Alas My Love by Tracie Peterson Page A

she been allowed to stay. What would happen when the duke returned? Perhaps he would insist Helena reveal her identity and go home. What would she do then?
    The pealing of the church bells brought Helena out of her stupor. It was impossible to be lost in such gloomy thought with such glorious sounds all around her. It made Helena want to sing, and in spite of her resolve to be quiet, she began to hum to herself. If Arianne heard, she said nothing. She was too busy laughing and greeting the people around her.
    “Richard told me that the priest has arranged to present the Quem quaeritis,” Arianne said in a whisper to Helena. “It will come at the end of the mass.”
    “I have heard of this but never seen it,” Helena replied as they walked up the steps of the church and were greeted by the priest.
    Ushered inside by two of Richard’s most trusted men, Arianne and Helena stood upon the straw-covered floor and awaited the procession on the priests and choirboys. With a song of celebration, they entered the church. Helena watched in complete captivation as the cross was brought out from the mock sepulcher and laid upon the altar.
    At this, they knelt in the straw and bowed their heads as the priest offered up a Latin prayer. The service progressed in a series of prayers, songs, and ceremony. At the end of the service, the priest stepped behind a screen and then reappeared with three other men for the Quem quaeritis, a reenactment of the resurrection story.
    One priest, dressed in white vestments and holding a palm in his hand, represented the angel at the tomb. “Quem quaeritis in sepulchro?” he questioned. “Whom do you seek in the sepulcher?”
    The others, representing the three Marys, answered in unison, “Jesus of Nazareth.”
    Helena’s breath caught. It was a moving play, and in her mind, she could very nearly imagine it was all real and happening for the first time. “Whom do you seek?” a voice seemed to question within her soul.
    Tears came to her eyes. For all of her life, she had been raised in the beliefs and understandings of the church. She had never once questioned the existence of God or of His Son Jesus Christ. She practiced with the utmost reverence the requirements of her faith, yet in all that time she could not say in honesty that it had been God whom she sought.
    “He is not here, He has risen,” the angel-priest was announcing.
    With this, the three Marys turned to the choir and replied, “Hallelujah, the Lord is risen today!” Then, the choir joined in a chorus of praise.
    The angel-priest moved to where the cross had been placed in the wall. He lifted the veil that now covered the opening and said, “Come, see the place.”
    The Marys crossed to peer inside, while two men representing the apostles Peter and John appeared from behind the screen. John was in white and holding a palm, while Peter was dressed in red and carrying keys.
    John reached the sepulcher first, but Peter reached inside. He pulled out the gravecloth in which the cross had been wrapped on Good Friday. “He is not here.”
    “He is risen as he said,” the angel-priest announced.
    Helena felt the tears flow down her cheeks. “ Quem quaeritis? Whom do you seek?” She thought of Tanny and the love that might have been given to the hope that she would one day find him. “Whom do you seek?”
    She watched the play continue with the exit of two of the Marys. The third, dressed in red and representing Mary Magdalene, stood weeping. For some reason, this made Helena cry all the more.
    “Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?”
    The voice went straight to Helena’s heart. She knew that God had been with her through all the years of anguish and lonely heartache. Now, it seemed as though this simple trooping of the resurrection story had brought a realization to Helena’s soul. God wanted her to seek Him, Him alone. Not Tanny and not a home or place where she’d feel safe. God wanted her to seek only Him.
    “They