Isle of Glass (34 page)
Authors: Judith Tarr
Tags: #Medieval, #ebook, #Richard the Lionheart, #Judith Tarr, #fantasy, #Historical, #book view cafe, #Isle of Glass
The novice bowed, smiling back; Alf drew the white robe over
his head. There was comfort in this ritual of robing, each movement prescribed,
each thought foreordained. For so long he had only served and watched; he had
forgotten the quiet joy at the center of the rite.
One of the novices peered round the door. “Almost time,” he
said.
They were all without, the monks, the kings and their men,
even Thea, schismatic Greek that she was. Her mind brushed Alf’s for an
instant, bright and strong.
The procession had taken shape while he paused. He moved into
his place, walking slowly beneath the weight of his vestments.
As he passed Aylmer, the Bishop touched his arm. “Remember,”
he whispered. “‘Thou art a priest forever, in the order of Melchisedec.’ ”
Forever.
He lifted his chin. The chant had begun, slow and deep. “
Requiem
aeternam dona eis, Domine
...: Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let
perpetual light shine upon them....”
Morwin lay before the altar dais as for three days he had
lain with Alf as his constant companion. The procession moved slowly past him,
Alf last of all, and divided, each man or boy taking his place as the ritual
commanded.
Alf bowed low to the Abbot on his bier and lower still to
the altar. In the silence after the antiphon, his voice was soft and pure. “I
will go up to the altar of God.”
“To God who gives joy to my youth,” the acolytes responded.
He gathered all of his courage, and went up.
o0o
Richard watched him as he had watched on that first day in
the camp by the lake. Then Alf had been only an acolyte; now he was the priest,
Abbot-elect of St. Ruan’s. Yet he looked the same, too fair to be human, rapt
in the exaltation of the Mass.
As the rite continued, it seemed to the King that all light
gathered about the slender figure on the altar. The priests around him, the novices
moving about their duties, the chanting monks, faded to shadows. When he raised
the Host, it blazed like a sun; his splendid voice rang forth: “
Hoc est enim
corpus meum
: For this is my body.”
Richard covered his eyes with his hands. Mass had always been
a duty, and a dull one at that. But this was different. God, the God he had
ignored or given only lip service, had entered into this place and shone
through the priest, the sorcerer, the manslayer, soulless and deathless.
He is a priest,
the King thought, too certain of it
even to despair.
Aylmer will have him. Aylmer or the abbey. What a fool I
was to think that I could ever make a lord of him!
Looking up, he found Gwydion’s grey eyes upon him. The
Elvenking shook his head very slightly.
Wait
, his gaze said.
He has
not chosen yet. Wait and see.
o0o
At the height of his exaltation, Alf looked again upon the
Light to which Morwin had gone; approached it and almost touched it.
In that moment he felt again Morwin’s presence, like a warm
hand in his, a quick smile, a murmured word.
Well done, Alf. Oh,
well
done!
The young face within the Light, the old one upon the bier,
merged and became one. His voice lifted. “‘May angels lead you to Paradise; at
your coming, may the martyrs receive you, and lead you into the holy city of
Jerusalem. May a choir of angels receive you, and with Lazarus, who was once a
beggar, may you find eternal rest.’ ”
Strong monks took the bier upon their shoulders and paced
forward. In a cloud of chanting and of incense they bore it through the chapel,
down a long stair into the musty dark of the crypt. There they laid it down,
the chanting muted now, the incense dimming the flicker of candles. With gentle
hands they raised the Abbot’s body and set it in a niche, among the bones and
the rotting splendor of the abbots who had gone before him.
The chanting faded and died. Alf bent and marked the cold
brow with the sign of the Cross, and kissed it gently. “Sleep well,” he
whispered.
He turned. The lights and the candles departed one by one,
leaving Morwin to his long sleep.
o0o
Alf took off his vestments as reverently as he had put them
on. No one spoke to him, not even Jehan who served him, for the light lingered
still in his face. When at last he stood in his brown habit, Jehan glanced
aside, intent upon his duties; Alf slipped away.
o0o
The Thom of Ynys Witrin slept its sleep which was like
death, its boughs heavy with snow as with blossoms in spring. Alf stood beneath
it, brown as it was, crowned with white.
He laid his hand on the gnarled trunk. The power glimmered
in it as in the stone of Bowland, rising drowsily to touch his own—a warmth, a
green silence.
It no longer wished him ill, if indeed it ever had.
“Choices,” Alf said to it. “So many choices. ‘A priest forever.’ I am; yet I’m
so many other things besides. What shall I do? Shall I be the Lord Abbot? Can
you endure that? Shall I be rather a soldier of God? An elven knight, or a
prince of Anglia? What shall I be? What can I be?”
The wind whispered in the branches, yet without words. The
grey sky bent over him. High above him a hawk wheeled, crying.
He turned his face to it. It was no common hawk, merlin or
kestrel, but a splendid bird, the hawk of princes, the peregrine. Even as he
watched, it turned on its great wings and sped away eastward.
His breath caught. An answer, after all, and so simple. “I
forgot,” he said. “Dear God, forgive me for being a fool. I forgot, that Abbot
or priest or knight, I remain myself. Alfred. Alf. Not Sir or Lord or Father or
Brother. Only Alf. Myself.”
Himself—with all the world before him and choices without
number, and freedom at last. Freedom to choose as he would.
A moment longer he hesitated. He was afraid. To choose, who
had never chosen—what if he chose ill? What if he did not choose at all?
o0o
All of St. Ruan’s gathered in the hall for the Abbot’s
funeral feast. Even Brother Kyriell had left his post at the gate, freed for
once from his duties.
But a lone figure stood under the arch, wrapped in a cloak,
waiting.
Alf regarded her without surprise, as she regarded him.
“You've chosen,” she said.
He nodded.
She looked him over from cowled head to sandaled foot.
“You’re going away.”
“To Jerusalem.”
“Alone?”
He nodded again. “Morwin thought I'd find peace there. Or at
least that the journey would show me how to accept myself for what I am.”
“And the kings? The Bishop? The monks?”
“They all want me to be a great lord. But how can I be great
or high or lordly, if I don't even know myself? I’ll be Alfred now, and only
Alfred. I think they’ll understand.”
“They’ll try,” she said.
There was a silence. Alf stared at his feet. "Tell
Jehan. The books in my cell are for him. With my love. The ring with the
moonstone in it and the gold bezant, I'm keeping; but all the rest of his gifts
my lord Richard can dispose of as he wills. Aylmer must have my vestments that
I wore in the Mass. And Gwydion...tell him to look in the coffer in the Abbot’s
study. The altar cloth there is my gift to him. And Fara—Fara he must have
again. Tell him.”
“I’ll tell everybody.”
“The Brothers will have to elect someone else. I hope they
choose Owein. He’d make good Abbot, better than I.”
She said nothing.
“And for you,” he said. “For you I have this.” He took her
face in his hands. Lightly, awkwardly, he kissed her.
He drew back. Her eyes were wide, all gold; he could not
meet them. “Good-bye,” he said. “God be with you.”
Still she did not speak.
He shot the bolts and pushed open the postern. A thin cold
wind danced about him, blowing from the east. He turned his face to it and his
back to the abbey, and left the gate behind.
o0o
Thea stood for a long moment as he had left her. He did not
look back with eyes or mind.
Where a woman had stood lay a crumpled dark cloak. A white
hound ran down the long road.
Her four feet were swifter than his two, and lighter upon
the snow. She drew level with him, leaped ahead of him, bounded about him.
He stopped. “Thea,” he said. His voice was stern, cold.
Jehan was a fool
, she said in her mind.
He asked
if he could come. I’m not asking.
She trotted ahead a yard or two and
paused, looking bright-eyed over her shoulder.
Well, little Brother? Are you
coming?
He drew breath as if to speak. All that he might have done
or said raced through his mind.
Thea watched it all with dancing eyes. Did he think that any
man, even an elf-priest, could gainsay her?
Suddenly he laughed. “Not even a saint,” he said.
She ran before him, and he followed her, striding to
Jerusalem.
Judith Tarr
holds a PhD in Medieval Studies from Yale. She is the author of over three dozen novels and many works of short fiction. She has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, and has won the Crawford Award for
The Isle of Glass
and its sequels. She lives near Tucson, Arizona, where she raises and trains Lipizzan horses.
The Hound and the Falcon
The Isle of Glass
The Golden Horn (June 5, 2012)
The Hounds of God (July 3, 2012)
The Isle of Glass
Volume I
The Hound and the Falcon
Judith Tarr
Book View Café eBook Edition: May 1, 2012
Copyright © 1985, 2012 Judith Tarr
ISBN: 978-1-61138-167-2
First published: Bluejay, 1985
Cover design by Dave Smeds
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