Hounds of God Page 26

  Steel fingers snapped shut about his wrist. Simon regarded him coolly, eyes focused full upon him. The power waged its war upon Rhiyana; shielded itself from Rhiyanan retribution; toyed with the little creatures who had bearded it in its lair. But it was losing patience. Its prey had learned not to confront it; teased it, eluded it, made itself four and two and one and greater-than-one.

  Strength mattered little in such a battle. Subtlety it had never studied. It had never needed to.

  Nikki, caught, struggling vainly, saw Simon’s focus sharpen; felt the power shake off a score of trivialities—a dozen forays against Rhiyana’s walls, a handful of spies in Caer Gwent, a thought maturing in a cardinal’s mind. Here was an anomaly. A human with power. A living being who dared to bring steel against the hand of God. Dared, and had not died.

  He would die. Slowly. With effortless, ruthless strength, Simon snapped the boy’s wrist.

  And screamed. Nikki’s mind, white with agony, had opened wide; and the eye of Simon’s power was fixed upon him. The dart of pain plunged deep and deep and deep. Simon fell writhing, all his myriad magics crumbling, no room for aught in mind or body but the reverberation of pain.

  Nikki won the mercy of unconsciousness. Not so Brother Simon. The pain had caught him and bound him in its ceaseless circle. He could not escape. He could not heal it. The body was not his own; Nikki’s will, unconscious, still repelled him with blind persistence.

  Alf fought free of the nightmare. They were all in a heap, he and his lady and his children. Gently but firmly he pried Liahan’s arms from his neck. Witch-children were never beautiful; that came with blossoming into man or woman. Yet she was a lovely child, great-eyed, with a cloud of spun-silver hair about a solemn face. Poor infant, she had never learned to smile. He kissed her and set her with her brother in her mother’s lap.

  They were all in his mind, interwoven, as he knelt above Simon. Now we can take him, Thea said, and Cynan who was fully as fierce as she. Liahan was a wordless reluctance. Alf looked down at the body of the one who had wrought so much havoc, and considered justice. Considered vengeance. Remembered compassion.

  He can’t live! Thea cried. Can’t you feel it? He’s working loose. The earth is trembling. The stars are beginning to wobble in their courses. When he’s free, our deaths will be the very least of it.

  He knew. He was a seer again; he saw clearly what she could only guess. Simon’s wrath, maddened beyond all hope of healing, would make do with no small revenge. It would reach. It would strike. What it had done to Alun, it would do to the sun itself. And then, in a storm of fire, world’s end.

  He shook his head. He did not know what he denied. It was too much—it was too horrible. He was not strong enough to do what he must do. Even the simplest way…Nikki’s dagger lay abandoned on the floor. He could not take it up.

  Thea’s will lashed him. Fool that he was; he had done justice before, long ago in Saint Ruan’s, for the murder of a single man. Why was he so slow now, when the crimes were so much blacker?

  That other criminal had been pure enemy, and human. This…this could have been himself. If he had grown up as Simon had; if he had not known the mystical peace of Ynys Witrin, that could sanctify even elf-blood, defending it from human hatred.

  He had been stoned in the streets of the village, he had faced more than one Brother Radbod, but he had always had that rock, the surety that he was loved. His nurse had loved him in her fashion; after her a Brother or two, a teacher, a very wise abbot; and a red-haired fellow novice who became fellow monk and fellow priest, who rose above him as abbot and died at the hands of a madman, and that madman had died in his own turn by Alf’s hand. But Alf had not gone away desolate; he had had Jehan, he had had King Richard, and Gwydion, and Thea. He had always been rich in friendship; in love.

  Simon had nothing. Terrible as that was for a mortal man, for his kind it was beyond endurance. No wonder he was mad. No wonder he had tried to destroy his own people.

  “But,” Alf whispered as the long body convulsed, “I love you.” Somewhat to his surprise, he knew it for the truth. He stretched out his hands. He knew quite clearly that when he touched Simon, he would raise the power; he would die, they would both die, but the war would be ended.

  Thea stood aghast within his mind. With all gentleness he nudged his children’s awareness toward hers and shut them out. How lonely it was without them; how empty. The power was a warm tingling in his fingers. He laid them on Simon’s breast.

  Jehan saw him kneel, saw him gaze down as if in thought; saw him reach, and knew surely what that must mean. As hands touched white-habited heart, Alf’s body arched like a bow. His flesh kindled blindingly bright; shadows of bone stood stark within.

  Thea was already moving, beating against potent barriers. But Jehan had no power to hinder him. He braced his body, aimed it, and let it go. It lunged toward the dagger, snatched it up, took an eternal moment to measure its target. Swift as a serpent’s tongue, neat as a viper’s fang, the thin blade sank itself into Simon’s throat.

  The world rocked. The stars reeled. The moon was born and slain and born again.

  Silence fell, the silence that comes after a whirlwind. Jehan was flat on his back, but unbroken, only bruised and winded. He sat up dizzily. He was all over blood; he wiped it from his eyes. More dripped down—his own. He had cut his forehead.

  He could have howled. The monster was still alive. Alf likewise, glory be to God. They locked in a struggle as intimate as love, as frozen-fluid as a marble frieze. Waves of levin-power surged between them, and that was all that moved; all that mattered.

  Someone, perhaps God, perhaps Thea, gave Jehan eyes to see. It was life for which and with which they battled. Simon’s ebbed low with the pulsing of blood from his throat, too low for any miracle of healing. But Alf’s flickered ember-feeble, all the rest burned to ash in the flare of his enemy’s power. What remained between them sufficed, just barely, for one alone.

  And they, mad saints, fought each to die that the other might live. Alf’s hands that seemed to strangle strove to heal; Simon’s, fisted, drove life and strength into a failing body. Drove relentlessly, drove inexorably, against a resistance that hardened as the life burned higher. Smote at last, low and brutal, with the faces of two children against a ruined land.

  With a wordless cry Alf tore free, only to catch the falling body of his brother. By blood indeed or simply by face and spirit, it did not matter now. Grey eyes looked up into silver, death into life. For one last, utterly illogical time, Alf reached out with healing in his hands.

  Too late now, Simon said in his mind with the last of his power. Which is well for you and most well for me. The power has fled, but not as far as death. I must go while I can help myself.

  “Brother—”

  A smile touched the white lips, half gentle, half bitter. What a good priest you are. You love your enemy as yourself.

  “Because he is myself.”

  Simon shook his head just perceptibly. You are too wise, my brother. See—I admit it. We are kin. I would have destroyed you, and you foremost, but when the time came, I too was powerless. It took a pair of mortal men to break the deadlock.

  Alf spoke swiftly, urgently. “Simon, you can live. We can heal you. You can be one of us. The past doesn’t matter; only the present, and the power.”

  The power, Simon repeated, yes. For that I must die. Believe me, brother in blood, there is no other choice. Close the eyes of hope; unbind your prophecy. Let me go before I shatter the world.

  Alf bowed his head. But he said stubbornly, “I can heal you.”

  Proud, proud saint. Bless me, brother. I shall need it. I go murderer, suicide, very probably soulless.

  “You go forgiven.” Alf signed him with the cross: eyes, ears, nostrils, lips and cold hands, each gate of the senses sealed and sanctified. Simon’s eyes closed as Alf blessed them; he sighed. As easily as that, as hardly as if he would indeed rend worlds, he let his spirit go.

 
; Such a death for a mortal man was a journey into singing glory. Simon went into soft darkness. But at its edge glimmered light, and all of it wrapped not in oblivion, not in the agonies of Hell, but in spreading peace.

  “I think,” Alf said in deep, wondering joy, “I think—dear God in Heaven, I think that even we are granted souls.”

  “You’re the only one who ever doubted it.” Thea rose stiffly, catching Alf as he crumpled to the floor. Even unconscious, his face was too bright for human eyes to bear.

  She, who was not human, looked long at it. Her eyes when she raised them were brighter still, blinding. Her voice was cool and quiet. “It is over,” she said. “For a little while.”

  Jehan turned slowly. It was like a battlefield. The living and the dead lay tangled together, conscious and unconscious and far beyond either; and Thea swayed above them, and for all her courage she was perilously close to breaking.

  Jehan sighed deeply. “How on God’s good earth am I going to get us all out of this place?”

  “My power will take us.”

  “All of us?”

  “Not Simon Magus.” She bent over him, her face unreadable. With hands almost gentle, she straightened his limbs, folding his hands upon his still breast, smoothing his ruffled hair. “This will be his tomb.”

  For a long count of breaths Jehan was silent. “It’s fitting,” he conceded at last. He paused. After a moment, in a clear and steady voice, he spoke the words that came to him. “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, grant him rest. Grant him rest; grant him eternal rest.”

  30.

  Oddone cried out in wonder as they appeared all about him; and cried out again as he saw them clearly. Without another word he turned and bolted.

  Stefania would have liked to follow, but one of the two slack bodies was Nikephoros’. His face was grey-green; one hand hung at an unnatural angle.

  She dropped beside him with a strangled cry. He was alive, blessedly alive, breathing raggedly as if in a nightmare. His good hand clenched and unclenched, his head tossed, his mouth opened, gulping air. But he made no sound. That, more than anything he had shown her or told her, made it real. He was a sorcerer. They were all sorcerers.

  They were like warriors after Armageddon, scarred and staggering, white with shock. And yet, even now, the slender woman’s gold-bronze beauty cut like a sword. She raised Alf’s body as if it had been a child’s and laid it on the bed, settling it, pausing with head bowed as if she searched for strength.

  Jehan touched her arm to comfort her, his own face stark, frozen. She shook him off. “I can take care of myself and my beloved idiot. Go see to Nikki.”

  He wavered between them. “Go!” she snapped at him. Numbly he went.

  But he was self-possessed enough when he knelt beside Nikki, a grim self-possession that cracked briefly but terribly when, stretching forth his hand, he saw that it was gauntleted with blood. Drying blood, crusting in cracks and hollows.

  Jehan dragged his eyes away, back to Nikephoros. Stefania had his head in her lap. The black eyes were open, shadowed with pain. They seized Jehan with a fierce intensity; Nikki struggled to sit up. He must know—he must—

  “Simon is dead,” Jehan said without inflection. “I finished what you started.”

  It was all Nikki could do to hold himself erect, even with Stefania to brace him. Alf. The word came with great effort. Alf—I can’t—power—

  “Alf is alive. You’re the only casualty. Lie down again, lad, before you fall down, and I’ll see about robbing the infirmary.”

  “No need for that,” said Prior Giacomo from the door. Brother Rafaele advanced with his gangling, stork-legged gait, Oddone trailing behind with an armful of bottles and bandages. Silently the infirmarian set to work on Nikki’s arm.

  The boy was well looked after, and well enough but for the pain that had saved all of them. Jehan wandered back to Alf. Prior Giacomo was there already, arms folded, scowling. Thea had laid her body beside her lover’s, head pillowed on his breast, their children burrowed into his side. Jehan started forward in alarm, and stopped short. They were breathing. They looked as if they slept. But by the pricking in his nape he knew that they worked witchery.

  “So,” Giacomo said. “You found them.”

  Jehan nodded. He still had not washed his hand. Giacomo was staring at it, at him. His face was stiff. He had forgotten the blood there. He forced himself to speak. “It was... a bit of a struggle.”

  “So I see,” Giacomo said. He extended his hand.

  “Don’t!” cried Jehan.

  A spark leaped from Alf’s brow to the lifted palm. Giacomo recoiled instinctively. His jaw set; his brows met. He tried again. A hand’s breadth from flesh, the lightning crackled. It shocked but did not burn. He recovered his hand; folded his arms again, tightly; drew a breath.

  “Don’t touch them,” Jehan said softly.

  Giacomo shivered. In the silence, Anna came with bowl and cloth and chair. Mounting the last, she began to wash the blood from Jehan’s face and hand. It was a mildly comical spectacle; Giacomo’s lips could not help but twitch.

  Jehan smiled openly, with relief close to hysteria. He was in shock, he had come out of enough battles to know that, but at the moment he could not care. They were all alive, the enemy was dead—at his hand—at—

  He let the storm of shaking run its course. Anna finished and rested her head briefly on his shoulder; she hugged him, rare concession. “Everything will be well now,” she said.

  Jehan swung her down from the chair. “It’s not over yet.” His eye caught the last of them, the one who might have been a bundle cast upon the floor. Brother Paul’s eyes were shut, his face blotched livid and pallid, but the tension in his shoulders gave proof enough that he was conscious and far from vanquished. Joscelin de Beaumarchais, like a cat, had a habit of landing on his feet.

  Maybe he already had. Giacomo, bending to examine him, looked up at Jehan. “May I ask what you’ve been up to, casting down and binding a secretary of the Pauline Father General?”

  “An old enemy of ours. He’ll be dealt with when, and as, we see fit.”

  Giacomo’s brows went up. “Will he now?”

  “A bishop,” Anna said clearly and coldly, “may in certain circumstances exert full authority over a humble monk. Even though this monk is not in fact under His Excellency’s jurisdiction, he has subjected himself to it by his actions. To wit, ordering the abduction and imprisonment of a noblewoman and her children; causing, albeit indirectly, the murder of a royal prince; attempting to cause the murder of a high lord.”

  “A sorcerer.” Paul had flung off his pretense of unconsciousness. Sit up he could not, let alone stand, but he had a voice that carried well. “Sorcerers all, good Brother: elvenfolk of Rhiyana, condemned by papal decree.”

  “Not yet, I think,” Anna said.

  “Not yet,” Jehan agreed, “and maybe not ever. Certainly not without a fair trial. Which I intend to get.”

  “You and your tame witches. Sarum may never see its Bishop, even if Rhiyana gets back its Lord Chancellor.” Paul shifted. No one moved to make him more comfortable. “Meanwhile, Brother, it seems to me that you’ve been keeping guests under false pretenses. Did you know what august personages had taken shelter under your roof? Sinful too, alas: a whore and her keeper and their tender little bastards.”

  Jehan’s fist hammered him into silence. But the Bishop’s voice was mild; lethally so. “Can you govern your tongue, Brother, or shall I govern it for you?”

  The man’s eyes glittered, but he did not speak again. Nor did Giacomo give voice to his thoughts. Brother Rafaele, having finished splinting and binding Nikki’s arm and dosed him with strong herbs mixed in wine, wavered transparently between duty and curiosity. At last, with some regret, he yielded to his duty. “The boy should do well now, Brother Prior. The rest, I fear, are somewhat out of reach of my competence.”

  “I suspected they might be,” Giacomo said dryly. “Many t
hanks, Brother; if we need you later, we’ll send for you.”

  “We, is it?” Anna asked as the door closed with Rafaele on the other side of it.

  Giacomo faced her. “We, Madonna. I’m afraid I’ve learned too much for my good, though I hope not for yours. And I brought your kindred here; I feel responsible. I want to be sure that they’ve come to no harm.”

  “Or that San Girolamo has taken no harm from their presence,” she said.

  “That too,” he agreed unruffled.

  oOo

  Dawn, considered for itself, is a very great miracle. But it is quiet. No trumpets herald it; no lightnings accompany it. It simply comes, subtle and unstoppable. So they woke, all four sleepers, as if this were a morning like a thousand others. Cynan was vocally and Liahan quietly ravenous. Thea sat up yawning and stretching and shaking out the silken tangle of her hair.

  Alf simply opened his eyes and lay, feeling out the borders of mind and body. For the first time in an age beyond reckoning, he was whole. It was pleasure close to pain, hollows filled that that had gaped like wounds, powers lost and found again, ready to his hand.

  He reached with flesh and spirit, and she was there, their children no longer within her but close against her, nursing each at a breast. She smiled over their heads. “Great man and woman that they’ve made themselves, they should get the back of my hand and a bowl apiece of gruel.”

  He laughed, knowing as well as she that she would do no such thing. His mirth caught for an instant upon memory—Simon’s face, the ruin he had wrought before he died, the mighty atonement he had made—and shook free, fixing upon this blessed moment. With some care he sat up. Dizziness swelled, passed. He realized that he was at least as ravenous as the little witches. He could not remember when he had ever been so hungry.

  But first, pain cried out for healing. He passed faces glad, troubled, carefully expressionless. He set his hands on Jehan’s shoulders.

  Jehan wrenched away. “Stop it,” he said roughly. “Stop it!”