Hounds of God

by Tarr, Judith

  He waited; after a moment they bowed, both, and kissed the hand he held to them. “Go now. Hold yourselves to your cloister. I will see that you are sent where I judge best.”

  As Paul passed Alf, he hesitated as if he would have spoken, or struck, or spat. Thea advanced warningly; Honorius raised his hand. With a last long look—a glare, yet tinged just perceptibly with something very like admiration, the acknowledgment of enemy and strong enemy—Paul spun away.

  Alberich too paused. He did not threaten; he only searched Alf’s face, carefully, as if he could find there some thing of value that he had lost. His faith, perhaps. His certainty that he had chosen the path of God.

  With his going, the air lightened visibly. But indeed, beyond the walls it was dawn. Far away on the edge of human hearing, a cock crowed.

  Honorius started a little, foolishly. None of his guests, the one invited or the four not, melted away into nothingness. If anything, they seemed the more solid for the day’s coming.

  Again he looked down into Alf’s eyes. He would not see them again, and he was not grieved to know it, although the knowledge grew out of no hate nor even any dislike. They were too alien for mortal comfort, too much like a cat’s and too much like a man’s and too little like either. But worse, infinitely worse, was the truth he saw there.

  “‘A priest forever,’” the Pope whispered, “‘in the order—of—’”

  “No,” Alf said more softly still, in something very close to desperation. “I cannot. I must not. You must not even think of it.”

  “I, never. You threaten the roots of my faith; you menace the very foundations of my Church. I pray God that I have not erred beyond human forgiveness in granting you only exile, and not the finality of death.”

  The fair inhuman face was still. It did not stoop to beg or to plead. It had heard the will of Cencio Savelli. It waited upon the will of the Vicar of Christ.

  Honorius laid his hands upon the bowed head. He felt the tremors that racked the body beneath. He willed his voice to be steady. “When you have passed the borders of your secret country, you will pass beyond the reach of man, and of the Church of this mortal world. But not, not ever, of God.”

  Alf sank down and down, prostrate at the Pope’s feet. So must he have lain on the day he was made a priest. Had he trembled so? Had he so frightened that long-dead bishop as he did this aging Bishop of Rome?

  “I leave you to God,” Honorius said. “Remember Him. Serve Him. And may He and His Son and His Spirit of truth shine upon you, and guide you, and lead you into His wisdom. Whatever that may be.” The Pope signed him with the cross; and hesitated, and signed them all.

  Then at last they had mercy. They left him. But glad though he was to be free of their presence, he knew he would never be free of their memory. They had taken with them the surety of his faith, and his heart’s peace.

  31.

  They walked back to San Girolamo, by common consent, for time to think. The morning that swelled about them was like the first morning of the world: splendid with the victory of light against darkness; muted with the promise of the darkness’ return.

  Alf passed through it in silence, and yet it was not the silence of grief. He walked lightly, easily, as if a bitter burden had fallen from his shoulders. He even smiled, remembering Fra Giovanni’s farewell. The Minorite had kissed him and asked his blessing, and persisted until he consented to give it, and said then with quiet conviction, “Now I know beyond doubting that God walks in the world. All the world.”

  Simple words enough, and truth that was self-evident. But the friar’s face when he said it, the joy with which he spoke, had warmed Alf to the marrow.

  It matters that much to you, doesn’t it? Nikki was beside him, trotting to keep pace, lips a little tight with what the jarring was doing to his arm.

  Alf slowed in compunction and settled his arm about the boy’s shoulders. “What’s the trouble, Nikephoros? Do I puzzle you?”

  Nikki shrugged. No more than you ever do. It was all very interesting to watch.

  “Greek to the last,” said Thea on his other side, arm slipping round his waist. When he frowned at her, she laughed and kissed his cheek. “It’s over, Nikki. We’ve won. Don’t you want to sing?”

  I can’t. He pulled away from them both, half running toward the loom of the Colosseum.

  They exchanged glances. His back was straight and unyielding, his mind walled and barred. “Akestas,” Thea said.

  Alf shook his head slightly. But he did not stretch his pace. His mind was clear, intent, looking ahead now, seeing what it had still to face. They had won in Rome, perhaps; but not yet in Rhiyana.

  oOo

  Nikki did not come back with the others. Not that anyone seemed to care. Jehan and Thea were full of victory, vying to tell the whole of it; Alf absorbed himself in his children. Liahan had learned to smile, and Cynan had discovered speech. “Father,” he cried insatiably. “Father, Father, Father!”

  Stefania retreated from the clamor. She understood as much of it as she needed to. They had got what they wanted, the witch-folk. Brother Oddone ventured so far as to favor Thea with a quick shy smile. Prior Giacomo was grimly amused, but glad too, as if all this proved that he had not erred in taking them into his abbey. None of them asked where Nikephoros was, or why he had vanished.

  She found her cloak and slipped toward the door. She did not know precisely where she was going. First she had to find her way out of San Girolamo, not the easiest of tasks; the monks stared, which was disconcerting, or sternly refused to stare, which was worse. It was all she could do to walk calmly, not to run like a wild thing trapped in a maze.

  The gate was blessed relief. She ran through it down the road into the city.

  Nikephoros was nowhere between the abbey and the scrivener’s shop, nor was he in the rooms above. As a last resort she peered into the tavern. It was very early yet, but a few devoted winebibbers bent over their cups. Just as she turned away, she saw him. He had found the darkest corner, and he was drinking with the dedication of a man who means to drown his sorrows.

  “It doesn’t work, you know,” she said.

  He had closed himself off again. She caught his face in her hands and made him look at her. His eyes were awash with the wine, but his mouth was bitter. He offered her his cup; she shook her head. He drained it with a flourish that would have made her smile, if he had not been so desperate.

  Have you seen the deaf-mute begging in the piazza? he asked much too calmly, setting the cup on the table in front of him. An appalling creature. Malodorous. Ill-favored. First cousin to the Barbary ape.

  She drew up a stool and sat, eyes never leaving his face. “I find him pitiable.”

  He hurled the cup at the wall. It shattered; the shards dropped heavily, scattering on the ill-swept floor. People turned to stare; the wine-seller lumbered forward scowling. Nikki flung him a handful of coins and staggered up, dragging Stefania with him into the merciless sunlight.

  She dug in her heels. Abruptly he let her go; she fell backward. He caught her. For a long moment they poised, stretched at arm’s length like partners in a spinning dance. She firmed her feet beneath her. His hand opened, dropped. All at once he looked very ill.

  The wine left him in a flood. She held him, helpless to do more than wipe his streaming face with the end of her veil. When the storm had passed, he crouched on hand and knees and shook; but his mind-voice was uncannily clear and steady, with an edge of ice. I am an utter disgrace as a drunkard.

  “You’d be a disgrace if you were one.”

  What do you call me now?

  “Nikephoros.” She took his hand and kissed it. “Come to the house with me. You need to fill your stomach with something more trustworthy than wine.”

  His fist clenched. But he let her pull him up and lead him toward the stair. At the foot of it he stopped. No, Stefania. I can’t face—

  “I’ll get rid of Bianca.”

  He laughed, choking on it. And pers
uade her to leave you alone with a man?

  “I don’t call myself a philosopher for nothing.”

  She got rid of Bianca. Masterfully. The old woman was even pleased to scour the market for Messer Nikephoros’ favorite sweets.

  He shook his head in wonder. Stefania Makaria, you are a deceitful woman.

  “I’m a dialectician.” He was sitting in Uncle Gregorios’ chair, nibbling a bit of cheese. She knelt in front of him and touched his splinted arm. “Does this hurt still?”

  His good shoulder lifted. Not much, unless he thought about it. He abandoned the cheese for an olive.

  Stefania’s eyes widened. “How do you do that?”

  What?

  “You don’t even need to—”

  Resort to words. She had never known that one could make so many bites out of an olive. Or that one could say so much with a supple body and a mobile face and a splendid pair of black eyes.

  Looking at them as they darkened, she knew. It was the Pope’s command. It was the battle won yet lost, the Kindred saved but ordered into exile. It was the beggar, poor ill-made creature, who but for the grace of God and the power of a white enchanter, was Nikephoros.

  She shook her head fiercely. “Your back is straight and your mind is clear and you are beautiful.”

  So was he! Words again at last, all the stronger for that he did not need them. He was born as I was born. Beatings and starvation twisted him. The rest—the rest twisted and clouded because he never learned what words were. He never can now. He’s too old. Even Alf can’t work that great a miracle.

  “He did with you. For which I thank God.”

  He was not listening. He showed me—the madman I helped to kill. He showed me what I truly am.

  “No, Nikephoros. He showed you a nightmare, and tricked you into believing it was true.”

  He laughed, cold and clear in her mind. Oh no, I’m no cripple, I’m a great wizard, I’m utterly to be envied. Can’t you see, Stefania? I’m not the mute beast I should have been, but neither am I human. Alf’s miracle made sure of both.

  “You were born human. You have a man’s eyes. You won’t live forever.”

  It doesn’t matter. I’m an enchanter. The Pope’s decree binds me, too.

  “It does not!” she burst out. “Nikephoros, that command was framed for the Fair Folk. You are none of their kind. You have no need to leave the world; no one can call you alien.”

  No?

  “No! Your beauty is a human beauty. It’s warm; it’s familiar; it makes people smile. Not so the one you call your brother. He looks like a marble god. He makes people stare and gasp and cross themselves in awe. That’s what the Holy Father is sending out of the world.”

  That and the power. I have the power, Stefania. I am an enchanter. Just as easily as the Church can burn Alf, it can burn me.

  “It won’t. We’ll find a way. I’m much too clever for anyone’s good but my own; I’ll convince the world that you’re no more and no less than a mortal man.”

  For a whole lifetime, Stefania? We would have to live a lie.

  “Not a lie. A careful skirting round the truth.”

  He shook his head. I can’t— His eyes widened; he paled. God in Heaven.

  “What? What, Nikephoros?”

  It’s preposterous. But what if…what if my power needs Alf and his people to sustain it? What if, once the Folk go away and the walls close about them, all my magics vanish? I’ll be like the beggar.

  “Preposterous.”

  He lowered his face into his hand. I don’t know what to do. They’re my people. They’re like me. They know me as no human being ever can. But I’m not of their blood. And I love you, and I can’t ask you to go with me into such an exile as that, and I can’t endure a world without them. I want to stay in Rome and browbeat you into marrying me; I want to go with my soul’s kin into Broceliande.

  “I would go,” she said very low. “I would go with you.”

  You’re stiff with terror at the thought of it. They’re all so beautiful; they’re all so strange. After a very little while you’d come to hate them for being what they are, and me for binding you to an exile beyond the world’s end.

  She was silent. She wanted to protest; she could not. He was telling the truth. She was of the mortal world, utterly and irrevocably; she could not leave it.

  She could give him up. She had lived a respectable while before he came to trouble her peace. She had never intended to bind herself to any man, let alone a pretty lad without the least aptitude for philosophy, four years younger than she.

  Three.

  “Three and a half.” She frowned. “Did I give you leave to trespass in my mind?”

  His eyes dropped. She fancied that she felt his power’s withdrawal. Looking at him, unable to turn away, she realized that he had changed. These two days and nights had aged him years. His desperate stroke had begun the dance that ended in an enchanter’s death; and he had paid for it in more than a broken wrist. His prettiness was gone. He was handsome still but rather stern, with a deep line graven between his brows, the signature of power and pain.

  She buried her face in his lap. “I love you,” she said. She was crying. She did not want to; she could not help it. “I love you so much.”

  Very gently he touched her hair, stroking it, loosening the tightly woven braid. He was crying, too; she felt it.

  Somewhere at the bottom of self-pity she found the remains of her good sense. She raised her head. He wept like a stone image, stiff-faced, with the tears running down unheeded. She levered herself to her feet, sniffing loudly, but dignified for all of that. “I don’t suppose you have a handkerchief,” she said.

  He held up a napkin. She dried his face with it, and then her own. Tears pricked again; she willed them back. “I’m doing you no good at all. Why don’t you curse me for a foolish female and leave me to my fate?”

  Because he loved her.

  “Foolish boy.” The last binding gave; her braid uncoiled, tumbling over her shoulder. “Now look what you’ve done.”

  Yes; and he would finish it. His sorrow had shifted in a dismaying direction. He reached for her. Before she could stop to think, she was in his lap and he was freeing her hair, one-handedly awkward but very persistent. Her hands found themselves behind his neck. Her body had begun to sing its deep irresistible song.

  Only once. Only once, before she lost him.

  They never knew who led whom. She mounted the steps in front, but he was as close as her shadow. They kept stopping. When they came to her bed, her veil was long gone, her gown unlaced.

  She had to do most of the rest of it, for both of them. Even with the sling tossed aside, his splinted arm got in the way. He did what he could with all his aristocratic lacings, thinking curses at them; of course his luck would bring him to this when he was dressed for an audience with the Pope.

  She laughed breathlessly. “Oh, to be sure, a pilgrim is much better attired for an afternoon’s seduction.”

  Sacrilegious, he chided her, tugging at her gown.

  She blushed furiously. Which was utterly absurd. He was as bare as the day he was born, as calm as if he were swathed in silks. Cobbling up all her courage, and helping by turning half away, she slid out of gown and camise and stood shivering on the cold floor.

  His smile gleamed in the corner of her eye. She was all a prickle of gooseflesh, but her face was afire. She made herself face him. “What odd animals we are,” she said. “So ugly. So ridiculous.”

  But so beautiful.

  oOo

  Stefania raised herself on one elbow. He was almost asleep, his eyes dark with it, but he smiled and brushed his finger across her lips. She was shaky, excited, happy, sad, languid and tender, all at once, in a hopeless tangle. She wanted to tease him awake again. She wanted to lie down and rest in the drowsy warmth of him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He roused a little, puzzled.

  She bit her lip. “I know I didn’t—I
know you weren’t—you did everything to please me, and I didn’t even know what to—”

  He was awake, but not the way she had wanted. You pleased me very much. He drew her head down and kissed her slowly, savoring it. That’s one of the great wonders of being a sorcerer. What delights a lover is double delight.

  “You know all about it, don’t you?”

  Woman, he said sternly, are you asking me to count over old lovers? Shall I give you a ranking for each, as if we were allotting places in a tournament?

  “I don’t know what I’m asking!” She laid her head on his good shoulder, muttering into it, “I’m sorry again. I’m trying to start a fight. To make it easier to let you go. Now—now I know what all the singing is about.”

  He laughed gently, caressing her back and her tumbled hair. Do you really? I was afraid I hurt you.

  “Only at first.” She lifted her head. “Now who’s wallowing in apologies? Nikephoros, we both talk too much. But before I take a vow of silence—what did you do to Bianca?”

  His eyes were wide and innocent. I? Do anything to Bianca? Is it my fault that she’s met a friend in the market and is gossiping the day away? And I’ll remind you, ladylove, that it wasn’t I who sent her there.

  “We’re well matched, aren’t we?” She tried something she had thought of a little while since, something deliciously wanton. His gasp of surprise gave way to one of piercing pleasure. “First payment,” she said. And second, and third, and fourth. It kept her from remembering what he had omitted to say. He had not denied that he would go.