Unconscious, he was laid upon his bed to rest. He slept as soundly as the dead. I laid beside him for a time. I slept as soundly as the dead -- it comes easy to me. But not for long. I did not sleep for long, for my mind's agitation ignored my soul's exhaustion.
     And I rose...
     By then he was just sleeping, it seemed. Just sleeping, my Giancarlo. But I could not think on it long or my guts would start to churn. I went to the bath. I stood in the falling water, cleansing the blood from my face, letting the water hit me and transport me. To somewhere else, a garden would be nice, where my thoughts could linger on pruning plants, listening to music, and glancing over the words of a book lain open for my intermittent attention. Not in the villa that had been my home. Not with a churning gut. Not with the flood of Things Best Left Forgotten and in the Past. Not with the Past intruding on my carefully constructed Present.
     Not with Michele's ghost, the picture of his final burning moment...
     In that garden, wherever it is -- and maybe it is even in Poitiers -- Giancarlo and I are there. Simply enjoying another evening's passing, each one bringing me to a greater understanding of who he is. And he of me. It is a place where we do not dwell on the Past. And where the Past does not infringe upon us.
     I could not hide in the shower forever...
     It is probably several hours now since... and... I am drying off and dressing again with the silence of routine. I do not know, and do not care, what I am wearing. Another cashmere sweater, not ivory this time -- that sweater is speckled with my blood now, ruined -- another pair of trousers. Hair left to dry on its own, wetly honeyed until it goes white-blond and flax.
     Alire pours a glass of brandy and stands beside the bed. There is around him the smell of the recent shower, even the condensation of heated water. And there is stillness. The silence of not knowing what to say and not wanting to talk about It.

     On the other side of the villa, pages are turned in the library, old notebooks consulted, old volumes examined; newer books as well, history texts along with historical texts. Samuel is burning the daylight oil...
     There is no way to understand how this has come about. Perhaps understanding must wait on reason and compassion - for does not the Torah say, wisdom surpasseth understanding? Still, it is a difficulty, a difficulty indeed...
     Behind Samuel, on a workbench, a complicated contrivance of wire and glass bubbles some dark liquid through tubes and filters, so that its essence coagulates one drop at a time into a beaten-copper vessel. The timing of it seems akin to a human heartbeat, and just as ignored. What does one do...

     "Alire?" Cesare whispers, hands still resting at his sides. The world reveals itself to him again, and he remains still as he stares at the ceiling. There's confusion forming on his face, a surprise to find himself in bed once more.
     Cesare sits up and looks about. "What-" he begins, dismay on his features. "What happened?" he finally gets out, hand coming to touch his own face and head.

     What happened? How to answer this question. I do not know, amice. I am not sure.
     Alire draws up to the bed, taking a seat upon it. You will see that he is not clothed as he was before. Now he is wearing grey cashmere and grey trousers. His hair is wet, though drying. He looks...concerned? Tired. "How are you feeling, Giancarlo?" An intential use of the name. It is you, yes? Not... not as before. "You ... I should get Samuel. He will be better at explaining than I." He offers you the brandy.
     I do not know how to even put it in words. My jaw is tight...
     The Stone of Chinon...
     "He was thinking," Alire makes the attempt, for he does not want you to worry, but how can you not worry, perhaps, when he looks as stricken as he does, even though he is trying very hard to seem absolutely normal. Alire is affected. "... that it was something from the past. Do you remember anything of what happened?" Blue eyes fix on you. Anything? Do you remember, Mi...mi amice...
     Alire glances behind him. If only he could summon his master. He cannot, true. But he can summon Charles...

     What? Cesare blinks, becoming upset. "Explaining what?" he asks, looking down at himself, as his clothing. "What happened? Something happened?" That should have been the first question.

     Charles appears, slightly hesitant; things which break the routine are unusual, at the Magister's residence. Routine is a pattern, the pattern is life, and there is nothing to breach the days and nights of peace. He appears, however, with tray and wine and glasses. "Sirs?"

     Cesare drops back to the bed, hands on his face now. He massages it roughly, then looks to the arriving Charles.

     Alire turns his head to the doorway. "Please ask the magister to come, Charles." A glance to the side bureau indicates that he should set down the wine and go do just that. Alire takes the intervening moment, this break in routine, to gather and collect himself. He looks from Charles back to Cesare. Leaning forward, he sets the brandy upon the bedside table and the settles his touch upon his lover, a hand to rest against his side.

     The tray is set down, and with a small, politely respectful bow, Charles withdraws. It is an excitement, of sorts, but as to its desirability ... he does not yet know. He goes forthwith, to the library, the inner sanctum of the alchemist, where Samuel stands at a podium, reading, stroking his beard and questioning the universe.

     "What is going on, Alire?" Cesare whispers now, nervously agitated. He'll wait for someone to explain, but that must be soon. "Something's happened." The hand to the face gives some information. "I'm sick -- I...passed out." Yes, that's it. His stock-taking continues. "Something..." he looks at Alire seriously now, "...yes...the experiment..." A vague recollection that something was in progress. "Your teacher, we were...he said...to try something..."

     "Yes, yes..." Alire says it softly, but he interjects it, knowing he must say something. "You remember you drank from the snifter." He wants to make sure you remember that much. "You stared into the candle light, and then you spoke. When you did, it was with a ... voice from your past. A past, tesoro, that you shared with me. He became very distressed... I tried to speak to you, to tell you I was here, and that seemed to upset him...you..."
     Alire narrows his eyes. This is difficult. "You spoke with his words, his language, old language, and then you screamed even as... I ..." I can't say it. "Even as I imagine he did... when he ... passed." Burning alive.
     "I tried to tell you... you... where we were and that we were safe. But... it was too... much. You collapsed. Samuel had you placed here. I ... had to go outside for a moment but then... I have been here too."

     Footsteps approaching, audible even to human ears, unaugmented by ability or science - two sets. Low voices outside the door, and then one set moves away, as Charles is again dismissed.
     A light tap on the door, and then the Magister enters, dressed as before, seeming immaculate, very much himself, as ever. As Time always has passed him by...
     "Charles informed me," Samuel says quietly, "that you wished for me to come." No questions, not yet.

     Cesare stares at Alire with little comprehension. Who is the subject of discussion?
     But the teacher arrives. Cesare's eyes widen, in anticipation of a better explanation. He sits up again, running his hand through his hair.

     Alire hears Samuel coming before Samuel arrives and is turning to look upon him with a look of relief mixed with ... confusion-frustration. "Yes, I did... I am doing a poor job of... explaining what has happened. I need you to explain..." Not: I would like you to explain. Or: It would be better if you explained it. But: I need you to explain.
     "I am only confusing him," Alire whispers. He looks back to Cesare and sighs. "I am sorry, Gian... I am sorry that I cannot... speak it more clearly..."

     "Very well." Samuel turns to the man on the bed with an air of unperturbed gravity which gives away nothing of any turmoil or hesitation that might lie beneath the surface - so has it happened, and so must it proceed. The rabbi does not sit; he simply remains standing. "I imagine that you are presently in great confusion. If you feel well enough, I ask, take some wine - I will begin as soon as you are ready."
     Ah, yes, how does one go about explaining such great confusion as has been wrought upon these men? Perhaps even the Magister does not know. He does not have an expression of panic or stalling, though; simply, courteous concern for a guest.

     Whatever happened was severe and serious. Cesare sees that now, and looks differently at Alire. Whatever it was, it has upset Alire tremendously, though, in a second look at the Magister, he seems alright.
     "No wine...thank you," Cesare says, the last added on suddenly. "I want to know..." At least for Alire's sake, Cesare's glancing eyes say.

     "I would like some," Alire says. An effort for levity, though it falls so short. His worry is too dense. His emotions too thick. The levity merely reflects. It does not penetrate. An exhale, a pat upon his lover's side as if to say I'm Alright, Alire rises and makes for the wine.
     His motions and mannerisms slip into the ease and into the comfort of mundane routine. So comforting, it is no wonder that it was the shelter he made for himself all those years ago. He pours a glass for himself, at least.

     There is a slight pause, as the Magister watches the duo, dark gaze hooded in consideration. Then, the full, bearded lips part, and he speaks :
     "I wonder, m'sieur, how familiar you might happen to be with the concept of the Vedic cycle of death and rebirth... or how much familiarity, else, you have with the notion of the spiritual world, and its influences upon this world, via communication and control."
     Such questions, such concepts. Samuel watches Cesare closely, with a gravity that is wholly unassumed.

     Um.
     Cesare, who had eagerly anticipated Samuel's words, slackens. He cannot imagine the connection or the need for such complex disucssions now. "Vedic?" he repeats, not sure of the word. But death and rebirth, well, that seems a known thing. "Rebirth," Cesare says. "Being born again." A frown. "Reincarnation," he says in Italian, not sure whether he knows the French word for such a thing.
     "I have not...studied spirits. I do not know how."

     Alire stares into his wine, motionless and speechless for a moment and more, and then finally he takes a swallow of it. He closes his eyes briefly. Cradling the glass to himself, he takes up a portion of a nearby wall, forming a kind of triangle.
     Apparently, it is not the first triangle we have made...
     Blue eyes look to Cesare, his Giancarlo. His gaze softens. Affected though Alire is, it is not solely for his cause, for his memories. He is worried. He is confused. He doesn't want to remember. He wants to help. His love is troubled and is in pain, and again... once again... it seems as if he is in a separate prison cell, unable to offer assistance. Alire exhales, a soft breath nearly too light to be considered a sigh.

     "The past ever has and will shadow the present and the future," Samuel says quietly, turning his gaze for a moment to the candles on the far side of the room, the flickering small flames and the dancing greyness on the wall where they reflect. "It is the way of existence - insurmountable, insoluble, the actual as well as the metaphorical. Time turns; Time passes. And things return to where they have been before, though it seem altogether different. As an alchemist, I laboured long years to understand the outer form and the inner essence alike, to know things for what they are as well as what they seem."
     A digression, surely? But no; the Magister returns his attention to Cesare upon the bed. "When you receded from the present, m'sieur, you spoke in a language, in a voice, which has not been heard since the official knightly Order of the Templars was disbanded, all these centuries past, reliving a course of events which, I must speak plainly, ended badly; disastrously, in fact. It is impossible for me to say how this has come to be. However, I can surmises what at present, roots this to this present time, and the possibilities are two."
     The long, sallow hands lift, one to the bridge of his nose, pinching slightly and massaging, then adjusting half-moon spectacles for reading; the other hand to stroke the salt and pepper of his beard. "Either you are possessed by a troubled spirit, whose attempts to voice his anguish have been paining you all this time, and given finally freedom to speak through our ... experiment; or you are that troubled spirit, m'sieur, birthed again to live, but brought to faint struggling recollection of your past at significant moments." The Magister finishes his hypotheses, and regards Cesare steadily. "It is thus that my research suggests."

     A second.
     Two.
     Four.
     Cesare's gaze finally shifts from Samuel to Alire, lingering on the last.
     A second.
     Two.
     Four.
     The resulting breath is slow and shallow. A barest noise in the room. Cesare's hand comes to press across his eyes, fingers locked together in a gentle screen. Second hand lifts, and the two turn upright, each over an eye. A vertical shield now to clear his mind.
     This exhale is much louder. No words come, as Cesare doesn't really know what to say. But both hands lower, revealing his hazel eyes falling upon each of you in turn.

     "Disbanded," Alire pauses on that term. Disbanded. "We were decimated," he whispers. Decimated in the very literal sense, for the word means 'to kill by the tens'. He turns to look at Samuel. It is true, we should say it like it played.
     Alire looks to Cesare, his gaze locking on him in that shared moment, lingering. And when Cesare shades his eyes, Alire finishes his wine and sets the glass aside.
     Well, that would certainly explain Alire's temperament...
     He folds his arms against his chest, the cashmere clasping around him softly, giving way easily. "Of all the things I ... could have imagined," he murmurs, "... this... certainly would have been among the last." There is no levity to that. It is simple honesty. He turns a haggard expression to his teacher.
     "And so... magister... what now," he wonders. "What are we," a glance to his lover, "...to do with this... information?" What good will knowing this do? Anything good at all? "What do we do with this ... uninvited past..."
     A past that I have worked a long time to escape. Many centuries to recover from. Am I not now back to where I was when I was brought to you out of my prison, my body so badly battered it was assumed that I would not live. I can feel the ache from each scar, the ghosts of old wounds.
     Alire turns again, looking at Cesare. He leaves his attention there. Golden eyebrows lift a little, and helplessly. Now that we have found one another... what does any of it mean?

     "When the past haunts one, there is only one thing to be done," Samuel answers, voice quiet, calm, seemingly as undisturbed as ever, but with a tone of finality, of closing a book, "and that is to make peace with it. No man can outrun it, nor change it - only the future remains open to change."
     The rabbi pauses, hesitates, then says softly, "With love, they say, and faith, all things are possible. You must look within yourselves - and discover what haunts you most, and then work to overcome, to let go. I ask you only to remember this : that while I may have brought you to this knowledge, the knowledge was there already, within you. And," almost, Samuel smiles, however tinged with dark rue and regret, "it is no more nor less difficult to combat than a tumor or lesion upon the brain. It exists, however, upon the spirit... and you must begin by discovering whether it is within you, or you yourself, that this burden is."

     Cesare's quiet a moment, nodding at Samuel's words. But then, he frowns, a thought coming to mind.
     "But...why?" Cesare looks at Alire. "Why...a Templar?" Then to Samuel, "I don't understand...why...this would happen? If such things..." he shakes his head, "...can happen? What does it want?"
     Then, suddenly, "It is...evil? It wishes harm?" Isn't that what spirits do? When the old women give the Eye?

     "My lover, Michele... was in prison with me. Tortured, like I was." He hasn't spoken of it in plain terms to Cesare before, this is evident by his body language and the expression of his face. "We were arrested, along with the rest of our brothers," Templars, "... for sodomy and heresy. Of heresy, we were all innocent." But not sodomy. Not that it mattered. The reason for arresting them was their power and money and land holdings. "If it is... a matter of possession... then... this is ...why it is a Templar. Even as I was."
     Evil? Alire shakes his head. "No... it could never be. Angry... yes... hurt... yes. But... not evil, tesoro." He looks away, needing a moment, a moment to do nothing but stare at a spot on a wall. An old trick of his.
     He then looks at Samuel. "I have dealt with the Past," he says it defiantly, though how can that be true if he is still so affected by it. "I have had my anger. I have had my sorrow. I do not want it anymore... again... I am ... not haunted. Have I not ... put those things to rest?" You were there, you saw me. "Is there a way we can find out... is there anything we can do... to know if it is... who he is or... if a spirit is ...doing something to him? How can he make peace with ...what he does not know?"

     "You must remember, m'sieur, that not all is as people say." Samuel's voice is quiet, but he regards Cesare steadily, spreading his hands apart. "I am, myself, a Jew - and in ages past, what would people have me be, but a murderer of innocent children, to use their skin and blood in worship of false idols and the Christian Devil?" His lips part, revealing a silent, pained laugh for just a moment, before it is gone. Too many of his family, his friends, caught up in one impergium or another... "Always, cycles repeat themselves - but not always for Truth. I do not believe you to be under possession by a malicious spirit; but if you are under its influence, then there is a reason. I believe Alire to be that reason, if so - but we have yet to rule out the other possibility, m'sieur."
     Turning to Alire, then, the Magister draws himself to his full, gaunt-figured height, regarding the man steadily, over the rims of his spectacles. "Alire," Samuel says quietly, "the past is not as easily dismissed as a page in court, or turned, as the leaf of a book's pages. Look upon yourself not with blindness, and answer your question for yourself - have you not put these things to rest?" A sigh of his own. Children. You try and you try to raise them right, but ...
     "As to discovery - there are ways. Yes. If there is a spirit in residence, beyond that piece of filmy metamorph called a soul, we may discover its presence." The rabbi turns to both men, now, including them in his brisk, calm delivery. "It is not a simple procedure, however; I never dabbled so deeply in such matters as some of my comrades in the alchemical arts did, but I have many of their notes, and I have ... dabbled ... a little. However, I would recommend a period of rest and meditation for the both of you, before we further stir up such troubled waters as these."

     That is his name.
     Cesare watches Alire a long moment, then looks down to the floor. Someone named Michele. Cesare looks to take hope from Samuel's words, the precise words of an academician. But it doesn't soothe the distress he sees upon Alire. There is something he is not understanding.
     "I thank you, Magister Samuel," Cesare trying to calm himself. Alire seems to need his attention. For one so traumatized, with each passing moment, Cesare is steadying. Whatever is happening, the young man Giancarlo is quite aware of who he is and the fact that he appears unharmed. "I will follow your guidance in these things. Though, I have some magical ability," Cesare says to each of you, his hand sliding into Alire's, "I cannot say I know much of spirits or possession. Or exorcism, for that matter."
     How else would a good Catholic Italian think? A simple solution.
     "And if this...templar...is angry, well..." Cseare nods. "We will deal with it."
     He's definitely missed something.

     "Since when is six centuries worth of study and experience considered an easy dismissal," Alire is not often angry -- there are reasons for this. One reason is that it is not pretty. He does so much to contain himself, typically, but all nerves are bare and on the surface. "I lived. I put the events within their context, my pain, in the Past. I learned to live in the present I lived in the present." Lived, he says. Past tense he says. Until the Past became his Present, Alire lived in the present. Now where does he live?
     "I do not mean to disrespect you, sir, but that you believe I have easily ...dismissed it offends me..." Alire is nothing if not polite, even when he is beside himself with emotion. How Alire.
      He is silent for a time, and then when a hand slides into his own, he is halted in his anger. He looks to the ceiling, a soft benediction thought, prayed, a breath taken and held. And when it is exhaled, his anger seems to pass away. It does, at the very least, dissipate. There should be no doubt as to whom the angry Templar is, n'cest-ce pas? "I am expected in Poitiers," he says. "If we think this will be another week, or two, then I will have to alert those who safeguard my city to my continued absence." That's the Prince of Poitiers speaking, of course. "We should... think on it... and also with that... context." That time is, indeed, limited, no matter how interminate it seems.

     Samuel remains as unmoved as the stones upon which his house is built, it seems, allowing Alire's anger to move over him, without any sign of emotion save a touch of weariness that enters his voice when next he speaks. "When you wish to do this is to the two of you to decide, and not mine. I can be ready within the span of a day and night, possibly sooner if I must." He turns, now, moving towards the door with a murmured line of prayer in Hebrew.
     "If you wish it, we may delay until your affairs are ordered. What will be, will be - I have lived a long life." The Magister pauses in the doorway, bowing his head slightly. "To discover first who is what, we then may move on. I can only advise, Alire - but this, I believe, you know already. M'sieur."

     Cesare is not sure of what truly passes between the two of you. In truth, the subtlety you share moves over him. But he nods as Samuel begins to depart, hand fitted tightly within Alire's.

     "We will talk of it later," Alire murmurs. He expects that Samuel has heard him, and the softening of his tone. In it, is also an apology. He hates to raise his voice. "Good night." He adds, his eyes on a spot on the wall again.
     When I was dragged from my cell to the stone table, my hands and feet bound, my ragged clothes already split, I focused on a portion of the wall as I was whipped and scourged. And I didn't make a sound. I became very familiar with that little outcropping of limestone, that irregular bump in the wall of the donjon. That little stone became kind of a friend to me. It held me when no one else could. When even my Creator seemed to have abandoned me. I look for it now in other walls when I need escape and peace, a focus to help me keep my mind when everything around me begins to... not make sense.
     Alire looks to Cesare after a few moments. "I am sorry," he says. He does not say for what. His hand gives Cesare's a squeeze and he moves to step away, to step toward the bed.

Posted by rowan at June 03, 2003 01:53 PM