Isle of Glass (32 page)

The body under his hands was rigid, the eyes all red.
“Rhydderch,” Alf hissed. “Murder. Sword. Morwin.”

His lips drew back from his teeth. They were very white and
very sharp, the canines longer and leaner than a human’s. Jehan had never
noticed that before. “Chapel—chapel—
Morwin
!”

It was a cry of anguish. Even before Jehan had scrambled to
his feet, Alf was almost out of sight. The other bolted after him.

o0o

Rhydderch stood over the crumpled body, breathing hard, the
sword dangling loosely from his hands.

A whirlwind swept him up. The blade flew wide; he fell
sprawling. His head struck the floor with an audible crack.

Alf dropped beside Morwin. Blood fountained from the deep
wound in the Abbot’s breast. Desperately he strove to stanch it, but it spurted
through his fingers.

“It’s no use, Alf.”

In the grey and sunken face, Morwin’s eyes were as bright as
ever. He grinned a horrible, death’s-head grin. “Well, old friend. Cassandra
was right after all. I’m sorry I laughed at you.”

Alf shook his head mutely. All his strength focused on the
gathering of his power. Slow, so slow, and Morwin’s life was ebbing with the
tide of his blood. Yet the power was there, as it had not been for Gwydion’s
healing. It was ready to gather, to grasp—

“
Alf!
”

Morwin’s cry brought him to his feet. Rhydderch’s sword
clove the air where his head had been; madness seethed behind it, a black fire
of hate.
Kill the monk, kill the witch,
kill—

Alf’s eyes flamed red. Without a sound he sprang.

Rhydderch fought like a wild boar. But Alf was a cat, too
swift to catch, too strong to hold. They swayed back and forth, twined like
lovers, battling for the bloody sword.

It fell with an iron clang. Swifter than sight, Alf seized
the hilt.

For an instant the world stood still. So one held the sword.
So one raised it, beyond it the hunched black shape, fury turning to fear, fear
to blind terror.

In that timeless moment, Alf was completely sane and keenly
aware of all about him. The chapel with its gentle Virgin and its golden stars;
the Abbot drowning in his own blood; the huddle of stunned figures in the
doorway, Jehan foremost, white as death. And Rhydderch.

Rhydderch, who had killed Morwin. Coolly, leisurely, with
effortless skill, Alf hewed him down.

Very gently Alf cradled Morwin in his arms. The Abbot’s body
seemed light and empty as a dried husk, but a glimmer of life clung to it
still.

He tried to speak. Alf laid a finger on his lips. Already
they were cooling. “In your mind,” he whispered, “the old way.”

The old way
, Morwin
thought.
Not long now... Alf. Promise me
something
.

“Anything,” said Alf.

The Abbot smiled in his mind, for his grip on his body was
loosening swiftly.
Say my funeral Mass.

Alf flinched. Quietly, steadily, he said, “I murdered a man
in cold blood in God’s own sanctuary. I am in the deepest state of mortal sin.
I can’t say Mass for you. It would be blasphemy.”

No!
Morwin snapped with a ghost of his old vigor.
You
said you'd do anything
. Anything,
Alf.

“Morwin—before God—”

Before God, Alfred
, ego te absolvo....

“Morwin!”

Friend, brother, son, thy sins are forgiven. Say the
Mass, Alf. For love of me, for love of God. And for your soul’s sake, see to
his rest the poor creature who killed me.

Morwin’s eyes were fading; he blinked, peering through the
shadows.
Such a fair face, to be the last thing I see. Are there tears on
it? Poor lad. When you've laid this bag of bones in the ground and made your
peace with Rhydderch, find your own peace in the City of Peace. What is it that
the Jews say? "Next year, in Jerusalem.”

“You—you bid me make a pilgrimage?”

For peace, Alf. To Jerusalem
. The darkness was almost
complete. But on the very edge of sight glimmered a light.

Morwin reached for it. So far, so fair...

Alf! Alf, look. It shines. It shines!

o0o

Alf raised a tear-stained face. Jehan was standing over him.

“He’s gone,” he said. His voice was soft, level. “I couldn’t
follow him. It was too bright.” Suddenly, luminously, he smiled. “But he went
on; I saw. I felt. There was joy, Jehan. Joy!”

The novice stared at him as he crouched there with the
Abbot’s lifeless body in his arms, his hands red with the blood of the man he
had slain and the man he had defended—and on his face, pure joy.

Jehan swallowed hard. Others crowded behind him, an alarming
number: the kings, Aylmer, Thea, a handful of knights, several monks, all in
various states of undress. Their faces were white with shock; even the kings
seemed frozen with the horror of it, a chapel turned to a charnel house, an
Abbot foully murdered.

Jehan frowned. Three crowned kings—and not one had the wits
to act. He singled out the solid dark figure of Aylmer. “My lord Bishop, you’d
best take over the abbey and see that the Brothers know what’s happened.
Brother Osric, Brother Ulf, take Dom Morwin to the mortuary; you, sir knights,
had better see to Rhydderch. Brother Owein, roust out a party of novices to
clean up the chapel; it will have to be purified later. And if you please, my
lord Gwydion, would you take care of Brother Alf?”

o0o

Jehan hesitated at the stair’s foot. Gwydion had left Alf in
his old cell, by Alf’s own choice, for it was quiet and isolated, and it had a
door that could be bolted against the world.

With sudden decision, Jehan strode forward. The door was
shut; he knocked softly.

“Come in,” Alf said.

He sounded like his old self. Jehan lifted the latch and
stepped into the cell.

It was the same as it had always been, very plain and very
bare. Alf sat cross-legged on the hard narrow bed in his shabby old habit, as
if he had never left St. Ruan’s at all.

Jehan found that he had nothing to say. Alf looked quiet,
serene; he even smiled. “Have they finally let you go?”

“I let myself go.” Jehan sat on the bed and looked hard at
him. “Brother Alf, are you bottling yourself up?”

Alf shook his head. “I’ve been talking with Gwydion. That’s
all.”

“But you’re so
quiet
.”

“Ah,” said Alf. “I should be raving and trying to find a
sword to fall on.” He turned his hands palm up and flexed his long fingers.
“Yes. I should be. I killed a man. He killed one who was dearer to me than a
brother. And I have to say Morwin’s funeral Mass, witch and murderer that I am,
suspended from my vows.”

“You’re none of those things.”

He sighed deeply. “Am I not? It’s very strange, Jehan. I’ve
tormented myself for so long for so little; now that I have a reason, I find
that I can’t. I am what I am; I've done what I’ve done. I can’t change any of
it.”

“Is that acceptance or indifference?”

“I’m not sure yet. Gwydion says it’s part of my healing.
Thea says I’m finally coming to my senses. I think I’m numb. Either I’ll come
burning back to life again, or I'll mortify and fall away.”

Jehan swallowed, but could not speak.

“‘I am the Resurrection and the Life; he who believes in me
will never die.’ ” Alf spoke softly, wonderingly. “To believe that, and to
know
it... When I looked into the middle of the Light, Jehan, for a moment I saw
Morwin. He was a boy again; and he was laughing.”

Jehan could not bear it. “Brother Alf! Don’t you understand?
It’s my fault he’s dead. It was my idea to bring Rhydderch here; I brought him;
and he—he killed—”

So young, so strong; he had borne all that Alf had borne,
and been a shield and a fortress, and never wavered or fallen. “Jehan,” Alf
said. “Jehan. It was none of your doing.”

“It was!” he cried.

Alf shook him. “Jehan de Sevigny, Rhydderch’s coming put an
end to the war and to the quarrel between kings. When he died, when no one else
could move or think, you did both, splendidly.”

“I started the whole thing. The least I could do was put an
end to it.”

“Which you did, most well. You’re fit to walk among kings,
Jehan.”

“I'm not fit to walk with a dog.” Jehan dashed away tears,
angrily. “I wish people would stop praising me and see what an idiot I am.”

“You are yourself. That’s enough.”

Jehan’s brows contracted. “Here you are, giving me my own
advice. And you’re barely in any condition to bear your own burdens, let alone
mine.”

“No,” Alf said. “I think I’m stronger than I ever was.” He
settled his arm about the tense shoulders. At first they tightened, but little
by little their tautness eased. Jehan drooped against him.

He smoothed the unruly hair, gently. “Just before Morwin
went to the Light, he paused. He turned back to me with the joy already on his
face, and said, ‘Don’t mourn for me, Alf. And don’t mourn for yourself. I’m not
leaving you alone; you have Jehan to be friend and brother and son. Love him,
Alf. Love him well.’ ”

Jehan buried his face in Alf’s robe and wept.

o0o

Alf held him until he had no more tears to shed, and for a
while after as he lay spent, without speech or thought.

When he stiffened, Alf let him go. He sat up, scrubbing his
face with the backs of his hands, sniffing hard. “A fine great booby I am,” he
said. “You must be mortally ashamed of me.”

Alf smiled and shook his head. His own cheeks were wet. “We
both needed that. Do you feel better?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” Jehan tried a smile. It wobbled, then
steadied. “Thank you, Brother Alf.”

The other looked down. Gratitude had always embarrassed him.

Jehan’s smile warmed. “You’ve changed completely, and yet
you haven’t changed at all. If you’re going to say Mass again, does that mean
you’re going back to being a priest?”

“I—” Alf`s fingers knotted; he stared at them as if their
pattern held an answer. “I don’t know. Morwin left certain things for me to do.
For atonement. The Mass was one. And I’m to go to Jerusalem as a pilgrim.
Whether I’m also to go as a priest, he didn’t say.”

“But of course you should. Isn’t that what you are?”

“That’s the trouble. I’m not sure I am. I’m still Richard’s
squire. And Gwydion—Gwydion and Thea—talked to me for a long while. Gwydion
will be going back to Rhiyana very soon now, before his brother comes raging
into Anglia. He’s asked me to go with him as a kinsman.”

“Do you want to?” asked Jehan.

Alf raised his eyes. “When I’m with him or with Thea, I feel
as if I’ve come home. I’m no longer a witch or a monster or even a peculiar
variety of saint; I’m only Alf. They could set me free to be what I was truly
meant to be. Maybe even, still, a priest. A priest of the Fair Folk.” His lips
twitched. “The theologian in me is going to have to do some very agile
thinking.”

“You’ll do that, then,” Jehan said.

“Maybe.” Alf unlocked his fingers, one by one. “Maybe not.”

Jehan shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care in
the least where I go, as long as it’s with you.”

For a long moment Alf was silent. His face was very still,
his eyes at once clear and impossible to read. “Jehan,” he said at last, “I
love you as a brother. As a son. When I had fallen as low as I could fall, you
lifted me up again and showed me how to be strong. You’ve been living your life
for me.”

Jehan opened his mouth; Alf raised a hand. “Jehan, you’re
young. You have a whole life to live, a life of your own. You’ll be a warrior,
a scholar, a prince of the Church. You’ll walk with kings; you’ll counsel
Popes. You’ll even win the respect of the Infidels, who deny the Christ but who
know what a man is.”

“You can do all that,” Jehan said. “We can do it together.”

“No, Jehan. Maybe our paths will cross. Maybe they’ll even
converge for a space as they have now. I pray they will. But whatever you do,
you must do on your own, for yourself. If I go to Rhiyana or to Jerusalem or to
Winchester with the King, you must not follow me, unless your own path takes
you there.”

“It will—because it’s yours.”

“Child,” Alf said, though he bridled at the word. “Your way
lies for now with Bishop Aylmer.”

“He’ll free me if I ask.”

“Don’t.”

Jehan glared at his feet. Great ugly feet, like all the rest
of him. And in the center of him, a terrible ache.

“Jehan.” He refused to look up. Alf went on quietly. “I’ll
tell you the truth. If we have to part, it will not be easy for me to bear. But
I want you to go your own way, wherever that is, without regard for me. Please,
Jehan. For my sake as much as for yours.”

Jehan’s shoulders hunched; his head sank between them. His
voice when he spoke was rough. “If you go one way and I go another, will I ever
see you again?”

“Yes,” Alf answered him. “I promise.”

Muscle by muscle Jehan relaxed. He drew a deep breath. “All
right, then. I’ll grow up, and stop dangling at your tail.”

Alf smiled.

He scowled. But Alf’s smile was insidious. It crept through
the cracks of his ill-humor and swelled and shattered it, for all that he could
do. He found himself smiling ruefully; then more freely, until they were both
laughing like idiots over nothing at all.

Rhydderch’s body rested in the room in which he would have
slept, guarded as he had been while yet he lived. Even now he seemed to scowl,
hating those who had tended him and made him seemly, clothing him as a lord and
according him due honor.

Alf stood over the bier, too still and too pale. He did not
respond when Richard came to stand beside him; his eyes were fixed on the dark
furious face.

“If ever a man looked like the Devil’s own,” Richard said,
“this one does.”

Alf shuddered. The King clapped him on the shoulder; he
winced, for his back was still tender. “There now. He was damned long before
you put the seal on it, but he'll get the Christian burial you wanted for him.
There’s no need to shed tears over him.”