Chapter 19
BLACK CANDLES, SET IN TALL SILVER CANDLESTICKS, guttered softly, casting deep shadows across the heavily draped walls of a vaulted chamber. The dim candlelight hardened the shadows about the hooded face of a tall figure seated in a black lacquered throne-like chair, raised upon a stepped dais. Before the throne another man knelt in supplication.
‘It shall be as you say Master,’ the acolyte whispered. The tall man stood up from the throne, turned his back and raised his black silk gown, bending slightly to thrust out his buttocks. The acolyte scurried across on his knees to kiss the proffered anus – the osculam-infame, his mark of homage, saluting his master in an obscene parody of the holy kiss to a bishop’s ring.
‘Indeed it had better be. This police officer is becoming a ve
