D’ata stood in merciless silence, glad to be rid of the man but dreading the cold, pitiless beyond. Clearing his throat, the noise echoed loudly, uninviting to his ears. He was aware that his own breathing had deepened and become faster, and he held his breath, forcing himself to exhale slowly. This was not the first time he’d passed this way. Why did it seem so foreboding tonight?
Reaching the oilcloth upward, he lit the first of many lamps to guide his way down the long flight of stone steps, which seemed to sink away forever. He squinted as he pushed the heavy hood from his head, and the golden light from the fire washed warmly across his face.
Giotto, the painter, would have cried to see him.
D’ata refused to believe the rumors he’d heard whispered, that his was a tormented and lovely face. They said it carried the weight of tragedy—a beautiful, amber face with heartbreaking eyes that seemed to betray his affliction. They were framed with thick, long lashes. Even she, at one time, had mentioned that when his mood was temperamental or impassioned, his eyes had a habit of changing, turning from a deep chocolate brown so that they appeared as indigo as a moonlit sea.
When he studied his face in the faded looking glass in the monastery, he did not recognize the man who stared back. ‘Who was this?’ he wondered, peering at the cheekbones that rose sharply, chiseled and almost too thin. Just this morning he’d tried hard to rid his jaw and lip of the hair that grew so fast, but the day’s growth already cast a smoky shadow on his face. Sometimes he wondered who he’d become, with lips that were full and wide, curling up gently at the sides as though they held a forbidden secret. But there were no more secrets now—were there?
Monsignor Leopold had scolded him, demanding he shave his locks, leaving the skullcap that marked his diocese, but the nights were so long and cold. He was filled with such a bitter, incurable despair that he'd allowed his hair to grow long. It curled thick and soft around the nape of his neck and swept across his eyes when he bowed his head, shielding him from the prying eyes of others in the congregation. As for the monsignor’s demands, they were the least of his concerns anymore.
He was lovely to behold, though he’d never fancied himself so. The older priests and the nuns mumbled their concerns over his allure, attractive beyond the comfort and social confines of the church, they'd been heard to say. His appearance lent itself poorly to his calling. And, there was his terrible history—one of intermittent acts of sordid rebellion.
Here lay his greatest shame. His story was well known, though seldom spoken of, and he himself tried desperately to recall it only in his dreams. ‘Funny,’ he thought, ‘how one can drown repeatedly in one’s dreams, though.’
His eyebrows sloped gently above his sad eyes and furrowed slightly at the task ahead of him. His hand reached, once more, beneath the collar of his robes. Rubbing his neck absently, he peered into the darkness which threatened and beckoned him all at once. The beckoning was what gave him pause just now.
Slowly, as though he didn’t trust his own legs, he descended the steps, his heart heavy for the task that lay ahead. He sighed again. The prisoner should be seen and, after all, it was God’s will. No man should face death without the opportunity to confess, to make his peace with the creator, or spit his final insult. It just seemed to D’ata that so often these men cared not at all for their acts, nor their fates. He frowned. Life was piteous and unpredictable, and it wasn’t hard to imagine caring so little that the prospect of death seemed enviable.
He made his way forward, dropping gradually downward. The water dripped in sleepy rivulets down the massive stone walls. D’ata had seen the lifeblood of the beheaded drip just so, after the initial geyser following the executioner’s blade. He wondered if the soul left in such a way, an initial rush, then dragging behind it the final droplets of what a man truly was.
The stone steps were enormous, a good fourteen inches vertical, as though the castle had been built for giants. The dungeon stairs deepened and rats scurried away from the unwelcome light as he lit the lamps, one by one. The steps seemed to go on forever, and D’ata was overcome with the sensation of descending into the bowels of the earth, the way station for travelers on their way to hell.
“Damn these thoughts. For hell’s sake, give the poor bastard a chance,” he said aloud and then swore softly again at his blasphemy. “Forgive me father, for I have sinned—again.”
D’ata’s unorthodox lack of conformity, and his mouth, had him in trouble more than seldom with the church. In the past, D’ata had difficulty purifying his mind, and his words truthfully followed his thoughts. He often struggled with composure, for he was honest, speaking as he felt. It made for uncomfortable moments, but most of these seemed so long ago. Now, he remained mostly silent, and when he did have to speak, even at confession, he tempered what he said and how he said it.
Many hours he'd knelt on the stones, asking forgiveness for his transgressions, for he truly wished to be a holy representative of the Father above. More importantly, he wished to forget what had happened, more than anything...to forget. He would stay on his knees for eternity, if God would take away the pain.
All the same, his knees and his heart had become callused with the time he'd spent in redemption for his sins, during his private search for peace. His past, however, was another story for there were no calluses on his memories. They could haunt him every day anew, fresh as a thousand sliver cuts, and he flushed visibly as his mind tricked him, inviting those unwelcome thoughts once more.
“No,” he whispered and forced himself to concentrate on the steps, counting them as down, down he went, further into the belly of the beast.
Finally, the steps ended and he halted, breathing hard, not from exertion but from the anxiety that wrapped thickly around him like the damnable robes. His spit was hard to swallow and he had the sensation of being trapped, as though he was as much a prisoner as the creatures held here.
A cold sweat broke, damp and unwelcome, beneath his robes. His thoughts turned to his warm quarters behind the church, where he could shed the heavy woolen clothes and slip beneath his linens and feather blanket. There he could sip hot brandy and read his books, eventually drifting off to sleep. Only then might he remember when he'd been happy, and maybe a compassionate God would not disturb him.
Sometimes, it occurred to him that God was his torturer. God held him in his outstretched hand and dropped him, only to have him fall short of death. Horrid cutting bands, treacherous cords about his heart; these were what saved him. Yet, God would be his relief, his salvation—was it not so?
He 'd been given his chance to make right with God and repent his past, to repair his heart and find peace. That was how it was supposed to happen. Wasn’t it?
D’ata stepped onto the flat stones of the dungeon floor and swallowed twice to pop his ears. The dampness reeked as an unlikely breeze greeted his nostrils. It was rank and repulsive and he thought it must come from the very rock beneath his feet.
He could make out the dark rows of cells, two of them, like long black fingers stretching from the hand of the devil himself. The unfortunate men who were cast in here were miserable souls, most of them truly evil, with dreadful crimes to share their nature. Rarely, though, they were just unlucky, or enemies to the wrong power. Nevertheless, they shared something with him...misery.
Making his way down the left row of the dungeons, D’ata held the oilcloth outstretched to broaden the sphere of light. The stench drifting out from the holds was overwhelming now, a vile mix of rotting death and nearly dead. Sometimes, the maggots invaded even before the end came.
He fought the overwhelming urge to vomit, to abandon his mission and flee.
‘I will do my bidding and be gone from here, back to my room for prayer, a hot drink and a good night’s sleep,’ he thought to himself.
He tried not to glance into the cells as he walked by them, only lighting the lamps enough to make his way. It might be worse to see into the holds than to just imagine. The groans f
rom within seemed inhuman and the unmistakable affront of a wretched, naked form evacuating his bowels gave him barely a moment’s pause.
The moans and gasps hurried him along and his eyes remained fixed to the stone floor in front of him. An outstretched hand extended grisly and mutilated from a cell and startled him. He knew the horrid torture of slowly crushing the digits of a man’s extremity, and D'ata wasn't at all certain the hand was even attached to an arm. He stepped over it carefully, maintaining his direction, bent now upon his purpose. He replaced his cloak and kept his head down, knowing where he must stop.
D’ata must have appeared, for all purposes, the dark angel that he was, passing over death and despair as he carefully and silently made his way to the last cell. He was beginning to wonder if he would never get there, for eternity seemed to have a grip on him, but eventually he arrived at the solitary dungeon, with its massive bars and heavily bolted door.
Holding the oilcloth up, he thought at first that no one was in the hold. He squinted hard, swinging the torch carefully to and fro, searching the cell while commanding his eyes to stop their tricks. Finally, he made out a wretched form in the far corner.
The man was wrapped in rags, huddled as far from the door as possible, burrowed into the straw like a miserable animal as though to gain what little warmth he could. From the cell door, he looked fragile and small. The flesh that showed was bruised and scraped. D'ata knew this was because the prisoner had been subjected to torture before his sentencing. The man possessed an evil history, and it was the way of things.
If they were loathed, the prisoners suffered horrible fates. Men were castrated by suspension until the weight of their bodies tore the delicate orbs from them. If they were adulterous, they were sodomized by the guards. If, however, they were feared—they were beaten, but no hand would touch them directly. It was believed that the truly evil in life could spite one in death, and there was a respectful cruelty reserved for prisoners such as this one.
D’ata breathed in a deep breath. For a moment, he thought the prisoner dead. He thought he might be too late, but as his eyes better adjusted, he saw the slow, shallow rise and fall of the prisoner’s breathing.
“You there, it is I, D’ata—the priest. I have come to hear your confession.”
There was no response and the creature remained unmoving. He tried again, “I am here with the seventh sacrament. Do you wish salvation?”
Again, there was no response.
Unlocking the gate with the heavy iron key the guard had given him, D'ata moved into the cell. He locked it quickly and hid the key on his sash, between the folds of his robes. “I give you the chance to seek the forgiveness of our Father, to go to your death in peace.”
The prisoner remained terribly still.
Holding the torch up, the cell appeared larger than he'd first thought, a good size, nearly five long paces square. Most of the floor was bare stone, stained with the blood and decay from past prisoners, layered with old and moldy straw. The air was dead, unmoving and heavy.
Kneeling next to the man, D’ata stretching his hand out to touch the huddled form. It occurred to him that the prisoner might be sleeping, or unconscious. The man may not have heard anything he said.
At such a close range, he became aware that the creature was not a wretched withered shape after all, as he’d appeared from outside the cell. The murderer was a stalwartly man, perhaps over four cubits tall, like himself. He'd expected less, a pitiless fragment of a man. Surely it must be so, since the crime was worthy of only ugliness, weakness. A taker of life—and now his would be taken.
The priest’s eyes sharpened as he noticed the folds of dense muscle layered over the bare ribs, which probably protected them from breaking during the beatings. He glanced at the strong sinews of an exposed thigh, the knees folded for warmth under an unmoving body.
D’ata noticed the ragged scar of an obvious impalement on the thigh. There were many scars—this man was cruelly battle-worn. He next observed the broadness of the shoulders, wisps of straw clinging here and there. There was nothing weak about this man, but D’ata sensed that the prisoner was indeed forsaken. He swallowed; perhaps they were not so different after all.
His head was completely buried beneath the straw, arms clasped around it as though to protect it, even as he slept.
D’ata paused, considering the gentle rise and fall of the man’s breathing, soft and sincere, like a child’s.
“I have bread and wine for you,” he whispered.
He had hidden the loaf and flask from the guard. It was forbidden to bring other than spiritual comfort to the condemned, but D’ata was not unkind, and carried these few comforts to share...if he felt it deserving.
It occurred to him that perhaps the prisoner was deaf from the beatings, or maybe unable to move, his back broken as sometimes happened with the tortures. He'd seen the guards drag a man to the gallows, unable to carry himself even to his death.
Hesitating, he reached his hand out, the stark cleanliness of it strangely corrupt against the filth of the bare shoulder. He didn’t shake the man, but instead gently pressed his fingers around the collarbone. He felt muscle glide over sinew as the form groaned and stirred.
Swiftly yanking his hand away, rocked back on his heels and waited.
Pushing his bruised body to his knees, the man struggled, his head hanging loosely.
It was just about then that the priest became more acutely aware of the well defined body, the lean but muscled form and size of the man. He recalled that this was a barbarian, and briefly he wondered at his own uncommon lack of good sense, coming into the cell as he had. Good judgment was not necessarily one of his gifts.
The man groaned, his battered body moving with agonizing jerks, likely stiffened from sleeping on the cold floor.
D’ata watched silently as the man struggled to will his body to move, like a marionette coming strangely to life.
Drawing several short, torturous breaths, the prisoner crouched with his head still hanging. He wrenched his hands to the sides of his head, as though he might stop the explosion that was sure to occur. Finally, the gasping stopped and the man’s breathing became deep and regular, his hands falling to his knees.
The prisoner slowly raised his head to peer at his antagonist, expecting but not retreating from the forthcoming blows. He squinted and blinked from beneath thick, tangled black locks, the meager light from the oilcloth seeming to offend his eyes.
D'ata knew the prisoners would frequently sit in darkness for a very long time, sometimes for days without seeing the full light of day.
The man looked strangely like a medusa with a dozen or so long straws clinging to his tangled mane. He appeared to struggle as he tried to focus on the face of the young priest who had stirred him so rudely from his sleep.
With a gasp, D’ata fell abruptly away from the prisoner.
Losing his balance in his haste, the torch almost fell into the straw. He scrambled to right it and swiftly regained his balance.
Then, D’ata leaned forward, holding the torch near, bringing their faces but inches apart.
He moved the fire closer, passing the flame back and forth slowly to see the man’s features more clearly. He hastily scanned the forehead, the jaw, thickly bearded. He noticed the sharp cheekbones and the full mouth, finally coming to rest upon the eyes.
“Oh my God, the eyes,” D’ata stammered, “I seem to have—you are...holy mother of God!” His mouth dropped open as he reached up, with total disregard, roughly brushing the long hair away from the prisoner’s face. He studied the nose, long and angular, the slope of the cheek and the squareness of the lean jaw.
The mouth, full and wide, slowly broke into a lopsided grin as the prisoner regarded the priest in return. His thick lashes and black brows framed dancing eyes, defiant despite their current wretched state of affairs. A deep and ragged scar, over the left brow, defiled the tragically beautiful face.
His eyes, however, were quite the m
ost disturbing, for as D’ata stared, transfixed by them, he knew them—knew them unmistakably.
Under the blood and the grime, beaten and forsaken as it was, the face was his own, a mirror image of himself.
Both stared in silence, as each beheld his twin.
The deep, hollow laughter from the prisoner drifted up the dungeon stairs, out the window slots, and briefly beckoned all moths before it was swallowed up by the thick fog of the night.
CHAPTER TWO
†
The Orphanage
Ravan, twelve years before...
The orphanage sat nestled in between two hills so that the dirt road into it popped abruptly over the crest of the eastern ridge, giving little notice of an impending visitor. Most of the country was intermittently wooded but the two hills were bare. Today, their greenness looked strangely brilliant against the gloomy, rain sodden sky.
The great house, as it was called, was really just a cottage, with a sod and bentonite-clay roof. It did, however, have an enormous kitchen that the children spent much time in on the coldest of days.
Sometimes, if a child was ill, he or she would spend the day snuggled next to the big cook stove, as it was always burning. There was a small bed next to the kindling box, reserved for sick ones. Sometimes two or three nestled together in the sick bed. Most often, children escaped from the bed, but sometimes they did not. Consequently, a small cemetery lay just over the hill, next to the forest, with a smattering of tiny crosses adorned with handmade treasures.
The kitchen had a warmth to it beyond the heat, a warmth from the eternal presence of the small ones. It was here the children gathered for nourishment, for their bodies somewhat, but even more so for their souls.
Behind the house was the barracks, a sort of dormitory fashioned from an old turkey barn. It had a low roof and rows of small beds, each with its own wool or feather blanket.
The Execution Page 2
