Commedia della Morte (37 page)

PART III

M
ADELAINE
R
OXANNE
B
ERTRANDE DE
M
ONTALIA

Text of a letter from Jules Topinard, physician of Lyon, to the Department of Public Safety in Lyon, carried by the physician’s servant and delivered the day it was written.

To the members of the Department of Public Safety, the greetings from Jules Topinard, physician, and resident of the city, on this, the 18
th
day of October, 1792,

Citizens and officers of the Department,

I have just come from my mandated duty at the prison of Saint-Gautier-en-Saone, where I accompanied your officers for the purpose of attending to the health of the prisoners. As I told your colleagues, I would most stringently recommend that the prisoners be removed from that place and housed in more salubrious facilities, for the current site of their detention is contributing significantly to the general decline in the prisoners’ health. Of those I have examined, only half can be said to be in reasonable health; not that they are hale and hearty, but they are at least not showing signs of illness or starvation.

Of those that have apparent illness, six of the prisoners have marked fever, brought about by the cold and damp of their housing, and among them, four show indications of putrid lungs. Among the rest, there are a few alarming symptoms: the young prisoner de Montalia has what I must call the reverse of a fever, her body being dangerously cold and her pulse barely perceptible, signs of advanced enervation, no doubt due to the conditions under which she is presently being incarcerated.

The monks abandoned the place for a reason, which had a direct bearing on its location and the resultant damp; it would be prudent if you were to consider transferring the remaining detainees while you still have some to bring to trial. I fear that even the most obdurate member of the Revolutionary Court would be disinclined to condemn a man to the Guillotine when it was apparent that he was already condemned to perish from disease, and as the stated goal of the Revolutionary Court is to redress wrongs, I do not see how this approach to meting out justice can produce public approbation.

If you are willing to consider my thoughts on this matter, I recommend moving the prisoners to the old Customs House near the south gate: it is not much used, and the merchants presently occupying the ground floor can be compensated for having to move. The Guards could be installed on that floor, the shops converted to barracks and dining hall. The offices above, while small, are drier and the building warmer than Saint-Gautier, and they may readily be fitted with iron doors, or simple heavy braces put on the doors presently in place, making cells that are every bit as guardable as the cells of Saint-Gautier. There is another advantage to such a move: it will be possible to maintain watch on them more easily inside the city walls than outside, for escape within the town is less likely than it is from a remote building like Saint-Gautier, a league beyond the city walls.

Whatever your decision, I have to say that in my opinion, another two, and possibly three, of the prisoners will be dead in five days if they are not moved, and quickly. They will require nursing care at once in any case. This is not a matter to be debated at length; this problem must be addressed hastily, or there will not be much left to address.

This is what comes of taking in more prisoners than we can put up, and may turn out to be a more certain death for the prisoners than the blade can provide. Surely the ideals of the Revolution would compel you to show mercy to these wretches, little though they or their families may have shown it to you.

Tomorrow morning I will present myself to you at nine of the clock, and will answer any questions you may have for me regarding the prisoners; I pray you will be prepared to make a thorough inquiry and to arrive at your conclusion by evening. I know some of you will think it unwise to bring illness into the city, and there is an argument on that point, but prison is prison, and it is not likely that those among the prisoners who are most stricken will have the opportunity to move among the populace to spread the contagion. Nurses assigned to the prisoners may be housed in the same building, so that any exposure they have to disease will be kept within the walls of the prison, and given no opportunity to spread amid the people.

Do not let dread rob you of your compassion. I tell you again that the time for action is short if you are to save those who are not yet displaying symptoms: something must be done or you will lose more of them than those presently near death. In the name of the Revolution and its purpose, I ask you to show mercy to these unfortunates, who presently suffer the same agonies as any person struck with such diseases.

Vive la France!

Vive la Revolution!

Jules Topinard, physician

#27, Rue des Bergers

1

“Are you going to try to see her again?” Photine asked as she rolled into da San-Germain’s arms; her linen sheet slid off her shoulder, exposing her breast almost by accident. She gazed into his face with a look that bordered on adoration. She had been with him for the better part of an hour, and most of that time had been taken up with rapturous love-making that had left her deeply pleasured, yet oddly unsated, though she was gratified for all he had done for her; her disappointment was that he still had not used her as all other men had, and this bothered her, keeping her from achieving the maximal satisfaction she yearned for; it seemed to her that she had been cheated of applause.

“Yes,” he replied, and laid his hand on the rise of her hip; her skin was silky and warm in the chilly room. “If I am permitted.”

“If you have enough money to pay the clerks and the warden, you will be, never fear,” Photine assured him.

He thought for an instant of his athanor, waiting in Padova in his laboratory, where he made gold and jewels; he would be glad of having it with him, but that, he reminded himself, would require another, heavier wagon and that would mean questions he was not eager to answer, and more problems than he already faced. It was not that he lacked money, but his reserve was shrinking. He still had a store of jewels in the hidden safe in the larger cart, but he was reluctant to use any of them. “I believe I can afford another round of bribes,” he said, feeling her continuing desire flare.

“Will you take the poet with you?” She tweaked the collar of his nightshirt. “He tells me he wants to see her.”

“I think not, nor should I encourage him to go to see her alone,” da San-Germain said, a sardonic curl to his mouth. “Theron is becoming too well-known in this city, and his presence at the prison would draw attention to our mission, which could defeat the whole reason for visiting her.”

“Yes, it would cause notice; as you say, he has garnered a following, and is not afraid to make the most of that, which is good for the play, but not for anything private,” Photine agreed, and hugged him emphatically, clinging to him as voluptuously as she could in the narrow confines of her bed. She was able to sound only mildly interested when she asked, “I suppose I’ll have to give you up to her when she is free?”

“Not as you think, not in any way that would rob you of our enjoyment,” he answered, his hand wandering down from her hip to the sea-scented cleft between her legs, moving in ways that made her gasp with delectation. “She is of my blood.”

She wriggled to accommodate his hand, making little, purring sighs as he touched the soft folds. “And that stops you?” If only, she thought, he would remove his nightshirt, but he had told her he would not, and she was not going to seek an explanation now.

“It does,” he said, and bent to kiss her mouth, responding to the passion that had wakened in her, trying to find the source of her inmost ardor as his esurience increased, reacting to her reawakened carnality.

She broke their kiss. “But why would that—”

“Vampires do not—”

“I wish you wouldn’t use that word,” she complained, but with a softened look that took the sharpness of her protest away. “It sounds so dire, like harpies or devils.”

“Nevertheless, it is what I am,” he murmured, stroking the rise of her thigh. “Those of my blood have no life to give one another and it is life we must seek. Living blood is not only life, it is unique to every living person who has it, and it is that distinction that makes those of my kind seek out those who are still breathing, to be revivified by that uniqueness that is found in intimacy, in knowing another person completely, and making that knowledge part of ourselves.”

“Do you have such knowledge of me?” Photine asked, a defensive edge to her tone. “What do you know?”

“I know you to the limit you will allow me to know you, as is the case with all those who accept me with understanding,” he answered and went on, “Madelaine and I may have love for each other, but not in any way that we can express as the living do. Lying with her would benefit neither of us,” he told her gently.

“But you did at one time, didn’t you? At least six times, if what you’ve told me is right.” There was an implacable note in her observation.

“That was some time ago.” His manner warned her that this was not a matter to pursue.

Photine took a few seconds to frame her reaction in such a way that it would not seem a challenge to him. Finally she said, “So, supposing that your warnings are well-founded, if I lie with you two more times—or is it one more time?—and become like you when I die, as you’ve said I would, you and I could not be lovers again?” She put her hand to his mouth to stop anything he might answer; she shivered artfully. “That’s a dreadful thought.”

“You will have to decide what you wish to do,” he said calmly. He had been asked such questions many times and had grown more used to explaining. “I will answer anything you would like to know, but the decision you make must be your own; anything else would be folly. If you cannot live by touching the lives of others through this kind of exchange”—he recalled how distressed Demetrice had been when the full realization of the needs of her vampire life struck her, and how she had given herself the True Death shortly after—“then do not risk coming to this undead life.”

“Is there no other way?”

He gazed into the middle distance. “There is strong emotion in terror, if you would prefer to become a hunter, but I wouldn’t advise it: terror provides little nutriment, and raises the chance of being hunted yourself.”

“Would I live as long as you have?” There was a plaintive note in the question.

“I have no idea: I have lived a very long time. Those of my blood who do not court risks or attract the notice of those who dread our kind can have many centuries to walk the earth. That which destroys our bodies can kill us, of course; we’re proof against most dangers, but not all of them: we can die the True Death if our spine is broken—or if our heads are struck off, as the Guillotine does so neatly—if we are burned, or if we are stripped of all our flesh, but we cannot starve or become ill or succumb to poisons or die of injuries, even severe ones that cause debilitation and pain. We cannot drown, but water immobilizes us unless we are protected by our native earth, so it is possible to lie in the ocean or in a lake or river, fully conscious, until some creature devours us.” He saw her shudder. “Some of my blood have lived for many centuries”—Olivia, he reminded himself, had lived for more than sixteen hundred years before she met her True Death in a collapsing building, more than a century ago—“and others far more briefly.” He was startled that his comments had spurred her passion; she was breathing more rapidly now.

“To live so long a time: what must that be like?” She intended to provoke him into revealing himself, and waited for what he would tell her.

“If you live a long, long time, you lose…” He steadied himself and spoke with remote tranquillity. “You will lose all your family: your brothers and sisters and cousins, uncles, aunts, parents, grandparents, children, all of them, their children, their children’s children, until no one remains who regards you as anything but a legend. You will lose your people, your nation, your language, your religion, your—”

She kissed him suddenly to silence him, then said, “Do you forget, or are you lonely?”

“I don’t know if I forget, or how much, from the first half of my life, though I admit there isn’t much that pleases me in what I can recall. No one else remains to tell me if my memories of those breathing days are correct; I think that they are … incomplete until I came to Egypt, but I have no way to be certain. Roger has been with me half my life and I rely upon him to lessen the disruption of my memories from those days until now, as I do for him.”

“Why did you bring him to your life?”

“I didn’t,” he said, and saw surprise in her face. “I restored him to life through alchemy, techniques I learned long ago in Egypt.” He decided not to mention how many centuries had gone by since then. “He isn’t a vampire: he is a ghoul, and has been with me since Vespasianus ruled in Roma.”

“So long? Really?” It was impossible to tell if she believed him.

“Yes.” He took her free hand and kissed it.

“And the loneliness?”

His face was haunted. “That is unavoidable.”

For more than a minute she thought about his loneliness, and finally she realized what he was saying to her. “Would I need to take many lovers?” There was a shine to her eyes, and a quick smile.

“If you become a vampire, yes.”

“Would you be jealous?” Her voice was filled with mischief.

“I am not jealous of Theron, nor any of those Madelaine has loved since she came to my life; with the others of my blood it has been much the same. Jealousy is for the breathing, not for us. We may have sorrow that our intimacy ends, but jealousy? no.” That was not entirely true: on Cyprus he had experienced jealousy and it had almost led him to the True Death, and it had lost him Jinou completely through his suspicions and demands; he could still feel chagrin when he thought back to that time. He had known qualms that were seen as jealousy by others, but that was not the same thing, and did not leave the same self-distaste behind. “I think that the loneliness burns jealousy away. And it is our nature, to seek out those living who will nourish us, and to whom we can offer some succor they cannot find among the living. Most of those who accept us are those who cannot have what they want among the living; we give a closeness that eludes them otherwise. When such closeness is not possible, we can deepen a sleeper’s stupor and visit them as dreams; it is rare that we can find knowing lovers. The knowing is better, provided the connection is genuine,” he said, with a sudden image of Rozsa of Borsod in his mind; he pulled the sheet higher up Photine’s arm, then moved his hand back down her body to continue his arousal, suiting his rhythm to hers, for he had felt her excitement increase as he described his life to her.