Isle of Glass (28 page)

“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.

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.

She sprang forward, running lightly still, taunting the big
gelding with her ease and grace. Jehan had a brief and splendid view of her
flying heels.

She thundered through the gate half a length ahead of the
King and wheeled within, tossing her head. The monks had scattered before the
charge, slowed though it was, the more prudent arriving at a trot.

Richard laughed and tossed Alf a coin; he caught it, face
flushed, eyes shining. The monks stared openmouthed as he slid from the saddle
with the bezant still in his hand.

“Well, Brothers,” the King said in high good humor, “I’ve
brought back your prodigal.”

“In grand style,” Morwin observed, stepping from behind a
pair of tall monks. “Welcome to St. Ruan’s, Your Majesty.”

The King knelt to kiss his ring, as was proper even for
royalty in the Church’s lands, and turned to present his followers. Novices
took their horses; others led them, once presented, to the guesthouse.

Alf stood apart with Jehan hovering behind him. None of the
Brothers approached them, although Brother Osric half-moved toward them and
stopped. The King’s presence, and their own air of the world and its splendors,
made them strange.

Morwin completed his courtesies. It was odd to watch him as
if he had been a stranger, a small elderly man in an Abbot’s robe, very clean
but somewhat frayed.

At last he looked at Alf, a quick encompassing glance,
measuring this falcon he had cast from his hand. Suddenly he scowled. “This is
a fine way to greet an old friend. What are you hanging back for?”

Alf came to his embrace. He was as thin and fragile as a man
made of sticks, but he was still wiry-strong. He grinned at Alf, blinking
rapidly. “The good Brothers will never get over it. Gentle Brother Alf who used
to have to be dragged bodily out of the library to see what the sun looked
like, roaring in at the head of a troop of cavalry. The next thing we know,
Brother Edgar will be reading Aristotle.”

The other laughed with a catch in it, for Morwin’s tight
embrace had kindled sparks of pain.

The Abbot held him at arm’s length. “You look as if you’ve
got a lot to tell me. As soon as I've settled things here, come and talk.” He
glanced beyond him at Jehan. “You make a pair of bashful maids, to be sure. Or
are you so used to rubbing elbows with kings and bishops that you can’t spare a
good-day for a mere abbot?”

“Good day, Dom Morwin,” Jehan said obediently, with a glint
in his eye.

“That’s better.” Morwin flung his arms wide. "Welcome
back, you two. Welcome back!”

The Brothers crowded around them then, reticence forgotten.
In that babble of greeting and of gladness, none but Jehan noticed Alf’s
pallor. With each hearty embrace it increased; although he smiled and spoke
cheerfully enough, his face was drawn with pain.

“You should rest,” Jehan said in his ear.

Alf shook his head almost invisibly. “Yes,” he said to
Brother Osric, “I had a look at some new Aristotle. And a copy of Albumazar in
Arabic, from the Crusade...”

o0o

“So,” said Morwin. “You’re the King’s squire.”

Alf stood by the window of the Abbot’s study, gazing at the
orchard, bleak now and grey, fading into the early darkness.

“Nothing’s changed,” he murmured. “Nothing at all.”

“But you have.”

Alf did not answer. Morwin prodded the fire, rousing the
embers to sudden flame. He fed it with applewood; the sweet scent crept through
the room.

“It’s so quiet here,” Alf said. “Nothing happens from year’s
end to year’s end, except what’s always happened. The trees bloom; the apples
ripen; they fall, and the winter comes. The world races past, but no one heeds
it, except to spare it a prayer.”

“Do you think I shouldn’t have sent you out into it?”

Alf sighed. “I’ve been like a man from the old tales, taken
away to the Land of Youth for a night, but that night was a lifetime long.”

“It’s all too easy to stay a child here, even if your body
can grow old.”

“I know. Oh, I know!” Alf faced him. “I’ve been seventeen
years old for half a century. And suddenly I feel as if I could advance to
eighteen if I tried hard enough.”

“So,” the Abbot said with a wicked glint, “you’ve finally
caught on.”

“God knows, it took me long enough.”

“Sit down and tell me about it,” Morwin commanded him. “How
did you get from monk to royal squire in a little over a month—and half of it
spent traveling?”

Morwin listened to Alf’s tale, standing by the fire, neither
moving nor speaking. When Alf spoke of the trial and of his punishment, the
Abbot`s face greyed; his eyes glittered. “Show me,” he said.

Alf did not move to obey. “There’s no need. I’m mending; I’m
content.”

“Let me see.”

“No.”

“Alfred,” Morwin said. “I want to know what you paid for
your foolishness.”

“Less than Alun paid for his, and more than you would like.”

Alf shifted in his seat, and shook his head as the Abbot
began to speak. “Let it be, Morwin. It’s part of my growing up; you can’t
protect me from it.”

“You don’t deserve to be protected.”

“Everyone seems to agree with you, myself included.”

The Abbot glared at him. He smiled back.

Little by little Morwin softened. “Well. You haven’t done so
badly since. The King seems fond of you.”

“I’m fond of him. He reminds me of Jehan. Hot-headed,
impetuous, and exceedingly wise when he has to be.”

“And fond of letting people underestimate him,” Morwin said.

“Are you going to stay with him?”

“I’m sworn to it.”

“But do you want to?”

Alf stared into the fire. Slowly he answered, “I don’t know
what I want. I’m a little afraid to take up a career of arms—it’s so alien to
all I’ve ever been or taught. And yet I have a gift for it. Weapons fit my
hands.”

“You aren’t carrying one,” Morwin said.

His hand went to his belt where a sword should have hung.

“Not yet. But I will. If I continue.”

“You doubt it?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t know what
I’m saying. Of course I’ll go on. The King has bound me; I’ve made up my mind
to it.”

“It’s going to be odd to see you riding about in mail with
some lady’s sleeve on your helm.”

Alf rounded upon him.

Morwin laughed. “That’s part of the world, too, Alf. Don’t
tell me you’re that innocent!”

“I’m no more innocent than you.”

“Nonsense!” Morwin snorted. “Remember the year in Paris?
Every girl we met sighed after you, and you didn’t even know what it meant.”

“Of course I knew. I was the one who explained it to you.
Horrified, you were.
People
did that? But that was for animals!”

“You blushed furiously all the while you told me, too, and
swore you’d never stoop so low.” Morwin’s eyes danced upon him. “You’re
blushing now. What will you do when you get to court?”

“Nothing,” Alf snapped. “I wouldn’t want to do anything.
I’ve discovered something horrible, Morwin. I can’t bear the thought
of...making love...to human women. They revolt me.”

“Whores and sluts would revolt me, even if I weren’t under
vows—and I’m as human as they are.”

Alf shook his head sharply. “It’s all women. All human
women. And men too, if it comes to that. I can love my fellow man, but not—not
carnally.”

“And what led you to that sweeping conclusion?”

He would not answer.

Morwin shrugged. “Talk to me again when you’re a made
knight, and we’ll see if you say the same.”

“I will.”

“We’ll see,” Morwin said. Even as he spoke, he glanced over
his shoulder; his eyes lighted. “My lord! Come in.”

Alf had been aware of the listener for some time; he turned,
rising, bowing with new-learned grace.

Alun left the doorway, walking unaided although he limped
noticeably. His eyes smiled on Alf; his mind touched the other’s, the familiar
gentle touch.

Alf clasped his good hand and would have kissed it, had not
his glance forbidden. “Brother,” he said. “Well met.”

“Well indeed,” Alf responded, looking him up and down. Even
lame and with his hand still bound in a sling, even in the brown habit Alf had
left him, he looked strong and proud, a knight and a prince.

The smile found its way to the corner of his mouth. “I make
a very poor monk, my brother, though I’ve done my utmost short of actually
taking vows.”

“He has,” Morwin agreed. “Brother Cecil is almost resigned
to the loss of his best tenor from the choir since he’s gained a splendid
bass-baritone in exchange. When you go, God only knows what I'll do to pacify
him.”

Alf smiled. “And have they put you to work elsewhere?” he
asked of Alun.

“No, but not for my lack of trying. Apparently I’m still an
invalid.”

“Almost,” Alf said, “though if you asked, I might let you
ride.”

“I wasn’t going to ask. I was going to do it.”

“Fara will be glad to have you back again.”

The Rhiyanan shook his head. “I gave her to you, and she has
come to love you. Keep her, my brother; in your new station, you need her.”