The time is for farewell

Flann closed her eyes and tried to kiss him, but her eyelids quivered against the force of tears, and her mouth squirmed and twisted shut to catch a sob.

He lifted his lips away from hers. “Don’t be crying for me, my treasure.”

Her lashes wicked the tears out of her eyes, and when she opened them and blinked, the tears splashed over.

“Well, then, cry for me if you like,” he said gently and embraced her.

She pressed her head against his head, her breast against his breast, her belly against his belly, her thighs against his thighs. She shook with rage against the unfairness of it all. She wished he were only an elf. She wished he were only blind. She almost thought she would endure a rape and a gaping wound and months of nightmares if only she could be with him at the end.

Her love was turning into hatred of happy things. Her love was turning into jealousy of God. And he would not even be there to teach her sacrifice and forbearance and grace.

She lifted her head and wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand. “I mustn’t cry!” she sobbed. “Cat will see my eyes.”

“I think you have enough to cry about that she won’t be surprised.”

The tenderness of his voice made her own throat ache.

“I can’t even tell my sister,” she squeaked. “It’s alone I shall be, with my secret…”

“You will never be alone again, Flann. You will always have a part of me, come what may.”

“Aye, and it’s glad I am!” she cried defiantly.

“God forgive me, so am I,” he sighed.

She stared at his face in the amber afternoon light, drinking in his features so that she could recreate them in the dark when she closed her eyes. Perhaps she would see some of them again even before he returned. The freckles could not come until the child was older, but perhaps the lips, perhaps the cloud-​​gray eyes…

His face grew sadder the longer she stared. Then she recalled something he had said, something that had been cast into shadow by the radiant words “a part of me”.

“What do you mean ‘come what may’?” she protested. Her voice quavered like a child’s.

“Do you want me to promise you I shall return?”

“Won’t you?”

“Do you want me to promise it?”

“Aye!”

“Can a mortal man promise such a thing, my treasure? It’s many miles to Rome and back again, over mountains and over sea. And I don’t know what the Church plans for me.”

“But they said you would return again!”

“That was one letter written months ago, Flann,” he said patiently. “I think they will send me back again, but whether as a… a priest, or…”

He appeared confounded, as if he wanted to say more but feared saying too much.

Flann was heartened. Did he mean he would confess to them? Did he mean they might defrock him and send him away as a common man, who might then rejoin her and marry her as he ought? As he desired?

It was surely an ignoble thing for a priest to wish, at least aloud. She thought she understood.

He turned away from her suddenly to stare out the window into the falling light.

“How would you know me,” he asked, “if you met me far from here and long hence?”

“What?” she laughed nervously.

“How would you know it was I and not some other man? How would you know it was I, even in disguise?”

“What do you mean?”

He glanced quickly over his shoulder at her. “Answer me, Flann.”

“Well – by the red hair of you! But, my love…”

“A man can change the color of his hair.”

“What a queer question! By your wee freckles, then.”

“A man can paint freckles on his face or hide them with powder.”

“Well, then, it’s by your eyes I would know you. A man can’t change the color of the eyes of him. And it’s few men have eyes the color of clouds.”

He nodded. “That is true.”

“But why do you ask me such things? What – what do you mean? Don’t you mean to return in the fall?”

He turned back to her and laid his hands on her waist.

“I only wanted to know how you would remember me, my treasure. Red hair and freckles and eyes the color of clouds. I like that.”

She smiled, reassured.

He tapped her smiling lips with his finger. “Since you thought of my hair first, by my hair you shall be rewarded.”

He left her and went to rummage in his stiff leather bag that he had left leaning against the wall. He returned with a little pouch of tan linen, which he presented to her with a wink and a bow.

“It’s a fool I am for doing this. It’s few men have hair as red as mine, after all.”

Inside she found a scanty lock of his hair. Against the dun linen she saw just how bright it was, and how different was every strand: some were coarse and straight and dark, some wiry and red, some thin and crinkled and gold.

She lifted it to her nose and smelled it.

“What’s this now?” he laughed.

She blushed. “Your hair always smells like incense…”

“Then you may come to the chapel if you wish to smell it. And if you wish to see it,” he said gently, “I ask you to close your eyes and try to remember it as much as possible. We can’t risk your curious Cat-​​sister finding this.” He closed her fist over the pouch. “Keep this hidden away.”

She nodded.

“Now, let us have one last kiss…”

“One!” she squealed.

“Whisht!”

“Already?”

“Your sister is waiting in the chapel, my treasure.”

“But… I only just…” Her mouth was twisting itself up again.

He stroked his hand down her cheek. “I shall never get a proper kiss if you cry every time I suggest it.”

“Shall I never see you again?” she whispered.

“If you are in your window at dawn tomorrow, you may see me riding by. And I promise I shall do everything in this mortal body’s power to return to you, Flann. Perhaps more.”

He tried to kiss her, but when her mouth did not cooperate, he kissed her cheeks and chin instead. As soon as he lifted his head, she panicked.

“That can’t be the last!” she whimpered.

“I could kiss you for hours, but it wouldn’t change anything, my treasure. The time for kissing is past. Now is the time for farewell.”

She stared at him, paralyzed in her body and half-​​paralyzed in her gasping breath.

He stepped away from her and laid his hand on her belly. Then she could not even breathe. After a moment he lifted it again slightly, hesitated, and then quickly traced the sign of the cross over her belly with his thumb.

Flann let out her breath slowly. She still scarcely understood what this man thought of his child. It had taken her so long to convince him it was his that she was surprised he seemed to desire it so ardently now.

He stood and lifted his thumb to her forehead. Then he too seemed paralyzed, staring into her eye that was not hidden behind his hand. With her one eye she looked into his two.

Suddenly he was kissing her – “a proper kiss”, as he had desired – and this time she was too surprised to cry.

He did not kiss her for hours. He kissed her only long enough to go through all the sorts of kisses they knew: deep and slow, quick pecks, tender nibbles; and he even moved on to kiss her cheeks and chin as before, her brows, her eyelids, and finally her forehead.

When she opened her eyes, he was already gazing on her with such love and sorrow that she knew he feared he would never kiss her again.

At once he lifted his hand and traced the sign of the cross over her forehead.

“Now go,” he murmured, “and sin no more.”

“No!” she gasped. She felt he had somehow sealed her away from him.

He took a step away from her and closed his eyes.

She shuffled towards him, whimpering, “My love…”

“Go, my treasures,” he said mournfully.

“We will meet again,” she said desperately, trying to make it true by force of her own will. “We will meet again.”

“God willing.”

“Brude…”

“Go, Flann. I’m only a man under these robes, as you said.”

She stopped and stared for a moment. His eyes were tightly shut, but she thought that if he opened them and blinked, tears would spill forth. But he did not.

She backed slowly out of the room. She would not turn away from him until the door had closed before her face. She would look at him as long as she could – the red hair, the freckles on the flushed cheek, the beard that smelled and scratched like incense. She was only sorry she would not get a last look at his cloud-​​gray eyes.