The Bird King(83)

“I can and I do.” Gwennec looked into the fog, his face altering. “I eloped when I went to the abbey, more or less. There’s a part of the Mass when the priest holds up the Host, like this”—he demonstrated, loosing her fingers to lift his rough hands—“and one Easter, as I was watching, I felt this—I don’t know what it was. All I know is I couldn’t stand it. It was as if all the beauty of the world was bound up in one gesture. I saw the body of God in the priest’s hands. And that was that. I never went home again.”

Fatima didn’t know where to set her eyes. She felt faintly embarrassed, as though she had intruded on something private, next to which their night together seemed rather feeble. She had taken him for a fisherman who happened to become a monk; she saw now that she had reversed the order of things. A wariness crept over her, throwing suspicion on the little artless gestures and smiles that had made him so appealing.

“I don’t see how you can believe what she believes and yet be so different,” she muttered.

“She?”

“Luz.”

“Ah.” Gwennec gave a grunting laugh. “I think about this, when I’m alone. Luz isn’t the worst. I’ve met others since I’ve been in the abbey who are—well, I shouldn’t say, since they’re trying to put themselves right. Some ideas are so beautiful that even evil people believe in them. I thought the abbey would be full of saintly folk, but it wasn’t. Isn’t. It used to depress me. But I’ve come to realize that I must share God with the things that God has set askew.”

Fatima felt something harden in her chest. She drew away from him by inches until she could no longer feel the warmth of his body beside hers.

“Am I one of those things to you now? Something askew?”

“You?” Gwennec’s eyes widened. “Because we had a tumble once, after you’d saved my life and we were all giddy to be alive? I’m as askew as you are, if that’s true, and more so, seeing as you’ve broken no vows. Lord, Fa, if I told you what sins some men drag with them, even monks—especially monks, I sometimes think. We oughtn’t to have done it and we won’t do it again, but it was so lovely that I haven’t even repented of it yet, because I’d be lying if I said I was filled with remorse. I’m waiting until I can muster some proper humility.”

Fatima relaxed; the warmth returned, transmitted between their shoulders.

“I was worried you’d go funny afterward,” she said.

“I don’t go funny, generally speaking, though if I do, I’ll warn you first.” Gwennec grinned again and Fatima found she didn’t mind it so much. Then he glanced back, over the sternmost railing, and the smile slid from his face.

“Fa,” he said hoarsely.

Fatima scrambled to her feet. The mist was thinning: water was visible again, as calm and milky as a lake. Rising up from it was the darker outline of the carrack, close enough for them to count the muffled booms of each sail.

“Wake Hassan,” shouted Gwennec, leaping down the steps to the main deck. “Get him up here!” He rushed past Stupid; spooked, the gelding squealed and clattered sideways. Fatima raced down one set of steps and then another, emerging into the murky half-night of the hold, where Hassan lay prone in a bunk, his long body still fitted around the emptiness where Gwennec had lain.

“Hassan,” said Fatima, shaking him by the arm. “They’ve caught up.”

Hassan’s eyes flew open. Without a word, he rose and stumbled across the hold, smoothing his shaggy hair with one hand. Fatima followed him up to the deck. Gwennec had adjusted the sails: a brisk current of air pulled at their clothing and battered their faces when they emerged into daylight. The sun, formerly a colorless, half-hidden disk, was burning through the fog, throwing weak shadows below the sails and the agitated figures of Gwennec and the gelding.

“What happened?” shouted Hassan. Gwennec swung down from the ratlines and landed in front of him.

“We lost the wind last night,” he said, pulling at a series of ropes that ran from the deck rail up to the mast. “Not Fatima’s fault—she was at the helm, nothing she could have done. We needed two awake, and we had two asleep, like a pack of fools.”

“Not Fatima’s fault,” muttered Hassan as the monk continued his inspection. “Nothing will ever be Fatima’s fault again, I suspect.”

Fatima looked around for something to fling at him but saw nothing suitable.

“Don’t pretend you wouldn’t have done exactly the same thing if he’d looked at you the right way,” she spat.

“Ah, but he didn’t look at me the right way, did he? Nor will he—nor will any of the men we meet from now on, if we live long enough for it to matter. They’ll look at you.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Then the cog pitched abruptly, sending everything that was not bolted to the deck careening sideways. Fatima heard herself scream. She collided with Stupid and clung to his springy mane, but the gelding was no more sure-footed than herself, and soon they were both pinned against the rail. Water rose up before Fatima’s eyes, eclipsing the sky and the horizon. With a groan, the cog rolled back. Fatima found herself looking straight up. Above the fog, the sky was an opaque, mineral blue: the color of early autumn. For a moment, everything was weightless. Then the cog came crashing down, sending up a curtain of spray on either side of the prow, soaking Fatima in frigid brine. Voices were calling her name. She reached out and felt Hassan’s arms lift her away from the railing.