He fell on his knees next to the bed; he laid his head down on it, and he cried. He took her cold hand and squeezed it, and felt its pliancy, and what tiny bit of human warmth was actually there. She was alive.
"Oh, Rowan, my darling, my darling," he said. "I thought..." And then he sobbed like a child.
He just let the sobs come out slowly. He knew Aaron was near him. And he knew the other man was there too. And then slowly he looked up and he saw the figure standing at the foot of the bed.
The priest. The thought sprang from him instantly when he saw the old-fashioned cassock of black wool, and the white Roman collar, but it was no priest.
"Hello, Michael."
Soft voice. Tall as they had said he was. Hair long and black and over his shoulders, beard and mustache beautifully groomed and gleaming, a sort of horrid Christ or Rasputin, with his blanched and tearstained face.
"I too have been weeping for her," the man said in a whisper. "She is near death now; she will bear no more; she will love no more; only a little milk was left in her; she is all but gone."
He was holding to the bedpost with his left hand.
"Lasher!"
Perfectly monstrous suddenly--a man who was taller than an ordinary man. A slight figure, but the perfect incarnation of menace with its blue eyes fixed on him intently, mouth vivid beneath the black gleam of the mustache, white fingers long and bony and almost twined around the bedpost. Monstrous. Kill it. Now.
He was on his feet in an instant, but Stolov had him around the waist. "No, Michael, no, don't hurt him. You can't do it!" And then another man, a stranger, was grabbing him around the neck, and Aaron was begging Michael to hold off, to wait.
The figure by the bed remained motionless, secure. It wiped at its tears with a slow languid right hand.
"Hold on, Michael. Hold on," said Aaron. "Stolov, I want you to let him go. You too, Norgan. Step back, Michael, we have it surrounded."
"Only if he will not kill it," said Stolov. "He must not kill it."
"The hell I won't," said Michael. He arched his back, trying to throw off Stolov, but the other man had his arm too tightly around Michael's neck. Stolov loosened his grip, catching his breath.
The creature looked at him. The tears continued to move, silent, eloquent.
"I'm in your hands, Mr. Stolov," Lasher said. "I'm all yours."
Michael jammed his elbow into the gut of the man behind him, then flung him backwards against the wall. He threw Stolov to the side. He was on Lasher in an instant, hands locked around his neck, the creature drawing in his breath in ragged terror, and grasping at Michael's hair. Down they went onto the carpet. But the two other men had Michael, they were pulling him loose, wrenching him with all their strength, and Aaron, even Aaron was pulling his fingers off the creature. Aaron. Dear God.
For a moment Michael almost blacked out. The pain in his chest was sharp and relentless. He felt it in his shoulder and then going down his left arm. They had let him go because he was sitting back against the fireplace, unable now to hurt anybody, and Lasher, still struggling for breath, was climbing slowly, groggily to his feet. A lean figure in the flowing black cassock. The men stood on either side of Michael.
"Wait, Michael!" pleaded Aaron. "There are four of us against it."
"Don't hurt it, Michael," said Stolov, tone as gentle as before.
"You're letting it get away," said Michael in a hoarse whisper. But when he looked up he saw the tall willowy figure peering down at him, the blue eyes still filled with tears, and the tears running down the smooth white cheeks. If Christ came to you, Michael thought, you would want him to look like this. This was the way painters had rendered him.
"I am not escaping," said Lasher calmly. "I will go when they take me, Michael. The men from the Talamasca. I need them now. And they know it. And they will not let you hurt me again." He turned towards the figure in the bed. "I came to see my beloved. I had to see her before they took me away."
Michael tried to get to his feet. He was dizzy and the pain came again. Goddamnit, Julien, give me the strength to do it. Damnation. The gun, the gun is there by the bed. It's right on top of the table, that big gun! He tried to say it out loud to Aaron. Shoot it. Pull the trigger and blow a hole in its head as big as an eye!
Stolov knelt in front of him. Stolov said: "Be calm, Michael, be calm. Just don't try to hurt him. We will not allow him to leave this place, until we ourselves take him away."
"I am ready," said Lasher.
"Michael," said Stolov. "Look at him. He is helpless now. He is in our power. Please be calm."
Aaron stared at the creature as if spellbound.
"I warned you," said Michael softly.
"Do you really want to kill me?" asked Lasher, tears welling continuously as if he had as many of them as a little child. "Do you hate me so very much? Just for trying to be alive?"
"You killed her," Michael whispered. It was such a small, insignificant sound. "You did that to her. You killed our child."
"Don't you want to know my side of it, Father?" said the creature.
"I want to kill you," said Michael.
"Oh, come now. Can you be so cold and unfeeling? Can you not care what was done to me? Can you not care why I am here? Do you think I meant to hurt her?"
Grasping the mantelpiece with one hand and Aaron's hand with the other, Michael finally managed to get to his feet. He was weak all over, almost nauseated. He stood there, breathing slowly, thankful that the pain was gone, and staring at Lasher.
How beautiful the smooth face, how beautiful the soft black mustache and the close-cut beard. The Jesus of Durer's painting. And the deepest most exquisite blue eyes, mirrors to some unfathomable and seemingly wondrous soul.
"Oh yes, Michael, you want to know. You want to hear everything. And they will not let you kill me, will you, gentlemen? Not even Aaron will allow it. Not until I've said all I have to say."
"Lies," whispered Michael.
The creature swallowed as if struck by the condemnation, and then once again he wiped his eye with the back of his right hand. He did it as a child would, on the playground, and then he pressed his lips together and took a deep breath as if he would give way, as Michael had before--to sobs as well as tears.
Behind him, on the bed, Rowan lay oblivious, eyes staring into space, undisturbed, protected perhaps--unreachable as before.
"No, Michael," he said. "No lies. That I promise you. We know better, don't we, than to believe the truth will excuse anything. But lies you will not hear."
Once again, the dining room. Only this time the light coming through the windows was the dim golden light of the lamps in the yard.
They sat around the table in the shadows. Both the doors were closed. Lasher sat in the place of authority, at the head of the table, one great white hand splayed on the wood before him, staring down at it as if he were dazed.
He raised his head and looked about him. He looked at the murals as though taking up one detail after another and releasing it again to the gloom. He looked at their faces. He looked at Michael, who sat near him just to his right.
The other man, Clement Norgan, was still sore from Michael's jabbing him, still sore from having been cracked against the wall. He sat across the table, red-faced, trying to catch his breath still, drinking sips from a glass of water. His eyes moved from the creature to Michael. Stolov sat to Norgan's left.
Aaron was beside Michael, holding on to his shoulder, holding his hand. Michael could feel the tightness of Aaron's grip.
Lasher.
"Yes, in this house, again," the creature said, voice tremulous yet deep and confident in its own beauty, its perfect accentless enunciation.
"Let him speak," said Aaron. "We are four men. We are resolved he will not leave here. Rowan is resting untroubled. Let him talk."
"That is correct," said Stolov. "We are together. Let him explain himself to us all. You are entitled to such an explanation, Michael. No one contests it."
"Trickster always," said Michael. "You sent her nurses away. You sent the guards away. So clever. They believed you, Father Ashlar, or did you use some other name?"
Lasher gave a long, slow, bitter smile. "Father Ashlar," he whispered, running his pink tongue along his lip and then closing his lips quietly. For one instant, Michael saw Rowan in him, saw the resemblance as he had seen on Christmas Day. The fine cheeks, the forehead, even the tender line of the long eyes. But in the depth of the color and in the bright open look to them, they were Michael's eyes.
"She doesn't know she is alone now," said Lasher solemnly. He spoke the words slowly, eyes moving again around the vast dark room. "What are nurses anymore to her? She does not know any longer who stands by her, who weeps for her, who loves her, who sheds tears. She has lost the child which was inside her. And there will be no more. All that will happen now will be without her. Her story is told."
Michael started to rise, but Aaron held him, and the other two glared at him across the table. Lasher remained unafraid.
"And you want to tell us your story," said Stolov timidly, as if gazing at a monarch or an apparition. "And we are ready to hear."
"Yes, I will tell you," said Lasher with a small, almost brave smile. "I will tell you what I know now, flesh and blood that I am. I will tell you all of it. And then you can make your judgment."
Michael uttered a short, mirthless laugh. It startled the others. It startled him. He gazed steadily at Lasher. "All right, mon fils," he said, pronouncing the French carefully, correctly. "Remember your promise to me. No lies."
They looked at one another for a long moment, and then the creature lapsed back into solemnity, only wincing slightly as if he'd been struck.
"Michael," he said, "I cannot speak now for what I was in the centuries of darkness; I cannot speak now for a desperate, discarnate thing--without history or memory or reason--that sought to reason--rather than suffer, grieve and want."
Michael's eyes narrowed. He said nothing.
"The story that I want to tell is my own--who I was before death separated me from the flesh I dreamed of forever after." He brought his two hands up and crossed them for one moment on his chest.
"In the beginning," said Michael mockingly.
"In the beginning," the creature repeated, only without the irony. He went on, slowly, words heartfelt, imploring. "In the beginning--long before Suzanne said her prayer in the circle--in the beginning--when I had life, true life in me, as I have it again now."
Silence.
"Trust us," said Stolov. It was almost a whisper.
Lasher's eyes remained fixed on Michael.
"You don't know," he said, "how eager I am to tell you the truth. I dare you--I dare you to hear me out and not to forgive."
Thirty-four
LASHER'S STORY
LET ME TAKE you to the first moments, as I recall them--no matter what others said to me after, either in one life or another, no matter what I came to see in my dreams.
I remember lying in bed beside my mother; it was a coffered bed, heavily carven, with bulbous posts and hung with ocher velvet, and the walls were the same color though the ceiling of the room, like the ceiling of the bed, was all of dark wood. My mother was crying. She was terrified--a wan dark-eyed creature, drawn and trembling. I was nursing from her, and had her in my power, in that I was taller than she was, and stronger, and was holding her as I drank the milk from her breast.
I knew who she was, that I had been in her, and I knew that her life was in danger, that when my monstrosity was revealed she would undoubtedly be called a witch and put to death. She was a Queen. Queens cannot bear monsters. That the King had not set eyes on me, that the women were keeping him out of the chamber, this I also knew. The women were as frightened of me as my mother.
I wanted love from my mother. I wanted the milk. The men in the castle were beating on the doors. They were threatening to enter the Queen's chamber if they were not told immediately why they were being kept out.
My mother was crying continuously and did not want to touch me. She spoke in English, saying that God had cursed her for what she had done, God had cursed her and the King, and now her dreams were ruined; I was the retribution from heaven--my deformity, my size, the obvious fact that I was a monster. That I could not be a human being.
What did I know at that moment? That I was flesh again. That I had returned. That I had succeeded in some seemingly endless journey, and had once more found port, safe and sound. I felt happy.
That was all I knew--and that I must take command.
It was I who calmed the women, revealing that I could speak. I said that I had drunk enough milk. I could go out now and find milk and cheese and such on my own. I would have my mother out of danger. I said that for my mother's sake, I must be taken out of the castle, unseen by the rest of the court.
There was of course a shocked silence that I could speak, that I could reason, that I was not merely a giant newborn but possessed a cunning mind. My mother rose up and stared at me through her tears. She held up her left hand. I saw there the mark of the witch, the sixth finger. I knew that I had returned through her because she was a powerful witch, yet she was innocent as all mothers. I knew also that I must leave this place and seek the glen.
My vision of the glen was without contour, color, contrast. This was a concept analogous to an echo. I did not stop to demand of myself, "What glen?" There was too much danger here in this castle. If there was something more to the vision, it was a circle of stones, and within it a circle of persons, and beyond another circle of persons, and beyond that another, and another, all turning, the circles within circles, and there rose a chanting sound.
This was fleeting.
I said to my mother that I had come from the glen and must go back to it, and she, rising up on her arms, uttered in a whisper the name of my father, Douglas of Donnelaith. She told the women that they must find Douglas, who was, at this very moment, at court, that they must somehow bring him to her at once. She uttered something I could not grasp--something to do with a witch coupling with a witch, and that Douglas had been her terrible error, and that in trying to give the King an heir, she had made a witch's tragic mistake.
She fell back near to unconsciousness.
A message was given through a small window in the doorway to a secret passage. It was the midwife now who calmed the other women and told the men through the door, at last, the tragic news: the Queen's child had been stillborn.
Stillborn! I began to laugh, a soft laughter which seemed a great comfort to me; as wondrous as breathing or milk tasting. But the women only became alarmed. I should have been born in love and in joy and I knew it. This was all wrong.
The voices through the door said the King would see his infant son.
"Please get clothes for me," I said. "Hurry. I cannot remain naked and undefended in this place."
At once they were glad to have this direction. And by the same secret window in the door to the secret passage the message was given for that.
I was uncertain how to dress myself. These weren't clothes I knew. Indeed, the more I looked at these ladies-in-waiting, the midwife, my mother, the more I realized things had greatly changed.
Don't ask, "Changed from what?" I didn't know. I was dressed quickly in fine green velvet, clothes which in fact were the property of the tallest and most lean attendant of the King. The sleeves were rich and embroidered. There was a trimming of fur to the small sleeveless cape. And a belt for the waist, and a rather long cut to the tunic, and then the leggings were the worst for me, for my legs were so long. I had to bind them where they did not fit. The tunic covered it.
Discovering myself in the mirror, I thought: Yes! And I knew that I was beautiful, otherwise the women would have been even more afraid.
My hair was not yet down to my shoulders, but would be soon. It was brown. My eyes were brown, as were my mother's. I put on the fur-trimmed hat which they gave me.
The midwife then
fell on her knees. "This is the Prince," she cried. "This is the heir sought by the King."
The other women shook their heads in horror, trying to quiet her, telling her it was not possible, such a thing. And my mother turned her head into the pillow, crying for her own mother, for her sister, for those who loved her, averring that no one would stand with her. That were it not a mortal sin in the eyes of God, she would take her own life.
Now how do I escape, I thought. I felt fear for my mother. Yet I hated her that she didn't love me, that she thought me monstrous. I knew what I was. I knew there was a place for me, that I had a destiny. I knew this. I knew that her attitude was irreverent and cruel, but I could not put this into words or defend such a position. I wanted only to protect her.
We stood in this candlelighted chamber, I and these women, beneath this dark wooden ceiling, and the midwife gained possession of herself and forswore her former joy. This monster must be taken out, destroyed.
Destroyed? The same old song. Not this time, I thought. I did not intend to be destroyed so easily. No. We must learn more each time, I thought. I will not be destroyed.
Finally to the secret door came my father, Douglas of Donnelaith, a big shaggy man, more crudely dressed but nevertheless noble and decked in fur.
He had been in the castle and in great haste answered the Queen's secret summons. When he was admitted to the birthing room, and beheld me, his face was a puzzle. I did not see in him the pure horror of the women. I saw something else, something vital and partial to me, something almost reverent. And he whispered, "Ashlar, who comes again and again."
I saw that his hair and eyes were brown; from him as from the poor sad Queen I had these endowments. But I was Ashlar! I felt this news--and it was news--come into me as if my father had thrown his arms around me and showered me with kisses. I was happy. And when I looked at my mother, in her sadness, I wept.
I said, "Yes, Father, but this is no place for me. This is a place hostile to me. We must leave here."
And I realized I knew no more of what I was or what he was than what had been said. It was the strangest kind of knowing, knowing without a tale to it, a knowing that was stable but out of time.