Deliver us from Evil (30 page)

Robert stared at him, appalled. 'How do you know of such things?' he whispered at last.

'
I
might very well ask the same question of you.'

'
I
..."
Robert swallowed, and turned away. 'It is a strange story,' he said at last.

'Mais d'accord.
How so?'

Robert did not answer; he continued to watch Milady and the rake. Again, he felt the stirring of gold within his guts. '
I
feel
...'
he murmured; then staggered and breathed in sharply, as pleasure in a rush licked like fire through his blood. '
I
feel it,' he gasped, 'without drinking, the delight

'What, it is striking you now?'

Robert nodded.

Lord Rochester seized him by the arm. 'And how is it?' he asked eagerly. 'The pleasure - you must tell me - how does it feel?'

Robert closed his eyes. 'It is paradise,' he said. 'There is nothing in all the world which can compare.'

'What - not even my Lady Castlemaine?'

Robert smiled, and shook his head.

'Aye,' nodded Rochester. 'And yet still you seek to flee from such pleasures to her cunt.'

'Would not you?' asked Robert.

Lord Rochester stared at Milady, then emptied his glass with a single sudden gulp. '
I
do not know,' he said at last. 'For
I
begin to fear
I
am more in love with pleasure than my happiness.'

'Not every delight need endanger it.'

Lord Rochester laughed contemptuously. 'Ay, but every delight does which is worth the possessing.
I
do not willingly blacken my soul, sir - and yet so polluted has it already grown that
I
find the greater the pleasure, the more terrible must be the sin. If you doubt me, consider your lady once again. Or better . . .' - he paused, and his grin seemed suddenly set like a skull's - 'observe the Marquise de Mauvissiere.'

'What,' Robert asked, 'she is here?'

Lord Rochester gestured with a wave of his hand.

Robert looked, and caught a sudden glimpse of the Marquise through the swirling, dancing throngs. He pushed his way forward, to observe her more closely. He saw how she was seated by Miss Malet in the corner of the gallery, whispering something urgent in her ear, as though offering her cousin a warning or advice - the very picture of a courtly chaperone. But then suddenly, as Robert watched her, the Marquise's face appeared to darken; her lips parted as though with hunger, and an unspeakable greed seemed to glitter in her eyes. She swayed, as though dizzied by her passions, and steadied her hands upon Miss Malet's breasts. She squeezed them very gently; then stretched out her fingers, as though they were claws.

'Christ's blood,' said the tubby man, Lord Rochester's friend, who had wandered across to join them both, 'yonder is a lady with a passionate nature.'

"Very true, Savile,' Lord Rochester grinned. 'Very true.'

Robert stared at the Marquise as she seemed almost to swoon with her desire. 'What might be the cause of so terrible a passion?' he whispered.

The tubby man, Savile, stared at him with a puzzled look. 'Is it not clear?' he asked. 'Her sensibility is in favour of the fairer sex.' But Lord Rochester's surprise seemed even deeper still. 'The cause?' he whispered into Robert's ear. 'Do you truly not know?'

'No,' answered Robert, 'and
I
grow weary that such secrets are still hidden from me.'

'Then come,' said Lord Rochester, 'and find out the cause for yourself He led Robert by the arm, across to where the Marquise and Miss Malet were sitting. Robert watched how the Marquise leaned her cheek upon Miss Malet's shoulder, and breathed in her scent. At once she writhed, and her eyes began to roll; and then Robert too breathed in, and heard himself gasp. 'No.' Yet he did not mean it; for he imagined he was soaring with his blood into the air, leaving his body and becoming liquid gold. He was made of a thousand, thousand fiery sparks; and each spark gave him pleasure such as he had never known before. He longed to scream. Was there a point, he wondered, where delight began to hurt, for it was too sweet, too sweet, the sweetest of pains, he would be melted before it, be dissolved into the air . . .

Yet he had not been, Robert realised, as he was carried from the ball and then outside into the bitter winter air. He shook his head, and looked about him. He was standing on a flight of steps, above a boat which was rocking on the river's choppy waves. He was being supported on either side, he discovered, by Savile and Lord Rochester. 'What happened?' he mumbled. 'Where are we going?'

'You swooned,' answered Lord Rochester, 'from the excess of your pleasure. And we are going upon the river, that you may have the purgative of the cold.'

Savile laughed cheerily, and nudged him in the ribs,
I
do not know what you have been drinking,' he said, 'but
I
should like to sample it for myself, for
I
have never seen such a look of pure delight as when you grinned back there, and your legs went down.' He winked, and raised up a bottle of wine. 'A plague on this stuff, it is good only to make piss.'

'Then you are most fortunate, sir,' whispered Robert, 'that it is good for nothing worse.' But Savile did not hear him, although Lord Rochester did for he turned and laid a finger on his lips. With Savile's help, he began to guide Robert down the steps, and when they had reached the boat Robert lay for a while in silence upon the cushions, still feeling the ripples of gold flowing out through his blood. 'My God,' he whispered at last, into Lord Rochester's ear. 'My God, my God.'

Lord Rochester turned, and gently took him in his arms. 'So you had truly not been told?' he whispered back.

'Told?'

'You know.'

'Tell me.'

Lord Rochester shrugged faintly, and paused to arrange the lace upon his cuffs. 'You must know, then,' he murmured at last, 'that to blood-drinkers, descendants of their own kind have magical properties. For example - they can be loved by a blood-drinker, and yet not be driven mad by it. This, as you can doubtless understand, makes them highly prized .
..'

Robert nodded faintly. He remembered Milady telling him of such a breed; and yet she had not described it fully, not admitted what it was
...

'However,' Lord Rochester continued, 'they rarely survive to be loved for very long. For it is their misfortune that they possess this quality above all others - that their blood, to the blood-drinker who is their relative, is the sweetest, the most fortifying, the most intoxicating draught of all.'

Robert shook his head in mute horror and misery.

Lord Rochester nuzzled him. 'So tell me,' he whispered with sudden eagerness. 'The feeling . . . the pleasure . . . was it as wondrous to feel as it appeared?'

Robert sighed, long and deeply, as though the sensation now clotting in his veins might be brought up on his breath. But still it lingered; and so he trailed his fingers through the icy waves to reassure himself that a world of everyday senses still existed, a world in which water continued to be cold. He shivered, gratified, then hugged himself. He gazed at the Palace as it receded down the Thames; and at once felt the darkness shadow him again. Turning, he stared out at the vast wilderness of London; then up at the stars in the freezing winter sky. The darkness was everywhere; the darkness was deep inside himself. He could feel it, as he had done before when the butcher had been slain, burning his soul. He reached for Savile's bottle and began to drink. But the wine did not extinguish, only served to stoke the flames. Robert moaned and shuddered, as he gazed at the bank and the whores who stood dotted by the river steps. 'Let us land,' he muttered faintly, 'we must
...
let us land.'

Savile grinned and nodded, and shouted orders to the boatman. They glided up beside Milford Stairs. 'Dirty Lane!' Savile shouted as he staggered from the boat.
'En avant!'
He began to lead the way, weaving arm-in-arm with Lord Rochester, while Robert followed, not saying a word, his mind an inferno of wretchedness and lust. 'Whores!' cried Savile, as he swayed along the frozen streets. 'Must have whores!' He turned into Dirty Lane, pushed open a brothel door and gazed about him, mouth flapping open and shut like a fish's. 'Twatscour the crowd of them!' he giggled suddenly; then fell flat on his face. Lord Rochester stepped over him.
‘
I
do not wish to have to choose,' he told the madam. 'Send up four of your best, and we shall have 'em every one.'

A long while it took Robert, longer than before, to purge the thrill of blood from himself and become master of his own desires once again. Yet even then, as he lay among the sodden sheets and knew himself drained, the idea of what he had felt at the Banqueting House still remained with him: a terrible, tempting, predatory idea. He shuddered, and ordered his prostitutes away, for he had been thinking of Emily and could not bear to remember her as he lay amidst such company. '
I
am lost,' he said, gazing at the roof, 'lost without hope of guidance.'

Lord Rochester glanced round. He was still whoring. His expression was distant; for all the pleasure it betrayed, he might have been practising his fencing strokes. '
I
am bored by this fucking,' he murmured in French. '
I
would sooner,
I
think, hear your story of your life.'

'Cannot you do both?'

Lord Rochester smiled. 'A fine suggestion.'

Robert rolled across the bed. He began his tale. By the time he had finished it, his eyes were moist with tears. 'You see, my Lord,' he said, as he wiped them away, 'what a hypocrite
I
am, that
I
weep for my parents and for my childhood friend, yet am grown such a fiend.'

'You are not yet a blood-drinker.'

'Not yet,' murmured Robert softly. 'Not yet, not yet.'

'And would not ever be it seems.' Lord Rochester paused. 'Your friend - Mistress Vaughan - she is still alive?'

'So
I
hope.'

'And yet to win her, you think you must become a blood-drinker yourself?'

Robert shrugged.

'Aye,' nodded Lord Rochester, almost as though to himself, 'it is a fearful choice.' He lay for a moment, numbed by the thought; then shuddered. 'For it must ever be our hope, as we stumble through the gloom of life's night, that there is indeed somewhere light - a sun - a God.' He sighed, and lifted up his face to gaze into the candle-flames. 'And so it is,' he whispered. '
I
will help you as
I
can. For in the choice confronting you -
I
find the image of one
I
must also one day make.'

Robert gazed at him intently; but before he could speak, Lord Rochester had raised a hand. 'A minute,' he apologised; and did not continue until he had finished with his whore, and pushed her aside. 'Yes,' he nodded, as he began to dress, '
I
too have been offered the gift you wish to spurn - and the doubt it fills you with, has filled my thoughts as well.'

'How was it, then, you met with a blood-drinker?' Robert asked.

'Upon my travels.' But Lord Rochester did not elaborate, buckling on his sword instead, and leading the way down the stairs. He paused by the door to toss the madam some coins. He gestured towards Savile, who lay snoring on a couch. 'See that he is returned home.' He left two further coins upon the table, then passed into the street.

'Should we not see him home ourselves?' Robert asked.

'We have more pressing business.'

'Why, what would you do?'

'Seek a resolution, perhaps, that you need not have the choice between failing your parents' memory, or growing a drinker of your unborn children's blood.'

'You do not understand. There is no resolution.'

Lord Rochester raised his hand. 'Come,' he said, 'there will be time enough to discuss these matters on the way. Yet
I
believe, in your case, that there may be hope after all. For you are not yet like me,

whose every pleasure seems jaded and flat. You might still be content with the .
..
simple . . . things in life.'

Robert remembered his dream of Lady Castlemaine. He shrugged faintly. '
I
feel my delight in them already start to fade.'