The moon was high and white and cold, the wind wild, shrilling on the stones. Far below thundered the sea, casting up great gleaming gouts of spray.
Alf followed the long line of the battlements, circling round to that corner which jutted like the prow of a white ship. The wind whipped the breath from his lungs; he laughed into it, and stumbled a little.
Surprised, he looked down. His foot had caught on a small crumpled shadow: cloth, a softness of fur, a heap of garments abandoned by the parapet.
He smiled wryly and gathered them up, warming them under his cloak. High above the castle soared a seabird, abroad most unnaturally in this wind-wild midnight.
But then, in or about Caer Gwent, nothing was unnatural.
The bird spiraled downward. It flew well, strong on the strong wind. Alf’s ears, unhuman-keen, caught a high exultant cry. His smile warmed and widened.
Wings beat above his head. Gull’s shape, young gull’s plumage, dark in the moon.
Whiteness blossomed out of it. Toes touched stone where claws had been; Alun lowered his arms, breathless, tumble-haired, and naked as a newborn child.
He dived into the shelter of Alf’s cloak, clasping him tightly, grinning up at him. “Did you see, Alf? Did you see what I did?”
“I could hardly avoid it,” Alf said dryly. “So it’s a shape-changer you are then. How long?”
“Ages.” Alf’s look was stern; Alun laughed. “Well then, Magister. Since just before my birthday. October the thirty-first: All Hallows’ Eve.”
“Of course.”
“Of course! It’s been a secret, though Mother knows. She’s been teaching me. She was there when it happened, you see. We were playing with the wolf cubs, and I thought, How wonderful to be one! and I was. I was very awkward—and very surprised.”
“I can imagine.”
“I like to be a wolf. But a gull is more interesting. I think I fly rather well.”
Alf helped him to dress, swiftly, for he was already blue with cold. When he was well wrapped in fur and linen and good thick wool, warming from the skin inward, he returned to Alf’s cloak.
“You’re always warm,” he said. “How do you do it?”
“How do you fly?”
Alun considered that and nodded. “I see. Only I can’t... quite... see.”
“You only have to will it. Warmth like a fire always. No cold; no discomfort.”
“Not even in summer?”
Alun’s gaze was wide, innocent. Alf cuffed him lightly. “Imp! In summer you think coolness. Or you suffer like everyone else.”
“I do. You never seem to suffer at all.”
“It’s known as discipline. Which leads me to ask, are you supposed to be out here at this hour?”
“Well...”
“Well?”
“No one told me not to.” Alun tilted his head, eyes glinting. “Are you?”
Alf laughed. “In fact, no. I should be safe in bed. But I couldn’t sleep, and for once Thea could.”
“It’s not easy to have a baby, is it? Especially toward the end.”
“No. But she doesn’t complain.”
“She’s very proud of herself,” Alun said. “And happy—sometimes I look at her and all I see is light.”
“I, too,” Alf said softly.
“Your children will be very beautiful and very strong and very wise. Like your lady—like you. Can you see, Alf? He looks like both of you together, but she has your face. She’s laughing; she has flowers in her hair. I—” Alun laughed breathlessly. “I think I’m in love with her. And she isn’t even born yet!”
Alf looked down at his rapt face, himself with wonder and a touch of awe. Another seer, with clearer sight in this than he had ever had. He smoothed the tousled hair, drawing his cloak tighter around the thin body. Alun was warm now, growing drowsy as a child will, all at once, eyes full still of prophecy.
It could be tantalizing, that gift they both had, drawing the mind inward, laying bare all that would be. All the beauty; all the terror.
Alf caught his breath. It was dark. Black dark and bone-cold. Thank God, sighed a small soundless voice, that the beauty is his to see, and not—
He could not see. Could only know as the blind know, in darkness, the slight boy-shape, all bones and thin skin, gripping him with sudden strength. “Alf. Alf, what’s wrong?”
Light grew slowly. Moonlight; cold starlight; Alun’s face, thin and white and very young, brave against the onslaught of fear. His cheeks were stiff with cold. “You’re seeing again,” he said. “All the bad things. But they’ll pass—you’ll see.”
Alf shuddered from deep within. This was not like the rest of his visions; they were brutally vivid, as dreams can be, or true Seeing. When his inner eye went blind, then truly was it time for fear, for his mind would not face what his power foresaw.
Yet Alun saw beyond, into sunlight.
He drew a slow breath. Was it his own death then that he went to? He had never feared it; had longed for it, prayed for it, through all his long years in the cloister. How like Heaven to offer it now, when at last he had something to live for.
He smiled at Alun and warmed the frozen face with his hands. “Yes,” he said. “The bad things will pass. Then there’ll be only sunlight, and flowers in a girl’s hair.” His smile went wicked. “I can guess who’ll put them there.”
Alun’s cheeks flamed hotter even than Alf’s palms. But his eyes were steady, bright with moonlight and mirth. “Will you object?”
“Only if she does.”
“She won’t,” said Alun with certainty.