Chapter Ninety-one

 

 

Temptation’s Call

 

 

Having been up all night with Mala, Tristan did not rise that next day until nearly dusk. A soft rain had begun to fall earlier that afternoon, and by the time Tristan dressed and left his room, it had turned to a downpour.

“Mala?” he cried, making his way down the marble stairs to search for her. He heard a noise in the distance, outside the banquet hall toward the covered outdoor patio that graced the inner courtyard of Mala’s house. He couldn’t quite identify the sound he heard. Approaching the doorway to the patio, it grew in timbre and pace, becoming familiar to him.

Standing there at the threshold of the patio, he looked out into the covered area at Mala, dressed in her vibrant Romani dancing skirt of old, lost in her own movement, swaying high, low, and around, her eyes closed, lost in her dancing and in another world and time. The jingle-jangle of the zills fastened to her fingers accented the rhythm of the rain pattering the tile roof of the patio, and as he watched her lithe movements, a look of near rapture possessed her face. Her eyes still closed, she launched into a slow sweep as her arms and hands undulated with extreme grace, telling stories with each set of motions, one after another. She was in a trance of her own devise, he decided, and that trance was in turn entrancing him.

Abruptly she stopped and the zills on her fingers stilled as she opened her eyes, then drew back, startled. “Oh!” she cried, her cheeks filling with color. Then she laughed as her embarrassment subsided. “I thought I was alone.”

“Ah, it’s only me, Mala. I did not imagine that you danced anymore.”

“I pull out my zills from time to time, in the solitude of days such as this. There’s a sadness in the rain that seems to draw out the old days, you know? It was raining the night I left you in Marseilles, storming terribly actually. Every time it rains now, which is frequent here in Genoa, I can’t help thinking of that night, and you.”

“You come to me also,” Tristan sighed, “in my moments of loneliness. There’s something I meant to ask you last night and never quite got there. That day I caught up to your caravan as you were following Balducci to his territories, why would you not speak to me, or even acknowledge me? A word from you, a moment of sanity, might have changed everything for us.”

“Oh, Tristan, poor Tristan. It would have changed nothing. I was too bitter at the time. I had just buried the baby and Fernando, my body was full of sores from frostbite, I had lost all faith in Mathilda and your Cardinal, whatever his name was at the time.”

“Odo,” said Tristan. “Cardinal Odo de Lagery, who is the Holy Father Pope Urban II. Beyond that, he is the man who raised me, taught me everything I know, and provided me a future.”

“Yes, I have heard that he is now the Gregorian Pope. Do you believe he gave you a future?” said Mala with an unexpected measure of doubt. “Has it ever occurred to you, Tristan, that you were a little boy of seven when you fell into the hands of the Black Monks, and that the Benedictines used you when they discovered your phenomenal intelligence and academic abilities?” Then she approached and stood immediately in front of him, wrapping her arms about his neck. “Put your arms around me, smart boy,” she then whispered.

He felt the full press of her swelling breasts against his chest, as well as her pressing, half exposed belly and everything below it. This caused an uncontrolable stirring in him, yet his hands did not move from his side.

“Here, I’ll help you then,” said Mala, taking his hands and forcing them about her bare waist, “since you continue to worry about things. I have even sent Duxia into town for the night, so we are utterly alone.”

As his hands felt the soft, bare skin of her waistline and she continued to press her breasts against him, he felt a sudden swelling between his thighs.

Mala felt his swelling also, and tittered in his ear, “There now, let nature do its work, smart boy, and stop thinking so much.” Then she pressed her lips against his and kissed him deeply, her tongue slipping hungrily about in search of response. Tristan was frozen in place, lost within her promiscuous embrace. Mala moved her head back a little and looked at him a moment, then kissed him again. Once again feeling no reaction, she left her mouth upon his, reached to her shoulders and slipped her blouse down to her waist. Then, standing there bare from the waist up, she took Tristan’s hands and pulled them upward, opening his palms and laying them flat upon her ample breasts. Covering his hands with hers, she then gently moved his hands about so that they were plying her breasts, and his fingers were grazing back and forth over her erect nipples.

“I want you tonight, Tristan.”

“I… Mala… I…”

“I don’t ask you to leave the Church.” Mala whispered, clinging to him. “And I don’t ask for marriage, nor promises. All I ask is that you make love to me tonight and tell me how much you love me, Tristan; how much you miss me and need me. We are alone here and completely free of the world’s prying eyes.”

Tristan dropped his hands from Mala’s waist and backed away a step. “I cannot do this, Mala. I do love you. Desperately. There is an emptiness in me that only you can fill. It’s always been that way since we first met, but I cannot do this, not now.”

Mala released her hold on him. “It’s Odo de Lagery, isn’t it?” she said, a storm of emotion brewing in her eyes. “Even locked away in this hidden world of mine, far from his eyes, ears, and reach, you can’t shake free of him can you, Tristan?” Then she raised the top of her blouse, covering herself, and turned away. “That man that you adore so much, why can’t you place things in perspective about your relationship with him? He didn’t give you a future, but denied you a future, by raising you up in his own image within the confines of Cluny Monastery in the company of reform minded fanatics! You never had a chance, Tristan, don’t you see that! As intelligent as you are, are you really so blind to the reality of what has been done to you?”

Tristan looked at her, drawing from the only instincts he knew. “I am a monk, Mala, and a Gregorian. I know that Genoa operates under the name of King Heinrich of Germany, Mala. Have you really turned against us and taken Heinrich’s part?”

“Oh, Tristan,” she sighed with frustration, “I’m not talking politics here. I’m talking about you as a little boy, and what the Black Monks have put in your head. Besides, Genoa is independent and operates under its own name. Heinrich has no authority here despite these so-called territorial maps the Gregorians and Heinrich draw up in their damnable game of chess that has blighted the land.” Then her frustration began to evolve into anger. “And Tristan, you know well that Heinrich has neither influence nor presence here. The Gregorians have been freely using the port of Genoa throughout this war!” she retorted. “And many here like General Bertucci openly support the Gregorian party! Oh, how dare you accuse me of making a political stand simply because I charge your precious Odo de Lagery with exploiting you since childhood!”

“I am a Benedictine by choice, Mala, by my own free will,” insisted Tristan.

“Oh, just as I was a poor Romani dancer by choice, I suppose, eh? Dammit, Tristan, open your eyes! You are what you are because of Odo de Lagery, and he never allowed you to be anything else.”

“Not true… my brother Guillaume, he did not choose to become a Black Monk. Of his own free will he became a man-of-arms!”

“Tristan,” Mala cried, losing herself in exasperation, “Odo de Lagery and the Black monks ignored Guillaume at Cluny. He was not raised to manhood by Odo de Lagery like you, but left Cluny and was raised by your aunt Mathilda. Even at that he too has become a fanatic Gregorian at her hands. There is far more to life out there than the Investiture War and the Church, Tristan!”

Disputes can shatter the most intimate of moments. Disputes that combine family, politics, and religion in one basket wreak absolute havoc upon them. This is precisely what was occurring between Mala and Tristan with each word uttered. Angry, disillusioned, wounded beyond imagination, Mala stormed from the patio and disappeared inside. As Tristan listened to her dissipating footsteps, he too was angry and hurt, and blamed Mala’s tirade solely on her temper.

 

***

 

That night in bed he wrestled for hours over Mala’s words, especially the accusations slung at Odo de Lagery. And though he made an honest effort to at least think about her accusations, he refused to accept that either the Black Monks or Odo de Lagery had done anything but look out for his best interests as a child under their stewardship.

That next morning when Mala arose, she sorely regretted the heated exchange that had ensued the night before and went straight to Tristan’s room. When she got there, Duxia was standing within the doorway.

“Duxia, when did you return from town?” said Mala

“I was worried about you being here alone with the monk and decided I best get back here by dawn.”

“I instructed you not to bother him. Why are you here by his room?”

“Oh, I’m humbly changing out the linens,” Duxia clucked. “I’m not bothering him. He’s gone.”

“Gone?” said Mala, her heart dropping into the very pit of her stomach.

“Yes, according to the guards your monk asked for a coach and left in the middle of the night.”