A Mortal Glamour (42 page)

"No. No, no, no, you must not do this! Let me go. I swear I will pray for you and forgive you for what you have done if you will let me go.” She knew that her pleading was more of a whine, and it shamed her that she should appear so craven to this diabolic creature that stood behind her and held her as easily as she might hold a day-old lamb.

"But I do not want your forgiveness and your prayers, mon ange. I want your passion as mine. I want you writhing and screaming for the satisfaction of your desires."

She felt one surge of hope. “Then release me, and I will lash myself for your sins as well as my own."

"What sins?” he asked in his most caressing voice. “You have committed no sins. After I have taken you, there will be time enough for that.” Abruptly he jerked her and she found herself facing his hot, pale eyes. He held her more tightly. “You want to be lost in your passion. It would delight me to do this for you."

"But not that—” She was afraid that she was about to weep, and there was nothing she could do to prevent him from seeing it, increasing her shame.

He fixed his hands now, digging them deeply into cloth and flesh, and he began to press her down, ruthlessly, relentlessly, to her knees. “You desire to worship, little dove? You may worship me, and I will give you the reward you are seeking."

"I ... you blaspheme,” she objected, but so weakly that he guffawed. “No."

"Oh, yes. It is what you will offer your God, isn't it? You are prepared to lose your virginity, ma Seur, if it is sacrificed to the most puissant lord, and you will give him sacrifice and honor, won't you?” And then he was atop her.

She gritted her teeth through it all, her eyes closed, the comforting image of Christ in her mind, superimposed on the creature that pressed her. She could feel his movements, and the weight of him was enormous for a man so slight. For all the indignity and humiliation, the only hurt she had came from her shoulders, from the welts she had put there with her scourge. The rest was as remote as it was appalling.

When he had finished, he still lay atop her, giving her no option to move in any way. “You will have a child of this, and I will come for it."

Seur Ranegonde finally wept, but without a sound. “I want nothing of yours,” she said hollowly.

"Oh, it is not of mine. Demons have no progeny, we have only the seed we carry from others.” She stiffened under him. “You are not the first tonight, my mouselette. I would not have been able to start a child in you but that another warmed me earlier.” Thibault sniggered, then loosened his hold on her enough to let him be able to see her face clearly. “Why, ma Seur?"

She was disgusted to hear herself answer him. “I weep for the loss of my chastity. I am not a worthy nun any longer."

"No; I did not mean that.” He supported himself on his elbows as he asked this time. “Why did you surrender to me?"

Her eyes opened wide; she could not convince herself she had heard him correctly. “You gave me no choice,” she said, loathing him and her admission with equal intensity.

"There is always a choice, my mouselette,” he said, this time with sadness that distressed her; she did not wish to think what it meant.

"You were too strong for me,” she said after a little silence.

"I?” He reached down and touched her face. “But I am weak.” This was said with such forthrightness, wholly unlike the blandishments he had used earlier, that she blinked. “It is your desire that is powerful, not mine. You have the strength; I possess none of my own.” He got up after that, and dressed quickly.

She lay watching him, refusing to think. The lassitude that had come over her at his confession was like the fatigue she often felt from her fever. She saw him pull on his sleeves, noticing how beautiful he was. Many women, she knew, might be foolish enough to want him for his beauty, for his pale hair and pale skin. She had not wanted him, she insisted to herself, but there were doubtless countless others who might.

It was as if he had heard her thoughts. “There are always those who desire what I am, who long for what I give them. They will give me their passions, so that they may have their desires. Men, women, it makes no difference: I become what they want me to be.” He made a fussy adjustment in the little ruff around his neck. “Where I am truly not wanted, mouselette, I am powerless to do anything."

He was almost at the door, when she made herself ask the question that had been burning in her, that she dared not give voice to, for fear it would confirm her inmost horror. “If you are not the father, who is?” She already accepted her pregnancy; it was fitting that she should suffer for what she had done.

Thibault thought this over, then gave a mischievous, triangular smile. “I do not think I will tell you that just now. In time you may discover it for yourself.” Then he blessed her and while she drew away from him in repugnance, he left her cell.

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Long shadows from the looming walls of the Papal palace threw the chapter house of Saunt-Chrodegang into darkness at mid-afternoon. The small, octagonal building was dark, even now at the height of summer, and the two men who met there were chilled as if they had come to a tomb.

"You have had no word, then?” Padre Bartolimieu asked of Évêque Amalrie. “Since the Cardinal sent for you, there have been no inquiries that I know of."

Évêque Amalrie, very much thinner than he had been, plucked nervously at his lower lip. “No. I have heard nothing. Nothing at all."

"Have they abandoned the matter?” Padre Bartolimieu asked, frowning at the other man. “Is nothing to be done? Could you not persuade them that there is great danger at the convent?” He was growing impatient with the Bishop. “You are a man of zeal, mon Évêque, and you have defended the Church against her enemies. Surely it is known that you have been foremost in the battle against the forces of Hell?” His voice echoed around the little stone room, the words more and more distorted.

"I asked the Cardinal ... Belroche, it was, to continue the investigation, to authorize a Process, but ... he has not done so.” The Bishop looked up into the gloom. “I do not know if he understands what happened there."

"He cannot, if he will not continue,” Padre Bartolimieu said. “What manner of man is this Cardinal, that he refuses to act where God must be defended?"

It was a short while before Évêque Amalrie answered. “I do not know what manner of man he is. He is a Cardinal. That is enough.” He walked away from Padre Bartolimieu. “There is great sin all around us, mon Padre, and none of us can escape it. We are doomed, and it is fitting that we bow our heads to the punishment meted out to us by a just God, for we have failed Him and are not worthy of salvation.” He touched his hair, as if to try to keep it on his head. “We are not worthy,” he repeated.

Padre Bartolimieu was too surprised to upbraid le Évêque, but he stared at the man. “I do not know you."

"No one knows anyone,” Évêque Amalrie said in the most forlorn tone Padre Bartolimieu had ever heard. “We are all strangers, and the heart is the greatest stranger of all, for no one reads it right. God, perhaps, will, but no man can see the heart, not even his own."

Padre Bartolimieu stood in dumbfounded silence. He had been expecting many things from this meeting, but not the quiet misery Évêque Amalrie offered him. “Then why did you call me here?"

Évêque Amalrie shrugged. “I am not certain why. I had heard you had come to request that the investigation be continued, and I thought I might be able to stop you from taking so disastrous an action.” He wandered across the cold floor. “I once thought it was essential we uphold the honor of God and the Church and that all measures were acceptable if they were used in that cause, and that so long as the cause benefited God and the Church, it made a man proof against the errors and sins of the world. But that is not so."

"Has God touched your heart, mon Évêque?” Padre Bartolimieu asked, trying to follow what the Bishop was telling him, but with little success.

"It may be that He has. I cannot know what is in my heart. No man is able to do that; I have told you that already. Why do you bother me with these foolish questions when I have given you the answer already?” He sighed. “No. It is not fitting that I rebuke you, when I am steeped in the transgressions of the world."

"What has happened?” Padre Bartolimieu demanded.

"Very little has happened, but that does not matter. I was proud and for that I have been cast down, which God promised He would do to the proud. I believe my vocation protected me, but it does not. I believed that the Cardinals were determined on the preservation of the Church, but this may not be so.” He made an aimless little gesture. “It is all for naught. We walk in darkness, as the Bible says, and that light we have been promised shines in the darkness more faintly than a candle. There may be those who have seen it, but if they have, it has made them blind.” Now he looked at Padre Bartolimieu with some of his old fervor. “It is not for us to ask. If we pray, it is for our benefit, not for God, Who has made us as He wishes us to be, and we are His servants, His slaves."

"And for that, we must persevere in our efforts,” Padre Bartolimieu said forcefully, pleased to be on familiar ground once again. “Whatever you have been told, think of the message of the Scriptures, and know that it is the work of the Apostles that we continue."

Évêque Amalrie took another turn about the chapter house. “It may be that you have the right of this, but ... Hear me out, Padre Bartolimieu. I have been myself afflicted, and I know it was for one unguarded moment that my soul was tainted. Yet no one cares that it happened; in time I may not care myself. God permitted it to happen, the Church does not mind that it happened, and all that I have learned from it is how a good man is the servant of his flesh.” He regarded Padre Bartolimieu unhappily. “Now it must be that I have lost the grace that was mine, though I have confessed and done penance and I am assured that I am once again restored to grace because I have repented. But the sin is still there and I am never free of it, and nothing I do is unaffected by it."

He was confused again, but Padre Bartolimieu decided to humor the Bishop in the hope that he would gain the other man's support for his efforts. “Then let the sin be purged; do the work that God commands us to do."

"And what work is that?” Évêque Amalrie asked softly.

"To cleanse our flocks, to bring them away from error into virtue. We must strive to end the evil that has brought such misfortune to us."

"But what if the misfortune came because it came? What if God would not have stopped it if no one sinned for a generation?” He crossed himself. “What if the demons are kind to the nuns? I have no more surety, mon Padre. My sin has taken that from me."

"But the demons!” Padre Bartolimieu blurted out. “Think of what they are doing to the nuns!"

"And the nuns to the demons, perhaps,” Évêque Amalrie said, his eyes fixing vaguely on the bas-relief frieze of the story of Samson.

"But you have shown that the demons are there! If you turn away, you will let the demons triumph!” He wanted to take the man and shake him, to convince him that his course was wrong.

"If they triumph, then it is God's Will; what we do is as nothing. God will choose who shall come to him and who shall not. We are vain, puny men, caught in toils we know nothing of. And what we do here is of little moment.” He knelt abruptly and began to pray.

Padre Bartolimieu came over to him. “You are praying. You are seeking guidance. You know what your duty is, what you must do, but you resist it for fear of the forces of Hell and the wiles of the men from Rome. It is a failing that each of us must face once.” He cleared his throat, and commenced his expostulation. “I have had a similar trial, and I failed it. I let my people suffer and die because I was a coward, but no more. God has shown me His courage, and I can do no less than follow it. You will come to this in time, mon Évêque, but for the benefit of the Sisters who are wretched, troubled women, you must not tarry. You must rise up.” The stones reverberated to his oratory. “You must recall your faith and your devotion, and you must drive out the demons that have tortured those nuns, and show the Devil and the Church that you are staunch in your calling!"

Évêque Amalrie looked up over his clasped hands. “Padre Bartolimieu? Leave me alone."

Taken aback, Padre Bartolimieu faltered in his speech. “You ... you are not thinking clearly, mon Évêque. You have forgotten what transpired, and you have been convinced that there is no reason to be determined in this. You do not recall how the nuns wept when they were lashed and the demons were driven from them."

"They may have wept in pain. We do not know.” He lowered his head again, and for the next hour, no matter what Padre Bartolimieu said, no matter how he accused or exhorted, Évêque Amalrie remained on his knees, his head bent over his folded hands.

It was the last day that Père Guibert would be at Le Tres Saunt Annunciacion for almost a month and he was hearing confession before he left; after two hours of listening to the sins of the nuns, his mind was reeling. He had heard more in that short time than he had ever encountered at any convent. Most of it was, he knew from long experience, fanciful conjecture, tidbits gleaned from the torments of the Sisters truly possessed. A few of the experiences related were debatable, having elements of fancy as well as deviltry in them. The demonic presence was still at work at the convent and he could not put his thoughts at rest for the welfare of the Sisters. It distressed him to think what might occur now that the women were wholly unguarded. He crossed himself and tried to compose his mind for the next Sister. “Who is ready?” he called out through the chapel door.

Seur Adalin, who had been serving as his page, answered. “It was to have been Seur Tiennette, but she is still busy in the kitchen. A barrel of salt pork has gone off, and she must dispose of it quickly."

"That is unfortunate. Assure her for me that I will come to her before I leave, so that she need not cease her efforts.” There was little enough meat in those barrels as it was, and to lose one augured badly for the convent. “I will give her my blessing, as well, for the kitchen."