Chapter 4

Louez l'Eternel!

I was in turmoil. I was confused. What kind of beast was I riding? They say that the Almighty blesses the faithful and the righteous. They say that the humble fly comes to the spider and the beetles to the lizard and dear Jesus, I'd hoped and never doubted, not even once.

All this time, and now ... she'd come to me!

That's why Christine had seemed so familiar; the reason that from the very beginning I'd imagined her acquaintance!

She drew back from me when I dropped her. She fell to the ground - collapsing and coughing and spluttering and clutching her neck.

There were rows of pearls and pins fixing her hair, and a broach upon her dress. I saw delicate embroidery and red pearl slippers peeping and teasing me, weeks - perhaps months of painstaking work in each of them.

Dear, wonderful God, what wonders you perform!

Oh my!

She was the daughter of the Marquis de Lyons!

The Marquis!

The man who'd condemned me to this tomb and who'd decreed I should be eternally imprisoned! The monster who'd arranged for me to be buried in the catacombs and to wander aimless and lost, who'd single-handedly destroyed my existence, who'd taken my family, and who'd robbed me of my servants and wife.

The Marquis!

The putrefying insect who'd become the centre of my long, solitary being, who'd robbed me of my dignity, my humanity, and who'd turned me into an eater of female corpses and a collector of skeletons.

And this poor wretched girl was his daughter! Oh dear Jesus! The poor pitiful fool!

I sank into the dirt, overwhelmed with shock, emotion; and I brushed my aching shoulders against long discarded cobwebs, twisting and turning and hurtling through years. Oh Jesus. It was sharp and alive, and the memories were poignant. The past was so near that I could reach out and touch its warm fabric and horror.

Now through the tunnels and wormholes of time I hear the muffled screams of the women the Marquis had tortured - my women: my immediate and extended family: Isabelle, Esme, Nicolette, Adalyn and dear wonderful Ann Marie; also my friends and various servants. I hear the terrified moans and cries as their bodies are torn apart with pliers and knives, as chisels are wedged between bones. Most of them were naked by the time I'd seen them, their clothes ripped to confetti, their bodies brutalized and bleeding in terrible ways.

They'd used pincers to tear into nipples, and spikes to plunge into holes; hammers to smash against toes and vile iron vices to pulverize fingers. They'd used needles to gouge beneath finger nails, and secateurs to nip off womanly buds.

All those loathsome memories I carry, and in them I see the Marquis, standing amidst the villainy and directing its purpose, telling me that I was the anti Christ and the firstborn of Satan. He kept accusing me of theft and rape. He kept talking of witchcraft and divination, and he tied me to a post and he placed a black hood over my head and he brought my remaining friends and family in front of me, male and female, and he raped them; he tortured them, so that I might listen. He wanted me to admit that I was an agent of Satan and a murderer.

A coward.

"She was seventeen years old," he screamed. "Only seventeen and you as good as killed her, and for that I damn you!"

I denied it, of course. I swore to him that I knew nothing. I told him that he had the wrong man but he refused to believe me.

Instead, he told me what he was planning to do, and he laughed as he spoke.

I didn't know what was going on throughout much of his terror. It was senseless. I didn't know what he was doing to my friends, who was fucking who: whether it was my grandfather screwing with my sister; whether they'd shoved a gun barrel up her ass, or whether they were slicing chunks from her breasts.

But I heard the screams of the damned, and I wept.

Afterwards, I remember looking around, after they'd taken the hood from my head and they'd spat at my face. I remember looking around and seeing the shards of cloth and the discarded clothes, ribbons of yellow and black, and streamers of red, white and blue. Dress was indistinguishable from petticoat and chemise from pantaloon. Men's dress and women's lay tossed together, tatty and indiscriminate, discarded and bruised by the boots of the militia.

I remember the terrible silence of the women and looking around and seeing a pair of stays, torn to shreds and saturated in urine and cum. I remember wondering who they belonged to.

I remember the Gens d'Armes displaying the bloody results of their torture and shoving it into my face, and the red puddles seeping slowly into the bare earth.

I remember it as if it were yesterday.

I remember two women being brought into the square, modest women, reverent women who prayed in Church and never missed confession. They were entirely innocent, completely unconnected with me and my crimes, and yet they were implicated nevertheless in a way I can't fathom.

They were in their late thirties, with sagging breasts and oversized stomachs, flabby from pregnancy. They were screaming and naked, and were being endlessly prodded by the soldiers. Their clothes had been cut with sharp ragged daggers, and they'd been raped. Their cunts and body parts were splattered with blood. Their breasts and their bellies wobbled and they begged the Marquis for forgiveness - although for what, I have no idea. Neither did they - and none was forthcoming.

The Marquis was a madman that day. There's no other way to describe it. He wanted vengeance and vengeance was his.

The Gens d'Armes buried wine down the throats of those women, coercing where necessary. One would hold a bint's arms while another would tip her head, pinching her nostrils and opening her mouth. The red wine was poured in until it came up spluttering and foaming, washing across dirty, bleeding breasts.

"Drink, my love! Drink! Keep drinking! Keep drinking!"

The wretches were soon unable to walk, or talk, and the soldiers liked it that they were naked and insensible. The soldiers slapped their breasts and tickled their ludicrous backsides. They pressed sticks between their legs searching for holes; and they laughed because the women were incapable of connecting two meaningful words, too drunk to grasp the sticks penetrating their pussies, too drunk to know what was causing their pain: too drunk.