Strands of Starlight (21 page)

“The Aurverelle line has given my people much grief,” said the Elf. “I have heard of Aloysius Cranby. He calls us heretics. He obviously has no sense of humor or he would laugh at the absurdity of the statement.”

“He's an inquisitor,” said George. “He's not supposed to have a sense of humor.”

“That may well be. But are your people not prepared to defend themselves as they did some years ago?”

“It doesn't seem so.” George always felt nervous when talking to Terrill. The Elf had saved his life two years before, when a boar had nearly gored him to death, but George could never lose sight of the fact that he was dealing with an Immortal. Now, moreover, he felt ashamed of his race, sunken as it was in a mire of green and war. “Now that the Church is involved, it's not a matter of conquest by greedy overlords. It's a spiritual matter. My people are good Christians. They don't want to face damnation fighting against the Church's own armies.”

Terrill shook his head in wonderment. “Do your people seriously believe such things?”

George sat down on a stone, heedless of the damp. “Oh, Terrill, I wish it were otherwise. But my people have grown up with the Church, and its ways are a comfort to them. Some might go into the forest at times and listen for an elvish song, but in time of trouble they will turn to their religion. There's no other way for them.”

“And what do you believe, George? Are you willing to fight?”

The mayor of Saint Blaise wiped rainwater from his face, but a light drizzle started up and wet it again. “The God I worship enjoys seeing folk get along together and live peacefully. Priests and popes are humans. They make mistakes. I have no fear of my God's judgment on my actions.”

“And what do you want of me? My own people have not fared well in dealings with the Church.” Terrill folded his arms. His hair was lank from rain.

“I don't know what to do, Terrill. The burghers of my city fear equally for their freedoms and for their souls. As such, they're paralyzed. They spend their days embroiling themselves in technicalities, consulting with priests who are themselves divided. I've even been asked not to communicate any of this to other towns.”

“And so you speak to me?”

“I swore I would tell no man. Upon my oath.” George smiled wryly. “but I didn't say anything about Elves.”

“And what I do with the information is, as your people say, my own business?”

“Yes, Terrill. Can you alert the other towns?”

“I can. Though I fear that this news may be greeted with no different response than in Saint Blaise.” Terrill looked meaningfully at him.

“At least I can try. I'm afraid this whole affair endangers the Elves, too. If the crusade is successful, Malvern Forest will be surrounded by hostile people. And the Inquisition . . .” He mopped his face, not noticing the haunted look in Terrill's eyes. “It's terrible. ON my last trip to Hypprux, when I found all this out, I met a little girl in the streets. She healed my ankle. She'd just escaped from the dungeon in the Chateau. She'd been tortured.”

“A small woman?” said Terrill suddenly. “Black hair? Dark eyes?”

George looked up. “Why, yes. Do you know her?”

The Elf looked off into the trees for a time, then shook his head. “I do not.”

“Well, I pray she's all right, wherever she is. It was terrible, just terrible, what they'd done to her. Her legs were bleeding all over the street.”

“I am sure that she is, in some way, safe.”

“I hope so.”

Terrill considered. “I do not know what to tell you, George,” he said. “Sometimes force must be met with force. But if your people are unwilling to fight for themselves, then they must surrender. And if you would not surrender, then you must flee.”

George realized what he was saying. “Like the Elves?”

Terrill nodded grimly. “Such was our choice. Fighting does not come easily to us.”

George looked at Terrill's sword.

***

The sky was the color of slate, and it weighed down so heavily on Hypprux that it seemed that only the tall spires of the cathedral kept it from crashing to earth, bringing houses and shops, bridges and walls to ruin. People talked of rain and of a break in these days of heat and leaden clouds, but there was nothing to indicate that the weather had not stagnated where it was, that Hallows or even Christmas would not arrive to find the city still sweltering.

Thomas a'Verne sat back in his bed and went over his notes, resting the tablets on his old, gnarled knees while he reviewed or made notations. His voice whispered as he read, faded as he fell into thought.

If he had been inclined to suspicion, he would have thought that he was being deliberately kept from certain information about the plans of Aloysius Cranby and Roger of Aurverelle. Arrangements, he was sure, had already been made, boundaries drawn, friend clearly distinguished from foe; but no word of this had crept out of either the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mercy, the house of Aurverelle, or the Chateau. Thomas had asked many questions, had received no answers.

“Maybe they think I'm senile,” he muttered, taking stylus in hand and crossing out yet another name on his list of contacts. “Maybe they imagine I'll not notice.”

Since George had left Hypprux that March, Thomas had received only one message from him. The burghers of Saint Blaise were doing exactly what Cranby and Aurverelle had expected. A combined plot of sacred and secular had been woven about the Free Towns, and its effect was as stultifying as the interminable heat. George was trapped in his town, the captain of a ship on which the sailors, fearing for their souls, had lost the will to fight.

Thomas set the tablets aside and got up. Wrapping a thin robe about himself, he went to the balcony. Across the sea of huddled rooftops—slate and thatched, splendid and sordid—the Cathedral rose, windowed and spired, and the Chateau stood beside it, massive, walled, guarded.

He tugged idly at his gray beard. The Inquisition was at work, a fusion of Church and State, and its power seemed omnipotent. He could only hope that it was not. He thought back to that evening when George had come for dinner, and smiled wryly at the thought of the little healer girl who had somehow defied priest, soldier, walls, bars, and dungeon to make her way to freedom. A miracle it was, but it showed that miracles still occurred, and Thomas took the girl as a sign. When George had left her, she was wearing the ensigns of Saint Blaise and the Free Towns. Maybe there was a meaning in that.

He looked up at the dark sky. “O Lord God,” he murmured. “You were a carpenter once. You lived in a little town. Wouldn't you have fought for Nazareth if the Romans had brought an Inquisition there?”

A tightness suddenly in his chest. He stumbled to a chair, sat down, reached for the decanter. It was happening more often during these hot months, but he suspected it was leading to something.

He gazed at the sky. “I'm coming, Judith. Soon now.” And he lifted a cup of wine in a toast to her, just as he had lifted one many a time before when she, smiling and blushing, but glad and proud, had been alive to lift one in return.

***

Miriam knew that something was happening to her. The familiarity about herself had increased, and as the days lengthened and the harvest continued into September, she began to face the mirror in her room with some trepidation. Her need for sleep was diminishing, too; she had finally given up trying to stay in bed and now spent much of the night on the village common, practicing Terrill's dance. During the day, she found herself smiling at times for no reason, as though it took no more than fine weather to make her glad; and she no longer kept her eyes downcast when she walked in the streets of Saint Brigid, but looked townsfolk straight in the eye, wished them a good morning, and meant it.

She tried to find reasons. Perhaps she was merely growing accustomed to herself. Perhaps her work with Terrill had given her hope and self-assurance. Perhaps better health and increased strength had lessened her need for rest. But she sensed that she was fooling herself with such thoughts, that the changes stemmed from matters more profound than attitude or conditioning. And what worried her most was the growing conviction that those same matters were directly opposed to the goal she had set for herself on that terrible day when she had staggered out of the forest, torn and bleeding.

Frequently now, she contemplated that future battle with a helpless feeling of emptiness. The dance she knew and the Dance she was learning were, she had come to realize, patterns that bespoke love, compassion; and, as, day by day, they gave her the ability to wield sword, so, day by day, they seemed to want to take away from her any reason for wielding it.

But thoughts of abandoning the idea left her with a bitter rage that cut through any thought of love or compassion like a sharp blade; so she continued her practice. With the exception of a week during which Terrill was off on a sudden and unexplained journey, she was in the clearing every other day, dancing the dance, swinging the wooden practice sword in synchronization with the hidden and omnipresent pattern while the Elf's dispassionate voice commented on her performance.

Each day distanced her more and more from the little victim-healer. There was pleasure in that, but again there was fear, for as she moved further away from what she had been, she moved closer to whatever she was becoming. And she had no idea what that was.

Until, on a day in October, when the leaves were the color of blood, the meadow grass yellowed and dead, the weather cool and crisp and turning, inevitably—in the ever-changing Dance—to winter, she found out.

Her dreams haunted her still, and she awakened well before dawn, her face streaked with tears, recalling little save that she had been striving toward . . . something. A home, maybe. Some place where she belonged.

Her heart ached, and as she wandered out onto the common to practice, she felt for a moment, that she would give up anything, even her vengeance, to possess whatever elusive thing it was that she so sought in her sleep.

When she realized the implications of her thought, it was as though she had been kicked in the belly. She doubled over, and the sky behind her internal stars turned red with anger and suppressed violence. Nausea rose as violently as the power ever had and brought her to her knees.

She was no saint who could immerse herself in a pool of cloying piety and so allow the stranger in the forest to live. Miriam of Maris would strike out, and if she could not cut down all the priests, all the inquisitors, all the barons and cityfolk and brutes, all the mocking, leering faces of her past, then at least she could kill one.

She stood. Putting strength into each movement, each step, her mind taut and focused on the reason she had for such action, such learning, she practiced the dance. And when Terrill came for her in the late morning, she bowed silently and followed him without a word. She would have vengeance. She was committed to it with vows as strong as those that bound Kay to chastity or Roxanne to secrecy.

Terrill did not comment on her silence or upon the grimness with which she took up the wooden sword, but he drove her even more fiercely than was usual, without comment, without criticism. His own silence was an eloquent expression of his disapproval.

Miriam fought hard, placing each stroke with care and cunning. Anger lent her strength, quickened her reactions. Terrill disapproved. Let him. She had work to do.

He finished driving her back to the edge of the trees and stepped away. “You are angry,” he said at last. “I would advise you to earth that emotion. It has no place here.”

“You haven't hit me yet.”

“Still—”

“Come on.” She glared at him.

He drove in. Wood met wood. Terrill's blade slid the length of Miriam's and skittered off harmlessly. As he whirled, she saw an opening, and she was angry enough to take it. Pivoting suddenly, she dropped to one knee, swung, and caught the Elf between hip and ribs. Terrill's stroke was already coming, though, and she threw herself flat to avoid it.

When she looked up, the Elf's face wore an expression of unfathomable sadness. There were tears in his eyes. “I had hoped that you would not take that opening.”

“Well, I did.”

He hefted his sword. “I am sorry.”

“Sorry? Sorry that you'd be dead if we were working with live steel?”

“Are you so sure of that?”

She recalled the wound that Varden had received: she had hit Terrill in the same place. Feeling cold, she dropped her eyes. “If you were human, you would be.”

“Maybe. But I have spoken to you about anger, and I will continue to do so.”

“I still hit,” she said suddenly.

“You did. And you were focused. Too focused, in fact. That is what your anger did to you. You did not see something.”

“I saw what I had to.”

“Did you? Stand up. Again.”

She rose and faced him. Terrill sized her up, nodded, then drove in. Once more, his sword sheared splinters off hers, once more Miriam saw her opening.

She struck. Maybe if she bruised him this time, he would take her seriously.

But the opening was suddenly not there anymore, and her blade was first blocked, then spun expertly out of her hand. Miriam wound up flat on the ground with the Elf's blade hovering inches from her throat.

His voice was heavy with grief, his eyes with tears. “You were so intent on doing me injury that you would have lost your life with a live blade.”

Befuddled, she shook her head. “How?”

Shaken, her confidence destroyed, she got to her feet. Terrill sent her off to fetch her sword. When she returned, he told her to hold it in both hands.

“Close your eyes and find the stars. As before.”

She did so. She might have been standing among them.

“Now, hold their image in your mind. Cling to it. Then open your eyes, and maintain the vision.”

As she opened her eyes, a door in her mind seemed also to open, and she staggered back a step.

She was seeing everything in all its wholeness, in all its intricate connection. The world was bright and fresh—even the dying leaves and the dead grass-as though created that very instant. But she saw beyond the instant, too, into past and futures. She saw the possibilities inherent in the smallest particle of earth, saw the endless cycles of season and of life and death, the days stretching off behind and before her, weaving through one another and through her in the Great Dance.