Leopard in Exile (3 page)

Hell, his black wings spread wide.

Now the room was well lit, and the crucified figure upon the inverted cross could clearly be seen. Its

body was marked with deep red weals, but the head crowned with thorns was mat of a braying ass.

Curls of smoke were beginning to spiral skyward from the braziers, filling the room with the scent of

burning rue, myrtle, henbane, nightshade, and thorn-apple. The Due looked upon his work with a faint

smile of satisfaction. If the existence of this place were known, it would surely mean his death, for there

were things that even the Great Beast who now ruled France could not be seen to condone. But soon

disclosure of de Sade's small vices would not matter, for the culmination of two years of ritual and

sacrifice would be reached tonight with this final sacrifice.

Turning away from the altar, de Sade felt along the wall until he had located a hidden door concealed

behind the draperies. Drawing back the bolt, he opened the door to a small closet.

"And how are you this evening, Sister Marie?" he asked genially.

The woman inside the closet moaned beseechingly, falling forward into the light. Her pale hair was filthy

and matted, and her naked body bore the suppurating sores of previous beatings. As was necessary to

this most important of all sacrifices, she was a virgin of aristocratic blood, the by-blow of an English

milord who had arranged that she be fostered at the convent at Sacre Coeur. De Sade had arranged to

have her taken from there three months ago.

"In the name of God—I beg you, M'sieur—" she whimpered.

"Yes, yes. You beg and I deny, for such is the responsibility of the strong to the weak," de Sade said

reprovingly. Ignoring the girl's stench, he lifted her easily to her feet and walked her toward the altar.

After so many days of darkness, even so little light was blinding to the young novice. She raised her thin

arms to shield her face, too weak to otherwise resist. When the Due pressed her against the altar, she

clutched at it for support Her eyes were bruised, her mouth puffy with blows and smeared with blood.

"Here, child," the Due said kindly, raising the chalice to her lips. "You must drink. It will give you

strength."

Grisalle had kept her without water for more than a day, so at first she sucked at the tainted liquid

greedily, swallowing several mouthfuls before she realized what it was. When the bitterness of it

penetrated her senses she began to struggle, but de Sade, one hand tangled in her hair and the other

tilting the chalice to her mouth, forced her to drink far more of the draught than she was able to spill.

When the chalice was empty he tossed it away and lifted the girl up onto the altar, the motion knocking

the scourge to the floor.

The first effects of the potion seized her almost immediately: her struggles were disordered and fruitless,

and he was easily able to bear her backward, until she was supine upon the black stone. Lengths of silk

rope were already affixed to four bronze rings set at the corners, and de Sade bound her to them with the

ease of long practice.

"
Le Bon Dieu
curse your name!" the girl spat. Tears filled her eyes, but they blazed defiance at her

captor.

"Oh, I do hope He does," de Sade said absently. He took a cruse of red oil from the floor and began

pouring it over her body.

"Astaroth, Asmodeus—princes of amity—I conjure you to accept my sacrifice. Luciferge

Rofocalo—master of treasure—hear my plea. I offer up to you a feast abominable to the Lord of

Heaven. In this wilderness I offer you a supper of flesh instead of bread, of blood instead of wine, that

my own hunger may be fulfilled. Adonai, Adonai, Adonai—"

At each recitation of the name, the scourge rose and fell softly against the bleeding flesh tied to the altar.

Sister Marie was still alive, for it was important to de Sade that she remain so, at least until the end of this

ceremony.

For the first hour she had met his invocations with her prayers, calling upon the Blessed Mother and all

the holy saints and angels to preserve her. Then, for a while, she had only screamed, and now she lacked

even the strength for that.

Each time de Sade repeated the prayers the room grew colder. The candles that had once burned

brightly guttered now with a strange blue flame, and the fumes from the censers had drifted down to

cloak the floor like a strange unseasonal fog, hiding the signs and inscriptions scratched and painted there.

Thirst and exhaustion dragged at his limbs like rebellious servants, but his passion for the secret delights

of Hell drew the diabolist onward. Of all the prayers and sacrifices he had offered in the long months of

this rite—this was the greatest: a young virgin ravished away from her vows, degraded and tormented to

madness. When he had surrendered her, surely Luciferge, the Light-Bringer, would grant him what he

sought.

"O reasonable Lord, just Lord, master of slanders, dispenser of the fruits of evil, cordial of the

vanquished, suzerain of resentment, accountant of humiliations, treasurer of old hatred, king of the

disinherited, grant me your power that I may overthrow the do-nothing King and coward God who has

betrayed your followers!"

It was midnight. Between the first stroke and the last, the prayers of pious men would have no power.

"
Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei
,"2
de Sade said softly. He took up a small knife made of black glass

and cut carefully into the vein that ran beneath the girl's breast. The dark blood welled up swiftly, and as

it did he snatched up a flagon of carved jade and set it to catch the stream. When it had filled, he raised it

as high as he could, and poured the blood over the figure of the ass-headed Christ.

He turned back to the girl. He must move quickly now, while she still lived. Setting aside the knife of

glass, he took up one of black iron, and made a deep cut below the girl's breastbone. The girl screamed,

rallied by the pain to full consciousness once more. Plunging his hand into the opening, he reached up,

clutching at her still-beating heart, and ripped it from her body.

It seemed as if she lived a moment more, but if so, de Sade did not see her. He had turned, offering that

which he held to the blasphemous Crucifix.

"
Hoc est enim corpus meum
, "
3
de Sade said, setting the heart upon the brazier of coals made ready at

the foot of the crucifix. "
Aquerra Goity—Aquerra Beity—Aquerra Goity—Aquerra Beity!
"4
The flesh

hissed as the fire took it, shriveling and blackening as clouds of bitter steam belched skyward.

Who summons me? a Voice demanded behind him.

De Sade knew better than to turn to look upon the face of his Master. He kept his eyes fixed upon a

small mirror of polished obsidian affixed to the foot of the cross. In it he could see the room, crazily

distorted and reversed. He could also see what looked like a flaw of dark light, a disordering of the air,

and he knew that the One he had summoned had come to him. De Sade's power would last only until the

virgin's heart was burnt to ash, and he must be both quick and careful.

"I, your most faithful worshipper."

TO WHAT END?

"I beg a boon of you, infernal Lord," de Sade said. "I beseech you, in the name of the Treasure I dare not

name, grant me its possession so that I may suborn the Table of Heaven, and exalt that which has been

cast into the Pit!"

There was a long silence, broken only by the sizzle of burning flesh upon the coals, as de Sade waited,

almost swooning, his attention fixed unwaveringly upon the black mirror.

YOU SEEK THAT WHICH ONLY THE MOST HOLY MAY APPROACH.

"Only tell me where it lies, and I will find a way to gain it!" de Sade vowed recklessly. "I will prepare you

such a feast as has never been offered to you by the hand of living man!"

If you fail of this vow, you are mine.

The last stroke of the unheard church bell tolled, and the giddiness against which de Sade had fought

overwhelmed him at last. He sank helplessly to the floor, his blood-soaked tools falling from his flaccid

hands.

He did not know how long he lay in the throes of unconsciousness, but when he roused himself at last,

the braziers had burned down and the candle flames once more burned yellow. Slowly, cursing his age

and the stiffness of his joints, de Sade got painfully to his feet.

The floor was sticky with the girl's spilled blood. But as he regarded it, it seemed to him that the marks

were too regular, too orderly, to be simply the spillage of mortal fluids.

It was a map. And glinting at its center, a small fleck of green fire.

The object he sought.

The Grail.

"And so the game begins," de Sade said softly. "All of you great men who despise me, who think that you

can use me and set me aside when my use is done, I say to you that your day is done, your empire at an

end! For the sorcery mat has been your puppet will be your master, and on that day neither crowns nor

swords will save you—this I, the Due d'Charenton, swear to you all!"

Under an English Heaven

(June 1807)

T
he rooftops of London sparkled as if they had been polished. The spring had been wet, miring

carriages in hedgerows and making travel to the opening of Parliament—and the Season—more than

usually hazardous. Despite that inconvenience, every townhouse and rented lodging in every

even-remotely fashionable district of Town was full to bursting by the Ides of March, their steps newly

limewashed and the knockers on the doors, for this Season was to be the most glittering since bloody

Revolution had struck down the aristocracy of France fifteen years before.

The Court, as was its usual custom, spent Yuletide at Holyrood Palace, but instead of spending deep

winter in procession from one Great House to the next, this year the Court had returned directly to St.

James Palace after Hogmanay, for there was much to do to prepare for a Royal wedding.

The marriage-lines, and the treaty that accompanied them, had been ready for over two years, for this

was a marriage of state, one that would bind two countries as well as two persons together. Prince Jamie

of England, King Henry's heir, was to wed Princess Stephanie Julianna of Denmark, securing a

Protestant royal bride for England and a new support for the Grande Alliance all in one stroke. But

though speed was of the essence, first social considerations, then political ones, had delayed the match

again and again.

First, the Royal wedding embassy—two ships, the princess, her trousseau, and the final version of title

treaty—had mysteriously vanished between Copenhagen and Roskild. Finding the princess had taken

months. Soothing her brother, the Prince Regent, had taken longer, and by the time Stephanie was safe in

England, all the ambassadors and dignitaries who had come for the wedding had returned home again.

Though Prince Frederick wished to withdraw his sister from the marital alliance, King Henry had the girl

under his hand, and was not inclined to lightly set aside what had been organized with such pains. So

Henry smiled, and delayed, and prayed that the news from Europe would be brighter—for while the

Great Beast daily engorged himself upon what had once been the sovereign thrones of Europe, his

northern neighbor could not be sanguine about declaring himself Napoleon's enemy.

Meanwhile, Henry must woo his own people as well, hesitant as always about accepting foreign princes

into their midst. If the marriage did not have popular support, riots at home would negate any advantage

England might claim upon a foreign battlefield.

Secret peace negotiations conducted by Mr. Fox had caused further delay,
5
for the making of the

marriage, Talleyrand vowed, would be seen by France as an additional act of war. So King Henry had

counterfeited public reasons for private caution until the negotiations had broken down completely. That

had consumed the summer of the following year, and he vowed that the Princess would be married next

Midsummer Day, for the strain of attempting to preserve her countenance as an unmarried maiden was

far greater than he had ever imagined it could be.

At least his heir had accepted the betrothal. Prince Jamie, once its most volatile opponent, was now the

happy confederate of Princess Stephanie, though his relationship with his future bride held more of

fellowship than of romance. The Danish Court was one of the most protocol-laden in all of Europe, and it

seemed that the Princess had chafed under its restrictions. Despite the best efforts of Henry and his

courtiers, the rumors about the Princess's behavior had multiplied daily in the weeks following her arrival,

and each rumor held more than a grain of truth.

It was not, as Henry had once said to the Duke of Wessex, as if
all
these reports could possibly be

true—"Though enough of them are that I have had it that vouchers for Almack's would be impossible to

obtain."

"It is just as well that Prince Jamie's wife will not require them," Wessex had replied lazily. "And if the

Patronesses cannot like her, then the same is not true of the
mobile
,6
for she is cheered whenever she

appears in public."

This was certainly true, and had strengthened King Henry's bargaining position with Denmark