Blood Games (57 page)

Saint-Germain had almost reached the Gates of Death when he heard a voice behind him, calling his name. He did not want to turn. He did not want to speak.

"Franciscus!” the call was repeated, nearer.

He thought that it must be Necredes, wanting to gloat now that Tishtry and Kosrozd were dead. If he had to face the Master of the Bestiarii, he would tear him apart. He set his expression to a cold mask.

"Franciscus!” The man was right behind him.

"What?” Saint-Germain spun around and found that it was the Armenian Led Arashnur who had followed him. “You!"

Arashnur gave him an insolent stare. “You should not have scorned my offer,” he said with a sharp laugh. “Now neither of us have him. If you'd given in, this could have been avoided.” He was relishing the power of his situation now.

"What do you mean, this could have been avoided?” Saint-Germain asked in a soft, poisonous tone.

"The arrests, the imprisonment, the execution.” Arashnur was preening. “A few letters to the right people, and look what can be accomplished. Romans are very touchy about slave rebellions, aren't they?"

"This was your doing?” It was a painful question to ask, but there was no echo of his hurt in the words. He stood very still, his senses as alert and quivering as the string of a lyre.

"Some of it,” he said blithely. “A letter here, a word there, and these foolish Romans did the rest. You should have listened to me. If we'd had a bargain—"

Arashnur never finished his speculation. Saint-Germain had launched himself at the Persian spy, his small, powerful hands sinking into the muscles of his shoulder, then gripping, gripping, forcing bones and flesh closer together. Over the throbbing in his head and chest, Arashnur could hear the soft, cold voice. “You vile, pernicious butcher. You offal.” The hands closed, viselike, as Led Arashnur's face contorted. “You take pride in their deaths, do you? Then join them, Arashnur. Join them.” Arashnur shrieked once as his collarbone snapped on both sides, groaning as the jagged ends of the bones were driven downward into his chest.

Saint-Germain watched Arashnur as the life began to go out of him. He told himself that this was the vengeance that Kosrozd desired, that he wanted for the slaughtered Kosrozd and Tishtry and Aumtehoutep. There was no sensation within him at all. No anger, no hatred, no release; only the stupefying numbness that spread through him like a drug.

Led Arashnur felt another hot eruption in his chest and he coughed as blood welled in his lungs. He looked up into Saint-Germain's masklike face and tried to laugh, spitting blood in order to speak. “Too late, Franciscus.” He choked. “Too late.
He knows
.” There was no more laughter, but a terrible bubbling, and then Led Arashnur fell heavily to his side, blood spreading out of his mouth and nose, a permanent derisive grin on his face.

For a moment Saint-Germain stood over him. What had he meant—he knows? Who knows? What does he know? Then, as he realized that there was blood on his clothes and a dead man at his feet, Saint-Germain moved away, slowly at first, and then almost at a run. The torment of his loss grew within him as he went, blotting out the world.

REPORT OF THE PHYSICIAN POLLUX TO CORNELIUS JUSTUS SILIUS.

To the distinguished Senator Cornelius Justus Silius, greetings:

It is my most unpleasant duty to inform you, Senator, that your fears were well-founded. Certain procedures have been performed on the material you gave me, and I have the grave duty to inform you that the attacks of which you complained were due, indeed, to poison.

You mentioned that on both occasions these attacks followed an evening spent at the house of your wife's father, where she is currently living. Painful though the thought may be, you must consider the possibility that someone in your wife's family wishes you ill. You say that your relationship with your wife is less cordial than you would like, and that you suspect her of having a secret lover. Should this be the case, she may feel that you should be persuaded to divorce her. Oftentimes poisonings are not meant to kill, but rather to disable in various ways. Women who do not desire to deal with a man sexually have been known to administer mild poisons so that the man will not be capable to perform the act, or disinclined to do it.

Please understand that these are only suspicions. It may be that there is a food to which you have an antipathy of which your wife's cook is unaware. Many persons have such antipathies. The indication gained from the samples you gave us suggests that poison was indeed the factor, but an antipathy might contribute to your problem.

I am honored to have been able to serve you, and I wish that the outcome had been less unfortunate. I shall, should you wish it, be available to testify to my findings, and to that end have made a copy of the report that is included with this letter. It tells what was done, how, and what the results were. Should you have any questions concerning any of this, please inform me of your desires and I will do all that I can to make the matter clear.

The procedures:

Taking the vomitus provided by the Senator, it was added to the food of three large rats. Food that was identical in every way except for the addition of the recovered material was given to three other rats. The three eating of the mixed food died.

The rats were then examined for signs of poisoning, and two were found to have the look of internal burns, with irritation in the mouth and anus.

Other material provided by the Senator was mixed with various herbs and then spread on a small sheet of ivory, which turned indelibly black. Certain poisons have this effect on ivory.

Drying of feces revealed some crystallike formations which may or may not be indicative of irritative substances in the body.

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THERE WERE NOW two slaves quartered in the room adjoining hers, so Olivia had fled to the garden at night, hoping that Saint-Germain would come. Each night for the last ten days she had kept her vigil under the fruit trees near the wall, sitting in the deepest shadows concealed by the drooping branches and the dark green palla she wore. Here she had the illusion that she had escaped her guards, and was free of them not just for the hours in the garden, but for her life. The flowers, which had been for so long neglected, now rioted in tangled confusion out of their beds, over the pathways and around the unused fountain. Olivia found the little wilderness a comfort, a way to bolster her self-deception. In this forgotten place, she could believe that she, too, had been forgotten: it was a great consolation.

Her desire for Saint-Germain intruded into this dream. She missed him as she missed sustenance. Each night she longed for him, and each night she returned to her bed alone. She had sensed in the last several days that there was something very wrong, that he had been badly hurt, that there was a distress in him she had never known before.

Finally he came to her. It was past the middle of the night and the moon was low. The scent of flowers still tinged the air, but elusively now. A slow wind strummed the fruit trees where Olivia waited, half-asleep, on a rough wooden bench.

A rustle that could easily have been caused by the wind, a soft click of heeled boots on the overgrown path, a figure tall, powerful, in black Persian trousers and a short, wide-sleeved dalmatica, the gleam of moonlight in dark, compelling eyes that touched her with ice, a beautiful voice that she knew well and had yearned to hear; Olivia warned herself that it could be a dream even as she sat up and opened her arms.

Instead of gathering her close to him, Saint-Germain dropped to his knees before her, his eyes meeting hers and then looking away. He did not touch her. “Olivia,” he said.

"Saint-Germain.” She knew it would be a mistake to reach for him, though it took the full strength of her will to hold her hands at her sides.

In the shadows of the empty stable, a figure moved, silently approaching the garden.

Olivia wanted to ask him what had happened, where he had been, why he was so strange now, but she knew that she must keep silent. She saw his head bent, hardly more than two handbreadths away, and she wished she could reach out to fondle the dark, neat hair that fell in short, loose curls. He was so different tonight. She held back.

He felt her nearness as if across a chasm. She was a beacon to him, a point of light, of warmth in his newly desolate world. “Tell me, Olivia,” he said quietly as his eyes looked into a dreadful emptiness. “When your father and brothers died, how did you feel? Was it as if a limb had been torn off or the heart pulled out of you? Did you hate the sun for rising?"

"Part of the time,” she answered, as if she spoke to a curious child. “Part of the time there was nothing left within me but my hatred of Justus. My life was mechanical. I breathed and walked, slept, bathed, ate, as if it were someone else's body that did these things, and I was trapped within it. I, myself, was chained in a dungeon far away, crying aloud at walls of wet stone. I...” she faltered as she put a hand to her eyes—"I wondered why I bothered. Each day was like the last, and I thought there was no use in it.” She looked away across the garden, blue in the fading moonlight. The breeze felt chilly now, and she shivered as it raced through the apple trees.

"Why didn't you end it?” he asked. There were pebbles under his knees and he knew they should hurt, but all he was aware of was the awkwardness they gave his balance. He saw Olivia shiver and could not tell whether it was from cold or her memories.

"You,” she said, making the word a caress. “And my anger. I refused to give Justus the satisfaction. In time the worst was over. Whole hours would pass in which I did not want to die.” She attempted to laugh at her foolishness, and almost succeeded.

At that sound, Saint-Germain's arms went around her waist and he pressed his head into her lap. “Olivia, I killed a man, and felt nothing, no rage, no hate, no remorse, no satisfaction. I thought it was because of what I had just seen...their blood, their deaths..."

"Whose blood?” she interrupted him as she felt his arms become rigid.

"My slaves who were arrested. They were much more than slaves."

There was a cat in the garden, picking his way through the weeds with finicky determination. His eyes were spangle-bright as he looked toward Saint-Germain and Olivia, bent together under the trees. He hissed once, then went on toward the stable.

"They were like you?” she whispered, her cheek pressed against his head.

"One was,” he told her, wishing the admission affected him in some way, any way. “There was so little time. One would have been...I thought it was settled, for crucifixion, not the beasts...The third...” He stopped, feeling himself endlessly falling from darkness to darkness, and he held her with new strength. “Olivia, make me feel again. If I have any right to ask it of you, please make me feel again."

She had sunk her hands in his hair to turn his face up to her when a sound at the end of the garden caught her attention and she looked up sharply. “Oh,” she said shakily. “The cat.” Night lay thickly here under the trees, and she had to lean quite close to Saint-Germain to see his pale face. She kissed his brow and eyes. His lips opened to her, and she was hideously reminded of a drowning man fighting for air. She took his face in her hands and drew him nearer.

Saint-Germain's dark eyes searched hers. “Olivia,” he said, as if recognizing her at last. He rose to his feet, pulling her with him, holding her with a fierceness that was new to both of them. His hands, his mouth roamed over her, demanding passion of her, calling forth the very limits of her ecstasy. “More, Olivia,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with fervor. “More.” His body was hard against hers, his desire intense, compounded of mourning and lust, of sorrow and ardor.

Monostades crouched in the shadow of the garden wall, his expression unreadable, as he watched his master's wife in Saint-Germain's embrace. He dared not move closer for fear he would be noticed. The distance was too great for him to hear what they said to each other, and in the shadowed night he saw only the largest movements, but, he told himself cynically, he did not need to see the small ones, not watching them together. In spite of the darkness he could observe how eagerly Saint-Germain lifted Olivia, catching her up in his arms, arching over her, his head bent to the lovely curve of her neck while she held him, abandoned to her pleasure. He watched while Saint-Germain lowered her to the bench under the fruit trees and then knelt beside it, leaning above her as she opened her garments to him. Monostades saw the lightness of her skin in the night, and in the next instant this was obscured by Saint-Germain as he moved over her. Deeply pleased with himself, Monostades made his way back to the stable, anticipating the reward that awaited him.

Saint-Germain's head rested against Olivia's breasts. There was a tearing pain within him, a hurt that burned and bit with the ferocity of acid; there was also overwhelming gratitude. He moved his hands over her gently, kindly, and felt her tremble. “I have no tears. We don't, when we change.” Anguish stifled him, and it was some little time before he spoke again. “If you had refused me..."

"Shush,” she murmured.

"When they died, each of them, it was like...being given to flames, which are as deadly to me as to you, my cherished one. I feel it now.” He moved over her again. “I
feel
it.” His lips touched hers.

His kiss sounded her to her depths, and when he drew back, she looked up through the gloom into his dark eyes. “Saint-Germain,” she began a little breathlessly, “will you...I want..."

"What do you want, Olivia?” He faced her, his hands still as he listened to her.

"I want to be free of...myself. I want, just once, to break out of the tyranny of my mind, and my senses, so that my whole being is consumed with loving. Make me free of my flesh, Saint-Germain.” Until she spoke, she had not known how deeply she longed for that freedom, for the rapture on the far side of gratification.