Amadeo Macario Uriel Theodosio Luna y Salvatella (quam_tristis) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2008-07-08 15:17:00 |
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Current mood: | worried |
Late Monday morning, 14 September 1942, at St Mungo's Hospital...
Amadeo Luna had not been home in the better part of two days, except to sleep. Between chasing after his cousin Esteban and his work for the Spanish expatriates’ society, he might have been busy enough, but then there were also reports that had to be made to the Dux Bellorum, and that was always through Priscilla. On top of that, some of the people he’d managed to get out of Spain were not in good shape, and there had been only so much Yvon could do for them without bringing them in—so here he was, at St Mungo’s again. There was a stack of unread owls that came up to his nose on his desk, but he already had enough work for two men without looking at them. He ought to go home. But there was Yvon, pacing, bleary-eyed, outside of Yang’s treatment room.
Amadeo had heard that Yvon was near dying, but no-one had sent for him. Yvon didn’t look like a patient, but he wasn’t wearing his white robe or carrying any of his tools; he was, in fact, dressed like a nobleman, which was something Amadeo hadn’t seen in years. He was dishevelled, but not debauched, and finally he sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands. It was then that Amadeo came over and sat beside him. “Yvon, what’s going on? Are you well?”
Yvon uncovered his face and looked down at him, blinking, his expression shading from panic to relief to confusion as he realised who he was talking to. “Father…me? I’m fine, you didn’t come because I sent for you…?” His voice trailed off or just gave out, and then he shrugged. “Of course you were up very early. You probably left the house before my owl arrived…” He laughed at himself, shaking his head. “It’s Alessio, they’re working on Alessio…”
Amadeo frowned. Alessio Zabini had come back from Italy a few weeks ago with a girl he had promised to marry, missing the better part of one leg and wracked with mysterious fevers. Like everyone else who cared for Yvon, Amadeo had been expecting him to fall apart when the marriage took place, but Yvon seemed more worried than angry or hurt, which could only mean…anything. “It’s all right, just tell me what happened,” Amadeo said in a low, soothing voice, taking Yvon’s arm the way he had done when he had been a boy in Spain, too young for the work he was doing but impossible to keep from it.
The touch seemed to settle him. Yvon took a deep breath. “It’s same thing it’s been since we got him back, but this time they think they can fix it, and maybe they can…the fever is gone, at least, and most of the pain. Whatever he did, must have worked…but they won’t let me help them because I’ve been ill. I have been, but I’m not now! I’m quite good as new, even Laurens can’t find anything wrong with me.”
Amadeo smiled at the impatience in Yvon’s voice. If he could get angry, then it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. “But if they think they can fix it, then that’s surely a good thing?” Amadeo suggested, tilting his head slightly. And if Yvon wanted to help… “You two are on speaking terms again.”
Yvon flushed red. “Of course Priscilla wouldn’t have told you,” he said, and glanced down at his scuffed boots. It was so odd to see him dressed like the prince he was. “I broke Alessio’s engagement for him. Shattered it past all hope. In a year or two, maybe, his bride will be willing to speak to us.” He smiled, then, with a sort of sheepish pride. “I fear there’s no help for us, Father. However foolish we are together, we’re so much worse apart…”
“You’ve reconciled, then? For good and proper?” Amadeo held his breath a little. It wasn’t what he was supposed to hope for, but he hoped for it anyway. Alessio was the only man Yvon had ever had that sort of feeling for, and Amadeo knew exactly how many women and girls he had gone through trying to find the right one, because he’d heard all of the anguished confessions that came at the end. It hadn’t worked. It only spread his misery further. Amadeo could no longer believe that God wanted that from Yvon.
Yvon nodded, his expression soft and nervous. “In every way,” he replied, and looked at Amadeo with a hint of silver in his pale blue eyes.
Amadeo was quiet for a moment, long enough to work through his emotions: pleasure, at seeing that Yvon had come to the same truth he had; and a mixture of sadness and amusement that Yvon could expect him to judge them for this. When he’d sorted it out, he nodded. “Good. Good. Better for you both to be settled than the alternative. You’ve hurt each other enough, and plenty of others besides, I think.”
“I know,” Yvon said quietly, “and there are many things I can and do repent of, Father…but this…but he’s not one of them.”
Amadeo breathed out slowly. He’d already been excommunicated. What was one more heresy? “You shouldn’t repent. The damage you’ve done, the suffering you’ve felt when parted from him, that was repentance enough…these decisions are always left to the individual conscience, and it’s clear that this, your relationship with him, is where you are most happy, where you are closest to God. I’m happy for you.”
Yvon was thinking ahead, replaying other conversations; Amadeo knew the moment when he finally let himself hear what he had been told, because he smiled, broadly and brightly. “We’re done being idiots. Promise.”
“No-one’s ever finished being an idiot, I think. It just happens with much less frequency,” Amadeo told him gently. They were brave and passionate young men; they were surrounded by people with strong opinions. There would be other mistakes. But not this one, again.
“We’re done with being idiots about each other, then,” said Yvon firmly.
“There’s the most accurate answer,” Amadeo agreed. “I’m glad.”
Yvon was silent for a moment, and then he spoke softly, heatedly: “I promised him the things he should have always had from me. It’s not enough for him and him alone to know how important he is to me. No matter what he says.”
“Good,” Amadeo said firmly. “You should make a commitment and keep to it. It will do both of you a world of good.” He could only imagine what they would be like, with all of the strength and determination they’d needed to keep themselves apart devoted to staying together and caring for one another, but he wanted to see it. “And you will do more good together than you can, apart.”
“You’re right,” said Yvon. “It’s just with all this being cursed and falling ill…there’s not been much to do about it yet. I suppose we’ll go to the registry soon. I don’t know what else we can do.” He shrugged. “He wanted to be married. It was the thing she offered that I never did, because I didn’t think it mattered, I believed him when he said he didn’t care. And I will give him what he needs. As soon as he can accept it.”
Amadeo knew that tone of voice. It was impossible to argue with that tone; he had never been so glad to hear it. “It’s not good for man to be alone, after all. Perhaps someday, canon law will agree. As it stands, if that’s your greatest failing in life, loving someone so well despite the cost, then you could teach me to be a better man.”
“It’s hardly my greatest failing,” Yvon said after a moment, flushing slightly. “But we’re stupid, when we’re separated.” He shrugged. “I’m surprised you’ve not rethought your stance on canon law.”
“Canon law is what it is. I don’t agree with it all the time, but…my relationship with the Church is difficult, at best. That doesn’t mean I don’t still have a calling to tend to people’s needs as best I can,” Amadeo said with a shrug. “I just have more room to question and doubt. My true talent in life.”
“You’re even better at that than I am,” Yvon said, leaning back in his chair.
“It’s good to know my talent’s acknowledged,” Amadeo said wryly.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” said Yvon. “Alessio doesn’t believe. In fact he wishes I didn’t. But he knows what it means that I’d be willing to make that vow. To him. I almost died. It led to thinking. And questions. And doubts. I’ll tell you, some time, what I saw when I thought I was dying. Not angels, but at least not Hell.” He sighed. “When I can talk about it. Now, it’s still too near. I don’t want to go back there, even in memory.”
Amadeo took his hand and held it tightly. “I would have come.” He had no idea what the things Yvon had seen in his delirium might have meant, or if they meant anything; delirium was often just that. But he was sorry that he hadn’t been there. Dracaena should have sent for him, but of course she hadn’t. When Dracaena saw a cross, she saw Carmela or her brother. Amadeo knew that, and he knew that he shouldn’t have left it to her to remember this.
“I know,” said Yvon. “I wanted you there, Father. But I didn’t want to frighten them. Alessio was terrified, and threatening to kill himself if I died…and Maman was going mad with fear as well, although she hid it rather better. I was fairly sure I wasn’t going to die, although it would have been easy to die if I’d wanted to. I wasn’t willing to leave him. We’d been apart too long, I couldn’t let him go again. Maddie said he was my soul’s anchor.”
“Next time, send for me. I promise not to do anything frightening,” Amadeo told him firmly, squeezing his hand again. Thank God he was alive. And that Alessio hadn’t done anything stupid.
“I will,” Yvon assured him. “I didn’t think you’d do anything frightening. I just thought Alessio would be scared to death that I’d asked. Alessio’s uncomfortable with religion. With all of it. Not just ours. He won’t go down to the stones, or to the taurobolia, unless they make him.”
Amadeo nodded. “Some people are. They see horrible things done in the name of religion at a tender age, and it makes them doubt the benevolence of the Almighty. But He’ll prove it, eventually.”
“Well, if He’s genuinely benevolent, he won’t condemn us for loving each other,” Yvon replied. “Maybe someday I’ll ask you to do us a favour. Since you’re already excommunicated.” He yawned a little.
“It’s not as if I can be extra excommunicated,” Amadeo said with a smile. “You should rest, Yvon.”
“I can’t. ” Yvon laughed softly. “I don’t suppose you could collect them like rejection letters. I remember that first, awful paper I wrote. I’m not a researcher, not like Corinne…”
“Just thinking about the amount of red ink they’d use boggles the mind. I wonder if I’d go up the ranks. My only one was from a bishop, I should at least hope for a cardinal next,” Amadeo said, laughing along with him. It was good to see him laugh sincerely.
“I wonder how many times I’d have been excommunicated if I’d gone through with it.” Yvon shook his head. “It’s not to be thought of. He needs me.”
“And you need him,” Amadeo reminded him; it was so like Yvon to think of himself as the one who was needed and never the one who needed things. “It’s been years since I saw you look like that. You don’t have the gift of chastity. You gave yourself to him, completely, long ago, and you’ve never been able to take yourself back. Isn’t that what marriage is, Yvon?”
Yvon nodded wordlessly, and squeezed Amadeo’s hand, then let go of it. “I have…a lot of idiotic thoughts, sometimes. Idiocy and hubris. If he can’t believe in God, I want him to be able to believe, at least, in me. I’d give my life for him, but I’d rather give it to him. That’s what it means to me.”
“You know the Church has no authority to marry, Yvon. You were a seminarian.” Amadeo tried not to chide him; he’d been through enough in the past few days, that was obvious; but he couldn’t entirely keep from sounding like a schoolmaster. “People marry themselves. The Church can only condone and witness…” He wasn’t sure where his soul was leading him, and he did not want to lead Yvon into error. But if Kyteler’s marriage to Priscilla was a sacramental union, and this was not…then what did the sacrament mean?
Yvon nodded slowly. “Alessio doesn’t care about the sacraments. But he knows what it means to me, and it will mean a great deal to him that I want that, and want it with him.” He shrugged. “I didn’t think that applied to people like us, the theology behind marriage. Who would witness such a vow? Would you?”
Amadeo swallowed; this was the moment of truth, wasn’t it? And yet he felt better about this than he had about Priscilla. “I would,” he admitted. “I don’t have the first idea what sort of ceremony there ought to be, but you’ve already done this. There’s no woman either of you can love half as well as one another. And Christian love is the greatest commandment we know.”
Yvon bit his lip. “I decided, when I was fourteen or so, that I would go to Hell to have Alessio. I suppose the one you’re willing to go to Hell for is the one you truly love,” he said wryly. “The one you’d defy God for, even though you believe in Him.”
“It seems like a safe bet.” Amadeo shrugged. “It doesn’t seem to me that you’re defying God. You are looking for God in each other and pledging fidelity. Better that than to enter into relationships that you know will fail.”
Yvon nodded. “At times I dare to think that perhaps God meant it to be this way,” he confessed with a sly sidewise look. “I know what the Church would say about that…”
“I don’t know the will of God, but perhaps He might have. And if I’m wrong, then I suppose I’ll add it to the list of things for which I’ll answer when my time comes. I doubt it will be at the top of the list,” Amadeo said, and sighed. “You can’t set God and love against each other.”
“You’re a better Christian than the ones who excommunicated you,” Yvon said fiercely, shifting to look him right in the eye. “Will excommunicate me, too. Or would, if they knew.”
“Latae sententiae rather than ferendae sententiae,” Amadeo said, and frowned at himself; but he wouldn’t deceive Yvon, not when he knew how much Yvon trusted him. “It’s a given. But the sacraments I’ve given you, especially reconciliation, they did nothing to absolve you in the eyes of the Church. You know that.”
Yvon shrugged. “There’s no absolution from the Church for me, anyway. Not now. Sometimes I don’t know why I still believe. But I can’t…I can’t not.”
Amadeo sighed. “You know that I feel the same way.”
Yvon shrugged again. “I can’t take your excommunication any more seriously than I take my own. Anyone who believes that Christ would have supported Franco and the fascists, or that it was wrong for us to fight them, has his head up his arse.”
“There are days if I wonder if the reformers were right, if Holy Mother Church has lost her way sometimes. That war made me realise it, and this one, too. The Church stays practically silent on the matter of Germany, and for what? If this is not a just war, the one being waged against the fascists, then I don’t know what is. It just…makes me despair, when I let myself. I think Christ would despair, too,” Amadeo said softly.
Yvon slipped his arm around Amadeo’s shoulders and hugged him hard. “Despair is a sin,” he said gently, “but I do think He weeps at our foolishness.”
Amadeo smiled. “You remember your catechism better than I do, now.” There was something touching about it, to be held like that by the young man he’d been comforting only moments before.
“Only sometimes,” Yvon said, smiling a little desperately. “But you have to work at it to remember it at all in the Bois des Malfées. Maman doesn’t like it, Alessio doesn’t trust it, everyone remembers how I used my faith to justify hurting him, hurting myself…and then there are the benandanti, and the things they’ve done…”
“I know,” said Amadeo, with a little nod. He couldn’t blame Yvon’s family for the positions they’d taken, no matter how frustrating it was. God was good, but so many of His servants were wilfully ignorant of the evil they did in His name. “It takes work to remember it anywhere these days, everything considered. I wonder sometimes if this isn’t how Luther felt, once.”
Yvon shrugged. “I just don’t want you to despair. I’ve done enough of it for all of us.”
“I think we’ve all done enough. But I appreciate the sentiment, I do,” Amadeo replied.
“I’m glad you don’t disapprove of us,” Yvon said after a moment. “It wouldn’t change things, but it matters.” He swallowed. “It does. I don’t know why, it shouldn’t, but it does.”
“I don’t. I want you to be settled and happy,” Amadeo told him firmly. “And that means Alessio.” Of course it mattered. Yvon had been told all his life that he had to choose between God and love. Of course he needed to hear that it didn’t have to be so.
“It does,” Yvon agreed. “I thought he’d never forgive me, but he did.”
“That’s what love means, I think. The infinite capability to forgive,” said Amadeo.
“You may be right,” Yvon said after a moment, and then let him go. “At any rate I have more faith in you than I could ever have in Martin Luther,” he said, with an shy expression that was very nearly childlike.
Amadeo couldn’t help but laugh. “Good to know my reformation has at least one supporter. Success cannot be far behind.”
“I don’t know,” said Yvon. “I don’t disagree with some of the things he taught. I think that everyone should be able to learn Scripture, and read for themselves, but I don’t much care for a lot of what came of it. And I went to the Church of England for years, because Lady Delgardie insisted; I’ve tried, but it’s not my Church. But I also can’t ask the Church that backed the Garcías in Spain and ignored what they did to the poor to forgive me for loving someone. I can’t, and I won’t.”
Amadeo shook his head sadly. “Once, there were prophets to call Israel back when she went astray. We could use a voice in the wilderness now.”
“Is that what you’re called to?” Yvon asked, and looked down at him again with that strange childlike faith.
“I’m not much of a voice in the wilderness. Just someone who needs to see mercy done in a world where there is far too little of it,” Amadeo told him.
“I thought you’d marry Priscilla,” Yvon said after a moment, “but I was so afraid it would be miserable for both of you.” He swallowed. “I want you both to be happy, but in her own way, she’s as difficult as Laurens is…” He shook his head. “I hope that you and Priscilla are still able to talk to each other. That’s really all I can say…”
“I hope we will be,” Amadeo said quietly. He missed their conversations more than he could ever tell Yvon. The fantasies he’d had about her had enlivened his days and nights, made everything sparkling and numinous. The reality had been entirely different. Disappointing, and for her as well. “I can’t get away from this place, and neither can she.”
“A little while ago, you said it wasn’t good to be alone. That doesn’t extend to yourself?” Yvon smiled wryly. “Martin Luther got married.”
Amadeo shrugged. “I have Esteban to look after, and yes, he’ll leave…but there’s always someone else who needs looking after.” He’d looked after Yvon for a while, after all.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I could live at home and never be alone again, but it wouldn’t…it’s not what I need,” Yvon said flatly.
Amadeo shrugged. “It’s strange to try to explain, but I never really feel alone. I have work and devotions, and these things keep me company. Perhaps I have the gift of chastity. Just because you don’t—and we all know that you don’t—doesn’t mean nobody does.”
“You don’t want a partner?” Yvon’s voice was soft and incredulous. “I could have managed poverty. Even obedience, as much as it galled sometimes. But…”
“I don’t think I do,” said Amadeo. He did not know how to say that idealised love had been better, for him; that whatever it was that gave Yvon such strength in sex, it wasn’t there for him. Finally he just shrugged. “If the Almighty decides otherwise, I suppose He’ll make His will known.”
Yvon nodded. “Be a priest, Amadeo…Father. If that’s what you truly want, if you still can. Don’t let anyone stop you from doing what you know you can do. Maybe the Church doesn’t recognise your power to absolve, but I know when I’ve been forgiven. There are a lot of true things that the Church doesn’t recognise.”
Amadeo laughed a little. “My vows are my vows, and I can’t in good conscience toss them aside simply because the Church tossed me aside. Any more than you could forget making yours because the Church won’t recognise them.”
Yvon smiled at him. “I am selfish enough to be glad that you keep them,” he confessed.
“I’m only fit company for Doubting Thomas, I’m afraid,” Amadeo said with a wry sort of smile. “You’ll be a very good husband. I wouldn’t have been.”
Yvon laughed. “Maybe so, but don’t…I mean, if you can.” His expression grew more sombre. “Doubting Thomas is a good cat. But you need more help with your work.”
“Even if he eats more quills than ought to be allowed,” Amadeo replied. “But cats are as they were made to be, which is largely beyond our mortal understanding.” He didn’t want to discuss this any more. He knew he needed help, but not a helpmate. “Yvon…what happened to you? I heard stories, but never the whole truth of it.”
“I don’t think anyone will ever know the whole truth of it,” Yvon said, glancing down at his shoes, “but it was a curse. We believe it was Portia’s mother.”
“Good Lord,” Amadeo said, instinctually crossing himself. “Why on earth?”
“It was meant to keep me from breaking a spell on her daughter,” said Yvon bitterly. “I don’t even know what all of it was; it all went off at once, and we can’t prove it because I recovered.”
“I wish I knew what was wrong with some people,” Amadeo said, shaking his head. He would never understand it. At least Carmela had believed on some level that what she was doing was God’s will. This seemed to be entirely selfish malice. “I wish I knew. Thank God you’re all right.”
“I wish I knew, too,” said Yvon in a soft voice. “Nicodemo committed Portia to keep her from going home again. All I can do is pray for her, and I hope you’ll do the same. I should have stood up at their wedding and aired my objections. I should have stopped it, for Maman’s sake and hers. And his as well, and Alessio’s. But all I can do for it now is pray. I loved that woman very badly, but I did love her, and I hope she is still my friend.”
Amadeo nodded. “I’ll say a novena for her.” He knew how much Yvon had loved the girl, even though she had done an immense amount of damage to what ought to have been his marriage.
“Thank you,” said Yvon. “I…” He swallowed. “I’m going to talk to her friends, once I’m sure he’s all right. Verity and Ellie are good people. They have to understand her situation.”
Amadeo nodded again. “It’s a good thing to do, even if it’s difficult. Good things often are.”
“It’s not hard for me,” said Yvon. “But it’s hard for Alessio. He still thinks Portia’s a threat to us. But she’s not. I want him.”
Amadeo nodded. “You both need quiet and stability. You’ve been through so much, so much more than most young people your age, even with the war to consider. And it’s not going to stop, because of the work that you’ve chosen. You need a home more than most people do, Yvon, and as much as I value the time you’ve given to our work, I do understand that.” He touched Yvon’s arm again, lightly. “Magistra Király is very competent. And so is Susannah. You are brilliant, but you need to rest, you can’t do everything.”
“That’s all I want,” Yvon replied. “Just him and our work and a quiet place to go back to and be together. And family and friends, but I don’t want to live at the Manor any longer than we have to. There’s too much going on.”
Amadeo nodded. “Most couples crave solitude. It’ll be good for you both. Every union needs privacy to blossom, and for God to become apparent in it. I think you both need that sense of the sacred in the quiet places.”
Yvon bowed his head. “Alessio doesn’t know it, but he makes me a better person. Nearly everyone else I have tried to love has made me a worse one, in some way.”
“Then he needs to know it,” Amadeo told him warmly.
Yvon sighed. “I just wish they’d let me go in there,” he said, and leaned back in his chair, his head thrown back.
“Patience,” Amadeo reminded him, his voice gentle. “Waiting is awful, I know.”
“I hate it that Wilkes won’t let me stay with him while they work. I suppose Yang’s right, our fields would interact, and after what happened last weekend Maddie says no, but I hate it,” Yvon said passionately.
“You need to rest.” Amadeo shook his head. “It’s difficult, I know. That’s why it’s a virtue. Would prayer ease your mind, Yvon?”
“Probably,” Yvon said, but he sounded rather doubtful. “It’s all I can do. That shouldn’t bother me, because God is more powerful than I am…but I can’t help feeling it’s my fault this happened, and I should be able to fix it. I should have said something to Alessio before he left, instead of chasing Corinne like a dog chasing hansom cabs.”
Amadeo smiled. Even he’d seen how fruitless that was. At least the girl had had the good sense to refuse. “Perhaps. But this is all part of God’s plan that we cannot hope to divine nor understand. All you can do is appreciate what you have now all the more for it, I’m afraid.”
“I didn’t think he would ever actually do it,” Yvon breathed. “I suppose Nicodemo didn’t either. But at least he tried. I really didn’t think he would go. I didn’t see how he could, when it was so awful in Spain.”
Amadeo nodded. “It’s unfortunate that he went like he did. But he’s home now, and he’ll be made well. For that, we should be grateful.”
“You say that like you think I’m not!” Yvon protested, but he was finally smiling again. “All right then, I suppose I can pray some more.”
Amadeo laughed. “I just know you’re prone to endless self-flagellation when allowed. Prayer is better than anything our medieval brothers might’ve attempted.”
Yvon smiled, but it was a small, secret thing. “I suppose it would be a better use of my energy to pray than to pace. I just…I should be able to do more.”
“Knowing you, I’m certain you’re doing everything you possibly can do,” Amadeo told him. “You know you can’t be his healer. You’re not objective. Do I have to repeat what Wilkes and Priscilla would say?”
Yvon laughed ruefully. “I’m driven, aren’t I?”
“You are. To do good things,” Amadeo said. “But sometimes you’ve done all you can.”
artisson and quam_tristis