‘We can do that too,’ she claimed, ‘in the way that the commandment was meant. Vampires to other vampires are only friends, but friendships, like hatreds, can endure forever where erotic passions never could.’
He sighed, and slid back to a lying position, with his head cradled in the soft pillow, and his eyes staring into space. ‘It’s a strange world,’ he said, ‘to which I am forbidden entry.’
‘No more strange,’ she assured him, ‘than the one in which thou art confined.’
‘But most men come to know both, and I never will.’
She touched his chest again, then gently ran her fingers along the line of his jaw, leaning back to study him from a little further away. ‘Were it not for the wars,’ she said, ‘there would be far more vampires in the world, and fewer common men. Now there is peace, in Europe and Atlantis, the world’s new age is truly begun. Frail flesh is precious to some, and will become more precious still. I am glad that the sea drove you to my door The sea has ever been my friend, you know, and it knew what work it did.’
‘I think my flesh is too frail,’ he said, looking away. ‘I doubt that vampire ladies compete for the favours of lame boys.’
‘When you grow tired, and desert me,’ she murmured, ‘you’ll not find your lameness a handicap in the pursuit of love.’
He lowered his eyes, even though he was not looking in her direction, and in a small voice said: ‘I could not grow tired of you.’ Then he dared to glance at her, anxious to judge her response.
‘I believe it, ’ she replied, and then rolled over, to pull her naked body from the protection of the covers.
Reflexively, he looked away, to guard her privacy with his politeness, but he quickly saw that such modesty was inappropriate, and he forced himself to accept the pleasure of watching her as she dressed. She looked at him once or twice, and seemed to be pleased that he was not afraid to look.
Her clothing, which he had hardly noticed the previous evening, now seemed to him strangely severe as the garments hid her lustrous body. They were oddly masculine in their neutral colouring, and did not accentuate her figure. He swung his own leg over the edge of the bed, as if to follow her example, then winced with the discomfort. She saw his reaction, and came quickly to his side.
‘Stay there,’ she said, ‘a little longer.’
He hesitated, but then picked his foot up from the floor, and lay down again.
‘Why not?’ he said. ‘We have all the time in the world.’ The words were slightly bitter. He wondered exactly what depth of irony he really meant to imply.
‘No,’ she answered him, as she paused before leaving the room. ‘But we do have time enough, and all that we need for our purpose.’
She said it in such a way that he could not doubt for a moment her meaning or her sincerity. She was telling him that she would love him, as dearly as she could.
At once he began to think of possibilities to diminish his pride. Perhaps she had been lonely, and would have welcomed anyone who came to her door. Perhaps he only reminded her of some former lover. But then he began to argue against himself, and told himself that even if there were a reason of that kind, it could not have been sufficient. The fact remained that it was he and not another who was here, and the more he was with her in time to come, the more he would fill her thoughts and her days. If he reminded her now of someone else, it did not matter; one day he might have his own proud place in her memories, if he had earned it.
He recognised this confusion of thoughts and feelings, belatedly, as a symptom of elation, an echo of joy.
He closed his eyes, again, to cut out the brightness of the morning light, and secure an introspective isolation which would intensify the satisfaction that he felt.
Yesterday, he had recklessly fled the sea which sought to drown him, knowing only that he was running away from a fate which sought to claim him. Now, he knew that there was also something which, all unknowing, he had been running towards. He began to understand what kind of salvation it was that providence had thrown into his path, and what he might make of it.
Whether this might be reckoned a recompense for the life which was as yet denied him, only time could tell – but he had, like all other men, to live his life one moment at a time, with only the present certain and the number of his tomorrows perpetually obscure.
Even a man who cannot live forever, he thought, should be glad that the breath of life has come to Earth, and that the gift of immortality is nourished by the blood of common men.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
One cannot write about an alternative history without doing a good deal of research into the relevant periods of our own history; though one has a certain licence to commit anachronisms, propriety demands that they should be knowingly committed, and that they should be connected up into a coherent pattern of their own. An understanding of our own history is necessary to the task of trying to imagine how one alteration in the state of things might extend its consequences across centuries.
Much of my research was conducted in general sources such the Encyclopedia Britannica, but I did make use of certain specialised texts; I owe particular debts to R. W. Southern’s Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages; John Francis Guilmartin jr.’s Gunpowder and Galleys; Howard W. Haggard’s Devils, Drugs and Doctors; and Carlo M. Cipolla’s Guns and Sails in the Early Phase of European Expansion.
Though I moved one or two human artifacts from the locations which they have in our world (Cardigan Abbey being the principal example) I assumed that save for the existence of the crater of Adamawara the geography of my alternative world would be identical to ours; I borrowed details of settings used in the story from Hepworth Dixon’s Her Majesty’s Tower, J. D. Falconer’s On Horseback Through Nigeria, and Sir Henry Luke’s Malta.
The demands of my plot necessitated some radical dislocations in human society, but still required careful manipulation of data gleaned from various sources. Although I made very substantial strategic changes in designing the mythology of the ‘Uruba’ which is extensively cited in the story, I am greatly indebted to the account of Yoruba religion which is given in A. B. Ellis’s book on The Yoruba-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa.
Of the characters who actually appear on stage in the novel only a few figured significantly in the idol-infested story which we have created in order to give meaning to our own past - these being Vlad Dragulya, Richard the Lionheart, and some of their associates - but other characters whose pertinent roles remain offstage were also involved in the making of our world. I took a good deal of material from two specialised texts, Gabriel Ronay’s The Dracula Myth and R. T. Petersson’s Sir Kenelm Digby, in order to help me construct the biographies of the equivalent characters.
Accounts of food and its consumption which are offered in Parts One and Two are largely borrowed from Peter Brears’ ‘English Heritage’ pamphlet, Food and Cooking in 17th Century Britain: History and Recipes.
Literary influences on this novel are too numerous to cite, and for the most part obvious, but I ought perhaps to mention that I stole the Bardic motto from Thomas Love Peacock’s The Misfortunes of Elphin, having no proficiency of my own in the Welsh language.
Brian Stableford, Reading, February 1988
Empire of Fear Page 55