Isle of Glass by Judith Tarr Read Free Book Online Page A

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.