In the Garden of Sin (7 page)

Sibylla, her hand curled around Elic’s right arm—I held his left in a rigid grip—said, “It looks like something the Romans might have built.”

“It is, actually,” replied Inigo, who had his arms around the waists of the other two novices. He’d told us he relished the opportunity to practice his favorite language, English, which he spoke, curiously enough, with a British rather than French
accent. “There was a Roman villa here for about three hundred years following the Gallic Wars, a sort of pleasure retreat for an important family. They built this bathhouse to take advantage of a cave stream they felt had mystical qualities.”

“Did it?” Lucy asked.
“Does
it?”

“Why don’t we all have a dip,” he suggested, “and ye can decide for yourselves.”

Of course
, I thought. “A dip” meant disrobing, and this was, after all, to be our first lesson in “the arts of the bedchamber.”

The footmen stood to either side of the bathhouse’s arched doorway as we filed inside, to murmurs of awe from the novices, for the golden radiance was the product of scores of candles, a hundred or more, their flames trembling all around us. Some sat on low wrought-iron tables, but most had melted in place on little natural shelves and depressions on the rear wall, which of course was part of the mountain to which the bathhouse was appended.

Colorful pillows were scattered all about, and there were trays of brandywine and sack near the square marble pool, from which a haze of steam rose into the cool night air. A large section of ceiling over the pool was open to the night sky, the roof’s remaining perimeter being buttressed by four columns, one near each corner of the pool.

Adjoining each column was a life-size marble statue of a nude couple, which I took at first for a god and goddess— Venus and Adonis, perhaps, given the amorous poses. But upon closer inspection, I saw that the poses weren’t so much amorous as lascivious, being representations of explicit sexual union, and not just of normal intercourse. Two depicted what I now knew to be lovemaking in the French manner as described to me by the other novices that afternoon, the male being the recipient in one instance and the female in the other.

And the couple—it was the same man and woman in each
sculpture—was clearly not meant to portray Venus and Adonis, nor any of the pantheon of Roman deities. The female was voluptuous but otherwise unremarkable; however, the male had stubby horns and slightly pointed ears showing through his head of short, coiled curls, and a slender tail with a little tuft of hair on the end. He also possessed a colossal male appendage that was depicted in the erect state, something I’d never before seen in a work of art—or anywhere else, of course. The organ in question reared up in the air, which I assumed at the time to be, along with its size, a comically absurd exaggeration meant to convey outsized erotic appetites. After all, this was no god but a satyr.

Looking away from the statues so as to collect myself, I noticed an irregular, doorlike opening in the wall of mossy rock, and ventured closer to peer into it.

“’Tis our cave,” Elic said when he saw what had drawn my attention, “the hidden grotto for which our little valley was named.”

He advised me not to venture too far into this
grotte cachée
, should I choose to explore it during my stay, no farther than the cressets illuminating the first quarter mile or so. “Not only does it get deucedly dark in there,” he said, “and labyrinthine as well, but some people experience a certain derangement of the senses within its walls, what we call
le magnétisme hallucinatoire
. I’m told it can oft be felt here in the bathhouse as well. Occasionally a visitor will feel it in the castle itself, because it was constructed of volcanic stone from this mountain, but most only feel it here and in the cave.”

I had, in fact, been a bit light-headed since entering the bathhouse, as if I’d drunk too much wine at dinner, when I hadn’t. I had attributed the sensation to nerves, but perhaps it was, in fact,
le magnétisme hallucinatoire
.

An agitated chirping drew my attention to a small, bluish bird perched on the edge of the opening in the roof.

“Calm thyself, Darius,” Elic told it as he unbuttoned his doublet. “Thy territory is safe from encroachment. She’s not going in there tonight, and perhaps not at all.”

“Er… is that bird a pet of yours?” I asked.

The bird let out a furious squawk as it swooped down, darting into the cave.

“He doesn’t care to be thought of as a pet,” Elic said as he shrugged out of the doublet and tossed it onto a chair.

I turned to find everyone else nonchalantly disrobing, the novices chattering away as they helped each other with the hard-to-reach buttons, laces, and hooks of their jewel-toned evening frocks. The iron chairs lining the walls were soon heaped with clouds of petticoats; stockings, sashes, collars, and gloves dripped from their arms and backs. The footmen were retreating up the path to the castle, the light from their torches growing smaller and smaller.

Elic stripped down swiftly and jumped in the pool. He submerged himself completely, then rose to stand hip-deep in the water, which sluiced off him in sheets. His body was long and hard and packed with muscle, the organ hanging between his legs—I didn’t stare, of course, but I could see it out of the corner of my eye—somewhat larger than I would have expected.

“How’s the water?” Lucy asked him.

He shook his head as he skimmed his hair back from his face. “It’s perfect. It’s always perfect, warm when the air is cool and cool when it’s hot.”

I took my time tugging off my gloves as I contemplated the predicament I’d gotten myself into. The only way to gain access to the Duke of Buckingham had been to follow him to
Grotte Cachée, and now the only way to remain here was to play the whore in training, to do things that would require hours—nay,
days
—in confession when I returned to London.

I’m doing this for Uncle Guy
, I reminded myself as I untied my collar. He was doomed unless I could convince Buckingham of his innocence. I had come this far. I would do what had to be done, and simply not think about it.

Remove yourself from it
.

When Lucy, half undressed now, offered to help me off with my sedate black gown and underpinnings, I let her, but I drew the line at complete nudity. Although Bianca and Sibylla were now frolicking in the pool alongside Elic without a stitch on, I insisted on retaining my shift.

Lucy said, “Don’t be a silly goose, Hannah. The rest of us are taking everything off.”

“He’s
not.” I nodded toward Inigo, sitting on the pool’s marble lip with his feet on the submerged top step, drinking directly from a ewer of brandywine. He had stripped down to his breeches—of purple silk tonight, embroidered in gold—so he was still covered from waist to knees.

Having heard me, Inigo shrugged and said, “I only like getting my legs wet, and I hate the feel of cold marble on my bare arse. Lucy’s right, there’s no point in wearing that thing. This is hardly the place for modesty, and I’m sure you have a very beautiful—”

“Inigo.” Elic caught his friend’s eye. “She’s an innocent maiden, remember? Leave her be. These things take time.”

Inigo sighed grumpily. “Do as you will, Hannah,” he said, the courtesans having invited the
professeurs
to address them informally, “but you really ought to have a proper bath. This water is extraordinary. It tends to relax one’s inhibitions.”

I stepped down into the pool. The moment my feet
touched the water I felt a surge of erotic excitement that sucked the breath from my lungs.

And by this cave, there is a pool of water that is
magico.
What others in this water are feeling, you will feel
. The pool was fed by a stream from the adjacent cave; I could see it flowing in through one hole and out through another. If that cave was, indeed, imbued with a magnetic energy capable of producing delusions, perhaps that energy was absorbed by the water running through it. That might also explain the temperature of the water, which was as balmy as Elic had promised.

And then there was the cave-dwelling bird Elic had called “Darius,” which an overzealous imagination could interpret as a hermit with the power to shape-shift. Rational minds didn’t accept myths and legends wholesale, but rather searched for the grain of truth at their core, and I was nothing if not rational—especially back then.

The novices cavorted like schoolgirls, and much as I tried to dodge their splashing, my shift ended up getting soaked. To my consternation, the damp, filmy linen clung to every contour of my body, becoming all but transparent. I could tell from the way Elic and Inigo looked at me that my effort to preserve my modesty had had the opposite result, the sheer garment adding an aura of titillation I hadn’t counted on. At that point, I realized I would have been better off getting casually naked, like the others—if nothing else, it would have garnered less attention—but my pride wouldn’t allow me to admit this.

“Methinks you would benefit from this,” Inigo said as he offered me a beaker filled to the brim from the ewer in his hand. I took it and retreated to a corner of the pool, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. The brandywine was sweet and syrupy, and I gulped it gratefully.

Inigo was offering instruction to Lucy and Bianca as they reclined on the steps to either side of him, stroking their own sexes. “Slow down, ladies. Savor your pleasure. Let it show on your faces.”

Elic molded Sibylla’s hand to his member, murmuring “Softly at first, like this… Tease me a bit, make me ache for a firmer touch.”

To my surprise, Elic’s sex thickened and rose in response to Sibylla’s touch, like that of the satyr in the statues. It didn’t grow quite that large, but large enough to make me wonder how a woman’s body could accommodate such an organ. The sight of it straining upward, with its taut, polished skin and bloodred tip, incited in me a hot shiver of arousal.

Disconcerted by these lewd sights—and my reaction to them—I turned my back, only to find myself facing a ribald statue, the one with the satyr being ministered to in the French manner by the buxom female kneeling before him. He leaned back against the column with his hips cocked forward, clutching fistfuls of her long, wavy hair as she glided her tongue up his shaft. Her eyes were closed, and she was gripping the satyr’s buttocks with both hands. The muscles of his torso and flanks were rendered in exacting detail, right down to a vein snaking downward across his abdomen. His head was thrown back in a grimace of ecstasy, the cords in his neck standing out in sharp relief.

How would it feel, I wondered, to give a man that kind of pleasure, using just one’s tongue and lips? I tried to imagine being licked and kissed on my own sex, and it throbbed in response.

I guzzled the brandywine.

“Take my stones in your hand,” Elic told Sibylla, “and pull down a bit …
gently
. Nay, keep stroking my cock, as well. Aye, that’s the way.”

“Push a finger or two into those sweet little notches,” Inigo told Lucy and Sibylla, “keeping your legs spread wide so your benefactor can see—or you might ask him to frig you with a dildo.”

Frig?
I thought.
Dildo?

Inigo said, “Tell him you wish it was his cock instead, because it’s so much bigger and harder. There’s no man on earth who doesn’t love hearing that sort of thing.”

Keeping my back to the ribald antics on the other side of the pool, I drained my beaker, hoping that it would dampen my senses—only to realize I was still just as wildly aroused, and also quite tipsy. Whether because of the magnetic energy permeating the water, or what I was witnessing, or both, I was consumed by lust. My sex felt engorged, hungry… I couldn’t seem to draw in a full breath.

“When your gentleman is ready to take you,” Elic told Sibylla, “ask him how he wants you, unless you be well enough acquainted with him to know his mind.”

“How do you want me, monsieur?” Sibylla asked in a softly provocative voice.

“Lying back, like this.” There came a splash, as of Sibylla being lifted from the water, she responding with something between a gasp and a giggle. “Open your legs as wide as you’re able, and lift up a bit. Use a pillow, like this, if you have one. ’Tis a sight no man can resist, that of a beautiful woman offering herself so boldly.”

She let out a tremulous little moan.

He said, “You’re very wet, Sibylla.” I knew he didn’t mean wet from the pool.

“You are an excellent
professeur
, monsieur.”

“Open your sex with one hand and put me inside you with the other,” he told her. She sucked in her breath, then let it out in a luxuriant sigh. He made a soft little sound of gratification.

“Hold still with your legs locked tightly around me,” he told her, “and squeeze me from within.”

“Within?”

“Using the muscles in here, as if you were trying to pull on me, but without moving your hips. Try it. Ah…And again.”

Inigo praised Lucy and Bianca for the “charming abandon” with which they gave themselves over to self-gratification. “Next,” he said, “we shall practice our French. Before long, ye shall swallow a cockstand deeper than ye would have thought possible.”

Lucy, her breath coming fast, said, “Shall we spend first, monsieur?”

“Certes,” he said, “and pray, do not hold yourselves in check. Remember that you do this to inflame the ardor of your benefactor. The greater your display of passion when you climax, the greater his excitement.”

I could hear the girls’ shuddering breaths, their airy little moans. Lucy fell silent for a moment, then let out a guttural cry that went on for some time. Bianca’s pleasure reached its zenith soon thereafter, accompanied by a stream of breathless Italian.

“Why do you look away, Mistress Leeds?”

I turned to find Domenico Vitturi, in his black overgown, standing in the doorway, his half-ravaged face eerily pale against the darkness of the night, making him look like an apparition.

“You are here to learn, are you not?” he asked as he crossed to one of the few chairs not heaped with clothing, his long-legged gait somewhat stiff because of his bad leg.