Leopard in Exile Read Free Page B

him.
    De Sade knew better than to turn to look upon the face of his Master. He kept his eyes fixed upon a
    small mirror of polished obsidian affixed to the foot of the cross. In it he could see the room, crazily
    distorted and reversed. He could also see what looked like a flaw of dark light, a disordering of the air,
    and he knew that the One he had summoned had come to him. De Sade's power would last only until the
    virgin's heart was burnt to ash, and he must be both quick and careful.
    "I, your most faithful worshipper."
    TO WHAT END?
    "I beg a boon of you, infernal Lord," de Sade said. "I beseech you, in the name of the Treasure I dare not
    name, grant me its possession so that I may suborn the Table of Heaven, and exalt that which has been
    cast into the Pit!"
    There was a long silence, broken only by the sizzle of burning flesh upon the coals, as de Sade waited,
    almost swooning, his attention fixed unwaveringly upon the black mirror.
    YOU SEEK THAT WHICH ONLY THE MOST HOLY MAY APPROACH.
    "Only tell me where it lies, and I will find a way to gain it!" de Sade vowed recklessly. "I will prepare you
    such a feast as has never been offered to you by the hand of living man!"
    If you fail of this vow, you are mine.
    The last stroke of the unheard church bell tolled, and the giddiness against which de Sade had fought
    overwhelmed him at last. He sank helplessly to the floor, his blood-soaked tools falling from his flaccid
    hands.
    He did not know how long he lay in the throes of unconsciousness, but when he roused himself at last,
    the braziers had burned down and the candle flames once more burned yellow. Slowly, cursing his age
    and the stiffness of his joints, de Sade got painfully to his feet.
    The floor was sticky with the girl's spilled blood. But as he regarded it, it seemed to him that the marks
    were too regular, too orderly, to be simply the spillage of mortal fluids.
    It was a map. And glinting at its center, a small fleck of green fire.
    The object he sought.
    The Grail.
    "And so the game begins," de Sade said softly. "All of you great men who despise me, who think that you
    can use me and set me aside when my use is done, I say to you that your day is done, your empire at an
    end! For the sorcery mat has been your puppet will be your master, and on that day neither crowns nor
    swords will save you—this I, the Due d'Charenton, swear to you all!"

Chapter One
    Under an English Heaven
    (June 1807)
    T he rooftops of London sparkled as if they had been polished. The spring had been wet, miring
    carriages in hedgerows and making travel to the opening of Parliament—and the Season—more than
    usually hazardous. Despite that inconvenience, every townhouse and rented lodging in every
    even-remotely fashionable district of Town was full to bursting by the Ides of March, their steps newly
    limewashed and the knockers on the doors, for this Season was to be the most glittering since bloody
    Revolution had struck down the aristocracy of France fifteen years before.
    The Court, as was its usual custom, spent Yuletide at Holyrood Palace, but instead of spending deep
    winter in procession from one Great House to the next, this year the Court had returned directly to St.
    James Palace after Hogmanay, for there was much to do to prepare for a Royal wedding.
    The marriage-lines, and the treaty that accompanied them, had been ready for over two years, for this
    was a marriage of state, one that would bind two countries as well as two persons together. Prince Jamie
    of England, King Henry's heir, was to wed Princess Stephanie Julianna of Denmark, securing a
    Protestant royal bride for England and a new support for the Grande Alliance all in one stroke. But
    though speed was of the essence, first social considerations, then political ones, had delayed the match
    again and again.
    First, the Royal wedding embassy—two ships, the princess, her trousseau, and the final version of title
    treaty—had mysteriously vanished between