Truth comes to Father Aelfden

Father Aelfden leaned back against the door in relief. He was home. He could pull himself together.

He had spent the evening at the home of Father Brandt, and so he had gone to the church rather than the chapel for Matins. To his shame, his mind had not been on the service.

The leaves had not begun to take on their autumn colors, but the trees in and around the churchyard were already growing bare, so dry had the summer been. Their leaves had merely dried brown and dun on the branches, and they were falling already. But the leaves of the miraculous willow were still as green and tender as they had been for the past seven years, and its fame was beginning to spread.

And so, though it was only early September, already pilgrims were beginning to gather in the field behind the church.

Father Brandt lived in uneasy tolerance of the tree and of those who saw it as a sign from God. Aelfden suspected that he did not quite believe the tree was the work of God at all, but it was enough for him that the people came as pilgrims and asked to be shriven of their sins.

It was not enough for Aelfden. Either the tree was Miracle, and he would rejoice, or it was Magic, and he would do all he could to dispel it. He would not have the people enter onto the paths of righteousness by a false gate, but he did not know the truth, and he did not know what to do.

Thus he had walked home muttering things that he would have condemned if he had heard them on the lips of his nephew. Now, exhausted as he was, he needed to pray a while, to collect himself, more even than he needed to sleep. He would pray for mastery of himself, first, and then he would ask for guidance.

He lit the candle, stripped to his loincloth, and took the tiny blade out of its casket. He kneeled, and the ache of his knees on the cold, hard stone was a relief. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, and began the soft drone of his prayer of humility. The familiar Latin words were a relief.

He pressed the point of the blade into his elbow, and the sudden pain dispelled the dark shadows of his mind. The universe was reduced to a point of white light that illuminated a bare and boundless plain. This was Truth. This was all the beauty he knew.

“Father,” an angel murmured.

“Ah?” he gasped. This had never happened before. He lifted the knife from the crook of his elbow – he had barely been cut – but he dared not open his eyes.

“Father,” she repeated. It was the voice of a woman. “Open your eyes and see.”

The white light had already gone out and the shadows of his confusion had returned. It did not matter in any case. He could open his eyes.

The woman was pale enough that her skin seemed to shine with its own radiance, except for a dull black marking that curled across her cheek. She was young and, he supposed, very beautiful. This was of no concern to him. He did not care to kneel before her without proof of her holiness, and so he unbent his stiff knees and stood.

He realized suddenly she had spoken to him in Danish. But in what language would an angel speak to a Dane?

“Who are you?” he asked. Depending on the answer she gave, he thought he might ask her what she was doing there afterwards.

“Don’t you know me, Father?” she asked. “You who think you know the Seen and the Unseen, do you not recognize the Unseen when it is revealed to your eyes?”

“What do you mean?”

“I am you, Father. Your Unseen. Some men call you mad, and you may choose to believe so as well after I have left you. It will be a shame if you do, for I am here to tell you to believe what you have always feared to admit. I am here to tell you Truth. Are you prepared to hear it?”

He did not understand. He still held the knife in one hand, and a slow drop of blood was sliding down the other arm, and there was a strange and beautiful woman before him who was promising him Truth. He had always lusted after Truth, more than after beautiful women, more than after anything.

“You have neatly separated the Seen and the Unseen, Father, just as men have neatly separated Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, Miracle and Magic, Man and Woman. You are wrong. It is all one. Good and Evil are one. Light and Darkness are one. Beauty and Ugliness are one. Even Truth and Falsehood are one. I am here to show you.”

“What do you mean?”

She was so close to him. Or rather, he thought, Truth was so close to him. He felt the same throbbing ache low in his belly that he felt when his pain brought him to the edge of unconsciousness.

She took the slender knife from his hand. “Pain and Pleasure are one. I am here to show you.”

“How?” he whispered hoarsely.

She laid her other hand on his body. “Man and Woman are one. I am here to show you.”