Burning Shadows (32 page)

“Carpi, or Daci?” she asked.

“Neither. Nor Goth, nor Gepid. They were the Erastna; you have heard nothing of them, for the name of my people is all but forgotten in these mountains. They left long ago, routed by enemies from the east. Some went south into Anatolia and some went west into Italia; none remained here.” This admission troubled him more than it had in five centuries, and he decided that this was because he was so close to his native earth he could feel its pull.

Perplexed, she pulled on his ear. “You’re alive, Dom. You can’t deny that.”

“I am undead: not quite the same thing.”

“Because you rose?” She stared at him, incredulous. “Only you, of all your people?”

“Yes,” he said quietly.

The enormity of his acknowledgment bore in on her: quite suddenly she moved atop him and gave him an impulsive, wet, enthusiastic kiss and wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs straddling his hips. “I don’t know how you stand it,” she said when she came up for air.

“Stand what?” he asked, bemused.

“The loneliness.” She regarded him narrowly. “I have lost my family, and …” She stopped herself, then resumed speaking. “Sometimes it is unbearable to remember them. I have no knowledge of what became of my sisters and brother; our father may have sold them, if they lived. Not knowing is almost worse than being an orphan. But you—you have lost so much more: everything is gone.” 

“The earth remains,” he said pensively, aware that some of what she was telling him was untrue.

“So much the worse, I’d think; all the world is a graveyard,” she said, propping her head on her hands, her elbows flanking his ears.

“Not for those of my blood. We are bound to the earth, and it sustains us, as you will learn if you decide to become one of our number. The earth is as nourishing as blood is,” he said, feeling the strength of it from the chest underneath them through the thin mattress. “We are creatures of the earth and we draw our endurance from it. Separate us from our native earth, and our … durability goes with it.”

“If that is what sustains you—the earth—then I want to know about the blood: how can both of them nurture you?” she said, her breath coming more quickly. “What do you gain from the blood?” 

“Life,” he said.

“Truly? You don’t need much of it.” Her skeptical observation was punctuated by a kiss to his nose.

“No, not if it is …” he said, faltering as he tried to explain, “Apodictically given.”

“What do you mean by that?”

He took a long, ruminative breath. “Blood is more than blood for me, and those of my kind: it is the totality of the person whose it is, the most undeniable substance of personal uniqueness. If in taking blood there is genuine intimacy, when something of each passes to the other, my needs in terms of quantity are quite small; it is the whole person that sustains me, not the palmful of blood. If there is pleasure but no touching beyond dreams and flesh, then I require a little more—not much more, perhaps half again as much as what knowing closeness compels—So be nourished. If there is nothing but anguish and dread, then I need more, but then it is a hunger for poison, and if I succumb to it, blood taken in agony passes that pain to me and blights my soul.”

Nicoris stared at him, fascinated. “Do I nourish you?”

“You do,” he told her, smiling up at her. “The whole of you.” He hoped again that she would reveal what she was striving to hide.

“Do you want sustenance now, Dom?” She was teasing him with her nearness, deliberately leaning down to kiss his throat; she offered nothing more of herself.

“Yes,” he said. “But there are a few things I have to tell you before we continue.”

“What things?” she asked, annoyed at any delay.

“I warned you that there was a risk in lying with me more than five times, and this is the fifth time for us.” He could see curiosity and irritation in her face; he touched the sharp crease between her brows. “Let me explain, Nicoris, for both our sakes.”

She relented. “All right—but don’t take too long.”

“As you wish.” He paused to order his thoughts. “This is the last time we may touch without that part of me that has passed to you reaching a point that when you die, you, too, will rise and be undead, as I am.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, laughing breathlessly.

His dark eyes were enigmatic, his voice musical. “I mean that you will become one of my blood. You will live as I live, be what I am.”

“Undead.”

“Undead.” When she remained silent, he went on, “Those of my blood also sustain themselves through the most profound touching, through the communion of making love.”

“We’ve done that already,” she said, dismissing his concerns. “But it will not continue after you die,” he said somberly.

Her eyes glinted with dawning outrage. “Why not? Do you not love those who are like you?”

He could feel the tension in her body; he took a little time to answer. “With those of my blood there is always a bond, and it endures until the True Death.”

“And what is that: the True Death?” she demanded.

“It is the end of our life. Even we die, in the fullness of time.”

“But you’ve died already,” she protested.

“Yes, but not fatally.” He began to stroke her back, easing the tautness from her muscles. “One day, the True Death will come, as it comes to everyone, and all things.” He waited again for her to speak. “Then you
can
die?”

“Most certainly; all vampires can.”

The word made her flinch. “Don’t say that.”

“Say what—vampire?” He gave a single, sad chuckle. “What word would you prefer I use?”

Her aggravation was confined to a sniff. “If you must call yourself that, I suppose you must,” she allowed, then kissed him again, this time with turbulent passion; as their kiss grew more intense, she reached around behind her to grab his hand and pull it to her breast, panting a little as the kiss ended. “None of that matters right now—what matters is that you love me.”

“I do love you,” he said, feeling her rapid pulse and mounting desire flood through her.

“Then show me,” she said, and pressed her mouth to his again.

This kiss was more ardent as it lengthened, deepened, became more complex; Nicoris pressed herself into his hand, moaning as she awakened to the first quivers of rapture. “You know what gives me pleasure, Dom.”

He moved, still holding her, so that they were lying side by side, with only space for his hand between them. “Slowly, Nicoris. There is no cause to rush.”

“But it has been many days, and I—”

His hand between them worked down to raise her palla, lifting it gradually from her knees to her hips, finding the soft inner folds at the meeting of her powerful thighs. There he lingered, exploring the recesses, persuading her body to release its secrets to him.

After a time, she became more languorous, except for an occasional frisson of excitement. “Are you going to …”

“All in good time.” He eased her palla farther up her body so that most of it was crumpled under her arms, revealing her breasts; he slid down her body to tongue her nipples while his hand quested for the core of her.

Her fulfillment, when it came, came quickly, coiling tightly like the skein on a ballista, then releasing in pulsing flourishes that were accompanied by little cries, like the calls of birds, her hand caught in the loose waves of his hair as the last of her spasms encompassed her. Finally she sighed and lay back, quivering in the glorious aftermath of their rapture; she clung to him, caressing his face, kissing his fingers, whispering endearments to him in the language of the Huns.

Text of a dispatch to Metropolitan Evangelos in Constantinople from Praetor Custodis Mauritzius Corvo at Narona, Province of Il- lyricum, written in Imperial Latin in fixed ink on sanded linen, carried by the Imperial bireme
Princeps
Gloriae,
and delivered fifteen days after it was written.

To the most reverend Metropolitan Evangelos of the Emperor Theodosios at the City of Constantine, Praetor Mauritzius Corvo, resident at Narona in the Province of Illyricum, on this, the twenty-ninth day of April in the 439
^th
Year of Salvation: Ave.

I have recently received a request from one Patras Methodos of your city that is of so startling a nature that I am compelled to bring it to your attention, for it appears to me that in his zeal, Patras Methodos has overstepped his mandate to the detriment of his office, to wit: he has commanded all records of the Eclipse Trading Company operating in this port as well as many others, with accounting of all monies transferred to and from that company’s treasury for the last ten years; he indicates that he has made similar demands of factors for the company in all cities allied to the Roman Empires, East and West, along with official tax records, to be sure that there has been no attempt to defraud the government, nor to conceal smuggling or other wrong-doing.

I am familiar with this company, and its factor here, Pollux Savinus, who has been factor for twelve years and is a man of impeccable probity—I could wish that many another merchants’ factors were as upright as this man. To bring his character into question is offensive to anyone who knows him, and an insult to the company for which he works.

The company itself is an exemplary one. I have only once met its owner, Dom Feranescus Rakoczy Sanctu-Germainios, who called upon me when he was returning to his post as regional guardian at Apulum Inferior in the former Province of Dacia, where presently he has been engaged, so I am informed, in battling the barbarian Huns, which is a service to Roma, East and West. To call his character into question is unthinkable.

All of this is by way of saying that it appears to me that Patras Methodos has exceeded his authority and has earned at least a reprimand, and the assignment to other cases than this one, for clearly he has exercised poor judgment and abused his position. There is no wrong-doing at Eclipse Trading Company, so the detention of any of its personnel—and Patras Methodos informs me that there has been such a detention—dishonors the laudable conduct of this company, its owner, its staff, and its employees.

Most gratefully, and commending my information to your good consideration

Mauritzius
Corvo

Praetor Custodis at Narona Province of Illyricum

PART
III

NICORIS

T
ext of a report from Hredus at Sanctu-Eustachios the Hermit monastery to Verus Flautens, Praetor-General of Drobetae, written in a simple Greek code on a thin plank of wood using a charring stylus, entrusted to the deputy Watchman leaving with a company of refugees to carry with other letters and reports, delivered forty-nine days after it was written.

To my revered Praetor-General, Verus Flautens, two weeks before the Summer Solstice, Ave.

This region is still on alert, for it is feared that the Huns will attack again, and in larger numbers than when they came before. Already the people here have doubled the number of attackers they fought by repeating the tale among themselves; they have rebuilt the portions of the walls that were damaged during that first attack, and have also built two more observation towers in order to keep watch not only on the road through the pass but on the lake end of the valley. The men are largely busy with the defenses, the women help with the farming and cooking for all the residents. Those children who are old enough have been set to making shafts for arrows and fletching them. The monks are not pleased that they must deal with women, but their help has made a great difference in the state of the fields and flocks.