A.K.A. Goddess (13 page)

I could see his passion, his truth.

“I was twenty-five when I got a little parish kirk in Cornwall, on the coast. It’s what I was born to do. I still believe that.”

I could believe it too. “And then…?”

Rhys sat beside me, leaned against the crypt, “And then I met Mary.”

True. It’s a popular Catholic name. But…“Mary?”

“Mary Tregaron was a fisherman’s daughter. She came back from nursing school to open a clinic. She had the purest heart. I fell in love with her, and she with me, and I’ve never felt so sure of anything before—anything except my calling.”

“Which doesn’t allow you to love women.”

“Like Christ, priests try to love everyone. Even gun-toting madmen. But my calling did not allow marriage.”

“So you quit the priesthood for her?” At his stare, I realized what a stupid thing that was to say. “It wouldn’t have been that easy, though, would it?”

“We didn’t even speak of it, the connection we felt, for almost a year. Even once we did, Mary didn’t want to take me from God. I thought we could conquer it, but that was my pride. She was so active in the church, so giving. One day we had a moment alone and we nearly…”

I thought he’d say they nearly had sex. I felt guilty when he said, “We nearly kissed. So I petitioned to change parishes.”

I waited, wondering at the kind of personal strength their fight must have taken.

“My bishop told me it could be a year or more—there’s quite the shortage of priests, you know. But he also…” He shook his head, and some of the tightness eased from his throat. “He counseled me to consider that there might be more than one way to do God’s will. I wasn’t so sure, but I trusted God enough to at least consider it, to pray about it, to do research.”

I wanted to hold his hand. I couldn’t. “What did you find?”

“I found nothing that barred priests from marriage. Nothing but church law, of course—and even that seemed suspect. Apostles were married. Early popes married. Celibacy among priests was optional until the Second Lateran Council.”

“I skipped theology that day,” I said. “When was that?”

“In 1139. So for over half the history of the church, priests could marry. By the time I’d learned all this, months had passed. People think the priesthood is like the army—follow one’s superiors at all times or be court-martialed—but that’s not true. If it were true we’d never have had Vatican II.”

He paused—literally. His hands had been flying as he spoke, he’d gotten so fired up, but suddenly he fell quiet.

“That’s when I realized how strongly I felt about it,” he admitted with a shrug, and leaned back against the tomb. “I accepted that Mary Tregaron had been the answer to prayers I’d never even prayed, that by fighting our love I was living a lie. So I petitioned Rome to return to secular life. To marry.”

A bright light tracked across the church from the outside, turning colors through stained glass, the police still driving, still looking. So far, they weren’t bothering with the church.

“But you didn’t marry,” I said softly.

“Perhaps it was easier in the sixties, under Paul VI,” said Rhys. “But now…”

“Not so much?”

His smile held no humor. “It took three years. Then one night…” The smile vanished.

“You don’t have to tell me this,” I said.

“One night, Mary’s car was hit by a lorry on the motorway, and she was rushed to the hospital. Her injuries required surgery, and…someone made a mistake.”

“What kind of mistake?”

“They gave her the wrong blood, and she went into shock…and she died. I barely got to the hospital in time. Giving her extreme unction was my last official task as a canonical priest.

“When the papers arrived, three days later, I signed them.”

We sat there for a long while, in the kind of silence only churches and tragedies seem capable of creating.

Finally Rhys sat up. “In any case, if I seem vague about my status, that’s why. I’m still a priest. Ordination is permanent. But I’m no longer a practicing cleric, and I quite definitely lost my job. I have no credit. No life experience outside of the church.” He spread his hands. “Where else could I go but academia?”

That was a joke, right? I tried to smile. “And archeology?”

“It sounds foolish, now.”

“As foolish as me suggesting a threesome with a priest?”

“It’s not that foolish, no.” The real smile came back—but I finally understood that edge of distance, of sadness behind his personable manner. “I began to dream about the Holy Grail. It gave me something to focus on, a distraction from my grief, and I started to think, well…I suppose it has to do with wanting to be closer to Jesus—not just the religion but the man. And perhaps it’s about proving myself.”

“The Holy Grail only manifests for the worthy,” I remembered. “In the Arthurian stories, Lancelot is denied the vision because of his affair with Guinevere.”

“But his bastard son, Galahad, receives it,” Rhys agreed. “Perhaps I want to learn which of them I’m more like. When I petitioned to be laicized, I forsook my vows. Vows I’d freely taken. I understood the celibacy clause when I was ordained.”

I wanted to reassure him that he had nothing to prove. But I’d known the man for two days. He probably knew himself a lot better than I did.

At least I knew him better than I had. “I’m sorry.”

Rhys rested his arms on his knees, his chin on his hands. “That’s all right. I’d take it as a compliment, if you hadn’t included that Gallic thug in the suggestion.”

The threesome? I pushed his arm. “That was a distraction!”

His eyes twinkled at me. “And it most certainly succeeded.”

Rather than argue my innocence, I dug out the ID I’d taken from Frenchy—and got my first good look at the man’s face.

Our henchman had surprisingly blond hair, squared features, light eyes, a bored expression. And a stupid-looking mustache.

“René de Montfort,” I read. “Forty-one years old, from Ramonchamp.” I puffed out my lips. “Where’s Ramonchamp?”

Rhys shrugged, leaning closer to see the card. I felt his heat on my bare arms, bare legs. Well, we were in hiding, right? Personal space takes a hit when you’re in hiding.

Except my personal space wasn’t the part of me that felt concerned. My personal space kind of liked the sense of his nearness, his warmth, his solidness.

Rhys took the license, and I let him. “René,” he repeated. “What could have lured you into such poor judgment?”

Which, thank heavens, reminded me of everything I still had to tell him. “The Comitatus!”

He looked back at me. “Gesundheit?”

“They seem to be called the Comitatus.” And I explained what I’d overheard—that there really was a secret society after the Melusine Chalice. That membership seemed to be contingent on a man’s lineage. That from what I knew about the word in old literature, it represented a code of conduct among pagans, particularly Anglo-Saxons. Comitatus had been all about strength, and loyalty to one’s king.

“And,” I finished, “I think they’re based in England. I just don’t know where in England.”

Rhys looked both sleepy and serious. “Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters! These people are sending henchmen to beat up little old ladies and to steal the Melusine Chalice. They probably destroyed the Kali Cup, too, and who knows how many other goddess grails we don’t even know about? I realize these aren’t as important to you as the Holy Grail—”

“They’re still important.” He looked away, at the thick-silled window across from us. “They’re important to Bridge, and to you.”

“And they mean something, Rhys! The real version of history. Balance. Of course it matters!”

Rhys leaned forward with the intensity of his own argument. “I didn’t say these weren’t sinful, dangerous people, Maggi. But the world is thick with bad people, and the world has police and clerics to deal with them. You’re a college instructor. Why does it become your responsibility?”

Wow, I disliked that argument…especially because it was starting to make sense. I’d seen a man murdered, fought with a masked gunman, and shot somebody—somebody already dead, but still! It had been an ugly night, and sense was not yet welcome.

Then Rhys asked, “What would you do if you found them?”

I smiled. “Walk into the middle of a solemn ceremony, flip on the overhead lights, and send the funny hats flying.”

He grinned, too. Funny hats aside, I kind of liked the image of myself making them an offer they couldn’t refuse.

Leave the goddess grails alone, or else.

But assuming I could get that far, would they listen to me?

“Maybe I could collect enough information to report them to the authorities,” I suggested, but even that sounded weak. “Except they seem to have powerful connections.”

Rhys raised his eyebrows—see?

“Or I could report them to the news. Hard to be a secret society when your face is on the front page.”

“And the papers will listen to you because…?”

I let my head fall with a light thunk of defeat against the tomb behind us. This group might have connections to the news agencies, too. “Oh, shut up.”

Rhys’s smile looked sweet and, well, ministerial. “I’m sorry you feel frustrated.”

“Well, I do.”

“But when did going after these men become your goal?”

“When they broke into my house? When they hurt Aunt Bridge?” But again he had a point. A lot of people in this world are victimized without going on transcontinental jaunts after the people who victimized them.

There’s strength. And then there’s strength.

“I thought your goal was to find the Melusine Chalice,” he said—and as soon as my priorities righted themselves, they went too far the other direction. I wanted to kiss him.

Uh-oh. I shut my eyes, so that I wouldn’t be looking into his blue gaze. So that I wouldn’t be tempted. “It was. It is.”

Then I felt it. The brush of his fingertips down my temple. My cheek. Their gentleness felt so good, so very necessary, that it took every bit of my self-control not to turn my head and kiss the hand that guided them.

I didn’t. I didn’t even open my eyes.

Rhys cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. “Get some rest,” he suggested. “I’ll keep watch.”

“Okay,” I said, eyes still closed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was out of line. Especially after everything I just told you. I still love Mary, you know.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said. And I meant it.

Things would be a lot easier between us if we never mentioned it again.

You know that ethereal, half-dream state when you’re no longer asleep but you aren’t quite awake?

Between the worlds, in neither and in both. Like that lozenge of overlapping circles on a vesica piscis.

As slow consciousness crept back into my sleep, comfortable and warm on the floor of Vouvant’s church, I resisted the coming of consciousness. Instead I let all the little, insignificant bits of the last few days float past.

…Angoulême was last on Brigitte’s list…

It’s our conscious minds that need to organize everything. I took a deep breath—but not too deep—and savored being alive and rested.

…Romanesque churches. Sanctuary. Ironic, doing goddess research on holy ground, with a priest…

I didn’t want to think yet.

…soldiers took the toilet route into Richard the Lionheart’s Chateau Gaillard, too…

Once I started thinking, I would have to face problems and make decisions. Sometimes I get tired of decisions.

…powerful women, like Joan of Arc or Eleanor d’Aquitaine….

I squinted my eyes open, just testing. My subconscious was onto something.

Powerful women, with powerful connections.

Isabelle of Angoulême, a countess of Lusignan, had been the wife of King John of England. Making her a queen.

King John had been the younger brother of Richard I. Also called the Lionheart.

Both men had been sons of Eleanor d’Aquitaine.

After Lusignan rebelled against the French crown, Isabelle took sanctuary in a famous French convent called Fontevrault. The same place where her mother-in-law, Eleanor, had spent her final years. That’s what powerful women did back then, whether they were devout or not. In a patriarchal world where religion had been everything, convents were one of the only acceptable centers of woman power.

And here was the kicker.

Richard, Eleanor and Isabelle were buried at Fontevrault, along with Eleanor’s second husband, Henry II. Unlike the tomb beside me, those held effigies of all four figures.

I wasn’t guessing this time. I knew where the Melusine Chalice was…or at least, where it had once been hidden. One of the least likely places to find a sect of goddess worshippers…and the perfect cover. It was in the abbey!

“Holy crap!” I exclaimed, opening my eyes.

Then Rhys, beneath me, grunted and woke—and I realized that the reason I’d been so warm and comfy on the church floor was because I hadn’t been.

On the church floor, I mean.

I’d been asleep in Father Pritchard’s arms.

M y head was tucked, warm and cozy, in the hollow below Rhys’s shoulder, under his jaw. I could feel the ridge of a collarbone against my ear. One hand lay, fingers curled, near his throat, brushed by his coarse hair. The other…

Oh, heavens, my other hand was tucked, just the fingertips, into the waistband of his jeans.

I could see that very clearly, since my position had me staring down his long, lean body.

I levered myself off of him. Quickly.

The sliding release of his hands off me told me this hadn’t been a one-sided cuddle. I felt a sudden, cool loss on my elbow, where he’d been holding my arm in place—the arm with the hand in his pants. I felt a similar sense of absence on my butt.

He sat back from me, knees high, trapped against the crypt. “Ah. Well.” His voice sounded rough. “That was unexpected.”

“We were asleep,” I said.

“That’s true.”

“And nothing happened.” Even the fingertips of my left hand, which felt very sensitive all of a sudden, had to support that. They’d been wedged in his waistband, not beyond it.

“Nothing did.” Rhys rubbed his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of one hand, keeping his wary attention on me. Or maybe it wasn’t wary. Maybe it was just…regretful?