Hounds of God (7 page)

Even so little sleep had brought back his sheen. He emerged
with care lest Thea wake, drawing everyone at once into his joyous embrace.
Even Jehan—especially Jehan, who had never been one to stand upon his
dignity.

“The old Abbot should see you now,” the Bishop
said grinning. “He’d be cackling with glee.”

“Wouldn’t he?” Alf laughed for the simple
pleasure of it and stooped to the cradle, raising his son, setting the
blanket-wrapped bundle in Jehan’s arms. But his daughter he gave to Alun
with a little bow. “My lord, your bride.”

Alun held her stiffly, staring at her face within the
blankets. She was awake and a trifle uncomfortable. He shifted his grip, easing
it, relaxing little by little. She blinked and stirred, but in comfort,
learning this body in this new world, in the cold and the open and the sudden
awesome light.

“I remember,” Alun said slowly. “A long,
long time ago... everything was so strange. All new. As if it had never been
before, but now it was and would always be.” He blinked—had he
known it, exactly as Liahan had done—and shook his head. Alf was smiling
at him. “I
do
remember!”

“I believe you. My memory goes back not quite so far,
but far enough.”

“Oh, but you’re old!”

Alf laughed. No one had ever heard him laugh so much. “Old
as Methuselah, and happy enough to sing.”

“Do that!” cried Anna.

“Yes.” Thea’s voice brought them all
about. It was somewhat faint and she was very pale, but she was sitting up,
smiling. “Do that, Alf.”

His mirth faded. Turned indeed to a frown as she stood
swaying, as white as her shift.

Swifter than sight he was beside her, sweeping her up. “You,
my lady, are not to leave your bed for a day at least.”

“Indeed, my lord?” She linked her hands about
his neck. “Am I such a weakling, then?”

“You almost died.”

“Only almost.” She sighed deeply. His stare was implacable.
“Well then. I suppose I can humor you.
If
—”

“No
if
s,
Thea.”

“If,” she continued undaunted, “you
forbear from fretting over me. Aren’t you supposed to be receiving an
embassy?”

“You’d send me away now?”

He looked almost stricken. Her eyes danced. “Not just
now. You can hover over the cradle for a bit. You can sing for us all. But
first and foremost,” she said, drawing his head down, “you can kiss
me.”

Alf paused just outside the King’s solar. Nikki, in
the grey surcoat and falcon blazon of his squire, straightened the Chancellor’s
chain of office and smoothed his cloak of fine wool and vair. He was oblivious
to the service, ears and mind intent on what passed beyond the door.

Nikki smiled wryly.
There’s
one advantage in being late
, he said.
You
don’t have to stand through the usual round of ceremonies.

Alf turned wide pale eyes upon him. Slowly they came into
focus. “Gwydion is alone in there.”

Alone with half his
court.

“Servants and secretaries.”

And the Bishop of
Sarum.

But none of his Kin. He had commanded it. The Pope’s
men could have seen them in the hall, tall fair people mingling freely with the
human folk, but there would be no closer meetings. Not while the kingdom’s
safety rested on the goodwill of the embassy.

Abruptly Alf strode forward. Nikki stretched to keep pace.
The guard bowed them through the door.

oOo

The Pope had chosen his men with great care. The Legate
himself was slightly startling, a young man for a cardinal, surely no more than
forty, lean and dark and haughty, with a black and penetrating eye. But he was
no fanatic.

No; he was something much more deadly. A true and faithful
man of God, deeply learned in both law and theology, and gifted with a rare
intelligence. It took in the arrivals; absorbed but did not yet presume to
judge, although the kind of the tall young-faced nobleman was clear to see.

His attendants were less controlled. Ordinary men, most of
them, uneasy already in the presence of one of the witch-people. They crossed
themselves as Alf passed, struggling not to stare, fascinated, frightened, but
not openly hostile. But one or two among them struck Nikki’s brain with
hate as strong as the blow of a mace. He staggered under it.

They never saw. He was only a servant, human, young and
rather small, invisible.

He firmed his back and raised his chin. He could see who
hated. They looked no different from the rest, Cistercians by their habits,
eyes and faces carefully matched to their companions’. Only their sudden
hate betrayed them, a hate thickened with fear.

Gwydion seemed undismayed by it, sitting as he sat when he
would be both easy and formal, his cloak of ermine and velvet cast over his
tall chair but his crown on his head. He rose to greet his Chancellor,
gesturing the others to remain seated, holding out his hand. “My lord!
How fares your lady?”

Alf bowed over the King’s hand, as graceful a player
as he, and no less calm. “She is well, Sire, I thank you for your
courtesy.”

The King turned to the Legate. “Here is joy, my lord
Cardinal. His grace the Chancellor is new come to fatherhood: a fine pair of
strong children, born on this very day of Epiphany.”

Had Nikki been free, he would have laughed. The poor monks
were appalled. The Hounds in shepherds’ habits were outraged. Benedetto
Cardinal Torrino was wryly and visibly amused. “My felicitations, my
lord,” he said, smooth and sweet and impeccably courteous.

Alf bowed. The Cardinal regarded him under long lids,
considered, offered his ring. Devoutly Alf kissed it.

Nikki’s mind applauded. The devotion was real enough,
but the drama was splendid. One good simple monk, chosen for his faith more than
for his erudition, looked to see the Devil’s spawn expire in a storm of
brimstone.

He did not even flinch. The Cardinal smiled. “So, sir,
you are the White Chancellor. Even in Rome we have heard of your
accomplishments.”

More even than he knew, Nikki thought.

“Your Eminence is kind,” Alf said with becoming
humility.

“I am truthful. You are, so they say, a man of
exceptional talents.”

The fair young face was serene, the voice unshaken. “I
am no more than God has made me. And,” he added, “no less.”

“The Devil, they say, may quote Scripture.” That
was meant to be heard, the speaker one of those who hated. He stood close
behind the Legate, a man whose face one could forget, whose mind blurred into a
black-red mist.

Nikki’s shields sprang up and locked. He stood walled
in sudden silence.

Alf moved to sit beside the King, not, it seemed, taking
notice. But that mind was wrong. Nothing human should be all hate. Nothing
sane; nothing natural.

His throat burned with bile. Nikki laid his hand on Alf’s
shoulder, opening the merest chink of his power.

Through it shone Alf’s reassurance:
He can’t touch us here.

He had no need to. There was something in him. Something
strong. Something with power, but not the power Alf had, the white wizardry of
the Kindred. This was black and blood-red.

You needn’t stay
,
Alf said.

Nikki thought refusal, with a touch of temper.

Alf shrugged invisibly against his hand. That choice was his
to make. But let him listen and be firm and not be afraid.

This time the flare of anger made Alf start. Nikki muted it
in sudden shame, but he could not entirely quell his satisfaction. He was
alarmed, not craven; certainly he was no weakling.

oOo

Alun shook himself hard. His long sleepless night was
creeping up on him. Anna sat where the Queen had been before, reading the book
Maura had left behind. Thea drowsed in the bed with Cynan curled against her
side.

In his own arms, Liahan hovered on the edge of sleep. By
witch-sight she glowed softly, power as newborn as herself, flickering a little
as he brushed it with his own bright strength.

Sometime very soon, she was going to be hungry. He could
feel it in his own stomach, which in truth was newly and comfortably filled. He
smiled and touched a finger to the small round belly with its knot of
birth-cord.

She stirred. She was startlingly strong, adept already at
kicking off her blankets, as at objecting when the cold air struck her skin.
Her lungs were even stronger than her legs.

“Here,” Thea said, rousing and holding out her
arms, “let me feed her.”

Alun surrendered her with great reluctance, to Thea’s
amusement. Which deepened as he backed away, blushing furiously, looking
anywhere but at the swell of bare breast, white as its own milk.

He clenched his fists. She was laughing. Of course she
would, who had made an ardent lover of an Anglian saint.

He pushed himself toward her, even to the bed at her side,
where Cynan was waking to his own sudden hunger.

“This could get inconvenient,” Thea observed as
Alun settled her son into the curve of her free arm. He banked her with
pillows. Twofold mother though she was, her smile was as wicked as ever. “Greedy
little beasts. No wonder sensible ladies put their babies out to nurse.”

He perched on the bed’s edge and tucked up his feet.
His blush was fading. “I think you’re sensible. As long as you’re…able...
I mean, two of them—”

“I mean to be able.” Her expression was pure
Thea, both tender and fierce. “I went to a great deal of trouble to have
these two little witches. I’m not about to hand them over to someone else
to raise.”

“You did it for Alf, didn’t you?”

“I did it for myself.” She softened a little. “Well.
For him, too. Rather much for him.”

“I remember when he first knew.” Alun grinned. “That
was something. The whole castle shook with it. Drums and trumpets and choruses
of alleluias; you could have lit a chapel with his smile.”

She laughed. “Only a chapel? No; a whole cathedral.”

“He’s still as happy as he was then,” Alun
said. “Happier.”

“Sometimes I think we’re all too happy.”
But Anna smiled as she said it, exchanging her book for a milkily sated Cynan. “Though
I remind myself that bliss is never unalloyed where there are children.
Especially witch-children.”

“When have there ever been—” Alun stopped
and swung at her, mock-enraged.

Thea deposited her daughter in his outstretched arms. “Oh,
yes, sir, we all suffered with you. Now you can pay back the debt. Put her to
your shoulder. Yes, so. And have at her—thus.” She clapped her
hands. “Bravo! You’ll make a mother yet.”

Alun rose, wobbling a little. Cynan lay already in the
cradle and already asleep. Carefully the Prince laid Liahan beside him. Her
eyes were shut, her mouth folded into a bud. But her hand, wandering, found his
finger and gripped hard.

He looked up into the women’s wide smiles, and down
again, smiling himself, a little rueful, much more than a little smitten. Nor
could all their mockery change a bit of it.

oOo

The Cardinal sipped slowly, appreciatively. The King’s
wine was excellent. He looked over the cup into Gwydion’s face and
sidewise to that of the Chancellor. The Bishop of Sarum had managed to station
himself behind the latter, a formidable bulk with a face set in granite.

He set down his cup and folded his hands. They were the
image of amity, all of them, seated around a table of ebony inlaid with lapis
and silver, flanked each by his loyal servants. Though to the Cardinal’s
lowly monks the witch-lords boasted a bishop apiece—and for the King
besides, the Archbishop of Caer Gwent, Primate of all Rhiyana.

Who said in the way he had, slow and deliberate, pondering
every word, “My lord Cardinal, you say you come merely to offer the
greetings of the Pope to the King of Rhiyana. You deny any knowledge of troops
gathering against us, let alone troops who march under the Cross. And yet, Your
Eminence, my priests in the Marches bring me word of this very thing. Are my
clergy to be accused of falsehood?”

The Legate allowed himself a very small smile. “Certainly
not, my lord Archbishop. Some anxiety would be understandable, what with the
deplorable events in Languedoc; when one’s neighbors arm for war, one
naturally fears first for oneself. Even when that fear is without cause.”

“Is it?” The Archbishop leaned forward. “Would
Your Eminence swear to that on holy relics?”

“Guilt speaks loudly in its own defense,” said
the monk on the Cardinal’s right hand. “Do you fear because you
have reason to fear?”

Alf had been silent throughout that long slow hour, intent
on the faces round the table, on the voices speaking at length of lesser
matters, on the pattern of wood and stone and silver under his fingertip. Now
he raised his eyes. They were quiet, a little abstracted. “Suppose,”
he said, “that we declare the preliminaries ended and come to the point.
There is a Crusade arming against Rhiyana. Its purpose sits here before you.
Your task is to offer the Church’s clemency, to present conditions under
which the armies may be disbanded and the kingdom preserved.” He lowered
his gaze and traced the curve of a silver vine. “You come, in short, to
the first cause of the conflict. Rhiyana’s King.”

“There is no conflict,” the Cardinal began.

Again Alf looked up. The Cardinal inhaled sharply. Great
eyes, pale grey as they had seemed to be—they were not grey at all, but
the color of moonlit gold. And they were no more human than a cat’s.

Alf smiled very faintly. “No conflict, Eminence. No
mortal reason to preach a Crusade. Rhiyana is a peaceful kingdom, as orthodox
as any Pope’s heart could desire; its churches and abbeys are full, its
people devout, its clergy zealous in pursuit of their duties. And yet, my lord
Cardinal. And yet. If there is no mortal reason, there remains the other.
Again, my King.”