Dark Ages Clan Novel Ventrue: Book 12 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga

by Matthew McFarland

  “Yes, my lord?”

  “If you will allow me to take the book with me, I shall add my comments to it as a Scion and a soldier, in the field, commanding troops, whenever I have time. I would imagine that such an opportunity has not yet been presented to Acindynus.”

  Rudolphus smiled and shook his head. “It has not, and I’m sure he would be glad of it. However, you must understand, that book has not been re-copied in several years. Were we to lose it, we would lose the commentaries of many distinguished Cainites, some of whom are difficult to find.” He raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. “At least one of which has since fallen to Final Death, actually.”

  Jürgen nodded. “I understand, Rudolphus. I can only offer to swear to do everything in my power to keep the book safe, and to send a courier immediately west if my own situation becomes untenable. If you are, as you say, a Scion,” at this Jürgen cocked an ear to listen for a lie, but heard none, “you know that my word binds me as surely as yours binds you to your master.”

  The Brujah messenger nodded. “Quite so, sir. I accept your word as binding, though I expect that if the book is lost or damaged, my master might wish some reparation to be made.”

  “Of course,” Jürgen nodded. The paper alone was valuable enough to merit a boon if he lost it.

  “I would also ask one other favor. I am not welcome in the lands of the Voivodate. I understand that you have had trouble there of late, but if I understand you correctly, you are traveling east, yes?”

  “Circumstances may indeed conspire to draw me to Transdanubia, yes.”

  “Surely some of the Tzimisce walk the Via Regalis, but I have never met one, Scion or otherwise. If, perhaps, you chance to come across such a Tzimisce and are on somewhat amicable terms, you might persuade him to write his own thoughts in this book? My master would be overjoyed, I know.”

  Jürgen laughed out loud, and Heinrich grinned as well. “Yes, of course. And if I chance to meet Our Savior on the road as well, I shall of course obtain his insights.”

  “My lord, have I offended?” Rudolphus was apparently not as well-informed as he might be, considering the number of Cainites he had undoubtedly spoken with, else he would have known the depth of Jürgen’s loathing for the Tzimisce. Jürgen wondered if the courier really understood the value of the book he carried or if he was simply anxious to please his master.

  “No, Rudolphus. I apologize for my brusqueness. I do wish you to understand, however, that I am unlikely to speak with a Tzimisce under circumstances that would allow me to make this offer. If, by some miracle, it does happen, I shall of course do as you request.”

  Rudolphus grinned. “Excellent. In that case, my lord, I will request to stay in Magdeburg only one night, and then I shall be leaving for Hamburg.”

  “I have heard that Hamburg has a Malkavian prince, is that true?” The voice was Rosamund’s, and Jürgen started. She had been quiet since before he’d read the letter, and her voice once again stirred the feeling within that wasn’t quite hunger.

  Rudolphus turned to face her. “Yes, my lady. Prince Midian is indeed one of the Moon Clan, and I must say that his court is… rather different that my lord Prince Jürgen’s.”

  Jürgen looked down at the book with something like distaste on his face. “Are his notes in this book?”

  Rudolphus shifted uncomfortably. “No. I tried to explain my mission, but Prince Midian never quite seemed to understand what I wanted. Actually, he didn’t seem to understand that I was there at all, at times. I left the following night, and was halfway here before a messenger from an elder of Hamburg called Lucius Cornelius Scipio, one of my clan.”

  “I know Scipio, but he’s no Scion.” Jürgen frowned. Rumors flew about the “true power” in the city of Hamburg, but as the Cainites there were ideologically much closer to Julia Antasia’s humanist leanings than he and his sire, he had little verified information. Scipio, from what he’d heard, only held what power he chose, but there were other, more influential, Cainites in the city.

  “Indeed, many of those who have made commentary are not. Other viewpoints are useful, to a point, or so says my master. Faithful Cainites may remind us that we answer to God—”

  “‘Remember, you are mortal.’” Jürgen smirked. “Very well. Godspeed on your journey, Rudolphus. How shall I leave word for you regarding this book?”

  “I shall send word to my master that the book, or word of it, will one night await him in Magdeburg. He will advise me from there, though I’m sure he will simply send a minor agent to make inquiries of your seneschal periodically.”

  “Good.” Jürgen nodded at Rudolphus, who correctly surmised that the interview was over and took his leave. Heinrich followed him out. Jürgen sat down and opened the book. The words “Letters from the Lord of the Night” greeted him. He grimaced.

  “What is it?” Rosamund could read him. She knew he was annoyed, even if the reason was minor. Could she read his mind as well? Would she?

  “Nothing. Vanity.” He smiled bitterly. “I find it curious that Julia Antasia, who admittedly is much my elder but is no Scion, has commented in this book no fewer than three separate times.”

  “Yet you have never been asked before.” She sat down next to him. “It does seem strange. Especially since Rudolphus has been in Magdeburg before.”

  “What?” Jürgen was fairly sure he had never seen the Brujah before, but then, messengers weren’t supposed to be noticeable.

  “He was at the tourney. I didn’t speak with him, and I don’t think he was there the entire time, but I remember him.” She sensed his displeasure and spoke before he could. “I didn’t say anything before because I wasn’t sure. He’s a messenger, and he’s unremarkable. But before he left, I recognized him.”

  “How?” Jürgen turned to face her, as difficult as it was to look at her eyes.

  “I don’t know. His walk, perhaps. The way he smiled at Heinrich. I don’t know what he was doing here before, but we could call him back to ask him.”

  Jürgen considered. “No need. He is, as you say, a messenger, and any business he had at the tourney was concluded then. In any case, we don’t need any other distractions. We’ll be leaving for Livonia tomorrow night.”

  “We?” Rosamund was smiling. As beautiful as her speeches could be, one word was enough to render Lord Jürgen mute, and that enraged him.

  “Yes.” He tried to think of something to say, something that would tell her it wasn’t because he distrusted her, it was because she was who she was that he wanted her along. “The thought of not seeing you for months…” he stopped. “Yes. Both of us. And Wiftet, I think.”

  Rosamund smiled, and glanced down at the book, and then back up at Jürgen. “I look forward to your thoughts on that book.”

  “Hmm? Oh, yes. I look forward to reading it, although I am a bit confused as to what Acindynus hopes he’ll gain by asking the opinions of those who don’t walk my—our—road.”

  “Just what Rudolphus said, I think. You give confession to one of the Faithful.”

  “Yes. Erasmus.” The Toreador priest was out of the city on an errand, and wouldn’t be back before they left.

  Rosamund lowered her eyes. “That isn’t who I meant,” she whispered.

  Jürgen smiled almost guiltily. “Ah. Gotzon.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t explain Gotzon if I tried. He’s a Lasombra, yes, and yet he is not much like most others of his clan. I trust you know enough of me, my lady, to know my mind on the Clan of Shadows as a whole.” She nodded; Jürgen made no secret of his hatred for Lasombra; travelers of the clan in Germany didn’t bother stopping in Magdeburg. “He… I have known him since my Embrace. Since that night, in fact.” He stopped. He was not prepared to tell the tale of his Embrace—the whole tale, anyway—to anyone, even her. Especially her, he thought. Instead, he thought of Gotzon and what he’d done since then. “Gotzon’s faith is pure in the way a crusader’s should be.”

  “Is he a crusader, then? What is his crusade?”


  “He has many.” Jürgen shifted slightly. Talking about Gotzon made him uncomfortable; while he was not bound by oath or propriety from revealing Gotzon’s motives, he disliked speaking of his confessor. “If you asked him, he would probably say only that he does the Lord’s work, but the manner of work that God demands of him is bloody indeed. Pagans, heretics, even demons and those who would call them forth—all those have fallen before him.”

  “I find it strange, then, that more tales don’t circulate of his doings. Such a hero should have ballads.”

  Jürgen smirked. “I don’t think that the title ‘hero’ truly suits him.” Jürgen looked upward, trying to think of a way to explain Gotzon to Rosamund. “Consider,” he said, “the Brothers of the Black Cross, or even the mortal order to which they are bound. All of those men are clergy, and yet they fight and kill, in God’s name.”

  “I have seen what men do in God’s name,” said Rosamund coldly.

  “Yes, I know.” The Church had its own warriors to hunt down vampires, and Rosamund had suffered because of them. “Gotzon is not unlike those inquisitors, I’m afraid. I’ve often thought that only those who have seen Hell, in some form, are qualified to preach of it.”

  Rosamund shivered. The gesture was meaningless. The night was cold, but the flesh of Cainites was colder. “I have no doubt that he has seen Hell.”

  Jürgen took her hand, gently. “Do you fear him?” He winced immediately. That wasn’t what he’d wanted to know. Rosamund seemed to understand, however.

  “I don’t fear him, exactly. Certainly he is frightening, but many elders are.” The specter of Alexander seemed to alight on her shoulder for a moment, but then was gone. “I fear… what he has seen. As you say, he has seen Hell. I fear that some part of him might still be there. His eyes—”

  “No different than many others of his clan, I assure you,” Jürgen muttered. He was thinking of Norbert von Xanten, the Lasombra Prince of Brunswick. Norbert had once harbored desires of taking Magdeburg, having been its archbishop in life. When he had joined the ranks of the undead, the Brujah Cedric had still been Prince of Magdeburg and Jürgen his occasional advisor (though still in service to Hardestadt). After a fire claimed Cedric, Norbert and Jürgen had both been contenders for the city’s throne, but with Hardestadt’s support, Jürgen had easily emerged victorious. He had often wondered who Norbert’s sire was and why he hadn’t supported his childe’s bid for power—or indeed, why no other prominent Lasombra had stepped forward.

  “Yes, but his eyes are different.” Rosamund was insistent. “His eyes are… so different from yours.”

  Jürgen blinked. “How so, my lady?”

  She smiled again. “Your eyes are strong, my lord. Your eyes are alive. I see motion and steel and power in your eyes. Your eyes frighten me at times, too, but not like his. Yours have a vibrancy to them that I’ve not seen—I’ve seen such intensity before, but never under such control. You see. You know, and it’s beautiful to behold.” She stopped, and gazed at his eyes. Jürgen knew that she might stay like that for hours if he let her, transfixed by something so simple as his eyes. He reached up and brushed her cheek, and she shook her head and smiled demurely.

  “And his eyes… aren’t like mine?”

  “Gotzon’s eyes are lifeless. Not dead or even empty, but lifeless. Like seawater at night. The darkness he’s beheld isn’t empty, and that’s what terrifies me. I think that his faith is so strong because he knows what’s waiting in the dark.”

  Jürgen could think of nothing to say, so he reached forward to touch her shoulder. She moved forward to hold him, and he put his arms around her, awkwardly, her small frame pressed close against his chest. A sword might break against my body, he thought, and yet this girl breaks me. He opened his mouth to say as much to her, and then stopped.

  He let her go and turned towards the door with a look of annoyance. Someone was waiting on the other side—Heinrich, by the sound. “Enter.”

  Heinrich leaned into the room. “Forgive me, my lord. But I knew you would wish to know immediately.”

  “Yes?”

  Heinrich glanced behind him as though afraid of being watched. “Albin the Ghost has been captured….” He glanced nervously at Rosamund. “He was captured in my lady Rosamund’s rooms.”

  Chapter Three

  Watching Rosamund of Islington laugh was as close to sunlight as any sane vampire ever dared go. Hearing her sing or recite poetry was to hear a siren. Watching her walk was to see the beauty of God’s love in motion.

  Watching her weep was unbearable.

  Rosamund crouched over the corpse of her maidservant. Jürgen tried to remember her name—Blanche, he believed. She was French, and despite her time here hadn’t been able to learn much German. He remembered Rosamund laughing about it.

  Rosamund cared for her servants too deeply.

  She crouched over the woman’s corpse and shut Blanche’s eyes, whispering a prayer for her soul. Jürgen had already sent a messenger to fetch Jervais, but it was more to see where the Tremere was than out of any need to have him here. If need be, Jürgen could command the very room to give up its memories, but he didn’t think it would be necessary. It was fairly obvious what had happened.

  Albin the Ghost, Jürgen’s onetime spy, had been charged with spying on a band of rabble calling itself the Silent Fury. Jürgen knew the Silent Fury; he’d discussed them with Hardestadt and with other Cainite nobles. They wished for nothing more than the ashes of the Cainite nobility staining their fingers—what they called “freedom.” It wasn’t hard to see how Albin, who had always been an imbecile, could have fallen in with them. He had failed to report in for more than a month, and Jürgen had assumed he had either joined them or been destroyed. It seemed that he had returned, although what he hoped to accomplish by this course of action wasn’t easily apparent.

  He had sneaked into the priory, probably by using the one gift that Caine had seen fit to grant him—stealth. If Jürgen remembered correctly, Albin was among those Cainites who could shroud themselves in another’s likeness for a short time. Jürgen personally found the practice crass and cowardly, but it suited Albin well. Jürgen clucked his tongue. Albin was no threat, but a cannier vampire could certainly wreak havoc upon the court using similar abilities. He made a mental note to think of a way to counter such attacks and then went back to surveying the scene.

  No one else had been reported missing and no other bodies had been found, so if Albin had had any business other than murdering the unfortunate maid, it remained undiscovered. Jürgen wasn’t willing to give Albin much credit for strategy (although he wouldn’t have expected this much audacity from the clanless wretch), but did dispatch two knights to search the area for anyone lurking in shadows or anything out of place. He admonished them not to separate and not to make eye contact with anyone they didn’t know. “You are both good men,” he said. “I have no wish to kill you because your minds are poisoned by another Cainite.”

  Blanche had died to assuage the Ghost’s hunger. Her body was chalk-white and two ragged holes trickled blood down her neck. The Caitiff hadn’t even bothered to close the wounds.

  Rosamund sat weeping, her face stained crimson. Jürgen turned away; he had no desire to see her this way. Vampires could not cry true tears, he knew this, but the sight of Rosamund’s perfect face streaked with blood…

  He stalked out of her quarters and made for Sir Thomas, her bodyguard. The Englishman saw Jürgen coming and, Jürgen thought, made a mental prayer that his death would be painless. The Sword-Bearer picked the knight up by his throat and pressed him against a wall. “Sir Thomas, is it?”

  “Yes,” he croaked. “I am sorry, I don’t—”

  “Silence,” hissed Jürgen. He lowered his arm so that he and the knight were face to face. “Where were you?”

  “Awaiting my lady outside the priory. She was with you.”

  Jürgen bared his fangs. “Why were you not here?”

  Thomas, hi
s mind caught in Jürgen’s grasp as surely as his neck, cried out, “I was waiting on my lady, sir. I was told to wait on her there. She told me. I wait for her every night—I do not guard her quarters.”

  Jürgen dropped him in disgust. Of course he was right—had Rosamund actually been in her quarters, she would have had protectors aplenty. Blanche, a maidservant simply waiting on her lady’s return, did not. He turned and walked back to his lady and knelt next to her.

  “I am sorry,” he said. It was all he could think of.

  “Oh, Blanche,” Rosamund whispered. Her tears had stopped, but her face was still stained red. Jürgen helped her up and gestured to Sir Thomas and to Rosamund’s secretary and assistant, Peter, only now arriving.

  “You two, attend your lady. Do not leave her side,” he said pointedly at Thomas. The two men led Rosamund off. Christof stepped up beside Jürgen. “This has happened before, Christof. One of her servants dying.” Jürgen shook his head. “It’s amazing, you know. She knows their names, their minds, their lives.”

  “Why don’t you, my lord?”

  Jürgen turned to face his second, but the look on her face was merely curious. She had intended no disrespect.

  Jürgen considered the question. “I suppose I could never weep so for anyone.”

  “No one?” The two Cainites watched Rosamund being led off to the Embassy of the Rose.

  “Where is Albin?”

  Christof began walking. “This way, my lord. Chained and awaiting you.”

  Jürgen glanced behind him. “And where is Jervais? More to the point, where was he during all of this?”

  “The messenger you sent spoke with Fidus, his apprentice. Jervais has been deep in study all night and left strict instructions not to be disturbed.” Christof sniffed. “Deeply involved in blasphemy, no doubt.”