Anonymous - The Autobiography of a Flea, Book 3

“Two, if need be, but hasten. The evening meal is of an excellence which even surpasses the viands which good Master Thomas furnished us last night.”

“I have thought of an idea,” Marisia explained. “A vow is all very well, but what if the priest asks on what sacred relic it was sworn? Now, the locket which you confiscated from me mon Pere – might I not produce it and say it was given me by Saint Laurette herself?”

“My daughter, from what I have heard no virgin has ever managed to end her days as novice at St. Thaddeus and either go forth into the temporal world or cloister herself in a nearby convent known as the Convent of St. Anne the Deaf (who, it is purported, attained sainthood because when a lusting rogue of handsome measurements, lineage and features stole to her bedchamber of a dark night and whispered to her that he was wild to fuck her, she, being deaf, could not hear him and so went into the watercloset and locked the door, and ever since that day this rogue swore that no woman was e'er so chaste) with her virginity still intact. But with the artifice you have just devised, I swear by all I hold dear that you have a bright and hopeful chance. Here, then, is your locket, my dear child.”

I felt him plunge his hand into the pocket of his silken cassock. Oh joy indescribable, to be once more with sweet Marisia! And then I felt myself moved about as he handed her the token. “Keep it guarded but in readiness, my daughter, so that when you are brought to bay of a priest who will hear only your 'Yes' of avowal and never your 'No' of virginal refusal, you may produce it and hold it up as a venerable relic, much as did the Holy Crusaders who plundered the Saracen camps and once, it is recorded, finding the jawbone of a jennet – which is an ass, my daughters – did mistake it for the thighbone of Sulieman the Damned. Yet with such good faith did they champion their mistaken discovery that many great battles were won and many maidens ravished and thus brought to the true faith, for a Christian cock is blessed over the Saracen blade as all righteous folk are well aware of. Now, I ring the bell, my daughters!”

This he did, whilst the sweet raven-haired Marisia tucked me away in her bosom, putting the little chain about her neck and letting the locket slip down under the bodice, so that I reposed – or at least my prison did with me inside it – as close to naked girl-flesh as I had once done on the fair Bella and then Julia when I had first made acquaintance with the Seminary staffed by such envigored codes as would terrify all the maids in Christendom.

There was a great creaking of the heavy oaken door, and a senile, white-haired man in the simple black habit of a lowly friar stuck his head out and croaked, “Who rings with such unseemly impatience? This is a holy house, and all are at meditations.”

“Go tell the Father Superior that it is Father Lawrence come to begin his assignment to the venerable Seminary. Oh, white-haired sacristan, speed your aging limbs!” (This reply, my readers, was how I learned of the physical lineaments of the sacristan.)

“He is at his beads in the cell of penitence.”

“With a fair novice, I would guess,” Father Lawrence quipped.

“Aye! But that is not your affair. How do I know you are truly meant to quarter here?” the old man suspiciously whined.

“Clear the rheum from your dimming eyes, my good sacristan, and behold three fair novices, aye, as fair as ever entered St. Thaddeus. Tell the Father Superior of what your vision has been, and I warrant you he will slice your portion a larger slice by fair of the good mutton than you have had in a fortnight! Go, dispatch, keep not three tender virgins waiting!”

The door swung wider now, and the old man hobbled off cackling to himself, and Father Lawrence gently ordered, “Come, my daughters, cast down your eyes and be not bold of speech or manner, but remember what little English I have lately taught you. You are to remember foremost the English phrases, 'I have taken a vow, my Father,' and 'I cannot give myself without my vow, Father.' Then also, when you see the gleaming eyes and the reaching hands that hunger for your sweet bodies, you must say, 'Oh no, I prithee, Father, it is against my vow!' Now these three goodly terms should suffice you at least for this first night. Later, as I can, I will hurriedly impart to you other answers, and you in turn must relay to me the behavior of your holy and vigilant accosters. For remember that under each cassock, no matter how thick to veil nor how somber black to disperse thought of carnal indulgence, there stirs the prick of a mighty stalwart throbbing to bring you out of your novice state to blessed fulfillment. Ah, here comes the Father Superior now! He has more gray hairs than when I last saw him, and his face is flushed and his collar is awry. As I thought, he was interrupted at a most grievous moment of confessional.” Then raising his voice, Father Lawrence called out cheerily, “I greet you, most Reverend Father Superior, as myself a novice priest assigned by my estimable superiors to take education with you and your devout familiars. Doubtless you have had this word, and I am Father Lawrence.”

“I bid you welcome to St. Thaddeus,” replied the mellow voice of the Father Superior, which was an instrument that could play as many tunes as a Westminster organ – for I had heard full many of them in my earlier days, you will recall. “Ah, but when my sacristan told me that three fair virgins were in tow with you, I could not believe my ears but hastened to see for myself.”

“This is the tender Marisia, orphaned and then adopted by a worthy French patron of a humble village in Provence, who, peace to his eternal soul, departed this earth and hence the child implored me to bring her to a place of sanctity.”

“Ah, what devotion, what gentle grace shines on her piquant face. What black silken hair falls in tender curls about her winsome shoulders! My child, have done with your rue and tears, you are come blessedly to our safekeeping. And these two others, Father Lawrence?”

“Sisters, my eminent Superior, Denise and Louisette. Denise is blessed with wheat colored tresses and this delicious pink skin your sharp eyes doubtless have already marked, while Louisette has hair the hue of copper, and her gray-green eyes are clear as those of the purest angel, for, like Denise, she is virga intacta.”

“All three, then, are French?”

“By birth, indeed, worthy Superior. I have taught them all some little English to aid them through the period of novitiatehood.”

“We shall teach them a great deal more, and of Latin also, since French stems from the mother tongue of Mother Church,” the Father Superior chuckled. “Yet why do these sisters wish enlightenment in a foreign land?”

“Their young brother had been stolen away and delivered up to the notorious Bey of Algiers as a slave. I met them in Calais, where they had journeyed from their distant little village to beg aid from some valiant and courageous ship captain who would sail them to the Bey's port there to implore his release from that despotic ruler. And I told them that here, where we have parishioners who give gold pieces to the furtherance of good and holy works, they might well find the aid they prayed for.”

“Ah, you have done heroically, and you need not apply the lowly term of novice to your station, good priest – quadruply welcome, for yourself and these three immaculate virgins without sin who come under your protective wing to take shelter at St. Thaddeus. But come, we are preparing the evening meal, and you four shall sit at my right hand and partake of our hospitality and our company, so that these tender maids will be accustomed to our joviality. For our order of St. Thaddeus, whatever you may have heard of its disposition, is not a gathering of hellfire and brimstone-breathing priests who never smile or never see good things in a blade of grass or a rising star, but rather of hale and hearty men under the black robe linked in a felicitous congress to enlighten and fortify the timid novice with their own amiable and valorous spirits.”