Authors: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
They lay joined long after their first passion was spent, murmuring loving, senseless words, finding their rapture undiminished, savoring the way their emotions and their senses met and blended with all the intensity of their flesh.
"And tomorrow?” he asked her as the resurgence of his need made her quiver.
"Hush."
"I'll take you with me.” He wanted to say it before the words were gone again from his mind. “I should have..."
Her fingers trailed over his arm. “You would feud with my father for life, should you take me. Do you want that?"
"No,” he said, so quietly that she had to move even closer to hear him. “But if it were necessary, then..."
"Don't. I want no death touching us. That's for tomorrow, my ever-dearest. Tomorrow is a shadow. You are all the world right now, and nothing is...” She did not finish, kissing him instead, rousing herself though his desire.
"Philomine."
Her mouth stopped her name; fingers, lips, a length of leg, the bend of elbow and knee, the rise of hip, each in turn glistened with moonlight and ecstasy in the new-leaved orchard.
It was nearly dawn. They sat together, their clothes draped over shoulders so that they might touch a little longer. Both were pale and tired—both were so exhilarated that sleep would have been impossible.
"Let me take you with me when I leave,” Tristan said for the third time that night. “I will not feud with your father. I will petition the King to permit the marriage and even your father must bow to that."
"But would he?” She shook her head. “You know what he is, and his pride. It is worse since the Plague took my brothers and uncles from him. He rages like a caged lion for the glory he has missed, and the battles he will be denied."
But you are no nun,” he protested as he tweaked the soft curls by her ear.
"No,” she agreed. “I have no vocation. I never said I had. I was and will remain a tertiary Sister.” She reached to touch his face. “You are what I worship, you are my deity."
"That's blasphemous. Or heresy.” He said it automatically, but the words meant nothing to him, not as he said them.
"If it is, then amen to it. Why should I give my life to shadows when you are here?"
He took her hands in his. “You say that, and will not come with me?"
Their eyes met. “Can you ask that, knowing the trouble that would come? Is it proper to give a god burnt offerings of his own House?” She rested her head on his shoulder in order to continue touching him. “You would hate me for that, in time. Your family would hate me from the first, and they would force you to choose. Not at the first, perhaps, but eventually they would insist, and you would have to decide what to do. I would follow you anywhere, Tristan, Tristan, but I will not go home with you."
"Then I will leave France. There are places a man-at-arms can find work, and princes who will offer good money and advancement for a skilled sword-arm."
It was true enough, and both of them knew it. “It is wrong to turn away from your House and blood,” she reminded him, but lacking conviction. “I don't know what you would do, given time. But promise me, Tristan, for the sake of loving me, don't act quickly."
"We've waited too long already,” he said, bending to nuzzle her neck.
"We may wait a bit longer, if it means that we will not part,” she told him, the plan that had been shapeless an instant ago now taking form in her mind. “We might find a way, so that no one need suffer and you need not carry the weight of your father's curse along with my love."
"How?” He said it more sharply than he had intended, and she gave him a startled glance at his abruptness.
"Your House must be secure. That is the difficulty. The opposition to my House is too strong to be overcome by a marriage contract. Therefore, there must be another to succeed you, one that your father approves. Let him find a man-at-arms, a worthy man, to adopt as his heir, and settle you with—"
"As if I were his bastard?” This time he was not gentle; his dark blue eyes turned darker and his face was heated.
"Is that too much?” she asked sadly. “If it is, then I will be content to remain here."
He laughed in a harsh outburst. “You mean that this would be enough for you?"
"If it is all that we will have, then it must be enough. I cannot poison it with wanting more than we could have. If I did that, I would lose all that might be ours, and this as well. It would be too bitter a price, my dearest.” She looked down in confusion, trying to find another way to explain herself.
"No, Philomine,” he murmured, the anger gone out of him. He drew her close against him and felt her tears on his shoulder. “Do not weep, my only love. Do not weep."
They kissed slowly, tenderly, shutting out all the hurt that the world gave them. Their faces were alive with longing and anguish at the need to part. It was terrible to have to leave, more terrible to be separated.
"I will make myself a bastard,” Tristan vowed to Philomine in a whisper. “I will find someone—a nephew, a cousin, anyone acceptable—and I will step aside, taking whatever portion my father will grant me. I will come for you then, and it will not matter."
"I will wait for you, and never forget this.” Her lips brushed his. “I will tell my father only that I must leave since I have not discovered a vocation. I will say that I have been accepted at some minor noble's court, far from here, who needs a woman for his lady."
"That would be a lie,” he said, scandalized that she should make such an offer to him, and the more concerned that he would accept so readily.
"Not a lie, perhaps, as much as a wish for what may happen.” She pulled on her habit, reluctant to let it come between them. “There are birds singing in the trees already. The Sisters will gather for prayers shortly, and I must be with them or risk answering the Superior's questions."
To relieve the gloom that descended on him as he watched her dress, Tristan asked, “Is she very strict, this Superior?"
Philomine shrugged as she tightened her hempen belt and attached her rosary to it. “She has caused much excitement with some of the Sisters, but I don't know why. She is capable enough, I suppose, but to hear Seur Victoire or Seur Aungelique speak of her, you would think she came directly from la Virge or the Devil."
"And what does she make of this?” Tristan inquired as he tugged on his soft chemise.
"Who can say?” Philomine answered, grateful to have this to speak of instead of their good-byes. “She is a cipher, that one, shaping her mood and her ways to those who are in her company, or so it seems to me."
"And the others?” He was pulling on his belt and checking the heft of his small sword now, his mind more on the details of dressing in the pre-dawn half-light than what Philomine said. He wanted to hear the sound of her voice, though all she said was children's songs.
"I don't know. Some of them are pleased, I've mentioned that already. Others are distressed. It is strange that she would be so ... flexible and still be thought rigid by many of the Sisters.” With one hand she smoothed her hair back, and with the other, concealed it beneath the coif. She was Seur Philomine once again, little as she liked it.
"You haven't got it all,” Tristan said gently, coming up to her and tucking on trailing bit of hair under the coif. “There."
She pressed herself to him. “Do not be too long, Tristan. I will wait as long as I must—all my life, should it come to that. Yet if it must take time, let it take as little as possible.” Her feelings were all contradictory as she said this, part of her wishing she had not refused to leave with him, careless of the consequences to their Houses and her vows.
"It will be soon. I don't think I can endure much more waiting. Philomine, do not think the less of me."
"Never,” she promised him, kissing the corner of his mouth while he held her tightly. “I must go,” she reminded him a bit later. “The bells will sound shortly, and I must be where they can find me then, or..."
His arms released her, though it was an effort to do so. “Shall I walk back with you?"
Seur Philomine shook her head. “No. It would not be wise. The warder Sister might see us, and then it would be difficult for you as well as for me.” She was trying to think of a way to account for the grass stains that she knew were on her pale grey habit. “It would be too awkward."
"As you wish, treasured one.” He touched her shoulder, trying not to hold her back, yet wanting to keep her with him. “One day we will not have to answer that summons any more."
"I pray that it is soon,” she said with a half-turn toward him.
"You pray, after what you confessed to me?” It was not outrage but mirth that made him ask.
"You are real; the rest are shadows. Who better for me to pray to?” With this outrageous admission, she broke away from him and hurried away toward the tall convent walls, regretting every step she took.
"It is the Devil who does this to you,” Seur Catant said to Seur Aungelique as she waited for the rebellious nun outside the cell door.
Seur Aungelique moaned and tugged at her dampened shift. “I am ... loved,” she insisted. “I am being taken in love."
It was wrong for a nun to sneer, Seur Catant was well aware of it, but she could not school her features to the sympathy her habit required of her. She compromised with a severe scowl. “There are only your lustful thoughts to blame for this, Seur Aungelique. You have wooed the Devil and he has taken you for his bride. If it were up to me, I would order you to leave this convent and the Order so that your disgrace would not bring dishonor on your Sisters."
"You are jealous,” Seur Aungelique said shrewdly, coming closer than she knew to the source of Seur Catant's repugnance. “There is no one who seeks to take what lies between your thighs, and you are angry that there are those who burn for me."
"No nun would wish to have any burn for her. You bring peril to all of us by your confession. You are damned by your words."
"Then where is God, to bring me to His forgiveness?” Seur Aungelique taunted her. She was half-off the cot where she slept, her shift sticking to her where sweat had moistened it. “All of you pretend that you have forgotten or never wanted the love that God made me seek."
"Be silent,” Seur Catant rejoined, wanting to be rid of the other woman entirely. “You must not speak to me."
"Why not?” Finally Seur Aungelique was enjoying herself. “Don't you wonder what it is like to have a demon come to you, to enter your flesh with a member the size of a log of wood? Don't you long for that pain? Don't you?"
"Be silent!” Seur Catant shrieked, stepping back from the cell door. “You have been overcome by the Devil! You are infected by him, as those with the Plague are infected!"
Seur Aungelique laughed, shaking her head so that her hair swung free of its confining wimple. “Listen to you, you demented old crone. You are nothing more than a husk, and not even the Devil can fill you.” She leaned back against the wall and began methodically to tear the neck of her shift so that her breasts were visible. “You bring Mère Léonie. Go ahead. I want to hear what she says when you tell her that you do not want the Devil to violate your virginity. Saving yourself for the deflowering of God, are you? Do you think the Father and Son will take turns with you, the way the Flagellants did with the nuns they caught outside of Mou Courbet? Hum?” She tore the shift the rest of the way, so it hung open to the hem at her ankles. “But do you offer this? Come! Open the door and look! You have dugs as flat as an empty wineskin. I have something to offer a man."
"And you give it to the Devil!” Seur Catant burst out, then spun around and fled down the hall, shouting for Mère Léonie to come at once.
Smiling, Seur Aungelique lay back and began to sing the bawdiest song she had heard while she was at Un Noveautie. She had got into the fourth chorus when she was interrupted by hurrying steps in the hall. “Who comes, then?” she called out, and then went back to the outrageous lyrics.
Mère Léonie stood in the door, straight as a soldier, her pale eyes burning down at Seur Aungelique. “You have fallen again."
"Call it what you like,” Seur Aungelique responded insolently. “Last night there was a lover with me, who filled me and made me abase myself for his pleasure."
"Did he?” Her voice was severe. “And you forgot all that you have promised to God and la Virge and you gave yourself to vice and sin."
"Yes,” Seur Aungelique agreed smugly. “What would you have done?"
"I would pray to Our Lord to guide me,” Mère Léonie answered, coming closer. “This Devil that Seur Catant says you boast of—what was he like?"
"He is beautiful, a man made of beauty, a splendid man,” Seur Aungelique said in a sing-song tone. “He is slight and his face is soft. His eyes are light, almost as light as yours, and his hair is pale as the light of the moon. He is carved from ice, and he burns cold as the stars.” She pulled open her torn shift to show the bruises that marked her. “He did this to me, my Thibault did, and he will do it again, and worse, before he is through with me."
"Beg Our Lord to welcome you. He will take you in if you pray,” Mère Léonie said with increasing sternness. “In the meantime, I do not care that you wish to remain here, you will keep your vigil as you have been told to do, and you will go and confess your sins, no matter how heinous, to Père Guibert as soon as he comes to hear our confessions. You will then come back to your cell where you will dwell on your sins. You will beg your bread and water from your Sisters, whom you have offended most deeply. Is that understood, or must I be more plain?"
"You are plain. Yes, very plain. You have a boy's face, not one that a woman would wish for. How plain you are, ma Mère. And nuns are the only ones who you will hear call you ‘Mère'. No children will come from your womb."
"That is so, but it is the wish of Our Lord that this be so,” Mère Léonie said with odd satisfaction. “You have decided that you must be debauched, instead of taking the salvation offered to you. That is what you have done, and if that is what you long for, that you will have. But not until Père Guibert hears from your lips your desire to leave this Order and the protection of this house."