Hounds of God (38 page)

How he hated that beautiful voice, half boy, half man, all
Christianly compassionate. “Let him go, my lady. He’ll do no harm
now.”

Small comfort that his sweetness cloyed on her too. She
reared up into woman-form, with the decency at least to witch herself into her
dress as she did it; her response was blistering, and ingenious. Even Saint
Alfred flinched a little, although his angelic perfection restored itself in an
eyeblink. “Thea Damaskena,” he rebuked her, “this is no place
for—”

“You could have been killed!” she shouted at
him.

The silence was thunderous. No one had the will or the wits
to break it. Paul dared at last to sit up, to glares from the witch and the
bishop and the deaf-mute boy, but none prevented him. Maybe, just maybe, there
was a little hope left. Canon law was canon law, and it was most strict
regarding sorcery. With which both witches had been blatantly free.

Honorius looked old and worn, beaten down by the weight of
law and truth and the grim need to judge both fairly and in accordance with his
office. His curse; he could not yield to plain expedience, nor force himself
into Alberich’s simple and immovable conviction.

“Holy Father.” Fra Giovanni’s voice was
faint but not timid; excitement, not fear, had taken his breath away. “Holy
Father, there is a way out of this tangle. My lord named it himself. When their
kingdom is safe, he said, they will all go away. They’ve made a place for
themselves; they’ll take it out of the world. Isn’t that what
everyone wants? They can’t bear us any more easily than we can bear them;
this way they’re gone and safe, and we’re free of the stain of
their murder.”

Father Alberich nodded. “There is wisdom in what you say,
Brother. Yet gone is not dead. And what if they choose to put it off? When
their kingdom is safe, the sorcerer promises, they will depart. How do they
reckon safety? Their King was King for fourscore years, and very many of those
were years of stainless peace, yet he clung to his throne. Now that war and
Interdict have wrought their havoc, must we wait another fourscore years for
the land to be healed? How long can they prolong their presence in the world of
men?”

“Not one more year.” Alf measured each word with
equal, leaden force. The face he turned to them all was as white as bleached
bone, and old; so old that only deathless youth could embody it. He raised his
hands. They were empty; they were laden with power. “I said that I must
labor to hold up my shields against mortal thoughts. I have labored thus for
every day of my life, every day of every year of fourscore and ten. And I am
weary. Were I a man I would find rest in death. Since I am not a man, I can
only dream of a place apart, among my own people, where all have power and none
can die, and no fear or hate or human pity can come to torment me.”

He flexed his fingers; he closed them; he caught the Pope’s
eyes and held them. “Holiness, when I was young, before I knew I would
not die, I used to dream sometimes of a text I loved. ‘Come to me, all ye
that labour and are laden, and I will give you rest.’ Can you know—can
you imagine—what it did to me to grow into the knowledge that my dream
was a lie? For men, yes, there was an end. For me there was none.”

The Father General spoke almost sharply, cutting across the
Pope’s response. “If the tale you have told is true, this new tale
is a lie. You cannot die, but you can be killed, and on the other side of death
is peace. Were you in truth so desperate for it, you would not fight this
battle for your life.”

“What will content you?” Alf demanded. “Would
my death suffice to gain the lives of my kin? If I give myself to you and your
fire, will you consent to see my people depart behind the walls of Broceliande?”

“If I knew you could be trusted not to wriggle away—”

“Enough!”
thundered the Pope. They all gaped. None would have dreamed that he had such
power in him. Much more quietly he said, “There will be no bargains
struck except as I strike them. You, Lord Chancellor, have the disposition of a
martyr, self-sacrificing to the point of parody. You on the other hand, Father
General, would serve admirably in the part of the unregenerate Saul of Tarsus.
Beware lest your road to Damascus become the road to Broceliande.”

He left his chair, which suddenly was a throne; he drew
himself to his full height. “You promise to depart. Lord Alfred, but in
this much Father Alberich speaks the truth. You do not bind yourself. Your
weariness may pass when you see what is to be done in Rhiyana; and I forbid you
to linger. It is Lent now. If by Pentecost you are not gone, you and all your
people, I will hand you over to my Hounds. Then indeed, and justly, shall you
burn.”

Alf paused. Thea was silent, walled in stillness. Jehan had
started forward, then stopped, face set and grey. Only Nikki who had been but a
pair of eyes through all of this, who had kept silence of mind as well as body,
ventured to raise a hand, to widen his eyes. Protest, assent, part and part.

Alf sank to one knee. His head bowed. His voice came slow
yet strong. “Let it be done according to your will.”

Honorius said nothing, did nothing. Paul’s thwarted
rage, Alberich’s reluctant acceptance, rang like shouts in Alf’s
mind. From the Pope came only blankness. Alf looked up under his brows.
Honorius gazed down in deep and somewhat painful thought; but Alf could not
read it. Sometimes humans could do that. They could think sidewise, and evade
easy reading. Nikki, with power behind him, had perfected the art; unless he
wished it, he could not be read at all, or even sensed.

When at length the Pope spoke, it was to the Paulines. “Father
Alberich, Brother Paul, what you have done is beyond forgiving. You have
deceived me with lies and half-truths, you have abused your vows and your
offices, you have proved yourselves not merely false witnesses but hypocrites.
Your weapon is broken and your plot unveiled; your Order should be scoured from
the earth. But I have some wisdom left. The great mass of your Brothers are
innocent of your wrongdoing; many possess a true and laudable zeal for their
calling, which is to preserve the Church’s orthodoxy against the attacks
of heretics. For their sakes, and indeed for your own—for however blind
and misguided, you remain my spiritual sons—I shall be merciful. You are
not suspended from your vows. You are not removed from your Order. But you are
bidden to leave the world for a time. Brief or long, I do not know, nor do I
prescribe; only that you wake to full knowledge of what you have done.”

He waited; after a moment they bowed, both, and kissed the
hand he held to them. “Go now. Hold yourselves to your cloister. I will
see that you are sent where I judge best.”

As Paul passed Alf, he hesitated as if he would have spoken,
or struck, or spat. Thea advanced warningly; Honorius raised his hand. With a
last long look—a glare, yet tinged just perceptibly with something very
like admiration, the acknowledgment of enemy and strong enemy—Paul spun
away.

Alberich too paused. He did not threaten; he only searched
Alf’s face, carefully, as if he could find there some thing of value that
he had lost. His faith, perhaps. His certainty that he had chosen the path of
God.

With his going, the air lightened visibly. But indeed,
beyond the walls it was dawn. Far away on the edge of human hearing, a cock
crowed.

Honorius started a little, foolishly. None of his guests,
the one invited or the four not, melted away into nothingness. If anything,
they seemed the more solid for the day’s coming.

Again he looked down into Alf’s eyes. He would not see
them again, and he was not grieved to know it, although the knowledge grew out
of no hate nor even any dislike. They were too alien for mortal comfort, too
much like a cat’s and too much like a man’s and too little like
either. But worse, infinitely worse, was the truth he saw there.

“‘A priest forever,’” the Pope
whispered, “‘in the order—of—’”

“No,” Alf said more softly still, in something
very close to desperation. “I cannot. I must not. You must not even think
of it.”

“I, never. You threaten the roots of my faith; you
menace the very foundations of my Church. I pray God that I have not erred
beyond human forgiveness in granting you only exile, and not the finality of
death.”

The fair inhuman face was still. It did not stoop to beg or
to plead. It had heard the will of Cencio Savelli. It waited upon the will of
the Vicar of Christ.

Honorius laid his hands upon the bowed head. He felt the
tremors that racked the body beneath. He willed his voice to be steady. “When
you have passed the borders of your secret country, you will pass beyond the
reach of man, and of the Church of this mortal world. But not, not ever, of
God.”

Alf sank down and down, prostrate at the Pope’s feet.
So must he have lain on the day he was made a priest. Had he trembled so? Had
he so frightened that long-dead bishop as he did this aging Bishop of Rome?

“I leave you to God,” Honorius said. “Remember
Him. Serve Him. And may He and His Son and His Spirit of truth shine upon you,
and guide you, and lead you into His wisdom. Whatever that may be.” The
Pope signed him with the cross; and hesitated, and signed them all.

Then at last they had mercy. They left him. But glad though
he was to be free of their presence, he knew he would never be free of their
memory. They had taken with them the surety of his faith, and his heart’s
peace.

They walked back to San Girolamo, by common consent, for
time to think. The morning that swelled about them was like the first morning
of the world: splendid with the victory of light against darkness; muted with
the promise of the darkness’ return.

Alf passed through it in silence, and yet it was not the
silence of grief. He walked lightly, easily, as if a bitter burden had fallen
from his shoulders. He even smiled, remembering Fra Giovanni’s farewell.
The Minorite had kissed him and asked his blessing, and persisted until he
consented to give it, and said then with quiet conviction, “Now I know
beyond doubting that God walks in the world.
All
the world.”

Simple words enough, and truth that was self-evident. But
the friar’s face when he said it, the joy with which he spoke, had warmed
Alf to the marrow.

It matters that much
to you, doesn’t it?
Nikki was beside him, trotting to keep pace, lips
a little tight with what the jarring was doing to his arm.

Alf slowed in compunction and settled his arm about the boy’s
shoulders. “What’s the trouble, Nikephoros? Do I puzzle you?”

Nikki shrugged.
No
more than you ever do. It was all very interesting to watch
.

“Greek to the last,” said Thea on his other
side, arm slipping round his waist. When he frowned at her, she laughed and
kissed his cheek. “It’s over, Nikki. We’ve won. Don’t
you want to sing?”

I can’t
. He
pulled away from them both, half running toward the loom of the Colosseum.

They exchanged glances. His back was straight and
unyielding, his mind walled and barred. “Akestas,” Thea said.

Alf shook his head slightly. But he did not stretch his
pace. His mind was clear, intent, looking ahead now, seeing what it had still
to face. They had won in Rome, perhaps; but not yet in Rhiyana.

oOo

Nikki did not come back with the others. Not that anyone
seemed to care. Jehan and Thea were full of victory, vying to tell the whole of
it; Alf absorbed himself in his children. Liahan had learned to smile, and
Cynan had discovered speech. “Father,” he cried insatiably. “Father,
Father, Father!”

Stefania retreated from the clamor. She understood as much
of it as she needed to. They had got what they wanted, the witch-folk. Brother Oddone
ventured so far as to favor Thea with a quick shy smile. Prior Giacomo was
grimly amused, but glad too, as if all this proved that he had not erred in
taking them into his abbey. None of them asked where Nikephoros was, or why he
had vanished.

She found her cloak and slipped toward the door. She did not
know precisely where she was going. First she had to find her way out of San
Girolamo, not the easiest of tasks; the monks stared, which was disconcerting,
or sternly refused to stare, which was worse. It was all she could do to walk
calmly, not to run like a wild thing trapped in a maze.

The gate was blessed relief. She ran through it down the road
into the city.

Nikephoros was nowhere between the abbey and the scrivener’s
shop, nor was he in the rooms above. As a last resort she peered into the
tavern. It was very early yet, but a few devoted winebibbers bent over their
cups. Just as she turned away, she saw him. He had found the darkest corner,
and he was drinking with the dedication of a man who means to drown his
sorrows.

“It doesn’t work, you know,” she said.

He had closed himself off again. She caught his face in her
hands and made him look at her. His eyes were awash with the wine, but his
mouth was bitter. He offered her his cup; she shook her head. He drained it
with a flourish that would have made her smile, if he had not been so
desperate.

Have you seen the
deaf-mute begging in the piazza?
he asked much too calmly, setting the cup
on the table in front of him.
An
appalling creature. Malodorous. Ill-favored. First cousin to the Barbary ape.

She drew up a stool and sat, eyes never leaving his face. “I
find him pitiable.”

He hurled the cup at the wall. It shattered; the shards
dropped heavily, scattering on the ill-swept floor. People turned to stare; the
wine-seller lumbered forward scowling. Nikki flung him a handful of coins and
staggered up, dragging Stefania with him into the merciless sunlight.

She dug in her heels. Abruptly he let her go; she fell
backward. He caught her. For a long moment they poised, stretched at arm’s
length like partners in a spinning dance. She firmed her feet beneath her. His
hand opened, dropped. All at once he looked very ill.