by Rice, Anne
Once again I marveled at the pure resistance of Christianity, that it seemed to feed upon disaster as it had fed upon persecution, and as it prospered during interludes of peace.
I also marveled at the resilience of the old Patricians, who as I said, did not withdraw from public life, but strove to inculcate the old values as best they could.
Everywhere one saw barbarians with mustaches, wearing crude trousers, their hair greasy and unkempt. Many were Arian Christians, holding different ceremonies from their “orthodox” Catholic brothers and sisters. What were they? Goths, Visigoths, Alemmani, Huns? Some I couldn’t recognize at all. And the ruler of this great state lived not at Rome but at Ravenna in the North.
I was also to discover that a new nest of the Satanic vampires had settled in a forgotten catacomb of the city, where they held ceremonies to their Serpent Devil before going out to prey upon the innocent and the guilty alike.
Avicus and Mael, puzzled as to the origins of these new zealots, and most weary of them, had resolved to leave them alone.
As I walked through ruined streets and through empty houses, these zealot creatures spied upon me. I loathed them. But I hardly considered them a danger. In my starvation I had grown strong. Akasha’s blood was in my veins.
But how wrong I was in my judgment upon the Satanic vampires, oh, how very wrong indeed. But I will come to that in time.
Let me return to those nights when I wandered the broken fragments of classical civilization.
I was not as embittered by it as one might think. Indeed Akasha’s blood had not only given me great new physical power, it had enhanced the clarity of my mind, my ability to concentrate, to take to myself what I prized, and to dismiss what was no longer good.
Nevertheless the state of Rome was demoralizing, and it was only likely to get worse. I looked to Constantinople to preserve what I called civilization and I was all too ready for the voyage ahead.
Well, it was time to help Avicus and Mael with the last preparations. And they assisted me in carefully wrapping the Divine Pair as mummies, with all reverence, and placing them in granite sarcophagi which no team of men could open, as had been done in the past by me, and would be done in the future every time that the Divine Parents had to be moved.
This was most frightening for Avicus and Mael—to see the pair moved and then so completely covered with the white strips of linen. They knew nothing of the old prayers in Egyptian which I recited, which were charms for the safety of the journey scavenged from my years of reading, and I don’t think this comforted them. But the Divine Couple were my concern.
As I moved to wrap the eyes of Akasha, she closed them, and with Enkil there occurred the same thing. What a strange and momentary indication of consciousness. It sent a chill through me. Yet still I went about my duty, as if I were an old Egyptian wrapping a deceased Pharaoh in the Sacred House of the Dead.
At last Mael and Avicus accompanied me down to Ostia, the port from which we would sail, and we boarded the vessel, having the Divine Parents placed below deck.
As for the slaves that Avicus and Mael had purchased I found them most impressive, all handpicked and excellent even to the galley slaves who knew that they worked for future freedom in the East and rich rewards.
A strong band of soldiers were to sail with us, each heavily armed, highly skilled and quite convinced of the same promise, and I was particularly impressed by the captain of this vessel, a Christian Roman by the name of Clement, a man of cleverness and wit, who would maintain the faith of the others in the final rewards as we made the long voyage.
The ship itself was the largest galley I had ever beheld, with an immense and colorful sail, and it contained a massive and impregnable cabin containing three long chests modestly made of bronze and iron in which Mael, Avicus and I would sleep by day. These chests, like the sarcophagi, were impossible for mortals to open without enormous difficulty and also they were far too heavy for even a gang of men to lift.
At last everything was in readiness, and armed to the teeth against pirates, we set out by night, guiding the ship with our supernatural eyes from floundering on any rocks as we moved swiftly along the coast.
This frightened our crew and our soldiery somewhat as can be imagined, for in those times ships almost invariably proceeded only by day. It was too dangerous for them to do otherwise, for they couldn’t see the coast or the rocky islands they might encounter, and even though they might have good maps and skilled navigators, there was still the danger of a dreadful accident occurring in the dark.
We reversed this age-old wisdom, and by day, our ship was in port so that those who served us might enjoy what the local town had to offer, and our slaves and soldiers were made all the more happy by this, and all the more devoted, while the captain kept a firm grip by allowing only some to go ashore at certain times, and insisting that some remain and keep watch or sleep.
Always we woke and emerged from our cabin to find our servants in high good humor, musicians playing under the moon for the soldiers, and Clement, the captain, delightfully drunk. There was no suspicion among them that we were other than three extremely bizarre human beings of immense wealth. Indeed, sometimes I eavesdropped on their theories about us—that we were Magi from the Far East like unto the Three Kings who had come to lay gifts before the Christ Child, and I was most amused.
Our only real problem was an absurd one. We had to ask for meals to be brought to us, and then to dispense with the food through the windows of our cabin, directly into the sea.
It sent us into peals of laughter, yet I found it undignified.
We did periodically spend a night on shore so that we might feed. Our years had given us great skill in this matter. And we might even have starved for the entire journey, but this we chose not to do.
As for our camaraderie aboard the ship, it was most interesting to me.
I was living more closely with mortals than ever before. I talked with our captain and our soldiers by the hour. And I found I enjoyed it tremendously, and I was very much relieved that, in spite of my very pale skin, it was so easy to do.
I found myself passionately attracted to our Captain Clement. I enjoyed the tales of his youth spent on merchant ships throughout the Mediterranean, and he amused me with descriptions of the ports he’d visited, some of which I had known hundreds of years before, and some of which were wholly new.
My sadness was lifted as I listened to Clement. I saw the world through his eyes, and knew his hope. I looked forward to a lively household in Constantinople where he could call upon me as his friend.
Another great change had taken place. I was now definitely an intimate companion to both Avicus and Mael.
Many a night we spent alone in the cabin, with the full wine cups before us, talking about all that had occurred in Italy and other things as well.
Avicus was of a keen mind as I had always imagined him to be, eager for learning and reading, and had over the centuries taught himself both Latin and Greek. But there was much he didn’t understand about my world and its old piety.
He had with him histories by Tacitus, and Livy, and also the True Tales of Lucian, and the biographies written in Greek by Plutarch; but he was not able to understand this work.
I spent many happy hours reading aloud to him as he followed along with me, explaining to him how the text could be interpreted. And I saw in him a great absorption of information. He wanted to know the world.
Mael did not share this spirit; but he was no longer against it as he had been a very long time ago. He listened to all we discussed, and perhaps he profited somewhat from it. It was plain to me that the two—Avicus and Mael—survived as blood drinkers because of each other. But Mael no longer regarded me with fear.
As for me, I rather enjoyed the role of teacher, and it gave me new pleasure to argue with Plutarch as if he were in the room with me, and to comment on Tacitus as if he were there as well.
Both Avicus and Mael had grown paler and stronger wit
h time. Each had, he confessed, at some moment or other felt the threat of despair.
“It was the sight of you, asleep in the shrine,” Mael said without enmity, “that kept me from going down into some cellar and resigning myself to the same slumber. I felt I should never awake from it, and Avicus, my companion Avicus, would not allow me to go.”
When Avicus had felt weary of the world and unable to continue, it had been Mael who kept him from the fatal sleep.
Both had suffered extreme anguish over my condition, and during the long decades when I lay unresponsive to their pleas, they had been too afraid of the Noble Parents to lay before them flowers, or to burn incense or to do anything to tend the shrine.
“We feared they would strike out at us,” said Avicus. “Even to look at their faces filled us with dread.”
I nodded to all this.
“The Divine Parents,” I said, “have never showed a need of those things. I am the author of such devotions. Darkness may please them as well as burning lamps. Look how they slumber now in their wrappings and in their coffins, side by side beneath the deck.”
I felt emboldened by the visions I had had to say these things, though I never spoke of those visions or bragged that I had drunk the Sacred Blood.
All the while we sailed there was the prospect of one great horror which hung over the three of us—that our ship might be attacked either by day or night, and that the Divine Parents might be sunk into the sea. It was far too awful for us to talk of it, and that, perhaps, is why we did not. And whenever I brooded over this, I realized that we should have taken the safer route over land.
Then in the small hours a terrible truth became known to me—that if we did meet disaster, I might rise from the sea, and Those Who Must Be Kept might not. In the mysterious bottom of the great ocean what would become of these Parents? My agony of mind grew too great.
I put aside my anguish. I continued the pleasant talk with my companions. I went out on deck and looked upon the silvery sea and sent my love to Pandora.
Meantime I did not share the enthusiasm of Mael and Avicus for Byzantium. I had lived in Antioch a long time ago, and Antioch was an Eastern city but with great Western influence, and I had left it to return to Rome, for I was a child of the West.
Now we were heading to what I thought to be a purely Eastern capital, and I was afraid that in its great vitality I would find only what I could not possibly embrace.
One must understand: from the Roman point of view, the East—that is, the lands of Asia Minor and Persia—had always been suspect, for their emphasis on luxury and their general softness. It was believed by me and by many Romans that Persia had softened Alexander the Great thereby softening Greek culture. Then Greek culture with its Persian influence had softened Rome.
Of course immense culture and art had come with this softening. Romans embraced Greek knowledge of all sorts.
Nevertheless, I felt, deep in my soul, this age-old suspicion of the East.
Naturally I said nothing to Avicus and Mael. Their enthusiasm for this mighty seat of the Eastern Emperor was something not to be spoilt.
At last after our long voyage, we came early one evening into the shimmering Sea of Marmara and beheld the high ramparts of Constantinople with their myriad torches, and for the first time, I understood the glory of the peninsula which Constantine had chosen so long ago.
Slowly our ship made its way into the magnificent harbor. And I was chosen to be the one to use his “magic” upon the officials of the dock to arrange our arrival and give us time within the port to find some proper lodgings before removing the sacred cargo which we carried, the sarcophagi of venerable ancestors brought back to be buried in their native land. Of course we had mundane questions as to where we might find an agent to help us with our lodgings, and more than one mortal was called to give us advice.
It was a matter of gold and the Spell Gift, and I had no difficulty. And soon we were onshore and ready to explore this mythic place where God had directed Constantine to create the greatest city in the world.
I cannot say I was disappointed that night.
Our first extraordinary surprise was that the merchants of Constantinople were required to put up torches outside their shops so that the streets were beautifully illuminated. And we at once realized that there was a wilderness of great churches for us to explore.
The city held some million inhabitants, and I sensed at once an immense vigor that had gone out of Rome.
I went immediately—leading my two agreeable companions with me—to the great open square called the Augusteum, and where I could gaze on the facade of Hagia Sophia—the Church of the Holy Wisdom—and upon other immense and regal buildings including the splendid public baths of Zeuxippus, which had been decorated with beautifully executed pagan statues taken from various cities of the world.
I wanted to go in all directions at the same time. For here lay the great Hippodrome in which by day thousands witnessed chariot races which were the passion of the populace, and there the indescribably huge and complex royal palace into which we could easily have crept without being seen.
A great street led westward from this square, and constituted the main thoroughfare of the city, in that there were other squares which opened off it, and also other streets, which fed, of course, innumerable lanes.
Mael and Avicus continued to follow me politely as I led them hither and thither, and into the interior of Hagia Sophia to stand between its magnificent walls and beneath its immense dome.
I was overcome by the beauty of the church with its myriad arches and the high ornate and detailed mosaics of Justinian and Theodora which were unbelievably splendid and glittering in the light of countless lamps.
In the nights to come, there would be no end of splendid adventures. My comrades might tire of this, but I would not. I would penetrate the Imperial Court very soon, using my swiftness and cleverness to go about the palace. And for better or for worse I was in a city that was thriving where I would know the comfort of the proximity of many many human souls.
In the weeks that followed we purchased for ourselves a splendid house, quite well fortified, its garden entirely enclosed, and made for ourselves a secret and safe crypt beneath the mosaic floor.
As for the Divine Parents, I was adamant that they must be hidden some distance from the city. I had already heard plenty about the riots in Constantinople and I wanted the chapel to be safe.
However I could find no old vaults or tombs in the countryside like the old Etruscan tomb I had used outside of Rome. And finally I had no choice but to have a sanctuary built beneath our house by a gang of slaves.
This unnerved me. In Antioch and in Rome, I had created the chapels. Now I must rely upon others. At last I pursued an intricate plan.
I designed a series of overlapping passages leading deep down to a large chamber which would require anyone going there to turn first right, then left, then right, then left again with exceedingly debilitating affect. Then I set pairs of heavy bronze doors at certain intervals, each pair having a heavy bolt.
The thick stone blocking the entrance to this winding and doubling passage was not only disguised as part of the mosaic flooring of the house, but was, as I so often say when describing such things, far too heavy for even a team of mortals to lift. Even the iron grips were so numerous and intricately designed as to seem part of the ornamentation of the overall floor.
Mael and Avicus thought all this quite extreme, but said nothing.
They approved, however, when I had the walls of the chapel covered with gold mosaic of the very kind I saw in all the splendid churches, and the floor laid with the finest marble tile. A broad and gorgeous throne of hammered gold was prepared for the Royal Couple. And lamps were hung from the ceiling on chains.
How was all this work done, you might ask, without compromising the secret of the underground chamber? Did I murder all those who had participated in the creation of this chapel?
No. It was by use
of the Spell Gift to confuse those brought to their labor, and by the use at times of simple blindfolds of which the slaves and even the artists could not complain. Gilded words as to “lovers and brides” smoothed over any mortal objections. And money did the rest.
At last came the night when I must take the Royal Parents to their chapel. Avicus and Mael politely confessed that they thought I would want to do this alone.
I had no objections. Like a powerful Christian Angel of Death, I carried first one sarcophagus and then the other down to the fine chapel and set them side by side.
I took the linen wrappings from Akasha first, holding her in my arms as I knelt on the floor. Her eyes were closed. Then quite suddenly, she opened them, looking past me, her expression meaningless and simple as before.
I think I felt a curious deadening disappointment. But I whispered prayers to her to conceal it, as I cleaned away the linen and lifted her, and carried her, my silent bride, and seated her on the throne. There she rested, her clothes rumpled and incomplete, blind as ever, as I took the wrappings from Enkil.
There came the same strange moment when his eyes opened as well.
I dared say nothing aloud to him. I lifted him, found him more pliant, and even almost light, and placed him on the throne beside his queen.
Several nights passed before I could complete their raiment, but it must look perfect to the memories I still had of fine Egyptian garments, and then I sought to locate for them new and interesting jewels. Constantinople was full of such luxuries, and the craftsmen who dealt in them. All of this I did alone and with no difficulty, praying all the while in the most respectful tone.
Finally the chapel was even more beautiful than the first one which I had made in Antioch, and far more lovely than that which had existed outside of Rome. I put in place the usual braziers in which I would burn incense, and I filled the many hanging lamps with sweet-smelling oil.
Only when all this was done did I go back to the matter of the new city, and how things were to be in it, and whether or not Akasha and Enkil were truly safe.