The room was about ten foot square. On floor, walls, and ceiling, were rubber-looking tiles with symetrical bumps. There was a built-in bed, a six inch wide window slit that went from floor to ceiling, and a toilet and basin. Every surface was a light beige. The door, with its massive welds and giant keyhole, looked to be from an old prison. Nothing could be seen through the keyhole as there was a flap on the other side. The window slit looked onto a blank white stucco wall which was bathed, night and day, in a halogen-white light. In one corner of the ceiling there was a speaker grille, and from it was coming the sound of a voice speaking uncorrupted ancient Latin.

A female figure who had been dozing on the bed, sat upright and listened. "Oh, do fuck off", Athene said.

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The year is 1666. Louis XIV is king. First his mentor and chief of state, Cardinal Mazarin, has died, and then recently, his mother, Anne of Austria. Now, at last, though he feels sad at the deaths, he feels he is his own man and truly king. The great palace of Versailles has not yet been built but there is a hunting lodge built by his father. Here Louis goes with groups of friends to hunt and for social diversions.

In a boat, on the lake, are Louis, Louise, Duchesse de la Valliere, Charles, Comte de Fayard, and fourteen year old Berenice de Beauvoir. Louis is not yet wearing the perriwig and his features are still fine. Louis is twenty-seven years old. He looks like the bust made by Bernini -- a handsome, proud looking man with long curly hair falling about his shoulders. His normally veiled dark eyes are now looking at Berenice with open delight even though she is a niece of the disgraced and imprisoned Nicholas Fouquet -- Fouquet of the riches, the schemes, and of the ill-advised party at the newly-built Vaux-le-Vicomte for six thousand, with fountains and fireworks, and gifts of jewels and finery to the guests.

Berenice has the ash blonde hair that Louis loves. She has the delicate looks of an angel coupled with an impishness, or some would say, obnoxiousness, that enslaved males, and moved females to mouldering hatred. Later on, courtiers said that the Duchesse de Bourgogne, Marie Adelaide, had reminded the aging Louis of Berenice and that is why she was allowed to do exactly what she wished to do. Berenice was also reputed to be the cleverest person in France, maybe the world. Her uncle thought her cleverer than him and many thought Fouquet to be a genius. Flawed, certainly, they said, but a genius nevertheless.

"It will be a living monument to you. It will travel through time, dancing your dance, and delivering messages to latter-day plebian roundheads. It will say, mais non! vous n'etes pas le dieu! vous etes le feu des fauves ... flickering bright for a moment but signifying nothing, and of no importance beyond that of a small fleeting vanity." Berenice said this in a light tone and giggled afterwards. She smiles into the eyes of Louis and then looks at le Comte, and smiles into his eyes as well with a slight upturn at the edges of her eyes which is like a little message of her betrothement.

"But that is a trivial thing -- a divertissement, a party trick! And will they all be beasts, Berenice?" Louis said. "I know, I know. While I would not say it anywhere but here and now, the Infanta, my wife, will bring me stupid children and perhaps Spain itself but if I had married Marie Mancini, maybe ..."

The Comte de Fayard looked at Louis with concealed alarm. The secret thoughts of kings were dangerous things to have. But still, Louis had so far proved that he would treat people of quality with forgiveness, and there had been no sudden disappearances or stealthy murders, even after the Fronde.

Charles was thirty. He was lithe and strong, and elegant enough to be friendly with les Precieuses, who spoke a language almost of their own -- a language of allusions in which direct statements were thought to be a low form of rudeness. He was not welcomed amongst them for his wealth as his estates were small, but for his elegance and wit, and it was said that he and Berenice were as clever as each other. Berenice, it was, who attended the salons with him, not his wife.

It was a Precieuse who first had The Idea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The figure on the bed in the cell is called Athene Roberts. Her build is athletic and her face vaguely European looking; more in a classical than a tribal way. She has straight chestnut hair that falls to her neck, and bright, green eyes. They are now looking at the speaker in the ceiling.

"I really must be going" she says out loud.

She had been grabbed yesterday off the street outside the Four Seasons in New York. Four men had dropped a scented sack over her and then bundled her into a waiting vehicle. Then to the airport and, she guessed, a private jet, and on to Europe. Exactly where she was, she didn't know. She had a feeling that her existence wasn't threatened, but her liberty was. If her liberty was threatened, so was her reason for existence.

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