“They’ll go away. Men tire of fornicating. My mother once said—” Juliette broke off. This wasn’t the same as the rutting that had taken place in the bedchambers at Versailles. In those scented, silk-hung rooms the men and women had at least made a pretense of tenderness. Here there was only a fever of violence and brutality. “Leave the door of the bell tower open and be sure and look outside before you go into the south courtyard. Remember to wait for me at the tomb. Are you ready?”
Catherine nodded.
“Go!”
Catherine streaked out the door, keeping close to the wall.
Juliette waited tensely for a shout to go up or one of the men to detach himself from the orgy and run after her.
Catherine reached the door of the bell tower, threw it open, and disappeared inside.
Juliette’s fear lessened a fraction, but she waited to be sure no notice had been taken and no tardy pursuit was to follow. Then she bolted across the few yards separating the students’ cells from the bell tower, ran up the three stone steps, crossed the threshold, and slammed the door behind her. Darkness.
Her heart pounded painfully as she leaned back against the brass-studded oak door in an agony of relief. Gradually her eyes became accustomed to the gloom and she could discern the long flight of spiraling open wooden stairs a few yards away leading to the belfry. Beyond the staircase moonlight streamed through an open doorway. Catherine must have found the south courtyard deserted and taken the second step to freedom. Juliette straightened and started eagerly for the open doorway.
“You weren’t thinking of leaving, Citizeness?”
Juliette froze.
A small, slender shadow detached itself from the darkness beneath the spiraling stairs. It held a sword in one hand and a coil of rope in the other. “Not after I’ve gone to so much trouble and been waiting so patiently,” the voice continued. Juliette now watched as the figure waved the sword toward the open doorway. “Your little friend was in such a hurry, I wasn’t able to get down the steps from the belfry in time to detain her. However, I’m sure someone else will intercept the little flower before she gets too far. From the glimpse I caught before she ran out the door I’d say she was quite pretty. I was about to go after her myself when you ran into the bell tower.”
Juliette took a step back, her gaze fixed on the sword. She had been so close to freedom. Mother of God, she didn’t want to die.
“Ah, well, you’re a little thin but not unattractive yourself. Permit me to introduce myself. I’m Raoul Dupree. And what’s your name, little one?” The man stepped forward, peering at her face.
Juliette didn’t answer.
“Tell me, do you wish me to throw you to that mob in the courtyard?”
“Don’t be absurd. Of course I don’t.”
“Very wise. I’m afraid the good sisters and your fellow schoolmates are having a dreadful time of it. It’s regrettable, but the only way I could get my patriots to travel from Paris to do their duty was to offer them the opportunity to quench their lusts on these fine aristos.”
“They’re raping the nuns too.”
“Well, the Marseilles are none too fond of the church.” Dupree shook his head. “I must admit the sight of so much carnal revelry has aroused me, but I have a distaste for seconds. That’s why I rang the bell.” He chuckled. “I thought I’d catch a sweet little virgin for my very own. Unfortunately, your friends were seen almost as soon as they poured out the door and I feared I was going to be deprived of my pleasure.” He pressed the tip of his sword to Juliette’s throat. “Are you afraid? You’re not speaking.”
Juliette swallowed. “Of course I’m afraid. I’d be stupid not to be frightened.”
“And you’re not stupid or you’d have run bleating into the arms of those louts like all the others. I think I shall enjoy you, little aristo.”
“You’ll get no pleasure from me.”
“You’re wrong.” He held out the coil of rope to her. “However, I have no time now. I must see to organizing the trials. Form a loop in the rope and slip it around your wrists.”
Juliette didn’t move.
“Shall I tell you what will happen to you if you don’t do as I command? One of two things. I’ll either plunge this sword into your throat or I’ll march you out to the courtyard and toss you to the Marseilles. I really don’t want to make that choice. What I’d like to do is tie you up and leave you here. Then, when I have time to indulge myself, I’ll return to your eager arms. Now, which shall it be?”
Juliette quickly considered her situation. Dupree intended to save her for himself. While he was gone she might be able to escape the ropes. He might even forget she was there once he joined the frenzy outside. In any event, she had little choice. She took the rope, formed a noose, and slipped it over her wrists.
“Very sensible.” Dupree tightened the noose about her wrists and then wound the rope around her torso. “But if you weren’t sensible, you’d be out in the courtyard with the rest, wouldn’t you? Come over here beneath the steps.” He sheathed the sword and jerked her into the dark recess beneath the staircase. He passed the rope three times around the fifth step before knotting it. “That should be adequate. Now, all you have to do is stand here and wait for me.” He leaned forward and patted her cheek and then stopped to stroke it. “What soft skin. Don’t scream or you’ll attract some of those crude fellows in the courtyard. We wouldn’t want that, would we?”
She didn’t answer, surreptitiously testing the thick ropes binding her wrists.
“No, we wouldn’t want that.” Dupree moved toward the door to the north courtyard, his steps precise, mincing. He opened the door and the light from the torches in the courtyard allowed her to get her first clear look at him. He reminded her of a cat with his thin, triangular face and slightly slanted hazel eyes. Even his body was catlike, small, wiry almost to the point of scrawniness. Instead of the rough loose trousers and coarse shirts of the men in the courtyard, he was dressed in an elegant light blue coat trimmed in gold brocade and dark blue knee breeches. “Au revoir, Citizeness. I’ll return as soon as I can lure these good men from their pleasure to their duty in starting the trials.”
He shut the door firmly behind him.
Trial. It was the second time Dupree had mentioned a trial. Juliette dismissed the thought as she concentrated on her own predicament. The ropes were too strong to break and the knots dismayingly secure.
She bent her head forward and began to gnaw with her teeth at the loop of the rope wound around the step.
There were men in the south courtyard too!
Catherine skidded to a stop halfway across the courtyard and shrank into the shadow of the tall cistern. She’d thought the courtyard was deserted but there was no mistaking the sound of a woman sobbing and masculine laughter coming from the direction of the passage linking the north and south courtyards.
The gate seemed a hundred miles away as she glanced longingly at it. The atrocity going on seemed to be limited to four or five men gathered around the supine body of a nude woman, but she couldn’t risk one of them glancing toward the gate.
She could tell by the pleas, sobs, and prayers tumbling in an indiscriminate stream from the woman’s lips that she was one of the nuns but she didn’t know which one. Sister Thérèse? Sister Hélène? It would be a sin not to help that poor woman.
Catherine took an impulsive step forward and then stopped in an agony of indecision. She had the right to risk herself but not Juliette. If Juliette saw Catherine in trouble, she knew she would forget every practical argument and rush to save her. Juliette had great confidence in her own abilities and was more gallant than she knew herself to be. A choice. She and Juliette or that poor woman being assaulted by those beasts?
She fell to her knees by the cistern, trying to close out both the sobs of the woman and the coarse remarks of the men. She would wait and hope they would leave the courtyard quickly after they were done with the nun.
She closed her eyes,
her lips forming the silent words of prayer. Sweet Jesus, deliver us from evil …
Where was Juliette? Had she seen the men and remained in the bell tower, waiting for them to begone?
Go to Sister Bernadette, Juliette had said. Yes, she’d be safe in the tomb. Why had she ever been afraid of the dead when life was so much more savage? She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stop the shudders racking her body.
Please come, Juliette. I’m so alone.
Mary, Mother of God, let them not find me.
Let Juliette be safe.
Let all those poor women stop suffering.
“Well, what do we have here?”
The sudden shout caused Catherine’s heart to lurch sickeningly.
“How very naughty. You shouldn’t have dragged her out of the courtyard around here. You know the agreement. We’re all to share and share alike.”
There was a burst of laughter from one of the men. “There’s not much to share. She’s only a stringy old crow of a woman.”
“Still, she belongs with the rest of the spoils.”
Catherine leaned forward to venture a swift glance around the curve of the cistern. She could make out two silhouettes moving toward the men. Whoever the new arrivals were, they seemed to be in positions of authority.
“Now, stop ramming her and bring her back to the courtyard.”
There was a grumbling among the men, but they began to stir from the spread-eagled body of the nun. “Get up, whore.”
“She won’t move.” A coarse chuckle. “You see? She doesn’t want to go back to the rest. She likes us.”
“Then carry her.”
More grumbling, then the naked woman was lifted by one of the brawnier men and carried toward the two men waiting in the shadows. “What difference does it make? There are plenty of women to go around.”
“Rules are rules.”
Catherine tensed, her gaze fixed eagerly on the departing figures. They entered the shadows. Soon their footsteps faded. She jumped to her feet and streaked toward the open gate.
A shout!
Dear Mary, someone had seen her!
Footsteps on the cobblestones.
Please God, don’t let them catch me.
She tore through the vegetable garden.
She couldn’t hear them behind her any longer. Was it because they were running on the soft earth instead of on the cobblestones or was she not their prey?
Her heart pounded so hard she was sure it would burst.
The blood drummed in her temples.
She was running among the graves. Why had she never noticed the moss growing on the crosses looked like rivulets of blood?
Sister Bernadette. She must reach Sister Bernadette.
She heard something behind her. A laugh? She was afraid to glance over her shoulder to see.
It could have been the wind.
Oh, let it be the wind.
Gabriel’s marble wings shining in the moonlight. Sister Bernadette’s tomb. She frantically shoved the bolt aside, dashed into the crypt, and slammed the door behind her.
No bolt on the inside.
Of course not. The dead needed no locks.
She backed away from the door.
Her hip collided with the marble sarcophagus.
She scarcely felt the pain as she sank to her knees beside Juliette’s easel. The darkness pressed in on her, taking her breath.
She leaned her hot cheek against the cold marble of the sarcophagus, her gaze straining toward the door.
Protect me, Sister Bernadette. You were only ten and eight when you died. You must have wanted to live too.
Protect me. Don’t let them find me. Dear God, why had she come here? This tomb wasn’t a sanctuary.
It was a trap.
The door of the crypt swung open.
SIX
Sacre bleu, you’ve almost got the rope gnawed through. What an industrious vixen you are.” Raoul Dupree held the lantern in his hand closer to the ropes and smiled at Juliette as he cut the bonds with his sword. “If I’d been gone only a few minutes more, you might have freed yourself. But life is filled with might-have-beens, isn’t it?”
Juliette hastened to mask her disappointment. She refused to give the canaille the satisfaction. “You might as well have stayed away. I’ll give you no pleasure.”
“Oh, but you will.” Dupree stripped her of the ropes and pulled her toward the door. “However, not the immediate carnal pleasure I’d anticipated. Unfortunately, I indulged my appetites while I was going about my duties. I’ll have to have time to regain my virility before I’m ready to enjoy you, Citizeness …?” Dupree lifted a questioning brow. “What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t say.”
“No matter. We’ll give you another name. You shall be Citizeness Justice.” His pouty lips tilted up in a feline smile. “Every court needs a symbol, and you shall be ours. I think it very fitting under the circumstances. Sweet, pure Citizeness Justice.”
“Court?”
“Let me explain. We’re going to have a trial. It’s come to the ears of the Paris commune that the nuns of the abbey, in order to help their former patroness, the queen, have turned this establishment into a bordello. They’ve offered their own bodies and that of their students to sway young, gullible patriots from fighting for the revolutionary cause and deserting to the Austrians.”
Juliette gazed at him incredulously. “That’s ridiculous. No one will believe you.”
He chuckled. “Why not? Every man here can testify there are no virgins at the Abbaye de la Reine.”
She spat in his face.
He went rigid. “I did not like that.” He reached in his pocket, drew out a lace-trimmed handkerchief, and wiped the spittle from his left cheek. “You must behave with better decorum if you’re going to survive a few hours longer.” He jerked her forward. “Every insolence will be met with punishment. Every obedience a reward. You understand?”
“No.”
“You will, Citizeness. You will.”
The golden chalice of the holy sacrament was filled to the brim with dark red liquid.
“Drink it,” Dupree said softly. “And perhaps we’ll spare the next one.”
She couldn’t drink it. They were probably lying to her anyway. These monsters would spare none of them.
She shook her head.
Dupree nodded to the man wearing a red patriot’s bonnet bearing a tricolored revolutionary cockade. The man immediately started toward the Reverend Mother kneeling naked before the tribunal table.
“Wait!” Juliette took the cup and brought it quickly to her lips.
A cheer went up from the men in the courtyard.
The liquid smelled sickeningly of copper. Dear God, she couldn’t …
She closed her eyes and drained every drop.
“Very good,” Dupree murmured.
Juliette’s stomach rebelled. She turned quickly aside from the tribunal table and violently vomited up the contents of her stomach onto the stones of the courtyard.
“I’m afraid that won’t do,” Dupree said regretfully. “You cheated, Citizeness Justice. You’ll have to try again.”
He motioned to the man wearing the red bonnet.
The man grinned, flexed the brawny muscles of his arms, and took two steps forward toward the Reverend Mother.
Juliette screamed.
The travesty of justice was over, disintegrating into a brutal slaughter with clubs and swords. Juliette gazed at the sea of faces of the men in the courtyard as they went about their carnage. She had once told Catherine she possessed the vision to comprehend and appreciate the subtle nuances of ugliness. Now she knew that until this night she had been ignorant about true ugliness.
“Come along, my sweet.” Dupree took her elbow and propelled her toward the bell tower. “I have an impulse to enjoy you before Citizeness Justice goes beneath the sword.”
She walked beside him without speaking.
“You’r
e suddenly quite meek. I do hope you’re going to show a little spirit when I’m between your thighs.”
Dupree closed the door of the bell tower and placed his sword on one of the spiral steps. “Lie down.”
She stretched out on the cold flagstones and closed her eyes.
Blood.
She felt the heat of Dupree’s body as he lay down and took her in his arms.
Screams from the children. Screams from the nuns.
Blood.
Dupree’s hand closed on her breast. “Open your eyes. I want to see you looking at me, Citizeness.”
She obediently opened her eyes. He was bending over her, his cat face only inches from hers. He was smiling.
“Your eyes are glittering. Are you weeping, little Citi—”
She sank her teeth into his throat. The coppery taste was in her mouth again, but now she welcomed it.
He shrieked. He tried to shake her off his neck, but she followed him, her teeth biting deeper.
“Bitch.” He began cursing. “Animal.” He tried to lift her off but her arms closed fiercely around him in a mockery of an embrace.
The blood was pouring onto his shoulder. She shook her head savagely to tear his flesh. Then, as he gasped with pain, she pushed him aside, leapt to her feet, and grabbed the sword from the step. Dupree opened his lips to scream, but the flat of the sword came down on his temple before he could utter a sound. He slumped to the side and lay still.
Pity. She had meant to strike him with the edge of the blade.
She turned and fled out the door leading to the south courtyard which was deserted. She ran across the cobblestones to the gates, through the vegetable garden and up the hill to the cemetery.
Catherine had to be in the crypt, she thought desperately. She must have reached safety or she would have been brought to trial with the others at that mockery of a tribunal.
The door of the crypt was open.
Profound relief made Juliette’s pace falter momentarily. Catherine was always so afraid of the dark, but she should have closed it, Juliette thought impatiently. Didn’t she realize the open door would be noticed?
“Bitch, don’t just lie there.” The sound of flesh striking flesh. “Move.”