Isle of Glass (14 page)

After the fourth round, as the serving girl withdrew,
Joscelin seized her plump wrist and pulled her back. She came with but a token
protest, giggling on a high note. “Here, Bess,” he said. “What do you think of
our clerkly friend?”

Her eyes flicked over Alf, once, twice. Cold clear eyes,
shrill titter. “Oh, he’s
handsome
!”

“Handsomer than I?”

She tittered. “Well, sir, I really couldn't—”

“Of course you could. Because he is. And do you know
something?” Joscelin’s voice lowered, but it was no less penetrating. “He’s
never been with a woman.”

He stressed the last word very slightly. Again that swift
appraisal. Alf kept his eyes lowered, but he heard her maddening giggle. “He
hasn't?”

Suddenly she was in his lap. She was warm and soft, flowing
out of her tight bodice; and she stank.

He shrank a little, fastidiously. She took it for shyness
and pressed herself close, nuzzling his neck.

For all her squirmings, he felt nothing but disgust. Gently
but firmly, with strength that made her stop and stare, he set her on her feet
and handed her his mug. “May we have more ale, please?”

“Bravo, Brother!” Joscelin cried. “Another triumph for Holy
Church. Or maybe we’ve made the wrong offer. Perkin! Perkin lad, where are
you?”

Alf rose. “I have to go.”

All three united in pulling him down. “Oh, no, Brother,”
Joscelin purred. “It must get monotonous to spend all your time with men. You
need a change.”

“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 refuse
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.

“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.”