other, less well-intentioned, sources.
The Countess – the accustomed recipient, since early childhood, of the complete attention of her extended family thanks to her position as sole inheritrix of both her father’s and his distaff relatives’ extensive fortunes – had realized its glorious potential at once. She could feel herself moving, inchmeal, from one non-carnal embrace to another, infinitely more preferable one. Before this moment she had merely sensed, thanks to her father’s subtle hints, that she would be investing in something more than simply a name with her fortune, but she hadn’t realized exactly what she was buying into. Now she knew for certain. ‘You can’t let something like this just die.’
Her elderly fiance had smiled. ‘How can one resuscitate a skeleton? The outer body and epidermis began to expire alongside the final vestiges of the age-old aristocratic order after the disasters of the Great War. The inner body, along with its vital organs, finally perished alongside my manhood, on Monday the third of June 1940, during the German bombardment of Paris. Do you remember Jean Renoir’s film, La Grande Illusion? The characters played by Pierre Fresnay and Erich von Stroheim? The Old Guard aristocrats recognizing each other, and realizing that they had both reached the end of their usefulness? Well Renoir was right. We are tired and irrelevant.’
The Countess had turned on him, revealing for the very first time the inner fire that drove her. ‘Von Stroheim was not an aristocrat, but the son of a Jewish hat-maker. Fresnay’s father was a Huguenot, and therefore a hater of Catholics. And Renoir’s father was a hack painter who depicted his women as if they were made out of marzipan. Who are such people to tell you that your class is doomed?’ She turned on him. ‘I won’t have it. A man doesn’t need a functioning member to be a man. An institution doesn’t need the sanction of the State to give it weight. The flower of France’s chivalric tradition should not need the permission of its inferiors to celebrate its past achievements and prepare its future triumphs.’
The Count had continued smiling. ‘Future triumphs? For reasons that are entirely beyond my control, it seems that I am to be the last in my line. More than a thousand years of history will die with me, my dear. Where are these future triumphs you speak of going to come from?’
And so she had told him – told him of her plans to adopt a new generation of soldiers for the de Bale cause. Told him of the true extent of her fortune, and what they could both achieve with it. And gradually his face had started to light up. His expression to change. ‘You really think this is possible? I am an old man.’
‘But I am not. I shall represent you. Represent our family. Fight for our status as hereditary peers of France.’
‘Why? Why should you do this?’
She had hesitated for some little time, almost as if she had no answer to his question. Then she had turned to him, taken his hand, and placed it above her heart. ‘Because it is my destiny.’
It was only later, and well into their marriage, that the Countess had realized just how elegantly the Count had steered her towards exactly the conclusion he himself had so fervently desired.
10
So. It was time. The Countess laid aside the document whose ancient codification had caused so much trouble to the inquisitive police Captain – what had been his name? Clique? Claque? – the one who had so dogged her footsteps in the run-up to the death of her eldest son earlier that summer. She knew its entire contents by heart.
‘Who are we?’
‘We are the Corpus.’ Her children responded as one.
‘Which Corpus?’
‘The Corpus Maleficus.’
‘And what do we do?’
‘We protect the realm.’
‘And who is our enemy?’
‘The Devil.’
‘And how shall we defeat him?’
‘We shall never defeat him.’
‘And how shall we unseat him?’
‘We shall never unseat him.’
‘So what is our purpose?’
‘Delay.’
‘And how do we procure it?’
‘By serving Christ’s dark shadow.’
‘And who is that?’
‘The antimimon pneuma. The counterfeit spirit.’
‘And what is his name?’
‘The Antichrist.’
‘And how do we serve him?’
‘By destroying the Parousia.’
‘And what is the Parousia?’
‘He is the Second Coming of Christ. He is the brother of Satan.’
‘And how shall we know Him?’
‘A sign will be given.’
‘And how shall we kill Him?’
‘He will be sacrificed.’
‘And what shall be our reward?’
‘Death.’
‘And what is our law?’
‘Death.’
‘And how shall we achieve it?’
‘Anarchy.’
‘And who are our brothers and sisters?’
‘We shall know them.’
‘And who are our enemies?’
‘We shall know them.’
‘And who is the Third Antichrist?’
‘We shall know him and guard him.’
‘And who is the Second Coming?’
‘We shall know Him and kill Him.’
The Countess made the reverse sign of the cross, followed by the reverse sign of the pentacle, just as her son, Achor Bale, had done just a few short hours before his death.
‘And Holy is the Number of the Beast.’
The children intoned the answers to the Countess’s questions with their eyes turned up into their eyelids – as they spoke, their hands also made reverse crosses, reaching from their crotch back over to the nape of their necks. This was followed by the sign of the six-sided pentacle, also from the direction of the lower to the upper body.
When the invocations were over, the Countess walked the length of the room to stand behind Achor Bale’s empty chair. She kissed her fingers and laid them tenderly on the hilt of his sword. ‘You all realize, of course, that Rocha’s death occurred as a direct result of investigations he was undertaking on behalf of the Society?’
There was a generalized intake of breath.
‘It was at my instigation that he followed the man Sabir. It was at my instigation that he intervened following Sabir’s discovery of the lost verses of Nostradamus. He died fulfilling his duties to the Corpus.’
Abiger glanced across at his brother. He was scarcely able to keep the grin off his face. He knew what was coming.
‘A spy in the apostate Nostradamus’s household – a spy in the pay of one of the noblest of your ancestors,
