Isle of Glass

by Tarr, Judith

  Some moments after they had gone, a shadow slipped from a host of its fellows and glided after them.

  15

  Alf did not wake all at once as he usually did, but sluggishly, reluctantly. Long before he opened his eyes, he sensed that he was alone.

  He sat up slowly. His hands stung; he stared at them. Each palm bore two thin, parallel cuts. He closed his fingers over them and rose.

  The air tasted of full morning, with a touch of incense, and of bread for the daymeal, and of smoke from the kitchen fires. Mass was long since over; everyone had gone about his work. Even Thea was out, pursuing her own business; her mind-touch was sharp, swift, preoccupied.

  He bathed with exaggerated care, as if water could wash away the memory of the night. When he dressed, it was in the garments Alun had lent him.

  The King was looking for him. But something within him had broken when he took up the sword and had not yet mended.

  When he left, it was to the stable that he went.

  He rode out alone by ways he knew from his riding with the King. The moors rolled away before him, lands that had been empty since the legions marched along the Wall of the Emperor, white now and still, dazzling in fitful sunlight.

  Away from the town in a hollow of the hills, a small glassy tam reflected the changeful sky. There he halted, stripped off the mare’s saddle and bridle, and hid them in the heather.

  She stood still, head up, breathing deep of the free air. “Go,” he said to her. “Run as you will.”

  She bent her head and nuzzled his hands. Would he not go with her?

  He smoothed her forelock. “I need to think,” he said. “I can’t do it back there. But you needn’t linger with me. Go; be free.” His words made no sense to her. She turned and knelt, inviting him to mount.

  He framed a protest, thought better of it. Even as he settled on her back, she straightened and sprang into a gallop.

  o0o

  The sun hung low when they returned to the tarn. A white hound guarded the saddle, rising as a woman and inspecting them both with approval. “You look well,” Thea said.

  Alf slid from Fara’s back and stood with his hand on her neck. “I’ve shirked all my duties.”

  Thea wrapped his cloak about her and helped him to saddle and bridle the mare. “The King is yelling for you,” she said as he tightened the girths.

  “Is he angry?”

  “Upset. He’s already heard about your adventure with his squires. The two boys are riding home as soon as he can spare escorts for them. He wasn’t even going to do that, but Aylmer talked some sense into him. As for Master Joscelin, he’s locked in a cell. He’ll get his sentence as soon as Richard cools down enough to pass it. It will be dismissal at the very least; Richard can’t decide whether to strike his head off or to condemn him to keep it as you’ve left it.”

  Alf turned to her, dismayed. “He can’t do that! Those children have already suffered enough, between the fear I put into them and the ridicule they’ve won themselves. They don’t need any more punishment.”

  “Except a good whipping.”

  “They didn’t know what they were doing.” He gathered up the reins. “I’d better go back and talk to the King.”

  Thea caught his arm. “Wait.” He stopped. Her face was pale, and more serious than he had ever seen it. “Brother, Richard’s not the only one who’s upset. The tale has grown in the telling. You’re the hero of it still in most places—but not in all. Some people are saying that you did more than prove your prowess with a sword. That you used sorcery.”

  “I did,” Alf said.

  She shook him hard. “Haven’t you got your wits back yet? Reynaud and his Hounds have been closeted with Bishop Foulques. Who’s no friend to either Aylmer or the King. And whose brother is assistant to the Pauline Father General.”

  Alf nodded calmly. “I know that. Will you let me go? I have to see the King.”

  “You are mad.” But she released him. He mounted and turned the mare’s head toward Carlisle.

  Even as Fara moved forward, a weight settled on the crupper; arms circled his waist. “Now,” Thea said in his ear. “Tell me what you know that I don’t.”

  He looked back and started. It was still Thea, but Thea changed, dressed as a farm girl, with a brown freckled face. She laughed at him. “I had to give you a reason for being out all day, didn’t I?”

  “No,” he answered. “You didn’t. Get down and run as a hound.”

  “Oh, no. I won’t give you the pleasure. I think I know what you’re up to, little Brother, and it’s rampant folly.”

  “What am I up to?”

  “Self-sacrifice. Holy martyrdom. Giving your all to the cause of the Elvenking.” He said nothing. “See how well I know you. You rode out in a great passion of despair; you cast that despair to the winds; you prayed and you meditated, and you rediscovered serenity. And then, behold! a revelation. Fiends and false prophets are plotting against you. What to do? Flight is wisest. But wisdom has never been your great virtue. Why not stand and face the consequences of your own foolishness? You’ll win the delay you’ve prayed for, bind Richard until spring and give Gwydion time to plan another embassy. And last but far from least, put an end to your dilemma. The Hounds will burn you if you tell them the truth.”

  “Yes,” he said. “They will.”

  “What did you tell Alun about suicide?”

  “He had something to live for. His lady, his brother, all his people. And I...I was an innocent. I didn’t really understand what I’m capable of. Nor was I sure that there wasn’t some way to reconcile the two halves of myself. Now I know better. I can’t be both monk and enchanter; I can’t be only one of the two. Even when I try to be a plain man, my power slips its chain and betrays me. I’ll destroy myself whatever I do. Why not to some purpose?”

  “Noble,” she said. “Stupid. You may be as old as most humans ever get, little Brother, but you’re the merest child.”

  “Are you any more?”

  “Probably not. But I didn’t grow up in a cloister. I’ve been hunted as these Hounds hunt you.”

  “You weren’t caught.”

  “I didn’t mean to be.”

  He was silent, his eyes fixed upon the walls of Carlisle. Yet he was very much aware of Thea’s presence.

  Strange, he thought. The women in the tavern had roused only disgust; and they had set themselves to seduce him. Thea, fully clothed and decorously riding pillion, and calling to mind all his troubles, made him want to abandon his vows.

  Why not? his dark self asked in the deep cell to which he had banished it. You seek your own death. You know you cannot be either damned or saved. What would it matter if you had your way with her?

  And she would welcome it. But he could not. He was a fool, as she had said, and a coward. That would be his epitaph.

  o0o

  Just within the city’s gate, the mare halted. Thea slid to the ground in full view of the guards. “Thanks to you, sir,” she said in the broad accent of the North.

  Alf flushed. People were staring; most knew who he was. He wheeled the mare about without speaking.

  ”Thank you for the ride!” she shrilled behind him. Somewhere, someone laughed.

  16

  Jehan was at arms practice when a monk brought a summons from Bishop Aylmer. He had been tilting at the quintain with two or three of the younger warrior priests; and he was more than a year out of practice. Mis-aimed strokes or over-slow reactions had brought the wooden Saracen spinning round more times than he could count, to return his own blows with ones at least as heavy. He ached all over; he was glad to stop.

  Stripped of his heavily padded practice armor and bathed and dressed, he presented himself at the door of the Bishop’s library.

  Lamps glimmered there, for the high narrow windows let in little light; Aylmer stood near the far wall, listening as a secretary read from a charter. When Jehan entered, he dismissed the man and beckoned. “Ah, Jehan. How went it with the
quintain?”

  Jehan grinned ruefully. “Terrible," he answered. “I think my father’s right. I’ve gone soft.”

  “Give yourself time,” Aylmer said. “I hear you’re doing somewhat better with the sword.”

  “A little, my lord.”

  Aylmer nodded toward a chair. He sat carefully to spare his bruised muscles; the Bishop watched with amusement. “How old are you now?” he asked.

  “Just sixteen, my lord.”

  “So?" Aylmer’s brows rose. “You’ll grow rather more, I think.”

  “My father’s a big man. So is my brother Robert. The others are too young to tell, but they’re all robust little monsters. Even my sister Alys.”

  The Bishop smiled a rare warm smile. “Yes: I’ve heard of the Sevignys. A proper pride of lions, those.”

  “We hold our own,” said Jehan.

  “You do,” Aylmer agreed. “Father Michael speaks well of your scholarship. Very well, in fact.”

  Jehan rubbed a callus on his sword hand and sighed involuntarily. Father Michael had not been pleased to see his new pupil. Quite the contrary. Was he, who had sat at the feet of the greatest scholars in Christendom, to be condemned to teach grammar to this great ox of an Earl’s son?

  He had made no secret of his contempt. “Do you know Latin?” he had demanded in the vernacular.

  “Yes,” Jehan had answered in the same language.

  “So.” The priest had barely concealed his sneer. “Say in Latin: ‘The boy sees the dog.’ ”

  Jehan had obliged. And continued to oblige because it amused him, though his good humor had begun to wear thin.

  At last, as Father Michael framed yet another simple sentence, he had said in the Latin which Master Peter had taught him and Brother Osric refined and Brother Alf perfected, “Father, this is very pleasant, but isn’t it rather dull? Could we do a little Vergil? Or maybe a bit of Martianus?”

  He smiled even yet to remember Father Michael’s face. Skeptical at first, but breaking into incredulity and then into joy. “God in heaven!” he had cried. “The ox has a brain!”

  Aylmer had marked both sigh and smile. “Troubles, lad?”

  “No,” Jehan answered. “Not really. By now I should be used to the way people react to me. I’ve got such a big body and such a stupid face. But actually, inside, I’m a skinny little rat with his nose in a book.”

  Aylmer laughed aloud. “Hoi, lad! you’re good for me. Here, have an apple. They’re from your own St. Ruan’s, the Isle of Apples itself.”

  “Are they?” Jehan took one from the bowl on the table. “They call it Ynys Witrin, too, you know. Though I’ve heard that the real Isle isn’t even in the world.”

  “The Land of Youth. Yes.” While Jehan nibbled at the apple, Aylmer wandered down the line of books, pausing now and then to peer at a title. At the end, he turned. “Do you think there’s such a place?”

  “There’s a lot in the world I don’t know, and a lot out of it. Maybe there is a real Ynys Witrin, or Tir-na-n’Og, or Elysium. Or maybe they’re all just other names for Heaven.”

  “Maybe,” said Aylmer. He came to sit by Jehan across the table. “Some people say that the mystic realm is right across the water in Rhiyana.”

  “I’ve heard that.”

  “Your mother is Rhiyanan, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, my lord. She’s the Earl’s daughter of Caer Dhu.”

  “Kin to the King, I hear.”

  Jehan finished the apple and set the core upright on the table. “Distantly. She never went to court. She was fostered by a lord and lady in Poictesme, and married my father when she was barely out of childhood.” His eyes upon Aylmer were wide, blue, and guileless. “Are you curious about Gwydion, my lord?”

  The Bishop’s cheek twitched. “Somewhat,” he admitted. “When you were in St. Ruan’s, did you talk much with the Rhiyanan knight?”

  “I took care of him,” answered Jehan. “He slept a lot. Sometimes he talked. He wasn’t the talkative sort. He was very quiet, actually, unless he had something to say.”

  “What did he look like?”

  Jehan shrugged. “Rhiyanan. Tall, black hair, grey eyes. Face like a falcon’s.”

  “Young?”

  “Rather. Old enough to be a knight, but not much older.”

  “Well born?”

  “Yes.” Jehan tipped over the apple core and rolled it from hand to hand.

  “Was he one of the elven-folk?”

  The apple core stopped. “Do they exist?” Jehan asked with a touch of surprise.

  “So it’s said.” Aylmer shifted in his chair and sighed. “So it’s said. Did you know that the Monks of St. Paul are forbidden to preach or to found abbeys in Rhiyana?”

  “Are they? Why?”

  “It’s the King’s command. The old Orders are sufficient, he says, and the Church in his kingdom is thriving. It needs no Hounds to hunt its heretics.”

  “Or its Fair Folk? If they exist,” Jehan added.

  “If they do,” agreed Aylmer. "Tell me. Where was Brother Alfred born?”

  Jehan went cold. Brother Reynaud he could deal with; for all his cleverness, the man was an idiot. But Bishop Aylmer was another matter altogether.

  “He was born somewhere near St. Ruan’s,” he said. “I don’t know where. He was one of the abbey’s orphans. There are always a few about. Most grow up and take some sort of vows—by then they’re used to the cloister, you see. They tend to forget exactly where they were from, and so does everybody else.” He paused. “Brother Alf isn't Rhiyanan, if that’s what you’re wondering. I think maybe he’s Saxon.”

  “You and he are close friends.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Jehan said. “I used to bother him to help me with my books. He was my teacher for a while. Then we came here.”

  “He taught you?”

  “Well. Somebody had to.”

  Aylmer did not smile, but his eyes glinted. “Isn’t it odd that he should have been teaching you? You must be almost of an age.”

  “Not really. He’d been there all along, and he’s brilliant.”

  “Like his namesake, the other Alfred? I used to dream of sitting at the great scholar’s feet and being his disciple. But I never had the chance; and when I was in St. Ruan’s last year, he was ill and seeing no one.”

  “I remember,” Jehan said. “I’d just come to the abbey.”

  “Had you? I never saw you. Though I saw young Brother Alfred. He struck me as a remarkable boy.”

  “And he doesn’t now? Is that why you’re asking about him?” Jehan’s fists knotted. ”That’s not true, my lord! He’s all you thought he was. But he’s having troubles. He’s not used to living in the world, and he never wanted or expected to be the King’s friend, and people are cruel to him. They can’t stand someone who’s good and brilliant and handsome, all at once.”

  The Bishop’s smile won free. “Now, lad, there’s no need to shout at me. I like to think that I can judge a man by those who love him; and by that reckoning, he doesn’t have many equals.”

  “He doesn’t by any reckoning,” Jehan muttered.

  “I think not. But there’s another side to this. Brother Alfred has friends of very high quality indeed. Unfortunately, his enemies are at least as powerful, and more numerous besides.”

  “The Hounds?”

  Aylmer’s eyes narrowed. “You know of them?”

  “They’ve been after me about Brother Alf. Who is he, what is he, what do I know about him?”

  “Last night,” Aylmer said, watching him under heavy brows, “there was an uproar in one of the alehouses in the town. Brother Alfred, it’s said, was in the middle of it.”

  Jehan sat still, his face blank.

  “There were unusual circumstances,” the Bishop continued. “Alarming ones, some think. Have you ever tried to shave a man with a sword?”

  “Shave him? With a sword?” Jehan laughed. “It’s hard enough to land a proper blow.”

  “
According to the tales I've heard, our frail young Brother, who was raised from infancy in an abbey, barbered a man with a sword as well as any surgeon with a razor.”

  There was a long pause.

  “My lord,” Jehan said slowly. “I saw Brother Alf last night. He was awfully sick. Not drunk, just very sick. It was inside more than out. He wanted to die, my lord.”

  That caught Aylmer off guard. He leaned forward. “What!”

  “He wanted to die. A—a friend found him. Stopped him, and came and got me.”

  Jehan thought he could decipher Aylmer’s expression. Deeply shocked, and—concerned? “Why? What happened?”

  “I’m not absolutely sure. I do think...the stories may be true. But he’s no devil, my lord. Nor any devil’s servant.”

  “God knows," Aylmer muttered, “I want to believe that.”

  “You’re learning to love him,” Jehan said. “The best people always do. But the rest hate him. It’s that hate that makes the Hounds want to hunt him.”

  “It’s more than that, lad.”

  “Not much more,” Jehan said fiercely. “He’s so much more God’s creature than any of the rest of us. The world scares him witless. Last night he tried to run away from it. He still wants to. And now the hunt is up. He’ll run right into the middle of it.” He struck the heavy table with his fist, rocking it on its legs. “Why can’t people leave him alone?”

  “Because,” Aylmer answered, “he isn’t like anyone else. I'll shield him if I can. But I may not be able to.”

  “No one will. And he’ll die, and I—I’ll kill the man who does it to him!” Jehan leaped up and ran blindly for the door.

  The apple core had fallen to the floor. Aylmer set it on the table, carefully upright; and sat for a long while unmoving.

  17

  Alf paused in the doorway of the King’s bedchamber. It was a small room, little more than a cell, dominated by a great carved and curtained bed; Richard had concealed the bare walls with several layers of hangings, and set in it a brazier from the East that did what it could to dispel the northern cold.