Demon Rider

a statement. 'You think I died, that the creature killed me!'

'It would seem so. The hob would not die unless the sword went through your heart. It mourns its friend Tobias. It finds its house growing cold, if you will forgive a cruel expression. It jumps him back a few days and lets him try again.'

'But—'

'But why do you come back damaged so often? Why do you remember anything at all of the lost days?' The friar smiled his little smile. 'Those are good questions, my son, so I shall ask them for you. Alas, I don't have good answers, but I suspect that the hob is going crazy. It is an immortal trying to cope with mortality.

'For us what's done is done. For the hob, what's done can be tried again. It certainly seems logical that neither it nor you should retain any memory of what hasn't happened yet and may never happen.' He sighed. 'This could give a man a headache. Do you understand this, Pepita?'

'No, Brother,' said the child solemnly.

'Well, you are not alone.'

'Deja vu!' Toby said. 'That feeling that you've been here before!'

Brother Bernat beamed. 'You often have that feeling?'

'Quite often. I remember it very strongly in Brittany once and a couple of times in Navarre. And at other places, less marked.'

'So! So perhaps the hob has been at this for years and you did not know. But now… Now, perhaps, it is going mad, so its powers are not working properly. Or other demons are interfering with it, somewhere in your future. Either way, you are coming back damaged and remembering some of what happened. Not all of it, I'm sure. You just retain fragments, of course.'

Here was the bad news. 'You mean I could have been — I mean I will remain — longer in the hands of the Inquisition?'

'And in the baron's clutches, too. I don't think you recall the end of the story in any of those cases.'

They walked on for a while in silence. At last Toby put it into words. 'And when you said these happenings were dangerous, what you meant was that one day the hob may mess things up completely. Is that possible? Could it tie the two of us into a circle, a never-ending loop in time?'

'I am certainly concerned about that possibility.'

And so was Toby Longdirk. There could be no worse fate in the universe than being tortured by the Inquisition throughout all eternity.

'The dangers facing you are uncountable, my son. The Inquisition is the most immediate, of course. I shall be most surprised if your vision turns out to be false and the inquisitors are not watching for you at Tortosa. Assuming you can pass them safely and survive all the other perils of this road as well, then Baron Oreste waits in Barcelona. If he tries to strip the hob from you, he will almost certainly take parts of your mind with it. If he doesn't, then in time the hob will inevitably go completely insane, which means you will. If you were not the man you are, that would have happened long since. Tobias, I do not envy you your future!'

'There they are!' Pepita said, pointing a straw-thin finger. The pilgrims were in sight in the distance, going slowly across a wide pasture.

'So they are,' said Brother Bernat, 'and we have not yet finished our business.' He turned aside from the track and strode over to a thicket where many of the trees still bore bright green leaves. There, as if he had planned it, he went straight to a mossy stump in the leafy gloom and seated himself like a king on a throne. The air was cool and deliciously fragrant. 'Oleanders,' he explained, waving a slender hand at the foliage.

Pepita promptly discovered a trail of ants and dropped on all fours to study it. Toby sank down crosslegged on the ground before the old man, resting his throbbing arms on his knees. For a moment neither spoke.

The friar glanced at the child, who had now tracked the ants to their nest at the base of a tree and was lying there with her nose almost inside it.

'Tobias,' he said softly, 'you can tell me the rest now.'

'Father, I told you everything!' Pause. 'Everything I believed was relevant.' But not Mezquiriz! He had not mentioned Mezquiriz. Must he bare even that secret sorrow? He had never told anyone. Even Hamish did not know the awful truth.

'There is more, Tobias, unless I am sadly misinformed about the human race. You are a man of considerable will, but do you tell me you have never once succumbed to the temptations of the flesh? I have watched the effect you have on our companions. You draw women's eyes like flies to honey.'

'That is the hob's doing! Yes, I did let it learn about… about what men and women do, Brother. It wants to experience that again, and it lures women to me.'

The old man laughed. 'Does it? I think you underestimate yourself. But tell me what happened. I shall not condemn you for being human.'

Toby bent his head so he need not see that gaunt old face with its knowing smile. He clenched his fists until his bruised wrists throbbed. 'Just once, Brother. Only once! I did not know what would happen.' He waited to hear the forgiveness he wanted, but nothing came. 'It was at Mezquiriz, a tiny place in Navarre, near Roncevalles. It was not a casual thing, Brother. We could not dream of marriage, but we were very much in love, both of us.'

'Knowing you, I am sure you were. You would not deceive a girl for momentary pleasure. You did not know, but did you not suspect?'

Toby looked up angrily. 'How could I?' The penetrating dark eyes seared him. He looked away quickly.

Yes, he must have suspected, even then, for he had fled from similar situations in the past. His doubts had been more than the normal anxiety of a young man about to embark on his first lovemaking. He remembered the words spoken outside the cottage, when the ice-bound night was a soaring choir of stars and snow glimmered on the peaks. He remembered Jeanne in his arms, her sweet fragrance, the taste of her kisses on his mouth. He remembered his terrified excuses: I am nothing but a hunted fugitive, a deserter. I have no land, no friends with influence, no money.

Her whispered reply: Life is short and love is shorter. If you care for me, do not deprive me of the happiness I ask.

I love you too much to love you.

If I knew you were leaving forever at dawn, I should still want this.

'We were members of a band of smugglers, Brother. Hamish and I needed to escape from Nevil's domains, and that was the only way. We joined them. Jeanne was one of them. I loved her. By all the spirits, I loved her!'

He stared at the dead leaves under the old man's feet. Tears ran into his stubble, but he did not wipe them away. 'One night we… we exchanged solemn promises of love. And then… we went to her room.'

Even as they lay together on the tiny bed with starlight peeking through cracks in the shutter, even in the frantic, clumsy fumbling with each other's garments — even then he had tried to talk her out of it. She had kissed his words away. And now he could not find words. He sat in silence with the tears flowing.

'She died, my son?'

Yes! Yes! Will you make me say it? He nodded, not looking up. 'Not only her, Brother. Houses collapsed or burst into flames. Hamish barely escaped. They thought it was an artillery barrage.'

Brother Bernat sighed. 'It does not surprise me. Passion such as that would have been far beyond the hob's imagining. So you have avoided women ever since?'

Now Toby did look up, glaring furiously. 'What do you think I am?'

The friar smiled as if he accepted the rebuke. 'A most unfortunate young man who deserves better of life than the curse he bears. But answer my question. Look me in the eyes and tell me the truth.'

'I have never as much as kissed another woman. Not even when they ask me outright!'

'Good!' the friar said. 'Then there is hope that I may be able to help you.' He looked around to see where Pepita had gone, but she was out of earshot, stalking a squirrel. 'And even if you did suspect that there might be trouble that night in Mezquiriz, no one could condemn you for what happened. You carry more remorse than you need. Tobias, I am truly sorry, believe me. I can teach you how to tame the hob, within limits. I can show you how to make it behave itself, so you will not go crazy and it will not thrash around damaging other people as it has done in the past. Do you want this?'