Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Forgive me.”

The wind howls outside the barracks.

“Please.” Reynauld’s breath catches in his throat. “Please, forgive me.”

The abbey bells toll once. Twice.

“I am as ash before Thee. I am…”

Reynauld’s knees are aching. His neck and back are stiff from bending over his clasped hands for… hours? How long has it been since he had returned from the expedition? Time crawls by like a wounded insect. His prayer beads bite into his palms. His penance scars twinge. He presses his hands together harder and grits his teeth. The dim moonlight leaks through the grimy windowpane, casting a weak circle of light around him.

“I am unworthy. I am unworthy of Thine Love, Thine Grace, Thine Peace. Have mercy on me, a lowly sinner, and accept me into Thine embrace once again.”

He is lost. He cannot sense the Light’s soothing presence nor hear its will echoing through the impulses of his mind. He senses no cleansing, no relief, no acceptance of his burdens. He is consumed by a maelstrom of his own design, tossed between its crushing waves, slipping into black despair between numbing swells of guilt, grasping for a hope which does not exist, and has never existed for him.

“Please!” His voice is ragged at the edges. Desperation and fear, the preferred haunts of a through-and-through sinner, beckon him further into the depths. “I beg for absolution! Relieve my burden, O Progenitor, O Birthplace of Righteousness!”

He pours and he pours, but there is nothing to receive it. Only the warped floorboards beneath him. The cold earth below that. The Light is mocking him! Punishing him! His shoulders will buckle underneath the weight of his sins. He will be crushed into dust if he cannot untether his heart and surrender himself totally to the Light.

“Deliver me to the path. Grant me a sign.” Reynauld tilts his head up to the moon. He speaks in the spaces between shuddering breaths. His throat clamps down on his empty words. “Anything. Please.”

The wind’s howl reaches a frenzied crescendo. The shutters come undone and slam against the window. Reynauld flinches, his rosary clattering to the floor. He hides his shame with his hands, shoulders pulled up close to his ears. It is as clear a sign as any.

There is no absolution.

His dead commander squeezes his hand. Cold sweat engulfs him. The orders weigh heavy at his hip. The vultures wait patiently. Laughing from beneath the ashes, from the place the Light will not touch. Silent screams echo between his temples. Eyes filled with maggots; greyed gums pierced through by fractured yellow teeth. Gushing stumps. Faces frozen in rictuses of terror. A thousand souls impaled on his blade. The thunderous screeching of the war machine as it grinds all that it encounters into dust between its great blunt teeth. Its labored march leaves behind gaping furrows, sowing little seeds of death in its wake.

And there he is, standing atop a heap of rotted bodies, their putrescent flesh soft beneath his sabatons. Fire made of unearthly color laps at his ankles like a loyal dog. The ruins of an empire smolder at his back. Soot blackens his hands, coins sticky with blood trickle between his fingers.

A martyr anointed with ash, arrayed in suffering, crowned by empty victories.

We are waiting for you, Reynauld, says the thing wearing his face. Come and gaze upon your works, O Conqueror.

“No!”

Reynauld tears off his shirt, a sudden frenzy gripping him, and tosses it aside. He undoes his belt with shaking hands and folds it over itself. His back twitches, ready for the stinging kiss of Father’s whip. Nausea rolls over him. He ignores it. Anything to beat back the sin threatening to consume him. Anything to relieve this burden.

“Blessed Light…” Reynauld’s grip tightens on the belt. “Accept my pain…” A little boy is crying, begging him for forgiveness. Reynauld does not listen. He cannot. “As… As due payment for my faithlessness.”

The first lick holds within it the countless others he has endured. The smack of the belt is little more than a gentle breeze when compared to the whip, but it tears him apart all the same. It suspends him in a place between the past and the present, there and here. It is both his first time all over again, held in place by biting ropes, and the hundredth time he has felt this horrible bite. It is unbearable, but he must bear it. He grits his teeth together and holds back his cries, shoulders seizing with the effort it takes. At the very least, there is no room for the visions when the pain is burning him clean.

“Break through the Darkness… clouding my sinful mind.”

Two hits, one on either side, as hard as he can manage. He shudders with each. This time, he cannot hold back the low, strained howl that leaves him. He can hardly breathe around the sobs stuck in his chest. Why won’t the tears come? It would make a better offering than nothing, shameful as such an act may be.

What do you have to cry about, anyways? You just stood by and watched. Coward.

“G-Guide… m-mmme… to Thine Brill…iance…”

He stuffs his spare hand into his mouth as he cleanses himself again. His teeth stamp little pink crescent moons into the back of his hand. The belt hits again. And again. The moons drip red. Iron leaks over his tongue. The blackness staining his soul clings stubbornly to life, resisting all attempts at purging. It is laughing at him, at his feeble attempts to shed its crushing weight. He releases his hand with a strained grunt.

“Forgive me!” he says to the Saints.

Thwack.

“Forgive me!” he shouts at the Light.

Thwack.

“Please! Forgive me!” he pleads to Father, voice so thick with unshed tears that he can barely force the words out.

Thwack.

“For…Forgive me!” he cries out to his son.

THWACK.

“FORGIVE ME!” he screams to the young boy who had missed morning prayer while caught in the embrace of hyacinths, who had stolen bread to keep himself alive, who had made the deadly mistake of trying to defend his mother from a crusader with bloodied armor and eyes like the ice which caps mountains, unknowable and cruel and inhuman-

He raises his arm for another hit.

Rough fingers tighten around his wrist.

“Stop!”

He looks over his shoulder.

Dismas stands there, face made thin and grey by the moonlight. It catches the edges of his hair, casting a faint silvery sheen over its edges. Broken strings of thought skitter through Reynauld’s mind.

The penitent thief. Reliquaries made of gold stolen from infidels. Kissing the dusty fingerbones of martyrs. A bright coin dancing over his knuckles. Redemption is found in the desire for it. Be silent, boy, and let your pain be your penitence! Blood and steel, glory and honor. Faded paintings of saints, hands raised, holding their holy objects. Flintlock in his left, dirk in his right. Follow the path of those before you. Canonization is always done post-mortem, but the faithful know the signs. Trust in the Light. It touches him, even here. It will guide you. The Saints will show you. 

And then Reynauld understands.

He releases the belt, wrests his hand away from Dismas’s grip, and throws himself at his feet. He clasps his hands together and bows his head.

“What are you doing?!”

“Dear Saint, I beseech thee! Show me the path to redemption!” His words are bubbling out of his mouth, all slurred and running together, fervent and rushed.

“Saint?!” Dismas sputters. “Since when?”

“Sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of the Light’s grace!”

“Have you gone soft in the head?” Dismas takes a step back, fear shadowing his eyes. “What is this?”

Reynauld cries out and reaches for him. His hands catch on the edges of his stained coat. He tilts his face up, trembling at his own impetuosity.

“Please! Don’t abandon me! Behold me humbly kneeling at thine feet!”

He reaches behind himself for the belt and folds it in half once more. Father had been right. There is only one path to salvation. The pity that spreads across Dismas’s face drives the sorrow in deeper.

“Reynauld…” His tone is soft, a thousand words folded into that one gentle utterance.

Reynauld swallows down a knot of despair and clears his throat. He must prove his dedication, his piety, his desire to be lifted out of this pit of suffering. “I implore thee, in th-thine virtue and wisdom, to pray for me before the Brazier of the Flame, although I do not deserve it.”

He raises the belt.

“You bloody lunatic! Get ahold of yourself, mate!” Dismas falls onto his knees, wincing, and grabs for Reynauld’s hand once more. “Stop it!”

“Why?” Reynauld tightens his grip on the belt but doesn’t attempt to pull his hand away. “Allow me to prove—"

“And what does whipping yourself with a belt prove?” Dismas snaps. Reynauld flinches. “Other than your own guilt?”

“I… My penitence… It is my penitence,” Reynauld mumbles, entranced by the fire dancing in Dismas’s eyes.

Commit this stained soul to the holy Flame. Consume my sins like kindling.

“Penitence!” Dismas scoffs. He takes the belt from Reynauld and releases his grip on his wrist. He doesn’t resist as Dismas tosses it away. “This isn’t penitence.”

“Forgive me, O Saint—”

“Stop calling me that.”

And you will know them by their humbleness. They will tread upon the oblations thrown at their feet.

Reynauld bites his tongue.

“Forgive me,” he mumbles, bowing his head. He clasps his hands together and presses his forehead to his knuckles. “It was not my intention to offend thee.”

Dismas sighs. He tugs at Reynauld's hands, deftly unlacing them. Callused fingers cup underneath his, thumbs pressing into his palms. Reynauld’s chest tightens.

“Look at me.”

Reynauld obeys. Dismas looks exhausted. Spread thin. Fragile. Kissed by silver moonlight. Dripping with shadows. A strange resilience lingers on that haggard face, crisscrossed with thin scars.

“I’m no saint,” he says, “and you’re not a sinner.”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“We…” Dismas’s face strains with some hidden pain. He swallows, breathes, and tries again. “We’re just men. That’s it. Prayers and beatings won’t change that.”

Saints speak in mysterious tongues. The righteous will follow, though they do not understand.

 “I want...”

I want and I want, but it is forbidden.

“…to be better. This weight… I can’t live like this. I can't bear it.”

“I know,” Dismas murmurs. His eyes are shining. “I want to be better, too. And I’m trying, but… the way I’ve lived… I was more animal than man. I never want to go back to that.”

“How? How can I leave the past behind?” Reynauld’s voice cracks. “It lurks at the back of my mind. I hear it even now… calling my name…” Reynauld’s gaze drifts to the darkened corner behind Dismas’s shoulder. The shifting blackness, the consuming dark, the place at the end…

“Gods’ blood, I don’t know!” Dismas laughs, a short and sardonic sound. Reynauld’s attention returns to him. “How should I know? I’m just a lowly thief. But I do know that the Light won’t do it for you. You have to do it. And, believe me, it hurts. Every step. But you have to do it.”

“I fear I do not have the strength,” Reynauld whispers.

“Then I’ll be right there with you. Clawing my way along bit by bloody bit. You lean on me and I’ll lean on you. We’re more than used to that, hm?”

It’s not quite a moment of clarity. Closer to a lull in the storm. It’s enough for Reynauld to get his head above water, take a breath, and grip to the flotsam Dismas has tossed his way. It’s enough for mortification to replace the frenzied madness that had briefly gripped him. The hopelessness, even if he does run to the transept as soon as the Abbot reopens it, will return. It always does.

“I don’t have the answers you’re looking for.” Dismas’s thumbs press harder into his palms. “I don’t think I ever will. For now, though, let’s bed down for the night. Tomorrow is another day and all that nonsense.”

Dismas releases his hands and reaches into his coat. Reynauld’s palms ache with the absence. He rolls his thumbs into his palms, trying to work out the lingering afterimage of his touch. It feels like a stain on his skin. A mark of… He dares not even think it.

“Here.” Dismas withdraws an off-white handkerchief and offers it to Reynauld. “You’re sweating like you’re in line for the gallows.”

Reynauld takes it with a nod. He glances to the fraying embroidery in the corner as he folds it in half. The letter N in curling red thread. Despite his words, the thief still holds onto the relics of his old ways. But, to cling to a stolen handkerchief of all things… Perhaps there’s more sentimentality in this rogue than Reynauld had once thought.

Reynauld wipes the sweat from his face and returns the small cloth. Dismas tucks it away, then helps Reynauld to his feet with a hand underneath his elbow. The motion is comforting and practiced. Almost as familiar as kneeling before the Altar. Dismas has done this countless times: in the ruins beneath the manor, in the slick cove, beneath mushroom-studded branches, between waves of pig-men. When they embark on expeditions together, he’s always at his back, at his side, ready with a well-placed bullet or a steadying hand.

We’re more than used to that, hm?

As loathsome and pathetic as the man can be at times, especially when he’s several bottles deep, Reynauld can’t help but feel… what? That they work well together? That they can occasionally get along? What else is there to feel?

Their eyes meet. Dismas parts his lips.

Reynauld jostles Dismas’s hand off of his elbow, annoyance rising in him. Dismas clears his throat and steps back, avoiding his eyes. Reynauld snatches his shirt off of the ground and begins folding it. Dismas lingers nearby, and Reynauld can feel his gaze on him, can sense whatever Dismas had been about to say hovering in the air between them, like a restless spirit. Reynauld shoves his shirt into his pack and sits down on the edge of his bed to undo his boots.

Dismas still hasn’t moved. What does he want? A reward?

Reynauld slides his left boot off and starts on the other one. He swallows down the knot of embarrassment in his throat. 

You have to do it.

“Thank you, Dismas.” He glances up just in time to see Dismas hide a smile. The burden lightens. “I lost my head for a moment. I don’t know what came over me. If you hadn’t arrived when you did…”

“No need for all that. You’ve done the same for me. And I know you will again.” His words sound rough, almost forced, as he moves to his side of the room to undress.

Reynauld pushes his boots underneath his bed. He pulls himself beneath the scratchy blanket. His ears prick at the rustle of fabric as Dismas takes off his coat, the clink of metal as Dismas unbuckles his belt.

What else is there to feel?

He closes his eyes.