Isle of Glass (6 page)

“Brother Alf!" Jehan took him in and laughed for
wonder. “You look splendid.”

“
Vanitas vanitatum
,”Alf intoned dolefully. “‘Vanity
of vanities, all is vanity!’ Though you look as if you can use that sword.”

Jehan let his hand fall from the hilt. “You know I’ve had
practice with Brother Ulf. ‘Ulf for the body and Alf for the brain; that’s how
a monk is made.’ ”

“So you’re the one who committed that bit of doggerel. I
should have known.”

Although Alf’s voice was light, Jehan frowned. “What’s the
matter, Brother Alf?”

“Why, nothing. I’m perfectly content. After all, misery
loves company.”

“It won’t be misery. It will be splendid. You’ll see. We’ll
take Bishop Aylmer by storm and astound the King; and then we’ll conquer the
world.”

o0o

The hour after Compline found Alf in none of his usual
places: not in his cell where he should have been sleeping; not in the chapel
where he might have kept vigil even against Morwin’s command; and certainly not
in the study where the Abbot had gone to wait for him. He had sung the last
Office—no one could miss that voice, man-deep yet heartrendingly clear, rising
above the mere human beauty of the choir—and he had sung with gentle rebellion
in his brown habit. But then he had gone, and no one knew where.

It was intuition more than either logic or a careful search
that brought Morwin to a small courtyard near the chapel. There in a patch of
sere and frostbitten grass grew a thorn tree. Ancient, twisted, stripped of its
leaves, it raised its branches to the moon.

Under it crouched a still and shadowed figure.

With much creaking of bones, Morwin sat beside him. The
ground was cold; frost crackled as the Abbot settled on it.

“I’ve never liked this place,” Alf said, “or this tree.
Though they say it grew from the staff of a saint, of the Arimathean himself...when
I was very small I used to be afraid of it. It always seemed to be reaching for
me. As if St. Ruan’s were not for the likes of me; as if I were alien and the
Thorn knew it, and it would drag me away, back to my own people.”

“The people under the Tor?” Morwin asked.

The cowled head shifted. From here one could see the Tor
clearly, a steep rounded hill wreathed in frost, rising behind the abbey like a
bulwark of stone. “The Tor,” murmured Alf. “That never frightened me. There was
power in it, and wonder, and mystery. But no danger. No beckoning; no
rejection. It simply was. Do you remember when we climbed it, for bravado, to
see if the tales were true?”

“Madness or great blessings to him who mounts the Tor of
Ynys Witrin on the eve of Midsummer. I remember. I don’t think either of us
came down mad.”

“Nor blessed.” Alf’s voice held the glimmer of a smile. “We
did penance for a solid fortnight, and all we’d found was a broken chapel and
beds even harder than the ones we’d slipped away from.” His arm circled
Morwin’s shoulders, bringing warmth like an open fire. The Abbot leaned into
it. “But no; that wasn’t all we found. I felt as if I could see the whole world
under the Midsummer moon, and below us Ynys Witrin, mystic as all the songs
would have it, an island floating in a sea of glass.
There
was the
mystery. Not on the windy hill. Below it, in the abbey, where by Christmas we’d
be consecrated priests, servants of the Light that had come to rule the world.

“But the Thorn always knew. I was—I am—no mortal man.”

“So now you come to make your peace with it.”

“After a fashion. I wanted to see if it was glad to be rid
of me.”

“Is it?”

Alf’s free hand moved to touch the trunk, white fingers
glimmering on shadow-black. “I think... It’s never hated me. It’s just known a
painful truth. Maybe it even wishes me well.”

“So do we all.”

Alf shivered violently, but not with the air’s cold. “I’m
going away,” he said as if he had only come to realize it. “And I can’t...Even
if I come back, it won’t be the same. I’ll have to grow, change—” His voice
faded.

Morwin was silent.

“I know," Alf said with unwonted bitterness. “Everyone
grows and changes. Even the likes of me. Already I feel it beginning, with
Alun’s fine clothes waiting for me to put them on again and the memory of all
the Brothers at supper, staring and wondering, and some not even knowing who I
was. Even Jehan, when he first saw me, took me for a stranger. What if I change
so much I don’t even recognize myself?”

“Better that sort of pain than the one that’s been tearing
you apart for so long.”

“That was a familiar pain.”

“Yes. Plain old shackle-gall. I’m chasing you out of your
prison, Alfred—throwing you into the sky. Because even if you’re blind and
senseless, everyone else can see that you have wings.”

The moon came down into the cup of Alf’s hand, a globe of
light, perfect, all its blemishes scoured away. Its white glow caressed his
face; Morwin blinked and swallowed. Familiar as those features were, the shock
of them blunted by long use; sometimes still, with deadly suddenness, their
beauty could strike him to the heart.

Alf’s hand closed. The light shrank with it, snuffing out
like a candle flame; taking away Morwin’s vision, but not his remembrance of
it.

Slowly, wearily, Alf said, “I won’t fight you any longer,
Morwin. Not on that account. But must you send Jehan with me?”

“He has no more place here than you do.”

“I know that. I also know that I may be riding into danger.
The message I’ll carry is not precisely harmless. I could be killed for bearing
it, Alun for passing it to me—”

“And St. Ruan’s could suffer for taking him in. Don't you
think I’m aware of all the consequences?”

“Jehan isn’t. To him it’s a lark, a chance to be free.”

“Is it, Alf?”

“He’s a child still for all his size. He doesn’t know what
this errand might mean or how he may be forced to pay for it. The game we play,
the stakes we raise—”

“He knows,” Morwin said with a touch of sharpness. “So he’s
glad enough about it to sing— that’s not blissful ignorance, it’s simply youth.
When the time comes, if it comes, he’ll be well able to take care of himself.”

“And also of me,” said Alf.

“Why not?” the Abbot demanded. “He’s only been cloistered
for half a year; and he grew up in the world—in courts, in castles." His
eyes sharpened to match his tone; he peered into the shadow of Alf’s hood, at
the hint of a face. “Maybe you’re not concerned for a young lad’s welfare—pupil
of yours though he is, and friend too. Maybe you don’t want to be looked after
by a mere boy.”

Alf would not dignify that with an answer.

Nor would Morwin offer any apology. “I’ve done as I thought
wisest,” he said. “I trust you to abide by it. In the end you may even be glad
of it.”

The voice in the shadow was soft, more inhumanly beautiful
than ever, but its words were tinged with irony. “Morwin my oldest friend,
sometimes I wonder if, after all, I’m the witch of us two.”

“This isn’t witchcraft. It’s common sense. Now stop
nattering and help me up. Didn’t I give you strict orders to get some sleep
tonight?”

Morwin could feel Alf’s wry smile, distinct as the clasp of
his hand.

“Yes, grin at the old fool, so long as you do what I tell
you.”

“I am always your servant, Domne.”

Morwin cuffed him, not entirely in play, and thrust him
away. “Go to bed, you, before I lose my temper!”

Alf bowed deeply, the picture of humility; evaded a second
blow with supernatural ease; and left his Abbot alone with the moon and the Tor
and the ancient Thorn, and an anger that dissipated as swiftly as it had risen.
It was a very long while before Morwin moved, and longer still before he took
the way Alf had taken, back into the warmth of St. Ruan’s.

They left before dawn. Only Morwin was there to see them
off. Morwin, and Alun’s consciousness, a brightness in Alf’s brain. They stood
under the arch of the gate, Jehan holding the bridles of the two horses: Fara
like a wraith in the gloom, and the abbey’s old gelding standing black and
solid beside her. He shivered, half with cold, half with excitement, and
shifted from foot to foot. The others simply stood, Alf staring rigidly through
the gate, Morwin frowning at his feet.

At last the Abbot spoke. “You’d best be going.”

Swiftly Jehan sprang astride. Alf moved more slowly; as he
gathered up the reins, Morwin touched his knee. “Here. Take this.”

Light flashed between them, Morwin’s silver cross. Alf
hesitated as if to protest. But Morwin’s eyes were fierce. He took the gift and
slipped the chain over his head, concealing it under his tunic. It lay cold
against his skin, warming slowly. He clasped the hand that had given it, met
the eyes behind.

“Go with God,” Morwin said.

The gate was open, the road clear before them, starlit,
aglitter with frost. Only once did Alf glance back. Already they had come far
enough to see the whole looming bulk of the Tor, and the abbey against the wall
of it, and mist rising with the dawn, turning the Isle to an isle indeed. Small
and dark upon it, nearly lost beneath the great arch, the Abbot stood alone.

A wind stirred the mist, raising it like a curtain. Grey
glass and silver and a last, faint flicker of moonlight, and of St. Ruan’s,
nothing at all save the shadow of a tower.

Fara danced, eager to be gone. Alf bent over her neck and
urged her onward.

o0o

From St. Ruan’s they rode northward, with the sun on their
left hands and the morning brightening about them. Jehan sang, testing his
voice that was settling into a strong baritone; when it cracked, he laughed.
“I’m putting the ravens to shame,” he said.

Alf did not respond. Here where the road was wide, they rode
side by side; Jehan turned to look at him. His face was white and set. Part of
that could be discomfort, for he had not ridden in a long while, yet he sat his
mount with ease and grace.

Jehan opened his mouth and closed it again. For some time
after, he rode as decorously as befit a novice of St. Ruan’s, although he gazed
about him with eager eyes.

o0o

At noon they halted. Alf would not have troubled, but
Jehan’s gelding was tiring. Already they were a good four leagues from the
abbey, in a wide green country scattered with villages. People there looked
without surprise on two lordly riders, squires from some noble house from the
look of them, going about their business.

They had stopped on the edge of a field where a stream wound
along the road. Jehan brought out bread and cheese, but Alf would have none.

The other frowned. “Dom Morwin told me you’d be like this.
He also told me not to put up with it. So—will you eat, or do I have to make
you?”

Alf had been loosening Fara’s girths. He turned at that.
“I’m not hungry.”

“I know you’re not. Eat.”

They faced each other stiffly. Alf was taller, but Jehan had
easily twice his breadth, and no fear of him at all.

Alf yielded. He ate, and drank from the stream where it
settled into a pool. When the water had calmed from his drinking, he paused,
staring at the face reflected there. It looked even younger than he had
thought.

A wind ruffled the water and shattered the image. He turned
away from it.

Jehan was busy with the horses, yet Alf could feel his
awareness. Jehan finished and said, “Brother Alf. I’ve been thinking. We're
riding like squires, but I'm the only one with a sword. I know you don’t want
one, but maybe you’d better know how to use it in case of trouble.”

Alf tried to smile. “I’d probably cut off my own foot if I
tried.”

“You wouldn’t, either.” He unhooked the scabbard from his
belt. “Try it.”

“No,” Alf said. “If it comes to a fight, you’re the one who
knows what to do with it. Best that you keep it by you. I can manage as I am.”

“That’s foolish, Brother Alf.” Jehan drew the good steel
blade and held it out.

Alf would not take it. “Jehan,” he said. “It’s enough for me
now that I dress as a worldling. Don’t try to make me more of one. If you do,
God alone knows where it will end.”

“In a safer journey for us, maybe.”

“Maybe not. You don’t know what I am, Jehan.”

“Do you?”

“I know enough. Put up your sword and ride with me.”

Jehan sheathed the weapon, but did not move to mount. “Dom
Morwin talked to me last night. He told me about you.”

“He did?”

“Don’t go cold on me, Brother Alf! I’d guessed most of it
already. People talk, you know. And it was obvious early on that you had to be
the one who wrote the
Gloria Dei
. You knew too much, and thought too
much, to be as young as your face.”

“How old am I, then?”

“As old as Dom Morwin,” Jehan answered calmly.

“And you scoff at the tales of Gwydion of Rhiyana?”

“That’s hearsay. You’re fact.”

“Poor logic, student. I should send you back to Brother
Osric.”

“You can’t,” Jehan said. “Dom Morwin won’t let you.”

“Probably not.” Alf rose into the high saddle, wincing at
his muscles’ protest. Before Jehan was well mounted, he had touched the mare
into a trot.

They rode at a soft pace to spare their aching bodies. After
some little time Jehan said, “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I won’t betray
you.”

“I know,” Alf murmured as if to himself. “You and Morwin:
fools of a feather. I could be a devil sent to tempt you both to your
destruction.”

“You
, Brother Alf?” Jehan laughed. “You may be a
changeling as people say, or an elf-man, but a devil? Never.”

For the first time Jehan saw the other’s eyes, direct and
unblurred. It was more than a bit of a shock.

He faced that bright unhuman stare, firm and unafraid.
“Never,” he repeated. “I’d stake my soul on that.”

Alf clapped heels to Fara’s sides. She sprang into a gallop.