Joachim

Joachim is a young commoner with ginger hair and eyes of a greyish blue. He first turns up among the destitute of Albion, plainly besotted with the prostitute Nina.

Nerves define him early on, and he grows jittery and tongue-tied in Nina's presence. Even so, a thread of courage runs through him: he trails Nina into the Great Goat's orgy despite his fear, and after the cult tries to kill him he willingly returns to their den to steer the Holy Iron Chain Knights to it.

He surfaces in the Albion slums, openly taken with Nina. When she demands to know his business, he insists he came only out of worry, not to buy her time, and she assumes he is angling for a free night. She sends him to the riverside at midnight, and there she flings her arms around him and wants to know whether he loves her. He hesitantly says yes, and when she asks whether he would share her bed, perish alongside her, and sink into hell at her side, he bewilderedly agrees. She kisses him, calls it a gift, and leads him toward a deep cave set in a gorge where hooded figures gather.

Below, an orgy is under way. The women strip the pair, and the drugged air floods Joachim's sight with flashes and visions even as he couples with Nina. She brings him before the goat-headed celebrant to be initiated, guiding him to kiss the figure's heart and groin and then to drink from a boiling pot. When something firm touches his lips and he realizes the broth holds human flesh, he bolts in horror. Nina cries betrayal and has the cultists hurl him from a cliff, her deranged face the final sight to reach him before the dark closes in.

He lives. Claiming to be an escaped prisoner of the heretics, he seeks out the Holy Iron Chain Knights, and at Farnese's request leads them to the lair. Waiting at the cave mouth, his worry is plain enough that Jerome rightly guesses he knows someone inside. Joachim outlasts the Incarnation Ceremony by staying hidden in the mountains, then seeks Nina out to apologize for abandoning her. She forgives him, and the two are last shown setting off together as equals.