Immortal Confessions (6 page)

* * * *

Anna awoke a little after midnight. After
making love again, she disentangled herself from me, and reached
for a goblet beside her bed. I stopped her, when I saw what was in
it.

“Don’t, Love. You risk your life
needlessly.”

“I must,” she said. “We can have children
when we are settled, Dev. But we may have to travel for weeks, or
months and we can’t afford—”

“I can’t give you one, ever,” I said
hesitantly. “I am unable to, Love.”

Anna looked at me for a long moment. She
seemed sad.

I’d heard her say she didn’t want to be a
mother, but I didn’t know how to mention that without sounding like
an eavesdropper. I’d try another tack. “Can you still be with me,
knowing this? I’ll understand if you cannot. Most women want
children.”

“Are you sure?”

“It has never happened since I was turned, to
my knowledge.”

“And before?”

Heat suffused my face. “Yes, more than a few
times. I was very fertile when I was mortal. But in the last two
hundred years—”

“Are you so old?” she said in a hushed
voice.

“Yes,” I said, feeling decrepit and ancient.
“I was born in 1592, if I’m remembering right.”

She looked at me again. “Do you not
remember?”

“I remember some things very clearly,” I said
quickly. “Most of my mortal years I remember fairly well, though I
couldn’t tell you my mother’s birthday, or the name of my favorite
dog, though I remember their faces well. However, the years after
becoming vampire are indistinct. I spent many years traveling, and
singing, and they blur together, both the people and the places.” I
looked away from her. “Nothing mattered to me for a long time,
really, after I was turned. There was nothing to distinguish one
year from another.”

“Then why go on?” she said, stroking my arm.
“I’m glad I found you, but it sounds a desolate existence.”

“I knew if I gave up and died, that would be
the end,” I said simply. “I didn’t want that to be the end of
me.”

“Don’t you believe in God?” she said
curiously. “My cross doesn’t seem to bother you.”

I reached out and touched it gently. “It
doesn’t. Yes, I believe in God. I always have. I pray regularly to
Him.”

“What do you pray for?”

For Danial. For his forgiveness. For not
finding a way to save him.

“Devlin?”

“Redemption,” I said hurriedly. “And I found
that, in you.” I kissed her gently. “Please rest, Anna. We have
much to do tomorrow.”

“We do,” she said, nodding. “The caravan is
due to arrive at noon. My wedding is to take place at dawn the day
after.”

“I can get the horses tonight,” I said,
climbing from the bed. “I can hide them in the forest. We’ll steal
one at the nearest village we come to. That one we can send off
without us, to lead the pursuers we’ll have away from us, riding
the ones we own away in another direction.”

“Good plan,” she said. “I can get the dowry
purse; I know where it will be. But you’ll need to take the
saddlebags with you tonight, and hide them in the forest. If they
are found, the contents will point straight to me.”

I was clearly missing something. “How would
they point to you?”

“I want to bring my wedding dress,” she said
simply. “Someday we will wed, Dev. I want to wear it, as it was my
mother’s. My sisters are already married; no one will need it,
after me—”

I was uneasy and sick just thinking about
getting married. Marriage and all its trappings had always seemed a
prison to me. Luckily, she was right, that wouldn’t be for a while.
The problem was the dress was sure to take up a lot of room. We
needed all possible room for money and valuables we could sell.
Maybe I could convince her to leave it behind.

“—
and it was my grandmother’s too, on
my mother’s side—”

Maybe not. Sigh. “Okay, we’ll bring it. Now
we have a plan to leave, we need to have a destination. Do you have
kin we must avoid in the surrounding towns? Where is your fiancé
from?”

“That I leave to you,” Anna said quickly. “I
have never been outside the castle grounds, save to a church years
ago, when my eldest sister was married to a Grand Duke. My family
and Marcus’s prefer country life to court life, so if we can only
get out of this department of France into another we should be
safe.” She paused. “I was trained to be able to cook most anything,
and to prepare food from forest to table. But I can not navigate by
the stars, as I saw you do last night.”

I felt a flash of pride that she had realized
what I was doing, without me telling her. “I know of the bigger
towns and cities. We will head there. There we can lose ourselves
in crowds. Your father and fiancé will have men out looking for
you. There will be more opportunities there anyway for us.”

“What will we do?” she asked hesitantly. “I
can do sewing, Devlin, so I could perhaps sew for a Lady—”

“You will not have to work,” I said firmly,
hoping to God that time would not make a liar out of me. “I will
provide for you. Before I was a singer, I was taught a great deal
of business and strategy. I could perhaps get a job as a Lord
Marshal, which is what my father was, and what I was being trained
to be.”

“How, when you can only work at night?”

I suppressed a growl. “I would need to work
the night shift. But—”

“Devlin, we must run some kind of business,
so you can set your own hours,” Ann said firmly. “There is too much
risk of discovery, otherwise. There is no point planning all of
this and leaving everything I’ve ever known if you get turned into
powder.”

I gave her an odd look. “Powder?”

“I got one of my father’s books on ghosts
today,” she said, handing me a slim tome. “It mentions vampires,
specifically how to recognize and kill one.”

I took the book from her, reading the marked
passage. In it were the legends I’d thought about today, plus a few
new ones. A vampire passed on his curse of bloodlust with his bite,
vampires could not cross running water, cast no shadow, had no
reflection, and needed to be burned, or have their head severed to
be killed, though a stake through the heart could do the job. Once
a vampire was killed, it would wither into powdered ashes from
great age, as it was undead, not alive.

“This is offal,” I said, tossing the book
aside. “I am not undead. My heart still beats. The rest is bollocks
too, though that bit about fire might be true.”

“A stake or decapitation wouldn’t kill
you?”

“It shouldn’t,” I said arrogantly, hoping
hard I’d never be in the position to find out. “I had broken bones
last night, and I’m fine now. So why wouldn’t I heal those wounds,
too?”

Anna shrugged. “Makes sense.” She took my
hand. “I just don’t want you to die.”

“I’m not going to die.” I held her close,
kissing her throat. “I have you to live for.”

* * * *

I left Anna shortly after, sneaking out in
her cloak, and stealing out to the stables. Anna had gotten me
simple clothes of a mud brown color, and I tied my hair back in a
bobtail, thanking my luck that I hadn’t chopped it shorter with my
knife, as I preferred it. I couldn’t disguise its light color, or
my eyes, but my almost-beard was still present and ragged looking,
so that helped. I carried with me two sets of saddlebags, one
empty, the other full of Anna’s wedding dress and cherished
possessions.

My plan went sour almost at once. Two guards
now watched the small door, with two more posted above them. I
would never be able to sneak outside now to steal or buy horses,
much less back inside after. If I fought my way out now, I would
never be able to get back inside to get Anna before she was
married. More and more guests for the wedding had arrived and there
were many people about. I had to act swiftly.

I went to the stable, and purchased two
mediocre but sound horses with what was left of the money I’d
earned. I also used some of Anna’s money to buy supplies, stocking
the saddlebags with dried meat and hard bread, as well as a little
cheese. Anna would need to eat, even if I did not.

I brought the horses to the gate and asked to
be let outside, spinning a tale of an errand for one of the young
men who was planning a nighttime tryst. The guards recognized me,
and told me to see the Lord Marshal, that he was looking for
me.

Shit. I bribed them with the last of Anna’s
money, and they reluctantly let me through. I rode to the stream
where I’d first loved her, and ground tied them there. The bear’s
corpse was still there, and I took a moment to skin it. The meat
was no good by now, but the fur might be useful. Anna would get
cold, after all, and I knew from experience that bear’s fur was the
warmest. The hardest thing would be preparing the skin to be
worn.

I scraped it as best I could, and tied it out
for stretching. It would have to do for a start. The food I hung in
a tree, in case there were other bears about, though the scent of
the dead one should keep them away.

I caught a deer, and killed it, drinking my
fill. Quickly, I brought it back to where the horses were and began
to dismember it. I would not get a chance to feed tomorrow, or
hunt, we’d need to be away. There was a little blood left in the
muscles—

This is where things utterly crashed and
burned.

“Devlin?” a joyous voice said.

I looked up to see Maris. Shit.

“Why have you not come?” she wheedled. “I
missed you. Father said the caravan is coming today. We’ll
intercept it at dawn and grab the purse of jewels—”

Shit! We needed the purse to get to the
castle, so they could steal it...wait. Maybe it was better to let
the gypsies get it. Taking into account my newfound
invulnerability, I reckoned I could kill them and take the caravan
and the purse both. Then we’d have the gypsies’ supplies to use or
steal...

“Devlin?”

“I’ve been watched,” I said as tenderly as I
could fake. “As it was I had to use my earnings to get out of the
castle. The guards are nervous, because of the coming
treasure.”

“Did you miss me?”

Like a hole in the head. “Of course, dearest.
But I have much to do. Please, if you could, finish with this deer
for me?”

Maris took the knife. “Of course. But why do
we need this meat?”

“We” didn’t, but Anna might. And here was
opportunity, also. “We’ll need to move out of this area as fast as
we can. We’ll most likely be pursued. Therefore, we can’t stop to
hunt. So if this was cooked and packed in one of your wagons, we
could use it without stopping.” I took her hand. “I do not want to
marry on the run, Maris. I think we should wait to marry until we
are safely away.”

“My father is unlikely to agree,” she replied
flatly. “As am I. Come back with me to our camp. We can be married
quickly.”

There was enough to do without any more plots
I had to remember. Time to be harsh. “No, Maris. If you want to
come with me, you’ll not only handle this deer, you’ll forget this
idea of marriage.”

She glared back at me defiantly. “If you’ll
give me your word to take me with you.”

I stared back at her levelly, relieved. “I
give you my word to take you with me. But you must steal a horse,
and be waiting here for me at dusk tomorrow.”

Maris nodded. “I’ll do it. I’ll need to put
the meat in the saddlebags after it’s cut up and cooked. Is there
room in the ones you brought?”

Double shit. “No. Put them on your own
horse.”

“What is in your saddlebags?” she asked
pointedly.

“Provisions for our future,” I lied
dashingly. “Do not open them without me present, understand?”

Maris nodded. “Yes. I’ll hang the deer flesh
in the tree, as you did the other food you brought. But why must
you go back at all?” she said, kissing me gently. “We can spend the
next hours together as we wait for the deer to be done—”

I resisted the urge to recoil. “I must, I had
to leave my guitar behind as proof to the guards I was coming back.
I’ll need it, to keep plying my trade.”

“You’ll make a wonderful partner,” she said
emotionally. “You are always thinking so practically.”

You have no idea. “Farewell, my dear.”

I kissed her reluctantly, and walked quickly
away. Before long, I’d stolen back to the castle. However, the old
problem was there: how to get inside?

The back door was locked. I couldn’t fly. The
Lord Marshall was looking for me, no doubt wondering why I’d not
shown up to work this evening. Everything seemed lost. Then I
noticed a rope hanging from the top of the wall.

God, I loved that woman.

I grabbed it and climbed up. I untied the
rope, and managed to get to Anna’s room without being seen, though
there were several close calls.

She was waiting for me when I got there. “How
did it go? Did you find the rope?”

“I did, Love,” I said, kissing her ardently.
“Thank you. The horses are near the stream. I have a deer there,
along with other food for you. So we can get water there, and begin
our journey as soon as darkness falls.”

“Good,” she said in relief. “I was
worried.”

“Don’t be,” I said, moving close to her to
hold her. “I’m here, and tomorrow night, we’ll be on our way.”

I lay with Anna that night, so happy and
content that we fell asleep together. Early the next morning, her
pious sister discovered us as we lay sleeping in each other’s
arms.

Her scream deafened me, and made Anna scream
herself. A half minute later, we were surrounded. Ten minutes
later, I was before her father in manacles.

You might be wondering why I didn’t fight.
The truth is I wanted to, and if it had been dusk instead of dawn,
I would have. But there was nowhere I could go if I fought my way
out of the room. The hallway had an open window, and it was only
with luck the sun was not high enough to shine in so I wasn’t
burned when I passed it. Besides, Anna was mortal, and I had to
take her with me. An arrow or sword thrust meant for me might have
struck her, and I couldn’t risk that.