Sanctuary of Roses Read Online Free PDF Page B

what he
was about. “You do not mean that she lives?”
    His brows drew together in a sudden show of
ferocity such that Judith was taken aback. “Aye, the wench does
live. And it shall be through her that I’ll at last get to
Fantin.”
    “You’d not hurt her!” Judith forgot herself
and the fragility of the tenuous bond between them and clutched at
his powerful arm. Insult flashed over his face at her words, and
she berated herself for causing it. But she’d not see another
woman, especially Madelyne de Belgrume (if ’twas truly her of whom
he spoke) hurt.
    “Nay, Judith, I’d not hurt her.” His voice
was gruff as he closed his fingers over her hand to remove it from
his arm. “But she will be a means to bring Fantin to heel.”
    * * *
    The rough stones ground into his aching
knees, but Fantin de Belgrume delighted in the discomfort. He would
bear any such penance or pain whilst he prayed—for any distress he
suffered now would be well repaid when his work was completed.
Indeed, Fantin preferred to pray among the evidence of this work,
there on the bare floor, within the sight and smell and feel of it,
rather than in the chapel.
    He twined his fingers together in
supplication, finishing the hour of prayer that was as much a part
of his work in the laboratory as the formulas and tonics and
metallic brews were. Fantin began and ended every session in his
laboratory in concert with God, knowing that without His guidance,
he would never find the formula he sought…which had been promised
him.
    ’Twas fitting, that he should be the one to
receive the secret once given to the Magdalen—the fascinating,
sinful woman who appeared as three different ladies in the Gospels:
Mary of Magdala, Mary, the sister of Lazarus, and the woman who
anointed Christ’s feet with her tears and wiped them dry with her
hair.
    She was a woman who atoned for her sins—a
wealthy woman, just as Fantin himself was wealthy. A wealthy woman
who sinned through sexual pleasure…just as Fantin did. The woman
from whom Christ had expelled seven demons.
    Legend had it that this woman’s bones—the
bones of the Whore Saint, as Fantin preferred to think of her—were
interred near Vézelay, in France. Coincidentally, it was the
village near where his mother hailed, and was thus cause for her
devotion to the Magdalen. Legend foretold that the blood of the
woman saint ran in Fantin’s own veins—and he knew that was the
reason God had chosen him.
    Pulling to his feet, relishing the pain that
shot down his left leg and knowing that soon it would never bother
him again, Fantin drew in a deep breath of pleasure and joy. The
stale, earthy smell of the below-stairs chamber tinged his
nostrils, and he inhaled deeply, drawing its energy into his
being.
    ’Twas not a pleasant smell, that of brewing
leaves, burning flesh and molten metal, he allowed—in fact, it was
enough to curdle one’s belly—but God had put it on His earth
apurpose. Every aspect of His creation, every being, every creature
served a role in God’s world…and Fantin himself served the greatest
of these.
    He smiled, thinking on that as he returned
to the table where the last task he’d been involved in—crushing the
smooth, silky bark of a birch tree with flakes of silver and bronze
metals—remained half-completed.
    For years, he’d sought the secret of the
Grail: perfect combination of chemistry that would create the
substance whose mere touch would give him Immortality. It would
change any metals to gold.
    It would create for Fantin a life of power
under which to serve God.
    He sought and studied and prayed to
determine the exact amounts of each element that would be required
to complete the ancient process. Metals, wood, earth,
water…fire…all or some of these elements would someday cohese,
forming that miracle which Fantin sought—that miracle which had
been promised him by his bloodline: the miracle of the Holy Grail
and what some called the Philosopher’s