Blood and Gold (48 page)

One of the boys had brought Raymond a red velvet dressing gown, and once he was clothed in this, and settled in his chair, he did not seem so fragile. His face was radiant after all, his cheeks actually rosy, and I could easily see the young man in him that I had once known.

“My friend, should anything come between us,” he said, “let me give you to know that
she
still travels in her old way, rapidly through many European cities. Never to England, for I don’t think they want to cross the water, though no doubt they can, contrary to folklore.”

I laughed. “Is that the folklore? That we can’t cross water? It’s nonsense,” I said. I would have said more, but I wondered if it were wise.

He apparently took no note of my hesitation. He plunged on:

“She has for the last few decades traveled under the name of the Marquisa De Malvrier, and her companion the Marquis of the same name, though it is she who goes to Court more often than he does. They’re seen in Russia, in Bavaria, in Saxony—in countries in which old ceremony is honored, seeming from time to time to need the courtly balls and the immense Roman church ceremonies. But understand, I have gleaned my account of this from many different reports. I’m sure of nothing.”

The warm wine was being set upon a small stand beside him. He took the cup in his hands. His hands were shaking. He drank from the wine.

“But how do such reports come to you?” I asked. I was fascinated. There was no doubt he was telling me the truth. As for the rest of the house, I could hear its many inhabitants all around us, waiting in silence it seemed for some kind of summons.

“Forget them,” he said. “What can they learn from this audience?” he asked. “They are all faithful members. To answer your questions, we go out sometimes in the guise of priests seeking information about those whom we call vampires. We inquire as to mysterious deaths. And so we gather information which is meaningful to us when it may not be meaningful to others.”

“Ah, of course. And you take note of the name when it is mentioned in Russia or Saxony or Bavaria.”

“Exactly. I tell you it is De Malvrier. They have a liking for it. And I shall tell you something else.”

“Please, you must.”

“Several times we have found upon the wall of a church inscribed the name, Pandora.”

“Ah, she’s done this,” I said, desperately trying to conceal my emotion. “She wants to be discovered by me.” I paused. “This is painful for me,” I said. “I wonder if the one who travels with her even knows her by that name. Ah, this is painful, but why do you assist me?”

“By my very life, I don’t know,” he said, “except somehow I believe in you.”

“What do you mean believe, believe that I’m a wonder? That I’m a demon? Believe what, Raymond, tell me? Oh, never mind, it doesn’t matter, does it? We do things because our hearts impel us.”

“Marius, my friend,” he said, leaning forward and touching my knee with his right hand, “long ago in Venice when I spied upon you, you know that I spoke to you with the purity of my mind. I read your thoughts also. I knew that you slew only those who were the degraded killers of their own sisters or brothers.”

“That’s true, Raymond, and it was that way with Pandora. But is it now?”

“Yes, I think so,” he said, “for every ghastly crime imputed to the vampires whom these creatures may in fact be is connected to one who was known to be guilty of many murders. So you see it’s not difficult for me to help you.”

“Ah, so she is true to our vow,” I whispered. “I didn’t think so, not when I heard of her harsh companion.”

I looked intently at Raymond, seeing with every passing moment more of the young man I had once known so briefly. It was saddening to me. It was dreadful. And the more I felt it, the more I tried to conceal it.

What was my suffering to this, the slow triumph of old age? Nothing.

“Where was she seen last?” I asked.

“On that point,” he said, “allow me to give you my interpretation of her behavior. She and her companion follow a pattern in their roamings. They go in rude circles, returning over and over again to one city. Once they have been some time in that city they begin their circles once more until they have gone as far afield as Russia. The central city of which I speak is Dresden.”

“Dresden!” I said. “I don’t know the place. I’ve never been there.”

“Oh, it cannot rival your gorgeous Italian cities. It cannot equal Paris or London. But it is the capital of Saxony and it lies on the Elbe River. It has been much adorned by the various Dukes who have ruled there. And invariably, I say invariably, these creatures—Pandora and her companion—return to Dresden. It may not be for twenty years, but they come back to Dresden.”

I fell silent in my excitement. Was this some pattern meant for me to interpret? Was this pattern meant for me to discover? Was it like a great round spiderweb meant sooner or later to ensnare me?

Why else would Pandora and her companion follow such a life? I couldn’t imagine it. But how did I dare to think Pandora even remembered me. She had written her name in the stone of the church wall, not mine.

At last I heaved a great sigh.

“How can I tell you what all this means to me?” I asked. “You have given me marvelous news. I’ll find her.”

“Now,” he said in the most confident manner, “shall we take up the other matter which I mentioned to you in my letter?”

“Amadeo,” I whispered. “What happened to the infidel? I sense no blood drinker in this place. Am I deceived? The creature’s either very far afield or he’s left you.”

“The monster left us soon after I wrote to you. When he realized he could hunt for his victims throughout the countryside, he was gone. We could do nothing to control him. Our appeals to him that he feed only on evil men meant nothing to him. I don’t even know if he still exists.”

“You must guard yourselves against this individual,” I said. I looked about myself at the spacious stone room. “This seems a castle of remarkable size and strength. Nevertheless, we speak of a blood drinker.”

He nodded.

“We are well protected here, Marius. We do not admit everyone as we admitted you, take my word for it. But would you hear now what he told us?”

I bowed my head. I knew what Raymond would tell me.

“The Satan worshipers,” I said, using the more specific words, “the very ones who burnt my house in Venice, they prey upon humans in Paris. And my brilliant auburn-haired apprentice, Amadeo, is still their leader?”

“As far as we know,” he said. “They are very clever. They hunt the poor, the diseased, the outcast. The renegade who told us so much explained that they fear “places of light,’ as they call them. They have taken to believing that it is not God’s will for them to be richly clothed, or to enter churches. And your Amadeo now goes by the name of Armand. The renegade told us that Armand has the zeal of the converted.”

I was too miserable to say anything.

I shut my eyes, and when I opened them I was looking at the fire which was burning very well in the deep fireplace.

Then slowly my gaze shifted to Raymond Gallant who was staring at me intently.

“I have told you everything, really,” he said.

I gave him a faint, sad smile and I nodded.

“You’ve been generous indeed. And many a time in the past when one was generous to me, I took from my tunic a purse of gold. But is such needed here?”

“No,” he said agreeably, shaking his head. “We need no gold, Marius. Gold we have always had in great abundance. What is life without gold? But we have it.”

“What can I do for you, then?” I asked. “I’m in your debt. I’ve been in your debt since the night we spoke in Venice.”

“Talk to several of our members,” he replied. “Let them come into the room. Let them see you. Let them ask you questions. That is what you can do for me. Tell them only what you will. But create a truth for them which can be recorded for study by others.”

“Of course. I’ll do this willingly, but not in this library, Raymond, beautiful as it is. We must be in an open place. I have an instinctive fear of mortals who know what I am.” I paused. “In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever been surrounded by such.”

He thought on this for a moment. Then he spoke:

“Our courtyard is too noisy, too close to the stables. Let it be on one of the towers. It will be cold, but I shall tell them all that they must dress warmly.”

“Shall we elect the South Tower for our purpose?” I asked. “Bring no torches with you. The night is clear and the moon is full and all of you will be able to see me.”

I slipped out of the room then, hurrying down the stairs, and easily passing through one of the narrow stone windows. With preternatural speed I went to the battlements of the South Tower, and there waited in the mild wind for all of them to gather around me.

Of course it seemed I had traveled by magic, but that I had not was one of the things which I meant to tell them.

Within a quarter of an hour they were all assembled, some twenty well-dressed men, both young and old, and two handsome women, and I found myself in the midst of a circle.

No torches, no. I was not in any conceivable danger.

For a long moment I allowed them to look at me, and form whatever conception they desired, and then I spoke:

“You must tell me what you want to know. For my part, I tell you plainly that I am a blood drinker. I have lived for hundreds of years, and I can remember clearly when I was a mortal man. It was in Imperial Rome. You may record this. I have never separated my soul from that mortal time. I refuse to do it.”

For a moment only silence followed, but then Raymond began with the questions.

Yes, we had a “beginning,” I explained but I could say nothing of it. Yes, we became much much stronger with time. Yes, we tended to be lone creatures or to choose our companions very carefully. Yes, we could make others. No, we were not instinctively vicious, and we felt a deep love for mortals which was often our spiritual undoing.

There were countless other little questions. And I answered them all to the best of my ability. I would say nothing of our vulnerability to the sun or fire. As for the “coven of vampires” in Paris and Rome, I knew little.

At last I said:

“It’s time for me to leave now. I will travel hundreds of miles before dawn. I lodge in another country.”

“But how do you travel?” one of them asked.

“On the wind,” I said. “It’s a gift that has come to me with the passing centuries.”

I went to Raymond and I took him in my arms again, and then turning to several of the others I bade them come and touch me so that they could see I was a real being.

I stood back, took my knife and cut my hand with it, and held out my hand so that they could see the flesh heal.

There were gasps from them.

“I must be gone now. Raymond, my thanks and my love,” I said.

“But wait,” said one of the most elderly of the men. He had been standing back all the while, leaning on a cane, listening to me as intently as all the others. “I have one last question for you, Marius.”

“Ask me,” I said immediately.

“Do you know anything of our origins?”

For a moment I was puzzled. I couldn’t quite imagine what he meant in this question. Then Raymond spoke:

“Do you know anything about how the Talamasca came to be? That is what we are asking you.”

“No,” I said in quiet astonishment.

A silence fell over them all, and I realized quickly that they themselves were confused about how the Talamasca had come about. And it did come back to me that Raymond had told me something of this when first I met him.

“I hope you find your answers,” I said.

Then off I went into the darkness.

But I didn’t stay away. I did what I had failed to do on my arrival. I hovered quite close but just beyond their hearing and their vision. And with my powerful gifts, I listened to them as they roamed their many towers and their many libraries.

How mysterious they were, how dedicated, how studious.

Some night in the far future perhaps I would come to them again, only to learn more of them. But just now, I had to return to the shrine and to Bianca.

She was still awake when I came into the blessed place. And I saw that she had lighted the hundred candles.

This was a ceremony that I sometimes failed to do, and I was pleased to see it.

“And are you happy with your visit to the Talamasca?” she asked in her frank voice. She had that beguiling look of simplicity on her face which always prompted me to tell her everything.

“I was most pleased. I found them the honest scholars they professed to be. I gave them what knowledge I could, but by no means what I might, for that would have been too foolish. But all they seek is knowledge and I left them more than happy.”

She narrowed her eyes as if she could not quite imagine what the Talamasca was and I understood her.

I sat down beside her, folded her close and wrapped the fur cloak around us both.

“You smell of the cold, good wind,” she said. “Perhaps we are meant to be creatures of the shrine only, creatures of the cold sky and the inhospitable mountains.”

I said nothing, but in my mind I thought of only one thing: the far-off city of Dresden. Pandora sooner or later always returned to Dresden.

31

A
hundred years would pass before I found Pandora.

During that time my powers increased enormously.

That night after my return from the Talamasca in England, I tested all of them and made certain that, never again would I be at the mercy of Santino’s miscreants. For many nights I left Bianca to herself as I made certain of my advantages.

And once I was utterly sure of my swiftness, of the Fire Gift, and of an immeasurable power to destroy with invisible force, I went to Paris with no other thought but to spy upon Amadeo’s coven.

Before I left for this little venture, I confessed my goals to Bianca and she had at once beseeched me not to court such danger.

“No, let me go,” I responded. “I could hear his voice now over the miles perhaps if I chose to do it. But I must be certain of what I hear and what I see. And I shall tell you something else. I have no desire to reclaim him.”

She was saddened by this, but she seemed to understand it. She kept her usual place in the corner of the shrine, merely nodding to me and exacting the promise from me that I would be most careful.

As soon as I reached Paris, I fed from one of several murderers, luring him by the powerful Spell Gift from his place in a comfortable inn, and then I sought refuge in a high bell tower of Notre Dame de Paris itself to listen to the miscreants.

Indeed, it was a huge nest of the most despicable and hateful beings, and they had sought out a catacomb for their existence in Paris just as they had in ancient Rome centuries ago.

This catacomb was under the cemetery called Les Innocents, and those words seemed tragically apt when I caught their addle-brained vows and chants before they poured out into the night to bring cruelty as well as death to the people of Paris.

“All for Satan, all for the Beast, all to serve God, and then return to our penitential existence.”

It was not difficult for me to find, through many different minds, the location of my Amadeo, and within an hour or so of my arrival in Paris, I had him fixed as he walked through a narrow medieval street, never dreaming that I watched him from above in bitter silence.

He was dressed in rags, his hair caked with filth, and when he found his first victim, he visited upon her a painful death which appalled me.

For an hour or more my eyes followed him as he proceeded on, feeding on another hapless creature, and then circling back to walk his way to the enormous cemetery.

Leaning against the cold stone of the tower room, I heard him deep in his underground cell drawing together his “coven” as he himself now called it and demanding of each how he or she had harried, for the love of God, the local population.

“Children of Darkness, it is almost dawn. Each of you shall now open his or her soul to me.”

How firm, how clear was his voice. How certain he was of what he said. How quick he was to correct any Child of Satan who had not slain mortals ruthlessly. It was a man’s voice I heard coming from the lips of the boy I once knew. It was chilling to me.

“Why were you given the Dark Gift?” he demanded of a laggard. “Tomorrow night you must strike twice. And if all of you do not give me greater devotion, I shall punish you for your sins, and see that others are brought into the coven.”

At last I couldn’t listen anymore. I was repelled.

I dreamt of going down into his underground world, of pulling him out of it as I burnt his followers, and forcing him into the light, of taking him with me to the shrine of Those Who Must Be Kept, and pleading with him to renounce his vocation.

But I didn’t do it. I couldn’t do it.

For years and years, he had been one of them. His mind, his soul, his body belonged to those he ruled; and nothing that I had taught him had given him the strength to fight them.

He was not my Amadeo anymore. That is what I had come to Paris to learn and now I knew the truth of it.

I felt sadness. I felt despair. But maybe it was anger and revulsion which caused me to leave Paris that night, saying to myself in essence that he must free himself from the dark mentality of the coven on his own. I could not do it for him.

I had labored long and hard in Venice to erase his memory of the Monastery of the Caves. And now he had found another place of rigid ritual and denial. And his years with me had not protected him from it. Indeed, a circle had long ago closed for him. He was the priest once more. He was the Fool for Satan, as he had once been the Fool for God in far-away Russia. And his brief time with me in Venice had been nothing.

When I told these things to Bianca, when I explained them as best I could, she was sad but she didn’t press me.

It was easy between us as always, with her listening to me, and then offering her own response without anger.

“Perhaps in time, you’ll change your mind,” she said. “You are the one with the power to go there, to fight those who would restrain him if you tried to take him. And that is what it would require, I think, that you would have to take him by force, insist that he come here to be with you, and see the Divine Parents. I don’t possess the power to do these things. I ask only that you think on it, that you make no bitter iron resolve against it.”

“I give you my word,” I said, “I have not done that. But I do not think the sight of the Divine Parents would change the heart of Amadeo.” I paused.

I thought on all this for a long moment and then I spoke to her more directly:

“You’ve only shared this knowledge with me for a brief time,” I said. “And in the Divine Parents we both see great beauty. But Amadeo might well see something different. Remember what I’ve told you of the long centuries that lie behind me. The Divine Parents do not speak. The Divine Parents do not redeem. The Divine Parents ask for nothing.”

“I understand,” she said.

But she didn’t. She had not spent enough years with the King and Queen. She couldn’t possibly comprehend the full effect of their passivity. But I went on in a mild manner:

“Amadeo possesses a creed, and a seeming place in God’s plan,” I said. “He might well see our Mother and Father as an enigma belonging to a pagan era. That wouldn’t warm his heart. That wouldn’t give him the strength which he derives now from his flock, and believe you me, Bianca, he is the leader there. Our boy of long ago is old now; he is a sage of the Children of Darkness as they call themselves.” I sighed.

A little flash of bitter memory came back to me, of Santino asking me when we met in Rome if Those Who Must Be Kept were holy or profane.

I told this to Bianca.

“Ah, then you spoke to this creature. You’ve never told me this.”

“Oh, yes, I spoke to him and spurned him and insulted him. I did all of these foolish things when something more vicious was required. Indeed, when the very words “Those Who Must Be Kept’ had come from his lips, I should have put an end to him.”

She nodded. “I come more and more to understand it. Yet still I hope in time that you will return to Paris, that you will at least reveal yourself to Amadeo. They are weak ones, are they not, and you could come upon him in some open place where you could—.”

“I know well what you mean to say,” I answered. “I wouldn’t allow myself ever to be surrounded by torches. Perhaps I will do as you suggest. But I’ve heard Amadeo’s voice, and I don’t believe he can be changed now. And there is one thing more which is worth mentioning. Amadeo knows how to free himself from this coven.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am. Amadeo knows how to live in the lighted world, and he is ten times stronger by virtue of my old blood than are those who listen to his commands. He could break away. He chooses not to do it.”

“Marius,” she said plaintively, “you know how much I love you and how loath I am to contradict you.”

“No, say what you must say,” I urged her at once.

“Think of what he suffered,” she said. “He was but a child when it happened.”

I agreed to all this. Then I spoke again:

“Well, he’s no child now, Bianca. He may be as beautiful as he was when I made him through the Blood, but he is a patriarch in the dust. And all of Paris, the wondrous city of Paris, surrounds him. I watched him move through the city streets alone. There was no one there to restrict him. He might have sought the Evil Doer as we do. But he did not. He drank deep of innocent blood, not once but twice.”

“Ah, I see. This is what has so embittered you.”

I thought on it.

“Yes, you’re right. It’s what turned me away, though I didn’t even know it. I thought it was the manner in which he spoke to his flock. But you are right. It was those two deaths, from which he drew his hot red feast, when Paris swarmed with mortals steeped in murder who might easily have been slain by him.”

She laid her hand on mine.

“If I choose to snatch any one of these Children of Darkness from his lair,” I said, “it is Santino.”

“No, but you mustn’t go to Rome. You don’t know whether or not there are old ones among that coven.”

“Some night,” I said, “some night I shall go there. When I am more certain of immense power, and when I am more certain of the ruthless rage it requires to destroy many others.”

“Be still now,” she said. “Forgive me.”

I was quiet for a moment.

She knew how many nights I had wandered alone. I had now to confess what I had been doing on those nights. I had now to begin my secret plan. I had now—for the first time in all our years together—to drive a wedge between her and me, while giving her precisely what she wanted.

“But let’s leave talk of Amadeo,” I said. “My mind is on happier things.”

She was immediately interested. She reached out and stroked my face and hair as was her custom.

“Tell me.”

“How long has it been since you asked me if we could have our own dwelling?”

“Oh, Marius, don’t tease me on this account. Is it possible!”

“My darling, it’s more than possible,” I said, warmed by her beaming smile. “I have found a splendid place, a lovely little city on the Elbe River in Saxony.”

For this I received the sweetest kiss.

“Now in these many nights when I have been off on my own, I have taken the liberty of acquiring a castle near the city, a much decayed place, and I hope you’ll forgive me—.”

“Marius, this is momentous news!” she said.

“I have already spent a considerable sum for the repairs—the new wooden floors and stairs, glass windows, and abundant furnishings.”

“Oh, but this is wonderful,” she said. She put her arms around me.

“I’m relieved that you’re not angry with me,” I said, “for moving so quickly without you. You might say I fell in love with the place, and taking several drapers and carpenters there I told them my dreams and now all is being done as I have directed.”

“Oh, how could I be angry?” she said. “I want it more than anything in the world.”

“There is one more aspect to this castle which I should disclose,” I said. “Though the more modern building above is more like a palace than a castle, its foundations are quite old. Indeed, a major part of the foundations were built in early times. And there are huge crypts beneath it, and a true dungeon.”

“You mean to move the Divine Parents?” she asked.

“I do. I think it’s time for it. You know as well as I that there are small cities and towns springing up all around us. We aren’t isolated here. Yes, I want to move the Divine Parents.”

“If you say, of course, I go along with you.” She was too happy to conceal it. “But is it safe there? Didn’t you remove them to this remote place so that you never had to fear their discovery?”

I thought on this for a while before answering.

At last I said:

“It is safe there. And with the passing centuries, the world of the Undead changes around us. And I can’t endure this place any longer. And so I take them to a new place. And there are no blood drinkers in it. I have searched far and wide for them. They aren’t there. I hear no young ones. I hear no old ones. I believe it’s safe. And perhaps the most true answer to that logic is this: I want to bring them there. I want a new place. I want new mountains and new forests.”

“I understand,” she said. “Oh, I do understand,” she said again. “And more than ever, I believe that they can defend themselves. Oh, they need you, I don’t doubt it, and that’s why on that long ago night they opened the door for you and lighted the lamps. I can still remember it so vividly. But I spend long hours here simply gazing at them. And I have many thoughts during these hours. And I believe that they would defend themselves against any who sought to hurt them.”

I didn’t argue with her. I didn’t bother to remind her that centuries ago they had allowed themselves to be placed in the sun. What was the purpose? And for all I knew she was right. They would crush anyone who tried to subject them to such injury.

“Come now,” she said, seeing me fallen into a mood. “I’m too happy with this good news. Be happy with me.”

She kissed me as if she couldn’t stop herself. She was so innocent in those moments.

And I, I was lying to her, truly lying to her for the first time in all our years together.

I was lying because I hadn’t told her a word of Pandora. I was lying because I didn’t truly believe that she could harbor no jealousy of Pandora. And because I couldn’t tell her that my love for Pandora lay at the very heart of what I did. What creature would want to reveal such a scheme to a lover?

I meant to place us in Dresden. I meant to remain in Dresden. I meant to be near Dresden at every sunset of my existence until such time as Pandora came again. And I could not tell this to Bianca.

And so I pretended that it was for her that I had chosen this beautiful home, and indeed it was for her, there is no doubt of it. It was for her to make her happy, yes. But that was not all of it.

Within the month, we began work on the new shrine, utterly transforming the castle dungeon in Saxony into a fit place for the King and Queen.

Goldsmiths and painters and stone masons were brought down the many flights of stone steps to enhance the dungeon until it was the most marvelous private chapel.