Isle of Glass (4 page)

Healing. He must have healing. Again he mounted, again he
rode through the crowding shadows.

At the far extremity of his inner sight, there was a light.
He pursued it, and Fara bore him through the wild hills, over a broad and
turbulent water, and on into darkness.

o0o

The fire burned low. Soon the bell would ring for Matins.

Alf rose, stiff with the memory of torment, and looked down
upon the wounded man. No human being could have endured what he had endured,
not only torture but five full days after, without healing, without food,
riding by day and by night.

Alf touched the white fine face. No, it was not human. Power
throbbed behind it, low now and slow, but palpably present. It had brought the
stranger here to ancient Ynys Witrin, and to the one being like him in all of
Gwynedd or Anglia, the one alone who might have healed him.

Who could not, save as humans do, with splint and bandage
and simple waiting. He had set each shattered bone with all the skill he had
and tended the outraged flesh as best he knew how. The life that had ebbed low
was rising slowly with tenacity that must be of elf-kind, that had kept death
at bay throughout that grim ride.

He slept now, a sleep that healed. Alf envied him that
despite its cost. His dreams were none of pain; only of peace, and of piercing
sweetness.

Consciousness was like dawn, slow in growing, swift in its
completion. Alun lay for a time, arranging his memories around his hurts. In
all of it, he could not see himself upon a bed, his body tightly bandaged, warm
and almost comfortable. Nor could he place that stillness, that scent of stone
and coolness and something faint, sweet—apples, incense.

He opened his eyes. Stone, yes, all about: a small room,
very plain yet with a hearth and a fire, burning applewood, and a single
hanging which seemed woven of sunlight on leaves.

Near the fire was a chair, and in it a figure. Brown cowl,
tonsure haloed by pale hair—a monk, intent upon a book. His face in profile was
very young and very fair.

The monk looked up. Their gazes met, sea-grey and
silver-gilt; warp and woof, and the shuttle flashing between. Alf’s image; the
flicker of amusement was the other’s, whose knightly hands had never plied a
loom.

As swiftly as fencers in a match, they disengaged. Alf was
on his feet, holding white-knuckled to the back of his chair. With an effort he
unclenched his fingers and advanced to the bed.

Alun’s eyes followed him. His face was quiet, betraying none
of his pain. “How long since I came here?” he asked.

“Three days,” Alf answered, “and five before that of
riding.”

“Eight days.” Alun closed his eyes. “I was an utter and
unpardonable fool.”

Alf poured well-watered mead from the beaker by the bed and
held the cup to Alun’s lips. The draught brought a ghost of color to the wan
cheeks, but did not distract the mind behind them. “Is there news? Have you
heard—”

Alf crumbled a bit of bread and fed it to him. “No news.
Though there’s a tale in the villages of a mighty wizard who rode over the
hills in a trail of shooting stars and passed away into the West. Opinions are
divided as to the meaning of the portent, whether it presages war or peace,
feast or famine. Or maybe it was only one of the Fair Folk in a fire of haste.”

A glint of mirth touched the grey eyes. “Maybe it was. You’ve
heard no word of war?”

“Not hereabouts. I think you’ve put the fear of Annwn into
too many people.”

“That will never last,” Alun murmured. “The black boar will
rise, and soon. And I...” His good hand moved down his body. “I pay for my
folly. How soon before I ride?”

“Better to ask, ‘How soon before I walk?’ ”

He shook his head slightly. “I’ll ride before then. How
soon?”

Alf touched his splinted leg, his bound hand. Shattered bone
had begun to knit, torn muscle to mend itself, with inhuman speed, but slowly
still. “A month,” he said. “No sooner.”

“Brother,” Alun said softly, “I am not human.”

“If you were, I’d tell you to get used to your bed, for
you’d never leave it.”

Alun’s lips thinned. “I’m not so badly hurt. Once my leg
knits, I can ride.”

“You rode with it broken for five days. It will take six
times that, and a minor miracle, to undo the damage. Unless you’d prefer to
live a cripple.”

“I could live lame if there was peace in Gwynedd and Anglia
and Rhiyana, and three kings safe on their thrones, and Rhydderch rendered
powerless.”

“Lame and twisted and racked with pain, and bereft of your
sword hand. A cause for war even if you put down Rhydderch, if knights in
Rhiyana are as mindful of their honor as those in Anglia.”

Alun drew a breath, ragged with pain. “Knights in Rhiyana
pay heed to their King. Who will let no war begin over one man’s folly. I will
need a horse-litter, Brother, and perhaps an escort, for as soon as may be.
Will you pass my request to your Abbot?”

“I can give you his answer now,” Alf replied. “No. The
Church frowns on suicide.”

“I won’t die. Tell your Abbot, Brother. The storm is about
to break. I must go before it destroys us all.”

o0o

Dom Morwin was in the orchard under a grey sky, among trees
as old as the abbey itself. As Alf came to walk with him, he stooped stiffly,
found two sound windfalls, and tossed one to his friend.

Alf caught it and polished it on his sleeve. As he bit into
it, Morwin asked, “How is your nurseling?”

“Lively,” Alf answered. “He came to this morning, looked
about, and ordered a horse-litter.”

The Abbot lifted an eyebrow. “I would have thought that he
was on his deathbed. He certainly looked it yesterevening when I glanced in.”

“He won’t die. He won’t be riding about for a while yet,
either. Whatever he may think.”

“He sounds imperious, for a foundling.”

“That, he’s not. Look.” Alf reached into the depths of his
habit and drew out the signet in its pouch.

Morwin examined the ring for a long moment. “It’s his?”

“He carried it. He wanted you to see it.”

The other turned it in his hands. “So—he’s one of Gwydion’s
elven-folk. I’d wondered if the tales were true.”

“Truer than you thought before, at least.”

Morwin’s glance was sharp. “Doubts, Alf?”

“No.” Alf sat on a fallen trunk. “We’re alike. When he woke,
we met, eye, mind. It was painful to draw back and to talk as humans talk. He
was...very calm about it.”

“How did he get here, as he was, with his King’s signet in
his pocket?”

“He rode. He was peacemaking for Gwydion, but he ran afoul
of a lord he couldn’t bewitch. He escaped toward the only help his mind could
see. He wasn’t looking for human help by then. I was the closest one of his
kind. And St. Ruan’s is...St. Ruan’s.”

“He’s failed in his errand, then. Unless war will wait for
the winter to end and for him to heal.”

“He says it won’t. I know it won’t. That’s why he ordered
the horse-litter. I refused, in your name. He wanted something more direct.”

“Imperious.” The Abbot contemplated his half-eaten apple.
“The border of Gwynedd is dry tinder waiting for a spark. There are barons on
both sides who’d be delighted to strike one. And Richard would egg them on.”

“Exactly. Gwydion, through Alun, was trying to prevent
that.”

“
Was
? Your Alun’s lost, then?”

“For Gwydion’s purposes. Though he’d have me think otherwise.”

“Exactly how bad is it?”

“Bad,” Alf answered. “Not deadly, but bad. If he’s careful,
he’ll ride again, even walk. I don’t know if he’ll ever wield a sword. And that
is if he does exactly as I tell him. If he gets up and tries to run his King’s
errands, he’ll end a cripple. I told him so. He told me to get a litter.”

“Does he think he can do any better now than he did before?”

“I don’t know what he thinks!” Alf took a deep breath. More
quietly he said, “Maybe you can talk to him. I’m only a monk. You’re the Lord
Abbot.”

Morwin’s eyes narrowed. “Alf. How urgent is this? Is it just
a loyal man and a foster father looking out for his ward, and a general desire
for peace? Or does it go deeper? What will happen if Alun does nothing?”

When they were boys together, they had played a game. Morwin
would name a name, and Alf would look inside, and that name would appear as a
thread weaving through the world-web; and he would tell his friend where it
went. It had been a game then, with a touch of the forbidden in it, for it was
witchery. As they grew older they had stopped it.

The tapestry was there. He could see it, feel it: the shape,
the pattern. He lived in it and through it, a part of it and yet also an
observer. Like a god, he had thought once; strangling the thought, for it was
blasphemy.

Gwydion
, he
thought.
Alun. Gwynedd.

In his mind he stood before the vast loom with its edges
lost in infinity, and his finger followed a skein of threads, deep blue and
blood-red and fire-gold. Blood and fire, a wave of peace, a red tide of war. A
pattern, shifting, elusive, yet clear enough. If this happened, and this did
not; if...

Grey sky lowered over him; Morwin’s face hovered close.
Old—it was so old.

He covered his eyes. When he could bear to see again, Morwin
was waiting, frowning. “What was it? What did you see?”

“War,” Alf muttered. “Peace. Gwydion—Alun— He can’t leave
this place. He’ll fail again, and this time he’ll die. And he knows it. I told
him what the Church thinks of suicide.”

“What will happen?”

“War,” Alf said again. “As he saw it. Richard will ride to
Gwynedd and Kilhwch will come to meet him; Rhiyana will join the war for
Kilhwch’s sake. Richard wounded, Kilhwch dead, Gwydion broken beyond all
mending; and lords of three kingdoms tearing at each other like jackals when
the lions have gone.”

“There’s no hope?”

Alf shivered. It was cold, and the effort of seeing left him
weak. “There may be. I see the darkest colors because they’re strongest. Maybe
there can be peace. Another Alun...Rhydderch’s death...a Crusade to divert
Richard: who knows what can happen?”

“It will have to happen soon.”

“Before spring.”

Morwin began to walk aimlessly, head bent, hands clasped
behind him. Alf followed. He did not slip into the other’s mind. That pact they
had made, long ago.

They came to the orchard’s wall and walked along it,
circling the enclosure.

“It’s not for us to meddle in the affairs of kings,” Morwin
said at last. “Our part is to pray, and to let the world go as it will.” His
eyes upon Alf were bright and wicked. “But the world has gone its way into our
abbey. I’m minded to heed it. Prayer won’t avert a war.”

“Won’t it?”

“The Lord often appreciates a helping hand,” the Abbot said.
“Our King is seldom without his loyal Bishop Aylmer, even on the battlefield.
And the Bishop might be kindly disposed toward a messenger of mine bringing
word of the troubles on the border.”

“And?”

“Peace. Maybe. If an alliance could be made firm between
Gwynedd and Anglia...”

“My lord Abbot! It’s corrupted you to have a worldling in
your infirmary.”

“I was always corrupt. Tell Sir Alun that I’ll speak to him
tonight before Compline.”

o0o

Alun would have none of it. “I will not place one of your
Brothers in danger,” he said. “For there is danger for a monk of Anglia on
Rhiyana’s errand. Please, my lord; a litter is all I ask.”

The Abbot regarded him as he lay propped up with pillows,
haggard and hollow-eyed and lordly proud. “We will not quarrel, sir. You may
not leave until you are judged well enough to leave. Which will not be soon
enough to complete your embassy. My messenger will go in your stead.”

For a long moment Alun was silent. At length he asked, “Whom
will you send?”

Morwin glanced sidewise at the monk who knelt, tending the
fire. “Brother Alfred,” he answered.

The flames roared. Alf drew back from the blistering heat
and turned.

“Yes,” Morwin said as if he had not been there. “The Bishop
asked for him. I’ll send him, and give him your errand besides.”

“Morwin,?’ Alf whispered. “
Domne
.”

Neither heeded him. Alun nodded slowly. "If it is he,
then I cannot object. He shall have my mare. She frets in her stall; and no
other horse is as swift or as tireless as she.”

“That’s a princely gift.”

“He has need of all speed. How soon may he go?”

“He’ll need a night to rest and prepare. Tomorrow.”

Alf stood, trembling uncontrollably. They did not look at
him.

Alun’s eyes were closed; Morwin stared at his sandaled feet.

“Domne,” he said. “Domne, you can’t send me. You know what I
am.”

The Abbot raised his eyes. They were very bright and very
sad. “Yes, I know what you are. That’s why I’m sending you.”

“Morwin—”

“You swore three vows, Brother. And one of them was
obedience.”

Alf bowed his head. “I will go because you command me to go,
but not because I wish to. The world will not be kind to such a creature as I
am.”

“Maybe you need a little unkindness.” Morwin turned his back
on Alf, nodded to Alun, and left.

The Rhiyanan gazed quietly at the ceiling. “It hurts him to
do this, but he thinks it is best.”

“I know,” Alf said. He had begun to tremble again. “I’m a
coward. I haven’t left St. Ruan’s since—since—God help me! I can’t remember.
These walls have grown up round my bones.”

“Time then to hew your way out of them.”

“It frightens me. Three kingdoms in the balance; and only my
hand to steady them.”

Alun turned his head toward Alf. “If you will let me go, you
can stay here.”

The other laughed without mirth. “Oh, no, my lord! I’ll do
as my Abbot bids me. You will do as I bid you, which is to stay here and heal,
and pray for me.”