by Anne Rice
And how lovely she was in her luminous silk and jewels.
She came and took her place beside me, nestled close, and unafraid of whatever she saw when she looked into my eyes.
Amadeo was astonished and soon sat beside her on her right. Though he'd fed well, I could sense his blood hunger, and that he fought bravely to keep it down.
"Let me kiss you, my exquisite one," I said. And I did so, counting upon the dim light and my sweet words to bedazzle her, and then of course she saw what she wanted to see—not some dreadful thing quite beyond her comprehension, but a mysterious man who had rendered her an invaluable service and left her wealthy and free.
"You will be safe always, Biarica," I said to her. "As long as I am here." Twice and once more I kissed her. "Help me open my house again, Bianca, with even more splendid food and entertainments. Help me prepare a greater feast perhaps than Venice has ever seen. We'll have wondrous theatricals and dancing. Help me fill my many rooms."
"Yes, Marius, I shall do it," she answered drowsily, her head leaning against me. "I shall be so happy."
"I shall give you all the money you require for it. And Vincenzo will carry out your instructions. Only tell me when you would have this take place."
I looked into her eyes as I spoke and then I kissed her, and though I did not dare to give her the smallest taste of my blood, I breathed my cold breath into her, and I pierced her mind with my desire.
Meantime, with my right hand I reached beneath her skirts and found her sweet naked secrets and easily moved them with my fingers, which inflamed her with immediate and undisguised desire. Amadeo was confused.
"Kiss her," I whispered. "Kiss her again."
He obeyed me, and soon had her ravished with his kisses.
And as my fingers tightened and caressed her, as his kisses grew more fervent, she grew bloodred with her cresting passion and fell softly against Amadeo's arm.
I withdrew, kissing her forehead as though she were chaste again.
"Rest now," I said, "and remember you are safe from those evil kinsmen, and that I am in your debt forever because you kept Amadeo alive until I could come."
"Did I, Marius?" she asked me. "Wasn't it his strange dreams?" She turned to Amadeo. "Again and again you spoke of wondrous places, of those who told you that you must return to vis."
"Those were but memories caught in a web with fear," said Amadeo softly. "For long before I was born again in Venice, I knew a harsh and pitiless life. It was you who brought me back from some thick margin of consciousness which lies just this side of death,"
She gazed at him, wondering,
How he was suffering that he could not tell her what he was.
But having accepted these words from him, she allowed us to, in the manner of common attendants, help her with her disheveled dress and hair.
"We'll leave you now," I said, "and of the feast we'll make our plans at once. Allow me to send Vincenzo to you."
"Yes, and on that night I promise you," she said, "your house will be more splendid than even the Doge's palace, you will see."
"My princess," I said as I kissed her.
Back to her guests she went, and off we hurried down the stairs.
In the gondola, Amadeo began his entreaties.
"Marius, I can't bear it, this separation from her, that we can't tell her."
"Amadeo, say nothing more to me of this!" I cautioned.
When we reached the bedchamber and locked the door, he gave way to terrible tears.
"Master, I could tell her nothing of what had happened to me! And to Bianca I would always tell all. Oh, not the secrets of you and me or the Blood Kisses, no, but of other things. How often I sat with her, and talked with her. Master, I went to her so often by day and you didn't know it. She was my friend. Master, this is unendurable. Master, she was my sister." He sobbed like a small boy.
"I cautioned you on this, did I not?" I said furiously. "And now you weep like a child?"
In a rage, I slapped him.
And in shock he fell back away from me, but his tears flowed all the more "Master, why can we not make her one of us! Why can we not share the Blood with her?"
I took him roughly by the shoulders. He didn't fear my hands. He didn't care.
"Amadeo, listen to me. We cannot give way to this desire. I have lived a thousand years and more without making a blood drinker, and now you, within months of your own transformation, would make the first mortal for whom you feel inordinate love?"
He was crying bitterly. He tried to free himself from me, but I would not allow it.
"I wanted so to tell her of the things I see with these new eyes!" he whispered. The blood tears spilled down his boyish cheeks. "I wanted so to tell her how all the world is changed."
"Amadeo, know the value of what you possess and the price of what you give. Two years I prepared you for the Blood, and even so the giving of it was too rapid, spurred on by Lord Harlech's poisoned blade. Now you would visit this power upon Bianca? Why? Because you would have her know what has befallen you?"
I released him. I let him fall on his knees beside the bed, spilling his tears as he cried.
I sat at the desk.
"How long do you think I've wandered this Earth?" I asked. "Do you know how many times it had crossed my mind in carelessness and wanton temper to make another blood drinker? But I did not do it, Amadeo. Not until my eyes fell upon you. I tell you, Bianca is not to be what we are."
"She'll grow old and die!" he whispered. His shoulders moved with his sobs. ".Are we to see it? Are we to watch this happen? And what will she think of us as the years pass?"
"Amadeo, stop with this. You cannot make all of them what we are. You cannot make one after another without conscience or imagination. You cannot! For everyone there must be preparation, learning, discipline. For everyone there must be care."
Finally he dried his tears. He stood up and he turned to face me. There seemed an awful calm in him, an unhappy and grim calm.
And then there came a solemn question from his lips.
"Why did you choose me, Master?" he asked.
I was frightened at this question, and I think he saw it before I could hide it. And I marveled that I had been so unprepared to answer such a thing.
I felt no tenderness for him suddenly, for he seemed so strong as he stood there, so very certain of himself and of the question which he had just put to me.
"Did you not ask me for the Blood, Amadeo?" I responded, my voice cool. I was trembling. How deeply I loved him, and how I didn't want him to know.
"Oh, yes, sir," he responded in a small, calm voice, "indeed I did ask you but that was after many a taste of your power, was it not?" He paused, then continued. "Why did you choose me for those kisses? Why did you choose rne for the final gift?"
"I loved you," I said without further ado.
He shook his head.
"I think there's more to it," he answered.
"Then be my teacher," I answered.
He came closer to me, and looked down at me as I remained seated at my desk.
"There's a bitter cold in me," he said, "a cold which comes from a distant land. And nothing ever really makes it warm. Even the Blood did not make it warm. You knew of this cold. You tried a thousand times to melt it, and transform it to something more brilliant, but you never succeeded. And then on the night that I came near to death—no, was, in fact, dying—you counted upon that cold to give me the stamina for the Blood."
I nodded. I looked away, but he put his hand on my shoulder.
"Look at me, please, sir," he said. "Isn't it so?" His face was serene.
"Yes," I said, "it's so."
"Why do you shrink from me as I ask this question?" he pressed.
"Arnadeo," I said, speaking firmly, "is this a curse, this Blood?"
"No," he answered quickly.
"Think on it before you answer. Is it a curse!" I declared.
"No," he said again.
"Then cease your
questions. Don't seek to anger me or embitter me. Let me teach you what I have to teach."
He had lost this little battle and he walked away from me, looking once more like the child, though his full seventeen years as a mortal had rendered him more than that.
He climbed upon the bed, and curled his legs beneath him, sitting there motionless in the alcove of red taffeta and red light.
"Take me back to my home, Master," he said. "Take me back to Russia where I was born. Yo]i can take me there, I know you can. You have that power. You can find the place."
"Why, Amadeo?"
"I must see it to forget it. I must know for certain that it was . . . what it was."
J thought on this for a long time before I answered.
"Very well. You will tell me all you remember and I will take you where you want to go. And into the hands of your human family you can place whatever wealth you wish."
He said nothing to this.
"But our secrets will be kept from them, as our secrets are kept from everyone."
He nodded.
"And then we shall return."
Again he nodded.
"All this will happen after the great feast that Bianca will start preparing. On that night, here, we will dance with our invited guests.
Over and over again, you will dance with Bianca. We will use our greatest skill to pass among our guests as human. And I shall count upon you as much as I count upon Bianca or Vincenzo. And the feast will leave all of Venice in awe."
A faint smile came over his face. Again he nodded.
"Now you know what I want of you," I declared. "I want that you befriend the boys all the more lovingly. And I want that you go to Bianca all the more often, after you've fed of course, and your skin is ruddy, and that you tell her nothing, nothing of the magic by which you were saved."
He nodded.
"I thought... " he whispered.
"You thought? "I asked.
"I thought if I had the Blood I would have all things," he said. "And now I know that it's not so."
23
NO MATTER how long we exist, we have our memories— points in time which time itself cannot erase. Suffering may distort my backward glances, but even to suffering, some memories will yield nothing of their beauty or their splendor. Rather they remain as hard as gems.
So it is with me and the night of Bianca's most supreme feast, and indeed I call it that because it was Bianca who created it, merely using the wealth and rooms of my palazzo for her finest achievement in which all the apprentices participated and in which even humble Vincenzo was given a dramatic role.
All of Venice did come to partake of our never ending banquet, and to delight in the singing and the dancing, whilst the boys performed in numerous and grandly staged tableaux.
It seemed that every room had its own singers or divine pageants. The music of the lute, the virginal, and a dozen other instruments blended to make die lovely songs that lulled and enchanted everyone, as die younger boys, royally costumed, went about filling cups from golden pitchers of wine.
And Amadeo and I did dance ceaselessly, stepping carefully and gracefully as was the fashion then—one walked to music, really— clasping hands with many a Venetian beauty as well as our beloved genius of the whole affair.
Many a time, I snatched her away from die illumination of the candles and told her how dear to me she was that she could bring about such magic. And I begged from her a promise that she might do it again and again.
But what could compare to this night of dancing and wandering amid mortal guests who commented gently and drunkenly on my paintings, sometimes asking me why I had painted this or that? As in the past, no critical word struck my heart deeply. I felt only the loving heat of mortal eyes.
As for Amadeo, I watched over him constantly, and saw only that he was divinely happy, seeing all this splendor as a blood drinker, divinely thrilled by the theatricals in which the boys played wonderfully designed roles.
He had taken my advice and continued in his love of them, and now amid the blazing candelabra and the sweet music, he was radiant with happiness and whispered in my ear when he could that he could ask for nothing finer than this night.
Having fed early, and far away, we were warm with blood and keen of vision. And so the night belonged to us in our strength and in our happiness, and the magnificent Bianca was ours and ours only as all men seemed to know.
Only as sunrise approached did the guests begin to take their leave, with the gondolas lined up before the front doors, and we had to break from the duty of accepting farewells to find our own way to the safety of our gold-lined grave.
Amadeo embraced me before we parted to lie in our coffins.
"Do you still want to make the journey to your homeland?" I asked him.
"Yes, I want to go there," he said quickly. He looked at me sadly. "I wish I could say no. On this night of aH nights, I wish I could say no." He was downcast, and I would not have it.
"I'll take you."
"But I don't know the name of the place. I can't—."
fYou needn't torture yourself on that account," I said. "I know it from all you've told me. It's the city of Kiev, and I shall take you there very soon."
There came a look of bright recognition to his face. "Kiev," he said and then he said it in Russian. He knew now it was his old home.
The following night I told him the story of his native city.
Kiev had once been magnificent, its cathedral built; to rival Hagia Sophia in Constantinople from which its Christianity had corne. Greek Christianity had shaped its beliefs and its art. And bodi had flourished beautifully there in a wondrous place. But centuries ago, the Mongols had sacked this grand city, massacred its population, destroying forever its power, leaving behind some accidental survivals, among them monks who kept to themselves.
What remained of Kiev? A miserable place along the banks of the Dnieper River where the cathedral still stood, and the monks still existed in the famous Monastery of the Caves.
Quietly, Amadeo listened to this intelligence and I could see the pure misery in his face.
"All through my long life," I said, "I have seen such ruin. Magnificent cities are created by men and women with dreams. Then there come the riders of the North or the East and they trample and destroy the magnificence; all that men and women have created is no more. Fear and misery follow this destruction. And nowhere is it more visible than in the ruins of your home—Kiev Rus."
I could see that he was listening to me. I could sense that he wanted me to continue to explain.
"There exists now in our beautiful Italy a land that will not be sacked by those warriors, for they no longer menace the northern or eastern borders of Europe. Rather they long ago settled into the continent and became the very population of France and Britain and Germany today. Those who would still pillage and rape have been pushed back forever. Now throughout Europe what men and wromen can do in cities is being discovered again.
"But in your land? There is still sorrow, and bitter poverty. The fertile grasslands are useless—thousands of miles of them are useless! save for the occasional hunter as mad as your father must have been. That is the legacy of Genghis Khan—a monster." I paused. I was becoming too heated. "The Golden Horde is what they call that land, and it is a wasteland of beautiful grass."
He nodded. He saw the sweep of it. I knew this from his solemn eyes.
"Would you still go?" I pressed him. "Would you still revisit the place where you suffered so much?"
"Yes," he whispered. "Though I do not remember her, I had a mother. And without rny father, there might be nothing for her. Surely he died that day when we rode out together. Surely he died in the hail of arrows. I remember the arrows. I must go to her." He broke off as though struggling to remember. He groaned suddenly as though some sharp physical pain had humbled him. "How colorless and grim is their world."
"Yes," I said.
"Let me take them only a small amount—."
>
"Make them rich if that's your wish."
For a long moment, he was silent and then he made a small confession, murmuring it as though he were communing with himself:
"I must see the monastery where I painted the ikons. I must see the place where at times I prayed I would have the strength to be walled up alive. You know it was the way of the place, don't you? "
"Very well, I know it," I answered. "I saw it when I gave you the Blood. I saw you moving down the corridors, giving sustenance to those who still lived in their cells, half immured and waiting for the will of God to take them as they starved themselves. They asked you when you would have the courage for it, yet you could paint ikons that were magnificent."
"Yes," he said.
"And your father hated them that they did not let you paint, that they made you a monk above all things."
He looked at me as if he had not truly understood this until now, and perhaps he had not. And then came from his lips a stronger statement.
"So it is with any monasteiy, and you know it, Master," he retorted. "The will of God comes first."
I was faintly shocked by the expression on his face. Was he speaking to his father or to me?
It took us four nights to reach Kiev.
I could have made the journey much more quickly had I been on my own, but I carried Arnadeo close to me, his head bowed, his eyes closed, my fur-lined cloak wrapped around him to shelter him from the wind as best I could.
At last on the sunset of the fifth night, we reached the ruins of the city which had once been Kiev Rus. Qur clothes were covered in dirt and our fur cloaks dark and nondescript, which would help to render us unremarkable to mortal eyes.
A thick snow lay over the high abandoned battlements, and covered the roofs of the Prince's wooden palace, and beneath the battlements simple wooden houses that ran down to the Dnieper River—the town of Podil. Neyer have I seen a place more forlorn.
As soon as Amadeo had penetrated the wooden dwelling of the European ruler, and glimpsed to his satisfaction this Lithuanian who paid tribute to the Khan for his power, he wanted to move on to the monastery at once.