Isle of Glass

by Tarr, Judith

  Alf knelt to kiss Aylmer’s ring. “As my lord wishes.”

  Before he could leave, Aylmer stopped him. "Brother. Be wary. This isn’t your cloister; people here can be dangerous, especially around the King. If you sense trouble, come to me at once. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” Alf said very low.

  Aylmer frowned. “Do you? You're not a spy, Brother. Nor are you a watchdog. But I’m the King’s Chancellor and your protector. I don’t want harm to come to either of you.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Go then. The King’s waiting.”

  Alf bowed. As he departed, he felt Aylmer’s eyes and mind upon him and shivered. The Bishop saw far more than Alf wished him to see. And Alf did not trust him. Not yet, and not quite.

  o0o

  When Alf presented himself at the keep, the Earl’s guards eyed his face and his habit and his newly tended tonsure and sneered. Yet they let him pass, following him with leers and not-quite-inaudible remarks.

  So too the King’s own squires, though there was no mockery in their eyes and voices but black hostility. Alf dressed as their equal and mounted on a horse fit for a prince, and always in the company of the King or the Bishop or the outsize novice, had been hard enough to endure. But Alf alone and afoot and in monk’s garb was unbearable. They glared as they admitted him to the solar, and one spat, although he was careful to miss.

  The King was deep in converse with several men with the garb and the bearing of noblemen. Alf effaced himself, a silent figure in a brown cowl, settling by the wall. No one noticed him.

  The audience was long and tedious. At last Richard brought it to a close, dismissing the barons with courtesy that was a thin veil over irritation. Even as the door closed upon the last, he stretched until his bones cracked, and grinned at Alf, a lion’s grin with a gleam of sharp teeth. “Well, Brother. You took your time.”

  “I’m sorry, Sire,” Alf murmured.

  “Never mind.” Richard looked him over, fingering the rough fabric of his habit. “Hideous stuff this. Where are your other clothes?”

  “They were only to travel in, Sire," said Alf.

  “You should have kept to them. They suited you.”

  “This is my proper habit, my lord. And it’s an excellent disguise. Who notices a monk in a cowl?”

  Richard laughed with one of his sudden changes of mood. “Aye, who does? And monks hereabouts are ten for a ha’penny. Don’t tell me you’re about to vanish among them.”

  “No, Sire. Bishop Aylmer has set me at your disposal. He asks only that I sleep and serve Mass with his people.”

  “Does he feel that he needs a spy?” Though the King’s tone jested, his eyes did not.

  “You know my lord needs no such thing. You also know that you were about to ask him for me. So, he anticipated you. What will Your Majesty have of his servant?”

  “First,” answered Richard, “the truth.”

  “That is the truth, Sire.”

  The King pointed to a chair. “Sit.”

  As Alf obeyed, he paced, restless. “I call Aylmer friend. We owe each other our lives many times over. But a king can never trust a friend. God’s feet! He can’t even trust his own family.”

  Richard stood in front of Alf, hands on hips. “When my older brother was as young as you are, he tried to throw my father down and make himself King. He died for it. And I learned something. Blood-ties mean nothing. Friendship means even less. All that matters is myself. And winning, Brother. And winning.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Tell me so when your beard has grown.”

  Alf did not know that he smiled, until Richard glared and said, “You laugh at me. What do you know that I’m so ignorant of?”

  “That the world is a cruel place,” Alf responded, “but that it’s not as cruel as you think. Aylmer cares for you, as his King and as his friend; I'm his free gift. Even though I look as if I were about to deliver a sermon.”

  That won laughter; Richard relaxed visibly. “Ah, but you just have.” He sat by a table laden with sheets of parchment. “There’s a promise I made to you when you were playing at royal ambassador.”

  “Yes, Sire?”

  “Yes, Brother.” He shuffled the written sheets, frowning at them. “When I came here, there were messages waiting. You’ve told me the truth about Rhydderch’s raids. Bitter ones they’ve been, too, for Gwynedd. And Rhydderch’s neighbors are worried that he’ll bring down reprisals upon them all, for there’s word of resistance, and forces gathering along the Marches. There’s a war in the making, and no small one, either.”

  “So I told you, Sire.”

  “It’s a bad time for it,” Richard said. “Winter’s begun and the harvest’s in; everyone’s laid his sword away and hung his shield on the wall. A sitting target for a man who’s not only reckless but clever.”

  Alf watched the King steadily, with a sinking heart. Richard moved restlessly in his chair, tugging at his beard, contemplating a winter campaign: snow and cold and long grim nights, and the swift heat of battle. Perhaps there would be glory, a contest with Kilhwch, King against King, with a crown for the winning; or with the elven-prince, the Flame-bearer of Rhiyana, who had raised his scarlet shield in all the lands from the sunrise to the sunset.

  The King turned his eyes to Alf, only half-seeing the white tense face. “As soon as I can escape, I'm riding south. But I’ll do this much for you: I won’t take my army with me. Only my own knights, and whoever else pleases to come. Rhydderch will learn that he can't start a war without involving his King in it.”

  “Sire,” Alf said, “this is madness. To destroy three kingdoms for a few days’ pleasure—Sire, you can't!”

  The lion-eyes glared. “Do you gainsay your King?”

  Alf opened his mouth, closed it again. He knew how Alun had felt before Rhydderch. Helpless, and raging. And he could not loose his sorceries upon this madman as Alun had upon Rhydderch.

  His head drooped. He had failed. He would have to tell Alun. If he closed his eyes, he could see the Rhiyanan knight hobbling down a passageway, aided by a crutch and by a sturdy monk—Brother Edgar, who was simple but strong. Alun was intent on his body’s struggle, only dimly aware of the mind-touch.

  Alf withdrew. Later would be soon enough.

  “Come now, Brother! Don’t look so grim.”

  For a moment Alf recognized neither the voice nor the face. His own face had gone cold; Richard checked a moment, then slapped his shoulder. “We’ve both had enough of this. Ride out with me.”

  Alf rose slowly. Richard grimaced at his habit. “You can sit astride a horse in that?”

  “Try me,” Alf said.

  The King grinned. "So I will. But boots you’ll have—you won’t gainsay me there.” He turned away, calling for his own riding gear. “And boots for the Brother, Giraut; and mind you bring a pair that will fit!”

  o0o

  After the riding there was work to do, a charter to copy and a letter to write; and after that, a feast in the Earl’s great hall. Richard kept Alf by him, although there were stares and murmurs at this blatant display of a new favorite; and such a fair one, with so grim an expression, who ate little and drank less and spoke not at all.

  The Earl feasted his guests well though unwillingly, and regaled them with all the wealth of the North. His triumph was a minstrel who knew not only the latest airs from Languedoc but the old songs of Anglia in the old tongue.

  “For,” said the jongleur, tossing back his yellow mane, “my father was a troubadour in the court of the Count of Poictesme, but my mother was a Saxon; and she swore by King Harold’s beard, though he was dead a full hundred years. She told me tales of the old time and my father taught me the songs of the south, and between them they made a jongleur. What will you have, then, my lords? Sweet tales of love?” His fingers lilted upon the lutestrings. “Deeds of old heroes?” A stirring martial tune. “A call to the path of virtue?” Stern didactic chords. “
A drinking song?” An irresistibly cheerful and slightly drunken air. “Only speak, and whatever you ask for you shall have.”

  “War,” the King said promptly. “Sing about war.”

  The minstrel bowed and began to play.

  o0o

  Alf toyed with his wine-cup, half-listening. He knew that Richard watched him. As did many another: Aylmer farther down the high table, and Jehan below among the squires, and Thea forgetting to play the proper hungry hound.

  He looked at none of them. War, he thought, hating it and all it meant. War. Blood. Three kings, three kingdoms. I have to stop it. I have to. But how, he did not know.

  o0o

  Richard’s voice rang out suddenly, cutting off the singer. “Enough of that! Sing us something new, man. With a moral in it that a priest would like to hear.” As he spoke, he caught Alf’s eye; the monk looked away.

  The singer bowed in his seat and said, “His Majesty commands; I obey. There’s a tale my mother used to tell me that’s so old, maybe it’s new again.” He struck a sudden ringing note and intoned, “Hwæt!”

  The listeners started; he laughed. “That’s the Saxon for Oyez! Once on a time, my lords and ladies, which was in the old Angla-land, there was an abbey. There lived a cowherd named Cædmon. He was a gentle man, was Cædmon, but rather slow in the wits; everyone loved him, but everyone laughed at him, too: for that is the way people are, as we all know, sieurs.

  “It was the custom then when there was a feast for the revelers to pass the harp round, and for each person to sing a song. Poor Cædmon dreaded that harp’s coming, for he couldn’t sing a note and he had never learned a song. When the harp drew near to him, he would get up and slink away to his byre, and hide in the dark and the silence and the warmth of the cows.

  “One night, when he had fled from the singing and gone to his bed in the hayloft, he dreamed that a man came and greeted him and said, ‘Cædmon, sing me something.' Cædmon was bitterly ashamed and like to weep, and he said, ‘Ne con ic noht singan’—‘I don’t know how to sing.’ But the man, who was an angel of the Lord, insisted that Cædmon sing. Then Cædmon stood up, and lo! music came pouring out of him, the most beautiful song in the world. This is what he sang:

  ‘Nu sculon herigean heofonrices Weard,

  Meotodes meahte ond his modgeÞanc,

  weorc Wuldorfæder, swa he wundra gehwæs,

  ece Drihten, or onstealde.

  He ærest scop eorðan bearnum

  heofon to hrofe, halig Scyppend;

  Þa middangeard moncynnes Weard,

  ece Drihten, æfter teode

  firum foldan, Frea ælmihtig.’

  “And that in our feeble tongue is to say: ‘Now must we praise the Guardian of heaven’s kingdom, the might of the Measurer and His mind’s thought, the work of the Father of glory, as He, eternal Lord, ordained the beginning of all wonders. First He shaped for the children of earth, heaven as a roof, a holy shaping; then afterward for men He created Middle-earth, the earth’s surface—He, Guardian of Mankind, eternal Lord, almighty King.’ ”

  The singer fell silent. There was a pause; then all at once the feasters began to applaud. He bowed and smiled and bowed again, and accepted a cup from the King’s own hand.

  “Splendid!” Richard cried. “Wonderful! It’s a pity we’ve let the old custom lapse. We ought to revive it.”

  He paused, struck by his own words. “Well, and why not? Walter, fetch my harp! We’ll all try our hand at it.”

  Several of the higher lords looked mildly appalled; their inferiors either feigned interest or answered sudden and urgent calls of nature. Alf saw one man’s lips move as he struggled to recall a song.

  By Richard’s will they all tried the game, some well, some badly, with the aid of a free flow of wine. One dour-faced elderly knight startled them all with a bawdy drinking song; Bishop Aylmer countered it with an Ave Maria.

  At last there was only one who had not sung. “Come now,” said the King, holding out the harp. “Are you a Cædmon, Brother Alfred? Sing me something!”

  Alf took the harp slowly and set it on his knee. It had been a long lifetime since he had learned to play such an instrument from old Brother Aethelstan, who had been a gleeman in his youth. He tightened a string that had gone out of tune three songs ago and met the King’s stare, his own level, almost defiant. His head bent, his fingers flickering through a melody. Down the hall, he sensed Jehan’s start of recognition.

  “‘Ut quid iubes, pusiole,

  quare mandas, filiole,

  carmen dulce me cantare,

  cum sim longe exsul valde

  intra mare? O! cur iubes canere?

  “‘Why do you bid, beloved child, why do you command, my dearest son, that I should sing a sweet song, when I am an exile afar upon the sea? O! why do you bid me sing?’ ”

  Richard was no scholar, but he knew enough Latin to understand Alf’s meaning. His expression darkened as the song went on; then little by little it lightened. For the lament turned to a soaring hymn, companion to that which had begun it all, and Alf’s eyes above the harp were bright, challenging.

  His own eyes began to dance, amused, admiring. Here at last was one who could both obey him and gainsay him, yet who bore no taint of treachery.

  Alf silenced the harp and returned it to the King, and slowly smiled.

  13

  The rain that had buried the town in mire gave way to a heavy blanket of snow. Richard cursed it and his court, which held him back from his war, though he prepared with as much speed as he might.

  “I’ll be King of Gwynedd by spring,” he vowed to Alf, “or I’ll have Rhydderch’s head on a pike and your I-told-you-so’s in my ears from dawn until sundown.”

  “King Winter may prove stronger than Richard of Anglia," Alf said. “Why not yield to him and spare yourself a struggle?”

  “Am I to turn craven before a flake or two of snow? I’ll ride south before the month is out, you and winter and all the rest of it be damned.”

  o0o

  So might they well be, Alf thought as he made his way from the castle to the Bishop’s palace. It was late, and dark, and it had begun to snow again; he huddled in the cloak Richard had given him.

  All at once he realized that he had fallen into the midst of a small company, youths with the King’s livery under their cloaks, three of Richard’s squires escaped from their duties. He tensed and walked more quickly.

  But they had seen and recognized him. “Hoi!” one called out. “It’s Pretty-boy!”

  They surrounded him, solid young men, battle-hardened. Their eyes glittered; they hemmed him in, wolves advancing on tender prey.

  He had averted his own eyes instinctively, lest they catch the light and flare ember-red. Wherever he turned stood a squire, grinning.

  He stopped. “Please, sieurs,” he said. “It’s late and I have no time to spare.”

  They laughed. “‘Please, sieurs. Pretty please, sieurs. Oh, prithee, let me go home to my cold, cold bed!`”

  One took his arm, friendly-wise. “Poor little Brother. I’ll wager you’ve never had a proper good time. We’ll have to fix that, won’t we, lads?”

  The others chorused assent. Alf stood still. Perhaps, if he pretended to play their game, they would let him go.

  They herded him toward an alehouse. The ringleader, a handsome dark-curled fellow whom the others called Joscelin, held still to his arm. “Come, little Brother,” he said. “Join us in a mug or two. Or three. We all know how well a priest can hold his ale.”

  They reached the tavern’s door and swarmed through it. The room was crowded; it reeked of smoke, of sour ale, and of unwashed bodies. The three squires and their unwilling guest elbowed their way to a table, put to flight the townsmen who had occupied it, and shouted for ale.

  Joscelin clung close to Alf, stroking-close. The other two were content to laugh; he shot small barbs meant to draw blood. “It isn't sacramental wine we get here, but it’s not refectory ale either. Dri
nk up, pretty Brother. I’m paying.”

  Alf stared at a brimming mug. It was not clean, he noticed.

  Abruptly he swept it up and drained it in three long gulps. Another appeared, and another. He felt nothing but a heaviness of the stomach, although his companions, having matched him mug for mug, were beginning to wax hilarious. He measured the distance to the door, considered all the obstacles between, and waited for his chance.

  After the fourth round, as the serving girl withdrew, Joscelin seized her plump wrist and pulled her back. She came with but a token protest, giggling on a high note. “Here, Bess,” he said. “What do you think of our clerkly friend?”

  Her eyes flicked over Alf, once, twice. Cold clear eyes, shrill titter. “Oh, he’s handsome!”

  “Handsomer than I?”

  She tittered. “Well, sir, I really couldn't—”

  “Of course you could. Because he is. And do you know something?” Joscelin’s voice lowered, but it was no less penetrating. “He’s never been with a woman.”

  He stressed the last word very slightly. Again that swift appraisal. Alf kept his eyes lowered, but he heard her maddening giggle. “He hasn't?”

  Suddenly she was in his lap. She was warm and soft, flowing out of her tight bodice; and she stank.

  He shrank a little, fastidiously. She took it for shyness and pressed herself close, nuzzling his neck.

  For all her squirmings, he felt nothing but disgust. Gently but firmly, with strength that made her stop and stare, he set her on her feet and handed her his mug. “May we have more ale, please?”

  “Bravo, Brother!” Joscelin cried. “Another triumph for Holy Church. Or maybe we’ve made the wrong offer. Perkin! Perkin lad, where are you?”

  Alf rose. “I have to go.”

  All three united in pulling him down. “Oh, no, Brother,” Joscelin purred. “It must get monotonous to spend all your time with men. You need a change.”