She’s so tired of him relying on her. “Then why has he deserted me? Tell me that much!”
“You think you’re the only one who has to wait? Be grateful for what you’ve received. You’re a spoiled child crying for sweetcakes while the rest of us toil for crumbs.”
“You wouldn’t say that, Father, if you knew the infinite sweetness of his kiss.”
His puff of exasperation stirs the curtain. “You say it is infinite. Let it be infinite. Where does it leave us, if the blessed despair?”
She has no answer. She’s afraid of the answer.
“Aleys.” She feels him lean in. His voice shifts lower, like someone in the parlor might be listening. “You must be vigilant. You must be wary.”
“Of what?” He will say despair, he will say melancholy.
“Of demons.”
“Father, no—” She doesn’t need his fear on top of her desolation. Her shoulders tense. She pictures leathery imps dropping from the sill like rats, infesting her hold, surrounding her bed. She glances at Kat, who looks back at her unblinking. Can he sense demons?
“I’ve seen them,” whispers Lukas. “In the corners.”
“Stop!” She shoves back her stool. He can’t do this to her. “I’ve told you. All is love.” She grasps for the knowledge that was once as sure as her heartbeat. “Nothing exists except God.” Yet she hears the desperation in her voice, her words clipped, struggling to fly. In this gray light, the truth is vulnerable. The truth is empty and gaping.
“Yes,” he says, “so you were shown. Nothing but God. ‘Mymeis God,’ you said.”
She could laugh. He speaks to her like she’s something sacred. She’s not even sure she’s sane. “Father, I can’t cure you.” She remembers his hand in her cell.
“But you are the vessel.”
Aleys feels more alone than she ever has in her life. More alone than when Finn abandoned her in the orchard. More alone than when Mertens ran his finger along her collarbone. More alone than she felt in the crowd that tried to tear her to bits. She wishes it was Finn on the other side of the curtain now, wishes she could confess her struggle to him. He would understand. She banishes the thought. Lukas is her spiritual advisor. He’s all she has, her only lifeline. No one else is coming. She must not fight him, even if he scares her, even if he sounds half mad. She swallows her fear.
“Father,” she says, “forgive me. I will be patient.” He says nothing. “You’ll come again tomorrow?”
“The day after. Aleys, you need to prepare for the pope’s men. They’ll want to know what you’ve seen.”
She gives a brusque laugh. “You want me to tell the pope that God is fickle?” There. She’s said it.
“Aleys,” Lukas says softly. “I know you can’t see him. But he is still here.”
Aleys feels tears sting her eyes. She appeals to the curtain like the deer looking up at the monk. Her voice is small. She’s tried everything. “Oh, Father. Help me see.”
51
Friar Lukas
Lukas hears her close the shutter. He sits on the chair a while.
Help me, she said. How?
God will return to her. He must. Lukas rubs his hand over his belt, catches himself doing it, stops. He looks at the black curtain. He’s spent so much time at this window. If only he were the one in the anchorhold. Not outside, forever in God’s parlor. A thought scurries through his mind. He doesn’t just want to be near her. He wants tobeher.
Lukas senses movement around him, as if the parlor is breathing, the furniture watching. His eyes land on a basket Marte left in the corner. He rises. It’s a plain basket, covered, unremarkable. It seems to whisper to him.Come. Lukas looks around, edges toward the basket. He crouches and lifts the cloth. Beneath is nested more cloth, coarse linen strips coiled like snakes. A rich smell, something of yeast and mutton, wafts up. He sees, with mild shock, streaks of blood on the linen. Carefully, he unravels a piece, holds it up before him. It’s striped with wet pomegranate, browning at the edges as it dries. He looks toward the curtain. She bleeds, even now? He thinks of the precious blood of the vessel of God. Mary would have bled, too. Lukas falls to his knees before the basket and stirs his hand in it and inhales the scent. He extracts a second strip, marked with clots. Lukas strokes his thumb along the cloth and it comes away dark, and when he rubs thumb and fingers, the ruby clot bursts, lustrous and slick. It comes from within her. It is a marvel. He takes his thumb and smears her blood into the center of his palm. His thoughts are spinning into a dark spiral of certainty. He decorates his other palm with blood. Then he yanks his sleeve to his shoulder and wraps a strip around his upper arm. Then the other. Lukas opens both hands to his God.Come now, he prays.
When he hears a voice in the street, he closes his fists and leaves quickly, with the sacred wrapped tight about his limbs.
52
Aleys
She prays. She prays more.
