marlowemuses | There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin

The journey north from Muscovy was long, wet, and muddy. Abel wondered a thousand times if it wouldn't be quicker to cut through the forests rather than staggering on and on along the muddy road that dragged at the horses' hooves, but the forests were dark and tangled with thickets, and as often as he thought it, he thought of being torn by briars and scratched by twigs, and he stayed on the muddy road.

His guide did not talk much. Abel had tried, in the early days of their journey, to share conversation and reminiscings, but the monk answered in grunts and monosyllables, and expanded those only in recitation of prayers, which then made Abel feel guilty for wanting trivialities. Even so, he was company, and their soggy little fire helped keep back the chill every night.

The going was less pleasant once the guide was gone, but also freer. Alone with his thoughts and with only one road to follow--

just keep going along this trail, it's only a day and a half farther

--Abel let his mind wander. The air seemed clearer, no longer the foggy murk of the past week, and it brought him scents of wildflowers and loam, and the path was no longer mired in mud. He could imagine, almost, seeing the figures of myths amidst the trees, crowned in flowers and radiant in darkness.

By night, alone with his small fire, Abel wished he'd told himself fewer of the frightening stories. He slept only fitfully, waking at each sound and searching the darkness.

At the first light, he saddled his horse and hastened on.

The little village was a pretty, remote thing, placed on a rocky rise at the edge of the forest. The muddy fields of their crops swept the skirt of the hill, and the villagers stopped to stare, and to talk. They did not soon stop talking, and it was a balm and a drain after the days of silence.

Abel was taken to the great house, fed, fussed over, and made much of. The girls blushed at him and skittered shyly to and fro, while the boys asked for tales of Muscovy and asked if all the Muscovites were so delicate of face and build, and joked that he was soft as a girl, until the adults shooed them all away and plied Abel with yet more food and drink. To fatten and strengthen him, so he would survive the winter, soft city lad that he so clearly was.

It was all overwhelming, and Abel was grateful when the hour grew late enough that he could reasonably ask to be taken to the chapel to settle in.

The building was pretty, hunched at the edge of the deep woods. Dark stone walls and the encroaching forest made the chapel seem as though it was a part of the woods, and might at any moment be swallowed up. Tall steps led up to the double doors, with high windows to let in light, all of it clearly designed with deep snows in mind. Tall peaks of gables covered the windows, and a similar sharp tilt formed the roof.

Inside, it was all lines and angles, beautiful in symmetry, and utterly different from the familiar cathedrals of Muscovy, which were curves and domes in whitewashed stone, like bubbles in meringue. This seemed older, arcane, but still sacred.

The altar was plain stone with a white cloth, so different from the lavish altarpieces of the city that Abel thought for a moment that it was meant for a different god.

Shaking away the fantasies that had always been his weakness and his folly, Abel stepped through the door into the priest's chambers adjoining. They were very large for a priest's cell, but hard to mistake for anything else because of the bed. There was a large fireplace, well stocked with wood, and an adjoining little study filled with books, some of them very old. Abel went to them, rapt, but had no time to explore before a woman came from the village with hot coals for his fire.

He'd known nothing about the former priest other than his age. It seemed that he--or one of his predecessors--was a scholar. And now everything that had been his belonged to Abel.

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Abel had come, a new man to an old, old place. And it wasn't just the attention of the townsfolk he'd attracted over the course of his trek.

The coals crackled merrily, burning red-orange tongues of flame along the dried, split logs that had been set into the hearth. They smoked and steamed fragrantly, and cast back the night-thickened shadows. It made the quartz gleam in the stone of the floor, bright as the sparks which rose from the flame, giving them a life and lightness that belied their otherwise smoky, oily color.

A slow, soft creak of wood announced still another presence alongside Abel's, at the sill of the doorway the woman had vanished back out into. A man stood there now, arms splayed, hands gripping the opposite ends of the sill so that he could lean briefly into the room Abel occupied. A young man, at least, perhaps of an age with the new priest himself.

His eyes glinted dark as the stone of the church, and he was smiling absently. Watching the fire.

"My mother brought coals for tonight," he informed, "And tomorrow I will be back in her stead, and bring food and milk and water."

His hair was as dark as his eyes, inky-black, and his simple tunic was stretched well over broad shoulders and a deep chest. Slowly, he turned his smile onto Abel.

"You've come a long way. We'll take care of you."

Abel watched as the old woman banked the fire. She loaded on the wood generously, and the heat of it immediately radiated through the room. Even in a room of this size, the stones held the heat, and the comfort of it went bone-deep after the days--the years--of privation. It reminded Abel of his youth of comfort and luxury, before he'd rebelled against his father's wishes to make him a leader of men.

Nights in the monastery had been cold and silent, in the bare apprentices' hall or in the chilly priest cells, where every morning Abel broke the ice on his ewer to wash his face, and some days there was no water, only ice. He barely remembered being comfortably warm, except on summer days when he could bask in it.

Lost to memory as he stared into the flames, the creak on the sill startled him back to reality.

Or something like it. The stranger in the doorway was young and healthy, with broad shoulders and white teeth. The people of the village had all looked stout and strong, but this young man was something else entirely. He might have been formed wholly from one of Abel's more sinful dreams.

Abel's breath caught in his throat, heart quickening. He knew perfectly well that he had a weakness for men like this, strong and young and handsome, and it had never been any trouble because they'd never looked his way. They'd never smiled at him.

"Thank you," Abel stammered. His hands curled in on themselves, tightening, and he put them behind his back, trying to regain control of himself. "I'm very grateful for your kindness."

The stranger's smile only widened at Abel's stammer, at the flex of his hands. And his dark eyes took their time crawling up Abel's body, as if deciding whether or not he might be good to eat.

Sucked on a canine before tipping his stubbled chin up.

"Thank me again."

He said it as he stepped one stride into the room towards Abel. And though the words certainly weren't a question, there was a gleam of sharp humor in his dark eyes.

Confusion flickered over Abel's face, uncomprehending what was happening in this situation. His pale cheeks colored, unaccustomed to the fixed attention of handsome, broad-shouldered young men.

He was being teased.

It had been a while since it had happened, since frivolities were discouraged in the monastery, and the other acolytes had always been too tired, too hungry, and too scared of punishment to risk such frivolities. The ones who became full-fledged priests were even worse, because child's play was beneath them.

"Thank you," Abel repeated. His breath quivered on the exhale. "I'm grateful for your welcoming and taking care of me."

The other man's teeth flashed, pale against the darkness of his beard, his tan. He stepped closer, each stride long and wolfish. But he sauntered around Abel, one thumb hooked between his belt and his tunic, inquisitively inspecting the room.

"Food, water, wood. Even in winters. When the snow's deep enough, even with a horse, the way can be difficult. And nights, sometimes, you'll hear wolves when they come down from the mountain. Strange, I always thought, that they only put one man here, all alone."

The teasing seemed to take a sudden turn into something else, something more like threats. Or, if it was still teasing, it had become something that Abel couldn't make sense of and didn't know how to respond to. He couldn't tell whether the stranger was threatening him with this reminder of his precarious situation or assuring him that he would be cared for.

"I don't mind," Abel said. He swallowed his nerves and lifted his chin. "I'm sure that the chapel has been maintained. The walls are sturdy. The old priest lived here, didn't he? I'll manage well enough."

"I liked the old priest. I knew him well, knew him for years..." There was a quiet ache in the words, as strong as the current of a deep and implacable river.

The young man dew up short, staring into the fire for a long moment. His gaze turned, slowly. Settled on Abel. They reflected the glinting of the flame like shards of jet, and his lips barely moved when he spoke.

"We'll see how well you do."

Again Abel had the sense that there was a threat in the simple words, though they could as easily be assurances.

Wary, Abel watched the stranger. His host and his guest, simultaneously. Provider and threat.

"I don't believe you told me your name," Abel said. His heart fluttered in his chest, nerves combined with another wave of desire. "I am Abel."

Not the name his father gave him, but the church. He'd been named Brother Abel in the monastery. He no longer thought of himself as Ethan.

There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin

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