“Fine,” said Conrad. “Knocked around some, but all right. The hairless ones are gone. There is no one around. Had to be sure before I came back to you.”
He put a hamlike hand on Duncan’s shoulder, shook him affectionately. “You sure you are all right? Seemed all but dead to me. Had to find a place to hide you safe.”
“But for the love of God,” asked Duncan, “why a tomb? Why hide me in a tomb?”
“Unusual place,” said Conrad. “No one would think to look.”
“That’s right. Conrad, you did fine. Thank you so much.”
“The old lord, he told me take care of you.”
“I’m sure he did,” said Duncan. “And how are the others?”
“Daniel and Tiny are well. They are standing guard behind me. Beauty ran away, but Daniel found her. Daniel has a bruise, high on the shoulder. We licked them, m’lord. We licked them good and proper.”
“Diane? The woman?”
“She flew away on the dragon.”
“Not a dragon, Conrad. A griffin.”
“Griffin, then. She flew away on him.”
“Was she hurt?”
“Blood all over her, but I think it came from the hairless one she killed. The hermit ran away. There’s no hide nor hair of him.”
“Rest easy about him,” said Duncan. “He’ll be back to get his cabbages.”
“What will we do now?”
“We regroup. We talk it over and decide.”
“Harriers now know we are here. They’ll keep watch on us.”
“Maybe it was silly for us to think we could slip through them,” said Duncan.
Although at the time they had talked about it, back at Standish House, it had seemed quite possible. The area that had been desolated was large, and it had seemed unlikely that the Harriers could keep watch over all of it, or would even try to keep watch over all of it. Apparently, however, they had worked out some system to guard the approaches to the area. More than likely they used the hairless ones as pickets to keep watch for anyone who might show up.
Which could have been why, back in the garden plot, they had faced only the hairless ones and not any of the others that made up the Horde.
“We’ll go back to hermit’s cave to talk?” asked Conrad. “Maybe spend the night there?”
“Yes, I think so. I expect the hermit will show up. There’s something I want to talk with him about.”
Conrad half turned to go.
“Wait,” said Duncan. “There is something I want to see about.”
He led the way around the tomb and leaned down to stare into it.
“I think someone threw a rock into it,” he said. “But maybe not. It may be something else.”
It was something else. It glistened as no rock would glisten.
He reached in and lifted it out.
“A bauble,” Conrad said.
“Yes,” said Duncan, “a bauble. And what is it doing here?”
It was as big as a man’s fist and pear-shaped. It was covered by a lacy fretwork of gold, inset at the intersection of the fretwork lines with tiny, flashing jewels. Seen through the fretwork was a silvery object, egg-shaped and with a look of heft to it. From the small neck of the pear-shaped outer framework hung a heavy chain that also may have been gold, but was not quite so lustrous as the fretwork.
Duncan handed the bauble to Conrad and once more leaned over the tomb to peer. From one corner a skull grinned out at him.
“God rest you,” said Duncan to the skull. Together the two men went down the hill, heading for the cave.
7
I guess,” said Andrew, the hermit, “that I never got around to telling you that besides being a devout man, I’m an arrant coward. My heart cried out to help you, but my legs said for me to go. In the end they overruled my heart and took me out of there as fast as I could go.”
“We made out without you,” said Conrad.
“But I failed you. I only had my staff but with it I could have struck a stout blow or two.”
“You’re not a fighting man,” said Duncan, “and we hold no blame of you for running. But there is another way that you can help us.”
The hermit finished up his slice of ham and reached for a wedge of cheese.
“In any way I can,” he said. “It would be my pleasure to be of aid to you.”
“This bauble we found in Wulfert’s tomb,” said Duncan. “Can you tell us what it is? Could it be what the griffin woman was seeking?”
“Ah, that woman,” cried Andrew. “You must believe me, please. I had no idea she was here. She hid from me. I am sure of that. She hid and watched me get my poor meals from the garden patch. There must have been some reason for her hiding.”
“I am sure of that,” said Duncan. “We must try to find the reason.”
“She hid in the church,” the hermit said. “What kind of place is that to hide? It’s sacrilege, that’s what it is. A church is not a place to live in. It was not built to live in. No proper person would even think of living in a church.”
“It was the only place in the village,” said Duncan, “that had a roof to cover her. If she were going to stay here she’d have to have someplace to keep out of the weather.”
“But why did she want to stay here?”
“You heard her. She was seeking some news of Wulfert. She was searching the church records for some word of him. She knew that at one time he lived here. She might have thought that he left here to go elsewhere, and it may have been that kind of word that she was seeking. There is no way she could have known that he was buried here.”
“I know all that,” the hermit said, “but why should she be seeking him?”
Duncan dangled the bauble in front of him, and as he did so Andrew reared back in horror, putting as much distance between it and himself as he was able.
“I think she was seeking this,” said Duncan. “Do you happen to know what it is? Were there any stories in the village about it?”
“It was a relic,” said Andrew. “That’s what the villagers thought it was. That’s how the olden stories ran. A relic, but a relic of what or whom I don’t think I ever heard. Perhaps no one ever knew. The village thought Wulfert was a holy man. He never told them otherwise. He let them go on thinking he was a holy man. It might not have been safe for him if they’d known he was a wizard. Ah, the black shame of it….”
“Yes, I know,” Duncan said unsympathetically. “He was buried in holy ground.”
“Not only that,” cried Andrew, “but the people of the village built a tomb for him. For themselves they were content with crudely carven stones, but for him they spent many days in quarrying great slabs of the choicest stone and more days in dressing it and constructing a place for him to lie. And what is more, there was a great expenditure of wine.”
“Wine? What did wine have to do with it?”
“Why, to pickle him, of course. The old tales said he died at the height of summer and that it was necessary to keep him…”
“That I understand. But they needn’t have used wine. Plain brine would have done as well or better.”
“You may be right — better. There is one story that he got rather high before they could lay him in the tomb. But there were those who thought plain brine would be too vulgar.”
“So they entombed this wizard with a great deal of work and appropriate ceremony in the belief that he was a holy man. And they buried his relic with him. Perhaps hung around his neck.”
Andrew nodded in misery. “I guess, my lord, you have summed it up.
“Don’t call me lord. I’m not a lord. My father is the lord.”
“I am sorry, my lord. I shall not call you so again.”
“How do you suspect that the stories of this Wulfert have lasted so long? A century at least, perhaps several centuries. You have no idea of how long ago this happened?”