Hounds of God (22 page)

His head came up sharply. And should he now?

No vows bound him. He was a man of the world, a lord of
wealth and power, with no fear of death to drive him into penitence. No Heaven
to strive for, no Hell but this earth in the wreck of all his joy. If she was
dead and both hope and hunt no more than a mourner’s madness, then he
would know there was no God for his kind; it was as the Hounds clamored, that
they were the Devil’s own.

No. He could not believe that his people belonged to the
Evil One. Not Thea. Not gentle childlike Maura with her core of tempered steel.
Not Gwydion—Gwydion who lay wounded beyond anyone’s power to heal,
forbidding Alf’s coming with indomitable will, commanding the army from
his bed and from the mouth of his brother. Aidan would have given more, would
have dwelt in the broken body and surrendered his own full strength for Gwydion’s
sake, a selflessness as pure as any mortal saint’s.

Still wet from his washing, Alf wandered into the courtyard.
The air was raw and cold, he knew as one knows beneath a heavy swathing of
garments. Soon now the bell would ring for the Night Office. The monks would
stumble blinking and yawning from their beds; some would sleep upright through
the rite, trusting for concealment to the dimness and to their superior’s
own drowsiness.

Alf had never had that most useful of monastic arts. He had
never needed it.

He was shivering.
Why,
he thought surprised,
I’m cold.

He reached for a handful of shadow, paused, stretched out
his mind for an honest mortal garment. Without shirt or trews, the rough wool
of the pilgrim’s robe galled almost like a hairshirt, as well he knew who
had worn thus the habit of a Jeromite monk.

He was sliding back into it. Jehan noticed and worried.
Nikki liked it not at all.

“They don’t understand,” he said. “I
am God’s paradox. Child of the world’s children, raised for Heaven;
given the world and all its delights, only to see them reft away in a night and
myself cast back into the cloister in which I began. My body was never meant
for that, meekly though it submitted. My spirit… Dear Lord God, but for a
single earthly love I have never been aught but Yours. And she, for all her
mockery, is part of You; the love between us is Your own, though the Church
would call it heresy. Yours even—what sent me from my bed. Even that.”

And if she was dead, what then? Himself, alone. Without her,
without Liahan and Cynan, with the whole of an immortal lifetime before him,
vast and empty, more bitter than any torments of the mortal Hell.

Yet if they lived—if he had them back again—nothing
could be as it was before. With Thea’s aid he had schooled himself to
forget what he was. No longer. Her lover, the father of her children. And a
priest forever.

The truth racked him with its force, sent him reeling to the
ground. God’s truth; God’s hand. God’s bitter jest, a
laughter even his ears could hear.

Priest of what? A Church that had been raised up for
humankind and never for his own; a rite and a dogma that had no place in it for
those whose bodies would not die, and that condemned all his gifts as blackest
sorcery.

Blackest ignorance.

“Paul,” he said, “whose monks have hounded
us so far and so fiercely, is called the Apostle of the Gentiles. What then am
I? I’m neither saint nor evangelist. Only a reed in the wind of God.”

And such a reed. Barefoot, beltless and hatless, wandering
down an empty street with no memory of his passage from San Girolamo’s
courtyard to this unfamiliar place.

The sun was coming. He could feel it, a tingle in his blood,
a shrinking of his skin.

Prophets were mad. It was their nature. He was a seer, though
the sight had been lost to him since before his kin were taken—since he
stood with Alun atop the White Keep. Blinded, he remained a madman and a
mystic.

The narrow street stretched wide. A piazza, the Romans would
say: a square with its inevitable church. No marble Bacchus here, no throngs of
pilgrims in this black hour before dawn, no Brother Oddone seeing in mere
fleshly beauty the image of divinity.

If he thought he had it, would he worship it so ardently? He
could not see his own soul; he could not know what a singing splendor was in
it.

The church was still and silent. It was very old, very
plain. Its distinction was the glory of gold and crystal beneath the altar,
encasing a strange relic, the coldness of iron, the harshness of chains.

Once they had bound Peter himself, the fisherman who became
Prince of Apostles. Another paradox; another who had lived in torment, betrayer
and chief defender of his Christ.

“The world is a paradox,” Alf said, “and
men are lost in it. What is philosophy but a struggle to make order of chaos?
What is theology but a child’s groping in the dark? Jesu, Maria, God in
high Heaven, what are you to me or to my kin?”

The echoes died slowly. He expected no answer. Perhaps there
was none.

He sank to his knees on the stone. “My Lord,” he
said reasonably as to any man, “the world is Yours in its fullest
measure. I see You in it, albeit dimly, with eyes never made for such vision. I
know I come from You; You shine in my people. And yet, my Lord, and yet, if I
am to serve You before them, how can I do it? The Church staggers under the
weight of its humanity. Its heretics offer only a stricter law, a harsher road
to Heaven. Moses, Muhammad, Gautama, all the gods and prophets, have no help
for us. For me. I stand alone.” The word shuddered in his throat. “Alone.
Shall we all die then? Have You looked upon us and found us evil, and set Your
Hounds to sweep us away? We are poor things, neither men nor angels, neither
spirit nor true earthly flesh. And yet we live; we serve You as best we can.
Must we pay for it with our destruction?”

He shook his head. “No. That’s despair. We’re
being tested. Winnowed; shown our proper path. But ah, dear God, the testing is
bitter and the winnowing relentless, and the path... I can see but little of
that, and that darkly, and I am afraid.”

Out of the shadows a voice spoke. It was quiet, a little
diffident; it seemed honestly concerned. “But, brother, you’re
supposed to be afraid.”

Alf whipped about. He knew he moved like an animal,
startling to human eyes, but these showed neither fear nor recoil. Their owner
was a man neither tall nor short, frail and sallow and gaunt to starvation, his
eyes dark and gently humorous between neglected beard and much neglected
tonsure.

A beggar surely, a mendicant friar, ragged and long unwashed
but extraordinarily clear of gaze and wit. He took in Alf’s face and
form, and smiled with a wondrous sweetness. “Brother, you are a joy to
see, even in your sorrow. Can you pardon me for having listened to it? I was
saying my prayers in the chapel yonder when your voice came to me like a cry
from Heaven.”

“Or to it,” Alf said. This man was no great
delight to the eye or to the nose, and yet he lightened even Alf’s spirit
with his simple presence. He had a power; a gift of joy.

“To Heaven, yes,” he responded. “Would any
good man cry to Hell?”

“He might if he were desperate.”

“I think,” said the stranger, “that in
such a case, God would hear. You agree, surely, or it’s Hell you would
have been calling to.”

Alf’s mouth twisted wryly. “I’m desperate,
but I remain a creature of reason. It’s one of my curses.”

“You have more than one?”

“What earthly being does not?”

“None. But one should never keep count. Blessings,
now; those I love to number. Brother sun and sister moon; mother earth and all
her seasons, her fruits and her creatures, even her human folk. Especially
they. So much in them is hideous, but how much more is beautiful, if only one
knows how to see.”

Alf nodded once, twice. “I’ll never dispute
that. Nor do I take pleasure in reckoning up my ill fortune, but it has to be
done, else I’ll suffer all the more for my heedlessness. God does not
permit any creature to be too constantly happy.”

“Of course not. Happiness needs sadness to set it off.
Would you want to live solely on honey?”

“No more than I’d prefer a diet of gall. I’ve
gorged on sweetness, you see; now I’m deluged with bitterness.”

The stranger squatted beside him. “Are you that? I’m
sorry for it. I suppose it’s no great comfort that the gladness will come
back.”

“It’s not.” Alf’s head bent; he sat on
his heels, weary beyond telling. “If I could see it, if I could know, I’d
be stronger.”

“No man may know what will come. He can only hope, and
trust in God.”

“Once,” Alf said, “I knew. The gift has
left me. Time was when I would have sung my joy to be free of it; but flesh is
never content. I don’t want it back, you understand. Not the strokes of
vision that fell me in my tracks; not the forewarnings of wars and plagues and
calamities. Not even the few glimpses of light, paid for as they are in such
cruel coin. I could only wish for a single image. Sunlight, warmth, a child’s
laughter. Only that. Then I would have the will to go on.”

“That will be as God wills,” said the stranger. “He’s
very strong in you, did you know that? You shine like the moon.”

Alf flung up his head. “It is not God.”

“Why, of course it is,” said the mild musical voice.
“I’m sure you’re one of His dearer children. He wouldn’t
test you so fiercely if He didn’t love you exceedingly.”

“That is not the orthodox position, Brother.”

“It’s the truth.”

Alf laughed sharply. “What is truth? By Church law I
was damned from my conception.”

“No, brother. Someone has taught you wrongly. No man
can be—”

“But I am not a man.”

The beggar-friar blinked at him.

“I am not a man,” Alf repeated. “I am
neither human nor mortal. The doctrine holds that I have neither soul nor hope
of salvation. Not a pleasant thought at the best of times, to the most
irreligious of us. Which this is not, and which I am most certainly not. And I
think—I know that I am called. A daimon with a vocation; an elvenlord who
was born to be a priest. Can’t you sense God’s high amusement?”

“God’s laughter is never cruel,” the other
said. Alf could find in him no sign of either surprise or disbelief. “I
knew you were from Rhiyana; your face is unmistakable. So it’s true what’s
being said of your people.”

“Most of it. All, maybe, if you would make us the
Devil’s brood.”

The dark eyes measured him. “I would not. Mother
Church isn’t remarkably fond of me, either, you know; she finds me
difficult to manage. I tell the truth as I can see it, and it’s not
always her truth, and I think too much of the Lord Jesus and too little of the
Canons. She does what she can to keep me in order, and I try to obey her. But
when truth stands on one side and the Church on the other, it’s hard
indeed to know what I should do.”

“It’s worse than hard. It’s well-nigh
impossible. One can only shut one’s eyes and pray for guidance, and do as
one’s heart dictates.”

“My heart tells me that I see you truly. Your trouble
is the Crusade, isn’t it? War is no way to spread the Faith. Very much
the opposite.”

“My people have no need of conversion. Our enemies
know that. They intend to destroy us. For the greater glory of God.”

“I would go,” said the friar. “I would
teach the Faith to those who have never professed it. The Saracens, the people
afar in the silk countries—a whole world has no knowledge of truth. I
would go to it and leave you in God’s peace.”

“But you are not permitted.”

“I have been. I shall be again, though perhaps not
soon. His Holiness is most kind, but the world besets him; the Church grows too
great, and she grows haughty in her greatness. Sometimes—this is not
charitable, brother, but sometimes I think we need the Lord Jesus to come again
and scourge this temple reared up in his name.”

“Is that not what you are doing?”

The friar sighed. “I have no skill in scourging
temples. Even when forced to it, I do it badly. I would much rather be doing
God’s gentler works. Healing, teaching, ministering to the poor.”
He sighed again, and coughed hard enough to rattle his fragile bones. “But
one does what one must. Sometimes one escapes and tries to heal oneself in
solitude.”

“I too,” Alf said. He realized that he was
smiling faintly, a little painfully. “You’ve healed me a little.
You’ve taught me something.”

“Have I?” asked the other, surprised. “I
wasn’t trying to. I’ve done little but chatter about myself.”

Alf’s smile deepened. “That’s one excellent
way to teach.”

The friar looked at him, smiling himself with such warm
delight that Alt felt it like an open fire. “And doesn’t misery
love company?” He sobered suddenly. “I only fear... I never wanted
it to go this far. It was only myself and God. Then my brothers came to share
God with me and to help me with His work; only a few at first, but the word got
out, and to keep them all in order I needed some sort of rule, and everyone
said the Pope himself should sanction it. And suddenly we were an Order like
the Benedictines or the Jeromites, and we had to be sealed with the tonsure and
the threefold vows. To keep us safe, His Holiness said. To mark us for what we
were, servants of the Church. And all I wanted was to live in peace in our Lord’s
poverty, carrying out his commands as best I knew how. What is there in the
world that destroys all simplicity?”

“Human nature,” Alf answered gently. “But
there’s much good your brothers can do as they are, they and their
sisters. The temple will be scourged. The Church will cleanse itself. Though it
will be long, long...”

He had the man’s hands in his own. They were
stick-thin, wrapped in bandages that though bloody were somewhat cleaner than
the rest of him. Alf caught his breath at the festering pain as at the rush of
sight. “Giovanni Bernardone, when you stand by the throne of God, will
you spare a word for my people?”