Reave the Just and Other Tales (29 page)

And the High Cardinal had completed my instruction. I abided by his precepts still.

“From his spies and informants,” I explained, “as well as from more common sources, he heard tales of unexplained deaths, sudden passings. And some of the lost were his supporters, vital to his stature in the affairs of Sestle. Inspired by righteousness, he guessed the truth.

“So he searched for me.” Relentless as a deathwatch, my tale progressed toward its doom. “With every resource at his command, he hunted the byways and coverts, the dens and hovels, the inns and stables, the markets and middens, seeking some sign of my presence. As yet he did not know who I was, or where I resided, or how I selected my victims. But he knew
what
I was, and he bent the annealed iron of his loathing toward me.”

I sighed so that I would not groan aloud. “Yet I was oblivious, immersed in my hunger for salvation. Only the sanctuary of my loft protected me, for I had lost the true habit of self-regard. While Cardinal Straylish stalked me with all his priests and allies, I concentrated on the impending crisis of my baptism.

“As I have said, I was ashamed. I saw my nature as an obstacle to my baptism—a bar to my union with Mother Church, and to Irradia’s love, and to all good. Yet for that same reason I was loath to speak of my dilemma. The rejection of the congregation I might survive. I had endured for many long years without a place among ordinary men, and might do so again. But the thought that Irradia might hear my revelation with horror—that her outpouring love might curdle against me—caused such pain that I did not think I could bear it.

“At last, however, I accepted the risk. How could I ask for love if I did not honor truth? Irradia and Father Domsen preached that the welcome of Heaven knew no end or limit—that all life was of Divine creation, born of God to seek God’s glory through Mother Church. How then could anyone who saw the worth of that worship be refused?

“On the eve of the day appointed for my baptism, I told Irradia what I was.”

Inwardly I flinched at the memory. Yet I suffered it alone. Only the ceaseless blurring of my sight and the quavering of my voice betrayed my distress to the assembly.

“At first her response was all I had dreaded. Her dear features paled, and she shrank from me as though I had become loathsome to her. She trembled, feverish with alarm. And she avoided the supplication of my touch, hid her face from my gaze. Weeping threatened to overtake her.

“The blow was a devastation to me, my lords. My life in Sestle, and my heart, cracked wide at the impact. In another moment, I would have begun to tear my garments and wail in despair. And when that was done, I might have turned my thoughts to ruin. She was the foundation upon which my dream of love and Heaven rested, and she could not stand.

“However, she rallied. Groaning my name, she turned toward me. Pain in runnels streaked her face. ‘Have you lied to me all this time?’ she cried out. ‘Are this chapel and this congregation no more than a trough at which you mean to feed? Am I nothing more to you than meat and drink?’

“I knew not how to answer her. I cannot prove my sincerity to you, my lords, and could not to her. But at last I said, ‘All my days, Irradia, I have spent alone. I have known only fear and abhorrence. Your regard, your gentleness, Father Domsen, this congregation, the teachings of Mother Church—they are sacred to me. Ask me to sacrifice myself for your preservation, and I will do it.’ My desire for life had never been greater, yet I spoke truly. ‘Death would be kinder to me than the loss of Heaven’s blessing, which I have tasted only from you.’

“Gradually she calmed. Her innocent heart and her faith defended me when her mind quailed. Doubt still held her, but her revulsion had passed. When she had composed herself, she sighed, ‘Oh, Aposter. This matter is too grave for me. A darkness has fallen over me, and I cannot see. I must speak to Father Domsen.’ She studied me sidelong. ‘Will you accompany me?’ In that way she tested my protestations. ‘Will you tell him what you are?’

“I felt the burden of her request. It weighed heavily upon my scant courage, my slight hopes. I esteemed the priest highly—but I trusted only her. However, I did not hesitate. ‘I will,’ I told her shortly. ‘I will abide his judgment.’

“‘Then I will believe you, while I may,’ she replied with a wan smile. ‘You have given me no cause to fear you. I have met no harm in you, and no malice.’ Then she added, ‘I, too, will abide his judgment.

“‘Come.’

“I complied. Together we sought out the good Father.”

Shading my eyes to ease the sting of the light, I walked that path again in my mind, dreading what followed.

“The hour was late, and he had retired, for he was old. When her knock summoned him to the door, however, he welcomed us into his dwelling.

“His quarters had been erected against the side of the chapel as an afterthought, and they were draughty, ill lit, and damp. Still his congregation had given what they could for his comfort. A fire burned in the hearth of his small study, warming the moist stones. At his invitation, we seated ourselves on hard lath chairs softened by pillows.

“He asked Irradia to speak of her plain distress, but I forestalled her. Seeking to spare her as much as I could, I blurted without grace or apology, ‘Father, I have concealed what I am. I am not of your flesh—not an ordinary man, as I seem. Because I hunger to be united with Mother Church, and to earn Irradia’s esteem, I feared to reveal myself.’

“He regarded me in confusion. Quailing within myself, I continued weakly, ‘Yet I must speak the truth, or set aside my hope of Heaven.’”

Remembering that moment, I uncovered my eyes again so that the Duke’s assembly might see my pain.

“‘Father,’ I told him, ‘I am called “vampyr” and “death-eater.”’ Among much harsher names. ‘I do not feed on beasts or growing things that have no souls. I sustain myself on the lives of men and women formed in God’s image.’

“At my words, he fell back in his seat, overtaken by clear shock and apparent horror. Watching him, I felt my hopes shift from under me, as though they rested on sand. How had I so entirely misconstrued his instruction? Had God created me and my kind solely so that innocent maids and gentle priests could name us evil?

“His hands clasped each other around his crucifix. For a moment it seemed that he would not speak—that he could find no words sufficient to denounce me. But then he asked, whispering terribly, ‘Do these men and women die to feed you? Do you slay them?’

“I wished to cry out against his revulsion. But I did not. Irradia’s need for his guidance was vivid in her gaze, and it restrained me. Instead I answered, ‘I do not slay them in order to feed. Yet they are slain. They die at my hand. Their life becomes mine as they nourish me, and they fall.’

“His voice trembled. ‘Then how can it be that you desire baptism?—that you seek the embrace of Mother Church?’

“There he saved me, although he did not know it. Despite my distress, and his, I heard his bafflement—and his sincerity. I had misread him. He had been profoundly disturbed, shaken to the core, but not by abhorrence. His nature may have lacked that capacity. He had asked an honest question. His dilemma was one of incomprehension.

“And Irradia clung to his every word, as though it issued from the mouth of Heaven.

“I replied as well as I could, like a man who had been snatched back from the rim of perdition. ‘I did not cause what I am. I cannot alter it. But I have met kindness from you, and from Irradia. I have learned to know love. And I ache for the teachings of Mother Church. If the grace of Heaven is without end or limit,’ I pleaded softly, ‘surely it holds a place for such as me?’

“At first he did not answer my gaze. Raising his hands, he fixed his eyes upon the crucifix. Prayers I could not distinguish murmured from his lips. Unsteady light from the hearth colored his features, and Irradia’s. Together they appeared to contemplate the flames of everlasting torment.

“When he had finished his prayer, however, he turned toward me. Tears reflected in the lines of his face, but he did not waver.

“‘Then, my son,’ he avowed, ‘I will baptize you tomorrow.’

“I heard him without moving, without breath. Trained to apprehension, I feared that if I stirred his promise would be snatched away.

“‘Father—’ protested Irradia. Perhaps he had answered his own uncertainty, but he had not yet relieved hers. ‘If he is a vampyr—’

“He silenced her gently. ‘Whatever he is, my daughter, he has been created by God, for God’s own reasons. It is not our place to judge what the Almighty has made. In baptism Heaven will accept or reject him, whatever we do. But if for the sake of our own fears and ignorance we refuse that which Heaven welcomes, our sin will be severe. Mother Church does not empower us to withhold the hope of redemption.

“‘If he is accepted, the flock we serve will see it. That will do much to ease his way among us.’ His tone darkened. ‘And if he is rejected, they will be forewarned.

“‘But there is a condition, my son,’ he told me before I could speak. ‘You must cease from slaying.’

“My hopes had blazed up brightly. Now they dwindled again, doused by Father Domsen’s words. ‘Then I will die,’ I retorted bitterly. ‘Does Heaven honor self-murder?’

“He shook his head. ‘It does not. Yet you must cease,’ he persisted. ‘Since you require sustenance, as do all things living, seek it from those whose lives have already been claimed by God. Nourish yourself among the dying. It will—’ He faltered momentarily, and I saw a new sorrow in his gaze. Yet he did not relent. ‘I fear it will not be pleasant,’ he continued more harshly. ‘But I cannot condone any other course for you. To take lives which have not yet been called by Heaven is more than murder. It is blasphemy. It offends the sacredness of God’s creation.’

“At once a great relief washed through me. The restriction he required would
not
be pleasant. In that he spoke more truly than he knew. Yet its difficulties were within my compass. In Heaven’s name, I could bear them gladly.

“‘Father,’ I vowed, ‘I will do as you say.’

“Irradia stared at me with wonder, as though she hardly dared to believe that her doubts had been lifted.

“Father Domsen showed no relief, however. He accepted my oath without question, but it did not ease him. Wincing, he bowed his head and slowly slumped into his seat. Perhaps he had seen visions in the firelight, and Irradia’s face, and mine—sights which wracked him.

“‘Leave me now, my children,’ he breathed thinly. ‘I must pray.’ His sorrow did not abate. ‘I must pray for us all. Tomorrow the will of Heaven will be made plain.’

“I heard his grief well enough. Yet I did not understand it. He had glimpsed a future which lay beyond my comprehension. And,” I admitted ruefully, knowing the aftermath—knowing my failure, and its cost—“I made no attempt to grasp it. As Irradia and I departed, my heart arose, and an unwonted joy seemed to chirp and warble in my blood’s vitality. My deepest dreams had become real to me again, brought back from transience and illusion by the good Father’s willingness to hazard my baptism. His restriction I welcomed, for it provided a reply to my shame. And—most joyous of all things—I saw hope in Irradia’s gaze again. He had restored her dreams also. She clasped my arm as we made our way from the chapel, and her smile held a hint of its familiar pleasure.

“Before our ways parted, she addressed me gravely.

“‘Aposter, I said that I would abide Father Domsen’s judgment. Now I say that I will stand with you when you are baptized.’ Her tone was firm, and clarity shone from her eyes. ‘I do not believe that God’s face will be turned away. If my trust has worth in Heaven—as it must, for God is good—it will weigh on your behalf.’

“Laughing, she kissed my cheek to forestall any return for her generosity. Then she was gone.

“As I returned to my loft, I sang her name as I would the most sacred of the hymns. Before Heaven she had taken a vow of her own, and I cherished it. After all my fears, I was avid for the morrow, and for my sacramental union with Mother Church, and for her.”

My own grief welled up in me. I had come to understand Father Domsen’s sorrow. I did not think that he had foreseen his own weakness. Rather, I conceived that he knew the public life of Sestle, and the worldly affairs of Mother Church, better than his innocence could tolerate. For that reason, he had sequestered himself in Leeside chapel, hoping that broader, more hurtful concerns would pass him by.

Past my pain, I sighed, “But the time appointed for my baptism never came.”

Involuntarily I paused, striving to master myself.

“It did not,” interjected Bishop Heraldic suddenly, “because Heaven spoke to your priest—your Father Domsen—and gave him better wisdom.”

No doubt His Reverence believed that he had been silent too long. Fearing the effect of my tale, he wished to assert himself in the hall. But I had no patience for him.

“No,”
I retorted harshly. “It did not because Cardinal Straylish found me.”

When my ire had stifled the Bishop’s interruption, I added, “Or I should say that he found Irradia.”

Of all my victims, my prey, she was the most blameless—and the most dear.

“Later,” I told Mullior’s assembled lords and authorities, “I learned of the wide net which he had cast over the city, searching for me. I heard how he had become suspicious of Leeside, for that region seemed exempt from my activities. And I was informed that rumors of a stranger had at last reached the ears of his agents—a stranger who seemed to have no dwelling place, but who had been befriended by the maid Irradia, the chapel’s adopted daughter.

“On the morn of my intended baptism, however, I knew none of this. Ignorant of the ruin prepared for me, I readied myself gladly, singing her name, and remembering all the words I must say in the liturgy of the sacrament. When the time came, I crept from my loft so that I could join the worshipers gathering before the doors of the chapel, as was my custom.

“Entranced by excitement, and by the prospect of Irradia, I was slow to notice my peril.

“The doors remained shut, although the time of worship was near. That in itself was strange, and should have alerted me. But there were other signs also. Men on horseback crowded the approaches to the chapel. Ruffians unlike the Leeside congregation in both aspect and comportment shifted among more familiar men and women, attentive as hounds. And Father Domsen stood at the doors as though he meant to address his flock in the street. His old eyes hunted the growing throng anxiously.