Страница 19 из 69
9
He had been right, Duncan told himself, back there at the church. They couldn't stay here any longer. They had wasted time and he had the feeling, somehow, that time might be important.
He sat, propped against the cave wall, the heavy blanket pulled up to cover half his body. Tiny lay across the cave's mouth. Outside, just beyond the cave, Daniel stamped and Beauty could be heard moving about. In one corner Conrad snored heroically, gulping explosively between the snores. Andrew, the hermit, wrapped in a blanket on his pallet, mumbled in his sleep. Ghost had disappeared.
He and Conrad could go back, of course, Duncan thought. Back to Standish House. And no one would blame them. The plan from the very begi
He didn't like it, he told himself. He liked none of the situation. The whole adventure had gone awry. Thinking of it, he realized that one of the things he liked least about it were the volunteers they had picked up. Ghost was bad enough, but there wasn't much that could be done about a ghost. The hermit was the worst. He was an old fuddy-duddy with busybody tendencies and a coward to boot. He said he wanted to be a soldier of the Lord and there was no way one could argue against that, just so he kept out of other people's way. The thing about it was, of course, that so far he'd kept out of no one's way. If he kept on with them he'd be underfoot at every turn. But what could be done about it? Tell him he couldn't go? Tell him there was no place for him? Tell him this after they had accepted his hospitality?
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 ru
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 mille
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.