by Steve Berry
As will I.
* * *
Helians arrives at the castle with a wound to his shin from an unexpected skirmish on the journey. I lead him to my workshop where I clean the flesh, then apply a healing salve. He winces at its properties, which burn, but that only means it’s working. I apply a bandage and he grabs me around the waist, sitting me on his lap. I inhale his scent of fire and smoke mixed with the waft of apples and pine.
He laughs. “I do love how you always take a sniff of me when first we meet again.”
“So many men stink.” I point to his chest. “You do not.”
“It’s the potion you made. I spread it on my skin, under my arms, and it keeps all the bad odors away. Only attracts the good ones.”
I smile. “Just the way I like it.”
He nuzzles close to my neck and breathes in my scent, laced with the fragrant cream I applied after my bath. “You smell of secrets and velvet and the sea. And roses. Always roses.”
He kisses my lips and I kiss him back, glad the long month of missing him is over. His fingertips are a little rough and, as he runs them down my neck, I shiver at the excitement from the sensation. Of all the men I’ve known, this one knows the art of touch the best.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispers.
He opens the laces at the front of my gown, parting the folds, not taking quite as much time as I would have liked. But I share his haste. I want to feel his arms across my bare back, my breasts pressed against him. I want to rake my fingers through the hair on his chest.
I want him.
He bends and gifts kisses down my neck. His tongue paints a trail of want to the pale skin of my belly. My excitement makes me smile. He lifts his head from my breast and I stare deep at his winsome face, smiling back. Oh, how he pleases me. As a priestess I’m betrothed to no man. I possess the freedom to take pleasure with anyone.
And I have chosen Helians.
I run my fingers through his rough and tumble hair, down his forehead, across his jutting cheekbones and along the bump in his nose. His eyes are heavy with passion and something else. Something troubling. I see his pain. Pictures form in my mind, but I push them away.
Not now.
I stand from his lap and remove his shirt, then bend over and kiss his cheek, burying my face in his skin and savoring more of his scent. Of all my lovers, Helians has lasted the longest. Some of that is from simple attraction. Some is from herbs and oils that strengthen his desire. Aphrodisiacs have proven worthwhile additions to my pharmacy.
“What say we move to your bed.” His voice is hoarse with need. “I’ve been traveling for many days and nights and lying down would be welcome.”
I take him by the hand and lead him to my bedchamber. No servants are around. All have been told to stay away unless summoned. My bed awaits us both, a gift from Arturius when we were still on the best of terms. I undress him and he lies down naked. I love the time between wanting and taking. To see how much I’m desired, while feeling my own desires build. He watches me, his mouth slightly open, his body tense and taut. I bend over him and run a finger from his shoulder, down the center of his chest, past his navel, then across one thigh to a knee to a calf to ankle to foot, then up from the other foot following the same exact path in reverse until I reach his lips. He opens his mouth, grips my finger between his teeth, and gives me a playful bite.
I withdraw my finger.
“I’ll bite harder if you don’t let me take the rest of those clothes off of you. I can’t bear much more of this waiting.”
I slowly finish undressing. He reaches out to pull me closer, but I step back, out of reach, playing our game. Desire, at its best, must be painful for both. The greater the pain, the more powerful the pleasure will be.
“Enough. Come here now,” he finally says.
He pulls me on top of him, wrapping his arms around me, kissing me hard on the lips. I want to dissolve into him with no more waiting.
His entrance comes with ease.
I meet each of his thrusts with one of my own, a familiar dance we’ve enjoyed before. Failed efforts to slow down, and spread it out, reveal the time we’ve been apart.
But we both try.
“Not yet,” I beg, murmuring into his ear.
I keep riding him without any pretense of maidenly modesty. I no longer care how much he knows I want him. We are beyond that now. His life as a warrior is fraught with danger. Every time he leaves my bed I’m never sure if I will see him again.
And that fear fuels our passion.
“I’m trying to hold on, woman, but you’re an evil temptress.”
It never bothers me when he calls me that. I trust him and know he does not fear my power. Instead, he savors it, craves it, wants it.
He reaches the end.
Deep inside of me his final thrusts silence all thought and fill me with a pleasure so intense it is only a feather’s distance away from pain. He lets out a long moan that lingers and I savor the sound of his release as he bucks up and plunges deeper to my center, where molten fires burn and sparks escape into my blood, causing every piece of me to feel like a burst of flames. We lie there, spent, breathing heavy, wet with each other’s perspiration, exhausted, luxuriating in the magic we’ve made. I do not say a word and do not expect him to speak either.
But he does.
“Arturius is determined to have this fortress back.”
I am about to reply, but he places a finger to my lips.
“I know. He gave it to you. But his wife has made him hate you. Her jealousy over your giving him a son, and her not being able to give him a child at all, has turned her against you with a fury that knows no bounds. She demands that you be banished. He has refused. But, to appease her, he has promised to send his best men to reclaim this site.”
“Men came today.”
“I met them on the way here. It is they who I fought.”
My heart fills with gratitude.
“But they will not be the last who come,” he says. “Morgan le Fay, you are a marked woman.”
I do not like those words. But they’re true.
“Even worse, the man placed in charge of the effort to evict you is one of your former lovers.”
I grimace and know who it must be. “Your brother?”
He nods. “Whom I must oppose.”
The cruelty of Arturius is clear, the irony not lost.
Kaz of Gormet versus Helians of Gormet.
One brother to attack my home, the other to defend it.
Chapter 7
I awoke with a start. Sunlight gleamed beyond the open window. Morning had arrived. Had I fallen asleep during the hallucination? Apparently so, since my towel still hung lose around my body. And what a sleep. Again, the dream had seemed so real. As if I were there, experiencing what she was experiencing. Even the sex. As if I were there. Which was unsettling, to say the least.
I sat up on the side of the bed and allowed my head to clear. Like the two times before the images faded fast, lingering only a few moments, like smoke from a fire. Their fleetingness made me question their reality. But there was no denying that the potion in that glass bottle had power.
And now two names were stuck in my head.
Sir Helians of Gormet and Morgan le Fay.
I forced my mind to calm.
Last night I’d brought Nicodème’s laptop upstairs with me. I reached for the machine and opened to a search engine, typing in the two names.
Morgan le Fay possessed an uncertain past, most likely from Welsh mythology, a Celtic goddess figure. She rose to fame as the invention of Sir Thomas Malory in his Le Morte d’Arthur as one of the half-sisters of King Arthur. An apprentice to Merlin and a redoubtable adversary to the Knights of the Round Table, she was fiercely independent and sexually voracious. She became Queen Guinevere’s lady in waiting and fell in love with Arthur’s nephew. Guinevere put an end to the romance and, as a result, she eventually betrayed the queen’s affair with Lancelot to Arthur. Overall, she seemed a
fairly wicked, conniving character with few redeeming social values, her personality darkening each time the Arthurian legend was retold. She was usually cast as a healer, villain, enchantress, seductress, or a combination thereof. In modern times feminists had adopted her as a symbol of power, choosing to cast her as a benevolent figure with extraordinary abilities.
Helians of Gormet seemed much more mysterious, with little to nothing noted about him except that the various poets who retold the Arthurian legend liked to cast him as one of Morgan’s countless lovers.
What in the world was happening?
Never had I read Le Morte d’Arthur or any of its many variations. Clearly Morgan le Fay wasn’t real. Just part of a legend. Of course, the debate had raged for centuries. Had Malory simply made the entire tale up? Every detail in his story fiction? Or had he adapted actual stories that had existed for years prior to the mid-15th century, when his book first appeared?
Nobody knew.
I showered and found an overnight bag waiting outside the door. Thank goodness. My people had come through. I dressed and located Nicodème downstairs in the kitchen. Over coffee and fresh croissants from the local baker, he told me he’d checked with the hospital but no one matching Antoine’s description had ever been admitted.
Which was troubling.
We explored the various possibilities but got nowhere. His disappointment at losing the Sabbat Box seemed almost as great as his concern over Antoine’s disappearance.
“Are you still willing to track down both the box and Antoine?” he asked.
I nodded.
But first it was time to come clean.
I told him about the glass bottle and the three visions.
“Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe I wanted to explore them further first. Now I know. They weren’t dreams. I wasn’t an observer. I was there, as someone else.”
He smiled. “Not someone else, Cassiopeia. They were past life memories. Your memories, released. That bottle does exactly what the legends claim. It opens a door in your mind.”
Which was hard for me to accept since I don’t believe in reincarnation.
“You do realize,” he said, “that your fascination with medieval times and your desire to rebuild a castle stems from a past life experience.”
I’d never considered that possibility. But I’d also never quite understood my obsession with the project either. Especially considering the millions of euros it cost.
“I want to know more about that formula,” I said. “I want to know if and how it’s causing those hallucinations.”
“Then that’s where you should start. Go and see my cousin in Paris and ask her what she discovered. She can explain it far better than I. But I can call Claude at the auction house and have him meet with you too.”
“And the glass bottle?”
“Take it with you.”
I climbed the stairs back to my room and gathered my things. When I descended, ready to go, Nicodème met me at the door with a brown paper bag. “A baguette with Camembert and ham. For the train ride from Nice to Paris.”
I smiled, appreciative of his efforts.
“Stay safe,” he told me.
* * *
It was seven p.m. when I arrived in Paris.
The Montalembert was a boutique hotel on the Left Bank housed in a lovely 1926 building, just off St. Germain des Prés. I often stayed there not only for its old-world ambiance, but modern functionality. I texted Cotton from Nicodème’s phone to let him know how to find me, but he didn’t answer. After a light supper from room service, I watched an old black and white movie and was about to go to sleep when a gentle beep interrupted the silence. Cotton replying? I read the phone’s screen alert and was shocked.
Called the shop and Nicodème provided this number. I’m in Paris. Antoine.
I replied and told him we should meet.
Not yet. Soon.
I debated what to do, but decided I had no choice. He was calling the shots. I glanced at the stoppered bottle lying on the dresser, debating whether to again allow an intrusion.
No. Not tonight.
So I slept.
Without dreaming.
Chapter 8
I left the hotel early, the bright Parisian morning warm, and headed toward the Seine. My hotel sat only three blocks away from my appointment with Jac L’Etoile.
Rue des Saints-Pères was a narrow street lined with residences and antique shops. Nestled between two of them I found my destination and rang its doorbell. A returning buzz sounded which released an electronic lock. I turned the knob and entered L’Etoile Parfums, one of Paris’ most iconic perfume shops, dating back to before the French Revolution.
A bouquet of scents greeted my nose, as did the period decor. Mottled antique mirrors covered the walls and ceiling, scattered atop murals of pastel flowers and angels. My attention was drawn to the rosewood cabinets against two walls, each filled with antique perfume paraphernalia. I recognized several of the house fragrances. Vert. Blanc. Rouge. Noir. All, I knew, created between 1919 and 1922, still considered among the top ten scents of the industry, alongside such classics as Chanel No. 5, Shalimar, and Mitsouko. A woman sat perched behind a glass table. She wore a black shift, high heels, and a black scarf.
“I have an appointment with Jac L’Etoile. I’m Cassiopeia Vitt.”
She rose from the table and, pushing on one of the mirrored panels, opened a doorway. I followed her into a long hallway that ended at a carved wooden door which she opened.
Jac L’Etoile waited to greet me.
She was lovely, with almond-shaped, pale green eyes, and an oval face framed by wavy mahogany-colored hair. Perhaps a bit older than me, maybe mid-forties, she sported a stylish white smock over black slacks and suede ballet slippers. She seemed entirely comfortable with herself and I kept telling myself that this woman was a direct descendent of a long line of perfumers stretching back to the late 1700s.
“Bonjour,” the perfumer said, as she extended her hand. “Would you like some coffee or tea?”
I asked for coffee and the receptionist left for the refreshments.
“Welcome to my shop,” Jac said, waving her arms.
Cabinets filled with hundreds of bottles of sparkling liquids in shades of yellow, amber, green, and brown lined one wall. A set of French doors opened into a lush courtyard filled with blooming flowers and verdant trees.
“Nicodème called and said to treat you like family.”
“He’s a dear old friend.”
“Who seems to have a problem.”
I nodded. “That he does.”
“He also mentioned your love of perfume. Would you like a quick tour?”
I nodded. Absolutely.
“This,” she said walking over to a wooden apparatus that filled a quarter of the room, “is the heart of what I do. The perfumer’s organ.”
Which I knew about. About eight feet long and six feet tall, made of poplar. Three-tierd, and instead of keys to play music, rows of glass vials lined up like soldiers, each of a different essence. Best guess? It looked like there were more than three hundred vials.
“We don’t know who the cabinetmaker was,” Jac said. “But according to my grandfather, it’s as old as the shop. For centuries, perfumers have been practicing their craft in laboratories, like this one. Even though modern labs have stopped using perfume organs, for me there’s no better way. As my brother used to say, ‘perfume is about the past, about memories, dreams.’”
I couldn’t disagree with that, and I admired her obvious love of her craft.
Jac spread her arms. “Every generation of perfumers in my family has used these same bottles.” There was something both proud and forlorn about her statement. She caressed the organ’s wood. “My brother created perfumes here. My father before him and his father before him, going all the way back to the first L’Etoile, who opened this store in 1770. Like all the early perfumers, he
’d been a glove maker who used scent in order to imbue the kidskins with a more pleasant aroma. When he saw how well it pleased his clients, he added other scented products. Candles, pomades, soaps, sachets, powders, skin oils, creams.”
The door opened and the receptionist returned with a tray of china cups, a silver coffee pot, creamer, sugar bowl, and spoons.
“Shall we?” Jac asked and we returned to her desk.
Sitting opposite her, I declined sugar and milk and accepted the cup she offered and sipped the black coffee. Not surprisingly, it was not only delicious but exceptionally fragrant.
“What is in this to give it a scent?” I asked.
“Just a couple of cocoa beans. Do you like it?”
“Quite a lot.”
“It’s one of the first lessons a perfumer learns. How sometimes the smallest addition makes all the difference.”
“That’s true in life too.”
She smiled. “And in business. I suppose you want to know about the Sabbat Box, and what I discovered from the samples.”
I nodded.
“That was quite an investigation,” she said. “I did the work about a year ago. Amazingly, it appeared one of the oils Nicodème sent me had many similarities with a fragrance I worked with six years ago. It’s the same formula, with only a few variations. I still believe that can’t be a coincidence. How familiar are you with chemical analyses and botanical properties?”
I shook my head. “Not much at all, beyond a fascination with the whole concept of perfume.”
“When Nicodème sent me the samples I ran them through gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. In most cases it’s used for drug detection, environmental analysis, and explosives investigations. But fragrance companies often employ them to study the competition’s scents. In a matter of hours those machines can break down a rival’s formula that took months to create.”
“What did you learn?”
“We were able to identify several ingredients. A few from over a decade ago, then two more from a recent scientific breakthrough. Quite a surprise, actually, to find one particular substance there. Three years ago a botanist in Israel managed to grow two ancient plants that have been extinct for years. Because of that, their chemical fingerprints are now in a database.” Jac found three sheets of paper. “Here is the analysis.”