Paul and Malcolm do the Christian thing

Aengus was trying to remember the last time he had waited up for his da. As with most last times, he hadn’t known it then, and if he had he probably would have thanked the Lord. It was funny what a man could grow to be nostalgic for.

Once old enough to drink with the men, he had no longer waited up but gone along and dragged his father home himself. So it would have been when he was still too young to drink and too slight to drag. Domnall’s age, perhaps.

But before then, all the way back to when he was just old enough to climb over the slatted sides of his crib, he had spent many a night on the bench in their cramped front room, waiting, half-​dozing, hugging his legs and resting his cheek on his scabbed knees. He would have basin and towels at the ready, and a pan of water warming on the hearth—hot enough, but not so hot as to scald a lad if spilt or thrown. And he would have shoes on his feet, in case his assessment of the paternal mood warranted a flight down the hill to Flann’s house.

It was funny what a lad could get used to, and what a man could miss. He still could not sleep until his father was safe at home.

He was not expecting his father home tonight, however. He doubted Eadie would set his father loose to wander two and a half miles along unfamiliar roads, or—God forbid—take a shortcut over the downs. His father would sleep at the castle. And Aengus, who had feigned a sore throat to avoid an evening spent watching Colban and his sons flattering Lasrua with their false gallantry, would toss and turn at home.

But the evening was young yet when Garalt came in from the gate, looking constipated or otherwise afflicted.

“Sir,” he said, rocking his string bean’s weight from foot to foot, “Sir Malcolm is here…” He drew out the final word strangely, as if wanting to make it last.

“Malcolm is?”

Aengus sat up and discovered that the evening was not as young as he had thought, or else he was drinking more quickly than usual.

“His father with him?” he asked the guard.

Aengus’s heart warmed with the idea that Colban had changed his mind at the last moment—that he had told Lasrua the truth, freeing Aengus from his oath not to receive him until he had, just in time to give him a cousinly farewell.

Aengus had not realized how much his loyalty to Lasrua had cost him until this unsuspected hope was dashed. For Garalt said, “Nooo…”

“Then is he indecent or what? Send him in already. I’ve seen everything.”

“But, sir—”

Malcolm cut short Garalt’s protest by showing himself in. He was dressed quite decently—not a hair out of place, for this was Malcolm—the only objectionable point being that he was still wearing his sword. But Aengus did not mind. Malcolm was family. Malcolm was a friend.

“Evening, Cousin,” Aengus said.

He pushed himself off the couch and went to meet him, only slightly confounded by the way the floor wobbled beneath his feet like a sheet of tin. He thought he hid his unsteadiness well enough.

“Pardon the mess, I just put the girls to bed. You’re knowing how it is.”

Aengus grinned, and Malcolm forced a taut smile. Aengus began to worry.

“It’s about the father of me, isn’t it? God bless him! What has he broken? Whom has he challenged to a duel? Need me to go fetch him, do you?”

Now that he was on his feet, his head was throbbing. He thought the night air might do him some good, even if it might give him the sore throat he was feigning; and if he brought his father home he might sleep after all. And if at the castle he chanced to meet Colban and Lasrua together…

But Malcolm let out a breath as if he had been holding it back, and he broke into a real smile.

“I doubt the father of you will be allowed to go anywhere tonight. He told Edris he has a sore throat, so she probably has his neck wrapped in flannel and a cup of hot chamomile tea in his hand right now.”

“Ach! If he can’t convince her to come sing him to sleep, he’ll get her to his bedside some other way!”

Malcolm laughed. “For it’s but one slip from the bedside into the bed!”

“The devil! I hope she paints him front and back with a mustard plaster and dumps a pot of leeches in his lap. Serve him right! God bless him!”

Aengus remembered he was feigning a sore throat himself, so he coughed and added, “Well, come in, Malcolm! I’ve no Edris to make me a chamomile tea, so I’m drinking hot wine, and mayhap you’ll join me?”

Malcolm’s gaze went past him to the pitcher beside the bench, and then across the floor, taking in the rumpled baby blankets and toys, Cat’s forgotten foot pillow, and the pair of boots Domnall had abandoned by the door in his adolescent haste to go see his sweetheart. Aengus wondered whether Malcolm’s house was as spotless as the rest of him at the end of the day. He had not visited there often enough to know.

“No, thank you,” Malcolm said smoothly. “I am here to see Paul.”

Aengus squawked, “Paul?”

Malcolm’s Colin-​inspired smile had vanished. “I was told he was in.”

“Aye, but…”

Now Aengus understood Garalt’s hesitation. Paul was furious at Malcolm for something he had said or done to Vash. And here came Malcolm with a sword. Aengus needed to sober up in a hurry.

“You see,” Aengus said, “as soon as I put the girls to bed, Cat and Paul went up to bed themselves. By which I mean…” He lifted his brows suggestively and shrugged as if he would have liked to help but simply couldn’t.

“I see what you mean,” Malcolm said. “But in that case they’re probably still awake. I need to see Paul.”

Aengus let his arms fall. “Is this some kind of emergency?”

“It can’t wait till morning.”

“Why not? Is somebody ill?”

Malcolm only stared at him. No, simply looked at him. Clearly the son of Colban had remembered his rank. The likes of Aengus did not deserve explanations.

“Damn it, Malcolm! You cannot send me upstairs to tell a man to pull out and put his pants back on, and come down to meet a man who hates him, without at least giving him a reason!”

Aengus was startled by the hiss and pop of three candles flaring to light on the torchère behind him. They both looked up in time to see Paul striding through the far door, silent in his stocking feet.

He moved with the self-​assurance of a sighted man, for he could find his way around the house by listening for echoes off the stone walls and orienting himself by candle flames. But in Malcolm’s presence his pride prevented him from shuffling his feet across the wood to knock away any scattered toys or shoes. Aengus held his breath, fearing he would go a step too far. But he stopped on the edge of the rug.

“Here is Paul,” he said coldly. “What do you want from him?”

Paul was decent, in fact, though must have been naked at some point, since he had changed his clothes. He was dressed like an elf now, in tailored pants that flared at the feet and a silky sleeveless vest. But the laces on his vest hung loose, only half-​laced; his belt was slung low on his hips; and his pant cuffs fell in folds over his feet.

Nevertheless he wore those clothes with an easy elegance that made stiff, straight, lint-​free Malcolm look awkward and fussy. And beside them both, Aengus simply looked shabby and unshaven. He scratched at a spot of something on his belly.

Malcolm asked Paul, “Are you a Christian?”

Aengus looked up, shocked, but Paul answered coolly, “By the grace of God.”

“Then you must believe in the sacrament of marriage,” Malcolm said. “You must believe that any pagan ceremonies, no matter how literally they mix blood, are nothing but crude and senseless gestures compared to the holy sacrament by which a man and woman are made one flesh. They are—a—” Malcolm faltered and floundered, as if he had unexpectedly run up against the end of his prepared speech. “—nothing, I mean.”

Paul considered the question for a while. “Such rites do not detract from the Christian marriage.”

“But they add nothing.”

Paul brushed his silky hair back behind his shoulder. It might have been a shrug. It might have been an elegant gesture of disinterest.

Malcolm was insistent and growing angry. His voice had the steely clang of his father’s. “How can they add anything to a union that is already complete and perfect, by the grace of God?”

Paul dropped his hand. “Just what are you trying to trap me into saying? That Vash was never married to her as much as you were? I already admit that. And now he isn’t at all. Is that what you want to hear me say?”

A grimace contorted Malcolm’s stiff, clean-​shaven face, but Paul could not see it, and Malcolm managed to keep his voice steady.

“I’m not trying to trap anybody. I’m… trying to get free.”

Paul turned his face briefly towards Aengus, as if they could have exchanged a glance. Aengus saw a flash of befuddlement, but at once Paul’s expression hardened.

“You want me to send for Vash,” he said suspiciously.

Malcolm sighed in relief. Apparently Paul had spared him the effort of making a painful request.

But Paul smiled and added, “We knew you would.”

It was the cruelest thing a man could say to Malcolm. Paul could have called him every vile name he knew in three languages, and it would have humiliated him less than this. Aengus glanced out into the hallway, praying Garalt had not gone far.

Malcolm summoned all his pride and hatred and lifted the sullen, golden-​eyed glare he had already mastered as a knee-​high little boy. But his stare was wasted on Paul. Malcolm was deprived of his best weapon, and Aengus saw him slump as he realized it. In the end he lifted his empty hands like a beggar, though Paul could not have seen this either.

“I ask for the sake of my mother,” he said. “She’s… she’s grieving, and it would do her good to see me. I’ve not seen my mother in three years. Please, Paul. Not for my sake, but for the sake of a righteous woman. My father leaves at dawn, and I would go with him.”

“Fortunately,” Paul said coldly, “my friend Vash would make a good Christian. No one had to teach him to turn the other cheek. I think he would help you. Un–fortunately you can only get to him through me.”

“Please.”

Paul hesitated as if considering it. “Are you a Christian?”

Malcolm straightened. “Of course.”

“Do Christians pronounce curses? Do Christians call upon the power of the Devil?”

Aengus winced. So that was what Malcolm had done. And Paul was lordly in denouncing him, like a tall, beautiful, blind and golden Aelfden, in spite of his customary short temper and his rumpled clothes. The many hours he spent with priests lately were having their effect.

Malcolm muttered, “No, that is a sin.” Then he took a deep breath and held it.

He could not use his strongest arm, and now he would even have to dismantle his defenses. But like a boy unspeaking his boyish curse, he crossed himself three times and mumbled in Gaelic, “I renounce my curse, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; and may the saints and all the archangels bear witness; and may I be struck down if I lie. Amen.”

Aengus wondered what the Abbot would have said to that. The men of his family were known for their elaborate oaths and curses, but in the art of renouncing them they rarely advanced beyond the level of “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Paul said nothing at first. Aengus chanced to look up and spied Cat peeking over the railing of the gallery, clutching her robe closed beneath her chin. Her face was flushed and damp, either from prior exertion or present excitement, and she held a finger before her lips to warn Aengus to silence.

But Paul had surely heard her. Perhaps she was even whispering advice to him from on high, like a tousled, barefoot, glowingly well-​satisfied female conscience. Aengus bit his lips together to keep from laughing aloud.

“I am glad,” Paul finally said. His priestly air was beginning to strike Aengus as hilarious. “That is a terrible weight to have upon one’s soul. For the sake of your mother I will send for Vash tonight, and if he is at home I think he will come. However, you must do one thing for me.”

Malcolm looked surprised, and then wary. “What thing can I do for you?”

“You must shake my hand.”

Aengus missed Malcolm’s reaction because he looked up at Cat. She held up her finger again and shook her head frantically behind it. By the time he looked back, Malcolm was staring wide-​eyed at Paul’s offered hand.

“It would be the Christian thing to do,” Paul explained.

Malcolm cleared his throat and brushed his spotless palm over his spotless tunic. Then he stuck his hand into Paul’s, and Paul squeezed.

“This must be difficult for you, as well,” Malcolm observed.

“Believe me,” Paul said wearily, “it is.”