Hounds of God (29 page)

He could not.

Cynan
.

He could—
so
.

He opened his eyes. The world was grey, all its colors
poured into scent and sound. His body pulsed with a hotter and fiercer life
than ever it was born to. When he stretched an arm it moved strangely, flexing
claws.

He blinked. Knowledge woke from he knew not where. A
half-turn of thought, a flexing of his will; he saw as he had always seen, but
from the same unfamiliar angle. His arm, become a foreleg, was white yet
dappled with shadow and silver. He raised his head.

They were staring, all three, in wonder and a touch of awe.
He gathered his new body and flowed from the bed, testing his skill. He
glimpsed himself in Jehan’s open mind, a great leopard as pale as the
moon, with the eyes of an enchanter.

As knowledge had swelled, so now swelled joy. So simple, so
wonderful, to be his own soul’s creature. The other, his blazon—

He laughed, and it was a hawk’s cry, his wings
stretching wide, exultant. A flick of power; his voice was his own again. He
lowered his arms and turned. “See,” he said to his son. “As
easy as that. Come; will you not play the game with me?”

Brave child; he laughed behind the hound’s face and plunged
inward. Alf rode with him, steadying him, though he needed little of that. He
was as strong as he was valiant.

Together they found the center. The wall had gained a gate,
and the gate was opening slowly. Cynan hesitated the briefest of instants. Then
he loosed what lay within.

Alf looked down. A stranger looked up, a manchild of two
summers or perhaps a little less. His hair was long and straight and fine, the
color of chestnuts; his eyes were silvered gold. Even so young, he had Thea’s
pointed face and her wicked smile.
Do you
like me better now, Father?

“I could never like you better than I do,” Alf
answered as steadily as he could, “but I’m more than glad to see
your proper face again.”

I feel odd,
Cynan
said. He moved, exploring the ways of this new shape. It was clumsy; it was
vaguely repulsive, smooth and all but hairless as it was. But its hands were
purest fascination.

He persuaded one to reach up, to touch his father’s
face. His lips stretched again into that strangeness called a smile, his tongue
pausing to explore the broad blunt teeth. His other hand followed its mate to
clasp Alf’s neck; he rose dizzily to Alf-height, secure within the
circling arms.

Alf wept, and yet he laughed. “Oh, yes, I like you
very much this way. But even as a hound pup you can hardly be as old as this.”

I don’t want to be
too little.
Cynan wriggled, for the feel of it.
May I eat now?

Hungry though he was, he could not help but play with the
cheese and the bread soaked in milk that Jehan brought and Alf fed him. Food
was different to this body, richer and more savory, and his hands could grasp
it in so many fascinating ways. Hands, he thought, made all the rest worth
bearing.

He fell asleep with a crust clutched in his fist. He did not
heed the closing of the shields about his mind, nor see them all gathered to
stare, even, hesitantly, to touch. But even in sleep he heard his father’s
soft voice murmuring words of guard and comfort. He smiled and held the crust
tighter, and lost himself in his dream.

Stefania knew that she was dreaming. She was lying in her
own familiar bed, bare as always under the coverlet her mother had made for
her, with Anna breathing gently beside her and Bianca snoring beyond. The
candle was lit, although she remembered distinctly that she had snuffed it as
soon as she said her prayers.

But surest proof of the dream was Nikephoros, who bent over
her. Quite apart from the impossibility of his presence, he did not wear the
pilgrim’s mantle she had always seen him in, but the full finery of a
northern nobleman. He looked splendid in scarlet.

She stretched out her hand to feel its richness. He bent
lower still. His black curls, falling forward, brushed her cheeks.

She pulled him down the last crucial inch. Since this was a
dream, she could be as bold as ever she had yearned to be. She could—why,
she could be frankly wanton.

How real this was. The coverlet was down around her waist,
her skin reveling in the caress of silk with the young man’s body behind
it. His cheek pricked a little where it was shaven, tasting of salt and
cleanness. His lips burned as she found them again.

At last she let him go. He hung above her, braced on his
hands. The candle, flaring, made his eyes glitter.

She blinked and peered. His brilliant cotte had vanished. He
was a pilgrim again, and she was cold, but she was fiery hot. Her breasts had
forgotten silk; they remembered the harsh pricking of wool.

She snatched wildly, clutching blankets, recoiling as far as
the bed’s head would allow. She was very wide awake and he was very
solidly present, and it was abundantly clear that she had not dreamed the rest
of it.

Except the cotte. Small comfort that was; would she ever
survive the shame?

Her mouth opened. His hand covered it. He glanced warningly
at her companions, who had not moved through all of it; his free hand held up
the dark limpness of her nightrobe.

She snatched it and pulled it on, rising to finish, framing
a scolding. His fingers, closing over her wrist, held it back once again.

By the time he had led her down to the lower room, lit a
lamp, and stirred up the brazier, she had cooled considerably. It was not he,
after all, who had played the wanton. In fact, as she remembered it, his eyes
had widened when first she touched him. He had not been reluctant in the least,
but he had certainly been surprised.

Well then, it was done, and there was no calling it back
again. She called her thoughts to order and faced this welcome but utterly
improper guest. “Has anyone ever told you, Messer Nikephoros, that a
young man has no business rousing a respectable maiden from her bed?”

He smiled slightly, hardly more than a flicker. He had that
look again, fey, a little wild.
I had to
see you
, he said.
I couldn’t
stand it.

“Restraint is the first virtue of the philosopher.”

He tossed his head like a restless colt.
Don’t throw words at me, Stefania.
Stop thinking I’m just another rutting male. I want you and I’ll
always want you, but I can’t bear—

“There now,” she said. He trembled under her
hands, as only that evening she had trembled under his. Had he felt so powerful
then, so piercingly tender?

Sweet saints,
she
thought, and she was never sure that it was not a prayer,
I love this silly beauty of a boy.
Aloud she said again, “There
now,
caro mio
, what’s not to be
borne? You’ve loved women before, I know, which sets you well in advance
of me; and don’t tell me it’s never been like this.”

It hasn’t!
he cried. He pulled back.
They knew—they
didn’t think I was—they knew the truth.

“What truth is that? That you’re younger than I?
I know it; you told me. That you’re higher born than you pretend? I guessed
that long since.”

He seized her.
Look at
me, Stefania.
Look
at me!

That was never difficult to do. She brushed the errant lock
from his forehead. His eyes blazed.
Look,
he repeated.
See. See how I speak to you.
Open your eyes; stop denying it. See.

She went very still. No. Oh, surely, no.

His lips had moved, of course they had. What mountebank’s
trick was this that he played on her?

He forced her hands up, one to the motionless mouth, one to
the still throat.
I don’t speak as
men speak. I can’t. I was born half-formed, good enough to look on but
without ears to hear.

“But you are—”

I told you I grew up
in Rhiyana. Don’t you know what that means? I’m one of them. A
witch, a sorcerer. I’m reckoned quite skillful. I can make you think I’m
a man like any other. I can walk in your mind. I can set myself in your dreams.

She shook her head. “No. It’s not possible. Reason,
logic—”

Reason and logic have
no place among my kind. Haven’t you been wondering why neither Bianca nor
your uncle said a word about my brother?

“He came in and out through the back, by the courtyard.”

He came in and out by
magic. The little hound that he grieved over, that was his son. He’s a
very great enchanter, Stefania. He taught me; he made me what I am. I’m
not of the true blood, you see. Mine is as human as yours; or was, before he
changed me. Without him I’d have been nothing, a deaf-mute like those
poor creatures who beg in the market, an animal in the shape of a man.

Strange how one could grow accustomed to things. A minute or
two of the impossible and it was no longer impossible; it became fact, like the
existence of God.

She had found logical arguments for the nonexistence of
witches, had based a whole and yet unwritten treatise on them, contending that
observation revealed the world thus, and thus, and thus. No doubt in due time
she would have argued that God Himself was a creature of man’s overly
fertile mind, and then she would have gone to the fire for heresy. Rightfully;
for if a witch could be, then so could God.

No, she rebuked herself. That was all folly. She had played
with such arguments for the sake of playing with them, but never given them
credit.

In strict truth, she did not want to believe that this
particular witch existed. This witch
per
rem
,
per speciem
; this boy who had
appeared on her doorstep and stolen her heart. Witched it away beyond any hope
of recovery.

That was the impossibility. That he was one of the Devil’s
children, lost and damned, fair prey for any faithful son of the Church. He
could not be a black sorcerer. Not Nikephoros.

She felt his pain as if it had been her own, touched with a
faint, bitter amusement.
There at least
you see clearly, my poor love. I’m not that kind of witch. I’m of
the other faction, a white enchanter. Not that the Church cares. I’m
still anathema.

“Damn the Church!”

He shook his head, tossing it, his black brows meeting over
his black eyes. He did not look—he seemed—

He had let go her hands. She caught his cheeks between them.
She trembled; but not with fear, not precisely. It was far too late for that,
or far too early. Especially when, caught off guard by her sudden swooping
kiss, he responded with undisguised passion.

Only for a moment. He tore free.
It’s not only that, Stefania. I lied. I let you think I was a
whole man.

Her eyes ran over him, halting midway. “Aren’t
you?”

He actually blushed. But his mouth was grim.
I pretended that I belonged to your world. I
don’t. I can’t. The stroke of God that flawed me, the stroke of
witchery that mended me, between them have set me apart. I’ll never be
human as you are human. I can’t even—truly—wish to be.
She had neither need nor time to voice her denial; he plunged over it.
You saw how I was that night when I
frightened you so much. I’d lost my power then. I was going mad in the silence.
I couldn’t endure to live so always, even for love of you.

“Do you think I’d ever force that on you?”

Do you think you could
live out your life in the knowledge of what I am? My children could be like me.
Could you bear that?

“I have no trouble enduring you.”

What of your uncle? Of
Bianca? Of your kin, your friends, the people you meet and speak to on the
street? What would they say if they knew?

“Need they ever know?”

You’re not
thinking. You’re just loving me.

“Of course. It’s the only reasonable thing to
do.”

He grasped her, shook her.
Stefania Makaria, do you mean that?

“Absolutely.”

Then,
he said,
come with me. One of my friends is a bishop.
He’ll marry us tonight. We only have to go to him and ask.

She backed away a step or two. She gathered her robe about
her, shivering, realizing that she was barefoot and the floor was cold.

That cold part of her mind which he was trying to wake, the
clever thinker, the philosopher, was saying exactly what he wanted it to say.
He tested her; rightly. He was not what she had thought him. If he could walk
through her mind, seeing God knew what secrets, it stood to reason that he
could do much more, some of it even less appealing. And the natural man, if man
she could call him, was sadly flawed.

On the other hand, if he had meant her ill, he could have
overcome her long since and without this harrowing confession. He could have
seized her, subdued her mind with her body, taken her, discarded her.

Such, in tales, had always been the conduct of wizards. But
then perhaps this was a subtler torment, a more necromantically satisfying
conquest.

However—

She hurled down her damnable logic and set her foot on it. “You
know full well, Nikephoros, that if either of us is ready to marry, it’s
not likely to be tonight. For one thing, we have families, and these would
prefer to be consulted. For another, we are in no condition of mind or body to
be making a decision as serious as that.”

Say it!
he cried.
Say that you won’t have such a horror
as I am.

Her chin came up. She knew her eyes were snapping; she felt
the heat in them. “Nikephoros Akestas, what do you take me for?”

An eminently sensible
woman. Damn it, Stefania, I’m an honest-to-heaven, utterly unrepentant,
practicing sorcerer.

“You certainly look like one, with yesterday’s
razor-cut on your chin. And your hem is torn again. What do you do with it?
Take it for walks through thornbrakes?”