. Conrad came in from outside to report that Daniel and Beauty had found good grazing in the corner of a nearby hay field and that Tiny had provided his own food by capturing a rabbit.
“In such a case,” said Duncan, “we can be on our way with good conscience. The bellies of all are full.”