Fire Nectar 2 (10 page)

“Do not let it happen again. I will put the weapons away. Meet me by the fire and we’ll discuss my plans for Napoleon.”

When he entered the weapon’s room, he shut the thick wooden door closed. He placed with deliberate care the halberd and morning star to each its rightful place. Walking to the door, he felt his heart pound with pain. His wretched mind twisted with an ancient torment, whispering to him that they thought themselves above him. They were not his friends, after all. They were his enemies and had been thinking him a fool. Ludovico must be taught respect, and taught tonight, it hissed! You are greater in power, in strength, and in mind. Set them out into The Sun!

With both hands he leaned all his weight against the door - against himself – bracing himself to fight the red-hot heat that tortured him. Listen, man. Listen to what they say before you plan their deaths. Stop this now and hear them. Do it! Listen.

Through the walls and door, he eavesdropped.

Ludovico’s voice was first, “I did not wish to cause him pain. I was merely making use of a common phrase. Wicked folly! My forgetful mind is the bane of me, once more.”

“Is William, William the Conqueror then? The thought had not entered my mind! I cannot believe it!” Joshua’s awe-struck tone had a calming effect upon William’s insanity. Enough to give him room to think.

“He is, and what’s more, he is the eldest of us, that we know of. It is from him that we have learned who we are. ‘We do not kill good people’ is a dictate of morality from his sense of what he believes is just. And he is correct. His knowledge and wisdom has molded a family of immortals who make the world a better place. It could have been quite the opposite.”

“Indeed! I can see exactly how that is so. If you had not been there with me on my first night
–
”

“Many good people would have lost their lives. Come, I will find a way to make it up to my dear friend. Let us give him space to come round to us once more.”

“I am sure he must know that your heart holds only respect for him!”

“Respect! Oui! And more than that, my heart holds admiration, indeed
–
great love
–
for William! He loves to fight, but his heart is larger than his body and ten times so, though he would not admit it! I only wish to be as controlled and strong as he. Oh look. The fire is just embers now. Pity, that. I do so love the warmth.”

“And the danger,” Joshua laughed. “I see more and more each day, of who you are, Ludovico. The image grows ever clearer!”

“It is a good one, I hope?” Ludovico fished.

“Very good, indeed. Very good, indeed.”

William leaned forward into his hands and relinquished his inner war. He allowed their voices to numb in the distance, created a silence and separation in his mind, as he had taught himself. The lies his mind and past mercilessly fed him were a poison he wanted never to drink, again. But he did not know how to close the wound!

Quietly he relaxed his chest against the door, turned his great head to the side to rest his cheek against the calming, cooled wood, and closed his eyes.

T
he entire town
was in attendance of the festival. There were roasted pigs aplenty, couples performing traditional dances, spirits overflowing from glasses raised high in celebration. The evening was a relatively warm one and Herleva bade him, “Son, go and play with friends. I shall see you happy before this day is done. Do you understand? Now go.”

William didn’t answer as he left her side. She worried for him. It was not normal for a fourteen year old boy to keep to himself so much, nor to wear so much responsibility, as though he were thrice his age. She did not know the reason he did not keep many friends was because the boys did not include him. He would never tell her what she would have guessed, from her own dealings with the villagers. And that was this: The reason he was left out was because of her. They judged his mother harshly for her past, and judged him for coming into being without God’s blessing. He was a bastard born out of holy wedlock, and this was something not to be forgotten.

Sometimes he heard the other young men and women whispering when he approached. He would not allow himself to be drawn in, even though his insides were incensed by the hushed voices and sideways stares. Robert was the worst offender. The pity was that William thought Robert to be intelligent, to a degree. He could read, when William could not. He was a leader in personality, but he used that power to lord over others, not to improve them. This was a trait William abhorred.

He saw Robert mock and berate those around him, always maintaining an air of superior status. William knew the truth, that Robert’s posturing and degradation of others was a sign of deep and profound insecurity. The boy, who pretended to be a man, was in fact a child in spirit. So why must William have friends among boys like that? Why befriend him, or walk with those who did? And why teach him, when naught good it would do? William thought there was no time for fools. He had dreams. He had plans. And until something was called out in the open, William let it slide.

Walking on his own through the crowd, his sword tucked in a sheath on his still-growing hips; he avoided chickens and children as they frenetically ran this way and that, threatening yet failing to upturn him. A busty woman winked as she passed and the sultry scent of her turned William’s direction round to follow. As he rounded a merchant selling wares, a young jester who had a small crowd circled around him, yonder, captured his attention. Best to have a laugh if there is one to be had, young William thought, and gave up chase of the woman twice his age and twelve times his experience.

Joining the appreciative crowd of twenty-six, all ages and shapes, William watched the jester dance, sing, and make merry. He had a way about him that made one want to watch…a twinkle in the eyes that said mischief was afoot, take heed! And when he bowed deeply to a lovely young maiden, but then switched the attention to her father, as though it was HE who’d captured his heart, William laughed freely. The audience followed suit as the old man turned tomato-red and waved off his unwanted suitor. This only made the jester try harder to win the old man’s affections! William shook his head, laughing more loudly still, his hand on the hilt of his sword, from habit. He judged the jester to be less than twenty years of age and, though he had not seen him before this night, he liked him instantly. One needs laughter more than food, he knew.

Just then the jester caught his eye and something happened. A kinship was instantly felt by both, without reason or need of one. He tipped an imaginary hat to William, and went on to continue his performance. What was his name, William wondered in his own mind. It looks as though I’ll make my mother happy, after all, for I have just found a friend.

“Well what do you know! The bastard’s face can smile!” The voice of Robert behind him made William freeze. His smile left him at once. He had never been called out openly, and the steam that came out of his ears felt very real to him. What was worse was that the cruel taunt had been loud enough to draw the crowd’s attention. This would not be a private battle. All looked round to William, as Robert boomed, “Look boys, look at the face, so somber before this night
–
yet it has yielded it’s usual severity!”

William caught the jester’s eyes before turning round, and saw anger there. He was not impressed with Robert and gave William a look that said, “This shall not be!” The young one gave an almost imperceptible nod to his new friend and, with hand still on the hilt of his sword, he turned his still-growing body slowly round.

Standing before William was a pack of six or seven boys of varying ages. Some were not pleased with Robert, he could see from their postures. They cast down their eyes or looked apologetically forward, waiting with obvious anxiety. Others had unreadable faces of stone. He cared nothing for them, or the pack as a whole, but the audience of his neighbors gathering round… about them, he cared deeply. From his left and right he could see the crowd grow. His father, on his deathbed, had recently announced that William was to be considered his official heir, regardless of never having married his mother. He’d asked permission from the powers that be, and it had been granted. This had been a coup, one that created a great deal of pressure for William to earn the title, and their respect. If the people of Normandy were to honor him as lord of his land, what would happen next was crucial. It would without doubt, sway them in one direction… or the other.

“Robert, you dare not say that word. Not to me, not again. I trust, since you are standing in front of me thus, you can hear clearly, my command.”

The audience grew, their silence eerie as they watched.

Robert’s eyes narrowed and he laughed loudly, “Your command? Just because your father bade all of Normandy to acknowledge you, does not mean that the truth is not still, the truth! You are, and will always be, William The Bastard. To all of us!”

A burning hot fury overtook William, one that he had never known. With it, the crowd seemed to disappear and every thing slowed round him. His focus sharpened to a dangerous point. He did not see his mother join the audience, her face a mixture of beauty and fear. He did not see her look around and judge correctly that this moment would determine if William was man or boy. If man; what type of man would he be? With unspeakable strength she resisted the urge to go to him, to protect her little boy. Holding her head high against the curious stares, she simply watched. Watched as Robert taunted. Watched as people whispered. Watched as a jester joined her son, saying nothing as he walked to stand beside him.

William said quietly, through gritted teeth, “I know you speak thus, because you’ve acquired an audience, so I’ll ask you once, to walk away. Only once.”

“You’ll ask me to walk away? Or what?” Robert asked the crowd, fueled by ego and power.

“Or feel my sword,” seethed William.

Robert turned round dramatically and called out, “Ooooooo!” to the audience. Some snickered. It was then that Robert locked eyes with Herleva. As though he’d just found a treasure, he spun round to face William once more. “I see your mother has come to rescue you, bastard. But what can she do? She could not even persuade a man to marry her!”

William growled deep in his lungs and lunged at Robert. With his right hand he deftly unsheathed his sword and with his left, grabbed Robert’s arm and cut off his hand before the boy knew to scream. The crowd gasped and drew back in shock, as the dismembered hand fell to the dirt with a loud and slippery thud. Robert screamed out and grasped the bloody stump of his arm with his only remaining hand.

William, for the first time, raised his voice loudly to the crowd as he announced, “You will not speak of my mother thus. No. Nor of me. Never again!” They saw what they could not, before. They saw a leader. It was undeniable. It did not matter that William had not yet grown to full height. His essence was pure, apparent, and no one argued it. “No one is to show her disrespect again. I will not have it. Is this clear?”

All eyes stared, and silence was his answer affirmative. To prove he would not be trifled with, to fully drive home the importance of his order, William looked to Robert, crying and kneeling on the ground, and reached forward to him. It looked as though he might help him up, but he did not. Instead, he took his good hand off as well and tossed it to the crowd, his eyes cold and purposeful.

“There is no man smaller than he who makes fun of the weaker sex. Do they not care for us, cook for us and have our children?” he asked loudly.

Robert ran away through the crowd, parting it with his bleeding, screaming departure. William watched them and saw for the first time the faces of the pack, filled with shock and awe. He braced himself for a fight, but was granted none, as they walked wordlessly forward to join him. His deeds had earned their loyalty and respect for reasons only their hearts understood. The young Duke of Normandy nodded to each, one by one, and accepted their allegiance. To the murmuring crowd, William turned. He smiled and called out, “Go now. Go and make merry, for the night is young.”

As they dispersed, he caught his mother’s eyes. He did not waver, nor look to her for approval. Instead, he only smiled and tilted his head in salute. She returned his salute and smiled back to him - pride, love and admiration glowing from her. She watched him turn to his jester friend but could not hear them say,

“What is your name, friend?” William asked.

“Taillefer, at your service.”

She smiled and turned to leave, knowing that she would never call him “son” again.

From that day forth, she would only call him
William.

A
t JFK International Airport
, William tried in vain to find a flight to LA. All ticket counters reported there were none at this late hour, due to the noise curfew. Unacceptable, he thought, fighting reality by accosting the next ticket agent, and the next. The world is not made for night dwellers. The sun has gone down, does that mean everything must go down with it? Ridiculous. He pulled out his phone and called Joshua. The phone rang only once. “William, I was just about to call you. So like you, to beat me to it! I’m guessing you’re in the same scrape I’m in.”

William walked away from the counter of United Airlines. The woman there watched him, but he didn’t notice, nor care. She thought him to be quite handsome. Regal, even. Was he a movie star? She couldn’t put her finger on what it was about him that made him so interesting. “Of course I beat you. I beat you at everything. And yes, it is unfortunate but there are no flights out, not until morning.”

“Well, that won’t do at all,” Joshua complained. William heard a woman, a ticket agent in San Francisco, calling to him in the distance, “Sir? I can help you over here.”

William waited for them to talk, but it was not his favorite thing to do.

If he gets there before me, I’ll be most unhappy about it, he thought impatiently. Why is he asking her if there are no flights? I just told him. Impudence.

As he listened to their conversation, he watched a pretty black woman put her child into a stroller, before covering the little human with a fuzzy, pink blanket. I should call Aja, he realized. Why hadn’t he thought of her before? His body awakened to the thought and he smiled. Joshua came back to say, “Nothing until sunup. Not going to work at all. What were you thinking, old friend?”

“What I think, is that I was being overly optimistic by thinking I could make it there before sun up, had there
been
a flight, so it’s lucky for me that there isn’t one!” William laughed. The thought of Aja had quickly raised his mood considerably.

“Well, you’re always up for a challenge. I suppose you thought you could persuade the pilot to hurry, had you seen the sun rising, mid-flight,” Joshua tossed back.

William grinned, “Aye, and I would have succeeded, too.”

“I’ve no doubt. I’ve no doubt at all. Well, tomorrow night then?”

“Yes, I’ll call Elizabeth and let her know. Tomorrow night! I’ll look forward to it.”

“As will I, William. I shall look forward to it, as well.”

He listened to the phone go dead and paused. Elizabeth would be busy with Daniella, who was no doubt under a lot of pain and duress. She would not be able to take his call, nor would she want to, if Dani was angry with them having been summoned. He decided to create the least amount of waves, by sending a text. He typed out, “No flights ‘til morning. Flying out tomorrow night. Don’t fear,” and hit send.

Then he dialed Aja’s number and waited, hoping she’d pick up. If she didn’t it was because she was with a lover. Or perhaps she was no longer alive. Do not go to the darkest place, William, he scolded himself. It was so tiresome thinking the worst all the time. Nearly millennia of life experience will do that to you.

The airport around him was loud - with conversations, footsteps, luggage zippers, papers folded, biting arguments, happy reunions, taxi cab’s being called outside, wheels screeching, cops instructing cars to not park here or there, and always…
always
… the heartbeats. Drowning them out was habit now, but when he let it in, the noise was a deafening cacophony of humanity. He opened himself to it to drown out his own thoughts. Holding the phone to his ear, he closed his eyes and let in the world.

When she answered, her voice was smooth and deep. “William. What a pleasure to see your name light up my screen.”

It surprised him to hear her voice, and he opened his eyes at once and shut back out the world, except for her. He’d forgotten how much he loved the soothing sound of her African accent dancing across the vowels. “Aja! The pleasure is all mine. That voice of yours, I’ve missed it. Where are you?”

“In Belize, love. Come and join me. I miss talking with someone who isn’t a child,” she purred.

“I assume you don’t mean a real child.”

“No. I mean the humans that surround me. So young. So volatile and impatient.”

“I can be volatile and impatient, and I’m not the least bit young.”

“Yes but on you, it’s intriguing. You’re a warrior. It’s in your nature. When you are impatient, it’s because you cannot tolerate fools. And when you rage, you are incredibly sexy. I miss your body, William.”

“What are you wearing?” he asked her quietly. On the other end of the phone, he heard a garment flowing freely to the floor, the silk caressing her skin in whispers, along the way.

“Nothing… now,” Aja answered, smiling.

“Oh, if only I were there. I would do things to you that would ruin men for you, forever,” he promised, his voice husky.

“Again?”

He laughed loudly then, and changed the subject. “Aja, I am happy to say that we need you. Come to Los Angeles at once. It’s happened again. La Rochelle. 1812. Catch a flight out tomorrow if you can.”

He could hear her walking in her room, and from the bounce-back of the sound of her voice, he guessed her to be closely facing a window. “Why happy, William? This is bad news.”

“I know. I am only happy in that it gives me a reason to see you again. And to not have to wait to do it,” he confided as he stepped to the side to let a woman in a wheelchair pass by more easily, pushed by an airline employee who was cursed with a bad complexion. William smiled at her and received a surprised and pleased smile in return. The employee saw, but ignored him and cast his eyes forward, a wall of apathy around him. Maybe that’s why his skin is checkered, William guessed. It’s probably because he’s blocked, or in pain.

“Ahh. I’ll come. I may not be able to make it out tomorrow. I will do my best. The next night at the latest, I promise you.”

William nodded and walked out of the building to catch a cab back to Manhattan. “That is all I can ask. Call me when your flight is booked.”

“Yes, I will. Why Los Angeles? Who is there?” He heard her leave the window and walk somewhere to her right. The discarded garment was never reclaimed. She was still naked, he knew. But he had to ask anyway because he wanted to hear her say it.

“Are you still naked?”

“I am very naked,” she smiled.

“Why is there a sun? I want to go to you, now!”

“The sun is there to give us appreciation for the night,” Aja informed him calmly, amused.

“Grrrr…Alright. I can wait. Who is there? Joshua is flying in from San Francisco. Daniella and Elizabeth are in LA.”

“Elizabeth? Your little pet,” she asked, and he could hear the tension. Elizabeth was one topic that could shake the spiritually centered core of Aja. William had forgotten. Women were still a mystery– one he wished never to grasp.

“She is not my pet, Aja. If I have a pet, it’s you.”

“You’re of the same royal blood. She is your people,” Aja argued, and he heard her pouring her dinner into a glass.

He shot back, “Elizabeth’s blood is not royal. She was in Elizabeth’s court; she was not the Queen herself. And I, as you know, am French, and from Viking blood. I made it royal by sheer will and force. How many times must we go over this? Plus, what does it matter?”

“Oh, William. Don’t get nasty. I was just teasing you.”

She lied, and he knew it. He let it slide. Best not to reason with the unreasonable. Just then a text from Elizabeth came through, and he pulled the phone away from his ear to read it. “Can’t wait. Thank you,” it read. He frowned at it. What was going on over there?

Aja misinterpreted his silence, as she waited for him to respond. She grew nervous and back peddled in her psyche. She didn’t want a rift between them, or their bodies. She shoved down jealousy, hid it, and smoothed her tone to molasses, just like he liked it. “I’ll see you soon, Warrior. I hope that after I get there, as soon as we all handle the problem, you and I can reacquaint ourselves, privately. Promise me?”

He was relieved she dropped the petty bullshit, and told her, “Not only do I promise, I vow to make it so.”

“Good. I will hurry to you all. And I promise to play nice with the blonde one.” She laughed to mask her true feelings and hung up.

He remembered the last time they’d seen each other. It had been in Virginia, 1964 soon after Rosa Parks had refused to move to the back of the bus. He had found Aja at a Martin Luther King event, listening to him speak. She was not in the crowd. She was in the sidelines, supporting Mr. King, under the guise of being a very wise and patient friend of his lovely wife, Coretta, one who offered the family great encouragement. Subtle and unobtrusive, that was Aja when it came to Politics. She played the game with honey rather than steel.

William had not been surprised to see her there. Aja, the daughter of a plantation owner and a slave, was a blend of mother and father. She had been turned in the mid 1800’s when she hit her twenty-fifth birthday by a vampire who wanted to free her from the cotton fields, forever. Her beauty had called to him, but it took more than that for him to choose her. Vampires are vetted based on much more than looks. It was her strength of character, her smooth speaking voice, her ability to sing sweeter than a dove, and above all, her intelligence and the ability to sway the minds of those around her–these traits inspired him to believe the world needed her to live longer than a human life span.

Since that time she had longed for equality among the races and had taken part in making it happen, whenever she could. It was her purpose. And though her father had taken her mother against her will, Aja would always be grateful to him for one simple thing, one gift he had not intended to give. He had passed down to her forest green eyes laced with gold. She used her beauty to open doors for her race, to help people trust her as she shined her light upon them. They
wanted
to talk to her and that served her purposed perfectly.

He respected this in her very much, her using her powers to make change, where change was sorely needed.

He had employed this tactic himself, often.