He turned back to his waiting subject, his practised eye seeing her at this earliest stage as merely a vexing collection of surfaces, angles, lines and subtle blends of light and shadow. The fine detail, in which lay those crucial insubstantial elements that would determine whether he lived or died here, would come later.
‘Shall we begin?’ he said.
LIKE THE VILLA’S other inhabitants, he worked only at night now and slept by day. Each night after sundown they came for him, and each night she sat for him. She talked while he worked - he always encouraged his subjects to talk, the better to understand them and their lives, for a portrait should speak of far more than its subject’s mere outward physical appearance - and as he worked he heard tales of her homeland. Tales of gods, heroes and villains whose names and deeds are remembered now by none other than those of her kind; tales of mighty cities and impregnable fortresses now reduced to a few ancient crumbling ruins buried and forgotten beneath the desert sands.
Some nights they did not come for him. On those nights, she sent apologies for her absence, and gifts of fine wines and food, and books to let him pass the time in his cell more easily. The books, usually works of history or philosophy, fascinated him. Several of them were written in languages completely unknown to Giovanni - the languages of legendary and far Cathay or Nippon, he thought - while one was composed of thin leafs of hammer-beaten copper and inlaid with a queer hieroglyphic script which he doubted was even human in origin.
He knew that there were other occupants of the villa, although besides his silent faceless gaolers and his patron herself he had seen none of them. But as he lay in his cell reading on those work-free nights, he heard much activity going on around him. Each night brought visitors to the place. He heard the clatter of rider’s hooves and the rumble of coach wheels and the jangle of pack team harnesses, and once he thought he heard the beating of heavy leather wings and perhaps even saw the fleeting shadow of something vast and bat-like momentarily blotting out the moonlit window above his bed.
There were other sounds too - screams and sobs and once the unmistakable cry of an infant child - from the cellars deep beneath his feet. At such times Giovanni buried his face into the mattress of his bedding or read aloud from the book in his hand until either the sounds had ceased or he had convinced himself that he could no longer hear them.
ONE NIGHT HE awoke in his room. The sitting had been cut short that night. One of the black-cloaked servant things had entered and fearfully handed its mistress a sealed scroll tube. As she read it her face had changed - transformed, Giovanni thought - and for a second he saw something of the savage and cruel creature of darkness that lay beneath the human mask she presented to him. The news was both urgent and unwelcome and she had abruptly ended the night’s session, issuing curt orders for him to be escorted back to his room. He had fallen asleep as soon as he lay down on the bedding, exhausted by the continued effort of keeping up with the night-time schedule of his new employer.
Again, he heard the sound that had awoken him. There was someone in the room with him.
A face detached itself from the shadowy gloom of the cell, leaning over the bed and glared angrily down angrily at him. Jagged teeth, too many of them for any human mouth, crowded out from snarling lips. It was her servant, Mariato, the one that had approached him in the tavern that night. He had obviously just fed, and his breath was thick with the slaughterhouse reek of blood.
‘Scheherazade. That is what I shall call you,’ the vampire growled, glaring down at him with eyes full of hate and the madness of blood-lust. ‘Do you know the name, little painter? It is a name from her homeland, a storyteller who prolonged her life for a thousand and one nights by entertaining her master with tales and fables.’
The vampire raised one bristle-covered hand, pointing at the half-face of Mannslieb in the sky above. The ring on his finger flashed green in the moonlight.
‘How many nights do you think you have left, my Scheherazade? Her enemies are close, and by the time Mannslieb’s face shines full again, we will be gone from here. Will your precious painting be finished by then? I think not, for such things take great time and care, do they not?’
He paused, leaning in closer, hissing into Giovanni’s face, stifling him with the sour reek of his carrion breath.
‘She will not take you with us, and she cannot leave you here alive for our enemies to find. So what is she to do with you then, my Scheherazade?’
The vampire melted back into the shadows, its voice a whispering promise from out of the darkness. ‘When Mannslieb’s face shines full again, then you will be mine.’
‘YOUR SERVANT MARIATO, he doesn’t like me.’ She looked up with interest. This was the first time he had dared speak to her without permission. She lay reclining on the couch in the position that he had first seen her in. A bowl of strange dark-skinned fruit lay on the floor before her. The main composition of the piece was complete, and all he needed to concentrate on now was the detail of the face.
‘He is jealous,’ she answered. ‘He is afraid that I will grow bored with him and seek to make another my favourite in his stead.’ She looked at him sharply. ‘Has he disturbed you? Has he said or done anything to interrupt your work?’
Giovanni kept his eyes on his work, unwilling to meet her keen gaze. ‘Has he a right to be jealous?’
She smiled, favouring him with a look of secret amusement. ‘Perhaps,’ she mused. ‘His kind always have their place at my side, but they are always dull and unimaginative. Perhaps I will take a new consort, not a warrior or a nobleman this time. Perhaps this time an artist? What do you think, little mortal? Shall I make you my new paramour and grant you the gift of eternal life in darkness?’
She laughed, picking up a fruit from the bowl and biting deep into it, enjoying the taste of his fear. Thick juice, obscenely scarlet in colour, bled out of the fruit as she ate it.
Giovanni studied the lines and contours of the painted face on the canvas in front of him. A few brushstrokes, a subtle touch of shading, and he had added an extra element of sardonic cruelty to the line of her smile.
THE NEXT NIGHT he returned to his cell at dawn to find a small tied leather pouch sitting on his bed. He opened it, pouring out a quantity of powdered ash. Puzzled, Giovanni ran his fingers through the stuff, finding it strangely unpleasant to the touch. There was something amongst it. Giovanni gingerly picked it up, discovering it to be a ring. He held it up, the light of the rising sun catching the familiar emerald stone set upon it.
It seemed that Mariato no longer occupied the same position amongst his mistress’s favours as he had once done.
GIOVANNI KNEW THAT their time together was coming to an end. Mannslieb hung high in the night sky, almost full, and for the last few nights there had been more activity than usual in the villa. He heard the sound of heavy boxes - earth-filled coffins, he supposed - being dragged up from the cellars and loaded into wagons. He worked in daylight hours too now; foregoing sleep and working on the painting alone in his cell, making changes so subtle that he doubted anyone other than he would notice the difference. Adding new details and taking away others. Revising. Reworking. Perfecting. He was haggard and gaunt, exhausted from too little food and sleep, looking more like one of her pale ghoul-thing servants than the portly florid-faced drunk who had been brought here just scant weeks ago.
All that mattered now was the painting itself. The greatest work of his life, that is what he had said he would have to produce, and that is what he had done. After that, he discovered to his surprise, nothing else really mattered.
SHE SENT FOR him the next night, with Mannslieb shining full-faced in the night sky. The painting too, was now complete.
She stood looking at it. The room had been stripped almost bare, and the easel that the canvas stood on was the most significant item left in it. There were faint outlines on the walls where her portraits had hung.
‘You are leaving?’ he said, more in statement than question.
/> ‘We have many enemies, my kind. Not just the witch hunters with their silver and fire. We wage war amongst ourselves, fighting over sovereignty of the night. It has become too dangerous to remain here.’
She gestured towards the painting. ‘It is beautiful, master Gottio. I thank you for your gift. What do you call it?’
‘Unchanging Beauty,’ he answered, joining her to look at his masterpiece. It showed her standing regally against a backdrop of palatial splendour. Giovanni’s talent had captured all her cruel and terrible beauty as the others before him had also done, but the real artistry was in the detail of the trappings around her. Look closer and the eye was drawn to the tarnished gold of the throne behind her, the subtle patterns of mildew creeping across the wall tapestries, the broken pinnacles of the palace towers seen through the window in the far background. It was a world where everything other than her was subject to change and decay. Only she was unchanging. Only she was forever.
‘Then my task here is done. I am free to leave now?’ He looked at her, half in hope, half in dread.
‘I had thought to keep you here with me as an new diversion to replace poor Mariato.’ She looked at him, trying to gauge his reaction, toying with him yet again.
‘But, no, you would make a poor vampire, master Gottio,’ she reassured him, relishing one last taste of his fear. ‘There is something in our nature that destroys any creative ability we may have had in our mortal lives, and I would not deny the world the great works still within you. So, yes, you are free to go.’
‘And my reward?’
She gestured towards a small open casket nearby. Giovanni glanced at it, silently toting up the value of the gold and precious stones it contained and coming to a figure comparable with a minor merchant prince’s ransom. When he looked back, she was holding a goblet of wine out to him.
‘What is it?’ he asked, suspecting one final cruel jest.
‘A little wine mixed with a sleeping draught, the same one that Mariato tried to lull you with. Call it a final precaution, for your own safety. When you awaken, you will be safe and in familiar surroundings, I promise you. I could compel you to drink it, but this way is easier.’
He took it, raising it to his lips and drinking. She watched him intently as he did so. The wine was excellent, as he expected, but mixed in with it, the taste of something else, not any kind of potion or sleeping draught. Something dark and rich, something that rose up to overwhelm his senses.
‘An extra gift,’ she said, seeing the reaction in his eyes. ‘With your painting, you have given me a part of yourself. It only seemed fair that I give you something equally valuable in return. Farewell, little mortal, I look forward to seeing what uses you will put my gift to.’
She reached out with preternatural reflexes to catch him as he fell, as the darkness rushed in to envelop his numbed senses…
HE AWOKE IN blinding daylight, crying out in pain as the unaccustomed sunlight stabbed into his eyes. When he recovered, he realised that he was in the pauper’s attic garret he called home. The precious casket lay on the floor beside him.
It took him several hours to realise the nature of the additional gift she had given him.
He sat inspecting his reflection in the small cracked looking glass he had finally managed to find amongst the jumble of his possessions. Days ago he had been a haggard wreck, now there was not a trace of the ordeal left upon him, none of the exhaustion of the last few weeks. He looked and felt better than he had in years. In fact…
Shallya’s mercy, he thought, studying the reflection of his face in the mirror. I look ten years younger!
He thought of certain legends about her kind, about the gifts they granted to their loyal mortal servants and about the restorative powers of…
Of vampire blood. Only the smallest portion, but he could feel it flowing in his veins, feel her inside him. Her life-force added to his own. Had she done this with the others, he wondered, and then he remembered that the da Venzio had been reputed to have lived to over a century in age - blessed by the mercy goddess, they said, in reward for the work he had done in her great temple in Remas - and of how Bardovo had lived long enough to paint not just the portrait of the Marco Columbo but also that of the legendary explorer’s merchant prince great-grandson.
He wondered how long he, Giovanni Gottio, had, and about how he would put his time to best use.
He looked around his squalid attic, seeing only the detritus of his former miserable life: smashed wine bottles and pieces of cheap parchment torn up in anger and thrown in crumpled balls across the room. He picked one up, smoothing it out and recognising it as the abandoned portrait sketch of a local tavern girl. The workmanship was poor and he could see why he had so quickly abandoned the piece, but looking at it with fresh vision he could see possibilities in its line and form that had not been there to him before.
He found his drawing board and pinned the parchment to it, sitting looking at it in quiet contemplation. After a while, he searched amongst the debris on the floor and found the broken end of a charcoal pencil.
And with it, he began to draw.
VIRTUE’S REWARD
Darius Hinks
‘In the city of his sisters he will return to us on wings of fire.’
- The Cantos of Maccadamnus. Verse CXXVI
‘What was that?’ said Frederick with a sniff, plucking a thick clot of blood from his nose.
‘What?’
‘I thought I heard something.’
He leant unsteadily on the shattered doorframe, still weak from the fight, and looked up and down the street. Like most of the city, it had seen better days. The colourful stalls of Hauptmarkt Strasse’s famous market were long gone. All that remained were a few pitiful-looking shreds of awning hanging from the blackened timbers.
‘I can’t hear nuthin’,’ Otto replied from within, straining and huffing as he tried to shift the corpse.
‘Leave that for a minute, you idiot. I heard something.’ He squinted, trying to see through the perpetual gloom, but his head was still spinning from the blow that had shattered his nasal bone and the darkness seemed sickeningly animated. ‘Sigmar,’ he muttered under his breath, ‘Who am I kidding? If there is anything out there, I’d rather not know.’ He lowered his lantern with a shudder. ‘Probably nothing,’ he called out, but the tremor in his voice betrayed him and, as he stepped back into the theatre, Otto eyed him suspiciously.
The impressive bulk of the creature still lay sprawled across the stage with a stream of blood flowing slowly from its monstrous head.
‘Haven’t you moved it yet?’
‘Maybe if you helped,’ gasped Otto as he attempted to turn the body over with a broken rafter.
Frederick ignored the request and shook his head slowly. ‘Have you looked at the thing? Where else could spawn such a horror? Is it man… or beast?’ He knelt to examine it closer. The massive, pockmarked body was vaguely human in shape, but the grotesque head was almost completely bovine. Gnarled horns twisted from beneath its matted scalp and where its feet should have been there were two huge, battered hooves. Frederick studied the body for a few moments in silence, then laughed suddenly, kicking a lifeless arm that jutted out from beneath it. ‘Reinhard may have been a worthless layabout, but I’ve got to give him credit where it’s due. I thought we’d met our match, but he showed it. That blow to the head must have killed it. What a catch!’
Otto turned and grasped him roughly by his jacket, his eyes feverish. ‘If we don’t go soon we’ll be the catch.’ He looked around at the ruined theatre. Rows of charred stalls and boxes reared up all around them, reaching out of the darkness like claws towards the vaulted ceiling of the amphitheatre. The heat of the cataclysm had warped the furniture into a tableau of sinister shapes and Otto had the unnerving feeling that not all of the seats were empty. ‘We need to take what we came for and get out of here, before…’ he paused to scratch nervously at his scalp, ‘well, before anything happens.’
‘All right, all right,’ Frederick replied in a soothing voice, patting Otto gently on the shoulder, ‘let’s shift this brute then.’ They grasped the monster by its broad shoulders. ‘On the count of three: one, two, three.’ There was an exhalation of stale breath as they rolled the beast off the flattened remains of their former partner.
‘That,’ said Frederick, stooping down beside the creature’s face, ‘is beautiful.’
Otto knelt down beside him with a sigh of pleasure and clapped his hands together like a child.
Hanging around the thing’s neck was a stone - about the size of a plum, and glowing faintly with an inner fire. Frederick’s eyes widened as he stretched a trembling hand out towards it. ‘After weeks of crawling around this stinking nightmare of a city, we finally have it. A piece of weirdstone. Can you believe it Otto?’ Then his hand froze, and his voice dropped to a whisper. ‘You must have heard it that time,’ he said, looking back towards the door.
Otto didn’t reply, but nodded his head slowly, and as he followed Frederick out onto the street the colour was draining from his face.
‘There,’ Frederick said with a note of panic in his voice, ‘what’s that?’ As they watched with growing horror, a shadow across the street elongated, split into three and moved slowly towards them.
They readied their weapons and Otto stepped nervously back towards the theatre. ‘What is it?’
As the shadows moved nearer, they gradually solidified until the men saw that they were actually three hooded women - draped with chains and spikes - but women nonetheless. ‘Thank Sigmar,’ said Frederick, exhaling with relief and lowering his sword. He began to laugh. ‘Now what have we found?’
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