So that’s it, Lord Deutran thought to herself as she closed her eyes.
Misha said quietly, “We can send you back. We’ll even forget this whole thing happened. If you acted of your own will, perhaps Lord Castello—”
“No!” Conscript shouted. “Kill me if it—”
Misha laughed. “I’m kidding, Little Brother.” She heard him shift and there was a cutting sound as he slipped the bindings off his fellow vassal. There was a tense silence that followed and then Misha said, “If you’re decided, then you shouldn’t live your unlife on your knees. Rise, Vassal.”
When Lord Deutran opened her eyes, Conscript was standing before her, baring his neck in supplication. Misha had a hand on his shoulder, but he was looking at her with an intense expression. She offered to link, but he refused with a mental flick. His refusal left her feeling more amused than annoyed. Clearly her own rebuffs had irritated him. She could look forward to his cold shoulder. She would make up for it later that night.
“You bare your throat,” Lord Deutran stated.
“I wish to serve in your court,” Conscript said.
“Without your own maker’s permission, this will be difficult.”
“I am willin’ to pay the price.”
“I will pay your price if I allow you to stay here,” she said softly and understanding bloomed on his face. “Do you think Lord Castello will not look for you here? Have you considered the position you put me in?” She spoke slowly, thoughtfully, but she could see he felt the menacing anger beneath her words. He was afraid of her. He was genuinely afraid of her. She didn’t know what to do with his fear. She hadn't been feared for a long time. Part of her wanted to revel in it, but she quickly snuffed out the feeling before it could feed that part of her.
Instead, she simply knocked again. “Let us have a little chat,” she offered psychically.
The door tentatively opened and she could feel his fear was more so directed at the thought of her giving him up to his lord in the north. He was terrified of going back. Death would be a relief if the alternative was going back to the Castle on the Rhein. She imposed her own structures in his mind: a couple of chairs outside the little shack. She gestured at one and sat in the other.
In his mind’s eye, Conscript was made out of poured stone. He broke out of his concrete home like a statue stepping off of its tableau. He was keyed up, confused and scared. It hurt her to see someone in such a state, but especially a vampire. A human in her care would at least have the benefit of community to help them towards recovery. And, eventually, they would die and peace would truly have them. But a vampire had the potential to live forever, and thus had the potential to remember every horrible thing that had ever happened to them. The fact that Conscript was still on this side of sanity for everything that had been done to him physically, she wondered how much more he could take before he slipped over the edge into sweet oblivion.
When she remained silent, Conscript said aloud, “I won’t go.”
Misha said, “Then we have no choice… Do we, Lord?”
Ah, Lord Deutran thought to herself. That’s what’s got you riled. He was still angry at Lord Castello after all. He saw an affront to vampire kind in that woman’s treatment towards her oldest vassal and so Misha was challenging Lord Deutran to be the better model. She had thought that he wouldn’t judge her, no matter her choice, but now that she saw the obstinate look on his face, she knew that he had simply been waiting for his opportunity to embarrass her for previous inaction.
Fate had left her with little choice in his eyes. And he was right, wasn’t he? Lord Deutran smiled. Oh, she was going to enjoy teasing her vassal later for this little display, but she secretly admitted to being impressed with his silent machinations. It wasn’t often they surprised each other, but when it happened, it sent a little thrill of passion through her. Two-thousand years and he still managed to be the best thing to have ever happened to her. He simply asked for her best in return.
“No, you’re right, Misha,” Lord Deutran said quietly, her tepid smile threatening to turn into a warm grin. “Turning our guest away now would only invite Lord Castello’s ire. She might even accuse this house of having orchestrated his escape.”
When she said that, her mental link to the foreign vassal strengthened ever so slightly and he opened the door a little more for her to at least have a look inside. What she saw simply made her angry, but she deflected his attention by asking him silently, “How long did you serve?”
Two-hundred years flashed through her in an instant. She kept her fury in check. She felt moved to tears, but she would wait until she was alone to express them. Still, there was something else he wasn’t showing her, and those nineteen years were longer, fuller memories; chiseled into the very stone of his soul.
A large house on the edge of an expansive property. A girl of five or six holding a large chicken in her arms. A priest glancing at his watch across the darkness of a deep, but small, grave. A black bomber crossing a white sky, a nuclear weapon strapped to its underbelly as light exploded around it. Tied to these stills was an overwhelming sense of duty and love and patriotism—an even bigger sense that life had yet more to offer the likes of him—that life and its preservation still had need of him—a huge, paranoid worry that he would forget about that duty and love and patriotism.
“A gift, your worry,” she told him. She subtly tucked her own tiny little life under the door of his house. He would see it when he was ready. Out loud, Lord Deutran said, “I too stood on the western side.”
Conscript’s eye widened ever so slightly before he gave her a skeptical look and then glanced at Misha for confirmation. Misha only nodded once to him, his expression grim. “You… stood with the humans?”
“I did.”
Conscript’s mind turned into a disorganized mess again and he shut the door and scattered the furniture. He didn’t know if he could trust his thoughts. He severed their link before he asked, “Who were you?”
She stood to her feet, letting the full measure of her age show on her face and bleed into her psychic aura. Her two-thousand years felt like a bed of velvet lilies, warm waterfalls, and mouthfuls of bloody grit. Her words were an intonation: “I remain Sebara, Lord Deutran of Cairn-over-Merda. Do you know what it means to name a vassal? Your name is your charge. Misha is named so because he has three charges. He is a question with no answer. He is by nature beautiful. He is my general and my champion.”
“You flattered me with this name,” Misha simply said.
Lord Deutran’s pale eyes met the gold eye of her rival’s vassal and she said, “I will charge you now. You were not made by me. You owe me no allegiance. You are a soldier of fortune. You are bound by duty to yourself alone. You were forged in war and you profit by it, but you will not be destroyed by it.”
Misha made him kneel and then stepped backwards himself.
Lord Deutran stepped down her dais and offered her hand. “Drink, Mercenary, and rise as my vassal.”
The young vampire before her gave her hand a panicked expression and he glanced over his shoulder to Misha for some kind of direction. Something must have passed between the two of them, because the pale creature before her finally took her hand in his and turned it over. Then he bowed his head. He rose and squeezed her hand once before releasing it. There was a grimace on his face, but she knew it to be a smile. He said to the floor, “I won’t spend any more time on my knees.” When he looked up, his expression was penitent. “What now?”
“Now, you answer to Misha.” This time, she grinned, glancing once at Misha’s slightly stricken expression. “He’s a strict teacher. You can’t go around biting everything that moves. He’ll teach you some manners.”
Mercenary looked surprised. “I won’t be…?”
“Mercenary, forget everything you think you know about being a vassal. Here, in Cairn-over-Merda, you are as much a servant of the people as you are a servant of my house.”
“Humans?”
&
nbsp; “Humans,” she confirmed.
“Come along, Merc,” Misha said, clapping him on the shoulder before gripping his elbow and leading him out of the grand hall. “We’ve got a trapper to visit.”
“A… Huh?”
“You have an apology to make, don’t you?”
“An apology? But he’s—Oh.”
Misha chortled loud and mirthful, before the doors closed behind them.
Lord Deutran took two steps backward and fell into her throne. The seven hidden vampire slayers stepped out of their crevices and she held up a hand, staying them. They were all black-clad shadows, silent in their workings. Con—No—Mercenary hadn’t even noticed their presence. She planned to give them some kind of bonus during the next holiday for responding to her summons so quickly and efficiently. But now, she didn’t need their assistance.
She put a hand to her forehead and kneaded the space between her brows. “Thank you, Senka,” she whispered in English to the nearest slayer. The dark clad master nodded. Then he gestured once at the rest and they all faded into the darkness of the throne room, leaving her alone, save for her usual silver-garbed guards.
She put her hand down on its rest and looked across from the throne, her eyes going to the looming portrait hanging above the grand hall’s main oak doors. She glared at her full-bodied portrait, scrutinized the passive, emotionless visage looking down at her without heat or ire. “You fool…” she hissed under her breath. “What conflict have you invited?”
Her portrait gave her an apathetic look in response.
“He saw through you,” she said mournfully. “He saw it, Old Girl.”
The portrait didn’t give her a care.
“I should have killed her then,” she breathed. She sank deeper into her throne, putting the back of her head up against it. “Now… I’ll have to answer as if I’m in the wrong.” She made one of her hands into a fist and brought it down, but stopped before she could do any damage to her chair. It had been a gift, after all. “I don’t like this anymore than you.”
Her portrait assured her that she neither liked nor disliked anything.
She said with finality, “I don’t know why. Maybe I am a coward.”
She stood from her throne and mentally reached out to her guards. The four silvered soldiers came to her and surrounded her as she left the throne room. She said to no one in particular, “Mercenary will have the same privileges as Misha. Show him his due respect, but don’t tolerate any indiscretions. Bring any grievances directly to me.”
“Yes, Lord,” the lieutenant said on their behalf. “We’ll pass it along.”
She sent him a psychic affirmation and a sense of gratitude. Then she asked, “Has anyone heard anything from the aviary?”
“Nothing as of yet. You know it’s two days of hard riding. Three if they come with more than an escort. Once they reach the pass, we’ll have word in an hour at the most. Plenty of time to form a masterful defense.”
“Where is Rinal?”
“In the apotheke.”
“What’s she making this time?”
“Something that smelled like wet dog and tobacco.”
“Of course,” she said with a tongue click. “Keep an eye on her.”
“As always, Lord.”
They reached her private wing and before she stepped through the door, she turned back to the officer in charge and said, “Bring me Misha when he turns the new blood over to his quarters.”
“Right away, Lord.”
“And, Lieutenant Dobin.”
“Y-Yes, Lord?”
“Congratulations on the son.”
The officer beamed and nodded, clearly embarrassed, but proud.
Then she disappeared into the dark recesses beyond with little more than a wink and a quick, secret smile. She had letters to write. She had things to put in motion. If there was no word from the aviary in a day, she would burn her efforts and crack open her favorite vintage out of relief.
But she had an experiential feeling in the pit of her stomach that reminded her nothing is ever easy and everything comes with its price.
Misha’s mind reaching for hers made her look up at the clock in surprise. It was nearly sunrise and she felt exhausted. She let him into her mind as he let himself into her study. She finished sealing her last letter as he pulled up a chair next to her. He took her ink-stained hands in his and kissed the back of her knuckles as she searched his tired face.
“She’s coming,” he said, his lips barely parting to impart the words.
“Of course she is,” she whispered, tipping his head up and running her hands over his face, under his lashes, through his hair. He closed his eyes, resting his hands over hers. “We have her precious Connie after all.” She kissed his cheek then and got up out of her chair. His hands lingered over her skin, brushing down to her fingertips as she left him.
When she opened the door, she beckoned him silently and thought, “What’s your assessment of our new foundling?”
He followed after her with his hands clasped behind his back. They tooled through the halls as they discussed business. He thought to her, “It will take time we don’t have to fully heal him… but fortunately, he may have saved himself from total insanity.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“He tethered his mind to a single moment in time and clung to it for dear unlife itself, and his mind is still rigid and raw with that abuse, like his grip was stronger than it needed to be.”
She sent him the image of Mercenary’s stone tablet, etched with his humanity. Misha sent her an affirmation that he had seen the edges of something similar in the young vampire. She then wondered, “Do you think he was trained?”
“No. Not even informally. Everything he does is on instinct. His direct thoughts are hardly sentences. Our discussion in the hall exhausted him.”
“Our discussion in the hall exhausted us all,” Deutran thought before she could stop herself. It made Misha physically hesitate beside her, but then he doubled his stride to fall back in step with her. For her to admit weakness outside of their sanctuary, she really must be tired.
Misha thought, “If I teach him, he will be a contender. He could prove dangerous.”
“He has already proven himself dangerous,” Deutran said. Then she smiled to show she wasn’t worried. She thought, “It’s a pity. Strong, inherently capable, and flexible… I suppose his only fault is that he was made by the one vampire I’ve ever wanted to unmake with my own hands.”
“A pity indeed,” Misha conceded. Then he said out loud, “Then it’s true.”
“What?”
“You didn’t like her after all.”
She frowned at him. “Why is that such a revelation to you?”
He gave her a smirk. “Dearheart, trying to read you is like trying to recite Shakespeare off the backside of a galloping horse.”
“No, I don’t like her, and I never said I liked her,” she said with a scowl.
Misha grinned, fang and all, and bumped his hip against her. “There’s my finicky, feline, femme fatale.” His smile grew slightly more serious as he said, “You have a plan, considering all the consequences.” It was not a question.
“I have several plans considering all the consequences,” she said with a little heat, still feeling irritated by his assumptions. Then she glowered at him. “You’ve been challenging me in the open because you thought I tolerated Lord Castello? You really, honestly thought I condoned her actions? No, you thought I approved of her?”
Now, she could feel him mentally backpedal as he said honestly, “I worry about you all the time, Deutran.” He looked away from her as he sent her an imagining of her lying in repose, lost to a deep torpor. “You have been awake longer than any other vampire still standing.” He sent her a memory that was almost sixteen hundred years old. He had approached her from behind, had suddenly felt panic, and had reached for her without her permission, fearing that she had turned into marble or ice. She had been stand
ing so still, so very still, while she studied a full moon. “I… sometimes imagine you must be so bored with everything, and that every time something exciting does happen, you feel something.”
She relaxed. He had felt her freezing control in Lord Castello’s mansion and had interpreted it as jealousy. She couldn’t fault him that. She put a hand on his arm and steered him back from whence they’d come. “I did feel something,” she admitted. “I’ve been angry before.”
“You spanking Suetonius comes to mind.”
She missed a step before regaining her own stride. “I had almost forgotten about that bastard too.” It was a lie. They both knew that.
Misha laughed. “One of my biggest regrets was not being there for the second battle…” She knew he only mentioned that regret in order to draw out her sympathy.
She let him have it. She sighed and said silently, “It was sixty-A-D, Angelos. Everyone was off fighting their own wars.”
He bumped his hip against her again and she bumped him back.
She psychically wound about him and him around her. She thought about all the times he had been by her side and how right the world felt when he had. And now he was with her. There was nothing and no one that could stand before her with him at her side. He saw fearlessness… but she only felt so dependent on him. Without him, she was just a scared Norfolk girl. With him, she could have conquered all of Rome.
“I don’t have the stomach for fighting anymore,” she said quietly.
He kissed the top of her silver head. “I’ll eat anything you put in front of me, Sebara,” he thought at her and she heard the truth under his words: You have enough blood on your hands. Let me fight for you this time.
She pushed her panic deep down inside of herself. She could only manage a small, trepid smile. The only reason she’d ever fought was to spare him the task. But time and circumstances had changed the vampire, the human, and the world’s perceptions regarding them all. The role of a vassal and his lord had even changed. She had to accept that her role was to stay upright and carry her legacy on and into the infinite. His role was to protect that legacy.
Vertus State (Vassal State Book 1) Page 4