by Anne Rice
Bianca had sent a small note to me.
"Marius, I miss you. Do come soon and bring your boys with you. Amadeo is as clever as Riccardo. I have your portraits everywhere. All are curious about the man who painted them, but I say nothing, for in truth I know nothing. Lovingly, Bianca."
When I looked up from the note, I saw Amadeo watching me, probing me as it were with his silent eyes.
"Do you know her, Master?" he asked me soberly, surprising Riccardo, who said nothing.
"You know I do, Amadeo. She told you I had come to visit her. You saw my portraits on her walls."
I sensed a sudden and violent jealousy in him. But nothing changed in his face. Don't go to her. That's what his soul said to me. And I knew he wished that Riccardo would leave now and we could have the shadowy bed, with its concealing velvet curtains, to ourselves.
There was something stubborn in him, something directed entirely towards our love. And how it tempted me, how it drew from me the most complete devotion.
"But I want you to remember," I said to him suddenly in his Russian tongue.
It was a shock to him but he didn't understand it.
"Amadeo," I said in the Venetian dialect, "think back to the time before you came here. Think back, Amadeo. What was your world then?"
A flush came to his cheeks. He was miserable. It was as if I'd beaten him.
Riccardo reached out for him with a consoling hand. "Master," he said, "it's too hard for him." Amadeo seemed paralyzed. I rose from my chair at the desk and I put my arm around him where he sat and I kissed the top of his head.
"Come, forget everything. We'll go to see Bianca. This is die time of night which she likes the best."
Riccardo was amazed to be permitted out at this hour. As for Amadeo he was still dazed.
We found Bianca thickly surrounded by her chattering guests. There were Florentines among them, and Englishmen as I'd been told.
Bianca brightened as she saw me. She took me away from the others, towards her bedchamber where the elaborate swan bed was exquisitely adorned as if it were something on a stage.
"You've come at last," she said. "I'm so glad to see you. You don't know how I've missed you.'' How warm were her words. "You are the only painter who exists in my world, Marius." She wanted to kiss me but I couldn't risk it. I bent to press my lips to her cheek quickly and then I held her back.
Ah, such radiant sweetness. Gazing into her oval eyes, I stepped into the paintings of Botticelli. I held in my hands, for reasons I could never know, the dark perfumed tresses of Zenobia, gathered up in memory from the floor of a house on the other side of the world.
"Bianca, my darling," I said to her. "I'm ready to open my house if you will receive for me." What a shock it was to hear these words come from my own lips. I had not known what I meant to say. Yet on I pressed with my dream. "I have neither wife nor daughter. Come, open my house to the world."
The look of triumph in her face confirmed it. I would do it.
"I shall tell everyone," she said immediately. "Yes, I'll receive for you, I shall do it proudly, I shall do it gladly, but surely you'll be there yourself."
"May we open the doors in the evening?" I asked her. "It's my custom to come in the evening. The light of candles suits me better than the light of day. You set the night for it, Bianca, and I shall have my servants make everything ready. The paintings are everywhere now. You do understand I offer nothing to anyone. I paint for my pleasure. And for my guests I'll have food and drink as you say."
How happy she looked. Off to one side I saw Amadeo gazing at her, loving her somewhat and loving the sight of us together though it gave him pain.
Riccardo was being drawn into conversation by men who were older than he and flattered him and loved his handsome face.
"Tell me what to lay out on my tables," I said to Bianca. "Tell me what wines to serve. My servants shall be your servants. I shall do everything as you say."
"It's too lovely," she answered. "All of Venice will be there, I promise you, you'll discover the most wonderful company. People are so curious about you. Oh, how they whisper. You can't imagine what a supreme delight this will be."
It came about as she described.
Within the month I opened the palazzo to the whole city. But how different it was from those drunken nights in old Rome when people laid about on my couches and vomited in my gardens and I painted madly away on the walls.
Oh, yes, when I arrived, how proper were my finely clad Venetian guests. Of course I was asked a thousand questions. I let my eyes mist over. I heard the mortal voices around nje as if they were kisses. I thought; You are among them; it is truly as if you were one of them. It is truly as if you are alive.
What did it matter their little criticisms of the paintings? I would strive to make my work the finest, yes, truly, but what counted was the vitality, the momentum!
And here amid my best work stood my lovely fair-haired Bianca, free for the moment from those who put her up to her wrongdoings, recognized by all as the Mistress of my house.
Amadeo watched this with silent grudging eyes. The memories inside him tormented him like a cancer, yet he could not see them and know them for what they were.
Not a month after, at sunset, I found him sick in the grand church on the nearby island of Torcello to which he had wandered, apparently on his own. I picked him up from the cold damp floor and took him home.
Of course I understood the reason. There he had found ikons of the very style he had once painted. There he had found old mosaics from centuries past, similar to those he had seen in Russian churches as a child. He had not remembered. He had merely come upon some old truth in his wanderings—the brittle, stark Byzantine paintings—and now the heat of the place had left him with a fever, and I could taste it on his lips and see it in his eyes.
He was no better at sunrise when, half mad, I left him in the care of Vincenzo, only to rise again at sunset and hurry back to the side of his bed.
It was his mind that stoked the fever. Bundling him like a child I took him into a Venetian church to see the wondrous paintings of robust and natural figures that had been done in these last few years.
But I could see now it was hopeless. His mind would never be opened, never truly changed. I brought him home, and laid him down on the pillows once more.
I sought to better understand what I could.
His had been a punitive world of austere devotion. Painting for him had been joyless. And indeed all of life itself in far-away Russia had been so rigorous that he could not give himself over to the pleasure that awaited him now at every turn.
Beset by the memories, yet not understanding them, he was moving slowly towards death.
I would not have it. I paced the floor, I turned to those who attended him. I walked about, whispering to myself in my anger. I would not have it. I would not let him die.
Sternly, I banished others from the bedchamber.
I bent over him, and biting into my tongue I filled my mouth with blood and then I loosed a thin stream of it into his mouth.
He quickened, and licked his lips after it, and then he breathed more easily and the flush came to his cheeks. I felt of his forehead. It was cooler. He opened his eyes and he looked at me, and he said as he did so often, "Master," and then gently, without memories, without terrible dreams, he slept.
It was enough. I left the bed. I wrote in my thick diary, the quill scratching as I quickly inscribed the words:
"He is irresistible, but what am I to do? I claimed him once, declaring him my very own, and now I treat his misery with the blood I wish that I could give him. Yet in treating his misery, I hope to cure him not for me but for the wide world."
I closed the book, in disgust with myself for the blood I'd given him. But it had healed him. I knew it. And were he ill, I would give him blood again.
Time was moving too swiftly.
Things were happening too fast. My earlier judgments were shaken, and the beauty of Amad
eo increased with every passing night.
The teachers took the boys to Florence that they might see the paintings there. And all came home more truly inspired to study than before.
Yes, they had seen the work of Botticelli, and how splendid it was. Was the Master painting? Indeed, so, but his work had become almost entirely religious. It was due to the preaching of Savonarola, a stringent monk who condemned the Florentines for their worldliess. Savonarola had great power over the people of Florence. Botticelli believed in him, and was thought to be one of his followers.
This saddened me greatly. Indeed it damn near maddened me. But then I knew that whatever Botticelli painted it would be magnificent. And in Amadeo's progress I was comforted, or rather pleasantly confused as before.
Amadeo was now the most brilliant of all my little academy. New teachers were required for him in philosophy and law. He was outgrowing his clothes at a marvelous rate, he had become quick and charming in conversation, and he was the beloved of all the younger boys.
Night after night we visited Bianca. I became accustomed to the company of refined strangers, the eternal stream of northern Europeans who came to Italy to discover its ancient and mysterious charms.
Only occasionally did I see Bianca hand the poisoned cup to one of her ill-fated guests. Only occasionally did I feel the beat of her dark heart, and see the shadow of desperate guilt in the very depth of her eyes. How she watched the unfortunate victim; how she saw him out of her company at last with a subtle smile.
As for Amadeo, our private sessions within my bedchamber became ever more intimate. And more than once, as we embraced, I gave the Blood Kiss to him, watching his body shiver, and seeing the power of it in his half-lidded eyes.
What was this madness? Was he for the world or for me?
How I Hed to myself about it. I told myself the boy might still prove himself and thereby earn his freedom to leave me, safe and rich, for accomplishments beyond my house.
But I had given him so much of the Secret Blood that he pushed me with questions. What manner of creature was I? Why did I never come by day? Why did I take no food or drink?
He wrapped his warm arms around the mystery, He buried his face in the monster's neck.
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 wag 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 eveiy 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 die 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 Vmcenzp 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 die 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 y
ears 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 put of the light of the candles. I laughed softly. "You lopk 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 softened the set of his lips. I'm not certain that such things can happen. But he did seem an interesting-looking immortal male.