The Dagger and the Cross by Judith Tarr Page B

restrained, with difficulty, from pronouncing
Muhammad a true, but minor, prophet. She was still under discipline.
    Gwydion did not move, did not speak, but suddenly he was the
center of the room. His eyes, Heraclius thought. He had raised them, that was
all. They were the color of good steel. There was nothing of youth or of
gentleness in them. “It would set my heart at ease,” he said, “to know that no
obstacle remains between my brother and this marriage.”
    Heraclius’ fists were clenched. With an effort he unclenched
them. “To my knowledge there is none. Have you cause to suspect otherwise?”
    “The dispensation is in good hands?”
    “Under guard,” Heraclius said with a glimmer of pleasure.
    “You are yourself prepared to uphold it?”
    “To the letter.”
    Gwydion paused. For a moment it was as if Prince Aidan sat
there: tensed, fierce, glaring with a falcon’s mad eye. It blinked, veiling
itself. The soft calm voice said, “It is not that I mistrust you. But this has
been no easy road; nor shall I deem it ended until the rite is done. As I fear
even yet it may not be.”
    “You fear?” Leo asked. “Or you foresee?”
    Gwydion regarded him with wide pale eyes. “Fear only, father
abbot, but all the worse for that. If I knew, I would know how to prevent it.”
    “There is nothing,” Leo said. “I promise you. You know what
is written beneath the seal; you have seen it laid in its coffer. My own monks
stand vigil over it. None shall touch it, nor speak against it.”
    Gwydion crossed himself. “God grant,” he said. “There is no
reason to fear, father abbot. I fear—I know not what. I have come so far, after
so long a battle, and I cannot believe—I cannot trust—that all will be well.
The air is full of war. Where better to begin than with this union of
Christendom and Islam?”
    “Therefore we guard against it.” Leo smiled and patted his
arm. “No, no, my son. You have your victory. It is yours; no one will take it
from you.”
    Gwydion seemed unoffended by either touch or words.
Uncomforted, but unoffended. “I pray that no one dares. Not for my sake, father
abbot, nor even for my brother’s. His lady is no gentle creature; and when she
is angered, she knows no mercy.”
    “She kills,” said Heraclius.
    “If she must. If there is cause.”
    “There will not be,” said Abbot Leo.
    o0o
    The inner courtyard of Aidan’s house had a fountain in it,
and a lemon tree, and a family of cats asleep in the sun. One of them woke long
enough to pour itself into Gwydion’s lap. He stroked it as it asked, not too
gentle, not too slow. His free hand stretched to catch the spray from the
fountain. He was calmer now, with the abbot and the Patriarch sworn to defend
Aidan’s dispensation.
    As if they could do otherwise. He was fretting over shadows.
His mind, seeking, found nothing to fear. Aidan had enemies; what great lord
did not? None was so rash as to thwart him in this. Most would come to the
wedding to see the deed done at last, and to feast at his expense.
    Gwydion filled his hand with water and laved his face. The
coolness was blissful. He glanced about a trifle guiltily and dropped cotte and
shirt. The cat departed in disgust. He refused to pity it. He plunged his whole
head into the basin, and rose dripping, and shook like a dog, in a shower of
spray.
    A strangled sound brought him about. Morgiana was there,
struggling valiantly not to laugh.
    She had been nowhere in the courtyard a moment ago; nor
anywhere in the house.
    Her face glistened with spray; sparks of it glinted in her
hair. He blushed. The laughter burst out of her. “Why, brother! You’re no more
dignified than Aidan is.”
    “That is a secret I would rather you kept.”
    His stiff reply made her grin. She danced round the
fountain, as graceful and fierce as a she-leopard on the hunt, and whirled to a
halt on the rim beside him. Her cheeks were nigh as brilliant as his; her eyes
brimmed with mirth. “Three more