Hounds of God Read online

  Too soon; but it was she who named the moment. He was asleep at last; she hated to wake him. But the day was racing toward evening. Bianca must come back before night, and Uncle Gregorios would be wanting his supper, and they would rage if they knew what she had done while they were gone.

  She dressed slowly, combed and braided her hair. Her reflection in the old bronze mirror was no different than it had been the last time she saw it, ages ago; she was still Stefania. And he was still Nikephoros, but now that bare name meant more than worlds.

  She was going to cry again, and she must not. When she had mastered her face, she bent over him and kissed him awake. His eyes opened; he peered without recognition. She kissed him again. Awareness grew; he smiled. She played a little with the tousle of his hair. “Wake up, love; it’s getting on for evening.”

  He stretched and sighed. He would be happy to stay just where he was. “You won’t be when Bianca finds you. Up now, and tell me how all this goes on.”

  Termagant. He smiled ruefully and sorted out the tangle of his clothes, directing while she tugged and laced and—inevitably—tarried to play. Had she been even a shade less sensible, they would have ended as they began, with garments scattered and bodies twined.

  She tore herself away, smoothing her gown and her ruffled hair. He was all lordly splendid, and growing lordly stern as passion faded and knowledge woke. Come to San Girolamo with me, he said. Come that far at least.

  She hesitated. After a moment she nodded.

  The lower room was bright with sunlight. Arlecchina blinked in it, purring loudly, enthroned in Anna’s lap. Anna’s face was stiff and pale, as if she had emptied herself of everything but patience.

  Stefania felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “Anna!” she cried too brightly. “How long have you been here?”

  “Not very long.” Anna glanced from her to Nikki, seeing much too much, and understanding all of it. Her mouth took on an ironic twist. “They’ve been waiting for you, little brother.”

  Something in her tone brought him across the room. Anna, what’s happened?

  “Nothing.” She smiled to prove it. “Alf is desperate to be gone. Poor Brother Oddone; he’s too devastated even to cry, but the Prior at least is glad to see the last of us. His theology hasn’t been very comfortable lately.”

  No good; he of all people could see through a cloud of words. You aren’t going.

  “I’ve decided not to,” she said. “Stefania, do you still want to be a philosopher? I do, very much. And I have the means. Prior Giacomo knows of a house or two that might suit us, and that’s a miracle in its own right; after what he’s seen, he says, he finds a pack of female scholars frankly reassuring. Alf has given me gifts, not just my share of the family treasure, but books. You wouldn’t believe—he has an Albumazar he insists he doesn’t need, a half-dozen volumes of Aristotle, a Macrobius with his own commentary...”

  “Do I want all that?” Stefania cried. “I dream about it.” She stilled. “You’re not joking, are you?”

  Anna crossed herself Greek fashion. “By the bones of Chrysostomos, every bit of it is true. I came to ask you if you’d share it with me. Unless...” She glanced at Nikki. “Unless there’ve been changes.”

  “No,” Stefania answered steadily, “there’ve been no changes. We were only saying goodbye.”

  You aren’t going, Nikki said again.

  “Of course I’m not.” Anna glared. “What made you think I could? I’ve always known that when the Folk went into Broceliande, I’d have to stay behind. I can’t face Rhiyana without them. Rome is a pleasant enough place, and I’ve found friends here just in the few days I’ve been free. Father Jehan’s promised to come when he can; a bishop can always find excuses to call on the Curia. Or I can call on him, if it comes to that. I might find I want to do a little goliarding in a year or three, when Rome begins to pall on me.”

  She made it all so simple. But she was human. She had no need to choose.

  “I have no choice.” She drew a long breath. “May I stay here, Stefania? Just for a little while?”

  “As long as you need to,” Stefania said, embracing Anna quickly, tightly “Are you coming with us to San Girolamo?”

  Anna shook her head. “No. No, it was hard enough to do once. I’ll be a coward and stay here.”

  And do her crying in privacy. Stefania hugged her again. “I’ll come back as soon as I can. Tell Bianca where I’ve gone.” She grimaced. “Don’t be surprised if she puts you to work.”

  Anna smiled. “Go on now. Alf’s been threatening to leave without Nikki; you’d better hurry before he actually does it.”

  Even yet Nikki hung back, looking hard at his sister’s face, seeing all her sacrifices. At least he had had his love requited, if only for a day. She had had a deeply loving embrace, a fraternal kiss with a tear behind it, and a trove of treasures, none of it worth a single touch of Stefania’s hand.

  But what could he give her? An embrace, a kiss and a tear, his own share of the wealth of House Akestas since in Broceliande he would have no need of it. He held her for a long while between his strong arm and his splinted one, pouring into her mind all the comfort he could muster. She was going to thrive. She was going to be happy, one woman wedded to all the philosophers, with sisters to bear her company and riches to ease her way.

  “And Father Jehan when I need him, and a whole life to make what I like of.” She held her brother’s face in her hands. “Good-bye, Nikki. e good. You can if you work at it, you know.”

  I should want to?

  She slapped him lightly and let him go. “Brat. Take care of Alf for me. Now stop dawdling; can’t you hear him yelling for you?”

  He looked back once. She was turned away from him, bent over the cat in her lap, steadfastly ignoring everything but the silken harlequin fur.

  oOo

  They were waiting, the strange ones and their massive brown-cowled Bishop, and although they were all courtesy, their impatience was strong enough to taste.

  Nikki made Stefania come all the way with him, gripping her hand, so that she stood face to face with the witch-woman. The gold-brown eyes passed quickly over her; she shuddered deep within. They were so close to human, and so very far from it. Their interest was warm enough, their assessment rather more approving than not, but they were not the eyes of anyone with whom she could share anything that mattered.

  Nikki let her go. He was shaking, and trying not to, and surely he hated himself for it. She saw him again as she had once before, small and dark and flawed, human, mortal, no kin at all to the high beauty about him. And then he moved, or his magic moved, and he was inextricably a part of them. The light in his eyes had its reflection in the eyes of his brother. Or was Nikephoros the reflection? The moon to the white enchanter’s sun, with no power but what his master chose to bestow upon him. And without it—

  Eye met cat-flaring eye. The witch-folk drew together, drawing Nikki with them. On the very edge of hearing, the air began to sing.

  “Nikephoros!” she cried.

  The note died abruptly The tall ones stood still. Nikki looked at her, and the pain in his eyes made her want to weep aloud.

  “Stay,” she begged him, with all her heart in it. “Stay and love me.”

  His hand rose, reached. Come with me.

  “You know I can’t.”

  The hand began to fall. All at once Stefania hated him, hated him with a passion only love could engender. “You know I can’t! This is my world. This one, and no other. Just as it is yours. What will you do among the immortals? Trail behind them. Ape their mighty magics with your little borrowed power. Go slowly mad, and die gibbering, too far gone even to wish you had had the sense to escape while you could.”

  His head shook from side to side. This world promised only the dulled existence of a cripple. The other promised all the splendor of power, free and fearless, far from human terrors. You can come. You can share it. Perhaps—even—

  “If I could ever have b
ecome a witch, that time is long past.” She spoke quietly, almost calmly, but for the tremor she could not quell. “You are a coward, Nikephoros Akestas. You seduced me, knowing what you would do to me, knowing that I could never follow you. You wanted me, and when it was safe, you made sure you had me. This little pain that pays for it, that will go away. You have all your Fair Folk, and the glory and the lightnings, and the memory of a little mortal fool to reassure you when you wonder if you’ve made the wrong choice. What more could you ask for?”

  Stefania, he whispered.

  But he did not whisper. He had no voice that he would use. “No, child, you may not have me, and Broceliande too. It’s one or the other. Choose.”

  For a little while she knew that she had won. He came toward her. One more step and his arm would come to circle her. Her body felt it already, yearned for it.

  He stopped. He looked back. His kin did nothing, said nothing, only stood and waited and were. More beautiful than any mortal creature, more splendid, more powerful, mantled in magic.

  She watched them conquer him. They did not mean to do it. No more did the candle mean to draw the foolish fluttering moth. He looked on their faces and fell headlong into their eyes, and when again he faced Stefania, it was from between the witch and the enchanter. His whole body cried pain, begged for forgiveness. It even dared, even yet, to beseech her to follow him.

  She would not move. Even when his kiss touched her lips, an air-soft invisible ghost-kiss, lingering, burning. Trying to have it all, refusing to acknowledge the truth. With an effort that made her gasp, she willed him away. “Go,” she said through set and aching teeth. “Go where you think you must.” And more slowly, as the pain began to master her: “God—oh, damn you, God go with you.”

  They were there, all of them, close together. Then they were not. There was only a shimmer, fading fast, and a memory of Nikephoros’ black eyes bright with tears.

  32.

  The churches of Rhiyana were dark, their gates bolted and sealed, the vigil lamps lightless above the silent altars. The dying passed unshriven; the dead lay cold in unconsecrated ground. The living knew no consolation of holy Church, neither Mass nor sacraments; not even in the abbeys might monks sing the Offices, on pain of flogging and expulsion.

  They dared it, Benedetto Torrino knew surely, as priests in the villages dared administer the sacraments in secret, even under the watchful eyes of God’s Hounds. But the grimness of the Interdict, coupled with war and winter, beat down even the most valiant.

  He had nothing to do with it. The Paulines had circumvented him; on the authority of their new Papal Legate, still on the road from Rome, they had lowered the ban. Having no authority more recent or more potent, and no army to defend it, he was powerless.

  What little he could do, he did. Every morning since the Interdict began, he had sung Mass in the castle. He made no great secret of it. Even yet the Hounds did not dare to pass the gates, and they learned not to keep the people of the city from passing them. As they were learning that one winter’s preaching and one week’s Interdict could not turn Rhiyana’s folk against their King of fourscore years. It only taught them to hate the men whose coming had wrought all their suffering.

  Tonight again the Queen had sent her page. The Lord Cardinal was bidden to dine with her, as he had been bidden every night since that day in the garden. Tonight again he sent a gracious refusal. The words came no more easily this seventh time than they had the first. He saw her at Mass, and that was already as much as he could bear; he dared not sit beside her, even among her ladies and her courtiers, and try to conduct himself as if she were no more to him than any highborn matron. Not with such thoughts as he had, that not only she among her court could read. Nor with such dreams as he had been having, sweet torment that they were, impervious to prayer and fasting.

  He dined on prayer and water, alone, his few loyal monks sent unwillingly away. His head was light with abstinence, the pangs of hunger vanquished. But not the pangs he longed to be rid of. This storm-ridden night they took flesh and stood before him all in white, ivory hair loose to ivory ankles, golden eyes shining.

  “Lady,” he prayed from his aching knees, “must you haunt me in the flesh as in the spirit?”

  She knelt to face him. “There is war in Heaven,” she said. “Do your bones not feel it? Does the wind not bring you its clamor?”

  It was she. He caught the faint rose-sweet scent of her. By Heaven’s bitter irony, her presence so close eased his torment. He could bow over her hand, he could rise and raise her with him, setting her in the chair which faced the fire. He could even venture to rebuke her. “Lady, you know you should not be here.”

  “Where else should I be? My lord is barred to me, and my own people have no comfort for me, and the world is ending.”

  “It is only a storm of sleet.”

  She laughed as clearly and as sweetly as a child. “O mortal man! May the world not end in sleet as easily as in fire?” She sobered; she spread her hands to the blaze, that turned their pallor to rose-gold. “I cry your pardon, my lord. I am a little mad, I think, and truly it is not all with grief. Our great enemy is dead by his own will, dead these two days. Our Chancellor has spoken with the Pope and gained pardon for us all. But still I cannot touch the mind of my King.”

  He forgot himself utterly; he seized her hands. “The Pope? They have gone to the Pope?”

  “To Saint Peter’s own successor. The Hounds are chastised and sent to their kennels. The Interdict is lifted—I have proclaimed it, which is presumptuous of me, mere temporal regent that I am, but it is too mighty a secret to keep from my people. We... we are forgiven, within limits. You need not fret now, Lord Cardinal; you are not obliged to send us to the fire.”

  “Hosanna in excelsis!” He was so glad that he sang it in full voice. “Lady, Lady, I do believe in God’s mercy again. And you said”—His joy died—”the King is... dead?”

  “No!” she cried. “He lives, but now truly he is dying, and his power struggles to preserve him against invasion. All invasion, even the touch of my mind. Even—even healing. It is our nature. In extremity, it turns against us.”

  “So your kingdom is saved, but your King—”

  Her chin lifted; her eyes glittered. “He has not died yet, and my lord Alfred is coming. We shall see whether the King of Rhiyana can stand against the Master of Broceliande.”

  “If there is aught I can do, if I may ride or pray, storm a castle or storm Heaven itself, you need only command me.”

  She was careful of her smile. She kept it within mortal limits. Yet he was lost long since; he could only fall deeper into the enchantment. No matter that his mind was clear enough to mock him. Great prince of priests that he was, and no boy either, he flung himself at her feet like any callow simpleton of a squire.

  “Alas, my lord,” she said, “I have bewitched you. And alas for me, the spell also strikes the one who casts it. Perhaps we should both storm Heaven.”

  “But first, let us muzzle God’s Hounds.” Her witchery too; with her hands in his, he saw all that needed doing, and all that he could do. “My lady, if you will lend me a company of your guards and the aid of one or two of your Kin, I shall be pleased to cleanse this city of its pestilence. And,” he added, “to free its Archbishop from the prison into which yon madmen have flung him.”

  He was on his feet, vivid with eagerness, but she gripped his hands. “Lord Cardinal, is it wise? Have you forgotten in whose name you are here?”

  “Indeed not. Pope Honorius has spoken for you; and I am more than glad to take his part against the destroyers of your kingdom.”

  “Brave man!”

  Torrino wheeled toward the strong clear voice with its touch of laughter. Maura started and cried out in gladness, drawing Thea into a swift embrace, and Jehan after her, and the children who faced all this strangeness with wide eyes and firm courage.

  As the Queen took them up gently and kissed their fears away, Thea said, “The other
s have gone to beat some sense into Gwydion. In the meantime, Eminence, if you’re minded to hunt Hounds, here’s an arrow for your bow.”

  He took the parchment with its pendant seals, running his eye over it. Here was proof positive of the Queen’s tidings, confirmation of his embassy and full power to settle matters in Rhiyana as he saw fit. “So shall I do,” he said, “with deep pleasure. My lord Bishop, would it please you to aid me? If it comes to a fight, whether the weapons be words or blades, there are few men I would rather have at my back.”

  Jehan grinned. “Do you think you can keep me from it? Lead on, Eminence; I’ll be behind you.”

  “And we,” said Maura, “will be beside you.” As the Cardinal struggled between courtesy and flat refusal, she laughed. “You asked for a witch or two; so shall you receive. Cynan, Liahan, you must hold the castle for us. Tao-Lin will keep you company.”

  She came in the disconcerting fashion of the Kindred, all at once, out of air, settling herself with eastern serenity. When Torrino passed the door, she was enchanting her charges, quite literally, with a dance of crimson fire.

  oOo

  The King lay as he had lain for many days, in his castle of Carmennos half a league from the March of Anjou. His power in its throes had wrought wonders and terrors within those walls; dreamworld and solid world lay side by side, and the air shifted and shimmered with the flux of his pain. When his mind was clearer he had sent the human folk away, all but those whose love overmastered their fear. They guarded him; they gave him what care he would permit, and manned the walls against enemies who did not come. That much his power did for them. It drove back any who willed harm to castle or people.

  And any who willed help. Alf, barred from Gwydion’s presence as completely as any Angevin bandit, stood outside in the dark and the storm and gathered his own power. Already he was cloaked in it, shining with it. Wind and sleet had no strength to touch him.