Isle of Glass (27 page)

o0o

Jehan dropped back with Alf to the rear of the column. “I
think he planned that,” the novice called over the thunder of hooves.

“I know he did. Look—not a single royal squire in all this
riding.”

“And you let him?”

“I came, didn’t I?”

Jehan shook his head. “It’s a long leap from saint to
squire, and you started as a monk. You’ve got a lot to learn.”

“Then you’d best teach it to me. I’ve only got till
evening.”

“Thank all the saints you’re clever, then.”

To Jehan’s amazement, Alf laughed. “Too clever, maybe. Come
now, Master, your pupil’s ready. Will you keep him waiting?”

o0o

By nightfall the travelers had found lodgings in a baron’s
drafty barn of a castle, driving that provincial notable to distraction with
the honor and the terror of playing host to the King. In such confusion, any
number of errors could have gone unnoticed.

But Alf labored to do exactly as Jehan had taught him. He
won no reward for his effort, not even a glance from Richard, but he had
expected none.

The lord and his lady boasted the luxury of a chamber to themselves,
an airless cell behind the hall, nearly filled with a vast featherbed. This
Richard was given as his due, nor in courtesy could he refuse it.

He sought it soon enough, if none too soon for his newest
squire, who had served as cupbearer through an interminable feast. Alf had
locked his knees with an effort of will, else he would have collapsed in the
hall with every eye fixed upon him.

But Richard, it seemed, had not yet forgiven his
disobedience. Even as the King rose from the high seat, he crooked a finger.
“Alfred. You’ll wait on me.”

Alf bowed as deeply as he could. He knew he looked stiff,
arrogant; he was past caring. His sight had begun to narrow. Grimly he focused
it on the King and on the path he must take.

Across the dais, up a steep railless stair, through a heavy
curtain. Somehow he had acquired a lamp, a bowl filled with tallow, its wick a
twisted rag. As if his eyes needed—

They fixed before him. Not far. Not far at all. Slowly. They
would take it for stateliness, the proper gait of a servant before his King.

The lamp’s smoke was rank; oddly, the stench revived him a
little. He set his foot on the stair.

o0o

Richard inspected the bed and pulled a face. “Fleas in the
mattress for sure,” he muttered, “and lice, and worse things yet, I wager. And
this sheet hasn’t been washed since King Harold’s day.”

Alf set the lamp in a sooty niche. However cramped this
chamber was between two tall men and a bed as broad as a tilting yard, it
lacked at least the press of bodies below. He could see again; he could speak,
though not strongly. “There are no vermin here now, Sire.”

The King’s eye flashed upon him. “Don't like you, do they?”

“Like you, I prefer to live without them.”

“And you, unlike me, have the means to assure it. Would you
happen to have a similar predilection for clean sheets?”

Alf granted him half a nod, the bowing of the head but not
the raising. Gently, completely, his knees gave way beneath him. At least, he
thought, it was a clean bed he fell to.

Would have fallen to. Richard had caught him, eased him
down, pulled off his surcoat. “You’re bleeding again. Idiot.”

Alf tried to shrug free, but for once Richard’s hands were
too strong. “I’m strong enough still; I can serve you. Later—Jehan can—”

“You’re weak as a baby. Where’d those fools put—ah. There.”

Richard had Alf’s own baggage, opening it, searching swiftly
through it. In a moment he brought out the rolled bandages and the salve the
doctor had made, that Alf had made stronger with his own healer’s skill.

“Sire," Alf said, “how came these to be—”

“A squire stays with his lord. Particularly if he doesn’t
want the world to know that he’s out on his feet.” Richard began to ease the
shirt from Alf’s shoulders. Here and there it had clung where blood had dried,
fusing linen to bandages and bandages to torn skin.

“Majesty. You can’t wait on me like this. I won’t allow it.”

“A squire allows anything his King commands. Hand me the
basin. Ah, good. Clean water at least. Hold on, boy. This will sting.”

Like fire. But it was a clean fire, and Richard was
surprisingly skillful. With a small sigh Alf accepted the inevitable. He let
his body rest, sitting upright, eyes closed. Richard’s voice was a soothing
rumble in his ear. “Well now. I haven't lost much of my skill. I used to be a
good hand at field surgery—from necessity at first, then I rather liked it.
It’s a good thing to know when you’re on the field and your men are falling
everywhere, and you need every hand you can muster.”

If the water had stung, the salve was agony. Alf’s jaw
clenched against it. With infinite slowness it passed, bound beneath the clean
bandages.

Carefully but firmly Richard completed the last binding. Alf
mustered the will to move, at least to turn his head. The King had fallen
silent, sitting very close, his gaze very steady.

Alf’s throat dried. Between exhaustion and pain, he had
closed his mind against invasion—and against perception. He had only done as he
was bidden, gone where he was sent, endured until he might rest. Bringing
himself to this.

The King would not ask. Not openly. Nor would he compel.
Yet, at ease though he seemed, every muscle had drawn taut.

Richard laid his hand on Alf’s brow as if to test for fever.
“You’re burning,” he said. But his palm was hotter still.

Alf swallowed painfully. He was not afraid, but he could
have wept. Should have, perhaps. Richard hated tears; they put him in mind of
women.

Alf forced himself to speak in his wonted voice, light,
cool, oblivious. “It’s not a fever I have, Sire. I’m always so. My power causes
it.” He managed the shadow of a smile, moving as if to seek comfort for his
back, sliding as by chance from beneath the King’s hand. “It’s a very great
advantage in a monk. All those cold vigils...I make a wonderfully effortless
ascetic.”

That shook laughter from Richard, though it held less mirth
than pain. “There’s no need for a vigil tonight. I’ll look after myself. Lie
down and sleep—the bed’s big enough for my whole army.”

“Sire—”

“Lie down.”

There was a growl in Richard’s voice, the hint of a warning.
Mutely Alf obeyed him. It could not matter now what people thought or said, and
the bed was celestially soft.

Richard stripped with dispatch and without modesty, took his
generous half of the bed, and fell asleep at once. There was a royal secret, to
lose no sleep over what could not be mended.

Alf had no such fortune. Now that he was almost in comfort,
laid in the bed he had longed for since midmorning, his strength had begun to
repair itself; it grew and spread, filling him, driving back the mists from
body and brain.

For a long while he lay awake, now on his side, now on his
face. The lamp sputtered and died.

Richard snored gently. In the hall a hound snarled. A man
cursed; the hound yelped and was abruptly still.

At last Alf rose, moving softly lest he wake the King. He
drew on his shirt, gathered his cloak about him.

The stair from the hall continued upward to emerge on the
barbican. The wind smote Alf’s face, clear and cold; the stars blazed in a sky
from which all clouds had fled.

He turned his eyes to them and breathed deep. His exhaustion
had vanished, and with it his heart’s trouble. He felt as light and hollow as
he had in the trial, stripped of his vows and of his sanctity, made anew,
squire-at-arms of the King of Anglia.

His hand went to his head. His hair was growing with speed
as unhuman as his face; in a month or a little more, no one would know that he
had ever been a priest.

Even here, even now, his host had regarded him with interest
but no curiosity, taking him for a young nobleman whose family had recalled him
from the priesthood. Such men were common enough.

And could he play that part as he had played the other?
Fifty years a priest and a scholar, fifty years a squire, a knight, a lord of
the world. And then—what then? Priest again, or something else?

The stars returned no answer. They were older than he and
wiser, and content to be what they were. They did not need a flogging to shake
them into their senses.

Carefully, gingerly, he flexed his shoulders. With time and
patience he would heal; the pain was his penance.

The pain and the scars. His vanity had suffered nearly as
much as his flesh itself.

Someone mounted the steps. He moved away, pricked
irrationally to annoyance. The newcomer paused as if to get his bearings, then
turned toward him. He leaned on the parapet and pretended to be absorbed in his
thoughts.

“Little Brother,” said a voice he knew very well indeed,
“are you so sorry to see me?”

Thea regarded him with eyes that caught the starlight,
turning it to green fire. He had forgotten how very fair she was.

“Thea,” he said through the thundering in his blood.
“Althea. I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“I? I’m not so easily disposed of. Besides,” she added, “I
had this.” She held out her hand. Silver gleamed in it. “I knew you’d want it
back.”

He did not move to take the cross. “Keep it.”

“It’s yours.”

He shook his head. “I gave it to you. You can sell it if you
don't want it.”

“Of course I want it!” she snapped. “But it belongs to you.
Will you take it or do I have to throw it at you?”

He kept his hands behind his back. “I’m not a priest now.
I’m the King’s squire. I want you to keep the cross.”

“That is supposed to be a logical progression?”

The blood rose to his cheeks. “Will you please keep it?”

Thea’s fingers closed over the cross. “All right. I will. Though
I know what your Abbot will say.”

“Morwin will say that I had a noble impulse, and leave it at
that.”

“Will he?”

Alf turned outward, letting the wind cool his face.

“I’ve met him,” she said. “I like him. He’s wise and
sensible, and he’s not at all afraid of the female race.”

“All that I lack, he has.” Alf glanced at her. “Alun let you
find St. Ruan’s.”

“Finally,” she said. Her voice changed, hardened. “And no
wonder it took him so long. Prince Aidan is going to raise Heaven and Hell when
he sees what’s been done to his brother.”

“Not if Alun can help it.”

“Alun is going to have his hands full. And since he’s only
got one he can use, he’s likely to lose the fight.”

“He didn't lose it to you.”

“I’m not Prince Aidan.”

“So I noticed.”

She laughed. “Why, Brother! You've grown eyes.”

“My name is Alf. I'd thank you to call me by it.”

“Pride, too,” she said to herself. “The monk’s becoming a
man.”

“I was always proud, though maybe I was never much of a
man.”

“Don’t say that as if you believed it.” She stood very close
to him, almost touching; the wind blew a strand of her hair across his face.
“What did you think of my miracle?”

He could hardly think at all. Yet words came; he spoke them.
“We're part of local hagiography now. The saint, and the angel who saved him
from the fire. The Paulines are furious.”

“I meant them to be. But what did you think?”

“I thought you were blasphemous, sacrilegious, devious, and
splendid.”

“Not hateful?”

“Maybe a little,” he admitted.

“Swiftly and virtuously suppressed. Alfred of St. Ruan’s, I
don’t know why I endure you.”

“I’m afraid I do.”

“Afraid, little Brother?”

“Afraid, little sister.”

“Now I know how to break you of your bad habits. Peel you
out of your habit, clap you in chains, and whip you soundly.”

“And threaten to burn the woman I—a woman of my own kind.”

“The woman you what?"

He would not answer.

She made a small exasperated noise. “It’s the tender maid
who’s supposed to blush and simper and pretend to be modest. Why don’t you come
out and say it?”

“Why don’t you?”

For the first time since he had known her, he saw her blush.

Brazen, shameless Thea, who had cast defiance in the face of
holy Church and set out coolly to seduce a priest—Thea blushed scarlet, and
could not say a word.

Her confusion gave him more courage than he had ever thought
he had. “It was easy enough when I was only a pretty innocent to tease me into
tears. Then you realized that I mattered. I, not the diffident little Brother,
not the fool who tried to fall on his sword because he discovered that he could
use one, and to be put to death because he couldn’t face himself. When you flew
out of the fire, you mocked all my pretensions; you made me see them for what
they were.”

“I’d have done that for anyone,” she said sharply.

With breathtaking boldness he touched her cheek. It was very
soft. "Would you have come back for anyone?”

“The cross—”

“Morwin could have kept it for me. It was his first.”

“You are the worst possible combination of divine wisdom and
absolute idiocy.”

“And you are as prickly as a thorn tree and as tender as its
blossom.” He laughed a little, breathlessly. “Thea, you make my head whirl; and
I’m still in orders though I’ve suspended myself from my title and my duties.
What are we going to do?”

“You can go and pray and mortify your flesh. I—” She tossed
her head proudly. "I’ll find myself another Lombard prince and run away
again.”

“Maybe that would be best.”

She whirled upon him. “Don’t you even care?”

“I care that I can’t be your lover, and that we would only
torment one another.”

“You’re not a gelding.”

“No. I’m worse. I’m a priest who believes in his vows. And
you care now for me, or you’d have seduced me long since. Your thorns are thick
and cruel, Thea, but your heart is surpassingly gentle.”