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.