Here you object, impatient reader. Mycroft, thou hast lapsed too much into thy Eighteenth Century. This life story poured out all in one ramble might fit in the fabricated dialogues of thy Patriarch or thy Philosophe, but not in a history. No sane person disgorges her autobiography before perfect strangers, and no listener, even one as stunned as Carlyle and Thisbe, would sit through this in silence. You do not believe, reader? Then come, I challenge you, come to her offices, ask good Sister Heloïse to tell you of her vocation, and see if you have the strength of will to interrupt a nun.
She continues: “In the course of things I was betrothed to a good and worthy man, and I endeavored to direct the entirety of my affection toward my intended. Yet, as I felt youth begin to flower in me, I found my passions directed, as uncontrollably as water gushing from a spring, not to my fiancé but toward mon Seigneur Jehovah. Naturally all in this house, from my sisters and brothers to the lowest scullery maid, hold mon Seigneur Jehovah in the highest awe, for He is the Pillar and Scion of our world, the noblest of princes, most infallible of logicians, most compassionate of statesmen, and most penetrating of philosophers, yet I, and others around me, easily saw that my affection far outstripped the common worship of the crowd. There were days when my sole hope in rising from my bed was that I might glimpse Him passing in the hall, and any day His offices did not allow Him to return home left me in the most profound despair. Knowing my duty, I tried to drive this love from my rebellious bosom, and that battle claimed my happiness and health, for I soon succumbed to a wasting sickness which consigned me to my bed, and very nearly to my grave. I was at first unwilling to confess the cause of my illness, but I was not so impious a child as to stay silent before Madame when she pleaded with me with a mother’s tears. With her encouragement I revealed the truth to my fiancé, explaining that, while he retained forever a treasured quarter of my heart, my love for him had been transformed now to a daughter’s devotion to her father rather than a lady’s for her lord. So kind and compassionate is the heart of that great man who was almost my husband that he forgave me, accepting my filial affection in place of wifely love, and to save his newfound daughter from the grip of sickness he agreed to go to mon Seigneur Jehovah, whom he was accustomed to approaching with the intimacy of kin, and tell Him of my love.
“The ways of my Lord are mysterious. At first He answered nothing, and neither my newfound father nor Madame nor any in the house could understand His actions as He sequestered Himself in His library, where none but the most trusted of servants were permitted to intrude. I, in my despair, slipped into a sleep so close to death that my nurses thought me a dozen times lost, but I was saved when mon Seigneur Jehovah emerged from His isolation and, to the great jealousy of my sisters, who had never enjoyed more than a few syllables from His blessed lips, presented me with a Commonplace Book compiled by His own hand, every page filled with quotations from the wisest ancients and most refined of commentators, interspersed with pieces of His own divine Wisdom, explaining in a hundred voices that happiest and harshest Rule, all but abandoned in this selfish age: the monastic calling. I saw at once my folly, that in the heat of youth I had imagined He could be the inspiration of a base and Earthly love. That fire within myself, which I had mistaken for common passion, was in reality the first dim flickering of the truer flame of spiritual devotion which, if fed with the good fuel of discipline and virtue, might be cultivated into some semblance of that ethereal brightness which marks mankind as the most fortunate of beasts, for we alone of all the creatures of this Earth may aspire to the understanding of the Divine. All rejoiced at my vocation, and my return from death’s door, and Madame saw at once to my initiation into monastic life. I have lived so ever since, consecrated to My Lord God Jehovah in a chaste union far more powerful than any Earthly marriage, and I have never strayed nor thought to stray from this severe path, which is to me the greatest happiness.”
She fell into a prayerlike silence as she finished, the expression on her face a portrait of delicate, spiritual joy. They had no questions. Or, more likely, they brimmed with questions, but none they thought this madwoman could answer.
“Sœur Heloïse, please step away from the intruders.”
Carlyle and Thisbe were not the only ones who had been unable to interrupt the nun, but, now that she had finished, both doors, main and hidden, opened, and gentlemen filled the entrances like floodwaters. I cannot remember how many there were, say five or seven as you prefer, all costumed as the house demanded: silk at their throats, trim waistcoats, swallow-tailed jackets, britches, rich fabrics with richer tailoring and swords (half-decorative) at every belt. Their breeches were tight, far more precisely tailored than the sexless fashions of the outside world, and yesteryear’s style made the conspicuous lumps of their sexual members catch the eye, even on those who had nothing more to display than a woman’s crotchbone. Yes, reader, half these gentlemen were female in body, breasts tucked snugly under the waistcoats, but with such rearing there was no more of the female in them than there is canine loyalty in a pup raised among wolves. The fiercest, though not the largest, led the pack, his coat and breeches black, his waistcoat copper-embroidered green, his skin European pale, with hints of reddish fire in his hair.
“Chevalier,” Heloïse greeted him. “Is there a problem?”
“These two have entered under false pretenses,” he explained.
“What?” Thisbe cried in false dismay. “Oh, I forgot to share my credentials. How silly of me!” She began to call them from her tracker.
The Chevalier loomed closer, and the others with him, like vultures around carrion. “No one would give you this address.”
“I got it from Officer Ockham Saneer, I’m—”
“No. You did not.” The Chevalier smiled wide. “You will come with us, please.”
“I’m running a background check on—”
“You will graciously consent to come with us.”
Heloïse interposed herself between the sensayer and the marauders, like a fence of frail wicker to stop a charging bull. “These two have been consigned to my care, Chevalier. We are waiting together for mon Seigneur Jehovah.”
“Then allow me to relieve you of that burden, Sœur Heloïse.” The Chevalier marshalled a smile whose malice impressed even Thisbe. “I would not wish this petty affair to keep you from your sacred duties.”
No sculpted angel smiles so serenely. “It is no burden, Chevalier.”
“A distraction, then,” he corrected, “one unworthy of your time.”
The nun’s eyes ranged the others, the magic of her gaze driving hands away from sword hilts, and making smirks pregnant with mischief to grow sober. “The priest is sick,” she announced. “It is among the foremost of my charitable duties to help the sick.”
“Then, good Sister, you must trust me to see that duty performed in due course, but I must also see foremost to my primary duty, to guard this house, which is my charge when Brother Dominic is absent.”