A Candle For d'Artagnan

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  With sorrow in his heart, the King bade his first son to leave his kingdom and to enter into the service of his mother’s people, for he would not accept debauchery in his heir.

  So the second son was made heir and his wedding to a great Princess was arranged and celebrated with feasting, joy, and pomp. The first son did not make merry at his brother’s wedding, but his disgrace was seen as the reason for it; in a short time he departed into the land of his mother.

  Then did a great burden descend upon the King, for he discovered that the uses his second son made of his bride were those no man should speak of, and his treatment of those in his service was without honor. Now that his brother was not at court to keep him in check, the second son gave such liberty to his excesses that in time his father died for the shame of it, and his wife threw herself into the ocean.

  Finally his brother could tolerate such abuse of House and blood no longer: he gathered an army about him and showed again the prowess that he had demonstrated from the first. He returned to his home as a welcomed conqueror, and brought his debauched brother to the judgment of the nobles, who demanded that his life be taken as if he were the greatest traitor, for that, in fact, was what he was. The first son, who had prevailed against deceit and calumny, was crowned and anointed, and the kingdom rejoiced in his reign.

  I pray, Gennaro, you will study this tale and take its lesson to heart. You have been permitted far more license than you ought to have had, and you have come near to destroying yourself as well as those around you. Before more and severer punishments are brought upon you, before your House is required to demand such recompense of you that you will not be able to pay, seize the opportunity being offered you and journey to the New World. Your audacity, which has led you to such disastrous ways here, may well sustain you in the New World where many are driven to the point of madness by the world around them, and where excesses such as those you have practiced are enough to endanger your life.

  With my prayers and most earnest entreaties that you accept this most compassionate arrangement and show yourself compliant to the will of your House, or accept their decision to cast you out forever, I place my trust in God to bring you to true understanding and repentance through the ordeals of your distant journeys.

  Your cousin

  Jules, Cardinal Mazarin

  By God’s Grace

  On the 27th day of June, 1642.

  By my own hand.

  8

  He caught up with her in the stables, panting a little from his exertion. He was half-dressed and carried his sword at the ready. “What in the name of God’s Spikes made you do that?”

  Olivia swung around to look at him, the shine from the lanthorn turning one side of her face a glowing amber and throwing the other side into darkness; her eyes fixed on his with an intensity he had not seen in them before. “I’ve explained to you—”

  “You’ve told me a fable.” He flung his sword aside. “If you wish me to be gone so badly that you are reduced to making up stories, you need not: you need only tell me to leave and I will go.”

  Her face changed subtly, revealing sardonic amusement. “Will you?”

  “No,” he growled as he pushed the door to the empty stall open. “No, and well you know it.” He reached out for her, pulling her near to him, pressing her face to his newly shaven chin. “No, I will not go.”

  “Though it is wisest?” she suggested, afraid of giving in to his desire.

  “There is nothing wise in walking away from love,” he said. “There’s no honor in it, either.” He had his arms around her waist. “You cannot make me leave you, Olivia. You’ve said that to me yourself.”

  She nodded once. “That’s true.” With an effort she moved back from him two paces. “Charles, you’ve got to listen to me. You must.” She touched his shoulder, telling herself it was for emphasis, but knowing that what she sought was his affection and love that would be strong enough to survive the truth. “I know you don’t believe me. I know you are convinced that what I’ve said is impossible. But please, please, listen to me; hear me out. Because if you won’t, I will have to stay away from you. And I don’t know whether I can. You … Charles.” She wanted to find the words to explain, but all she could think of was that she must warn him, though she lost him for it. “We are too much at risk now; another night, another hour in each other’s arms as lovers and—”

  “And what?” he asked when she broke off. “You aren’t going to repeat that nonsense about being almost immortal, are you?”

  “It isn’t nonsense. Ask Niklos if you don’t believe me.” She was tempted to lean against him, to accept what he so openly offered her, but she could not until she was satisfied he knew what the cost would be.

  “Your major domo will say what you wish him to say. Ask him to say he comes from the moon, and he will.” His voice was gruff but his hands were gentle as he drew her back into his embrace. “You are a widow, and older than I am.”

  “I am much older than you are, much older; I’ve told you that.” She looked into his eyes. “I told you when I was born.”

  “You told me an intriguing story,” said Charles, the wicked amusement back in his eyes. “You entertained me.”

  “Entertained!” She threw it at him. “I told you when I was born,” she repeated, this time so somberly that he released his hold on her a little. “I have no reason to lie to you, Charles; perhaps every reason to say something more plausible. I was born in Rome, in the first century. My father was a Roman nobleman, my husband a Senator. That is the truth.” She touched his face where his beard had been. “Why should I make up a story, an entertainment like this?”

  “Because you do not want me to know … that you are no widow, perhaps? Or that your husband died unnaturally.” He spoke the words as if they were bitter to taste. “Or that you have fled a convent, or a husband who is … like His Majesty, but alive, and you are not a widow.” His fingers closed around her wrist. “I don’t care. I don’t care if you killed ten husbands, or lived in a brothel, or a madhouse, or your father was a highwayman, or you were sold to a Turk, or … or ran away from the Grand Sultan himself.”

  “But you do care that I was born in Rome when the Caesars ruled,” she said sadly.

  “No. No!” He leaned forward and with his free hand turned her face toward him. “No, Olivia. It doesn’t matter to me at all: I don’t care if you were born when Joshua brought down Jericho.” He kissed her emphatically, insisting that she respond to him.

  Olivia felt she was drowning in light; her skin was suddenly tender, as if she had lain in the sun for an hour without the protection of her native earth. It was wonderful and maddening to stand here with Charles, to be caught between the Scylla of her need and the Charybdis of his desire. It was exhilarating to be known for what she was, and at the same time she trembled. How reckless she was, telling him so much about herself, revealing things that she had kept secret for centuries. And there was her own passion, as well as his. She had guarded against it, schooling herself to more prudent gratification. Now, she reveled in the intensity of her esurience.

  “You want me,” Charles whispered to her. “You want me.”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Oh yes.”

  “Then the rest is nothing. If you did not want me, the rest would not matter, either.” This time his kiss was almost chaste, barely the brush of his lips over hers. “Listen to me, Olivia,” he said, his voice low and rough with emotion. “If you were at the ends of the earth, you would still be mine and I would find you, I would have you as long as you love me.”

  There was irony in her smile, the same irony that she had seen in Sanct’ Germain’s all those centuries ago. “That is apt to be a very long time,” she said. “Among those of our blood, the bond is not—cannot—be broken except by the true death.”

  He laughed, but the sound was quiet and tender. “All death is true, except before the Throne of God.” The scent of hay was very strong in the stall.

  �
��Not with us,” she said, her hazel eyes as direct and unflinching as an honorable foe’s.

  “Death is not revokable, except by the Will of God,” Charles said insistently, straightening a little as he spoke.

  “It is for us,” Olivia said, going on as if reciting, “I died while Vespasianus was Caesar. I was walled up in a tomb, and I died.” She waited, meeting his eyes until she saw acquiescence there. “I died. But that was not the end for me, as it will not be the end for you if you continue as my lover.”

  “It is most convenient, your sort of death. I need not fear the cannonfire and the—” he began gallantly only to be interrupted.

  “None of us are proof against injury, and we die as surely as anyone when our bodies are destroyed. If your neck, your spine, is broken, if you are crushed or burned, you will be as dead as any other man. But short of that, you will survive.” She moved out of his arms. “I have been shot, I have taken sword-thrusts in my arms and legs and body. I have had brands pressed to my skin and my limbs wrenched from their sockets, and lived through it all, but not without pain, not without hurt, though there is no mark on me to show it.”

  He brought his hand to her lips, dismay in his clear brown eyes. “No, Olivia. Not now. Nothing more.”

  “Yes!” she burst out. “I must convince you, don’t you understand? If I do not, I cannot stay with you, for your own sake as well as mine.” She came back to him, taking his arms in her hands. “Charles, Charles, please. Please believe what I tell you, so that I can love you. Please.”

  He scrutinized her face, concern and care in his eyes. “Eh bien,” he said; he looked down at her hands. “I’ll listen to everything you tell me. I will try to believe what you say.” He stood while she released him, then moved away from her, leaning against the empty manger.

  Now that she had his attention, she hesitated. Without being aware of it, she began to pace, the old straw cracking under her feet. “How can I tell you? You don’t understand. You’re Catholic and I—”

  “I am more your lover than I am a Catholic, and if that damns me, I am a fortunate man,” he said lightly but with an underlying purpose that surprised her.

  “But to you I am … demonic. How can I—”

  He stopped her. “You were born in Rome during the reign of Vespasianus. Your husband was a Senator.”

  “Yes,” she said, steadied by this. “He was debauched and he debauched me.” She looked at him suddenly, her head up in defiance. “If you pity me, I will never—”

  “I don’t pity you,” said Charles quietly. “But I would like to kill him.”

  “Why waste your anger. He died in the Flavian Circus long, long ago,” she said, and her rigidity left her.

  “I would still like to kill him,” said Charles, watching her in the guttering light of the lanthorn. “I would wish him alive again so that I might kill him for you.”

  Olivia’s smile was faint and tentative but within her she sensed the first stirrings of happiness that had eluded her for so long. “The Emperor himself condemned my husband.”

  “Then you were not without aid,” he said darkly.

  She pretended she did not hear the possessive note in his voice. “I had one ally, and without him I would have remained in that tomb. I would be less than dust now.”

  “Then I am grateful to him, but I am jealous as well.” He cleared his throat. “So. In the Rome of Vespasianus you had a debauched husband and an ally. You were entombed alive. You were rescued from the tomb and—”

  “The tomb where I died, where I was confined to die,” Olivia said, trying not to look at him as she said this. “I want you to understand that I died.”

  “Yes. You have repeated it enough.” Charles capitulated. “You died.”

  “And now I am blood of the blood of my ally, and those who love me knowingly … who accept what I am and the nature of my love…”

  “There have been others,” he muttered.

  “Yes, many others,” she said, doing her best to salve his pride. “No one has been like you. No one has pursued me as you have.”

  “How convenient, so that you will not confuse me with the rest,” he snapped, and in the same breath relented. “No. No, they are in the past. They are ghosts. I do not want to be your first lover, but your last.”

  Her expression changed and her eyes were distant. “My last lover…” She trailed off, then recalled herself. “If you had continued to sleep you might have had my love without risk.”

  Charles’ laugh was more angry than amused. “I would have nothing. I do not want a dream, I want a woman; I want you. I would be less than a man if I accepted so little when you are much, much more than a dream.” He moved toward her.

  “But we have reached a turning point,” Olivia said carefully. “You may lie with me, knowing me and the nature of my love, at most six times. Until that time, there is little risk that you will be … tainted by me, that you will take anything more than pleasure from me. You may love me and there will be no lasting … harm. After that, you will have too much of me, and”—she looked around as the lanthorn sputtered out—“and you will be as I am when you die, unless your body is destroyed or your spine broken.”

  “We have reached that sixth time,” said Charles, the amusement returning to his voice. “Only six times, and already you are part of me.”

  “Yes.” She locked her hands together in front of her as if they could shield her from him.

  “What would be needed to insure that you and I are bound for all eternity? You say that with the blood is a bond: how do I strengthen it?”

  “Sleep with me again, and—” she started only to have him interrupt her.

  “No, something more than that. I want no risk, I want certainty. If you are upset because of what I may become, then let us make it absolute. Then you may give yourself to me without reservation.” In the dark his eyes found hers. “What will make it so, Olivia?”

  Bemused, she answered, “If you were to taste my blood as I have tasted yours, then even if this were only the first time we lay together, it would be the same as if we had been lovers for years and years.” She took a step nearer to him. “You can’t want that.”

  “It would settle the matter, wouldn’t it?” Charles said. “Neither of us would be troubled again.” He reached out for her, fumbling in the gloom.

  She took one of his hands in hers. “But there would be no going back; you would be as I am. And when you die you will be one of those who do not lie still. It is a … difficult way to … to live, Charles.”

  “It is a fortunate thing for a soldier to be able to rise again. What King would not pray for such men to defend him.” He kissed her cheek.

  Olivia shook her head. “Charles, don’t make a jest of it. Long life, as those of my blood have it, is not always a blessing. There are those who are fearful of us, and in their fear they hunt us. There are those who despise us and our love. And there are preparations you will need to make, precautions that will be necessary, for we are not invulnerable.”

  “Tell me what I must do, and come to my bed. Then I will be as you are,” he said, pulling her close to him. His breath was warm on her neck.

  “There is no going back, once you take such a step,” she said, amazed at how willing he was to accept her; she hoped he would never regret his decision. “If you think you might have reason, later, to abjure the bond, then do not make it. You do not pledge your word to me, but your blood.”

  “As you have already done to me,” said Charles with certainty.

  “Yes; but I know what I am doing, I know the consequences. I have lived long enough that I recognize the nature of the bond.” She smiled painfully, looking at his young and handsome face. “You … you are how old?”

  “I am twenty-one,” said Charles with some heat.

  “Twenty-one,” she echoed, wondering if she dared continue to love him. Twenty-one, she repeated to herself in her mind. When she was twenty-one, Nero ruled Rome, she had just married Justus
and suffered the miscarriage of her first—and only—child. How could anyone so very young comprehend what her life was, what would come of loving her?

  He all but read her thoughts. “I am a man grown and I know my own mind,” he said with some heat. “Do you doubt me?”

  Though she did, Olivia said, “No.”

  “If I were a greybeard and so filled with wisdom that my head ached, I could make no other choice. You are what I want. I have never wanted a woman as I want you. I never will again.” A wistfulness crept into his voice. “One day I will marry, because I must. I know my duty to my family. But no woman will be to me what you are, Olivia, and that would be true if all you had told me were fanciful stories.” He wrapped his arms around her and stood that way, his jaw against her forehead, his lips on her shining fawn-brown hair.

  “They are not—” she protested a short while later.

  “Stories. I know that. Ssshh,” he whispered.

  She started to give him one last warning, but he silenced her with his mouth, his kiss turning urgent, demanding, and his hands, which had sheltered her a moment before, moved impetuously to the ribbons that closed her robe de chambre. He unfastened them, taking care not to rip them, all the while continuing to kiss her. He broke away from her long enough to drag his chamise over his head and throw it into the manger. Then he opened the front of her robe de chambre, so slowly and reverently that it was almost an act of worship.

  “Charles,” she said, so softly that the wind, the sounds of the horses in their stalls, were louder.