Part Four

Edrington had no idea where he was going, and yet he found himself drawn through the maze of corridors instinctively, with a whetted sense of purpose, like a hound on a trail of blood. The passages were close and tunnel-like, and the walls glowed pink in the light of torches that canted outward, blazing with heat. The heavy pulse of blood that pounded through his veins and throbbed in his groin seemed to echo off the walls, engulfing him in the noise of his own madly beating heart.

He followed the scent of incense that floated on the air in wispy, vanishing threads. Cloying and sweet, and oddly familiar, it led him on. Once, he thought he heard music, soft voices chanting, coming to him in short, fading whispers through the pounding of the blood.

He came to a door, and nowhere left to turn. It creaked on its ancient hinges, and when it closed behind him the sound was like the sealing of a tomb. But there, again, was the sweet smell, and for an instant he thought he heard once more the soft chanting. Stone steps, uneven and concaved with age led down, down.


*******

"He comes," whispered Soeur Isabeau, lifting her long, vulpine nose to sniff the air. At once, the others ceased their chanting and stood, poised in the middle of the dance. Of old habit Isabeau turned to look toward the chapel entrance, although her eyes, clouded with white, were now completely sightless. "Are you certain you do not wish me to…?

"Leave him to me, Sister," replied Dominique, as she turned to ascend the steps to her High Altar. "You may take the others into the Whispering Gallery."

Isabeau bowed her head. "Will this one stay, my Sister?" she asked.

The abbess shook her head. "Though he pleases the Sainte…no, he must not stay."

Isabeau cocked an eyebrow at her superior and smiled, a little wickedly. Her eye was white and her hair was silver, and yet age had never stolen the essence of her refined, aristocratic beauty. She ran a long, slender hand down the length of her throat, over her bosom and down, following the contour of her slim body.

"And the boy?" she suggested. Her hand traveled over her hip to the inside of her thigh, and she stroked herself, slowly and unconsciously, through the soft fabric of her robe. Dominique smiled. Dear Isabeau had been so long in the dark that she sometimes did not remember that others could be aware of her. "That beautiful boy," sighed Isabeau. The sound of his cries…"

"No," said the abbess firmly. "Nor him."

Isabeau frowned. "Must I remind my dear Sister how very long it has been since some of us have taken Communion?" She laughed a little ruefully, and shook her head. "Monsieur du Bois has already been replaced this year---twice! Soeur Desiree has always sworn by marble for durability, but then he is so cold. Ohhh!" she moaned, "There is nothing like the living heat, Sister!"

"Patience, Sister," said Dominique. "The time will come. But on this night I will take the sacrifice, as High Priestess. This one is worthy of Sabine." Raising her skirts she climbed gracefully the final steps to the great Altar.

She stripped off her veil, and her dark red hair tumbled past her waist. The flames of a thousand candles surrounded her with their radiant glow, and her full sleeves slid down her white arms as she raised them.

"Alle!" she commanded. "Be gone!"


******

Edrington was aware of the walls of the staircase receding, the passageway growing wider as he descended, and his eyes became adjusted to the gloom. He no longer heard the strange chanting, but the smell of incense was growing ever stronger. At last he could see a faint glow ahead of him, and rounding the final bend of the staircase, a pool of soft light was spreading over the stones. As he came into the light he was aware of movement, of whispers, and of white shapes flitting away, like so many butterflies, so quickly, so silently, and disappearing so completely he could not tell if he had really ever seen them at all.

He saw her at the altar, tall and slender, draped in white, her shining hair flowing over her shoulders like rivers of bright blood, the vision softened by a haze of smoke infused with the glow of candle flame. Before her was the altar table, crouching on stout, curved legs, strongly built of shining ebony. Behind her loomed an obscene colossus, again the ecstatic Sainte, five times the size of life. Massed at the base of the great statue were heaps upon heaps of that same, strange red flower that he had seen in the courtyard, and he knew that it was their heavy perfume that laced the air, carried on the smoke.

"Dominique!" his voice sounded monstrously loud and harsh in the vast, silent space of the chapel, and his footfalls clacked with the sharp, punctuated thunder of mortar fire as he advanced upon her across the stones.

"I am here, Alexandre," she said quietly when he stood at the foot of the altar. "There is no need to shout."

******

Alexandre, thought the abbess. Could it really be he? She looked down on him and smiled. So many years, my love, and now She has returned you to me for this one night.

It must be, for he was so very like. The lithe, manly beauty, the lion's mane of golden hair, the dark eyes that burned into her soul and set her thighs to trembling.

Do you remember how it was for us, Alexandre? The storms, the battles, the rages, the tears? Come, oh, come, for I could never resist you, husband, no more than I could help but try.

********

He took the steps, ascending to the altar without regard for whatever sanctity he might be violating in this perversion of a place. Her eyes were soft and serene, her visage ever cool, as she slowly stretched out her hand to him. His fist closed around her slender wrist, and he fought the urge to pull her against him and crush her in his arms, to grind his aching, burgeoning cock into her soft, white belly.

"I will ask you, Madame," he said lowly. "One last time…" he stopped, distracted for a moment as the fragrance of the flowers seemed to overwhelm him, striking his face with the force of a blow.

"God…damn it!' he swore. "What is that smell?"

"We call it 'Opiata Aphrodisia'," replied the abbess. "Our very own cultivar, a cousin of the poppy, but one hundred times more fragrant, yes? You saw it growing in the courtyard. As you also have seen, it has a particular effect on the body. It arouses the passions; it…quickens the blood. But in your case," He saw her eyes travel downward, and her lips curve in a smile. "My dear Alexandre, in your case I believe it has been an instance of---how do you say---gilding the lily?"

"Why?" he demanded, and suddenly he realized that she had subtly bent her elbow, and he, still holding her wrist, had been drawn towards her, and what was more, he saw that his thumb was gliding slowly, back and forth, over the fragile skin of her wrist, caressing its irresistible softness. He dropped it like a firebrand.

"Madame," he said coolly, stepping back and crossing his arms. "I believe I have had enough of this little amusement of yours."

She smiled at him again, crossing her own arms under her bosom. "Have you, Alexandre?" she asked softly, her eyes leveled directly at his crotch.  "Have you ever had enough?"

She moved towards him slowly, speaking lowly as she came, as if he were some wild creature she wished to tame. Yes, very apt, he thought to himself. If he'd a tail, he'd be twitching it. Patience. He did want her. He had come for her. He gritted his teeth and tightened his stomach muscles. His cock seemed to writhe like a restless adder between his legs.

"You ask me why, Lord Edrington, and I have already tried to tell you, but I have told you, also, that men can seldom understand. Men!" she laughed. "Are always demanding explanations! And then refusing to accept the truth!"

"Tell me the truth, then!" he demanded. "Am I a prisoner?"

Her eyebrows flew upwards. "A prisoner? No, oh, no!"

"You left me in a locked room, Madame. What am I meant to think?"

She nodded her head. "You must forgive me. But you see, I did consider it necessary for the girls, as I told you, to be taught a lesson. And, I fear, once I became aware of the sort of man you are--so strictly possessed of yourself, so…controlled--I did not believe you could be persuaded directly to…participate in the lesson."

She was standing close once more. Her dark, wet eyes moved over him, and he was aware of the state of his clothing, damp and disarrayed, his shirt undone, his hair gone mad, falling into his eyes. As if reading his thoughts, she raised a hand to push the errant locks away from his forehead. He fought, again, against the urge to capture her wrist and press his teeth into the soft, pearly flesh.

"And so, the drug," she went on. "I do beg your pardon. It was a misjudgment on my part, to be sure. I believed your composure to relate to a coolness of the blood. I have been told that Englishmen lack passion, monsieur, but I have not met many of them, you see. But you have proved me so very wrong, and we are most grateful to you for all you have done."

He shook his head. "Those girls," he said. "All that has passed here tonight?"

She laughed again. "Yes, Alexandre! I, like you, am the supreme commander in my little world. There is nothing that goes on in L'Abbaye de Sainte Sabine of which I am not aware, nothing which I do not control."

Nothing? The corners of his mouth twitched, and it was with great restraint that he managed not to betray his thoughts at that moment, his sense that a challenge had been made, as surely as a gauntlet flung in his face.

He smiled charmingly and bowed slightly. "Touche, Madame," he said. "You have indeed made me understand. I am pleased that I have been able to assist you. But now that you have no more use for me, I must collect my officer, and my men who await without, and return to my duties."

"It is not so very late," said the abbess. "And your young Lieutenant---who knows, Alexandre, what may happen tomorrow? What harm to let him stay awhile? He is in love. You must tell him he may come back for her one day. And you…"

Her face was suddenly close to his. He felt her hot, moist breath and then her lips, like the touch of a feather. "…What harm?" she breathed, and he felt a jolt of electricity as her hand closed firmly on his cock through the fabric of his breeches. It leapt like a startled deer from a thicket at her touch, and he flushed deeply, in spite of himself. This woman was meant to be a nun? He almost had to laugh out loud then. He had just as well let go of that notion! Whatever this place was, and who ever the hell this Sainte Sabine might be, her creed was like no religion he'd ever heard of, and this Dominique was no bride of Christ.

"You must allow me," she whispered, as she slunk down the length of his body. "To give you something for your trouble." Long fingers were sliding under his waistband, loosening the buttons. He watched her sink to her knees on the smooth stones. "Allow me," she said again, gently easing the fabric away from his hips. "To express our gratitude."

Released from the confines of his clothing, his thick, powerful cock reared up. Crowning, deep red, it seethed with unbearable heat, and he could smell the rank, animal odor of his own arousal.

"Oh, Holy Mother," the abbess moaned. "So worthy!" The soft red lips parted and the dark tongue emerged reverently to receive the Host. Like a divining rod the penis dipped towards her of its own volition, seeking release. Edrington arched his back and threw back his head. One hand gripped the hilt of his sword, and the other he twisted into her hair. He caught his breath, and the arrested sigh seemed to hang in the air, amplified in the vaulted space.

"No," he said. And he pushed her away from him.

She looked a little startled, and discomposed, crouching on the stones, but it lasted only a moment. "Do not be so," she said soothingly. "Monsieur has such need." She started toward him again. He felt like a character in a rude farce, some ridiculous, priapic madman with his enormous pole standing out like a bowsprit.

"No," he said again, and he reached for her. She allowed him to pull her to her feet, and she tossed her hair as she raised her head to look at him meaningfully. Again, he read the challenge.

"Allow me, Madame," he said as he held her firmly by both arms, pushing her back against the altar of ebony. "To show you what you need."

He pressed her, and she lay back willingly upon the dark wood. White skin, white robe, red hair spread out over the black. She raised her knees and spread her thighs, and the robe fell away, exposing the length of her silky shanks, and the dark red nest of wiry hair surrounding the lurid pink gleam of her gash. She lay with her arms outstretched, and her smile invited him. "Yes, Alexandre," she said. "You may take me."

Now he smiled, and he moved to stand between her raised thighs. He pushed her linen robe up onto her belly, and pressed his hand into the softness. "Of course I may," he answered her. "Whenever I please."

He felt a tension in her body under his hand, as if she wished to rise, and he exerted a slight pressure, to deny her. She relaxed, and he knew she understood that he had the strength to hold her. With his free hand, he slowly drew his sword.

She moistened her lips with her tongue, and she appeared to watch him impassively, but it seemed to him that she measured her breaths as she saw him move the bright, curved tip of the sword to the base of her throat.

With great delicacy he cut a tiny slit in the neckline of her gown. Then, with some deliberation, he lay the sword down on the table, its hilt only inches from her outstretched hand. He looked at her and waited until he saw, almost imperceptibly, her nod of understanding.

Grasping the top of the gown in both hands, he proceeded to tear the fabric, so slowly, laying bare, inch by inch, the full length of her luminous flesh. The sound of the rending cloth filled the stillness of the chapel, carrying all the way to the Whispering Gallery.

Naked, her body was as magnificent as his imagination had promised, long and slender, but deeply curved and strong, the sleek muscles lying just beneath the velvety skin. Full breasts, firm and a bit defiantly pointy, were crowned by small, dark red nipples that shriveled and peaked in greedy anticipation of his touch. Slowly, softly, with a touch as light as a breath of air, he began to caress her.

"Alexandre," she spoke, and daft woman, she was still trying to give him orders. "Take your pleasure."

"Hush," he said, and his saw her flinch, infinitesimally, as he gave her nipple a little pinch. He leaned over her and let his cock nestle lengthwise along her nice warm, wet crack. It is all a matter of mind over mutton, he told himself, with some satisfaction. He had command of the thing now, he thought. He could wait all night.

Go to Part Five