“Why should you want to help us? You are the Reaver’s man. He spoke of you. He said you saved the bees when the Harriers came.”
“Not the Reaver’s man,” said the bee master. “I was here for years before he came. It was a good life, a good life for all of us — the master and his people. We were a peaceful folk. We had no chance when the Reaver came. We knew not how to fight. The Reaver and his hellions came two years ago, come Michaelmas, and…
“But you stayed with the Reaver.”
“Not stayed. Was spared. He spared me because I was the one who knew the bees. Few people know of bees, and the Reaver likes good honey.”
“So I was right in my thinking,” Duncan said. “The Reaver and his men took the manor house, slaughtering the people who lived here.”
“Aye,” said Cedric. “This poor country has fallen on hard times. First the Reaver and his like, then the Harriers.”
“And you’ll show us the quickest way to get out of the Reaver’s reach?”
“That I will. I know all the swiftest paths. Even in the dark. When I saw what was happening, I nipped into the kitchen to collect provisions, then went over the palisades and lay in wait for you.”
“But the Reaver will know you did this. He’ll have vengeance on you.”
Cedric shook his head. “I will not be missed. I’m always with the bees. I even spend the nights with them. I came in tonight because of the cold and rain. If I am missed, which I will not be, they’ll think I’m with the bees. And if you don’t mind, sir, it’ll be an honor to be of service to the man who faced the Reaver down.”
“You do not like this Reaver.”
“I loathe him. But what’s a man to do? A small stroke here and there. Like this. One does what he can.”
Conrad took the sack from the old man’s hand. “I’ll carry this,” he said. “Later we can put it with Beauty’s pack.”
“You think the Reaver and his men will follow?” Duncan asked.
“I don’t know. Probably not, but one can’t be sure.”
“You say you hate him. Why don’t you travel with us? Surely you do not want to stay with him.”
“Not with him. Willingly I’d join you. But I cannot leave the bees.”
“The bees?”
“Sir, do you know anything of bees?”
“Very little.”
“They are,” said Cedric, “the most amazing creatures. In one hive of them alone their numbers cannot be counted.
But they need a human to help them. Each year there must be a strong queen to lay many eggs. One queen. One queen only, mind you, if the hive is to be kept up to strength. If there are more than one, the bees will swarm, part of them going elsewhere, cutting down the number in the hive. To keep them strong there must be a bee master who knows how to manage them. You go through the comb, you see, seeking out the extra queen cells and these you destroy. You might even destroy a queen who is growing old and see that a strong new queen is raised…”
“Because of this, you’ll stay with the Reaver?”
The old man drew himself erect. “I love my bees,” he said. “They need me.”
Conrad growled. “A pox on bees. We’ll die here, talking of your bees.”
“I 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.
“Duncan,” said his father, “we have a visitor you should remember.”
“Your 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.
“He 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.”
“But, Your Grace,” said Duncan, “it was all so dull. What does the parsing of a Latin verb…”
“Spoken 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.”
“The 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.”
“That 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.”
“Let’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.”
“Yes, sir,” said Duncan, sitting down.
The archbishop glanced at Duncan’s father. “Shall I tell him, Douglas?”
“Yes,” 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 archbishop leaned back in his chair, laced pudgy fingers across a pudgy paunch. “Two years or more ago,” he said to Duncan, “your father brought me a manuscript that he had found while sorting out the family papers.”
“It was a job,” said Duncan’s father, “that should have been done centuries ago. Papers and records all shuffled together, without rhyme or reason. Old letters, old records, old grants, old deeds, ancient instruments, all shoved into a variety of boxes. The job’s not entirely done as yet. I work on it occasionally. It’s difficult, at times, to
