PROLOGUE
Jerusalem, 33 AD
Madness.The brown dirt street was filled with dust. Dust, people, women, men, children, soldiers, screams, cheers. The streets were filled with many things, but that day they were primarily filled with madness. Cartaphilus saw it more clearly looking back over the years. The cobblestone and dirt roads had been filled with utter insanity, and they had all been consumed by it.
A man struggled up the lane as the mob ran about him, cheering and screaming. He nearly buckled under the weight of a crucifix fashioned from the wood of a great olive tree. Blood ran down his face as he wept, and staggered away from Jerusalem, up the hill to Golgotha.
Cartaphilus ran with the crowd and cheered, as filled with lust for blood as any other. His ears buzzed, and he had never felt so alive. The shouts of Jews and Romans filled the air, as the man stumbled and cried out, falling to his knees in the street.
Cartaphilus dashed forward and cuffed the man on the head, “Get up!” he cried. “Get up, get up! This is no time to rest!” He grazed his wrist on the crown of thorns on the man’s head.
The man turned reproachful eyes upon him. “I will go, and you will wait until I return.”
Cartaphilus struck the man again, and ran ahead, cheering with the others.Madness.
An abomination happened that day. An abomination against God. Against humanity itself…
Sixty years later:
Cartaphilus watched sadlyas an elderly woman, his second wife, threw crockery at him from across the room.
“Get out,get out! Vile beast! Demon! You are unholy! You never change, while the rest of us grow old and die! You are stealing our life, that is what you are doing! Get away!” The woman collapsed, sobbing, on the floor. His youngest son stood in the doorway, a grandfather, already grey, eyes filled with distrust and fear. His eldest son was already dead.
“Go,” his son ordered him. “Go, and take your evil with you.”
He went… He never returned…
CHAPTER 1
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of five daughters must be in want of a son-in-law. However little known the feelings or views of the man may be when a new gentleman enters a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the others in his household, that he is considered rightfully obligated to seek such a relation out the moment a single gentleman enters the neighbourhood.
“Mr Bennet, have you heard? Netherfield Park is let at last!”
“Is that so, my dear,” mumbled Mr Thomas Bennet of Longbourn in Hertfordshire, who then continued to read his newspaper without further comment.
“Well, do you not wish to know who has taken it?” Mrs Frances Bennet nee Gardiner demanded, outraged, that he had not shown more interest in the matter.
“Youwant to tell me, my dear, andIhave no objection to hearing it,” answered her husband with a sigh, looking at his second daughter for rescue and finding none. His two eldest sat on a couch near the fire with their embroidery, while his two youngest took apart a bonnet by the window. His middle daughter did not even look up from the treatise she was reading.
“My sister Phillips tells me that a young man, a Mr Bingham, has come down from the north in a chaise and four to view the place. He was here on Monday, and was so much delighted with the house that he took it right away. He is to take possession by Michaelmas, and will send his servants next week.”
“Mr Bingham, is it?” replied her husband.
“Yes, Mr Bennet. And he is a man of fortune, too. Five thousand a year, and very likely more! What a fine thing for our girls!” his wife cried.
“Ourgirls? How can it possibly affect them?” returned Bennet.
“Oh, Mr Bennet, how can you be so vexing? You know he must marry one of them!Jane Binfield! How well that sounds!”
“Your sister is well informed indeed if she has already learned that this is his design in settling here,” her spouse said.
“Design! Oh you tiresome man, you must know that it is very likely that he will fall in love with one of them!” said Mrs Bennet. “That is why, as soon as he arrives, you must go and visit this Mr Bentley at once.”
“I can see no call for that. You and the girls may go, with my permission. Or better yet, send them on their own. You are as handsome as any of them, he might like you the best of all the party, and then I should be obliged to call him out, and I am much too old to duel any man.”
“Mr Bennet, you bothersome man, when a woman has five daughters grown up, it is time to give over thinking of her own beauty! If our Jane could make a match with this Mr Bimsby, I would be very well pleased! A house in town! Fine carriages! Five thousand a year, and very likely more! But you must not be obstinate! Youmustvisit, Mr Bennet; I insist upon it!”
“Do you, my dear?” Bennet said curiously.
