The Execution (43 page)

It was Henri who helped remove the
soaked robes and left the soup at his bedside, covering D’ata with
a soft, down blanket—again.

Then, the next morning just like the
day before, the young priest would mysteriously disappear from the
mansion and reappear upon the gravesite.

Sometimes, when it wasn’t raining, a
child would appear to sit on the grave next to the dying man.
Yvette greatly mourned the loss of her sister, mourned the decaying
man lying on the ground next to her, beautiful and mysterious and
oh so sad. Eventually, the small one would leave before the hour
was dark and Henri would come to gather D’ata from the
grave.

The church didn’t prosecute D’ata.
There were other pressing matters as the church wrestled with the
change of venue of its Pope and the conflict of absolute power with
the reigning King. Furthermore, Monsignor Leoceonne feared for the
young man’s sanity, that he would not even understand his
prosecution or punishment.

For now, the church allowed D’ata the
luxury of time, the luxury of his insanity. Chances were he would
die anyway; he certainly appeared to be the living spectacle of
death—and was closer approaching it day by day.

* * *

Tonight, Raphael sat at D’ata’s
bedside again, rocking gently in a chair while he watched his young
friend sleep. He almost didn’t recognize him and wondered when
D’ata’s face had become so thin. He thought about Julianne, about
love—the force which compelled the two of them to risk everything.
He worried for the young priest and recalled that someone once said
time would mend a broken heart.

Raphael had known his own heart to be
broken a time or two in his life, but nothing compared to what the
young man before him was forced to endure. He slid deeper into the
chair, snorted to himself and thought about the ‘time will mend a
broken heart’ theory, deciding it was rubbish after all.

He thought to himself that time was a
thief. That it steals fragments of a broken heart and hides them
beneath the crusted surface of the soul.

Being a poet of sorts, Raphael rubbed
his chin thoughtfully and considered this deep philosophy. He knew
that all one had to do was poke about beneath the surface and turn
over a few memory stones. One could return to a certain place, a
certain time, and the wound would be opened anew. It would then
become quite clear that time would not heal a heart like D’ata’s;
it would never mend. It would only shroud itself, dull itself, the
fractured holes filled in with trickery, with fancy and nearly
forgotten memories.

He knew that sometimes all it would
take was a familiar voice, a certain letter or portrait, an old
favorite song. Sometimes it might only stir in a dream. But then,
suddenly, there it would be again—all the raw pain and loss, and
the pieces of the broken heart would cascade again, mercilessly
broken about his feet. At this moment, he would grasp the pieces,
clutch absurdly at them in an eternal struggle to desperately put
them back, but it would all be for naught.

This saddened Raphael, this
realization that D’ata would be one of those. One who had loved
someone, truly loved someone and—truly lost someone, especially as
one who loses an innocent, such as a child.

Frowning, he realized this was what
D’ata suffered. His heart wasn’t just broken; broken implied it
could be fixed. D’ata’s heart was shattered beyond repair. Some of
the pieces were still there, uncomfortable and out of place. Some
of them were gone, vanished forever, and the holes those pieces
left were what caused the pain. It was like a wound, a severed arm
that would never entirely heal. Sometimes, when the wound was
re-injured, the old pain would come back just as fresh—just as
dreadful.

D’ata stirred, moaned a bit, but slept
on.

Raphael sat up, edging close enough to
lay a hand on the shoulder of his friend. He struggled with the
notion that he could not draw D’ata from his despair, enough to
bolster him up in some way, to help him in this terrible
time.

It seemed as though everyone, in some
way or another, felt responsible for the outcome of the young
lovers’ affair. All mourned, but no one could penetrate the fragile
shell of this sad one left behind. Even Julianne’s father had
adopted a sad pity for the man who had loved his daughter to death.
It was tragic beyond compare, and nobody spoke of
it—ever.

A strange routine took over instead;
keep the living safe, take care of them, but don’t ever speak of
it—never speak of it. God may reach down from the heavens and
punish if anyone spoke, and the punishment could be horrible. All
could now see how possible that was.

Monsieur Cezanne and his wife would
peek into D’ata’s room but neither spoke to him. They whispered
quietly amongst themselves instead. They were mourning indeed,
unexpectedly driven to mourn the loss of a girl named Julianne, the
loss of the baby, and the loss of what their son had once
been.

The next day, Raphael admonished him,
“You mustn’t go there tomorrow!” He tugged at the young priest’s
boots and as he laid them aside, rainwater poured from them in
muddy puddles onto the floor. The bedchamber was strangely warm and
inviting in contrast to the fragile young man it held. In addition,
something seemed even more wrong today.

“
Do you hear me, D’ata?
You mustn’t go there!” Raphael was frustrated, but also deeply
worried. He tried to be firm with his young friend.

D’ata lie back upon the bed, staring
blankly at the ceiling, not answering.

Raphael leaned forward, pulling at his
robes, exposing the younger man’s chest bare. He searched his eyes,
looking for some recognition, some spark of life. He leaned down
and pressed his ear against D’ata’s chest.

There it was—the soft rasping sound of
the pneumonia as it set in, the grating of infection against the
delicate lungs. Death beckoned, and today it spoke from the frail
lungs of the failing priest. Raphael was no doctor, but he'd heard
the sound before. He was wise and knew D’ata could die if he kept
exposing himself to the elements as he was doing.

“
Ah, mon ami—you kill
yourself, don’t you? But, it was glorious, no?” Raphael rubbed his
eyes. “To love her so?” He was tired, not from caring for his
friend but from grave concern.

He turned D’ata’s head, looked into
the vacant eyes and imagined the despair the young man must be
living with. “Few have loved as you have, you hear me?” he
whispered gently to the lost eyes, which only stared blankly back.
Desperate and frightened, he pounded gently on the chest of his
young friend. “Tomorrow, you will stay home, you hear me monsieur?
Do you hear? You insult her memory to do this!”

Then, he lost his resolve and shook
the young man by his shoulders. “I will kill you myself if you try
to go again! I will!” He was desperate and choked back his tears,
swallowed his words, and fell silent. His head hanging, his
shoulders trembled with mute sobs. He felt a gentle and twisted,
old hand on his shoulder.

“
He dies,” Raphael sobbed
softly, his face turned away.

Henri only nodded toward the dying man
who lay lost in his insanity. “Come, Raph—help me tend to him. We
cannot know that yet.”

The two men gently pulled the wet
robes from D’ata’s body, yet again, and wrapped him naked in the
warm down blanket. They exchanged worried glances at the frailty
that had so quickly overtaken the once strong, young man. Taking
warmed river stones, the ones Raphael had earlier laid in the
fireplace, they wrapped them into quilts and placed them around
D’ata to drive away the cold.

“
You hear me, don’t you? I
will kill you myself, D’ata, if you go there again,” Raphael spoke
under his breath.

The pneumonia gripped the young man,
tearing from him his waning health. It was what D’ata wanted—to
die.

Henri and Raphael, however, refused to
see it that way. There would be no such passage for this one. There
had been enough loss of precious ones already.

They watched D’ata night and day, his
parents allowing the ministerings of these, his oldest, dearest
friends. He made no effort to escape to her grave now, only laid
instead in his bed, the vile pneumonia draining purulent and bloody
from the corners of his mouth whenever he was seized by yet another
coughing fit.

His body had the fever and burned,
soaking the linens. When this happened, they took turns to sponge
him cool. Raphael would estimate the weight of the linens by hand,
estimating the losses, and would spoon water between D’ata’s lips
to carefully replace them. He knew if they lost too much ground
that his friend would quickly die.

Henri would climb the stairs every
day, his scoliosis making the task slow and difficult, but swearing
at Raphael when the young Frenchman tried to assist him. “Get away,
you young scullion; I’m not needing your help yet,” he scoffed and
yet allowed Raphael the courtesy of an elbow.

Raphael and Henri meticulously cleaned
D’ata’s mouth with salt water, washed gently his face and
threadbare hair—rubbed his wasting body with warmed olive oil.
And...they prayed. Raphael knelt on the floor with Henri, hands
clasped. They prayed that God should not yet take this one from
them, that he should be spared.

The two men considered their efforts.
There was worry in their eyes for the one they'd both watched
scamper about the grounds as a child. They were tormented for this
rare creature who’d helped to saddle the horses, muck the stalls,
carry the water and firewood. They grieved this child who'd
befriend their souls and captured their hearts.

“
We have to get him up,
Raphael—If he doesn’t stand, the pneumonia will fill his chest and
harden. I’ve seen it in the horses. If that happens, he will die,”
Henri twisted his leathery old hands together in worry.

Raphael nodded and, once more, they
pulled D’ata from his wheezing slumber to his feet. They forced him
to walk to the window and stand in the winter sun’s low beam for
bit.

D’ata was seized with a violent fit of
coughing and his face turned so red that he fainted, sagging his
weight onto his two friends. Eventually, the pneumonia became so
thick that it was too difficult for D’ata to cough up. Henri
pounded the young man’s chest and back while Raphael held him in
his arms.

They boiled mint and eucalyptus leaves
in water, held the bowl under D’ata’s face, a linen draped over his
head forcing him to inhale the steam. This was just as Henri had
done for strangled horses from time to time. They refused to call
the physician, convinced that the doctor would bleed him. Henri had
good instincts and told Raphael so. They knew this would do more
harm than good. At intervals, they pressed spoonfuls of ox broth
between his teeth and fed him bread soaked in milk.

* * *

Time passed like a black and white
dream, slow and deliberate. Winter grabbed the Marseille in her
clutches and D’ata did not die. His pneumonia gradually subsided
under the persistent care of his friends, although the cough
remained for a very long time.

He started to walk about his room on
his own, staring blankly out the window at the slumbering bed of
white. Spring would soon breathe over the meadows and lawns of the
estate. Life would soon rejoice in the new born. All that seemed
dead within the earth would spring magically forth with life for
all but one. The world would plunge cruelly on—without
her.

D’ata never went back to the grave. He
moved instead to the small town of Castillon on the Dordogne River.
He lived at the local parish and slept in a tiny room out in the
old stable connected to the west end of the monastery. It was his
solitary sanctuary, and it was only sometimes, rarely in his
dreams, that he forgot the pain.

Julianne and his unborn child’s deaths
had him to blame. This haunted him. If he had been a godly priest,
if he hadn’t insisted on having what God decided he should not, the
awful accident would never have happened. It was his own selfish
needs and desires that caused this tragedy, was it not? Of this, he
was now certain. Of this, he must believe and because of this, he
knew he must suffer. There was no other way. He accepted his
condemnation and carried it with him always.

Consumed with his need to forget and
so aggrieved of what had happened on the banks of the river, he was
hardly even aware of the fragility of his own mind. Days blurred,
one into another, and he was surprised to see autumn late in the
air.

Wasn’t it to be spring just now? No
matter—seasons were meaningless anymore.

Initially, he did not join in the mass
celebrations for they only confused him. Besides, there were too
many whispers amongst the congregation. The scrutiny was extreme
and Monsignor Leoceonne knew it was best to let the young man be,
to allow him time to find his way back to God.

Instead, D’ata spent his time alone.
When the parish was empty, he knelt upon the stone floor for
endless, exhausting hours, praying. He prayed that God would
forgive him and his awful sin. He prayed for divine intervention,
that he should become a good and godly priest. Sometimes he forgot
why he prayed, simply reciting from rote memory the
words.