Hounds of God (40 page)

“No,” Stefania answered steadily, “there’ve
been no changes. We were only saying goodbye.”

You aren’t going
,
Nikki said again.

“Of course I’m not.” Anna glared. “What
made you think I could? I’ve always known that when the Folk went into
Broceliande, I’d have to stay behind. I can’t face Rhiyana without
them. Rome is a pleasant enough place, and I’ve found friends here just
in the few days I’ve been free. Father Jehan’s promised to come
when he can; a bishop can always find excuses to call on the Curia. Or I can
call on him, if it comes to that. I might find I want to do a little goliarding
in a year or three, when Rome begins to pall on me.”

She made it all so simple. But she was human. She had no
need to choose.

“I have no choice.” She drew a long breath. “May
I stay here, Stefania? Just for a little while?”

“As long as you need to,” Stefania said,
embracing Anna quickly, tightly “Are you coming with us to San Girolamo?”

Anna shook her head. “No. No, it was hard enough to do
once. I’ll be a coward and stay here.”

And do her crying in privacy. Stefania hugged her again. “I’ll
come back as soon as I can. Tell Bianca where I’ve gone.” She
grimaced. “Don’t be surprised if she puts you to work.”

Anna smiled. “Go on now. Alf’s been threatening
to leave without Nikki; you’d better hurry before he actually does it.”

Even yet Nikki hung back, looking hard at his sister’s
face, seeing all her sacrifices. At least he had had his love requited, if only
for a day. She had had a deeply loving embrace, a fraternal kiss with a tear
behind it, and a trove of treasures, none of it worth a single touch of
Stefania’s hand.

But what could he give her? An embrace, a kiss and a tear,
his own share of the wealth of House Akestas since in Broceliande he would have
no need of it. He held her for a long while between his strong arm and his
splinted one, pouring into her mind all the comfort he could muster. She was
going to thrive. She was going to be happy, one woman wedded to all the
philosophers, with sisters to bear her company and riches to ease her way.

“And Father Jehan when I need him, and a whole life to
make what I like of.” She held her brother’s face in her hands. “Good-bye,
Nikki. e good. You can if you work at it, you know.”

I should want to?

She slapped him lightly and let him go. “Brat. Take
care of Alf for me. Now stop dawdling; can’t you hear him yelling for
you?”

He looked back once. She was turned away from him, bent over
the cat in her lap, steadfastly ignoring everything but the silken harlequin
fur.

oOo

They were waiting, the strange ones and their massive
brown-cowled Bishop, and although they were all courtesy, their impatience was
strong enough to taste.

Nikki made Stefania come all the way with him, gripping her
hand, so that she stood face to face with the witch-woman. The gold-brown eyes
passed quickly over her; she shuddered deep within. They were so close to
human, and so very far from it. Their interest was warm enough, their
assessment rather more approving than not, but they were not the eyes of anyone
with whom she could share anything that mattered.

Nikki let her go. He was shaking, and trying not to, and
surely he hated himself for it. She saw him again as she had once before, small
and dark and flawed, human, mortal, no kin at all to the high beauty about him.
And then he moved, or his magic moved, and he was inextricably a part of them.
The light in his eyes had its reflection in the eyes of his brother. Or was
Nikephoros the reflection? The moon to the white enchanter’s sun, with no
power but what his master chose to bestow upon him. And without it—

Eye met cat-flaring eye. The witch-folk drew together,
drawing Nikki with them. On the very edge of hearing, the air began to sing.

“Nikephoros!” she cried.

The note died abruptly The tall ones stood still. Nikki
looked at her, and the pain in his eyes made her want to weep aloud.

“Stay,” she begged him, with all her heart in
it. “Stay and love me.”

His hand rose, reached.
Come
with me.

“You know I can’t.”

The hand began to fall. All at once Stefania hated him,
hated him with a passion only love could engender. “You
know
I can’t! This is my world.
This one, and no other. Just as it is yours. What will you do among the
immortals? Trail behind them. Ape their mighty magics with your little borrowed
power. Go slowly mad, and die gibbering, too far gone even to wish you had had
the sense to escape while you could.”

His head shook from side to side. This world promised only
the dulled existence of a cripple. The other promised all the splendor of
power, free and fearless, far from human terrors.
You can come. You can share it. Perhaps—even—

“If I could ever have become a witch, that time is long
past.” She spoke quietly, almost calmly, but for the tremor she could not
quell. “You are a coward, Nikephoros Akestas. You seduced me, knowing
what you would do to me, knowing that I could never follow you. You wanted me,
and when it was safe, you made sure you had me. This little pain that pays for
it, that will go away. You have all your Fair Folk, and the glory and the
lightnings, and the memory of a little mortal fool to reassure you when you wonder
if you’ve made the wrong choice. What more could you ask for?”

Stefania
, he whispered.

But he did not whisper. He had no voice that he would use. “No,
child, you may not have me, and Broceliande too. It’s one or the other.
Choose.”

For a little while she knew that she had won. He came toward
her. One more step and his arm would come to circle her. Her body felt it
already, yearned for it.

He stopped. He looked back. His kin did nothing, said
nothing, only stood and waited and were. More beautiful than any mortal
creature, more splendid, more powerful, mantled in magic.

She watched them conquer him. They did not mean to do it. No
more did the candle mean to draw the foolish fluttering moth. He looked on
their faces and fell headlong into their eyes, and when again he faced
Stefania, it was from between the witch and the enchanter. His whole body cried
pain, begged for forgiveness. It even dared, even yet, to beseech her to follow
him.

She would not move. Even when his kiss touched her lips, an
air-soft invisible ghost-kiss, lingering, burning. Trying to have it all,
refusing to acknowledge the truth. With an effort that made her gasp, she
willed him away. “Go,” she said through set and aching teeth. “Go
where you think you must.” And more slowly, as the pain began to master
her: “God—oh, damn you, God go with you.”

They were there, all of them, close together. Then they were
not. There was only a shimmer, fading fast, and a memory of Nikephoros’
black eyes bright with tears.

The churches of Rhiyana were dark, their gates bolted and
sealed, the vigil lamps lightless above the silent altars. The dying passed
unshriven; the dead lay cold in unconsecrated ground. The living knew no
consolation of holy Church, neither Mass nor sacraments; not even in the abbeys
might monks sing the Offices, on pain of flogging and expulsion.

They dared it, Benedetto Torrino knew surely, as priests in
the villages dared administer the sacraments in secret, even under the watchful
eyes of God’s Hounds. But the grimness of the Interdict, coupled with war
and winter, beat down even the most valiant.

He had nothing to do with it. The Paulines had circumvented
him; on the authority of their new Papal Legate, still on the road from Rome,
they had lowered the ban. Having no authority more recent or more potent, and
no army to defend it, he was powerless.

What little he could do, he did. Every morning since the
Interdict began, he had sung Mass in the castle. He made no great secret of it.
Even yet the Hounds did not dare to pass the gates, and they learned not to
keep the people of the city from passing them. As they were learning that one
winter’s preaching and one week’s Interdict could not turn Rhiyana’s
folk against their King of fourscore years. It only taught them to hate the men
whose coming had wrought all their suffering.

Tonight again the Queen had sent her page. The Lord Cardinal
was bidden to dine with her, as he had been bidden every night since that day
in the garden. Tonight again he sent a gracious refusal. The words came no more
easily this seventh time than they had the first. He saw her at Mass, and that
was already as much as he could bear; he dared not sit beside her, even among
her ladies and her courtiers, and try to conduct himself as if she were no more
to him than any highborn matron. Not with such thoughts as he had, that not
only she among her court could read. Nor with such dreams as he had been
having, sweet torment that they were, impervious to prayer and fasting.

He dined on prayer and water, alone, his few loyal monks
sent unwillingly away. His head was light with abstinence, the pangs of hunger
vanquished. But not the pangs he longed to be rid of. This storm-ridden night
they took flesh and stood before him all in white, ivory hair loose to ivory
ankles, golden eyes shining.

“Lady,” he prayed from his aching knees, “must
you haunt me in the flesh as in the spirit?”

She knelt to face him. “There is war in Heaven,”
she said. “Do your bones not feel it? Does the wind not bring you its
clamor?”

It was she. He caught the faint rose-sweet scent of her. By
Heaven’s bitter irony, her presence so close eased his torment. He could
bow over her hand, he could rise and raise her with him, setting her in the
chair which faced the fire. He could even venture to rebuke her. “Lady,
you know you should not be here.”

“Where else should I be? My lord is barred to me, and
my own people have no comfort for me, and the world is ending.”

“It is only a storm of sleet.”

She laughed as clearly and as sweetly as a child. “O
mortal man! May the world not end in sleet as easily as in fire?” She
sobered; she spread her hands to the blaze, that turned their pallor to
rose-gold. “I cry your pardon, my lord. I am a little mad, I think, and
truly it is not all with grief. Our great enemy is dead by his own will, dead
these two days. Our Chancellor has spoken with the Pope and gained pardon for
us all. But still I cannot touch the mind of my King.”

He forgot himself utterly; he seized her hands. “The
Pope? They have gone to the Pope?”

“To Saint Peter’s own successor. The Hounds are
chastised and sent to their kennels. The Interdict is lifted—I have
proclaimed it, which is presumptuous of me, mere temporal regent that I am, but
it is too mighty a secret to keep from my people. We... we are forgiven, within
limits. You need not fret now, Lord Cardinal; you are not obliged to send us to
the fire.”

“
Hosanna in
excelsis!”
He was so glad that he sang it in full voice. “Lady,
Lady, I do believe in God’s mercy again. And you said”—His
joy died—”the King is... dead?”

“No!” she cried. “He lives, but now truly
he is dying, and his power struggles to preserve him against invasion. All
invasion, even the touch of my mind. Even—even healing. It is our nature.
In extremity, it turns against us.”

“So your kingdom is saved, but your King—”

Her chin lifted; her eyes glittered. “He has not died
yet, and my lord Alfred is coming. We shall see whether the King of Rhiyana can
stand against the Master of Broceliande.”

“If there is aught I can do, if I may ride or pray,
storm a castle or storm Heaven itself, you need only command me.”

She was careful of her smile. She kept it within mortal
limits. Yet he was lost long since; he could only fall deeper into the
enchantment. No matter that his mind was clear enough to mock him. Great prince
of priests that he was, and no boy either, he flung himself at her feet like
any callow simpleton of a squire.

“Alas, my lord,” she said, “I have
bewitched you. And alas for me, the spell also strikes the one who casts it.
Perhaps we should both storm Heaven.”

“But first, let us muzzle God’s Hounds.” Her
witchery too; with her hands in his, he saw all that needed doing, and all that
he could do. “My lady, if you will lend me a company of your guards and
the aid of one or two of your Kin, I shall be pleased to cleanse this city of
its pestilence. And,” he added, “to free its Archbishop from the
prison into which yon madmen have flung him.”

He was on his feet, vivid with eagerness, but she gripped
his hands. “Lord Cardinal, is it wise? Have you forgotten in whose name
you are here?”

“Indeed not. Pope Honorius has spoken for you; and I
am more than glad to take his part against the destroyers of your kingdom.”

“Brave man!”

Torrino wheeled toward the strong clear voice with its touch
of laughter. Maura started and cried out in gladness, drawing Thea into a swift
embrace, and Jehan after her, and the children who faced all this strangeness
with wide eyes and firm courage.

As the Queen took them up gently and kissed their fears
away, Thea said, “The others have gone to beat some sense into Gwydion.
In the meantime, Eminence, if you’re minded to hunt Hounds, here’s
an arrow for your bow.”

He took the parchment with its pendant seals, running his
eye over it. Here was proof positive of the Queen’s tidings, confirmation
of his embassy and full power to settle matters in Rhiyana as he saw fit. “So
shall I do,” he said, “with deep pleasure. My lord Bishop, would it
please you to aid me? If it comes to a fight, whether the weapons be words or
blades, there are few men I would rather have at my back.”

Jehan grinned. “Do you think you can keep me from it?
Lead on, Eminence; I’ll be behind you.”

“And we,” said Maura, “will be beside you.”
As the Cardinal struggled between courtesy and flat refusal, she laughed. “You
asked for a witch or two; so shall you receive. Cynan, Liahan, you must hold
the castle for us. Tao-Lin will keep you company.”