Isle of Glass (20 page)

“Again,” said his observer, “well smitten.”

He turned, glaring, and stopped short. The King stood there
in the mud of the kitchen garden, alone and unattended, and laughing at his
expression.

He dropped the axe and knelt, bowing his head. “Sire,” he
said. “Majesty. I didn't know—”

The King cut him off “Get up. You’re not at court here.”
Although his words were sharp, amusement danced still in his eyes.

Jehan rose. Only one thing could have brought the King alone
to this place; that knowledge turned his startlement to something very much
like fear. With care under the other’s eye, he rolled down his sleeves and let
his habit fall properly to his feet.

But there was no concealing his face. He arranged it as best
he might and said, “You gave me a start, Sire. I thought you were one of the
Brothers.”

“I don’t look much like a priest, do I?” Richard inspected
the heap of new-cut wood and took up the axe, testing its balance. “So this is
how Aylmer trains his knights. Practical. I should try it with my own men.”

“Only if you want axemen, Sire,” Jehan said.

“True enough. It’s no good trying to hew wood with a sword.
Though if I could set the swordsmen to harvesting grain and the mace-men to
slaughtering sheep...”

Jehan laughed. “And the lancers could practice on cows, and
what would Bishop Aylmer do for penances?”

“You’re being punished, are you?”

“Yes, Sire,” Jehan looked down, shamefaced. “I was reading
in the hayloft instead of working in the kitchen. So I hew wood and draw water
until my lord sees fit to let me go.”

To his credit, Richard neither frowned nor smiled. “And when
will that be?”

The novice shrugged. “When he pleases, Sire. But that’s fair
enough as penances go. I could have got a caning. Would have if I'd been in my
old abbey.”

“You sound singularly unrepentant.”

Jehan raised his eyes. “Why, Sire! I’m most repentant that I
have to spend my days here instead of in the tilting yard.”

The King grinned and placed a log upright on the block. He
measured it with his eye and raised the axe.

It was not an ill stroke, Jehan thought, both amused and
shocked that a King should want to try his hand at a villein’s work.
“Sire," he said. “You really shouldn’t—”

“I really shouldn’t be here.” Richard essayed a second blow.
“In fact, I’m not here at all. I’m closeted with Bishop Aylmer.”

Jehan was silent. The King set down the axe and dusted his
hands on his riding leathers. “This is easier work than hewing heads. A log
can’t hit back.”

“The worse for the log,” Jehan said. He did not move to
resume his task. “Did Bishop Aylmer send you here, my lord?”

“Bishop Aylmer is cooling his heels in my workroom.” The
good humor had vanished from Richard’s face; his eyes were fierce. “And what’s
His Majesty of Anglia doing running his own errands? Is that what you’re
thinking?”

After a moment Jehan nodded.

The King nodded also, sharply. “Some things even a King
can’t pass on to underlings. Or he passes them on and they disappear, and he
never sees them again. That, boy, is called ‘humoring the King.’ ”

“It’s also called ‘burying the evidence.’ ”

Richard laughed shortly. “So. You’re smarter than you look.
Are you too clever to tell the truth?”

“That depends on what you want to know, Sire.”

“Nothing theological. Not even anything personal. Just a
simple thing. It’s so simple that I've spent a full three days trying to find
it out, which has done my war no good at all. I've been sent by proxy from
pillar to post, till I’ve had to set my own hand to it or never know at all.”
The King leaned close, so close that Jehan could see nothing but the glitter of
his eyes. “Where is Brother Alfred?”

Jehan blinked. “Brother Alfred, Sire?”

“Brother Alfred,” Richard repeated as to a witless child.
“The tall one with no color in him. Do you remember him?”

“Sire,” Jehan said, “you came here just for him? But why to
me?”

The King stepped back, scowling. “Just for him. Yes. And to
you, you young fox with an ox’s face, because he called you his friend. Which
is more than he would do for me. Where is he?”

“You haven't seen him, Sire?”

“Boy,” Richard said very softly, “I have not seen Alfred
since he promised to attend me after I hunted, three days ago, and he never
came. I thought it was one of his moods. But he didn’t come the next day when I
called for him, and the page I sent was told that he couldn’t see the Brother,
even at the King’s command. And so the next messenger I sent, and the next.
This morning I heard a whisper that Brother Alfred couldn’t come because he
wasn’t there. More: he went out walking three days past, and never came back.”
The King spoke more softly still, a near-whisper. “Where has he gone?”

Jehan ran his tongue over his lips. “Sire. He is gone. But I
can't tell you where.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

“Can’t, my lord. He went out, as you've heard. No one’s seen
him since. We—we think—someone took him.”

“And why couldn’t he simply have run away?”

“Sire,” Jehan said hotly, “if you know him, you know that’s
not his way. He gets moods and he does strange things, but he’d never run off
without telling anybody. Especially not on foot, with nothing on but his habit
and a book in his hand.”

Richard’s eyes narrowed. “You saw him go?”

“No, Sire. Would to God I had! But I was playing truant, and
when I came back, he—he was gone.” Jehan struggled to keep his voice steady. “I
know someone took him. I know it.”

“Taken,” Richard muttered. And, louder: “He’s sent you no
word?”

“No, Sire.” Jehan’s calmness shattered altogether. “Sire,
don’t you think I’ve tried everything I can? I even went to Bishop Aylmer and
tried to get him to send out searchers. When he told me to wait, I yelled at
him. That’s why my penance isn’t limited to a day or two. He—he told me to be
patient and let him do what he could, and—and not talk to anyone about it.”

“Did he?”

The King’s tone made Jehan cry out, “He’s no traitor! I’m
sure of it. But he said, if Brother Alf’s been taken, his takers must be your
enemies. They haven’t asked for a ransom; they must want you to go after him
and fall into a trap, and maybe get killed. That’s why my lord hasn’t let you
know the truth. He wants to find Brother Alf himself and spare you the danger.”

“Fool,” Richard said. “He’ll find a corpse or nothing at
all, and likely get his death by it.”

“Sire!”

Richard hardly heard him. “I’ll find him. As God is my
witness, I’ll find him, alive and whole and telling me I was mad to have tried
it.”

“Your Majesty,” Jehan said, shaking but determined, “you
can’t do that. Your court—your war with Gwynedd—”

“Damn the court! Damn the war! Damn the world! I’ll have that
boy back, or I’ll cast my crown in a dungheap.”

“He’s only one man.”

“He’s only my friend.”

o0o

Long after he was gone, Jehan stood, trembling
uncontrollably. When at last he could command his body, he sat on the block and
breathed deep. Now the King would ride out, searching for a traitor. Bishop
Aylmer had wanted that; had all but challenged Richard to try it.

But he would not search in St. Benedict’s. That, the Bishop
would make sure of. With the King abroad on a fruitless chase and the war in
Gwynedd forgotten, the Church would look after its own.

And the least of its novices would wait and pray, and try
not to think of what the Hounds might be doing to Brother Alf. Jehan rose and
took up the axe and returned grimly to his penance.

o0o

Brother Adam sighed wearily. “Will you not confess?”

“No,” Alf said with equal weariness. “I am not the Devil’s
minion. I know nothing of the black arts.”

“But more of dialectic than any man ought, let alone one of
the Night’s brood.” Adam shook his head. “Brother, I have done all that I can.
There are those who urge me to resort to force. Is this what you would have?”

This too Alf had heard before. Without a tremor he said,
“The answer would be the same.”

Adam looked down at him where he sat on his pallet, a dim
figure by candlelight. He stared back without expression.

He had eaten nothing since he was taken; he felt light,
hollow, almost heedless. It has become a game, this constant resistance, four
days and four nights of fruitless questioning. The other was haggard, unshaven,
shadow-eyed; when he touched his own face, he could feel the jut of bones
beneath the skin.

“Brother,” he said, “I won't confess to a crime I haven’t
committed. Not even to spare you pain.”

“Not even to spare yourself?”

Alf shook his head.

“I will not be your questioner in that extremity,” Adam
warned him. “Brother Reynaud will have the honor. He is well known for his
skill.”

“I'm not surprised,” Alf murmured.

“That was not charitable.”

“Neither is he.”

Alf lay back. There was a pause. As it stretched to
breaking, the other laid an icy hand on his brow. “You are very warm. But you
do not look fevered.”

He held the candle close. Alf turned his face away from it.

“Strange,” Adam said. “In this room, in this season, you
should be blue with cold. Yet I have never seen you shiver.”

Alf shivered then; but Adam shook his head. “Too late,
Brother. Your Master has shielded you well against the banes of your kind, cold
iron and sacred things. Why, I wonder, has he omitted to take away the fire of
Hell that warms you?”

“If it were Hell’s fire,” Alf said through clenched teeth,
“it would sear your hand.”

“Could it, Brother?”

“It is not Hell’s fire.”

“Then, pray, what may it be?”

“My own body’s warmth. That is all.”

“So simple a thing, to be so inexplicable.”

“Inexplicable?” Alf asked. “Hardly. My fiery humors are in
full blaze. I’m being held against my will; I’m charged with black sorcery; now
you threaten me with torture. Can you wonder that my anger keeps me warm?”

“If all men were so made, we would have no need of clothing.
Wrath alone would suffice.”

“Though not for modesty,” Alf said.

Adam was silent, his eyelids lowered, but he continued to
watch Alf from beneath them.

“St. Ruan’s Abbey,” he said at last. “You were raised there,
you say. Have you considered that if you persist in your obstinacy and are
punished for it, your Brothers will suffer? For since it is what it is, where
it is—surely its monks knew what dwelt among them: a creature of that elder
race which ruled there before Christ’s Gospel was borne into Anglia.”

“My Brothers are guilty of no fault. They have seen nothing,
recognized nothing, for I am no more and no less than any one of them.”

Adam shook his head slowly, half in denial, half in
sorrowful rebuke.

Alf sat up. “They are not guilty. There are no Elder Folk.”

“There, Brother, you lie outright. For I have seen them.
With my own eyes I have looked on them.”

“But not in Ynys Witrin, Brother Adam. That I know. They do
not haunt St. Ruan’s cloister. Christ is ruler there; his cross rises above the
Tor.” Alf smote his hands together. “Accuse me if you must. But in the name of
the God who made us both, let my Brothers be!”

Again Adam paused, pondering. “If you will confess, I may be
able to keep St. Ruan’s out of the tribunal’s consideration.”

“I do not bargain with lies,” Alf said. “Nor would you be
wise to threaten more than my mere self. Remember that your Order is a new one,
not yet as powerful as it would wish to be, and St. Ruan’s is very large, very
wealthy, and very, very old. Would you dare to set yourself against so great a
power?”

“Would you dare to call upon it?”

The chill left Alf’s voice to lodge in his bones. “I am the
least of its children. I will not beset it with this shame.”

“No shame to it if you are innocent.”

“So am I condemned. I protest my innocence—I am commanded to
confess. I speak of shame—it must be guilt, and not a foul and envious lie.
Wherever I turn, whatever I say, I cannot be exonerated. My very face is held
as evidence against me.”

“So it is,” Adam said. “So it must be until all the truth is
known.”

“The truth as you would have it.”

“The truth of God.” Adam signed himself and his prisoner.
“May He keep you, and loose your tongue at last.”

For that, he gained only silence and the turning of Alf’s
back.

o0o

Alf lay in the dark, luxuriating in his solitude, in quiet
unbroken by that gentle deadly questioning. It would resume all too soon, to
wear him down, to search out his weaknesses.

In the end he would confess. But not easily and not soon.

You may not be able to choose.

Thea’s voice. He closed his mind against her.

There was a long stillness. Outside, his guard snored
softly.

The bolt slid back. The snoring did not pause. Alf turned,
for that was not Adam’s slow sandaled tread. This was silent save for the faint
rustling of cloth. He could see no more than a dark shape, clad and cowled in
black.

“Thea!” he whispered fiercely. “Will you never learn—”

Her hand covered his mouth. “Hush, little Brother. You
wouldn’t talk to me the safest way, and I won’t be put off.”

“If anyone comes and sees you—”

“I’ll be invisible, inaudible, and intangible.” She knelt
beside him. There was light enough from the guard’s cresset outside for their
eyes to see, but her fingers explored his face. “You’re down to bare bone.
But”—She examined the rest of his body, despite his resistance—“they haven’t
harmed you yet. I suppose you regret that.”

Her hands had ended on his shoulders. He wanted to shake
them off, but he did not.
Better there
, he thought,
than elsewhere
.