Helene noted that within the week the Revolutionaries invaded the Abbey, they had celebrated three birthdays, the third of which was for the young Feuille, only sixteen years of age. The men had been teasing the boy and she'd seen him blush. The men were bawdy and noisy, elbowing the boy and whispering in his ear when some of the novices and nuns walked past. 

But when Helene was near, the men righted themselves, looking as solemn as the gentlemen of old. She overheard the novices talking about her apparent effect on Lascombe's men one night, that the men feared her in some way, even the women with them. Helene did not think much of it. If they were truly fearful of her, they would have left the Abbey.

And they should be very afraid of her. 

Only, they have not an idea of what she was-is-capable of doing to them.

Helene was scrubbing the kitchen floor on her hands and knees when booted feet came into her line of vision. She looked up and saw Juliette staring down at her. 

"Get up, Citoyenne. Lascombe wants to see you."

The other women scrubbing the floors with her stopped their activity and waited with bated breath. They all feared Lascombe, after what they had seen him and his men do to their sisters. Now, Helene felt their fear in her mouth. She was a fool to deny her own fear but it was not Lascombe she feared, not the man. She was afraid he would know and would do what with that knowledge so that all of her and Abbess Mathilde's efforts would have been in vain.

She stood slowly, towering over Juliette, and using her superior vantage to stare the woman down. Whatever Juliette had been to her in childhood, Helene had to forget. The hardened woman before her was not the girl she loved like a sister. She was a betrayer, a traitor both to God and France for her lies and deceit. For what? What pushed Juliette to throw in her lot with those filthy men?

Juliette, she knew, would never be forthcoming with her answers. It was futile to attempt to understand the woman—there were more important things to accomplish. Like the rescue of the Abbey.

"Let us go, then," Helene said, dropping the rag into her bucket. 

Juliette looked pointedly at Helene's hands. "Would you like to wash first?"

Helene raised an eyebrow. "I'm not meeting royalty, am I? We are all equal paeans of France, are we not, Citoyenne? I can assure you I am cleaner than the horse dung sweepers in Paris."

She was being mean, Helene knew but she could not beg for forgiveness for the stunned then embarrassed expression on Juliette's face. Embarrassment that hardened into a sneer. 

"Watch your tongue, girl! The day is not over yet," Juliette snapped, turning her back on Helene. Helene turned her head to the other women on the floor, nodded her head to reassure them, then followed after Juliette. They went up a narrow staircase that led to the Abbess' former quarters. It was there that they found Lascombe standing by the narrow window, looking down and out. The window overlooked the chapel grounds and she correctly assumed he was watching the other nuns down in the courtyard.

He turned as the two women entered but Juliette stayed by the doorway. Lascombe nodded to her and the two-faced woman left, closing the door behind her. 

"Worry not, Citoyenne, I will not debauch you," he said, almost kindly. He pointed to a wooden chair across the desk. "Please, sit down."

Helene debated whether to take the proffered seat or remain standing and keep her pride. The look in Lascombe's eyes brooked no argument and Helene sat down, back ramrod straight, eyes daring to bore into Lascombe's dark ones. He raised his eyebrows and chuckled, taking the seat her abbess once occupied. 

"You could pass for a queen," he said, grinning. "It is difficult, oui? To forget what we are, here—" Lascombe laid a wrinkled hand on his heart. "—and here." He tapped his right temple with a finger. "The past, you see, is a hindrance to progress. It is why our beloved France has been what is has been for centuries. You would not know, Citoyenne Babin, raised as you were in Britanny, you said. I surmise you were a seaside princess there, far removed from the ills of the Capets and their cronies. You could have remained with your family, been married off to a wealthy lord of your father's choosing, could have continued such fantastical living... Yet, here you are, in an abbey with no sea, with strangers for family, and coarse linen for your clothing."

Helene's eyes narrowed. "Why did you summon me here, Père?"

She meant to insult him, by addressing him with the title and vocation he has shunned. Lascombe seemed only amused by her effort. "Ah, that was me, then, here." He pointed to his head for a second time that morning. "But it was not me where it should count. I left because France needed me more as a citizen than as a priest, slave to the whims of powers that could not even spare a thought for the plight of a suffering people."

Helene was not sympathetic. "You talk of France as if you have sole claim as its saintly citizen yet you have a hard time sustaining loyalty to oaths you take. Why should I believe you, a deceiver and a turncoat? You cannot even stay true to a promise, what makes you think you are made credible by your platitudes about your New France, perhaps not led by the lords you resent but still by fallible men just as willing to be corrupted by power and greed? Save your sermons for your cohorts. My France is in here—" she said firmly, parroting his earlier movements, by pointing to her own temple and her heart. "—and here. Your France is a mockery and tragedy. I will not be part of it."

She and Lascombe stared each other down for a long minute until he spoke. "The only way for you not to become part of the New France is by death, woman. As it is, you have been protected within these abbey's walls for too long a time. Is it death you want? You would leave your sisters and take what escape is given to you? Do not assume that your words strike terror or rouse anger in me. Instead, they make me proud. I do not regret coming here at all. You are a strong woman, Citoyenne Babin. The Republic could do well with you as a figurehead. The women of this abbey follow you, even your old abbess. Oh, yes! You didn't realize? I've seen it from the day we arrived. You are a veritable Jeanne d'Arc reincarnated. You will let me be sentimental on this, Citoyenne."

Helene fought back a snarl. She heard the veiled threat in his words. He kills her, the abbey's sisters were as good as dead, too. And she would not let that happen. She will have to live.

She must not provoke the evil man further.

"Is this why you summoned me here? For indoctrination?" she asked. 

Lascombe laughed and shrugged. "Look how well that has gone. In my vanity I assumed you would be more receptive, intelligent woman that you are, Citoyenne. I think I have a long way to go." He stopped speaking to stare into her eyes for a few moments. When he spoke again, there was no self-deprecating grin, no hint of amusement in his tone. "I know you helped one of the sisters escape. I've seen you but until now my men could not find the door. But I was not empty-handed. You see, young Marie-Auguste told me a certain Marie-Agathe Babin is missing and has been so since we arrived."

Helene fought the urge to clench her hands into fists. He will not see her fear. He will only see his match in her. 

"I understand, of course," he said after a pregnant pause, rising to look out the window again. From the room, Helene heard the men teasing and shouting at one of the abbey's civilian members, the mute Remy, who did not have time to escape the attack on the abbey. "She was your sister, wasn't she? Or a cousin? I truly understand. Much as we do sing of the glory of France, we cannot sever blood ties, a most difficult task. The river courses south, Citoyenne. There are only a few places south of Avignon she can find safe harbor in and a woman alone in the world, she would have to walk dangerous roads and rest in the dark...she would have been far safer within these walls. Think about that."

He did not ask her where she sent Soeur Agathe, did not press her if Agathe was truly her sister. Helene thought it did not matter to him anyway. Lascombe was a man who made things possible and Helene prayed that Monsieur Manet managed to deliver her message to the White Tower...along with Agathe's safety ensured. 

In the few moments Lascombe was turned from her, his gaze out the window, Helene took the time to assess what the man looked like on the outside. They called him le Prêtre Rouge, mainly because his was a shocking mop of orange-red hair, though now streaked with gray. During a private moment with the Abbess, the older woman admitted having known who Lascombe was before he left the priesthood. 

"I had been visiting a convent in Reims," the Abbess recalled. "Lascombe was a local priest, who said Mass and confessed the nuns there. He has heard my confession during my stay there. He was so different in those years, Helene. This man, the Lascombe that has come to us bringing evil with him, that is not the priest from Reims. That priest is gone and whoever the man here with us is, I refuse to know him."

Helene was brought back to the present when the men down below began singing lewd songs along with congratulatory shouts for Feuille's sixteenth birthday. At that point, Lascombe turned his attention back to her, his expression a mixture of smug and benevolent, if it was at all possible.

"We can't do anything about that unfortunate incident now, Citoyenne. If no man will take her, nature will. As for now, we have much to do. It is Feuille's birthday. Yes, I am not so cold as to forget that men and women do need at least a day in their lives for some entertainment. No talk of war, politics, or religion. Only food, wine, and happy tales. None of my men know their way in the kitchen and Juliette and some of the women are already spent looking after your sisters. Now, Feuille must get a  gift for his birthday, as does anyone who gets to live one more year, correct?"

Lascombe grinned at her. Helene stared him down, daring him to tell her what kind of "gift" should Feuille get today...

"The boy is scrawny. It would do him good to eat his fill today and I heard tell he likes pudding," he said lightheartedly, through grimacing at the end. "Yes, English pudding. That sodding, tasteless flour crap those artless Englishmen create. Since you were from Brittany, I gather you would have some idea how to make one? Just for the boy, of course. Us men do not want to eat a morsel of that garbage. All for Feuille. Check the pantry and if there is anything you need, Juliette will acquire for you."

"That is all?"

"That is all."

"Vive le France!" Lascombe saluted.

Helene stood, said nothing, and left the room with head held high, Lascombe's grating laugh following after in her wake. 

* * * * *

Helene managed to make English pudding and she made two—one for Feuille and another for herself and the sisters. She knew they would be nothing more but tavern maids serving the men their food and drink, never mind the lascivious looks and deliberate "petting". The pudding would be their comfort food, as it would be hers. Even now, as the smell of spice and nuts reminded her of her Maman, Helene felt it was more than a simple reminiscence of her family and childhood; it represented defiance.

Juliette had assisted her in the kitchen but neither of them spoke the entire afternoon as they and some other nuns and women of the Revolution busied themselves with the feast. A few more men arrived late in the afternoon, guests from Faucon. Before the sun even went down, the men had been drinking heavily and half-senseless. Some of the younger nuns and novices were beginning to get abused. Subtly, Helene rescued them one by one by taking up most of their tasks in the mess hall, whispering to them to go on and lock their cell doors. Soon, it was only her, the Abbess, and a handful of nuns left with the Revolutionaries. Juliette stayed silent in one corner of the room, only watching.

With the heat in the mess hall rising exponentially with their debauchery, the men head outside to the courtyard where a fire had been lit, using illuminated prayer books as fodder for the flames. The men danced around the flames, jeering and catcalling at the grief-stricken nuns they forced to go outside with them. One of them, Henrietta, was pulled by the men and thrown into Feuille's lanky arms. Already stuporous from too much drink, Feuille grabbed the young woman by her breasts, causing her to shriek and struggle against him. Helene stepped forward to rescue her but she brought a knee up and hit Feuille in the groin.

Alcohol was no deterrent to the pain her act caused. The men only laughed harder and held Henrietta captive in their arms. Henrietta looked at her, pleading, tears coursing down her cheeks. Helene rushed again, determined to pluck her away but a hand held her back. It belonged to Juliette. She tried to get her hand off but Juliette gripped harder. At the same time, the cyclops Bouchard took Henrietta from the men and jeered at Feuille, still on the ground clutching between his legs, "Tsk, tsk! The boy is green and still is so!" The men laughed and hooted. Lascombe was nowhere but Helene could feel his eyes watching them from an upstairs window in the Abbess' old room.

"How about we show our boy how real men do this, eh?" Bouchard said, laughingly, caging Henrietta's wrists in one hand while his other forced its way under her skirt. Henrietta screamed and spat in his face, to which Bouchard reacted with such violence by backhanding her, sending the girl with a bleeding lip to the ground. When Bouchard crouched beside her, Henrietta screamed again. Bouchard and the men laughed. He grabbed her hair—the nuns were no longer allowed to use their wimple and veils—and brought her face to his pantalons. Bouchard sneered and made a show of kissing the crying girl's forehead, before pulling down his trousers and smashing a horrified Henrietta onto his exposed genitals. Henrietta's muffled cries and screams made Helene's blood light up as if on fire.

Not even Juliette's strong grip could stop her as Helene broke away, curled her hands into fists, and land two punches on Bouchard's head, causing the man to release his grip on Henrietta. Henrietta managed to run and hide in the arms of the other terrified nuns. With his member hanging out of his clothes, Bouchard recovered from the shock, the crazed look in his eyes focused on Helene. She could see he wanted to damage her then and there and was ready to face him, ready to gouge his remaining eye out, but another two men beat him to her. They grabbed at her and repeatedly slapped and pulled at her hair and clothing, then throwing her bodily onto the cold ground. 

Helene felt the metallic taste of blood in her mouth and her vision blurred from a wet substance trickling down her face. From her curled up position at their feet, she could see Juliette frowning at her, the nuns to a side openly weeping and knelt down in prayer, Feuille passed out on the other side of the fire, and the men talking all around her. 

She wondered what they were going to do to her now and felt only a tiny twinge of regret. Should they kill her now, Abbess Mathilde will be left with no one. She would have failed. There would be no rescue, no hope, no true victory. God's will was to abandon them, Helene realized with pain and disappointment. 

My Lord, where are you? Don't leave me now...

"And here I thought I had a welcoming party for my arrival," a humorous, deep-toned man's voice said somewhere above her. The men stopped laughing and the women stopped crying. From where she lay on the ground, Helene noticed Juliette's frown easing into something akin to relief.

"Brothers, you know I don't subscribe to such activities," the voice said, losing all traces of humor. "The Vendée should have been enough."

"We didn't know you were arriving tonight, Brother," Bouchard muttered angrily. 

There was a pause. The new arrival sighed. "I'm tired and hungry, brothers. But you won't mind if I take the poor thing off your hands? You may continue to enjoy your celebrations, whoever this is for," the faceless stranger said. 

And then he was no longer that. Helene's eyes came to rest on a face that reminded her of a house of stone, roses, the smell of roast, and the sound of laughter. She saw her Papa and Maman, her brothers and sisters, the other girl called Juliette who dressed her, the boy in the garden...

"Come now, mon petit," he said soothingly, looming closer towards her. "Let me find you rest."

Pain, both physical and spiritual assailed Helene, and she opened her bloodied mouth in a voiceless cry but the effort drained her of her remaining strength. The thought of that wonderful English pudding blanketed her mind in turmoil. There was comfort there. She finally closed her eyes and let her body separate from her mind, to find the rest he promised.

For now.