Hounds of God Read online

  Late as he had come to his people, strong as he had been even then, and wise as the long years had made him, he was no more immune than any child to this elation of newborn magic. But a child had inborn defenses lost to the man grown: he tired swiftly, and he slept as now Cynan slept, all his fires banked and guarded.

  Alf raised himself on one elbow. Jehan was snoring gently. Cynan curled like the pup he had been, back to the warmth. His thumb had worked its way into his mouth.

  Love indeed could pierce like a sword, and its other edge was loss. The winning of his son only made the keener the absence of his lady and his daughter. It shore away the armor he had forged so carefully of hope and patience; it thrust deep into the soft heart beneath.

  Hope and patience had gained him something. He had Anna; he had Cynan. The madman’s caprice had cast them out as easily as it snatched them away. And Simon Magus did not know that his strongest enemy lived. He thought he had no opponent now, no one who could thwart him, only toys to be tormented as a cat torments a mouse.

  But Thea had been able to hold him off. She had failed to trick him into discarding both her children. What now would he do to her? More: What would he do to Liahan?

  Alf was on his feet. Four feet. The power, in the moment of its master’s preoccupation, had had its way.

  The leopard’s muscles drove him around the room in a restless prowl; the leopard’s instincts cried to him to begin the hunt in earnest.

  But where? demanded the enchanter’s brain. Neither Anna nor Cynan knew where they had been held prisoner. There could be no scent to follow, no spoor to lead him to his prey.

  Or could there? He returned to the bed, setting his chin on its edge, measuring its occupants with his eyes. Cynan greeted the touch of his power with the faintest quiver of gladness, welcoming him into a dream of warmth and peace; his fetch filled it already, a towering shape armed and armored with light.

  Very gently he freed himself from the dream and advanced beyond it. The path he had taken before was blazed for him, but only for him.

  Once he sensed an intruder, a stab of something alien, repulsed too quickly for recognition. It might have been Simon Magus. It might have been merely a fugitive human thought loosed unwittingly in sleep.

  Deeper and deeper. There waited the young alaunt, shifting as he approached, blurring into a multitude of forms. Carefully he skirted it.

  It tried to follow, but could not keep pace with his smooth leopard’s stalk. With visible regret it turned back.

  He had not far to go now. Deeper than this and he would be trapped, bound forever within Cynan’s brain, or else repulsed with force enough to destroy them both. He must hold to the line, narrow as a sword’s edge, tracing it with utmost care.

  Somewhere, if knowledge and instinct guided him truly, was a thread. A link like a birth-cord, tenuous as woven moonlight but strong as steel.

  Alun had had it. Gwydion, Aidan—they had it although time had thinned and faded it, the bond of a child borne in the body of an elf-woman, conceived and carried in power. Thea would have made it stronger in defending her children against the enemy, and perhaps Simon would not have known of it. It lay too deep and stretched too thin for easy finding.

  There. Moonlight and steel, yes; a glint of bronze. An essence that was Thea, maddeningly faint.

  He wavered on the sword’s edge, rocked with longing for her. Grimly he willed himself to be still.

  One foot slipped. He clawed for safety. Caught the thread itself; clung. It began to bend.

  With all his inner strength, he flung himself back and out, but never letting go the bond. It was finer than thread, finer than hair, finer than spider silk. One slip and it was lost, irrecoverable.

  He had it. The alaunt’s form flashed past. The levels of Cynan’s mind flickered, higher and higher, growing brighter and shallower as he ascended.

  On the edge of Cynan’s dream he forced a halt. Carefully, delicately, he wound the strand about his body. Then at last he flowed from spirit into altered flesh.

  Exhaustion bowed him down. Urgency raised him, drove him toward the door. It was not latched; he nosed it open.

  Man-scent filled his nostrils. His hackles rose; his lips wrinkled. Dimly he knew he should retreat, take his own shape. But the leopard’s body had already borne him into the courtyard, oozing from shadow to shadow.

  His will sufficed only to drive it into a deeper shadow, the postern of the chapel. Someone had left the door propped ajar, whether for laziness or for some tryst. Warily he peered round the panel.

  The whole world stank of man and of incense. He saw no one, heard nothing. Inch by inch he insinuated himself into a niche, an angle of wall between the foremost stall and the first step of the altar dais. Instinct as deep as the beast’s caution bade him stop here, pray, seek Heaven’s sanction for his hunt. None but God need ever know in what form he did it.

  He moved into the light of the vigil lamp. The beast’s mind screamed danger; the monk that was grew all the stronger for it, all the more determined to sanctify the hunt with holy words. He bowed as best he could, crouching with his head between his forepaws, lifting his eyes to the crucifix. It glimmered like the thread he must follow. Let me find her, he beseeched it. Help me.

  oOo

  Oddone woke too early for the Night Office, but with no desire to lie abed. He rose and put on his habit and went to the chapel to meditate until the rest of the Brothers should come.

  One, it seemed, was there already, a pale blur in front of the altar. But the Jeromite habit was brown. And this was not quite— He narrowed his weak eyes; he drew closer to it. No, it did not look like a man. Not at all. It looked like—

  His breath hissed loud in the silence. The creature whipped about all of a piece, as a cat would. A cat as big as a mastiff, dappled white and silver like the moon.

  Oddone was much too astounded to be afraid. One heard of saints who found creatures of the wood worshipping at their altars, particularly on Christmas night. But not in Lent and not in Rome, and certainly not any creature as uncanny as this. It must have been a leopard, if any leopard could be so huge and so very pale.

  He crossed himself slowly, in large part to see what would happen. The beast did not burst in a shower of sparks. Not that he had honestly expected it to. He was sure it had been praying.

  It did not attack. It watched him, in fact, if not with benevolence—those eyes were far too fierce for that—at least without hostility. He knelt with considerable care, as close as he dared, and crossed himself again. Bowing his head, he gathered his wits. He had come after all to pray, not to stare at a prodigy.

  His wits, gathered, kept scattering. The leopard bulked huge in the middle of them. His throat knew exactly where its fangs would close, if it decided rather to be a good leopard than a good Christian. He was not the stuff of which saints were made, secure in the knowledge of God’s protection: his reason knew it, to be sure, but his instincts could not so easily be persuaded. His eyes opened of themselves and shot a glance sidewise.

  No leopard. No—

  A man. He sat on his heels as if exhausted, head and shoulders bowed, long pale hair hiding his face. Not that Oddone needed to see it, or knew surprise when it lifted to reveal itself. “Signor’ Alfred,” he said quite calmly.

  “Brother,” was the calm response. Alf crossed himself, bowed low to the altar, flowed and melted. His eyes, Oddone noticed, were the same in the beast as in the man. They lidded; the great strange creature turned and lost itself in darkness. Oddone sent a prayer after it, for charity.

  27.

  The earth quaked. Towers fell; mountains split and belched forth fire. “Jehan!” they roared. “Father Jehan, for God’s sake!”

  He tumbled into wakefulness, heart thudding with urgency, body half erect. The world was quite solidly still; the bed had stopped its rocking. Anna looked ready to begin again, with ample help from a wild-eyed Nikki; he saw someone else behind them, a girl he did not know, who looked a
little weary and more than a little troubled, but considerably saner than the rest. He addressed her with all the politeness he could muster this close to sleep. “Your pardon, demoiselle, but what exactly is the trouble?”

  She understood his langue d’oeil, but she answered in Latin. “I’m not sure I know, Father. We were in my house talking, and Nikephoros went all wild; he pulled Anna out of bed and ran here.”

  Nikki’s impatience was as fierce as a slap. It’s Alf. He’s gone. Vanished. Lost. I can’t find him in my mind at all.

  Jehan looked about somewhat stupidly. “He’s not here. Where—” His brain caught up with his tongue at last. He shook his sleep-sodden head and yawned until his jaw cracked. “Gone, you say? What do you mean?”

  He’s always in my mind, Nikki said, on the edges, like a wall. But suddenly, a little while ago, he dropped away. Just like that. Completely.

  “He was here.” Jehan started to rise, paused. Mutely Anna handed him his shirt. He pulled it over his head, and stood to put on his habit. The stranger, who must have been Nikki’s Stefania, regarded his bulk with a great deal of respect, but she answered his smile with one both fine and fearless. “Maybe he’s just gone to the chapel. It’s almost time for Night Office; and you know how absolutely he can concentrate on his prayers.”

  “We looked,” Anna said flatly “He’s not there.”

  And when he prays, he’s more there than ever. Nikki’s mind-voice snapped out with sudden force. Cynan! Where is your father?

  Bright eyes peered from amid a nest of blankets. There was no sleep in them, nor any alarm. Gone, Cynan answered. He’s looking for Mother.

  Jehan caught Nikki before he could bolt, and held him fast. The boy was as quick as a cat, but he was no match for sheer Norman muscle. “Calm down, lad. You’re not going to get him back with your temper.”

  When Nikki had held still for a long count of breaths, Jehan set him down. The look he shot from beneath his lowered brows promised dire vengeance. But not quite yet.

  Deliberately, carefully, he said, My brother has gone stark raving mad. Even if he can find Thea, even if the trail is no delusion, the enemy will surely know he hunts. He doesn’t have me, and he doesn’t have my art. He can’t make himself invisible.

  “He seems to have done just that,” Jehan pointed out.

  “Then Simon Magus has him.” Anna sank down to the tumbled bed, rubbing her temples as if they ached. “I was afraid of this. We were let go too easily. We were bait, I think. Or Cynan was.”

  He appeared beside her on all fours and climbed into her lap. Clumsily he patted her cheek. Don’t cry, Anna. He’s strong. He won’t let the other one win.

  He won’t have any choice, Nikki said bitterly.

  Stefania went to him in silence. He hid his face in her hair.

  A new voice broke the tableau, a faint tuneless voice, trembling with shyness. “Please,” it said. “Brother Jehan, please, I—”

  Oddone looked like a frightened rabbit, shocked into immobility by the sight of two strangers. Two women, here, staring at him until he could hardly think. But he had his own kind of courage. He repeated Jehan’s name, albeit in a dying fall.

  “Brother Oddone.” Jehan spoke gently as to an animal, careful to betray neither surprise nor dismay. God alone knew what the man had heard, and God knew what he thought of it. “Come in, Brother, don’t be afraid. This is Nikephoros’ sister, and this is his good friend, a lady of your own city. They’ve brought news that couldn’t wait for morning.”

  As if Jehan’s words had been beckoning hands, Oddone ventured into the room. A step, two, three. A deep breath; he plunged the full distance, all the way to the brazier with the women on the other side of it. The color came and went in his face. He kept his eyes fixed on Jehan, who was solid, male, and blessedly familiar. “Brother, I heard what you were saying. About—about the Lord Alfred. How he hunts. I saw him when he went.”

  Nikki started forward. Stefania caught him. He stood stock-still.

  The monk blinked. His weak eyes looked dazzled; he smiled, remembering. “He was a wonder to see. He prayed, and I know God heard him. I saw him change. Is his the sort of quarry that were better hunted by a leopard?”

  “A what?” Jehan burst out before he thought.

  “A leopard,” Oddone repeated patiently. “I saw a leopard praying in the chapel. Then it was Signor’ Alfred, then it was a leopard again. He looked deeply troubled, but I think God comforted him a little.”

  “But Alf can’t—” Anna began.

  He can now. Nikki chewed his lip. He seemed a little calmer. It might have worked. It just might.

  “What?” Jehan spoke for all of them.

  Nikki shook his head, clearing it. If a person—if a witch changes shape, sometimes, with care, he can seem a beast to the mind as to the eye. It’s not invisibility, but it’s close enough. His face tightened again. But it can’t work. A leopard prowling Rome—why couldn’t he have had the sense to be an ordinary cat?

  A cat is too small, said Cynan.

  A leopard is too damnably big. Especially that one. All but albino in the middle of the night, terrorizing the city… Damn him for a lovestruck fool.

  “The city isn’t terrorized yet, is it?” Jehan had to be reasonable. Otherwise he would lie down and howl.

  Nikki sat beside his sister. Dropped, in truth, as if he could no longer muster the strength to stand. Is that the way we’ll all go? One by one, without hope or help. Maybe I should simply turn myself in. Simon won’t touch the rest of you, I don’t think. It’s witches he wants.

  Jehan scowled, pulling at his beard. Even Cynan seemed to have caught Nikki’s despair, drooping in Anna’s lap, shivering slightly. She gathered her cloak about him with absentminded competence.

  “This,” Stefania said clearly, “has gone far enough. Not that I understand precisely what’s happening, but it seems to me that you aren’t trying very hard to fight back.”

  We can’t, Nikki muttered.

  “Have you tried?” She rounded on Jehan. “Father, will you tell me what all of this is supposed to mean?”

  Jehan hesitated only briefly. She knew too much as it was; the rest could not hurt. It might even help. She looked like an extraordinarily intelligent woman. Swiftly and succinctly he told the tale; when he had gone as far as he could, Anna took his place. None of it seemed to shock her, but then she had heard the worst of it already.

  Stefania had sat down while they spoke, taking Alf’s customary chair by the brazier. She remained there after they finished. Her eyes when she pondered were the deepest of blues, almost black; she would have looked forbidding if she had not nibbled, childlike, on the end of her braid.

  “This Simon,” she said slowly. “Anna, did you ever see anyone else but him and his master? No one ever looked in, or seemed to be outside when the others were with you?”

  “No,” Anna answered. “No.” The second time she was less firm. “I never saw anyone else.”

  Stefania frowned. “That’s very odd, you know. They held you prisoner for so long even before they let you see them, and then Simon at least was there almost constantly. But you weren’t held in a hut somewhere apart from the world. You say the passage was long and full of doors.”

  “And with a door at the end.”

  “Open?”

  “Open.” That struck Anna; she sat up straighter, her brow wrinkling as she called back the memory. “I saw light beyond. It looked like daylight, though it was dim. We couldn’t have been in a deep dungeon. But I don’t see how—”

  “The other doors. What were they like?”

  “Doors. All on one side, the same side as ours. Only ours had a bolt. The rest were simply latched. They didn’t look as if anyone ever used them.”

  “You were on the edge of—something. Where no one else seemed to go.”

  “A fortress,” Jehan said.

  “Or a ruin.” Anna frowned. “It did look old. But not decrepit. You’ll bear in mind that th
e one time I escaped, I wasn’t noticing much, and the light was bad. And Rome is full of well-preserved relics.”

  Stefania nodded. “So it is. But no relic in that state of repair can be unclaimed. If we can learn where the Paulines have their houses—”

  “It need not be a Pauline possession,” Jehan pointed out. “The Order has a number of powerful friends. But we’ve been exploring every possible avenue for weeks now. If any human being knew where our people are, if any prince or prelate had given our enemies leave to keep prisoners in his domain, we’d have known it long since.”

  Unless Simon prevented it. Nikki straightened. Isn’t any of you taking time to wonder what sent Alf out so suddenly, without even calling me to help? He wouldn’t have gone blindly. He must have known where he was going.

  “Simon let him catch a glimpse of Thea,” Anna suggested. “Simon hates him, you know. Maybe because they’re so much alike. Could they be brothers, Father Jehan? Alf’s never known either of his parents, and Simon never knew his father.”

  Jehan shuddered. Somehow he could not face the prospect of a renegade enchanter roaming the world and begetting sons and never tarrying to see what became of them. Even if one had grown into Alf. It was too heedless. Too inhuman.

  Nikki’s eye caught him. Inhuman? How many mortal lords did just that? Not to mention legions of soldiers and wanderers and clerics. God’s bones, Jehan thought. A wandering wizard-monk without morals or scruples—now there was a vision to make a strong man quake. “And it’s useless,” he said roughly. “Wherever they came from, we’ve got the grown men to contend with, and I think we can assume that they’re about to come face to face if they haven’t already. So what’s to be done? How did Alf know where to go?”

  He’s in me, Cynan said. As they all turned upon him, he flinched, baring his teeth like the hound he had been. He follows the birth-bond. The thread that ties me to my mother. You’re not to go after him, and you can’t find the bond. It’s down too deep and it’s much too thin. He says you have to wait here and be patient, and if he needs you, you’ll know.