The Golden Horn by Judith Tarr

Author:Judith Tarr [Tarr, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Golden Horn, medieval, Fourth Crusade, Byzantium, Judith Tarr, fantasy, Constantinople, historical, Book View Cafe
ISBN: 9781611381757
Publisher: Book View Cafe
Published: 2012-06-05T07:50:21+00:00

22.

Bardas slept as easily as he ever did now, freed for the moment from the torment of coughing that racked his whole body, granted the release from pain that was all the healing Alf could give. His face, though thinned to the bone, wore a semblance of peace.

Sophia combed out her black braids. Freed, they tumbled to her knees: her one beauty and her one vanity. This morning she had found a thread of grey. Well; it was time. She was thirty-four.

Across the bed, Alf straightened. In lamplight and intent on his task, he looked strangely old, an age that smoothed and fined rather than withered and shrank, like the patina of ancient ivory.

She was obsessed with time tonight. As he began to gather the packets and vials from which he had made Bardas’ medicine, she asked, “How old are you, Alf?”

A bottle dropped from his fingers, mercifully falling only an inch or two, striking the table with a sound that made them both start. Very carefully Alf picked it up again and laid it in his box of medicines. His voice was equally careful, his face completely without color. “How old would you like me to be?”

“As old as you are.”

He tightened the knot on a bundle of herbs, head bent. His hair hid his face, whiter in that light than Bardas’ yet thick and youthful. “That,” he said, “could be embarrassing. Or frightening.”

“To you or to me?”

“Both.” He looked up. It was a boy’s face with the barest hint of white-fair downy beard. But a man’s voice, well settled, and eyes too unbearably ancient to meet.

He laughed as a strong man will, in pain. “I’m not that old! If I were like anyone else, I could conceivably be still alive.”

“Then—”

“I was seventeen when l took vows in Saint Ruan’s. Bardas was a very young child. In too many ways, I’m still seventeen.”

“I’m neither embarrassed nor frightened.”

Wide-eyed, surprised, he looked younger than ever.

She smiled. “I’ll tell you a secret. I’m still seventeen, too. I just don’t look it, and I try not to act it. At least not in public.”

“It doesn’t matter? That I—”

“Why should it? I only wanted to be sure. I hate mysteries.”

She finished her combing and began to bind up the gleaming mass again. “It’s reassuring, in its way. All that wisdom and experience, and a body strong enough to last out any storm.”

“But also, all too often, at the mercy of its own unnatural youth.”

“Unnatural, Alf? Did you buy it? Or induce it?”

“Saints, no!”

“Well then,” Sophia said, “for you it’s natural. It certainly looks well on you.”

Alf closed the lid of the box and fastened it. He was smiling wryly. “There are two kinds of people in the world. People who want desperately to burn me at the stake, and people who take me easily in their stride.”

“Not easily. Just…inevitably. What must it have been like for you? Raised as you were, trained as you were, and being what you were. Even with the monks’ acceptance, or tolerance at least, you still had to face the Church.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.