by Rice, Anne
I sent him off to the best brothels to learn the pleasures of women, and the pleasures of boys. He hated me for it, and yet he enjoyed it, and he came home to me eager for the Blood Kiss and nothing else.
He taunted me when I painted alone, except for him, in my studio, working furiously, creating some landscape or gathering of ancient heroes. He slept beside me when I collapsed in my bed to sleep the last few hours before dawn.
Meantime, we opened the palazzo again and yet again. Bianca, ever the clever and poised one, had outgrown her early beauty, and preserving her delicate face and manner, had now the polish of a woman rather than the promise of a girl.
Often I found myself staring at her, wondering what would have happened if I had not turned my attention to him. Why after all had I done it? Could I not have wooed her and persuaded her; and then, thinking these thoughts, I realized, foolishly, that I might still choose to do so, and cast him off, with wealth and position, to mortality with all the rest of my boys.
No, she was saved.
Amadeo was the one I wanted. Amadeo was the one I was educating, training. Amadeo was the precious student of the Blood.
The nights passed swiftly, as if in a dream.
Several boys went off to university. One of the teachers died. Vincenzo took to walking with a limp, but I hired an assistant to fetch for him. Bianca rearranged several of the large paintings. The air was warm and the windows were open. On the roof garden we gathered for a great banquet. The boys sang.
Never once in all this time did I fail to apply the salve to my skin to darken it and make me appear human. Never once did I fail to work it into the flesh of both my hands. Never once did I fail to dress with fine jewels, and wear rings that would distract everyone. Never once did I move too close to a grouping of candles, or a torch at a doorway or on the quais.
I went to the shrine of Those Who Must Be Kept and remained there in meditation. I laid the case before Akasha.
I wanted this child—this boy who was now two years older than when I’d found him—and yet I wanted everything else for him, and my soul was torn, just as his heart was torn.
Never before had I wanted such a thing, to make a blood drinker for my own companionship, indeed to educate a mortal youth for this very purpose, and to groom him expertly that he might be the finest choice.
But I wanted it now and it filled my thoughts during every waking hour, and I found no consolation looking at my cold Mother and Father. I heard no answer to my prayer.
I lay down to sleep in the shrine and knew only dark and troubled dreams.
I saw the garden, the very one I had painted on the walls eternally, and I was walking in it as always, and there was fruit on the low-hanging trees. There came Amadeo walking near me, and suddenly there came from his mouth a chilling cruel laughter.
“A sacrifice?” he asked, “for Bianca? How can such a thing be?”
I woke with a start, and sat up, rubbing the backs of my arms, and shaking my head, trying to free myself from the dream.
“I don’t know the answer,” I whispered, as though he were there near me, as though his spirit had traveled to the place where I sat.
“Except she was already a young woman when I came upon her,” I responded, “educated and forced into life, indeed a murderess; yes, indeed, a murderess, a child woman guilty of dreadful crimes. And you, you were a helpless child. I could mold you and change you, all of which I’ve done.
“It’s true, I thought you were a painter,” I continued, “that you had the gift for painting, and I know that it’s still in you, and that did sway me, too. But when all is said and done, I don’t know why you distracted me, only that it was done.”
I lay back down to sleep once more, lying on my side rather carelessly, staring up at the glimmering eye of Akasha. At the harsh lines of the face of Enkil.
I thought back over the centuries to Eudoxia. I remembered her terrible death. I remembered her burning body as it lay upon the floor of the shrine in the very place where I lay now.
I thought of Pandora. Where is my Pandora? And then finally I drifted into sleep.
When I returned to the palazzo, coming down from the roof as was always my custom, things were not as I would have them, for all the company was solemn at supper, and Vincenzo told me anxiously that a “strange man” had come to visit me, and that he stood in the anteroom and would not come in.
The boys had been finishing one of my murals in the anteroom, and they had hastily left this “strange man” to himself. Only Amadeo had remained behind, doing some small work with little enthusiasm, his eyes upon this “strange man” in a manner which gave Vincenzo concern.
As if that were not enough, Bianca had been to visit, indeed to give me a gift from Florence, a small painting by Botticelli; and she had had “uneasy” conversation with this “strange man” and had told Vincenzo to keep watch on him. Bianca was gone. The “strange man” remained.
I went into the anteroom immediately, but I had felt the presence of this creature before I saw who it was.
It was Mael.
Not for a single second did I not know him. He was unchanged just as I am unchanged, and he had not paid much attention to the fashion of these times, any more than he had paid attention to the fashion of times in the past.
He looked dreadful in fact in a ragged leather jerkin and leggings with holes in them and his boots were tied with rope.
His hair was dirty and tangled but his face wore an amazingly pleasant expression, and when he saw me he came at once to me and embraced me.
“You’re really here,” he said in a low voice, as though we had to whisper under my roof. He spoke the old Latin. “I heard of it but I didn’t believe it. Oh, I’m so glad to see you. I’m glad you’re still …”
“Yes, I know what you mean to say,” I said. “I’m still the watcher of the years passing; I’m still the witness surviving in the Blood.”
“Oh, you put it far better than I could,” he answered. “But let me say it again, I’m so happy to see you, happy to hear your voice.”
I saw that there was dust all over him. He was looking about the room, at its fancy painted ceiling with its ring of cherubs and its gold leaf. He stared at the unfinished mural. I wondered if he knew it was my work.
“Mael, always the astonished one,” I said, moving him gently out of the light of the candles. I laughed softly. “You look like a tramp.”
“Would you offer me clothes again?” he asked. “I cannot really, you know, master such things. I am in need, I suppose. And you live so splendidly here as you always did. Is nothing ever a mystery to you, Marius?”
“Everything is a mystery, Mael,” I responded. “But fine clothes I always have. If the world comes to an end, I shall be well dressed for it, whether it is by the light of day or in the dark of night.”
I took his arm and guided him through the various immense rooms that lay between me and my bedchamber. He was suitably awed by the paintings everywhere and let me lead him along.
“I want you to stay here, away from my mortal company,” I said. “You’ll only confuse them.”
“Ah, but you’ve worked it all so well,” he said. “It was easier for you in old Rome, wasn’t it? But what a palace you have here. There are kings who would envy you, Marius.”
“Yes, it seems so,” I answered offhandedly.
I went to the adjacent closets, which were small rooms actually, and pulled out clothes for him, and leather shoes. He seemed quite incapable of dressing himself but I refused to do it for him, and after I had put out everything, on the velvet bed in the correct order, as if for a child or an idiot, he began to examine various articles as if he might manage alone.
“Who told you I was here, Mael?” I asked him.
He glanced at me, and his face was cold for a moment, the old hawk nose as disagreeable as ever, the deep-set eyes rather more brilliant than I’d remembered and the mouth far better shaped than I’d recalled. Maybe time had softene
d the set of his lips. I’m not certain that such things can happen. But he did seem an interesting-looking immortal male.
“You told me you had heard that I was here,” I said, prompting him. “Who told you?”
“Oh, it was a fool of a blood drinker,” he said with a shudder. “A maniacal Satan worshiper. His name was Santino. Will they never die out? It was in Rome. He urged me to join him, can you imagine?”
“Why didn’t you destroy him?” I asked dejectedly. How grim was all this, how distant from the boys at their supper, from the teachers speaking of the day’s lessons, from the light and music to which I longed to return. “In the old times when you encountered them, you always destroyed them. What stopped you now?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “What do I care what happens in Rome? I didn’t stay one night in Rome.”
I shook my head. “How did this creature discover I was in Venice? I’ve never heard a whisper of our kind here.”
“I’m here,” he answered sharply, “and you didn’t hear me, did you? You’re not infallible, Marius. You have about you many worldly distractions. Perhaps you don’t listen as you should.”
“Yes, you’re right, but I wonder. How did he know?”
“Mortals come to your house. Mortals speak of you. Possibly those mortals go on to Rome. Don’t all roads lead to Rome?” He was mocking me naturally. But he was being rather gentle, almost friendly. “He wants your secret, Marius, that Roman blood drinker. How he begged me to explain the mystery of Those Who Must Be Kept.”
“And you didn’t reveal it, did you, Mael?” I demanded. I began to hate him again, hotly, as I had in nights past.
“No, I didn’t reveal it,” he said calmly, “but I did laugh at him, and I didn’t deny it. Perhaps I should have, but the older I get the harder it is to lie on any account.”
“That I understand rather well,” I said.
“Do you? With all these beautiful mortal children around you? You must lie with every breath you take, Marius. And as for your paintings, how dare you display your works amongst mortals who have but brief lifetimes with which to challenge you? It seems a terrible lie, that, if you ask me.”
I sighed.
He tore open the front of his jerkin and then took it off.
“Why do I accept your hospitality?” he asked. “I don’t know the answer. Perhaps I feel that having helped yourself to so many mortal delights, you owe some help to another blood drinker who is lost in time as always, wandering from country to country, marveling sometimes and at others merely getting dust in his eyes.”
“Tell yourself anything you like,” I said. “You are welcome to the clothes and to shelter. But tell me at once. What’s happened to Avicus and Zenobia? Do they travel with you? Do you know where they are?”
“I have no idea where they are,” he said, “and surely you sensed it before you asked. It has been so long since I saw either of them that I cannot reckon the years or the centuries. It was Avicus who put her up to it, and off they went together. They left me in Constantinople, and I can’t say that it came to me as a dreadful surprise. There had been terrible coldness between us before the parting. Avicus loved her. She loved him more than me. That was all that was required.”
“I’m sad to hear it.”
“Why?” he asked. “You left the three of us. And you left her with us, that was the worst of it. We were two for so long, and then you forced Zenobia into our company.”
“For the love of Hell, stop blaming me for everything,” I said under my breath. “Will you never cease with your accusations? Am I the author of every evil that ever befell you, Mael? What must I do to be absolved so that there might be silence? It was you, Mael, you,” I whispered, “who took me from my mortal life by force and brought me, shackled and helpless, into your accursed Druid grove!”
The anger spilled from me as I struggled to keep my voice down.
He seemed quite amazed by it.
“And so you do despise me, Marius,” he said, smiling. “I had thought you far too clever for such a simple feeling. Yes, I took you prisoner, and you took the secrets, and I’ve been cursed one way or the other, ever since.”
I had to step back from this. I did not want it. I stood calmly until the anger left me. Let the truth be damned.
For some reason this brought out the kindness in him. As he removed his rags, and kicked them away, he spoke of Avicus and Zenobia.
“The two of them were always slipping into the Emperor’s palace where they would hunt the shadows,” he said. “Zenobia seldom dressed as a boy as you taught her. She was too fond of sumptuous clothes. You should have seen the gowns she wore. And her hair, I think I loved it more than she did.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible,” I said softly. I saw the vision of her in his mind, and confused it with the vision of her in my own.
“Avicus continued to be the student,” he said with slight contempt. “He mastered Greek. He read everything he could find. You were always his inspiration. He imitated you. He bought books without knowing what they were. On and on, he read.”
“Maybe he did know,” I suggested. “Who can say?”
“I can say,” Mael answered. “I’ve known you both, and he was an idiot gathering poetry and history for nothing. He wasn’t even looking for something. He embraced words and phrases on account of how they felt.”
“And where and how did you spend your hours, Mael?” I asked, my voice far more cold than I had hoped.
“I hunted the dark hills beyond the city,” he responded. “I hunted the soldiery. I hunted for the brutal Evil Doer, as you know. I was the vagabond, and they were dressed as though they were part of the Imperial Court.”
“Did they ever make another?” I asked.
“No!” he said, scoffing. “Who would do such a thing?”
I didn’t answer.
“And you, did you ever make another?” I asked.
“No,” he responded. He frowned. “How would I find someone strong enough?” he asked. He seemed puzzled. “How would I know that a human had the endurance for the Blood?”
“And so you move through the world alone.”
“I’ll find another blood drinker to be a companion,” he said. “Didn’t I find that cursed Santino in Rome? Maybe I’ll lure one from among the Satan worshipers. They can’t all like a miserable life in the catacombs, wearing black robes and singing Latin hymns.”
I nodded. I could see now that he was ready for the bath. I didn’t want to keep him any longer.
When I spoke it was in a genial manner.
“The house is enormous as you see,” I said. “There is a locked room on the first floor to the far right side. It has no windows. You may sleep there by day if you like.”
He gave a low contemptuous laugh. “The clothes are quite enough, my friend, and perhaps just a few hours during which I might rest.”
“I don’t mind. Stay here, out of sight of the others. See the bath there. Use it. I’ll come for you when all the boys are asleep.”
When next I saw him it was all too soon.
He came out of the bedroom and into the large salon in which I stood relinquishing my hold on Riccardo and Amadeo with the strong admonition that they could go to Bianca’s for the evening and nowhere else.
Amadeo saw him. Again, for several fatal moments, Amadeo saw him. And I knew that something deep inside Amadeo recognized Mael for the creature that he was. But like so many things in the mind of Amadeo, it wasn’t conscious, and the boys left me with quick kisses, off to sing their songs to Bianca, and be flattered by everyone there.
I was impatient with Mael that he had come out of the bedchamber, but I didn’t say it.
“So you would make a blood drinker of that one,” he said, pointing to the door through which the boys had left us. He smiled.
I was in a silent fury. I glared at him, as always in such situations, quite unable to speak.
He stood there smiling at me in sinister fashion and
then he said,
“Marius of the many names and the many houses and the many lifetimes. So you have chosen a lovely child.”
I shook it off. How had he read from my mind my desire for Amadeo?
“You’ve grown careless,” he said softly. “Listen to me, Marius. I don’t speak to insult you. You walk with a heavy step among mortals. And that boy is very young.”
“Don’t speak another word to me,” I answered, pulling hard on my anger to rein it in.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I only spoke my mind.”
“I know you did, but I don’t want to hear any more.”
I looked him over. He was rather handsome in his new attire, though a few little details were absurdly crooked and not tucked properly, but I was not the one to make them right. He struck me as not only barbaric, but comical. But I knew that anyone else would think him an impressive man.
I hated him, but not completely. And as I stood there with him, I almost gave way to tears. Quite suddenly, to stem this emotion, I spoke.
“What have you learnt in all this time?” I asked.
“That’s an arrogant question!” he said in a low voice. “What have you learnt?”
I told him my theories, about how the West had risen again, once more drawing upon the old classics which Rome had taken from Greece. I spoke of how the art of the old Empire was re-created now throughout Italy and I spoke of the fine cities of the North of Europe, prosperous as those of the South. And then I explained how it seemed to me that the Eastern Empire had fallen to Islam and was no more. The Greek world had been irrevocably lost.
“We have the West again, don’t you see?” I asked.
He looked at me as though I were perfectly mad.
“Well?” I responded.
There came a slight change in his face.
“Witness in the Blood,” he said, repeating the words I’d spoken earlier, “watcher of the years.”
He put his arms forward as though to embrace me. His eyes were clear and I could sense no malice at all.
“You’ve given me courage,” he said.
“For what, may I ask?” I responded.