Crawling Between Heaven And Earth (8 page)

I found my voice. My head still pounded and my throat still felt desiccated but I found a little of my mind, of my humanity, a morsel of my outraged self. I had done this for him, to keep his love that relentless time and growth were plundering away. "I thought . . ." I said, then stronger, "I thought everything would be as it was . . .as it always was. I would never change, you wouldn't worry about people saying you are pathic, or" I stopped as his expression clouded.

"Oh, no," he said and smiled, ironically. "Not pathic, just necrophiliac." Then with sudden force, "I do not share my bed with cold corpses, much less corpses who seek blood to replace a life they have lost."

He stepped back into the shadows. The light of the candle forbore to show his face. "So, what can I do with you? I hear one can kill such monsters as you, Hylas. Light will kill lamias, and water, that sustain normal life. Should I kill you, Hylas?"

I got up. I clasped the covers about me. He couldn't be serious. I had given him my love, such as it was. He had the enjoyment of my body while it pleased him. He could not kill me.

I protested all this in a high whine, but he interrupted me, "No, you're right. I cannot kill you. Even if you are dead already . . .even if it is the most merciful thing, I can't bring myself to do it." He put the candle down, picked up his cloak from the couch facing mine, threw it haphazardly over his shoulders and said, "I'll be back tomorrow morning. Be gone when I'm back. I'll give instructions for you to be left alone till then." He opened the door, and, framed in the muted light of the central courtyard, the faint light that made my eyes hurt and my skin smart, he turned around and said, "And Hylas, everyone in this house, to the least slave, better be alive and in good health when I return. Or I swear by Mars I'll search you out, drag you from your den and hold you in midday light till you shrivel and die."

He walked out.

I sat on my couch, in pain and anger as I heard voices on the other side of the door and smelled the living blood of the household. It did not occur to me to defy Hadrianus's prohibition. I knew him too well, his prompt and merciless justice.

I found one of my tunics, dressed in it and waited. Now and then, I peeked through the draperies that encased the window. When evening fell, soothing and calm, I climbed out.

In the city, I found plenty to satiate my thirst.

Rich men in search of pleasure found quite something else and were too secure in my embrace by the time they thought of fighting. I learned blood was more than food, life was more than a means of slaking thirst. There was an exquisite pleasure to drinking from the springs of life . . .something, I suppose, like the contentment of a babe at his mother's breast. Food and sex and ecstasy were mine when my teeth tore open the vein and life left my victim and streamed into me. I spared no one, didn't leave any of my victims the tiny spark of life necessary to turn him into one such as I. I gave them nothing, and took all—their life, their gold, their jewels.

When dawn threatened in the Eastern skies, I rented two rooms in a cheap hostelry, and closed the wooden shutters tightly against the day.

I lived this way for uncounted years. Athens, then as now, was a seaport, where people came and went, enough of a feeding ground, enough of a hunting preserve.

My only joy was to stalk the nightly streets, searching for drunken sailors, lost whores, bohemian citizens. That and to listen for any news of Hadrianus. Hatred, hatred flaming clear and pure, had replaced love. Hatred born of resentment for his coldness that pushed me to my death, for his weakness that allowed my dead body to escape for this life, this quasi life I led.

And when I missed the warmth of the sun, the gentle breeze of daytime on fragrant spring flowers, it wasn't myself that I blamed. Not myself but my erstwhile master and his ways, and the coldness of his heart, the coldness of Rome. Take a boy out of the streets, would he, and show him love and power he'd always been denied, only to throw him out, when his body changed and he turned into the man he couldn't help becoming?

I remembered the smell of his blood, the warmth of it on my tongue, and hungered, and waited.

I heard the news when he became Emperor, after Trajanus's death, and ground my teeth, and bode my time. I would wait, I told myself. I would wait until he became old and decrepit and powerless. Until he was ready to beg for immortality. And then . . .and then I would deny it, I would laugh as he had laughed, I would give him death—slow unforgiving death.

Then one night, in a tavern, a coin was thrown at me, change for the drink I pretended swallowing while I lingered and heard living men talk of living things, and joke and sing, and discuss women and boys and the happiness of daily life.

The golden coin was small, bright, freshly minted. And from it Hadrianus's face smiled at me. Older than I had known him yet unmistakably Hadrianus. I turned the coin over. On the other side, an exquisitely beautiful profile greeted me. A boy, or a woman, with a high bridged nose, delicately drawn features, and a coiffure of elaborate curls pulled up and away from the face. I stared at it, uncomprehending. It looked like me. So much like me. And yet . . ..

"The Emperor's boy," the tavern keeper told me, brightly.

"His son?" I asked, confused, scared. Not his son, no certainly not his son. A son would be a chance for immortality, a way for him to evade the fate I planned.

The man laughed, a short, significant laughter. "Oh, no, not his son. His friend, his companion.

"He is a Bithynian," the man said, taking my stare for a question. "His name is Antinous. His ancestors, the founders of his city, were from Athens. So we honor him. That, and he is the most beautiful—but there, you can see him for yourself, tonight at the festivals of Dionysus, at the forum."

I did see him. I wish I hadn't. Antinous. Antinous of the dark, dark midnight curls, the white skin, the violet blue eyes, the pomegranate lips. In the middle of the crowd, near the Emperor. The Emperor who had aged and gained weight, but looked contented as I'd never known him. The Emperor who hung suspended from each of the boy's words and cared not if the boy's pronunciation of Greek was faulty and provincial.

Antinous. I hated and I loved him. All in the same instant, the same consuming moment. He was so much like myself, and yet as I had never been. Twin threads, the blind fates had spun for us, and mine had got dirty and frayed, and his remained free, clean, untouched.

I lingered at the edges of the crowd, with the anonymous peasants. I ignored the free food and wine distributed. And I listened to the talk around me, for anything that might pertain to this dark haired beauty who had replaced me.

He was from Bithynium, as the tavern keeper had told me. From Bithynium and fourteen, some said twelve. He looked closer to fourteen, but it was hard to tell. Maybe he, himself, didn't know. And some said he was a slave, and some that he was free, and some that he had lost his family in the earthquake three years ago, and some that his parents had willingly given him to Hadrianus for a suitable fee.

Whatever he was, whoever he was, his quiet grace entranced. And when, after many jugs of wine, instruments were brought out for music, he played the flute in pure, clean notes. And when, still later, poetry demanded he sang his own poems, of fields and sun and flowers and rivers, in perfect rhythm and images clear that made me want to see it all again and brought bitter salty tears to my eyes for the first time since my death. And when night threatened to slip into dawn and I should long since have immured myself in my darkened lodging, I remained, hypnotized by the dancing that had begun and by Antinous's body, vigorous and lively and graceful, oh so painfully graceful.

Once, in the flowing movements of the mad dance, he brushed by the circle of spectators to the imperial feast. He passed a scant hand's breadth away from me and I could smell him, I could almost taste him: sweat and blood, cinnamon and mint, dark hair falling down his back, heavy and fragrant, like the night that sheltered and hid me.

It was only the first light of dawn, painful on my eyes and skin, that drove me to my lair.

The following night I took my treasure, the money and jewels I had collected from my victims over countless years, and settled accounts. I found out where the Emperor and Antinous were going next and followed them. To Sicily, I followed them, where they scaled Mount Etna to watch the sunrise, the sunrise that was anathema to me. Then I followed them to Rome and then back out again, to Africa and Greece and then to the far eastern frontiers, and everywhere where there was an outpost of the legion. And everywhere they were welcomed and feasted and enjoyed themselves and each other, ignorant of my presence so near, oh, so near them.

One year, two, three, I followed them. I saw the shadow creep over them. The same shadow that had fallen on me years before. Antinous's voice deepened and his shoulders broadened, and yet . . .and yet Hadrianus's love for him faltered not. He was faithful, faithful as I'd never thought possible. No whores, no stray boys, not even the Empress whose expression soured more and more each passing year. Unmindful of people's tongues and reproaches, their love continued. And I followed them. For this I braved dawn and twilight, covered myself tightly with a cloak and kept out of the sun only at the noonday hour. Four years, five, six, seven. I followed them along the northern coast of Africa, towards Alexandria. And when they hunted together I tracked them, as they their prey; and when they feasted, I watched the dance and listened to the music; and when, on horseback, they eluded their escort and stole forbidden hours for love amid native forests, I was there hiding, crouching, peering out from the underbrush, burning with jealousy for their love and with hatred for Antinous's beauty and Hadrianus's power, burning with love for their life and their warmth and Antinous's shining clarity.

Here and there, cracks opened between them and I hoped, I hoped that darkness would creep in. Eagerly I heard them argue, headily I drank in the injuries traded, the insults implied. Hungrily, I absorbed the servants' gossip about Hadrianus's bringing a courtesan into their bed Antinous's refusing her and the bitter argument that followed, with Hadrianus explaining to Antinous that he was growing, that he was changing, that all things must end. Expectantly, I saw Antinous come away from encampments, palaces and villas, in the darkness of night, and brood alone after quarrels. Pleasurably, painfully, I saw his eyes cloud with the despair I knew so well. And I was close by that day in Africa when the boy charged foolishly and then paused before the open throat of a cornered lion. If it weren't for Hadrianus's lance, deftly thrown, Antinous's life would have ended then.

My mind clouded by love and hatred and jealousy, I conceived my plan. I would wait. I would wait until the boy begged for death, and I would offer him that, and life everlasting. And then he would be mine. Mine forever, companion of my dark hours. And Hadrianus? Hadrianus would either be tormented with the knowledge of what this, his dearest dear, had become, or he too would beg me for life in death, or death in life.

I would win, I would be avenged. And I would have him. The coveted favorite of the ruler of half a world.

This plan took me after them to Alexandria where they rested for two months, and then to the banks of the Nile, where they planned a cruise upriver. It was the season of floods, a time when only Hadrianus, old and gray but impetuous still, would brave the ancient river. The oracles at departure foretold the river would claim a life from the party. This deterred them not.

I followed the barge from the banks. In full possession of my powers, I could run like no human ever had. I could be near them and watch torches and lanterns nightly transform the immense pleasure boat into a lighted feast; I could listen to songs and poems, the dances and the laughter, the musical laughter of Antinous.

I became obsessed, mindless. I longed for nothing but that spicy blood I had once smelled so near, for that touch of mint, that hint of cinnamon, that life so strong in his perfect body.

I forgot to feed. For nights on end, I forgot to feed, until I was nothing but thirst. Until thirst twisted my body, shriveled my throat. Until my body was heavy and dead and painful.

Then one night I saw the boy leave the barge. Alone and unattended, if you can believe it. He slipped off by himself long after a party where wine had flowed freely and lulled servants and retainers into dreamless sleep. He took one of the small boats and rowed ashore, then walked along the river, head down, hands at his belt, pensive. His hair fell, a soft, unruly mass down his shoulders. His tunic of fine silk thread moved in the night breeze, now delineating his body, now veiling it. His feet were laced into sturdy, thick-soled sandals. He carried no cloak.

I followed him. His steps took him to a small riverside shrine to Osiris. Ever pious, even to foreign divinities, Antinous knelt before the stone altar with its painted wood statue and bent his head in prayer.

I stepped out from behind the bushes that had hid me and greeted him, as a passerby might greet him, in the Greek I had learned in Athens.

He looked up, smiled, returned the greeting, surprised at finding a fellow countryman in this foreign land.

I told him I was in Egypt to study religion. He told me his friend, too, had come here in search of religion, of answers about death from these people who had so long been in love with it. I inquired after his friend and he smiled, a rueful smile that told me what I need not ask. Even if I didn't see a cooling to their love, he felt it cooling or imagined it so.

I told him the same tales that had lured me, oh so long ago. I promised him a changeless body, with never-fading, hairless skin, smooth enough to keep his lover's interest forever. I told him I, myself, was well over thirty now. I assured him of eternal life.

But he smiled and shook his head. Not, understand, that he didn't believe me, but—alas—he was not a boy from the Suburra but a Greek from the Eastern colonies, half in love with the idea of a tragic destiny, of a fate he couldn't avoid. And besides, surely this miracle would have a price. Too high a price for one who didn't own himself.