Starved Beast

At this point, several memories merged and played games. They danced and they fought; and gradually they fused and combined.

In the first, I saw a nun who had been brought from the prison by the Marquis and who'd been horribly tortured. She was still dressed, although only of a fashion, for her tattered habit clung to her body by instinct rather than design.

Her once beautiful skin was bandaged with strokes emanating from three hubs that were her breasts, her stomach and her thighs. She'd also been crying, but not because of the whip, but because she was going to die.

There had been no judge, no jury. The Marquis had decided that she was an accomplice to my "crime", whatever that meant, and therefore she was in conspiracy and that's what counted.

So the Gens d'Armes made this nun stand with her hands behind her back in the middle of the square and confess it. She was facing us. The remnants of her habit were dislocated upon her shoulders, leaving her neck effectively naked, puffy and