Alamut by Judith Tarr Read Free Book Online Page A

for him, and warmth and strength to spare. They held at bay the cold of death. They began, slowly, to heal him.
    4.
    For Aidan there would be no healing while Gereint’s assassin lived unpunished. He worked, ate, spoke, even laughed, but the memory never left him, nor the grief. Even an hour, his heart mourned. Even an hour sooner...
    But beneath that, infinitely darker, infinitely more terrible: I never knew. I in all my power, in my pride, in my certainty that the world was mine to do with as I chose — I was as blind as any mortal worm.
    Gereint had died, and Aidan had had not the slightest suspicion. He had been all joy, looking to the road’s end, knowing how Gereint would be when Aidan came: trying to be a man, to remember his dignity, but damning it all and whooping like a boy. He was dead before he knew it, gone, taken away where mortal men went; where Aidan could never go.
    The hall of Aqua Bella saw a prince at the lady’s table, eating little, but calm, composed. Behind the mask, he wept and raged.
    The Assassin had left no trace, no memory of presence. The cake was gone, cast away in fear. Gereint was in his tomb.
    But Aidan knew where to hunt. Masyaf had sent the murderer out; to Masyaf, inevitably, the murderer must return. Aidan would be waiting for him.
    Aidan stopped pretending to eat. His kind needed little sustenance, and even that, now, was more than he could stomach. The guests were quiet as befit a funeral, but they seemed hungry enough, and thirsty for the wine that came out of Bethlehem. At the high table, Margaret ate and drank sparingly but calmly. Thibaut, who was young enough to find healing in tears and a strong embrace, was eating as if he had had nothing for days. Maybe he had not. He did not often glance at Aidan, but his awareness was palpable, like a hand on Aidan’s shoulder.
    Gereint had been like that. It was not adoration; nothing so foolish. It was kinship, deeper even than blood.
    It was a gift. Aidan did not want it; it did not fill the place that was empty. Yet he could not more refuse it than he had refused Gereint.
    The air was stifling. So many human bodies, so many human minds, pressing on him. He rose, not too ungracefully, murmuring something. The Lady Margaret inclined her head. Her eyes saw too clearly by far. She endured this because she must. So must he, if he could be courteous, but courtesy was beyond him. He bowed low to her and fled.
    oOo
    The garderobe was a brief refuge, but its air was too thick for his senses. He found a courtyard to pace in, not caring what it was, or where, or who saw. Only the thinnest veneer of sanity kept him from launching himself into the sky.
    Watchers did not longer long. Perhaps he frightened them. But one stood in shade, as still as he was restless, and slowly the stillness touched him. A monk, he thought: a Benedictine, swathed in black. But under the habit was mail; on the breast was a cross, not large, of simple shape, stark white against the robe.
    The Hospitaller. Gilles, his name was. He was not what Aidan had been led to expect. He was fastidiously clean, his hair cropped short around his tonsure, his beard long but well kept. It aged him, as perhaps he intended: under it he could not have been much past thirty.
    His eyes widened a little as Aidan halted in front of him. The glamour had lost itself, baring the truth of what Aidan was; he cared neither to restore it nor to befuddle the man’s mind, churchman or no. Gilles had Saracens enough to hunt. This one lone witch-man was no prey of his.
    â€œSo,” said the Hospitaller without greeting or pretense. “It’s true, the tale I’ve heard.”
    Aidan bared teeth longer and sharper than a man’s. “What tale might that be, Brother?”
    â€œI think you need not ask, my prince,” said the Hospitaller. He leaned against the wall and folded his arm, at ease, half smiling. “They say the king your brother is your very image,