States of Grace (33 page)
Authors: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Tags: #Fantasy, #Fantasy Fiction, #Fiction, #General, #Historical, #Horror, #Occult & Supernatural, #Historical Fiction, #Vampires, #Saint-Germain, #Inquisition, #Women Musicians - Crimes Against
“Since I share in what you experience, how could I not be wholly gratified?” He lifted the back of her chaplet and touched the nape of her neck, his fingers delicate as petals, yet igniting ephemeral fire.
“You say you seek the blood because the blood is the unique essence of who I am. I hope that is so. God save me! I hope it is so.” She kept her head averted, trying not to be distracted by the sorcery his fingers worked on her neck. “And if it is, I could not begrudge you any, if it meant you took all.”
“My appetite is small, Pier-Ariana. Half of what would fill a winegoblet will suffice me,” he said calmly. “It has before.”
“Still,” she murmured. “If you asked for more, it would be yours. I owe you so much more than I can ever repay.”
Over the wind there was a loud clatter as something—probably a shutter—fell into the narrow passage outside the house, then clapped its way along the paving-stones.
“Then it is fortunate for you that I will not ask it.” There was a note of concern in his words now, and he took her face in his hand to allow him to look directly at her. “I have no wish for your gratitude; I have said so before and nothing is changed.”
“You called it poison,” she said. “I haven’t forgot.”
“Then what troubles you, Pier-Ariana?”
She pressed her lips together. “You said I would become what you are when I die, since we have lain together now eight times. That when I died, I would live again, not in Heaven or Hell, but here on earth; that I would live as you live, from the blood and the intimacy with others.” She coughed restively, aware of how she must sound to him. “I know you told me what it means to be one of your blood, and I am trying to comprehend it; if that is what must be, then I will be content.”
“It does not seem so to me,” said di Santo-Germano, kindness in every aspect of his demeanor.
“I don’t want to offend you,” she said abruptly. “I don’t mean to say anything against you.”
“Anything you might say, I have heard before,” he told her, feeling weariness to the depths of his marrow; he removed her chaplet and stroked her hair. “And worse than you could ever think.”
“I am embarrassed,” she admitted.
“Because you have doubts about your decision?” He knew his guess had been accurate when he saw the flash in her eyes.
“Yes and no,” she said after a brief silence, beginning as she had rehearsed it during the night. “Never doubt I want your love, the exultation of my senses you provide, and I want to know the hearts of men as you do those of women. But I don’t know if I can sustain the loneliness you endure. That is what worries me. It is hard enough, being a woman alone, on my own—as much as I may be without money or property. But what happens when my family is all gone, and my friends, and anyone I know or have met?”
“There is anguish in long life, and this is the heart of it,” he said, kissing her brow.
She shot him a shame-faced look, forcing herself to continue. “You have done all that you can to ameliorate my situation—far more than I have any right to expect, but the laws of the state and faith declare that there are limits to what I can be given, even by you; therefore nothing you have done for me is wholly in my control, or in fact mine: if another Emerenzio should gain—”
“I have taken steps to be certain that will not happen,” said di Santo-Germano.
“If you are not in Venezia, it could—it might,” she said. “I would so much rather be making love than—But your hearing may deprive you of your property here, and you may have to leave Venezia—”
“What do you mean?” he interjected.
This was harder for her to answer. “While you were gone, a demanding young man pursued me, threatening to arrange for me to lose everything if I rejected him,” she confessed, her stare fixed on the nearest oil-lamp. “I gave him no encouragement, Conte. You must believe I did not.”
“I do believe you,” he said gently.
She studied his face. “I hope so,” she murmured, looking away again. “He said you would not be able to keep me, and indeed, you were not.” Before he could speak, she hurried on, “I know it wasn’t your doing, but I was abandoned nonetheless, and without my cousin I have no reason to suppose that I would not be reduced to penury. Leoncio said it would happen again, and again, until you were driven from Venezia.”
A sustained blast of wind made the windows shudder in their lozenge-shaped frames, and the shutters over them flick together like soldiers’ drums or the wings of angry bees.
“Leoncio Sen said this to you?” Di Santo-Germano strove to keep his words composed.
“Yes. And now he is missing, and some say it is your doing.” She went pale. “If you are put in prison, I will be cast on the world again. My cousin will not take me back, and no other relative would welcome me after my life here. So there is only the Church left to protect me, and di Santo-Germano, I have no aptitude for the life of a nun.”
Di Santo-Germano held her as she wept. “Pier-Ariana, do not fear. No matter what becomes of me, you will be provided for. I have made not one but two arrangements for your housing and care, and if one fails, the other will not.” He was glad now that he had sent instructions and funds to Rudolph Eschen designated for Pier-Ariana if anything should happen to him. “But there will be no need for these second funds, I am certain.”
She sniffed, trying to stop her tears, her voice muffled by the small kerchief she had taken from her corsage. “It galls me that I should be so frightened; it is because I have so much to lose. I am too old to be a whore, and Signor’ Boromeo cannot afford to support me for the sake of Eclipse Press.”
“Probably not,” said di Santo-Germano, and again turned her to face him. “But you will not be cast, poor and friendless, upon the world: not now, and not after you come to my life.”
“I thank you for all you have done,” she said, and faltered.
“Do not say you are grateful once more, I beg you,” di Santo-Germano said tenderly, his fingertip tracing the curve of her brow, her cheek, her chin.
She almost managed to laugh, but the end of it collapsed into another burst of sobbing. “Oh, I ask your pardon,” she managed to say. “What a preposterous woman you must think me. I hate this.”
“That you should cry?” He bent his head to kiss her upper lip, lightly but with a heat that matched her own. “I wish I had yours to shed. I lost tears along with the rest when I returned from death.”
It took Pier-Ariana a short while to comprehend what he had said. “Truly? You do not weep? Not ever?”
“Not since I came to this life,” he said.
“That’s hideous, not to cry.” She hugged him fiercely. “How can you endure it?”
“Because I must,” he said, continuing in a more compelling tone. “That is one of the reasons why I value intimacy so highly, and why I seek it—as you will learn to.”
“So I may weep?”
“So you may feel,” he said. “So you may not lose your humanity.”
She regarded him in silence, still clasping him tightly. “So that is why you do what you do.”
“And why I have no need of your gratitude,” he said with such compassion that her eyes stung.
“If you tell me you do not want it, then you shall not have it,” she promised, and kissed him, all her passion in the kiss, made more intense by its serenity than her tempestuous kisses had been.
“We should go to your apartments,” he suggested as she released him.
“No. Here. In my favorite room. With the instruments to remind us.” She shrugged abruptly. “Besides, my bedroom is draughty, and today, that wouldn’t pleasure me.” She reached under her arm to untie the lacing there. “If you’ll unfasten the sleeves?”
“Certainly,” he said, reaching for the three brooches that held the left sleeve to the garment. He was aware that she preferred not to mix lovemaking with dressing and undressing, so he remained pragmatic while she worked to shed her outer garments. “Where do you want me to put these?”
“On the table next to the virginals,” she said, tugging the sleeve down her arm and dropping it on the carpet.
He unfastened the other sleeve and pulled it free; he put the brooches and sleeve on top of the score-paper, then took her gonella as she wriggled it over her head. This he dropped over the back of her playing chair. “Where now?”
“The couch in front of the fireplace,” she said, indicating the small hearth opposite the windows. “Take the pillows off the window-seat.”
“As you wish,” he said, going to do as she asked. Bringing the six pillows of various sizes to the couch, he put them down in a pattern to ensure her comfort. “Will this do?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, standing in her guimpe; being designed for winter-wear, it reached almost to her knees. She rushed the couch and flung herself backward on it, the pillows cushioning her impact. “I like this. It is like the decadent East, where women lie about on pillows all day and read poetry.”
Di Santo-Germano said nothing to dispel her image of Oriental women; he came to the side of the couch and went down on one knee to be more level with Pier-Ariana; he drew off her house slippers and winter leggings and set them down at the end of the couch, then moved up its length again. “How splendid you are, Pier-Ariana,” he said as he pulled the ivory pins from her hair and spread it over the pillow behind her head.
She tried to remain composed, but a hint of a grin slipped out the corners of her mouth. “You are kind to say so, Conte.”
Slowly he began to stroke her calves and feet, taking his time to learn the texture and contours of her limbs. “You have magnificent skin.” He bent and kissed the arch of her foot, then, ever so lightly, slid her guimpe upward, exposing most of her thighs; while she quivered in anticipation, he bent down and pressed his lips to the inside of her knees.
“Here; let me help you,” she said, and pushed herself up on one elbow in order to get out of her guimpe, which she cast onto the floor without hesitation or care. “Now. I’m ready.”
“No; you are not,” he said, amusement and desire coloring his voice. “In time you will be.”
She crossed her arms over her breasts. “But I’m getting
cold
,” she exclaimed.
cold
,” she exclaimed.
“That will not do,” he said, and moved over the top of her, leaving only a tiny space between them, just enough room to allow him to slide his hand in to caress her, starting with her shoulders and making his way deliciously down to her breasts.
As her arousal heightened, she began to make a low, purring sound, ardent and content at once. Her body became pliant, ductile, and more exoptable than she had believed possible. Gradually his searching of her flesh became more fervid as she gave herself over to the rapture she felt surge within her. It was as if he had ignited tiny, ecstatic fires everywhere he touched her, and as the seraphic conflagration immersed all her senses, she succumbed to a release that began in the core of her body and spread to the farthest reaches of her soul while di Santo-Germano encompassed all her passion in the haven of his arms. She strove to find words for what had just transpired, but could only say, “The fur on your collar tickles.”
Di Santo-Germano took off his chamarre and wrapped it around her shoulders, shifting his posture so that they lay side by side amid the pillows on the couch. “You gave me a remarkable gift, Pier-Ariana.”
“Nothing you haven’t had before,” she reminded him.
“No; this time you gave me all of yourself—there is no treasure greater than that.”
She mused over this, and said, “Then in some way, I have had all of you, as well?”
“I hope so,” he said, kissing her closed eyes.
If she was aware that his response was indirect, she did not question it; she lay back on the pillows, the wolf-fur of his chamarre and his nearness blending with the fire to warm her into sleep.
Text of a letter from James Belfountain in Calais, France, to Grav Saint-Germain, in care of Conte di Santo-Germano, in Venezia, written in English and delivered eleven days after it was sent.
To the most excellent Count of Saint-Germain, in the care of his kinsman, di Santo-Germano at the Campo San Luca, Venice, the greetings of James Belfountain, on this, the 19
th
day of October, 1531, from Calais, and entrusted to Yeoville to carry to you on his way south to Rome.
th
day of October, 1531, from Calais, and entrusted to Yeoville to carry to you on his way south to Rome.
First, Count, I wish to reassure you that the strongbox and documents you entrusted to me and four of my men has been successfully delivered to Rudolph Eschen, advocate in Amsterdam. I have his receipt enclosed with this letter, and his acknowledgment of your instructions in regard to various Venetian ventures. I thank you for entrusting me and my men with this mission, for work has been hard to find of late, what with many seeking our services also demanding religious uniformity of one sort or another, a guarantee I am unable to make. Between the demands of those offering employment, and the siphoning off of my men to one divine’s army or guard, or the Pope’s forces, my Company is sadly depleted. I have not more than twenty men left, and most of them are planning to depart. Your generosity has made it possible for me to send my men away with enough money to assure them, with a little prudence, that they will make it through the winter.
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