The Friar's Tale by Jennifer R. Povey

Author:Jennifer R. Povey [Povey, Jennifer R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jennifer R. Povey

16

The next day, he found Clorinda at her own prayers. He stayed back, not wanting to interrupt. She spoke softly in Norman...not some old tongue of this land. But then, she was Norman. Easy enough to forget...most of the outlaws were Saxon blonde, but some others were dark, too.

The English, a German knight had told him, are mutts. Perhaps he was right.

She finally stood up. Softly, "How long have you been there, Friar?"

"Not long. I didn't want to interrupt."

"You show almost too much respect."

"What's the alternative? You're hardly likely to do anything but walk away if I tell you you're wrong."

"Or do you show respect because you aren't sure?" She stood up, rising gracefully to her feet. Her eyes met his.

He shook his head, breaking the contact quickly.

"You aren't sure, not anymore. Come on. Let's go for a walk."

"Will won't think..."

"Will knows you're not my type." She did not touch him, but rather headed along a deer trail away from camp. She moved with quiet grace, and silent. Every time his own footsteps made a noise, he flinched from the contrast.

"I don't have a type."

"So, you really have been celibate your entire life?" She stopped where a tall rock thrust out from the trees.

It seemed, for a moment, to shimmer a little. A gate to Faerie? "Yes, I have."

"And not just, I suspect, because of your vows."

He considered that. "I joined the church so I would not be expected to marry." He took a deep breath. "So I would not have to force myself to join with a woman when I have never wanted to."

"No choices. No thought that people might have choices. Is that really what your God is all about?"

He hesitated. "I don't know anymore." An admission that came close to an admission of guilt. He did not know anymore. He did not know who he was. What he was. What he could do about who he was.

"Have I ever denied the existence of your God?" she asked, finally, not approaching the stone, but rather regarding it.

He placed it in his mind...the Hemlockstone. Associated with witches. Unsurprising, thus, that it would also be associated with the fay. It was carved by the wind, the trees drew back from it. More than anything else, it looked like a large, squat house, with brick walls and a dark roof...as if it was roofed not with thatch but lead. That was it, it looked like a lead roof. Like a church would have. "No. But the Bible tells us there is only one true God, that all others are shades or demons."

"Is that what you believe?" She tilted her head. "Is that why you think when you see a goddess, that it has to be your God's mother?"

"I have wondered if what men call gods are, in truth, the lords of the Fae."

"Not a bad thought. Not a bad way around your dilemma." She glanced at the stone again. "I believe the old gods are real, but that they no longer walk the Earth as they did.

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