Hounds of God (24 page)

The shards rattled like leaves as they fell. But he said
calmly, “I may have no choice, although I shall fight with what skill I
have. Letters can be delayed or mislaid; the kingdom is in chaos, the roads
beset with mud and brigands.”

“As they have not been since my King was young.”
Her fierceness like his was a flash of blade from the sheath, but she held it
so, drawn and glittering. “Benedetto Cardinal Torrino, you know that your
very presence here is a betrayal of your office.”

“My office is that of judge and emissary; my calling
is that of a priest of Christ. I will not surrender it all for a lie.”

“The lie may be in us.”

He regarded her. She stood as tall as he, but slender as a
child, with the face of a young maiden. Her eyes, unveiled, were utterly
inhuman. “And yet,” he whispered, “not evil. Never so.”

“They will say I have ensorceled you.”

“Perhaps you have. You are all beautiful, you Kindred
of the Elvenking, but you most of all, Lady and Queen. I have never seen a
woman fairer than you.”

“The White Chancellor surpasses me, Lord Cardinal, and
well I know it.”

He smiled with surprising warmth. “But, Lady, he is a
man; and even at that I would not set him above you. I grieve that we meet only
now and amid such havoc, but I cannot regret that we have met.”

“Nor,” she mused, “after all, can I.”
Her smile nearly felled him. He reeled; she caught him in great dismay. “My
lord, pardon, I took no thought—”

The Queen had gone. In her place stood the maid who had
loved two princes, but who had chosen the one for his gentleness—not
knowing then that he would be King.

But the Queen knew what the maiden had never suspected, that
her face itself was an enchantment and her smile laden with power. She looked
on this newest victim in visible distress, holding him by his two hands as if
the body’s strength alone could undo what she had done.

He steadied quickly enough. He was a strong-willed man; his
vows protected him after a fashion. But he remained a man. He swallowed hard. “Your
Majesty, I must go.”

“Yes,” she said, “you must.”

They both looked down. Their hands were locked together.
Neither could find the power to let go.

“Your King—” It was a gasp. “Your
husband. He is mending, I have heard; one of your Kindred—she told me
where you were—I thank God that he will not die.”

“It is not yet certain that he will live. But we pray.
He will allow no more. Even I—he will not let me come to him, and I
cannot go as our people go. And there is the throne to hold for him. Ah, God, I
hate these shackles of queenship!”

“You love him.”

“Most sinfully, with body and soul.” At last she
could loose one hand, only to touch his pectoral cross. “I have never
felt it as a sin. I gave him the only child I could give; I would joyfully give
him another, a pair, a dozen. As he would give me—but wounded, walled
against me—I fear that he is hiding—that he may be—”

His arms closed around her, inevitable as the tides of the
sea. “He took an arrow in the thigh, but not so high and not so dreadful
as you fear. I have it from witnesses; I know it for truth. He may come back
lame, but he will come back a man.”

“Or dead.” Her head drooped on his shoulder; he
clasped her close. His face was rapt, brilliant, a little mad. He buried it in
the silken masses of her hair.

oOo

“Three,” Simon said, “or more likely,
four. Who would have dreamed that a prince of the Church would fall so easily?
I hardly needed to bait the trap.”

Anna did not know how she could hate him, pity him, fear
him, scorn him, all utterly, all at once. It choked the breath from her; it
left her blank and staring, shaking her head slowly, unable to stop.

He had no eyes for her. Thea lay flattened at his feet,
hackles abristle, lips wrinkled in a snarl. “The world shall be clean of
all your kind,” he said. “One by one they shall fall. Even those
you deem safe in your forest—I have counted them; my power has marked
each one. It grows, you see. With use, with mastery, its strength waxes ever
greater. No wall may hold it away, no magic stand against it, no power overcome
it.” He reached as for something he could touch, smiling with terrible
gentleness. “How beautiful, like a tower of light. How fragile; how easy
to cast down.”

Thea tensed as if to spring. He raised his hand. She froze.
Her snarl died. The blaze of her eyes died into ashes. She shrank down and
down.

“Your demon lover,” he said, “is dead. He
dared advance against me; I struck, and cast him down. He lingered for a little
while; he struggled; he betrayed your people to the Pope’s Legate. But at
last he fell into the darkness that waits for those who have no souls.”

“No,” Anna whispered. “No.”

Simon turned to her. “Yes. Great prince of devils that
he was, masked in piety, he was no match for me. The world is free of him.”

“No,” she repeated. “He can’t be
dead. He promised me. A long time ago in Constantine’s city, he promised.
As long as I needed him, he wouldn’t—” She could not finish.
Not for grief, not yet; for rage. She faced her jailer in a white fire of it. “How
dared he die? How dared you murder him?”

He fell back. She did not deign to be astonished. “Damn
you.
Damn
you, Simon Magus. What
right have you to make us suffer? Who gave you the power to ordain life and
death? How dared you kill my brother?”

“God,” he gasped. “God—”

“God damns you, you hound of Hell. Murderer, your
power is so mighty—raise our dead. Do yourself to death in their places.”

“It is forbidden. God forbids—”

“He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. Who
slays with power must die of it. That is the law of your kind.”

“No law binds me but God’s.”

“Just so.” Anna raised her clenched fists. “I
curse you, Simon Magus. I curse you by your own power.”

He backed away. “No. No, I beg, I command—”

“Monster. Coward. You dread death. You know what waits
for you. Hellmouth. The Lord Satan. The fires unending.
If
,” she said, “you have a soul.”

He struck at her feebly, white with terror, all the glory
gone and only the craven madness left to rule him. Until he paused; his hands
froze, warding. His eyes blazed with sudden lightnings. Again he struck, a
sweeping blow that hurled her from her feet.

The fall was endless, eternal. Thea flashed past; Anna
snatched at her, caught her. Eye met eye. Thea’s were dull, quenched, dim
brown beast-eyes. Yet for the briefest of instants they flared green. Her body
was gone, twin small bodies in its place, filling Anna’s arms. One
slipped free, or was torn free. The other she clasped strangling-close, falling
down and down, whirling into nothingness.

She struck stone. It was wet; it was cold. Something whined
and pushed against her. With a small gasp she thrust herself up on her arms.

She nearly fell again. Cynan huddled beneath her, bedraggled
and shivering, but it was not the cold that shook his every bone.

There were no walls. No
walls
.
A green tangle, a worn pale pavement, a blazing-bright arch of sky.

It wavered. She tried to fight the tears, but they only came
the harder.

Needle-sharp teeth closed, but gently, gently, on her hand.
Cynan released it, wobbling on his feet, meeting her stare. Stronger than
terror was his determination.

Something nudged her, but not on her flesh; within, like a
memory struggling to the surface. A word or a wish.
Up.
And,
Go
.

He too had his father’s eyes, silvered gold. His
father—

A howl welled up from the bottom of her soul. She locked her
jaw against it. She struggled to an ungainly crouch, aware as one is amid a
nightmare, of her filthy clothes, her rank body, her hair straggling over her
face and shoulders and down her back. “Your father,” her mouth
said, “is dead. Alun is dead, and we—”

Cynan caught the trailing edge of her sleeve and tugged.
Go,
he willed her.
Go!

Her body was beyond her mind’s control. “I loved
him. I
loved
him. And he promised—he
promised—”

Pain shocked her into sanity. Cynan crouched flat, snarling,
within easy reach of her torn hand. She staggered up.

He did not rejoice, not yet. He nipped her hem. She tottered
forward; he rose and followed.

Slowly her steps steadied, her mind cleared. Though valiant,
Cynan was very young still; she scooped him up before he could tire.

His weight was like a shield, a ward against panic. It was
real, this road, this air, this sky. She was free. She had driven Simon to the
edge, and he had not slain her; he had flung her away. Liahan, Thea—

With all her strength she mastered herself. She had Cynan,
and he was thoroughly hale. Where they were, that must come next. Surely,
despite its wildness, this was no wilderness; the road was clear of greenery,
the greenery itself held just short of conquest amid a scattering of flowers.

Something white glimmered through them. She let her breath
out slowly. The face was marble, crumbling and streaked with moss, the body
beneath it draped modestly enough in a mantle of laurel. She made her way past
it, stretching into a freer stride.

Her heart slowed its pounding. No walls sprang up about her,
no Simon came to bar her way.

The road turned sharply. The trees opened. A whole world
stretched before her. A city of hills and marshes and a broad arch of river,
walled and towered among the works of giants.

Her knees loosened. She fought to stiffen them. After all
her dread and her refusal to think of the choices, she had not been sent far at
all. She was still in Rome.

A month’s journey from Rhiyana on horseback with ample
provision. Knowing not a soul here, looking like a beggar, with neither money
nor food to sustain her. And for company an unweaned pup.

Cynan objected to that with body and mind. He had been
trying himself at his mother’s ration of meat. And he was a witch born;
he had power. He could help her.

A smile felt strange on her face. “You can,” she
said. “Unless—” She shut her mouth. One did not name the
Devil. If she was to go on at all, she must go on as if she were truly free.

She had her wits and her companion, and no one had taken her
small wealth, the rings of gold in her ears. Surely those would buy her food,
shelter, and maybe—she trembled at the mere prospect of it—a bath.

The sun had been middling low when she began; as she walked,
it rose. Its arc was much higher than she remembered, the arc of winter turning
toward spring, the air wonderfully warm.

Even so, she was grateful for the furred lining of her
cotte. Her soft shoes, never made for much walking, were wet through from the
puddled road; she would not think of the growing soreness of her feet.

How huge Rome was. How terrifying with its crush of people,
and yet how frightening in the wastes where people were not. She felt as
glaringly conspicuous as a goosegirl in a king’s hall, clad as she was
for a Rhiyanan castle but draggled like a gutter rat, with a very young alaunt
in her arms. He was stiff with fear, yet he stared in wide-eyed fascination,
taking it all in, who had never known aught but the quiet of a prison cell.

She dared not let him walk lest she lose him. He did not ask
more than once. There were too many feet, and too many dogs, whip-thin vicious
creatures who looked starved for just such a tender morsel as he. But the one
that ventured too close nearly lost a portion of its nose; the rest, beasts and
men alike, kept their distance.

Anna knew she should try to find a place to walk to. A
goldsmith or a pawnbroker who might give fair return for her earrings; a hostel
where she might rest, gather her wits, find a way home. But the thought of
closing herself within walls again, even walls with an open gate, made her
shudder.

The sun, having won the zenith, began to fall toward
evening. Cynan’s weight dragged at Anna’s arms. He was growing
hungry. She could fast if she must, however unpleasant it might be, but he was
far too young for that.

She paused at last by a small oddity of a fountain set into
a wall. From the mouth of an age-smoothed lion-face poured a thin stream,
gathering into a long narrow basin.

The water was cold and sweet. She plunged her face into it,
briefly oblivious to aught but her senses’ delight.

Cynan, set on the basin’s edge, lapped thirstily. When
Anna emerged, gasping and spluttering, he was gone.

She looked about at first without undue concern. The street
was relatively uncrowded; she had been lost to the world for no more than a
moment or two. It should not be difficult to catch sight of a white alaunt pup.

It should not; it was. He had vanished.

She stood, still dripping, warmed by an uprush of sheer
fury. “Damn all witches,” she gritted. “Damn them, damn them,
damn
them!”

A flash of white caught her eye. She spun toward it. Under a
cart redolent of fish, a small shape stirred.

A cat. Anna walked because she could think of nothing else
to do, calling Cynan’s name without much hope, cursing him in Greek and
with some invention.

People stared at her. She looked like a lunatic, and she
felt like one.

Her hem caught. She tugged at it. It tugged back. She
whipped about.

Cynan grinned, tongue lolling, tail a blur. She shook her
fist at him. “You
imp
! Where
were you?”

He ran ahead a pace or two, ran back again.
Come,
he commanded.
See.

Anna groaned aloud. “See what? Aren’t you
hungry? Don’t you want to eat? Sleep? Be clean?”

He gripped her gown again.
See!

With a deep sigh she let him lead her. He was, after all, a
witchling. She hoped it was his power that guided him.