Authors: Lorena Dureau
"Ah,
mon amour
, I can't let you go
like this… so cold, so formal with me, your Zee who adores
you so! At least let's say goodbye the way two lovers should. Come, lie
with me one last time, no?"
She took the hand she held captive and deliberately cupped
it over the mound of her breast, holding it there with a malicious
smile as she watched him stiffen and flush uneasily.
"One more time, no?" she repeated coaxingly. "What
difference will it make? Am I suddenly so repulsive to you?" She was
trying to steer him back to the sofa where the fire was blazing away
cheerfully in the chimney.
The feel of a woman's breast warm and pulsating in his
hand momentarily stirred his long-denied carnal desires, but even in
that split second, the memory of Monique's ripening body trembling with
passion to his touch moved him all the more. Her sweet little face
bathed in the ecstasy of her first and only love hung there in his
mind's eye…
Suddenly he heard a gasp. There in the open doorway, the
face that had been floating like a phantom before his eyes seemed to
have materialized. Monique was standing there staring at them, her face
pale and anguished in the frame of her fur-lined hood.
He wrested his hand away from where Azema was holding it
tightly pressed against her breast and stepped back, but it was too
late. Without a word, Monique was gone.
It had all happened so quickly, so
unexpectedly… for a moment he wondered whether she had been
there at all. He called her name and tried to rush after her, despite
Azema's obvious efforts to block his path, but only the slam of the
front door answered him.
Monique
ran and ran … straight down Chartres
toward the main plaza. The biting north wind lashed at her cape until
it whipped back the hood from her head and left her long hair flying
loose in a golden stream behind her. She clutched the wrap closed at
her neck to keep it from blowing away but didn't slacken her pace.
Some of the townspeople stopped and stared at her
curiously as they stepped aside to let her race past them; others gave
grunts of annoyance as she nearly knocked them off the wooden sidewalk
in her blind haste.
But Monique was completely unaware of what was going on
around her. Her clouded eyes saw nothing save the image of Miguel
standing there in the Ducole parlor with his hand cupping Azema's
breast.
She hadn't even realized where she was going until the
huge flat-roofed cathedral with its hexagonal towers flanking it on
either side suddenly loomed up in front of her. There was a quiet
dignity in its simplicity, ornamented only by a balustrade around its
terrace roof and a marble effect painted over the front of its
plastered brick walls.
She stood there in the massive shadow undecided where to
go next. She could continue down one of the streets on the other side
of the square, but sooner or later she would come to the palisades, and
outside lay only the swamps. Of course, if she went down the Rue
Royale, it would lead her back home to the town house, but she hated
facing anyone at that moment. It was bad enough to have been made a
fool, but worse yet for all the world to know about it!
As she stood there vacillating, the brown-robed figure of
Fray Sebastian suddenly emerged from the columned entrance of the
church and held up a large bony hand to detain her.
"I see you're roaming the streets again, child," he
admonished in that dry, cracked voice of his. "And it's blowing up
colder, too. Perhaps you'd like to come in out of the wind for a minute
and see our magnificent new cathedral, now that it's almost finished?"
She looked at him half dazed. He was only slightly taller
than she was and looked as though he were slowly withering away within
the dark recesses of his hooded habit. She wondered how long it had
been since the light of day had struck him full on the face.
"I… I don't think…" she faltered,
but the monk became more insistent. "It's all right," he assured her.
"The church hasn't been dedicated yet, but you might want to say a
little prayer and ask God to forgive you your sins."
Monique could see the gold leaf of the main altar
glittering in the dim interior beyond the arched entrance, and she
suddenly felt a great desire to enter. Perhaps spiritual balm was what
she needed to soothe the tumult raging within her at that moment.
"Yes, I think I might like to go in and pray…
just for a few moments, if you don't mind."
A spark glinted in the dark hollows of the monk's eyes as
he stepped aside and motioned to her to go through the arched doorway.
The splendor that met her eyes was indeed impressive. The
pews hadn't been placed yet, so the broad expanse of the marble floor,
interrupted only by occasional white columns, was like a giant mirror,
reflecting the colorful paintings and sculptures lining the walls and
the ornate galleries and balustrades high above it.
Monique made her way slowly across the vast sheen of the
empty church to where the main altar towered majestically above that
sea of gleaming marble at the far end of the interior. Like one in a
trance, she instinctively took her small lace headscarf from the pocket
of her cape and set it atop her windblown hair while she gaped in
wonder at the fresh, glittering beauty all around her.
Although as yet unfinished, the main altar was near enough
to completion to be impressive, promising to become a veritable
masterpiece of marble and gold. A scaffold still spanned it, but there
were no artisans working on it at that moment, so Monique stood staring
up at it, marveling at the enormousness of it.
There were few people in the cathedral just then, for it
was not open to the public yet, but meanwhile the work continued. Off
to one side of the entrance, two artisans were putting up a
wrought-iron railing in front of a niche with a statue of St. Anthony,
while two or three Capuchin friars were sauntering about leisurely in
their brown homespun habits and peaked hoods like phantom shadows
examining the progress of the work on the church and making random
comments to one another. The murmur of their voices reverberated eerily
in the vast emptiness of the interior, but their words were
indistinguishable.
"Would you like me to hear your confession, child?" asked
Padre Sebastian suddenly. "The confessional hasn't been installed yet,
but—"
"No, no," she said quickly. "I'd prefer just to pray. May
I?"
"You're in a building erected to the glory of God. That's
what you should do," replied the friar dryly. "Today is the Feast of
the Immaculate Conception, you know. I suggest you say a special prayer
to the Virgin while you're at it."
He retreated a little from her as she made the sign of the
cross and knelt at the railing in front of the main altar, but he
remained discreetly behind a nearby column, never taking his eyes from
her. Shafts of light from the high stained-glass windows made
crisscross patterns over her blue-cloaked figure and turned the
disheveled mass of her pale blond hair into a shining halo as it
shimmered through the delicate lace of her scarf and poured over her
shoulders like liquid gold.
Fray Sebastian stared at her in fixed fascination, glad
that she was so engrossed in prayer that she was unaware of his
scrutiny. He wondered how much longer he would have to wait before God
would deliver the wench into his hands. He wished she didn't have that
cape around her, but then he had been observing her for so long now
that he knew every line of that sensuous little body of hers,
fashioned, without a doubt, by the devil himself to lure men to the
sins of the flesh.
Not that he wanted the girl for lustful purposes. To the
contrary, his destiny was to cleanse women like that. He wasn't like so
many of those sacrilegious French monks there in the colony with their
concubines hidden away somewhere. They were as lax in their vows of
celibacy as they were in their vows of poverty and fasting.
It wasn't by chance that the colony was suffering so many
calamities—that dreadful year of '88 with its devastating
flood and all-consuming fire, followed by famine and pestilence; then
another lesser conflagration, in '92, and three hurricanes in the past
year and a half! And as if that wasn't enough, even the crops were
failing! How much more would it take to bring the sinful city of New
Orleans to its knees? For it was an evil, seditious populace, rebelling
against God and its rightful rulers.
What was needed was the firm hand of the Holy Inquisition
to take over and root out the sin abounding there on all sides.
It had been a pity that his former superior, Padre Antonio
de Sedella, had not been permitted to establish a branch of the Holy
Tribunal in New Orleans as he had been commissioned to do by Madrid a
few years back. But Miró, governor at that time, had wanted no part of
the Inquisition in the colony and, at the risk of incurring the wrath
of both the Church and his king, had ordered Padre Antonio deported
back to Spain and hush-hushed the whole affair.
But if Miró and now the new governor, Carondelet, thought
that was the end of it, they were greatly mistaken, for
he—Sebastian Montez de Barcelona— was still there
to carry on his superior's aborted work and keep the light of the
Inquisition burning in New Orleans, undercover if need be, but at least
carefully nurtured and ready to come out into the open just as soon as
the right opportunity presented itself.
For he wouldn't be satisfied until he saw the Holy
Tribunal firmly established and active there in the colony. A few autos
in the Plaza de Armas were what this wicked city needed to make it fall
to its knees and beg forgiveness for its sins. If its wayward citizens
knew they would be dragged before the Holy Office to account for their
acts of rebellion and heresy, they would no longer be so quick to stray
from the fold.
Meanwhile in his humble way, thought Sebastian, he would
have to continue the work his unfortunate superior had begun but had
never been able to put into effect. Of course, he'd have to be discreet
until the moment came when he could operate freely. The fate of Padre
Antonio had demonstrated the need for caution.
Fortunately, however, no one seemed to suspect, even now,
that underneath the calabozo there still lay that secret chamber he had
helped his superior prepare years ago for those singled out by the
Inquisition for special attention. Although there had been one other
friar who had assisted in the project, the latter had died earlier that
year, so now only one person was left in the entire colony who knew
about that subterranean room. Fray Sebastian smiled complacently as he
savored his secret in the dark recesses of his mind. He was proud of
the way he had kept his silence and felt more than ever, with each
passing day, that the divine mission of bringing the Inquisition to New
Orleans had fallen upon his shoulders.
Of course, until he could come out into the open, he would
have to continue doing the best he could on his own. After the
monastery had been destroyed in that devastating conflagration of '88,
he had deliberately built his hut over the entrance to the passageway
that led to that chamber under the calabozo, and there had been two or
three times now that he had brought some sinner there and used the
dungeon for the purpose it had been originally designed.
Of course, with the Chausson wench he would have to be
more careful than with the others. She wasn't any street trollop like
that last girl he had purged. This golden-haired temptress came from a
distinguished family in the colony, with a guardian who had ties in
Madrid. There would be an immediate fuss if a girl like that were to
disappear. Whatever he did, it would have to be very carefully worked
out. He'd have to have a good case against her when the time came to
take her down to his secret chamber for questioning and
purging… preferably a confession wrung out of her in which
she herself admitted her complicity with the devil.
Monique
clasped her hands tightly together over her rosary,
fervently trying to keep her mind on her prayers, but Miguel's face
kept blotting out the altar.
She found herself remembering how her mother had warned
her never to put her trust in a Spaniard. How could she have forgotten
and let Miguel Vidal make such a fool of her! That early Spanish
captain-general had used deceit to trap her grandfather and the other
French patriots. Now her guardian had deceived her, too. He had sworn
to her that he'd broken off with Azema, yet less than half an hour ago
she had seen him making love to that horrid woman.
After all his passionate declarations of love…
all his assurances that no other woman could satisfy him except
her… that he was saving himself only for their nuptial bed!
How he had mocked her! He and Azema must be having a good laugh at that
moment over what a gullible child she was.
She hated the thought of going home. How could she survive
the pain of seeing Miguel again? Even knowing what she did about her
guardian, her whole body still ached for him. A thousand fires were
consuming her from within for want of him. She must ask the good Lord
to take the anguish of that impossible love from her heart!
Suddenly the stillness of the cathedral was shattered by
the sound of wild shouts and the frantic clanging of anvils and bells
just outside the square. The two men working near the entrance of the
church were the first to react. Abandoning their tools and paints on
the spot, they dashed off quickly.
Unfortunately, that alarm had become all too familiar in
New Orleans in recent years. That dreaded call for all able-bodied
citizens to come help fight a fire or a flood always sent panic into
the hearts of every man, woman, and child of the town. It could mean
life or death… the loss of years of work and saving. In just
a few moments, a lifetime—even life itself—could go
up in a blaze of flames or be buried under torrents of water!