twasadark | Part X - The Road to Awe and Wonder

-*-

It took them five days of easy desert traveling to make it back to Jaffa. They were lucky this time, and met no one other than merchants on the trip. Jensen was grateful because not only had they lost enough members of their expedition on their last trip across the desert, but physically he was not up to much more than clinging to the back of a horse. His body’s weakness frustrated him, but there was little he could do about it other than rest, eat well, and be patient.

He and Alona had moved carefully around one another over the past week, always aware of the other’s location and actions, but steering clear whenever possible, speaking little but watching one another out of the corner of their eyes. It was maddening, because Jensen could not get her from his mind; she was always there, a silent, beautiful presence, her dark eyes like pools of cool water to a man dying of thirst. He prayed for the cessation of the burning passion he felt for her, but if anything it seemed to grow stronger.

They stayed in the same inn in Jaffa as the last time, the white-washed villa with the garden filled with flowers and fountains. He remembered the garden well, the soft manicured pathways, the smell of the blooming jasmine, Alona’s lips sweet and hot on his.

He wandered back down to the garden in the early evening, filled with a restless, anxious energy that he could not seem to quell. He bathed in the town, spending as much time as he could in the sauna. The relief was temporary. Soon his wound ached and his stomach twisted and he could not seem to stop his legs from carrying him down into that garden, into the maze that lay beyond it, and it was there he found Alona, sitting on a marble bench.

She was looking down at her hands, her posture slumped, her blonde hair freshly combed and gleaming. He froze when he saw her, but his heartbeat kicked up like an unbroken horse, frantic and panicked. She looked up at him, and an ocean of words seemed to pass between them without sound. She stood, slim and elegant and so achingly beautiful, and walked to him, her eyes never leaving his, and when she drew close enough she reached out and took his hand. It was as if the touch of her skin was a flaming brand that ignited the blood in his veins. His breath sped up and his heart pounded like a crazy man beating on the door to his chest.

“Come,” she said, and led him inside the villa.

She had procured a room of her own away from her ladies, on the far side of the villa. He remembered thinking that it was an unwarranted luxury, since the room was fully furnished and private, but now – well, now he could think of nothing but the want coursing through his veins. They stepped inside – the room was elegantly furnished with cool tiles, a large wooden bed, and diaphanous purple cloth draping the bed and the windows. The windows were open and the scent of jasmine wafted in, sweet and light; the distant tinkle of the fountains was a perfect accompaniment.

They stood looking at one another, transfixed. “We stand on the threshold and wait,” Alona said in a half whisper. “Shall we enter or flee?”

He swallowed, fear and excitement and forbidden desire choking him. “I cannot flee,” he confessed. ”I want nothing so much as you, right here. Right now.”

His words were like a tiny flame igniting dry tinder. She crushed her lips to his and he met hers hungrily. The press of her breasts, the swell of her hips, the sweet drugging kisses of her mouth … he could not get enough of her. It was like sinking deep in cool water, all encompassing. Hands and mouths were everywhere, frantic and needy. They could barely separate for the time necessary to shed tunic and boots, slippers and gown. They tumbled to the soft mattress, bare skin on bare skin, their kisses like honey, delicious and impossible to resist.

He dragged his hand up her warm form; she gasped and arched up into his touch when he curled his fingers around her breast, thrilling at her obvious pleasure. He kissed down her neck, inhaling the sweet sandalwood fragrance of her, running his tongue around her areole, lingering there while his fingers crept to the vee between her thighs. She was wet there, and eager, thrusting up into his questing fingers. He rubbed firmly, gauging pressure and action by the timbre of her gasps and sighs. She was so beautiful like this, mad with want. He kept on, transfixed by her reactions, her incredible needy whines, the sweat pooling between her breasts, and she grew increasingly frantic, her eyelids fluttering, her lush lips parted, until finally she strained up against him, crying out.

She collapsed back onto the bed, panting. Her hand, small and deft, slid down his back and across his hip until she closed it around his cock, hard and throbbing between them. He closed his eyes at the incredible ecstasy. It had been so long since he had loved a woman … years of privation and touch starvation, and now, to have such a sensual feast laid bare beneath him … it was like a dream, all driving need. Her breathing had calmed a bit, but her eyes were still hungry, still wanting, and she closed her hands around his buttocks, urging him to settle between her thighs.

He levered himself up above her on strong arms, looked down at the glory of her smooth slender form, blanketed by his rough body that was knotted with scars, muscles standing out ropy and wiry, his ribs protruding. He seemed inadequate, wasted with injury as he was, but she looked at him with appreciation. He guided himself into her slowly, watching her face to gauge his progress. When he had breached her fully, he paused, breathing, their faces close together, their sweat mingling.

“Yes,” she hissed, low and throaty. “Move.”

He did as she commanded, starting with a slow pace, rolling and smooth, her calves curling around his back, squeezing and urging him on. His rhythm intensified as did the cadence of his breath. She moved with him, making gorgeous broken noises, shuddering and squeezing him tighter and tighter as he struggled to please her fully. When she arched up into him, crying out and pulsing around his cock, he could no longer restrain himself, and he pounded into her, his breath coming in long tearing gasps, until the world whited out his vision and he pumped his seed into her with a shout, the ecstasy at once both powerful and unstoppable. He collapsed half on and half off her, all energy gone.

They lay like that for a long moment, breathing hard, coated with sweat, the sounds of the birds in the trees nearby gentle and unaffected. He buried his head in her shoulder and she ran slender fingers through his sweat-soaked hair. “Jensen,” she said, breathing his name like it was something splendid and precious, something well-loved and long-desired. “Oh, Jensen.”

Later, when they had both dozed and missed the call to the evening meal, they roused, kissing languorously. The moon bathed the room in white light. The see-through purple cloth that draped from the bed bunched under Jensen’s knee by accident and instead of pushing it aside he gave a mischievous grin and spread it across Alona’s naked form, marveling at the hills and valleys of her flesh, the shadowed areas and the delectable curves. He kissed her through the cloth, thrilling as she gasped and writhed, teasing with gentle, relentless attention. When at last he pushed aside the scratchy cloth her skin felt warm and smooth under his palms.

This time they made love slowly, and the rocking motion of their bodies reminded Jensen of the swell of waves on the sea, strong and deep.

He left her sometime after midnight with a lingering kiss, and crept to his silent room. He lay awake for a long time, awash in the memory of sensations too powerful to resist. When at last he slept it was a deep and restorative sleep, despite the infamy of what he had done.

“This cannot continue,” Alona said, under her breath. They were standing in front of the inn, a respectable distance apart, the next morning. All around them the world bustled by, tradesmen at work and women headed toward the marketplace, all the city’s people engaged in affairs of their own, so oblivious to the fevered discontent that was his.

“Yes, I know,” Jensen said. His throat felt tight.

Alona stood upright and tense, and she gave him a stilted nod, retreating to the refuge of civility when only hours ago she had lain, sated and drowsing, in his arms.

Later, though, he crept to her room and she answered his quiet knock with a pleased smile. They fell together like desperate things. They had so little time – they both knew it.

It was the same the night after that.

On the fourth day, Jensen succeeded in obtaining passage to Rome for them. They would leave in the morning aboard. That evening, he came to her one last time, and this time their coupling was slow and sad, and afterward they held each other while Alona cried a little. There was no room on the vessel, cramped and tiny as it was, for them to meet one another.

“I would that this night might last for a month of days, that the passion we have found here might not be spent so quickly,” she whispered to him in the dark.

He smoothed his hand down her arm, feeling his heart thud in low heavy beats. “You are like cool water to me, life giving and precious. How shall I let you go back to him? How can I not?”

She smiled at him sweetly, tears shining in her eyes. “These few times we have come together, they will be ours forever, the memories engraved upon our minds like letters in stone.”

“And the penance we must pay for our actions?”

She cupped his cheek with her soft hand. “Oh, Jensen. What penance is there for gentleness and the fulfillment of need?”

He looked at her for a long moment, before smiling slightly, and kissing her fingertips. He said nothing more about the subject, and neither did she. When they parted that night his belly felt hollow and his eyes burned.

-*-

Tristan gave himself up to vice in the days that followed Jensen’s departure. Again and again he smoked the opium pipe, and lay in a stupor for hours, feeling a pleasant drifting haze across his thoughts, that always before had traveled such dark and twisting paths throughout his being. The sloppiness and slowness the drug drew over him like a shroud was something to be endured, a necessary evil. Life passed by him in slow easy waves, and he spent an unknown time listening to the murmur of conversations around him, and watching people passing by in the streets, their feet moving so quickly and purposefully. Tristan wondered what was so important that it required that kind of effort.

The opium did not come cheap, and his coin diminished quickly. He slept in the dirt by the side of the opium shop to save money until one night when two sharp-eyed, turbaned thieves tried to rob him. He woke from his stupor enough to fight them off, kicking and punching until they fled like frightened rabbits. When dawn came he was still awake, coming down off yesterday’s high, and as he counted his coin he realized that he had to stop wasting it or risk becoming the thieving, homeless beggar he had been when Jensen found him.

Jensen. A low burning anger rolled at the pit of his stomach when he thought of the knight, he who had seemed so upright and blameless, so honorable and without blemish. He who even now was probably cuckolding his lord as the man’s wife sought benediction from God himself. Jensen was a liar, a cheat and a villain, lower than a mange-infested cur. What was worst of all – he made Tristan think that he could be more than a lazy, poverty-stricken lout. Tristan gave a strangled laugh. He had tried to be all that Jensen required, attentive and loyal and where had it gotten him? Drug-addicted and filthy.

He looked around him, to the dusty winding streets and the strange robed people and felt a sudden loathing for this place, so alien to him. He could not stay here. It was time to go.

He bathed his face in the nearby well, straightened his clothes and brushed the obvious dirt off them, paid a couple of denars for a bowl of stew and a chunk of thick bread, and had his first hearty meal in days. Feeling better, or at least more awake and presentable, he made his way down to the road going out of town and asked caravan after caravan for work until he finally found one that would take him on as a water boy for blanket space, meals, and pitiful remuneration. He didn’t care about the pay, he just wanted to be gone from Jerusalem.

A week later he was in Jaffa, skin sunburned from the long desert trek and every last bit of opium gone from his body, leaving him brittle and angry and possessed by an incomprehensible need to follow Jensen. He found passage to Rome aboard a Syrian vessel. He helped the cook put together meals and in so doing paid only half of the regular fare, which left him next to nothing to live off in Rome, but he did not think that far ahead.

He would find Jensen and Alona again; he was no more than a couple of weeks travel behind them. What he would do when he caught up with them, though, he could not say.

-*-

Alona could not muster that same sense of excitement she felt on the previous voyage now that they were returning to the splendor of Rome. The sea was just as amazingly blue and the winds just as fair and powerful, but she felt tired, and moody. Jensen seemed to be everywhere she looked, as interested in seamanship as he was during their other voyages, but distant from her. They shared nothing more than occasional glances, and she longed for a return to their prior intimacy, although she knew that it could no longer be. Guilt warred with need and though the former was strong, she could not honestly say that she regretted her time with Jensen. Still, the tension between them was wearing thin. She found herself missing Geoffrey fiercely, his simple affection, his devotion and good humor and the way he looked at her, fond and occasionally exasperated. More than this, she missed home, the sounds of the morning bells of the cathedral, and the birds in her atrium, to whom she tossed bread crumbs. She missed her own comfortable bed and the selection of dresses in her bureau, the sight of well-loved friends and her sister’s children.

Boredom was again a constant companion. Cora had planned for it this time, and the women sat together stitching designs on cloth they had purchased in the marketplaces, chatting about inconsequential things – the weather and the meals and what they planned on doing when they returned home. Other times she dozed, covered in her veil, the sun beating down warm on the colorful cloth.

They took a slightly different route to Rome, anchoring at Ierapetra, in Crete, for a night. It was sheer joy to disembark from the boat, to dine at the waterside and buy fresh fruits and vegetables to take back to the ship in an attempt to make the plain sea-born fare acceptable. She longed to roam the streets and climb the rocky hilltops just outside of town, but Jensen did not volunteer to accompany her like he had in the past and without him she could not muster her past enthusiasm for such wanderings.

The weather held clear for all but a couple of days, which saw cloudy skies and gentle rain, but no choppy waves, thank the saints. Nearing the end of their second week at sail, they travelled up the Italian riviera, the sunlight glittering on the water and the villas perched in stately magnificence on the coastline. The beauty of it, and the fact that it was her privilege to see it, made her throat tighten. Jensen stood on the prow watching the settlements slide slowly by, alone as he so rarely was. She approached quietly, smiling when he glanced at her in surprise.

His expression these days was often distracted and troubled, but now something softened about his eyes. After a moment, he said, “We will be in Rome tomorrow morning, the captain thinks.”

She closed her eyes briefly, letting the low smooth sound of his voice wash over her. She reached out and took his hand in a brief squeeze.

He looked surprised. “What is it?”

“Thank you for all that you have done. For all that you have … well, for everything.”

He swallowed. “You are welcome. It’s been an honor. Truly. I want you to know – it is my constant prayer that the healing you desire will be completed in due time, as the Lord allows.”

He sounded so earnest. A pang entered her chest, causing tears to spring to her eyes. She breathed through them until at last they subsided. “You are a good man, Jensen. Know that always.”

His lips twisted wryly, and something like regret crossed over his face like a cloud covering the sun.

She considered her next words, said them with low fervor, “I do not say that lightly.”

He gave a tight nod, then his shoulders straightened; she recognized that he had donned his invisible armor. Once, she might have pressed him, tried to elicit some sort of further attention from him, but now she simply let him be.

Mid-morning the next day, just as Jensen had predicted, they docked at Ostia. Seagulls called out and circled around the docks, which were busy with sailors and laborers ready to unload the ship’s cargo. The other passengers crowded around the deck, watching with excitement as they anchored the boat.

Cora, who was watching the proceedings at the railing, turned back to her and cried, “Mistress! Come and see!”

Alona obeyed, wondering what in the world could have excited Cora so. Cora pointed to the docks, and it took Alona a moment to identify the man who waved at her from the pier.

“Geoffrey!” she exclaimed.

She lunged at the railing, leaning so far over it to wave in response that Cora knotted her hand in the back of Alona’s dress to steady her. Overcome with excitement, she wound her way through her fellow passengers until she was the very first passenger off the boat. She flew into Geoffrey’s arms, the both of them laughing.

His warm familiar scent enveloped her, his arms strong and steady. She drew back, and put both hands on his cheeks. “Oh, my love,” she said. “How I have missed you.”

He kissed her fingers. “As have I.”

His beard had grown thicker and his hair longer since she had seen him last, and he looked a little thinner. Likely he had been forgetting to eat again.

“How--?” She said in wonder. “I thought I would not see you again until we made it back home.”

“The partners wished me to Genoa so that we could meet about buying an interest in a perfumery. I decided that I had had enough time without you, so I stayed on the boat. We shall go to Genoa afterward, on our way home.”

She hugged him again, clinging longer this time. A great sense of relief unfolded over her, a feeling of rightness and joy that had been missing for many weeks now. “I am so glad that you are here now,” she whispered.

He stroked her hair in the same way he always did, and his laughter was a deep rumble in his chest. “That is the last time we shall be parted for such a journey, I pray.”

“Yes,” she said. “As God is my witness, I do so promise.”

The following days were a whirl of activity. Geoffrey had rented rooms in an inn near the waterfront for the entire expedition, and even arranged for a feast to celebrate their safe return. When the merrymaking was finished he paid the survivors and thanked them, giving special honor to Jensen, who looked abashed and uncomfortable with Geoffrey’s praise. When the time came for parting from him she could find no words, and he seemed similarly affected. They clasped hands, once, in Geoffrey’s presence, and that was the extent of their goodbye. It was enough, in the end.

She lost count of the days immediately following, days that called for more boat trips and long horseback journeys, all in the muggy heat of summer. They stopped in shrines they had missed on the outbound trip to Jerusalem, and kissed the relics of the saintly dead. When they finally made it home, Alona was so filthy that she went through two tubs of water in her bath, and so exhausted that she slept eighteen hours straight.

On her third day back, finding herself curious, she checked the calendar. When she counted the days that had passed, a slow dawning realization made her stomach drop and her face flush. She sat down in her favorite sewing chair, and looked out the window to where Geoffrey was running his sure, strong hands along a stallion’s haunches.

Her monthly time was late, by two whole weeks. And she was never late, not once in the years since she began flowing regularly. She put her hand on her belly, on the skin and muscle and tissue, on what was a life growing within her.

“Oh,” she said, on a little laugh, her fingers covering her mouth.

Her head spun and her eyes filled with sudden tears of gratitude. How far she had traveled, how much she had prayed and longed for and desired such an outcome, from the very night of her marriage to Geoffrey. And to find it fulfilled thus, not by the agency of God and his saints in the dark and hushed reaches of a holy shrine, but by the strong and loving arms of a green-eyed knight … truly, the paths of life were narrow and winding, and filled with unexpected goodness.

-*-

When Jensen left Rome, he did not think too deeply about his final destination, which he had a vague idea would be Venice, where he could catch a ship to other ports, hitherto unknown. He had converted the price of the geldings that Morden had paid him into cash, keeping the bulk of it in the hands of Rome’s biggest moneychanger for later use and carrying the remainder in coins and jewels on his person. He would not have to worry about funds for a while.

He traveled on foot, north across the seven hills that comprised Rome, and through the low fields that surrounded her into an ancient forest of oaks, pines and firs. Although he had considered buying a horse for the trip, it seemed to be tempting fate – horses were expensive and might attract bandits to him. Traveling alone he might be able to conceal himself better without a mount. Besides, he got a certain satisfaction from the rhythmic march of his feet. He concentrated on the movement of his body, the steady gait, the breath in and out of his lungs, the sun appearing and disappearing between the overarching leaves above him. All these things helped him to forget that he was alone again, wandering aimless and friendless and purposeless.

The wound in his side, healed over but still tender at times, made its presence known soon enough, and he slowed his pace. The day was hot, the armor a weight on his back, his sword and pack as heavy as bricks. He paused around noon to sit on a fallen log and drink tepid water from his water skin. As he sat there, wishing for a breeze, however slight, to dry the sweat on his forehead and under his arms, he saw the path behind him through the trees, and the darting form of a young man, jogging steadily toward him. The sight startled him, and gave him pause. He was always cautious on the road, where ill will and accidents and injuries could spell disaster, but a lone traveler did not seem cause for concern. Curious, he waited for the traveler’s approach.

The male figure drew close, dropping to a walk when he was a couple hundred yards away. Jensen recognized the dark mop of hair, the tall gangly form.

“Tristan!” Jensen called out, rising and heading toward him. He slowed his pace, however, when he noticed that Tristan was not reciprocating, but rather approaching with a wary eye and an unreadable expression.

By the time they were face to face Tristan’s breathing had slowed, though sweat plastered his dark hair to his scalp. He wore the same tunic and boots he had worn when they were together, but despite the similarities in clothing he seemed attired differently. This Tristan did not smile, and moved like a rangy, ill-fed hound. Jensen had the sudden apprehension that he was being stalked.

“What are you doing here?” he asked the boy. “I thought … We would have waited had I known you wanted to follow us.”

Tristan circled him slowly, posture tense, eyes flinty. “I did not wish to follow the whole party. Only you.” His voice was low and rasping, thrumming with a dark and unsettling energy. Very slowly he withdrew his dagger from his belt. It gleamed in the sunlight.

Jensen felt himself go very still, every nerve awake, the very dust motes in the air seeming to slow their progress. “What are you doing, Tristan?” he heard himself ask, in a calm and somehow steady voice.

“You owe me,” Tristan said, his cheek twitching. “I mean to see that you pay up.”

“Is that what you have told yourself? That this is about money?” Jensen asked.

Tristan shrugged, lifting an eyebrow briefly. “It’s as good as anything else. You promised me. I had a place with you, that’s what you said.”

“Yes, I said it. I meant it then. I mean it now. You have a place with me if you want it, Tristan. It was you who decided to go.”

Tristan’s eyes blazed, and his shoulders tensed. “I want twenty denars. Hand them over or I will take them.”

The point of the knife was sharp, and Jensen had no doubt that Tristan meant to use it on him if he heard an answer he did not like. Still, there was only one way Jensen could answer. “No.”

Fine tremors shook Tristan’s shoulders and arms, but he paid them no mind, his gaze razor sharp on Jensen. He threatened with the knife. “Then fight me for it.”

“I will not.”

A noise of frustration tore from Tristan, something halfway between a snarl and a cry. The tremors grew stronger.

“Tristan,” Jensen said, gentle. “Cut me if you must, but know this: I am not your father. I have never hurt you.”

Tristan’s face twisted into a terrible mask of agony, and he threw himself forward. Jensen’s hands came up, reflexively, to catch the boy. He expected to feel the sharp blazing slice of a blade into his flesh, but instead found his arms filled with Tristan’s hot, wiry, sweaty form; he shook, sobbing and clinging and crying out in a scorched voice, “You did. You did.” The dagger had fallen to the leaf-strewn ground.

Jensen closed his eyes against the stinging he felt there, and stroked his hand through Tristan’s damp hair. “All is well, now,” he found himself murmuring. “We are together, and all is well.”

He felt the truth of the words in some deep and sheltered place within him, and it seemed that this place was filled, at last, as it had not been since the terrible day when he buried that last of his family.

Insects buzzed in the heat of the afternoon. Far above, in the rolling heavens, a thunderhead built, and moisture thickened the air. Soon, elsewhere, the hour of worship approached and church bells rang deep and sonorous, furthering their journey, and encouraging their steps.

The End

Author's Notes

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norwich36.livejournal.com

I really loved this--especially the attention to detail, both historical events and what the experience of pilgrimage would have been like at the time. I admit I was a little skeptical about this story, giving the pairing, but once I started it I couldn't stop reading.

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