†
Next Sunday, there were murmurs in the congregation as D’ata’s absence was strikingly conspicuous. The whispers continued all morning, and there was an agitated electricity in the air. No one, however, spoke of it to the Baron and Madame Cezanne. Of course, it would not have been possible as they were not even present today, surely because they grieved. The congregation’s suspicions were confirmed. The young priest was smitten with the Lanviere girl, wicked creature, and now he was gone!
Women were criticized for drawing attention to themselves, either intentionally or by mere accident. Sadly, these same women were guilty of judging each other harshly. In essence, they ate their own, devoured them and spat them out, fragmented and shunned.
It was Julianne’s fault, in the eyes of the congregation, and to protect D’ata—to protect the church—he’d been sent away, perhaps forever! All eyes fixed on Julianne; she was responsible. She’d caused their lovely young priest to be sent away! The congregation seethed. It became one massive, angry entity. Never mind it was irrational, as ridiculous as arresting the prostitute but not the serviced.
Julianne noticed none of them. She was engulfed in the river of loss that was her own personal torment. She heard not a word of the mass as her mind raced. The Latin fell soundless upon her, and she sat wringing her hands. Her eyes welled up with tears as she forced herself to stare only at her feet, not considering the crowd around her.
She was unprepared for all of this. And last night had been a long one. There was no good conclusion to the story of her and the young priest, she’d decided. It was an impossible situation, but she thought she’d awakened this morning with a clear head. After thinking long and hard on the whole affair and then sleeping very little on it, she decided the right thing to do was to terminate the blossoming romance but remain friends. A friendship would make the whole situation so much more neat and tidy, and God would not disapprove. They would still be able to see each other, to talk and such.
It was irrational, but it was a contract of necessity to suit the moment. In truth, it was really only a barter, pure and simple, and it gave her reason to come to mass and speak to him again. This would allow her to look at his face and breathe in the whole of him once more. That was what she really desired, and recognition of this truth choked the breath from her now.
She wrung her hands again. With D’ata gone, she was immediately panic-stricken, totally absorbed with the awful notion of never seeing him again. This was unacceptable, and yet her rational mind grappled with her irrational heart. She tried to fight back the tears, but they broke and streamed like salty insults down her cheeks. Swallowing hard, she struggled to choke back her emotions. Everybody watched, and no one understood. Nobody extended pity or compassion…except one.
Yvette sat at her side, in her own small way silently grieving the loss of her lovely, pretend suitor. She reached for Julianne’s hand and said with deep sincerity, “I would have gladly been your chaperone.”
* * *
Northwest of Marseille, in Nimes, D’ata served mass under a new Parish. He’d been sent to St. Aloysius with Monsignor Leoceonne. He was numbed. His father, true to his word, had forced him to the new parish, determined that his ordainment would not be disturbed by his son’s foolish triflings with a farm girl.
D’ata had argued bitterly with his father while his mother wept uncontrollably, praying aloud that God should right her son’s sinful ways. Steadfastly defiant, he’d refused to accept that God would disallow love between he and Julianne.
“No God of mine would be so cruel,” he’d insisted, refusing to succumb to his father’s beliefs.
In the end, the Baron had D’ata beaten. It broke his father’s heart to do such a thing, but the question of obedience remained a commandment of God. Children shall honor and obey, be subject to their fathers. It was by such obedience that they gained the favor of God, and the favor of God must be obtained at all costs, even if it was cruel. It was a sanctified barter which would guarantee eternity. Monsieur Cezanne had tolerated quite enough of his son’s outrage and would accept no further insolence. In the end, it was for his own good.
Henri, unable to watch his young friend suffer, had been uncharacteristically absent from the stables as D’ata was held and beaten by four of the estate guards. Brokenhearted, he returned only to dress the wounds. Raphael brought soap and hot water from the house while Henri carefully rubbed horse salve into the open welts.
“You’ve brought this upon yourself, you know,” the crippled old man chided him gently.
D’ata said nothing but winced under the ministerings. He remained mute and did not even look up when his old friend said goodbye. A great sadness fell over the estate that day. Almost all were aggrieved to lose their favorite son, and many watched secretly, with tearful eyes, as their beloved child was sent away.
He arrived at Nimes stiff and bruised. His robes covered his wounds but not his broken heart. It was Monsignor Leoceonne who’d accompanied D’ata there. He was instructed to maintain close scrutiny of the young priest, and so he filled D’ata’s days with prayer, scripture, and penance. It was a daunting task, but he believed it would spiritually lift D’ata from the immoral incident and return him to the path to righteousness.
The monsignor found D’ata terribly apathetic but refreshingly honest. At times, it appeared that the young priest seriously wished to atone for his transgressions and worked very hard toward that. At other times, however, he was gravely silent and sometimes went for days at a time with scarcely a word. There was a brokenness to him—a splintering of his soul. This deeply concerned the monsignor. Such events were capable of enshrouding a holy man with dispassion. It would not do to have the young priest insincere, would not do at all.
Monsignor Leoceonne lectured him gently on the conventional sins of women. “Wherever beauty shows upon the face, there lurks much filth beneath the skin.” The barrage continued, “St. Augustine himself said that celibacy and virginity are the preferred states as they permit the total love of God, allowing the soul of man to be married to the soul of the trinity. Your mind has been corrupted as the serpent corrupted Adam, for beauty can only be found in accepting and suffering!”
D’ata nodded but endured the lessons in silence.
The Monsignor wondered if his words went unheard for it was the confessions that disturbed the elder the most.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I have dreamed of her again and thrice satisfied the desires of carnal flesh myself, wishing that I was with her. I wish to purify my thoughts and actions, but I love Julianne…more than anything,” D’ata confessed.
Statements like this were a grave concern. The church was very strict concerning its stand on any perversion of nature. Any autoerotic behaviors, especially those resulting in the spilling of seed, were considered sodomy. Sexual expression was forbidden except for the consecrated act of husband and wife in an effort to procreate. True, few men fulfilled such a doctrine, but it remained the stand of the church, nonetheless. The monsignor had a duty to try to instill it upon D’ata.
Any misdemeanor amongst men was generally accepted as a result of woman’s wanton and sinful nature, causing temptation in men. In this case, however, it was hard to blame a distant Julianne on D’ata’s continued transgressions. Furthermore, the monsignor was genuinely taken aback by the sincere honesty with which D’ata gave his confessions. By all counts, the young man saw no true wrong in what he said and did. He seemed mostly confused.
To complicate things further, Monsignor Leoceonne knew Julianne, had known her since infancy. He found the girl obedient and sincere. True, the girl was strong willed, perhaps from living without a mother—living only amongst the men. This had not been the perfect situation for Julianne, but in these times, it was a blessing for her to even have a home. Many endured death and loss; it was not at all that uncommon. And so, the Monsignor struggled with casting the weight of blame on the girl. D’ata’s repeated lapses and blatant confessions demonstrated rebellion against God and, consequently, were the most serious of nature.
The Monsignor tempered the reports he sent home to the Baron and Lady of Cezanne but was specific in his detail to the Archbishop in Marseille. Reports were sent to Milan. D’ata, because of his honesty, tread on very unstable ground with the church.
It would be easy for the church to cast D’ata upon the block, and the Monsignor worried about this. There was so much to lose. If D’ata fell from favor he could be punished by the church, perhaps even to excommunication, and it would affect not only the Cezanne family but the entire Cezanne domain. The Baron held great power, and his knights were undivided. Their devotion to the Cezanne coat of arms was undisputed, and the church could jump at an opportunity to dominate. A schism between the church and the Cezanne power would be far reaching, could even plunge the domain and surrounding township into war. It could prove devastating for Marseille.
Monsignor Leoceonne tried to occupy more and more of the young priest’s time with lessons, prayer, and memorization of passages of the scripture. When there was little else to occupy their time, the monsignor had D’ata clean the church, inside and out. This was no small task as the cathedral was daunting, with massive stained glass windows that pointed like monumental, colored tombstones toward heaven. There were row upon row of pews, straight-backed and smoothed from patrons’ sliding across them.
* * *
D’ata halfheartedly ran the cloth over the pews. Polishing them was a redundant task, perhaps like much of the doctrine that infected their faith. Of late, D’ata had begun to have doubts.
The altar was granite and immense. The Madonna, marbled white and nearly ten feet tall, looked down on the quiet efforts of the young man. D’ata was trapped, imprisoned, and all he could think of was the unusual girl with the dark gray eyes. He believed he’d held for mere hours the most precious moments of his life and then just as suddenly lost them. This was a difficult draught to swallow.
He broke communion bread for a new congregation. They were predictably curious and offered explanations to each other in stolen whispers. There were nods of approval and hushed questions about their new acquisition, the young and handsome D’ata. Someone suggested that he was the son of the Baron of Cezanne, and everyone knew of the Cezannes. Most had even heard of the boy and the story of how he’d come to be of this family. Why he was now at St. Aloysius, however, was a mystery. The monsignor simply answered questions with, “Because God has brought him to us.”
As mass finished, D’ata mumbled halfhearted greetings. “Very good to see you—yes, it is a lovely parish—how fortunate that I might be here.” He would eventually escape to his sparse quarters in the rectory and, for perhaps the first time ever, genuinely collapse to his knees. He begged God for guidance. He prayed as though he finally knew God. Please, he pleaded silently with his head bowed, his lips pressed into his folded hands. Please, let her be a part of your plan for me. Do not take her from me.
Falling forward, he pressed his palms flat on a damp and gritty stone floor that offered no compassion. His face pressed against the backs of his hands. As you are my father, I promise you I will do anything…if you will just bring her back to me. The prayer was of desperation, and the most sincere he’d ever been.
* * *
It was four months before God answered his prayers. September was warm, but this evening was gray and cool, the rain whipping intermittently against the stained glass. It was a gloomy day, and the church was empty and tomblike. D’ata was cleaning…again. Each small task echoed through the empty chamber. His mind, however, was miles away.
Tired of the beating of his own heart in his ears, he stopped and knelt to pray. His prayer was unchanged. He bargained, lamented, and pleaded his case to God. Kneeling on the steps of the pulpit itself, he bowed his head, bent upon knees that were truly calloused from hours upon them. He looked to the heavens, up toward the Madonna and child that towered over him. After several hours, he lapsed into a restless, exhausted sleep, reclined right there upon the stone steps.
He was a long and lanky figure, reposed as he was, and appeared oddly like a sacrifice left at the foot of an altar. D’ata had lost weight these last months. He hadn’t meant to, but he could find no appetite. Time was the most unkind partner of all, for even a minute seemed unbearably long. He wondered if he would lose his mind before all was said and done.
He lay very still as he dreamed. It was a black and white dream. There was no color except for the golden hair of the Madonna, without eyes, giving birth in silence to the holy child. The infant, white as snow, gazed up at him with the most startling gray eyes.
The Madonna, instead of reaching for the child, reached for him, resting her holy hand on his shoulder. Her tears dripped from empty sockets as she whispered his name, “D’ata…D’ata.”
D’ata stirred, stiff from sleeping on the steps, and turned to see who so gently shook his shoulder. The Madonna now has eyes, he mused to himself. Her expression appeared so sublime that he closed his eyes again, sure it was just another dream and preferring the escape of dreams to the pain of reality, as of late.
“I love you,” she said softly.
D’ata’s eyes flashed open. In all of his dreams of Julianne, she had never spoken to him. He even feared he would forget her voice.
“Julianne?” Befuddled urgency swept over him, and he struggled to sit up—to take her hands in his.
Was he dreaming again, or had he finally gone entirely mad? She smiled at him. Her hair wild and wet, her gown clinging to her, she was more beautiful than he could even remember.
“I could not bear to be away from you. I hope it is all right that I have come,” Julianne said, her face radiant with happiness.
D’ata thought her voice was the sweetest music he’d ever heard. The thunder outside was only a soft breath compared to the pounding of his heart. Without a word, he pulled her to him, desperately clutching her. He was afraid that if he let go, she would vanish forever.
“Oh, Julianne!” was all he could manage in reply.
It was exquisite to touch her, to hold her in his arms, to breathe the essence of her. She folded against him on the altar steps, a weary sigh escaping her lips. They kissed, and this time there was no hesitation or objection, no end or argument—no words.
He kissed her as he had a million times in his dreams, ran his fingers through her hair as he had in his mind so many times while serving communion. His eyes searched hers; he was still not convinced the moment wasn’t just an extenuation of a slow onset of his mind’s path toward insanity. He was completely and utterly overwhelmed with the great benevolence of her heart, that she’d risked everything and traveled such a treacherous distance to see him again.
Julianne cried as they embraced, tears streaming down her lovely, dirt streaked face.
“Are you hurt?” he breathed.
“No.” She dismissed his concern. “I have just missed you so much, but my tears are for happiness.” Her mouth trembled; it had been a long and arduous journey for her. She was weatherworn and exhausted, and she sobbed as the magnitude of her efforts surfaced.
He just held her until her sobs waned. She was with him at last, and the world was finally right. D’ata could only imagine the danger of her coming alone. In all his worry and sorrow, he never considered she would risk so much to come and find him. He kissed the salty offenders away and lifted her easily, laying her to the rear of the pulpit on the lovely tapestry with the bleeding heart. He straightened her skirts, so they could recline next to each other, and draped his robes across her to warm her from the chill and wet.
Holding her close, in the stillness of the church, they spoke quietly of their weeks apart, of the agony of it. Their bodies warmed, and steam rose soft and sweet from the damp robes. Her trembling finally ceased, and she whispered of her escape to him.
Julianne told her father that she wanted to go to town to spend a few days away with her friend, Babette. He agreed it would be good for the girl to be around a friend; she’d been so sullen as of late. Julianne, however, never made it to Babette’s. Instead, she snuck away to the Cezanne estate, and Henri had given to Julianne the old roan mare for the journey. He told her the Baron would never notice such an animal’s absence, and Henri could explain it away with natural death if need be. One look at the sad torment on the face of the girl and Henri must have realized that without the horse she would walk, if that was her only option.
Henri was kind—said he missed D’ata and would silently offer prayers of safe journey and happiness for them both. He gave her a few rations, a hay hook for protection, and a roughly scrawled map, describing D’ata’s whereabouts.
D’ata smiled as she told her story. He cherished the kindness that his old friend bestowed upon his beloved. It did not surprise him at all.
Julianne had plodded slowly but steadily to Nimes without her father knowing. Nobody had known. She was just all of a sudden gone. The boys would have to care for themselves, she told herself. She didn’t worry too much about it; they were strong and would have to help father manage without her. Certainly, they would be confused. Her father would be furious and worried, but in time she planned to come back to make things right. She didn’t know how she would do this, only that she would.
It had been most difficult to say goodbye to Yvette. She’d kissed her baby sister on top of the head, struggling to hold back tears. She didn’t know when she might see her again, and that was what made it so difficult. When Yvette was older, she would understand. Perhaps one day, when people were more accepting and things were sorted out, they could all rejoice in the love that was D’ata and Julianne. For now, however, it was just how it would have to be.
* * *
The evening waned, and the church darkened. D’ata rose to light a single candle so that he could see Julianne’s face, placing it behind the altar on the floor. As he sat down next to her, looking into her eyes, he took her body into his arms, and that long absent ache in his groin returned along with the stir in his belly. To look onto her face was to look upon the creation of all that was good.
“Julianne, I didn’t know if…I wasn’t sure if you…” He couldn’t find the words.
Julianne reached up to brush a finger along his lips, to trace the smoky shadow of his jaw and quiet him. “I love you.”
There were no words of God and obligation now. They kissed deeply, and presently her lips wandered from his, following the stubble of his jaw to the lobe of his ear, down his throat to where his priest’s collar bound his neck.
He groaned—the feel of her touching him like this burned his skin in a wondrous, remarkable way. He could take no more and pulled the collar free. Roughly loosening first his robes and then her gowns, he drank in the beauty of her, his eyes wandered unabashedly over her body. He feasted on the delicate perfection of her—thin and pale—and brushed his fingertips over her nipples. Julianne gasped, her eyes smoldering as she viewed the naked beauty of him.
Such a contrast it was, her milky whiteness and fair hair to his tawny skin and raven locks. She reached for him, and there on the thick wool rug in St. Aloysius cathedral, as he’d done so many times in his dreams, he lifted his body over hers. Amid the rush of desire, he took her tenderly, completely, and ravenously.
Julianne, gasped, but after a short spell, she matched the rhythm of D’ata’s desperate lovemaking. Soft, sweet moans escaped her and served to excite him even more.
D’ata groaned, his body arching hungrily into hers as he experienced for the first time such unimaginable, unbearable ecstasy. His breath caught ragged as the waves washed over him until he finally shuddered in glorious relief. Collapsing on his elbows, he leaned his damp brow against her neck, his breath hot on her shoulder.
There was nothing but the wind against the windows, the rain spattering out their own song, the marbled Madonna smiling down at them.
D’ata sighed deeply and kissed her eyelids as he slid from her, pulling her against him, covering them both with his robes. “I love you,” he murmured.
“As do I,” she whispered back and curled against him.
He buried his face in her hair, smelling the woods and earth. He vowed that never again would he let her go. They should be together—of this he had no doubt. Praying a silent prayer, the young priest thanked God. His conviction was complete and his belief absolute; God had answered his prayers.
There was no guilt, no remorse. Love barred the outside world from them, and finally at peace, they slept the sleep of children.
* * *
It was three hours later before Monsignor Leoceonne noticed the roan mare tethered beneath the lean-to, outside the church. He discovered the pair sleeping naked beneath the priest’s robes, a dark stain of blood on the lovely wool tapestry, obscuring the now truly bleeding heart of Christ.