Текст книги "The Queen"

“Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punish’d and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too.”

–William Shakespeare, As You Like It

“God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.”

–Søren Kierkegaard,

The Journals of Kierkegaard

1

The First Wedding

NOW, THIS WAS a happy ending.

It was all Nora had hoped for, all she had prayed for, and she couldn’t stop grinning as the music began—Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary.

She smiled even wider when two elderly gentlemen in traditional servant’s livery opened the great oak double doors with a flourish befitting the exalted occasion.

After one deep breath, Nora stepped through the open doors and did the one thing she’d sworn she would never do—she walked down the aisle of a church in a wedding dress toward Søren, who waited for her at the altar.

He hadn’t seen her for hours and this moment was Søren’s first look at her in her wedding dress. It had been twenty years since she’d walked down an aisle toward Søren as a bridesmaid in a wedding he’d performed. Even now, halfway down the aisle, she could see the look in his eyes, a look that said the twenty years had been worth the wait.

As Nora took her place at Søren’s right hand, she leaned in close and whispered, “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Why?” he asked as the two hundred assembled guests rose to their feet when the groom made his entrance into the Great Hall that had been converted into a church for the wedding.

“You’re on duty,” she reminded him. “Father Stearns.”

“Can I look at you like that after the wedding?”

She smiled at him as the two grooms joined hands in front of Søren.

“Today you can do anything you want.”

“Watch out. I’ll hold you to that promise,” he said as the music faded into silence leaving her unable to retort. She swallowed her words, composed her face and tried not to cry when Søren began to speak.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join this man, Michael Luka Dimir, and this man, Griffin Randolfe Fiske, in holy matrimony. May your love be blessed by the sacrament of marriage and may we all who are gathered as witnesses rejoice together in the beauty of your commitment to each other as we would bask in the warmth of the sun...”

Nora made it three whole minutes into the ceremony before the tears started flowing. Luckily all eyes were on Michael and Griffin as they spoke their vows and made their promises. Once upon a time in a very different setting, Nora and Søren had made promises to each other and she wore those promises around her neck in the form of wedding bands engraved with two words—Forever and Everything. They weren’t wedding vows but they had bound them together nonetheless. What was a sacrament but the outward sign of inner grace? If she and Søren loving each other and staying together despite all they’d been through, all they’d put each other through for twenty-three years, wasn’t a miracle, she didn’t know what was.

“Therefore,” Søren said as the service drew to its conclusion, “now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”

Søren spoke with authority and power, as if the words themselves could bind hearts together.

“I now pronounce you husband...and husband.”

Griffin took Michael’s face in his hands and kissed him.

And kissed him.

And kissed him.

A kiss of love and of lust and of complete and utter devotion, it went on so long the assembled witnesses started to titter, then giggle, then laugh. They kissed until Søren cleared his throat not once, but twice, louder the second time than the first. When even that didn’t put a stop to their rather protracted display of public affection, Søren uttered a low “For heaven’s sake, Griffin, people have places to be. Can’t you save the consummation until later?”

Griffin paused long enough to look at Søren and answer, “Nope,” before returning to the kiss with gusto.

Nora applauded him. Good man. Don’t let anyone tell you to stop kissing for such a silly reason as two hundred people watching. What better place in the world was there to be than here, watching true lovers kiss? One didn’t see such a thing every day. When witnessing a miracle, one should never hurry it along, for it’ll be gone all too soon and who knows when one will see another miracle in one’s lifetime?

Time stopped with that kiss. The image imprinted itself upon Nora’s mind like a tintype photograph... She stood at Søren’s right as Michael’s mistress of honor—no one would have believed her a maid or a matron, so mistress it was—and Kingsley stood to the left of Søren as Griffin’s best man. The wedding was held in the Great Hall of the thousand-year-old castle. The vibrant blue walls gleamed like polished azurite in the glow of a dozen brass-and-crystal chandeliers. Candles and flowers stationed on the ebony oak floors encircled the wedding party. Kingsley, Griffin and Søren all wore kilts. Griffin’s and Kingsley’s were red, white and green, the tartan of his mother’s ancestors. Søren’s kilt was black and blue, the traditional clergy tartan of Scotland and bruises. Upon request and because she couldn’t tell Griffin no when he’d asked so nicely, she’d worn a Scottish wedding dress, tiered white silk and lace peeking out from under a corseted red-and-green tartan overlay. Michael had forgone the kilt—not his style, he said—and chosen a hip Rat Pack–era tuxedo with a black shirt and black jacket. A better-looking married couple she’d never seen in her life and not because they were so beautiful, although they were, but because their love was true and pure and hard-won. Every act of love was an act of courage, but for Michael and Griffin it was especially so. The world didn’t often reward those who loved outside the lines. Nora had learned this lesson the hard way.

The kiss went on so long the guests rose to their feet and applauded.

Griffin turned to the masses and issued an order.

“Less applauding,” he yelled at his guests. “More kissing!”

“No one has to tell me twice,” Kingsley said, holding out his hand to Juliette, the mother of his daughter with another one on the way, and the most beautiful woman in attendance by far. Laughing, Juliette rose to her feet and put her hand in Kingsley’s. He dipped her back and gave her an old Hollywood kiss.

“Shall we?” Søren asked.

“In front of two hundred people?”

“Why not?”

“Is that a rhetorical question or do you really want me to list all eight hundred reasons why not?”

Søren answered by taking her face in his hands and kissing her—a kiss like Communion, like wine on her tongue. She heard a few gasps of shock from the assembly followed by laughter and applause. Apparently this was the first time they’d seen a Catholic priest kissing a woman. It was a first for Nora as well, being kissed by Søren in front of so many people they didn’t know. Yes, Kingsley had forced all the staff and the guests to sign non-disclosure agreements, but that was no guarantee word wouldn’t leak that a certain well-respected Jesuit priest passionately kissed a fairly notorious dominatrix at a wedding in Scotland. And not just any wedding—a same-sex wedding. Søren could be laicized for performing a same-sex marriage. He’d get in less trouble if he were caught by the Pope himself sodomizing her in the Tomb of Saint Peter. Not that she’d ever had that fantasy—not very often anyway. Officiating the service had been Søren’s gift to Michael, whom he loved like a son. When Nora had reminded him of the very real danger of excommunication if caught, Søren had replied, Michael asked me. It’s my honor to do it. Since Søren was a man of honor that had been the end of it.

But it wouldn’t be the end of it.

Søren was a Jesuit priest who had kissed a woman in front of two hundred people and performed a same-sex wedding. A kiss plus a wedding plus what would happen tonight at nine o’clock added up to one very simple conclusion.

Søren’s days as a priest were numbered.

2

Nora’s Last Confession

NORA PULLED BACK from the kiss and saw a dozen or more couples kissing, including Griffin and Michael, who were still kissing.

And.

Still.

Kissing.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Griffin,” Nora said, reaching in front of Søren for Kingsley’s hand. “You two make out as long as you want. The King and I are going to get a drink.”

Nora gave Kingsley the end of the long plaid ribbon she’d tied around her bouquet. As they walked on either side of the happy couple—still kissing, of course—they lifted their hands and passed the sash over their heads like a wedding bower. Behind her she heard Søren speaking to the crowd of guests.

“I’d suggest everyone retreat to the banquet hall,” he said in his most authoritarian clergy voice. “It seems the groom and groom might be a while.”

Kingsley took her arm in his to escort her down the long aisle to the door.

“I heard we have you to thank for the wedding,” Kingsley said, kissing the back of her hand.

Nora winced. “Michael had a little case of cold feet. I beat it out of him.”

“Literally?”

“It took a solid hour of flogging followed by an hour of wax-play. Kid came so hard he almost passed out. Two-hour nap, and he was ready to get married. I love saving the day,” she said. “I’m so good at it.”

They waited in the foyer and soon they were joined by Michael’s mother and sister, Griffin’s parents and three brothers, and Søren. Juliette, wearing a red gown to match Kingsley’s kilt, passed Céleste into his arms. And when Michael and Griffin finally emerged from the Great Hall it was to a hail of applause and a shower of rice. Céleste was the best rice thrower of them all, Kingsley assured his little girl. Michael’s lips appeared swollen from so much passionate kissing and his pale cheeks were flushed, but Nora had to admit, she’d never seen him or Griffin ever look happier. Today was a beautiful day to be in love.

The guests who greeted the couple with hugs and kisses were a hodgepodge of friends and family, or as Kingsley called them, “the freaks and the straights.” Mistress Irina, the first dominatrix Kingsley had trained for The 8th Circle, had sat next to Michael’s aunt and uncle during the ceremony. Michael’s sister Erin had borrowed a tissue from Alfred, Griffin’s white-haired butler, who’d had to surreptitiously wipe his own eyes a time or two during the ceremony. Nora’d been a little surprised he’d come all the way to Scotland for Griffin’s wedding. When she had asked him why he’d made the long trip from upstate New York, he’d answered, “He’s a man-child and a deviant, and he has more money than sense, young lady. So of course I’m here for his wedding to his shamefully younger boy toy. It’s the only sensible thing he’s ever done in his life.” Then he’d stalked off before Nora could hug him or worse, cry in his arms, which would have been an unforgivable affront to his dignity.

“Good ceremony, Father,” she said, smiling up at Søren. “I loved the homily.”

“Thank you. The Lord gives me good material to work with. I suppose He deserves most of the credit.” Leave it to a Jesuit to be simultaneously pious and smug.

“Oops, picture time,” she said. “I should go.”

The photographer was already attempting to corral the wedding party back into the Great Hall. Søren started back into the hall with her.

“You can’t be in the pictures,” she reminded him.

“Michael expects me to be in at least one of the photographs for him and Griffin.”

“Søren...this is not a good idea.”

“Michael’s like a son to me,” he said. “When you have a child, you make sacrifices for them.”

“All right. Pictures it is. In for a penny, in for a pounding, right?” She took his hand in hers. His fingers trembled, and she met his eyes with a question.

“I’m fine,” he said before she had the chance to ask.

“It’s fine if you aren’t fine.”

“I am fine.”

“Your hand is shaking.”

“This kilt is...breezy.”

“It’s like a hundred feet of wool.”

“This castle has an updraft. I’m not used to inclement weather in that region.”

“It’s your own fault for going regimental.”

“Kingsley was. And when in Rome...”

“How do you know Kingsley’s going full Scotsman?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you actually go running this morning or did you two play a game of hide the claymore?”

“I ran,” he said. “Before.”

“I knew it.” She took both of his hands in hers now and interlocked their fingers.

Søren glanced at a grandfather clock and back at her.

“Five thirty,” he said. “Three and a half more hours.”

“It’ll go fast,” she said, smiling a hopeful smile. “Won’t it?”

“It will be the longest three and a half hours of my life.”

For Nora, too.

“They won’t need me at the reception which isn’t a reception. I can wait with you,” she said.

“Thank you.” He kissed her on the forehead. “What would I ever do without my Little One?”

Nora swallowed an unexpected lump in her throat.

“I promise, you won’t ever have to find out.”

Reluctantly she let go of Søren’s hands as the photographer led her and Kingsley toward Michael and Griffin. The first pictures were of the groom and groom, best man and mistress of honor.

Kingsley held out his arm for her and she took it, grateful for his company in the secret they shared.

“How is he?” Kingsley asked.

“He is exactly how you think he is,” she said.

“Never so scared in his life?”

“White-knuckle petrified.”

Kingsley kissed her cheek. “I know how he feels.”

Pictures took half an hour. Kingsley promised to make her and Søren’s excuses to anyone who asked where they were. Michael and Griffin could be told the truth, of course. They would understand. Michael had agreed to a big wedding with one stipulation—no official wedding reception. A party? Sure. Fine. Michael, young artist that he was, found manufactured moments like the ceremonial cake-cutting offensive. The reception was only for people to eat and drink and dance. Once the wedding was over, the wedding party was free to get up to whatever depraved shenanigans they wanted to. And as she and Kingsley were the wedding party, depraved shenanigans were a given.

Nora went looking for Søren and wasn’t the least surprised to find him in the castle’s small stone-and-wood chapel. She stepped inside and strode toward him.

The sun streamed through an octagonal window and cast eight-sided light onto Søren, turning his blond hair into gold in a moment of pure alchemy. In a breath, in an instant, she was fifteen years old again, and he twenty-nine, and he looked exactly like he did the first time she’d laid eyes on him. The sunlight melted the years between then and now. Her hand trembled so it was a miracle she didn’t drop her glass of red wine.

Her footsteps on the stone floor alerted Søren to her presence. He lifted his head and turned back to her. The mask of composure had fallen, and she saw anguish in his eyes. She set her glass of wine on the altar and went to him, gathering him in her arms, holding him to her heart and resting her chin on the top of his head.

“How are you, my sir?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, looking up at her. “There have been days in my life where I’ve woken up not knowing that later on that very day, my entire life would change. The day I met Kingsley, the day I met you. Usually you don’t know the day or the hour. Today I do.”

“Remember that story I wrote about Queen Esther when I was in high school?”

“How could I forget it? I must have read it a thousand times.”

“You did?”

“An erotic story written by a beautiful sixteen-year-old girl I was desperately and unrepentantly in love with and featuring a hero who looked suspiciously like me? I read it until the ink faded and the pages crumbled.”

It embarrassed Nora how much it pleased her that Søren had loved her story that much.

“I’ll have you know I did not base King Xerxes on you.”

“He was blond. A blond Persian.”

“Poetic license.” She sat at his side in the pew. “Queen Esther looked suspiciously like me, as well. Anyway...writing that story changed my life. I’d never written anything like that before. All I was trying to do was flirt with you and now twenty-two years later I’ve made an entire career from writing. I didn’t know my life would change that day by writing one little story. And yet...here we are. All thanks to you.”

“And Queen Esther. And Queen Eleanor.”

“I’m not really a queen.”

“You’ve always been a queen in my eyes. Especially now.”

“I can’t believe I’m wearing a wedding dress. How do I let Griffin talk me into these things?”

“It’s exquisite. You’re exquisite.”

Søren kissed her lightly on the lips. His mouth shivered against hers. Søren was a man of quiet depth, as if he kept a secret second heart locked away in a glass case. It would explain how much he felt and how strongly and yet how rarely such feelings were allowed to escape from captivity. Sometimes before they made love he would cut her skin with a sharp paper-thin blade and the act was so intimate and harrowing it would leave him shaking. It scared him to take her life in his hands, and yet it was at such times they felt closest to each other. She knew his trembling now was for a similar reason.

“Do you forgive me, Little One?” Søren asked.

“What mortal sin have you committed recently?”

“You know my sins better than I do.”

“Yes. Which is why I tell you there is no need to beg my forgiveness for anything.”

“You have a forgiving heart,” Søren said. “I have always admired that about you.”

“I know myself. I know my own weaknesses and failures. Jesus was always so kind to sinners and so cruel to hypocrites.”

“Am I a hypocrite?” Søren asked.

“You’re human.”

“You don’t have to be insulting, Eleanor.”

She laughed and rested her head on his shoulder. He sighed so her whole body moved with his. Somewhere behind and above them a bell rang. Six times the bell chimed. Six o’clock and all was well.

Three hours and counting.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Søren said.

“What is?”

“Just yesterday Michael was fifteen years old and had barely healed scars on his wrists from when he tried to kill himself in my church. And today...today he’s twenty-one and married. Michael. Married.” He looked at her and half laughed.

“I know. Crazy, isn’t it? I swear yesterday I was fifteen, and I saw my new priest for the very first time, and loved him from the moment I saw him, and knew I’d love him until I died. Today I’m thirty-eight, and I still love him and know I’ll love him forever.” The days danced and flashed around her like fireflies on a summer’s night. “Where is the time going?” she asked him. “How did it all go by so fast? And what if it’s all gone tomorrow?”

“We live each day like it’s our last. But not by running about wildly, attempting to cram every possible experience into one day. Instead...every day we should make our peace with God and each other. Say what needs to be said and not leave it for another time. If I knew I would die tomorrow I’d spend all night telling you and Kingsley how much I love you both, and I wouldn’t let God take me until I was certain you knew I meant every word. I would sing it to you like the angels sing praise to God in heaven—unceasingly.”

“We know. Kingsley and I, we already know.”

“But I would still tell you,” he said softly. “Even if you didn’t need to hear it, I would have to tell you.”

She held him close again, kissed his cheek, his forehead, like a mother kissing a scared child. And he was scared. She could feel it in every touch.

“Talk to me. Distract me. Help me get through these hours.”

“Will you hear my confession?” Nora asked. She turned and met his eyes. How she loved those eyes, the strength and color of steel. “This could be my last chance to confess to you, after all.”

“I won’t leave the priesthood. I promised you I wouldn’t.”

“You were in the wedding pictures. You performed a same-sex marriage. You kissed me in front of two hundred wedding guests, half of them we don’t know. You can tell me all you want that it’s fine, that it won’t matter, but we both know those are not the actions of a man who is planning on being a priest for much longer.”

“I have to tell them. Some things shouldn’t be secrets.”

“You tell them the truth, and they will kick you out.”

“Possibly. I’ve made choices, difficult ones, but I did it in full knowledge of the consequences. Nothing stays the same forever, after all.”

“That’s not true. My love for you is forever. I made that promise, and I will keep it. But tomorrow or next week or next month you might not be a priest anymore. So please...hear my confession and absolve me? One last time?”

He rose from the pew and moved a chair from the side of the chapel and set it in front of her. From the leather sporran of his kilt, he pulled a leather case, unzipped it and unfurled a purple sash. He kissed it and draped it around his neck and over his shoulders. He sat in the chair and pressed his palms together. Nora looked at his hands and saw they were now steady and still.

She smiled and looked up to the octagonal window. The sun would set in under three hours. By nightfall everything could change.

“First of all,” she began, “I’m confessing these sins to you because I committed them against you and only you can absolve me of them.”

“What are your sins?”

Nora loved Søren. This was an incontrovertible fact of the universe, strong as gravity, inevitable as sunrise. She’d told him almost everything there was to tell him about their years apart, everything but this. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him but she didn’t want to keep the truth from him anymore. No more secrets. No more lies. Nothing between them anymore and never again.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” she began her confession. “When we were apart there were two times I almost came back to you and didn’t.”

“Two?” Søren looked at her, wide-eyed and stunned. Usually she loved shocking him, it was such a feat. Not today. “Why didn’t you?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

Then Søren said to her the two words she’d once said to him that had changed her life.

“Tell me.”