That night when she came beating on the portal doors, he hadn’t known the extent of what she was asking for. Not that it mattered. David had already sworn to help in any way he could in his guise as vicar-deacon; so when what began as a maiden begging for sanctuary transformed into hiding a knight from her family and superiors, there was nothing he could do but to keep his promise and pray that God would give him words to resolve it. So far, no luck.
Lord, you couldn’t have given me a harder penance, the pastor thought to himself creaking down the stairs.
†††
“Jael,” the vicar’s voice flooded the cellar, overpowering dark and damp with the odor of fresh bread. There would be ale as well, and cheese or maybe chevon, and a candle Abel packed in a basket for her every morning and eve. “I hope I’m not disturbing you,” he said, stopping on the bottom step. Jael listened from the far corner as he switched out that morning’s basket, retrieving its unused candle which he added to the pile beside the stairs. The vicar sighed. “This is quite a while to spend alone in the dark. I’ve lost count how many days it’s been, but that’s got to be almost a dozen candles.” There was a rustling of baskets, a scratching sound, sparks, then soft yellow light. Leonhardt twisted away from the illumination toward the shade of the corner where her shadow stretched and shrank. She gazed blankly into her mishappen image, struggling fruitlessly to ignore the rub and clangor as Abel fussed through storage. “It’s amazing, isn’t it,” he asked after minute of arranging, “that a little chapel like this has a horde of gold stored in its cellar?”
The seven gilded braziers, Jael knew he meant, thought she didn’t expect him to begin lighting them. Half were ablaze before the sweetness of frankincense stole her perception, flashing an image of Gavin from the last time she saw him—grinning, golden in the glow of the holy braziers—and this Pareo imposter stood defiling that memory. She exploded to her feet, nearly screamed her first words since going into hiding. “What do you think you’re you doing?”
The vicar smiled, his icy eyes softened by the gentle flames. “They remind me of someone. Someone I lost and might never find again. The last time I saw him, we burned braziers just like these. We even used the same oil.” He breathed deep the sweet scented air. “That used to be a comfort, to know no matter how far a man strayed, he could walk into any church during a holy day service and it would smell just the same as coming home.”
“But you’re not supposed to light them just because you want! They’re for holy days only. Burning them like this—it’s, it’s,” Jael stammered, her anger disarmed. None of the words to mind felt quite right, then, “It’s disrespectful to Gavin! That oil is expensive; he wouldn’t want someone wasting the assembly’s tithes for some stupid self-indulgence.”
“No, you’re right. How selfish of me.” Abel placed a gilded lid atop each of the braziers. One by one, the golden flames snuffed out till in the dim, his eyes returned hard as ice. “But while we’re in the spirit of respecting Herbstfield’s good deacon, maybe you can explain to me why he’d approve of you holing up down here.” Frankincense faded with the hiss of the burning wick, candle wax melting, pattering onto the packed dirt floor. “What are you doing here, Jael?”
Her eyes fell to the hardened earth. She didn’t possess an answer to that question—that was perhaps the reason she’d come at all. She was lost, groping in the dark with questions of her own, “Why did you help me? It’s a deadly sin to hide a deserter. You could’ve been burned at the stake had they decided to search the chapel.”
“Because I don’t believe that you’re a deserter, and even if you are, your superior seemed more worried about finding you in one piece. It was difficult lying to him, harder still to lie to your father. Leonhardt is a good man.”
Young Leonhardt scoffed.
“What?” asked Abel.
“Typical Pareo clergy. No mention of God in your list of worries?”
“If God was the one who punished our sins on earth, this whole world would be reduced to ashes. Man causes himself enough suffering as it is.”
Jael disagreed. “Not for me. I haven’t suffered nearly enough for what I’ve done.” That made the vicar chuckle. She glared at him expecting an expression of derision, but there was only compassion behind his rough, blonde whiskers.
“Poor child, do you believe you’re the only one who is hurt by your failings?”
“Of course not!”
“Yet here you remain.”
Guilt and anger swelled together. “Shut up! You’re a fool if you think they’re anything but better off without me, an oath-breaker! A bastard! A slut! A fraud! You don’t know anything about me! If you did,” she choked on the words, “if you did, then you’d throw me out with the rest of the trash.”
“Then you’d get the punishment you deserve,” said the vicar, his tone dead of jest and sarcasm. The whiplash took Jael aback. She’d been riding high on
