by Tarr, Judith
For a long moment Alf could only stare. “My lord, I don’t understand you.”
The Bishop’s eyes gleamed upon him. “What! You can make clear the mysteries of Paradise, and you can’t impose some sense on a lump of clay?”
“On strictly canonical grounds, you should be blasting the accursed witch-spawn to perdition.”
Aylmer shook his head. “No, Brother. I’m a Bishop; I’m God’s man; but thanks be to Him and all His angels, I’m no canon lawyer. I judge by what I see and hear, and not by what some mummified authority says I ought to.”
“I have practiced witchery.”
“Dark rites? Invocations of demons? Curses and black spells?”
“Dear God, no!”
“Not even a stray love philter?”
Alf wanted to laugh; he wanted to weep. “My lord, I’m a poorer judge of men than I am of mummified authorities. But I know how you should be regarding me; and how others will regard me if the truth is known.”
“Not if,” Aylmer said. “When. Brother, I’m minded to send you away. Back to St. Ruan’s if you want it, though you’re not likely to be safe there. Or to Rhiyana, where God’s Hounds can’t go.”
“I won’t go, my lord. And if you know my kind, you know that nothing will hold me when I don’t want to be held.”
The Bishop’s brows knit. “I do know it. I know that there’s no arguing with a master of logic, either. What if I command you?”
“I’m afraid,” Alf said gently, “that I will have to disobey you.”
“Why? Why are you doing this?”
“I told you. I’m tired. And a trial and a burning, if burning there must be, will hold the King here until it’s too late for him to destroy himself on the Marches.”
“Do you really want to die?”
“I want to break this deadlock. With the King, with the Hounds, with myself. If have to die to do it, yes. Yes, I want to.”
“And if not?”
Alf was silent for a long moment. “If not...so be it.”
“I understand you,” Aylmer said. “I think you're a fool, but I understand you. I’ll also do everything in my power to keep you from getting yourself killed.”
“No, my lord. You’ll do everything you can to assure that the King stays here and that he makes no effort to protect me. You will even support my enemies if necessary, for the King’s sake. He must not go to war with Gwynedd.”
“And you must not go to the stake.”
“I don’t matter. All Anglia hangs upon Richard’s life and death.”
“Have you ever considered what he might do to the men who condemn you? And what they might do to him?”
“There’s no death for him in that, and no doom for his kingdom.”
“You look like an adolescent angel. But you’re as crafty as a Byzantine courtier. And somewhat colder-blooded.” The Bishop rose with the violet stole still in his hands. “I’ve heard your confession. I grant you no absolution.”
“You know I want none.”
Aylmer kissed the stole and laid it away, and remained with his back to Alf. “Go to bed,” he said.
Alf hesitated. Aylmer did not move. After a moment, he rose and bowed and withdrew.
19
Alf burrowed in the box he shared with Jehan, searching amid their common belongings for the books he had brought from St. Ruan’s. They lay on the bottom, lovingly wrapped in leather: the five treasures he had kept out of all that he had gathered. He uncovered them carefully and separated one from the rest.
“Brother Alfred.”
He glanced over his shoulder. Reynaud stood in the doorway, smiling as he always smiled, without warmth; on the surface, all friendliness, and beneath, the eagerness of the hunting hound.
Alf took his time in setting the contents of the chest in order and in lowering the lid. When he turned, book in hand, Reynaud had come within arm’s reach.
The Pauline monk nodded at Alf’s habit. “Not hunting with the King today, Brother?”
“No,” Alf said. “I’m to wait on him when he comes back. Meanwhile”—He tucked the book under his arm—“I have leave to amuse myself.”
“Blessed freedom,” sighed Reynaud. “And you’ll do no more than read?”
Alf’s smile was a wintry likeness of Reynaud’s. “I’d rather read than hunt. I always find myself siding with the quarry.”
“Even the wild boar?”
“Why not? In the end he lies on the table with an apple in his jaws, no more or less dead than the stag or the coney.”
“But he gives a good account of himself before he dies.”
“You expect him to turn Christian and bare his breast to the spear?”
Reynaud spread his hands in surrender. “I can’t compete in words with a philosopher. My talents, such as they are, lie elsewhere.”
“And where,” Alf asked, “is that?”
He shrugged expressively. “In areas far from philosophy, or from serving kings. I preach God’s word in my poor way; I serve His servants; I go where He bids me.”
“So do we all.” Alf glanced significantly at the door. “Do you have duties, Brother?”
“Nothing pressing. The weather is splendid for once. Come and walk with me.”
Alf inhaled sharply. Danger always walked with Reynaud—surrounded him, wrapped him about. But that quiet request struck Alf like a blow to the vitals.
For an instant he had seen through the veiled eyes; had caught a flare of raw emotion. Hate and hope and burning excitement. The mind of the beast before it springs for the throat.
It had come. So soon. The trap was laid; the quarry had only to walk into it.
Alf relaxed with an effort. “My thanks, Brother, but I promised myself a quiet morning.”
Reynaud shook his head in reproof. “You'd mew yourself up in a cold library? For shame! Come out and let the sun warm you. Then you can go to your book with a clearer head.”
But Reynaud’s mind saw a barred cell and chains, and the stark shadow of the stake. Alf shrank from the horror of it.
Five days hence, Richard would depart for Gwynedd with a hundred knights at his back, and the Marches would burst into a fire of war.
Alf battled to still his trembling. His decision was long since made. Was he to retreat now, when it came to the crux?
He sighed and shrugged. “Very well,” he said. “A short walk.”
Reynaud smiled. “A very short one. Yes. Come, Brother.”
o0o
Jehan peered around a corner. The courtyard was empty, its much-trodden snow melting into puddles under the fitful sun. He kilted up his habit and sprinted along the wall into the shadow of a doorway.
Still no pursuit. After a moment he eased open a door, slipped down a passage, paused in the stable yard.
The hound chained there wagged its mangy tail; he greeted it and offered it a bit of cheese. As it devoured the bribe, he walked boldly into the stable.
A day or two before, he had discovered that, if one settled into a corner of the hayloft near the dovecote, one could pass unnoticed by any who entered; there was light enough to read by, and warmth enough for comfort if one burrowed deep into the hay. And no one would ever think to look there for a truant.
He settled into his hiding place with a sigh of content, armed with Father Michael’s precious copy of the Almagest and a pocketful of dried figs. With luck, he could read until it was time for arms practice, and talk his way out of the punishment for evading kitchen duty.
“You’d better be able to, or what’s an education for?”
Jehan choked on a fig. Thea sat astride a beam, dressed like a farm girl, laughing at his startlement. As he remembered how to breathe again, she dropped down beside him and pilfered a fig. “Ah! these are good. Where’d you find them?”
“Stole them at breakfast.” He frowned at her. “You’re hardly ever about. Where’ve you been?”
She shrugged. “Here and there. Keeping people guessing. Whose dog am I, who
se wench am I, and what am I up to?”
“Everyone was sure you belonged to me till I said you didn’t. I made up a story about how you’d followed us from the lake; maybe you belonged to one of the rebels.”
“I am a rebel.”
“I never would have guessed.”
She laughed again and shook her hair out of its rough knot. “I like playing country maid. It’s market day today; I sold a basket of eggs and got a penny, and gave it to the beggar under Westgate. He told me all that’s happened hereabouts. Amazing how much the kerns know. The King should ignore his lords and messengers and listen to people in the town.”
Jehan watched her, and sighed a little. She was almost unbearably beautiful, yet her speech was as solid and earthbound as her ragged smock. She had no trouble accepting what she was. She simply was.
“I wish Brother Alf were like you,” he said.
She paused, head tilted, half-smiling. “He is. But he’s spent all his life trying to be something else.”
“Why aren’t you as confused as he is?”
“I wasn’t brought up in an abbey, for one thing. My mother was a Greek, a doctor. My father was a Levantine merchant. The whole world used to pass through our house.”
“And you left it?”
“One day we guested a prince from Lombardy. He was the ugliest man I'd ever seen and he stank like one of his own goats, but he was wise and he was clever, and I was tired of living in one place. I ran off` with him.”
“Did he marry you?”
“Of course not. He had a wife already. And three mistresses and a round dozen of children. After a while we parted on the best of terms, and I wandered about, taking whatever shape pleased me; and I came to Rhiyana, and to the King.”
“Gwydion?”
“For us,” she said, only half in mockery, “there is only one King.”
Jehan lay on his stomach, chin in hands. “Brother Alf should go to him. I wager he’d know what to do with a monk who’s also an elf-man.”
“He might," she said. She ran her fingers through the splendor of her hair, that was as fine as Chin silk, rippling to her waist. “If the little Brother has his way, there’ll be an end of all his troubles in fire and anathema.”
“I’ll stop him,” Jehan muttered fiercely. “I’ll make him stop.”
She tilted her brows at him. “Will you now? Then you’d better hurry. The Hounds took him this morning.”
Jehan sprang to his feet. The doves fled in a flurry of wings. “What!”
Thea caught a drifting feather. “He went voluntarily,” she said.
“They’ll kill him!”
“It’s likely,” she agreed.
He dragged her up as if she had been a wisp of hay, and shook her. “Where is he? Where is he?”
“You’re not going to his rescue.”
“God’s feet!”
“God," she pointed out, “as First Cause, has no material shape. Therefore—”
“Shut up, damn you!”
She was silent. So, for a long moment, was Jehan. With great care he unclamped his fingers from her shoulders. “Where is he?” he asked at last, quietly.
“You will not go to find him. You will go and tell Bishop Aylmer what has happened, and do as he tells you.”
“Bishop Aylmer can’t—” Jehan stopped. Slowly he said, “I’ll go. Where is Brother Alf?”
“In St. Benedict’s Abbey,” Thea answered him.
He bent and picked up the book that had fallen from his lap. It was open; he closed it gently, running his fingers over the worn cover. “Come with me,” he said.
When he left the stable, the white hound trotted behind him.
o0o
“This is the man?”
“If man you may call him.”
Fingers touched Alf’s chin, turning his head this way and that. They were gentle, without malice, like the soft voice. “Certainly he has the look of the elf-brood. And yet...”
“Brother?” the other asked with a hint of tension.
“And yet. He let you take him on the first attempt.”
“Let, Brother? He fought like a very demon!”
“He let you take him,” the other repeated.
“Not until Brother Raymond struck him with an iron-shod cudgel. Then we managed to get a grip on him.”
Alf lay very still, hardly breathing. His head felt as if he had caught it between a hammer and an anvil; his body ached. He could remember in snatches—a deserted street, men in dark clothing; a battle, swift and fierce, and a swooping darkness.
And voices. One he knew, nasal, obsequious. In a moment, when it hurt less, he would remember a name.
The soft voice spoke again. “Guard him with all your skill. But be gentle with him.”
“Gentle!”
“Yes. Gentle. Send me word when he wakes.”
Only when the voices were long gone did Alf open his eyes. He lay on a pallet in a small cold room, no dungeon for it had a slit of window to let in the light, but bars blocked the opening, new-forged iron, newly set into the stone. The door too was new, heavy, bound with iron bands; iron bound him, wrists and ankles, incised with crosses.
With great care he sat up. He still had his habit and his silver cross; beside him lay a jar and the familiar shape of his book.
The jar held water, touched with sanctity, which did not speak well of his captors’ intelligence. Surely, if a demon could wear a cross next to his skin and handle the holy vessels of the Mass, then no sacred precautions could hold him.
He drank a little to quench his raging thirst, and splashed a drop or two on his face. Gingerly he explored his aching skull. A great knot throbbed at the base of it, the worst of his hurts, though all his body bore the marks of battle.
He rose slowly, dizzily. Chained though he was, he could move as he pleased about the cell, even to the door.
Through its iron grille he saw a stretch of stone passageway and the back of a man’s head, turning as if startled to reveal a stranger’s face. A blast of fear and hostility struck Alf’s reeling mind; he cried out and stumbled backward, half-falling against the wall.
The fear receded. He huddled on the pallet, trembling violently, battling nausea.
Iron grated on iron. The door opened.
Alf raised his head. Reynaud smiled at him. “Awake at last, Brother? How do you feel?”
“Betrayed,” Alf said.
He winced. The blow to his head had shattered his inner defenses; he could not shield against the other’s anger.
Reynaud smiled through clenched teeth. “Do you think I betrayed you?”
“Is the price still thirty pieces of silver?”
“That,” said Reynaud, “could be construed as blasphemy.”
Alf swallowed bile. “I take a walk with you out of courtesy and face an ambush. And when I wake I’m in chains. Is this how you demonstrate your friendship?”
It was some comfort to see Reynaud look uneasy. Yet righteousness flooded over the seeds of his guilt and drowned them. “I did as I was commanded.”
“By whom? The Sanhedrin?”
Reynaud’s hand flashed out. Alf darted away, but the blow caught him sidewise. His ears rang; his stomach heaved. Reynaud’s anger turned to disgust, and then to dismay. A firm yet gentle presence ministered to Alf, while a quiet voice said, “Go to my cell, Reynaud. I will come to you later.”
The Pauline monk was gone. The other held Alf until he had recovered somewhat, cleaned him and dressed him in a fresh habit, a black one. “Your pardon, Brother,” the man said, “but we have only Benedictine robes here.”
Yet he wore Pauline white and grey: a tall thin man with the face of a Byzantine saint. His face was smooth, his skin as fresh as a boy’s, but his hair was white; Alf sensed a great weight of years upon him.
He followed Alf’s glance to his habit, and smiled. “And Pauline,” he amended. “But I thought you would not want those.”
“Nor would you,” Alf said.
“No. The captive should not assume the garb of his captors.”
“You speak wisely and well, young Brother. Though somewhat bitterly.”
“You think I should not be bitter?”
The monk shrugged slightly. “I can understand, though not condone it.”
“If our positions should ever be reversed, I’d like to hear you repeat that.”
The monk’s smile returned. “Perhaps I may not. I am human, after all.” He paused; seemed to remember a thing he had forgotten; said, “My name is Brother Adam.”
“You know mine.”
“Do I?”
Alf sighed. “Ah. So the game begins. I'm called Alfred.”
“Or Alf?”
“That, too,” he admitted. “Reynaud has kept you well informed. He’s not going to welcome the need to treat me gently.”
“You heard?”
Alf began to nod, decided against it. “Yes,” he said. “I heard.”
Brother Adam smiled again, wryly. “I see that I shall have to watch you more carefully.”
“Reynaud was not happy. But he did try to obey you, until I provoked him. Don’t be too harsh with him.”
“And why did you provoke him?” Brother Adam asked, interested.
“I was angry. Inexcusably, but understandably. No one welcomes betrayal.”
“Ah,” said Brother Adam, “but if he had told you what he meant to do, then you would not have come.”
“Maybe I would have,” Alf said.
“Even into chains?”
Alf shook one. “They aren’t pleasant,” he said. “If I promised to behave, would you let me out of them?”
Adam’s eyes were sad. “No, Brother. I would not. Certain sufferings are necessary, you see; those I cannot spare you.”
“At whose orders? Why am I a prisoner?”
“Two questions,” said Brother Adam. “Perhaps you know the answers to both.”
Alf sat up. His head throbbed, but he would not lie still. “You have me, and this habit is Benedictine. Is this Bishop Foulques’s doing? Is he holding me for ransom?”
