"Claire, I want you to leave me. Go back to Scotland, to Craigh na Dun. Go back to your place, to your… husband. Murtagh will take you safe, I've told him." He was silent for a moment, and I did not move.
He looked up again with desperate bravery, and spoke very simply.
"I will love you as long as I live, but I cannot be your husband any longer. And I will not be less to you." His face began to break apart. "Claire, I want you so badly that my bones shake in my body, but God help me, I am afraid to touch you!"
I started up to go to him, but he stopped me with a sudden motion of his hand. He was half doubled up, face contorted with internal struggle, and his voice was strangled and breathless.
"Claire… please. Please go. I'm going to be verra sick, and I don't want you to see it. Please."
I heard the pleading in his voice and knew I must spare him this one indignity, at least. I rose, and for the first time in my professional life, left a sick man to his own devices, helpless and alone.
I left his chamber, numbed, and leaned against the white stone wall outside, cooling my flushed cheek against the unyielding blocks, ignoring the stares of Murtagh and Brother William. God help me, he had said. God help me, I am afraid to touch you.
I straightened and stood alone. Well, why not? Surely there was no one else.
At the hour when time began to slow, I genuflected in the aisle of the chapel of St. Giles. Anselm was there, elegant shoulders straight beneath his habit, but no other. He neither moved nor looked around, but the living silence of the chapel embraced me.
I remained on my knees for a moment, reaching out to the quiet darkness, staying my mind from its hurry. Only when I felt my heart slow to the rhythms of the night did I slide into a seat near the back.
I sat rigid, lacking the form and ritual, the liturgical courtesies that eased the brothers into the depths of their sacred conversation. I did not know how to begin. Finally, I said, silently, bluntly, I need help. Please.
And then I let the silence fall back in waves around me, lapping me like the folds of a cloak, comforting against the cold. And I waited, as Anselm had told me, and the minutes passed by uncounted.
There was a small table at the back of the chapel, covered with a linen cloth, bearing the stoup of holy water, and beside it, a Bible and two or three other inspirational works. For use by adorers for whom the silence was too much, I supposed.
It was becoming too much for me, and I rose and got the Bible, bringing it back to the prie-dieu with me. I was hardly the first person to have recourse to the sortes Virgilianae in time of confusion or trouble. There was sufficient light from the candles for me to read, turning the flimsy pages carefully and squinting over the lines of fine black type.
"… and he smote them with emerods, and they were very sore." No doubt they were, I thought. What in hell were emerods? Try Psalms, instead.
"But I am a worm, and no man… I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels." Well, yes, a competent diagnosis, I thought, with some impatience. But was there some treatment?
"But be not thou far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste thee to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog." Hmm.
I turned to the Book of Job, Jamie's favorite. Surely if anyone was in a position to offer helpful advice…
"But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn." Mmm, yes, I thought, and turned the page.
"He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain… His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were not seen stick out." Spot on, I thought. What next?
"Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers." Not so good, but the next bit was more heartening. "If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness: Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom. His flesh shall be fresher than a child's: he shall return to the days of his youth." And what was the ransom, then, that would buy a man's soul, and deliver my darling from the power of the dog?
I closed the book and my eyes. The words muddled together, blurring with my urgent need. An overriding misery struck me when I spoke Jamie's name. And yet there was some small peace there, a lessening of tension when I said, as I did over and over again, "O Lord, into thy hands I commend the soul of your servant James."