Chapter 7 Friar Lukas
Friar Lukas
Friar Lukas starts at the sound of the church doors banging open.
He can’t see the girl from his vantage in the side chapel, but he can hear her.
Her ragged breath fills the space, fast and urgent, as if she’s run like a fox along the canal.
He is slightly shocked but corrects himself.
After all, he brought her to Christ’s chamber door.
So the bride is keen, he thinks. I should not begrudge my Lord an eager spouse.
Her shallow breaths, coming so urgent, have an almost marital intimacy, as if she and Christ were already joined.
A warm shame ascends his throat. He hears her close the doors quietly like she’s sealing a bedchamber. He wants to see her face.
Lukas rises from his knees and steadies himself against the wall.
He creeps along the passage to its intersection with the nave.
He keeps to the shadow, he knows not why.
When he peers around the corner, he sees he would have been invisible to her, even in broad daylight.
The girl is aglow, her eyes glittering and greedy, her braid glossy, her cheeks burning.
Her gaze is fixed on the flame of the taper he lit for her, as if it were a living thing.
As if, he thinks, she is witnessing angels.
He glances to the crucifix above and back to the girl, who is under the candle’s spell.
An annoyance flicks through him; it seems a small heresy to ignore Christ for a candle, but nor can he tear his eyes from her light.
The flame burns and she burns with it, and the sweet smell of beeswax seems to come from her and the candle.
The air thrums with desire. What do you see?
He wants to ask. What do you feel? His longing is an ache at the base of his spine.
His hands dangle cold at the end of his wrists.
If he could reach her, touch the back of her hand, her heat would travel his arm and scorch his heart.
Her passion would engulf him, would burn away his failures.
His sins, his doubts, would become light as cinders.
He wants—he holds his breath at the thought—to be consumed in the bonfire.
He doesn’t move. He watches her from the shadow, his cheeks hot with shame.
He can’t say which is worse to witness, Aleys’s ardor for Christ or Christ’s ardor for Aleys.
She sprints toward the altar. Lukas reaches for the robes and the knife and steps to meet her.