The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life (9 page)

With this last remark Niccolo drifted into a lengthy silence.

“What happened?” I finally interrupted. “Did Lodovico turn Leonardo into a vampire?”

“No,” he replied. “I’m afraid other circumstances intervened. You see, at that time in Florence the Ufficiali di Notte e dei Monasteri, the ruling council, had instituted a system of anonymous denunciation to control vice. In front of the Palazzo Vecchio there was a box known as the
tamburo
, in which anyone could anonymously accuse anyone else of any crime, and the mere fact that the accusation was placed in the
tamburo
meant that it was automatically brought to trial. On April 8, 1476, an accusation was found in the
tamburo
accusing four young Florentines of pederasty with a seventeen-year-old model. One of the four Florentines was listed as Leonardo, the son of Ser Piero da Vinci, living in the house of Andrea del Verrocchio.” Niccolo paused for a moment before he added, “And I was the young model.”

As I finished the last dregs of my cognac I noticed Niccolo glancing apprehensively toward the crack in the curtains. “I must leave before dawn,” he said suddenly.

“Don’t worry,” I returned, “I’m watching the clock for you.”

He fidgeted nervously.

“It’s still several hours before the sky begins to get light,” I continued. “You must tell me what happened to Leonardo.”

“He flew into a rage, of course, and threw me out the next time I visited. He returned all of my letters, and even pretended not to know me when we passed one another in the evening streets. As for the
tamburo
incident, his accuser never showed up in court, and consequently Leonardo was exonerated. Nonetheless, the allegation insulted him deeply and he never forgave Florence for that libelous observation of his personal life.”

“But who made the accusation and why?”

“Can’t you guess?” Niccolo asked somberly. “It was I. You see, being a vampire is a very difficult thing, for in the eyes of humanity you are forever more something to be feared and loathed. The accusation in the
tamburo
was a test designed by Lodovico. Obviously, if Leonardo was so vulnerable to public opinion, it would be impossible for him to withstand the abhorrence the rabble directs against the vampire.”

He once again glanced uneasily toward the curtain as he stood and crossed the room. “There’s not much more to tell. I ended my evening visits to Leonardo and this seemed to be quite all right with him. Indeed, I thought he had completely forgotten me until I saw the
Madonna of the Rocks.
So he did remember, even captured the bluish tint of the moonlight in the first version of the work. He made me,
amantissimo,
an angel, but he refused ever to set eyes upon my face again.”

“But now, Dottore Gladstone, I must end my revelation. I’m afraid the hour is growing too late and I must leave before dawn.”

I paused for a moment, considering the situation. “No, Niccolo,” I said. “I can’t let you leave. I’m sorry if I insulted you, but you must forgive my fears. I’ve never had to deal with a vampire before. If I have your sincerest word as a gentleman that you’ll never harm either me or my two daughters as long as you remain in my house, I would like you to stay as my guest.”

His expression softened. “You would not tell anyone about me?”

“You have my word.”

“I must have a room with total darkness.”

“I can close the shutters in the guest bedroom and put heavy velvet curtains over the windows.”

He walked toward me and gently gripped my arm. “And why would you do all this for me, Dottore?” he asked.

“Can’t you figure that out for yourself?” I retorted. “You have the metabolism of a superman, and you ask a physician why he would want to have you as a guest in his house or give himself a chance to observe you?”

He smiled and nodded. “You are like Lodovico, always wanting to figure out the enigma.”

He allowed me to put my arm around his shoulder. “That is very true, Niccolo,” I said as I walked toward the dooi; “but I don’t want you to think I view you as merely a medical curiosity. I do not fear or hate you. I want you to know that I am your friend.”

He continued to smile, but I noticed a trace of sadness in his expression. “I believe you, Dottore Gladstone,” he murmured softly. “I only fear that you will find it difficult to remain my friend—”

“No,” I interrupted.

He shook his head. “You may be above the mistrust and the venom now, but few mortals ever really trust the vampire. Perhaps it is a part of the aura we exude, perhaps it is a part of the enigma. In any case, I have never run into a human who has ever trusted me completely.”

“And do you ever give anyone reason to mistrust you?” I asked falteringly.

“I don’t believe I do,” he ended as I turned out the light. “But then again, I didn’t believe I had given Leonardo any reason.” As I shut the door to the study I noticed Niccolo was secretly observing my reaction out of the corner of his eye, but when I turned in his direction he once again lowered his head disconsolately.

“We shall see,” I murmured half under my breath as I led him toward the stairs.

That evening I lay awake in my bed, unable to sleep. My mind was in ferment. Just a few rooms away slumbered a boy, wayworn as the humblest traveler. The air around him was cool. He would leave the white cambric sheets as cool as he found them. Was this the creature who had inspired the blood-sucking demons, the Ekimmu, of the ancient Assyrians, the decomposed and taloned ghouls of the medieval bestiaries? Or were vampires, indeed, the victims of superstition, mortals who had undergone some unknown but natural process? I, like most of my colleagues, was a scientific positivist at heart. If vampires existed, there had to be an explanation, a physical mechanism, and it was the dazzling implications of this thought that obsessed me as I drifted into sleep. It was during the last few hours of the early morning that I awoke in a cold sweat. Gripped by an inexplicable terror, I slipped on my robe and made my way to his room. When I cracked the door he was sleeping peacefully, curled like a child beneath the coverlet.

The next day when I went to Redgewood I checked in on Niccolo as casually and normally as I always did. It was with a smug and concealed satisfaction that I ran into one of the nurses and allowed her to tell me breathlessly how the mysterious Italian gentleman had faded into thin air without a trace. “It was vedy odd,” she said, pausing with strange delight over the phrase. “Vedy odd.” He would have to have been moved out in a wheelchair or stretcher, but the floor matron had noticed nothing. A young man with two broken legs certainly couldn’t just walk out on his own accord, could he? I shook my head with perfunctory amazement.

I saw Cletus only once during the morning. We spotted each other at opposite ends of one of the corridors and both stopped dead. First, we looked each other straight in the eye, but then we glanced away sheepishly. Neither of us revealed anything in our expressions.

As the day wore on I continued to disavow any knowledge of the “enigmatic Italian gentleman,” but thoughts of Niccolo kept reeling through my mind. What would I tell Ursula about Niccolo? Camille would accept his presence as quietly and obliviously as she accepted the world. Ursula, however, would not be so detached. Not only would she think I had taken leave of my senses, but also, if I did convince her, would she be thrown into a panic? If she grew accustomed to the fact, would she ever be able to contain such an incredible secret? Would she be able just to shrug it off when one of her friends asked about the handsome young gentleman staying at our house? Or wondered why he’s only seen at night? Or why he never takes his meals with us? To be sure, thinking of a suitable subterfuge to tell Ursula would be difficult. My only comfort was that I could put off the task for several days.

Other questions took precedence. I wanted to know more about Niccolo’s Renaissance mentor, Lodovico, and whether he had ever discovered anything about Leonardo or the condition of vampirism. On my way home from Redgewood I stopped at a book dealer and purchased several books on vampirism.

I sat reading them before the fire in my study. Something brushed against my leg and I noticed it was Deirdre. I gently lifted her up into my lap. She went limp, pretending to be dead. I turned her motionless little body over and tickled her stomach. She maintained her deathly repose.

“Good evening,” Niccolo greeted as he paused in the open door.

“Good evening,” I said. “Did you have a good”—I stopped and checked myself before making the error—”a good day’s sleep?”

Niccolo smiled. “Oh, yes.” He gazed at little Deirdre for a few moments as he shifted his weight. “I was wondering, Dottore, I am really so tired of being locked up. Would you be interested in going for a little stroll?”

I was stunned. “Do you think your legs are well enough?”

“It might have to be a very short walk.”

I nodded as I gently placed Deirdre on the floor. As Niccolo moved away I observed his gait. He did not limp, but there was something most peculiar about his movements. I had never seen anything like it. It was neither feminine nor masculine. It was different, a subtle, almost weightless undulation. I wondered if it were due to his injury, or if it were a movement peculiar to the vampire. I went to put on my Wellingtons.

It was raining, a fine, light mist, and the slippery granite paving stones shimmered in the light of the gas lamps. The streets were pervaded with the brown, dun-colored fog of London. After some time we passed through a Georgian building, and we could hear the pigeons cooing uneasily in the wrought-iron balcony as we walked beneath it.

“I’m interested in something,” I said as a black hansom sped by us and we had to step out of the way. “Did Lodovico ever figure out the enigma of the vampire?”

“Alas, no,” Niccolo replied. “He could find no mythological or physiological reason. But the fact that he could not discover such reasons only made him continue to believe that we are the product of the collective soul. However, he didn’t pursue this theory very much after I met him. Other things intervened.”

I glanced at him inquiringly.

“The Medici,” he explained simply. “You must understand, the Medici was a very special family. In a time when most wealthy merchants were bringing in cargoes of spices, almonds, and sugar, Cosimo de Medici, the
pater patriae,
was sending scribes to Greece and Alexandria for manuscripts. Lodovico was delighted. The patronage of the Medici was the first time since antiquity—since the burning of the library of Alexandria—that the human race revealed any interest in the awesome erudition of the past.

“And so Lodovico arrived in the Medici court one day, pretending to be a mortal scholar interested in reviving the ancient learning. It wasn’t long before the dazzling and mysterious young nobleman became a confidant of Cosimo, himself. He encouraged him to found a group of study known as the Platonic Academy, and once again the classics were read and discussed. If you look through the old records today you might still find the name of Lodovico.” Niccolo wiped the rain off of his neck as we passed a strumpet in a green alpaca skirt and a black straw bonnet trimmed with beads. She clutched her black cloth jacket with an imitation fur collar as she eyed us up and down. Niccolo tossed her a disdainful glance as we passed.

“After Cosimo died, Lodovico instilled the same love of the past in Cosimo’s grandson Lorenzo, Il Magnifico, and together they would put on huge festivals, or
trionfi,
dedicated to literature, poetry, and love. Leading artists were engaged to design the chariots and costumes, and Lorenzo himself composed the music. At the height of the carnival a cavalcade of garlanded floats representing mythological events, accompanied by processions of beautiful maidens and richly garbed youths on prancing steeds, came over the Ponte Vecchio to the spacious square before the cathedral.

“Ah, Florence,” Niccolo said, drifting off into a daydream. “How many times I wandered down its ancient and twisted streets lined with countless artists’ workshops, glassblowers, and goldsmiths. How often I was lulled by the musky scent of horses and the pungent smell of bronze being cast. It was the Renaissance, and Florence was the throbbing heart.

“It was shortly before one of these carnivals, when I was seventeen years old, that I first set eyes on Lodovico. I was walking through the streets one evening at twilight when Il Magnifico came riding through on a glorious chestnut Arabian stallion and called out to me. I recognized him immediately. He was an ugly man, with swarthy skin and a large, flat nose that overhung his upper lip, but his presence was electrifying. ‘
Signore
,’ he said, ‘my friend thinks you have the countenance of an angel and we most humbly request that you participate in the pageant we are organizing.’

“It was then that I noticed the second man accompanying him. He was tall and handsome, with dark hair and delicate androgynous features... and such eyes.” Niccolo shuddered. “If you ever meet Lodovico you’ll see what I mean. His eyes sometimes seem to vanish in their very sockets, and all that’s left is darkness. In Italy we have a word for that,
jettatura,
or the eyes that transfix. They’re terrifying, and yet they seduce you, and once you’ve heard the foggy laughter that comes from that beautiful face, you remain a prisoner of those eyes.

“Lodovico wanted me to be one of the Greek gods on the floats and I agreed. The evening came, we mounted our perches, and across the Ponte Vecchio the horses dragged our barques. It was at the height of the carnival, when the bonfires were burning bright and the wine and the sounds of the crowd formed a hypnotic farrago that I felt Lodovico’s cool hands upon my naked back. His breath was cold upon my neck, and the tiny pinpricks of pain I felt melted into a pleasurable dizziness as he caressed my shoulders. Ahh, what an infection,” Niccolo purred as he tilted his head back into the mist, and his face was momentarily lit by the aureole of a nearby gas lamp. “What an insensate bliss.”

Suddenly we heard the sound of muffled shouting coming from a narrow alley, and Niccolo turned with obvious curiosity. “A shilling on the little blighter!” cried a rough voice, and there came the sound of raucous laughter. The alley, which stood beside a blacking factory, was dark and cluttered. It exuded a heavy smell of rotting punk and mackerel, and only a faint light gleamed from a basement grating at the far end. I was about to walk on when I noticed Niccolo carefully sniffing the air.