Scarlet Blade by Jez Morrow

Author:Jez Morrow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Gay Romance
Published: 2012-11-19T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Joaquin rode out to the mission the next day, past grain fields and pastures and beehives.

The mission was a simple adobe building, with a bell hung in its half round, bell gable wall. It was home to a small flock. There were also workshops and a school.

Joaquin questioned the first man he saw, a Franciscan friar robed in gray. "Where is the new padre?"

This brother was not one of the eight who had crossed the ocean on the ship with Joaquin and Tomas. He told Joaquin, "Father Tomas is hearing confession."

A puckish urge seized Joaquin. "Is he now?"

Joaquin made straight for the church. He slid into a wooden pew, and waited for the remaining parishioners -- they were all native peons and campesinos -- to visit the curtained closet one by one, come out, kneel, earnestly say their penance, and go forth, forgiven.

When there were no more penitents waiting in the pews for absolution, Joaquin stepped into the confessional, and pulled the heavy curtain closed behind him. "Bless me father for I have sinned. I had carnal relations with a man on the ship Arrogante when I came to the colonies from Spain."

A creak sounded from the other side as someone rising from a wooden seat. Joaquin suddenly thought to pray, O God, please be Tomas and not the old padre!

The heavy curtain tore aside. Tomas yanked the purple stole from around his neck in a whispering rage. "You have not sinned, damn you! What passed between us is no sin, and you mock me." He lifted a hand as if to slap him. He lowered his hand and whispered quietly, furious. "A power that made me as I am and then damns me for being so? You believe that is the same Almighty who allowed there to be light and made the Earth and the stars and all the creatures great and small? The self-important, flawed men who wrote down the words of the Creator got part of it wrong." Then, because Joaquin was staring at him with his mouth open, Tomas cried out loud, demanding, "What?"

"You look like an angry angel," Joaquin said, marveling. "There is a nimbus around your head."

"That shimmer is because there are tears in your eyes, Joaquin. I am sorry I got angry with you."

"No. It was stunningly beautiful."

"It? What I just said, or the sex?"

"I was referring to what you just said, but since you ask, the sex was the most beautiful experience I have had in my life. Am I forgiven?"

"For what?"

"For being an ass."

A smile tugged at the corner of Tomas' lips. "Don't ever apologize for how God made you."

They walked out of the chapel together.

Joaquin kept stealing glances at the achingly gorgeous young man at his side, his shipboard lover, clad in a black cassock and white collar.

Between glances, he looked out at the mission lands. Here the peaceful natives worked the fields under the gentle sun.

"These aren't Apache," Joaquin stated the obvious. "And this mission isn't in Texas. You told me you were going somewhere in Texas.

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