Isle of Glass

by Tarr, Judith

  Their leader well-nigh rode over him. The red stallion reared, its iron-shod hooves seeming almost to brush his face. Its rider cried out. “Brother Alf! For the love of God!”

  The stallion stood still, trembling and snorting. Alf laid a gentle hand on its neck and regarded the company, and Rhydderch a shadow in their midst.

  He shivered slightly. “You’re back,” he said, looking from Jehan to Thea. “We’ve all been waiting for you.”

  “Obviously.” Jehan held out his hand. “Come up behind me.”

  He shook his head. “Your poor beast has all the burdens he needs.” Yet he clasped Jehan’s hand, a brief, tight grip, fire-warm, and smiled. “I’m glad to see you safe." He turned away too quickly for Jehan to answer, and swung up behind Thea on the grey mare of Rhiyana.

  o0o

  The kings received the arrivals in the Abbot’s hall, in royal state. Even Gwydion had put aside his brown robe for a cotte that seemed made of the sky at midnight, a deep luminous blue worked with moonlit silver in the image of the seabird crowned. Both Richard and Kilhwch, to his right and his left, blazed in scarlet and gold.

  Through all the journey from his stronghold, Rhydderch had spoken no word. When royal guards relieved him of his weapons and monks bathed him and trimmed his hair and beard and clothed him as befit his rank, he offered no resistance. He seemed half-stunned by the failure of all he had plotted.

  He came before the kings as docilely as an ox led to slaughter, following Jehan blindly, hardly aware of the guards about him. Before the three thrones they drew away to leave him standing alone. The ambassador named each of the kings for him, and each bowed a high head: Kilhwch of Gwynedd, Richard of Anglia, Gwydion of Rhiyana.

  The Elvenking regarded him with a level grey stare, and deep within it a flicker of green fire. Rhydderch started as if struck. For an instant the mute submission dropped away, revealing the black rage beneath.

  “Well met, Lord Rhydderch,” Gwydion said softly, “and welcome.”

  Rhydderch’s eyes hooded; he bowed low. "I came as you commanded, Your Majesties. What will you have of me?”

  “Your company,” Richard said, toying with the heavy chain he wore about his neck. “I’m glad you came so quickly. It would have been uncomfortable for us to have to go after you.”

  “I’ve always labored to do as my King commands.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that.” Richard gestured; Alf brought a chair. “Sit down and be comfortable. We’re all friends here.”

  Rhydderch sat quietly enough. He had not looked at Gwydion since that first terrible glare. "It pleases me to see Your Majesties so friendly.”

  “Your doing,” Kilhwch said. “Sir. We’ll have to thank you properly when there’s time.”

  “My doing, Sire?” Rhydderch asked, as if incredulous. “How can that be?”

  “You don’t know, my lord?” Kilhwch smiled. “Perhaps my lord of Rhiyana can enlighten you. He’s tasted your famous hospitality, has he not?”

  Rhydderch frowned slightly. “I can’t recall, Sire, that I’ve ever had the honor of guesting a king.”

  “Not even the Dotard of Caer Gwent?”

  Gwydion stirred. “Kilhwch,” he said very low. The young King’s mouth snapped shut. He himself leaned back, cradling his broken hand as if it pained him. "I’m not what you expected, am I, Lord Rhydderch?”

  “You are precisely what the tales say you are.”

  “Then you’ll admit that you knew who he was?” demanded Kilhwch.

  The Elvenking raised his hand. “This is not a trial,” he said. “Lord Rhydderch has ridden hard and far, and he has not slept well of late. He is hungry and weary, and much bemused, I am sure, by the suddenness of our summons. Let us eat and sleep; in the morning we may turn to deeper matters.”

  o0o

  “I don’t like this,” Jehan said. “I don’t like any of it. I wish I’d never brought that man back!”

  It was very late. The kings had long since gone to their beds, but he sat with Alf and Morwin in the Abbot’s study.

  Of all the praise he had had for a task well and swiftly done, theirs was the sweetest. But he had not earned it. “He came too easily,” he went on, “without even trying to fight. Either he’s a complete fool—or we are, and he’s about to prove it.”

  Morwin shook his head. “He’s a clever man and a vicious one, but he knows better than to set himself against three kings. He planned to prick them into killing each other, without letting them know who was responsible. Unfortunately, one of his provocations turned out to be the very King he wanted to provoke.”

  “True enough," Jehan agreed, "but you’re forgetting something. He looks sane and ordinary, but he’s neither. He’s had a terrible blow, and he knows he doesn’t have much to hope for. The best he can expect is to get his lands back, with a ruinous tax on them and a knight’s fee he’ll have to struggle to meet. He’ll die a pauper, who wanted to be a king. Who knows what he’ll do if he breaks?”

  “He’s here and very well guarded, not in Caer Sidi hatching war. And tomorrow—”

  “‘And seven alone returned from Caer Sidi.’ ”

  Alf’s voice startled them both. He had been sitting quietly, apparently drowsing; his eyes were half-shut, blurred as if with sleep. He sighed deeply and shivered. “He calls his castle by the name of the Fortress of Annwn. Death walks in his shadow. How cold it is!”

  Jehan opened his mouth to speak, but Morwin hushed him. Again Alf shivered. His eyes cleared; he looked about as if bewildered. “I must have been dreaming. I thought someone had died, and Rhydderch had killed him.”

  Morwin laid a hand on his brow. It was burning hot, yet he shivered violently. “No one’s dead, and no one’s going to die, least of all at his lordship’s hands. Look, Alf. Jehan is back safe and sound, and Rhydderch’s surrounded by every guard the kings or the abbey can spare. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  Jehan brought him a cup of mead. He drank a little; his shivering stilled. He tried to smile. “I shouldn’t stare into the fire; it makes me see horrors. And Rhydderch isn’t a pleasant man to think of. Even Gwydion can’t see very far into his mind. It’s too dark and too twisted and too wild, like the black heart of Bowland.”

  “Don't talk about him,” Morwin said sternly. "Don’t even think about him. That’s for the kings to do.”

  “Low station can be a refuge, can't it?” Alf drank the last of his mead and stood. “We all need our sleep. Come, Jehan.”

  Morwin had risen with him. “I’m not sleepy yet. I’ll walk with you.”

  “There’s no need for you to—”

  “What’s the matter, Alf? Do you expect me to be waylaid in a passageway?

  Jehan laughed. Alf paled and shuddered, but did not speak.

  When Alf lay on his pallet near Richard’s door, Morwin drew Jehan aside. “Watch out for him,” he said. “When this mood is on him, he’s apt to do anything.” Jehan nodded, understanding; he smiled. “Good night, then. God be with you.”

  “And with you, Domne,” Jehan murmured.

  The Abbot blessed him and turned away, walking as lightly as a boy.

  30

  Rhydderch lay motionless and sweating under thick blankets. Across his door, his own liege man snored softly. Outside in the passage, two knights slept deep, clasping their swords to their breasts. One was of Anglia, one of Gwynedd.

  Carefully he opened his eyes. The moon escaped from its wall of cloud and hurled a bright shaft across the room, transfixing the hilt of his sword.

  He was not a prisoner. No one had chained him or bolted his door; the guards were for his honor and protection.

  His lip curled. They mocked him, those fools of kings.

  Richard, cheated of a war, turned weakling and womanheart. Kilhwch, who thought himself so clever and so cruel, who set his man to watch the guest and to kill him—by accident—if he ventured to escape.

  And Gwydion. Gwydion, with his bandaged hand which he kept alw
ays in sight, and his cold grey eyes, and his too-handsome face. Huw had had orders to break that eagle’s beak of a nose; he would lose his own when Rhydderch won free of this gilded trap.

  Rhydderch growled deep in his throat. Gwydion had brought him to this. Gwydion, who refused to age as a man ought, who looked on his enemy with cool and royal scorn. He had not been so haughty when Dafydd plied the hot iron; his blood, royal and immortal though he was, had flowed as redly and as readily as any villein’s.

  With infinite caution Rhydderch rose. He had kept on his tunic and hose against the cold. Soundlessly he crossed the room.

  His hand eclipsed the moonlight on his sword hilt. He froze for an instant; his guards did not stir. Taking up the sheathed sword, wrapping himself in his cloak, he crept toward the door.

  o0o

  The Lady Chapel glimmered softly by the light of the vigil lamp. It was the fairest of the abbey’s chapels, Morwin thought as he paused in its doorway, and the most wonderful, walled with a tracery of pale stone, its altar of white marble inlaid with lapis lazuli. When Morwin was young, some forgotten artisan had painted the curving ceiling the color of the sky at night and set it with golden stars.

  He knelt in front of the altar and contemplated the face of the carven Virgin behind it. A gentle face, a little sad, as if it looked upon the ills of the world and mourned for them. But beneath the sadness lay a deep serenity.

  He did not pray in words. Somehow the Lady of Comfort was beyond them.

  Instead, he remembered. Good things, ill things. Apple blossoms in the spring; plague in the village. The Brothers chanting the Te Deum; soldiers chanting a war chant, and men screaming. The day of his ordination, he and Alf taking their vows side by side, each serving the other at his first Mass. The day he realized that his hands were twisting and stiffening with age, and that the hairs that fell from the barber’s shears were more grey than red; and that his friend, who had been a boy with him, had not changed and would never change.

  He sighed. The hands on his knees were like the branches of an ancient apple tree, gnarled and almost sapless. “And I still don’t have a likely successor,” he said to the Virgin. “Alf’s wings have spread too wide and he’s flown too high. Mea culpa, Lady, mea maxima culpa. I sent him out, knowing what would happen; that the world would claim him—and heal him a little.”

  Has it? the calm eyes seemed to ask.

  “I don't know. I think it’s too early to tell. The scars are still too deep.”

  For a while longer he remained there, head bowed. The lamp flickered. It needed refilling, he thought inconsequentially, and smiled at himself. That was age and power, to worry about lamp oil when his mind ought to be on the Infinite.

  o0o

  The abbey was a labyrinth, vast and unlit and stone-cold, and apparently deserted. Rhydderch’s nose wrinkled at the holy stink of it, rotting apples, long-dead incense.

  Once or twice a monk prowled the empty passages; he hid until the shadow passed, itching to test his blade on priestly flesh. But he had promised it a better offering.

  Light at once alarmed and attracted him. He inched toward it.

  A heavy door stood ajar. The light shone beyond it, dim and unsteady, hanging over an altar.

  He had found a chapel. From his vantage point he could see a kneeling figure, a dark robe, a bowed white head. An elderly monk at prayer, all alone. Rhydderch drew his cloak over the hand that held the sword and advanced boldly.

  “Excuse me, Brother,” he said, softening his voice as much as he might. “I got up to go to the privy, and I seem to have taken a wrong turning.”

  The monk turned. Rhydderch did not pay much heed to the sharp-featured old face. They all looked alike, these shavepates; he had another face before his mind’s eye, quite another face altogether.

  “Lord Rhydderch,” the monk said. He did not sound surprised. “Your room has its own garderobe. Don’t tell me your guard forgot to remind you.”

  Rhydderch ground his teeth. Thwarted, always thwarted. The damned witch. He picked a man’s mind clean and told the world what he had found.

  The sword gleamed naked in Rhydderch’s hand. The monk regarded it almost with amusement. “Isn’t that a little excessive, my lord? A simple request will do. Shall I take you back to your room, or do you have somewhere else in mind?”

  “You,” Rhydderch growled. "I ought to know you.”

  The monk smiled. Small and sharp-nosed and deep-wrinkled as he was, he looked like a bogle from an old nursery tale. “We’ve been introduced, my lord, though the light’s not good here. Just call me Brother and tell me where to take you.”

  Rhydderch raised his sword and rested the point very lightly against the withered throat. “Take me to the Witch-king.”

  It did not seem to trouble the monk in the least that death pricked his adam’s apple. “Well, my lord,” he said, “that’s a hard thing to do. We’re inundated with royalty here, I grant you, but there’s none who answers to the name of—”

  “Gwydion," snapped Rhydderch. “He calls himself Gwydion.”

  “And what do you want with His Majesty of Rhiyana at this hour of the night? I can tell you now, my lord, that he’s long since gone to sleep and that he oughtn’t to be disturbed. Unless, of course,” the old babbler added, “it’s deathly urgent.”

  “Urgent. Yes, it’s urgent. Take me to him!” A red film had drawn itself over Rhydderch’s eyes; his tongue felt thick, unwieldy; his fingers trembled on the sword hilt.

  The point wavered; the monk winced. A minute, glistening droplet swelled from his throat. “Now, sir,” he said reprovingly. “There’s no need to hurt anybody. Why don’t you put your sword down and say a bit of prayer with me? Then we can decide if your message is important enough to break into a king’s sleep.”

  “If you don’t do as I say,” Rhydderch said very low, “I’ll hack off your head, tongue and all.”

  “It’s a mortal sin to shed blood in a sacred place, my lord. Not to mention the fact that you’ll have to get past three kings and their men to escape. And then where will you go? Come, sir. Let me take you back to your bed, and we’ll both forget we ever met each other.”

  He was smiling. Smiling, damn him, as if he were the one who held the sword, and as if he pitied the poor misguided victim. The witch had smiled so with those cat’s-eyes of his, not hating, only pitying. Poor Rhydderch, with his ragged army and his hovel of a castle and his mad dreams of kingship.

  The sword retreated. The monk’s smile widened. “Ah, my lord, I knew you’d—”

  The bright blade whirled in an arc and flashed down.

  o0o

  Jehan spread his pallet next to Alf’s, undressed and settled on it. His friend seemed to have fallen into a restless, tossing sleep. He moved as close as he could without actually touching, and tried to think calmness into the other’s mind.

  After a while it seemed to work, or else Alf had relaxed of his own accord. Jehan dared to close his eyes.

  He drifted lazily between sleep and waking, not quite ready to let go. A dream hovered just out of reach.

  He started awake. Alf sat bolt upright, his face so terrible that for an instant Jehan did not even know it. The novice reached for him. “Brother Alf,” he whispered. “Brother Alf, it’s all right.”

  The body under his hands was rigid, the eyes all red. “Rhydderch,” Alf hissed. “Murder. Sword. Morwin.”

  His lips drew back from his teeth. They were very white and very sharp, the canines longer and leaner than a human’s. Jehan had never noticed that before. “Chapel—chapel— Morwin!”

  It was a cry of anguish. Even before Jehan had scrambled to his feet, Alf was almost out of sight. The other bolted after him.

  o0o

  Rhydderch stood over the crumpled body, breathing hard, the sword dangling loosely from his hands.

  A whirlwind swept him up. The blade flew wide; he fell sprawling. His head struck the floor with an audible crack.

  Alf droppe
d beside Morwin. Blood fountained from the deep wound in the Abbot’s breast. Desperately he strove to stanch it, but it spurted through his fingers.

  “It’s no use, Alf.”

  In the grey and sunken face, Morwin’s eyes were as bright as ever. He grinned a horrible, death’s-head grin. “Well, old friend. Cassandra was right after all. I’m sorry I laughed at you.”

  Alf shook his head mutely. All his strength focused on the gathering of his power. Slow, so slow, and Morwin’s life was ebbing with the tide of his blood. Yet the power was there, as it had not been for Gwydion’s healing. It was ready to gather, to grasp—

  “Alf!”

  Morwin’s cry brought him to his feet. Rhydderch’s sword clove the air where his head had been; madness seethed behind it, a black fire of hate. Kill the monk, kill the witch, kill—

  Alf’s eyes flamed red. Without a sound he sprang.

  Rhydderch fought like a wild boar. But Alf was a cat, too swift to catch, too strong to hold. They swayed back and forth, twined like lovers, battling for the bloody sword.

  It fell with an iron clang. Swifter than sight, Alf seized the hilt.

  For an instant the world stood still. So one held the sword. So one raised it, beyond it the hunched black shape, fury turning to fear, fear to blind terror.

  In that timeless moment, Alf was completely sane and keenly aware of all about him. The chapel with its gentle Virgin and its golden stars; the Abbot drowning in his own blood; the huddle of stunned figures in the doorway, Jehan foremost, white as death. And Rhydderch.

  Rhydderch, who had killed Morwin. Coolly, leisurely, with effortless skill, Alf hewed him down.

  31

  Very gently Alf cradled Morwin in his arms. The Abbot’s body seemed light and empty as a dried husk, but a glimmer of life clung to it still.

  He tried to speak. Alf laid a finger on his lips. Already they were cooling. “In your mind,” he whispered, “the old way.”

  The old way, Morwin thought. Not long now... Alf. Promise me something.

  “Anything,” said Alf.

  The Abbot smiled in his mind, for his grip on his body was loosening swiftly. Say my funeral Mass.