The Garden of Evil, Chapter 1
Title: The Garden of Evil
Pairing: Marquis/Madeleine, Madeleine/Abbe
Rating: PG-13, for now
Warnings: Schmexy talk. For now...
Summary: Spiders spin webs throughout Charenton, and their King has a grand one indeed to endeavor
Disclaimer: Do you have to remind me? *sigh* No, I don't own anything.
The asylum of Charenton, like any old building with far more tenants than cleaning staff, has its share of spiders. There are large ones and small ones, black ones, brown ones, red ones, yellow ones…ones inside and outside. Web-builders and hunters. Poisonous ones and harmless ones. Ones that bite and ones that are too small to cause any damage.
As varied as the spiders themselves are the reactions of the tenants to their presence; there are those who are deathly afraid of the little things. There are those who are convinced they are their only friends, and talk to them. There are those that eat them and those that like to watch them crush between their thumb and forefinger. There are those that kill them on the spot and those that catch them and release them out-of-doors.
And then there is one who has a sort of respectful fascination with the creatures, knowing and understanding their status as the persecuted hunter. Discerning their potential for usefulness, several weeks prior to the time our story commences, he discovered a large black one while returning from his weekly allotted walk outdoors, scraping out a living for itself in a dank corner of the hallway. Biting his fingertip slightly, he coaxed and courted the arachnid with the promise of blood until it was secure in the palm of his hand.
Once he had his companion in his cell, he set about finding a spot for it. He settled upon a little place near a window, among bookshelves and table-legs with just enough light, but plenty of dark places. He arranged a little labyrinth of figurines and candlesticks, and left the spider there.
Some time later, a desperate buzzing caught his attention. The spider had built himself a veritable palace among the trinkets, a world of delicate, silken web with twists and turns and trigger-chords. There on one edge was a big, fat horsefly, which had been stuck in the cell for several days. He smirked a bit as he saw the irony of the creature that had bitten him in his sleep receiving one final, fatal bite; the spider was now wrapping the fly in a cocoon of silk…a moment or so later, it crawled forward and bit once to kill it. It would go back later, when the smell of blood had it overcome with hunger.
The Marquis, too, was spinning himself a web. An intrigue of flesh, which would have fine results, if everything went his way. And, his incarceration at Charenton notwithstanding, things most often did.
It was a scheme that was going to take all of his faculties.
The simplest part was over; convincing Madeleine to take the bargain. It had been almost too easy, enough to make him wonder about the coming task; she had nearly cried tears of joy when he promised he could hand her the Abbe on a silver platter, or, as it were, a silken sheet.
When she had asked for his price, he had been honest. “You must let me take you.”
“A thousand times, if you can give me the Abbe.”
He intended to hold her to that number.
Next, he would have to convince the devout Abbe to lie with Madeleine. And once they were happily ensconced, he could demand his prize.
He smirked to himself as he paced the length of his cell.
Convincing the Abbe was going to be quite difficult, even for him, but he felt certain if he took the right course, he could do so. What better way to convince a man to engage in debauchery than by first pointing out his guilt in engaging in something worse?
And the Marquis had in mind something worse. Something much worse, indeed.