Chapter 35 #2
I turned around slowly, feeling the Arcane ripples of his transformation.
On the bed he lay, with his arm outstretched, his form shifting from one heartbeat to the next.
From moment to moment he was Helen, Narcissus, Dayane, deadly Belqis, Ayesha, Alexander and innocent Percifal, each of them breathed into life from my memories.
Even Livia appeared, smiling wickedly around her fangs, and Johan Weiss, and Hannah the Brewster; lovely, shunned and doomed.
Sarmodel was an ever-changing idol of desire, cracking my resolve with every object of my lust over thousands of years.
All except one; Antoine’s face did not appear again among the many.
Come. No tricks. Now he was Wanassa the Lady, unimaginable in her splendor, and unthinkable in her depravity. What are we if not lovers?
I was lost with my first step, and we took each other hungrily.
The blissful morning of meditation I had anticipated was not to be.
Frantic knocking on my door drew me back to the world from my trance.
“Professor Grave!” The man’s voice was unfamiliar.
It was perhaps an hour after dawn, and my chamber was filled with peaceful, rosy light, quite at odds with the insistent banging. I became aware of a more distant disturbance as well; there was shouting and movement out in the courtyard.
I answered the door to find a breathless young attendant.
“Professor Grave, you are needed immediately in the chapel.”
“The chapel?”
Well, this is unexpected, said Sarmodel wearily.3 An invitation to the House of the Almighty.
“Yes, sir. Lady Ocerne is waiting for you.”
I put on a silk banyan robe in midnight blue, picked up my valise and followed him back through the chateau’s sumptuous corridors to the courtyard.
Sebastian—blood. Sarmodel drew my attention to a number of small stains on the ground leading into the chapel.
I see it.
Guards had been posted outside the chapel doors, and they let me pass with a nod. The attendant was not so permitted.
The chapel was very well appointed, particularly given its diminutive size. Elaborate plasterwork and stained glass gave it a slightly overstuffed opulence.4
Lady Ocerne was standing in front of the altar, facing one of the left-hand pews.
She was frowning, her eyes dissecting a figure who slumped there, sobbing.
The lady was freshly risen from her chamber, wearing a rose-colored redingote to cover her nightclothes.
One of her maids had wrapped an embroidered violet scarf into a turban around her head, so she was at least passably attired for public viewing.
In one hand she held a decorative silver pitcher, which I surmised was full of altar wine.
The other hand she rested on her hip, in a posture that spoke much of her impatience. Her sleeve was smeared with blood.
“My lady?” I ventured, stepping inside. My voice echoed sanctimoniously.
She greeted me more with exasperation than relief. “You have arrived, sir,” she said, and then turned to the figure sitting in the pew. “He has arrived! Will you speak now?”
I hurried to the front of the chapel, my footsteps very loud on the marble floor. The person on the pew turned in her seat, revealing her tear-streaked face to me.
“Mademoiselle Lorette?”
The girl was clutching a fine glass goblet full of wine with shaking hands. She looked very out of place in her ill-fitting, grass-stained pinafore.
“Come, girl. You are a friend of my son’s, and for that I will excuse this intrusion. But now you will speak, or I will have you removed. And flogged in the square,” warned Lady Ocerne.
“Professor! I . . . I . . .” Lorette seemed to be in shock. Her hands shook to the point of spilling the wine.
“Calm down, ssh,” I said, kneeling beside her. Her hands and the front of her skirts were covered in blood, still fresh. “Come, drink up.”
Lorette drained the goblet in a matter of seconds and Lady Ocerne wordlessly refilled it.
Lady Ocerne noticed my shock; a French noblewoman did not serve others, especially not with her own hands.
“Forgive me if I do not trust the discretion of the staff. I wish my husband to know as little of this as possible,” she said.
“It is not appropriate for Lorette to be here, as she knows,” she added coldly.
“Of course.” It was hardly surprising. Lord Ocerne would scarcely approve of his son’s former sweetheart visiting the chateau in the early hours.
Lady Ocerne was regarding me with suspicion.
“Professor, the young lady arrived not half an hour ago, in this state. She asked for you specifically and would not speak—or leave—until I sent for you. Perhaps, before you spend another night in my house, you will tell me why, along with who you really are.”
“In good time, my lady.”
“In good time, then.” None of the suspicion left her eyes.
I returned my attention to the trembling girl. Lorette’s expression was grim and haunted; she was barely keeping her composure. “Can you tell me what has happened, Lorette?”
She drew a deep breath. I feared for a moment that she might faint. “Professor,” she said. “I was going down to bathe and I found her.”
A hot, heavy weight began to grow in my gut. “Found who?”
“Mama,” she said. “She was on the path.” Lorette suddenly began to sob in great, gulping breaths that racked her entire frame.
“Mademoiselle Cecile?” asked Lady Ocerne.
“I went down to the river to find her and she was—she was—” Her voice suddenly rose to a wail. “Oh Mama! By the Christ, he killed her! He killed her in the night and he ate her heart!”
1. Something of a rarity among married couples in the nobility, who usually made a career of despising each other as soon as the vows were done. It was also interesting to see Jacques so enamored of his wife, given what I knew of his past with Lorette.
2. I have been asked whether Sarmodel is physically there on occasions like this, or whether he’s just playing shadow puppets in my mind.
The short answer is, fortunately, the latter.
It takes significant anima for a Spirit to create matter of any kind, let alone a functioning, sensate human body; he wouldn’t waste it turning tricks for me.
If Sarmodel and I do ever “touch,” be assured that it is an entirely simulated experience, albeit an immersive one.
3. We were both quite tired after our evening of debauchery. That sort of recreation requires a decent amount of energy—both Mundane and Arcane—from both of us, which is one of the reasons we do it so rarely.
4. This still grates on me. Putting aside the flagrant corruption and/or money which could have been spent on feeding the poor etc., the Church’s many crimes against good taste during the Baroque remain di?cult to forgive.