Hounds of God

by Tarr, Judith

  The Pope’s Legate walked among the roses, vivid in the scarlet of his rank. He moved slowly, breathing deep of the cool clear air, but under the joyous peace of the garden his face was grim.

  As he saw the Queen, both joy and grimness deepened. He bowed low before her.

  She bent her head to him, all queenly. “Eminence,” she acknowledged him.

  “Your Majesty,” he responded. He looked about him as if he could not help it, his eyes coming to rest where they had begun, upon her. The grimness filled his face, yet he spoke gently. “Majesty, I beg you to pardon my intrusion.”

  “It is pardoned.” She sounded cool and remote, unmoved by any trouble.

  Silence stretched. The beasts had settled; the wolves sat or lay in a broad circle about the Cardinal and the Queen, even the cubs still, watchful.

  Benedetto Torrino sighed faintly. “I know how few are your moments of peace,” he said. “The crown is heavy even for one well fit to bear it; and what we have brought into this kingdom… Lady, I regret that we have caused you suffering and must cause you more.”

  “Must, Lord Cardinal? Is it the law of God that the Church must hound us to death and our realm to ruin?”

  “It is the law of the world that a will to good must often turn all to evil. His Holiness wishes only that the world be cleansed of stain and brought back to its God. His servants labor to work his will, and His will, as best they may.”

  She laughed, cold and clear. “You believe that? Then you are an innocent. We suffer and die so that one small circle of venal men may hold more power in the Curia than any of their rivals.”

  “Not entirely, Lady. Not entirely.”

  “Enough.” The wimple was crushed in her hand; she let it fall. “I am weary, Lord Cardinal, and it seems I am to have no rest even here where none but my dearest kin may come. Why have you braved the wards and the ban?”

  “I had no choice.” From his sleeve Torrino took a folded parchment. “This has come to me. I think you should know of it.”

  She held it, looking at it. Her fingers tightened. She opened the missive, read slowly.

  Nothing changed in her face or her bearing, yet the air darkened and stilled as before thunder. She looked up. Her eyes were the color of sulfur. “Your embassy is ended forthwith. You are to return to Rome. A man of firmer will and greater devotion to God and to Mother Church will fill your place. He will, of course, be a monk of Saint Paul.”

  “That is not the... precise... wording of the letter.”

  “That is its import.” She turned it in her hands. “Pope Honorius never saw this.”

  “He signed it. There is the seal.”

  “And its secret mark, the exact number of points in Saint Peter’s beard.” She shook her head slightly, almost amused. “My lord, there is an old, old trick. A heap of documents, a high lord in haste, the crucial and betraying writ so concealed that only its margin is visible, ready to be signed. Men have been done to death in that fashion, as we may well be. For I have little doubt that with this His Holiness signed another addressed to the new Legate, granting God’s Hounds full power and full discretion in the harrowing of Rhiyana.”

  “I cannot believe—” Torrino broke off. More slowly, more softly, he said, “I can. God help me; God help us all.”

  “You move too slowly to sate the bloodthirst of a Hound. You have not even lowered the Interdict; not by your command have innocent folk been burned in the markets and before the churches. The Hounds and the Crusade have advanced without you.”

  “I have made no effort to stop them.” Torrino’s voice was harsh.

  “You have been powerless. So too have I. Did I enforce the ban when the grey cowls appeared all at once and with brazen boldness in every hamlet, even in my own city?”

  “But not in your hall or before your court.”

  “They will not defile their sanctity with my presence. Not until they come triumphant to demand my life.”

  “Lady,” he said. “Lady, believe. I came armed with righteousness to search out a tribe of devils. I found order and peace, a just king, a people no more evil than any other in this world. I do not believe that you have deceived me, or that I have deceived myself. Your sorceries, the infidels among you…they have not earned death or even Interdict, least of all without proper trial. I would have your people tried, given time to speak in their own defense, dealt with thereafter singly and with justice, without peril to your kingdom.”

  “What one would have and what one will have do not often meet. Will you obey your false orders, my lord?”

  He took them from her hand. With a sudden fierce movement he tore the sheet asunder.

  The shards rattled like leaves as they fell. But he said calmly, “I may have no choice, although I shall fight with what skill I have. Letters can be delayed or mislaid; the kingdom is in chaos, the roads beset with mud and brigands.”

  “As they have not been since my King was young.” Her fierceness like his was a flash of blade from the sheath, but she held it so, drawn and glittering. “Benedetto Cardinal Torrino, you know that your very presence here is a betrayal of your office.”

  “My office is that of judge and emissary; my calling is that of a priest of Christ. I will not surrender it all for a lie.”

  “The lie may be in us.”

  He regarded her. She stood as tall as he, but slender as a child, with the face of a young maiden. Her eyes, unveiled, were utterly inhuman. “And yet,” he whispered, “not evil. Never so.”

  “They will say I have ensorceled you.”

  “Perhaps you have. You are all beautiful, you Kindred of the Elvenking, but you most of all, Lady and Queen. I have never seen a woman fairer than you.”

  “The White Chancellor surpasses me, Lord Cardinal, and well I know it.”

  He smiled with surprising warmth. “But, Lady, he is a man; and even at that I would not set him above you. I grieve that we meet only now and amid such havoc, but I cannot regret that we have met.”

  “Nor,” she mused, “after all, can I.” Her smile nearly felled him. He reeled; she caught him in great dismay. “My lord, pardon, I took no thought—”

  The Queen had gone. In her place stood the maid who had loved two princes, but who had chosen the one for his gentleness—not knowing then that he would be King.

  But the Queen knew what the maiden had never suspected, that her face itself was an enchantment and her smile laden with power. She looked on this newest victim in visible distress, holding him by his two hands as if the body’s strength alone could undo what she had done.

  He steadied quickly enough. He was a strong-willed man; his vows protected him after a fashion. But he remained a man. He swallowed hard. “Your Majesty, I must go.”

  “Yes,” she said, “you must.”

  They both looked down. Their hands were locked together. Neither could find the power to let go.

  “Your King—” It was a gasp. “Your husband. He is mending, I have heard; one of your Kindred—she told me where you were—I thank God that he will not die.”

  “It is not yet certain that he will live. But we pray. He will allow no more. Even I—he will not let me come to him, and I cannot go as our people go. And there is the throne to hold for him. Ah, God, I hate these shackles of queenship!”

  “You love him.”

  “Most sinfully, with body and soul.” At last she could loose one hand, only to touch his pectoral cross. “I have never felt it as a sin. I gave him the only child I could give; I would joyfully give him another, a pair, a dozen. As he would give me—but wounded, walled against me—I fear that he is hiding—that he may be—”

  His arms closed around her, inevitable as the tides of the sea. “He took an arrow in the thigh, but not so high and not so dreadful as you fear. I have it from witnesses; I know it for truth. He may come back lame, but he will come back a man.”

  “Or dead.” Her head drooped on his shoulder; he clasped her close. His face was rapt, brilliant, a lit
tle mad. He buried it in the silken masses of her hair.

  oOo

  “Three,” Simon said, “or more likely, four. Who would have dreamed that a prince of the Church would fall so easily? I hardly needed to bait the trap.”

  Anna did not know how she could hate him, pity him, fear him, scorn him, all utterly, all at once. It choked the breath from her; it left her blank and staring, shaking her head slowly, unable to stop.

  He had no eyes for her. Thea lay flattened at his feet, hackles abristle, lips wrinkled in a snarl. “The world shall be clean of all your kind,” he said. “One by one they shall fall. Even those you deem safe in your forest—I have counted them; my power has marked each one. It grows, you see. With use, with mastery, its strength waxes ever greater. No wall may hold it away, no magic stand against it, no power overcome it.” He reached as for something he could touch, smiling with terrible gentleness. “How beautiful, like a tower of light. How fragile; how easy to cast down.”

  Thea tensed as if to spring. He raised his hand. She froze. Her snarl died. The blaze of her eyes died into ashes. She shrank down and down.

  “Your demon lover,” he said, “is dead. He dared advance against me; I struck, and cast him down. He lingered for a little while; he struggled; he betrayed your people to the Pope’s Legate. But at last he fell into the darkness that waits for those who have no souls.”

  “No,” Anna whispered. “No.”

  Simon turned to her. “Yes. Great prince of devils that he was, masked in piety, he was no match for me. The world is free of him.”

  “No,” she repeated. “He can’t be dead. He promised me. A long time ago in Constantine’s city, he promised. As long as I needed him, he wouldn’t—” She could not finish. Not for grief, not yet; for rage. She faced her jailer in a white fire of it. “How dared he die? How dared you murder him?”

  He fell back. She did not deign to be astonished. “Damn you. Damn you, Simon Magus. What right have you to make us suffer? Who gave you the power to ordain life and death? How dared you kill my brother?”

  “God,” he gasped. “God—”

  “God damns you, you hound of Hell. Murderer, your power is so mighty—raise our dead. Do yourself to death in their places.”

  “It is forbidden. God forbids—”

  “He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. Who slays with power must die of it. That is the law of your kind.”

  “No law binds me but God’s.”

  “Just so.” Anna raised her clenched fists. “I curse you, Simon Magus. I curse you by your own power.”

  He backed away. “No. No, I beg, I command—”

  “Monster. Coward. You dread death. You know what waits for you. Hellmouth. The Lord Satan. The fires unending. If,” she said, “you have a soul.”

  He struck at her feebly, white with terror, all the glory gone and only the craven madness left to rule him. Until he paused; his hands froze, warding. His eyes blazed with sudden lightnings. Again he struck, a sweeping blow that hurled her from her feet.

  22.

  The fall was endless, eternal. Thea flashed past; Anna snatched at her, caught her. Eye met eye. Thea’s were dull, quenched, dim brown beast-eyes. Yet for the briefest of instants they flared green. Her body was gone, twin small bodies in its place, filling Anna’s arms. One slipped free, or was torn free. The other she clasped strangling-close, falling down and down, whirling into nothingness.

  She struck stone. It was wet; it was cold. Something whined and pushed against her. With a small gasp she thrust herself up on her arms.

  She nearly fell again. Cynan huddled beneath her, bedraggled and shivering, but it was not the cold that shook his every bone.

  There were no walls. No walls. A green tangle, a worn pale pavement, a blazing-bright arch of sky.

  It wavered. She tried to fight the tears, but they only came the harder.

  Needle-sharp teeth closed, but gently, gently, on her hand. Cynan released it, wobbling on his feet, meeting her stare. Stronger than terror was his determination.

  Something nudged her, but not on her flesh; within, like a memory struggling to the surface. A word or a wish. Up. And, Go.

  He too had his father’s eyes, silvered gold. His father—

  A howl welled up from the bottom of her soul. She locked her jaw against it. She struggled to an ungainly crouch, aware as one is amid a nightmare, of her filthy clothes, her rank body, her hair straggling over her face and shoulders and down her back. “Your father,” her mouth said, “is dead. Alun is dead, and we—”

  Cynan caught the trailing edge of her sleeve and tugged. Go, he willed her. Go!

  Her body was beyond her mind’s control. “I loved him. I loved him. And he promised—he promised—”

  Pain shocked her into sanity. Cynan crouched flat, snarling, within easy reach of her torn hand. She staggered up.

  He did not rejoice, not yet. He nipped her hem. She tottered forward; he rose and followed.

  Slowly her steps steadied, her mind cleared. Though valiant, Cynan was very young still; she scooped him up before he could tire.

  His weight was like a shield, a ward against panic. It was real, this road, this air, this sky. She was free. She had driven Simon to the edge, and he had not slain her; he had flung her away. Liahan, Thea—

  With all her strength she mastered herself. She had Cynan, and he was thoroughly hale. Where they were, that must come next. Surely, despite its wildness, this was no wilderness; the road was clear of greenery, the greenery itself held just short of conquest amid a scattering of flowers.

  Something white glimmered through them. She let her breath out slowly. The face was marble, crumbling and streaked with moss, the body beneath it draped modestly enough in a mantle of laurel. She made her way past it, stretching into a freer stride.

  Her heart slowed its pounding. No walls sprang up about her, no Simon came to bar her way.

  The road turned sharply. The trees opened. A whole world stretched before her. A city of hills and marshes and a broad arch of river, walled and towered among the works of giants.

  Her knees loosened. She fought to stiffen them. After all her dread and her refusal to think of the choices, she had not been sent far at all. She was still in Rome.

  A month’s journey from Rhiyana on horseback with ample provision. Knowing not a soul here, looking like a beggar, with neither money nor food to sustain her. And for company an unweaned pup.

  Cynan objected to that with body and mind. He had been trying himself at his mother’s ration of meat. And he was a witch born; he had power. He could help her.

  A smile felt strange on her face. “You can,” she said. “Unless—” She shut her mouth. One did not name the Devil. If she was to go on at all, she must go on as if she were truly free.

  She had her wits and her companion, and no one had taken her small wealth, the rings of gold in her ears. Surely those would buy her food, shelter, and maybe—she trembled at the mere prospect of it—a bath.

  The sun had been middling low when she began; as she walked, it rose. Its arc was much higher than she remembered, the arc of winter turning toward spring, the air wonderfully warm.

  Even so, she was grateful for the furred lining of her cotte. Her soft shoes, never made for much walking, were wet through from the puddled road; she would not think of the growing soreness of her feet.

  How huge Rome was. How terrifying with its crush of people, and yet how frightening in the wastes where people were not. She felt as glaringly conspicuous as a goosegirl in a king’s hall, clad as she was for a Rhiyanan castle but draggled like a gutter rat, with a very young alaunt in her arms. He was stiff with fear, yet he stared in wide-eyed fascination, taking it all in, who had never known aught but the quiet of a prison cell.

  She dared not let him walk lest she lose him. He did not ask more than once. There were too many feet, and too many dogs, whip-thin vicious creatures who looked starved for just such a tender morsel as he. But the one that v
entured too close nearly lost a portion of its nose; the rest, beasts and men alike, kept their distance.

  Anna knew she should try to find a place to walk to. A goldsmith or a pawnbroker who might give fair return for her earrings; a hostel where she might rest, gather her wits, find a way home. But the thought of closing herself within walls again, even walls with an open gate, made her shudder.

  The sun, having won the zenith, began to fall toward evening. Cynan’s weight dragged at Anna’s arms. He was growing hungry. She could fast if she must, however unpleasant it might be, but he was far too young for that.

  She paused at last by a small oddity of a fountain set into a wall. From the mouth of an age-smoothed lion-face poured a thin stream, gathering into a long narrow basin.

  The water was cold and sweet. She plunged her face into it, briefly oblivious to aught but her senses’ delight.

  Cynan, set on the basin’s edge, lapped thirstily. When Anna emerged, gasping and spluttering, he was gone.

  She looked about at first without undue concern. The street was relatively uncrowded; she had been lost to the world for no more than a moment or two. It should not be difficult to catch sight of a white alaunt pup.

  It should not; it was. He had vanished.

  She stood, still dripping, warmed by an uprush of sheer fury. “Damn all witches,” she gritted. “Damn them, damn them, damn them!”

  A flash of white caught her eye. She spun toward it. Under a cart redolent of fish, a small shape stirred.

  A cat. Anna walked because she could think of nothing else to do, calling Cynan’s name without much hope, cursing him in Greek and with some invention.

  People stared at her. She looked like a lunatic, and she felt like one.

  Her hem caught. She tugged at it. It tugged back. She whipped about.

  Cynan grinned, tongue lolling, tail a blur. She shook her fist at him. “You imp! Where were you?”

  He ran ahead a pace or two, ran back again. Come, he commanded. See.

  Anna groaned aloud. “See what? Aren’t you hungry? Don’t you want to eat? Sleep? Be clean?”