Glittering Gallows

Chapter 33

203 C Chapter 33 unning and screaming, a conviction came upon Katherine Makgunda that she would die in a mansion she had cherished as a God-given blessing. Her death seemed inevitable. In this mansion she had recited and sang passages from the Book of Psalms and Proverbs. Now this mansion that had assumed the air of a sanctuary over the years, this mansion that was her Holy of Holies and God’s blessings incarnate in her life, was suddenly a prison and a death-trap. A drunken white man chased her relentlessly in the house. His heavily bearded face was cadaverous, his eyes narrow and piercing. A small bald patch on the crown of his head appeared like a poisoned oasis thinning the hair immediately around it, but failing to affect the thick long dark hair growing in increasing abundance further from the alopecia. The hair ended in a neat trim around his shoulders. His clothes were early twentieth century garb; a flapping black buttonless shirt and a pair of grey baggy trousers. Brandishing a curved sword in one hand, the man pursued her through the passages and stairways of Randlord Mansion, gradually ripping her clothes off with his other hand as she ran. He pounced on her until she was in nothing but a torn brassiere and panties. Often he pinned her to the floor or the balusters, but she managed to wriggle and break free. She kept running, screaming desperately and shouting for help, her voice echoing in the mansion. It appeared no one beside her and the reptilian brute was in the house or nearby. Though she had found many inner doors and the main one locked, she wasn’t going to stop and accord the man an opportunity to kill her sheepishly. Perhaps somewhere was an unlocked door or a window to let her out. Perhaps her screams would rouse some maids or reach some armed guards patrolling the garden. From some of the rooms she tried to escape into, mournful sounds emanating within them baffled and frightened her. Then she remembered the gun cabinet in a passage closet. If only she could reach the cabinet and unlock it before the man got to her, she would shoot him dead or at least cripple him enough to make good her escape. But the cabinet and her pursuer were behind her. R 204 Panting and tired, she ran to the master bedroom. Moagi usually kept a firearm in a chest of drawers by the bed. As soon as she entered, the man burst in after her and cornered her before she could reach the chest of drawers. “Praskovia,” the man began, “why do you flee your husband?” She tried desperately to cover her breasts and pubic area. “I’m not Praskovia. You aren’t my husband.” He laughed. “My dear wife, Praskovia Fedorovna Dubrovina, have you lost your mind?” “I’ve told you I’m not your wife. Leave me alone!” He laughed again. “It is I, your husband–Father Gregory Rasputin. Are you forgetting you’ve a husband, Gregory Yefimovich Rasputin?” “I’m Katherine. My husband is Moagi—” “Don’t waste your breath, my good wife. Why must we always make love after a struggle?” “Go away! Leave me alone or you’ll be tried for this!” “Is there a law in Russia that forbids a married couple to be intimate? Did I not marry you before a priest? Call our children, Praskovia. Ask them who you’re or what am I to you.” “You and I’ve children?” “My dear Praskovia let me refresh your memory. God gave us three fruits through your womb. You can’t tell me you don’t remember Dmitri, Matryona and Varvara? What kind of a mother are you?” The sword raised in one hand, his other hand lifted in the manner of a priest about to utter benediction, he approached her. “Don’t be hysterical. It’s not decent to alert Pokrovskoye and possibly Siberia that we’re about to be intimate. I’m a holy man of God–a priest not a rapist.” She pressed herself in the corner and slowly sank to the floor. He fumbled with the front of his trousers and drew his member–a distressed puff adder. Katherine screamed with all her vigour and woke up, the adrenalin in her body seething. Katherine was groggy and disoriented, yet she was relieved she had been dreaming. Indeed she had screamed. Often Moagi was the...