The Complete Vampire Chronicles 12-Book Bundle (The Vampire Chronicles)

by Rice, Anne

  I went out into the night, restless, hearing those other blood drinkers, a young pair, fearful of me and rightly so, yet very attentive to what I did, for what reason I was unsure. I sent a silent message to all the immortal trash that might perturb me: Do not come near me for I am in a grand passion and will not tolerate being interrupted now.

  I crept into the Church of San Paolino and knelt down as I looked at The Lamentation. I ran my tongue against my sharp teeth. I hungered for blood as the beauty of the figures filled me. I could have taken a victim in the very church.

  And then the most evil idea came to me. It was purely evil just as the painting was purely religious. The idea came to me unbidden as if there really were a Satan in the world and that Satan had come crawling along the stone floor towards me and put the idea in my mind.

  “You love him, Marius,” said this Satan. “Well, bring him over to you. Give Botticelli the Blood.”

  I shivered quietly in the church. I slipped down, sitting against the stone wall. Again I felt the thirst. I was horrified that I had even thought of it yet I saw myself taking Botticelli in my arms. I saw myself sinking my teeth into Botticelli’s throat. The blood of Botticelli. I thought of it. And my blood, my blood given to him.

  “Think how you have waited, Marius,” said the evil voice of Satan. “All these long centuries you have never given your blood to anyone. But you can give it to Botticelli! You can take Botticelli now.”

  He would go on painting; he would have the Blood and his painting would be unparalleled. He would live forever with his talent—this humble man of some forty years who was grateful for a mere purse of gold—this humble man who had done the exquisite Christ I stared at, his head thrown back in the hand of Mary, whose eyes were pressed to his mouth.

  This was not something that would be done. No, this must never be done. I could not do it. I would not do it.

  Yet I rose slowly to my feet and I left the church and began walking through the dark narrow street, towards Botticelli’s house.

  I could hear my heart inside me. And my mind seemed curiously empty, and my body light and predatory and full of evil, an evil which I freely admitted and totally understood. A high excitement filled me. Take Botticelli in your arms. Forever in your arms.

  And though I heard those other blood drinkers, those two young ones who followed me, I did not pay it any mind. They were far too fearful of me to come close to me. On I went for what I would choose to do.

  It was no more than a few blocks and I was there at Sandro’s door and the lights were burning inside, and I had a purse of gold.

  Drifting, dreaming, thirsting, I knocked as I had the first time.

  No, this is something you will never do, I thought. You will not take someone so vital out of the world. You will not disturb the destiny of one who has given others so much to love and enjoy.

  It was Sandro’s brother who came to the door, but this time he was courteous to me and he showed me into the shop where Botticelli was alone and at work.

  He turned to greet me as soon as I entered the spacious room.

  There loomed behind him a large panel, with a shockingly different aspect to it from any of his other work. I let my eyes drift over it for I thought this was what he wanted me to do, and I don’t think I could hide from him my disapproval or fear.

  The blood hunger surged in me, but I put it away and stared only at the painting, thinking of nothing, not of Sandro, not of his death and rebirth through me, no, of nothing but the painting as I pretended to be human for him.

  It was a grim and chilling painting of the Trinity, with Christ on his Cross, the full figure of God the Father behind him, and a dove representing the Holy Spirit, just above the head of the Christ. On one side stood St. John the Baptist opening the scarlet robe of God the Father, and on the other, the penitent Magdalene, her long hair her only clothing as she stared grieving at the crucified Lord.

  It seemed a cruel use of Botticelli’s talent! It seemed a ghastly thing. Oh, it was expertly done, yes, but how merciless it seemed.

  Only now did I know that in The Lamentation I had seen a perfect balance of light and dark forces. For I did not see that balance here. On the contrary, it was astonishing that Botticelli could have done something as wholly dark as this. It was a harsh thing. Had I seen it elsewhere I would not have thought it was his work.

  And it seemed a profound judgment on me that I had thought for one moment of giving Botticelli the Dark Blood! Did the Christian God really live? Could he deter me? Could he judge me? Is that why I had come face to face with this painting with Botticelli standing beside it looking into my eyes?

  Botticelli was waiting for me to speak to him on account of this painting. He was waiting patiently to be wounded by what I meant to say. And deep inside me there was a love of Botticelli’s talent which had nothing to do with God or the Devil or my own evil or power. That love of Botticelli’s talent respected Botticelli and nothing mattered just now but that.

  I looked up again at the painting.

  “Where is the innocence, Sandro?” I asked him, making my tone as kind as I could.

  Again I fought the blood hunger. Look how old he is. If you don’t do it Sandro Botticelli will die.

  “Where is the tenderness in the painting?” I asked. “Where is the sublime sweetness that makes us forget everything? I see it only a little perhaps in the face of God the Father, but the rest—it’s dark, Sandro. It’s so unlike you, this darkness. I don’t understand why you do it when you can do so much else.”

  The blood hunger was raging but I had control of it. I was pushing it deep inside me. I loved him too much to do it. I could not do it. I could not endure the result if it were to be done.

  As for my remarks, he nodded. He was miserable. A man divided wanting to paint his goddesses on the one hand, and the sacred paintings as well.

  “Marius,” he said. “I don’t want to do what’s sinful. I don’t want to do what’s evil, or what will make another person, simply by looking at a painting, commit a sin.”

  “You’re very far from ever doing that, Sandro,” I said. “That’s my view of it—that your goddesses are glorious as are your gods. In Rome, your frescoes of Christ were filled with light and beauty. Why journey into the darkness as you have done here?”

  I took out the purse and put it on the table. I would leave now, and he would never know what true evil had come close to him. He would never dream of what I was and what I had meant, perhaps, perhaps to do.

  He came to me and picked up the purse and tried to give it back.

  “No, you keep it,” I said. “You deserve it. You do what you believe you should do.”

  “Marius, I have to do what is right,” he said simply. “Now look at this, I want to show you.” He took me to another part of the workshop away from the large paintings.

  Here was a table and on it were several pages of parchment covered with tiny drawings.

  “These are illustrations for Dante’s Inferno,” he told me. “Surely you’ve read it. I want to do an illustrated version of the entire book.”

  My heart sank when I heard this, but what could I say? I looked down at the drawings of the twisted and suffering bodies! How could one defend such an enterprise on the part of the painter who had rendered Venus and the Virgin with miraculous skill?

  Dante’s Inferno. How I had despised the work while recognizing its brilliance.

  “Sandro, how can you want to do this?” I asked. I was shaking. I didn’t want him to see my face. “I find glory,” I said, “in those paintings that are filled with the light of paradise, whether it is Christian or pagan. I find no delight in the illustrations of those who suffer in Hell.”

  He was plainly confused and perhaps he always would be. It was his fate. I had only stepped into it, and perhaps fed a fire that was already too weak to survive.

  I had to go now. I had to leave him now forever. I knew it. I could not come again to this house. I could not trust myself
with him. I had to get out of Florence or my resolve would break.

  “I won’t be seeing you again, Sandro,” I said.

  “But why?” he said. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you. Oh, it’s not because of the purse, believe me.”

  “I know, but I must leave. Remember. I believe in your gods and goddesses. I always will.”

  I went out of his house, and only as far as the church. I was so overcome with the desire for him, to bring him over to me, and visit upon him all the dark secrets of the Blood, that I could scarce catch my breath or see the street before me, or even feel the air in my lungs.

  I wanted him. I wanted his talent. I dreamt dreams of the two of us—Sandro and me—together in a great palazzo, and from there would come paintings tinged with the magic of the Blood.

  It would be a confirmation of the Blood.

  After all, I thought, he is ruining his own talent, is he not, by turning to what is dark? How can one account for it that he would turn from his goddesses to a poem called the Inferno? Can I not turn him back to his celestial visions with the Blood?

  But none of this must happen. I knew it even before I’d seen his cruel crucifixion. I had known it before I went into his house.

  I must find a victim now; I must find many. And so I hunted cruelly, until I could take no more blood from the few doomed souls I found in the streets of Florence.

  At last an hour or so before dawn, I found myself sitting against a church door in a small piazza, looking like a beggar perhaps if beggars fit themselves out with crimson cloaks.

  Those two young vampires whom I had heard following me came with fearful steps towards me.

  I was weary and impatient.

  “Get away from me,” I said. “I’ll destroy you both if you don’t.”

  A young male, a young female, each taken in youth and both trembling, they would not retreat. At last the male spoke for them, his courage tremulous but real.

  “Don’t you harm Botticelli!” he declared. “Don’t you hurt him! Take the dregs, yes, you’re welcome, but not Botticelli, never Botticelli.”

  Sadly I laughed. My head fell back and very softly I laughed and laughed.

  “I won’t do it,” I said. “I love him as much as you do. Now get away from me. Or believe me, there will be no more nights for either one of you. Go.”

  Returning to the vault in the mountains, I wept for Botticelli.

  I closed my eyes, and I entered the garden where Flora dropped her tender roses to the carpet of grass and flowers. I reached out to touch the hair of one of the young Graces.

  “Pandora,” I whispered. “Pandora, it’s our garden. They were all beautiful like you.”

  17

  In the weeks that followed, I filled the shrine in the Alps with many new riches. I bought new golden lamps, and censers. I bought fine carpets from the markets in Venice, and golden silks from China as well. From the seamstresses of Florence I commissioned new garments for my Immortal Parents, and then carefully dressed them, relieving them of rags which should have been burnt long ago.

  All the while I spoke to them in a consoling voice of the miracles I had seen in the changing world.

  I laid before them fine printed books as I explained the ingenious invention of the printing press. And I hung over the doors to the shrine a new Flemish tapestry, also bought in Florence which I described to them in detail, so they might choose to look with their seemingly blind eyes.

  Then I went to the city of Florence and gathering up all the pigment and oil and other materials which my servant had procured for me, I brought it to the mountain shrine, and I proceeded to paint the walls in the new style.

  I did not seek now to imitate Botticelli. But I did return to the old motif of the garden which I had so loved centuries ago, and I soon found myself rendering my Venus, my Graces, my Flora, and infusing into the work all the details of life which only a blood drinker can behold.

  Where Botticelli had painted the dark grass rich with varied flowers, I revealed the small insectile creatures inevitably concealed there, and then the most flamboyant and beautiful of creatures, the butterflies and the varicolored moths. Indeed my style ran to frightening detail in every respect, and soon an intoxicating and magic forest surrounded the Mother and Father, the egg tempera lending a gleam to the whole which I had never achieved in the past.

  When I studied it, I became ever so slightly dizzy, thinking of Botticelli’s garden, indeed, thinking even of the garden I had dreamt of in old Rome, of the garden I had painted—and soon I had to shake myself and collect myself because I did not know where I was.

  The Royal Parents seemed more solid and remote than ever. All trace of the Great Burning was now gone from them in that their skin was purely white.

  It had been so long since they had moved that I began to wonder if I had dreamt those things which had happened—if I had imagined the sacrifice of Eudoxia—but now my mind was very much intent upon escaping the shrine for long periods of time.

  My last gift to the Divine Parents—after all my painting was done, and Akasha and Enkil were decked out with all new jewels—was a long bank of one hundred beeswax candles which I lighted for them all at once with the power of my mind.

  Of course I saw no change in the eyes of the King and Queen. Nevertheless, it gave me great pleasure to offer this to them; and I spent my last hours with them, letting the candles burn down as I told them in a soft voice of all the wonders of the cities of Florence and Venice which I had come to love.

  I vowed that every time I came to them I would light the one hundred candles. It would be a small proof of my undying love.

  What caused me to do such a thing? I have no true idea. But after that I kept a great supply of candles always in the shrine; I stored them behind the two figures; and after the offering, I would replenish the bronze holder and take away all melted wax.

  When all this had been done, I returned to Florence and to Venice, and to the rich high-walled little city of Siena, to study paintings of all sorts.

  Indeed, I wandered through palaces and churches throughout Italy, quite drunken on what I beheld.

  As I have described, a great fusion had taken place between Christian themes and ancient pagan style, which was developing everywhere. And though I still perceived Botticelli to be the Master, I was taken aback by the plasticity and wonder of much of what I saw.

  The voices in the taverns and in the wine shops told me I ought to go North to see paintings as well.

  Now this was news to me, for North had always meant the land of the less civilized, but so great was my hunger for the new styles that I did as I was told.

  I found throughout all of northern Europe an intense and complex civilization which I had surely underestimated, most particularly I think in France. There were great cities in existence and Royal Courts which supported painting. There was much for me to study.

  But I did not love the art which I saw.

  I respected the works of Jan van Eyck, and Rogier van der Weyden, of Hugo van der Goes, and of Hieronymus Bosch and many other nameless masters whom I beheld, but their work did not delight me as did the work of the Italian painters. The Northern world was not as lyrical. It was not as sweet. It still bore the grotesque stamp of the work of purely religious art.

  So I soon returned to the cities of Italy where I was richly rewarded for my wanderings with no end in sight.

  I soon learnt that Botticelli had studied with a great master, Filippo Lippi, and that this one’s son, Filippino Lippi, was working with Botticelli right now. Other painters whom I loved included Gozzoli and Signorelli, and Piero della Francesca and beyond that so many that I do not want to mention their names.

  But all during my study of painting, my little travels, my long nights of adoring attention to this or that wall, or this or that altarpiece, I did not let myself dream of bringing Botticelli to me, and I never lingered long near any place where he was.

  I knew that he prospered. I knew
that he painted. And that was quite enough for me.

  But an idea had come to brew in me—an idea as strong as the earlier dream of seducing Botticelli had been.

  What if I were to reenter the world again, and to live in it as a painter? Oh, not a working painter who took commissions, that would be nonsense, but an eccentric gentleman who chose to paint for his own pleasure, admitting mortals to his house to dine at his table and drink his wine.

  Had I not done so in a bumbling way in the ancient nights before the first sack of Rome? Yes, I had painted my own walls with crude, hasty images, and I had let my good-natured guests laugh at me.

  Oh yes, a thousand years had passed since then, more in fact, and I could no longer easily pass for human. I was too pale and too dangerously strong. But was I not more clever now, more wise, more practiced with the Mind Gift, and more willing to mask my skin with whatever emollients were required to dim its preternatural gleam?

  I was desperate to do it!

  Of course it would not be in Florence. That was far too close to Botticelli. I would attract his notice and were he to set foot under my roof, I would be driven to extremes of pain. I was in love with the man. I could not deny it. But I had another, most marvelous choice.

  It was the gorgeous and glittering city of Venice which drew me with its indescribably majestic palaces, their windows open to the constant breezes of the Adriatic, and its dark winding canals.

  It seemed I should make a new and spectacular beginning there, purchasing for myself the finest house available, and acquiring a bevy of apprentices to prepare my paints for me, and the walls of my own house which would eventually receive my best efforts after I had done some panels and canvases to once again learn my craft.

  As for my identity I would be Marius de Romanus, a man of mystery and incalculable wealth. Simply put, I would bribe those I had to bribe to obtain the right to remain in Venice, and thereafter spend freely among those who came to know me in the smallest capacity, and give generously to my apprentices who would be recipients of the finest education I could obtain for them.