The Talisman

walked slowly, often bending over to scoop ale two-handed from a hoofprint or to dip a handkerchief or a torn-off piece of singlet into another puddle. Most of them were staggering. voices were raised in laughter and in quarrelsome shouts. After a good deal of pestering, Jack’s mother had allowed him to go with Richard to see a midnight double feature of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead at one of Westwood’s dozen or so movie theaters. The shuffling, drunken people here reminded him of the zombies in those two films.
    Captain Farren drew his sword. It was as short and businesslike as Jack had imagined, the very antithesis of a sword in a romance. It was little more than a long butcher’s knife, pitted and nicked and scarred, the handle wrapped in old leather that had been sweated dark. The blade itself was dark . . . except for the cutting edge. That looked bright and keen and very sharp.
    ‘Make away, then!’ Farren bawled. ‘Make away from the Queen’s ale, God-pounders! Make away and keep your guts where they belong!’
    Growls of displeasure met this, but they moved away from Captain Farren – all except one hulk of a man with tufts of hair growing at wildly random points from his otherwise bald skull. Jack guessed his weight at close to three hundred pounds, his height at just shy of seven feet.
    ‘D’you like the idea of taking on all of us, sojer?’ this hulk asked, and waved one grimy hand at the knot of villagers who had stepped away from the swamp of ale and the litter of barrels at Farren’s order.
    ‘Sure,’ Captain Farren said, and grinned at the big man. ‘I like it fine, just as long as you’re first, you great drunken clot of shit.’ Farren’s grin widened, and the big man faltered away from its dangerous power. ‘Come for me, if you like. Carving you will be the first good thing that’s happened to me all day.’
    Muttering, the drunken giant slouched away.
    ‘Now, all of you!’ Farren shouted. ‘Make away! There’s a dozen of my men just setting out from the Queen’s pavillion! They’ll not be happy with this duty and I don’t blame them and I can’t be responsible for them! I think you’ve just got time to get back to the village and hide in your cellars before they arrive there! It would be prudent to do so! Make away!’
    They were already streaming back toward the village of All-Hands’, the big man who had challenged the Captain in their van. Farren grunted and then turned back to the scene of the accident. He removed his jacket and covered the face of the carter’s son with it.
    ‘I wonder which of them robbed the lad’s pockets as he lay dead or dying in the roadstead,’ Farren said meditatively. ‘If I knew, I’d have them hung on a cross by nightfall.’
    Jack made no answer.
    The Captain stood looking down at the dead boy for a long time, one hand rubbing at the smooth, ridged flesh of the scar on his face. When he looked up at Jack, it was as if he had just come to.
    ‘You’ve got to leave now, boy. Right away. Before Osmond decides he’d like to investigate my idiot son further.’
    ‘How bad is it going to be with you?’ Jack asked.
    The Captain smiled a little. ‘If you’re gone, I’ll have no trouble. I can say that I sent you back to your mother, or that I was overcome with rage and hit you with a chunk of wood and killed you. Osmond would believe either. He’s distracted. They all are. They’re waiting for her to die. It will be soon. Unless . . .’
    He didn’t finish.
    ‘Go,’ Farren said. ‘Don’t tarry. And when you hear Morgan’s diligence coming, get off the road and get deep into the woods. Deep . Or he’ll smell you like a cat smells a rat. He knows instantly if something is out of order. His order. He’s a devil.’
    ‘Will I hear it coming? His diligence?’ Jack asked timidly. He looked at the road beyond the litter of barrels. It rose steadily upward, toward the edge of a piney forest. It would be dark in there, he thought . . . and Morgan would be coming the other way. Fear and loneliness combined in the sharpest, most disheartening wave of unhappiness he had ever known. Speedy, I can’t do this! Don’t you know that? I’m just a kid!
    ‘Morgan’s diligence is drawn by six pairs of horses and a thirteenth to lead,’ Farren said. ‘At the full gallop, that damned hearse sounds like thunder rolling along the earth. You’ll hear it, all right. Plenty of time to burrow down. Just make sure you