THE LOST GOSPELS OF HENRY THE LION

 Return to New Orleans and young orphan, Richard Blaine, as he meets the enigmatic Mr. Morton for the first time ...

and the mysterious librarian, Helen Mayfair, for the second time.

THE LOST GOSPELS OF HENRY THE LION

“Some lost things should stay that way.”

– Allan Quartermain

 

If a girl touches your heart, she will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit … or can never leave.

One of the two … depending on how your relationship went … well or tragically.

And you only think you know which consummation effects the number of mental visits.

It may help to understand what I just said to realize that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of the heart are caused, 

not by people being fundamentally good or being fundamentally bad, but by people just being fundamentally people.

I had to get bruised a lot to learn that.

I was happier ignorant … and more hopeful.

That all changed that morning when Sister Ameal escorted me to the cursed library of St. Marok’s.

The nun squeezed my ear as we walked into the sweeping, cavernous library. I fought a wince … and lost.

“You're always you, and that doesn't change, young sir, and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about that either.”

She glanced to where I was looking: at the breathtakingly beautiful Helen Mayfair.

“And every lingering kiss and every caress of soft skin is another shard of heart you will never see again.”

“Ah, I just want to be close to her, to hear that strange voice of hers.”

“That’s how it starts, young sir. That’s how it starts.”

“What starts, Sister?”

“The Trojan War, Mister Blaine … and trust me, it ended badly with worse poetry.”

She changed from my ear to squeezing my nose. “It will be the same for you unless you are smarter than you look.”

“Then, my goose is pretty well cooked.”

“I am afraid so, young sir.”

And it was.

I do not miss St. Marok’s orphanage, mind you.

But I miss the way I took pleasure in small things there, even as greater things in the world crumbled.

I could not control the world, or the war sweeping across it, could not walk away from things or people or moments in the orphanage that hurt, 

But I took joy in the things there that made me happy … few though they were.

Miss Mayfair spotted me with Sister Ameal. 

“Oh, Mr. Blaine! Good news! We are invited for dinner a week hence at the fabled mansion of Mr. Lamashtu Morton!”

Sister Ameal muttered, “Young sir, that is not good news. It is terrible news.”

I nodded. “With a first name like Lamashtu, how could it not be?”

“Do not mock that one’s name!”

“I’m not. Lamashtu is a Mesopotamian demon lord and the goddess of monsters.”

I made a face. “Never sit down to dinner with a gender-confused host. It never ends well.”

Sister Ameal frowned at me. I shrugged again. “I read a lot, Sister.”

Miss Mayfair almost skipped to me. “His is a mansion to which only a select few are ever invited to dinner.”

“As the main course?” I asked.

She slapped my upper left arm. I only later learned why “left” was important to her ... and to me: 

it was the side closest to the heart.

“Silly. No, the price of admission is merely the volume in your new rooms, the former quarters of the late, unlamented Headmaster Stearns:

 The Lost Gospels of Henry the Lion.”

As Sister Ameal stiffened, I sighed,

 “Of course, it is."

I shook my head. 

The Gospels of Henry the Lion were intended by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, for the altar of the Virgin Mary in the church of St. Blaise's Abbey

I sighed, "A cursed gold-bound book worth millions. Who could turn down a free meal at that price?”