The elf is taken out

“If you would – ” the priest began and then interrupted himself. “I hope you do not find it too cold in here, Catan. I am accustomed to unheated rooms. We could have a fire made.”

“Are you cold, Cat?” the elf blurted. “I could make you a fire.”

At last he had spoken to her. These first words were not nearly as eloquent as he had hoped they would be, but upon hearing “fire” he had been reminded that this was something he could do for her.

Cat did not answer, but the elf had already located the liminal heat of a fire left since the night before to burn itself out through neglect. The logs had crystalline hearts of charcoal, and they burst eagerly into flame again, with a delightful crackling and spitting.

The Abbot choked and jerked back from the fire. “That was not necessary,” he grumbled afterwards, brushing his hands down his robe to hide his discomposure.

The elf realized that he had perhaps not done the most diplomatic thing, given the circumstances. However, it was rather funny.

“You will permit me to add a log?” the priest asked.

“Of course.”

“I was speaking to Catan. Please forgive me for forgetting that you cannot see whom I am addressing.”

“It is no matter.”

“Catan?” the priest prompted. “Shall I add a log before we sit?”

Her voice was so weak that her “Aye” was like the cry of certain cats: mostly sigh, with only a soft squeak at the end. She could not have been smiling. He thought she was hurting, and he did not know why.

If they had been alone, he would have gone to her at once. If he could not make her laugh, he thought he could at least prevent her from crying – if only she would allow him. He had approached her, he had heard her speak, and he had spoken to her. Now he wanted to touch her.

But he knew he would not be allowed to sit near her. The priest disposed himself and Cat on the couch, and the elf was sent to sit in the chair opposite them, near the fire. He would not be able to guess how she felt unless she spoke, and she had spoken so little.

“No one has asked me to speak to the two of you,” the Abbot began, “which I think a shame. There are a few matters which need to be made clear. Young… What is your name?”

“I don’t have a name,” the elf said.

The priest hesitated. “That is inconvenient.”

“Cat used to call me Friend,” he murmured. He turned his face to her, but it could not help him see how the words affected her. He could only hear a faint gasp.

“Friend… well, that will do for now. But I understand that you have taken to calling her your wife. Is it not so?”

“She is my wife.”

“No!” Catan’s voice was as low as a man’s and shaking. “No priest married us. Tell him, Father.”

“My dear,” the priest sighed. “Marriage is a sacrament between a man and a woman. A priest is not strictly necessary, as I have already tried to explain to your cousin Egelric. However!” he cried abruptly, as if to stay her anger or her tears. “What it does require is absolute consent and intention to marry. One cannot wake and find oneself unexpectedly married.”

“I never consented,” she whispered.

“Then you are not married. Moreover, second only to this is the necessity that one’s spouse must be a Christian, else there is no marriage. You say you have read the Bible, Friend. Are you a Christian?”

“I am an elf…” he murmured.

“But are you – ”

“And I call her my wife only because it is a word you will know! She is my éla. It means ‘wife’ to the elves.”

“I am not an elf!” she cried. At last her voice was clear and sure.

“Cat!”

There was no denying that she was not an elf, but if she had said “I am not your wife” with such a voice, he thought his heart would have died on the spot.

“Catan is a Christian,” the priest said firmly, “whether or not she is an elf or you are an elf. She would no more be your wife if you were a pagan man. She cannot be your wife unless you are a Christian.”

“But I am an elf!” he protested.

“That is irrelevant. Lady Iylaine is an elf, and she is a Christian.”

“But how can your god be my god?” he wailed in despair. “The son of your god came to live as a man, not as an elf. Nowhere in your Bible does it talk about elves. It is all about men. There is nothing except men, and angels, and demons. Perhaps we are demons,” he cried, “as Egelric says!”

“You are certainly not demons,” the priest said darkly. “Lady Iylaine herself stands as proof. She is a good Christian woman, and wears the silver cross she had from her godmother the late Queen, and she has received the Eucharist from my own hand. No demon could do this. One is forced to note that neither are you elves angels.”

“What are we then?”

“I do not know. Perhaps you are a sort of man.”

The elf snorted.

“However, the word of the Lord could not be more clear: ‘For God so loved the world’ – not men, but the world – ‘that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ I think your kind have the capability to believe, or not believe, in the Lord. Therefore you have the capability to be saved.”

“Is it true, Father?” Catan croaked.

“I believe so, and Father Brude and Father Brandt agree.”

When she spoke again, her voice was both steadier and nearer. She was leaning towards him. “Then you needn’t be damned, Friend.”

“Cat!” he whispered. He hardly noticed what she had said – he knew only that she had come closer to him, and her voice had lost some of its edge, and, most of all, she had called him Friend.

“Not if he believes,” the priest said.

“But Father!” Catan sat back again, but there was no longer any bitterness in her voice, and that was enough to make it sweet to the elf’s ears. “He believes that it’s damned he is, and it’s as a bat he’ll spend eternity, living in a sort of Hell.”

The priest grunted. “If he is capable of believing in ‘a sort of Hell’ then he is capable of believing in the Lord and escaping the real one. That is my point.”

“Aye, and don’t you want to, Friend?”

“Is that what you want, Cat?” he asked eagerly.

He heard her sit back so abruptly that the wooden frame of the couch protested.

“It is something you should want for yourself,” the priest said. “I shall not denigrate the influence for good that a Christian lady may have upon her friends; however, it is ultimately a decision you must make yourself, and for yourself.”

“But then we might be married as Christians,” he said.

“Friend,” the Abbot warned. “She must also consent. She certainly will not be your wife so long as you are not a Christian, but even if you are, she may not choose to marry you.”

He had been so certain that she was already his that he could scarcely conceive of a reality in which she would never be. He did not have the strength of Vash, nor the nobility of spirit. He would surely die, as surely as he was damned.

“Cat!” he whimpered. “Don’t you want me?”

Cat was silent. He could not see her, he could not hear her – he could not know whether she was smiling shyly at him, or whether she scowled or grimaced at the mere idea, or whether she was softly crying. He had to touch her.

He moved as gracefully as possible so as not to startle her or the priest, but in a bound he was at her feet, his knees on the hem of her gown. He could feel the warmth of her own knees against his chest, but it was her hands he wanted. Her hands were all he truly knew of her.

She could have pulled them well away, but he found them and held them fast, though they struggled in his hands like angry fish. He pressed them against his closed eyes, dimly hoping he would thus be able to see her better. He did not think the priest would let him touch her for long.

The last time he had touched her, he had felt such agony that he had let go of her hand. He was startled to find that she was still in pain, and surprised too that the fire in her did not come leaping up to meet him as it always had, but brooded away inside of her, and he had to go deep to find it.

Nor was it the bright, dancing fire he had put into her. It smoldered, sullen, like a fire buried beneath the earth and too long deprived of air. Its heart was no bright ember, nor even a light lump of charcoal eager for a flame, but a fire he scarcely recognized – something heavy and oozing, infernally hot, and dark and glassy at its crackling edges.

“Let it breathe, Cat!” he gasped, though he scarcely knew what he meant himself. “Don’t be afraid!”

Catan moaned, and he could feel her misery. The priest was scolding him, but he scarcely heard. He was certain he could help her understand if only he could touch her – but not only her hands. He needed to touch her face, touch her neck, touch her back, touch her hips, touch all the rest of her – and not only with his hands.

But he had only her hands, and he had only a moment. He brought her hands to his lips and kissed each of her fingers one by one, desperately, and when he had kissed all eight he whispered, “Let me touch you.”

That had not been the most diplomatic thing to say in the presence of a priest. Suddenly a hand hooked itself beneath his collar, and a surprisingly strong arm hoisted him to his feet.

“I will not allow you to distress her.”

“I won’t hurt her!” he sobbed.

“Nor hurt her. Come with me, Friend.”

“Cat!” He could hear her short, gasping breaths, and he knew she was crying.

But the Abbot took his elbow and led him away. “If you love her, you will realize that touching her is not the most important thing. When you are able to say to her, as Ruth said to Naomi, ‘Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God,’ then you may look to her to be your wife, if she will have you. Only afterwards may you permit yourself to touch her.”

“I only want her to trust me…”

“You will have time enough to earn her trust,” the priest said grimly. “Now come away with me.”