(In case you want refresh your memory with the first part of the story you can click on the link)
Crying, the man remained still.
The dampness of the dawn was all over his hair and his clothes. He was seating on a rock and from that distance he was fixing his red, tired eyes upon the monastery's tower.
His tears were rolling down his cheeks but he wasn't wiping them off.
He had been crying by two days and two nights.
But he still couldn't force himself to leave.
This would have been the third day of his waiting at the barn. His horse was getting restless, his food was already finished, his body was aching for the waiting and the desire.
And yet he couldn't leave.
She should have been there by two days already.
In the dark hour of the first
early morning she should have showed her pale and svelte figurine to
him. She should have looked back for the last quick glance and then she
should have run toward him along the tiny path hidden in the forest.
She should have sighed at the touch of his hands and kissed him, at last. He should have caressed her long, blond hair while his lips would have searched for the desired warmth of her skin.
But all of this had not happened.
He had
arrived at the barn, silent, cautious and hungry like a wolf in love,
two nights before.
The barn was abandoned by years. A piece of broken planks of no use for anything, he had chosen it for the proximity to the monastery and the imposing trees that, like sentinels, surrounded the small structure almost completely.
She could see the top of the shaky roof from the monastery. From the barn he could see the windows of her cell.
The strenuous, meticulous and fragile ribbon of thecareful planning
they had spun in secrecy has served them good for the past 3 months.
They
had been able to share the most sweet and stolen hours in that barn.
Delicious and sensuous moments have been frozen in the hidden secrecy
of their forbidden love. The love they made, the kisses they gave, the
pleasure they reached.......how could he ever forget them? He knew he
could not. He would not.
And yet, this time....that delicate mechanism seemed failing.. Why didn't it work again this time?
Why his lady was making him wait so cruelly?
He looked around. He was giving his heart the last illusions. A sound in the distance, a cracking of the old trunks, the soft whispering of the wind thru the leaves.....everything could be interpreted by his madden heart as a signal of her arrival.
The waiting had been excruciating. Yet, at the beginning, despite the doubts and the questions debating in his heart, he was still feeling turgid of expectations. He had never felt so alive, ripe as a mature fruit that had been collecting its sweetness since eternity. He could feel his blood pushing and rushing thru his veins. He was a vibrating center of energy, ready to understand his purpose and direction. He was ready to fight for his love.
Forgotten had been the long, merciless months of pointless battles and bloody fields filled with the visions of burning cities on the line of yet another obscure horizon. He had been riding along the desert of foreign lands looking for something he didn't even know, he had never seen before.
Thru the midst of all that misery, her face had been his guiding star.
He knew only he had to come back.
But arriving there the cruel reality had taken its place in his foolish heart. All that magnificent feeling of wholeness and understanding just imploded. The promise of love had not been kept. That first morning had left him alone. Trembling.
She had not come.
Since the note she sent him one month ago he knew he had to run like the wind to come back or he would have lost his mind.
The letter had arrived in his hands during the vigil of yet another battle. He was in his tent, polishing his sword. The letter was sealed with the black waxed stamp of the monastery of Saint Etienne. When he recognized the stamp his heart had leaped to his throat.
"My lord,
I hope
with all my heart that this note will find you well. I am writing to
implore you the mercy of not seeing me anymore. My soul has spoken and
I had understood the failure and the sin. I asked forgiveness to our
God and in His immense glory He gave it to me. I am happy in His
happiness. I wish you any good luck and fortune in this mundane world.
But this world has never meant for me. My lord, if you do love me as
you claimed to love me, please, accept my decision and never try to see
me again.
Goodbye".
The knight was holding the letter in his hand, seating on the rock.
He had sent a servant to the monastery 3 days ago with another note for her.
"My lady,
I can't give you mercy nor set you free. I will never let go of our love unless you will repeat those cruel words while looking firmly in my eyes. I will wait for 3 days and 3 nights at the place we both know. Come, my lady, and give me back my life because she lies in the palms of your hands".
This he had written in the note.
He
knew she had received it. The messenger told him that she reached out a
shaken hand toward him to have the letter in her hand. The messenger
told him how slowly she had brought that letter close to her heart and
how, with a trembling voice, she told him to leave.
He knew she must have read it. as he knew that he could have only waited for her arrival.
And so, for two days and two nights he waited..
But after that strenuous resisting to the truth, a battle more life threatening than any other battle he had fought in his life, he just knew that the waiting was over.
"At the arrival of the first hawk - he promised himself - I will leave this place forever".
.
And so he waited, like a man waits for his execution, looking intently at the sky beyond the beloved silhouette of the monastery.
Then one hawk arrived, flying from East.
And the knight got up and left.
