Valeriya bent down to light the offering candle. She spent a lot of her time in the small chapel these days praying for forgiveness and thinking of the baby she had lost.

The candle was for him or her, its white purity somehow significant. She felt stained and used in comparison, so filthy that she did not know if she would ever be completely clean again.

But in the month since she had lost her baby she had begun to heal not just her external wounds but on the inside as well, to be able to begin to forgive herself for what she had done. She had the Father to thank for that, without him she would have sunk into depths of despair so low that she knew she would never been able to claw her way back out again. He was a good man and she felt now that she truly had a friend in this lonely world of hers.

Radomir had not visited her since that night, she had not seen him. She dared to hope that perhaps he did not want her anymore, that he had grown tired of her and would discard her like a used cloth.

The tiny flame flickered as a gust of air was brought into the room with the opening of the door.

Valeriya did not turn around, she knew that it was Harndall, she could feel the warmth of his presence like a comforting blanket as soon as he entered the room.

Harndall was expecting to find Valeriya when he walked into the room. She was there most days sitting in the dark, like a pale moth furtively enamoured of the light of the single candle.

“Good day My Lady, although you would not know it was the day sitting here in the stuffy darkness”, he smiled at her, unable to hide his gladness at finding her here.

She looked at him expressionless as she always was, unless she were sobbing quietly into her hands. There had been many meetings like that, but now she seemed better to Harndall, her eyes brighter, the dark circles that surrounded them disappearing.

“Greetings to you too Father”, she said standing and walking over to the small candle which was threatening to die out, “Perhaps you are right and I should get some fresh air”.

He knew the reason she would not go outside, she felt safe here in the chapel, safe from her beastly husband. She would remain in here like a daffodil, cocooned safely in the darkness waiting till Spring came and it could show its lovely face again.

“I think that a fine idea, you seem to be growing quite pale these days”, he knew she would understand the joke.

And then something unexpected happened, her mouth twisted upwards at the corners, and like the sun breaking through dark clouds she smiled. It was rather tentative, the smile of an outsider standing at the edge of party hoping someone will break their solitude and talk to them, but it lit up her entire face.

His heart leapt at the sight of that smile, but as suddenly as it appeared it abruptly fell from her face, replaced with a look of distress.

He heard the door to the chapel slam shut behind him, and the heavy footsteps of another person. He did not need to turn around to know that it was Radomir.

She wrapped her arms protectively around her stomach as though protecting the child that was no longer there, the child she had not done the same for before. Harndall turned to face the other man.

Radomir stood in an agressive pose his feet spread wide, his hands on his hips and a scowl set into the features of his face.

“I thought I might find you hiding here you little whore”, Radomir spat, “I am suprised that they would let you into this place after what you have done, perhaps you have not told the good Father”.

Harndall found himself instinctively stepping in front of Valeriya to protect her from the wrath of her irate husband.

“She has confessed to me her sins and has asked for God’s forgiveness, which he will gladly grant her repentant soul.”, he was finding it difficult to keep the bitter sting of anger from his voice, “Perhaps it would do you some good to also confess your sins to me, I have not seen you in the chapel for a very long time”.

Radomir lost any farce of control he had been keeping, “You can not speak to me that way! I have not done anything wrong in the eyes of God! She is my lawful wife and I will do what I see fit to her, including punishing her as I wish! And now I have come to take her with me… there will be no more of this nonsense about sleeping in separate rooms. She is mine and she should be back with me where she belongs!”

He heard a gasp of terror from behind him, a sound that made his heart shudder with distress.

“Your wife is under the Lord God’s protection and you shall not take her from this room”, his voice was echoing loudly from the walls of the wooden room giving him the appearance of more confidence than he felt, his hands trembling with barely contained rage.

The thought of this filled him with horror, that he could become so emotionally involved with those under his protection. He knew he should be calm and composed but he felt nothing but anger and something disturbingly close to hatred.

Radomir strode towards him until he was standing so close to him that Harndall could hear the angry panting of his breath. Valeriya stood beside him and he could hear her whispering a prayer to God to deliver her from evil. Radomir was much taller than Harndall and he loomed above him ominously. Harndall sent out a silent prayer for strength against his adversities.

“I shall take her now”, Radomir said in a chilling voice, empty of emotion.

Harndall’s words were propelled by the force of his anger at this man, the man who had destroyed the delicate creature who stood paralysed with fear beside him.

“You most certainly shall not… you are in the house of the Lord and I would not dare raise a hand against her if I were you or you will be severly punished”.

Harndall’s words carried a certain weight and he knew that despite his anger, the other man would not destroy the sanctity of the church. He desperately feared for Valeriya if Radomir found her alone in some other place.

Radomir sneered at him, his lips curling cruelly at the sides, his face a mask of anger at his thwarted mission.

“All right Father, I will not take her now, but she is mine and there will come a time when I claim her again as such. You cannot protect her forever.”

He turned and thundered out the door slamming it shut behind him with a bang. The last words he had spoke rang true in Harndall’s ears, he could not protect Valeriya forever from this raging beast and the thought filled him with despair.

He stood beside her now, close enough to hear her shuddering breath, close enough that their hands were almost touching.

Moraghdu, The Church