Too Like the Lightning

by Ada Palmer

  “And he went to jail for writing porn about nuns.” Carlyle snapped it, with a cutting glare.

  Heloïse sat unfazed. “True, indeed. Rich, beautiful, philosophical pornography about nuns. I have read it several times.” Heloïse turned her sincerest smile on the sensayer. “Fear not, Father, I do not mock those whose robe I imitate. Though sex of all sorts occurs here, I am not involved. There is music here too, art, scholarship, and discourse, and if there are also earthly pleasures, then they are pursued only in harmonious consort with the others, and in sections of the house which I do not frequent.”

  Carlyle gave up on goading her here, sensibly, for it is madness trying to anger Heloïse. Anger, like envy, impatience, greed, and lust all melt from her like frost from flame, and she takes modest pride in crushing such little demons underfoot. One thing, though, he would not give up on: “I told you not to call me ‘Father.’”

  “I’m sorry, do you prefer Doctor?”

  “Neither. I’m a sensayer, not a priest.”

  Her brows, where the wimple did not cover them, seemed sad. “Have you not dedicated your life to your God?”

  Thisbe forced the brandy into Carlyle’s hands. “Drink. You need it.”

  Both women watched, expectant, but Carlyle just stared at his reflection in the amber spirit, as if trying to take refuge in the only thing in the room which was not mad. “Dominic Seneschal spends time here too, don’t they?” he asked. “Do they work here?”

  Sister Heloïse’s face grew light and frantic at the same time, like a mother desperate for rumors of a runaway. “Do you have word from Brother Dominic? We’ve been so worried!”

  “Brother Dominic?”

  Thisbe forced a smile. “I’m sorry, Sister Heloïse, we don’t know anything about where Dominic Seneschal is, or where they’ve been the last few days. We’ve been seeking them too.”

  “I see,” Heloïse answered, unable to stifle a sigh.

  “You know Dominic well?”

  “We grew up here together.”

  “You both work for Jed … Jehovah…”

  “Here you may call Him the Prince D’Arouet, if His true name makes you uncomfortable.”

  “Either way, you and Dominic work for them?”

  “Work for mon Seigneur Jehovah? Oh, no. We worship Him as a God.”

  Even Thisbe could only feign so much calm. “What?”

  “Dominic’s path is his own. As for myself I have consecrated my virginity to mon Seigneur Jehovah, and dedicate my hours to the contemplation of His divine Mysteries and the exercise of Good Works in His holy Name. It is a vocation which fills and overflows my every thought and deed, waking and sleeping, and since mon Seigneur Jehovah himself has accepted my devotion, I count myself the most fortunate of women, though not in the least deserving of such fortune.

  “I was in my early days a very wicked child,” she continued, “proud, self-involved, and filled with the most perfidious jealousies. I grew up in this house, not among the common children but one of the elect, raised in the strictest discipline and with the care of many wise and generous tutors, whose efforts on my behalf I never appreciated as they deserved. They offered for my education music, geometry, mathematics, natural philosophy, the historians, poets, orators, Latin, Greek, French, all the authors whose works are proper for the eyes of a sensitive young lady, yet I began to spurn all in favor of the flattery of men. Puffed up by vacant words, I vainly thought myself the most beautiful of my peers, a double vanity, both because I judged myself superior, and because I placed value on appearance, as if true Beauty lay in face and flesh. Wretch that I was, I cared nothing for the logic of the Philosopher, the morals of the Orator, or the light of the Theologian (she means here Aristotle, Cicero, and St. Thomas Aquinas) when I had suitors to taunt and rivals to defeat.”

  Here you object, impatient reader. Mycroft, thou hast lapsed too much into thy Eighteenth Century. This life story poured out all in one ramble might fit in the fabricated dialogues of thy Patriarch or thy Philosophe, but not in a history. No sane person disgorges her autobiography before perfect strangers, and no listener, even one as stunned as Carlyle and Thisbe, would sit through this in silence. You do not believe, reader? Then come, I challenge you, come to her offices, ask good Sister Heloïse to tell you of her vocation, and see if you have the strength of will to interrupt a nun.

  She continues: “In the course of things I was betrothed to a good and worthy man, and I endeavored to direct the entirety of my affection toward my intended. Yet, as I felt youth begin to flower in me, I found my passions directed, as uncontrollably as water gushing from a spring, not to my fiancé but toward mon Seigneur Jehovah. Naturally all in this house, from my sisters and brothers to the lowest scullery maid, hold mon Seigneur Jehovah in the highest awe, for He is the Pillar and Scion of our world, the noblest of princes, most infallible of logicians, most compassionate of statesmen, and most penetrating of philosophers, yet I, and others around me, easily saw that my affection far outstripped the common worship of the crowd. There were days when my sole hope in rising from my bed was that I might glimpse Him passing in the hall, and any day His offices did not allow Him to return home left me in the most profound despair. Knowing my duty, I tried to drive this love from my rebellious bosom, and that battle claimed my happiness and health, for I soon succumbed to a wasting sickness which consigned me to my bed, and very nearly to my grave. I was at first unwilling to confess the cause of my illness, but I was not so impious a child as to stay silent before Madame when she pleaded with me with a mother’s tears. With her encouragement I revealed the truth to my fiancé, explaining that, while he retained forever a treasured quarter of my heart, my love for him had been transformed now to a daughter’s devotion to her father rather than a lady’s for her lord. So kind and compassionate is the heart of that great man who was almost my husband that he forgave me, accepting my filial affection in place of wifely love, and to save his newfound daughter from the grip of sickness he agreed to go to mon Seigneur Jehovah, whom he was accustomed to approaching with the intimacy of kin, and tell Him of my love.

  “The ways of my Lord are mysterious. At first He answered nothing, and neither my newfound father nor Madame nor any in the house could understand His actions as He sequestered Himself in His library, where none but the most trusted of servants were permitted to intrude. I, in my despair, slipped into a sleep so close to death that my nurses thought me a dozen times lost, but I was saved when mon Seigneur Jehovah emerged from His isolation and, to the great jealousy of my sisters, who had never enjoyed more than a few syllables from His blessed lips, presented me with a Commonplace Book compiled by His own hand, every page filled with quotations from the wisest ancients and most refined of commentators, interspersed with pieces of His own divine Wisdom, explaining in a hundred voices that happiest and harshest Rule, all but abandoned in this selfish age: the monastic calling. I saw at once my folly, that in the heat of youth I had imagined He could be the inspiration of a base and Earthly love. That fire within myself, which I had mistaken for common passion, was in reality the first dim flickering of the truer flame of spiritual devotion which, if fed with the good fuel of discipline and virtue, might be cultivated into some semblance of that ethereal brightness which marks mankind as the most fortunate of beasts, for we alone of all the creatures of this Earth may aspire to the understanding of the Divine. All rejoiced at my vocation, and my return from death’s door, and Madame saw at once to my initiation into monastic life. I have lived so ever since, consecrated to My Lord God Jehovah in a chaste union far more powerful than any Earthly marriage, and I have never strayed nor thought to stray from this severe path, which is to me the greatest happiness.”

  She fell into a prayerlike silence as she finished, the expression on her face a portrait of delicate, spiritual joy. They had no questions. Or, more likely, they brimmed with questions, but none they thought this madwoman could answer.

  “Sœur Heloïse, please step away from
the intruders.”

  Carlyle and Thisbe were not the only ones who had been unable to interrupt the nun, but, now that she had finished, both doors, main and hidden, opened, and gentlemen filled the entrances like floodwaters. I cannot remember how many there were, say five or seven as you prefer, all costumed as the house demanded: silk at their throats, trim waistcoats, swallow-tailed jackets, britches, rich fabrics with richer tailoring and swords (half-decorative) at every belt. Their breeches were tight, far more precisely tailored than the sexless fashions of the outside world, and yesteryear’s style made the conspicuous lumps of their sexual members catch the eye, even on those who had nothing more to display than a woman’s crotchbone. Yes, reader, half these gentlemen were female in body, breasts tucked snugly under the waistcoats, but with such rearing there was no more of the female in them than there is canine loyalty in a pup raised among wolves. The fiercest, though not the largest, led the pack, his coat and breeches black, his waistcoat copper-embroidered green, his skin European pale, with hints of reddish fire in his hair.

  “Chevalier,” Heloïse greeted him. “Is there a problem?”

  “These two have entered under false pretenses,” he explained.

  “What?” Thisbe cried in false dismay. “Oh, I forgot to share my credentials. How silly of me!” She began to call them from her tracker.

  The Chevalier loomed closer, and the others with him, like vultures around carrion. “No one would give you this address.”

  “I got it from Officer Ockham Saneer, I’m—”

  “No. You did not.” The Chevalier smiled wide. “You will come with us, please.”

  “I’m running a background check on—”

  “You will graciously consent to come with us.”

  Heloïse interposed herself between the sensayer and the marauders, like a fence of frail wicker to stop a charging bull. “These two have been consigned to my care, Chevalier. We are waiting together for mon Seigneur Jehovah.”

  “Then allow me to relieve you of that burden, Sœur Heloïse.” The Chevalier marshalled a smile whose malice impressed even Thisbe. “I would not wish this petty affair to keep you from your sacred duties.”

  No sculpted angel smiles so serenely. “It is no burden, Chevalier.”

  “A distraction, then,” he corrected, “one unworthy of your time.”

  The nun’s eyes ranged the others, the magic of her gaze driving hands away from sword hilts, and making smirks pregnant with mischief to grow sober. “The priest is sick,” she announced. “It is among the foremost of my charitable duties to help the sick.”

  “Then, good Sister, you must trust me to see that duty performed in due course, but I must also see foremost to my primary duty, to guard this house, which is my charge when Brother Dominic is absent.”

  Before Heloïse could answer, a shout and fast feet thundered down the hall outside. «Sœur Heloïse! Sœur Heloïse! Dans le salle des duels, Sénateur Chang est gravement blessé! (In the dueling hall, Senator Chang is seriously wounded.)»

  She opened the door at once. «Gravement? (Seriously?)»

  «Oui!» answered the messenger, a tearful maid of thirteen, «et tous les docteurs sont occupés en bas. Viens vite! (Yes, and all the doctors are busy below. Come quickly!)»

  I had no doubt the Chevalier had arranged the convenient timing of the injury, but the same laws of courtesy which would not permit the men to roughhouse in the Sister’s presence also would not allow her to ignore a soul in need.

  “You must excuse me, Father, Mademoiselle Saneer,” she bobbed a curtsey. “I am needed elsewhere urgently. I shall return to check on you when next I’m free.” She made the Chevalier meet her eyes, not easy eyes to face. “You will take proper care of these two, as mon Seigneur Jehovah’s guests?”

  The Chevalier raised his gloved hand as if to take an oath. “I shall see to them according to my duty.”

  The little Sister was no fool. “May I have your word, then, Chevalier, no harm will come to them?”

  Her persistence grated on him. “Very well, you have my word. Now, run along, Sister. Blood does not wait.”

  She offered the stranded pair a reassuring smile. “You may trust the Chevalier to keep his word. Good luck to you. I’ll keep you in my prayers.”

  With that she rushed away, and decorum with her. You have never seen such dark grins on a pack of men.

  “Now,” the Chevalier began, “where were we? Ah, yes. Unlawful intrusion.”

  “Hey, look, the priest’s a Cousin.” Three of the pack pawed at the loose tails of Carlyle’s Cousin’s wrap, as circling bandits play with the skirts of a maiden they hunger to unwrap. “She’s definitely not supposed to be here.”

  Here again, reader, I must apologize, since I have accustomed you to assigning Carlyle ‘he.’ Cousins are ‘she’ by default in that house, and the exception for Carlyle had not yet been ordered.

  “Are you enjoying straying out of bounds, Cousin?” One reached as if to stroke Carlyle’s hanging hair, but instead snatched the disabled tracker from his ear and dangled it just out of reach.

  “Hey!” Thisbe cried, off guard. “That’s so not okay!”

  The Chevalier carried a cane as well as a sword, and wielded it with expert menace. “I fear it is not your place to make rules in another’s house, Mademoiselle Intruder.”

  Thisbe rose, and with her boots was almost tall enough to face the Chevalier eye to eye. “Red Zone or no, taking a tracker is Blacklaw illegal!”

  The Chevalier looked to the others, and all laughed, raucously, as if she had made a brilliant joke. “I don’t think you’re the one who wants to call the law in here, Mademoiselle Intruder into a Level One Romanovan Alliance Security Compound whose unlawful breach is punishable by…” He looked to his compatriots. “What is it for Humanists? Five to ten?”

  “Ten to fifteen years or five hundred thousand euros,” one supplied.

  The answer freshened the roses in the Chevalier’s cheeks. “Of course, if you meant no harm by the intrusion, we might overlook it, if appropriately persuaded.”

  Like Lesley, Thisbe has no practice dodging when one of these creatures swoops in serpent-quick to kiss her hand. Blush erupted, intense enough to show on her dark Indian cheeks, and her poise changed too, standing straighter, as if remembering her own anatomy beneath her silk suit, and her pride in it. She looked to Carlyle, who had pulled his feet up onto his chair, as if it were a life raft with sharks circling round. “What persuasion do you have in mind?” she asked.

  The Chevalier leaned close, closing his eyes a moment as he tested the scent of Thisbe’s shampoo. “Let us, just you and I, go see if we can’t find one of the household polylaws. Surely they can advise us on the situation. And who knows? Perhaps we’ll come up with something on our own along the way.” He raised his hand to stroke her cheek, while his body leaned close enough for their thighs to share warmth. Thisbe froze, as Mercer Mardi froze once, hoping the killer would not spot her in the shadows.

  “Thisbe,” Carlyle urged, “call on your tracker. We need help.”

  If glares could kill, this would have been Carlyle’s earthly end. “You doubt my word, sensayer?” The Chevalier turned on him. “I promised Sister Heloïse that you would not be harmed.”

  “Thisbe!” Carlyle tried again.

  “Thisbe,” the Chevalier repeated, planting a fresh kiss on her hand and others further up her arm in an inching line. “A superb name, Thisbe. More parents should be brave enough to name their daughters after women men have died for, don’t you think?”

  Thoughts and adrenaline mixed in Thisbe’s mind as the kisses crept so slowly toward her throat. Fly, says Virtue. Knock his hand away. Kick him in that too-conspicuous crotch. Fight. Call, as trackers can, the fierce and instant law whose agents will swoop from the heavens angel-harsh, and whisk you away from this strange man whose blush is rising to match yours. Thisbe smiled. “What about my sensayer?”

  The Chevalier’s eyes rolled across t
o Carlyle, as to an unwanted sibling. “The Cousin is sick, is she not? Let her recover here. My compatriots will give her the very best of care.”

  “Thisbe!” Carlyle cried out as three of them dug their fists into his clothes as if to rip the wrapping from a birthday package. “We have to get out of here!”

  “Stop! That sensayer belongs to Julia Doria-Pamphili!” I was so out of breath as I burst in that I could not keep my words from becoming a shout. I made it in time. Barely, but I had made it in time.

  “Mycroft?” Thisbe, Carlyle, and the Chevalier called my name in unison, then eyed one another in some surprise.

  “Carlyle is Julia’s apprentice,” I repeated, still panting, “and this Humanist is a privileged courtier of His Grace the Duc de Thouars. They would not want their creatures spoiled.”

  The Chevalier’s confederates were quick to release Carlyle, while the Chevalier himself spun toward me, in the same motion taking Thisbe in his arms. “Why did they not say so themselves?”

  “Because, sir, this is their first time in the civilized world, they do not yet know its ways.” I lowered from my back a sack heavy with fabric. “I am to take them to Madame.”