Hounds of God (26 page)

“How not, when we’re forced to eat nothing but
fish?” Giacomo’s humor was a flicker, swiftly gone. He fixed Jehan
with a cool and steady stare. “Mind you,” he said, “I don’t
make a practice of invading my guests’ privacy. But sometimes the
circumstances would seem to demand it.”

The Norman loomed like a tower, but with a face of polite
attention. His hands were invisible behind him.

Perhaps they were fists. The Prior went on doggedly. “Your
conduct here has been exemplary. I can say truthfully that San Girolamo has
been the better—thus far—for your presence in it. As to what may
happen later, I admit to some concern. Not that you may be a rather famous and
rather exalted lord of the Church; I can believe it, and I can’t censure
an honest act of humility. But your friends are beginning to alarm me.”

“How so?”

That was not the tone of a humble monk. Giacomo allowed
himself a small tight smile. “I can’t prove anything. I can only
say that I’m uneasy. A Byzantine and a—Saxon? Boys of an age, it
seems, a frail monkish scholar and a bright-eyed worldling, poles apart but as
close as brothers. The Saxon is prone to a sort of falling sickness. The Greek
is mute and deaf, though he doesn’t seem much the worse for it. Neither
has shown the least sign of haunting shrines in search of a miracle.”

“Because,” said a low clear voice, “the
miracle is not to be found among the dusty relics and the sepulchers of saints.
I doubt the Church would sanction it at all.”

Alf came to Jehan’s side, standing shoulder to
shoulder. The contrast was not as striking as Giacomo might have expected. The
white boy was a shade the shorter with scarce a third the girth, attenuated as
a painted angel, and yet he stood like a sword beside a great iron club. Less
massive, more subtly lethal.

“Good day, signore,” Giacomo said calmly.

Alf bowed his head a precise degree. “Good day.
Brother Prior. I regret that our presence troubles you. If you wish, we can
find lodgings elsewhere.”

Giacomo’s head flew up, nostrils flared. “We go
to war for insults here, sir pilgrim.”

“Even before God?” demanded Jehan.

“Before God we stand on our honor. There’ll be
no more talk of leaving.”

Alf raised a fine brow. “Are we prisoners?”

“You know you’re not. All I ask is a simple
assurance. If you’re seeking sanctuary, or if you expect to need it, you’ll
tell us truthfully. We can give you God’s protection, but only if we’re
asked.”

“Against the very Devil himself?” Alf did not
wait for an answer. He seemed to gather himself, to make a sudden painful
choice. “Brother Prior, we need no more than we’ve been given,
which itself is far more than we ever looked for. Our crime is our plain
existence; for that there is no refuge. Our miracle is preeminently earthly and
much out of the sphere of your abbey: We have an enemy who hates us with the
bitterest of hates. By his strength and our negligence he seized our kin. My
sister, my lady; my newborn children.”

Giacomo was full of words, but not one could fit itself to
his tongue.

“My children,” Alf repeated levelly. “He
has taken them; we’ve pursued him as far as this city. He is here, we’re
certain of that, but he has hidden himself and his captives beyond our skill to
find them. That is the miracle we pray for. That is the cause of my sickness.”

“Then,” said Giacomo, “it may be I can
help. What is this enemy? If he’s a lord or a prince, my family may know
him. If he’s a churchman, I think I can find him.”

Alf shook his head. “No. Thank you, no. The man is
mad. If he knows we hunt him, he will certainly destroy his prisoners. He’s
already cut down one who tried to stop him, an unarmed child; he’ll have
no mercy on women and babes.”

“They may already be dead. Even if they aren’t,
he has to be found and punished.”

Alf’s eyes burned white-hot. “They live. But not
for long if he catches our scent. You’re generous, Brother Prior, and
braver than you know, but I beg you to say no more of this. We will find him.
We will see that he pays the full and proper price.”

“Three of you?”

“Three will be enough, or far too many. Does not one
God suffice for all vengeance?”

“That’s a trifle blasphemous.”

“No doubt. My existence itself, for that matter, could
be reckoned a blasphemy.” Alf moved toward the warmth of the brazier,
stirring the coals to new life, adding a fresh handful. The ruddy light limned
his face, deepening the hollows beneath eye and cheekbone, turning the smooth
youthful features to an ageless mask. “You may still ask us to leave, and
we’ll go without complaint. We never meant to presume so long on your
hospitality.”

“I told you not to talk about it. Besides, if you
left, Brother Oddone would be prostrated. He wants to do a statue next, I
think. Saint Raphael the Healer.”

Alf smiled almost invisibly. “Maybe I’ll be its
first miracle.”

“Not likely. Oddone is claiming that honor for
himself. He swears he hasn’t had a cough or a shiver since Saint Benedict’s
Day.”

“I’m glad of that. You should cherish him.
Brother Prior; he has a rare and wonderful talent. Nor will he live long, even
with Saint Raphael’s help. God’s hand is on him.”

“I call it consumption,” Giacomo said harshly, “and
I’m anything but blind to it. The truth is that Oddone says you cured
him. He’s convinced that you’re an archangel in disguise.”

Alf laughed with genuine mirth. For an instant he looked a
boy again, the shadows held at bay in the deep places of his eyes. “Brother,
you ease me, you and your beloved artist.” From the bed he took what
apparently had brought him there, the folded cloak. He bowed to Giacomo, smiled
at Jehan, and turned to go.

The Prior held up a hand. Alf paused, brow lifted. With a
scowl of frustration Giacomo waved him away.

Now he would do it. Now he would tell her. Now she would
know what he was.

Nikki made a litany of it, striding blindly through streets
grown familiar, as oblivious to both marvels and commonplaces as any Roman
born. His nose and his feet between them took him past the tavern to the
scrivener’s shop.

There his feet would go no farther. He could not mount the
stair. He could only stare into the shop, realizing very slowly that the pale
gleam within was candlelight on Uncle Gregorios’ bald head. The scribe
was at work over a heap of documents.

“Behind again,” he said by way of greeting, “thanks
to all the uproar with the marriage contracts. Did you hear? No? Herminia
Capelli was to marry Pietro Brentano, which was much to the advantage of both
families, and which was very much to the taste of the bridal couple. But she
was a widow with a young son, and there were properties settled on her on the
boy’s behalf; and someone somewhere had found an irregularity in the
contract of that first marriage, which affected the inheritance and possibly
the legitimacy of the union itself. Now if the marriage was improperly sealed
and the boy improperly conceived...”

Gregorios’ words washed over Nikki, sharp yet
soothing, demanding nothing but a nod now and then. Nikki moved about the
cramped confines of the shop, attacked a sheet of parchment with pumice until
it took on the sheen of raw silk, trimmed the pens laid in a box for the
purpose, scraped smooth the wax tablets Gregorios used for jottings and for
teaching the pupils who came to him in the mornings to learn a little Greek.

One tablet bore nothing but row on row of staggering alphas;
in spite of himself Nikki smiled. New pupil, surely. He almost regretted the
stroke that smoothed the tablet into waxy anonymity.

The voice had stopped. Gregorios, with his usual finesse,
had ended tale and document together; he held a stick of wax to the candle’s
flame, gathering each scarlet droplet on the bottom of the parchment. Nikki set
in his hand the heavy notary’s seal; he nodded his thanks.

There was little in his face to suggest his kinship with
Stefania. He was a little shorter than Nikki, neither fat nor thin, with a
square-cut face and a strong blunt nose. As if to make up for the bareness of
his head, his brows were thick and black and long enough to curl, beetling over
the sudden blue gleam of his eyes; and his beard, though sheared short, sprang
forth with a will and a vigor all its own.

He looked mildly alarming, yet somehow, like Stefania, he
struck Nikki with his perfect rightness. He could not be other than he was.

For a witch’s fosterling, Nikki was dismayingly
forgetful of the power of names. Even as he named her in his mind she was
there, holding back the curtain that concealed the inner stair, regarding them
with a total lack of surprise.

Her relief was an undertaste as sweet as honey, a deep
swelling joy to see Nikephoros there, healthy, holding her uncle’s seal.
Where he belonged, she almost thought. But not quite.

He could have cried aloud. He should have fled.

Gregorios muttered something about supper, and was it that
late already? He squeezed past Stefania, trudging up the steep narrow steps.

She poised, alert, ready to bolt. A blush came and went in
her cheeks. Her voice was more trustworthy; she kept it light and easy. “You
look well, Nikephoros. You’ll stay for supper, of course; even if Uncle
could forgive you for refusing, Bianca never would.”

He stepped toward her. She held her ground. He set his hands
on her shoulders. Did she tremble? He was frightening her; she thought he
might, after all, be ill.

No,
he said.
No, Stefania.

She was staring directly at him. She did not see. He kissed
the lid of each beautiful blind eye. Very gently he set his lips to her forehead.
Milady philosopher, I fear, I very much
fear—

“Love is natural and inevitable.” She said it a
little quickly, a little breathlessly.

On whose great
authority do you make that pronouncement?

“My own.” Her fingers tangled themselves in his
hair. She envied what she saw as his wry calm. “No doubt you’ve
often found it so. Natural; inescapable.”

He shook his head slowly, not denying anything, struggling
to do what he must do and say what he must say. It was all framed and ready.
Stefania Makaria, you can’t love me.
You don’t know what I am. I’m a liar; I’ve deceived you.
These very words are false, not words at all but purest witchery. I’m a
witch, an enchanter, a shaper of spells. I was born a cripple, deaf and mute,
and so in spite of my sorceries do I remain. I’m never the lover you
deserve.

He got only as far as her name.
Stefania—

She pulled free from him, but far more from a swelling
desire. To kiss him there, where one black curl fell just athwart his forehead.
To kiss him there, where hair mingled with young downy beard, curling against
the arch of his ear. And to kiss him
there
on the fine modeling of his mouth, just where he would be warmest, except for—

Where did a maiden ever learn such things? Surely not in
Aristotle!

She thought she had spoken unawares, he in response. Her
cheeks were scarlet. “Come up to supper,” she said, “before
it gets cold.”

He reached again. His hand fell short. Wait, yes, and tell
them all, test them all, take all the pain at once and have it over. He snuffed
the candle and followed her out of the shop.

Bianca was full of senile nonsense. Stefania was chattering
incessantly and to no perceptible purpose. Gregorios overrode them both at intervals
with words that meant nothing.

Nikki must have nodded, smiled, responded properly; no one
seemed concerned. His body fed itself hungrily enough to satisfy Bianca.

He tasted nothing. Maybe he grew a little drunk. They had
brought out the Falernian for him, and his cup was always full.

The pup appeared somewhere between the serving of the fish
and the consumption of its last morsel. For that final bit was cooling in Nikki’s
fingers and the needle-teeth were disposing of it with a good will, their owner
curled comfortably in Nikki’s lap.

He seemed to have been there for a goodly while. A handsome
pup; a thoroughbred, or Nikki had never learned his way around a kennel.

Except for the eyes. There was something wrong with them.
They could see very well indeed, no doubt of that. They were bright with
intelligence, alert to every movement.

They were silver. They were gold. They were pupiled like a
cat’s.

Like a
cat’s.

Nikki gripped the wriggling shape.
Where did you get this pup?
he demanded across the currents of
conversation.
Where did it come from?

His tone brought them all around upon him, amazed. “Why,”
Stefania said, “he came to us. Haven’t you been listening? He found
me, or more properly my basket, in the market. He introduced me to his
companion. Poor woman, she looked as if she’d been locked in someone’s
dungeon and then turned loose to beg, but she spoke to me in Latin, and it
turned out that she was a philosopher, too. She came home with me, she and the
imp; she’s very ill or she’d be down here to—”

Nikki never heard the rest. He was already gone.

oOo

The bed was Stefania’s, demure in its blue coverlet.
Anna lay in it in the deep sleep of exhaustion.

She was a little thinner than he remembered, maybe; not that
she had ever had any more flesh than a bird. Her skin had the sallow tinge it
always had when she stayed too long out of the sun. Even in sleep her mouth was
set tight.

The pup scrambled out of his slackened grip and onto the
bed. Unlike any other young creature Nikki had ever known of, he did not pummel
Anna into wakefulness; he met Nikki’s stare and said very clearly,
You are my uncle. Mother told me. I saw you
in her thoughts—the one with the basket and the fish. She’s full of
you.