Cicatrix
Part VI. The Meadow and the Moon
The wine has made Cicatrix tipsy. The sunlight casts glorious golden shafts across the meadow, reflecting off the tumbling stream like a lost dream of a brief moment in Eden. The wine has certainly gotten to his head.
It has been a splendid afternoon in the meadow. Rachel brought a basket of bread and cheese and wine — but now as they climb the path back to his hut he finds her silence disturbing. He pauses along the narrow trail and turns to her. “Why do you say nothing?” he asks.
“I will speak when I have something to say.” She motions for him to resume the climb. He offers to carry the basket, but she shakes her head and again gestures for him to continue upward.
The path becomes rocky and steep. He stops and turns around. He looks her square in the eyes. “There is something that I need to tell you,” he says.
She looks back at him, silently.
“There are men who would torture me before they killed me….”
“I know,” she says, and again motions for him to continue upward.
Which he does. The wine has certainly gotten to him, and he treads carefully. He occasionally glances back to see if Rachel has paused along the steep trail. But each time, she is right behind him, walking silently in the disappearing evening light.
= = =
When they arrive at his hut, Cicatrix trips over a stack of firewood and tumbles to the ground.
Rachel stifles a laugh.
Cicatrix rolls onto his back and glares at her.
She shrugs nonchalantly.
He staggers up to his feet and is promptly perplexed. He did not chop this firewood! And the hut has a new roof! A new roof?!! He looks at Rachel, dumbfounded.
Again she shrugs. She kneels down and begins to crawl into the hut. She glances back and nods for him to follow. He does, getting a lovely up-close view of her ass.
Inside, the air is redolent and savory. A clay pot burbles over the fire. A pair of leather shoes lies at the foot of his bed, which is covered with a thick wool blanket.
Cicatrix stares at her, unable to find words.
Rachel smiles coyly and says, “Rabbit stew.”
He lunges forward, knocking her sprawling across the bed. He kisses her, and kisses her again, and does not stop.
* * *
Cicatrix opens his good eye. He is lying in his bed, holding Rachel tightly. She is deeply asleep, her nose touching his. Her breath rhythmically blows strands of red hair across his face.
He slowly and gently extricates himself. He sits up. He watches her chest rise and fall in the firelight. He watches for a long time, then covers her with the wool blanket, and quietly crawls out into the moonlight.
The full moon is now high overhead. It is overwhelmingly seductive. Cicatrix, as if in the moon’s thrall, begins to scale the cliff. He climbs higher than ever before. Eventually he settles onto a rocky ledge at the base of the monastery, and there he perches, looking out over distant peaks draped in moonbeams at the top of the world.
He looks up at the moon. “Damnation.” he mutters. “What have I gotten myself into?”
The moon is unsympathetic.
“I confess!” he pleads. “I am a traitor!”
Again, the moon is unsympathetic.
“Maybe we learn. Maybe we…” Cicatrix becomes muddled in his thoughts. “Maybe nothing changes. Who knows?”
He looks up. “Do you know?” he asks.
A cloud drifts across the face of the moon.
Cicatrix snorts, “Pshaw! Why should I ask you? You and the woman are in this together!” Cicatrix aims his nose heavenward and howls like a wolf.
* * *
Rachel wakes suddenly as a hand clasps her mouth shut. Her eyes shoot open.
“When I let you speak,” says the Sheriff, holding her mouth tight, “you will whisper to me where he is. Otherwise it will go hard on you.”
He moves his hand aside. Her eyes are wide with fright. She takes a deep breath, then yells at the top of her lungs, “CICATRIX!”
The Sheriff and the Sergeant smother her cries and beat her in the ribs until she cannot breathe.
“Let us have our way with her!” grins the Sergeant. “That will dull her spirit.”
“Not here.” says the Sheriff. “She will pay. Later. And dearly. Bind her arms and gag her.” He looks around at the scattered manuscripts. “Meanwhile, we will add a little flame to their love-nest.”
* * *
“Cicatrix,” he hears the moon whisper. His head is nodding. The moon is laughing at him.
He dozes.
“Cicatrix!” he hears again.
Rachel!
He sees the fire below and instantly plunges down the cliff, sliding recklessly, skidding against jagged rocks while desperately grabbing at the underbrush to break his fall, tumbling crazily, finally crashing onto the trail, his left shoulder shattered and useless. He rushes headlong into the blazing hovel, screaming her name. Blinded by smoke, he gropes insanely. The flaming ceiling collapses and his crude shelter becomes his fiery tomb.
* * *
In the distance the soldiers can hear him screaming Rachel’s name.
The Sheriff laughs. “He will come for you,” he smirks. “As long as we have you, then we will have him. He will come for you. And afterwards, while he watches...”
The Sergeant snickers.
Rachel looks down. The trail is winding along the brink of a steep precipice. She twists with all her strength and before the soldiers can grab her she throws herself over the edge.
- 30 -