Isle of Glass

by Tarr, Judith

  Jehan was not listening. He was not even trying to listen, who ordinarily was the best of students. Alf broke off and closed the book softly and folded his hands upon it. “What’s the trouble, Jehan?”

  The novice looked up from the precious vellum, on which he had been scribbling without heed or pattern. His eyes were wide and a little wild. “You look awful, Brother Alf. Brother Rowan says you were praying in the chapel all night.”

  “I do that now and again,” Alf said.

  “But—” Jehan said. “But they say you’re leaving!”

  Alf sighed. He was tired, and his body ached from a night upon cold stones. Jehan’s pain only added to the burden of his troubles. He answered shortly, flatly. “Yes. I’m leaving.”

  “Why? What’s happened?”

  “I’ve been here too long. Dom Morwin is sending me to Bishop Aylmer.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” Alf replied. “Don’t worry. You won’t go back to Brother Osric. You’ll take care of Alun for me; and he has a rare store of learning. He’ll keep on with your Greek, and if you behave, he’ll let you try a little Arabic.”

  The hurt in Jehan’s eyes had turned to fire. “So I’m to turn paynim while you run at the Bishop’s heel. It’s not so easy to get rid of me, Brother Alf. Take me with you.”

  “You know that’s not my decision to make.”

  “Take me with you.”

  “No.” It was curt, final. “With reference to Plato’s doctrine, Chalcidius observes—”

  “Brother Alf!”

  “Chalcidius observes—”

  Jehan bit back what more he would have said. There was no opposing that quiet persistence. Yet he was ready to cry, and would not, for pride.

  o0o

  It was the first lesson with Alf that had ever gone sour, and it was the last Jehan would ever have. When he was let go, having disgraced all his vaunted scholarship, he wanted to hide like a whipped pup. For pride and for anger, he went where his duties bade him go.

  Alun was awake and alone. Jehan stood over him. “Brother Alf is going away,” he said. “He’s been sent to Bishop Aylmer. Bishop Aylmer is with the King. And it’s the King you want to get to. What did you make him go for?”

  Jehan’s rude words did not seem to trouble Alun. “I didn’t make him go. It was your Abbot’s choice. A wise one in his reckoning, and well for your Brother. He was stifling here.”

  “He doesn’t want to go. He hates the thought of it.”

  “Of course he does. He’s afraid. But he has to go, Jehan. For his vows’ sake, and for his own.”

  Jehan glared at him. “Alone, sir? Do his vows say he has to travel the length and breadth of Anglia by himself, a monk who looks like a boy, who doesn’t even know how to hold a knife?”

  “His vows, no. But he will have my mare and such aid as I can give him, and he has more defenses than you know of.”

  “Not enough.” Jehan tossed his head, lion-fierce. “I came here for him. If he goes, I’ll go.”

  “And what of your Abbot? What of your God?”

  “My God knows that I can serve Him as well with the Bishop as at St. Ruan’s. The Abbot can think what he likes.”

  “Proud words for one who would be a monk.”

  “I was a monk because Alf was!”

  Jehan fell silent, startled by his own outburst. Slowly he sank down, drawing into a knot on the floor. “I was a monk because Alf was,” he repeated. “I never meant to be one. I wanted to be a warrior priest like Bishop Aylmer, but I wanted to be a scholar, too. People laughed at me. ‘A scholar!’ my father yelled at me. ‘God’s teeth! you’re not built for it.’ Then I rode hell-for-leather down a road near St. Ruan’s, with a hawk on my wrist and a wild colt under me and my men-at-arms long lost, and I nigh rode down a monk who was walking down the middle.

  “I stopped to apologize, and we talked, and somehow we got onto Aristotle. I’d read what I could find, without really knowing what I was reading and with no one to tell me. And this person knew. More: he could read Greek. There in the middle of the road, we disputed like philosophers, though he really was one and I was a young cock-a-whoop who’d got into his tutor’s books.

  “Then and there, I decided I had to be what he was, or as close as I could come, since he was brilliant and I was only too clever for my own good. I fought and I pleaded and I threatened, and my father finally let me come here. And now Brother Alf is going away and taking the heart out of St. Ruan’s.”

  Alun shifted painfully, waving away Jehan’s swift offer of help. “I think, were I your Abbot, I would question your vocation.”

  “It’s there,” Jehan said with certainty. “God is there, and my books. But not—not St. Ruan’s. Not without Brother Alf.”

  “Jehan.” Alun spoke slowly, gently. “You’re startled and hurt. Think beyond yourself now. Alfred is much older than he looks, and much less placid. He has troubles which life here cannot heal. He has to leave.”

  “I know that. I’m not trying to stop him. I want to go with him.”

  “What can you do for him?”

  “Love him,” Jehan answered simply.

  Alun’s eyes closed. He looked exhausted and drawn with pain. His voice when he spoke was a sigh. “You can serve him best now by accepting what your Abbot says must be. Can you do that?”

  “And leave him to go alone?”

  “If such is the Abbot’s will. Can you do it, Jehan?”

  Very slowly the other responded, “I...for him. If it’s right. And only if.”

  “Go then. Be strong for him. He needs that more than anything else you can do for him.”

  o0o

  Alf regarded Alun with sternness overlying concern. “You’ve been overexerting yourself.”

  The Rhiyanan’s eyes glinted. “In bed, Brother? Oh, come!”

  “Staying awake,” Alf said. “Moving about. Trying your muscles.” He touched the bandaged mass of Alun’s sword hand. “The setting of this is very delicate. If you jar it, you’ll cripple it. Perhaps permanently.”

  “It is not so already?” There was a touch of bitterness in the quiet voice.

  “Maybe not.” Alf continued his examination, which was less of hand and eye than of the mind behind them. “Your ribs are healing well. Your leg, too, Deo gratias. If you behave yourself and trust to the care in which I leave you, you’ll prosper.”

  He folded back the coverlet and began to bathe as much of the battered body as was bare of bandages. Alun’s eyes followed his hands. When Alf would have turned him onto his face, there was no weight in him; he floated face down a palm’s width above the bed.

  The monk faltered only for a moment. “Thank you,” he said. After a moment he added, “If you take care not to let yourself be caught at it, you might do this as much as you can. It will spare your flesh.”

  Alun was on his back again; Alf could have passed his palm between body and sheet. “I’ve been this way a little. There’s more comfort in it.”

  “My lord.” Alf’s compassion was as palpable as a touch. “I’ll do all your errand for you as best I can. That I swear to you.”

  “I’ll miss you, Brother.” The way he said it, it was more than a title. “And I’ve had thoughts. It will look odd for a monk to ride abroad on what is patently a blooded horse. With her I give you all that I have. My clothing is plain enough for a cleric but secular enough to avert suspicion. Come; fetch it, and try it for size.”

  “My lord,” Alf said carefully, “you’re most kind. But I have no dispensation. I can’t—”

  “You can if I say you can.” Morwin shut the door behind him. “Do what he tells you, Alf.”

  Slowly, under their eyes, he brought out Alun’s belongings. The ring in its pouch he laid in the lord’s lap. The rest he kept.

  It had been cleaned where it needed to be and treated with care. Indeed the garments were plain, deep blue, snow white. When the others turned away to spare his modesty, he hesitated.

/>   With a sudden movement he shed his coarse brown habit. There was nothing beneath but his body.

  He shivered as he covered it with Alun’s fine linen. In all his life, he had never known such softness so close to his skin. It felt like a sin.

  The outer clothes were easier to bear, though he fumbled with them, uncertain of their fastenings. Alun helped him with words and Morwin with hands, until he stood up in the riding clothes of a knight.

  “It fits well,” Alun said. “And looks most well, my brother.”

  He could see himself in the other’s mind, a tall youth, sword-slender, with a light proud carriage that belied the brown habit crumpled at his feet.

  As soon as he saw, he tried to kill the pride that rose in him. He looked like a prince. An elven prince, swift and strong, and beautiful.

  Yes; he was that. The rest might be a sham, a creation of cloth and stance, but beauty he had.

  It would be a hindrance, and perhaps a danger. His pride died with the thought. “I don’t think this is wise. I look too...rich. Better that I seem to be what I am, a monk without money or weapons.”

  Both the Abbot and the knight shook their heads. “No,” Morwin said. “Not with the horse you’ll be riding. This way, you fit her.”

  “I don't fit myself!”

  Morwin’s face twisted. A moment only; then he controlled it. “You’ll learn. It isn’t the clothes that make the monk, Alf.”

  “Isn’t it?” Alf picked up his habit and held it to him. “Each move I make is another cord severed.”

  “If all you’ve ever been is a robe and a tonsure,” snapped Morwin, “God help us both.”

  The other stiffened. “Maybe that is all I’ve been.”

  “Don’t start that,” Morwin said with weary annoyance. “You’re not the first man of God who’s ever set aside his habit for a while, and you won’t be the last. Take what’s left of the day to get used to your clothes, and spend tonight in bed. Asleep. That’s an order, Brother Alfred.”

  “Yes, Domne.”

  “And don’t look so sulky. One obeys with a glad heart, the Rule says. Or at least, one tries to. Start trying. That’s an order, too.”

  “Yes, Domne.” Alf was not quite able to keep his lips from twitching. “Immediately, Domne. Gladly, Domne.”

  “Don’t add lying to the rest of your sins.” But Morwin’s glare lacked force. “See me tonight before you go to bed. There are messages I want to give to Aylmer.”

  o0o

  In spite of his promise to Alun, Jehan dragged himself through that long day. No one seemed to know that Brother Alf was leaving, nor to care. Monks came and went often enough in so large an abbey.

  But never so far alone, through unknown country, and against their will besides.

  At last he could bear it no longer. He gathered his courage and sought the lion in his den.

  By good fortune, Abbot Morwin was alone, bent over the rolls of the abbey. He straightened as Jehan entered. “This is stiff work for old bones,” he said.

  Jehan drew a deep breath. The Abbot did not seem annoyed to see him. Nor did he look surprised. “Domne,” he said, “you’re sending Brother Alf away.”

  Morwin nodded neutrally. That, in the volatile Abbot, was ominous.

  “Please, Domne. I know he has to go. But must he go alone?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  Jehan found that he could not breathe properly. “Then—then—he’ll have company?”

  “I’ve been considering it.” Morwin indicated a chair. “Here, boy. Stop shaking and sit down.” He leaned back himself, toying with the simple silver cross he always wore. Jehan stared, half- mesmerized by the glitter of it. “It’s as well you came when you did; I was about to send for you. I’ve been thinking about that last letter from your father.”

  The novice almost groaned aloud. The last thing he wanted to hear now was his father’s opinion of his life in St. Ruan’s.

  But Morwin had no mercy. “Remember what Earl Rogier said. That your life was your own, and you could ruin it by taking vows here if that was what you wanted. But he asked you first to try something else. He suggested the Templars. That’s extreme; still, the more I think, the better his advice seems to be. I’ve decided to take it in my own way. I’m sending you to Bishop Aylmer.”

  Bishop Aylmer...Bishop Aylmer. “I’m going with Brother Alf!” It was a strangled shout.

  “Well now,” Morwin said, “that would make sense, wouldn’t it?"

  Jehan hardly heard him. “I’m going with Brother Alf. He told me I couldn’t. He’s going to be surprised.”

  “I doubt it. I told him a little while ago. He was angry.”

  “Angry, Domne?”

  Morwin smiled. “He said I was hanging for the sheep instead of for the lamb— and brought you these to travel in.”

  On the table among the heavy codices was a bundle. Jehan’s fingers remembered the weight and the feel of it—leather, cloth, the long hardness of a sword. “My old clothes...but I’ve grown!”

  “Try them. And afterward, find Alf. He’ll tell you what you need to do.”

  o0o

  Miraculously everything fit, though the garments had been made for him just before he met Brother Alf on the road, over a year ago, and he had grown half a head since. But Alf’s skill with the needle was legendary. The boots alone seemed new, of good leather, with room enough to grow in.

  It felt strange to be dressed like a nobleman again. He wished there were a mirror in the dormitory, and said a prayer to banish vanity. “Not,” he added, “that my face is anything to brag of.”

  “Amen.”

  He whipped about, hand to sword hilt. A stranger stood there, a tall young fellow who carried himself like a prince. He smiled wryly as Jehan stared, and said, “Good day, my lord.”

  “Brother Alf!" Jehan took him in and laughed for wonder. “You look splendid.”

  “Vanitas vanitatum ,”Alf intoned dolefully. “‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!’ Though you look as if you can use that sword.”

  Jehan let his hand fall from the hilt. “You know I’ve had practice with Brother Ulf. ‘Ulf for the body and Alf for the brain; that’s how a monk is made.’ ”

  “So you’re the one who committed that bit of doggerel. I should have known.”

  Although Alf’s voice was light, Jehan frowned. “What’s the matter, Brother Alf?”

  “Why, nothing. I’m perfectly content. After all, misery loves company.”

  “It won’t be misery. It will be splendid. You’ll see. We’ll take Bishop Aylmer by storm and astound the King; and then we’ll conquer the world.”

  o0o

  The hour after Compline found Alf in none of his usual places: not in his cell where he should have been sleeping; not in the chapel where he might have kept vigil even against Morwin’s command; and certainly not in the study where the Abbot had gone to wait for him. He had sung the last Office—no one could miss that voice, man-deep yet heartrendingly clear, rising above the mere human beauty of the choir—and he had sung with gentle rebellion in his brown habit. But then he had gone, and no one knew where.

  It was intuition more than either logic or a careful search that brought Morwin to a small courtyard near the chapel. There in a patch of sere and frostbitten grass grew a thorn tree. Ancient, twisted, stripped of its leaves, it raised its branches to the moon.

  Under it crouched a still and shadowed figure.

  With much creaking of bones, Morwin sat beside him. The ground was cold; frost crackled as the Abbot settled on it.

  “I’ve never liked this place,” Alf said, “or this tree. Though they say it grew from the staff of a saint, of the Arimathean himself...when I was very small I used to be afraid of it. It always seemed to be reaching for me. As if St. Ruan’s were not for the likes of me; as if I were alien and the Thorn knew it, and it would drag me away, back to my own people.”

  “The people under the Tor?” Morwin asked.

 
; The cowled head shifted. From here one could see the Tor clearly, a steep rounded hill wreathed in frost, rising behind the abbey like a bulwark of stone. “The Tor,” murmured Alf. “That never frightened me. There was power in it, and wonder, and mystery. But no danger. No beckoning; no rejection. It simply was. Do you remember when we climbed it, for bravado, to see if the tales were true?”

  “Madness or great blessings to him who mounts the Tor of Ynys Witrin on the eve of Midsummer. I remember. I don’t think either of us came down mad.”

  “Nor blessed.” Alf’s voice held the glimmer of a smile. “We did penance for a solid fortnight, and all we’d found was a broken chapel and beds even harder than the ones we’d slipped away from.” His arm circled Morwin’s shoulders, bringing warmth like an open fire. The Abbot leaned into it. “But no; that wasn’t all we found. I felt as if I could see the whole world under the Midsummer moon, and below us Ynys Witrin, mystic as all the songs would have it, an island floating in a sea of glass. There was the mystery. Not on the windy hill. Below it, in the abbey, where by Christmas we’d be consecrated priests, servants of the Light that had come to rule the world.

  “But the Thorn always knew. I was—I am—no mortal man.”

  “So now you come to make your peace with it.”

  “After a fashion. I wanted to see if it was glad to be rid of me.”

  “Is it?”

  Alf’s free hand moved to touch the trunk, white fingers glimmering on shadow-black. “I think... It’s never hated me. It’s just known a painful truth. Maybe it even wishes me well.”

  “So do we all.”

  Alf shivered violently, but not with the air’s cold. “I’m going away,” he said as if he had only come to realize it. “And I can’t...Even if I come back, it won’t be the same. I’ll have to grow, change—” His voice faded.

  Morwin was silent.

  “I know," Alf said with unwonted bitterness. “Everyone grows and changes. Even the likes of me. Already I feel it beginning, with Alun’s fine clothes waiting for me to put them on again and the memory of all the Brothers at supper, staring and wondering, and some not even knowing who I was. Even Jehan, when he first saw me, took me for a stranger. What if I change so much I don’t even recognize myself?”