Azriel's Wings
I told her that I had lost something, a part of my humanity—my soul maybe—somewhere on that long road between Caerfyrddin and Jerusalem.
But she was not convinced, saying, “You remember it wrong, Llewellyn.”
She broke a pomegranate between her hands, pulled me close, and with the red juice, drew a mark upon my forehead and another upon the back of my fist. Then she kissed me and I felt my shame and my despair coalesce into a single, unnameable thing.
The wind rattled the shutters and shook the bolted door, but I no longer knew if the priest and his people outside were still waiting, still praying, or even breathing. I could hardly breathe myself.
The loaves of bread, the roses and the fruit that had been piled as offerings about the altar were all beginning to rot. I could smell the sweet pungency of their corruption, but I could no longer guess how long I had been in the church with this creature that I had been sent to kill. There was no sense of time in that place—not with her.
She caressed my cheek, and spoke again, and her voice was feathers and wind and the death of ten thousand sparrows, whispering to the earth.
And I wept. How could I not?
“Tell me,” she said, “about the crossroads, and the red place, and the child and the woman.”
I smelled the acrid smoke again, heard the complaint of ravens, and the keening of the Bedouin woman as she sang over the child who lay in her arms. I saw the Bedouin lift her head—saw the corner of her chin—and I began to choke.
“Tell me, Llewellyn. You must tell me or you will not see.”
I could not. The words would have strangled me if I had tried. So, I showed her Acre instead, and the city and praying before the battle, asking God to keep me alive for yet one more day—just one—so that I might escape and go home.
“What kind of prayer is that?” I asked. “Praying that God preserve my life so that I might slaughter other men? What kind of God honors such prayers?”
“And yet,” she said, stroking my hair. “He has preserved you, has he not?”
I felt her wings then, though I could not see them, cold steel swords for feathers, enfolding me from shoulder to hip, razor sharp.
“Yes,” I confessed. “But those I butchered prayed as well. Did He not hear them? They prayed louder and with more devotion than I have ever shown. They were the faithful, not us—not me.”
I tried to pull away from her, but her wings held me fast and the feathers sliced through my tunic to threaten my flesh.
She cooed and I had no choice but to relax.
“But,” she said. “That was not your last prayer, now was it?”
“Of course it was,” I insisted. “The last prayer I will ever speak. I am done with prayer. I am done with God. Let God be done with me. I want only to go home. Let me go home, demon.”
She sighed, and I could smell her disappointment rise up about me all bergamot and almonds.
I looked into her eyes—the eyes of an ordinary woman they seemed to me, a wife’s eyes, a lover’s—warm and brown and gentle. But then she blinked and the warmth was replaced with an icy blackness as deep as the night sky itself, vast and yet starless—a hole in the world into which I would fall.
“Why do you look away?” she asked.
“Your eyes are empty,” I said.
“I have not eyes, Llewellyn. Only time and mirrors. Now tell me about the crossroads, the red place, and the child, and the woman.”
“Demon,” I said. “You are unrelenting. Your voice is terrible and I think your words will sink me like a stone.”
The first time I heard her voice was on the beach after the wreck. She spoke my name, quite clearly and I awoke to the sunlight, warm upon my salt-crusted face.
Blinking, I had opened my eyes to look directly into the upside-down faces of two boys, kneeling with their noses barely inches above my own. Both were about nine or ten. Both were skinny, with beetle-brown skin, curly black hair and hazel-green eyes.
They leapt backwards like a pair crickets in a hot skillet, shocked no doubt by the sudden resurrection of my wave-tossed corpse.
With a great splash of sand, they dashed away shouting in a language that sounded like the bastard tongue of Spanish and French.
Portuguese, I thought. This must be Portugal.
I groaned.
I was yet so far from home.
When I tried to sit up then, I found that I was still tied to the wooden door that had saved my life in the storm. My harp was gone, along with most everything else, but I still had my boots, and my sword and dirk were yet fastened to my belt.
I cut myself free, sat up, and assessed my immediate circumstances. The storm was long passed, leaving a broken puzzle of slate and silver-edged clouds scattered over the cobalt sky. Gulls were everywhere, screaming. The beach was littered with shattered timbers, wooden casks, cordage, canvas, and all manner of debris from the now vanished Croix Noir. Two bodies were hung up in the rocks, but I could not recognize them, and it appeared that I was the only one to have survived the wreck. A cruel joke it seemed, that God would spare the life of a deserter while letting so many better men die.
I took a moment to examine my body for injuries and was surprised to find I was mostly intact—except for a several black and blue marks and that dull ache that had persisted beneath my armpit for the last week. I was a bit feverish and sweaty, but that was nothing new. Like nearly everyone on our boat, I had been moderately sick since leaving Messina—attributable no doubt to our diet of moldy bread and too much salted pork. Looking back, I probably should have eaten the rats that shared my berth instead. At least they would have been fresh.
More from habit than faith, I reached for the crucifix that I wore about my neck—only to discover the cross was gone along with its silver chain. When I felt for my purse, I realized those two boys had possessed subtle hands indeed.
Hauling myself to my feet, I tightened my belt and adjusted the set of my sword. Then I set off over the dune, following the trail of footprints left by my two young thieves.
The sand quickly gave way to stone and scrub, bringing me to a narrow trail that ran between two low, stone, walls. I followed this trail and was soon walking under the fecund eves of an orchard. The air was close and sweet, somewhat stifling though heady. And yet, already I could feel something was amiss. After a little while I realized what it was. There was an absolute absence of birdsong and honeybees, and the ground itself was carpeted with decomposing fruit.
“Llewellyn,” she said again. “This is not what you must see – not what you must recall or show me. Not boys robbing from you. Not the seashore. Not the orchard and fallen fruit. You must remember the crossroads now. There is no other way if ever you wish to find your home again. Will you not trust me?”
She spoke of trust, but what of that? I was trapped. She would kill me or she would not. I had nothing left to lose, nothing to hold back my tongue…or my sword.
“You are a harpy,” I said.
And she laughed at that, and her laughter echoed within the church, bringing dust and cobwebs down from the rafters in thick tendrils and gobs.
“No,” she said. “I am no harpy. But I can be so much worse than that. You know it’s true. You have seen my work and you seen my face many times before, though do not recall it. I will show it to you again, before we are finished. But first you must—”
“I know,” I snapped. “First I must remember the crossroads and the red place.”
“And the child,” she added, softly. “And the woman.”
The priest filled my cup again and leaned across the table, speaking in a whisper—speaking in Latin so that we might understand one another.
“You are a soldier of Christ, yes?” he said. “You are traveling to join the English King in the east, yes?”
“No and no. I am going the other way, and am no soldier of Christ.”
He licked his lips. His fingertips danced upon the rim of the wine jar. He smiled. It was a brittle smile, a false smile. I had seen that smile many times, and always upon the faces of frightened men, of madmen, and sometimes thieves.
He shook his head. “I saw your sword and the mark upon it. It tells me what you are and all I need to know. I have seen such swords before. You are an English Crusader, and without any doubt a true soldier of Christ.”
I lifted my cup and drank it halfway to the dregs. The wine was too sweet and spiced with peppercorns and something else that left my tongue and lips tingling. “I am not English. I am a Welsh man,” I said. “I am on my way home. I need to be on my way home. Two boys robbed me on the beach. I want my money and a map. That is all.”
The priest motioned to one of the men who lingered near the door listening. The fellow came forward and leaned down so that the priest could whisper in his ear. Then he pulled back, his eyes confused. The priest spoke again and the man gave a small bow. Then he departed, taking his companion with him.
“That was Georgé Silva,” said the priest. “He is a good servant and our smith. He will see to it that your money is returned. I am sure the boys thought you were dead when they took your purse.”
I nodded and finished my cup.
What was that taste that lingered? I could not name it, but I knew it from someplace—a medicinal herb perhaps? My face felt hot and there was a buzzing in my ear.
The Priest’s stool chirped upon the stone floor as he scooted it closer.
“We have a most terrible problem here.”
He bought two fingers up to his mouth, suggesting that we must be cautious and quiet.
I looked about the dining room. All eyes were fixed upon me, and yet everything appeared more or less ordinary—except possibly for the nervousness that seemed to animate both the innkeeper and his maid.
“All looks well here, father,” I said. “I see no problem, terrible or otherwise.”
“Not here in this tavern, my son, but here in our village.” His voice dropped into a whisper. “We are cursed.”
“Cursed you say?”
He nodded. His eyes grew suddenly expectant.
“You are a priest,” I said, holding out my cup to be refilled. “Preform the rite of exorcism. You do not need my sword to dispel any curse. God is your providence, is he not?”
“Indeed He is. But you are wrong. This is beyond my ability to exorcise or rectify with prayer. We need a man such as you. God has provided us with you, his soldier.”
“What good is a soldier against a curse?”
“You are not just any soldier. You are a Soldier of Christ, a man with a holy blade, blessed for His service.”
I shook my head again and remembered the gathering in Rome, with the bishops in silver and the Cardinals in scarlet, and Richard himself kneeling in his golden armor, as seventy priests moved among us, blessing our swords and shields with holy water drawn from the Pope’s own bath. I remembered the sunlight upon my blade and the water spilling from its edges, and that one curling, gray hair and flake of dead skin that was left behind in the blood groove.
“I am no soldier of Christ, no servant of God. My sword is….”
“Why do you hate God so?” she asked. There was sorrow in her voice and something else—pity maybe.
“I do not hate God,” I said. “But I hate who we become in His name.”
She weighed my words and then frowned.
“Is not what you become your own choice? Do not blame God for the acts of men.”
“Tell that to His priest who drugged me, chained me, and locked me in this place with a sword to slay you.”
And then she became angry.
I felt her wings sweep away from me.
She stood, and the air within the church sizzled as it does in a storm just before the lightning strikes. I watched her form change with no more transition than the blinking of the eye. In one moment, she was the woman who had held me in her arms, and in the next, a great cat, a lioness, but black-furred and with luminous green eyes that glowed like lanterns. She began to pace, back and forth, her iron claws ringing upon the flagstones, and striking sparks. The flowers and fruit about the altar withered and vanished, and the sanctuary was filled with the raw stink of sweat and rage and a dreadful hunger. But then she roared and changed again—this time becoming a thing of fluttering wings and tongues and eyes, circles and fire, all shimmering and flickering—a form impossible to frame or shape beyond these words. Too blinding for me to look at and too confusing for my mind to grasp, I turned away, and hid my face behind my arm. Thunder shook the building, and a sudden shower of rain fell within the sanctuary.
Then she spoke, and her voice pierced my heart with ice and scoured my flesh with frost. The language scalded me and froze me to the bone. It was not a thing of words or even sound, but I felt it in my own throat and tasted it upon my tongue, and knew what she was saying—knew what she was asking and demanding—and again I smelled the pools of clotting blood and the acrid burning of horsehide and corpses, and heard the cries of ravens.
the crossroads
the red place
I drew my sword and tried to stand, howling back at her to leave me be. But my arm and hand were struck numb. I dropped my weapon and fell to my knees, gasping for air. And then, she was the woman again, enfolding me once more with her invisible wings, the feathers now as soft as silk and baby’s breath.
At the back of the mob stood the two boys from the beach, both hugging close to their mother who was dressed all in mourner’s black. The woman cradled an infant to her breasts with left her arm while pointing her right fist directly at me with the end of her thumb extended between her first and second fingers. I had seen this gesture before, many times, a warding against the evil eye, but it was the first time I had seen it pointed at me.
“Abra suo boca,” said the priest, holding up a greasy, blackened key.
“I don’t understand,” I said, my wits still dulled from the drugged wine.
And then he repeated himself using Latin, telling me to open my mouth.
When I shook my head, one of his two servants, pried open my jaws so that that the father could force the key between my teeth.
“For the chains, my son,” he said. “You will need your hands free once we bolt the door behind you.”
The key tasted sour, like spoiled communion wine and copper.
The priest gave a nod and another villager came forward with my sword. He offered it to the priest, but the priest motioned with his chin and the man proceeded to strap it about my waist. When the priest began to pray, the entire crowd fell to their knees and joined in a mumbling echo—except for the smith, Georgé Silva, who held tight to my leash as if I were his dog that could not be trusted. He tried to look fierce, and yet there was no hiding his dread. They were all afraid, but him more so than any of the others, and I wondered why.
The priest finished his prayer, shouting his amen, and with a trembling hand, blessed me by the sign of the cross. Then as the entrance to the church was unbarred and unbolted, the entire crowd shuffled back and covered their ears.
Before the door was even fully open, I felt myself being jammed through the portal, and in the next instant, fell face down upon the church’s stony floor. The door slammed shut and I could hear it being locked again on the outside. Next came a brief hammering as nails and wedges were driven into the wood to seal me inside. I brought my hands up to my face, and with the key still between my teeth, removed my manacles.
“Bless yourself before you come any further,” said a voice from up near altar. “This is your Lord’s house.”
Like the door at my back, all the windows had been bordered up from the outside and the chamber as black as night.
“You speak Welsh,” I said.
“Are you not a Welsh man, Llewellyn?”
“I am. But what are you?”
“Bless yourself and learn.”
“Where is the font?” I asked, drawing my sword as quietly as I could.
“Beside you and to your left stands the baptismal.”
I reached out and felt the stone basin, smooth and cool beneath my palm. But even as I dipped my fingertips into the holy water, the sanctuary blazed with light, as every candle within the church flared.
And there she was, my harpy, my demon—a woman, dressed in Roman armor under the deep purple cloak of a praetorian—swordless, yet leaning upon a great black scythe.
“We have come full circle now,” she said. “No memories in which to hide. Tell me about the red place. Tell me now.”
“I cannot.” I groaned.
“You must tell me of your last prayer,” she said.
“But I already have.”
“No. You showed me Acre.” She cupped my face between her hands. “But that was a distraction and a deception. Acre was not your last prayer.”
I ground my teeth together, growling, “No, but neither did I pray at your red place, or your crossroads.”
“No, indeed you did not,” she said. “The prayer came after, but that is where you must begin if you would see and understand. Otherwise Llewellyn, you are a dead man. That ache under your arm, the purple welts upon your flesh and your fever—that is the death you carry inside yourself. If you go north, it travels north with you. Would you murder a continent and carry that pestilence to your hearth and home unhindered? Is that what you want—that I let you go this night, follow you home and reap the souls of every man, woman and child to whom you pass this pestilence? Should I kiss your daughter, kiss your son, reap them like young grain, and leave their small husks for you to bury along with your mother, your father and your dear wife? You have seen dead children before, but not your own. There is a difference. Shall I show you?”
And then she put the image of it straight into my mind—like the nails through Christ’s hands and feet and the spear through his ribs. I screamed, and I am not ashamed to say so. I broke like a babe. Sobbing and weeping, I buried my face against her neck and cried out for mercy.
Her flesh was warm and human and alive. She smelled of mother’s milk, and the scent took me to the cradle-song my wife used to sing. I clutched at her even harder still—so desperate was I—and she kissed me again and embraced me.
“Hush. Hush,” she cooed, calling me by name so tenderly. “Llewellyn. Oh, Llewellyn. It need not be so. It will not be so, if only you will remember.”
“But I cannot,” I said. “I dare not. Can’t you understand? I see only Acre and the hill of Ayyadieh—and all of the bodies and all the innocent blood upon my sword…and upon my hands.”
And she kissed my eyes then and said, “But you remember it wrong, Llewellyn. You see it wrong. I know. I was there, was I not? I will help you leave Acre behind. If you can trust me.”
My head began to swim and I was an infant in her arms, a man-sized infant, with no more strength left to fight, being enfolded by her warmth and an insistent sense of falling to my inescapable doom.
“Your companions at the crossroads were not your countrymen,” she said, and I heard my voice answering, detached, childlike, but still my own, though drawn from deep inside of me, as a single, continuous length of knotted yarn, unwinding and paying out slowly from its ball in my gut.
“No. They were not my countrymen, but like me, they were deserters and cowards.”
“Not like you, Llewellyn. You were with them, but not one of them.”
“Makes no difference. I wanted to go home just as badly as they. I would have tied myself to a leper to do it.”
“You went with them because they knew the way,” she said. “But it was not enough, was it?”
“No. Silver—we needed silver—for a boat and safe passage. And we needed fresh water. Most of ours had spoiled.”
“And did you find silver?”
“No,” I said.
“Did you find water?”
“No.”
“What did you find?”
“Wilderness in every direction.”
“You did not follow the coast?” she asked.
“No—too many soldiers traveling south to join Richard for his great push to Jerusalem. We went inland and then north. There was an ancient road, left by the Romans.”
“And that is what led you to the crossroads?”
“Yes. We followed it and found your crossroads.”
“And the red place,” she said. “You found the red place.”
“It was not red when we arrived.”
“No. It was not.”
“We made it red. I made it red.”
She kissed me again, once twice—“Not you, Llewellyn. That was the others. Not you,”—and she kissed me a third time. “You followed behind. Do you see it?”
“Yes, I was behind them,” I said. “Leading their donkeys with their baggage as they charged ahead.”
“And when you arrived, the deed was already done.”
“Yes,” I said. “The travelers were dead, their goats scattered. Their tents on fire. Blood and smoke everywhere. I see it again. I smell it. I taste it.”
“And what else do you see?”
“Spilled water seeping into the earth.”
“What else?”
“My companions.”
“And?”
“I see them dying.”
“How?”
“By my sword,” I said.
“Why are you killing them?”
“Because they had killed everything and everyone,” I said. “Women, children, old men, dogs, everyone is dead.”
“Not everyone,” She whispered, pressing her lips to my eyelids again.
“No. The Bedouin woman,” I said, “she was still alive.”
“Holding the child, yes? Tell me about them.”
“She was dressed in dark purple robes, with a deep hood pulled over her head. She held the child in her arms, a little girl, and sang over her. When I approached the girl looked up and the woman turned.”
“What did you see?”
“Her face. I saw her face,” I said. “But I saw it wrong. So, I rubbed my eyes. But the blood upon my hands only made it worse. I rubbed harder and looked away.”
“Why did you look away?”
“Because what I saw could not be right. ”
“What did you see?”
“A nightmare. A hallucination. Too much sun. Not enough sleep. Madness.”
“But what was it you saw?”
“A skinless face. A skull. But when I looked back, she was just an old woman.”
“And what did you do then?”
“I went to them. Offered water from what little I had and tried to speak with them. But they did not understand. So, I drew picture in the sand—a picture of a boat, and waves and seagulls. And she nodded and pointed north.”
“Not west?”
“No. She pointed north.”
“What then?”
“I thanked her, found a shovel, dug graves and buried their dead.”
“Why?”
“Because it would have been wrong not to.”
“What of your companions?”
I bit my lower lip.
“What of your companions, Llewellyn?”
The thread of words pulled from my stomach had run out and I needed no more prompting.
Tossing aside the shovel, I watched as the child and the woman prayed over the graves of their kin. The woman knelt upon one knee, gathered a small handful of earth from one of the graves, and proceeded to pass it back and forth between her hands, before pouring it upon the child’s shoulders. She did this over and over, with a handful from each grave. But when she saw I had no intention of burying those I had killed, she threw a stone at me, pointed her bony finger first at the shovel and then at the corpses. When I shook my head and spat, she threw more stones, until at last I retrieved the spade and dug one more grave. By the time I was finished the sun was setting and it was too late to move on.
As I unrolled my bedding, I watched her pray again, this time over the grave of my companions. For them, she did not kneel, but stood over the wide mound, looking like nothing more than a crooked tree, barren and black in the new moon’s light. With her head bowed, she passed yet another handful of dirt between her palms, back and forth, back and forth, over and over again. The silent child stood behind her, a tiny shadow reaching out as though to take hold of the woman’s robe, but not actually touching it. It was the strangest most profound pantomime I have ever seen, though I cannot covey exactly why it is so—not with words. It was the image and a feeling in my chest, and the knowing of something even then that I did not want to believe.
When the woman finished, she threw the handful of earth high into the air and then she and the child came to join me by the fire. I watched the woman and the woman watched me. Neither of us spoke. We had no common language and no conversation to share. There was no malice in her face, and nor fear either; but her eyes followed my every move and I knew she was reading me, measuring me, no doubt trying to determine what kind of man I might be. So, I decided to answer her.
“I am wretched,” I said, poking and stirring our campfire with my dirk. “I am a coward and killer. Are you satisfied, woman?”
She made no comment and continued to stare. Somehow though, I think she understood.
The child was less interested. She gazed only into the flames and made small sounds in her throat. I think she was trying to sing or at least to hum or maybe speak, but no words ever escaped her lips—and never would during the seven days we traveled together. I reached into my bag, found a small pouch of dried dates and held it out to her.
The woman took the pouch from may hand, pulled out one of the dates and gave it to the child. The child looked at it, held the glistening amber fruit to her nose, and then to her mouth. Then she touched the dried fruit with the tip of her tongue. I saw something then, a flicker of light in her eyes for an instant, just before she tossed the date straight into the flames, where it sizzled and popped. The old woman laughed and clapped her hands, but the light had already vanished from the child's eyes once again and her face went as blank as new parchment.
The church was quiet now except for the constant rumor of water, dripping someplace out of sight.
I licked my lips and my demon asked if I was thirsty.
“Yes,” I said. “I am.”
She took the silver chalice from the altar, flicked its rim with the nail of her middle finger, making it ring. Then she spoke a word in Hebrew and passed the cup to me. When I held it to my lips, I hesitated.
“It is only water,” she said. “Not communion wine or blood, just plain water.”
“And yet still I think in this cup it must be a sacrament.” I said, and she smiled.
“Drink. Quench your thirst Welsh man.”
But I could not. I wanted to, but the longing and the memory of a greater thirst that was yet to come in my story, were not enough to make me drink—not from that cup, and not from that hand. My throat felt tight and I began to tremble. I wanted to escape again, to flee. I felt it in my hips and in my heels and in my lungs.
Sensing my growing panic, she whispered, “You’re there now, aren’t you?”
“Where?” I asked, pretending not to know.
“Two places really,” she said. “Here is this church with me, but also back in your wilderness with the woman and the child. It is your seventh day in this chamber and your seventh day on the Roman Road—the seventh day after your shipwreck and the seventh day after the red place and the crossroads—this is the day your water runs out, and the third day since your own last small sip. How long can a man live without water Llewellyn?”
“You already know,” I said.
“Yes, I do. Three days, maybe five. Then a man begins to die. Are you dying, Llewellyn?”
“I think I am,” I said.
“Your head hurts, does it not?” she said. “You are dizzy and faint, weak in all your limbs, your kidneys ache and your mouth is…an open grave.”
“Yes,” I said. “All of that. All true.”
“What of the child and the Bedouin woman? How do they fair?”
“Not well, but better than me, stronger.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I have made it so,” I said.
“You stopped drinking so that they could drink your share?”
“Of course.”
“Why? They are nothing to you, not Christians, not kin. Why the sacrifice?”
“They are a woman and a child. They’re alone...because of me.”
“But now,” said the woman. “On this seventh day there is no water. It is gone. What do you do then?”
I did not want to answer. I pressed the chalice to my cheek. The silver was cool with condensation against my skin. I closed my eyes.
“What do you do then, Llewellyn?”
“You want the truth?” I asked.
“In all things,” she said. “Always.”
“I think of killing them to spare their suffering.”
“But you do not.”
“No. I try, but I cannot bring myself to draw my blade.”
“What do you do?”
“You know what I do,” I said. “That’s why you led me to this memory isn’t it? Why you gave me this cup. Your sacrament.”
“Yes. But I want to hear you say it. You need to say it out loud and with your own voice. God’s rules. Not mine.”
“Why? To shame me further? All I have left is shame.”
“No, Llewellyn,” she said. “To set you free. Just say it.”
I looked into the chalice; saw my eyes reflected in the water. Lord, how I had forgotten what they looked like—so much anguish, so much madness, not the eyes of a man, but the eyes of a wounded beast in need of putting down.
“You win, demon,” I said. “I will say it for you.”
“Then say it now.”
“I pray.”
The word sounded like a curse.
She pulled back for a movement, but then drew in even closer and put her hand over my heart.
“Too whom?” she asked.
“To God, who else?”
“But you hate God?”
“I love God!”
The words burst sharply through my clenched teeth.
At how surprised I was by conviction in my own voice—its sudden strength and the raw anger buried so deeply in that last, single syllable—all anguish and abandonment. I could barely breathe, but I said it again, slowly, word by word.
“I love God.”
“Yes, Llewellyn,” she said. “Of course you do. What do you ask of Him in your prayer?” Her voice was so quiet…soft…and gentle.
“I pray that he will have mercy upon the old woman and the child.”
“And for you?”
“For me? I ask nothing for me,” I said.
“Oh, but you do Llewellyn. You do—You did. You begged for it. Even without water for tears, you wept—and you begged. The desert hears and the wind and never forgets. I am the desert. I am the wind. I heard. Shall I tell you what I saw as well—after you filled that humble clay cup with the last drops of your water—after you gave it to the child and to the woman? How when you could not draw your dagger, you fell to your knees, tore your tunic and covered your face with dust? Or how you howled with pain, and pleaded for God to take your life, if only he would spare the infidel woman and the child?”
A she spoke, I felt that scream again, felt it scrape in my scorched throat and in my chest, and remembered how my lips cracked and tore, but did not bleed. I tasted salt and sulfur and my own despair.
“Are you not wondering, Llewellyn, how a harpy or a demon can know these things? It is so simple. Not a mystery at all. You only need to open your heart to remember that one thing from which you try so hard to hide.”
And surrendering at last I remembered the Bedouin’s face—not just as I saw it the first time, but time and time again thereafter—her true face that my mind denied seeing.
And I saw her eyes, icy black and as deep as the night sky itself, vast and yet starless...
Time and mirrors.
“You,” I said, almost laughing. “She was you.”
“Yes.”
“You were there for the child,” I said. “To take her?”
“Yes. She knew who I was. She could see. She understood. But you interrupted.”
“She could see you?”
“And so could you really, though you would not accept it. You have called me harpy and demon, but I am no harpy, Llewellyn. I am no demon. And I am no woman.”
“The priest was wrong,” I said. “He saw your face but he did not see you.”
“No,” she said. “But what do you see now?”
“The Angel.”
"Yes. The Angel. But have you guessed my name yet?”
“I think you must be Azriel,” I said. “And no other.”
“I am Destruction and Renewal,” she said.
“Death,” I said. “You are Death.”
“I am God’s help,” she replied. “That is my name and who I am. I bring His children home to Him.”
“You are Death,” I said again.
“I am,” she said.
“You followed me from Acre?”
“No,” she said. “Only after.”
“Why didn’t you take me at the crossroads?”
“It was not your time,” she said.
“And after the water ran out? Was that not my time?”
Azriel inhaled deeply, her expression grew troubled, but she nodded.
“It was your time, Llewellyn. And I would have taken you then. But you prayed, and the caravan found you. Remember?”
“I prayed that I would die,” I said. “I offered my life. But here I am still alive. God did not hear. The caravan was just chance. Blind luck.”
“Not luck. A gift. You prayed for me, Llewellyn. You were ready to die in my place so that I would live. You suffered thirst for three days—for me. No man in all history has ever done such a thing. Not for me. And that was such an odd feeling. I was moved by the grace of it. Because of that, I rebelled and I saved you in the desert—and I will save you again with the sunrise.”
“Save me? You need only let me go. But you cannot, can you?”
“No,” she said. “Not yet. There is one thing that remains to be done if I am to spare you and those you love. It is the price of my small rebellion.”
“Now at last you speak plainly, Angel. Say, what must be done, and be done with it. I am so tired.”
“Very well. Here is the word of God. That I Azriel must reap four souls so that the others here in this village, and all those you meet upon your road ahead, might live. But here is the thorn. You must pick the four, Llewellyn.”
“No,” I said. “I will not bargain with God again. I will not pick another man, woman or child to die in my place. Never again.”
“If you do not, then I must. And you will regret my choices, for it will be the two boys who first found you on the beach and their mother and the baby sister who has yet to be baptized.”
I felt my heart falter in its rhythm.
“No,” I said. “Not them!”
“Yes,” she replied. “If I choose, it will be them.”
“Why? What have they done to deserve you?”
“All who are born deserve me, Llewellyn. I am not a punishment.”
“But why them?”
“The boys were the first to find you,” she said. “They touched you, and they themselves were touched by the plague you carry in your flesh and blood. They took it home with them, and shared it with their mother who will share it come morning with her infant. That is how it is done—death in its most natural progression—a guest who arrives without invitation and upsets the bedding, the bath, and the garden. I, Azriel am the servant who cleans up after. You Llewellyn are the stray dog who brought the flea who brings this guest.”
“But not to them,” I said. “Not today. Not yet. Please. Let them live.”
The angel spread her wings. I could see them at last. They snapped wide like the sails of a ship filling with wind. The iron blades had been replaced with soft, grey feathers.
“Then you must choose, Llewellyn. But it must be from among those you touched—or those whom they may have touched after touching you.”
I thought of the Priest and his servants who had forced me into the church, but even them I could not offer up. My conscience had found me again at last.
“Think hard,” said the Angel. “Consider well.”
But I did not need to think. I did not need to consider. The answer had been with me since Acre, since the Hill of Ayyadieh, since the slaughter at the crossroads and the red place, and the last drop of water that I had given to this angel in the wilderness. The bargain I had offered was yet to be completed.
“Me,” I said. “You heard my prayer. I will not take it back now. Reap me and call your ledger complete. Spare the rest, in Christ’s name.”
And then I felt it—something like a wire, snapping inside my chest and the weight of my shame lifting from my shoulders. I felt my heart open and I could breathe freely once again.
The angel smiled and yet tears glistened in her dark eyes and streamed down her cheeks.
“Oh child, now at last you see true,” she said. “And for what you have asked this second time—that I take your life to spare all the others—that is the prayer of which we have yearned to hear since the marking of Cain.
“God is satisfied,” she said. “Death will fast this morning and rest. And Azriel shall take no man, woman or child from all the Earth this day.”
She held up both hands and closed her eyes for a moment, keening softly as we do for the dead in my village. When she opened her eyes again, she brought her hands back together.
“It is done,” she said.
Then the church sighed, and all the nails, bolts, bars and wedges that had been driven into its doors and shutters fell away like the scales from a blind man’s eyes and the dawn streamed into the sanctuary, filling it with light.
“Now Llewellyn,” she said. “Drink the water that I give you in return for the water and the life that you gave up for me.”
“And after?” I asked. “What then?”
“Learn the words I have written upon your flesh,” she said, “and live.”
I looked at the red symbol upon the back of my hand. Neither Hebrew nor Greek, it might have been the branches of a tree or a circle of wings, I could not be sure, but I knew it was her name—written upon my hand and upon forehead—a seal and a promise for me to cherish.
I pressed the cold chalice to my lips, closed my eyes, and drank. The water was cool and fresh and smelled of red clover, wild roses, and my home. I thought of my wife and my daughter and my son. I drank three times from Azriel’s cup; one drink for each day that I had gone without. When the cup was empty, I heard the quick whisper of her feathers and felt the sudden draft of her wings. When I opened my eyes, she was gone.