The Execution (7 page)

Struck by the peace that washed across
her face along with the colors of the magnificent glass, D'ata was
suddenly and irrationally vulnerable, inadequate—and very
distracted. It occurred to him that he'd been standing in place,
staring at her with his mouth agape, and he noticed that it might
have occurred to others as well.

This dismayed him, that he could be so
easily distracted to neglect his duties. Almost as a reflex, he
glanced fleetingly about the parish to see if anyone else noticed
his lapse. The congregation hastily addressed their prayers, and he
convinced himself they hadn’t.

Taking a deep breath, he glanced down
at old Madame Levanne’s perplexed gaze as she knelt at the
communion rail. She was holding up one yellow-gloved, withered
hand, stabbing at him for her communion. He offered the old woman a
quick smile and hurriedly passed her a morsel of the
bread.

Then, he could hardly help himself as
he glanced, searching the rows to see if the golden-haired angel
had truly been real or merely an apparition. Having never seen her
before, he was desperate to search the line, to be certain she was
still in the congregation, to convince himself that she
existed.

He shook his head. Things were quickly
becoming not so neat and tidy as they had been just moments before.
The acapella voice ceased and silence emerged like an unwelcome
visitor as communion began.

D’ata looked over to the three girls
to see if they were still being cruel. If he could see where their
attentions were focused, it might help him to pick her out of the
crowd. They seemed to notice his glance, misinterpreted it and
giggled, one of them waving at him. He made a mental note of this
and decided to keep any future conversations with them distinctly
short.

Impatiently, he turned back to the row
of waiting hands and was dumbfounded to find himself face to face
with a pair of charcoal gray eyes. They gazed up at him from
underneath the lashes which, only a short while ago, rested upon
those cheeks.

Again, he was transfixed, his heart
pounding so loud in his ears he was sure everyone could hear it. He
swallowed hard and couldn’t take his eyes away from her. Even the
simple task at hand could not be comprehended. His mind was chaos,
his blood was fire, and there was that pull in his groin
again.

She removed one glove and he could see
that her hands were rough, as though she worked hard. They reminded
him of Henri’s hands only they were—beautiful.

She seemed confused at his hesitation
and held her hand closer, inviting him to allow her to take
communion with the others kneeling before him. Her eyebrows, turned
delicately up at the ends as a fairy’s might, and she glanced
around, as though she was uncertain about what to do
next.

D’ata was suddenly desperate, unsure
of his purpose, confused by the smattering of feelings he was
experiencing. He believed that no matter the consequences, he
should speak to her, or risk losing the opportunity
altogether.

He leaned over to pass her the bread
crust and dropped his face close to hers. “Bonjour...” His breath
caught so that it sounded more like ‘bone-sure.’

The young woman leaned back, furrowing
her brow in confusion and embarrassment and glanced away. Her face
flushed as she pulled her hand away and started to
stand.

Communion was meant to be taken in
silence. Aware of his transgression, he regretted that he may have
compromised himself, or more critically, compromised her. D’ata
tried to repair the situation. He felt his face flush and righted
himself too abruptly, clearing his throat as he did. He knocked the
silver tray from the stand and broken bread scattered across the
stone.

Silence screamed at him for one long,
loud, suffering moment. D’ata glanced over at the monsignor only to
catch a fierce admonishment in the priest’s eyes.

He had never seen this look before.
True, he'd been reprimanded when, as a choirboy, he’d been caught
burning the expensive alter candles behind the parish, enjoying the
effects of wax dripping into standing water. And once he'd skipped
mass to spear fish for trout in the shallows of the river; that did
not go over well either. Rebuked sternly by his father and the
bishop, he vowed aloud not to disrespect God again.

Properly indoctrinated to please at
all costs, it was very easy for D’ata to step back into the ox yoke
of his expectations at the slightest transgression. Now, suddenly,
the yoke seemed to choke him, an uncomfortable burden to
bear.

The congregation not only noticed the
incident, it feasted on it. The crowd buzzed like a monstrous fly.
D’ata was watched by them every day. They had been curious and
strangely protective of the abandoned infant, observing him with
vain interest in his growth and changes. In a queer way, they were
all his parents. Indeed he was a child of their congregation and
they were as proud as his own mother and father by his impending
ordainment to the priesthood. Now there were whispers and, sadly,
glares—at the girl.

Hastily averting his eyes, D’ata
gathered himself and knelt to repair the damage, concentrating on
picking the crumbs from the floor. His labor, however, did not
prevent him from noticing her from the corner of his
eye.

Humiliated, she hurried away from him,
back down the aisle to return to her seat beside the old couple and
the little girl. Her face was reddened and she kept her head
down.

The old man lifted his hand as though
to touch her arm as she passed by.

D’ata was mortified by what he’d done,
and immensely thrown off by a new avalanche of feelings. He wished
only to be out of the church and away to the river to pray, to be
away from prying eyes and to sort through the confusing
thoughts.

Finishing his chores, he shared in the
closing prayer of the benediction and forced himself to concentrate
on the Latin. He was careful to keep his eyes down, looking neither
at the mass who scrutinized him, nor at the girl who occupied his
every thought.

He wondered briefly if this was ‘love
at first sight,’ which he'd read about. Could this be the forbidden
passion Petrarch had penned in his sonnets? Curiously, the sonnets
were also about a young woman the poet had first seen in
church.

As the congregation slowly milled
around the aisles and fanned, thick and sluggish, towards the doors
at the back of the church, D’ata avoided his usual ritual of
visiting with them. Instead, he busied himself preparing to clean
the parish.

However, he did glance up just in time
to see a pair of breathtaking, charcoal-gray eyes meet his. She
held his gaze firmly for only a second, then slipped from the doors
of the church to be swept away in the human tide.

There was a tightness in his chest, an
uncomfortable tug in his belly, and a maddening confusion which
swept across him. D’ata awoke from a life of dreamless sleep, and
so his life finally began.

CHAPTER FOUR

†

The Dungeon: Nine p.m.

It was cold in the cell. D’ata shifted
his weight, uncomfortable on the stone of the floor. The chill
crept beneath him, seeped through his robes, and he thought briefly
how grateful he would’ve been to be out of the prison. However, he
just then noticed how Ravan pulled the straw around his knees to
curb the cruel bite of the cold. Prisoners were seldom allowed to
keep the comfort of their own coats when they were cast to the
dungeons.

The prisoner appeared pathetic in this
gesture and D’ata felt a pang of remorse at his own
thoughtlessness. This man faced his death in less than a fortnight,
and he was only sorry for himself. He reached up to release the
catch at his throat, allowing the heavy cape to fall from around
his shoulders. He moved to wrap the woolen garment around the
prisoner.

Ravan tossed
his head back, glaring out from under his dark locks as though he
wouldn’t allow charity from the visitor. He allowed D’ata to wrap
the cape around his shoulders, all the same. “So kind of you to
make sure I don’t freeze to death—we wouldn’t want me do die, now
would we?” He yanked the robe more tightly around his shoulders
before adding, “And don’t you have something you need to
do?
—
save my soul or some foolishness?”

D’ata stared at him, surprised by the
man’s lack of astonishment in their bizarre resemblance. He took
the loaf of bread and flask of wine from his robes and silently
offered them to the prisoner.

With this, Ravan’s eyes lit up. He
begrudgingly accepted the gift, but quickly snatched them from
D'ata's grasp, all the same.

Patiently, D'ata watched until the man
had ravenously devoured nearly half the loaf. He politely allowed
the man his respite, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Finally, he
could wait no more and asked, “What explanation, do you suppose, is
to be had by our mirrored likeness?” He continued before the
prisoner could answer, as though they had already discussed this at
length, “Why was I left on the church steps and you were not?”
D’ata rubbed his brow in perplexity, leaving a grimy smudge on his
otherwise starkly clean face.

His voice sounded hollow as it lifted
slowly from the stone cell. The only other sound was the scratching
and scurrying of the rats and the maddening dripping of water. Even
the other prisoners ceased their groans, at the late
hour.

“
I don’t know. Maybe you
were a bad baby,” Ravan offered, his mouth full, bread sticking to
his teeth. His demeanor appeared serious but as ridiculous as the
comment was, D’ata could not tell if it was a stab at humor or
sarcasm.

A crumb escaped Ravan's mouth and
tumbled to the straw. He searched for the fallen morsel as a
primate would search for fleas, picking up a straw fragment in his
pincer grasp to study it closely before flicking it away.
Abandoning his search for the aberrant crumb, he continued,
focusing his attention again on his guest and the remains of the
half loaf. “And of what concern should it be to me? Look where it
has gotten me. My neck will stretch tomorrow and you seem to have
had a fine enough life as a result, monsieur—the more holy of
us.”

D’ata thought the prisoner’s eyes
danced for a second, but the elusive smile never surfaced. He
wrapped his arms around his knees, resting his chin on them, and
watched as Ravan stuffed another piece of bread into his mouth,
following it immediately with an almost endless drink from the
flask. There was something so disturbingly familiar about the
prisoner's movements, and it set D’ata on edge.

Unceremoniously, Ravan wiped his lips
with the edge of D’ata’s cloak. Then, as though he'd forgotten he
was with company, he looked first at the priest and then at the
wine flask. After a serious moment’s hesitation, he halfheartedly
offered the flask to the priest.

As the hand holding the flask extended
towards him, D’ata studied it. There were calluses along the
fingers. Thick muscle defined the forearm, no doubt, he thought,
from wielding horrible weapons. He shook his head and waved him
off.

At the refusal, Ravan seemed
pleased.

“
I just don’t see how this
happened. We were twins, we were, are—brothers,” D’ata pressed
him.

Ravan
shifted, jerking the cape closer around his shoulders, tucking the
edges under his buttocks, as though to ease the stinging burn from
the cold stones. He seemed suspicious, not yet ready to trust his
new companion. “Well, do not get sentimental with me, because you
may sport my not-so-unattractive face, but you’re not my
brother—
Father
. At least, not
in the way I see it.” He looked up, at apparently nothing in
particular, and smoothed the back of his hand across his chin as
though amused at his own clever play on words.

D’ata was lost. The divine purpose for
which he'd come was completely forgotten. He observed his newfound
brother, studied his mannerisms, and listened to his voice. It was
peculiar and thrilling. There were suddenly so many questions,
questions he seldom considered before. And, all the while, he
sensed the refined danger of the assassin sitting before him. It
showed in even the subtle movements of the man, the casual but
calculated way about him.

From here, it was only a short
mind-step to venture into the life and memories of his new
companion; it didn’t seem so very far at all. Even as guarded as
the man appeared to be, D’ata still sensed that his brother
experienced the same phenomenon.

Gradually, as the two asked their
questions of each other and analyzed each other’s responses, a
story started to form—a story with dual, opposite chapters began to
unfold. Mistrust and fear gave way to cautious curiosity and a
hunger for truth.

D’ata rested his chin on his knees
again, unaware that this was also a favorite, unconscious habit of
his brother. He listened to the tale that began to lay itself
before him, watching the familiar movements of the stranger’s body
as it shifted and re-shifted in the straw.

A small rectangular window, thirty or
so feet above them, captured the night. The tiny sliver of sky
appeared pale in contrast to the darkness of the cell, and the
stars glistened like suspended crystals against the inky black
frame of the surrounding stone. It was odd, the way the sky hung
down from the window, as though it was closer than the stone of the
wall, as if it reached for them. D’ata had a peculiar sense that
they were not alone.