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smackenziePerhaps two months later, close enough to harvest time for people to start planning who can put aside their jobs to help and who can't, a young man comes to the monastery asking for an audience with the council. He's not a member of the community himself, but he's sympathetic to the heretics' desire to live their lives unmolested – and he's committed to some of their practices, although mostly in secret – and Brother Peire learns that from time to time he shows up at the monastery with news.
The next morning, after services and during the morning meeting, they find out why he's there.
“We have news, brothers and sisters,” Martel announces, “that the mayor of Montagui and representatives of the Mother Church are planning to bring the city's guards to our community and rout us from our land by fire and sword.” The chapter house breaks out with surprise and argument and discussion. “Quiet!” Martel demands, and the noise subsides to a murmur. “This news comes from a trusted source and there's no reason to think the mayor will not follow through. The question is when, and what we should do about it.”
“What are we going to do?” someone calls.
“We're going to stand our ground,” Rainaut whispers to Brother Peire, whose heart has started to race. He can't imagine this has anything to do with the Gray Friars forcing him to renounce his vows and then turning him out of the order, but he doesn't know the relationship between the abbot and the mayor, and for all he knows, the abbot holds it against the heretics for their undue influence on one of his friars.
Although it's more likely the abbot blames Brother Peire for his own fall, due to his weak will and inconstant soul.
The monastery sits on reasonably good land – the heretics grow things and raise crops and livestock on it, after all – and Brother Peire knows enough of the world outside the friary to know that a wealthy man, or a community on good land, is more likely to become a target of the Mother Church than a poor man or a man on difficult land.
“What about Ser Lucatz?” someone else asks. “Can't he protect us?”
Martel looks at the young man who brought the news, who now shrugs. “I saw him a few days ago,” he announces, trying to raise his voice enough to be heard over the crowd. “He will try to make some kind of deal with the mayor, but he doesn't hold out much hope. It's not a secret in Montagui that he's sympathetic and supportive of this community, even though he isn't much of a proselyte and he's not known as an official member, and word is the mayor and the Black Friars have been trying to get rid of you and claim this land for a long time.”
“At least it's not your old order,” Rainaut whispers, echoing Brother Peire's thoughts.
“Any land belonging to someone condemned of heresy is forfeit,” Brother Peire whispers back. “They just have to bring him before the local court and try him, like they were going to do to you. They might torture him first to get a confession, but I don't think they even need that to condemn him. There are a lot of ways to convict someone of heresy without even involving them.”
He doesn't know Ser Lucatz and has obviously never met him, but the man's patronage has made the heretic community possible, and the monastery and its land belong to him, and if something were to happen to him, even an official accusation of heresy – without an actual confession and conviction – the heretics would have to leave.
“All I know is that Ser Mayor and the Black Friars have accused this community as a group of apostasy,” the young man goes on, “which gives them the right to take the land and push you all out. I know they'll come with swords and if they can, they'll burn everyone out.”
“These are our choices,” Martel says, loud enough and sharp enough to cut through the noise. “We can stay and fight. We can stay and submit. Or we can run.”
“What do you mean, 'submit'?” someone demands, the voice close enough for Brother Peire to recognize Rostans. “Let them carry us off?”
“You think we should martyr ourselves?” someone else demands, a woman's voice this time. “To what end?”
“Not our children!” Brother Peire recognizes Jaufre's voice. A little girl starts to cry.
“Quiet!” Martel demands. “Everyone! We'll vote on it! But we need to know more.”
“What more?” someone asks. “Guards are coming for us. Either we stay and fight them, or we leave.”
“We should find out what Ser Lucatz says to the mayor and the friars. What if he can convince them to leave us alone?”
“Can he pay them off enough, is more likely,” someone mutters near Brother Peire and Rainaut.
“I'm sure that's why they let me out of prison,” Rainaut whispers. “Ser Lucatz made a 'donation' to someone, and it was enough to make up for whatever bounty was out on my soul. They wouldn't have gotten anything for my forfeited goods.”
“We need to know that, true,” Martel goes on. “And we need to know what the mayor's timetable is. Can you go back to the city and find that out?” he asks the young man.
“I can try,” the young man admits, “but I'm worried someone might have figured out that I came here to warn you. I think someone might be watching me.”
“Send the friar!” someone calls, which idea is picked up by several more voices.
“Oh no,” Brother Peire says, “nonononono. They know my face. They turned me out. I'm not welcome at the friary any more. I'm not – they don't think of me as a friar. They'll consider me a heretic. No one will talk to me.”
“Not even to try and convert you back?”
“Maybe? They might. But that will take time I don't think we have. But I don't want to go back. I don't – I can't. I can't see my brother friars any more.”
“Tell them you've repented of your apostasy and want to be brought back into the fold,” Rostans suggests. “Use them to find out the Black Friars' plans.”
“But I wasn't a Black Friar. I belonged to the Order of St Austor - the Gray Friars. We didn't involve ourselves with outside politics. It's not something I could ask about without looking suspicious. I never cared before. No one did.”
“But if you come to them from a heretic community - “
“I don't want to,” Brother Peire insists. “There has to be another way to get the information you need.”
“We can make a preliminary plan,” Helis says, from where she's standing with the rest of the council up front, “to stay or to go, so when we learn more of Ser Lucatz's meeting with the mayor, we've already had some discussion.”
They continue to talk about what to do for the next hour or so, with Martel calling for order about every five minutes, but by the time everyone disperses to do their work, no decision has been reached.
But in the middle of the dusk service, a girl from Ser Lucatz' household appears at the monastery gates to say that the mayor would not speak to her master, and as far as she knows, the city guards are just waiting for reinforcements and then they'll be at the gates as well. It could be three days, it could be five, it could be tomorrow.
The question put before the heretics is no longer “what do we do” but “where do we go”, because as much as some of them are willing to martyr themselves for their beliefs – Rainaut certainly was, back when the mayor had him in prison – comparatively few of them genuinely believe that their God wants them to die like this.
So they meet again after dinner, and this time the council asks Aude to get up in front of the group to explain the places she saw and the people she talked to when she was walking the roads, and where she thinks towns might be more receptive to the lot of them.
“Near the sea,” she says, “the town of Polomnac. We could use the sea routes to sell our goods. The land is pretty good – I don't think it's receptive to everything we grow, but they can grow things we don't – and we can make our own settlement outside the town walls. I think it would be the best place for us that doesn't require a month on the road.”
“Are there friar houses there?” someone asks.
“Not that I remember. There are churches, of course, so the big church has a foothold, but there aren't established friar orders. It's a trek but we can do it. I don't think we'll find an abandoned monastery, though. We'll have to build a chapel and dormitories and a kitchen and all the rest of the buildings.”
“Is there room for us in the town?” Helis asks.
“All of us? I don't know. But the townspeople are sympathetic to us and our beliefs – they won't bring guards against us. They might put us up until we have our own places to live, but they'll want us to support ourselves.”
Discussion and argument continue until it's almost time for the midnight service, at which point the majority of heretics seem to have moved on to more organizational matters – what to take, when to leave.
“You don't have to come with us,” Rainaut tells Brother Peire, as the conversation moves around them. “You can go back to Montagui.”
“And do what?” Brother Peire asks. “I'm not a friar any more. I'd have to convince the Gray Friars that I've repented and that I can detail all my sins, but I no longer think I've committed that many sins. I don't think it's a sin to lie with you, or to worship in your church, or to, to accept that your beliefs are good before God, because they give you peace and structure and joy, like mine give me. I found a place here, with you. I don't want to leave. I think this is where God wants me to be.”
“Is this where you want to be?”
“Is there a difference?”
Rainaut laughs. “And you don't think you're still a friar.”
“You're laughing at me.”
“You make me laugh.” Rainaut pats him on the cheek. “You should talk to Jaufre about what to take from the copy room.”
The final plan is to leave in three days, which should give them enough time to harvest what they can from the fields and gardens and orchards and pack it for travel. They're told to leave anything that might have been there when the first heretics arrived to start the community, anything the original monks might have left behind, but anything else they can take. Jaufre and Brother Peire pack pens and brushes and pots of ink and paint and rulers and stacks of parchment and vellum and the manuscripts they're both copying, and then Jaufre whispers “I want to take some of the books and scrolls the monks left, some of the ones we've read but haven't had a chance to copy or translate. I know we should leave them, but if you can take a couple of books and some scrolls, and Felise and I will take some, and we'll pack some with the rest of our supplies, we'll have them to work on and study from at the new settlement.”
It can't be considered stealing, Brother Peire thinks, since the monks abandoned their books, and he's lost some of his need to be unquestioningly obedient to other people's unexplained rules for what he should do. And he gets great satisfaction from his work in the copy room, and would like to continue that work elsewhere.
So he brings three books back to his and Rainaut's cell – a history, an herbalist's manual, and an untranslated ancient philosophical treatise – to pack with their few clothes and the blankets and pillow off the bed. Rainaut is busy helping the weavers dismantle and pack up the looms, not to mention the tools from the woodshop, and he's helping build boxes to transport the beehives and carts to carry anything too big or too heavy for people. Verrine enlists Brother Peire's help in packing up the library, which takes very little time, and Jacotte gets him to help her strip the gardens of anything ripe enough to take with them.
“Anything we leave behind, the mayor's men will take,” she explains. “I know we're supposed to feel charity and generosity towards all men, but I can't find it in my heart to leave anything for people who are kicking us off our land.”
Brother Peire agrees. He knows God will frown on that, but this is the second home he's been forced to leave in less than a year, and while he wants to believe it's part of God's plan, he can't yet see what plan that is. And he can't find it in himself to feed the mayor's men either.
He's been tasked with looking after the small chapel, but all that means is that in the morning before they leave, he'll wrap up the candlesticks and the candles in the altar cloth and carefully take down the eternal lamp. He's already asks Rainaut to make him a box to carry it in, to keep the flame in it from spilling out or going out, and so the lamp itself, which isn't very sturdy, won't get dented in transit.
He's not sure if the lamp was there when the monks lived here, but he isn't going to ask in case someone tells him to leave it. They'll bring the light of God's love with them, so He might watch over them wherever they go.
The heretics hear no more from Montagui or Ser Lucatz, just that Ser Lucatz had no more success trying to call the mayor off them, and that the guards' reinforcements are nearly here. So the community really does have no choice but to leave.
The night before departure they have a small celebration, to honor their peaceful, productive years at the monastery and to thank their God for the land that supported them. Brother Peire drinks slightly more mead than he planned – and he hadn't planned to drink any at all – so by the time the eating and dancing and singing wind down, he's a bit tipsy and lightheaded and unsteady on his feet. He takes Rainaut's hand and leads him to the small chapel, lights the candles – it takes him several times for the striker to catch and to light the wicks – and kneels in front of the altar. Rainaut kneels next to him. Brother Peire folds his hands and looks up at the vines painted on the wall, at the window and its central pane of yellow glass.
“Thank you, Lord,” he says, “for bringing me here. I know this is where You wanted me to be, and I have tried to honor You with the works of my hands and the prayers of my heart, even here among men and women who do not believe as I do. I am grateful for Your love and Your mercy, and I will serve you the best that I can for the rest of my days in humility and sincerity.
“Please watch over us as we travel, for my sake and for the sake of the men and women who have taken me in. Do not abandon me now. I have only ever wanted to serve You and to live in Your light, and I beg You now to bless me with Your protection and to bless the community that has made a home for me, the community I have come to love.”
He can feel Rainaut's eyes on him, but his gaze is fixed to the window.
“And my Lord, please watch over Rainaut, for he has shown me nothing but love and kindness, even though I once represented forces that would destroy him. You sent him to me when I needed someone, and for that I am more grateful than words can express. He brought me here and showed me this chapel where I might pray to You and worship You in the ways I was taught, and I grew to love him. We are brothers in Your holy light, and I believe he is proof to me of Your love.
“All my life I have wanted one thing, and that is to serve You with my whole heart. I have faltered on my path, and I have lost my way, but I have never given up my search for You. I have never lost my belief in You, and You have rewarded me with a new life and a new path.
“Please watch over me, my Lord, please continue to bless your most faithful servant, your humble friar, and allow me to live the life You have shown me and to love the man who brings me joy.”
Please allow us to reach Polomnac in safety, he adds in his heart. Please forgive me my trespasses, and please know that everything I have done in my life was to find my way to You. I would live in Your light the rest of my days, if You would but show me the grace and the mercy to do so.
He feels light and joy in his heart. He remembers the very first night he prayed here, begging God on his knees to show him what to do, and to forgive him for not being grateful to the people who offered him shelter and a place to live. He remembers that he didn't think God could hear him here, and would even less answer his prayers. How much he's changed since then.
“Thank you,” Rainaut murmurs next to him, and he's not sure if Rainaut is talking to him or to God. “We will honor You with our work and our love and our pleasure in the world You have made for us.”
So he's talking to his God too. Brother Peire reaches over and takes his hand and squeezes it, then lets go and stands up. Rainaut stands up as well and they walk out of the chapel and around the church and across the cloister, where a slightly open door is letting out light and the sound of people's laughter.
“Someone's having a party,” Rainaut comments, grinning. “Should we invite ourselves in?”
“Can we?”
“Of course. If they didn't want other guests, they wouldn't have left the door ajar. That's an invitation to anyone who wants to accept it.”
“I just want you.” Brother Peire can feel himself blush, despite everything they've already done. He shouldn't still be bashful around Rainaut, when it comes to his own desire. He can feel the mead wearing off, making him more solid on his feet but leaving him with a light heart.
Rainaut stops him in the middle of the cloister, takes his face in both hands, and kisses him soundly. “You are God's blessing upon me,” he says quietly. “My proof of God's love. My God as well as yours.”
Brother Peire has no answer to that, or at least no answer he can give in public.
In the cell, the door closed behind them for privacy, they take off each other's clothes and kiss each other's mouths and touch each other's skin, finally sinking down onto the bed so Brother Peire can part Rainaut's thighs and stick his finger in the little pot of cream and slide those fingers into Rainaut's body and replace them with his stiff, aching cock. He goes slowly, pulling all the way out before easing his way back in, over and over, taking his time and drawing out their pleasure as long as he can.
He could never have imagined, months ago when the abbot told him there was a heretic locked in the cellar and Brother Peire should talk to him, that his life would take this turn. He could never have imagined that he would find anything more than brotherly affection for another man, never mind a heretic. He could never have imagined that his own order would turn him out, that he would have to make a new life with a new community, that he would have to figure out how to worship his God his way at the same time he could worship his God in the company of apostates.
He could never have imagined that he could love an apostate, or that such a person could love him back.
“My brother,” Rainaut breathes now, as Brother Peire buries himself deep. “My beautiful friar - “
“No,” Brother Peire murmurs, “I'm not.”
“You are, to me.” Rainaut lifts his head and pulls Brother Peire's face down to his. “God made you so.” His tongue flicks out at Brother Peire's lips, and Brother Peire bends his head to cover Rainaut's mouth with his own.
They rock together, panting and moaning and murmuring nonsense. The bed creaks underneath them. It's too big to take with them, and unnecessary. They can always build and string more beds.
Brother Peire pushes himself up, kneeling on the bed as Rainaut's thighs splay out on either side of him. His palms press into the mattress as he thrusts faster and deeper, losing himself in the heat of Rainaut's body and the scent of their incipient climax and their mingled noises of pleasure.
“Uhh... friar...” Rainaut moans, his eyes half closed as he reaches for his cock. “You are... are beautiful, and, and mine... all mine....”
Brother Peire's breathing is harsh in his own ears, but Rainaut's face and chest are stained with arousal, like the faintest sunburn, his lips parted as he pants for breath, as Brother Peire's hips roll against him, and Brother Peire looks down at him and thinks No, my brother, no, by myself I'm nothing, but together we're astonishing, incandescent.
He ducks his head, brushes his lips across Rainaut's open mouth, and sits up again, pounding into Rainaut's body until Rainaut's breath stutters and his body stiffens and he cries out with pleasure.
He's still catching his breath when Brother Peire takes his own pleasure from Rainaut's body and collapses on top of him, panting and relieved.
Rainaut runs his hand over Brother Peire's hair, fingers twisting in the tangled curls. Brother Peire rests his head against Rainaut's shoulder and concentrates on breathing in and out. He can feel himself growing soft inside Rainaut's body, but he doesn't want to move.
“Who knows when we'll get to do that next,” he murmurs into Rainaut's skin.
“We could sneak off in the middle of the night,” Rainaut suggests, and Brother Peire can see his grin without bothering to look.
“What if someone finds us? Or hears us?”
“We can pretend it's Midsummer all over again. As I recall, you didn't care if anyone heard you.”
“Because I don't think anyone did.” And because I'd drunk too much, and was out of my head, and nothing existed for me but the grass under me and you on top of me.
Rainaut lifts Brother Peire's head and guides their mouths together and they kiss slowly, easily, for a few minutes.
“In the chapel,” Rainaut says after a while, “you called yourself a friar before your God. His humble friar.”
“I still am, in my heart,” Brother Peire admits. “I think part of me will always be a friar. Maybe not a Gray Friar, but a holy man. I can't – I can't be anything else. Part secular, part holy.”
“Part profane.” Rainaut is smiling in the dim light of the cell. It's a warm night and one of the shutters is open partway to let the air circulate.
“Yes. For the, the pleasure.” Brother Peire grins and puts his head back down. “Thank you, Rainaut. For everything you've done for me.”
“I owed you, my brother. You gave me something to look forward to when I was in prison. You were my friend in a place where I really, really needed one. I cared about you, and I wanted to do the same for you.” He lays his arms across Brother Peire's shoulders. “And I loved you. I wanted you to love me.”
“I did. I do.”
“I know.”
Brother Peire pushes himself up, and pulls out of Rainaut's body, and lies back down in more or less the same position. He closes his eyes. Rainaut's chest rises and falls under his head, and he can hear Rainaut's heart beating steadily in his ear, and he can feel the comforting weight of Rainaut's arms across his back. He wraps one of his own arms around Rainaut's head and the other around Rainaut's shoulder, and he falls asleep.
The bell wakes them for the dawn service, and they dress and splash water on their faces from the fountain in the cloister, and they follow the rest of the community to the church to pray. They eat a quick breakfast, finish packing up – and Brother Peire goes to the chapel to wrap the candles and candlesticks in the robe the friars gave him when they turned him out, because it seems sacrilegious to use the altar cloth, and he carefully packs the eternal lamp and the striker to light the candles in the box that Rainaut made him, and then takes everything to where Martel and another man are loading a cart with the candles and altar cloth and wall hangings from the church, as well as the heretics' books of scripture and on top of everything, a small child holding one of the cats.
Brother Peire and Rainaut take their small bundles of clothes – and Brother Peire has a heavy satchel containing some of his copyist's supplies and the three books he snuck out – and follow everyone out of the monastery gates for the last time.
Thank you, my Lord, Brother Peire thinks, turning back for one last look at the place that became his home. You brought me Rainaut, and Rainaut brought me here, and I made myself a place in his community. I have tried to remain true to myself, and I have become secular and sacred both, and wherever we go, I will love You and serve You and honor You for all that you have given me. I will walk beside Rainaut wherever he goes, for I love him and he loves me, and I will carry both You and him in my heart, always.
Rainaut takes his hand and they walk down the road with the rest of the heretic community, away from the monastery and Montagui and everything familiar, and towards a new place and hopefully a new home.
For once, Brother Peire isn't worried. He has Rainaut next to him and his God with him. Whatever happens and wherever he goes, he firmly believes that he will be fine.
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The next morning, after services and during the morning meeting, they find out why he's there.
“We have news, brothers and sisters,” Martel announces, “that the mayor of Montagui and representatives of the Mother Church are planning to bring the city's guards to our community and rout us from our land by fire and sword.” The chapter house breaks out with surprise and argument and discussion. “Quiet!” Martel demands, and the noise subsides to a murmur. “This news comes from a trusted source and there's no reason to think the mayor will not follow through. The question is when, and what we should do about it.”
“What are we going to do?” someone calls.
“We're going to stand our ground,” Rainaut whispers to Brother Peire, whose heart has started to race. He can't imagine this has anything to do with the Gray Friars forcing him to renounce his vows and then turning him out of the order, but he doesn't know the relationship between the abbot and the mayor, and for all he knows, the abbot holds it against the heretics for their undue influence on one of his friars.
Although it's more likely the abbot blames Brother Peire for his own fall, due to his weak will and inconstant soul.
The monastery sits on reasonably good land – the heretics grow things and raise crops and livestock on it, after all – and Brother Peire knows enough of the world outside the friary to know that a wealthy man, or a community on good land, is more likely to become a target of the Mother Church than a poor man or a man on difficult land.
“What about Ser Lucatz?” someone else asks. “Can't he protect us?”
Martel looks at the young man who brought the news, who now shrugs. “I saw him a few days ago,” he announces, trying to raise his voice enough to be heard over the crowd. “He will try to make some kind of deal with the mayor, but he doesn't hold out much hope. It's not a secret in Montagui that he's sympathetic and supportive of this community, even though he isn't much of a proselyte and he's not known as an official member, and word is the mayor and the Black Friars have been trying to get rid of you and claim this land for a long time.”
“At least it's not your old order,” Rainaut whispers, echoing Brother Peire's thoughts.
“Any land belonging to someone condemned of heresy is forfeit,” Brother Peire whispers back. “They just have to bring him before the local court and try him, like they were going to do to you. They might torture him first to get a confession, but I don't think they even need that to condemn him. There are a lot of ways to convict someone of heresy without even involving them.”
He doesn't know Ser Lucatz and has obviously never met him, but the man's patronage has made the heretic community possible, and the monastery and its land belong to him, and if something were to happen to him, even an official accusation of heresy – without an actual confession and conviction – the heretics would have to leave.
“All I know is that Ser Mayor and the Black Friars have accused this community as a group of apostasy,” the young man goes on, “which gives them the right to take the land and push you all out. I know they'll come with swords and if they can, they'll burn everyone out.”
“These are our choices,” Martel says, loud enough and sharp enough to cut through the noise. “We can stay and fight. We can stay and submit. Or we can run.”
“What do you mean, 'submit'?” someone demands, the voice close enough for Brother Peire to recognize Rostans. “Let them carry us off?”
“You think we should martyr ourselves?” someone else demands, a woman's voice this time. “To what end?”
“Not our children!” Brother Peire recognizes Jaufre's voice. A little girl starts to cry.
“Quiet!” Martel demands. “Everyone! We'll vote on it! But we need to know more.”
“What more?” someone asks. “Guards are coming for us. Either we stay and fight them, or we leave.”
“We should find out what Ser Lucatz says to the mayor and the friars. What if he can convince them to leave us alone?”
“Can he pay them off enough, is more likely,” someone mutters near Brother Peire and Rainaut.
“I'm sure that's why they let me out of prison,” Rainaut whispers. “Ser Lucatz made a 'donation' to someone, and it was enough to make up for whatever bounty was out on my soul. They wouldn't have gotten anything for my forfeited goods.”
“We need to know that, true,” Martel goes on. “And we need to know what the mayor's timetable is. Can you go back to the city and find that out?” he asks the young man.
“I can try,” the young man admits, “but I'm worried someone might have figured out that I came here to warn you. I think someone might be watching me.”
“Send the friar!” someone calls, which idea is picked up by several more voices.
“Oh no,” Brother Peire says, “nonononono. They know my face. They turned me out. I'm not welcome at the friary any more. I'm not – they don't think of me as a friar. They'll consider me a heretic. No one will talk to me.”
“Not even to try and convert you back?”
“Maybe? They might. But that will take time I don't think we have. But I don't want to go back. I don't – I can't. I can't see my brother friars any more.”
“Tell them you've repented of your apostasy and want to be brought back into the fold,” Rostans suggests. “Use them to find out the Black Friars' plans.”
“But I wasn't a Black Friar. I belonged to the Order of St Austor - the Gray Friars. We didn't involve ourselves with outside politics. It's not something I could ask about without looking suspicious. I never cared before. No one did.”
“But if you come to them from a heretic community - “
“I don't want to,” Brother Peire insists. “There has to be another way to get the information you need.”
“We can make a preliminary plan,” Helis says, from where she's standing with the rest of the council up front, “to stay or to go, so when we learn more of Ser Lucatz's meeting with the mayor, we've already had some discussion.”
They continue to talk about what to do for the next hour or so, with Martel calling for order about every five minutes, but by the time everyone disperses to do their work, no decision has been reached.
But in the middle of the dusk service, a girl from Ser Lucatz' household appears at the monastery gates to say that the mayor would not speak to her master, and as far as she knows, the city guards are just waiting for reinforcements and then they'll be at the gates as well. It could be three days, it could be five, it could be tomorrow.
The question put before the heretics is no longer “what do we do” but “where do we go”, because as much as some of them are willing to martyr themselves for their beliefs – Rainaut certainly was, back when the mayor had him in prison – comparatively few of them genuinely believe that their God wants them to die like this.
So they meet again after dinner, and this time the council asks Aude to get up in front of the group to explain the places she saw and the people she talked to when she was walking the roads, and where she thinks towns might be more receptive to the lot of them.
“Near the sea,” she says, “the town of Polomnac. We could use the sea routes to sell our goods. The land is pretty good – I don't think it's receptive to everything we grow, but they can grow things we don't – and we can make our own settlement outside the town walls. I think it would be the best place for us that doesn't require a month on the road.”
“Are there friar houses there?” someone asks.
“Not that I remember. There are churches, of course, so the big church has a foothold, but there aren't established friar orders. It's a trek but we can do it. I don't think we'll find an abandoned monastery, though. We'll have to build a chapel and dormitories and a kitchen and all the rest of the buildings.”
“Is there room for us in the town?” Helis asks.
“All of us? I don't know. But the townspeople are sympathetic to us and our beliefs – they won't bring guards against us. They might put us up until we have our own places to live, but they'll want us to support ourselves.”
Discussion and argument continue until it's almost time for the midnight service, at which point the majority of heretics seem to have moved on to more organizational matters – what to take, when to leave.
“You don't have to come with us,” Rainaut tells Brother Peire, as the conversation moves around them. “You can go back to Montagui.”
“And do what?” Brother Peire asks. “I'm not a friar any more. I'd have to convince the Gray Friars that I've repented and that I can detail all my sins, but I no longer think I've committed that many sins. I don't think it's a sin to lie with you, or to worship in your church, or to, to accept that your beliefs are good before God, because they give you peace and structure and joy, like mine give me. I found a place here, with you. I don't want to leave. I think this is where God wants me to be.”
“Is this where you want to be?”
“Is there a difference?”
Rainaut laughs. “And you don't think you're still a friar.”
“You're laughing at me.”
“You make me laugh.” Rainaut pats him on the cheek. “You should talk to Jaufre about what to take from the copy room.”
The final plan is to leave in three days, which should give them enough time to harvest what they can from the fields and gardens and orchards and pack it for travel. They're told to leave anything that might have been there when the first heretics arrived to start the community, anything the original monks might have left behind, but anything else they can take. Jaufre and Brother Peire pack pens and brushes and pots of ink and paint and rulers and stacks of parchment and vellum and the manuscripts they're both copying, and then Jaufre whispers “I want to take some of the books and scrolls the monks left, some of the ones we've read but haven't had a chance to copy or translate. I know we should leave them, but if you can take a couple of books and some scrolls, and Felise and I will take some, and we'll pack some with the rest of our supplies, we'll have them to work on and study from at the new settlement.”
It can't be considered stealing, Brother Peire thinks, since the monks abandoned their books, and he's lost some of his need to be unquestioningly obedient to other people's unexplained rules for what he should do. And he gets great satisfaction from his work in the copy room, and would like to continue that work elsewhere.
So he brings three books back to his and Rainaut's cell – a history, an herbalist's manual, and an untranslated ancient philosophical treatise – to pack with their few clothes and the blankets and pillow off the bed. Rainaut is busy helping the weavers dismantle and pack up the looms, not to mention the tools from the woodshop, and he's helping build boxes to transport the beehives and carts to carry anything too big or too heavy for people. Verrine enlists Brother Peire's help in packing up the library, which takes very little time, and Jacotte gets him to help her strip the gardens of anything ripe enough to take with them.
“Anything we leave behind, the mayor's men will take,” she explains. “I know we're supposed to feel charity and generosity towards all men, but I can't find it in my heart to leave anything for people who are kicking us off our land.”
Brother Peire agrees. He knows God will frown on that, but this is the second home he's been forced to leave in less than a year, and while he wants to believe it's part of God's plan, he can't yet see what plan that is. And he can't find it in himself to feed the mayor's men either.
He's been tasked with looking after the small chapel, but all that means is that in the morning before they leave, he'll wrap up the candlesticks and the candles in the altar cloth and carefully take down the eternal lamp. He's already asks Rainaut to make him a box to carry it in, to keep the flame in it from spilling out or going out, and so the lamp itself, which isn't very sturdy, won't get dented in transit.
He's not sure if the lamp was there when the monks lived here, but he isn't going to ask in case someone tells him to leave it. They'll bring the light of God's love with them, so He might watch over them wherever they go.
The heretics hear no more from Montagui or Ser Lucatz, just that Ser Lucatz had no more success trying to call the mayor off them, and that the guards' reinforcements are nearly here. So the community really does have no choice but to leave.
The night before departure they have a small celebration, to honor their peaceful, productive years at the monastery and to thank their God for the land that supported them. Brother Peire drinks slightly more mead than he planned – and he hadn't planned to drink any at all – so by the time the eating and dancing and singing wind down, he's a bit tipsy and lightheaded and unsteady on his feet. He takes Rainaut's hand and leads him to the small chapel, lights the candles – it takes him several times for the striker to catch and to light the wicks – and kneels in front of the altar. Rainaut kneels next to him. Brother Peire folds his hands and looks up at the vines painted on the wall, at the window and its central pane of yellow glass.
“Thank you, Lord,” he says, “for bringing me here. I know this is where You wanted me to be, and I have tried to honor You with the works of my hands and the prayers of my heart, even here among men and women who do not believe as I do. I am grateful for Your love and Your mercy, and I will serve you the best that I can for the rest of my days in humility and sincerity.
“Please watch over us as we travel, for my sake and for the sake of the men and women who have taken me in. Do not abandon me now. I have only ever wanted to serve You and to live in Your light, and I beg You now to bless me with Your protection and to bless the community that has made a home for me, the community I have come to love.”
He can feel Rainaut's eyes on him, but his gaze is fixed to the window.
“And my Lord, please watch over Rainaut, for he has shown me nothing but love and kindness, even though I once represented forces that would destroy him. You sent him to me when I needed someone, and for that I am more grateful than words can express. He brought me here and showed me this chapel where I might pray to You and worship You in the ways I was taught, and I grew to love him. We are brothers in Your holy light, and I believe he is proof to me of Your love.
“All my life I have wanted one thing, and that is to serve You with my whole heart. I have faltered on my path, and I have lost my way, but I have never given up my search for You. I have never lost my belief in You, and You have rewarded me with a new life and a new path.
“Please watch over me, my Lord, please continue to bless your most faithful servant, your humble friar, and allow me to live the life You have shown me and to love the man who brings me joy.”
Please allow us to reach Polomnac in safety, he adds in his heart. Please forgive me my trespasses, and please know that everything I have done in my life was to find my way to You. I would live in Your light the rest of my days, if You would but show me the grace and the mercy to do so.
He feels light and joy in his heart. He remembers the very first night he prayed here, begging God on his knees to show him what to do, and to forgive him for not being grateful to the people who offered him shelter and a place to live. He remembers that he didn't think God could hear him here, and would even less answer his prayers. How much he's changed since then.
“Thank you,” Rainaut murmurs next to him, and he's not sure if Rainaut is talking to him or to God. “We will honor You with our work and our love and our pleasure in the world You have made for us.”
So he's talking to his God too. Brother Peire reaches over and takes his hand and squeezes it, then lets go and stands up. Rainaut stands up as well and they walk out of the chapel and around the church and across the cloister, where a slightly open door is letting out light and the sound of people's laughter.
“Someone's having a party,” Rainaut comments, grinning. “Should we invite ourselves in?”
“Can we?”
“Of course. If they didn't want other guests, they wouldn't have left the door ajar. That's an invitation to anyone who wants to accept it.”
“I just want you.” Brother Peire can feel himself blush, despite everything they've already done. He shouldn't still be bashful around Rainaut, when it comes to his own desire. He can feel the mead wearing off, making him more solid on his feet but leaving him with a light heart.
Rainaut stops him in the middle of the cloister, takes his face in both hands, and kisses him soundly. “You are God's blessing upon me,” he says quietly. “My proof of God's love. My God as well as yours.”
Brother Peire has no answer to that, or at least no answer he can give in public.
In the cell, the door closed behind them for privacy, they take off each other's clothes and kiss each other's mouths and touch each other's skin, finally sinking down onto the bed so Brother Peire can part Rainaut's thighs and stick his finger in the little pot of cream and slide those fingers into Rainaut's body and replace them with his stiff, aching cock. He goes slowly, pulling all the way out before easing his way back in, over and over, taking his time and drawing out their pleasure as long as he can.
He could never have imagined, months ago when the abbot told him there was a heretic locked in the cellar and Brother Peire should talk to him, that his life would take this turn. He could never have imagined that he would find anything more than brotherly affection for another man, never mind a heretic. He could never have imagined that his own order would turn him out, that he would have to make a new life with a new community, that he would have to figure out how to worship his God his way at the same time he could worship his God in the company of apostates.
He could never have imagined that he could love an apostate, or that such a person could love him back.
“My brother,” Rainaut breathes now, as Brother Peire buries himself deep. “My beautiful friar - “
“No,” Brother Peire murmurs, “I'm not.”
“You are, to me.” Rainaut lifts his head and pulls Brother Peire's face down to his. “God made you so.” His tongue flicks out at Brother Peire's lips, and Brother Peire bends his head to cover Rainaut's mouth with his own.
They rock together, panting and moaning and murmuring nonsense. The bed creaks underneath them. It's too big to take with them, and unnecessary. They can always build and string more beds.
Brother Peire pushes himself up, kneeling on the bed as Rainaut's thighs splay out on either side of him. His palms press into the mattress as he thrusts faster and deeper, losing himself in the heat of Rainaut's body and the scent of their incipient climax and their mingled noises of pleasure.
“Uhh... friar...” Rainaut moans, his eyes half closed as he reaches for his cock. “You are... are beautiful, and, and mine... all mine....”
Brother Peire's breathing is harsh in his own ears, but Rainaut's face and chest are stained with arousal, like the faintest sunburn, his lips parted as he pants for breath, as Brother Peire's hips roll against him, and Brother Peire looks down at him and thinks No, my brother, no, by myself I'm nothing, but together we're astonishing, incandescent.
He ducks his head, brushes his lips across Rainaut's open mouth, and sits up again, pounding into Rainaut's body until Rainaut's breath stutters and his body stiffens and he cries out with pleasure.
He's still catching his breath when Brother Peire takes his own pleasure from Rainaut's body and collapses on top of him, panting and relieved.
Rainaut runs his hand over Brother Peire's hair, fingers twisting in the tangled curls. Brother Peire rests his head against Rainaut's shoulder and concentrates on breathing in and out. He can feel himself growing soft inside Rainaut's body, but he doesn't want to move.
“Who knows when we'll get to do that next,” he murmurs into Rainaut's skin.
“We could sneak off in the middle of the night,” Rainaut suggests, and Brother Peire can see his grin without bothering to look.
“What if someone finds us? Or hears us?”
“We can pretend it's Midsummer all over again. As I recall, you didn't care if anyone heard you.”
“Because I don't think anyone did.” And because I'd drunk too much, and was out of my head, and nothing existed for me but the grass under me and you on top of me.
Rainaut lifts Brother Peire's head and guides their mouths together and they kiss slowly, easily, for a few minutes.
“In the chapel,” Rainaut says after a while, “you called yourself a friar before your God. His humble friar.”
“I still am, in my heart,” Brother Peire admits. “I think part of me will always be a friar. Maybe not a Gray Friar, but a holy man. I can't – I can't be anything else. Part secular, part holy.”
“Part profane.” Rainaut is smiling in the dim light of the cell. It's a warm night and one of the shutters is open partway to let the air circulate.
“Yes. For the, the pleasure.” Brother Peire grins and puts his head back down. “Thank you, Rainaut. For everything you've done for me.”
“I owed you, my brother. You gave me something to look forward to when I was in prison. You were my friend in a place where I really, really needed one. I cared about you, and I wanted to do the same for you.” He lays his arms across Brother Peire's shoulders. “And I loved you. I wanted you to love me.”
“I did. I do.”
“I know.”
Brother Peire pushes himself up, and pulls out of Rainaut's body, and lies back down in more or less the same position. He closes his eyes. Rainaut's chest rises and falls under his head, and he can hear Rainaut's heart beating steadily in his ear, and he can feel the comforting weight of Rainaut's arms across his back. He wraps one of his own arms around Rainaut's head and the other around Rainaut's shoulder, and he falls asleep.
The bell wakes them for the dawn service, and they dress and splash water on their faces from the fountain in the cloister, and they follow the rest of the community to the church to pray. They eat a quick breakfast, finish packing up – and Brother Peire goes to the chapel to wrap the candles and candlesticks in the robe the friars gave him when they turned him out, because it seems sacrilegious to use the altar cloth, and he carefully packs the eternal lamp and the striker to light the candles in the box that Rainaut made him, and then takes everything to where Martel and another man are loading a cart with the candles and altar cloth and wall hangings from the church, as well as the heretics' books of scripture and on top of everything, a small child holding one of the cats.
Brother Peire and Rainaut take their small bundles of clothes – and Brother Peire has a heavy satchel containing some of his copyist's supplies and the three books he snuck out – and follow everyone out of the monastery gates for the last time.
Thank you, my Lord, Brother Peire thinks, turning back for one last look at the place that became his home. You brought me Rainaut, and Rainaut brought me here, and I made myself a place in his community. I have tried to remain true to myself, and I have become secular and sacred both, and wherever we go, I will love You and serve You and honor You for all that you have given me. I will walk beside Rainaut wherever he goes, for I love him and he loves me, and I will carry both You and him in my heart, always.
Rainaut takes his hand and they walk down the road with the rest of the heretic community, away from the monastery and Montagui and everything familiar, and towards a new place and hopefully a new home.
For once, Brother Peire isn't worried. He has Rainaut next to him and his God with him. Whatever happens and wherever he goes, he firmly believes that he will be fine.
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