Iron Lace (29 page)

Monique rose from the prayer rail bewilderedly. The cries
of "
Incendio
!" could be heard above the din of
bells and frantic shouting. She wondered where the fire had struck and
hoped her home would be spared this time.

The firehouse was there on the square, only a short
distance from the church, next to the guardhouse, but the city only had
six pumps and those were operated by hand, so they usually had to be
supplemented by lines of bucket brigades.

In those brief seconds that it had taken for her to rouse
herself from her orations and realize what was happening, the church
had emptied of its occupants. Only Father Sebastian remained now,
standing there beside her with a strange elated look in his eyes.

She looked questioningly at him. "Merciful heavens! Don't
tell me it's another fire?" she exclaimed in dismay. Her heart was
still heavy, but she wanted to be with her loved ones now. Her own
problems suddenly seemed to diminish in size next to the greater
emergency that threatened everything and everyone she held dear.

Fray Sebastian stole a quick glance around him as he moved
in closer to her. "Come, child, it's shorter if we go out the back," he
said, grabbing her by the arm and beginning to lead her around to the
rear of the altar. The grip of that bony hand was surprisingly strong,
and instinctively Monique resisted, but the monk pulled her along with
him.

"Come, we must hurry," he insisted.

"Please, I… I don't need any help," she told
him, growing more annoyed by the minute over the monk's arbitrary
manner. There was something about him that frightened her.

"Don't argue, do as I say!" he chided impatiently. They
were behind the altar now, and he continued to pull her along by the
arm.

Determined not to let him drag her any farther, Monique
tried to break free and run away from him, but suddenly, with one
sweeping gesture, he caught her to him, as though he were arresting the
flight of a bird on wing. Deftly he twisted her arm behind her and
pulled her back up against him, even as he clamped his other hand
simultaneously over her mouth before she could utter a sound of protest.

"
Al fin
!" he exclaimed triumphantly
in her ear. "At last I have you!"

The confused shouts just outside the church seemed to be
echoing Monique's inner turmoil at that moment. With muffled protests
against the hand that covered the lower half of her face, she tugged
desperately at those steellike fingers clamped over her mouth while she
struggled in vain to work herself free of him, but the wiry strength of
the seemingly frail monk surprised her.

Her skirts whirled and her voluminous cloak tangled with
the long loose habit and flowing sleeves of the Capuchin as she tried
to kick and lash out blindly at him, but he wouldn't release his grip.
Instead, he forced her to the floor facedown and, still keeping her arm
pinioned behind her, held her there with one of his knees in the pit of
her back while he shoved a gag into her mouth and quickly trussed her
hands together behind her with the cord-belt from his own habit.

Finally he pulled her roughly to her feet and looked down
at her jubilantly as she stood there swaying before him, whimpering and
spent.

"This moment was heaven-sent!" he rejoiced. "God has
delivered you into my hands at last! Now we must get you below
immediately while everyone is busy with the fire."

He threw her voluminous cloak about her shoulders and
pulled the hood down well over her head so that it covered her face
almost completely. He adjusted the gag in her mouth more securely. It
was dry and coarsely woven and tasted of sweat and incense. She
murmured protests against it, but it stifled them. Terror paralyzed
her. God help her! This couldn't be happening! It had to be some
horrible nightmare. Soon she'd be awakening and Miguel would be there
laughingly reassuring her that it had all been just a bad dream.
Perhaps nothing of that dreadful afternoon had really happened. Perhaps
she hadn't found Miguel caressing Azema. Perhaps there wasn't any fire
at all outside. And perhaps that diabolical creature with the peaked
hood wasn't really dragging her off at that very moment to she knew not
where! The scream lodged in her throat was suffocating her…
if only she could breathe! The blackness closed in and engulfed her.

"Pray,
daughter of Satan, pray! Lift up your voice to the heavens
and confess your sins!"

Monique struggled desperately to emerge from the gray seas
swirling around her. She had no idea where she was, but whatever the
place, she had the vague memory of having been dragged, even carried
there.

Contrary to her hopes, no one had tried to stop her or her
abductor on their short walk from the back door of the church to Fray
Sebastian's hut near the walls of the calabozo. It hadn't occurred to
anyone that beneath the heavy folds of her cloak she had been bound and
gagged.

True, a few people dashing by had shouted to them, but
although Fray Sebastian's grip on her arm had tightened as he forced
her to keep pace with him, he had called back casually enough. There
hadn't seemed to be any reason to challenge them. Those who had seen
her hooded figure with the monk had probably thought she'd been
stumbling along like that because she had either been overcome with
emotion or injured in the fire. After all, everyone had been too
preoccupied with his or her own problems to be concerned over a friar
helping some stricken woman get to wherever she was going.

She vaguely remembered Padre Sebastian leading her into
the dark closeness of his one-room hovel, and then, as she had stumbled
and fallen again, he had slung her over his shoulder as though she had
been a sack of flour and continued down with her into a dark, damp
passageway… down into what had seemed like the black caverns
of Hades. The last thing she remembered before she had completely lost
consciousness again had been a damp, musty odor mingled with incense
stinging her eyes and nostrils. Now it was the first thing she was
aware of as she came drifting back to reality.

She was lying on something hard and clammy, but when she
went to get up, she was startled to find she couldn't. Her limbs seemed
to be paralyzed. Frantically she tried to lower her arms, but they
seemed to be frozen there high above her head. She tested her legs, but
her ankles were held fast, too. Panic began to paralyze her now from
within as she realized she was strapped down.

Although her cape had been removed and its hood was no
longer pulled forward over her head blocking her view, she still
couldn't make out at first where she was. As she grew accustomed to the
dim light, however, the distorted shadows looming around her finally
began to take on more definite forms, and she suddenly saw with horror
that she was in a dungeon.

The air was damp and clammy and the crumbling bricks in
the circle of light given off by the sputtering torch in the sconce on
the wall glistened with huge drops of water. For a moment she thought
she was seeing long black snakes crawling up and down the walls, but
then, as her eyes began to focus better, she realized that what she was
seeing was in reality a sinister assortment of long black whips hanging
there ready for use!

Somewhere in the dim recesses of her confused mind Monique
remembered rumors about the calabozo's hidden torture
chamber—a deep, dark dungeon where prisoners were taken,
never to emerge to the light of day again. But what had she to do with
such things? Why would anyone want to bring her to such a
place… most of all, someone like Fray Sebastian?

Even at that moment, the monk was bending over her and
removing the gag at last. She coughed and sputtered as the air rushed
in once more and seared her throat and lungs, but at least she could
breathe again.

"No one can hear us here," he said in a matter-of-fact
tone. "Many a scream has resounded in this chamber, but they have all
remained buried here with their guilt."

"Why are you doing this to me?" she sobbed. "Why?" Her
quivering lips kept mouthing the question, even after the sound would
no longer come.

"So much the worse for you if you don't know the reason!"
he admonished her. "That means we'll have to work all the harder to
make you aware of the evil that lies within you before we can hope to
bring you to repentance."

"If you mean to kill me, do so now and get it over with!"
she exclaimed, suddenly defiant.

Fray Sebastian chuckled his dry, mirthless laugh and
continued to stare down intently at her from where he stood beside the
rack. His narrow, sunken face, partially shadowed by the hood of his
homespun cowl, seemed longer than ever as he stroked his pointed beard
pensively.

"No, no, child, we cannot go too quickly," he replied. "We
must prolong each precious moment. You have no idea how many nights
I've lain awake planning every exquisite step of your purification.
We'll spend many a long hour here in holy communion during the days
and nights to come, until the devil has been drawn out of you
completely and you repent of all your sins."

"
Mon Dieu
! But what have I done that
is so terrible?" asked Monique tremulously from where she lay helpless
on the rack.

"The case against you is long, Monique Chausson. All your
transgressions have been duly noted in detail for well over a year now,
for you are most surely a handmaid of the devil. You have exhibited
yourself brazenly in the streets, deliberately enticing men to the
temptations of the flesh. You have been disobedient not only to your
God and your elders, but to his Catholic Majesty Carlos IV and the
authorities of this colony, publicly demonstrating against them and
inciting rebellion and sedition. Women like you have been sent by Satan
to cause trouble in this world and lead those around them into
perdition. Your only hope for salvation is for you to confess your
guilt and accept your chastisement before it's too late."

"Am I truly so evil, then? God forgive me!"

"Don't lie to me, Monique Chausson. I have it all written
down with dates and details. But when I've finished with you, you'll be
crying out your guilt and begging for forgiveness."

"Merciful God! If I've done so many wicked things, then I
beg forgiveness now, Padre!" exclaimed Monique, ready to burst into
tears once more. "There's no need to torment me. If I've sinned, I want
to atone."

"I'm glad to hear that," replied Fray Sebastian with a wry
smile, "but you daughters of Satan are sly ones. You think that, by
feigning repentance, you can escape chastisement. But for those who
have sinned, there can be no true cleansing of the soul without first
suffering the pangs of the flesh… that flesh which harlots
like you value more than your souls. So if you are sincere about
wanting to be forgiven, you'll accept the purging that you must go
through before true purity can be reached."

"What… what are you going to do to me, then?"
Her voice was so tremulous that it was barely audible.

"We'll start with something I've wanted to do from the
first time I saw you flaunting yourself in the plaza." He stepped off
into the shadows for a moment and returned with what seemed to be a
long iron bar in his hand. "I must first burn the mark of salvation
into that sinful flesh of yours."

He reached down and, without further ado, whisked away the
white lawn fichu that filled the low neckline of her gown. Monique gave
a cry of dismay and turned her head away as the cleavage of her breasts
suddenly gleamed white and bold in the dim torchlight.

The monk gave a sarcastic snort. "But why should you be so
modest now?" he asked mockingly as he tugged impatiently at the bodice
until it yielded the fullness of her breasts completely to his view.
"Didn't I see you that time on the plaza pushing your collar apart so
all men could see and lust after you?"

"Oh, no, I never meant to do that!" she protested, no
longer able to control the trembling of her taut limbs as she stole a
fearful glance at him and saw how his eyes gleamed with a strange light
within the shadowy depths of his hood.

"Hush, child with the heart of a whore! Didn't I see you
with my own eyes?" He held the tip of the brand close to the girl's
face so she could see the cross it formed. "Do you see
this—the sign of our Lord and Savior?" He lowered the iron and pressed it
between her breasts. She winced at the feel of the cold, hard metal
against her flesh. "We'll brand these fine ripe breasts of
yours… right here… like this. Then we'll see
whether you'll ever bare them so brazenly again."

Monique watched in terrified fascination as the monk
glided about the shadows like a silent phantom, lighting the ominous
brazier in the center of the room. Its bricks blackened from the smoke
and flames of past infamies, the open oven stood only an arm's span
from where Monique lay suspended on the rack.

As the coals began to glow he stirred them with the
long-handled iron and then left it lying there to continue heating
while he turned once more to where she lay helpless and weeping. His
eyes already seemed to be burning into the spot where he had decided
the brand would first sear her flesh.

The monk began to mumble prayers over her, and
instinctively she tried to murmur her own, but the words stuck in her
throat. She couldn't take her eyes off the tip of the iron lying there
amid the crackling flames and stared at it with hypnotic fascination as
she watched the cross on its tip begin to glow. The tongues of fire
licking hungrily at it seemed to be slowly imbuing it with a life of
its own.

The chanting of the monk rose in volume until it reached a
feverish pitch, the Latin phrases so accelerated now that the
incantations were no longer distinguishable. Beads of sweat glistened
on the ruddy blur of his features as the fire sought out his
Mephistophelian features beneath the shadow of his hood, for the heat
from the brazier had quickly warmed the chill of the room, making the
stifling closeness of the atmosphere all the more intolerable. A clammy sweat bathed Monique as she lay there numb with
terror, her fear increasing with every moment as the cross glowed with
greater and greater intensity among the burning coals.