Livingstone Saga, Book One: Birth

by Janell Rhiannon

  “You are no lesser creature. You stand a magnificent wonder. Proof of creation’s mysteries.”

  “I consider your words, my Iseo, to be spoken truthfully...as you understand them.”

  “Do you think I grasp so little understanding?”

  “Only another of my kind would understand fully. I know I have purpose. I am only uncertain of how it will be.”

  “Finding one’s purpose is never an easy task, even when we know what is expected before it happens.”

  “I know I am to fight evil, but I do not yet understand what evil is.”

  Iseo looked down at her hands folded serenely on the table. “I understand enough. I think.” Contemplating the fact that her father would call her home someday to marry a man of his choosing was a reality she tried to ignore as best she could. She had found purpose at Compostela, in her solitude, and in her workshop. The thought of leaving made her chest burn with unshed tears.

  “When will I be freed from this isolation?”

  “Am I not pleasant enough company? Father Tomas? Father Avriel?”

  “I am pleased with my teachers and my Iseo,” Celestino replied. “I wish to walk freely among humans, under the light of the sun or the moon and stars. I have only glimpses of these things.”

  Iseo’s heart softened toward her creation. He was as caged as she was. He was forbidden to do a great many things, until others deemed him ready.

  “Gargoyles and females are not so different after all,” she declared, smiling. A devious thought took hold. “Would you like to explore the cathedral? We must be careful to remain undiscovered...by anyone.”

  “You have no permission from Father Tomas to do this?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Will you be punished if we are found?”

  Iseo shrugged her shoulders. “If we are found, most likely, sí.”

  “Entonces, we will not be discovered.”

  She smiled. “One candle. No more, or the light may give us away.” She picked up the candle she came in with and replaced it with one a bit taller from the table. “We will need more light than this candle has left.”

  Together they walked down the long, empty corridor that led past Father Tomas’s private chamber and the library where Celestino was to study. The hall appeared to be a dead end. Iseo stooped to place her hand in a narrow space beneath the door. Suddenly, a small click sounded and a thin crack appeared in the wall. She gently pushed at it until the wall creaked opened. Iseo placed her finger to her lips, as she poked her head into the opening, peering around the edge of light into the hallway.

  “It is safe. Come,” she whispered. When they both passed through the secret door, Celestino saw that they had come from behind a bookcase. Iseo pressed the open side of it shut until it snapped into place.

  She crooked her finger signaling him to bend close. When he leaned down, she gently pressed her lips against his ear and said, “Welcome to Santiago de Compostela.”

  Iseo led the way with the thin light of the candle illuminating their path. As they walked, Celestino kept looking up into the darkness, sensing no ceiling structure pressing down from above his head. He stepped up to a wall and ran his hand over the stones. He could feel each block, cut with squared precision, set so closely not even a finger tip could slip between them. Pillars taller than anything he could imagine were set into the floor at equal distances from one another.

  “Everything is made of stone,” he whispered, as much to Iseo as to himself. He understood stone. What he felt in the walls and pillars was what he knew about himself. He was strong, sturdy. He would endure, but for how long he had yet to discover. They walked on in silence until they reached the beginning of the inner sanctuary. The space before them opened up in a grand scale. It was as if the corridor had widened into a heaven of its own.

  “This is the place where God dwells,” Iseo whispered and crossed herself with her free hand. She tapped Celestino’s shoulder. “Look up there.” He followed the direction of her arm. He could see colorful glass windows glowing blue as moonlight filtered through them.

  “It is beautiful,” he said.

  “Sí, it is,” she sighed. “Would you care to sit?”

  Celestino looked around and saw no bench or chair. She bent down placing the candle on the floor and reached up, taking his hand in hers. She pulled him down to the cold stone floor to sit beside her. She pulled her knees up to her chest to ward off the night chill and rested her back against the pillar. She realized her hand was still in his, so she tugged it free. They watched the gleaming windows.

  “There are no benches in the sanctuary so that the congregation may move about freely during mass.”

  “Humans do not tire of standing?”

  “Of course we do. Some masses are very long. The sickly and the weak may go to the wall.”

  “Go to the wall?”

  “There is a stone ledge that runs the length of the sanctuary. They are free to sit upon it.”

  “Why did God give all creatures a mate?”

  Iseo hid her surprise at the abrupt shift in conversation. “To keep them from becoming too lonely, I suppose. And to procreate their own kind.”

  “What is procreate?”

  Iseo smiled in the half dark. “That is a delicate question, Celestino.”

  “You wish not to answer it?”

  “I will answer.” She took a breath. “You understand how you came into the world?”

  “At your hand. From the livingstone.”

  “It is how gargoyles are born, so to speak. It is how your kind is procreated. How more gargoyles are made.” She searched her mind for the appropriate words. “For humans, it is a much different process...for more to be made.”

  “Your kind is not carved from stone?”

  Even though she could not see his face, she knew what his lopsided smile sounded like. “You know we are not. Though, I could argue some are indeed made of stone.”

  “What is your meaning?”

  “It is another way of saying they are cold and heartless. Not to imply that you are heartless. By no means do I find you so.” Iseo watched as her breath hung in the air. She shivered slightly as the early morning chill crept across the stone floor of the cathedral. The warmth radiating from Celestino tempted her to move closer, but she resisted. The bluish dark, the solemn cavernous chamber, and the hazy chill felt like another world descending around her and Celestino.

  “You have yet to share regarding human procreation.” The dreamy world dissolved back to reality.

  “My thoughts wandered from me,” Iseo cleared her throat. “Procreation begins with a marriage. The husband and wife have relations. If they are blessed, the wife will find herself with child. When the woman is with child, this is procreation.”

  “What is child?”

  “A very small, innocent human,” she said. “Very small.” She cradled her arm to show him her meaning.

  “What is with child? Where does the child come from?”

  “The child lives inside the belly of the woman.”

  “How does a child obtain entrance inside a woman?”

  The heat crept up Iseo’s chest to flush her cheeks. “When a man and woman have relations...,” Iseo cleared her throat again, coughing dryly. When she resumed her explanation, her voice sounded tight and high pitched. “The husband places the child inside her. It grows in her belly for nine months. Entonces, she gives birth.”

  “Will you do this? Procreate?”

  “Not until my father decides on a husband for me. And then, I will be expected to. Women live in the shadow of men’s mercy. Their lives not truly their own. We are thought of as mindless chattel. Which we are not.”

  “You do not wish to do procreation and receive a child in your belly?”

  “It is not that I do not wish it. I wish that I had some choice in the matter of husband. Of where I shall live...,” her voice trailed into silence.

  “I understand.”
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  “No. No you do not.” Iseo felt the chill being replaced by the rising heat of indignant anger. Even a male gargoyle pretends to know the trials a woman must face. Are all masculine entities so arrogant? “You will never be forced to lay vulnerable with someone who will lick his lips at you as he would a hearty meal. And then proceed to ravage you whether you wished it or not.”

  “I meant only to acknowledge your position, my Iseo.”

  “And stop calling me my Iseo.”

  “Gargoyles need not propagate. I will have no mate. I remain always alone.”

  “Nor do the angels. Your work requires absolute dedication. Even priests take no wife.” Iseo’s crossness faded as quickly as it had overtaken her. The truth in his statement reminded her that there would come a day when she would no longer be a part of this world, and he would linger for years. Decades. Maybe a hundred decades. Alone.

  “I feel heaviness when you are not with me,” he said.

  Her heart thudded. A hot blush spread from her neck to her cheeks. She thought of the warmth of his hand in hers. His perfect pearly smile. The angular chin. She tried to conjure an image of his awesome wings and claws to remind herself that he was a beast meant to serve God, not this perfection of man in flesh beside her.

  “You are perhaps lonely when attending to your duties? I imagine that for a creature newly arrived in this strange place,” she sighed, “new sights and sounds might overwhelm. Everything is new and you must absorb it all.”

  “This may be my—” he conceded. “The heaviness may be only that.”

  “You may call me as you wish, Celestino. My spitefulness a moment ago was not justly placed at your feet.” His easy agreement with her reasoning should have relieved her anxiety, but she found it only made her sad.

  Celestino stiffened in an instant. He inhaled the cold air, exhaling it slowly through his mouth, tasting it.

  Alarmed, Iseo asked, “What is it?” His actions reminding her of what she was easily forgetting in the darkness with his closeness. He was not human.

  “It is unfamiliar. I cannot place the scent.” Celestino shook his head, as if to clear the foreign smell from his nostrils.

  Iseo placed her hand on his. “We should return. I fear tomorrow I shall be of little use to Father Antony in the kitchen if I am awake until dawn.” Celestino stood up in one fluid motion, again reminding her of his true nature. There is no future for us. She knew this, even as she ached for it to be so.

  From the pitch-black shadow behind a far pillar, a pair of eyes watched the couple exit the sanctuary. The figure scowled in displeasure beneath his hooded cloak. With merely a thought, the specter disappeared. The young woman and her companion none the wiser.

  Chapter 9

  Of Fish and Sticks

  Once safely in bed, sleep eluded Iseo as a dream eludes the sleeper upon awakening. She could think of little else except the closeness of Celestino, his warmth, and the sound of his voice. She rolled onto her side and pulled the covering up under her chin, in hopes of finding comfort against the cold and loneliness. Until recently, she had not felt alone. As the morning hour approached, Iseo’s eyes finally closed in fitful slumber.

  A harsh knocking startled her from the gray sleep. “Hurry up girl! Your habit of tardiness annoys!” Father Anthony bellowed through the entry. Iseo sprang from her bed so quickly she lost her balance. Her head ached from lack of sleep. She washed her face in a shallow water basin and ran her fingers through her matted hair, pulling the long, chestnut tresses into a messy braid. It will have to do. Iseo reached for the dark-green woolen over-dress and threw it on over her rumpled chemise. Her feet were freezing on the stone floor.

  “Where are my shoes?” she asked into the darkness. She found them under the bed. As she bent to slip them on, she remembered Celestino’s warm hand next to hers. She closed her eyes to ward off the image, but it only intensified the vision. “Stop it! Stop it!” she said aloud to herself. She quickly put the slippers on, wiggling her toes inside the stiff shoes to warm them up and to soften the leather. She lit a single rush to keep from tripping in the early morning darkness and hurried to the kitchen, where she knew a grumpy monk was waiting.

  “It is about time you arrived, girl,” Father Antony snipped. “I had to start the bread by myself…again.”

  “I apologize,” Iseo murmured as she tied on the kitchen apron. She moved to the wide wooden table and began to shape the rising dough into oblong loaves for baking.

  “All those who live here take their obligations seriously.”

  “I understand, Father.”

  “Everyone must pull their weight in chores.”

  “I understand, Father.”

  “It just will not do, Iseo. Being late. Food does not prepare itself.”

  Iseo bit her tongue. Lack of sleep and hunger pushed vengeful thoughts into her mind. She wanted to pinch the priest’s lips together to stop his tirade against her, but she could not. Instead, she took her irritation out on the spongy dough, even slapping a few loaves for good measure.

  “It does not matter what bargain your father made with the Monsignor and Father Tomas. You are a woman. You belong in front of the hearth more than any of us.”

  Each word of Father Antony’s condescending manner pelted Iseo. She was female. What defense had she against such an accusation? She loaded several loaves onto the hearth stone.

  “Fetch the fish from the smokehouse. The Fathers will be expecting more than sop and wine this day,” Father Anthony chided. “The basket is on the shelf. Fill it up.” Iseo hurried to do the kitchen master’s bidding.

  Pale-yellow fingers of dawn reached like God’s hand across the deep blue velvet sky. The snap and crunch of every twig, every leaf she stepped on, was amplified by the stillness of everything else. As she approached the smokehouse, the smell of dried fish made her slightly nauseous. She unlatched the door and entered the dark, hazy room. The fully dried fish hung stiffly on fisherman’s twine strung between wooden poles. Picking a basket full within moments, she covered her haul with a cloth and exited as quickly as possible, thinking only of escaping the acrid smell.

  Again, her footsteps sounded loudly in her ears.

  “Buenos dias, Iseo.”

  Iseo dropped the basket, spilling the dry catch on the ground. “You startled me, Father.”

  “My apologies,” Father Avriel offered. “Here, allow me to help.” He stooped to gather the dried fish carcasses.

  “I did not hear you behind me,” Iseo thought out loud.

  “I should hope not,” Father Avriel responded casually.

  Iseo froze with a dried fish in her hand. She looked quizzically at Father Avriel, but before she could ask him what he meant by the odd statement, he said, “There. Your fish is as good as new. I will not tell Father Antony that you scattered the morning meal on the ground.”

  She could think of nothing else to say, except, “Gracías.” She turned to leave, walked a few steps, and looked back. Father Avriel was no where to be seen. She spun all the way around, looking in every direction. How strange. How can he just vanish? It did not occur to her to look up, and he was glad she did not.

  When she returned to the kitchen, Father Antony was in a full sweat, his rounded cheeks ruddy with exertion. “What took you so long, Iseo? Give me the basket. Get the last of the bread before it burns.” He practically yanked the basket from her arm, took the cloth off, and began dividing the contents into three large wooden bowls. “What is this, Iseo?” he demanded. She turned to see what issue he had with her now, only to see him holding a twig between his fingers. Her eyes widened and she bit her bottom lip. “Speak!” he bellowed. His eyes bugged out in fury. “What is this?!”

  “A small stick,” she said.

  “You insolent little—”

  “Buenos dias, Brother. Iseo, pleasant to see you again,” Father Avriel greeted them. The distraction was enough to bring Iseo’s culinary inquisition to an abrupt end.

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nbsp; “Begin removing the food to the dining hall,” the grouchy priest snapped. Iseo immediately picked up a bowl of de-twigged fish and scurried out of the kitchen.

  “Brother, it appears you are vexed by the woman? Does she burden the house so much?” Father Avriel inquired.

  “She is not always mindful of her duties.”

  “In what manner? I refer to her not being mindful?”

  “It is nothing. Nothing. If you mean not to help set the bread and wine to table, get out of my kitchen.” Father Antony tried to wave off any further interrogation. He was uncertain of the reason the Monsignor agreed to take on the girl, and he was not about to have his superior, or anyone else for that matter, nosing around his business.

  “Where is the wine kept?” Father Avriel asked. “And the water to cut it with?”

  “The pantry stock. Around the corner. The water has already been drawn and set to table.”

  “Bueno,” Father Avriel said, then added, “Does Iseo take her meals in the hall?”

  “No. She takes all her meals alone.”

  “Ah. I see,” he paused slightly, “I will see to the wine.”

  “Strange man,” Father Antony muttered to himself. However, he was grateful to get him out of his way. Why so interested in Iseo? His curiosity regarding the new priest faded as thoughts concerning the preparation of the next meal pressed with more urgency. More bread to bake and fresh fish to prepare. Cooking was a chore that never ended in God’s house of hungry Fathers.

  *

  Iseo took a full tray of fish, a fresh loaf of bread, and a small decanter of watered wine to her workshop. Setting the heavy tray on the floor, she fumbled for the iron key to her door. There were few doors with keys in the monastery, but her workshop, being one of the most guarded of all rooms, as it served as the doorway between the secret halls and common world, required one of those rare keys.

  When she opened the door, she was surprised to find Celestino inside.

  She interrogated him with her eyes. “How did you enter without—”

  “I am no ordinary creature, my Iseo,” he replied. “My feet are silent when moved to purpose.”

  “What if someone caught sight of you? Contact with anyone outside your training is yet forbidden. What if you accidently gave yourself away?”