The Book of the Blue House

“It was strange, you know,” Gabriel said. “I had stopped doing the work of a Blue, and I don’t know what made me go. I had to go when Cal left. But it was nothing like in the temple, not that I thought it would be. And sometimes it isn’t that wonderful in the temple even. There was so much sadness, so much need, and you could not always wash it away. There were men who wept in my arms, and wept for their sweethearts, their mothers. Northerners who wept because they could never tell anyone they wished to lie with men. And we saw so much,” Gabriel shook his head.

“Ah, but I should stop talking about it.”

“No,” Conn said, touching his face, leaving his fingers on his cheeks. “You tell me everything you wish to tell.”

“I wanted to make love again,” Gabriel said.

In the blue darkness, they lay together, face to face, knees pulled in, heads on pillows, and Conn stroked Gabriel’s hair, his bare shoulder, his naked side.

“I grew up in the temples, so I always knew what Blues did, always loved it even though I wanted to do more than lay with men. I want to be third and fourth and fifth grade, tell the stories, do the services, remember the chants, learn the magic even. At war none of those things happened, and I began to feel beaten down, not myself, not anyone. I felt like a hole everyone was dropping their need… and their sorrow into, like what they say we are.”

“A whore.”

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “I was angry at Cal for leaving. I wanted to be with someone again who held me, who loved me and loved me as me. But the truth is, often I did not think of Cal.” He shook his head. “More and more I thought of you, how things never got off the ground for us.”

“Well,” Conn said with a laugh, “they are off the ground now.”

Gabriel began laughing, and was laughing so hard he had to sit up.

“Yes, Connleth, yes they are.”

They were quiet a while and then Gabriel said, “I, who am usually so good with words, am so bad with my words to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I took up rhe services when I came back,” Gabriel said, “threw myself into them because I wanted to feel the sacredness of it again, but I couldn’t, not completely, because all of it is a shadow of lovemaking. And I haven’t made love to anyone since I’ve come back.”

“What about Cal?”

“I was waiting for you.”

“Oh!” Conn said. “And I was being foolish and afraid as usual.”

“I guess we both were,” Gabriel said.

“Matteo told me this was our time,” Conn said.

“Matteo is smarter than the both of us.”

They lay down, Gabriel holding Conn, their bodies curled like commas.

“I have waited a whole year…” Conn began. and Gabriel squeezed him and said, “What have you been waiting for a whole year, my Connleth?”

“For you to tell me what happened to Atar, she who was born of the Gods, but came to earth and lived many lives before she was reborn and knew herself again?”

“You could have looked that up in the library.”

“Aye, but I wanted to hear it from your mouth, in my ear. I wanted to hear it this way, with your arms about me.”

Gabriel kissed him several times while he told him of how Atar had married the King of Solea, and her first spouse, the jealous Vidar, came desiring her and trying to take her from her husband, but King Eochaid had sent her to the land of Malynn, the holding of Aengus, where that God had been struck by love for her, and she remembered her past lives and his past kindness. They fell into a great passion.

“And many,” Gabriel kissed him, “many, songs did they sing and do we sing to this day.”

But Eochaid and Vidar were both filled with rage and raised armies of Elphame, that is Elfkind, as well as armies of men and they came to make war against Aengus, and the God Aengus sought the help of his father and of the River Rahahn and the River Maidens, for he would never give up Atar. The armies were coming to meet and would have clashed so strong as to bring an end to the second creation, for this was at the time of the second creation, but Annatar himself, the godfather of Aengus and master of trickery, went down with his sister Amana and spread a great mist of confusion over the amries of Eochaid and Vidar so that they slew each other, and the tips of their black spears that pierced men and went to the ground would not leave the bodies of the men or the earth but stood rooted there, but Annatar who is called Adaon appeared to what was left of the armies in all of his glory and told them to stay back, for no man could own a woman and no man could control love.

“And he crowned Aengus and Atar with beauty and love so that whoever prays to them shall win love and where they gaze and where they speak, all feel love, and Amana gave them four birds which fly ever over their heads singing of love, compassion, passion and strength. Aengus and his Atar were wed, some say in this very spot, and they made the journey from here to the mouth of the river to what is now Ondres, and that was the beginning of the circuit called the Wedding country.”

The story was told slowly, between kisses and interrupted by slow lovemaking that, in time became quickly intense, ended in shouts along with the shaking of the bed.

When they had passed out of a semi sleep, Gabriel added:

“But there are some who say the names Atar and Annatar are too close, and that the original story was changed, that of old Aengus loved Annatar or an avatar of him, and Eochaid and Vidar fought over him, but that Annatar, loved by Aengus, caused the chaos on the Field of Blackspears.”

“I had seen something like that,” Conn said. “When we went to the Wedding Country. A little chapel built to Annatar and Aengus. I had seen this and wondered at the meaning.”

“It is one of several meanings and,” Gabriel yawned, “the one I choose to believe.

“But, in closing, Maia, Goddess of the morning, the bright Morning Star and the Dawning in the East, came through the Field of Black Spears, and she caused the spears to become trees and to take deep roots and consume the remains of the men they had killed, and so the trees were black as night and their leaves red as blood, and that forest became known as Blackspear.”

“And,” Connleth guessed, “It is from a tree of that forest that the ancient priests carved the Black Door.”