Andrew Davidson - The Gargoyle

And then you jolted awake with a gasp, your eyes filled with terror as if you had seen everything there was to know about death. You began to scream again, so I slapped your face and tried to force you to focus, but your eyes kept darting in search of that demon again. I grabbed you as vigorously as I dared and brought my face inches from yours, yelling. When you were finally able to concentrate upon me, your fear seemed to fly away.

The look in your eyes was more like recognition than anything else. We studied each other. I don’t know how many moments passed. You tried to say something, but it was so soft I thought I must be imagining your voice. I brought my ear nearer to your mouth. The other nuns had taken a few steps back and could not hear that in a garbled voice, you said a few words.

“My heart…Locked…The key.”

Then you closed your eyes and drifted back into unconsciousness.

I had no idea what you meant by these words, but they somehow strengthened my certainty that I was meant to help you. It is not in the nature of any nun to accept the idea of a man’s heart being locked, especially the heart of a man who might so soon be at the threshold of Heaven-or, though I did not want to admit it to myself, Hell. One must be realistic about the final destination of a mercenary.

I stayed with you through the night and washed away the murky fluids that ran from your chest. I was as gentle as I could be, but your flesh still leapt beneath my touch. As difficult as it was to look upon your pain, I was certain-for the very first time in my life-that Engelthal was exactly the place for me to be. My lack of mystic visions, my lack of understanding about the Eternal Godhead, these things were now completely unimportant.

The following morning, on the way back to my cell, I met Gertrud. She inquired, with a fakely sweet voice, when I “might find a few moments away from the killer” to resume my scriptorium duties and continue God’s work. I informed her that Mother Christina had specifically requested my help with the burn patient, and that was my primary responsibility at the moment. I also let it slip that Mother Christina thought I was uniquely qualified to find any relevant information in our scriptorium. I could see anger pass across Gertrud’s face, but only for a moment.

When she regained her composure, Gertrud said, “It is most kind of Mother Christina to devote such resources to aiding this man. However, I think you would be wise to remember that only God can help this soldier. It is out of the hands of a bastard child left at the gate.”

These were by far the harshest words she’d ever spoken to me. I was shocked, but I assured her that she was quite right, of course. I added that, nevertheless, I should excuse myself to say my prayers and get some sleep, just in case God did decide to grace a bastard child such as myself with the ability to assist a man in need.

When I returned to the infirmary later that day, I discovered that you’d had a very rough time in my absence. You’d been babbling incoherently, tossing violently. Mother Christina and Father Sunder were there, consulting with the nurses, but no one knew what to do next.

Without warning, you lifted an arm and pointed at me. All your confused talk fell away and you called out in a clear voice: “This one.”

Everyone was stunned. Except for the few words that only I had heard, this was the first time you had spoken. There was a perfect dramatic pause in the room before you added, “I had a vision.”

The nuns gasped and Mother Christina uttered an immediate prayer for guidance. A soldier having a vision: truly Engelthal was a mystical and wonderful place! But I didn’t believe it. You’d been in the monastery for a short time, I thought, but somehow you’d managed to learn that the only currency which mattered was heavenly revelations.

Mother Christina took a tentative step forward. “What kind of vision?”

You pointed at me again and whispered, “God said this one would heal me.”

Mother Christina clutched tightly at Father Sunder’s arm. “Are you certain?”

You nodded almost imperceptibly and closed your eyes, exactly the way the nuns did to show just how deeply they were in contemplation.

The nun-nurses clasped their hands in holy fear and kneeled in reverence, while Father Sunder and Mother Christina withdrew into a corner to confer. Shortly after, Mother Christina took my hands into her own. “It is highly strange, Sister Marianne, but we must take him at his word. Have I not always known there was something more to you than meets the eye?”

Perhaps Mother Christina, bless her, was anticipating a marvelous new chapter in her Engelthal chronicles. Who was I to disappoint? I nodded, as though the mantle of chosen healer was a heavy burden for an unexceptional sister such as I, but one that I would shoulder for the sake of our monastery. Behind Mother Christina, you appeared to have lapsed back into unconsciousness, but there was the trace of a smile on your lips.

The other nuns gave me great leeway in your treatment after the revelation. No doubt, they didn’t want their earthly mistakes to sully divine remedy. I cleaned your wounds with cold water and changed your bandages, but I also took to cutting away bad flesh, a procedure that drew protests from the others until I reminded them of your vision. Perhaps they didn’t have the stomach for it, or perhaps they thought we had no right to desecrate a body created by the Lord, but whatever the reason, they always left the room when I did it.

Why I decided cutting was the correct course of action, I’ll never know. From my birth, it had been ingrained in me that one had to separate the bad from the good, so maybe I was only taking this idea to its most literal level. And why you allowed me to cut at your skin, I also don’t know, but you did. You screamed, and slipped in and out of consciousness, but you never once told me to stop using the knife. I was amazed by your courage.

In that first week you were consistently delirious. On the seventh day, your fever broke and you finally woke fully into the world. I was dabbing the sweat from your brow when you looked up and began to sing in a weak voice.

It did not matter, the fact that you coughed fitfully in the middle of your singing. Simply because it came from the throat of a recovering man, it was more beautiful than any song that I had heard ever lifted on the nuns’ voices in salute to the glory of the Lord.

Word of your awakening traveled the length of Engelthal. “Truly a miracle has been worked through the hands of Sister Marianne!” I thought that common sense would prevail, but you can’t argue with a monastery of elated nuns. Even Gertrud and Agletrudis stopped whispering into the ear of Mother Christina that I needed to get back to my scriptorium duties.

" So what did the song mean?”

“How strange that you no longer remember your mother tongue,” Marianne Engel mused. “You are mine, I am yours: you may be sure of this. You’ve been locked inside my heart, the key has been thrown away; within it, you must always stay. It’s a traditional love ballad.”

“Why that one?” I asked.

“You were a warrior, not a singer. Maybe it was the only song you knew.”

We spoke more-mostly she talked, explaining the tradition of the Minnelieder-medieval love songs-to me, until it came time for her to leave. After gathering her belongings, she asked me to close my eyes.