MLRLM 03

Chapter 3 ….

The Priest and the Man (2)

“Just what are you thinking? Come down immediately.”

“Climbing a tree is easier than you think. The difficulty lies in assuming that no one in your outfit could possibly climb it.”

“Ah… I think I’m starting to understand why Marquis Menezes tried so desperately to hide you.”

“Maybe. Even if you died and came back, you wouldn’t understand.”

“You mean you’ve done something even more reckless than this?”

“More importantly, aren’t you curious about the terms of our contract?”

“Damn it… not at all.”

“You don’t need to do things like that with me.”

“What?”

“Things like kissing or… sleeping together.”

Unlike Timeo, whose face had gone dark with embarrassment, Phillis shrugged and spoke slowly.

“Sure, I came to shake your heart for a season. I didn’t come up with clever tricks because your words struck true. But regardless of your feelings, you need to come back with me to Brujel first. I left a note in my room. It said that I, having long adored the second son of the Villeurvan family, considered throwing myself into the river rather than face an unwanted marriage to a sickly husband.”

“…What?”

“Your peaceful priestly games end today. Falling from a height is just as easy as climbing a tree.”

“Phillis Menezes!”

“You said you were no longer a Villeurvan… yet you kept even the telegram informing you of your brother’s grave condition so carefully.”

“And you even rifled through an ownerless drawer without permission.”

Timeo rubbed his face with his palm. His expression had become quite unsightly.

“When Marcel dies, find another match. You’re still young.”

“And you expect me to just accept that there’s no one else in Comfer as suitable as you?”

Philllis wore an unmistakably exasperated expression, which half convinced Timeo despite himself. He couldn’t deny the logic: arranged marriages made early, divorces often before thirty, one spouse’s life ruined—it demanded rational calculation when choosing a partner.

Watching her toes swing carelessly in the air made him dizzy. He had saved a cat that had climbed the monastery roof once, but he had never held a person like this before.

“We’ll be a good match for each other.”

“Come down first.”

“Go to Brujel right now and promise to propose to me.”

“No argument. Jump here.”

Timeo spread his arms. Phillis looked down at him from above, clearly displeased. Coincidentally, Phillis was still cautious of him, a man who had grown beyond the weak boy who had once been swayed by persuasion and threats.

Would it be easier if Timeo Villeurvan felt guilty? Instead of actively leaping, Phillis relaxed her lower body, sitting on the tree as if she had stumbled.

Even so, Timeo caught her perfectly as if he had been waiting. Phillis, holding onto his neck, naturally let her body go limp. She heard his uneven breaths and the firm refusal echoing once again in her mind, so she closed her eyes. Should she return to her room or go back to Brujel? She asked silently, but Timeo gave no answer.

Leaning against him, returning to her room, Phillis recalled their childhood.

Back then, they were similar in size, and the boy struggled to carry the girl. Still, Timeo tried to protect Phillis from Marcel, and occasionally they wandered the garden together, holding fragile branches in their hands. The ruthless girl, with no compassion, grew into an extremely calculating woman. Timeo, trained by his older brother like a dog…

Hanging from his neck, Phillis stared off into the distance, tightening her eyes for no reason.

Late at night, those who came to the assembly hall for the reading were surprised to see Timeo staying so late but welcomed him sincerely. Before he was a priest, he was a Villeurvan. A second son, cast aside by the monastery without status, land, or faith, he was much like the god of abandoned younger sons. He had even formed this private group to read God’s words after gaining an audience with the abbot as an apprentice priest.

Still, Timeo despised the other priests in black robes who debated whether marriage was beneficial to religion. When they gambled, he would ruthlessly sweep the stakes. Now, ignoring the reading priests, he lay half-reclined on the sofa in the assembly hall, overlooking the garden, ignoring the priests gossiping about nobles staying overnight…

Rain fell heavily in the garden. The afternoon had been unpleasant.

“Uh… you’re not sleeping in your room?”

Someone asked hesitantly, but he didn’t answer, seemingly lost in thought. Timeo Villeurvan, lost in contemplation and silent, looked striking even to another man. He supposedly resembled his older brother very closely.

“What would happen if I married?”

“Eh?”

A young priest wandering near him dropped his cup.

It wasn’t just the branch Phillis had shaken that had broken. After holding her, Timeo was caught up in a deep inner turmoil. He had never held anyone so desperately. Phillis seemed familiar with such acts, quickly wrapping her arms around his neck and resting obediently in his arms on the way back to the room. Yet, while she seemed unbothered, Timeo’s mind was in chaos, repeatedly opening and closing his hands in meaningless gestures to calm his frustration.

It had been nearly ten years since he was cast out by the Villeurvans. In the monastery, he spent most of his time ignoring his abandoned hometown, but looking back, the desolate monastery and Brujel were alike in some way. Even this reading… left him with complicated feelings.

Though it was early summer, the air was unexpectedly cold. Leaving Phillis in his room, giving her only a rushed meal, and keeping his distance now felt regretful. Since it was still raining at sunrise, he worried about the difficulties she would face returning to Brujel.

Early morning, Timeo was the first to arrive at the church for Mass. Despite staying up all night, he looked perfectly composed, the epitome of a devout man. He felt a presence behind him and didn’t need to turn to know it was her.

“…I don’t mean that I want you to love me. Living in such a bleak place, your remaining human feelings must have been exhausted.”

Her voice cracked slightly, probably from restless sleep. Feeling a faint sense of guilt, he looked back and responded this time.

“You understand well.”

“How should I phrase this so that you feel no aversion and I get what I want? Hmm… will you consider it a contract, not a marriage?”

A contract? Timeo let out a bitter laugh.

“No love or devotion, but it will be the best means for both of us. I guarantee it.”

“What is it that you want?”

“For a woman, what matters most is wealth and inheritance.”

“Then do you know what I intend to accomplish using you as a means?”

Phillis nodded immediately.

“Revenge.”

Everything you should have had lies there. Phillis and Timeo’s eyes met. Neither looked away. They had just read the passage in the church: do not commit adultery, do not marry hastily, do not overreach, do not seek revenge.

“Be a man instead of a priest for me.”

His heart raced at her words. On the first day he arrived, the abbot with large hands had touched the chest of a boy shivering in the cold, praying to suppress every desire in his heart. A lonely but peaceful life followed: attending monastery school, hosting travelers, keeping silence, and trying to extinguish his own desires caused by others’ misfortunes.

Phillis Menezes had made the blood flow and breathed life into his monotonous existence.

In the church, damp and cool from the heavy rain, Timeo heard God’s message: live as a man, not a priest. His God led him outside the church.

Sometimes, he dreamed long dreams.

He would watch Phillis Menezes pacing the monastery corridors, troubled, under the sparse greenery of early summer in the arid Aljaz. Until a young priest walking toward the confessional disappeared from sight, she would remain frozen. Even in the confessional, even in that priest’s room, she lingered in faint sorrow. Then, when their eyes met, she would leap joyfully into the cowardly version of himself observing from afar.

But Phillis…

It was better not to meet. She should have complained of a mild headache, or the carriage wheels should have gotten stuck in the mud before departure. He should not have intervened in the natural, beautiful flow of her life, nor should he have indulged in vain desires. Yet, because she chose him and he responded, everything gradually unraveled. It would have been better to blind himself and never hold her in his sight, over and over again…