Blood and Gold (46 page)

At last there came a night, when having left a weary Bianca in the shrine once more, I came near to the Alpine monastery and saw my monk standing in the garden with his arms out to the sky in a gesture of such romance and piety that I almost wept to see it.

Softly, without a sound, I entered the cloister behind him.

At once he turned to face me, as if his powers were as great as mine. The wind swept his full brown robes as he came towards me.

“Marius,” he said in a whisper. He gestured to me to be quiet, and led me into the scriptorium.

When I saw the thickness of the letter he drew from his desk I was astonished. That it was open, that the seal was broken, gave me pause.

I looked at him.

“Yes, I read it,” he said. “Did you think I would give it to you without doing so?”

I couldn’t waste any more time. I had to read what was inside the letter. I sat down and unfolded the pages immediately.

Marius,

Let these words not move you to anger or to hasty decision. What I know of Pandora is as follows. She has been seen by those of us who are knowledgeable in such things in the cities of Nuremberg, Vienna, Prague and Gutenberg. She travels in Poland. She travels in Bavaria.

She and her companion are most clever, seldom disturbing the human population through which they move, but from time to time they set foot in the royal courts of certain kingdoms. It is believed by those who have seen them that they take some delight in danger.

Our archives are filled with accounts of a black carriage that travels by day, comporting within two huge enameled chests in which these creatures are presumed to sleep, protected by a small garrison of pale-skinned human guards who are secretive, ruthless and devoted.

Even the most benign or clever approach to these human guards is followed by certain death as some of our members have learnt for themselves when seeking to penetrate the mystery of these dark travelers.

It is the judgment of some among us here that the guards have received a small portion of the power so generously enjoyed by their master and mistress, thus binding them irrevocably to Pandora and her companion.

Our last sighting of the pair was in Poland. However these beings travel very fast and remain in no one place for any given length of time, and indeed seem more than content to move back and forth across the length and breadth of Europe ceaselessly.

They have been known to go back and forth in Spain and to travel throughout France, but never to linger in Paris. As regards this last city, I wonder if you know why they do not stay there long, or if I must be the one to enlighten you.

I shall tell you what I know. In Paris, now, there exists a great dedicated group of the species which we both understand, in-deed, so large a group that one must doubt that even Paris can content them. And having received into our arms one desperate infidel from this group we have learnt much of how these unusual Parisian creatures characterize themselves.

I cannot commit to parchment what I know of them. Let me only say that they are possessed of a surprising zeal, believing themselves to serve God Himself with their strenuous appetite. And should others of the same ilk venture into their domain they do not hesitate to destroy them, declaring them to be blasphemers.

This infidel of which I speak has averred more than once that his brothers and sisters were among those who participated in your great loss and injury. Only you can confirm this for me, as I do not know what is madness here or boasting, or perhaps a blending of the two, and you can well imagine how confounded we are to have one so loquacious and hostile beneath our roof, so eager to answer questions and so frightened to be left unguarded.

Let me also add that piece of intelligence which may matter to you as much now as any which I have pertaining to your lost Pandora.

He who guides this voracious and mysterious band of Paris creatures is none other than your young companion from Venice.

Won over by discipline, fasting, penance and the loss of his former Master—so says this young infidel—your old companion has proved to be a leader of immeasurable strength and well capable of driving out any of his kind who seek to gain a foothold in Paris.

Would that I could tell you more of these creatures. Allow me to repeat what I have suggested above. They believe themselves to be in the service of Almighty God. And from this principle, a considerable number of rules follow.

Marius, I cannot imagine how this information will affect you. I write here only that of which I am most certain.

Now, allow me to play an unusual role, given our respective ages.

Whatever your response to my revelations here, under no circumstances travel overland North to see me. Under no circumstances travel overland North to find Pandora. Under no circumstances travel overland North to find your young companion.

I caution you on all these accounts for two reasons. There are at this time, as you must surely know, wars all over Europe. Martin Luther has fomented much unrest. And in England, our sovereign Henry VIII has declared himself independent of Rome, in spite of much resistance.

Of course we at Lorwich are loyal to our King and his decisions earn only our respect and honor.

But it is no time to be traveling in Europe.

And allow me to warn you on another account which may surprise you. Throughout Europe now there are those who are willing to persecute others for witchcraft on slender reasons; that is, a superstition regarding witches reigns in villages and towns, which even one hundred years ago would have been dismissed as ridiculous.

You cannot allow yourself to travel overland through such places. Writings as to wizards, Sabbats and Devil worship cloud human philosophy.

And yes, I do fear for Pandora that she and her companion take no seeming notice of these dangers, but it has been communicated to us many times that though she travels overland, she travels very swiftly. Her servants have been known to purchase fresh horses twice or three times within a day, demanding only that the animals be of the finest quality.

Marius, I send you my deepest good wishes. Please write to me again as soon as possible. There are so many questions I wish to ask you. I dare not do so in this letter. I do not know if I dare at all. Let me only express the wish and hope for your invitation.

I must confess to you that I am the envy of my brothers and sisters that I have received your communication. I shall not let my head be turned by this. I am in awe of you and with justification.

Yours in the Talamasca,

Raymond Gallant.

At last I sat back on the bench, the many sheaves of parchment trembling in my left hand, and I shook my head, hardly knowing what I might say to myself, for my thoughts were all a brew.

Indeed, since the night of the disaster in Venice, I had frequently been at a loss for private words, and never did I know it as keenly as now.

I looked down at the pages. My right fingers touched various words, and then I drew back, shaking my head again.

Pandora, circling Europe, within my grasp but perhaps eternally beyond it.

And Amadeo, won over to the creed of Santino and sent to establish it in Paris! Oh, yes, I could envision it.

There came back to me once more the vivid image of Santino that night in Rome, in his black robes, his hair so vainly clean as he approached me and pressed me to come with him to his wretched catacomb.

And here lay the proof now that he had not destroyed my beautiful child, rather he had made of him a victim. He had won him over; he had taken Amadeo to himself! He had more utterly defeated me than ever I had dreamt.

And Amadeo, my blessed and beautiful pupil, had gone from my uncertain tutelage to that perpetual gloom. And yes, oh, yes, I could imagine it. Ashes. I tasted ashes.

A cold shudder ran through me.

I crushed the pages to myself.

Then quite suddenly I became aware that, beside me sat the gray-haired priest, looking at me, very calm as he leaned on his left elbow.

Again I shook my head. I folded the pages of the letter to make of them a packet that I might carry with me.

I looked into his gray eyes.

“Why don’t you run from me?” I asked. I was bitter and wanted to weep but this was no place for it.

“You’re in my debt,” he said softly. “Tell me what you are, if only so that I may know if I’ve lost my soul by serving you.”

“You haven’t lost your soul,” I said quickly, my wretchedness too plain in my voice. “Your soul has nothing to do with me.” I took a deep breath. “What did you make of what you read in my letter?”

“You’re suffering,” he said, “rather like a mortal man, but you aren’t mortal. And this one in England, he is mortal, but he isn’t afraid of you.”

“This is true,” I said. “I suffer, and I suffer for one has done me wrong and I have no vengeance nor justice. But let’s not speak of such things. I would be alone now.”

A silence fell between us. It was time for me to go but I had not the strength quite yet to do it.

Had I given him the usual purse? I must do it now. I reached inside my tunic and brought it out. I laid it down, and spilled the golden coins so that I might see them in the light of the candle.

Some vague and heated thoughts formed in my mind to do with Amadeo and the brilliance of this gold and of how angry I was, and of how I seethed for vengeance against Santino. I saw ikons with their halos of gold; I saw the coin of the Talamasca made of gold. I saw the golden florins of Florence.

I saw the golden bracelets once worn by Pandora on her beautiful naked arms. I saw the golden bracelets which I had put upon the arms of Akasha.

Gold and gold and gold.

And Amadeo had chosen ashes!

Well, I shall find Pandora once more, I thought. I shall find her! And only if she swears against me will I let her go, will I let her remain with this mysterious companion. Oh, I trembled as I thought of it, as I vowed, as I whispered these wordless thoughts.

Pandora, yes! And some night, for Amadeo, there would be the reckoning with Santino!

A long silence ensued.

The priest beside me was not frightened. I wondered if he could possibly guess how grateful I was that he allowed me to remain there in such precious stillness.

At last, I ran my left fingers over the golden coins.

“Is there enough there for flowers?” I asked, “flowers and trees and beautiful plants in your garden?”

“There is enough there to endow our gardens forever,” he answered.

“Ah forever!” I said. “I have such a love of that word, forever.”

“Yes, it is a timeless word,” he said, raising his mossy eyebrows as he looked at me. “Time is ours, but forever belongs to God, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I do,” I said. I turned to face him. I smiled at him, and I saw the warm impression of this on him just as if I’d spoken kind words to him. He couldn’t conceal it.

“You’ve been good to me,” I said.

“Will you write to your friend again?” he asked.

“Not from here,” I answered. “It’s too dangerous for me. From some other place. And I beg you, forget these things.”

He laughed in the most honest and simple way. “Forget!” he said.

I rose to go.

“You shouldn’t have read the letter,” I said. “It can only cause you worry.”

“I had to do it,” he answered. “Before I gave it to you.”

“I cannot imagine why,” I answered. I walked quietly towards the door of the scriptorium.

He came beside me.

“And so you go then, Marius?” he asked.

I turned around. I lifted my hand in farewell.

“Yes, neither angel nor devil, I go,” I said, “neither good nor bad. And I thank you.”

As I had before, I went from him so swiftly he couldn’t see it, and very soon I was alone with the stars, and staring down on that valley all too near to the chapel where a city was forming at the foot of my high cliff which had been neglected by all mankind for over a millennium.

29

I
waited a long time before showing the letter to Bianca.

I never really concealed it from her, for I thought such a thing was dishonest. But as she did not ask me the meaning of the pages which I kept with my few personal belongings, I did not explain them to her.

It was too painful for me to share my sorrow with regard to Amadeo. And as for the existence of the Talamasca, it was too bizarre a tale, and too fully interwoven with my love for Pandora.

But I did leave Bianca alone in the shrine more and more often. Never of course did I abandon her there in the early part of the evening when she depended upon me totally to reach those places where we might hunt. On the contrary, I always took her with me.

It was later in the night—after we had fed—that I would return her to safety and go off alone, testing the limits of my powers.

All the while a strange thing was happening to me. As I drank from the Mother my vigor increased. But I also learned what all injured blood drinkers learn—that in healing I was becoming stronger than I had been before my injury.

Of course I gave Bianca my own blood, but as I grew ever stronger the gap between us became very great and I saw it widening.

There were times, of course, when I put the question in my prayers as to whether Akasha would receive Bianca. But it seemed that the answer was no, and so in fear I didn’t dare to test it.

I remembered only too well the death of Eudoxia, and I also remembered the moment when Enkil had lifted his arm against Mael. I could not subject Bianca to possible injury.

Within a short time, I was easily able to take Bianca with me through the night to the nearby cities of Prague and Geneva, and there we indulged ourselves with some vision of the civilization we had once known in Venice.

As for that beautiful capital, I would not return to it, no matter how much Bianca implored me. Of course she possessed nothing of the Cloud Gift herself, and was dependent upon me in a manner which neither Amadeo nor Pandora had ever been.

“It is too painful to me,” I declared. “I will not go there. You’ve lived here so long as my beautiful nun. What is it you want?”

“I want Italy,” she said in a soft crestfallen voice. And I knew only too well what she meant, but I didn’t answer her.

“If I cannot have Italy, Marius,” she said at last, “I must have somewhere.”

She was in the front corner of the shrine when she spoke these all too significant words, and they were in a hushed voice, as if she sensed a danger.

We were always reverent in the shrine. But we did not whisper behind the Divine Parents. We considered it ill-mannered if not downright disrespectful.

It’s a strange thing when I think of it. But we could not presume that Akasha and Enkil did not hear us. And therefore we often spoke in the front corner, especially the one to the left, which Bianca favored, often sitting there with her warmest cloak about her.

When she said these words to me, she looked up at the Queen as though acknowledging the interpretation.

“Let it be her wish,” she said, “that we not pollute her shrine with our idleness.”

I nodded. What else could I do? Yet so many years had passed in this fashion that I had grown accustomed to this place over any other. And Bianca’s quiet loyalty to me was something I took for granted.

I sat down beside her now.

I took her hand in mine, and noticed perhaps for the first time in some while that my skin was now darkly bronzed rather than black, and most of the wrinkles had faded.

“Let me make a confession to you,” I said. “We cannot live in some simple house as we did in Venice.”

She listened to me with quiet eyes.

I went on.

“I fear those creatures, Santino and his demon spawn. Decades have passed since the fire, but they still threaten from their hiding places.”

“How do you know this?” she said. It seemed she had a great deal more to say to me. But I asked for her patience.

I went to my belongings and took from them the letter from Raymond Gallant.

“Read this,” I said. “It will tell you, among other things, that they have spread their abominable ways as far as the city of Paris.”

For a long time I remained silent as she read, and then her immediate sobs startled me. How many times had I seen Bianca cry? Why was I so unprepared for it? She whispered Amadeo’s name. She couldn’t quite bring herself to speak of it.

“What does this mean?” she said. “How do they live? Explain these words. What did they do to him?”

I sat beside her, begging her to be calm, and then I told her how they lived, these Satan worshiping fiends, as monks or hermits, tasting the earth and death, and how they imagined that the Christian God had made some place for them in his Kingdom.

“They starved our Amadeo,” I said, “they tortured him. This is plain here. And when he had given up all hope, believing me to be dead, and believing their piety to be just, he became one of them.”

She looked at me solemnly, the tears standing in her eyes.

“Oh, how often I’ve seen you cry,” I said. “But not of late, and not so bitterly as you cry for him. Be assured I have not forgotten him either.”

She shook her head as if her thoughts were not in accord with mine but she was not able to reveal them.

“We must be clever, my precious one,” I said. “Whatever abode we choose for ourselves, we must be safe from them, always.”

Almost dismissively she spoke now.

“We can find a safe place,” she said. “You know we can. We must. We cannot remain as we are forever. It is not our nature. If I have learnt nothing from your stories I have learnt that much, that you have wandered the Earth in search of beauty as well as in your search for blood.”

I did not like her seriousness.

“We are only two,” she went on, “and should these devils come again with their fiery brands, it will be a simple thing for you to remove me to some lofty height where they can’t harm me.”

“If I am there, my love, if I am there,” I said, “and what if I am not? All these years, since we have left our lovely Venice behind, you have lived within these walls where they can’t harm you. Now, should we go to some other place, and lodge there, I shall have to be on guard always. Is that natural?”

This felt dreadful to me, this talk. I had never known anything so difficult with her. I didn’t like the inscrutable expression on her face, nor the way her hand trembled.

“Perhaps it is too soon,” she said. “But I must tell you a most important thing, and I cannot keep it from you.”

I hesitated before I answered.

“What is it, Bianca?” I asked. I was fast becoming miserable. Utterly miserable.

“I think you have made a grievous error,” she said.

I was quietly stunned. She said nothing more. I waited. Still there came this silence commingled with her sitting back against the wall, her eyes fixed upwards on the Divine Parents.

“Will you tell me what this error is?” I asked. “By all means, you must tell me! I love you. I must hear this.”

She said nothing. She looked at the King and Queen. She did not appear to be praying.

I picked up the parchment pages of the letter. I moved through them and then looked at her again.

Her tears had dried, and her mouth was soft, but her eyes were filled with some strange look that I could not explain to myself.

“Is it the Talamasca that causes you fear?” I asked. “I shall explain all this to you. But see here that I wrote to them from a distant monastery. I left few footprints there, my beauty. I traveled the winds while you were sleeping here.”

There followed nothing but her silence. It seemed not dark or cold but merely reserved and thoughtful. But when she moved her eyes to me, the change in her face was slow and ominous.

With quiet words I hastened to explain to her my strange meeting with Raymond Gallant on my last night of true happiness in Venice. I explained in the simplest manner how he had sought knowledge of us, and how I had learnt from him that Pandora had been seen in northern Europe.

I talked of all the things contained in the letter. I talked of Amadeo once more. I spoke of my hatred of Santino, that he had robbed me of all I loved save her, and how on that account she was, of all things, most precious to me.

At last I was willing to say no more. I was growing angry. I felt wronged and I couldn’t understand her. Her silence hurt me more and more, and I knew that she could see this in my face.

Finally, I saw some change in her. She sharpened her gaze and then she spoke:

“Don’t you see the grievous error you’ve made?” she asked. “Don’t you hear it in the lessons you’ve made known to me? Centuries ago, the young Satan worshipers came to you for what you could give when you lived with Pandora. You denied them your precious knowledge. You should have revealed to them the mystery of the Mother and the Father!”

“Good Lord, how could you believe such a thing?”

“And when Santino asked you in Rome, you should have brought him to this very shrine! You should have shown to him the mysteries you revealed to me. Had you done it, Marius, he would never have been your enemy.”

I was enraged as I stared at her. Was this my brilliant Bianca?

“Don’t you see!” she went on. “Over and over, these unstoppable fools have made a cult of nothing! You could have shown them something!” She gestured towards me dismissively as though I disgusted her. “How many decades have we been here? How strong am I? Oh, you needn’t answer. I know my own endurance. I know my own temper.

“But don’t you see, all my understanding of our powers is reinforced by their beauty and their majesty! I know whence we come! I have seen you drink from the Queen. I have seen you wake from your swoon. I have seen your skin healing.

“But what did Amadeo ever see? What did Santino ever see? And you marvel at the extent of their heresy.”

“Don’t call it heresy!” I declared suddenly, the words bursting from my lips. “Don’t speak as if this were a worship! I have told you that yes, there are secret things, and things which no one can explain! But we are not worshipers!”

“It is a truth you revealed to me,” she said, “in their paradox, in their presence!” Her voice rose, ill-tempered and utterly alien to her. “You might have smashed Santino’s ill-founded crusade with a mere glimpse of the Divine Parents.”

I glared at her. A madness took hold of me.

I rose to my feet. I looked about the shrine furiously.

“Gather up all you possess,” I said suddenly. “I’m casting you out of here!”

She sat still as she had been before, gazing up at me in cold defiance.

“You heard what I said. Gather your precious clothes, your looking glass, your pearls, your jewels, your books, whatever you want. I’m taking you out of here.”

For a long moment she looked at me, glowering, I should say, as if she didn’t believe me.

Then all at once she moved, obeying me in a series of quick gestures. And within the space of a few moments, she stood before me, her cloak about her, her bundle clasped to her chest, looking as she had some countless years before when first I had brought her here.

I don’t know whether she looked back at the face of the Mother and the Father. I did not. I did not for one moment believe that either would prevent this dreadful expulsion.

Within moments, I was on the wind, and I didn’t know where I would take her.

I traveled higher and faster than I had dared to do before, and found it well within my power. Indeed, my own speed amazed me. The land before me had been burnt in recent wars and I knew it to be spotted here and there with ruined castles.

It was to one of these that I took her, making certain that the town all around had been pillaged and deserted, and then I set her down in a stone room within the broken fortress, and went in search of a place where she might sleep by day in the ruined graveyard.

It did not take me long to be confident that she could survive here. In the burnt-out chapel there were crypts beneath the floor. There were hiding places everywhere.

I went back to her. She was standing as I had left her, her face as solemn as before, her brilliant oval eyes fixed on me.

“I want no more of you,” I said. I was shuddering. “I want no more of you that you could say such a thing, that you could blame me that Santino took from me my child! I can have no more of you. You have no grasp of the burden I have carried throughout time or how many times I have lamented it! What do you think your precious Santino would do had he the Mother and the Father in his possession? How many demons could he bring to drink from them? And who knows what the Mother and Father might permit in their silence? Who knows what they have ever wanted?”

“You are an evil and negligent brother to me,” she said coldly, glancing about herself. “Why not leave me to the wolves in the forest? But go. I want no more of you either. Tell your scholars in the Talamasca where you have deposited me and perhaps they will offer me their kind shelter. But be gone. Whatever, be gone! I don’t want you here!”

Though up to that second I had been hanging upon her every word, I abandoned her.

Hours passed. I traveled the skies, not knowing where I went, marveling at the blurred landscape beneath me.

My power was far greater than it had ever been! Would I to try it, I could easily reach England.

I saw the mountains and then the sea, and then suddenly my soul ached so completely that I could do nothing but will myself to go back to her.

Bianca, what have I done?

Bianca, pray that you have waited for me!

Out of the deep dark heavens I somehow returned to her. I found her in the stone room, sitting in the corner, collected and still, just as if she had been in the shrine, and as I knelt before her, she reached up and threw her arms about me.

I sobbed as I embraced her.

“My beautiful Bianca, my beautiful one, I am so sorry, so sorry, my love,” I said.

“Marius, I love you with my whole heart eternally.” She cried as freely and completely as I did. “My precious Marius,” she said. “I have never loved anyone as I love you. Forgive me.”