Read Hounds of God Online

Authors: Judith Tarr

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Hounds of God (32 page)

They slept within their strong walls, the Frangipani
princes. None seemed to know what prisoners they held. Nor what approached
them, a man moving as a leopard would move, his white skin dappled with mud and
starlight.

The scent led him round the castle itself, past the frown of
the gate toward the older walls. The ranks of seats were gone, fallen or taken,
but the skeleton remained; and it was thicker than it had seemed. Of course;
there would have been a webwork of passages and chambers, stables, storage
places for fodder and harness. Not the mighty labyrinth of the Colosseum,
maybe, that had brought Nikki back one night in a fever of excited discovery,
but enough and more to hide two women and two children.

And who need ever know? Not the Frangipani, secure in their
fortress. Not the few folk who dwelt on this the edge of the populous places.
Not ever the hunters quartered so close and never suspecting that their quarry
lay in plain sight.

He paused in the lee of the wall. From here it seemed
immensely long and high, impossibly complex. The scent that had been so strong
was fading fast. The thread was thread again, thin as a spider’s. He sped
along it, abandoning both caution and concealment. Beast-shape would be faster,
but flight was faster still. He spurned the earth, flung himself upon air,
wingless yet swifter than any bird.

He nearly overshot the mark: an arch far down the wall,
across the field from the place where he had begun. Of all the many arches,
this one alone cried out to him; it gaped blackly, his height and more above
the ground. He hovered before it, shaping light to see within.

A door shut. An axe fell. A great force severed thread and
power together. He fell like a stone and lay stunned, blind and deaf.

With infinite slowness his sight restored itself. He could
move. Nothing had broken, although every bone felt as if it had been stretched
upon the rack. He dragged himself to hands and knees, to knees alone, to his
feet. The arch yawned above him. The wall beneath, cracked and crannied,
offered hand- and footholds. Grimly he attacked it.

This dark was no natural lightlessness. Starlight should
have been enough even for cat-eyes, more than enough for witch-sight. But he
was as blind as any human, groping his way down a stone passage with no power
to guide him. Was this what it was to be human? Blind, deaf, wrapped in
numbness.

The floor dropped away. Once more he fell, once more he lay
on the edge of oblivion until pain dragged him back. This rising was harder by
far; when he walked, he walked lame; But again his bones were intact, his steps
steadying as the pain faded to a dull and endurable ache. He moved more slowly
now, with greater care. Another fall might break him indeed; and being what he
was, he would not die easily. He could lie long ages in agony before his enemy
came to add to his torment, or until death claimed him at last.

Light.

His eyes mocked him with hope. No; it was growing. It
flickered. Torchlight. Dimly at first, then more clearly, he saw what lay about
him. A long passage a little wider than his arms’ stretch, a little
higher than he could reach. It was not Anna’s passage; no doors broke the
featureless walls. What it had been, what it was meant for, he had no wits left
to guess.

He stumbled toward the light. It illumined a stair, a short
downward flight. The torch was old, ready to gutter out, but he wrenched it
from the crack into which it had been thrust.

With it in his grip, he felt slightly stronger. He could
move more quickly, indeed he must, before the light died.

Another stair. Upward. At last, a door, bolted. With
ruthless, furious strength, he tore bolt and bars from their housings.

Satisfaction warmed him, stronger than regret; his muscles
at least had not lost their power, whatever had become of his mind and his
senses.

He strode through the broken door. He was close now. This
must once have been an entryway into the arena, a wider space bordered with
arches. One was blocked with rubble and rough brickwork. The other, though
barred below, offered a thin half-circle of open sky.

Alf paused, drawing clean air into his lungs, drinking in
strength. He advanced more steadily than before into a passage which, oddly,
seemed less dark.

In a little while he was certain. His power was returning.
Even before his torch sputtered and died, he had no need of it; he saw clearly
enough.

Yet another stair descended below the level of the ground,
but its ceiling was a sloping shaft roofed with stars. The passage at its foot
ended in a second door. This bolt he slid back almost gently, knowing what he
would find.

This was Anna’s corridor. The blank wall would face
the outer world, the rim of the Circus. The doors would open upon chambers and
new passages.

There were not as many doors as she had remembered, perhaps at
Simon’s connivance—three or four at most, and the one, the one that
mattered, set with a grille that scattered golden light against the wall.

Alf’s heart hammered. His palms were cold, his head
light. If this was all a grim deception, if they were gone, or if they had
never been there at all—

The cell, the vaulted ceiling, the cluster of lamps: he had
seen them through Anna’s eyes. The pallet lay as she had recalled. On it...

He never remembered the door’s opening. Perhaps he had
simply willed himself through it. She was asleep or unconscious in her own
beautiful shape, her white skin glimmering, her hair a tangle of silk, bronze
and gold. Slowly he drew near. His mind uncurled a tendril, poised for any
sorcerous assault, meeting none. With infinite delicacy it touched her.

Her eyes opened, all gold. “So early?” she
murmured, still half in sleep, reaching drowsily to draw him down. As their
lips touched, all sleep fled. Her grip tightened to steel; her warmth turned to
fire. She clutched him with fierce strength, yet no stronger or fiercer than
he, as if one madly joyous embrace could wipe away all the days apart.

Neither knew who cooled first to sanity, he or she. They
were body to body still, flesh to burning flesh, but eye met eye with passion
laid aside. He was above her, stroking her hair out of her face. She traced his
cheek; frowned; followed the long beloved line down neck and shoulder and
breast to count each jutting rib. “Alfred of Saint Ruan’s,”
she demanded sharply, “what have you done to yourself?”

She did not wait for an answer, if answer he could have
given. She thrust him from her, rising in her turn above him, glaring down. “Look
at you. A skeleton. And here. You idiot. You utter, hopeless idiot.”

For all her wrath, and it was wrath indeed, her eyes had
filled and overflowed.

He kissed the tears away. She slapped at him; he kissed her
palms. “You
fool
! This is
exactly where he wants you.”

“And where I want you.” Not all the tears were
hers. He laughed through them. “Thea. Thea Damaskena. I was dying, and
now I live again.”

“Not for long,” she snapped. “He laid the bait,
and you took it, royally. And all you can think of is the fire between your
legs.”

“Of course. It maddens him.” Alf cupped her
breasts in his hands. They were fuller than ever he remembered, infinitely
sweet. “He’ll be here soon. Shall we give him something to watch?”

“You’re mad.”

“I’m challenging him.”

“You’re suicidal.” He laughed; she struck
him again, not lightly. “He has Liahan. He came, freed me from the hound’s
body, took her away.”

That killed his laughter, if not his ardor. “When?”

“After he flung Anna out and Cynan with her. Baited
his hook, I should say. Liahan is his hostage. He’ll kill her if you
threaten him.”

“Maybe not.” He caught her hips, eased her down
upon him. She gasped, half in resistance, half in desire. Resistance died as
desire mounted. In the joining of their bodies she saw what he saw, weaving
into his mind, filling all his emptiness as he filled hers, body and soul. They
were whole again, both, in high and singing joy, nor could even his power of
prophecy, reborn, cast it down to earth.

Joined, they held Simon at bay; their loving repelled him
more completely than any shield of power. But even witch- strength could not
suffice to prolong their union much beyond the mortal span. They lay entwined,
the aftermath made sweeter for that there might never be another, and smiled at
the one who had come to destroy them.

“Whore.” Simon’s voice did not sound in
Alf’s ears as his own did, but that proved nothing. It was certainly
light for a man’s, and it was purer than a human’s would have been,
even raw with outrage. And yes, the face was like the one he met when compelled
to face a mirror, yet older, stronger, less girlish-fair. This one had grown to
full manhood, had not frozen just on the verge of it, caught forever between
boy and man.

In body, perhaps. In mind…

Alf rose, setting himself eye to eye. Simon’s nostrils
thinned and whitened. He flung something in Alf’s face, a tangle that
sorted into twin robes of unbleached wool. They were considerably finer than
pilgrim’s garb. Alf donned the larger, which fit well, and waited as Thea
slipped into the smaller. “The last of God’s Hounds who jailed me,”
he observed, “would not besmirch his habit by clothing me in it.”

“The rules have relaxed,” said Thea coolly, “since
one of our kind found his way more or less legitimately into the Order.”
She circled Alf’s waist with her arm, leaning against him with easy
intimacy, stroking the soft wool that clung to his thigh. “Delicate skins,
the Paulines must have. This makes the Jeromite habit feel like sackcloth.”

“Saint Jerome’s Brothers tend to be a shade
austere.” Alf regarded Simon with the suggestion of a smile. “Saint
Paul, however, was the champion of moderation. In all things.”

“You are abominable.” Simon looked as if he were
fending off violent sickness. “How could you do—that—”

The smile grew clearer. “Quite easily after such a
parting; and for a long while before it, my lady was too great with the
children to—” Alf stopped; he flushed faintly. “Ah, Brother,
your pardon. I’ve been in the world so long, I’ve forgotten proper
priestly discretion.”

“You have forgotten nothing.”

“Maybe, after all, I have not.” The smile was
gone. Alf’s eyes were cool, his voice level. “I forget very little.
Forgiveness is another matter.”

“Do you think you can challenge me?”

“I do. I am. I challenge you, Brother Simon of the
Order of Saint Paul. I bid you release my lady and my daughter. I command you
to cease your harrying of my people.”

“‘Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the
Pleiades, or loose the bonds of Orion? Knowest thou the ordinances of Heaven?
canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?’”

Alf’s eyes glittered; he laughed. “Are you so
mighty then, kinsman? ‘Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder
with a voice like him?’”

“I am the voice of God.”

“Pride, my brother, has cast down greater powers than
yours.”

“I shall cast you down, demon, mock me though you
will.” Simon stepped away from the open door. In it stood Brother Paul,
languid as ever, and in his arms the still form of Liahan. Her eyes were open
but dull. Her alaunt’s body was limp. The monk stroked her steadily, a
smile growing as Alf stared. “Good morning, my lord Chancellor,” he
said.

Alf stood taut, seeing him hardly at all, only his habit and
his intent and the creature he cradled with such deceptive care. “If you
have harmed my daughter—”

“Yes,” Brother Paul cut him off lightly. “If
we have. What then, my lord? What can you do? It won’t be as it was
before, I can assure you. No mere mortal men hold you captive; no king will
ride to your rescue. This time, at last, the Order will have its revenge.”

“You have a most un-Christian memory for slights.”

“Slights, sir? Is it so you reckon it? By your doing
we are banned from the whole isle of Britain; with your aid we were forbidden
to enter Rhiyana. You’ve had no small part in the quashing of our Order,
Alfred of Saint Ruan’s.”

“I’d lie if I professed remorse.” Alf
focused above the habit upon the florid face. Anna had been unduly prejudiced;
it was a handsome face, if not at all in the mold of the Kindred. The accent,
he noticed, was Anglian, but as for the man: “Surely you’re not old
enough to have been one of my inquisitors.”

“I admit, I never had the honor. But I was there.”
Brother Paul’s smile was rich with malice. “Brother Reynaud gave a
good account of himself with the whip. He’s still alive, you know. Still
laughing, save now and then when he howls like a beast. When our postulants
need to know what would become of humanity under your people’s sway, they’re
taken to see him. It’s very effective. The weak flee our walls in dread
of a like fate. The strong grow all the more determined to destroy your kind.”

“If you were there, you know that that was none of my
doing.”

“No? I ventured a test once. I drove a man to attack
Simon. He went mad likewise. He died; but after all, Simon is stronger than
you. Also, I think, more honestly merciful. I certainly would prefer death to
the life Reynaud has lived since he ran afoul of you.”

Alf’s eyes had narrowed as the monk spoke. Memory was
stirring, stripping away years. Evading the horror of a truth he had never
known or wanted to know, that in return for the scars on his back he had broken
a man’s mind.

It was a trap, that truth, meant to break his will. He made
himself see, made himself find the name this monk had had. He had been a youth
then, dark and slender, languid-eyed, all sweet malevolence. “Joscelin.
Joscelin de Beaumarchais.” He shook his head, not incredulous, not precisely,
but much bemused. “You had chosen the Benedictines, I thought. For the
wine and the women and the boys when you wanted them. Whatever made you turn to
Saint Paul?”

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