Chapter 6

My mind was dizzy and confused, and yet the mist and pain were gone. I found myself unexpectedly in the present, or was it the past? With a sense of d'j ... vu, I found that Christine was swaying in front of me, full of nervous expectation.

"You're the daughter of the Marquis," I asserted blankly as if this would come as a surprise to her, which, of course, it didn't. For me, it was still an upsetting surprise although the more I looked at her, the more that I saw the likeness. I felt stunned, and the rock fell limply from my hand. "You're Christine de Lyons."

For certain, I'd awake to discover that I was insane, or that this was a dream or the mischief of the Devil; for how could she be here with me in my cave?

I wondered whether she knew that her father was a murderer and a liar, a cowardly scoundrel who'd betrayed the people of France?

I remember him on his horse and Isabelle in his wake, as he took her away.

There was a noose tugging upon her neck and her hands were bound behind her back. He was deliberately withholding her dignity, pulling her along like she was a dog or a mule. She was naked and tied up so that she couldn't cover herself or conceal the dirt that was covering her breasts.

The Marquis took a long lazy route out of the square because he wanted us both to suffer, for each of us to see the degradation the other was enduring.

I remember how he strode away from me on his big horse with his thick army boots and his navy colored trousers - and I remember Isabelle, and at that moment as he led her from the square, I remember knowing that I'd never see her again.

"And your father," I muttered tonelessly to Christine, hating that memory. "Is he alive?"

Christine shook her head, dabbing a tear from her eye.

I waited.

"Father is dead."

My heart soared but my mind was incredulous. What had she said? Could it be true?

"As I've told you already, there's been a revolution..."

I couldn't believe it!

I was so happy.

"And that's how they killed him."

"I'm sorry."

De Lyons was dead, which was good news and yet bad news. I wanted him alive. Only then could I kill him.

So often I'd imagined sinking my dagger into his belly. "This is for Lescavier," I'd say as his blood lapped through my fingers. "This is for Bonnet and Trouveau, those two innocent and respectable ladies," I'd say it to him as the blood dripped down my wrists. "This is for my wonderful sisters Esme, Nicolette and Adalyn and what you did to them; and this is for Anne-Marie, my beautiful nun who did nothing more than allow me a view of perfection."

I'd withdraw the dagger and shovel it back in, lifting the blade towards his heart, waiting for it to shudder and burst, and then I'd gaze into his eyes and purr to him softly: "And this is for Isabelle and what you did to her. She may have been your fiancee and you may think that I brainwashed her, but she was not an animal. She was my wife!"

His body would strain and sag into mine, and for a moment I would hold him, almost with parental support or with the caress of a lover, listening to the continual moans and his muttering, waiting for him to spasm and die.

That was what I wanted, but I'd been robbed! It wasn't to be! He was dead. The enemy had escaped!

I looked at the gloom and the curved dome of the Cathedral with its trillions of stalactites, each of them sparkling in the darkness.

"He was executed," Christine cried, tears welling in their ducts, and there was a falter to her voice. "There is a machine. It is new, deadly and awful. They tie the victim so that he's trapped and he can't move. They slide him forward so that his head is beneath a sharp blade and upon the executioner's command, the blade drops and with it the head, to be caught in a basket."

I pondered, wondering what it was that she didn't dare to tell me, for her face had suddenly bleached. "You witnessed this yourself?"

She shook her head. "No. I've not seen it but m ... mother witnessed it. She ... she wrote me a letter."

She pulled the letter from the skirt of her red dress, but then she paused and had second thoughts and returned it to the pocket, forcing it back in.

I hesitated. "Are you worried about your mother?"

"No, not mother. They killed her ... just two weeks after they killed my father."

"I'm sorry."

She glared at me. "Don't jest, monsieur!"

"I mean it," I insisted with moral empathy, for I understood that she'd be upset having lost both of her parents. "I said that I'm sorry, and I am."

"But don't you realize who mother is? Even now?"

I shook my head.

"Monsieur," she said. "I may be the daughter of the Marquis de Lyons, but my mother was his wife. She was Isabelle Douviere."

Time stood still. "His wife?"

I felt the spiders scurrying towards the cracks and searching for cover. There was no past or future, just a vast yawning present. "You don't mean? You can't mean?"

"Yes, monsieur. C'est vrai."

"You mean my Isabelle? Your mother is Isabelle?"

"Yes, monsieur. With you gone and out of the picture and no one to know better, he married her. He'd always loved her but could never accept that she'd betrayed him and left him to marry a man as low and disreputable as yourself. But once he'd brought her home with him, he learned that torturing a woman is a seductive and alluring possession. Freed of his former constraints, the torture of my mother became increasingly sexual and addictive, and so the very thing that had once angered and outraged him when he'd seen it in you, became his weakness. Now you can understand why papa was relatively content that I hide here. He said me that I'd endure humiliation and pain but I would be safe here if I told you the truth. He said that nobody comes here."

"Except the guards from the prison," I mouthed softly. "When they deliver more corpses..."

Oh God.

She pulled the letter from her pocket again and flattened it - a single, crumpled sheet of paper. "Shall I tell you what happened, monsieur? The truth of what is taking place in our country. Then you'll understand why I had no choice but to hide here."