A New Kind of Zeal

by Michelle Warren

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: Fury

  Rachel strode toward her father.

  Anger filled her – fury owned her. Joshua was dead! Joshua was dead, and her father had killed him! It was his fault! His fault!

  Connor was standing alone. His face was pale – she didn’t care. In that moment, she hated him! She hated him for what he had done.

  “How dare you?” she cried, pressing her face into his. “You bastard! How dare you?”

  He looked bewildered at her onslaught, and struggled to speak.

  “I…I didn’t know what to do…”

  “So you chose this?” Rachel said, jabbing her finger back toward Joshua. “You’re a murderer, Dad! A murderer!”

  “The people chose it!” Connor tried to defend. “They chose it!”

  “Don’t give me that crap!” Rachel said. “It’s your fault! You set them all up…”

  “No,” Connor whispered.

  “You killed an innocent man! You’re corrupt! A dictator of the worst kind – killing anyone who gets in your way!”

  Connor was shaking hard, now – tears were forming in his eyes, his forehead creasing into many strained lines.

  “I’m not a dictator,” he whispered, “I believe in democracy! Democracy!”

  “Bullshit!” Rachel said. “It’s your kingdom, that’s all! Your kingdom, and curse anyone who resists.”

  He was silenced – she had silenced him! But now another was there – Mark Blake! Still without his shirt.

  “No,” he said. “If you must blame someone, blame me.”

  Rachel stared at him. “You?”

  “I forced him to do it.”

  Connor was staring at Blake now. He stared, and shook his head.

  “You have destroyed our nation,” he whispered. “You have destroyed me!”

  Blake’s eyes widened. “James,” he said, “this wasn’t your fault – it was much bigger than you.”

  “Much bigger than me?” Connor cried. “What’s going to happen now, Mark? Our constitution has been dissolved! The Queen to rule – how? With the Army! A military state! Brother will fight brother!

  “Our army isn’t big enough, Mark! War will come! Civil war. Our nation will be divided, and then…” His eyes clouded with utter dread. “Then we will be conquered.”

  Blake frowned at him. “James,” he said quietly, “there’s nothing we could do to stop this.”

  Connor swallowed. “I listened to you!” he said. “I should have followed my own judgment!”

  “You’re right,” Blake said, “but now it is done.”

  “Done?” Connor cried. “How easily you dismiss it! You took me to Hell, Blake! You took me straight to Hell!”

  Blake’s face drained colour, and now Connor looked back to Rachel.

  “Hate me,” he said. “Do whatever you like. We’re in trouble now! We’re in trouble – and there’s no going back.”

  He gave a sideways glance to Blake then turned on his heel to walk back into the Parliament grounds.

  Rachel frowned, now confused. She looked at Blake. Had he led her father astray?

  “Don’t hate him,” Blake said. “His hands were tied.”

  “Did you tie them?”

  Blake took a deep breath and then released it. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  Rachel’s anger grew again – now against this man before her. “Then you were the one?” she asked. “Who led him to public disgrace?”

  Mark straightened and swallowed. “Yes,” he said. “What you’re saying is true.”

  Rachel stared at him. Who was he? The Bishop of Wellington – the friend of her father since high school. She knew him! She knew him. Regal robes, high and mighty position.

  “You make me sick,” she said, “bloody ministers! Hypocritical, standing up there preaching and then leading us all astray…”

  Blake’s face flushed, but he remained silent as she continued.

  “…always thinking you’re better than we are, always judging, always condemning…”

  “I’m not condemning…” Blake said, and Rachel scowled, jabbing her finger again back at Joshua.

  “Oh, yeah?” she asked. “What do you think you did with him?”

  Blake fleetingly closed his eyes and then opened them again.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I did condemn.”

  “You stand up there at the altar, as if God himself is speaking through you,” she said, “when it isn’t God! What is your voice, but the pathetic mutterings of a twisted man? You’re not a child of God – you’re twice the child of Hell I am!”

  His eyes widened – she had reached him! She had caused him pain – at least some of the pain he had caused her! But now another voice was intervening.

  “Rachel!” It was John – his voice strong, and penetrating. She looked at him – he was shaking his head, his gaze intense.

  “Don’t do this,” he said. “This isn’t what he saved you for!”

  What he saved her for?

  Rachel remembered, then, the boiling water – Hell’s Way! Agony! Agony, and death, and…and life again…Joshua, burnt! Burnt, having saved her…

  Shame filled her: she was hatred, when he was love! She was bitterness, when he was forgiveness…

  She turned, weeping, to run away – but Blake was grasping her arm.

  “Wait,” he said quietly, and she shook her head.

  “Please let me go,” she whispered.

  “You’re right about me,” he said. “Everything you said was right.”

  She trembled. “But everything about me is wrong.”

  “That’s why he did it,” Mark said. “You do know that, don’t you? That’s why he died for us.”

  She stared into his eyes. That’s why he died?

  “I can’t bear to be saved,” she whispered, “not if it means that he should die! Not if it means that he should be shot!”

  The memory was there again: that terrible crown, and his suffering! His body jerking back with the bullets! She couldn’t save him! She couldn’t save him.

  “I’m a doctor,” she said, “but he was the real healer, not me! He was – and now he’s dead, and…and I hate us all…”

  Mark’s face was drawn with grief – and she tore herself away, and ran, and heard the sound of his voice behind her back.

  “Rachel!”

  Pain drove her, through the streets of Wellington. She ran, and ran – her heart heaved in her chest, but she could not stop.

  The waterfront was before her: Wellington Harbour. She stood on the edge of the water – she stared down into the depths.

  His face, on his death! “It’s finished!” he had said. “It’s sorted!” He had even smiled! But she fought his offering. They weren’t worth it – none of them were! They weren’t worth it, if this should be the cost of their salvation!

  She sank down to the water’s edge, dangling her feet over. Did she want suicide? No – no. Only some kind of peace, some kind of resolution – but it never came.

  “Love…” She whispered into the water. “What’s the use? It costs too much! Too much.” Life cost too much – humanity cost too much! And yet…and yet she knew Joshua would not see it that way: she knew he had not seen it that way.

  He had been more than she could ever be. Why had she not died, or any one of them? Why him? Why him?

  “It’s a travesty,” she whispered, and terrible grief threatened her heart – and then someone lowered himself to sit beside her, dangling his leather shoes.

  It was her father.

  Connor sat shoulder to shoulder with her, at the water’s edge, staring down into the water. He reached over – he took her hand. He squeezed it.

  “You followed me?” Rachel said, and he shrugged.

  “Got nothing better to do,” he said, and Rachel elbowed him, and he actually smiled.

  “What the hell just happened?” she asked, and he shook his head.

  “I don’t know!” he said. “I’m out of a job! I…” And
now he released her to bury his face in his hands.

  Rachel looked at him – at his shoulders sagging. She laid an arm around him.

  “Maybe it’s good to be out of that job for a while.”

  “Maybe,” he whispered into his hands.

  “I shouldn’t have said the dictator thing.”

  He shrugged painfully. “You’re not the first.”

  “I…” She considered him, considered Joshua – considered the whole situation. “I love you.”

  He lifted his head from his hands, and looked at her.

  “I’m scared, Rachel,” he whispered, “I really don’t know what’s going to become of us now.”

  Rachel held his eyes – his fear. Joshua’s words were with her then! The tsunami! The war. Fear! And…and trust…

  “Maybe it’s not up to us,” she said. “Maybe none of this has been up to us.”

  “Resorting back to our church days?” Connor said with irony. “Blake getting to you now?”

  “He said something.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Connor replied, “I’ll bet.”

  “I…I basically called him a bastard, and…and he agreed.”

  Connor stared into her eyes, and then he suddenly laughed. “He admitted he was a prick?”

  “Well, he didn’t quite put it like that.”

  “No kidding!”

  “But…he took the blame, Dad.”

  Now guilt filled Connor’s face. “You know I don’t agree with that.”

  “I know.”

  “But…maybe there’s some hope for Blakey after all.” And his face broke into a wide grin.

  Rachel sat with him at the waterfront for a long time. She knew John, Rau and Blake would be moving Joshua’s body – she couldn’t bear to watch. Instead she sat, with her father, talking about nothing – and feeling, at the same time as him, everything.

  His arm was around her shoulders now – she leaned against him. Neither spoke of what had happened to Joshua – neither could.

  The water was there – deep, and still. Father and daughter stared down into it. There was no resolution, but at least they were together.