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Crusade have advanced without you."
"I have made no effort to stop them." Tbrrino's voice was harsh. "You have
been powerless. So too have
I. Did I enforce the ban when the gray cowls appeared all at once and with
brazen boldness in every hamlet, even in my own city?"
"But not in your hall or before your court."
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"They will not defile their sanctity with my presence. Not until they come
triumphant to demand my life."
"Lady," he said. "Lady, believe. I
came armed with righteousness to search out a tribe of devils. I found order
and peace, a just king, a people no more evil than any other in this world. I
do not believe that you have deceived me, or that I have deceived myself. Your
sorceries, the infidels among you . .
. they have not earned death or even Interdict, least of all without proper
trial. I would have your people tried, given time to speak in their own
defense, dealt with thereafter singly and with justice, without peril to your
kingdom." "What one would have and what one will have do not often meet. Will
you obey your false orders, my lord?"
He took them from her hand. With a sudden fierce movement he tore the sheet
asunder. The shards rattled like leaves as they fell. But he said calmly, "I
may have no choice, although I shall fight with what skill I have. Letters can
be delayed or mislaid; the kingdom is in chaos, the roads beset with mud and
brigands."
186 Judith Tarr
"As they have not been since my King was young." Her fierceness like his was a
flash of blade from the sheath, but she held it so, drawn and glittering.
"Benedetto Cardinal Tbrrino, you know that your very presence here is a
betrayal of your office."
"My office is that of judge and emissary; my calling is that of a priest of
Christ. I will not surrender it all for a lie." "The lie may be in us."
He regarded her. She stood as tall as he, but slender as a child, with the
face of a young maiden. Her eyes, unveiled, were utterly inhuman. "And yet,"
he whispered, "not evil. Never so."
"They will say I have ensorceled you."
"Perhaps you have. You are all beautiful, you Kindred of the Elvenking, but
you most of all. Lady and
Queen. I have never seen a woman fairer than you."
"The White Chancellor surpasses me. Lord
Cardinal, and well I know it."
He smiled with surprising warmth. "But, Lady, he is a man; and even at that I
would not set him above you. I grieve that we meet only now and amid such
havoc, but I cannot regret that we have met."
"Nor," she mused, "after all, can
I." Her smile nearly felled him. He reeled; she caught him in great dismay.
"My lord, pardon, I took no thought-was His
The Queen had gone. In her place stood the maid who had loved two princes, but
who had chosen the one for his gentleness-not knowing then that he would be
King.
But the Queen knew what the maiden had never suspected, that her face itself
was an enchantment and her smile laden with power. She looked on this newest
victim in visible distress, holding him by his two hands as if the body's
strength alone could undo what she had done.
He steadied quickly enough. He was a strong-willed man; his vows protected him
after a fashion. But he remained a man. He swallowed hard. "Your
Majesty, I must go."
the hounds OF god 187
"Yes," she said, "you must."
They both looked down. Their hands were locked together. Neither could find
the power to let go.
"Your King--" It was a gasp. "Your husband.
He is mending, I have heard; one of your Kindred--
she told me where you were--I thank God that he, will not die."
"It is not yet certain that he will live.
But we pray. He will allow no more. Even I--he will not let me come to him,
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and I cannot go as our people go.
And there is the throne to hold for him. Ah, God, I hate these shackles of
queenship!"
"You love him."
"Most sinfully, with body and soul." At last she could loose one hand, only to
touch his pectoral cross. "I have never felt it as a sin. I gave him the only
child I could give;
I would joyfully give him another, a pair, a dozen. As he would give me--but
wounded, walled against me--I fear that he is hiding--that he may be
--"
His arms closed about her, inevitable as the tides of the sea. "He took an
arrow in the thigh, but not so high and not so dreadful as you fear. I have it
from witnesses; I know it for truth. He may come back lame, but he will come
back a man."
"Or dead." Her head drooped upon his shoulder;
he clasped her close. His face was rapt, brilliant, a little mad. He buried it
in the silken masses of her hair.
"Three," Simon said, "or more likely, four.
Who would have dreamed that a prince of the Church would fall so easily? I
hardly needed to bait the trap."
Anna did not know how she could hate him, pity him, fear him, scorn him, all
utterly, all at once. It choked the breath from her; it left her blank and
staring, shaking her head slowly, unable to stop. He had no eyes for her. Thea
lay flattened at his feet, hackles abristle, lips wrinkled in a snarl. "The
world shall be clean of all your kind," he said. "One by one they shall 188
Judith Tarr fall. Even those you deem safe in your forest-I
have counted them; my power has marked each one. It grows, you see. With use,
with mastery, its strength waxes ever greater. No wall may hold it away, no
magic stand against it, no power overcome it."
He reached as for something he could touch, smiling with terrible gentleness.
"How beau tiful, like a tower of light. How fragile; how easy to cast down."
Thea tensed as if to spring. He raised his hand. She froze. Her snarl died.
The blaze of her eyes died into ashes. She shrank down and down. "Your demon
lover," he said, "is dead. He dared advance against me; I struck, and cast him
down.
He lingered for a little while; he struggled; he betrayed your people to the
Pope's Legate.
But at last he fell into the darkness that waits for those who have no souls."
"No," Anna whispered.
"No."
Simon turned to her. "Yes. Great prince of devils that he was, masked in
piety, he was no match for me. The world is free of him." "No,"
she repeated. "He can't be dead. He promised me. A long time ago in
Constantine's city, he promised. As long as I needed him, he wouldn't-was
She could not finish. Not for grief, not yet; for rage. She faced her jailer
in a white fire of it. "How dared he die? How dared you murder him?"
He fell back. She did not deign to be astonished. "Damn you. Damn you, Simon
Magus. What right have you to make us suffer? Who gave you the power to ordain
life and death? How dared you kill my brother?" "God," he gasped.
"God-was
"God damns you, you hound of Hell. Murderer, your power is so mighty-raise our [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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