Hounds of God

by Tarr, Judith

  “The world is a paradox,” Alf said, “and men are lost in it. What is philosophy but a struggle to make order of chaos? What is theology but a child’s groping in the dark? Jesu, Maria, God in high Heaven, what are you to me or to my kin?”

  The echoes died slowly. He expected no answer. Perhaps there was none.

  He sank to his knees on the stone. “My Lord,” he said reasonably as to any man, “the world is Yours in its fullest measure. I see You in it, albeit dimly, with eyes never made for such vision. I know I come from You; You shine in my people. And yet, my Lord, and yet, if I am to serve You before them, how can I do it? The Church staggers under the weight of its humanity. Its heretics offer only a stricter law, a harsher road to Heaven. Moses, Muhammad, Gautama, all the gods and prophets, have no help for us. For me. I stand alone.” The word shuddered in his throat. “Alone. Shall we all die then? Have You looked upon us and found us evil, and set Your Hounds to sweep us away? We are poor things, neither men nor angels, neither spirit nor true earthly flesh. And yet we live; we serve You as best we can. Must we pay for it with our destruction?”

  He shook his head. “No. That’s despair. We’re being tested. Winnowed; shown our proper path. But ah, dear God, the testing is bitter and the winnowing relentless, and the path... I can see but little of that, and that darkly, and I am afraid.”

  Out of the shadows a voice spoke. It was quiet, a little diffident; it seemed honestly concerned. “But, brother, you’re supposed to be afraid.”

  Alf whipped about. He knew he moved like an animal, startling to human eyes, but these showed neither fear nor recoil. Their owner was a man neither tall nor short, frail and sallow and gaunt to starvation, his eyes dark and gently humorous between neglected beard and much neglected tonsure.

  A beggar surely, a mendicant friar, ragged and long unwashed but extraordinarily clear of gaze and wit. He took in Alf’s face and form, and smiled with a wondrous sweetness. “Brother, you are a joy to see, even in your sorrow. Can you pardon me for having listened to it? I was saying my prayers in the chapel yonder when your voice came to me like a cry from Heaven.”

  “Or to it,” Alf said. This man was no great delight to the eye or to the nose, and yet he lightened even Alf’s spirit with his simple presence. He had a power; a gift of joy.

  “To Heaven, yes,” he responded. “Would any good man cry to Hell?”

  “He might if he were desperate.”

  “I think,” said the stranger, “that in such a case, God would hear. You agree, surely, or it’s Hell you would have been calling to.”

  Alf’s mouth twisted wryly. “I’m desperate, but I remain a creature of reason. It’s one of my curses.”

  “You have more than one?”

  “What earthly being does not?”

  “None. But one should never keep count. Blessings, now; those I love to number. Brother sun and sister moon; mother earth and all her seasons, her fruits and her creatures, even her human folk. Especially they. So much in them is hideous, but how much more is beautiful, if only one knows how to see.”

  Alf nodded once, twice. “I’ll never dispute that. Nor do I take pleasure in reckoning up my ill fortune, but it has to be done, else I’ll suffer all the more for my heedlessness. God does not permit any creature to be too constantly happy.”

  “Of course not. Happiness needs sadness to set it off. Would you want to live solely on honey?”

  “No more than I’d prefer a diet of gall. I’ve gorged on sweetness, you see; now I’m deluged with bitterness.”

  The stranger squatted beside him. “Are you that? I’m sorry for it. I suppose it’s no great comfort that the gladness will come back.”

  “It’s not.” Alf’s head bent; he sat on his heels, weary beyond telling. “If I could see it, if I could know, I’d be stronger.”

  “No man may know what will come. He can only hope, and trust in God.”

  “Once,” Alf said, “I knew. The gift has left me. Time was when I would have sung my joy to be free of it; but flesh is never content. I don’t want it back, you understand. Not the strokes of vision that fell me in my tracks; not the forewarnings of wars and plagues and calamities. Not even the few glimpses of light, paid for as they are in such cruel coin. I could only wish for a single image. Sunlight, warmth, a child’s laughter. Only that. Then I would have the will to go on.”

  “That will be as God wills,” said the stranger. “He’s very strong in you, did you know that? You shine like the moon.”

  Alf flung up his head. “It is not God.”

  “Why, of course it is,” said the mild musical voice. “I’m sure you’re one of His dearer children. He wouldn’t test you so fiercely if He didn’t love you exceedingly.”

  “That is not the orthodox position, Brother.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  Alf laughed sharply. “What is truth? By Church law I was damned from my conception.”

  “No, brother. Someone has taught you wrongly. No man can be—”

  “But I am not a man.”

  The beggar-friar blinked at him.

  “I am not a man,” Alf repeated. “I am neither human nor mortal. The doctrine holds that I have neither soul nor hope of salvation. Not a pleasant thought at the best of times, to the most irreligious of us. Which this is not, and which I am most certainly not. And I think—I know that I am called. A daimon with a vocation; an elvenlord who was born to be a priest. Can’t you sense God’s high amusement?”

  “God’s laughter is never cruel,” the other said. Alf could find in him no sign of either surprise or disbelief. “I knew you were from Rhiyana; your face is unmistakable. So it’s true what’s being said of your people.”

  “Most of it. All, maybe, if you would make us the Devil’s brood.”

  The dark eyes measured him. “I would not. Mother Church isn’t remarkably fond of me, either, you know; she finds me difficult to manage. I tell the truth as I can see it, and it’s not always her truth, and I think too much of the Lord Jesus and too little of the Canons. She does what she can to keep me in order, and I try to obey her. But when truth stands on one side and the Church on the other, it’s hard indeed to know what I should do.”

  “It’s worse than hard. It’s well-nigh impossible. One can only shut one’s eyes and pray for guidance, and do as one’s heart dictates.”

  “My heart tells me that I see you truly. Your trouble is the Crusade, isn’t it? War is no way to spread the Faith. Very much the opposite.”

  “My people have no need of conversion. Our enemies know that. They intend to destroy us. For the greater glory of God.”

  “I would go,” said the friar. “I would teach the Faith to those who have never professed it. The Saracens, the people afar in the silk countries—a whole world has no knowledge of truth. I would go to it and leave you in God’s peace.”

  “But you are not permitted.”

  “I have been. I shall be again, though perhaps not soon. His Holiness is most kind, but the world besets him; the Church grows too great, and she grows haughty in her greatness. Sometimes—this is not charitable, brother, but sometimes I think we need the Lord Jesus to come again and scourge this temple reared up in his name.”

  “Is that not what you are doing?”

  The friar sighed. “I have no skill in scourging temples. Even when forced to it, I do it badly. I would much rather be doing God’s gentler works. Healing, teaching, ministering to the poor.” He sighed again, and coughed hard enough to rattle his fragile bones. “But one does what one must. Sometimes one escapes and tries to heal oneself in solitude.”

  “I too,” Alf said. He realized that he was smiling faintly, a little painfully. “You’ve healed me a little. You’ve taught me something.”

  “Have I?” asked the other, surprised. “I wasn’t trying to. I’ve done little but chatter about myself.”

  Alf’s smile deepened. “That’s one excellent way to teach.”

  The friar looked at him, sm
iling himself with such warm delight that Alt felt it like an open fire. “And doesn’t misery love company?” He sobered suddenly. “I only fear... I never wanted it to go this far. It was only myself and God. Then my brothers came to share God with me and to help me with His work; only a few at first, but the word got out, and to keep them all in order I needed some sort of rule, and everyone said the Pope himself should sanction it. And suddenly we were an Order like the Benedictines or the Jeromites, and we had to be sealed with the tonsure and the threefold vows. To keep us safe, His Holiness said. To mark us for what we were, servants of the Church. And all I wanted was to live in peace in our Lord’s poverty, carrying out his commands as best I knew how. What is there in the world that destroys all simplicity?”

  “Human nature,” Alf answered gently. “But there’s much good your brothers can do as they are, they and their sisters. The temple will be scourged. The Church will cleanse itself. Though it will be long, long...”

  He had the man’s hands in his own. They were stick-thin, wrapped in bandages that though bloody were somewhat cleaner than the rest of him. Alf caught his breath at the festering pain as at the rush of sight. “Giovanni Bernardone, when you stand by the throne of God, will you spare a word for my people?”

  “I don’t think,” said the friar, “that you need even my poor intercession. But for your sake, if I get so far, I’ll do as you ask.” He looked down at his hands, at Alf’s cradling them like marble round clay. “Your touch is peace.”

  The pain was terrible. Nails piercing his hands, transfixing his feet. And his side beneath his heart—like a spear, like a sword. How could the man walk, talk, smile, even laugh, when every movement crucified his body?

  For this there could be no earthly healing. Alf bowed low and low. “Sanctissime. Most holy father.”

  Fra Giovanni pulled him up, dismayed. “Please don’t. No one’s supposed to know about it. I can’t have them all bowing and treating me like a saint. Least of all you, who truly are one.”

  Alf’s incredulity struck him mute. There was holiness, to be so utterly oblivious to itself, even with the great seal it bore. Five wounds. Five stigmata.

  And he had thought that he knew pain. He brought his head up and mustered all his calmness. “God brought us together here to mend and to be mended. For what they are worth, I give you my thanks and my blessing.”

  “They are worth more than kingdoms.” The impossibly sweet smile returned, though the dark eyes were sad. “Go with God, brother. May He shelter all your people and preserve them from harm, and bring them to Himself at last.”

  21.

  Anna could move, if she was very careful. She did not know that she wanted to. Even her eyelids throbbed and burned; she could see only through a blood-red mist.

  Simon’s voice spoke. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, soft as a whisper yet echoing deep in her brain. “See, woman. See what your folly has bought you.”

  It was like a dream, and it was not. It was too clear, too distinct, too grimly relentless.

  It seemed that she stood under the open sky, immeasurably vast after the walls that had enclosed her for so long, and the sun was shining and the gulls were crying. Beneath them like a carpet spread the kingdom of Rhiyana. Dun and grey and brown, white with snow and green with pine and fir, hatched with roads that seemed all to run toward the white pearl of Caer Gwent and the blue glitter of the sea.

  That seemed safe, serene, overlaid with a faint golden shimmer, but the borders seethed and smoldered. The shimmer there was dark and shot through with flame, and yet something in it put her in mind of Simon’s eyes.

  The land swelled and stretched and grew clear before her. She could have been a gull or a falcon hovering over the untidy circle of a town. Ants swarmed in it, men shrunken with distance and height, brandishing weapons surely too tiny to be deadly. Swords, spears—no. Staves and cudgels, rakes, scythes, here and there a rusted pike.

  Something fled before them, a small ragged scrambling figure, white hair thin and wild, weak eyes staring out of the tangle, blood-scarlet and mad with terror. The mob bayed at it. “Witch! Witch! Demon’s get, sorcerer. God’s curse—”

  Anna struggled to cry out. But as in a dream, she was voiceless, powerless.

  The poor pallid creature stumbled and fell. The mob sprang upon it. A thin shriek mounted to Heaven.

  Hoofs thundered. A strong clear voice lashed above the growls of men turned beasts. A company of knights and sergeants clove through the mob, and at their head a flame of scarlet.

  Anna could have sung for joy. He rode armored, the Prince Aidan, but for haste or for recklessness he had disdained both helm and mail-coif. His raven head was bare, his face stark white with wrath; he laid about him with the flat of his sword.

  At the eye of the storm was stillness. The wretched albino lay twisted impossibly, his colorless hair stained crimson.

  The Prince sprang down beside him, knelt, brushed the broken body with a gentle hand. His steel-grey glance swept the gathered faces. “That,” he said with deadly softness, “was no more a witch than any of you.”

  He rose. Although one or two came near his height, he towered over them; they flinched and cowered. “Yes,” he purred, “be afraid. Such return you give your King for all his years of care for you; such a gift do you give him, this roil of fear and hate.”

  Anna felt it. He could not. Not all his pallor was anger; he was sustaining himself by sheer force of will, and no power. He could not sense the gathering, the focusing, the sudden bitter loosing.

  Stone and hate struck him together. His eyes went wide, astonished. He reeled.

  He did not fall. Blood streamed down his face, blinding him. He paid it no heed. His hand stretched out. His mind reached, clawing, slipping, failing. The mob closed in for the kill.

  oOo

  Anna’s throat was raw with outrage. She flung herself at Simon; he held her away with contemptuous ease. “Two,” he said, “are mastered. A third comes to my hand. So.”

  She struggled; she fought; she willed her eyes to be blind. No use. Rhiyana unfurled before her, sweeping closer and closer, until Caer Gwent itself grew about her.

  The streets were crowded though it was the fallow time of Lent, as if lords and commons alike had chosen to take refuge far from the Crusade. Merchants did a brisk trade in dainties as in necessities. Singers sang; players plied their trade in front of the cathedral.

  But the clamor of the schools was muted, the gate of the synagogue barricaded shut, the austere houses of the Heresiarch’s flock empty and silent. Only one man dared preach from the porch of one of the lesser churches, and he was a friar, a Minorite in tattered grey who proclaimed the poverty of Christ.

  There were white habits and grey cowls everywhere. How had so many come so deep into Rhiyana in defiance of the ban? How dared they? They walked like lords, secure in their power. People gave way before them.

  Anna plunged past them with stomach-churning speed and swooped toward the castle. Abruptly she was within it.

  Its familiarity tore at her heart. There was the Chancellor’s Tower where she had lived whenever she was in Caer Gwent. There was the stable where champed her fiery little gelding, Alf’s gift to her only this past name-day. And there was the Queen’s garden, so wrought that it seemed far larger within than without, touched with her magic.

  Roses bloomed; small bright birds sang spring songs without care for the beasts that lazed on the ground below. Some were gifts from far countries, such of them as chose to sacrifice freedom and homeland for love of the Queen. Some had come of their own accord: a white hind and her red fawn, a sow and her piglets, badgers and coneys and sleek red foxes.

  And the wolves. Not grey wolves of the wood but white wolves of the Wood, great as mastiffs, he and she, and their boisterous half-grown cubs.

  The Queen sat on the grass with the she-wolf’s head in her lap. They were wonderfully alike, the lady in her white gown with her ivory skin and her ivory ha
ir and her eyes the color of amber, the wolf all white and golden-eyed.

  “Sister,” said the light childlike voice of the lady, “you are not being wise. The rest of the wildfolk will go back to their proper places with the next sunrise. You must not linger, not you of them all, whom humans call my kin and my familiars. They will destroy you as gladly as they destroy me, and no whit less cruelly.”

  Anna heard the response as a voice, husky like a man’s yet somehow distinctly feminine. We came when you came. We go when you go.

  “Then your children at least—”

  They stay.

  Maura’s fingers buried themselves in the thick ruff. Her eyes had the hard glitter of one who refuses to weep. “Do you remember,” she murmured, “when Alun was playing just where your cubs play now? And when we looked, the three young wolves were four and my son nowhere to be seen, but the largest and most awkward cub looked at us with startled grey eyes. He had that gift from me, the wolf- shape, yet his talent was greater. Like Thea’s, limited only by his knowledge.” She shook her head and mustered a smile. “Such mischief it led him into. When he walked as a cat and he met a she-cat in heat... his wounds were nothing, but his shock was all-encompassing. Cats, after all, are creatures of Venus, and when one takes a shape one takes on its nature as well.”

  The wolf’s gaze was wise and strangely compassionate. He hunted well. We mourn him under the moon.

  “I mourn him always. Always. But I must be strong. I must hold up my head under the crown. It is so heavy, sister. So monstrously heavy.”

  She drooped even in speaking of it, but stiffened with a visible effort of will, rising to her feet. Her heavy braid uncoiled to her heels, rich as cream; she took up the somber pelisson she had discarded, the wimple and veil suited to a matron and a queen.

  Slowly she put on the dark overgown with its lining of marten fur. As she began to fold the wimple, a disturbance brought her about. The animals were agitated, the more timid already hidden, the hunters alert, growling softly. Yet even without them she would have known that human feet had trodden in her garden.