Raphael’s voice grew hoarse. “He screamed all night. I could do nothing to calm him. It was awful to listen to, but I couldn’t leave him. Nor could I bring myself to end his misery. I sat with him; I was the only friend he ever had. I sat with him until his fear burst his heart.”
Brother Francis stopped rubbing his hands, resting them calmly in his lap. “You cannot carry that blame,” he said. “I would have done the same in your stead.” Raphael opened his mouth to protest otherwise, but the monk stopped him with a sidelong glance. “You should consider that possibility, my son,” the monk said. “Consider that I might be more at fault than you. In some convoluted fashion that only God could truly apprehend, am I not to blame?”
“What?” Raphael asked. “How?”
“Did I not abandon you and Eptor to the legate? Did I not fail to convert Al-Kamil to Christianity, to find a peaceful resolution to the enmity between the Church and the Sultan? Have I not spent my entire life preaching nonviolence, calling out each and every day for each of us to fill our hearts with nothing but peace? And has my personal crusade lessened the violence that surrounds us?”
Raphael could not bring himself to vocalize agreement — the idea seemed so enormously reprehensible in its cruelty — but he could not verbalize any cogent argument to the contrary. His throat was too tight for any words to escape.
Brother Francis offered him a kind smile. “I have been here for many weeks,” he said. “Every day I ask God this question: What have I really accomplished? What have I done that has made any difference?”
Raphael nodded, hearing an echo of those questions in his own heart. “Has He offered you an answer?” he asked.
Brother Francis idly rubbed the back of his hand again, and Raphael noticed that, even in the gloom of the shack, the shadows on the backs of the monk’s hands remained. “He has,” Brother Francis said. “Rather, He will. Soon.” He smile again, and this time his smile was free of any sorrow. “I have faith.”
Raphael wanted to touch the other man’s face, to trace his fingers along the curve of that smile in a vain effort to understand how it was formed. After everything he had seen, how could he still cling to his faith?
After everything I have done, how can I be worthy of such faith?
Brother Francis twisted around and grabbed the edge of the chest. He pulled it closer to him and fumbled with the lid. He took out a ragged scrap of parchment, and rooting around inside the box, he located several shards of charcoal. “Do you know much about the Muslim faith?” he asked as he smoothed the piece of parchment flat. “Their holy book is called the Qur’an, and it contains a list of the names of God. Ninety-nine of them, in fact. The Sultan, Al-Kamil, told me about this when he and I met in Egypt. He is an incredible man, and to this day, I wish the mean and petty differences of our cultures did not prevent us from being better friends.” He sighed.
“I was born in Acre,” Raphael said, “as was my mother and her mother.”
Brother Francis eyed him. “And yet you are a Christian man?”
Raphael struggled with his answer. “The only vows I have ever sworn — the only ones I will ever keep — are those I swore to Athena Promachos.”
“‘She who fights in the front line,’” Brother Francis said. “Those are hard vows to keep.” He laughed. Not from a place of pity or arrogance, but from simple clarity. “You may be a stronger man than I, Raphael of Acre,” he admitted.
He showed Raphael the sheet. It was covered with a number of skewed lines of Latin, and Raphael read a few: “ You are Good, all Good, supreme Good… ”
“It is but a pittance,” Brother Francis explained. “A distraction, perhaps, from what I am meant to be doing, but for some time, it has been something I have been yearning to write. In fact, it is only now, meeting you again, that I understand the source of this desire.” He turned the page over and, peering at Raphael’s face for reference, quickly sketched a figure at the base of the page. The man seemed to be lying on his back, looking up at the lines of text over his head. He squinted at Raphael’s hat and shook his head, drawing instead a peaked cap reminiscent of the style worn by Muslims. With a practiced twist of his hand, he inscribed a letter rising from the figure’s mouth.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked Raphael, pointing at the letter.
“The tau,” Raphael said.
“Do you know what it means?”
“I have heard it is used to represent the Cross upon which Jesus died.”
“The Cross upon which he was resurrected,” Brother Francis corrected him. “Our lives are not spent waiting for death, but waiting for life.”
Raphael acceded this interpretation could be equally valid, though the subtle distinction was one that he would have to consider more fully. “I have brought death to many,” he said quietly.
“And have you not given others life?” Brother Francis asked.
Raphael shrugged. “How can one ever atone for the other?”
“Only God can answer that question for you, Raphael of Acre,” Brother Francis said. “But you have to let Him. You have to have faith that He will.”
Raphael nodded, hearing the monk’s words. His mind struggled to accept them, to let them sink into his heart where they might take root.
“Give this to Brother Leo,” Brother Francis said, offering the page to Raphael. “Tell him it is more important than any other legacy of mine.” His face tightened, a brief spasm of pain that seemed to rise from nowhere and flee just as quickly.
“I will,” Raphael said, accepting the page. He glanced at the words written on the back page, the text that floated on the page over the prostrate figure. “‘May God smile upon you and be merciful to you,’” he read aloud. “‘May God turn his regard to you and give you peace.’”
Brother Francis laid his hands in his lap and let out a long sigh as he closed his eyes. “God has blessed my life — time and again — and I have not always been able to see or appreciate it,” he said. His fingers twitched, and Raphael saw a dark blossom growing in each of the monk’s palms. “But now, now I understand it.”
He groaned then, his body twitching under his robe, and then his back straightened. His hands relaxed, his fingers uncurling, and in the center of each palm was an unmistakable sign. He opened his eyes and gazed at Raphael. “You are worthy of forgiveness,” he said reverently. “Your heart is stronger than you know. Never stop loving them. That is the only way you can save them. That is the only way.”