Part III: Legault, who seeks closure

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Author's Note: There are some light descriptions of sensuality later in the chapter, take note. I hope you enjoy the chapter!

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Father Renault lamented how often he had to sit and listen to the caravan's wheels. The wheels went ka-thump ka-thump against the ground, and now the elder bishop reckoned he could recite the monotonous melody by heart, by ear, by hook and by crook. It wasn't a huge problem, it wasn't a major harm, only a minor annoyance. A little nitpicky part of him wondered that if, after coming this many centuries, he hadn't come to accept even the simplest things, that maybe—

At that moment, a man sneaked his way into the wagon, and by the time Renault looked up, the man was already standing over him.

"What the"—

"Oh, sorry," the man said nonchalantly, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He fingered a knife at his side without seeming to realize he did so. "Er…did I disturb you?"

"Ah…not particularly," Renault said. How did he get in here without my noticing? I wasn't even doing anything! What if he were an assassin?

"Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you," the man said, leaning against the far wall of the wagon, legs pressed together, arms folded, head up. "You're Renault…Bishop Renault, no?"

"I am," Renault said, nodding. "Praise God. Meaning praise that you wouldn't harm me, not praise that I am who I am, is what I meant. And you are?"

The as-of-yet-unknown fellow chuckled. Was holy-person humor always this awkward, he wondered. "I'm a man better left unnamed," the man said, but added, "Call me Legault. I'm a deserter and a member of your merry band of rogues. I might be a wanted man, probably, actually most definitely, and only innocent of a few things. Some call me the Hurricane, a stampede of speed and disharmony. I was one of the Black Fang once, after all."

"I…see," Renault said after a moment. He quite honestly could not think of what to say to that. Then, "Legault, was it?"

"I know. Renault, Legault, next thing you know they'll say we're at fault."

"Huh. I daresay we're not…unless…" Renault tilted his head and looked at the man. Rather tall, rail-thin, purple hair, scar. He looked like the kind of guy who had many things to hide. "You were kidding."

"That's exactly it," Legault said. "Kidding. Anyway, I've something I'd like to admit to you, if that is all there is to do."

"That's why I'm here," Renault said. Legault's irreverence was…well, what was it? All in the name of good humor, he supposed. But here comes the hurricane…Renault braced himself. "Go ahead, son."

"Erm…" Legault shook his head. "Ah, 'son'? Tsk. Well, anyway, I'm a thief. That's my trade. Excuse both my subtlety and my lack thereof. But I am a thief. Consequently, I end up stealing things, strangely enough. While in the course of stealing things, I usually end up pilfering, filching, and otherwise surreptitiously borrowing things from others without their permission and without intent to return them or to acknowledge said goods were not my property in the first place. Follow?"

Somewhere off in the distance, a sparrow flew around and chirped nonsensically.

Renault, meanwhile, scratched his head. "I think you're trying to say you stole something. Stop being so circular and just tell me why y—"

"Alright, I'm getting to it," Legault interrupted. "There are some other things I've done that probably deserve redemption, but since I've never really believed in a Saint, I won't go into anything like that. Well, I'll say there's something I feel particularly bad stealing, and that I think I should at least confess to someone once before…" Legault paused, and Renault wondered what his pained look was for. "…before I die."

"I see. I am not a very good priest, but I would be happy to listen. What would you like to say?"

"Well," Legault said, stepping around the wagon as it ka-thumped around, "I feel particularly badly because I stole it from one of my 'friends', as it were. No, actually…maybe not a friend, but someone whom I felt comfortable with, at least."

Renault's hands briefly fell to his belongings before he realized he didn't really have anything of worth save for his staff and some fruit (which belonged chiefly to Merlinus). That, in itself, was a problem, but not one large enough to bother him. Possessions, after all, were worldly, and they couldn't keep a man cool in the summers or warm at night. "And what is this item you stole?"

"You see, some things, once taken, cannot easily be replaced…" Legault said, leaning against the wall again and looking out the flap of the wagon. "Some things are so precious that once they've been taken, poof! That's it, it's over. Much like life, isn't it?"

Renault shut his eyes and drew in a breath. He was doing this on purpose, wasn't he? The journey was long and arduous, but this man's little wanderings were worst of all. Renault wondered if this Legault fellow was like this all the time. Then he realized that thieves and spies were not supposed to have acquaintances. For one who was liable to disappear without a trace and without notice, it was unwise to be attached to any one person or any one place. For a moment, Renault thought a memory had passed through his mind and left. Memories never made friends either.

"Would you at least tell me what you are talking about? I don't understand."

"Something very precious."

"Then tell me what you have stolen," Renault said, "and be done."

"Someone's virginity."

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The night passed. Renault was shaken out of his self-enforced sleep by a particularly hard thump of the wagon. He heard Merlinus in the wagon ahead.

"Oh, oh! Botheration! Honestly, does Lord Hector need to be this careless? My wares are going to get ruined! Argh, and to think I offered them my services! Oh dear, this escapade is turning out to be a blessing and a curse! No, but I couldn't spite them, my dear lords, after all they have done for me, no, no, I couldn't, simply couldn't—"

Renault shook his head, and banished the remaining bits of sleep. Today had been a tiring day, but it wasn't the morning. It was evening already, apparently. Renault remembered that a strange purple-haired man named Legault confessed he had stolen someone's virginity. Then he had left, strangely enough. Was that all he wanted? He had been very cagey about the whole matter.

Renault sighed. He figured that in some way, the roguish fellow's declaration had contributed to the elder priest's bizarre and carnal dreams. The disjointed, physical visions had not been about anyone in this company. No, none of the women in this company were Arcadian. He remembered the man whom he had helped, and how he had brought him to that place, the place where dragons and humans lived in harmony. Renault tried to shut the memory away, but his dreams would not oblige.

He saw a woman. Extraordinary in both beauty and accomplishments. A woman truly worthy of the label Arcadian. Having a woman like that came with the territory of being a successful mercenary and burglar with a full pocket. Strangely enough, the priest had been with her before. Many, many times before. A long, long time ago. He never, ever thought he would see her again. She was nothing special to him, just another memory surging through his skull.

Renault grasped his forehead. Why? Why was all of this coming back now? They were old, stagnant memories from another world, another time, long ago and far away, from places where highways wouldn't cross. None of these memories were important or had a reason. Their very resurfacing in his tattered dreamscape sickened and shamed him. So why had they returned? And why were there so many blank spots? Why? Renault nearly pounded a fist against the wall of the wagon. Why couldn't he remember parts of yesterday? Why couldn't he remember last night's dreams? Why couldn't he remember why he had been so hated and feared, and how he had changed over these past centuries?

Why couldn't he remember who he was?

No. Renault, priest, been in the clergy for Elimine knows how long. A wanderer long since redeemed from hatred and greed and lust by the knowledge of the Saint. A new man. That's who he was.

That's who I am. No one more, no one else. I seek penance from that past, but I am no longer him. I can learn to feel again. I can learn to touch again, I can remember how to feel…I just have to forget…

Renault ran his hands along the floor blindly and grasped a piece of some fruit. He shoved it into his mouth.

No, I...I...I remember…I remember sitting at a table, eating meat, and killing a man because he looked at my food strange, I remember killing for sport and money, I remember killing a man because he looked at my woman's breasts, I remember killing my woman because she—oh Elimine, why? Why, Elimine? Why this, why now, after all I've done, why—

"I'm sorry…this wouldn't happen to be a bad time, now would it?"

Renault opened his eyes and looked up. Legault was briefly startled at the look in the priest's eyes.

"Are you all right?"

"Ah…oh, yes…" Renault's face was pale. "Ah…ah yes, I'm…fine. Come in."

"I could always come back later," Legault said, looking out the flap of the wagon. "I have all the time in the world, I guess. And night isn't the most hospitable of times, though I am most comfortable then…"

"No, no. I will do my duty. I apologize for being a bit...preoccupied. Come, sit down."

Renault gestured to the floor in front of him, but Legault shook his head and leaned against the opposite wall of the wagon.

"I'll stand. I feel a bit more comfortable standing. But thank you anyway. I hope you don't mind if I tell you a little story? I don't usually talk unless I have something interesting to say."

"I am always here to listen. I cannot hope to do the Saint justice, but I will certainly try." Renault replied.

"Very well, then. Good. This story starts back when I was still a member of the Black Fang. I'm sure you have heard a little about the enemy we are fighting, correct?"

"I have heard some things, yes," Renault affirmed. Valor had taught him many things, one of his lessons being that evil was eternal, and some of those who kept it knew how to spin that to their own benefit.

"Well, I'll spare you the broadest details, then," Legault said. He sighed. "I'll tell you my story. When I was with the Black Fang, back when they were a—dare I say it?—respectable organization, I helped in any way I could. At the beginning, when it was just me, Jan, Uhai, the brothers Reed, and all the old faces, that was when I could say we could sleep soundly at night and mean it. But things changed. Sonia, with the golden eyes, and the shadowed enigma, Nergal—" Renault's heart missed a beat in his chest— "came, and the Fang changed."

Legault paused to take a breath. His eyes darted about the inside of the wagon.

"Things changed, the bit players changed. Everyone was still there, but now they were trying to maintain their ideals while adhering to an entirely new set of principles. Now we had fundamentally good people essentially resorting to contract killings. Before, we tried to justify everything we did—we never killed an innocent, only out-of-touch nobles who abused their power and criminals to whom the jailers of Bern turned a blind eye. After that, we became what amounted to glorified thugs. I give credit to Brendan and his sons for keeping the group together for as long as they did. But I'm not going to go rambling on about that. That's not why I came here.

"You see, there was one woman I had worked with for a few years by the name of Aesha. She was a good girl, an equal, never failing to do anything her superiors commanded. She and I got on well. She told me about how she had family back home, in a place where there was no snow. She told me many things about herself, many of them seemingly innocuous things that one could nevertheless use against her. One day she hurt her right arm when one of her victims fought back. Her injury doomed her as an assassin and she was dismissed from the Fang, but that wasn't the end of it."

Renault looked up. The thief leaned against the wall, one fist resting on his chin, the other in his pocket. His body was scrunched inward as if to protect itself, his eyes staring down his own chest.

"In the new Fang," Legault continued, his voice cool, "I had almost solely one duty, what they called the 'cleaner'. Anyone in the Fang stayed a fang, and if anyone broke off, it was someone's job to chip off the tooth and grind the pieces to dust. Do you understand? Anyone who turned traitor or, alternatively, anyone who couldn't do their job was weeded out. It was my job to take those persons' lives. But that's not why I came here. I'm probably boring you, aren't I? Because you are a bishop, you're obligated to listen, but I would assume you're probably suffering listening to me ramble on."

Renault shook his head and gingerly bit into a fresh plum. "No, not at all. Please continue."

"Well, my next job was a difficult one," Legault continued. "Some of the new spies in the organization had tracked down everyone who had ever left the Black Fang…where they lived, who their families were, where they lived. In those days, my direct superiors were different…some man I didn't even know told me to kill that Aesha woman. The following night I had crept to her house, where she apparently lived alone in a small city. Once the world turned completely black I broke in."

"She was lying prostrate on her bed, and even from a distance in the dark I could tell it was her. She had wonderful shoulder-length chestnut hair, a chest to sunder the heavens, and her right arm was awkwardly twisted, sleeping without covers with only a thin nightgown on. She was quite the exquisite beauty. I'm a thief. I'm supposed to remember little things like this."

Legault closed his eyes. He was remembering, Renault guessed. It looked to the bishop as though Legault were swallowing away a painful memory one sentence at a time with every word clanking mechanically down his throat. His description of the sleeping woman—Arcadian?—and her features reminded Renault of his past, as well.

"At that time," Legault continued, "I was still a member of the Black Fang without doubts. No matter how it changed, it was still the Fang, as I saw it. My knife…a sleeping victim. I would have no trouble doing as I always did. And then, I walked towards her bed without making a sound, my knife in my right hand, and she raised her head up.

"She said my name quietly, but loud enough for me to hear. And then she asked me what I was doing here, but I knew that she knew why. I didn't answer her; what was I going to say, really? 'Here I am, come to take your life'? That would be like making a farce out of a tragedy. Then she said something to the extent of 'Come over here', and I came over until I was at the edge of her bed, and she said 'I love you, Legault.' Hah…isn't it funny how life works? A crippled assassin, and now she had exposed another weakness to her character. We rogues aren't supposed to let anything, least of all emotion, come between our duties, which might explain why I was caught so utterly unawares by what she said. I guess she was a poor assassin after all! I'm not," Legault added suddenly after chuckling, turning to look the sitting bishop in the eyes, "boring you, am I?"

Renault shook his head, his lips pursed.

"I'm glad. I probably would have continued anyway. Where was I? Oh yes. She said she loved me, and then she said something I would have never expected. 'Take me', she said, and she was pleading. 'Take me, use me as you please, you may do whatever you wish to me,' and then 'I'm a virgin. Don't let me die without knowing a man's—' and then she hesitated— 'no, your love.' And I remember standing there, confounded, wondering if this was all a ploy to catch me off-guard between her fingers, and then, of course, I realized that she was not the sort of person to play games of the mind like that. Thinking on it, maybe that was why she failed as an assassin."

"And I," Legault continued, still balancing on one foot with one hand on his chin and other at his hip, "I—I couldn't—if I were here to kill her, at least I—I could not—how should I say this? I couldn't begrudge her this one wish. She—oh, what is this?" and Legault turned his head aside, bearing what was, to Renault, a look of extreme complications, pain mixed with passion and guilt and hesitation. Legault continued, "She lifted her white nightgown over her nude body and called me in, with the only ray of moonlight in the room completely missing her body, though I could see everything with my eyes—a hawk's, you see. And when I hesitated, she said, 'No tricks. I'm unarmed. You can do whatever you want with me. Please. It's all right.' No, no, it wasn't all right, but I suppose love perverts and makes fools and beggars out of the greatest people."

Legault paused again, now absent-mindedly fingering the exposed handle of his knife, never fully gripping it, only slowly rubbing his fingers against the hilt. He continued after a moment.

"I usually keep my knife at my belt," Legault said, "so I was loath to remove it for any reason, but I—I did. I removed every bit of clothing except my shirt and placed them at the foot of her bed, and to this day I don't know why I did, I don't think I could ever even explain. Ah, Great Bishop…perhaps you would not approve, but I felt no connection, no strong feelings of love, not a single flitter of holy unity or sanctity. In fact, I don't right think I was thinking at all, only feeling. I made love to her without being able to look her in the eye; in fact, I believe I had my eyes closed the entire time. Her lips—her lips were against one of my ears, moaning sadly, and she kept saying 'I love you, I love you' like a mantra or some such thing, pulling her arms around my back and raking her nails against the back of my shirt, her left arm stronger than her right. Her body was cold, colder even than mine, and her legs alone were almost like ice wrapped around my back. And I never thought it appropriate to kiss her once, even if—even if she did smell of cinnamon, and her cheek brushed against mine as if begging me. I couldn't rightly tell her that her saying 'I love you' all those times meant nothing to me.

"When it was over, after my strength had returned after momentarily leaving, I knelt over her, retrieved my belt and unsheathed my knife. She didn't even say a word, she just sighed and pressed her eyes closed and held her legs together and folded her hands over her chest, and I took her life. It only looked like she was in pain for a second, then she let go, and had probably made peace with Elimine or whomever already. I dressed myself and left. I didn't know whether to feel a tiny bit more absolved, or guilty. It was only the third time I had ever felt guilt like that, the second being the first time I killed a person, the first being when I was a young lad, making love for the first time in an apple grove with my shirt on. The night I killed Aesha was the first time I ever considered…leaving the Black Fang. And here I am. It isn't even so much that I killed her; both of us knew it could happen and would happen. But at that moment, that I obliged her, that I made her 'unchaste' at her request, that..."

Renault, who was sitting with his eyes closed, hands folded, looked up at the thief. "I see," he said at last. "And you wish to release your guilt."

Legault nodded. "I've never told anyone this before. Until now it was a secret between me and—well, only me, though I'm sure you would think otherwise, Father. Now, it's a secret between us two. I suppose it was an odd thing to have told, but I feel relieved having told someone else. I guess that is a weakness of mine, isn't it? Ah well."

"Sometimes there are secrets that burn the heart if held inside," Renault said. "For what you have said…there is something to the idea of letting go of everything that pains. If what you did allowed that woman to die happily…then that was all you could do. You can't undo what has already been done, and so the only course of action is to be the man who you want to be when the future arrives."

"I've killed so many, for so many different reasons," Legault said. "I've killed before and I will surely kill again. Being a thief or a spy or an assassin is a horrible thing, and should be reserved only for foul rogues like myself. It's the kind of position where you can hate yourself and think logically when alone, but you have to love yourself and believe yourself when you have a knife in your hands. You can never doubt yourself for a second."

"If you had the choice to relive that night," Renault said calmly, "would you make love to that woman again?"

It took Legault a few moments to respond. "I—I think that I would do it again, if she would ask me again. And I think I would have kissed her-- once. There are worse things to do, after all. But I could not adhere myself to true romance or even to a tryst. I don't think I could subject the other person to the notion that one day I would make a mistake and be never seen again above ground. I'm not that strong, honestly."

After a moment, Legault turned to the flap of the wagon and made to leave, thanking the bishop for listening.

"Wait," Renault said, he stood up, his crumpled teal robes falling to the ground beside him. He steadied his hand against the wooden wall as the wagon ka-thump-thumped along. "You should at least know, my son, that you are not alone."

Legault turned around and stared at the bishop.

"I, too, have made difficult choices in my life. I've spited people out of my own cruelty, I've acted without rhyme or reason. In my past I've acted lustfully to feed my own desires for treasure, women, and fame, if only because I thought those things would make me happy, without never actually loving someone because of their being. But you've a compassion to you, I can tell. Nurture that compassion. Even if you never truly adore anyone, as long as you care about them, you can find a way to be happy, even if it is only fleeting."

"It's a bit too late for that."

"It is never too late."

Legault looked outside at the dim twilight, as the caravan had seemed to stop. "I'll keep that in mind. But don't pray for a silly wretch like me, Father. Pray for her."

Renault nodded. "I will."