Free The Book of the Beast by Tanith Lee Page B

overland route. The date of his return had not been coined.
    There was a page who sometimes waited on Helise when the household gathered. She supposed he had been designated hers. On the stair she beckoned him.
    “Where is my Lord Heros?”
    “In House Lyrecourt, across the City.”
    “You will follow me now and I will give you a letter for my lord. Then go with it to the door of d’Uscaret and wait for him. Wait all night if you must.”
    “He’ll be home at midnight,” said the page, perkily privy to the doings of her husband as she was not.
    “That’s as may be. Only behave as I tell you.”
    In the bedchamber-by the void hearth, the great chimney-piece with its falcons either side, she wrote:
    “Call upon me tonight, my lord, or, such is my misery, I shall kill myself and damn my soul for ever.”
    What fashioned these words, succinct and awful, she could not decide. The Devil? It could not be her own desperate mind. She was a fool, but Satan was wise.
    But then, would Heros attend to her threat?
    It seemed Satan ascertained he would.
    She handed the letter to the page, folded in a scarf which she had smeared with Ysanne’s unction.
    Alone, she anointed her body, rubbing the spicy-smelling oil into her breasts, her thighs, her throat and belly. The friction maddened her. She sprinkled the powder into some wine. She wondered in alarm at all she did. But now, as if a bell had struck the hour, she knew that her prayers were heard in Hell.
    She heard too, finally, the midnight Matines tolled from the Sacrifice, and not many minutes after, a dog barked under the wall. It seemed then she felt the reverberation of the shutting of a door.
    Time passed, or else time was stilled. And in the midst of the candles’ shining, as if in a slab of crystal, Helise waited.
    Until the great door of the bedchamber was opened.
    On a frame of dark, her pale husband stood looking at her.
    “What is it, madam, that you want of me?”
    Some feminine slyness had kept her in her gown, her hair bound in its metal caul. The same slyness stayed her on the spot, staring at the floor, her hands clasped under her breast.
    “My letter to you,” she said, “told everything.”
    “No, nothing. Are you so desperate?” he said coldly. “You seem in command of yourself.”
    “I die of sadness.” she said. “But since you don’t care for me, I strive to hide the hurt. What do I want?
    Only courtesy. Not to be the mock of the house. That you should say farewell before you leave me for ever.”
    Ah, Satan, her tutor.
    Now Heros had closed the door and advanced into the room. Helise did not lift her eyes, although he was before her.
    “It isn’t to be helped,” he said quietly. “But since you wish it, I’m here to say farewell. And for this talk of death…”
    “To kill myself? Why not? What should I live for?”
    “You are God’s. What worse insult can you offer the Creator than to fling back His present in His face?
    Do you think He would ever forgive you? Through the endless centuries until Doomsday, He would not.”
    He spoke as sternly as any friar. She recalled the conversation between himself and his mother in the garden. To be a priest, his only chance. He was wrong. She was his chance. Her love, so strong and vital that it seared, this would set him free.
    “You must be my guide,” she whispered.
    “Then cancel every idea of self-destruction.”
    “I will remember your words. If you were here to guide me—’
    “Helise, I can’t remain. Sweet girl,” he said, suddenly very tenderly, “you must guide yourself. Let your own angel instruct you. You’re so young—not one iota of blame…’ And he ceased speaking, and she knew that his concentration was centred wholly on her. Either her vehemence, or Ysanne’s ointment, possibly both together, had taken hold of him. She had come to life for Heros, with all that implied.
    Saying nothing she turned from him and poured the wine into a glass. She offered it to him,