The Magic Circle, Katherine Neville [parable of the sower read online .TXT] 📗

same league as the Kama Sutra. By chapter seven, he’s even drinking liquor from her belly button. I tell you: a real bodice ripper.

It’s hard to imagine such verses being read aloud from a pulpit, especially falling as they do, in biblical sequence, between the ashes-to-ashes of Ecclesiastes and the hellfire and brimstone of Isaiah, both of which I skimmed for perspective, hoping they’d give a hint of what Sam was trying to tell me. To no avail.

When we reached Sun Valley, Olivier unloaded the few bags and our skis, and we checked in at the front desk. Then I took Jason to my room and rang up Laf to let him know we’d arrived. Earlier in the week I’d left a message here at the Lodge for Laf, saying I might bring two friends this weekend. Laf had wired back saying he’d await our arrival and take us all to brunch. But Wolfgang’s later message said he had been detained in Nevada, so today it would just be Uncle Lafcadio, Olivier, and me—or so I thought. After dumping our gear upstairs in our respective rooms, Olivier and I went together to the Lodge Dining Room to meet Laf.

The dining room’s massive stone fireplace, richly paneled walls, high ceilings with crystal chandeliers, crisp damask tablecloths laden with place settings of heavy silver and steaming coffee urns, and its vast windows displaying snowy meadows beyond—all spoke of a time of quiet elegance between the wars, when Sun Valley was built by the railroad to attract the rich and famous to the unknown, therefore exotic, wilderness of the Idaho Rockies.

The maître d’hôtel escorted Olivier and me to a large circular table reserved for our party at the prime location before the windows. A bowl of bloodred roses graced the center of the table, the only one so ornamented in the room. A few diners discreetly glanced our way as we were seated, our water glasses were filled at once, and a basket of fresh warm breads magically appeared. The maître d’ himself took the Dom Pérignon from the icer beside our table and filled our crystal champagne flutes.

“I’ve never been treated this way here before,” Olivier said when we were alone. “It’s generally cold shoulders and colder food.”

“You mean the instant wine and roses?” I asked. “It’s all for my uncle Lafcadio; he’s the prince of splash and panache. That’s just the audience warmup.”

Just then, with impeccable timing, Laf swept through the double doors across the vast dining room. His entourage included the maître d’ as well as Laf’s personal valet and an unknown woman and several waiters. He paused, removing his gloves finger by finger, before advancing toward us, his trademark floor-length cape billowing in waves, sucking in its wake the attention of the other diners. Uncle Laf didn’t care to be lost in the crowd—nor was it likely: he enjoyed a brand-name recognition enhanced by the fact that his mug shot appeared on as many album jackets as Franz Liszt’s.

Crossing the room with long strides, Laf swept his gold-handled cane before him as if scattering wildfowl from his path. I rose from the table to greet him. As he threw his arms wide to embrace me, the cape slipped from his shoulders. It was caught from behind (on one finger, before the hem touched earth) by Volga Dragonoff, Laf’s impeccable Transylvanian valet, who swirled it in midair with a flourish, then dropped it over his own arm—a choreography so artistically executed I knew it had been rehearsed.

Ignoring the byplay behind his back, Laf embraced me. “Gavroche! What a sight for the sore eyes!” he said, beaming and holding me away, the better to see me.

In unison, the waiters pulled out our chairs and stood there holding them, waiting for us to take our seats. That meant we’d be standing awhile, because Laf disliked being dictated to—even in body language—by those in the serving classes. He tossed back his shoulder-length mane of white hair, looking at me with sharp blue eyes.

“You are even more beautiful than once your mother was,” he told me.

“Thanks, Uncle Laf. You look terrific, too,” I said. “I’d like you to meet my friend Olivier Maxfield.”

Before Olivier could speak, the young woman who’d arrived with Laf stepped from the group behind him. As if proffering assistance to ford a stream, Laf crooked his arm and she rested one long, elegant hand there—a hand almost ostentatiously devoid of paint or jewels—and smiled at us.

“Delighted,” Laf said. “Gavroche, I present my companion: Bambi.”

Bambi? I mean, this chick was some item, as by now everyone in the room had noticed.

I really had to hand it to Uncle Laf. This was not your ordinary run-of-the-mill exotic sleeve decoration of the sort Laf had watered in his stable ever since Pandora, the great passion of his life, had died. Au contraire, this one was a thoroughbred, one of the most breathtakingly beautiful women I’d ever laid eyes on. She had a face that managed to be at once both sculptural and sensual, with languid eyes, full lips, and high cheekbones framed by long blond hair. She was wearing a creamy, clingy, one-piece velour body suit that was unzipped sufficiently low to reveal plenty of what was beneath—which in itself was truly astonishing. But it wasn’t only her voluptuous beauty that had vacuumed the room into total silence. She had a rarer quality still. She exuded a kind of glimmering luminescence, as if she were made of living, breathing gold. Her hair shimmered like a waterfall when she moved; her flesh had the glow of a rich, ripe fruit; the wide-set eyes glittered from the depths with a sea of little gold sparkles. Yep, this was definitely the face that launched a thousand ships and sent the fabled towers of Ilium up in smoke.

Okay, maybe it was sour grapes, but—there had to be something wrong with her. Then she opened her mouth and spoke.

“Grüss Gott, Fräulein Behn,” she said. “Your Onkel hass told