Exit Kingdom (Reapers 2)

*

The brothers sleep in a crib of the horse stables on mounds of dry hay. It looks as though there have not been any horses in the stable for many years. Instead, much of the space is taken with the storage of provisions – barrels of water in anticipation of the dry months, jars of food in anticipation of famine.

They were offered beds in one of the bunkhouses, but Moses declined for the both of them. They have slept in worse than a stable crib, and there is a sour pleasure in sleeping as beasts among these good and righteous people. Moses bites down upon the selfsubjugation, as you would upon a rotten tooth to feel the flare of pious pain.

In the morning when Moses wakes, coughing the dust from his lungs and picking dry hay from his beard, he discovers that his brother Abraham is gone from the crib. He rushes from the stable and through the courtyard where the faces of the acolytes question him without words. Ignoring their expressions, he continues the search for his brother near the picnic tables, by the kitchen house, in the vegetable garden.

He eventually discovers Abraham in the church itself. He holds in his hands a fragment of cloth that has painted on it in watercolours a house and a sunset and a smiling girl. The girl herself stands next to him and beams up happily at his admiration.

This is quite a picture now, he says to her, holding it out away from him in an exaggerated performance of appreciation. You got a deft touch with the brush. I’ll tell you something, this is about as pretty a picture as I’ve seen in years. They should hang this up in a museum somewhere. You know what a museum is?

The girl shakes her head no.

It’s a place where they put all the greatest paintings in the world. And this one here could hold its own against any of those.

He hands it back to her with great delicacy.

You best hold tight to that, he says. Keep it safe. It’s so pretty, someone’s gonna want to steal that away from you.

The girl takes the watercolour back and scurries away.

Behind Moses the monk Ignatius appears. He has been observing the interaction as well.

Your brother doesn’t seem like the man you make him out to be, Ignatius says quietly.

You missed the point, friar, the lesson he was teachin that girl. It was to watch out because pretty things get plucked.

Then Abraham notices the two standing in the wide doorway of the church.

Mornin, he says. Moses can see him bristling under his brother’s suspicious gaze.

Good morning, Ignatius says. I trust you both slept well. I hope you’ll reconsider your arrangements for tonight and take one of the bunkhouses. We have plenty of room.

I think we may be movin along today, friar, says Moses. You been very kind, and we don’t want to take undue advantage of your hospitality.

Leaving so soon? Ignatius says. All the more reason to show you what I need to show you and make you my proposition. You have weapons, I take it?

So Ignatius instructs them to get a couple guns from their car and to meet him at the front gate of the compound.

What do you suppose the holy man has in mind for us? Abraham asks Moses as they dig through the satchels of weapons in the trunk of the car. You think it’s a trap?

It ain’t a trap, Moses says.

Then what?

Moses shrugs.

We’ll know when we know. It ain’t these people who are a danger to us.

What’s that mean?

But Moses doesn’t respond. He hands his brother a rifle and takes a pistol for himself and walks to the front gate of the mission, hearing Abraham slam the car trunk closed and follow behind him.

At the gate, they find the monk Ignatius waiting for them – and next to him the young woman in white robes that Moses noticed at dinner the night before. She has long red hair brushed straight out over the back of the robes, and there’s a quality to her expression that Moses can’t make sense of – as though there were springs in the corners of her mouth that naturally want to draw her face into a sneer were it not for the constant exhausting effort to keep it serene. He estimates her age to be just over two decades – though a pair of decades rich with hazard and life.

Ignatius gestures for them all to follow him out the front gate – and once outside he glances around nervously, but there are no slugs to be seen. In the distance, there are desiccated, sand-blown corpses like features of the desert – and some of them might rouse themselves to action if you were to come near them – but the place is too barren for much life, even the life of the dead.

As they walk around the perimeter of the mission, Ignatius introduces the woman.

Abraham and Moses, I am honoured to introduce you to the canoness, the Vestal Amata.

The which now? Abraham says.

Pleased to meet you, Moses says.

May God grant you life, the robed woman says and gives the brothers an expansive smile.

You talk? Moses says, and the woman glances quickly at Ignatius, who nods forgivingly.

She has had trouble taking to the vow, Ignatius explains. She does her best – especially around the others – but it’s possible that silence is anathema to her nature.

We are all bound to fall in some way, the woman says. Otherwise how would we know rising? My particular dereliction is the spoken word.

It’s okay, Abraham says. We’ve seen worse derelictions, haven’t we, Mose?

Moses ignores his brother and turns to the woman.

What title was that the friar gave you?

She is a canoness, Ignatius explains before the woman has a chance to speak. She serves the church, though she has taken no vow.

The woman lowers her eyes to the ground she walks upon, as though in deference or shame. Still, Moses knows shame, knows regret, and what he reads in the woman’s movements is something different entirely.

Not that title, Moses says. You called her something else.

Vestal, says Ignatius.

Like in vestal virgin?

What kind of virgin’s a vestal virgin? Abraham asks.

Come this way, Ignatius says. Right up here.

They are climbing a small hill behind the mission, and near the top they arrive at a flat area bordered by high jagged rock formations that create an unclimbable wall. At the base of the rock wall is a grotto where the rock recedes under a half-moon overhang creating a low, shallow dell like the mouth of a troll. In the shallow cavern is something that looks like a white marble sarcophagus – and across the mouth of the opening is a long iron gate held in place by two marble columns on either end. Strung between the bars of the gate and along the filigreed wrought iron at the top, there are garlands of flowers gone dead and dry long ago.

What is it? Moses asks.

It was built as a shrine to the Blessed Virgin, Ignatius explains. Look.