Ch. IV: Crown and Cross
After the service is concluded and the congregation makes its way into the fading afternoon sun, Gabrielle Émilie makes her way past the crowd towards the friar who with his alter servers are still praying upon bended knee before the altar; their backs to the approaching captain. Behind Gabrielle Émilie a dark shadow watches then slips with the crowd into the fading sunlight. The captain genuflects before the altar and takes her seat on a nearby pew and quietly waits in silence.
After his prayers, Brother Stephan turned to find the captain waiting patiently; he then dismisses his altar servants and addressed the captain, “Dominus vobiscum, mea liber.”
To which Gabrielle Émilie replied, “Et tibi, pater sanctae.” Again Gabrielle Émilie was struck by the friar’s voice – she had heard it before. She studied Friar Stephan’s face, and as if the friar was struck by the same sense of familiarity about the young captain before him. For a moment the both studied each other’s countenance, when it was Gabrielle Émilie who broke the silence. “Disiecti membra poetae!” Exclaimed the young captain as recognition washes over her face like a summer breeze, “What do I hear? Is it you, my dear master, my dear Sans-Terre!” She places her hands upon his shoulders as a smile spreads across the friar’s face as well.
“Alas!” said the good friar to the other, “you recognize your dear Sans-Terre?”
Gabrielle Émilie continues in her greeting of her old tutor which she had faithfully thought was hanged, “What has made you leave the most magnificent and delightful of all castles? For truth, last I heard from our dear Le Guen, you were hanged in fair Vienna.”
“It is true,” answered Friar Stephen, “you saw me hanged, though I ought properly to have been burned; but as you were not told, it rained extremely hard when they were going to roast me. The storm was so violent that they found it impossible to light the fire; so they hanged me because they could do no better. The executioner was a subdeacon, and knew how to burn people very well, but as for hanging, he was a novice at it, being quite out of practice; the cord being wet, and not slipping properly, the noose did not join. A surgeon purchased my body, carried it home, and prepared to dissect me. It is impossible for anyone to have been more lamely hanged than I had been.”
“The bodies of a gypsy, a Jew, and myself, with two servant maids and three little boys, all of whom had died inconvenient deaths, were thrown into a cart to be buried in a chapel belonging to the Jesuits, within two leagues of the fair city. A Jesuit sprinkled us with some holy water, which was confounded salty, and a few drops of it went into my eyes; the father perceived that my eyelids stirred a little; he put his hand upon my breast and felt my heartbeat; upon which he gave me proper assistance, and at the end of three weeks I was perfectly recovered. You know, I wrote with a good hand, and understood accounts tolerably well, the good Jesuit made me his bookkeeper; I became still more so, and the Reverend Father Croust, superior of that house, took a great fancy to me; he gave me the habit of the order, and some years afterwards I was sent to Rome. There I was ordained and took upon the name of Father Stephan, and as of current, I tend to the spiritual needs of the good women of this modest parish.” On holy days, with a censer, the good friar diligently travels about the town and countryside incensing the wives of the parish, as he cast many longing looks on them.
Gabrielle Émilie all of a sudden was overwhelmed by the need to hear of news of her dear mother, and blurted out quite suddenly, “What has become of my dear mother, pray good friar, do tell!”
“She is dead,” replied the other.
Gabrielle Émilie cried, “Merde! Dead! Bovina Sancta! Is my dear mother dead? Ah, where is the best of worlds now? But of what cursed malady did she die? Was it grief from losing her only daughter?”
“No,” replied Sans-Terre, “her body was ripped open by the Saxon soldiers, after they had subjected her to as much cruelty as a damsel could survive; they blinded the King, your father, for attempting to defend her; My Lady, your mother, was cut in pieces; and as for the castle, they have not left one stone upon another; they have destroyed all the ducks, and sheep, the barns, and the trees.”
Gabrielle Émilie inquired into the cause and effect, as well as into the sufficing reason that had reduced her father’s castle to so miserable a condition. “Men,” she concluded, “must, in some things, have deviated from their original innocence; for they were not born wolves, and yet they worry one another like those beasts of prey. God never gave them twenty-four pounders nor bayonets, and yet they have made cannon and bayonets to destroy one another. To this account I might add not only bankruptcies, but the law which seizes on the effects of bankrupts, only to cheat the creditors.”
“All this was indispensably necessary,” replied the great sage, “for private misfortunes are public benefits; so that the more private misfortunes there are, the greater is the general good. Take into account my mishandled hanging, if it weren’t for the hangman’s noose, I would not have been found by the kind Jesuit or the benevolent Reverend Father Croust, who promptly sent me to Rome, where I was ordained and made a priest. Without which I would not be tending to the spiritual needs of the good wives of this parish with vigor and zeal. So you see, my dear child, it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds.”
Having said all that it became her to say; Gabrielle Émilie inquired into the matter for which she had come to see the good friar about. The friar having a very good memory did recall the items and he who had purchased such from him. “His hair was curly and shone like gold, and spread out like a large broad fan; its neat part ran straight and even. His complexion was rosy, and his eyes as gray as goose-quills. His leather shoes were carved in such a way that they resembled a window in Paul’s Church. He was clad precisely and neatly all in red hose and a kirtle of a light watchet-blue; the laces were set in it fair and thick, and over it he had a lively surplice, as white as a blossom on a twig. God bless me, he was a nervous thing, but he was a sweet lad! Good Könner, I believe, is his name.”
At this Gabrielle Émilie inquired if her former preceptor, the good friar, knew as to the sufficient reason as to why the good son of the Reverend Father, the Custos Morum, would purchase such oils and perfume. “Alas,” replied the preceptor, “it was love; love, the comfort of the human species; love, the preserver of the universe; the soul of all sensible beings; love! tender love! This Easter past, on this holy day, I with a censer, was diligently incensing the wives and women of the parish, when I noticed he cast many longing looks upon Lady Sophia. To look at her seemed to him a sweet employment, as she was so sweet and proper and lusty; I dare say, if she had been a mouse and he a cat, he would have pounced on her immediately.”
The friar, having satisfied Gabrielle Émilie’s inquiries walked the good captain, to the church’s doors. “Yes, I am certain, fair Captain, it was young Könner who requested such concoctions, and seven vials did I deliver to him in secret in equal amount of months.”
“I thank you, kind friar, for your time in these matters,” said Gabrielle Émilie as she stepped out of the Church doors, “I beg of you one last question, before I leave your company this night, did young Könner say as to why he did not call upon the services of the apothecarius?”
“Aye, he did. He sought discretion and wished his intentions and affections for the Abbess not to be the subject of wagging tongues at the tavern halls and marketplaces. Truth be told, there is no printing press or scribe in all of Europe who can compete with Frau Swartzendrüber.”
At this Gabrielle Émilie could not help but smile. She had learned from the good friar that Könner sought the vials as tokens of his affections for the Abbess Princess Sophia, and the very same vials were found in the servant girl’s bed stand. She wished to share this knowledge with her second, Lieutenant Loccriccio, but the night pressed in on her and she had a long ride back to Arvfurstens Palats.
Across the valley, on a dark road in the woods, Loccriccio and several of his guardians, the very same who had escorted him out of the Castle Verfluchter Todd, rounded a bend and were almost upon the place where the servant girl was killed, when in the darkness they found a figure in the road. All did give pause and the leader called forth to the figure in the road. “Lo, who goes there? Are you friend or foe?”
“I serve your mistress, dear sir, and bring urgent news for her nephew, Herr Loccriccio,” answered the dark figure.
“What came you here to do?” challenged the leader.
“To subdue my passions and improve myself in faith,” answered the figure.
“Then advance and be recognized and speak your business for the person you seek is among our company,” was the soldier’s reply.
The nursemaid, a fair haired maiden, relayed her message to Lieutenant Loccriccio. The nursemaid said that their mistress, the Conchobhar, had over heard Könner confess to his father that in the Abbess’ garden he spied upon Captain Émilie and Abbess Sophia consummating their love, at which Könner became doubly enraged, hurt and rejected, he turned to his servant girl, as he often did for comfort, but in the middle of their love making, he was consumed with rage and killed her. Now, in the same jealous rage young Könner has sent a greirolf to the palace at Arvfurstens Palats to kill my Master Loccraccio’s fair love.
As he dismounted his horse, Loccraccio inquired of the state of her Aunt Ylva. The nursemaid replied that she had been badly wounded and is greatly weakened in her fight with Könner, and that her followers stand guard over her door as she recovers. The guardian spoke again, “We are yours to command, Master Loccriccio. What is your bidding?”
“Go and ride and stand guard beside our mistress’ bed and see no further harm comes to her. I will not reach the palace in time on my steed, so I will change form and hunt this greirolf myself. I know this greirolf you speak of and I can hunt him easily.” Thus Loccriccio departed into the thick woods and in secret changed his form and with great speed rushed towards the Arvfurstens Palats where his fair Amelie slept in quiet slumber.
Loccraccio used his Lupine instincts and senses to track the wolf-assassin, and found where the breach in wall had been. He discovered where the wolf-assassin had shed his human clothes, and pursued the assassin in wolf form inside Arvfurstens Palats. Beyond the breach, he found two guards disemboweled by the assassin. Unbeknownst to Loccraccio, Gabrielle Émilie had arrived from the Church of St. Crispin and was preparing for bed in her chambers.
Loccriccio finds the wolf-assassin in the garden before the terrace and two engage each other in a tremendous quarrel, such a ruckus was raised as to wake the very dead, and Gabrielle Émilie is alerted by the noise and entered the garden with several soldiers, who opened fire on the quarrelling wolves. Were-wolves are immune to damage caused by ordinary weapons, being vulnerable only to silver objects (usually a blade or musket shot). This negative reaction to silver is sometimes so strong that the mere touch of the metal on a were-wolf's skin will cause severe burns. The soldiers’ weapons seem useless against the wolves, and the wolves turn on the startled soldiers. The wolf-assassin kills the soldiers as their weapons and blades were of no affect against it.
Loccraccio, in a rage turns against Gabrielle Émilie who draws the Stella Martis and as Loccraccio lunges, Gabrielle wounds him slightly on his shoulder as she parries and dodges his attack, though only lightly grazed, the Stella Martis was forged with silver in its composite and this burns the flesh and skin of Loccraccio, the fur around the wound bursts in flames, and Loccriccio runs off into the night yelping in pain.
The wolf-assassin, having already dispatched the soldiers, though badly wounded, not by the soldiers, but from his quarrel with Loccraccio, lunges at Gabrielle who runs it through with the Stella Martis, unlike Loccraccio, it is not a glancing blow, as the blade runs through its chest, the silver turns the wolf’s own blood to boiling mercury as it speeds through out its body and burning everything with in.
The beastly assassin flees yelping, mortally wounded, just as more guards arrive, Gabrielle and the soldiers track them, but even wounded, the beast moves with great speed, but its wounds leave an easy track to follow.
The wolf-assassin, mortally wounded, came upon the spot wear it had left its clothing, only to find Loccraccio already changed into human form and wearing the assassin’s uniform. Loccraccio, also wounded, though not as badly, raises his blade at the greirolf. Almost dead, the wolf-assassin lunged at Loccraccio, slashing at Loccraccio and wounding him. Loccraccio draws his saber and separates the assassin’s head from its body, preventing it from changing back to human form.
When Gabrielle Émilie and the others come upon the scene, they find the badly wounded Loccraccio unconscious with saber in hand, and the wolf dead at his feet. What they discover is no mere wolf, but a dark beast the size of a man or better with sharp claws and sharper teeth and a broad chest and back that appeared to walk on his hind legs. They gently bear Loccriccio’s wounded body back to the palace where they lay him upon the kitchen table, there Amelie and the others care for him until the regimental surgeon arrived. Shortly after morning, the Colonel arrived as well with a compliment of soldiers and he was brought to witness the beast’s form. The regimental surgeon asked if the hideous corpse could be brought to the Chattel House so it could be examined properly to discover, if any, its weaknesses and strengths. The colonel declined the request as it was too dangerous to risk its discovery by the general public who was already scared of their own shadow. The beast’s ghastly form was burned in secret as not to alarm the population and cause panic as the situation was already delicate as it was. Instead drawings and sketches were allowed to be taken by the surgeon and that was all the record that was kept.
Loccraccio remained unconscious with a terrible fever, though the regimental surgeon could find no infection. Unknown to all, the silver in his system, though not a fatal dose, had served as an anti-venom of sorts to his Lupine curse, and was purifying his body of its malignancy. Lady Amelie, genuinely affected by his delicate state remained at his side and though he was unconscious, and continually read to him at every chance.
As for Gabrielle Émilie, she spent every moment in the palace library as well as in the abbey searching for ancient texts on such beasts. She found very little in that subject except sparse mentions of an ancient race in the writings of the old Greek, Petronius. Petronius wrote of the descendants of Lycaon, who was transformed into a wolf as a result of eating human flesh as he was one of those who were present at periodical sacrifice on Mount Lycæon. Herodotus and Virgil both wrote of the Neuri, a tribe they placed to the north-east of Scythia, land of the Amazons, who were annually transformed for a few days into wolves. The ancient Roman scholar, Pliny the Elder, also make brief mention of a man of Anthius’ family who was selected by lot and brought to a lake in Arcadia, where he hung his clothing on an ash tree and swam across, resulting in his transformation into a wolf, a form in which he wandered for nine years. On the condition that he attacked no human being over the nine year period, he would be free to swim back across the lake to resume human form. But most of these were sparse and were almost certainly nothing more than fables and fairy tales. She found no modern sources that could be of help.
At the expiration of several weeks, Loccriccio did awake from his long slumber and to the sight of his true love Amelie. Realizing at once that he no longer carried his blood thirst, he awakens to a new life, and realizes that he can now happily pursue his love of Amelie with out his dark secret. The following morn, the Colonel promoted Gabrielle Émilie to the rank of Major and Loccraccio to a Captain, an entire company was assigned to them. Additionally, Loccraccio came to the realization that it was Gabrielle Émilie’s hand that saved him, and in private did swear an allegiance to his new commander. Loccriccio, having the knowledge which of the soldiers were were-wolves, was able to predict when they would succumb to their Lupine nature and hunted them one by one. The foiled attempt thwarted and the army alerted, Könner’s Lycourgos stalls and waivers.
But this good fortune is short lived as a compliment of one hundred men-at-arms arrived under the banner of the Cardinal at Castle Verfluchter Todd as was the request of the Reverend Father and Custos Morum. With no knowledge of what impending doom awaited her, Gabrielle Émilie lay one morning in the sweet embrace of the Abbess Sophia, their perfumed bodies glistened with beads of sweat, like dew upon a lush meadow. The two lay amidst the folds of silk and lace, as the morning birds sweetly sang from a nearby branch. The Abbess whispered softly, “De integro, meus diligo…” {Again, my love…}
“Adfirmo…” {Positively…} whispered Gabrielle Émilie, almost giggling, “cor meum tibi offero, Regina meum, prompte et sincere.” {my heart I offer to you, my Queen, promptly and sincerely} and she innocently took hold of Sophia’s hand, and she as innocently kissed hers with a warmth, a sensibility, a grace-all very particular; their lips met; their eyes sparkled; their breasts trembled; their hands strayed.
Without any warning, Badin burst into the apartment and informed the two lovers that a compliment of the Cardinal’s soldiers had arrived at the Abbess’ palace to arrest Gabrielle Émilie. “On what charge?!?” Demanded the Abbess.
“Heresy, My Lady.” Was Badin dry reply. At the word all blood drained from the Abbess’ face for such a word meant an Auto de Fe, and being burned at the stake, and she fainted into Badin’s arms. Badin continued, “They have found forbidden texts in your apartment and two witnesses that saw my lady undressed in the Abbess’ garden and the two of you in embrace; a soldier under your command and the young Count von Fockewülfe.”
She quickly dressed and armed herself with the Stella Martis as Badin tried revive the Abbess. Gabrielle Émilie commanded Badin to take the Abbess to the Spaniard, Senora de Guzmán. Badin begged to stay and fight at her side, but she insisted as the count sought to implicate the Abbess as well and steal her lands and close the Abbey. Finally, Gabrielle Émilie forced Badin to leave with the Abbess at sword point. The two left by a back door just as the Reverend Father as well as the Colonel entered the room. Knowing her ruse was at an end, she lowered her blade and surrendered herself. The Reverend Father along with a High Inquisitor walked over and tore open her night shirt to expose her breasts and source of her womanhood. The High Inquisitor then walked over to her study and emerged with other articles of her uniform. The inquisitor asked of her, if she was in God's grace, she answered: “If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.”
The inquisitor was stupefied. The question was designed as a scholarly trap. Church doctrine held that no one could be certain of being in God’s grace. If she had answered yes, then she would have convicted herself of heresy. If she had answered no, then she would have confessed her own guilt. He then moved to where Gabrielle’s vestments lay, “Child, are these your clothes?”
To which Gabrielle Émilie replied, “They are, holy father.”
“Then you do not deny the charge brought against you? Think carefully child, for your fate hangs upon your answer,” spoke the Inquisitor.
“Regardless of my sex, I served ably and with distinction as an officer of his Imperial Majesty of which I am proud of and freely admit. I shall not sully nor disgrace that service, before you, or my God, by denying it now, even if it means saving my own neck from the noose,” was her reply to which she saw the Colonel nod approvingly.
The Reverend Custos Morum then entered the room, with books in hand, that they had found in her apartment, “These heretical texts were found in your apartment; the forbidden writings of Herr Copernici. The Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition of the Holy Office has listed Herr Copernici’s assertions in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum as heresy as it opposes the teachings of the Holy Mother Church on the grounds that Herr Copernici’s doctrine is false and altogether opposed to Holy Scripture as set by holy decree by his Eminence, Pope Nicholas V. Do you deny these were not in your possession?”
“I do no such thing,” answered Gabrielle Émilie, “My faith has nothing to fear from science, Reverend Father, and neither should yours. As I have learned in my stay here, amongst these good and pious women, science is a search for the facts and laws of nature while religion is a spiritual quest for ultimate meaning and for moral values that science is powerless to provide. To echo Herr Kant and Herr Hume, science tells us what is, not what ought to be. Quite simply put, science studies how the heavens go, and the holy church determines how to go to heaven.”
“Blasphemy!” cried the High Inquisitor, “Arrest her for heresy against the Holy Mother Church.” Upon this order several guards clapped irons upon her feet and hands, in which condition she was conducted to a carriage and was escorted outside the palace gates in front of Captain Loccriccio and her men. She was escorted to the church basement at St. Crispin’s where she was kept under guard by the Cardinal’s men. There she learned that the Abbess Princess had been forced to admit that she was seduced by the Major and had renounced her relations with her. After which she was summoned home by her father the King of Sweden. The Lady Amelie was now the acting Abbess in her place. This broke Gabrielle Émilie’s heart as she had hoped that Badin and Senora de Guzmán were able to save the Abbess.
Many nights the Inquisitor harassed and harangued Gabrielle Émilie to recant and deny her sin. If she did so, her soul would be spared though her life she would still forfeit, but at least her soul, assured the Inquisitor, would be carried to heaven by a phalanx of angels once the Auto de Fe made cinders of her bones. Gabrielle Émilie would not waiver in her defiance. At one such trial, she even so much as sung Lady de Pizan’s Ditié de Jehanne d'Arc:
“I, Christine, who have wept for eleven years in a walled
abbey where I have lived ever since Charles - how strange
this is! - The King's son--dare I say it?--fled in haste
from Paris, I who have lived enclosed there on account of
the treachery, now, for the first time, begin to laugh”
When finally it came time for her sentence to be decided, there was much discussion between the Colonel and the High Inquisitor. The Reverend Custos Morum demanded her life be forfeit for heresy, while the Colonel insisted that she was still a Major and an officer under his command, and thus he should decide her just punishment. To this the acting Abbess and Canoness, Lady Amelie, added her voice and pleaded on behalf of Gabrielle Émilie. Both Könner, Ulbrecht of the Pacte, and the Reverend Custos Morum were equally frustrated for until Gabrielle Émilie was disposed off, a hundred of the Cardinal’s men lay encamped at their castle door. Both sides argued before the High Inquisitor for the better part of a day and a half, but in the end it was the Colonel who triumphed. Knowing that he could not be too lenient on his fellow officer, he decide upon a course of action that would be suitable to all parties, yet keep her poor soul alive, for in truth the colonel still admired Gabrielle Émilie, even if only in private. So, yet another court martial sat upon her, and she was sentenced to run the gauntlet six and thirty times through the whole regiment. The Reverend Custos Morum, eager now to vacate the Cardinal’s men from his castle grounds, consented as did the holy father, the High Inquisitor, as he knew the regiment was composed of 2,000 men. Thus all parties being satisfied, Gabrielle Émilie was conducted to a field on the outskirts of the Duchy, where the regiment was given orders to assemble. In witness of the event were the Reverend Custos Morum and his son, the holy father, the High Inquisitor and several scribes.
Gabriell Émilie had gone through this discipline twice, and the regiment being composed of 2,000 men, they composed for her exactly 4,000 strokes, which laid bare all her muscles and nerves from the nape of her neck to her stern. As they were preparing to make her set out the third time, Gabrielle Émilie, unable to support it any longer, begged as a favor that they would be so obliging as to shoot her through the head; the favor being granted, a bandage was tied over her eyes, and she was made to kneel down. At that moment, the colonel inspected her wounds and found that her skin was nearly flayed from her body and from her wounds there was a great loss of blood. He then called the Reverend Custos Morum and the holy father, each in turn to inspect the wounds inflected and having seen the she was not even able to lift herself up-right and that there was upon the ground a great effusion of blood, all were in agreement that her carcass be left upon the field for nature to dispose of as she saw fit. Thus the holy officers of the church did embark upon the Reverend Custos Morum’s carriage and departed for the Castle Verfluchter Todd, while the regiment assembled and prepared to march back to garrison. Soon, at sunset, all had left but poor Gabrielle Émilie’s slumped body that sat upon the middle of the field.
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