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beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable.
He could not shake the feeling that there was something wrong with all this,
the three of them going off (four, counting their own Hob, of course, though
indeed the little hobgoblin might be at Malencontri right now, having returned
there on a waft of smoke from Malvern). There was something badly wrong about
leaving Sir Geoffrey here alone, abject and despairing, and Geronde as hard
toward her parent as only Geronde could be.
It was not right. They were all on their feet now, ready to go their separate
ways.
Hold on! said Jim.
He had spoken without thinking, but his anger was now out in the open. It was
aimed primarily at Geronde, but also at Sir Geoffrey and all the rest of them,
including himself.
He was stared back at awkwardly. He had broken the glass curtain of
sociability with which they were covering up an uncomfortable situation; and
the two responses to that in their historical period were to challenge him on
it, or pretend to ignore what he had just said. Ignoring it had become a
little difficult. On the other hand, Brian was his closest friend, Geronde
would be in a sense acknowledging the situation by saying anything, Sir
Geoffrey owed him his freedom from something very like slavery and Sir Renel
had literally been rescued from that state.
Jim was aware of all this, and of Angie moving closer to him and looking back
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at the rest of them with him, and he had no solution to the impasse he had
created. But it did not matter. He was now in the full tide of his own
emotion, and he charged ahead without bothering to sort out his words ahead of
time.
This is all wrong! he said. Sir Geoffrey, tell your daughter why, though
you had the palace that she saw you in and the wealth to go with it, you
couldn t come back to her, much less bring back what you had with you. Tell
her!
Sir Geoffrey stared at him with a white face, saying nothing.
Tell her, man! said Jim. Tell her, or I will!
Jerkily, moving like a jointed doll, Sir Geoffrey turned to face Geronde.
I could not, he said to her. I was under a curse.
Could not? said Geronde with emphasis on the first word. Her lip did not
exactly curl contempt, but it looked as if it might.
I dared not, said Sir Geoffrey then, bluntly.
Dared not. Sir Father?
Tell her the whole story, said Jim. The curse had originally been laid on
Hasan ad-Dimri, he transferred it to you and you accepted it from him. Tell
her why.
Hasan offered me the palace and all that went with it that you saw in
Palmyra, Geronde, said Sir Geoffrey. That was to be my price for accepting
the curse and lifting it off him on to myself. It offered, I thought, all I
had been searching for. But he laughed when I accepted.
Why did he laugh? said Jim relentlessly.
Sir Geoffrey was still looking only at Geronde.
He laughed, and I did not mind it, then, said Sir Geoffrey. He laughed
because he told me that now I had accepted, if I should ever try to escape
from him, the curse would follow me wherever I went. Not only that, but it
would be extended.
Sir Geoffrey ran down again.
Tell it all to her, said Jim, more gently now.
Sir Geoffrey looked at the ground, away from Geronde s eyes.
He said part of the curse was that if I did escape, its effect would go with
me. It would not only fall on me, but on my descendants unto the seventh
generation. That was why he laughed. Think of your sons, and your son s
sons, he said, all of them suffering it, down to the seventh generation!
Sir Geoffrey took a deep breath, and without raising his eyes went on.
I had gathered as much already from what he had said, although he had not
made it plain in words until then, he said. But I was sure I would find some
way to get out from under the curse, you see; and manage to take much of what
I now had back to England. Indeed, I doubted a curse that would hold a Muslim
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would have any effect on a Christian. I was wrong; but when I found out how
wrong, I could not come back. I could never escape the curse-but I could not
bring it back to you.
He raised his eyes to Geronde.
So, she said cuttingly to him, as you say, in the end you dared not.
Tell her what the curse was, said Jim. Geronde, you saw Ahriman. He was
real enough. What would have followed Sir Geoffrey home would have been real
enough too.
I am not afraid of curses! said Geronde, raising her head proudly. Even if
my father is.
Tell her what the curse is, said Jim. She may think differently after she
hears.
Sir Geoffrey looked at him, the knight s face drawn and old.
Surely, I need not- He stopped.
Name it, said Jim. Don t you see that you re going to have to name it, for
Geronde to understand?
Sir Geoffrey took a deep breath and straightened, stiffening. He looked back
at Geronde.
I could not bring it back to you, my daughter, he said in a harsh voice.
The curse was leprosy.
Leprosy!
Brian s and Sir Renel s voices spoke together. As for Geronde, she said
nothing; but the blood left her face.
In England, as Brian had told Baiju, lepers were not driven into a desert by
men with clubs and sticks; but certainly, here too, they would be as surely
put out, not only of the society of those they knew, but of their home and
family-to wander, begging and ringing a bell to warn everyone out of their
path. The horror of the disease as it was known in England during the Middle
Ages was no less than it was in the Near East.
That was why he would not come back, Geronde, said Jim softly.
Geronde s eyes moved. She stared at Jim for a second. She made a small
choking sound, looked once more at her father for another second. Then she
leaped up, whirled and ran, down from the dais and out through the doorway
leading toward the stairs to the tower, where her own solar room was-leaving
silence behind her.
After a long moment Angie spoke, her voice clear in the hall.
Sir Geoffrey, she said, I think what s been between your daughter and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
