Deliver us from Evil (27 page)

Robert turned from her. For long moments, he stared again into the darkness of the Park. 'In truth,' he said at last, 'whether
I
do or not,
I
have little choice.' He reached without looking back for her hand; felt it touch his. 'How could
I
leave you, Milady,' he asked, 'who rescued me from the stones, and who has been ever since, now that my parents are no more, like a sister - no - like a mother to me?'

She made no answer. But she dared to reach for his arms; dared to hold him; and for a long while - Robert could not tell how long - she stood embracing him.

'There is another thing,' he murmured.

'Indeed?' she inquired.

'Whether
I
am marked by the Devil, or no
..
.' 'Yes?'

'
I
must return one day to Woodton. For
I
would, if
I
could, destroy the Spirit of Darkness. And even if
I
prove too feeble for such a task -there is a girl
...
a friend -
I
would rescue from there

Milady seemed to start. Robert gazed into her eyes; but her stare appeared suddenly blank and cold.

'Milady?' He swallowed. 'Please.' Tenderly, he reached down to hold her hand. 'You must not think me ungrateful. For what hope do
I
have of redeeming my friend, save with you, and all your powers by my side?'

Milady smiled at him crookedly a moment. 'What hope indeed?' she murmured at last. Then she began to walk with him from the Mall; began to walk into the Park, into the darkness of the trees. Soon they were swallowed; and as the shade closed about him, Robert felt suddenly what it meant to be certain at last that he would one day go home.

'What hath night to do with sleep?'

John Milton,
Comus

I

t appealed to Lightborn, a few days later, to reveal something more of what his powers might perform - for he was enraged, as he exclaimed suddenly, by Robert's 'sickly Christian taint'. He held his nose, as though sickened; then leaned across. 'Could you remember, do you think,' he asked, 'where that butcher had his shop, who attacked you and stole all your money?'

It was late, and very cold. They had just been to a play: the first that Robert had ever seen. His mind was still reeling from the strange conjunction of new experiences and sights: not just the drama itself, with its powdered actresses, and verses, and golden sets, but the audience too amidst which they had sat - ladies in silks and satin masks, rakes in magnificent, curling wigs. Robert remembered how he had gazed down from his box at the stinking, yowling pit; and he thought how pleasant it was to have money and power, which could offer such a sight, pleasant like the warmth of drink in his veins, pleasant like the carriage which now kept him from the rain. Robert had never understood before what the temptation of wealth might be, for to his parents it had been nothing, and this had protected him from learning it for himself. Nor would he ever have done, he consoled himself, had he not needed to return to Woodton; and as he thought this, he was relieved, that his sin was not so great.

Lightborn leaned across, and waved a hand before his eyes. 'The butcher,' he repeated. 'Do you know where he lives?'

Robert started, then he licked his lips. For no reason that he could explain, he had felt a rush of something light and golden in his stomach. He turned back to look through the carriage window, at the rain-blotted streets outside. They had entered Drury Lane. 'It is not far,' he said slowly. He pointed. 'Up there towards the church.'

Lightborn grinned, and leaned out from the window to shout instructions. The carriage turned and rumbled into the high street of St Giles, then through streets ever more narrow and squalid, until at last they were in the heart of Whetstone Park. Robert pointed to a row of mean, boarded shops. 'There,' he said. 'That is where he lives.'

The carriage halted. Robert swung open the door. Outside the street seemed deserted even of beggars and whores, so bitter was the night. Rain was thudding down into the mud, and a moaning wind brought a stench of rotting thatch. Robert shivered, and turned back to look at his companions. 'What do you intend to do with him?' he asked.

Milady smiled. Then she tied her black vizard about her face again, so that her delicate throat seemed even more white by the contrast.
‘
I
do not think,' she said, 'that you should witness this yet.'

Robert nodded wordlessly, watching Milady as she rose to her feet. And then, although he could not see her cheeks, he knew that they were flushing; and he saw how her golden eyes were aflame. Again, he felt the rush of lightness in his stomach, and a whisper of something like breath along his arms. He leaned back, and pressed himself against the padding of his seat; he breathed in deeply, to try to stop the lightness from spreading further through his blood.

Milady brushed past him. But as she did so, Robert saw how she caught a scent on the wind, and then there was the lightness again, flickering through all his limbs, and he was rising after her, out of the carriage and into the rain, for even as the lightness made his head seem to spin, so it also seemed to promise something wonderful and strange, and he could not bear to allow it to fade. Milady had turned to face him; he knew, beneath her vizard, she would be looking startled. Then she reached out to touch him; and he saw, through the slit of her mask, her ruby lips smile.

'What do you feel?' she asked, clutching him to her.

'
I
...
I
don't know,' he replied. 'But whatever it may be, it is wonderful.'

There was a sound of a door creaking open. Robert turned and looked. The butcher was standing there, bleary-eyed, and as fat as before.

'
I
am sorry,' said Lightborn, 'to have aroused you so late, but your name was given to us as someone who might provide us with some sustenance.'

The butcher stammered and bowed.

'You see,' Lightborn continued, 'our need is grown quite consuming.'

'What would you have, then?' the butcher asked.

Lightborn grinned. 'Oh - something rare,
I
thought.'

He beckoned the butcher to follow him, and began to lead the way along the muddy road. The butcher, like a dumb thing, shambled after him. As Milady took his hand, Robert felt his head spin again, and he struggled to repress the lightness in his stomach - although he did not want to, he realised, for with each breath he took his nerves were tingling with unspeakable delight. He imagined he was flowing with the rush of the pleasure, as though he were weightless and borne on golden air. 'Down here,' he whispered in Lightborn's ear, 'this was where he took me.' He led the way into the tiny alley, stepping across an open midden, slipping in the mud as the darkness grew more close; but still the lightness was beating through his veins, faster and faster now, so that he could not help but laugh, for even the stench in his nostrils was rippling his blood, like the whisper of a breeze across the strings of a lute.

The butcher stopped, afraid now; suddenly, he broke and tried to run. But he too slipped and then Milady was upon him, slicing at his throat with a pearl-handled knife, while Lightborn gnawed at the wrists with his naked teeth. At the first gushing of blood, Robert thought he would be sick, for the pleasure was so dizzying that he grew terribly afraid, and full of horror at the new experience he had discovered, unable to believe such sensations were his own. But then he mastered the pleasure; and he realised that nothing, nothing he had ever known, was the equal of this joy which seemed to hollow out his guts. He knelt down beside Milady. She had torn off her mask: her cheeks were hectic, her eyes aflame, and her bright lips the brighter for their damp scarlet gleam. She laughed, and squeezed his hand, and as she did so Robert felt a wash of love for her, his companion in so dark and secret a pleasure which he might never otherwise have learned to feel. For a moment, it was true, he wondered from where it came; for as Milady lapped at the butcher's torn throat, he felt a sudden revulsion at the sight of her drinking blood, which he knew must be the source of her pleasure at least, even though he had not tasted a drop. But then the rush of his own ecstasy bore him up once again; and so he closed his eyes, and leaned back against the wall, and surrendered to the mysterious joy.

They left the butcher's corpse by the midden, a smeared mess amidst the filth of intestine and skin. The rain was still drizzling but, as Robert breathed in the damp night air, it seemed full of
energy
and light. In the carriage, Lightborn held Milady in his arms. He was still panting deeply; his eyes seemed almost red. He began to caress Milady's breasts, then to kiss her with that same urgent, gulping greed with which he had fed from the butcher's wounds. Milady moaned at the touch of his lips on her bare skin. The smell of her perfume hung sweet and sharp in the air, as she arched her back and stretched out her arms. At the same moment, Robert imagined he saw a thousand points of light burning like stars; and he reached down to his breeches. He laughed with a wild, exultant hysteria; he touched himself. Again, the lights. 'What is happening?' he cried. 'How can
I
feel like this?'

When the carriage stopped, he almost slumped out through the door. He stared around hungrily. The street was empty - and then he thought of the Park. He began to hurry towards it; but Milady reached out and held him by the arm. 'No,' she whispered. She seemed barely able to speak, struggling to control her breath, as though too deep a gulp of air might unchannel the flood of that pleasure which Robert could see in her eyes, and in the flush that had spread like a dawn upon her cheeks. He followed her.

Already, from the rooms inside the mansion, Lightborn had begun to fashion a pleasure-house. Upon the walls were tapestries, and friezes made of crystal, crafted from a thousand gleaming colours, in which the gods might be seen in sundry animal forms, committing riots and fantastical rapes. Candles lit the air with sparks of living fire; and two boys dressed as goat-footed satyrs stood ready in attendance, holding fans of curling, painted plumes. Lightborn beckoned them to stand behind him as he lolled upon a sofa; then, as Milady joined him, he rang a silver bell. At once, as though he had been lurking in the shadows waiting for the summons, Godolphin appeared in the doorway, dressed in the livery his own lackeys had once worn. 'The surprise,' Lightborn whispered hoarsely, 'bring it, man, bring it.' Godolphin bowed, and retreated.

Lightborn stared at Robert with a heart-stopping smile. '
I
have,' he murmured, 'a great delicacy for you.' He paused suddenly, and seemed to gasp; he reached for Milady, kissing her as though only the touch of her breath could supply him with his own, and then he broke and turned to smile at Robert again. '
I
thought,' he said in a silken, mocking tone, 'for your first time, to share with you in your sin, you might prefer a suitably puritan whore.'

He gestured with his arm. Robert turned to see Godolphin pulling on a chain and, behind it, on wheels, a plain metal cage. As it emerged from the darkness, Robert saw a human form crouching behind the bars, huddled like a beast in its furthermost corner.

'She thinks she is too fine,' laughed Lightborn, 'but the bitch shall soon learn her new profession.' He clapped his hands. 'Well, Godolphin - show Lovelace his whore.'

Godolphin bowed, and unlocked the cage. With a single, brutal pull on her hair, he dragged the woman out, then stood over her as she cowered upon the floor.

'Look at me,' Lightborn whispered. 'Look into my eyes.'

Slowly, reluctantly, the woman raised her head. Robert stretched his hand down to his breeches again. What had Lightborn meant, he wondered, by calling her a puritan? For her hair had been dyed yellow, and teased into curls; her face was brightly painted; she wore a bright, low-cut dress, such as only the cheapest whore would ever think to wear. But then, as he studied her, she began to sob a prayer; and

Robert's eyes widened in sudden disbelief. 'Why,' he exclaimed, turning to Lightborn, 'it is Lady Godolphin, is it not?'

There was an explosion of laughter from Lightborn and Milady. 'What think you?' asked Lightborn. 'Will the bitch serve?'

'
I
...'
Robert swallowed; he stared at her again, and knew that she would - knew that he wanted her, there, on the floor. He clenched his fists. The lightness in his stomach was hollowing him again. 'She does not . ..' he murmured faintly. He shook his head.
'
I
cannot . . .' His voice trailed away.

Milady glanced at Lightborn. He nodded, and again ordered the woman to stare into his eyes. She screamed as she did so; then the cry froze upon her lips, and she began to lick them, very slowly, as her limbs and body writhed. 'See,' exclaimed Milady, 'the wanton gleam in her eye! The harlot goes to it now!' She clapped her hands with delight; she turned to kiss Lightborn and fold him in her arms. Robert watched them briefly, then felt naked arms embracing him in turn. He looked round. Soft, moist lips met his own; thighs closed about his hips, and began to grind. 'Here,' he heard murmured in his ears; and then Lightborn was leading him across towards the sofa. The lightness in his blood seemed to give Robert strength: he lowered his burden on to the cushions, then joined her as she lay there with arms outstretched for him, his whore. For a second he broke from kissing her, and glanced round: Lightborn and Milady were watching him from the darkness, phantom shapes marked only by their eyes which glittered like burning jewels, impossibly bright. And then they were gone, and Robert looked down again; and as he touched the woman's flesh, the lightness in his blood rose and broke across the world.