Isle of Glass (18 page)

For a long moment Alf could only stare. “My lord, I don’t
understand you.”

The Bishop’s eyes gleamed upon him. “What! You can make
clear the mysteries of Paradise, and you can’t impose some sense on a lump of
clay?”

“On strictly canonical grounds, you should be blasting the
accursed witch-spawn to perdition.”

Aylmer shook his head. “No, Brother. I’m a Bishop; I’m God’s
man; but thanks be to Him and all His angels, I’m no canon lawyer. I judge by
what I see and hear, and not by what some mummified authority says I ought to.”

“I have practiced witchery.”

“Dark rites? Invocations of demons? Curses and black
spells?”

“Dear God, no!”

“Not even a stray love philter?”

Alf wanted to laugh; he wanted to weep. “My lord, I’m a
poorer judge of men than I am of mummified authorities. But I know how you
should be regarding me; and how others will regard me if the truth is known.”

“Not if,” Aylmer said. “When. Brother, I’m minded to send
you away. Back to St. Ruan’s if you want it, though you’re not likely to be
safe there. Or to Rhiyana, where God’s Hounds can’t go.”

“I won’t go, my lord. And if you know my kind, you know that
nothing will hold me when I don’t want to be held.”

The Bishop’s brows knit. “I do know it. I know that there’s
no arguing with a master of logic, either. What if I command you?”

“I’m afraid,” Alf said gently, “that I will have to disobey
you.”

“Why? Why are you doing this?”

“I told you. I’m tired. And a trial and a burning, if
burning there must be, will hold the King here until it’s too late for him to
destroy himself on the Marches.”

“Do you really want to die?”

“I want to break this deadlock. With the King, with the
Hounds, with myself. If have to die to do it, yes. Yes, I want to.”

“And if not?”

Alf was silent for a long moment. “If not...so be it.”

“I understand you,” Aylmer said. “I think you're a fool, but
I understand you. I’ll also do everything in my power to keep you from getting
yourself killed.”

“No, my lord. You’ll do everything you can to assure that
the King stays here and that he makes no effort to protect me. You will even
support my enemies if necessary, for the King’s sake. He must not go to war
with Gwynedd.”

“And you must not go to the stake.”

“I don’t matter. All Anglia hangs upon Richard’s life and
death.”

“Have you ever considered what he might do to the men who
condemn you? And what they might do to him?”

“There’s no death for him in that, and no doom for his
kingdom.”

“You look like an adolescent angel. But you’re as crafty as
a Byzantine courtier. And somewhat colder-blooded.” The Bishop rose with the
violet stole still in his hands. “I’ve heard your confession. I grant you no
absolution.”

“You know I want none.”

Aylmer kissed the stole and laid it away, and remained with
his back to Alf. “Go to bed,” he said.

Alf hesitated. Aylmer did not move. After a moment, he rose
and bowed and withdrew.

Alf burrowed in the box he shared with Jehan, searching amid
their common belongings for the books he had brought from St. Ruan’s. They lay
on the bottom, lovingly wrapped in leather: the five treasures he had kept out
of all that he had gathered. He uncovered them carefully and separated one from
the rest.

“Brother Alfred.”

He glanced over his shoulder. Reynaud stood in the doorway,
smiling as he always smiled, without warmth; on the surface, all friendliness,
and beneath, the eagerness of the hunting hound.

Alf took his time in setting the contents of the chest in
order and in lowering the lid. When he turned, book in hand, Reynaud had come
within arm’s reach.

The Pauline monk nodded at Alf’s habit. “Not hunting with
the King today, Brother?”

“No,” Alf said. “I’m to wait on him when he comes back.
Meanwhile”—He tucked the book under his arm—“I have leave to amuse myself.”

“Blessed freedom,” sighed Reynaud. “And you’ll do no more
than read?”

Alf’s smile was a wintry likeness of Reynaud’s. “I’d rather
read than hunt. I always find myself siding with the quarry.”

“Even the wild boar?”

“Why not? In the end he lies on the table with an apple in
his jaws, no more or less dead than the stag or the coney.”

“But he gives a good account of himself before he dies.”

“You expect him to turn Christian and bare his breast to the
spear?”

Reynaud spread his hands in surrender. “I can’t compete in
words with a philosopher. My talents, such as they are, lie elsewhere.”

“And where,” Alf asked, “is that?”

He shrugged expressively. “In areas far from philosophy, or
from serving kings. I preach God’s word in my poor way; I serve His servants; I
go where He bids me.”

“So do we all.” Alf glanced significantly at the door. “Do
you have duties, Brother?”

“Nothing pressing. The weather is splendid for once. Come
and walk with me.”

Alf inhaled sharply. Danger always walked with
Reynaud—surrounded him, wrapped him about. But that quiet request struck Alf
like a blow to the vitals.

For an instant he had seen through the veiled eyes; had
caught a flare of raw emotion. Hate and hope and burning excitement. The mind
of the beast before it springs for the throat.

It had come. So soon. The trap was laid; the quarry had only
to walk into it.

Alf relaxed with an effort. “My thanks, Brother, but I
promised myself a quiet morning.”

Reynaud shook his head in reproof. “You'd mew yourself up in
a cold library? For shame! Come out and let the sun warm you. Then you can go
to your book with a clearer head.”

But Reynaud’s mind saw a barred cell and chains, and the
stark shadow of the stake. Alf shrank from the horror of it.

Five days hence, Richard would depart for Gwynedd with a
hundred knights at his back, and the Marches would burst into a fire of war.

Alf battled to still his trembling. His decision was long
since made. Was he to retreat now, when it came to the crux?

He sighed and shrugged. “Very well,” he said. “A short
walk.”

Reynaud smiled. “A very short one. Yes. Come, Brother.”

o0o

Jehan peered around a corner. The courtyard was empty, its
much-trodden snow melting into puddles under the fitful sun. He kilted up his
habit and sprinted along the wall into the shadow of a doorway.

Still no pursuit. After a moment he eased open a door,
slipped down a passage, paused in the stable yard.

The hound chained there wagged its mangy tail; he greeted it
and offered it a bit of cheese. As it devoured the bribe, he walked boldly into
the stable.

A day or two before, he had discovered that, if one settled
into a corner of the hayloft near the dovecote, one could pass unnoticed by any
who entered; there was light enough to read by, and warmth enough for comfort
if one burrowed deep into the hay. And no one would ever think to look there
for a truant.

He settled into his hiding place with a sigh of content,
armed with Father Michael’s precious copy of the Almagest and a pocketful of
dried figs. With luck, he could read until it was time for arms practice, and
talk his way out of the punishment for evading kitchen duty.

“You’d better be able to, or what’s an education for?”

Jehan choked on a fig. Thea sat astride a beam, dressed like
a farm girl, laughing at his startlement. As he remembered how to breathe
again, she dropped down beside him and pilfered a fig. “Ah! these are good.
Where’d you find them?”

“Stole them at breakfast.” He frowned at her. “You’re hardly
ever about. Where’ve you been?”

She shrugged. “Here and there. Keeping people guessing.
Whose dog am I, whose wench am I, and what am I up to?”

“Everyone was sure you belonged to me till I said you didn’t.
I made up a story about how you’d followed us from the lake; maybe you belonged
to one of the rebels.”

“I am a rebel.”

“I never would have guessed.”

She laughed again and shook her hair out of its rough knot.
“I like playing country maid. It’s market day today; I sold a basket of eggs
and got a penny, and gave it to the beggar under Westgate. He told me all
that’s happened hereabouts. Amazing how much the kerns know. The King should
ignore his lords and messengers and listen to people in the town.”

Jehan watched her, and sighed a little. She was almost
unbearably beautiful, yet her speech was as solid and earthbound as her ragged
smock. She had no trouble accepting what she was. She simply was.

“I wish Brother Alf were like you,” he said.

She paused, head tilted, half-smiling. “He is. But he’s
spent all his life trying to be something else.”

“Why aren’t you as confused as he is?”

“I wasn’t brought up in an abbey, for one thing. My mother
was a Greek, a doctor. My father was a Levantine merchant. The whole world used
to pass through our house.”

“And you left it?”

“One day we guested a prince from Lombardy. He was the
ugliest man I'd ever seen and he stank like one of his own goats, but he was
wise and he was clever, and I was tired of living in one place. I ran off` with
him.”

“Did he marry you?”

“Of course not. He had a wife already. And three mistresses
and a round dozen of children. After a while we parted on the best of terms,
and I wandered about, taking whatever shape pleased me; and I came to Rhiyana,
and to the King.”

“Gwydion?”

“For us,” she said, only half in mockery, “there is only one
King.”

Jehan lay on his stomach, chin in hands. “Brother Alf should
go to him. I wager he’d know what to do with a monk who’s also an elf-man.”

“He might," she said. She ran her fingers through the
splendor of her hair, that was as fine as Chin silk, rippling to her waist. “If
the little Brother has his way, there’ll be an end of all his troubles in fire
and anathema.”

“I’ll stop him,” Jehan muttered fiercely. “I’ll make him
stop.”

She tilted her brows at him. “Will you now? Then you’d
better hurry. The Hounds took him this morning.”

Jehan sprang to his feet. The doves fled in a flurry of
wings. “
What!
”

Thea caught a drifting feather. “He went voluntarily,” she
said.

“They’ll kill him!”

“It’s likely,” she agreed.

He dragged her up as if she had been a wisp of hay, and
shook her. “Where is he?
Where is he
?”

“You’re not going to his rescue.”

“God’s feet!”

“God," she pointed out, “as First Cause, has no
material shape. Therefore—”

“Shut up, damn you!”

She was silent. So, for a long moment, was Jehan. With great
care he unclamped his fingers from her shoulders. “Where is he?” he asked at
last, quietly.

“You will not go to find him. You will go and tell Bishop
Aylmer what has happened, and do as he tells you.”

“Bishop Aylmer can’t—” Jehan stopped. Slowly he said, “I’ll
go. Where is Brother Alf?”

“In St. Benedict’s Abbey,” Thea answered him.

He bent and picked up the book that had fallen from his lap.
It was open; he closed it gently, running his fingers over the worn cover.
“Come with me,” he said.

When he left the stable, the white hound trotted behind him.

o0o

“This is the man?”

“If man you may call him.”

Fingers touched Alf’s chin, turning his head this way and
that. They were gentle, without malice, like the soft voice. “Certainly he has
the look of the elf-brood. And yet...”

“Brother?” the other asked with a hint of tension.

“And yet. He let you take him on the first attempt.”

“
Let
, Brother? He fought like a very demon!”

“He let you take him,” the other repeated.

“Not until Brother Raymond struck him with an iron-shod
cudgel. Then we managed to get a grip on him.”

Alf lay very still, hardly breathing. His head felt as if he
had caught it between a hammer and an anvil; his body ached. He could remember
in snatches—a deserted street, men in dark clothing; a battle, swift and
fierce, and a swooping darkness.

And voices. One he knew, nasal, obsequious. In a moment,
when it hurt less, he would remember a name.

The soft voice spoke again. “Guard him with all your skill.
But be gentle with him.”

“Gentle!”

“Yes. Gentle. Send me word when he wakes.”

Only when the voices were long gone did Alf open his eyes.
He lay on a pallet in a small cold room, no dungeon for it had a slit of window
to let in the light, but bars blocked the opening, new-forged iron, newly set
into the stone. The door too was new, heavy, bound with iron bands; iron bound
him, wrists and ankles, incised with crosses.

With great care he sat up. He still had his habit and his
silver cross; beside him lay a jar and the familiar shape of his book.

The jar held water, touched with sanctity, which did not
speak well of his captors’ intelligence. Surely, if a demon could wear a cross
next to his skin and handle the holy vessels of the Mass, then no sacred
precautions could hold him.

He drank a little to quench his raging thirst, and splashed
a drop or two on his face. Gingerly he explored his aching skull. A great knot
throbbed at the base of it, the worst of his hurts, though all his body bore
the marks of battle.

He rose slowly, dizzily. Chained though he was, he could
move as he pleased about the cell, even to the door.

Through its iron grille he saw a stretch of stone passageway
and the back of a man’s head, turning as if startled to reveal a stranger’s
face. A blast of fear and hostility struck Alf’s reeling mind; he cried out and
stumbled backward, half-falling against the wall.

The fear receded. He huddled on the pallet, trembling
violently, battling nausea.