Chapel Noir by Carole Nelson Douglas

Author:Carole Nelson Douglas
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2010-03-31T22:00:00+00:00

31.

Sins of the Son

He presented a mixture of primordial delirium of persecution

(devil, antichrist, persecution, poisoning, persecuting voices)

and delusions of grandeur (Christ, redemption of the world) with

impulsive, incoherent actions.

—RICHARD VON KRAFFT-EBING, PSYCHOPATHIA SEXUALIS

I found him soaked and shivering near the statue of the Virgin.

It was past the early services and before the next. No one was near. The great cathedral pillars soared around us like stalactites and stalagmites the ages had shaped into a vast cavern of frozen wax turned to stone by some poor excuse of a Midas.

I had been nurtured in this world of incense and beeswax candles and sanctimony, but the savagery of the steppes and the sweeping riders of the East is in my veins and my holy water is now blood and not wine.

“What is it?” I crooned, holding him as Mother Church does sinners.

His teeth were chattering, his fabled strength a limp rag. So does the God of Christians magnify weakness.

“I am crucified,” he whispered in the language that we share.

It is hard to offer spiritual advice to a demon.

“Tell me your trouble.” I care for no one. Well, one. But that is an aberration I will deal with later.

“Tell me your trouble,” I crooned. He is a beast, after all, and responds to simple things. Simple sins. Simple falsities, simple lies.

“I am torn! I am torn,” the tearer cries. Terror.

“Hush. How?”

“I flew with the hunter. Above the wooden rooftops, over the gilded dome of the church, over the marsh and the firs, the mountains and the spires, over the roof of the world. I see myself suspended over the dome of the Temple, tempted by the Devil to dash myself onto stones and sin. I see myself suspended over domes, great gilt domes in a great gilt city, on my own holy power, dashing the Devil onto stones and eternal fires. Will I be in Heaven, or in Hell? What is holy? What is power?”

“Both. Power is holy. Holy is power.”

“And sin?”

“Sin is . . . salvation.”

“Yes, yes! We sense that in my village. We must sin to be saved.”

I couldn’t restrain a shrug. I only recognized the first part of that sentence, to which we all serve life terms. We must sin or be sinned against. The rest is delusion.

He raked his hands—claws—into the tangled wet hair at his temples, his eyes as wild as a stallion’s.

“I have come out of the wilderness, walking for months, to seek salvation. I have come to this stone city, and others like it, to find fellow sinners and fellow saints.

“But their wines are weak and their stomachs as well. The horses are fettered and the women . . . the women refuse, or demand pay! It was not like that in my village,” he added drunkenly. “No one drank deeper, or rode faster or farther, or sang louder, or danced longer, or cursed harder, or loved more women, willing women, women who couldn’t resist. . . .”

My glance lifted to the Virgin’s simpering face. She resisted him, too, but he didn’t see it.

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