Read Online Hounds of God by Judith Tarr - Free Book Online Page A

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.”
    “Not he alone,” said the monk who had spoken
before.
    Alf raised a brow.
    “He has kin,” the monk said, “creatures of
his own kind, marked as he is marked. Some even more clearly than he.”
    “Yes, Brother? How so?”
    “Only take up a mirror and see.”
    The Chancellor sat back as if at ease. “Oh, I’m
a most egregious monster, I admit it freely. But he? He is the very image of
his father, or so they tell me; certainly he bears a close resemblance to his
nephews and cousins.”
    “Somewhat distant cousins, and great-nephews thrice
over.”
    “Ah well, Brother. It’s not as if he were unique
in the world. ‘Adam was one hundred and thirty years old when he begot a
son in his likeness, after his image; and he named him Seth. Adam lived eight
hundred years after Seth, and he had other sons and