TONIGHT CONN AND GABRIEL AT LAST HAVE A TIME TO SIT DOWN TOGETHER AND CONN'S WORLD EXPANDS.
But to Cal and Gabriel, the baths were nice, and knowing that Sara was returning and they had all come back alive was the best thing of all. Derek and Conn had been staying in Cal’s room all this time, and they watched Cal and Gabriel strip with little care, and saw their backs thinner, their shoulders a little sharper, their buttocks smaller as they trumped into the washing rooms. They would take the tubs and probably do the full ritual, and Conn imagined that the full ritual would have been much needed after having been gone a year.
After they had bathed and dressed, Conn and Derek, Nialla and the rest of them, did not see Cal and Gabriel for the rest of the day. They went to the Abbot and stayed with him, even during dinner when everyone feasted the returned Blue Priests and, to the great surprise of Conn and even Derek, when they did returned they returned wearing the clothes of some of the younger priests, the sheer, transparent hoses that revealed every curve and showed that what Cal and Gabriel had lost in fat and roundness they had gained in muscle, and the voluminous sleeved tunics that were famous in the south. Cal went to work in the Blue Rooms, and Gabriel, who had generally been a scholar, began to go the sanctuary with Conn, three mornings every week. During the initiation ritual, the rooms were completely darkened, but on usual says they were in semi darkness, and then the act was over, the priest and the supplicant came out into the pool where the sunlight shone and bathed. Gabriel and Conn obviously did not go into the same rooms, but there was a unity in knowing they were traveling to do the same thing. The procedure for going to the rooms was walking and not taking the lift and so there were long conversations between the two of them as they made their way to sanctuary.
It was not many days before Sara and Theo, dusty, but not the worse for wear, returned. Sara had sent a letter ahead of her, but it had not come to Nialla yet.
“We need a proper bath and that’s a fact,” Theo announced.
Their parents had been in the south, so they had seen them. It was their cousins who would be by the river and whom they needed to visit and they would do so.
“But not today,” Sara said. “I’m dead on my feet, and we’ve been traveling up the Southern Road with one horse and a lot of us just walking, non stop.”
They could have returned in one of the army caravans, but having stopped to visit their family, they returned by this much longer way. The return of Sara was a cause of great joy for Obala who said all of her food tasted of tears since had gone and for Cal and Gabriel.
“Isn’t it great,” Matteo said, earnestly, “that all of us are together again?”
That night Lorne was there and so was Brian, Quinton and Matteo were present and Derek and Cal sang old songs. Obala brought bread and chicken and Conn sat beside his sister, feeling full of the old warmth those rooms had known, Occasionally Jon glanced at him, but this night his eyes were on Gabriel on the white hose and the strong thighs who, when he rose, the very round shape of his behind was visible, and when he laughed, the joy in him was more visible still. Derek had the duty of night prayers, as did Quinton, and when Matt prepared to leave with them, Conn said, “Where are you going?”
Matteo gestured to him and they went into the kitchen.
“You have been talking about Gabriel since he left,” Matteo said. “And now he’s here and Quint has told me how much he thinks of you, and the two of you have never had time together. Well, tonight is your time.”
“Matt!” Conn started.
His best friend. His always love, laid a strong hand on his shoulder and looked at him almost severely.
“Tonight,” he told Conn, “is your time.”
He would never be used to this way of life, where being in love with one man did not mean you wouldn’t be in love with another, where the lover you had given your heart to, encouraged you to go to another lover. Oh, sure, all over there were those who played around, the man who strayed, the woman or man who looked the other way because it meant something. But Derek meant everything to him, and knew how much Matteo had meant. And Matteo knew how much he meant to Conn and also knew how much Gabriel would mean, and yet he said, “Tonight is your time.”
The same way Quinton had gently placed his hand in Matteo’s and gently kissed him a year ago, in Gabriel’s presence, now Matteo place his hands on Conn’s shoulder’s kissed him, and then turned to leave.
When they were all on their way to bed, Gabriel said, “I guess I should go, too. I am staying upstairs tonight.”
But he did not stay in Derek’s room, He passed through it and went out of the hall, and Lorne was stretching out and Cal was on his way to the old large room, still talking to Sara. Conn sat on the sofa a while, and then he stood up and rather than going out the door of Lorne’s room, went down the hall to Derek’s, and left through there to see Gabriel standing at the door of the room beside Derek’s, a room he’d never wondered about before.
“You….” Conn found his mouth dry and started over again. “You never stay in this room. You never stay alone.”
“That’s true,” Gabriel said.
And then I said, “I used to. But then Sara was there so even that wasn’t alone. Not really. There was no privacy.”
“Yes,” Conn said, looking away from the transparent hose that shone on Gabriel’s lovely legs, from the face of the redhead who looked quiet, subdued.
“Then you want to be alone,” Conn said. “In that case, I shouldn’t—”
“Conn,” Gabriel almost shouted.
Conn turned to him.
“Why in the world do you think I took this room? When I said privacy I meant…”
Then Gabriel simply opened the door and said, “Conn, Come in.”
When he came in he almost immediately fell into Gabriel’s arms and Gabriel’s kiss. He was surprised that his mouth tasted of spearmint and that Gabriel seemed almost as nervous and as eager as he did. He was surprised and glad that he could still be nervous. Quickly, more from what seemed nerves than a desire to show off, Gabriel unlaced the mesh hose and pulled them off quickly, fooling with them where they were stuck coming over his feet, and then he took off the tunic, and Conn undressed quickly too.
He was unconscious of what he looked like, but stood almost worshipping the lightly muscled body of Gabriel Rokemount and finally, looking into his face, stepping forward to kiss him, wrapping his arms around him and feeling the strength he had never known Gabriel’s arms held. They stood kissing and running their hands slowly up and down each other, and then, lay on the bed to kiss and touch and know more. With a small smile, Gabriel reached up and turned out the light, and in the darkness of the room with only the blue light of late night coming through the window, he said, “Well, now, that’s better.”
“It was strange, you know,” Gabriel said. “I had stopped doing the work of a Blue, and I don’t know what made me go. I had to go when Cal left. But it was nothing like in the temple, not that I thought it would be. And sometimes it isn’t that wonderful in the temple even. There was so much sadness, so much need, and you could not always wash it away. There were men who wept in my arms, and wept for their sweethearts, their mothers. Northerners who wept because they could never tell anyone they wished to lie with men. And we saw so much,” Gabriel shook his head.
“Ah, but I should stop talking about it.”
“No,” Conn said, touching his face, leaving his fingers on his cheeks. “You tell me everything you wish to tell.”
“I wanted to make love again,” Gabriel said.
In the blue darkness, they lay together, face to face, knees pulled in, heads on pillows and Conn stroked Gabriel’s hair, his bare shoulder, his naked side.
“I grew up in the temples, so I always knew what Blues did, always loved it even though I wanted to do more than lay with men. I want to be third and fourth and fifth grade, tell the stories, do the services, remember the chants, learn the magic even. At war none of those things happened, and I began to feel beaten down, not myself, not anyone. I felt like a hole everyone was dropping their need… and their sorrow into, like what they say we are.”
“A whore.”
“Yes,” Gabriel said. “I was angry at Cal for leaving. I wanted to be with someone again who held me, who loved me and loved me as me. But the truth is, I did not think of Cal,” he shook his head, “More and more I thought of you, how things never got off the ground for us.”
“Well,” Cal said with a laugh, “they are off the ground now.”
Gabriel laughed and laughed louder, so that he had to sit up.
“Yes, Connleth, yes they are.”
They were quiet awhile and then Gabriel said, “I, who am usually so good with words, are so bad with my words to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I took up rhe services when I came back,” Gabriel said, “threw myself into them because I wanted to feel the sacredness of it again, but I couldn’t not completely because all of it is a shadow of lovemaking. And I haven’t made love to anyone since I’ve come back.”
“What about Cal?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“Oh!” Conn said. “And I was being foolish and afraid as usual.”
“I guess we both were,” Gabriel said.
“Matteo told me this was our time,” Conn said.
“Matteo is smarter than the both of us.”
They lay down, Gabriel holding Conn, their bodies curled like commas.
“I have waited a whole year…” Conn began and Gabriel squeezed him and said, “What have you been waiting for a whole year, my Connleth?”
“For you to tell me what happened to Etain, when she was reborn?”
“You could have looked that up in the library.”
“Aye, but I wanted to hear it from your mouth, in my ear. I wanted to hear it this was, with your arms about me.”
Gabriel kissed him several times while he told him of how Etain, now Etar, had married the King of Solea, and Vidar came desiring her and trying to take her from her husband, but King Eochaid had sent her to the land of Mac Oc, the holding of Aengus, where he had been struck by love for her, and she remembered her past lives and his past kindness. They fell into a great passion.
“And many,” Gabriel kissed him, “many, songs did they sing and do we sing to this day.”
But Eochaid and Vidar were both filled with rage and raised armies of Elphame, that is Elfkind, as well as armies of men and they came to make war against Aengus, and Aengus sought the help of his father and of the River Boand and the River Maidens, for he would never give up Etar. The armies were coming to meet and would have clashed so strong as to bring an end to the second creation, for this was at the time of the second creation, but Annatar himself, the godfather of Aengus and master of trickery, went down with his sister Amana and spread a great mist of confusion over the amries of Eochaid and Vidar so that they slew each other, and the tips of their black spears that pierced men and went to the ground would not leave the bodies of the men or the earth but stood rooted there, but Annatar appeared to what was left of the armies in all of his glory and told them to stay back, for no man could own a woman and no man could control love.
“And he crowned Aengus and Atar with beauty and love so that whoever prays to them shall win love and where they gaze and where they speak, all feel love, and Amana gave them four birds which fly ever over their heads singing of love, compassion, passion and strength. Aengus and his Atar were wed, some say in this very spot, and they made the journey from here to the mouth of the river to what is now Ondres, and that was the beginning of the circuit of the wedding country.”
The story was told slowly, between kisses and interrupted by slow lovemaking that, in time became quickly intense, ended in shouts and the shaking of the bed.
When they has passed out of a semi sleep, Gabriel added:
“But there are some who sat the sames Atar and Annatar are so close, and that some changed the story, for originally, Aengus loved Annatar or an avatar of him, and Eochaid and Vidar fought over him, but that Annatar, loved by Aengus, gained the totality of his being back and so caused the chaos on the Field of Blackspears.”
“I had seen something like that,” Conn said. “When we went to the wedding country. A temple build to Annatar and Aengus. I had seen this and wondered at the meaning.”
“It is one of several meanings and,” Gabriel yawned, “the one I choose to believe.
“But in closing, Maia, Goddess of the morning, the bright Morning Star and the Dawning in the East, came through the Field of Black Spears, and she caused the spears to become trees and to take deep roots and consume the remains of the men they had killed, and so the trees were black as night and their leaves red as blood and that forest became known as Blackspear.”
“And,” Connleth guessed, “It is from a tree of that forest that the ancient priests carved the Black Door.”
MORE TOMORROW
