Time's Convert

by Deborah Harkness

  5

  The Sins of the Fathers

  14 MAY

  It was late morning and I was at my desk transcribing Lady Montague’s recipe for a healing balsam—a remedy that could be used for “short-windedness in man, or horse”—from an online image of the Wellcome Library’s manuscript. Even without having the actual text before me, I loved tracing the seemingly nonsensical swirls and whorls made by seventeenth-century pens. Gradually, the manuscript displayed digitally on my laptop was yielding a pattern of evidence that showed deep connections between cooking and modern chemistry, one that I would write about in my new book.

  Without warning, my work space was invaded by a video call from Venice that reduced my manuscript page down into a corner of the screen. Gerbert of Aurillac and Domenico Michele, the other two vampire representatives on the Congregation, wanted a word.

  Though a witch, I occupied the third vampire chair—the one that belonged by custom to a member of the de Clermont family. Though I was a blood-sworn daughter of Philippe de Clermont, my brother-in-law Baldwin’s decision to give the chair to me was still a matter of controversy.

  “There you are, Diana,” Gerbert said once I allowed the connection. “We’ve left messages. Why aren’t you responding?”

  I bit back a sound of frustration. “Is it possible that you could handle this situation—whatever it is—without me?”

  “If it were, we would have done so by now.” Gerbert sounded testy. “We must consult you on matters that pertain to our people—even though you are a witch and a warmblood.”

  Our people. That was the heart of the problem facing daemons, humans, vampires, and witches. Matthew’s work with Chris and the teams of researchers assembled at Oxford and Yale had proved that, at a genetic level, all four hominid species were more alike than different. But it was going to take more than scientific evidence to change attitudes, particularly among the ancient, custom-bound vampires.

  “These Hungarian and Romanian clans have been at war for centuries in the Crișana region,” Domenico explained. “The land has always been contested. But this latest outbreak of violence is already in the news. I’ve made sure that the press have interpreted it as simply another escalation in organized crime.”

  “Remind me who planted that story?” I asked, searching for my Congregation notebook on the crowded desk. Leafing through it, I found no mention of anyone attached to the media. Once again, Gerbert and Domenico had failed to inform me of crucial developments.

  “Andrea Popescu. She’s one of us, and her current husband—a human, regrettably—is a political reporter for Evenimentul Zilei.” Gerbert’s eyes gleamed. “I’m happy to travel to Debrecen and supervise the negotiations, if you’d like.”

  The last thing we needed was Gerbert in Hungary, working out his ambitions in an already volatile situation.

  “Why not send Albrecht and Eliezer back to the negotiating table?” I suggested, naming two of the more progressive vampire leaders in that part of the world. “The Corvinus and Székely clans are simply going to have to work out a reasonable solution. And if they don’t, the Congregation will have to take possession of the castle in question until they do.”

  Why anyone wanted the ruinous heap was beyond me. No one could walk inside its hollow walls for fear of being crushed to death by falling masonry. We’d gone there on a diplomatic mission in March, during Yale’s spring break. I’d expected something grand and palatial, not piles of moss-covered stone.

  “This is not some real estate dispute to be solved according to your modern standards of fairness and equity,” Gerbert said, his tone patronizing. “Too much blood has been spilled, too many vampire lives lost. Holló Castle is sacred ground to these clans, and their sires are willing to die for it. You lack the proper understanding of what’s at stake.”

  “You must at least try to think like a vampire,” Domenico said. “Our traditions must be respected. Compromise is not our way.”

  “Slaying each other in the streets of Debrecen hasn’t worked, either,” I pointed out. “Let’s try it my way for a change. I’ll speak to Albrecht and Eliezer, and report back.”

  Gerbert opened his mouth to protest. Without warning, I disconnected the video link. My computer screen darkened. I sat back in my chair with a groan.

  “Bad day at the office?” Marcus was leaning against the doorframe, still holding his book.

  “Did vampires skip the Enlightenment?” I asked. “It’s like I’m trapped in some medieval revenge fantasy, one in which there’s no chance of a solution that doesn’t involve the total destruction of the opponent. Why do vampires prefer to kill each other rather than have a civil conversation?”

  “Because it’s not as much fun, of course.” Matthew entered the room and kissed me, slow and sweet. “Let Domenico and Gerbert deal with clan warfare for now, mon coeur. Their troubles will still be there tomorrow—and the day after that, too. It’s the one thing you can rely upon with vampires.”

  * * *

  —

  AFTER LUNCH I TOOK the twins into the library and set them up in front of the empty fireplace with enough toys to keep them occupied for a few minutes while I did some more research. I had a working transcription of Lady Montague’s recipe in front of me and was noting what ingredients were being used (oil of turpentine, flowers of sulfur, hay), what equipment was needed (a large glass urinal, a deep skillet, a pitcher), and the processes used (mixing, boiling, skimming) so I could cross-reference them with other early modern texts.

  The library at Les Revenants was one of my favorite rooms. It was built into one of the towers, and was ringed with dark walnut bookcases that stretched from floor to ceiling. Ladders and staircases spanned the distances at irregular intervals, giving the place the crazed appearance of an Escher drawing. Books, papers, photographs, and other memorabilia that Philippe and Ysabeau had collected over the centuries filled every inch of space. I had barely scratched the surface of what was here. Matthew had built some wooden file cases for the piles of papers to go into—one day when I had time to sort them—and I had started the work of combing through the book titles for obvious thematic clusters, like mythology and geography.

  Most of the family found the room’s atmosphere oppressive, however, with its dark wood and memories of Philippe. The only creatures who spent much time here were me and a few of the castle’s ghosts. Two of them were currently undoing my efforts to organize the recently created mythology section, rearranging books with an attitude of bewildered disapproval.

  Marcus strolled in, whistling, his copy of Common Sense tucked under his arm.

  “See!” Becca brandished a plastic figure of a knight.

  “Wow. A knight in shining armor. I’m impressed.” Marcus joined the twins on the floor.

  Not to be outdone by his sister’s claim on Marcus’s attention, Philip toppled his tower of blocks so that they made a mighty crash. Both twins loved the polished cubes, which Matthew had carved for them from bits of wood culled from around the family’s various homes. There were blocks made from apple and hornbeam gathered near the Bishop House in Madison; French oak and lime from Sept-Tours; and beech and ash from the Old Lodge. There were even some freckled blocks made from the limbs of a plane tree that grew near Clairmont House in London, collected when the city had come by and pruned the lower limbs to let the double-decker buses pass. Each block showed subtle differences in grain and tone, which Philip and Becca found fascinating. The primary colors that drew most children were of no interest to our Bright Born twins, who had their father’s keen eyesight. Instead, they loved to trace the patterns in the wood with their tiny fingers as if learning the tree’s history.

  “Looks like your knight will need a new castle, Becca,” Marcus observed, laughing at the pile of blocks. “What do you think, sport? Want to build one with me?”

  “Okay,” Philip said agreeably, holding up a bloc
k.

  But Philip’s older brother was momentarily distracted by the books that were still sliding along the shelves, moved by spectral hands that not even vampires could see.

  “The ghosts are at it again, I see,” Marcus said with a chuckle, watching the books move to the left, then to the right, then over to the left again. “They never seem to make any progress, though. Don’t they get bored?”

  “Apparently not. And we can thank the goddess for that,” I replied, my tone as tart as vinegar. “As ghosts go, those two aren’t very strong—not like the ones who haunt the room off the great hall.”

  The two chain-mail-clad men clanking around in that tiny, dark enclosure were a terror: flinging furniture around and pilfering items from nearby rooms to redecorate their space. This insubstantial pair in the library was so vaporous that I still wasn’t sure who or what they were.

  “They always seem to pick the same shelf. What’s up there?” Marcus asked.

  “Mythology,” I said, glancing up from my notes. “Your grandfather adored the subject.”

  “Granddad used to say he liked to read about the exploits of old friends,” Marcus said with the hint of a smile.

  Philip held his block toward me now, hoping I’d join in the fun. Playing with the children was far more appealing than Lady Montague. I put my notes aside and crouched down next to them.

  “House,” Philip said, happy with the prospect of building.

  “Like father, like son,” Marcus said drily. “You better watch out, Diana, or you’ll find yourself in the midst of a massive renovation in a few years.”

  I laughed. Philip was always erecting towers. Becca, on the other hand, had abandoned her knight and was constructing something around herself that looked like a fortification. Marcus supplied both of them with blocks, willing as ever to be their assistant when it came to fun and games.

  Philip put a block in my hand. “Apple.”

  “A is for apple. Good boy,” I said.

  “You sound like you’re reading from one of the primers I had when I was a boy.” Marcus handed Becca a block. “It’s strange that we still teach children their alphabet the same way, when everything else has changed so much.”

  “Such as?” I asked, wanting to know more.

  “Discipline. Clothing. Children’s songs. ‘How glorious is our heavenly King / Who reigns above the sky.’” Marcus sang the words softly. “‘How shall a Child presume to sing / His dreadful majesty?’ That was the only tune in my first primer.”

  “Not exactly ‘the wheels on the bus go round and round,’” I agreed with a smile. “When were you born, Marcus?”

  My question was an unforgivable breach of vampire etiquette, but I hoped that Marcus would excuse it since it was coming from a witch—not to mention a historian.

  “In 1757. August.” Marcus’s voice was flat and coolly factual. “The day after Ft. William Henry fell to the French.”

  “Where?” I asked, even though I was pressing my luck to be so inquisitive.

  “Hadley. A small town in western Massachusetts, along the banks of the Connecticut River.” Marcus picked at the knee of his jeans, worrying at a loose thread. “I was born and raised there.”

  Philip climbed into Marcus’s lap and presented him with another block.

  “Would you tell me about it?” I asked. “I don’t know much about your past, and it might help to pass the time while you wait for news from Phoebe.”

  More importantly, remembering his own life might help Marcus. From the bewildering tangle of time that surrounded him, I knew that Marcus was struggling.

  And I was not the only one who could see the snarled threads. Before I could stop him, Philip grabbed at a red strand trailing from Marcus’s forearm with one pudgy hand, and a white strand with the other. His bowed lips moved as if he were uttering a silent incantation.

  My children are not weavers. I had told myself this again and again, in moments of anxiety, in the depths of night while they slept quietly in their cradles, and in times of utter desperation when the hurly-burly of our daily routines was so overwhelming I could barely draw breath.

  If that were true, though, how had Philip seen the angry threads surrounding Marcus? And how had he managed to capture them so easily?

  “What the hell?” Marcus’s expression froze as the hands of the old clock, a gilded monstrosity that made a deafening ticktock, stopped moving.

  Philip drew his fists toward his tummy, dragging time along with them. Blue and amber threads screeched in protest as the fabric of the world stretched.

  “Bye-bye, owie,” Philip said, kissing his own hands and the threads they contained. “Bye-bye.”

  My children are half witch and half vampire, I reminded myself. My children are not weavers. That meant they weren’t capable of—

  The air around me trembled and tightened as time continued to resist the spell that Philip had woven in an attempt to soothe Marcus’s distress.

  “Philip Michael Addison Sorley Bishop-Clairmont. Put time down. Immediately.” My voice was sharp and my son dropped the strands. After one more heart-stopping second of inactivity, the clock’s hands resumed their movement. Philip’s lip trembled.

  “We do not play with time. Not ever. Do you understand me?” I drew him out of Marcus’s lap and stared into his eyes, where ancient knowledge mixed with childish innocence.

  Philip, startled by my tone, burst into tears. Though he was nowhere near it, the tower he had been constructing crashed to the ground.

  “What just happened?” Marcus looked a bit dazed.

  Rebecca, who could not bear it when her brother cried, crawled over the fallen blocks to offer him comfort. She held out her right thumb. The left was firmly lodged in her own mouth. She removed it before speaking.

  “Shiny, Pip.” A violet strand of magical energy streamed from Becca’s thumb. I’d seen vestigial traces of magic hanging off the children before, but I’d assumed that they served no particular function in their lives.

  My children are not weavers.

  “Shit.” The word popped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

  “Wow. That was weird. I could see you, but I couldn’t hear you. And I couldn’t seem to speak,” Marcus said, still processing his recent experience. “Everything started to fade. Then you took Philip out of my lap and it all went back to normal. Did I timewalk?”

  “Not quite,” I said.

  “Shit,” Becca repeated solemnly, patting her brother on the forehead. “Shiny.”

  I examined Philip’s forehead. Was that a speck of chatoiement, a weaver’s signature gleam, between his eyes?

  “Oh, God. Wait until your father finds out.”

  “Finds out what?” Matthew was in the doorway, bright-eyed and relaxed from repairing the copper gutters over the kitchen door. He smiled at Becca, who was blowing him kisses. “Hello, my darling.”

  “I think Philip just worked—or wove—his first spell,” I explained. “He tried to smooth out Marcus’s memories so they wouldn’t bother him.”

  “My memories?” Marcus frowned. “And what do you mean Philip wove a spell? He can’t even talk in complete sentences.”

  “Owie,” Philip explained to Matthew with a tiny, shuddering sob. “All better.”

  Shock registered on Matthew’s face.

  “Shit,” Becca said as she noticed her father’s change of expression. Philip took this as confirmation of the gravity of the situation, and his fragile composure disintegrated once more in a flood of tears.

  “But that means—” Marcus looked from Becca to Philip in alarm and then in amazement.

  “I owe Chris fifty dollars,” I said. “He was right, Matthew. The twins are weavers.”

  * * *

  —

  “WHAT ARE YOU GOING to do about this?” Matthew demanded.

 
We had retreated—Matthew and I and the twins—to the suite of rooms we used as a bedroom, bathroom, and private family sitting room. A medieval castle did not lend itself to a feeling of coziness, but these apartments were as warm and comforting as we could make them. The large main room was divided into several different areas: one was dominated by our seventeenth-century canopied bed; another had deep chairs and sofas for lounging by the fire; a third was equipped with a writing desk, where Matthew could get a bit of work done while I slept. Small rooms to the left and right had been repurposed to make walk-in closets and a bathroom. Heavy, electrified iron chandeliers dropped from the arched ceiling, which helped keep the rooms from feeling cavernous on dark winter nights. Tall windows, some of them still glazed with medieval painted glass, let in the summer sun.

  “I don’t know, Matthew. I left my crystal ball in New Haven,” I retorted. The situation in the library had thrown me for a loop. I was attributing my slow response to the stoppage of time rather than to blinding panic.

  I closed the bedroom door. The wood was stout and there were many thick stone walls between us and the rest of the household. Still, I switched on the music system to provide an extra buffer against acute vampire hearing.

  “And what will we do about Rebecca, when she shows signs of having magical talent?” Matthew continued, driving his fingers through his hair in frustration.

  “If she shows signs,” I said.

  “When,” Matthew insisted.

  “What do you think we should do?” I turned the tables on my husband.

  “You’re the witch!” Matthew said.

  “Oh. So it’s my fault!” I put my hands on my hips, furious. “So much for their being your children.”

  “That’s not what I said.” Matthew ground his teeth together. “They need their mother to set an example for them, that’s all.”

  “You can’t be serious.” I was aghast. “They’re too young to learn magic.”

  “But not too young to work it, apparently. We aren’t going to hide who we are from the children, remember?” Matthew said. “I’m keeping my end of the bargain. I’ve taken the children hunting. They’ve watched me feed.”