by Gwynn White
The physician laughed, amused at his own joke. He failed to notice Petra and Lucius did not join him.
That night, Petra and Lucius waited in the shadows by the fountain beneath the colossal Cathédrale Notre-Dame des Doms d’Avignon. Dusk had long since fallen and a thick fog had descended around the cold stones of the grand Palais des Papes, but the girl was nowhere to be seen in the thinning crowds. Black-robed priests walked in groups from the cathedral to the palace as the day’s ecclesiastical activities wound down. Families hurried by as well as construction workers heading home from a long day’s work.
“Will she come, do you think?” Lucius asked her.
“I worry her family will catch her leaving and force her to stay home.”
“As do I.”
They waited half an hour longer, and then they saw Adélaïs’s slight figure wrapped in a heavy cloak and scarf emerging from the fog across the lower square.
“Now we will see what comes of young Adélaïs’s fate,” Lucius said.
Petra nodded, hoping she would choose the Essentiae over death. When Adélaïs reached them, she was breathless from her run, but in the hazy lamplight above, they saw the light of excitement in her eyes.
“So you decided to join us after all, Mademoiselle,” Lucius said.
“I thought long and hard about all you have said. I weighed the possibilities against the loss of my family. I realized I would regret it for the rest of my life if I did not say yes to your generous offer.”
“You will not be disappointed, Adélaïs,” Petra said, yet she did not hide the warning tone in her voice. “But you will be shocked when you learn the whole truth. Sit here at the fountain’s edge while we tell you about what we are.”
The girl frowned, but she did as she was told. She set down the small bag of belongings she had brought and settled against the cold stones, her back against the wall leading up to the square in front of the cathedral. They sat down beside her.
Lucius began without preamble. “We are immortals, Adélaïs. We have been alive since the days of Ancient Rome, before the turn of the millennium, and we have no reason to doubt we will remain as you see us now for the rest of eternity.”
Adélaïs was struck dumb for several long minutes. She opened her mouth to speak, and then immediately shut it again, and all the while Petra watched as the concept slowly settled into the girl’s mind, as a new reality to replace the old, just as she might incorporate new teachings from her uncle into her daily study.
At last, Adélaïs said, “How did this come to be?”
“We still don’t have all the answers, even after all this time,” Lucius said, his voice gentle but firm. “But it is Petra who is the source of our immortality.”
Adélaïs shied slightly away from them, her gaze darting around to see if anyone nearby overheard.
“It is an element in her blood that turned us into what we are, but she is the true immortal, the one who can never die.”
“When you say ‘us…’ There are others like you?”
“Yes. Several.” Lucius gazed at Petra as he said these words, and in his eyes were all the unspoken arguments they had ever had about Clarius.
“Adélaïs,” Petra said, taking hold of her hand gently, “we are offering you a life that will never end. Our eternae—we call ourselves the Essentiae—is small. It is just the two of us, Lucius and me. You would be our third. Immortality came to us by accident, but you will be the first of our eternae, our enclave, to choose eternity for yourself. You can walk away if you wish it.”
As Petra said the words, she realized there was no real choice. The girl would either choose to become an immortal or they would have to kill her. Letting her go would be far too dangerous.
Again, the girl was silent. Then she looked up at Petra. “What is it like to live forever? To live without fear of death?”
Petra smiled. “I have lived this way for so long, it is hard to remember what it was like to live as a mortal. I would put it this way: we live in a world without time. We savor the moments of life, but we do not treasure them in the same way you do. Having all the time in the world means you may pursue any passion that pleases you, but I would say it takes a strong person not to succumb to ennui, to boredom, to despair. What makes this heavy weight of time bearable is living our lives together.”
“Death is not possible for you?”
“You remember what Lucius told you about my blood?”
Adélaïs nodded.
“No, I cannot truly die. My blood is a restorative of sorts. Even if you died—and you may well die from time to time—my blood can bring you back to life.”
“How strange to hear you talk of death as if it were merely temporary.”
“For us, it is,” Lucius said. “It does not last, and we have yet to see its effects remain permanently within us.”
“That is not to say you and Lucius could not die and remain thus. That is possible, so far as we know. If ever you decide you have had enough of life, you would simply not take the blood I freely offer you.”
“Blood?”
“This is one aspect of our lives you may find disturbing. You can only live if you ingest my blood at least once a year. It will keep you strong, help you heal from injuries, and keep you free from disease.”
Adélaïs glanced up, toward the cathedral above them, and crossed herself again. “Surely, such a thing would go against God’s commandments, against the teachings of the priests—”
“That I cannot say,” Petra said. “They have no knowledge of us. Our understanding of ourselves is still in its infancy.”
“It isn’t for lack of study, Adélaïs.” Lucius pressed his hand over Petra’s. “She has dedicated her life to the study of our kind, to learn all she can about what we are.”
“How would I become what you are?” Adélaïs said, her voice tinged with worry.
Petra couldn’t keep the sadness from her smile. “Do you remember the liquid we gave to your uncle? That is a poison we call mortanine. This liquid would kill your mortal body, and my blood would help you rise into immortality.”
Adélaïs gasped. “I would have to die to become like you?”
“Yes,” Lucius said, “but it is only mortal death. I have died more times than I can count—and Petra far more—but we always come back stronger than before.”
“You would change, Adélaïs,” Petra explained. “You would be more intelligent as well as faster and stronger than you’ve ever been in the whole of your life. You would be able to fight to protect yourself should the need arise. You would be the best version of yourself that there could ever be.”
“And as the years pass, your strength of mind and body would only increase,” Lucius added.
Petra expected another long silence, more musing and questioning, but the girl looked up at them both, her eyes intent.
“I wish to become an immortal.”
“You are certain? Once you decide, once you are turned, you can never go back to mortality. At that point, you’ll have two choices: live forever or die forever.”
“I understand. And I want this. I want all that such a life entails.”
“You would leave your family behind with no regrets?”
“I will have regrets, but I know if my uncle knew of this, he would wish me to go and never look back. As for my family—my mother and father—they will have one fewer burdensome girl to care for.”
“Then you have made your decision, Adélaïs?” Lucius said.
“Yes, Monsieur, I have.”
“Then come with us and leave the world as you know it behind.”
“We will be your new family,” Petra said, pulling Adélaïs into an embrace, feeling as if she were adopting a daughter. And perhaps she was.
“I like how that sounds,” Adélaïs whispered, rising from the fountain’s edge to take hold of Lucius’s outstretched arm.
As they made their way out to their waiting horses, Petra glanced back at the Palais des Pape
s, now almost wholly mired in the eerie fog.
Forgive us, Monsieur de Chauliac… I promise I will care for your darling girl. Always…
16
The Novitiates
Genoa
August 13, 1345
Madame?” Adélaïs whispered, entering the study where Petra was writing out a new account for the Immortal Codex. Her servant Dimia had already dressed them both for tonight’s rituals. Since Adélaïs would be the first female she would ever turn, she decided to have her dressed in a form-fitted white chemise with a subtle red dagging at the sleeves and a golden girdle with ruby accents at her waist. For reasons of practicality, an overdress and long sleeves would be cumbersome when they entered the ritual pool during the Vellessentia.
The Essentiae and Sanguinea eternae would both have elements of symbolic red in their costumes, a stark reminder of Petra’s blood sacrifice for each of them. For herself, she reserved a finer dress of shimmering forest green and gold silk brocade with a massive ankh made of soft gold looped around her neck alongside her ever-present phial of mortanine, a far more expensive bottle than the first she had had in Tibur, Italy back in the old days.
Dimia had parted her hair into elaborate loose braids on either side, complete with spirals of mortanine leaves woven throughout. The final touch was a gold and ruby circlet made of ankhs around the crown of her head.
She and Adélaïs had already started work on developing a system for encrypting her daily musings during the month they had been back home in Genoa. The girl had a great deal of work ahead of her, given the vast library of histories Petra would soon have her working on. Even in such a short time, she knew she had made the right decision to bring Adélaïs with them. The girl’s intelligence and skill had already proven to be invaluable.
“Yes?” Petra finally looked up from her work and dropped her quill into the rapidly dwindling ink in the well. She already knew what the girl would say.
“The servant bid me tell you the Sanguinea have arrived.” Adélaïs’s voice belied her fear.
They would begin the Vellessentia within the hour. The first for Adélaïs as well as Clarius’s mysterious novitiate. This would be the first ritual ceremony with two novitiates to be turned. Petra hoped she was up for the challenge. The Vellessentiae were always a difficult time of year for her, but those with a novitiate turning weakened her the most. It would take days for her to recover.
Petra worried, too, that Adélaïs’s fear of death would make her refuse immortality in the end. It wasn’t every day a girl knew the exact hour she would take her last breath. It had been a great many years since Petra had witnessed Nicon, the second Sanguine she had turned, dying from mortanine poisoning. Even for someone like her, who died every year without fail, it was still difficult to watch.
“How many have come?”
“Caelia said there are four, Madame Petra.”
“Good.” Clarius, thankfully, had not added more novitiates without telling her. “Have you seen our guests yet?”
“No, Madame.”
“Remember not to be alarmed by their appearance. They will have silver eyes and dark veins now that my blood is ebbing from their bodies. Yet, don’t forget they are all dangerous in their own way. They answer to Clarius, and he is and always will be volatile—especially now that he and Lucius will see each other for the first time in a millennium. Steer clear of the Sanguinea as best you can tonight.”
The girl nodded, attempting a brave smile.
“Bid Dimia to request Clarius remain outside and have Guistino escort the rest into the dining room. Remind them not to return to the main house until midday tomorrow.”
“Yes, Madame.” The girl moved to shut the door behind her.
“Adélaïs? Where is Lucius?”
“I believe he is outside in his workshop.”
“Fetch him for me, would you? Tell him our guests are in the dining room taking refreshments. I will be along shortly.”
Adélaïs nodded obediently and left the room. Taking a deep breath, Petra slipped outside into the yellow-orange light of a stunning sunset and strode immediately to the main portal of their sprawling palazzo, where three massive arches led out into a central stone courtyard filled with their vegetable and flower gardens. Clarius was leaning against one of the arches, gazing out at the riot of colors over the vineyards far beyond the palazzo.
She gazed for a moment at his profile. The tell-tale dark veins creeping across his jawline spoke of his blood-need, though the fading day hid his ashen skin under a tint of sunset-gold. Still, he was undeniably handsome, his Roman nose as straight as an arrow, his muscles taut beneath the expensive fabrics. But she knew the man beneath that god-like facade. She knew his darkness and his destructive desire.
“Lucius will be joining us this evening, Clarius.”
He did not turn at the sound of her voice. He knew she had been standing there. Given his lust for blood, he had a far keener sense of smell than any of them. He had honed his senses over millennia, as a wolf ever gaining skill in the hunt.
“After centuries of cowardice, now he comes?” Clarius had always thought him weak and never hesitated to tell her so. Usually she ignored him, but tonight it grated on her. No matter how much she warned him not to, she knew Clarius would test Lucius’s patience tonight. Of that she was certain. What she didn’t know was how Lucius would respond. She couldn’t deny he had a temper of his own where Clarius was concerned, which was why she hadn’t pressed him to attend another Vellessentia until this year. Yet, other than with her, Lucius wasn’t used to bowing to anyone—much less to Clarius, a man he would never forgive for murdering his father. Immortality bestowed many gifts; a fading memory of past wrongs was not one of them.
“Because I will be turning a novitiate of my own tonight,” she finally said after a prolonged silence. It certainly wasn’t her only reason, but the less Clarius knew of the doings of the Essentiae, the safer they would ultimately be.
Clarius glanced back at hearing this.
“Again, why now?”
“What the Essentiae choose to do or not do is none of your concern.”
“The hellfire it isn’t.” His words were laced with growing irritation and suspicion. “You hold my life in your blood, woman.”
She sighed as she walked up to stand next to him.
“The novitiate is to be my scribe. She has skill in such things.”
Clarius laughed. “You are a fool. After all this time, the first immortal you turn is a girl to write your letters for you?”
He laughed again as Petra tried not to smile and give the secret away. Oh, my dear Clarius, if only you knew the plans I have for her…
“It’s about time I had a servant I can trust. Though, over time, I know Adélaïs will learn far more. She is quite gifted with words.”
“As long as she isn’t a threat to my Sanguinea, feel free to people your Essentiae with scribes and poets and fools.” He kicked at the stone column he held to and looked out again at the vineyards beyond their sprawling villa.
“I shall do what I wish for my own eternae. And, Clarius”—she turned to look him in the eyes—“you will not talk to her, touch her, or look at her.” Petra hoped her voice would convey the threat she meant to send.
Clarius eyed her in amusement. “Considering she’ll have to get to know me at some point during our eternity together, why not start out as intimate relations? We are all family, are we not?”
His slow curving smile turned Petra’s stomach.
“Adélaïs is younger than I was back in our ancient days. She is afraid. She is far from home. You will do nothing to jeopardize her turning.”
“Yes, yes. Have your little servant girl.” He turned toward her but kept his arms crossed. “I have much more delicious game to hunt tonight.”
“You leave Lucius be. You will not start a war here in my house. I forbid it. Cross me, and I will not turn your novitiate.”
“Oh, you will, Petra. The beautif
ul novitiate Ximena is my new prey. And you know better than to stand between me and my quarry.”
“Only a fool would think a woman is such a thing.”
“My dear Petra, you are innocent of the ways of men, it seems. Have no fear. You have plenty of time for the learning as do I for the teaching.”
He pulled her to him, then, bringing her mouth to his in a kiss. She let him, hoping it would placate him and make him think he had won the battle. He did not yet know her aim was to win the war.
Clarius’s kiss was surprisingly sweet. He had bathed his mouth in honey-wine and basil. Had he known he would steal a kiss from her tonight? She did not hold him in the same way he held to her, and she was thankful Lucius was not here to see her growing response to Clarius. His large, cool hands curved around her lower waist possessively, and she felt again the power in his body, felt herself falling into the beginnings of a draw.
His body stiffened, as he sensed the change instinctively. “Ah, not yet, my sweet. I want Lucius to watch as I take you slowly. I want him to remember the first time.”
“You bastard.” Petra jerked away, letting him see her wipe her mouth of him, and then she turned to walk inside without a word. In a darkened side hallway she stood against a wall, calming her breathing and chiding herself for returning Clarius’s kiss with Lucius so close by. She didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize this night’s Vellessentia. As Clarius passed her on his way into the dining room, she shrank back into the shadows, though he knew she was there.
She needed to get herself together. Keeping the peace between the expanding eternae rested upon her shoulders alone. She had to keep them all from each other’s throats, or this night would end in violence. Petra straightened her back and smoothed back her hair. She would get through this, if only for Lucius and for Adélaïs’s sake.
When she entered the cavernous dining hall, she gazed at all assembled. It was Lucius’s absence she noticed first. Adélaïs had already entered. She sat shyly away from the others at one end of the long, wooden dining table while Clarius and Silvio gulped their wine at the other end. Nicon, a Sanguine she had turned thirty years ago, was talking quietly with who Petra could only assume was Clarius’s novitiate. A single glance at the sensual beauty told Petra the woman hailed from Spain, given her manner of dress. She wore a midnight blue velvet overdress with red accents at the elbows and neckline along with a gold and white underdress with fitted sleeves. Her hair was held up in an elaborate caul on either side of her head with an attached circlet made of gold and sapphires. Clarius had obviously spared no expense.