“Oh, oooooh… Mon amour… Mon magicien… My divine boy… My sorcerer…”

Qui confidunt in Domino, sicut mons Sion

non commovebitur in aeternum,

qui habitat in Hierusalem…

The third already, thought Reynevan. How fleeting are these moments of happiness…

“Revertere,” he muttered, kneeling. “Turn around, turn around, Shulamith.”

Adèle turned, knelt and leaned forward, seizing the lindenwood planks of the bedhead tightly and presenting Reynevan with her entire ravishingly gorgeous posterior. Aphrodite Kallipygos, he thought, moving closer. The ancient association and erotic sight made him approach like the aforementioned Saint George, charging with his lance thrust out towards the dragon of Silene. Kneeling behind Adèle like King Solomon behind the throne of wood of the cedar of Lebanon, he seized her vineyards of Engedi in both hands.

“May I compare you, my love,” he whispered, bent over a neck as shapely as the Tower of David, “may I compare you to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots.”

And he did. Adèle screamed through clenched teeth. Reynevan slowly slid his hands down her sides, slippery with sweat, and the Burgundian threw back her head like a mare about to clear a jump.

Gloria Patri, et Filio et Spiritui sancto.

Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper

et in saecula saeculorum, Amen.

Alleluia!

As the monks concluded the Gloria, Reynevan, kissing the back of Adèle of Stercza’s neck, placed his hand beneath her orchard of pomegranates, engrossed, mad, like a young hart skipping upon the mountains to his beloved…

A mailed fist struck the door, which thudded open with such force that the lock was torn off the frame and shot through the window like a meteor. Adèle screamed shrilly as the Stercza brothers burst into the chamber.

Reynevan tumbled out of bed, positioning it between himself and the intruders, grabbed his clothes and began to hurriedly put them on. He largely succeeded, but only because the brothers Stercza had directed their frontal attack at their sister-in-law.

“You vile harlot!” bellowed Morold of Stercza, dragging a naked Adèle from the bedclothes.

“Wanton whore!” chimed in Wittich, his older brother, while Wolfher—next oldest after Adèle’s husband Gelfrad—did not even open his mouth, for pale fury had deprived him of speech. He struck Adèle hard in the face. The Burgundian screamed. Wolfher struck her again, this time backhanded.

“Don’t you dare hit her, Stercza!” yelled Reynevan, but his voice broke and trembled with fear and a paralysing feeling of impotence, caused by his trousers being round his knees. “Don’t you dare!”