Page 8 of My Hero
For six months he worked diligently under the scrutiny of Castle de Ware’s chaplain, memorizing, studying, falling naturally into the rhythm of prayer and blessing, worship and chant. He showed promise, the chaplain informed his father, and might even aspire to the office of bishop. Garth seemed destined for greatness.
Until Lady Mariana de Martel came to live at the castle.
The orphaned daughter of a landless lord upon whom James de Ware had taken pity, she blew into Garth’s life like a devastating whirlwind, steering him off course and dominating his every waking thought. She devoted herself as thoroughly and deeply to sexual pleasure as Garth did to the church, and it was only a matter of time before he was tempted by her far more fascinating religion.
She teased, taunted, tortured his untried body with seduction and denial until he was crazed with desire. The sight of her made his blood run hot, and his heart raced if she so much as brushed his arm in passing.
One torrid summer night, Mariana called him to her bedside, wailing and writhing under the influence of what she claimed were devilish nightmares. She sent away her maid and bade him bolt the door. A half dozen times that night she called upon his young, virile body to exorcise the demons of her dreams. By the time dawn broke and Garth stumbled back to his own chamber, he was dazed and exhausted.
Rather than easing Garth’s infatuation, however, she’d only piqued it. He turned his face from the church and began to worship Mariana, devoting himself completely to pleasuring her. He decided at last that he wouldn’t be content until he made her his wife.
But Mariana had other plans. She’d grown bored of him. He no longer seemed to be able to satisfy her endless cravings. She avoided him, made excuses, left him waiting in an empty bed.
Garth was young and inexperienced, and love was blind. Like a knight facing the quintain for the first time, he never saw the blow coming.
He could remember, word for word, everything she said as he lay naked, drained, trembling with fatigue and shamefaced rage. It pained him too much to recall those words now. But after she was through with him, after she shredded every scrap of his newfound masculinity from him as easily as his linen undergarments, he was filled with such self-loathing and humiliation that he could scarcely draw breath.
He would never, he vowed, shame himself with a woman again.
And so he threw himself wholeheartedly into the church. He withdrew beneath a cassock so thick that Cupid’s arrow couldn’t pierce the wool. To his parents’ dismay, he moved out of the castle and humbled himself to the level of a simple monk at a poor monastery. There, he embraced his new life with the zeal of an ascetic. And he never looked back at the life he’d once led…until the nightmares came to taunt him, forcing him to remember, nay, torelivehis past.
He sighed heavily. The pressure in his loins had abated now. All that remained was disgrace. And for that, he must confess to the prior. Contrition for his sin, the sin of lust, was the only way to be rid of it once and for all.
He folded back the rough wool blanket and sat up, forcing his bare feet with intentional cruelty onto the cold stone floor. The back of his cassock stuck to him. The damp wool itched against his skin, but he refused to allow himself the comfort of scratching. He muttered a hasty prayer as he crossed himself, hoping he wasn’t late for Sabbath Mass.
Prior Thomas padded across his office, stroking his freshly shaved chin with one hand, patting his portly stomach with the other.
“I see,” he murmured uncomfortably.
Thomas wondered how long this would take, and more to the point, how soon he could eat. God forgive him, but this was part of a prior’s occupation he truly detested—passing judgment on men who were surely no more flawed than he was.
And naturally, God had seen fit, in some kind of penitential jest, to send him Garth de Ware today. Brother Garth came to him at least once a fortnight with some or other imagined sin for which he felt he owed contrition.
This week it was lust.
The prior rubbed his hand over his face. By the morose look in Garth’s eyes, he knew he wouldn’t be able to explain that any normal, warm-blooded male of his age naturally felt the stirrings of the body. Nor, he feared, would Garth be content with a stern lecture. Nay, Garth was one of those rare, irritating fanatics who insisted on harsh self-punishment. Something had happened in Garth’s past to make him believe he was unworthy, and nothing on heaven or earth could convince him otherwise. Thank God the prior had locked away the monastery scourge, or Garth would doubtless insist on a daily flogging.
Garth stared up at him expectantly, and though the youth knelt humbly enough before him, Prior Thomas had to remind himself that the young man was his underling. Garth de Ware’s countenance was anything but humble. His steady, noble gaze marked him as the son of a lord. His was the face of a man born to power, a face that commanded respect, led armies, and doled out justice.
When Garth had first come to the monastery, though his spirit seemed somehow lost, his body was strong and fit. He’d been a striking youth. Now, apathy had ruined the lad’s appetite and, in the prior’s opinion, left him too spare. Garth’s was by nature a warrior’s body, not fashioned for the inertia of a monk’s life, no matter how readily his mind adapted. The lad was literally wasting away.
Thomas ran a palm over his own round belly and expelled a weary puff of air. Above all, the prior liked order—lengths of wool that made exactly two cassocks, jongleur’s verses with happy endings, just enough of last year’s wine to last till the new barrels were ready, all loose ends tied. Such things were incontrovertible proof that God was in his heaven. Garth de Ware? He was an anomaly, a reminder that perhaps all was not right with the world.
What had brought Garth to God’s fold, the prior couldn’t guess. It was the one subject the lad would never broach. But it was apparent the young man simply didn’t belong here. His own parents said as much, inquiring frequently after Garth in the hopes he’d change his mind about the monastery.
It wasn’t that Garth wasn’t fit for the church. He certainly possessed the fear of God, love of Christ, and devotion to mankind required of a man of the cloth. But with his keen intellect and noble ties, he was better suited to the position of castle chaplain or abbot or even bishop, some office requiring frequent contact with the secular world.
The prior feared the seclusion of the monastery was slowly draining the life from Garth de Ware.
Still, Garth did as he was told, and his father, Lord James de Ware, supplied the monks with a generous annual oblation. Prior Thomas supposed it was none of his affair whether the young man’s calling was true or not.
He cleared his throat and tried his best to mold the cheery crinkles of his bald forehead into stern furrows. He’d have to choose his words carefully. Garth would indubitably castrate himself if he thought it a seemly punishment for the sin of lust.
It truly was a shame the lad was not of thein seculoclergy, those who worked “in the world,” for though the church officially frowned on such a thing, a goodly number of such clergy possessed concubines, wives, and even offspring. Clearly,theynever grappled with the sin of lust.
“Let me see. You say you cried out her name?” he asked, steepling his fingers importantly.
The young man’s gaze hardened. “Aye, Father.”
