“Finally, after so many years of trying and failing, Blanca was with child. It was 531. Such a year. There was a new king to the south, and the battles had started all over again. Matthew began to look happy, as if he dared to hope this baby would survive. And it did. Lucas was born in the autumn and was baptized in the unfinished church that Matthew was helping to build. It was a hard birth for Blanca. The midwife said that he would be the last child she bore. For Matthew, though, Lucas was enough. And he was so like his father, with his black curls and pointed chin—and those long legs.”
“What happened to Blanca and Lucas?” I asked softly. We were only six years from Matthew’s transformation into a vampire. Something must have happened, or he would never have let Ysabeau exchange his life for a new one.
“Matthew and Blanca watched their son grow and thrive. Matthew had learned to work in stone rather than wood, and he was in high demand among the lords from here to Paris. Then fever came to the village. Everyone fell ill. Matthew survived. Blanca and Lucas did not. That was in 536. The year before had been strange, with very little sunshine, and the winter was cold. When spring came, the sickness came, too, and carried Blanca and Lucas away.”
“Didn’t the villagers wonder why you and Philippe remained healthy?”
“Of course. But there were more explanations then than there would be today. It was easier to think God was angry with the village or that the castle was cursed than to think that the manjasang were living among them.”
“Manjasang?” I tried to roll the syllables around my mouth as Ysabeau had.
“It is the old tongue’s word for vampire—‘blood eater.’ There were those who suspected the truth and whispered by the fireside. But in those days the return of the Ostrogoth warriors was a far more frightening prospect than a manjasang overlord. Philippe promised the village his protection if the raiders came back. Besides, we made it a point never to feed close to home,” she explained primly.
“What did Matthew do after Blanca and Lucas were gone?”
“He grieved. Matthew was inconsolable. He stopped eating. He looked like a skeleton, and the village came to us for help. I took him food”—Ysabeau smiled at Marthe—“and made him eat and walked with him until he wasn’t so restless. When he could not sleep, we went to church and prayed for the souls of Blanca and Lucas. Matthew was very religious in those days. We talked about heaven and hell, and he worried about where their souls were and if he would be able to find them again.”
Matthew was so gentle with me when I woke up in terror. Had the nights before he’d become a vampire been as sleepless as those that came after?
“By autumn he seemed more hopeful. But the winter was difficult. People were hungry, and the sickness continued. Death was everywhere. The spring could not lift the gloom. Philippe was anxious about the church’s progress, and Matthew worked harder than ever. At the beginning of the second week in June, he was found on the floor beneath its vaulted ceiling, his legs and back broken.”
I gasped at the thought of Matthew’s soft, human body plummeting to the hard stones.
“There was no way he could survive the fall, of course,” Ysabeau said softly. “He was a dying man. Some of the masons said he’d slipped. Others said he was standing on the scaffolding one moment and gone the next. They thought Matthew had jumped and were already talking about how he could not be buried in the church because he was a suicide. I could not let him die fearing he might not be saved from hell. He was so worried about being with Blanca and Lucas—how could he go to his death wondering if he would be separated from them for all eternity?”
“You did the right thing.” It would have been impossible for me to walk away from him no matter what the state of his soul. Leaving his body broken and hurting was unthinkable. If my blood would have saved him, I would have used it.
“Did I?” Ysabeau shook her head. “I have never been sure. Philippe told me it was my decision whether to make Matthew one of our family. I had made other vampires with my blood, and I would make others after him. But Matthew was different. I was fond of him, and I knew that the gods were giving me a chance to make him my child. It would be my responsibility to teach him how a vampire must be in the world.”
“Did Matthew resist you?” I asked, unable to stop myself.
“No,” she replied. “He was out of his mind with pain. We told everyone to leave, saying we would fetch a priest. We didn’t, of course. Philippe and I went to Matthew and explained we could make him live forever, without pain, without suffering. Much later Matthew told us that he thought we were John the Baptist and the Blessed Mother come to take him to heaven to be with his wife and child. When I offered him my blood, he thought I was the priest offering him last rites.”
The only sounds in the room were my quiet breathing and the crackle of logs in the fireplace. I wanted Ysabeau to tell me the particulars of how she had made Matthew, but I was afraid to ask in case it was something that vampires didn’t talk about. Perhaps it was too private, or too painful. Ysabeau soon told me without prompting.
“He took my blood so easily, like he was born to it,” she said with a rustling sigh. “Matthew was not one of those humans who turn their face from the scent or sight. I opened my wrist with my own teeth and told him my blood would heal him. He drank his salvation without fear.”
“And afterward?” I whispered.
“Afterward he was . . . difficult,” Ysabeau said carefully. “All new vampires are strong and full of hunger, but Matthew was almost impossible to control. He was in a rage at being a vampire, and his need to feed was endless. Philippe and I had to hunt all day for weeks to satisfy him. And his body changed more than we expected. We all get taller, finer, stronger. I was much smaller before I became a vampire. But Matthew developed from a reed-thin human into a formidable creature. My husband was larger than my new son, but in the first flush of my blood Matthew was a handful even for Philippe.”
I forced myself not to shrink from Matthew’s hunger and rage. Instead my eyes remained fixed on his mother, not closing my eyes for an instant against the knowledge of him. This was what Matthew feared, that I would come to understand who he had been—who he still was—and feel revulsion.
“What calmed him?” I asked.
“Philippe took him hunting,” Ysabeau explained, “once he thought that Matthew would no longer kill everything in his path. The hunt engaged his mind, and the chase engaged his body. He soon craved the hunt more than the blood, which is a good sign in young vampires. It meant he was no longer a creature of pure appetite but was once again rational. After that, it was only a matter of time before his conscience returned and he began to think before he killed. Then all we had to fear were his black periods, when he felt the loss of Blanca and Lucas again and turned to humans to dull his hunger.”
“Did anything help Matthew then?”
“Sometimes I sang to him—the same song I sang to you tonight, and others as well. That often broke the spell of his grief. Other times Matthew would go away. Philippe forbade me to follow or to ask questions when he returned.” Ysabeau’s eyes were black as she looked at me. Our glances confirmed what we both suspected: that Matthew had been lost with other women, seeking solace in their blood and the touch of hands that belonged to neither his mother nor his wife.
“He’s so controlled,” I mused aloud, “it’s hard to imagine him like that.”
“Matthew feels deeply. It is a blessing as well as a burden to love so much that you can hurt so badly when love is gone.”
There was a threat in Ysabeau’s voice. My chin went up in defiance, my fingers tingling. “Then I’ll have to make sure my love never leaves him,” I said tightly.
“And how will you do that?” Ysabeau taunted. “Would you become a vampire, then, and join us in our hunting?” She laughed, but there was neither joy nor mirth in the sound. “No doubt that’s what Domenico suggested. One simple bite, the draining of your veins, the exchange of our blood for yours. The C
ongregation would have no grounds to intrude on your business then.”
“What do you mean?” I asked numbly.
“Don’t you see?” Ysabeau snarled. “If you must be with Matthew, then become one of us and put him—and yourself—out of danger. The witches may want to keep you as their own, but they cannot object to your relationship if you are a vampire, too.”
A low rumble started in Marthe’s throat.
“Is that why Matthew went away? Did the Congregation order him to make me a vampire?”
“Matthew would never make you a manjasang,” Marthe said scornfully, her eyes snapping with fury.
“No.” Ysabeau’s voice was softly malicious. “He has always loved fragile things, as I told you.”
This was one of the secrets that Matthew was keeping. If I were a vampire, there would be no prohibitions looming over us and thus no reason to fear the Congregation. All I had to do was become something else.
I contemplated the prospect with surprisingly little panic or fear. I could be with Matthew, and I might even be taller. Ysabeau would do it. Her eyes glittered as she took in the way my hand moved to my neck.
But there were my visions to consider, not to mention the power of the wind and the water. I didn’t yet understand the magical potential in my blood. And as a vampire I might never solve the mystery of Ashmole 782.
“I promised him,” Marthe said, her voice rough. “Diana must stay as she is—a witch.”
Ysabeau bared her teeth slightly, unpleasantly, and nodded.
“Did you also promise not to tell me what really happened in Oxford?”
Matthew’s mother scrutinized me closely. “You must ask Matthew when he returns. It is not my tale to tell.”
I had other questions as well—questions that Matthew might have been too distracted to mark as off-limits.
“Can you tell me why it matters that it was a creature who tried to break in to the lab, rather than a human?”
There was silence while Ysabeau considered my words. Finally, she replied.
“Clever girl. I did not promise Matthew to remain silent about appropriate rules of conduct, after all.” She looked at me with a touch of approval. “Such behavior is not acceptable among creatures. We must hope it was a mischievous daemon who does not realize the seriousness of what he has done. Matthew might forgive that.”
“He has always forgiven daemons,” Marthe muttered darkly.
“What if it wasn’t a daemon?”
“If it was a vampire, it represents a terrible insult. We are territorial creatures. A vampire does not cross into another vampire’s house or land without permission.”
“Would Matthew forgive such an insult?” Given the look on Matthew’s face when he’d thrown a punch at the car, I suspected that the answer was no.
“Perhaps,” Ysabeau said doubtfully. “Nothing was taken, nothing was harmed. But it is more likely Matthew would demand some form of retribution.”
Once more I’d been dropped into the Middle Ages, with the maintenance of honor and reputation the primary concern.
“And if it was a witch?” I asked softly.
Matthew’s mother turned her face away. “For a witch to do such a thing would be an act of aggression. No apology would be adequate.”
Alarm bells sounded.
I flung the covers aside and swung my legs out of bed. “The break-in was meant to provoke Matthew. He went to Oxford thinking he could make a good-faith deal with Knox. We have to warn him.”
Ysabeau’s hands were firm on my knees and shoulder, stopping my motion.
“He already knows, Diana.”
That information settled in my mind. “Is that why he wouldn’t take me to Oxford with him? Is he in danger?”
“Of course he is in danger,” Ysabeau said sharply. “But he will do what he can to put an end to this.” She lifted my legs back onto the bed and tucked the covers tightly around me.
“I should be there,” I protested.
“You would be nothing but a distraction. You will stay here, as he told you.”
“Don’t I get a say in this?” I asked for what seemed like the hundredth time since I came to Sept-Tours.
“No,” both women said at the same moment.
“You really do have a lot to learn about vampires,” Ysabeau said once again, but this time she sounded mildly regretful.
I had a lot to learn about vampires. This I knew.
But who was going to teach me? And when?
Chapter 24
From afar I beheld a black cloud covering the earth. It absorbed the earth and covered my soul as the seas entered, becoming putrid and corrupted at the prospect of hell and the shadow of death. A tempest had overwhelmed me,’” I read aloud from Matthew’s copy of Aurora Consurgens.
Turning to my computer, I typed notes about the imagery my anonymous author had used to describe nigredo, one of the dangerous steps in alchemical transformation. During this part of the process, the combination of substances like mercury and lead gave off fumes that endangered the alchemist’s health. Appropriately, one of Bourgot Le Noir’s gargoylelike faces pinched his nose tight shut, avoiding the cloud mentioned in the text.
“Get your riding clothes on.”
My head lifted from the pages of the manuscript.
“Matthew made me promise to take you outdoors. He said it would keep you from getting sick,” Ysabeau explained.
“You don’t have to, Ysabeau. Domenico and the witchwater have depleted my adrenaline supply, if that’s your concern.”
“Matthew must have told you how alluring the smell of panic is to a vampire.”
“Marcus told me,” I corrected her. “Actually, he told me what it tastes like. What does it smell like?”
Ysabeau shrugged. “Like it tastes. Maybe a bit more exotic—a touch of muskiness, perhaps. I was never much drawn to it. I prefer the kill to the hunt. But to each her own.”
“I’m not having as many panic attacks these days. There’s no need for you to take me riding.” I turned back to my work.
“Why do you think they have gone away?” Ysabeau asked.
“I honestly don’t know,” I said with a sigh, looking at Matthew’s mother.
“You have been like this for a long time?”
“Since I was seven.”
“What happened then?”
“My parents were killed in Nigeria,” I replied shortly.
“This was the picture you received—the one that caused Matthew to bring you to Sept-Tours.”
When I nodded in response, Ysabeau’s mouth flattened into a familiar, hard line. “Pigs.”
There were worse things to call them, but “pigs” did the job pretty well. And if it grouped whoever had sent me the photograph with Domenico Michele, then it was the right category.
“Panic or no panic,” Ysabeau said briskly, “we are going to exercise as Matthew wanted.”
I powered off the computer and went upstairs to change. My riding clothes were folded neatly in the bathroom, courtesy of Marthe, though my boots were in the stables, along with my helmet and vest. I slithered into the black breeches, added a turtleneck, and slipped on loafers over a pair of warm socks, then went downstairs in search of Matthew’s mother.
“I’m in here,” she called. I followed the sound to a small room painted warm terra-cotta. It was ornamented with old plates, animal horns, and an ancient dresser large enough to store an entire inn’s worth of plates, cups, and cutlery. Ysabeau peered over the pages of Le Monde, her eyes covering every inch of me. “Marthe tells me you slept.”
“Yes, thank you,” I shifted from one foot to the other as if waiting to see the school principal to explain my misbehavior.
Marthe saved me from further discomfort by arriving with a pot of tea. She, too, surveyed me from head to foot.
“You are better today,” she finally announced, handing me a mug. She stood there frowning until Matthew’s mother put down her paper, and then she departed.
In the paddock Fiddat and Rakasa stood side by side, mirror images right down to the armchair-style saddles on their backs.
“Ysabeau,” I protested, “Georges put the wrong tack on Rakasa. I don’t ride sidesaddle.”
“Are you afraid to try?” Matthew’s mother looked at me appraisingly.
“No!” I said, tamping down my temper. “I just prefer to ride astride.”
“How do you know?” Her emerald eyes flickered with a touch of malice.
We stood for a few moments, staring at each other. Rakasa stamped her hoof and looked over her shoulder.
Are you going to ride or talk? she seemed to be asking.
Behave, I replied brusquely, walking over and putting her fetlock against my knee.
“Georges has seen to this,” Ysabeau said in a bored tone.
“I don’t ride horses I haven’t checked myself.” I examined Rakasa’s hooves, ran my hands over her reins, and slid my fingers under the saddle.
“Philippe never did either.” Ysabeau’s voice held a note of grudging respect. With poorly concealed impatience, she watched me finish. When I was done, she led Fiddat over to a set of steps and waited for me to follow. After she’d helped me get into the strange contraption of a saddle, she hopped onto her own horse. I took one look at her and knew I was in for quite a morning. Judging from her seat, Ysabeau was a better rider than Matthew—and he was the best I’d ever seen.
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