++++ Brother Matthieu tended a garden of herbs and leafy oddities. It was divided by high walls from the cemetery (My vines need walls, he said), and gated with an old iron pike. The midwives visited, when curious or in need, and sometimes a grandmother looking to ease her joints. The maidens, ripe and curious, were warned off by their families. Men of God they were, but only one was a saint. Still, there never was complaint of a child got from the Father's man. The priest and the brother kept bees. Matthieu refined their honey and wax and Darius brewed mead. It was generally conceded that the bees, recipients of the men's secrets, were somewhat strange, as well. ++++ This time, he was different. Thin and ragged and dirty, with brambles in his hair; not like the Methos he knew, who husbanded his goods and relished cleanliness to a heathen degree. There was blood behind his ears. His mouth was sweet and hot to tongue, washed with mead. He was hungry for Darius's mouth, strangely, he was rough when Darius came close enough to be grabbed and pulled onto the bed. He took without asking, he plunged into the priest's body while the robe still hung from Darius's arm and the rope cincture chafed and bit into his back. It was a savage act, it was a bright and burning brand the priest embraced. Darius drank down the fury and the need, the force that beat breath from his body and left him shaking, streaked with ecstasy and pain. Christ, but he'd make the devil pay for this in the morning. Christ, but it felt good to be buffeted alive by this man digging nails into his waist. After the storm, when they lay damp and loose-limbed and healing, Darius marshaled his thoughts. Methos was collapsed across him, knee sharp into his thigh and head on his breast. Darius put a hand on the shaggy hair, and Methos sighed. He felt rough lips against his nipple and a nip of teeth; then an arm tightened around him, snugging close. "Methos?" he said, pulling out a thorn. There was no answer but breath across his skin. Asleep, just like that. Well. There was nothing to bring a body to the church before the feast-day service, and barring another death, no need for bothering the priest. No locks on his doors or the church's. No screen for his life. Methos smacked his lips in his sleep. His body was heavy and warm, a goodly weight and anchor against the bed. A guilty man would slide out from under, a guilty and self-sacrificing priest would set the room to rights and kneel at his morning prayers and offer up the penance of no sleep. Darius slid his hand under Methos's hair, at the curve of his neck. You love the sinner, god of mine. You offer shelter and balm for his wounds, you offer compassion, which is a damned sight more than some gods have, I swear. Be a good fellow then, and keep the nosing sheep away from this unkempt bed. I cherish the gifts of life and acts of love; and I'll see he does something uncomfortably charitable in your name. "Amen," said Darius. He stroked the long back to its base, then drew the coverlet over them both, up to his chin. With his hand on Methos's back, with Methos clinging to him still, he sank into blessed oblivion. +++ He let the hound sleep through Mass, this once. He wasn't fit to be seen by the faithful who braved the chill and the heavy clouds that threatened snow. Darius stopped mère Marette's daughter at the holy water font and charmed from her the charity of a blanket and a castoff shirt. For a visitor, he explained, for his brother, arrived in the night and not well treated by the great unfriendly world. Marette's husband had died that winter past, and her only son married and moved away. He promised help with the widow's leaking roof, of which the community had heard a great deal, and with digging a new privy, a less public but more pressing need. He heard two unremarkable confessions. He accepted a candle for the altar from the miller's impatient son, and refrained from commenting on bargains with God. He put the altar in order and put off his vestments and left the church. He walked around the corner in high spirits, as a few dry flakes began to whirl. There was no connecting door between the leaning house and the church, though they shared a wall. It was something he meant to get around to, some day. The crypt though, the crypt spread under the foundation of the little house and a low hatchway linked it to the root cellar. There was another way down to the space below the house; it wasn't the first home the priest had built, during his long life. The door to the house opened from the garden path onto the main room, with its central fireplace and table and two chairs. Beyond was a second room given over to storage and the small cell that held his bed. It was rather a luxury, that bed, large for the space and for a solitary servant of God, but the priest was a tall man and had made it himself to fit his frame. Darius's spirits dimmed a bit at the thought of that bed and the state of his good blanket. He lifted the latch and entered to a homely sight: Methos, naked, sitting cross-legged on the blanket before the fire, shaving himself with oil and his dagger. An oil pot, the bucket, the kettle, a clump of soiled rags on the hearth, and mottled pink and gray skin showed the progress of his bath. A flask of Darius's herbed vinegar was on the table, but much good that would do without the comb. Methos shivered. "Close the door Father, there's a fiendish draft." "Fiend of a guest. Where did you get that cloth?" "The pillowslip." At Darius's black look, he shrugged. "It was too far gone to mend. Where did you put my clothes?" "Burned, and your livestock with them." The dagger hesitated, then swept delicately across Methos's throat. "Burned?" "And the ashes dumped in the manure pit." "Darius." "My son?" Methos laid the dagger on the stones and stood. Graceful as a cat, with his ribs showing and his hair in dirty tails, thought Darius; and gazed serenely on the heathen sight with hands folded in his sleeves. "Darius..." "That hair should come off. You'll never get it clean." "I'll manage. Darius, you didn't burn my clothes." "Sit up here where I can reach, and I'll do it." "Vinegar will kill the pests." "So will fire." "You have a passion for purgatory today." He did move to the table, he did move close enough to touch, close enough for Darius to see the gooseflesh on the arm extended to caress his shoulder. "It must be the company. I'll cut it short and soak your scalp, and we'll see if your nether hair needs absolution, too." Darius kept his hands in his sleeves, hugged tight to his body now. The devil that close, smelling sharply and familiarly of Methos aroused... he looked down, he couldn't help himself, and saw the slow blush and plumping of the member now a moth's wing from his robe. Not a devil, a man, he thought, as he felt a man's response in answer. Not a saint, a man... Methos gripped his upper arms, hard. He felt himself swell against the rough wool of his robe, he saw the slightest tremor of the thick cloth brush the head of Methos's cock, fat as a rat's head, a narcissus bulb, a, a, a fig in a snake's mouth pushing... He gasped and looked into the devil's eyes, close and bright and narrow. A knock crashed on the door. Another knock, like the crash of his heart. "Are you there, Father?" Methos pushed him away and snatched up the blanket. A knock sounded again, and he opened the door as the devil clothed his nakedness. "Ma fois, Father, it took you long enough, it'll be snowing feather beds by dark. Is this the poor soul, then?" It was mère Marette herself, with her daughter Lisette and her neighbor Blanca in tow, their arms full and their eyes sharp and darting, pressing into the room, around the room, and talking the whole time. "Like a man, even a holy man, pardon Father, not to ask for help. A blanket for your poor bereft brother, a shirt from the rag pile! See there the state of him, your own flesh and blood. What were you going to wrap his long legs in against the cold, an altar cloth? Trying to clean himself with oil, would you look at that ungodly mess on the hearth? Faugh, his hair's alive, the sad cock." She sniffed and reached up to pat the poor soul's cheek. Methos blanched and opened his mouth, but no words came out. "Ah, mother, don't fret. He was wiping off a bit of mud, that's all. He's a humble man and I have a cassock to spare. Really, there is no need," said Darius. He held out a restraining hand and Blanca put a pie in it. "These many years," said the widow, shaking out a pair of knitted socks in a marked manner, "we've never heard of any family of yours." "You may not have heard him clearly today," said Methos, finding his tongue. "Brother..." "You have the look of him," said the daughter softly, eyeing the blanket's imperfect join. Methos clutched it in a new arrangement, baring his shoulder, and she dimpled. "And the northern sound to your tongue, as well." "Your second-hand cassock is all good and well, but he won't dig in it. There's a pair of stout trousers in there, good wear left in them, and clogs," "Dig?" "Nearly new those clogs, good long feet her husband had. Like yours," said Blanca, swinging her bosom in Methos's direction. "Are you a priest, then, too?" "No," said Methos, caught between the bosom and the fire. The daughter dimpled more deeply. "Oh, no..." "Brother Matthieu serves the Lord in his own way," said Darius, squeezing respectfully past the widow to join the group on the hearth. He took the daughter firmly by the elbow and led her from the occasion of sin. "You have his eyes, too," said Lisette over her shoulder, hopping as she was drawn away. "Are you..." "Good ladies, thank you for your kindness, God bless you, it's more than we deserve. It's getting dark, and the snow is threatening, and Brother Matthieu is indecent for such company." Darius spread his arms in dismissal, in embrace of such bounty, in shooing the ministers of charity out the door. It was yet another dozen questions, an enumeration of goods in the bundles, and a promise given to shear the poor lamb's locks (Methos contributing his opinion again on the subject and being awarded the benefit of much matronly experience with lousy heads) before the room was clear. As soon as the door shut behind them, Methos dropped the blanket and began to curse. He covered a broad range of topics, not least of them Darius's sins of commission and omission and brazen promise, he now understood, for Methos to dig six feet down into frozen ground -- "Eight," said Darius calmly, folding the donated clothing, "and you'll do it with good grace." "You'll do it yourself with a prayer and a hymn. I'm leaving." He grabbed for the sturdy trousers in the stack but Darius jerked them back. "Naked in the snow? Or would you steal from my flock?" "Return my clothes then, thief yourself and liar. Where are they?" "Burned and the ashes stinking like your manners. Sit down!" It was the general's voice that whipped out, the one rarely heard these recent centuries. Methos gripped the chair back, but stayed on his feet, glaring. "Swear to me," said the general; "Swear to me on your honor and your head that no one knows you're here." "I told you, no. It's worth my head and my life." A tremor shook his frame, from muscles too long taut or from standing naked and unfed arguing with a prick of a priest. "No one followed me and lived." "Who did you kill?" "Not killed, Father; I went where one couldn't follow." "You led a mortal to his death?" "I ran; he ran after and met death on his own, and that's the whole of it you need to know. No one spied me within eighty leagues of here, no one followed. Not a word with another soul, not a bite to eat, not a night's sleep in human company until I found the mountain road." "Whose blood were you wearing?" "I killed a sheep," said Methos flatly. "Naked or not, I'll go and take my stinking ashes with me." The shiver touched his jaw; he clenched it tight and turned around, groping after the discarded blanket. There were more questions that needed answering. Darius knew Methos lying and telling the truth, and he knew desperation when he saw it. "Don't be a fool. We'll cut the filth from your head..." "And have me go off looking fresh from the plague. Or the stocks, or an abbey." "Stay then, until it grows back. Stay, now. We'll finish cleaning you, and we'll eat that pie." "Will we." Methos kept his back to him as he wrapped the blanket under his arms, and stooped to add another short log to the fire. Wood the priest had in plenty this season; thank God, because his guest was being profligate. Darius wondered truly if the man's stomach could handle Blanca's cooking, and what else he had fit for a starveling in the house. A guest, likely a fugitive, troubled, unclothed and hungry under his roof; he felt the sharp bite of shame, and it showed in his eyes, surely, when the poor man turned from the fire to look him in the face, dagger in his hand. A bite of shame, a bite of fear; possibly, a bite of desire from the warrior look of him. Were the devil's lice at his soul? Methos walked to the table and set the dagger down. "There's no other way but to cut?" "We could boil your head." "Could you manage that with me dead, do you think?" God help him, the man was considering it. Darius could see one of his flock coming to fetch the priest and happening on that tableau. He caught a crinkle at the corner of the devil's eye. "Vanity, thy name is Methos. Sit, sinner, and I'll get the scissors." "Bring the mead, as well." The devil surrendered and sat, or his legs gave way. When Darius came back from sorting through his chest, Methos was trousered and munching on half the pie. He was impressed with the antiquity of the tools. The razor was Darius's own, Roman style, the handle a relic of his military days. The scissors were true joined blades of Eastern manufacture. Methos caressed the handles with elegant fingers and broken, dirty nails. Perhaps boiling him wasn't a bad idea, at that. He was silent but for chewing and swallowing while Darius chopped his hair. When the worst of it was off and writhing in the waste pot, Darius took a little trouble to neaten the ends. He liked the feel of the slippery hair between his fingers and the sound of the blades cutting through. He liked having that head docile under his hands. When Methos reached for the vinegar flask, he took it away and made him turn back around. He stood behind Methos, over his bare shoulders and neck, and rubbed vinegar through the new-clipped thatch, wetting him to the scalp. He combed through the short strands twice, three times, wiping off the comb, and then a fourth time for the pleasure of it. Methos stopped moving sometime during the vinegar rub; his head was bowed, his eyes were closed, and the long stretch of his neck was exposed under Darius's hands. Vulnerable. Trusting. Seductive. It put the priest in mind of hot oils and precious scents from Persia. There was still a gleam of shaving oil behind the jaw, along the throat. He slid his fingers behind Methos's ears, across skin that was clean now, and slick and warm. He dug his thumbs into the corded muscles at the nape of the neck. He let his fingers spread across the throat, picking up the oil, sliding back along the neck to the top of the shoulders. Methos made a soft gutteral sound, almost a groan, and Darius began to knead. He leaned forward for leverage, over the bowed head, and murmered in his ear: "What you hid in the seams is safe. Be easy, friend, and stay." "You bastard," said Brother Matthieu, quietly. +++To Be Continued+++

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