Whispers of the Flesh Read Free

acquired before entering seminary to adopt the guise of a landscape gardener.
    This fortnight past I have enjoyed the hospitality of Archbishop Bélanger at his own remarkably beautiful château in the region of Auvergne, where his secretary made me privy to allegations dating back some six centuries of strange happenings in and around Grotte Cachée. Notable amongst these were reputed acts of extraordinary wickedness and lechery committed there by certain individuals whose descriptions and actions would suggest a diabolical nature.
    Such accusations have generally been regarded as heated imaginings, and therefore rarely committed to writing save for the most cursory of notations. As a consequence, there exist few pieces of written evidence detailed enough to be of use for our purposes. Per Cardinal Lazzari’s instructions, I penned but one copy, translated into Italian, of each of these documents, which I shall dispatch to Rome for His Eminence’s inspection on the morrow. First, however, I shall summarize them frankly herein, transcribing verbatim the most condemnatory passages. I do so, I need hardly say, at the express direction of your Lordship, much as it appalls me to relate incidents of such an impure stripe.
    The earliest of the written accounts, which is undated but believed to have been recorded in the late 13th century, is a description in Latin by a parish priest of events related to him—not, I hasten to add, under the seal of confession—by a young woman named Fabrisse who had served briefly as a chambermaid at Château de la Grotte Cachée. She gave distraught testimony of having witnessed a libidinous interlude involving four men and a woman engaging in “deplorable acts of sodomy.” Particularly distressing to her was the fact that the men were visiting Knights Templar, one of them the Grand Master himself. Fabrisse was deeply disillusioned, having been reared to revere the Templars as upstanding soldiers of Christ.
    Following the evening meal, the knights and the woman, a comely, fair-haired resident of the château whom Fabrisse knew to be a wanton despite her aristocratic bearing, amused themselves by playing chess in the great hall.

    The priest recorded Fabrisse’s account thusly:

    “The woman, having been the victor in a match against one of the knights, declared that she could vanquish them all, and that should she fail to do so, she would relieve the lust of every man in the room. The knights looked to their commander, who eagerly accepted the challenge. The lady won the second and third matches, but lost the fourth, after which she stripped naked and did as she had promised with careless good humor.
    “While all sat about watching, she defiled herself with the first two men by lifting their robes and committing the sin of coitus oralis. The third, expressing a desire for coitus analis, placed her on her elbows and knees and sodomized her.
    “The last among them to receive her favors was the Grand Master himself, who instructed her to kneel and relieve him through oral copulation. Instead, she lay on a table with her legs opened wide, boldly offering herself as she caressed her breasts and mons veneris. He mounted her and they fornicated in the conventional manner.”
    Afterward, according to this account, the woman slipped out into the night, and as Fabrisse watched, uttered words of enchantment that turned her into a male. Thus transformed, this “aberration of nature” proceeded to climb the exterior wall of a tower with naught but his bare hands and feet, stealing into the bedchamber of a female visitor to the château, the widow of an English baron. There came a scream of terror from the widow that greatly alarmed Fabrisse, however, it was followed in short order by a moan of pleasure.
    “The lustful groans and cries, both male and female, that issued from that window for the remainder of the night left little doubt in Fabrisse’s mind as to the activities transpiring