PART THREE - PARIS
- 7 -
The Grand Prior of Villeneuve arrived in a bad mood. He had just flown back into France that morning and that never made him very happy. He hated having to share the confined, enclosed space of an aircraft with all those sweating, screaming, chattering people even for such a small space of time as this. In general, the Prior felt that one of the advantages of being in a position of such importance as his was that in when in command you could send other people to do the travelling and the work for you while you directed them from home and comfort. He had always seen himself as more of a planner than a doer. He was the brains, the visionary, other people were there to enact his plans. Still, the situation now was such that he felt he needed perhaps to take on a more hands on approach.
At least his office here was appropriately grand and offered him the requisite level of comfort after his unpleasant journey. It was a large, expansive space where he sat at a grand chair that was almost more like a throne. The walls were lined with the Prior's private library of mediaeval and early modern texts, many of them the only copies containing the Order's history and secrets. His large oak desk had, perched on top of it, a giant gold bird of prey encrusted with jewels. The Prior sat himself down in the chair and began to think things through.
He had to admit that he had underestimated that shy, effeminate photographer and his angry girl companion. Of all the people that had coming searching for the secret of Salmacis over the years, these seemed far the least likely to succeed. And yet they had managed to make their way this far. The Prior was beginning to suspect that these two unlikely mystery solvers might just have that different outlook that it would take to discover the Fountain once and for all. He was starting to think that maybe it would be better to keep them alive just that little bit longer, just out of curiosity to see what they did next.
He did not usually have any regrets about the tough decisions that he had had to make. He knew that everything that he did was for the greater good, to restore the Order to their former position of glory and power and maybe something greater. He knew that the world would be a better place with the Order being in control, there would be moral discipline and things would be done in the right way in the right place. The power would be theirs, would be his, to set things right, to bring back the traditional values and ways of living.
It was unfortunate what happened to Professor White, but it was a necessary evil. Deaths did not bother the Prior like they did some smaller minded people, because he could see where they fit into the grander plan and where they would serve a greater purpose. Eventually, he knew, he would look back on the whole incident as having been part of that which allowed the Order finally to fulfil its destiny.
He never usually had regrets, however he was starting to feel he may have been a little hasty in hiring those brutal twin assassins, the men calling themselves Phobus and Deimus. He was a man that liked to be in control and he was learning that these two were harder to control than he had hoped. The very reason he had hired them, their brutality, their ruthless determination to see things through, their utter lack of any compassion or more gentle traits and their single minded moral code, made them almost impossible to contradict.
He had heard stories about these two that he barely believed, but now was not so sure about, it was said that they had ritually castrated themselves out of disdain for feelings of sexual desire. They were supposed to loathe sexuality in all its forms more than anything else. That partly scared the Prior. Of course, he knew that homosexuality was an abomination, that men and women had a place that they needed to keep to, but he also knew that sexual relations between men and women were both necessary and an important part of reinforcing power relations. The single mindedness displayed by the twins took none of that into account. They saw everything in black and white, where the Prior appreciated that everything was really about appropriately manipulating shades of grey.
