Blood and Gold (23 page)

“Don’t say any more, please,” I said. “You don’t have to flatter me. It won’t matter. I can’t take you with me.”

“Why?” she asked. “Because I know about the Mother and the Father?”

I was shocked.

I should read her thoughts, all her thoughts, ransack her soul for everything she knew, I thought, but I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want that feeling of intimacy with her. Her beauty was too much, there was no denying it.

Unlike my paragon, Pandora, this lovely creature had the promise of a virgin—that one could make of her what one wanted while losing nothing—and I believed that promise to contain a lie.

I answered her in a warm whisper trying not to hurt her.

“That’s precisely the reason I can’t take you, that, and because I must be alone.”

She bowed her head. “What am I to do?” she asked. “Tell me. Men will come here, mortal men,” she said, “wanting the taxes on this house or some other triviality and I shall be discovered and called a witch or a heretic and dragged into the streets. Or during the day they will come and find me sleeping like the dead beneath the floor, and lift me, hoping to revive me, into the certain death of the sun’s light.”

“Stop, I know it all,” I said. “Don’t you see, I’m trying to reason! Leave me alone for now.”

“If I leave you alone,” she said, “I’ll start weeping or screaming in my grief, and you won’t be able to bear it. You’ll desert me.”

“No, I won’t,” I said. “Be quiet.”

I paced the floor, my heart aching for her, and my soul hurting for myself that this had fallen to me. It seemed a terrible justice for my slaughter of Eudoxia. Indeed this child seemed some phantom risen from Eudoxia’s ashes to haunt me as I tried to plan my escape from what I’d done.

Finally, I quietly sent out my call to Avicus and Mael. Using my strongest Mind Gift, I urged them, no, commanded them, to come to me at Eudoxia’s house and to let nothing keep them from it. I told them I needed them and I would wait until they arrived.

Then I sat down beside my young captive and I did what I had been wanting to do all along: I moved her heavy black hair back behind her shoulders and I kissed her soft cheeks. These were rapacious kisses and I knew it. But the texture of her baby soft skin and of her thick wavy hair drove me to quiet madness, and I wouldn’t stop.

This intimacy startled her but she did nothing to drive me away.

“Did Eudoxia suffer?” she asked me.

“Very little, if at all,” I said. I drew back from kissing her. “But tell me why she didn’t simply try to destroy me,” I said. “Why did she invite me here? Why did she talk with me? Why did she give me some hope that we could come to an understanding of the mind?”

She pondered this before she answered.

“You held a fascination for her,” said Zenobia, “which others had not. It wasn’t only your beauty though that was a large part of it. Always for her a large part of it. She said to me that she had heard tell of you from a woman blood drinker in Crete long ago.”

I dared not interrupt her! I stared with wide eyes.

“Many years ago,” she said, “this Roman blood drinker had come to the isle of Crete, wandering, looking for you, and speaking of you—Marius, the Roman, Patrician by birth, scholar by choice. The woman blood drinker loved you. She didn’t challenge the claim of Eudoxia to all of the island. She searched only for you, and when she found that you weren’t there, she moved on.”

I couldn’t speak! I was so miserable and so excited that I couldn’t answer her. It was Pandora! And this was the first that I had heard of her in three hundred years.

“Don’t weep over this,” she said gently. “It happened in ages past. Surely time can take away such love. What a curse if it can’t.”

“It can’t.” I said. My voice was thick. The tears were in my eyes. “What more did she say? Tell me, please, the tiniest things you might remember.” My heart was knocking in my chest. Indeed it seemed as if I’d forgotten that I had a heart and must now find out.

“What more. There is no more. Only that the woman was powerful and no easy enemy. You know Eudoxia always spoke of such things. The woman could not be destroyed, nor would she tell the origin of her great strength. To Eudoxia it was a mystery—until you came to Constantinople, and she saw you, Marius, the Roman, in your brilliant red robes, moving through the square at evening, pale as marble, yet with all the conviction of a mortal man.”

She paused. She put her hand up to touch the side of my face.

“Don’t cry. Those were her words: “with all the conviction of a mortal man.’ “

“How then did you learn of the Mother and the Father?” I asked, “and what do such words mean to you?”

“She spoke of them in amazement,” she said. “She said you were rash if not mad. But you see, she would go one way and then the other, that was always in her nature. She cursed you that the Mother and the Father were in this very city, and yet she wanted to bring you here to her house. On account of this, I had to be hidden. Yet she kept the boys for whom she cared so little. And I was put away.”

“And the Mother and the Father?” I asked. “Do you know what they are?”

She shook her head. “Only that you have them, or had them when she spoke of it. Are they the First of us?”

I didn’t answer her. But I believed her, that this was all she knew, extreme as it was.

And now I did penetrate her mind, calling on my power to know her past and present, to know her most secret and casual thoughts.

She looked at me with clear unquestioning eyes, as if she felt what I was doing to her, or trying to do, and it seemed that she would not hold anything back.

But what did I learn? Only that she had told me the truth.
I know no more of your beautiful blood drinker.
She was patient with me, and then there came a wave of true grief.
I loved Eudoxia. You destroyed her. And now you cannot leave me alone.

I stood up and went again to walking about the room. Its sumptuous Byzantine furnishings stifled me. The thick patterned hangings seemed to fill the air with dust. And nowhere could I glimpse the night sky from this chamber, for we were too far from the inner garden court.

But what did I want just now? Only to be free of this creature, no, free of the whole knowledge of her, of the whole awareness of her, free of ever having seen her, and that was quite impossible, was it not?

Suddenly a sound interrupted me and I realized that at last Avicus and Mael had come.

They found their way through the many rooms to the bedchamber, and as both of them entered, they were astonished to see the gorgeous young woman seated on the side of the immense heavily draped bed.

I stood silent while the two of them absorbed the shock. Immedi-ately Avicus was drawn to Zenobia, as drawn to her as he had been to Eudoxia, and this creature had yet to speak a single word.

In Mael I saw suspicion and a bit of concern. He looked to me searchingly. He was not spellbound by the young woman’s beauty. His feelings were under his command.

Avicus drew near to Zenobia, and as I watched him, as I watched his eyes fire with a passion for her, I saw my way out. I saw it plainly, and when I did, I felt a terrible regret. I felt my solemn vow to be alone weigh heavily upon me, as if I had taken it in the name of a god, and perhaps I had. I had taken it in the name of Those Who Must Be Kept. But there must be no more thoughts of them now, not in Zenobia’s presence.

As for the child woman herself, she was far more drawn to Avicus, perhaps because of his immediate and obvious devotion, than she was to the distant and somewhat suspicious Mael.

“Thank you for coming,” I said. “I know it was not your choice to set foot in this house.”

“What’s happened?” Mael asked. “Who is this creature?”

“The companion of Eudoxia, sent away for her own protection until the battle with us could be finished, and now that it is finished, here is the child.”

“Child?” asked Zenobia gently. “I am no child.”

Avicus and Mael both smiled indulgently at her, though her look was grave and disapproving.

“I was as old as Eudoxia,” she said, “when the Blood was given to her. “Never make a blood drinker of a greater age,’ said Eudoxia. “For a greater mortal age can only lead to misery later on from habits learned in mortal life.’ All of Eudoxia’s slaves received the Blood at my age, and were therefore no longer children, but blood drinkers prepared for eternal life within the Blood.”

I said nothing to this, but I never forgot it. Mark me. I never forgot it. Indeed, there came a time a thousand years after, when these words meant a great deal to me, and they came to haunt my nights and to torture me. But we will come soon enough to that, for I mean to pass over that thousand years very quickly. But let me return to my tale.

This little speech from Zenobia was spoken tenderly as all her words had been spoken, and when she finished it I could see that Avicus was charmed. This did not mean that he would love her completely or forever, mind you, I knew that. But I could see that there was no barrier between the child and himself.

He drew closer still and seemed at a loss to express his respect for her beauty, and then, surprising me completely, he spoke to her:

“My name is Avicus,” he said. “I am a long-time friend of Marius.” Then he looked at me, and then back to Zenobia. He asked: “Are you alone?”

“Quite alone,” said Zenobia, though she did glance at me first to see if I meant to silence her, “and if you—all of you or perhaps one of you—do not take me with you out of here, or remain with me in this house, I’m lost.”

I nodded to both my long-time companions.

Mael gave me a withering look and shook his head in negation. He glanced at Avicus. But Avicus was still looking at our child.

“You won’t be left here unprotected,” said Avicus, “that’s unthinkable. But you must leave us alone now, so that we may talk. No, you remain where you are. There are many rooms in this house. Marius, where can we gather?”

“The library,” I said at once. “Come, both of you. Zenobia, don’t be afraid, and don’t try to listen, for you may hear only parts of what we say, and all is what matters. All is what will contain the true sentiments of the heart.”

I led the way, and we quickly seated ourselves in Eudoxia’s fine library just as we had only a short time before.

“You must take her,” I said. “I can’t do it. I’m leaving here and I’m taking the Mother and the Father, just as I’ve told you. Take her under your wing.”

“This is impossible,” Mael declared, “she’s far too weak. And I don’t want her! I tell you that plainly, I don’t want her!”

Avicus reached out and covered Mael’s hand with his own.

“Marius can’t take her,” said Avicus. “He’s speaking the simple truth. It’s not a choice. He cannot have such a little creature with him.”

“Little creature,” said Mael disgustedly. “Say what’s really the truth. She is a frail creature, an unknowing creature, and she will bring us harm.”

“I beg you both, take her,” I said. “Teach her all that you know. Teach her what she needs to be on her own.”

“But she’s a woman,” said Mael disgustedly. “How could she ever be on her own?”

“Mael, when one is a blood drinker such a thing doesn’t matter,” I said. “Once she is strong, once she truly knows everything, she can live like Eudoxia once lived if she chooses. She can live any way that she likes.”

“No, I don’t want her,” said Mael. “I will not take her. Not for any price or on any terms.”

I was about to speak but when I saw the look on his face, I realized he was telling the truth more completely than he knew himself. He would never be reconciled to Zenobia, and if I did leave her with him, I would be leaving her in danger. For he would abandon her or desert her, or even worse. It would only be a matter of time.

I looked to Avicus only to see that he was miserably at the mercy of Mael’s words. As always he was in Mael’s power. As always he could not break free of Mael’s anger.

Avicus pleaded with him. Surely it would not change their lives so very much. They could teach her to hunt, could they not? Why, surely she knew already how to hunt. She wasn’t so very human, this lovely little girl. It wasn’t hopeless, and shouldn’t they do what I had asked?

“I want her to be with us,” said Avicus warmly. “I find her lovely. And I see in her a sweetness that touches my heart.”

“Yes, there is that,” I said. “It’s very true, this sweetness.”

“And why is such a thing of use in a blood drinker?” asked Mael. “A blood drinker should be sweet?”

I couldn’t speak. I thought of Pandora. The pain in me was simply too intense for me to form words. But I saw Pandora. I saw her, and I knew that she had always combined both passion and sweetness, and that both men and women can have such traits, and this child, Zenobia, might grow in both.

I looked off, unable to speak to either of them as they argued, but I realized suddenly that Avicus had grown angry, and that Mael was boiling to a rage.

When I looked back to them, they fell silent. Then Avicus looked at me as if for some authority which I knew that I did not possess.

“I can’t command your future,” I said. “I’m leaving you as you know.”

“Stay and keep her with us,” said Avicus.

“Unthinkable!” I said.

“You’re stubborn, Marius,” said Avicus softly. “Your own strongest passions frighten you. We could be the four of us in this house.”

“I’ve brought about the death of the owner of this house,” I said, “I cannot live in it. It is blasphemy against the old gods that I linger this long. The old gods will bring about vengeance not so much because they exist but because I once honored them. As for this city, I’ve told you, I must leave it, and I must take Those Who Must Be Kept to where they are truly secret and safe.”

“The house is yours by right,” said Avicus. “And you know this. You’ve offered it to us.”

“You didn’t destroy her,” I said. “Now let us return to the question at hand. Will you take this girl?”

“We will not,” said Mael.

Avicus could say nothing. He had no choice.

I looked away once more. My thoughts were purely and completely with Pandora on the isle of Crete, something which I could not even envision. Pandora, the wanderer. I said nothing for the longest while.