The Fellowship of the Talisman Read Online Free

bees.”
    â€œI talk too much of bees,” the old man said. “Follow me. Keep close upon my heels.”
    He flitted like a ghost ahead of them. At times he jogged, at other times he ran, then again he’d go cautiously and slowly, feeling out his way.
    They went down into a little valley, climbed a ridge, plunged down into another larger valley, left it to climb yet another ridge. Above them the stars wheeled slowly in the sky and the moon inclined to the west. The chill wind still blew out of the north, but there was no rain.
    Duncan was tired. With no sleep, his body cried out against the pace old Cedric set. Occasionally he stumbled. Conrad said to him, “Get up on the horse,” but Duncan shook his head. “Daniel’s tired as well,” he said.
    His mind detached itself from his feet. His feet kept on, moving him ahead, through the darkness, the pale moonlight, the great surge of forest, the loom of hills, the gash of valleys. His mind went otherwhere. It went back to the day this had all begun.

2
    Duncan’s first warning that he had been selected for the mission came when he tramped down the winding, baronial staircase and went across the foyer, heading for the library, where Wells had said his father would be waiting for him with His Grace.
    It was not unusual for his father to want to see him, Duncan told himself. He was accustomed to being summoned, but what business could have brought the archbishop to the castle? His Grace was an elderly man, portly from good eating and not enough to do. He seldom ventured from the abbey. It would take something of more than usual importance to bring him here on his elderly gray mule, which was slow, but soft of foot, making travel easier for a man who disliked activity.
    Duncan came into the library with its floor-to-ceiling book-rolls, its stained-glass window, the stag’s head mounted above the flaming fireplace.
    His father and the archbishop were sitting in chairs half facing the fire, and when he came into the room both of them rose to greet him, the archbishop puffing with the effort of raising himself from the chair.
    â€œDuncan,” said his father, “we have a visitor you should remember.”
    â€œYour Grace,” said Duncan, hurrying forward to receive the blessing. “It is good to see you once again. It has been months.”
    He went down on a knee and once the blessing had been done, the archbishop reached down a symbolic hand to lift him to his feet.
    â€œHe should remember me,” the archbishop told Duncan’s father. “I had him in quite often to reason gently with him. It seems it was quite a job for the good fathers to pound some simple Latin and indifferent Greek and a number of other things into his reluctant skull.”
    â€œBut, Your Grace,” said Duncan, “it was all so dull. What does the parsing of a Latin verb …”
    â€œSpoken like a gentleman,” said His Grace. “When they come to the abbey and face the Latin that is always their complaint. But you, despite some backsliding now and then, did better than most.”
    â€œThe lad’s all right,” growled Duncan’s father. “I, myself, have but little Latin. Your people at the abbey put too much weight on it.”
    â€œThat may be so,” the archbishop conceded, “but it’s the one thing we can do. We cannot teach the riding of a horse or the handling of a sword or the cozening of maidens.”
    â€œLet’s forsake the banter and sit down,” said Duncan’s father. “We have matters to discuss.” He said to Duncan, “Pay close attention, son. This has to do with you.”
    â€œYes, sir,” said Duncan, sitting down.
    The archbishop glanced at Duncan’s father. “Shall I tell him, Douglas?”
    â€œYes,” Duncan’s father said. “You know more of it than I do. And you can tell it better. You have the words for it.”
    The