AT THE FAR end of the island, where dark cedars cast shadows even at noon, lay the infirmary. Allegra and Celina followed the directions given them, scuttering down snakelike corridors where shadows jumped and danced in the candlelight like spirits of the night. Allegra felt sick with tiredness, her long day in the city already having drained her body of its usual reserves. Worse, she could not decipher the second riddle, which rang in her mind like a hollow, clanging bell.
‘Raise the pennant on the slippery pole,
Awake the sleeper and unlock the soul.’
Desperately, she wondered where it was she had seen a flagpole – but no, she could not remember seeing any in the place. Only as she and Celina had wandered in vain through the moonlit building had Domica again taken pity on them and silently motioned them down towards the softly lit infirmary.
At last they reached the heavily draped portals of the sickroom. Drawing back the curtains, they found a dimly lit chamber filled with empty beds.
‘What do we do now?’ Celina grasped her arm, pinching the flesh tightly.
Shaking her head, Allegra looked about her but there were no clues here. The beds were neatly made but resolutely empty, the floor was clean of all but strewn herbs and the shelves bore only a heavy load of strangely coloured apothecaries’ vials.
At the far end of the sickroom lay another door. Uncertainly, Allegra walked towards it. Beyond the gilded crucifix set out on the door lay a small chapel where those who could not be cured were laid to rest. A grim depiction of a sainted martyr spread across the frescoed wall and massed candles were spread in rows about the walls. And there, before a modest altar, was stretched a figure on a low dais of snowy marble: a handsome figure in a velvet robe with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes.
‘It is the Abbot!’ Celina cried. ‘Allegra, please come away.’
Horrified, Allegra unhooked Celina’s arm from hers and crept towards the figure. His face was as pale as wax and appeared to be sleeping. Yet, with a sense of terror, she reasoned he was indeed dead, so strange was his appearance here, as if he waited for his own funeral. With a quick, deliberate movement, she reached out to his dry lips. There was no breath. Placing the back of her fingers against his cheek, she felt the cold pallor of death. But noting a slow pulse at his neck, she checked this too. There, in the passage of his humours, was a sluggish movement. Her heart froze, watching the insensible man.
‘He is not dead,’ she whispered, as if she feared he might be listening as she spoke. ‘But why he is here, I do not know. Surely the sisters should nurse him? He might easily die on this slab of marble.’
‘I cannot believe it,’ Celina muttered. ‘Surely our task cannot be here?’
As her friend spoke, Allegra could not help but agree in her heart. Clearly they had found the sleeper – but how to awake him? If his soul had truly left his body, who were they to bring it back?
‘Surely we are not expected to nurse him?’ Allegra murmured. Lifting his inert hand, she felt a dead weight, as if it were the hand of a graven image. There was not a trace of warmth in his stiffening fingers. Yet surely they could not leave him, in the chill and deathly chapel? At last, Allegra formed a grim resolve. ‘We must carry him into the sick room.’
And so, with much fear and revulsion, the two girls raised the corpse-like Abbot, bearing his weight like workmen carrying a load upon their backs. Once he was upon their shoulders, they could drag him along with little effort, although both girls felt a thrill of horror as his head lolled forward against them and his jaw loosed to show long, almost canine teeth.
Once they had reached the sickroom Allegra looked about for somewhere to lay him out. There at the far end lay a larger than usual bed, hung about with thin muslin drapes to guard against the flies. With much heaving and dragging, they eventually lowered the prone man on to the bed and arranged his limbs to lie with some semblance of order.
‘He still has not woken,’ Celina pronounced. ‘And if this did not wake him, what would?’
‘Yet he is certainly connected with the riddle.’
They sat awhile, shivering in the gloomy chamber; the candlelight casting eerie shadows across the veil-like drapes about the beds. It was very still and silent; fears and fancies fluttered in their minds like cobwebs flying in a faery breeze.
‘Look, it’s the darkest point of the night.’ Celina drifted over to the window. The night was as dark and obscure as blackest velvet. Silver moths quivered on the air, dancing at the window with finely veined grey wings. The moon was hidden and even the stars, which usually twinkled across the sky, were vague and distant. Suddenly Celina started back from the window in alarm. Turning to her companion in dismay, she said, ‘Must we stay here? Please, Allegra, let us leave this place.’
‘If only we could. But we cannot ignore the riddle. The answer will come to us if we are brave and stay here.’
In a few steps the girl was over at Allegra’s side, slipping her warm arms around her waist. ‘It is a bad thing to sleep in the same room as a corpse. Do you not know that? There are many stories of their malign influence. He is but newly dead and this is the worst time of all, when the sun is furthest from us. Think of all the spirits that walk at night. Just now, a moth came to the window with such a ghastly face like a skull and two black eyes that looked straight into mine. Allegra, please, let us go. So what if we fail? I do not care.’
Holding a candle up to the face of the man on the bed, Allegra shook her head. Maybe it was the amber flame that cast a wholesome light on his skin, but somehow she could not shake off her certainty that he was indeed alive. ‘I am as frightened as you, but I know he is not dead. I will try to rouse him. Get along to bed then, and I will do my best alone.’
But at this, Celina seemed even more alarmed. ‘You cannot stay here alone with it! Do you not know that if you fall asleep, his spirit may return and suck away your soul? Allegra, do not do it. No, I will stay and watch over you.’
After much altercation, it was agreed that they would both stay with the Abbot but would try their hardest not to fall asleep. Celina’s mind was addled with such tales of gravewalkers and hobgoblins that she very nearly persuaded Allegra to desert the sleeping man. But still Allegra held firm. At last they decided to rouse him, for Allegra’s whole being was intent on confounding the Prioress.
First of all, they applied warm cloths to his brow and hands. But his olive skin remained cool to the touch. Next, Allegra tried to waken him with the strong odour of sal volatile beneath his nostrils. This time, there was the slightest flicker of response. Each time she tried, she saw his eyelids flutter, but his eyes remained firmly closed.
‘He is most certainly alive,’ she whispered to Celina, who stood above her, shading a candle in her hand. A sudden dull sound made them both jump. It was the convent bell calling four long tolls.
Desperately, Allegra rubbed his hand between her own palms. His flesh was lifeless, as white and smooth as soap. Lifting his sleeve, she rubbed again, trying to activate the humours that had sunk back into his soul and died. ‘Maybe if we rub his heart?’ she asked.
‘Allegra, please. Oh, please do not do that. He is as good as dead. It is repulsive.’
‘But the power of touch is well known. Many of your old wives cure ills with the laying of hands. Might we not do the same? What is it they do?’
‘Usually, they burn herbs, I think. And rub oils into the flesh of the ill person. But no – you must not do that! Please, I am frightened already.’
Despite her fear, impatience finally got the better of Allegra. ‘These fears of yours are childish,’ she snapped. ‘Think of a life of beggary in the city. Is that what you want? To sit in rags in the arcade with nowhere to sleep and the rough words and kicks of the other rogues as your only company? Come on now, where is your courage? This poor man is only ill – it is a common thing, to fall down and lie still like this. If you cannot bring yourself to touch him, then I will. Only help me, will you, for your own sake?’
Relenting, Celina went over to the rows of bottles and jars to search for some useful remedies. Desperately, Allegra tried to recollect all she knew of the healing arts. It was very little. Only her certainty that if the riddle had been set, there must be an answer, fired her determination. Soon they had a little collection of blackened herbs and seeds, some bottles of oil and a small brass burner to place above the candle. Looking about her, Allegra was struck by the strangeness of the scene: the prostrate body of the Abbot, still dressed in his long clerical robe, the little pile of strange objects which suggested some strange witching ritual, and Celina, now translucently pale in the candlelight, sitting on the bed with a cloak of muslin falling behind her like a wedding veil.
Beginning with the herbs, Allegra placed them in the brass burner and heated them with the flame. Soon, a thick, sweet smell rose into the air, which caught at the back of the throat and quickly made their heads swim. Carefully, Allegra tried to direct the plume of smoke towards the Abbot, but still he did not stir. The worst effects seemed to fall upon the two girls, who felt the room dance around them.
‘What is it?’ Celina asked, with her fingers pressed to her temples.
Allegra only shook her head, too fuddled to answer, unable to order her thoughts into a coherent answer.
Celina was by now lying back on the bed, her eyes half closed. With a groan Allegra joined her, feeling the bed heave and rock like a boat on a stormy ocean. Closing her eyes was no good; strange shapes appeared in front of her inner eye. Trails of smoke coalesced into long armed phantoms, chasing each other through prickly-armed forests. Allegra blinked, slowly opening and shutting her eyes. Even with her eyes uncomfortably open, she found herself acutely aware of the walls of the sickroom; they bulged and receded, as if an ocean were swelling behind the plasterwork.
‘It is not real,’ she muttered, glancing over at Celina who lay like a waxen doll side by side with the sleeping Abbot.
For a long while they lay side by side: the stiff, corpse-like Abbot and the two girls twined about him. In Allegra’s fevered mind phantoms played in the half-light; invisible spirits circled the trio, watching the pair who still lived slumber alongside the dead. She had the sense that something strange was happening around her but was unsure what. Every noise vibrated like a cracked bell in her ears; her fingers felt far, far away on the ends of her arms. As if in a fever, she wondered how it was she had arrived in this place. The riddle surfaced in her mind like an impenetrable iron casket she could not unlock. There was something she was supposed to solve, but the fabric which connected one thing with another was fraying and falling apart.
Only the mournful bell tolling five roused her from a weary half-dream. Shivering, she pulled a sheet about her shoulders and considered the task still to be resolved. By her side, Celina slumbered on, wanly beautiful with pearly eyelids, her yellow hair tumbling freely on the shroud of muslin. As carefully as she could, Allegra picked up the objects which they had collected but whose purpose now seemed more obscure. Staring into a tiny bottle of purple fluid, she found herself fascinated by the bulging reflection of a face in the curve of the glass. With a start, she realised that it was her own countenance staring back at her. Emptying a few drops of oil on to her palm, she again stirred herself to attend to her original purpose – to try to wake the sleeping man. ‘Come along, Celina.’
Celina’s eyelids fluttered, then, yawning, she roused herself and stretched. Laughing softly, she suddenly leant over and blew the candle out. ‘You see,’ she smiled, ‘I am no longer frightened.
Outside, a breeze had lifted, and autumn leaves tapped hesitantly at the window. Far away, the tide was turning, with a muffled boom from distant breakers. The grey veil of dawn was lifting. At last they could properly see the figure sleeping between them. In the pale light the Abbot looked calm and serene and handsome. Dawn had swept away the cobwebs of fear.
Leaning across the sleeping man, Celina pushed back her friend’s unruly hair and kissed her. ‘You know the answer, don’t you?’ she whispered conspiratorially. When Allegra failed to reply she continued, ‘The source of eternal youth?’
‘No.’
Celina rolled on her stomach, kicking her legs lazily into the air. ‘I feel as if I have been travelling in a strange land of dreams. All the stories I was ever told unfolded before my eyes – of princesses and tinkers, of goblins and dragons. I remembered a story about an old, old Emperor in a far away land who greatly feared his own passing away. He so much wanted to keep back the effects of old age, that he slept between two beautiful girls every night. The young flesh animated his vital spirits and renewed him every day by dawn.’
Allegra gazed down on the sleeping Abbot. Could it be true? She thought about how his cold flesh had already been warmed by their bodies, of how any living man must certainly respond to two such ardent bed-mates. Cautiously, she reached out and touched his cheek. It felt cool, but not as cold as it had at first been. ‘You are right. I am sure he will wake.’
‘Shall we undress him?’ Celina asked. She was by her side, her eyes glassy in the grey light her side. ‘Or just lie beside him?’
‘Maybe if we try to warm him.’ Cautiously, Allegra lowered herself beside the sleeping man, and Celina did the same at the other side. It was strange to lie there, pressed hard against a man who might almost be dead. In the silence, they thought their own thoughts, puzzling over life and death and what it is that lies between.
‘Is it witchcraft then,’ Celina suddenly whispered, ‘to use such herbs? My head is only just clearing.’ Lifting her golden head, she gazed blearily across the solemn profile of the Abbot towards Allegra. ‘I have also had such peculiar thoughts about the sisterhood. They would not put a spell on us, would they?’
‘No. I think it is only the herbs – they make life a kind of dream. They open up the doors to many mysteries, to that strange place where dreams and stories live as vividly as you or I.’
‘Surely he will wake now?’ Celina extended her hand to her friend, who thankfully clutched it.
‘He should wake, but there is no sign.’
Rather more languorously, Celina leant across his prone body and began to pull at the man’s clothing, lifting his long, velvet robe to reveal a muslin shirt which fell to his knees. With a few quick movements she had his gown over his head and he lay very still and vulnerable on the bed.
‘Here, let me have that,’ she said, snatching the purple vial. When she unstopped it, a warm, spicy scent filled the air. ‘Surely he cannot resist us?’ she laughed, rubbing the oil quickly between the palms of her hands.
Sitting up beside her, Allegra was struck by the ordinary appearance of the room. It was a long and rather pretty chamber, the muslin curtains hanging like faery webs and not like ghoulish shrouds. Thoughts of spirits and witches now seemed as foolish as the ideas of children.
As briskly as a nurse, Celina began to rub the lotion on the man’s broad chest. ‘Look. There seems a little more life.’
Together they did their best to rouse the man, rhythmically stroking the oil into his pliable flesh. The front of his shirt was open, but otherwise he still lay modestly covered.
‘Do you think it is healing, this stuff?’ Celina asked. ‘For I am still sore from that beating you gave me.’ With a simultaneously innocent but crude gesture, she patted her own behind.
‘My sweet, I had forgotten entirely. It has been such a strange night, like a waking dream. Shall I try it?’
Biting her lip, Celina continued her ministrations for a while. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s blasphemous here.’
But there was something about the girl’s coyness that inflamed her friend. The night’s events had been oddly exciting without being fully satisfying. Here, in this secretive tent of muslin, far from the spying eyes of the sisters, they could spend a little time privately together.
‘Here, let me help you,’ she offered, easing the bunched skirts upwards over Celina’s poor reddened bottom. Tipping a few drops on to the heated surface, she pleasurably began to knead the warm flesh, feeling the girl gratefully sway her hips back and forth towards her. Meanwhile, Celina continued to stroke the Abbot, intent on her work as if nothing were happening to herself at all.
‘Tell me,’ whispered Allegra, as she playfully darted a finger towards the girl’s inner thigh, ‘when I took you – what was it like? Did it truly feel like a man?’
Turning around to face her, Celina’s face was a little more flushed. ‘I should say it was,’ the girl murmured. ‘Though pretty big and awfully hard. And you took me hard, too. You were not gentle.’
‘Oh, I am sorry.’ In apology, she caressed the girl more softly, letting her fingers linger gently where the instrument had before so harshly bruised her. ‘And was it this broad?’ Playfully she pressed two fingers deep into the yielding flesh.
‘Yet more than that.’
‘Like so?’ Stretching three fingers to their widest span, she felt the girl tremble, though she still continued her ministrations towards the Abbot.
‘I do believe you would like the same treatment again,’ she laughed.
‘I would not.’ Celina’s voice, however, was a little breathless.
Allegra had remembered now, that in their confusion she still wore the peculiar belt strapped under her petticoat. With a mischievous giggle, she began to raise her skirts.
The first Celina knew of it was when her friend’s fingers quickly withdrew and the hard leather phallus bore down upon her. With a squeal of appreciation, Celina let herself be taken, letting her friend drive deep inside her until, panting rapidly, she fell forward on top of the sleeping man. With sudden, quick fervour, Allegra’s passion erupted; she kissed the girl’s shoulders and neck and clutched desperately at her arms and breasts. In a few moments Celina’s bodice was open and in a clamour of desire, Allegra kissed her nape and her back, squeezed her breasts, trying to sate the fire that had erupted in the new light of dawn.
Again, she felt an unnatural power as she bore down upon the pliant girl, watching the long, leather rod torment her to the heights of pleasure. But dissatisfied even with the extent of the hard pleasure she was receiving, Allegra could see the girl was taking even more delight from the prone figure beneath her.
‘You are insatiable,’ she whispered in her ear, leaning forward to observe. Whether indeed their proximity had kindled the cleric, or whether Celina had been for some time quietly nuzzling the man’s parts, he now stood crimson and erect and ready for pleasure. As Celina crouched over him with her rump uppermost and Allegra took her from behind, the girl bent over secretly, taking the fleshy member into her mouth, kissing it and sucking it in a paroxysm of pleasure. Not for long could she stand this double indulgence. Grasping her hips, Allegra aimed the long phallus deeply into Celina’s cleft, forcing her to bear down on to the sleeping man so she received the fullest benefit of both. Almost instantly her hips buckled and shook, momentarily stretching rigid before she relaxed contentedly into Allegra’s arms.
‘You are wild,’ Allegra told her, ‘the greediest girl I have ever known.’
Like a gourmand contented at a feast, Celina lazily blinked. ‘Why do you not have him?’ she said. ‘No one will ever know.’
Allegra looked at the long red member, its head now swollen purple, still wet from her friend’s kisses. ‘I could not,’ she demurred.
But in a moment, her friend’s arms were about her, her lips were kissing the soft skin at her throat and her fingers were avidly unfastening the laces at her front. ‘No one would ever know,’ Celina whispered. ‘Here are you a novice, yet in their midst you could enjoy a man’s flesh. And no one will be the wiser – not even him.’
As she spoke, she awakened the fire which slumbered in Allegra’s flesh, exciting her skin with short, sharp caresses. Pulling Allegra’s breasts from the tight stays, Celina kneaded the sensitive spheres, making her friend gasp with delight as her nipples lengthened and swelled beneath the assault of finger and tongue.
‘Go on,’ Celina murmured in her ear, pushing her forward towards the red shaft which stood so tall and erect from the parting of muslin and black velvet.
‘I cannot.’
But as Allegra hesitated, Celina was undoing her resolve, sliding her fingers between her thighs and teasing her lips with tender promises of pleasure still to come. Playfully letting her fingers slide around Allegra’s secret entrance, Celina began to harry her victim, all the time leading her hand to the swollen rod which stood so firm. Finally, Allegra let her hand be led to the healthily reddened penis; with a sudden burst of pleasure she grasped it and felt a warm flood of lust fill her loins. It was true – private as they were here, she must have it inside her. Though still wearing the belt, it was easy to slide that to one side, and, with her back to the sleeping man’s face, clamber astride him so his member jutted between her parted thighs. Holding it steady, Celina guided her friend downwards, until, with a spasm of bliss, she felt its flaming tip pierce her, then stretch her and finally pound deep within her.
It was like making love to two people. For as she rode astride the motionless phallus, neither would Celina let her be. Where the man lacked kisses and caresses, Celina made up for this, clambering across his thighs to press hard against Allegra, guiding her back and forth on the slippery rod. It was clear that Celina was transported just by observing the scene, enjoying watching her friend’s aching slit bear down on the stationary cock.
Eagerly, she partook as well, caressing her in those many ways which she knew would drive her quickly to the edge of rapture. Squeezing and stroking Allegra’s buttocks, she increased the pace of her friend’s thrusting, stroking her lips where the wide member forced them brutally apart. As the pace increased, Celina took Allegra’s breasts and pinched the nipples hard, making Allegra cry out in both pain and dizzy pleasure.
Only when Allegra grew flushed and breathless, did Celina throw off her last few garments and grasp the leather penis which still bounced from Allegra’s crotch. ‘Let me be with you,’ she groaned, sliding her thighs wide around Allegra’s waist. With barely a second’s hesitation in the rhythm of their coupling, Celina had mounted the false member and was riding too, driving her own willing flesh hard on to the spiky leather. Face to face, they kissed each other in a frenzy of lust, tongues probing hard into each other’s mouths and fingers exploring every cranny of flesh.
With a pang of delight, Allegra felt the stiff rod of the Abbot twitch inside her. It had stood manfully for some time now, plunging deep inside her as her sensitive skin rippled and squeezed around its girth. Looking down now, she saw the wonderful sight of the reddened base of this true member disappearing inside her wet and swollen interior. At the same time, the cruel black phallus was tormenting Celina, stretching her wide around its base where her juices foamed with pleasure.
‘Push against me,’ Allegra begged, pulling her even closer. For even though they might both be pleasured by a male instrument, still she wanted to feel the soft, yielding pleasure of the female. Only by experiencing the deepest penetration could they make their two swollen lips graze one against the other. The effect was like sun on glass. While the Abbot’s member seemed to be buried so deep within her she could feel the swollen head throbbing inside her, she still pushed hard against Celina’s beautiful pouting lips.
In the agony before release Allegra grasped Celina, pulling her down hard against her eager vulva, burying the leather probe unmercifully deep inside her. But with a wave of fire, their two burning clefts made frantic contact and, grinding one into the other, convulsed in an agony of bliss. Moaning, panting, their breasts kneading hard against each other’s, their swollen lips rippling, they climbed the last few steps to rapture.
‘Yes, he is here,’ Allegra moaned, as pleasure erupted like a wave from the pit of her stomach to the ends of her fingers, ‘he is with us.’ For in the tumult of pleasure, she felt it – a hot surge in her loins, a spasm and release.
‘Hurry, he is waking,’ Celina giggled, noticing his eyelids fluttering.
‘Help me, then.’ Together they rapidly pulled down his tunic, trying simultaneously to pull on their clothes. In a few seconds all looked neat; his hands were folded modestly across his stomach and the two girls looked only a little dishevelled, as if they had indeed spent a sleepless night nursing their pitiful patient.
It was not a moment too soon. Tossing his head from one side to another, the man gradually wakened, his clear blue eyes finally meeting those of Allegra, who gazed at him somewhat abashed.
‘You have slept for a long time.’ Celina offered him a sip of water, for which he was clearly grateful. In reply he mouthed a phrase which at first they could not decipher. At last Allegra guessed that he asked for how long he had slept.
‘It has been five days,’ she said gently. ‘Do you remember nothing?’
Thankfully, he shook his head, gazing with gratitude on the pair of novices who had so dutifully nursed him back to health.
‘Then we must tell the sisters,’ Allegra announced briskly, ‘for we are truly grateful at your return to life. It is a great deliverance, for all of us.’