Note: Uhm. Decided not to bother with the names for now because I’m horrid with this and it keeps me from getting any writing done. If anyone has suggestions for French versions of Ra’s, Tim, Dick, Jason, Bruce, Alfred, and Steph’s names, please share them! And I’m sorry for any mangling of the Catholic religion.
--
Ra’s prays, for His forgiveness, because he cannot forgive himself.
He sits in the pews, bent forward in prayer, and wills for His forgiveness as much as he recoils from it. He has sinned. He yearns for forgiveness. He cannot be forgiven.
Finally, he sits in confessional, and confesses his sins.
“Father, I have lain with a woman who was not my wife. She was with child –my child –but she and the child have been taken from me by the gypsies. I cannot deny my anger or my rage. My grief. My Lord, I beg for forgiveness.”
Melisande had been gorgeous and so vibrant. He had known it was wrong. He had. But he had loved her, so dearly. She was so dear to him, and now she was gone because of his sins.
She had died in childbirth, their daughter stillborn. It had been too early, but a jostle from a dancing gypsy had sent her into labor, and she had died. Died.
His Melisande.
Kindly Father Pennyworth responds, “My son, He has forgiven you long ago.”
There is hesitation before the Father continues, “I do not think it is His forgiveness that you seek, but your own. You have come for months; and although the Lord has forgiven, you have not.”
Inside him, Ra’s rages. How can he forgive when he has killed what is most precious, most dear? How can he forgive when the gypsies, her murderers, still run free, polluting the city she loved?
But he cannot desecrate such holiness with his sin, and so he excuses himself.
What he finds on the steps of Notre Dame when he opens its tall, gothic doors, is a bundle.
It moves, and he picks it up. Inside is a gurgling blue-eyed baby.
Ra’s smiles sadly at the babe and brings him inside the cathedral. Father Pennyworth will care for him.
His eyes catch a dark feather. Feathers.
Beneath the layers of cloth is a baby with dark wings. A fallen angel.
He has asked for forgiveness and He has sent him a test.
--
Father Pennyworth is at a loss.
Ra’s stands before him, a naked babe in his hands, as he makes demands.
“Father Pennyworth, He has sent me a test. He has sent me this fallen angel and, if I can make him pure again, if I can return to Him his lost child, I will be forgiven.”
No, Father Pennyworth wants to say, he is a small babe whose wings had frightened his mother. His community. He is a babe who is shunned and unwanted from birth. He is a human babe.
“But because of his inherent sin, I cannot take him with me. His sins are contained by the holy walls of Notre Dame. So I ask of you to care for him in the tower during the day. Every night, I will come and try to purify him. When his sinful black feathers become white, I will know that I have passed my test and am forgiven.”
Father Pennyworth says nothing but accepts the baby and quickly wraps him back up in the cloth he had come with.
The baby was left on the steps of Notre Dame and it would be cared for in Notre Dame.
--
The long winding steps to the bell tower have begun to tire him, and for the first time, Father Pennyworth feels the passage of time.
What he finds horrifies him.
“RA’S. What do you think you are doing?!”
The babe is under water, tiny bubbles breaking the surface of the water.
“I am cleansing him. This is holy water, Father, no harm will come to him.”
He pushes the other man aside and picks up the tiny infant and coaxes breath back into him.
He cannot believe that someone from his parish would do this. That Ra’s would do this. He knows that Ra’s is only misguided, blinded by his grief and guilt.
But to lay hands on a baby.
He turns in anger,
and there is a sharp constriction in his chest and he nearly drops the baby,
and he does drop the baby as he too falls to the floor.
He hears Ra’s.
“Father, you should have never come between me and my Test. The Lord is not pleased.”
--
With the passing of Father Pennyworth came the arrival of Father Wayne. He is young and has only just seen twenty springs.
It is easy for Ra’s to convince him to turn a blind eye. Father Pennyworth’s unfortunate passing was a sign. The Lord wanted his son back and he had been kind enough to allow Ra’s the opportunity to find redemption.
Father Pennyworth’s passing was a sign. It was a sign to all not to interfere.
And Father Wayne looked away from the bruises, the scars. He closed his eyes and told himself that this is what He wanted.
He told himself this is what He wanted when he saw the cuts.
He told himself this is what He wanted when he saw the burns.
He could not tell himself this is what He wanted when the small angel had seen his eleventh winter and he had climbed the tower to find the angel with bloodied wings, red-crusted feathers strewn on the floor.
“He tells me. He tells me that if my feathers grow back white, that I am pure again, and have been forgiven by my Father.”
The angel smiles through tears and Father Wayne has tears too.
Tears of guilt.
“That is great, little angel,” he chokes, “I will get some salve and bandages.”
And he cries as he bandages those mangled wings and prays.
My lord father in Heaven, why must your child suffer so?
And Ra’s sweeps into the tower and dismisses the Father.
As Father Wayne walks away and watches as the man takes his place winding bandages around the mangled limbs, as the young angel leans into the man’s touch with a bright, watery smile of adoration and love, he feels revulsion settle in his stomach.
My lord father in Heaven, why must your child be the sacrifice for that man’s penance?
