Maybe, Duncan told himself, he was fretting when there was no need to fret. Ten to one, the hermit would beg off, would decide at the last moment that there were imperative reasons why he should not venture from his cell.
And Snoopy, the goblin, what about him? Not to be trusted, more than likely, although in some ways he had made an impressive case for himself. They’d have to watch him closely. That could be left to Conrad. Snoopy probably was more than a little scared of Conrad, and he had a right to be. Conrad had not been joking when he’d said he’d cut his throat. Conrad never joked.
So what to do? Go on or turn back? A case could be made for abandoning the journey. There had been no charge placed upon them to face up to great danger, to ram their heads into a noose, to keep on no matter what the hazard.
But the stakes were high. It was important that the aged savant at Oxenford should see the manuscript, and if they turned back now there was a chance he would never see it. The man was old; His Grace had said that his sands were running out.
And now, thinking of it, he remembered something else that His Grace had said that evening in the library of Standish House. “The lights are going out,” he’d said. “They are going out all over Europe. I have a feeling that we are plunging back again into the ancient darkness.” His Grace, when all was said and done, was something of a sanctimonious blabbermouth, but even granting that, he was not a fool. If, in all solemnity, he had voiced a feeling that the lights were going out, then there was a good chance that they were going out and the olden darkness would come creeping in again.
The churchman had not said that proving the manuscript to be genuine would play a part in holding back the darkness, and yet, as Duncan remembered it, the implication had been there. For if it could be proved, beyond all doubt, that a man named Jesus had actually walked the Earth two millennia ago, if it could be shown that He had said the words He was reported to have said, died in the manner and in the spirit the Gospels reported, then the Church would gain in strength. And a strengthened Church would be a powerful force to hold back that darkness of which His Grace had spoken. For almost two thousand years it had been the one great force speaking out for decency and compassion, standing firm in the midst of chaos, providing men a slender reed of hope to which they might cling in the face of apparent hopelessness.
And what, he asked himself, if once the man at Oxenford had seen the manuscript he should pronounce it valueless, a fraud, a cruel hoax against mankind? Duncan shut his eyes, squeezing them shut, shaking his head. That was something he must never think of. Somehow the faith must be preserved. The whole matter of the manuscript was a gamble, he told himself in all honesty, that must be taken.
He lay, with his head thrown back against the wall of earth, and the agony welled in him. No devout member of the Church, he still was of the Church. It was a heritage that he could not ignore. Almost forty generations of his forebears had been Christians of one sort or another, some of them devout, others considerably less than devout, but Christians all the same. A folk who stood against the roaring and the jeering of the pagan world. And here, finally, was a chance to strike a blow for Christ, a chance such as no other Standish had ever had. Even as he thought this, he knew there was no way he could step aside from the charge that had been placed upon him. There could be no question but that he must go on. The faith, poor as it might be, was a part of him; it was blood and bone of him, and there was no denying it.
10
Snoopy had not been waiting at the church. They had hunted for him, yelled for him, waited for him, but he had not appeared. Finally they had gone on without him, Tiny taking up the point, ranging well ahead and to all sides. The hermit, pacing beside Beauty, followed Conrad, while Duncan and Daniel took up the rear.
Andrew still grumbled about the goblin. “You should be glad that he failed to show up,” he told Duncan. “I tell you there is no truth in him. You can’t trust any of them. They are fickle folk.”
“If we had him with us,” Duncan said, “we could keep an eye on him.”
“On him, of course. But he’s a slippery imp. He could be off and away without your noticing. And what are you going to do about the others?”
“The others?”
“Yes. Other goblins. Assorted gnomes, imps, banshees, trolls, ogres and others of their kind.”
“You talk as if there were many of them here.”
“They are as thick as hair on a dog and up to no good, not a one of them. They hate all of us.”
“But Snoopy said they hated the Harriers even worse.”
“If I were you,” said the hermit, “I wouldn’t bet my life on it, and that is what we are doing, betting our lives on what a goblin told us.”
“Yet when Snoopy told us the quickest and the easiest way, you did not contradict or correct him.”
“The goblin was right,” said Andrew. “This is the easiest way. If it is also the safest, we shall see.”
They followed a small valley, heavily wooded. The brook, which had its origin in the spring near Andrew’s cave, brawled and chattered along a rocky streambed.
As the valley broadened out, they came upon a few small homesteads, some burned to the ground, others with a few blackened timbers or a chimney standing. Crops that had ripened lay in swaths upon the ground, the heavy heads of grain beaten down by rain and wind. Fruit trees had been chopped down.
Ghost had not put in an appearance, although on several occasions Duncan thought he glimpsed him flitting through the trees on the hillside above the valley.
“Have you seen anything of Ghost?” he asked Andrew. “Is he with us?”
“How should I know,” grumbled the hermit. “Who is there to know what a ghost would do?”
He clumped along, fuming, striking his staff angrily against the ground.
“If you don’t want to be here, why don’t you go back?” Duncan asked.
“I may not like it,” said Andrew, “but this is the first chance I’ve had to be a soldier of the Lord. If I don’t grasp it now, I may never have the chance again.”
“As you wish,” said Duncan.
At noon they halted for a brief rest and something to eat.
“Why don’t you ride the horse?” Andrew asked Duncan. “If I had a horse I would save my feet.”
“I’ll ride him when the time comes to do so.”
“And when will that be?”
“When the two of us can work together as a fighting unit. He’s not a saddle horse; he’s a war-horse, trained to fight. He’ll fight with me or without me.”
Andrew grumbled. He’d been grumbling ever since they had started out.
Conrad said, “I like it not. Too quiet.”
“You should be glad of that,” said Andrew.
“Tiny would have let us know if anyone were about,” said Duncan.
Conrad placed the head of his club against the ground, gouging the soil with it.
“They know we’re here,” he said. “They are waiting someplace for us.”
When they took up the march again, Duncan found that he was inclined to be less watchful than he had been when they started in the morning. Despite the occasional burned homestead and the general absence of life, the valley, which grew wider and less wild as they progressed, had a sense of peace and beauty. He upbraided himself at those times when he realized he had become less alert, but a few minutes later he would fall into inattentiveness. After all, he told himself, Tiny was scouting out ahead. If there was anything around, he would let them know.
When he did snap back to attention, he found himself glancing at the sky rather than at the surrounding hills, and it took him a little time to realize that he was watching for Diane and her griffin. Where could she have gone, he wondered, and perhaps more important, why had she gone? And who could she be? Given the time, he would have tried to find out about her, but there had been no time. The puzzling thing about it all was her interest in Wulfert, a wizard centuries dead, with gray-blue lichens growing on his tomb. More than likely it had been Wulfert’s bauble and not Wulfert himself that she had been seeking, although he had no proof of that. He felt the outline of the bauble, which he had thrust into his belt pouch. It made sense, he told himself, that it was the bauble she had been seeking.