“Isidore?”
Micha tumbled into wakefulness, roused by his own cry. For a moment, he was utterly disorientated, wrapped in unfamiliar sheets, surrounded by unfamiliar walls. An oil lamp, turned low, wove about him a net of shadows. Then he remembered. He lay in a stranger’s bed, in a stranger’s house, under a stranger’s care.
He struggled to sit up and just about managed to prop himself on his elbows. The man was still at his bedside, as if he had not moved all the time Micha slept.
“You were dreaming,” he murmured.
Micha glared. “I noticed.”
The man lowered his eyes apologetically. Such soft eyes, with lashes so thick and dark Micha could have counted them. Not that he would have wanted to. “May I have him brought to you?”
“What? Who?”
“The man for whom you call. Isidore.”
It was strange to hear Isidore’s name on another’s lips, as though he were some private ghost summoned suddenly into reality by a spiritualist. Micha’s fingers curled into his palms, little pricks of superficial pain against a deeper one.
“He is a friend? A brother?”
Micha shook his head. “Not a brother.” His lips curled into a sneer. “Nor a friend.” He was seized by a sudden, savage impulse to tell the truth. Just to split this man’s compassion open like rotten fruit. Shatter his calm into pieces. Show him he had a heart just as capable of hate.
“Oh yes,” said the stranger, with a look Micha could not read, “you did tell me you had no need of friends.”
He had a vague memory of saying something like that before he fainted right into the man’s arms. “I suppose,” he snapped, “you expect my gratitude for this?”
“Of course not. One does not give aid to make others feel beholden.”
“Right.”
The man tilted his head curiously. “Do you think I want something from you?”
“I’ve nothing to give you, so you’re doomed to disappointment regardless. But I don’t believe something for nothing exists in this world.”
“I hope only for your well-being.”
“Then you’re deluding yourself.”
To Micha’s surprise, the man flushed. He had a stern, angular face, not handsome but expressive somehow, full of subtleties. “What may I call you?” he asked, after a moment of flustered silence.
“Michael. Dashwood. Most call me Micha.”
The man smiled shyly, as though he’d been given a gift. “Micha then. My name is—”
“Thomas.”
His smile turned radiant. “Yes. Thomas Mandeville.” He seemed to hesitate. “The Reverend Thomas Mandeville.”
Micha threw back his head and laughed himself breathless. “A priest. I should have fucking known. Oh, does my language offend you, Father? I am to call you ‘Father,’ yes?”
The man—Thomas, Father Thomas—was folding and unfolding his fingers. “I am not accustomed to such forthright speech,” he admitted, before adding earnestly, “Though I will grow accustomed. And I do not usually go by ‘Father.’ Thomas is fine, or Mr. Mandeville if you must grant me a title.”
“I think I can probably bear not to.”
“I did not mean ... that is ... some people are uncomfortable to address a priest as they would any other man.”
“Well, can’t have the wheat muddled with the chaff, the righteous with unrighteous, is that not so, Thomas?”
“No. Not at all. I would simply not wish any to confuse the man with the message. There is already a Father in Heaven who guides and loves us.”
