it or not, who had begun training me as her priestess even before I knew her story and how it would restore the lost thread of mine.
The man appeared to be what we call an easy one—not arrogant, not awkward, not old, not young, not demanding anything in particular—or so I thought. I lay on my back for this simple sunny side up sort and reached for his cock to ease him in. He was ready. Ten strokes, I bet myself as I sometimes did to add interest. Then suddenly he leapt off me. He must have had strong upper arms for it seemed as though in one motion he was in the opposite corner of the room (granted it was small) pressed against the wall, staring at me with terrified eyes.
Slowly I rolled to my side and raised myself on my arm. No sudden moves. I had seen eyes like these before that looked at me but saw something else. It was one of the few things that frightened me. I looked to see if my bell was within easy reach, the bell that would bring Bone running. It was by the lamp. I began to inch my hand towards it.
Wait. There’s something here, a voice within me spoke. Yes, that voice again.
I didn’t want to hear it, but after a moment I answered: Then tell me what to do.
He needs a priestess, the voice said.
He came to the wrong place then, I shot back.
Did he?
I looked at the man and noticed details I had missed before. He was beginning to grey; his face had some deep lines, but in this moment he looked young, terribly young.
“I won’t hurt you,” was all I could think of to say.
He shook his head; then he covered his eyes. When he uncovered them, I saw that he was back from wherever he had gone. He knew where he was—in a tiny room with a whore who meant nothing to him. But his face was so bleak, instead of feeling relieved I felt my own sorrow stirring.
“Forgive me,” he said and turned to go.
“Is that what you need?” I asked.
The man stopped in the doorway; very slowly he turned around, and looked at me, really looked at me, as he had not before.
“What did you just say?”
“Do you need someone to forgive you?”
He didn’t answer right away, but he remained in the doorway.
“I cannot be forgiven.”
I sighed. If I had had a watch I might have looked at it. What did I care what this man had done? He’d had his time with me; let him pay and go.
He is a stranger, the voice inside said.
He’s strange, all right.
The god-bearing stranger, but the god in him is wounded.
Not this god shit again.
Yes. Will you help him?
I have a choice?
The voice inside was silent. There would be no force here. I looked at the man, the stranger, and suddenly I remembered how everyone at druid school had called my beloved the Stranger; they feared him, too; they thought he was a god; they tried to make him one—on their own terms.
“Tell me,” I heard myself speaking to the man. “Come and tell me.”
“Are you a priestess?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, surprised by my certainty. “Come closer to me.”
For I suddenly knew I needed to hear whatever he would tell me not only with my ears but also with my hands. Without instruction from me, he knelt before my low bed. As he spoke, I put my hands on his heart. He poured out what seemed at first an ordinary tale of youthful indiscretion—a love affair with a young married woman, no more than a girl, really, whose marriage had been arranged by her father. A typical story. They were caught, of course, and brought to trial. Guilt meant a fine for him, divorce for her, and separate exiles for both. Or so he thought, persuading himself that once outside of Rome they could meet again and begin a new life.
“The night before I left, I bribed my way into her husband’s house in secret. She begged me not to leave. ‘He’s sending me back in the morning,’ she kept sobbing, ‘back to my father’s house.’ But I didn’t understand what she was saying. I went over our plans of how and where we were to meet. She clung to me and wouldn’t be comforted. I was afraid we’d be caught again, so I tore myself away and headed for the port to board my ship in time for the next tide. While I was sailing free into the rising sun.…” He paused and seemed not able to breathe for a moment. I waited, silent, my hands burning on his heart. “…her father strangled her.”
My throat closed, too. All my muscles tensed. I wanted to fling him away. He had left his beloved to be killed by her father. Killed by her father. I would not forgive him; I refused. He was right; he could not be forgiven—even if it was not his fault.
As I looked at the man kneeling before me, trying to control my rage, I saw Esus galloping across the Menai Straits, not looking back, leaving me alone to face the druids, to face my father who reviled me as his daughter and wanted me dead. My father would have killed Esus, too. Made him a holy sacrifice. I had forced Esus to go; I had commanded him to go. It was not Esus’ fault, not his fault that he had left me.
I hadn’t known until this moment that I blamed him.
Suddenly it dawned on me: What if Esus blamed himself?
Esus could not know that my father had killed himself. He could not be certain that I had survived. Why had I never thought of that? This man trembling between my hands was unable to forgive himself. Could my own beloved be suffering this way?
I closed my eyes and had the dizzying sense of being able to see everyone’s story—this man sailing away while his beloved died; the girl staring into her father’s face as his hands closed on her throat. Esus seeing the hard, exposed Cambrian rock rise up before him as a huge, black tidal bore swept the straits cutting off his pursuers. And I saw myself, calling the storm, howling as my water broke and my childbirth began.
Then all the images dissolved as I saw everything through the eyes of the one who weeps rivers, the one whose lover drifts away in a coffin.
“Since then,” the man was saying. “I have not been with a woman. Whenever I have a woman in my arms, I see her face; I hear her begging me not to leave her.”
He fell silent and stayed motionless with his head bowed, waiting for my judgment. I became aware that I was breathing evenly again, a great steady tidal river of breath. The fire flowed through my hands into the man’s heart. But something more was wanting.
If you are willing, the inside voice said, I will open the way.
I am willing.
Again I saw through the eyes of the one who had known all sorrow.
“Beloved,” I answered in her voice. “I am the mistress of the living and the dead. Speak to your love, and she will hear. Comfort her and be comforted.”
I raised him from his knees, and
