Deliver us from Evil (25 page)

He shivered; but forced himself, when Lightborn began to climb a staircase, to follow him up the steps. They were well worn, and seemed to wind on forever: Robert guessed he was climbing to the summit of the tower. At last, when the steps came to an end. he found himself in a small, low-beamed room. A fire burned in a grate, and shadows of flickering orange lit the walls. Robert looked about him; there were books everywhere, on shelves and in crates, or in piles on the floor. They were spread across cushions and rugs, and he was surprised to realise that the room seemed almost comfortable. He walked forward, and saw there were fabulous instruments on low oaken tables: globes, and astrolabes, and what he supposed to be a telescope. He crossed to it. Although he had heard of such a thing from Mr Webbe, he had never, not in his fondest dreams, imagined he might see one for himself. He bent down, and pressed his eye against the telescope's end. At once he saw an orb of impossible brightness, framed against the blue depths of night; and he gasped, that his own mortal eyes should witness such a thing, and behold the beauty of the heavens so close.

'Notre dame, la lune,'
a woman murmured. Robert turned round in surprise. For the voice had seemed as silver as the globe he had just been studying, as silver and as impossibly remote; and yet both seemed contained in the room - the moon within the glass, the voice within the form of a woman in a chair. She beckoned to Robert; and as he approached her, he saw how her face too seemed silver, as though lit from within. It was no
t wrinkled; and yet it appeared
incredibly ancient, for reasons which he found hard to define. Perhaps it was the thinness of the face and the lips, which seemed expressive of a terrible lassitude; perhaps it was the chill behind her eyes - as cold, Robert thought, as the passage of the years, by which every living thing must be inexorably drained of its warmth and rendered into dust. How many centuries, he wondered, would have had to pass, to transmute the woman's stare into such a thing of ice? And yet her face was still a mortal's: dark-haired, fine-boned; and her dress, though clearly foreign, was nothing strange or antique. Even her face, as she rose to her feet, appeared suddenly to warm with surprise; and Robert imagined he saw, deep within her stare, a gleam of passion and curiosity.

She gestured with her arm towards the telescope. Robert stared at her uncertainly; then fell to his knees and pressed his eye back to the glass. As he did so, the Marquise bent down close by his side. 'It was once my custom,' she murmured, 'to pray to the moon - to spill beneath her beams a sacrifice of blood - for she was anciently held the protectress of our kind. But now, though . . . well - you have seen her for yourself. Not a goddess - but something more wonderful instead. A new world!' she whispered in sudden rapture. 'Just one amidst an infinite number of such worlds!'

'It is a wondrous sight,' agreed Robert readily.

'But what, do you think, does it teach us?' the Marquise asked. She stole a quick glance towards Lightborn, then turned back to Robert. 'Why,' she nodded, 'that we must have aspiring minds - that our thoughts must move like the tireless spheres themselves, always daring, never content to rest. Do you not agree, Lovelace? That we must always dare?'

Robert stared at her. He frowned; he did not know what to say.

He heard Lightborn laugh, and saw disappointment darken the Marquise's face. 'You are not as eager,' she hissed, 'to brave the unknown, as Lightborn was when
I
first met with him.'

'Yes,' answered Lightborn, 'but
I
was then the greater fool.'

Robert glanced round at them both; then returned to the telescope. '
I
am not afraid to dare what
I
must,' he murmured. 'But
I
would like to know first what you are offering me.'

He heard the Marquise laugh, a chilling and unpleasant sound. 'It may be
I
am offering you nothing,' she said. 'It may be
I
am merely advising you how to endure what you have already been given.'

Robert spun round. 'What do you mean?'

Again the Marquise smiled unpleasantly; then she crossed the room to a crate of books. She removed a pile of them. '
I
have been so lately arrived,' she muttered, flicking through each one, 'that
I
have not yet had time to order these . . . yes!' Her smile broadened. 'Here it is.' She opened the book, and handed it across. 'Tell me, Lovelace - do you recognise that?'

He stared at the drawing on the page, then closed his eyes. He remembered how the flesh had dribbled from the face on that May Day evening in the ring of stones, dribbled from the new face that was emerging from beneath it. Robert opened his eyes again; saw it, drawn in ink upon the vellum page: that same face, the face of the Evil One, the face that had .
..
'No!' Robert flung down the book. He gazed wildly round the room. He stumbled across to Milady, buried his face against her breast; felt her arms clasp him tightly and rock him gently, while her fingers stroked his hair.

'
I
think we may conclude,' the Marquise murmured, 'that, yes, he does indeed recognise the face.'

Lightborn stooped to pick up the book. He frowned as he studied it. 'Whose is this?' he asked.

'Mine. It was lately written by Tadeus.'

'What is its matter?'

'A true account of that great and mighty spirit by whose power all the universe is upheld and preserved.' Lightborn snorted.

'If you mock me, Lightborn, then you do not understand. The spirit is risen, and is walking the Earth. Tadeus was successful - what he promised would happen has indeed come to pass.'

Lightborn stared back at her coldly. 'And much good it brought him.'

'
I
shall be better prepared than he ever was.'

'What? You intend to approach this creature yourself?'

'Why else would
I
have come back to this benighted isle, where even the blood in the veins tastes overboiled?'

Lightborn shrugged disdainfully. '
I
would not recommend it. He will kill you, and your dust will hang in the air like that of Tadeus -which
I
knew to be there, Madame, for
I
felt it stinging my nostrils. It is you who does not understand. The creature - the demon - the whatever he is - he possesses the power to destroy our kind.'

'Then think what other powers He may also possess.' The Marquise stared into the flames. 'For do not forget, Lightborn - He is the Prince of Hell, who is God of all this world.'

'And how do you propose to appease this - "God" - of yours?'

The Marquise smiled faintly. She crossed to Robert, where he still lay hugging Milady. '
I
shall seek guidance,' she whispered. She reached out to touch Robert and laid the palm of her hand for a moment on his belly. But he flinched, and Milady bent low across his body as though warding away the Marquise, whose smile grew ever broader as she stared at them both. She turned to Lightborn. 'Is it not a charming sight?' she sneered. '
I
was not aware that Milady had grown quite so -
maternal -
as this.'

'And why should
I
not be?' inquired Milady at once. 'Look at him! He is nothing but a child.'

'
I
think - and you know - he is a great deal more than that.'

Robert frowned. He rose from Milady's lap. 'What do you mean,' he asked,' "a great deal more"?'

The Marquise glanced a moment at her book, upon the table where Lightborn had placed it; then she took Robert's arm. He struggled to shake himself free, but the Marquise seemed only amused. She crossed to the telescope and, this time, bent down to gaze at it herself. '
I
asked you,' she murmured, 'how high you dared to reach, not because
I
sought to tempt you but because you have already glimpsed the true God, whose very being is as infinite as the universe He made. It may be' - she turned slowly round - 'you are already a part of such infinity.'

'No.' Robert shook his head. 'There is no God but God Almighty.'

'That same God Almighty who permitted your mother to burn, and your father to be drained, drop by drop, of his blood? Might not such a God be better termed the Prince of Hell?'

'No!' cried Robert, trying to block off his ears.

'Do not deny what you know to be the truth. You have gazed upon His face, Lovelace: Satan, the Evil One, the Lord of all the world .
..
And yet - and yet - He spared you. Why?'

Robert moaned and shook his head.

The Marquise widened her eyes as she nodded at him. 'He must have had a purpose.'

'No!' cried Robert again. He gazed round in confusion. Milady rose, and crossed to hold him, but the Marquise only smiled. She winked at Milady. 'You know
I
speak the truth. For why else would He have marked the boy so clearly with His brand?'

'Brand?' whispered Robert.

'Yes,' answered the Marquise, very softly in his ear. 'Which stamps you as the Devil's thing.'

'You may be wrong,' said Milady sullenly, still clasping Robert tightly to herself, it may not be the Devil's doing at all.'

' What
may not be?' cried Robert desperately.

The Marquise angled her head, widened her eyes in mock consternation. 'What?' she exclaimed. 'Has your pretty new stepmother not told you that yet?'

Robert twisted in Milady's arms. He wriggled free, and met her stare. 'Told me what?' he asked.

'How different you are,' whispered the Marquise, 'from every other mortal she has ever known before.'

Milady stared at her with unconcealed anger. 'We had agreed,' she said in a low, thin voice, 'that we would not mention that yet.' Her accent, Robert realised, seemed suddenly altered, less clear-cut, almost common. Lightborn too appeared to have marked the change, for Robert saw him frown, and then cross to Milady and take her gently by the arm.
I
suppose,' he murmured, looking back at the Marquise, 'that when you are preparing to call on the Devil, a broken promise does not amount to very much.'

The Marquise laughed; and then suddenly, her face was as cold and tight as before. With a rustle of her skirts, she crossed to Milady and seized her by her chin. 'It were best,' she hissed into her face, 'that you do not forget where this boy comes from, and whose thing he is. Do not grow too fond, Milady - for he is not, and never can be, yours.'

'Nor yours.'

'Perhaps.' A cold smile returned to the Marquise's lips. 'But at least
I
am willing to acknowledge that. You have always been foolish, though - always reluctant to admit to what you are.' She began to laugh again; and did not stop, even though Milady seemed ready to strike her.

'Helen.' As Milady raised her hand, Lightborn folded her in his arms. 'It is time that we went.'

The fury was still burning in Milady's eyes but, as he watched, Robert saw the fire grow into ice. 'Yes,' she choked at last. Her accent was now as crystal-cut as before.
‘
I
think you are right' She turned and, with a sweep of her cloak, began to hurry down the stairs. Lightborn paused by the doorway to offer an ironic bow.

I
shall see you again soon,
I
hope,' said the Marquise with a wave of her hand. 'All of you.'

'Madame la Marquise.' Lightborn smiled. '
I
am confident you will.' Then he turned and, with Robert, followed Milady down the stairs.

'. . . take a flight beyond material sense, Dive into mysteries
...'

The Earl of Rochester, 'A Satyr Against Mankind'

S

o icy did Milady's rage seem that, for a long while, as they returned across the Thames and then sat in the carriage, Robert did not dare to speak to her. Instead he stared out, as Milady did, at the dark night; and he wondered what the brand was which she had seen upon him, marking him as different from other mortals - and yet which she and Lightborn had both chosen to conceal. He turned a cold eye upon them. Milady was still gazing fixedly out through the window, but Lightborn met Robert's stare and his thin lips curled.

‘
I
may not be able to read your thoughts,' he said. '
I
can tell what they are, all the same.'

'Answer me, then. Did the Marquise speak the truth when she said
I
wore the Devil's mark? How much did she know?' Lightborn shrugged. 'Perhaps nothing.' 'Nothing?'