Isle of Glass

by Tarr, Judith

  But Alf labored to do exactly as Jehan had taught him. He won no reward for his effort, not even a glance from Richard, but he had expected none.

  The lord and his lady boasted the luxury of a chamber to themselves, an airless cell behind the hall, nearly filled with a vast featherbed. This Richard was given as his due, nor in courtesy could he refuse it.

  He sought it soon enough, if none too soon for his newest squire, who had served as cupbearer through an interminable feast. Alf had locked his knees with an effort of will, else he would have collapsed in the hall with every eye fixed upon him.

  But Richard, it seemed, had not yet forgiven his disobedience. Even as the King rose from the high seat, he crooked a finger. “Alfred. You’ll wait on me.”

  Alf bowed as deeply as he could. He knew he looked stiff, arrogant; he was past caring. His sight had begun to narrow. Grimly he focused it on the King and on the path he must take.

  Across the dais, up a steep railless stair, through a heavy curtain. Somehow he had acquired a lamp, a bowl filled with tallow, its wick a twisted rag. As if his eyes needed—

  They fixed before him. Not far. Not far at all. Slowly. They would take it for stateliness, the proper gait of a servant before his King.

  The lamp’s smoke was rank; oddly, the stench revived him a little. He set his foot on the stair.

  o0o

  Richard inspected the bed and pulled a face. “Fleas in the mattress for sure,” he muttered, “and lice, and worse things yet, I wager. And this sheet hasn’t been washed since King Harold’s day.”

  Alf set the lamp in a sooty niche. However cramped this chamber was between two tall men and a bed as broad as a tilting yard, it lacked at least the press of bodies below. He could see again; he could speak, though not strongly. “There are no vermin here now, Sire.”

  The King’s eye flashed upon him. “Don't like you, do they?”

  “Like you, I prefer to live without them.”

  “And you, unlike me, have the means to assure it. Would you happen to have a similar predilection for clean sheets?”

  Alf granted him half a nod, the bowing of the head but not the raising. Gently, completely, his knees gave way beneath him. At least, he thought, it was a clean bed he fell to.

  Would have fallen to. Richard had caught him, eased him down, pulled off his surcoat. “You’re bleeding again. Idiot.”

  Alf tried to shrug free, but for once Richard’s hands were too strong. “I’m strong enough still; I can serve you. Later—Jehan can—”

  “You’re weak as a baby. Where’d those fools put—ah. There.”

  Richard had Alf’s own baggage, opening it, searching swiftly through it. In a moment he brought out the rolled bandages and the salve the doctor had made, that Alf had made stronger with his own healer’s skill.

  “Sire," Alf said, “how came these to be—”

  “A squire stays with his lord. Particularly if he doesn’t want the world to know that he’s out on his feet.” Richard began to ease the shirt from Alf’s shoulders. Here and there it had clung where blood had dried, fusing linen to bandages and bandages to torn skin.

  “Majesty. You can’t wait on me like this. I won’t allow it.”

  “A squire allows anything his King commands. Hand me the basin. Ah, good. Clean water at least. Hold on, boy. This will sting.”

  Like fire. But it was a clean fire, and Richard was surprisingly skillful. With a small sigh Alf accepted the inevitable. He let his body rest, sitting upright, eyes closed. Richard’s voice was a soothing rumble in his ear. “Well now. I haven't lost much of my skill. I used to be a good hand at field surgery—from necessity at first, then I rather liked it. It’s a good thing to know when you’re on the field and your men are falling everywhere, and you need every hand you can muster.”

  If the water had stung, the salve was agony. Alf’s jaw clenched against it. With infinite slowness it passed, bound beneath the clean bandages.

  Carefully but firmly Richard completed the last binding. Alf mustered the will to move, at least to turn his head. The King had fallen silent, sitting very close, his gaze very steady.

  Alf’s throat dried. Between exhaustion and pain, he had closed his mind against invasion—and against perception. He had only done as he was bidden, gone where he was sent, endured until he might rest. Bringing himself to this.

  The King would not ask. Not openly. Nor would he compel. Yet, at ease though he seemed, every muscle had drawn taut.

  Richard laid his hand on Alf’s brow as if to test for fever. “You’re burning,” he said. But his palm was hotter still.

  Alf swallowed painfully. He was not afraid, but he could have wept. Should have, perhaps. Richard hated tears; they put him in mind of women.

  Alf forced himself to speak in his wonted voice, light, cool, oblivious. “It’s not a fever I have, Sire. I’m always so. My power causes it.” He managed the shadow of a smile, moving as if to seek comfort for his back, sliding as by chance from beneath the King’s hand. “It’s a very great advantage in a monk. All those cold vigils...I make a wonderfully effortless ascetic.”

  That shook laughter from Richard, though it held less mirth than pain. “There’s no need for a vigil tonight. I’ll look after myself. Lie down and sleep—the bed’s big enough for my whole army.”

  “Sire—”

  “Lie down.”

  There was a growl in Richard’s voice, the hint of a warning. Mutely Alf obeyed him. It could not matter now what people thought or said, and the bed was celestially soft.

  Richard stripped with dispatch and without modesty, took his generous half of the bed, and fell asleep at once. There was a royal secret, to lose no sleep over what could not be mended.

  Alf had no such fortune. Now that he was almost in comfort, laid in the bed he had longed for since midmorning, his strength had begun to repair itself; it grew and spread, filling him, driving back the mists from body and brain.

  For a long while he lay awake, now on his side, now on his face. The lamp sputtered and died.

  Richard snored gently. In the hall a hound snarled. A man cursed; the hound yelped and was abruptly still.

  At last Alf rose, moving softly lest he wake the King. He drew on his shirt, gathered his cloak about him.

  The stair from the hall continued upward to emerge on the barbican. The wind smote Alf’s face, clear and cold; the stars blazed in a sky from which all clouds had fled.

  He turned his eyes to them and breathed deep. His exhaustion had vanished, and with it his heart’s trouble. He felt as light and hollow as he had in the trial, stripped of his vows and of his sanctity, made anew, squire-at-arms of the King of Anglia.

  His hand went to his head. His hair was growing with speed as unhuman as his face; in a month or a little more, no one would know that he had ever been a priest.

  Even here, even now, his host had regarded him with interest but no curiosity, taking him for a young nobleman whose family had recalled him from the priesthood. Such men were common enough.

  And could he play that part as he had played the other? Fifty years a priest and a scholar, fifty years a squire, a knight, a lord of the world. And then—what then? Priest again, or something else?

  The stars returned no answer. They were older than he and wiser, and content to be what they were. They did not need a flogging to shake them into their senses.

  Carefully, gingerly, he flexed his shoulders. With time and patience he would heal; the pain was his penance.

  The pain and the scars. His vanity had suffered nearly as much as his flesh itself.

  Someone mounted the steps. He moved away, pricked irrationally to annoyance. The newcomer paused as if to get his bearings, then turned toward him. He leaned on the parapet and pretended to be absorbed in his thoughts.

  “Little Brother,” said a voice he knew very well indeed, “are you so sorry to see me?”

  Thea regarded him with eyes that caught the starlight, turning it to green fire.
He had forgotten how very fair she was.

  “Thea,” he said through the thundering in his blood. “Althea. I thought you weren’t coming back.”

  “I? I’m not so easily disposed of. Besides,” she added, “I had this.” She held out her hand. Silver gleamed in it. “I knew you’d want it back.”

  He did not move to take the cross. “Keep it.”

  “It’s yours.”

  He shook his head. “I gave it to you. You can sell it if you don't want it.”

  “Of course I want it!” she snapped. “But it belongs to you. Will you take it or do I have to throw it at you?”

  He kept his hands behind his back. “I’m not a priest now. I’m the King’s squire. I want you to keep the cross.”

  “That is supposed to be a logical progression?”

  The blood rose to his cheeks. “Will you please keep it?”

  Thea’s fingers closed over the cross. “All right. I will. Though I know what your Abbot will say.”

  “Morwin will say that I had a noble impulse, and leave it at that.”

  “Will he?”

  Alf turned outward, letting the wind cool his face.

  “I’ve met him,” she said. “I like him. He’s wise and sensible, and he’s not at all afraid of the female race.”

  “All that I lack, he has.” Alf glanced at her. “Alun let you find St. Ruan’s.”

  “Finally,” she said. Her voice changed, hardened. “And no wonder it took him so long. Prince Aidan is going to raise Heaven and Hell when he sees what’s been done to his brother.”

  “Not if Alun can help it.”

  “Alun is going to have his hands full. And since he’s only got one he can use, he’s likely to lose the fight.”

  “He didn't lose it to you.”

  “I’m not Prince Aidan.”

  “So I noticed.”

  She laughed. “Why, Brother! You've grown eyes.”

  “My name is Alf. I'd thank you to call me by it.”

  “Pride, too,” she said to herself. “The monk’s becoming a man.”

  “I was always proud, though maybe I was never much of a man.”

  “Don’t say that as if you believed it.” She stood very close to him, almost touching; the wind blew a strand of her hair across his face. “What did you think of my miracle?”

  He could hardly think at all. Yet words came; he spoke them. “We're part of local hagiography now. The saint, and the angel who saved him from the fire. The Paulines are furious.”

  “I meant them to be. But what did you think?”

  “I thought you were blasphemous, sacrilegious, devious, and splendid.”

  “Not hateful?”

  “Maybe a little,” he admitted.

  “Swiftly and virtuously suppressed. Alfred of St. Ruan’s, I don’t know why I endure you.”

  “I’m afraid I do.”

  “Afraid, little Brother?”

  “Afraid, little sister.”

  “Now I know how to break you of your bad habits. Peel you out of your habit, clap you in chains, and whip you soundly.”

  “And threaten to burn the woman I—a woman of my own kind.”

  “The woman you what?"

  He would not answer.

  She made a small exasperated noise. “It’s the tender maid who’s supposed to blush and simper and pretend to be modest. Why don’t you come out and say it?”

  “Why don’t you?”

  For the first time since he had known her, he saw her blush.

  Brazen, shameless Thea, who had cast defiance in the face of holy Church and set out coolly to seduce a priest—Thea blushed scarlet, and could not say a word.

  Her confusion gave him more courage than he had ever thought he had. “It was easy enough when I was only a pretty innocent to tease me into tears. Then you realized that I mattered. I, not the diffident little Brother, not the fool who tried to fall on his sword because he discovered that he could use one, and to be put to death because he couldn’t face himself. When you flew out of the fire, you mocked all my pretensions; you made me see them for what they were.”

  “I’d have done that for anyone,” she said sharply.

  With breathtaking boldness he touched her cheek. It was very soft. "Would you have come back for anyone?”

  “The cross—”

  “Morwin could have kept it for me. It was his first.”

  “You are the worst possible combination of divine wisdom and absolute idiocy.”

  “And you are as prickly as a thorn tree and as tender as its blossom.” He laughed a little, breathlessly. “Thea, you make my head whirl; and I’m still in orders though I’ve suspended myself from my title and my duties. What are we going to do?”

  “You can go and pray and mortify your flesh. I—” She tossed her head proudly. "I’ll find myself another Lombard prince and run away again.”

  “Maybe that would be best.”

  She whirled upon him. “Don’t you even care?”

  “I care that I can’t be your lover, and that we would only torment one another.”

  “You’re not a gelding.”

  “No. I’m worse. I’m a priest who believes in his vows. And you care now for me, or you’d have seduced me long since. Your thorns are thick and cruel, Thea, but your heart is surpassingly gentle.”

  “It’s black and rotten, and it damns you.”

  “I think not.”

  “You bastard!”

  “Probably.”

  She struck him, a solid, man’s blow that sent him careening to the stones. As he struck them, he cried out.

  Her own cry echoed his. He rolled onto his face; she dropped beside him, reaching for him. Without warning the pain was gone. She knelt frozen, her face a mask of agony.

  He dragged himself to his knees and shook her. “Thea,” he gasped. “Thea, for the love of God, don't!”

  The pain flooded back, almost welcome in its intensity. Thea sagged in his hands. “I tried to heal it,” she said faintly. “I don’t have the gift. I can’t even— Oh, how can you bear it?”

  “Not easily. But I provoked you.”

  “I didn’t have to hit you. Now it’s all opened again, worse than before, and you—how you hurt! Let me take some of it. Just a little. Just what I added to it.”

  “You didn’t add much.” He drew a breath carefully. “It’s passing. You took the worst of it.”

  “I had to. I always hurt what I care for. Always. Always.”

  “Thea, child—”

  “I'm not a child!”

  “Nor am I so very little a Brother; and I’m much older than you.”

  “Not where it matters.”

  “Maybe not. But, Thea, you see what I can do to you.”

  “And I to you.” Her composure had returned, ragged but serviceable. She shook her head. “Little Brother, after you a Lombard prince is going to be very dull.”

  “Peaceful.”

  “No. Dull. What will people say if your white hound comes back?”

  “That my familiar has found me again.”

  “That won’t do,” she said. “I’ll think of something else.”

  “You could wait with Alun in St. Ruan’s.”

  “I could.” She stretched as high as she might and kissed his brow, lightly. “Good night, little Brother.”

  He bowed so calmly that he might have seemed cold, but his heart was hammering. “Good night, little sister,” he said.

  26

  They rode hard from castle to castle, round Bowland and its shadows to the dark hills of the Marches and the flood of Severn, swollen with rain; and at last to the dim and misty country about the Isle of Glass. Only a month ago Alf had left it, yet he looked on it with the eyes almost of a stranger.

  Literally indeed when his mind touched Thea’s, flying with her on falcon wings, soaring high above him. I was a monk when I left, he thought, driven into exile. Now I’m—what?

  An eagle learning to fly, she answered him.

/>   I feel like a roast swan. Plucked, gutted, and done to a turn.

  Her laughter was both an annoyance and a comfort.

  o0o

  The last day began in a driving rain, but toward noon the downpour eased, freeing the sun. Jehan pushed back his hood, shook his sodden hair, and laughed. “There!” he cried. “St. Ruan’s!”

  The King wrung water from his cloak and sneezed. “The first thing I’ll ask for is a draught of their famous mead.”

  “Roast apples,” Jehan said. “Warm beds. Baths.”

  “No more water for me!” cried the knight behind him. “I’ve had enough to last me a good fortnight.”

  Richard grinned. “Come on. First one to the gate gets a gold bezant!”

  The grey mare was swifter by far than any of the heavy chargers, but she ran far behind. Jehan held in his own mount in spite of his eagerness, looking back with troubled eyes.

  Now if ever Alf’s brittle new mood would shatter. He seemed calm enough, although he kept Fara to a canter. He even smiled and called out, “Won’t you race for the bezant?”

  “Won’t you?” Jehan called back.

  He shook his head.

  Jehan hauled his destrier to a heavy trot and waited for the mare to come level with him. “Are you going to be all right?”

  Alf’s smile turned wry. “Poor Jehan. You’re always asking me that. What will I do when I don’t have you to look after me?”

  “Fall apart, probably. Are you sure you’re up to this?”

  Alf looked ahead to that race which was like a charge of cavalry, and to the abbey waiting beyond. It floated before them on its Isle of mist and light, but solid itself like the bones of the earth.

  Its gate was open; he could see figures within, brown robes, faces blurred with distance. “It’s odd, Jehan,” he said. “I thought I’d hardly be able to stand it—that I’m here, and I don’t belong any more. But it all seems very far away, like something I knew when I was a child.”

  “I know what you mean.” Jehan’s gelding snorted and fought his strong hand on the bit. “I’ll race you for a bath. Loser gives the winner one.”

  “Done,” Alf said, and gave the mare her head.

  They passed the slowest of the knights running neck and neck. Jehan grinned; Alf grinned back and leaned over Fara’s neck.