He shook his head and tried to smile.
Now assuming his tears were joyous, she bent to her young son and pointed out that man who wept because he found God’s forgiveness and was cleansed of his sins.
Durant wiped his cheeks dry. If that explanation made her son hesitate before committing some cruelty, then let the boy believe it.
Whatever his heart wanted, his longing for Brother Thomas was doomed. Even if the monk shared his lust, if not his love, he would never lie with Durant. He had taken vows, oaths he honored, and had made it clear that he found solace in the priory. After all Thomas had suffered for the one time he had lain with a man named Giles, Durant also knew he would never try to seduce him. That would be an even graver sacrilege.
The merchant urged his horse to a faster pace. When he returned home, he would try to bury his sorrow with the reward from the king in that cracked vessel near the privy. Then he would lie with his wife, as they must do to bring forth the child they longed for.
But when I do, he thought, I shall imagine I am in the arms of an auburn-haired man, with no tonsure, who happens to go by the name of Thomas.
***
Thomas hurried down the street to meet Prioress Eleanor at Ryehill Priory. Although her arm would be long in healing, she had insisted they plan their return to Tyndal Priory as soon as possible. A cart must be found to carry her and the child, she said. Adam, her donkey, would be spared the burden of her weight on the journey back. As they imagined the beast’s expression of contentment when told the news, they had both laughed.
When he passed the inn, he hesitated, and then walked on. The merchant would not be there. He had told him that he was joining a large group of pilgrims returning to Norwich very early that morning. The thought that he would never see Durant again grieved him.
He looked back at the inn. Complex and troubling though Durant was, Thomas liked him. Were he to be honest, he felt something more, an emotion he could not quite define. Surely not love, he thought. He had felt that only once, a devotion for which he had suffered in prison and then endured mockery by that very person who had been as eager as he in the coupling.
But the pleasure he had found in Durant’s company was more than the simple enjoyment of working with him to save the king’s life, although that was part of it.
Did he long for a more secular life? He had not always liked spying for the Church, rooting out those who worked against the best interests of the proclaimed faith, but he did enjoy solving mysteries when he and his prioress were called to do so.
Although he still did not own a deep faith, he no longer regretted taking vows. Tyndal was his home, and he had friends who brought him joy, both inside the priory and without. Before this pilgrimage to Walsingham, he had married Crowner Ralf and Mistress Gytha, two people he loved far above himself, and he looked forward to baptizing their children. Whatever his initial reluctance in joining the Order, he had found some peace. He no longer looked at any woman with lust. In Prioress Eleanor, he had a worthy liege lord, and she was pleased with his service. Sister Anne gave him the love only an elder sister of the flesh could and had taught him much that helped in healing bodies.
No, he said to himself, I would not leave the priory to serve the king as Durant does, even if I were promised a rare forgiveness for abandoning my vows.
Meeting Durant, however, had changed something within him. He had lusted after other men, a few had even evoked tenderness in him, but he would never forget the kiss he had willingly shared with the merchant that night in the inn. The difference, undefined and insistent, between Durant and all those other men gnawed at him.
Suddenly Thomas stopped, frozen in amazement at what had just occurred to him.
With a sharp intake of breath, he realized that he no longer grieved for Giles.
Were he to meet him on this street, this man he had loved since boyhood, he would not weep, nor would he suffer. He might offer him a blessing, praying that he had found contentment and that his remaining years on Earth would be joyful, but he would not long for a kiss or an embrace. If Giles offered either, he would comply without grief or desire. Giles had become a memory, both pleasant and sad, but the festering wound was healed.
Gazing upward, Thomas asked God why this had happened. As usual, He remained silent, and yet the monk sensed, more than heard, a soft whisper in the light breeze caressing his face.
“It matters not if I fully understand,” he murmured. Although he had denied that he had found peace when Durant asked, he felt it now. With an inexplicable conviction, he also believed that his meeting with this merchant was the cause of it. Perhaps, he thought, he and I will meet again.
Then he hurried on to Ryehill Priory, as eager as his prioress to return home.