“There can’t anything be that bad,” he said, startled by the look of her.
“Yes, there can be,” she told him tightly. “You remember just an hour or so ago you said that you must be leaving soon, and I said there was no hurry, that you should stay a while and rest.”
“Yes, I remember that.”
“I should have told you then. But I couldn’t tell you. I simply couldn’t say the words. I had to leave to try to find the courage.”
He started to speak, but she held up a hand to stop him.
“I can’t wait,” she said. “There can be no further talk. I must tell you now. Duncan, it is this: you can’t leave. You can never leave this castle.”
He stood stupid in the path, the words not sinking in, refusing to sink in.
“But that can’t be,” he said. “I don’t…”
“I can’t say it any plainer. There’s no way for you to leave. No one can help you leave. It’s a part of the enchantment. There’s no way to break it…”
“But you were just telling me you had visitors. And you, yourself …”
“It takes magic,” she told him. “Your personal magic, not someone else’s magic. It takes an arcane knowledge that one holds oneself. The visitors have had that kind of knowledge, that kind of magic. Because of that, they could go where no others could. I have some of that knowledge myself, also a special dispensation…”
“You mean because none of us has that knowledge…” She nodded, tears in her eyes.
“And you can’t help us? The wizard can’t help us?”
“No one can help. The ability must be yours.”
Suddenly anger flared within him, blinding him.
“Goddamn it, then,” he yelled, “why did you tell us to run for the castle? You knew what would happen. You knew we would be trapped. You knew…”
He stopped in mid-sentence, for he doubted she was hearing him. She was weeping openly, head bowed, arms hanging at her side. Just standing there, all alone, and weeping.
She raised a tearstained face to look at him, cringing away from him.
“You would have been killed,” she said. “We broke the Harrier line, but they’d have been back again. It was only a momentary battle lull. They’d have returned and hunted you down, like wild animals.”
She reached out for him. “You understand?” she cried. “Please do understand!”
She took a step toward him and he put his arms around her, drawing her close against him, holding her tightly. She bowed her head against him, weeping convulsively, her body shaking with the sobs.
Her muffled voice said, “I lay awake last night, thinking of it. Wondering how I could have done it, how I’d ever tell you. I thought perhaps I could ask Cuthbert to tell you. But that wouldn’t have been right. I was the one who did it, I should be the one to tell you. And now I have–and now I have…”
24
They sat in silence for a time after Duncan had finished telling them–not so much a shocked silence as a benumbed silence.
Meg was the first to speak, attempting to cast a cheerful light on it. “Well, I don’t know,” she said. “It’s not too bad. There are a lot worse places for an old bag such as Meg to live out her final days.”
They disregarded her.
Finally Conrad stirred and said, “You say one has to have some knowledge of the arcane arts. What are the chances that we could acquire that knowledge?”
“I’d say not too good,” said Duncan. “I suspect it would have to be a detailed and specific knowledge, perhaps well backgrounded by even other knowledge. Not all of us could learn these arts, perhaps not any of us. And who is there to teach us? Cuthbert is old and dying. Diane’s knowledge is too small. I gather that it is not the knowledge that she has, but a special dispensation, that enables her to come and go.”
“I suppose that’s right,” said Conrad, “and, anyhow, it would take too long a time. We haven’t got that kind of time.”
“No, we haven’t,” said Duncan. “Two dying men–a dying man here and another one at Oxenford.”
“And what about Tiny? What about Daniel and Beauty? They could not be taught the arts. Even could we go we couldn’t leave them behind. They’re a part of us.”
“Probably we could take them with us,” Duncan said. “I don’t know. There is Diane’s griffin; he can come and go. Certainly he does not know the arts.”
“Even if there is none to teach us,” Andrew said, “there are books. I found the library this morning. A huge room and tons of writing.”
“It would take too long,” objected Duncan. “We’d have to sift through heaps of scrolls and might not recognize what we sought even should we find it. And there’s no one to guide us in our studies. There’d also be the problem of language. Many of the books, I suspect, may be written in ancient tongues that now are little known.”
“For myself,” said Andrew, “for me, personally, this turn of events is no great tragedy. Quite willingly, if there were no other considerations, I could settle down here, for it is a pleasant place and I could carry on my profession here as well as elsewhere. But for the two of you I know it is a matter of great importance to get to Oxenford.”
Conrad pounded the ground with his club. “We have to get to Oxenford. There has to be a way. I, for one, will not give up and say there is no way.”
“Nor will I,” said Duncan.
“I had a premonition of this,” Andrew told them. “Or if not of this, of something very wrong. When I saw the birds and the butterfly…”
“What the hell,” asked Duncan, “have birds and butterflies got to do with it?”
“In the woods,” said Andrew. “In the forest just beyond the standing stones. The birds sit frozen in the branches, not moving, as if they might be dead, but they have a live look to them. And there was a butterfly, a little yellow butterfly sitting on a milkweed pod. Not stirring, not moving. You know the way a butterfly will sit, slowly moving its wings up and down, not very much, but some motion to them. This one did not move at all. I watched for a long time and it did not move. I think I saw, although I could not be sure, a thin film of dust upon it. As if it had been there a long time and dust had collected on it. I think the woods are part of the enchantment, too, that time has stopped there except for the people–and Hubert. Everything else is exactly the same as it was on the day this castle was created by enchantment.”
“The stoppage of time,” said Duncan. “Yes, that could be it. The castle is brand new, so are the standing stones. The chisel marks still fresh upon them, as if they had been carved only yesterday.”
“But outside,” said Conrad, “in that world we left to walk into this world, the castle lies in ruins, the stones have tumbled down. Tell me, m’lord, what do you think is going on?”
“It’s an enchantment,” said Meg. “A very potent one.”
“We’ve beaten enchantments before,” said Conrad. “We beat the enchantment that came upon us as we approached the strand.”
“That was but a feeble spell,” said Meg, “designed only to confuse us, to get us off the track. Not a well-constructed spell, not carefully crafted as this one surely is.”
Duncan knew that what she said was true. Despite all their whistling past the graveyard, despite all of Conrad’s bravado, the firm confidence they showed for one another’s benefit, this was an enchantment they were not about to break.
They sat crouched in a row on the bottom step of the stairway that came down from the entrance. Before them ran the measured velvet of the lawn. Daniel and Beauty were at the foot of the park, near the standing stones, filling their bellies with succulent grass. Hubert, the griffin, still lay where he had been earlier in the day. Grown stiff with age, he did not move around too much.
“Where’s Tiny?” Duncan asked.
“The last I saw of him,” said Conrad, “he was digging out a mouse. He’s around somewhere.”
So here they were, Duncan told himself, caught in as pretty a mousetrap as anyone could want. This way not only would the manuscript never get to Oxenford, but it would be lost to mankind as well. All that would remain would be the two copies made at the abbey’s scriptorium.
His father, at Standish House, and His Grace, at the abbey, would wait for word of him and Conrad, and there would be no word; there never would be word. They would have gone into the Desolated Land and that would be the last of them. Although perhaps, just perhaps, there might be a way for word to be gotten out. Diane could get out, could go out and return. At least, should she be willing, she could carry word to Standish House, perhaps carry the manuscript as well. There still might be time for someone else to get to Oxenford with it. Not through the Desolated Land, for that route had proved too dangerous; the chances of traversing it were slight. Despite the swarming pirates, it might be carried by ship. There still might be enough time left to pull together a fleet of fighting ships, manned by men-at-arms, to get through the pirate packs.