Isle of Glass

by Tarr, Judith

  “All beds look alike,” hiccoughed the youngest squire. “So do all backsides.”

  “Sirs,” Alf said carefully, “I wish you a pleasant night. But I must go.”

  “He can wait, can’t he?” Joscelin smiled at him, all sweetness. “He’ll have to wait until we’ve made a man of you.”

  The others held him down, one on either side, grinning at his white-lipped silence. At last he gritted, “You will tire of waiting before I will.”

  Joscelin shook his head. “We won’t wait. Come on, lads. And hold tight.”

  Alf felt as if he were trapped in a nightmare. Memories flashed through his mind, a thin pale child set upon with stones and cudgels and cries of changeling and witch’s get; a young novice baited by his fellows, mocked for his strangeness; a man with a boy’s face, taunted in the schools of Paris for his beauty and his shyness, and made a butt of cruel pranks. And helpless, always helpless, until Morwin or another came to his rescue.

  The room to which the squires led him was as fetid as the one below, and occupied. It was not fragrant Bess who lay on the bed there but a younger woman, thinner, almost pretty under the dirt. He could see that very well, as she had nothing to cover it. He looked away.

  His captors laughed. He knew what they would do to him, but his struggles had no strength. They tore his habit from neck to navel, baring his upper body.

  Morwin’s cross glittered on his breast; Joscelin snatched at it. There was a brief sharp pain; the squire held the broken chain and smiled. “Pretty,” he said, slipping it into the purse he wore at his belt. “Let’s see what the rest of you is like.”

  Alf lunged toward him. The squires tore at him, rending skin with cloth, stripping off his habit. He snatched in vain; they gripped him with iron fingers. He hung there gasping.

  “Well.” Joscelin whistled softly. “Well. Aren’t you a beauty? Look, Molly; see what Rome and Sodom claim for themselves. A mortal shame, that.”

  There was a point beyond shame; a cold calm point, that was not numbness, nor ever acceptance. Seventy years, Alf thought. Seventy years, and he had never struck a blow. Such a good Christian monk he had been.

  Deep within him, darkness stirred. Enough, it whispered. Enough.

  He stood erect. A shrug: he was free. One of the squires wore a sword; swifter than human sight he swooped upon it. Cold steel gleamed in his hand.

  They were not afraid. He had no skill with weapons—they all knew that.

  “My, my,” warbled the youngest. “Look at the Church Militant. The cross is mightier than the sword, you know.”

  “And if that fails, take a Bible and fling it,” the second added.

  “Or at the last,” Joscelin said, third in their chorus, “waggle your white behind.”

  He barely heard. His hand knew the sword; knew it as it knew its own fingers. His arm balanced easily with its weight of steel; his body crouched, ready for battle.

  “Oh, come,” Joscelin chided him. “That’s not the sword you’ll use. Put it down like a good lad and stop frightening poor Molly.”

  “Molly is not afraid.” Alf’s voice was cold. “Molly is excited. She thinks that she will have me when I am done with you. She is a fool. I do not fornicate with animals.”

  He felt her anger as a burning pinprick, and heeded it not at all. The squires had begun to tremble. His face was white and set; his sword flickered swiftly, darting toward each in turn. They had stripped a meek monkish boy and found a beast of prey.

  But Joscelin, being clever, was slowest to understand. He laughed and drew his own sword. “Why, sir! You want to duel? It’s a little cramped here, but I’ll be happy to oblige you.”

  The others had scrambled out of the way. Alf measured the one who was left. They were nearly of a height and nearly of a weight, but the squire wielded a heavier weapon. His own blade was shorter and lighter, balanced for a single hand; a mere sliver against the great two-handed broadsword.

  Joscelin circled; Alf followed. The door was at the squire’s back; he backed through it, leaped and spun, and bolted down the stair.

  Alf read him clearly. Either the priest would remember his nakedness and shrink from pursuit, or he would forget and run full into the laughter of the crowd below.

  Alf snatched at shadows, fingers flying, and wrapped them about his body. They clung and grew and made a robe like dark velvet, girdled with a flare of sword-light.

  Joscelin clattered still upon the stair. Alf sprang after him. They met at the bottom, dark eyes wide to see him so well and swiftly clad, pale eyes lit with a feral light.

  This game was not ending as Joscelin had planned it. He essayed a light, mocking smile, playing to the large and fascinated audience. “Come now, friend,” he said. “I told you you could have her.”

  Alf said nothing, but his blade flickered like a serpent’s tongue. There was a wicked delight in this skill that seemed to grow from the muscles themselves, inborn, effortless. If he had known what he had when he was a boy, no one would ever have dared to torment him. If he had known what a wonder it was, he would have plunged gladly into the heart of Richard’s battle.

  But he knew now, and he knew what he was. Kin to the great cats, the leopard, the panther, swift and strong and deadly dangerous.

  The prey, baited, had become the hunter; and now at last Joscelin knew it. The blood had drained from his face. He glanced about, searching desperately for an opening.

  There was none. Cold steel wove a cage about him. With each pass it drew closer, until its edge flickered a hair’s breadth from his body. His blood would taste most sweet. But his terror was sweeter.

  Alf smiled into his eyes, and neatly, with consummate skill, sent each of his long dark curls tumbling to the floor. He dared not even breathe lest his ears follow, or his nose, or his head itself.

  When he was shorn from crown to nape—laughter erupting behind, and cheers, and wagers laid and paid—Alf leaned close. “Am I a man?” he asked very softly.

  The squire’s eyes were rimmed with white. Yet some remnant of pride made him laugh, a hideous, hollow sound. “Not yet, Sir Priestling, though you’re not an ill barber.”

  A panther, prodded, strikes without thought. Alf struck, but not, in some last glimmer of sanity, with the sword’s edge. The flat of it caught Joscelin beneath the ear and felled him without a sound.

  Slowly Alf turned. The cheering died. Someone offered him a mug, grinning.

  Still gripping the sword, he ran from them all.

  o0o

  The snow had stopped; a bitter wind was blowing, scattering the clouds. Alf welcomed the cold upon his burning face. He stumbled against hard stone and vomited.

  Even after his stomach was empty, he crouched heaving, soul-sick. People passed with no pity to spare for a drunken soldier.

  At last he staggered erect. His robe was heavy with sorcery; he tore at it until it melted away, leaving him bare in the cold.

  His fingers were numb, frozen around the sword-hilt. He dragged it behind him, stopping again for illness, and yet again.

  He had hated and he had used sorcery and he had almost killed. He had given torment for torment and thirsted for blood.

  What does it matter? a small voice taunted. You'll never die. You have no soul. Nothing you do can damn you.

  “My conscience can!” he cried.

  The voice laughed. How can you have a conscience if you have no soul?

  “I do. It torments me.” He fell into a heap of snow, and lay there. No owls would come to warm him now. If he was immortal, could he freeze to death?

  Try and see. His second self sounded as if it already knew the answer. You and your delusions, it went on. You think you have a conscience, because your teachers said you must have one. It’s all delusion. You have no soul. You cannot sin.

  “No!” he shouted. “That’s black heresy.”

  How can it be? You can be neither damned nor saved. Your mind is your only standard. Your mind and your body. You were a fool to ref
use that woman and to let that boy live, for fear of what does not and cannot touch you.

  “God is,” he countered. “He can touch me.”

  How? And if He can, what sense is there in anything? He created you, if He exists, to live forever. He denied you the reward He dangles before humans. He gave you a body with beauty and strength and potent maleness; yet He would have you deny it all, and worship His arrogance, and thank Him for forbidding you to be what you were made to be.

  Alf twisted, struggling to escape from that sweet deadly voice. “I serve Him as best I may, whatever the cost.”

  Do you? Look at you. Your face tempts humans away from virtue; your body incites even your own kind to active lust. If you would serve your paradox of a god, take that sword you clutch so tightly, and scar your face, and maim your body, and cut away your useless manhood.

  He shuddered. “I can’t destroy what God gave me.”

  Laughter rang, cold and scornful. Can't, cant. Pick yourself up and let your body do what it wants to do. The woman, the boy, even the King: take them all, and rule them. They're but human. They'll kiss your feet.

  “No,” he gasped. “No.”

  The elf-maid, the voice purred. She is yours for the asking. And she is no foul-scented animal. She is of your own kind and most fair: and she yearns after you. Go. Take her.

  He clapped his hands over his ears, but it was useless. The voice was in his mind, teasing, tempting, luring him down into darkness. He was immortal, he was beautiful, he was powerful. He could be lord of the world, if he but stretched out his hand.

  He raised his head. The sword lay beside him, half-hidden in snow. Death dwelt in it; death even for one who would not grow old. And after, nothing. Was he not soulless?

  He set the hilt in the snow and turned the point toward his body, leaning forward until it pricked his breast above the hammering heart.

  14

  “Have you gone mad?”

  Alf recoiled, dropping the sword. A swift hand snatched it up and hurled it away.

  He never knew where it fell, for Thea had seized him and held him with strength greater than any man’s. Her face was white and her eyes were wild; she looked fully as uncanny as she was.

  His hand moved to cover himself. She was clad, for once, in his own spare habit and Alun’s cloak. “Even in that," he said, “you’re far fairer than the other was.”

  She threw the cloak over him and made him walk with her, half-leading, half-dragging him.

  “I didn’t want her,” he went on. “She disgusted me. She was an animal; and she stank. She made me realize something. I’m truly not human, and I have no tolerance for those who are.”

  She did not speak. She had drawn up the cowl; he could not see her face.

  “No tolerance,” he repeated. “I almost killed someone tonight. In the end I don’t know why I didn’t. I humiliated him terribly, but I let him live. I let him live. I had that power, Thea. And I wanted it. I delighted in it.”

  “That’s no excuse to throw yourself on your sword.”

  He pulled away from her with sudden violence. “You don’t understand.”

  “Unfortunately,” she said, “I do.”

  She was speaking to his back. He had fled from her.

  o0o

  Jehan sat late in the Bishop’s library, peering at a very old text by candlelight. It was in Greek, and strange, crabbed, difficult Greek at that; he wished that Brother Alf would come to help with it as he had promised. The candle had burned alarmingly low, and still there was no sign of him. The King had never kept him quite so late before.

  Jehan rubbed his eyes and yawned. He would wait a little longer; then he would go to bed. He had Mass to serve in the morning and arms-practice after, and lessons with Father Michael, who had just come back from Paris.

  The door opened upon a familiar brown habit. He half-rose, framing words, welcome, rebuke.

  Alf looked pale, almost ill. When he spoke, cutting off what the other would have said, his voice was faint. “Come with me. Quickly.”

  Jehan rose fully. “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s no time,” Alf said. “Just come.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Jehan followed him. He moved swiftly and in silence, cowl drawn up. When they left the Bishop’s palace for the outer darkness, Jehan could not see him; a thin strong hand gripped his wrist and drew him onward.

  He knew where he was by scent more than by sight. Hay and horses and leather: a stable. A dim light glowed at the far end, shining on a white shape. Fara. Alf led him to her.

  There was something in the straw at her feet; from it came the light, welling through folds of dark fabric. Jehan discerned a human shape drawn into a knot, arms wrapped around its head.

  He knelt. The figure was naked under the cloak, drawing tighter as he touched it; and he knew it. He turned to his guide, wild-eyed.

  Alf’s habit. But not his stance nor his height, nor ever his face, that pale oval within the cowl, with its frame of dark hair and its dark winged brows and its eyes gleaming green. Nor was that his voice. His was golden; this was shaken silver. “Yes, I tricked you; but I brought you here without a fuss.”

  “But how—” he began.

  She cut him off. “Later. That really is your little Brother, and he needs a strong dose of common sense.”

  Jehan looked from her to Alf, seeing the likeness between them. “What’s happened to him? Why is he like this?”

  She told him, succinctly. His fists clenched and his face hardened. “You,” he said when she was done, his voice level, controlled. “Are you the woman?”

  She laughed aloud. Fara snorted at the sound. “Dear God, no! If I had been, he'd be there still, and the better for it too.”

  “Who are you, then? What are you doing here?”

  Her eyes danced, mocking him. “Don’t you know me yet? I’ve run at your heels for close upon a fortnight.”

  He stared thunderstruck. "Thea?”

  “Thea,” she agreed with but little patience. She knelt beside Jehan and contemplated Alf’s still body. “He’s more than half mad, you know. After a lifetime of self-delusion, he’s had a very rude awakening; he doesn’t want to face it.”

  “Why?” Jehan demanded harshly. “What has he awakened to?”

  “The truth. Your monks raised him to think he was a gentle little ringdove, but he’s grown into an eagle. And he’s just discovered that he has talons.”

  “No wonder he’s terrified.” Jehan touched the tense shoulder gently. “Brother Alf. It’s all right. I’m here.”

  There was no response. Thea frowned, but Jehan sensed concern beneath her impatience. “I couldn’t do anything with him, either.”

  “Did you really try?” Again Jehan touched Alf’s shoulder. “Brother Alf, it’s late, and I’ve been waiting for hours for you to help me with Dionysius. Won’t you come back and go to bed?”

  Alf was still for so long that Jehan feared he had failed again. Then the knot loosened, and Alf lay on his back, open-eyed, staring at nothing. “No,” he said. “I can’t go back. I’ve sinned mortally. I tried to kill a man, and I tried to kill myself.”

  “You were provoked,” Jehan pointed out steadily, though he wanted to cry. “I’d have tried to kill that son of a sow too.”

  “It was still a sin. If I can sin. I may not have a soul, Jehan.”

  The other shook his head firmly. “I don’t believe that.”

  Alf did not seem to have heard. “I wrote the Gloria Dei. Even in Rome they sang its praises: the jewel of theological works, the triumph of orthodoxy over heresy. I wrote it in a grand fire of arrogance, in utter certainty of its truth. It is true; I know that, and Rome knows it. But if I am a creature of darkness, a soulless one whose other self is a sword, then what does that make all my pretensions to piety?”

  “Logic,” said Thea, “is a wonderful thing. But you carry it too far. ‘Mouse is a syllable,’ you say. ‘A mouse eats cheese. Therefore, a syllable eats chee
se.’ ”

  In spite of himself, Jehan laughed. “She’s right, Brother Alf. So you’re different; so you’ve never got old. God made you, didn’t He? He let you see enough of Him to write your Gloria.”

  Alf closed his eyes. “And people say that I was a changeling, a demon’s get; and when I was anointed a priest, the oil cast a spell on me, holding me as I was then, a boy of seventeen.”

  “Nonsense,” snapped Thea. “Get up and face the truth. You are wallowing. You have been wallowing for most of your life. And tonight you found out that you had a temper, by God and all His angels; as if the lowest human cur didn’t have one, too. Why, even the Christ got angry once and whipped the money-changers out of his Temple. Have you been trying to outdo him?”

  He leaped up, eyes blazing. “How dare you speak so?”

  “There now. A little honest anger—though your piety is false. You should get angry more often and less piously. Then you won’t be tempted to barber brats of squires with a sword.”

  Alf sank down, head in hands. “Go away,” he muttered. “Go away.”

  “Brother Alf,” Jehan said. “She’s right. You’re taking this too hard. You had to leave St. Ruan’s, and the King wouldn’t listen when you asked for peace, and those idiots of squires treated you too foully for words. Of course you went a little wild. Come to bed now and get some sleep. In the morning you’ll feel better.”

  Alf let Jehan draw him to his feet again, but he would not go. “The cross," he said. “Morwin’s cross. Joscelin took it. And I—I forgot—”

  “Poor little Brother.” Thea held up a glimmer of silver. “This was much too precious to waste on the likes of him. I rescued it. Mended it, too.” She slipped the chain over Alf’s head and settled it on his breast.

  His hand sought the cold silver as if for comfort. She smiled at him, half in mockery, half in something else, and melted. The white hound wriggled out of the habit under Jehan’s wide eyes, and nosed it disdainfully. Here’s something to preserve your modesty. Put it on and go to bed.

  Alf fumbled into the robe, gathered up the cloak, and shook straw from them both. He paused to stroke Fara’s neck and to quiet her concern for him; and followed the others.