“It is God’s will that my Maker freed me, I will know angels, and I exist without ever reaching Heaven. I have no breath from God. I possess no soul. My days on Earth will be spent serving your God.”
“Well done, Celestino.” Father Tomas stood up, stretching his back and legs. “I think that is enough teaching for one afternoon. Iseo has been instructed to keep you in the private wing of the living quarters. She will look after you and attend your worldly education. Until you are ready to be introduced to the world, it is important you bring no undue attention to yourself.”
“May I now return to my Maker?” Celestino asked.
“Sí, she will be expecting you. Return tomorrow after you break your fast.”
“As you command, Father.”
“Peace be with you, Celestino.” The gargoyle-man nodded and left. Father Tomas followed him out the door, watching him disappear around the corner. He loathed admitting it, but it thrilled him to be in Celestino’s presence. He could not help but hope that the training and relationship would conclude with satisfaction.
Chapter 5
Wisdom and Truth
Iseo felt the heat rise on the back of her neck, causing her to turn around. Celestino filled the doorway.
“I knew you would be standing there. How did you find me?”
“I felt your presence. It brought me here.”
“Bueno. Since you are no longer a stone statue, you can not very well stay in my workroom. You shall reside in this room from now on.”
Celestino looked around. “Gracías, my Maker.”
“Por favor Celestino, use my familiar name. Iseo. It feels strange to hear you address me so formally.” Celestino did not respond one way or the other, so she continued. “Did Father Tomas speak to you regarding your stay here? I mean in this wing?”
“Sí. He informed me I remain here, until I am ready.”
“I will bring your meals to you for the duration. We can eat together if you would like,” Iseo suggested.
“It would please me for my Iseo to eat and drink with me.”
Iseo smiled. “It is just Iseo. Not my Iseo.”
“Iseo,” Celestino repeated.
“I prefer the sound of my own name. There are few things a woman may keep in this world, her given name is one of them.” She tucked a woolen blanket under the simple mattress. “There. That should be sufficient. Are you hungry again?”
“I feel that again, sí...Iseo.”
“I shall return shortly with our evening meal. Wait here. I am not certain what you are to do while I am gone,” she said. “We will have to remedy that.”
Once Iseo left the room, Celestino studied the interior. It was an adequate size. A small window high in the wall allowed him to see the sky and the tops of trees. It was the only source of external light the room received. Candles, in various stages of melting, covered much of the surface of the small table beneath the lonely window. A solitary chair sat next to the table. In the center of the room stood another small table with two chairs, it too was laden with candles and a wooden mazer. Against the wall was the bed Iseo had laid blankets on for his comfort.
Choosing to sit in the chair near the window, he backed into it slowly, careful to measure the distance before he relaxed into the seat. He could hear birds outside, and the wind blowing. He closed his eyes and pictured the view from the high ledge Father Tomas had taken him to. In his mind’s eye, he saw the distant horizon. It existed even as he sat there, alone and unsure of what would be expected of him.
A gentle rap on the door stirred him from his musings.
“Celestino, open the door, por favor. It is—” He opened the door before Iseo could finish.
“I know it is you, my Iseo,” he said, but quickly corrected himself to obey her wishes, “Iseo.”
“The tray is heavy. Are you going to move from my path?” she asked, completely trying to ignore the fact that his use of the words my Iseo caused her knees to weaken enough to make her worried she might actually drop the tray on both their feet. Celestino reached out and took the tray from her. In his hands, the burden appeared less than a feather.
“We eat together at the table, my Iseo?”
She smiled, despite her irritation. “Sí, at the table.”
Finding a space away from the candles, he set the food down. The contents looked identical to the earlier meal, except a round object of reddish color, which rolled against the edge of the tray. He picked it up.
“This is different,” he said.
“That is a pomegranate. A treat for us,” Iseo informed him. “Shall we sit and eat?”
Iseo noticed that Celestino sat with much more caution than before.
“First, we speak the grace.” Celestino pressed his hands together ready for prayer.
“Of course.” Iseo followed his lead, bowed her head, and spoke, “Holy Father, we receive your blessing and give thanks. We beg for deliverance from our sins. Amen.”
“Amen,” repeated Celestino.
She poured wine from a small decanter into the mazer and placed the trencher of fish stew between them. She laid a napkin at Celestino’s elbow. He picked it up.
“Unfold it and place it on your lap. Remember?”
“Sí.” Celestino did as he was instructed. “You bring wine, not water.”
“I know it is not your favorite, but you must accustom yourself to it. The only way to accomplish that is to drink it as often as possible. So you do not—”
“Make my face,” he finished for her.
She laughed. “You are right. You should not make any unpleasant faces when you are drinking another man’s wine. Especially a nobleman. They are so easily offended.”
“A nobleman?”
“A man born into a family of wealth and land. A man with a title. Rare few are merchants. These nobles tend to thoughts of grandeur regarding themselves. I should know. Go on, drink your wine,” Iseo encouraged.
“After you, my...Iseo,” he said. Iseo thought she caught his attempt to smile in her periphery, but it flashed so quickly, she lost it before she could be certain.
“Such a gentleman,” she remarked. Wiping her mouth with her napkin, she then proceeded to sip from the wine bowl. “Entonces, your turn.”
Celestino took the mazer in one hand and tilted it to his lips. His mouth began to water before anything even passed his lip. The sensation surprised him and he tilted the mazer, spilling several drops on the table, where they immediately stained the old, dry wooden planks.
“Use both hands. It is easier to handle,” Iseo instructed, as she took a dainty scoop of fish from the hard bread bowl. “You will have a mottled tabletop if you continue in that manner,” she observed. Celestino put his other hand on the opposite side of the drinking bowl and sipped. His upper lip curled slightly and Iseo laughed at his involuntary reaction to drinking the wine. Celestino’s glance compelled her to defend herself without him uttering a single word.
Trying to control her laughter, she said. “Lo siento. I apologize.” But the image kept repeating in her mind. “I have never seen a grown man grimace so...your lip curled as if you would rather spit it out than swallow it.” Celestino’s stoic expression began to steal the humor out of it. “Again,” she coughed, the laughter fading completely now. “Lo siento. It is rude to laugh at another’s expense.”
As if to prove a point, he took another sip. This time he was able to manage the task without making any facial expression at all.
Iseo steered the conversation in a different direction. “How was your first lesson with Father Tomas? What did you study?”
“He spoke to me concerning my nature. My place on Earth. My price.”
“I see,” she replied.
“I have no soul, my Iseo. My kind is without God’s breath.”
“I had not thought of you like that. I mean, without a soul. From my perspective, you must be one of the most soulful creatures.”
“How do you mean? Most soulf
ul?” he asked.
“You are not just a creature of the Earth, but one of God’s great warriors. A protector of human souls, if you will. Therefore, you would have a larger soul.”
“I am of livingstone, made of earth and your hands. God has not breathed a soul into me. I will not go to Heaven if I am destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” Iseo had not given much consideration to Celestino’s demi-mortality.
“Remaining on Earth as God’s protector of humans is eternal. I will not die, my Iseo, like a human. But you will die.”
The truth of his words jarred her. Sí, I will die...we all die in the end. Some of us in small doses. “You mentioned a price? I am unfamiliar with this price. Father Tomas apparently let a few minor details about gargoyles slip by without mention.”
“I have forty days of flesh and seven days of stone. To protect the house of God.”
“I see. Forty days...then stone for seven,” Iseo whispered to herself. “That I did not know. Minor indeed.” She took a sip of wine. “How do you like your stew?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Gracías...my Iseo.”
There it was again, a tremor in her chest when he spoke her name. Iseo. She reached for the mazer and took a larger than usual gulp. Heat flushed up her neck at the thought of his eyes watching her drink. She could not force herself to look across the small table and the room suddenly felt cramped.
She choked out, “I am glad.” She cleared her throat before speaking again, “You will be eating quite a bit of it. The Fathers prefer fish to all other meats. It is plentiful here. Inexpensive, really, being so close to the ocean.”
“What is the ocean?” Celestino asked.
“How to describe the ocean...it is almost as big as the sky. It is a body of salty water as far as your eye can see,” Iseo explained, knowing that her description hardly did the ocean any justice at all. As she thought about the problem of describing things to someone like Celestino, who had no reference to anything outside his immediate proximity, she felt the room return to its customary parameters. Her breathing slowed to normal rhythm. “I think you will have to see it one day to truly grasp what it is.”
“You have seen the ocean?” Celestino asked.
“My father’s home is very near the ocean. I could glimpse it from different balconies. And smell the salt air when the wind blew just right.”
“Father Tomas is your father?” Celestino looked confused.
“Sí and no. There are two kinds of fathers. Father Tomas is a spiritual father, who is responsible for the souls of his parishioners. In that way, sí, he is my father. My birth father, the man who married my mother...he is my father. My other father. The one who has the power to give me away as chattel to any man he chooses.”
“What does it mean? To give you away?” Celestino asked.
“In marriage. He will decide who, and when, I am to marry. That is why I was sent here in the first place.”
“This is your purpose here? To have a marriage.”
“No, I was sent here for safety. To be kept pure. I am worth more to my father if my chastity is easily proven. I will remain here until my father has a use for me.” Iseo’s words sounded logical, when she said them out loud, but the truth of them wrenched her heart. It unnerved her to know that she lived in peace, only until her father called on her to fulfill her duty.
“You will leave this place, when the other father requests?”
“Sí. I do not think my father will allow me to remain here forever, secretly carving gargoyles for the church.”
“Do you know the time he will make his claim of you?”
“No, I do not,” Iseo said quietly. “Shall we change the subject? I have something for you.” She walked over to the small chest near the bed and opened it. She pulled a leather bound book from inside and brought it to the table. “I thought earlier today that you might want to learn to read.”
“Read. What is read?” Celestino asked.
“You look at script on a page. The script speaks to you,” she pointed to her head, “in your mind. You can learn about the world in a book.” She pushed the bound volume toward him. “Go ahead, open it.”
Celestino gently pulled back the cover of the book, the first few pages fanning up from the stiff leather binding. He noticed the black inked lines, the gilded edges, and the elaborate art framing each page. He turned a page over. “I hear nothing,” he announced, sounding confused.
“When you learn how to read the script...hand me the book,” Iseo said. “I will show you what I mean.” Celestino pushed it back to her. She opened to the middle of the slim volume and began to read:
Apart the lovers could neither live nor die, for it was life and death together; and Tristan fled his sorrow through seas and islands many.
He fled his sorrow still by seas and islands, till at last he came back to his land of Lyonese, and there Rohalt, the keeper of faith, welcomed him with happy tears and called him son. But he could not live in the peace of his own land, and he turned again and rode through kingdoms and through baronies, seeking adventure. From Lyonese to the Lowlands, from the Lowlands on to the Germanies; through the Germanies and into Spain. And many lords he served and many deeds did, but for two years no news came to him out of Cornwall, nor friend, nor messenger. Then he thought that Isolde had forgotten.
“I will teach you how to read the words, just as I did,” Iseo said. “It will give you something with which to occupy your mind, when I am not here or you have no other studies from Father Tomas.”
“I would like that. Gracías, my Iseo.”
Iseo closed the book, smoothing the cover with both hands. “I have another treat for you.” She picked up the shiny red and yellow mottled fruit. “This is a pomegranate.”
Hours passed, drawing the darkness into the room like mist, so Iseo lit several more candles. Shadows thrown by the warm glow of candlelight danced in the corners.
“It is time for me to return to my own quarters, Celestino,” she announced. “You will be safe here. You can sleep. There is an extra blanket in the chest if you should so desire.”
“Sleep,” Celestino repeated. By now Iseo knew the repetition of words was really a question for clarification.
“You lay on the bed, close your eyes, and sleep. Rest. Your body needs to be still when night falls. Do you not feel tired?”
“I do not know if I am tired. I will try sleep, as you suggest.”
“I will return when the sun rises on the morrow.”
He nodded. “I will wait for the morrow.”
“Buenas noches, Celestino,” Iseo said, as she headed out the door.
“Buenas noches,” he replied, as the door closed into a sliver of light before shutting completely.
Iseo leaned her back against the door. This will be much more difficult than I imagined. She found the darkness of the corridor soothing. Ahead, a lighted torch cast an orange glow on the wall. Walking to it, she slipped it free of the iron ring it balanced in. Much to her relief, she navigated the winding halls that led to her room without seeing or speaking to anyone.
Celestino found his eyes did not want to stay closed. He stared at the ceiling and the moonlight flickering through the window. He heard a bird softly crying as the shadow of dancing leaves played on the floor and spread across his bed. The candlelight faded into nothing as he laid thinking about his Maker and God. The poem she read repeated itself in his mind. He tried to conjure an image of this man, Tristan, on the ocean. He tried to imagine a body of water so vast its end could not be seen.
He had no idea how long the night would feel, but as the darkness lengthened he sensed a shift in the air. The bird quieted and the wind ceased. He became aware of his breath, aware of the rhythm’s rasp sounding loudly in his ears. The stillness that began outside crept through the window, blocking out the shadows. Celestino sat up, watching the room for signs of anything changing, but he could see nothing. The air felt different. Instinctively, he thoug
ht of his Maker. A pain stabbed him under his ribcage, compelling him to get out of bed.
“I will find my Iseo,” he spoke into the empty room. Opening the door, he followed the feel of her, the trailing scent of her, pulling through every livingstone fiber of his body. Soon, he stood in front of a wooden door, like all the other wooden doors he had passed along the way. He reasoned that if Iseo had found sleep, he would not take it from her. He pushed the door slightly, but it did not budge. He needed another way to enter her room. He reasoned that perhaps she too had a window in her room and that it might be larger than his. She was not a secret hidden from all eyes, as he was.
Celestino made his way outside. Far above his head, beyond the tallest trees, tiny flickering flames scattered as far as his eyes could see. His conversation with Father Tomas sounded in his mind.
“What are the stars?”
“We can only see them at night with the moon.”
He instinctively knew the large, white orb hanging so perfectly still against the black was the moon. Those must be the stars, he thought. They must be God’s candles. It did not take him long to find the window that belonged to Iseo’s room. It, too, was placed high up in the wall, but it was large enough to allow him through the opening. The jump to reach it was easy enough for him to accomplish in a single bound without making a sound. Silently, he slid down the wall, into the darkened room of his Maker.
Iseo lay in her bed asleep with the coverings pulled high over her shoulders. He walked to the end of her bed, watching her sleep. Her breath rose and fell like the soft crying of the bird outside his window. He was aware that the unsettling stillness was passing. He felt a warm shimmer rise up through his body, urging him to unfurl his wings. Celestino allowed the sensation to surge through his veins. The leonine gargoyle twisted and expanded with a painful burst of energy, manifesting in his full terrible glory inside Iseo’s tiny room. He had not known how it would happen, but afterward he was satisfied that he had made the transition silently. Pacing on all fours, he watched his Maker’s breath to see if he had truly been successful. She rolled over and he froze, with nowhere to hide his immense form. Fortunately, her eyes remained closed and the tension released. Celestino curled up on the floor in a darkened corner and slept for the first time in this new world.
Livingstone Saga, Book One: Birth Page 3