‘What happened to her then?’ Annette asked.
‘I believe she spent the rest of her life as an anchoress, praying in the wilderness,’ Father Emil said. ‘Her relics were collected with great ceremony and placed beneath the altar you see here. The chapel was built later over the site. The point of the story, child, is that if we put our faith in God, no wile of the Devil can bring us real harm.’
‘I see,’ said Annette.
The priest smiled at her benignly. ‘Now, before I go, would you like me to hear your confession?’
Annette bit her lip. ‘Do you work for the Châtelaine Marguerite?’ she asked huskily.
‘I work for God, daughter,’ he replied.
She nodded assent. There was no confessional box, so she kneeled in front of the altar and he stood facing across her. She could not see his face from this angle, only his hands and his black-clad, rather stocky body. He spoke a few words in Latin, making the sign of the Cross, before she began.
She spoke reluctantly at first. Her unshriven sins were confined to the last few days. She confessed her anger at the young man by the gate and her periods of doubt in the efficacy of St Veronique. She confessed the paucity of her love for her husband, and the sin of being vainly self-conscious of her appearance when it rained. Then, with hesitation, she began to confess her feelings in the garden. She told how she had yielded to lust for both Gaspard and his lady, how she had forgotten her mission of purity, how she had wanted far more to happen than did. And as she spoke, she realised that the silence, the heavy weight of ritualised submission and the presence of a man listening to her tale were working to make her feel aroused once more. She glanced up at him, and saw as he quickly crossed his hands in front of his groin. She hesitated. Her mouth was dry. He was so close she might touch him … anywhere. She began to speak again, though she knew she was compounding sin on top of sin, expanding on the events in the garden; how the Châtelaine had undressed her and touched her and how she had imagined Gaspard watching, his lust and frustration …
The priest stood like a statue, so still that he might not have been breathing, his hands rigid before him. He made no attempt to interrupt her story.
And then she described how she had felt an unnatural desire for Claudette, how she had almost swooned when they touched, how she had watched the other woman’s hands and lips and breasts. Her thighs were slick and wet by the time she finished, a hot heartbeat pulsing between them. ‘And I have committed the sin of lust, even in holy confession,’ she concluded softly.
Father Emil’s hands jerked slightly. He turned his back on her, facing the altar, grunted out a line in Latin and then spoke her absolution. He gave no penance. His voice was thick and strained. ‘Saint Veronique bless you,’ he whispered at last, turning. His hand brushed through her hair slowly, and then he fled from the chapel.
Annette winced in shame, blended in equal measure with aching frustration.
She began her vigil at sunset, having consumed none of the food but half of the flask of wine. It was a strong, dry vintage and it made her light-headed, but she began her prayers. Having emptied her burden of hopes and fears already before the silent altar she now alternated the rosary with periods of silence. When she began to lose consciousness she stood to her feet and remained upright, leaning from foot to foot, her hands knotted before her. She stayed awake until the owls had fallen silent and the insects ceased to creak and whine, until she had lost sense of time and self and place. She did not feel herself falling to the floor, but only a brief sensation of cold stone against her cheek before sleep closed over her head.
She dreamed that the chapel was full of wolves. A score of shadowy shapes pattering into the room on clawed feet poured like a canine flood around her and swirled before the altar. The harsh doggy scent of them filled the air; moonlight and candle-gleam glittered on their wet teeth and amber eyes, shimmering on their lolling velvet tongues and black serrated gums. They stepped over her, nosed her, pushed by her and then left, tacking out on their blunt claws.
She dreamed of darkness, endless and serene. She dreamed of warm, soft lips pressed against her own, and she woke with the touch of them still lingering.
A movement beyond the doorway might have been a fluttering skirt or the flap of a bird passing low. The candles were renewed and a loaf of bread and jug of milk stood near her head.
She spent the day alone, unvisited by servant or priest. Only when she went up the stream at noon to bathe in the biting flow of the stream did she see another living thing; as she climbed shivering from the water, a dust-coloured wolf rose from its crouch on a rock a little distance away and slipped back into the undergrowth.
At sunset, she was back at her vigil before the shrine. This was the last night; her last hope. If she could make up to the saint for all her earlier worldliness, perhaps she would be forgiven. The words slipped from her lips, a familiar blur of sound so well-worn they were almost without meaning, like the face stamped on an old coin now worn smooth. Her mind skidded off them again and again. She wrung her hands and began from the start: ‘Pater noster …’
There was a step behind her, the sound of a human foot on the stone. Annette turned to find Claudette standing in the doorway, head low, watching her from dark eyes. Her hair was uncovered and unbound, wild as brambles.
‘Are you ready?’ Claudette asked in her deep, soft voice.
‘For what?’ faltered Annette.
‘Tonight. The third night; your cure, if you want it. The miracle of St Veronique.’
Annette found her throat was tight. ‘I don’t think I’m worthy,’ she whispered.
Claudette’s lips curved in a smile, but her eyes were oh, so serious – nothing like her former countenance. ‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘The miracle takes place outside, and I’m to be your guide. You don’t have to be afraid, Annette.’
Annette swallowed, her hair creeping on her scalp. ‘Outside?’ she said.
‘Trust me,’ Claudette said. She pointed at the wooden cross nestling between Annette’s breasts. ‘Take that off and hang it on the wall with the others. It’s your token.’
Fearfully, Annette obeyed. The white front of her robe was unbroken now except by the swell of her breasts. Claudette stepped forwards, untied a strip of cloth from around her wrist and held it up in one hand. ‘The place of the miracle is secret,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to go blindfolded. I will lead you. Do you still trust me?’
Annette slowly nodded, just once. She stood unprotesting as Claudette bound the cloth around her eyes, gently but securely. Claudette stepped away and there was a soft rustling. Annette felt her cold hand, now enfolded by Claudette’s warm one, lifted and turned and – lips pressed to her palm. She shuddered, reached out as if falling to catch Claudette’s arm, and encountered only soft, warm satin that flexed under her fingers.
‘You’re naked!’ she breathed.
‘Yes,’ said Claudette, her voice gentler now. ‘I don’t need my clothes for this.’ She took Annette’s captured hand and laid it softly on her breast, the nipple large and tight against her palm. ‘Does this frighten you?’
‘Uh,’ said Annette in a whisper, then, ‘No. I’m not afraid.’ She closed her hand tremulously on the softness of Claudette’s flesh but could not encompass the ripe swell of the breast in her span. She heard Claudette smile – a strange perception – and then her hand was captive once more and she was being led out of the chapel. She forced herself to trust the other woman to lead her, moving close to her so that her feet might be set true on the path. Outside, pale light leached in through her blindfold; she raised her face to feel the moonlight. ‘It’s a harvest moon,’ she said. She hoped for a reply, some friendly response, but Claudette kept quiet and steered her round the side of the building. Her feet found the path underfoot uneven but level and firm.
‘There is a man here,’ Claudette said, coming to a stop. Annette stiffened. ‘He is your guide, too.’
‘Hello, Annette,’ came a
warm voice. ‘My name is Michel; I visited you in your house. Do you remember me?’
‘I remember your voice,’ Annette said hesitantly. ‘I dreamed about you. You told me to come to the shrine.’
‘That’s right. I said you would be cured here.’
‘Were you lying?’ she demanded.
‘No. Don’t be afraid. You can be healed, if you want it, as I promised. But it is difficult, and it will change your life. You will not be the same as you were … or as other people. Listen to me, Annette: your sickness cannot be taken away, but it can be healed, it can be changed so that you are not crushed by it any longer. You will not have the blackness or the red rage. You will have other things to deal with, but you will be able to control them. Other people have gone through this before you. Claudette. Myself.’
‘What is wrong with me?’ she moaned.
‘It is simply one of the trials that God has seen fit to inflict upon us sinners,’ the voice said. ‘Now, will you come with us, Annette?’
‘What if I refuse?’
The voice was endlessly patient; ‘You will continue as you have done, and die of it. I’m sorry, Annette. It is the truth. You have to make a choice.’
Annette’s hand tightened in Claudette’s. ‘I’ll take your cure,’ she moaned at last.
The man stepped towards her – on bare feet, from the little noise he made – and took her free hand. The kiss, now anticipated, still made her shiver. His chin was clean-shaven, but his skin not so soft as Claudette’s had been. He folded her hand in his larger one, and between the two of them her guides led the blindfolded woman along the unseen and twisting mountain paths.
‘Are you naked, too?’ she whimpered when the silence seemed to stretch to breaking point. She heard him chuckle.
‘No, I’m wearing hose,’ he said. ‘Does that help?’
Annette shrugged, the only gesture possible for her, but the exchange did help – she found she trusted the pair now to lead her, however far or steep their journey. She fell into a rhythm of step and pause, leaning on either arm beside her when the path twisted, losing track of time and all awareness of anything other than their footfalls and their breathing. It could not have been long, however, when they stopped, turned her and stood to flank her, still holding her hands.
‘We’re here,’ said Claudette. A hand tugged loose her blindfold. Annette blinked.
They were standing in a hollow in the hillside, the sides of the bowl sweeping up all around them to the starlit sky. Light came from the waxing moon overhead and the glowing heaps of three fires that had been kindled on the bare earth. The three of them stood exactly in the middle between the fires, Claudette on her right hand, Michel on her left. Facing her in silence was a gathering of people. Annette looked from face to face. She saw Bernard de Montauban, and the Châtelaine Marguerite, and Gaspard, and Father Emil. Many others too, men and women, young and old – a slender youth with long fiery hair, a lithe girl with scarred breasts, a stocky man with the dark eyes and beard and skin of an Arab – perhaps thirty altogether, but no children. Most were naked, or nearly so. Bernard sat upright on a stone, with two young women lolling at his feet, clad in a fur-trimmed sleeveless robe that was belted about his waist. The Châtelaine reclined elegantly at his right hand, her small, pale breasts still pert and perfect as a girl’s, her fingers nonchalantly buried in the thick pubic hair of Father Emil, whose head rested against her bare thigh. Gaspard stood behind her, arms folded, his eyes mocking. He wore tight hose that emphasised the muscular planes of his legs. None of the faces were friendly, though all were expectant and some looked pleased.
A half-dozen wolves sprawled or stood among the human gathering.
Annette looked across at Claudette, who met her gaze with an inscrutable sideways glance, then turned briefly to look up at Michel. She did not recognise his face, but she remembered the warm reassurance of that smile on crooked lips and it made her feel better. She faced her audience again. One of the wolves sank down with a grunt into the lap of an iron-haired woman and fixed her with its yellow eyes. Annette noticed that all the humans around her had something in common, whatever their age or gender; they were all fit and well muscled, even the oldest, their bodies as toned as acrobats or fencers.
The mutual examination was ended when Bernard stood up. He surveyed her with calm authority. ‘Welcome, Annette,’ he said, his tones relaxed and even. ‘You know why you are here. You suffer from a malady that each one of us in this company has been tormented by, and each one of us has overcome … with help. The cure is certain, though not easy. It used to be painful and bloody. We are gentler these days, Annette. Now is your time to join us, if you so choose. You can be free. Do you understand what it is we are offering?’
Annette nodded wordlessly. She understood. Looking about her, she understood everything.
‘Will you come with us?’ Bernard enquired.
Annette felt Michel’s hand tighten on hers. It had been warm; now it was colder than her own. Now this is the point where they have to kill me if I refuse, she thought. And Michel has been appointed to do it.
‘Yes,’ she said. The decision was neither easy nor difficult; it was simply as inevitable as the stars’ progress across the heavens or the monthly tides of her courses. Bernard nodded, it seemed with satisfaction, and sat down again. The ranks of watchers stirred expectantly.
‘Begin,’ Bernard instructed.
Like dancers, Claudette and Michel moved to their places; she facing Annette, he standing behind. Claudette clasped Annette’s face in her hands and with a smile leaned to kiss her lips hungrily, probing into the moist cavity of her mouth with a hot and twisting tongue. Annette gave a grunt of shock and would have fallen back, except that Michel’s hands were on her shoulder-blades. A thrill of erotic pleasure stabbed her entrails; she moaned as his hands moved up under her arms to lightly caress her breasts, as Claudette’s hands moved to throat and hips. Between them they undressed her, loosening the cord that held her robe about the neck and drawing it softly from her shoulders. Annette shut her eyes, opened them again to take in the rich glowing tumble of Claudette’s hair as she stooped to cup and kiss each of Annette’s breasts in turn, tugging gently on each exalting nipple with deadly teeth. Michel lifted the heavy burden of her hair and held it to one side as he began to kiss and nibble at the back of her neck. Fire and ice seemed to crash in her belly; she could not simultaneously cope with Claudette’s ministrations to her firm white breasts and the way Michel was pressed up behind her, biting softly at her throat, his tongue describing spirals along the line of her chin and neck, his hands prowling her spine. The two torturers were unhurried, tender, ruthless in their command of her pleasure, almost making her forget the audience beyond as they tormented her acquiescent, yielding body. The robe slipped to the floor. She was naked between them. Claudette pressed her dark orbs against Annette’s smaller ones, the collision of flesh and flesh electrifying, her thighs rubbing up against her. Claudette purred. Annette moaned.
Then Claudette fell to her knees in front of her prisoner, and Annette was exposed to the crowd. Michel pulled her up against him, her backside tucked hard against his groin, and slipped his hands round to her breasts again, partly to support and steady her, partly to lift and display those firm high treasures to a grinning, appreciative audience. Annette caught glimpses of people leaning forwards to watch, of the Châtelaine’s hand moving rhythmically on the priest’s swollen member, of Gaspard cupping and squeezing his own packet through his thin hose. But she stopped looking when Claudette tenderly prised apart her flushed and slippery lips and pressed her face into her oozing sex.
Annette writhed in Michel’s grasp, her modesty torn in shreds, every eye in the place on her agony and need. His fingers closed round her delicate pink nipples, rolling and pinching them; her head thrashed back and forth on his shoulder in a delirium of outrage and lust. They tightened, and still it was not too much. Claudette’s tongue was busy questing between her thighs,
scouring them with hot kisses, her face crushed into the dark fuzz of hair and smeared with the freely-running juices of Annette’s sopping, shameless cunt. Annette let her thighs be spread, let Claudette delve deeper, her tongue enter her vagina. Her clit was on fire, her tits two points of ice demanding more pressure, and she did not care any more if the audience saw her, if the Châtelaine’s hand was a blur, if the scarred woman was writhing from thigh to thigh with eyes blazing; she did not care if they watched; she wanted them to watch as she came, she came, she came, grunting and thrusting without dignity into Claudette’s’ voracious mouth, thrashing her slender body against the rigid wall of Michel’s strength until every last drop of her orgasm had been ripped out and lapped up on Claudette’s tongue.
Then Claudette had slipped away to one side and Michel had released her, letting her sink slowly to her knees in front of him. He ran his fingers through her knotted hair and held her there with a hand to either side of her head, pinning her gently in place. Annette could not struggle. She felt Michel’s erection rigid against the back of her skull, trapped beneath his clothes, and unthinkingly she pressed back against it, rolling her head from side to side. Michel made a small noise somewhere between a sigh and a groan and stroked the damp hair back from her forehead. She gawped mentally at the spectacle she must make; a married woman of the respectable merchant class, legs spread like a slut, pussy wet with her own juices and the saliva of a peasant strumpet, slumped panting in full view of two score of people who were entertaining themselves with the sight of her gaping gash.
‘Gaspard,’ came the Châtelaine’s amused voice.
Annette looked up in time to see Gaspard stride down towards her, the arrogant swing of his hips emphasising the corresponding swing of the huge bulge in his brown hose. He reached her and smirked down into her flushed face as he undid the last few ties on his codpiece. Annette made one brief attempt to rise but Michel restrained her, his hands tightening in her hair. She was not to refuse this. Gaspard pulled his cock and balls out using both hands – he damned near had to, they were so big – and presented them for her inspection. They were dark and flushed with blood, plump as a donkey’s, in a nest of wiry brown hair, and he dangled them in front of her like bait.
Cruel Enchantment (Black Lace) Page 7