Free The Wayward Godking by Brendan Carroll Page A

Andrew was, indeed, what his own father had accused him of being. And since then, Simon had been forced to acknowledge that Edgard d’Brouchart through the most profound hypocrisy he had ever witnessed was exactly the same thing as Mark Andrew. How the Grand Master could have been so duplicitous, was beyond his comprehension, but at least the truth had explained many mysteries to the healer. “Simon, you are my friend foremost and my Brother. If I could make things easier for you, I would, but it has never been easy for even ordinary mortal men to accept destiny, to accept fate or whatever you want to call it, when they find that, ultimately, they are not masters of their own lives. Have I ever done ill to you? Do I owe you some apology? If so, name it now, and I will beg for your forgiveness. Your friendship is that important to me.”
    “You owe me nothing,” Simon retorted. “It is I who am unworthy of your company, let alone your friendship and brotherhood. It is I, who am nothing.”
    “That’s not true.” Mark sat down on the chest again. “Simon, do you remember when we vowed to kill each other before we went in search of Meredith?”
    “I remember that foolishness, yes.” Simon leaned against a marble table and crossed his arms over his chest.
    “You know you never really explained why you stole her from me,” Mark said. “You’ve admitted it, regretted it and yet, permitted it to remain between us as a festering wound. Why… Why Meredith? In your role as a son of Israel, you knew she was already married to me. Tell me why you did it, and I will tell you why I saved you from your father’s knife on Vesuvius.”
    Simon straightened slightly and then slumped again in defeat.
    “I took her because she was with me in the underworld. Day after day and night after night, we lived together, slept together, ate together. It was as if we were married. I had never known any woman in such a setting. I had never thought it possible. And even in spite of the danger we faced every night, I fell in love with her. I had no choice in the matter. It simply happened. I have done some investigation concerning first loves, Brother. I am no different in that respect than any other. Though I knew I could not really be her husband in every sense, I fantasized there were no nightly battles, no dire circumstances surrounding our captivity in the underworld.”
    “During the day, I pretended we simply lived there in the cottage because we wanted our privacy, because we wanted to be far from the Order and everything associated with civilization. It was my own little invention, my own idea of what it must have been like for Adam and Eve in the garden… before their eyes were opened. When the elves cured me, I was appalled, horrified at the new feelings I had for her, and I was ashamed, just as Adam was when God came calling, and I hadn’t even done anything. It was all right here,” he slapped his heart and then his temple. “In my heart and in my head. I had committed the ultimate sin with her in my imagination. After a while, I learned to live with it and then, like any other man, I began to work it all out in my own way, making all sorts of excuses, blaming her, blaming the elves, blaming God, Himself. At last, I thought I had come to terms with it. If God had not wanted it to be so, I said, then it would not be so.”
    “A little Dambrettish, I suppose, but it worked and then, when it was time for me to go to Jerusalem, I needed a wife. In my mind, I had already had her and therefore, it was just a matter of formalizing the marriage. The only way I could do that was to deceive her. I am, after all, the serpent. My heritage offered a number of precedents for such actions. I erred. You have to admit such errors were committed by even the greatest kings, not only the common man.” Simon had to smile and in smiling, that he was still proud of the accomplishment. Pride is a sin . “The company of women… you know the