“Do for you?”
She nodded and gestured back towards the rear boundary. “You have to mend the pale,” she said. “We have to stay here until we do what we have been left here to do. The pale has fallen, and our strength is failing. You must mend the pale, or it will all be undone.”
Peter knew that a pale was a fence that encircled consecrated ground. He could only assume there was a church or chapel somewhere nearby upon the grounds.
“Are you sure he should do it?” said Mary Helena.
“Oh, yes. He was going to the chapel, you see. He must be a Godly man, if his spirit makes for holy ground. It will be all right if he mends the pale. We couldn’t ask the others, you know. But they don’t want to see us anyway, do they?”
Peter regarded his rather translucent hands. “I, umm ...”
“Come speak to us later,” said little Mary Rosalina. “If you can. Otherwise, remember what we have said and try to hear us. It has been so long since we have had someone new to speak to. Not that I could wish for better company than my sisters in God.” She grinned broadly.
“I ... how ...” Peter stuttered. He saw his palms becoming thinner, fading away into the air, and a deep panic gripped him.
Mary Rosalina took both of his hands in her own, which were equally diaphanous for all their apparent strength. “You got thrown out of there, didn’t you? Can’t say I know exactly why that happened, but those witches are clever. I dare say they will work it out. But can’t you feel it now, your body pulling you back? I am holding you here now, but you can feel the connection to your body pulling you like a big strand of rubberised elastic. Can you feel it?”
“I ... yes.” Peter could feel it now. He could feel his body straining to float up into the air, with only the tiny nun’s incredibly heavy hands holding him down.
“I am going to let you go now,” Mary Rosalina said. “And you are going to go home.”
With a wide gesture of her hands, she released him, and Peter sprang away from her.
“Hurry back, dear!” Mary Helena called as she receded.
There was a flash of cloud and sky, a flicker of eaves, plank, pipe, and cobweb -- and Peter thumped onto his back again. He took in one great, shuddering breath, blinked, and regarded the distant ceiling with some distrust. He felt heavy, fogged, and short of breath.
“Peter?” Wolfy was shaking his shoulders, making the dusty ceiling dance and the carpet rasp on the back of his head.
“Yeah, I don’t think that went too well,” Peter said hoarsely.
“Peter?” a frailer voice echoed.
Peter rolled onto his side, towards the sound. Veleur lay limply in Bear’s arms. The elf reached out; the tips of his fingers and the roots of his nails were visibly blue.
“What on earth happened?” Peter gasped. He was torn between the desire to claw his way to Veleur’s side, and the desire to get the hell out of the room and just keep going. Ever since meeting his elven lover, his life had taken on a distinctly surreal air -- but it had never got inside him like this before, ripping soul from body. Peter was quietly, and very deeply, afraid.
Chapter Four
“Our best hope is not to be afraid to love one another.”
Daniel A. Helminiak, in Catholicism, Homosexuality, and Dignity
“And why didn’t you foresee that?” Veleur wheezed.
“I don’t see Peter, and so I don’t see the events that he affects,” Giffen said in a small voice. “Besides, it is not a science at the best of times.”
Peter curled his knees underneath him and sat up cautiously. He began to crawl towards Veleur, but Wolfy put out a restraining hand. He felt the need to be with his lover, but he was only gradually assimilating the confusion of events that had assailed him from the moment they’d attempted the quickening. He allowed Wolfy to restrain him.
They both watched as Bear cradled the elf carefully whilst Giffen knelt to inspect him. He was quick to answer the primary question in Peter’s mind. Peter had some vague idea of what he had experienced, but what on earth had happened to Veleur?
“Severe shock,” Giffen said. “It seems that Peter was out of his body, technically dead for a while there. It was bound to affect Veleur.”
Peter struggled to put things together. He had been out of his body and, after a fashion, dead. That had directly affected Veleur because ... There were still so many things he just didn’t know, didn’t understand.
“But Peter’s fine.” Wolfy glared at Peter as if she blamed him for the whole debacle. He could not restrain a slight grimace. After all, he was the one least likely to know what should or should not be done within the arts of magic.
“Wolfy,” Giffen admonished. “You almost killed Peter and Veleur both. It’s a miracle that Peter found his way back to us at all. As for Veleur, he just needs some rest.”
Giffen stood, towering over them all and taking command smoothly. “Bear, if you could get him up to his room, I will look in on him there. Wolfy, stay here. I will need to know exactly what you did, if I am to fathom how it went wrong. And Peter ... well, let’s have a look at you.”
Giffen was the calmest of the lot of them, and his mood spread to the others. Bear scooped Veleur up as if he were a gangly child and carried him out of the room. Peter watched them go and realised with a lurch that the danger to himself had bothered him very little. Seeing Veleur knocked flat and weakened made any peril seem unimportant, and all he wanted to do was follow.
But Giffen came over to Peter. He knelt beside him and took his chin firmly between thumb and forefinger. Peter found himself looking deeply into Giffen’s eyes. Close up, they proved to be a startling hazel, very dark and with a ring of yellow about the pupil. Looking into those deep, dilated pupils, he felt a sensation like falling.
“I though that you couldn’t see him?” Wolfy said sceptically.
“At least I’m looking.”
Giffen was indeed looking, and in a way that Peter was not entirely comfortable with. But Giffen had shown him friendship and concern. Peter wanted to tell him what he had seen, what he had felt. Even if Giffen could not explain it, he would certainly listen. But it just didn’t seem the time, and there were more pressing matters. “Why did it hurt Veleur?” Peter asked. “Why did it even hurt me?”
“It shouldn’t have. I feared it might be uncomfortable and fairly pointless, but there is no way that it should have harmed you or endangered you like this. But when it did, it affected Veleur because you are partnered now -- you are increasingly one person, as far as the arts of magic are concerned. That is one of the many things you need to be told. Now that you are with Veleur, you will live as long as he does, which, for an elf, can be a good long span. But neither of you can outlive the other. Your spirit left your body; his was well on the way to following.”
“I need to ...”
“You need to be with Veleur,” Giffen said.
“Indeed he does,” Wolfy interjected.
They both turned to see her watching them icily. Giffen let his hand drop and stepped away. “Think you can get there on your own?” he asked in a tone of much more detached concern. He didn’t wait for a reply, but turned to Wolfy and helped her to her feet.
“This whole thing answered one question anyway,” she said as the conversation increasingly excluded Peter. “He got back to himself quickly and whole. If he were not gifted, he would almost certainly have been lost. We just still don’t know the nature of the gift.”
She didn’t seem too worried that her way of finding a witch was not much better than the Inquisition dropping them in the mill pond, sure the innocent would drown. Peter kept his thoughts on the matter to himself. He rose up on his knees and then stood, placing his feet firmly and well apart. The ground seemed to wobble a bit beneath him, but it wasn’t too much to handle. His vision fogged over, but as he stood, it cleared. There was a dull pain that radiated across his chest. Peter put one hand carefully at the base of his throat, where he felt a bit like a hors
e had kicked him. Beneath his shirt he could feel the small crucifix. It was palpably warm against his skin.
“Are you all right, Peter? Is there any pain?” Giffen asked.
“No,” Peter said. “It’s nothing.”
He left them there in the study and made his way cautiously back to Veleur’s suite. Had the crucifix itself harmed him, or protected him? From what -- and how? Peter’s doubts returned tenfold, so that he hardly registered Bear’s presence when he met the big man coming back down the stairs.
“Veleur’s not in the best mood,” Bear said without any great concern. “He doesn’t much like showing weakness or depending upon others. It is a rather common flaw in this house, but perhaps you can help us in overcoming it.”
“I don’t know that I am much help to anybody at the moment.”
Bear put his hand over Peter’s where it clasped the balustrade. “The way you came back to us shows that you have a strong mind, a strong will. And I can feel something of your reaction -- you never blamed us, never even thought of doing so. I think you may be just the person this house needs to bind properly together and to really achieve something, rather than just struggle against adversities and fight amongst ourselves.”
Peter’s eyes dropped to the worn stairs. “You may overestimate me there.”
He didn’t like the idea that Bear could feel any of his inner thoughts and emotions. And he was far from comfortable with being slotted in as a tidy piece of their complicated personal jigsaw.
“Humility, too, Peter. You will embarrass us all,” Bear said jovially. “Go see Veleur; he is weakened and will find strength in you. That is part of the nature of the bond. You have not discovered it entirely yet because he does not lean upon you, and so you have not found the full extent of your connection to the land. That, if anything, is the cause of the block that so confounds my dear Wolfy. She and our Archer both have a tendency to take life’s little obstacles on directly rather than try to find a way around. I shall sincerely try to take more time to think and explain before we risk you and Veleur both with any further follies.”
He patted Peter on the shoulder and continued down the stairs. Peter watched him go, troubled. He did not doubt Bear’s sincerity for a moment, but were good intentions going to be enough? He felt increasingly out of place in this magical menagerie, and this latest incident did nothing to quell his fears.
Peter found Veleur sleeping and did not disturb him. He had gone through to the white-tiled en suite and decided to catch up on the shower he had missed the previous night. The bathroom was set up as a wet-room, with a bare shower nozzle that left him feeling strangely exposed as he washed.
Dense steam clouded the air even after he turned the water off. There was a small mirror above the sink, and he reached out and wiped the condensation from it. Even in his water-distorted reflection, the bruising was clear. It rose in scarlet waves, deepening even as he watched. Dense stripes of contusion grew out from the exact space where his crucifix hung. The marks were a few inches long, with a pink nimbus that extended down across his ribcage. Was it the power of the symbol, or greater even than that?
Just looking at the overt damage made his heart hang heavy in his chest. The crucifix had rejected the magic. But how could that make sense if the spirits -- the spirits of nuns -- had told him what to do and spoken without animosity of the ‘witches’ of the house. If they had been nuns at all. No matter how he wrestled with what little he knew, it gave him no real answer.
He should tell Veleur, or if not Veleur, Bear. Neither prospect felt right to him. If anybody, he might be able to speak to Giffen, but the thought of seeking his room in the darkened house, well ... There was Veleur’s obvious jealousy on that front, too. Peter knew that if he did not go to Veleur with his doubts, he must simply keep them to himself. And on his own there was really only one thing that he could do -- learn more.
Peter decided that he had to go up onto the hill and see for himself whether there was any truth in what the nun-like spirits had told him. Were the gravestones really where he had seen them? Would he see the nuns again? Would there be a church pale hidden amongst the trees? These, at least, were specific questions to which tangible answers could be sought.
He looked down at the damp tangle of his clothes. A rivulet of tepid water had reached and soaked them. He wrapped the only towel about his waist and tucked the corner over to hold it there. Veleur had been out cold, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to get some fresh clothes and slip out. As his left hand reached for the sliding door, his right went by habit to his crucifix pendent. It seemed just a little too obvious, hanging at the centre of his bruising. He paused and reached back to unlatch the fine chain.
When he had told Father Michael of his decision to leave the church, the old man had given the cross to him from around his own neck. He gave it not as some kind of condemnation, but out of forgiveness -- he had wanted Peter to know that, as deeply as he was disappointed, he still cared for the young man who had come to work with him straight out of the seminary. Father Michael had even helped him to find employment and make the transition back to lay life without isolation or recrimination. The father might not feel quite the same if he knew what had happened since. The thought of finally bringing a look of disgust to that kind face was almost as bad as contemplating incurring the wrath of God. God, after all, must be rather used to disappointment.
The unadorned cross nestled in the palm of his hand. He closed his fingers over it and went into the bedroom. In a moment, he knew his plan was doomed. The velvet curtains were drawn, and the room was sunk in gloom. Peter felt the weight of Veleur’s gaze even before he could see him clearly. It latched onto him like a lariat and drew him over to the bed. Veleur lay lax upon the mattress, the covers drawn loosely up to his waist.
“Peter,” he said drowsily. “Come here.”
His voice was frail, and its timbre cut straight into Peter, driving any other thought straight out of his head. He went to Veleur’s side and sat on the edge of the bed. Leaning forward, he felt drawn in like a lodestone to north.
Peter took a deep breath in and out, smelling the silver musk of Veleur’s body, like turned earth on a winter morning.
“Come closer,” Veleur whispered.
“How much closer could I get?”
“Let us discover.”
Veleur seemed languorous, weak but unconcerned. His slender fingers reached around Peter’s waist. Peter felt the crucifix slither from between his fingers and lose itself somewhere beneath the pillows. The towel about his waist slipped free.
“Are you sure ...”
“Shh.”
Veleur’s touch was cool and dry. His hand ran smoothly up from Peter’s waist to rest against his shoulder blade. He rolled toward Peter, shaking the covers free from his long, elegant thigh. Peter’s gaze ran down the lean length of the elf’s body, a picture of chiaroscuric beauty with his white skin gleaming in the scant light. Peter’s breath hummed out. A sensation of homecoming resonated down his whole body and curled over his cock.
The feeling promised to be even stronger. Bear’s words on the stair came back to him.
“I need you,” Veleur said, glancing down at Peter’s stiffening member.
‘Need’ was not exactly the word that Peter wanted to hear. Veleur had said ‘love’ once aloud, and Peter needed to hear it again. He was quite sure that he would never tire of hearing it, no matter how commonplace the word became in their lives. Yet this was not the time for petty points. He wrapped his hand gently in Veleur’s sinuous hair. It had a surprisingly coarse texture that made it lie so straight and heavy. He kissed Veleur gently on the forehead, feeling the fine hair of his brow. He bowed his head so close to Veleur’s, the warmth of shared breath passed between them. The elf pulled him in until they lay tight together, face to face. Every curve seemed to meet its answering harbour. Veleur’s head nestled under Peter’s chin. His thigh rose up and looped over Peter’s waist, shin pulled up against the smal
l of his back.
The whole world shrank down to the space between their bodies, warm and dark. All thought of going out evaporated from his mind. He barely remembered the worries that had so dominated his mind scant moments before. Dimly, Peter knew that they would return again, yet while he was in Veleur’s arms, he could not bring himself to care. As he surrendered himself to the feeling, at that moment he felt like his skin was worn thin. The lightest touch was so intense it almost hurt.
Veleur seemed to feel a change, too. His touch immediately became more tender. He leaned in and kissed Peter gently upon the lips. A spark kindled upon Peter’s lips, and a burning sensation spread down his throat with his indrawn breath. As he breathed out, Veleur’s lips wrapped over his again. It felt almost as if something tangible passed from him to his lover. A stray scrap of Plato flitted through his mind -- My soul was on my lips when I was kissing ...
Veleur leaned into him eagerly, pressing against the length of his body. Veleur was often ravenous in his passion, but there was a change -- even in his frailty, the elf was more forward. He rolled Peter onto his back. Veleur’s lithe form was easy to support. His slender knees infiltrated between Peter’s thighs.
Peter had wondered when this would come. He knew what Veleur wanted. It was still an area of his sexuality that lay unexplored, that scared and thrilled him equally. Veleur ran one hand down the inside of Peter’s thigh. That silky touch sent shards of pleasure up to his groin, where some other power answered and mingled with it. It felt like the tide of the quickening, and a deep part of Peter was inarticulately afraid, but Veleur soothed him even as he eased Peter’s thighs up so that his knees bent sharply.
Peter put his hands lightly on either side of the elf’s narrow waist. His anxieties dampened as they kissed again. Veleur’s tongue probed his mouth. Desire moved up along Peter’s spine, like thick, warm honey. The visible fire of their arousal smouldered low and bright. He felt borne along by a force that moved up through him like spring sap, warming and running faster as their passion built.
Maewyn's Prophecy: Pilgrim Heart Page 4
