Sustenance (55 page)

“I know you
will
not do it,” she countered. “The scarring is bad, and I don’t like to think how you came to have so much, but it doesn’t ruin the mood for me,” she went on, more gently.

“I can’t risk having any of the staff see them: they know my supposed great-uncle had severe scars, and so they mustn’t see these. That would lead to comparisons that would not be helpful; I am inclined to err on the side of caution, as the previous owner did.”

“Olivia,” said Charis.

“No. She died the True Death in 1658, in early December. When Niklos Aulirios, who had been her bondsman—”

“Like Rogers?” she interjected.

“Yes. Like Rogers. When he inherited this place from Olivia, he ordered a number of changes made, including hiring many new servants and pensioning off the old, and I have followed his example when I was left Olivia’s estates by Niklos. He didn’t stay here often—too many memories—but he kept it up to honor her.”

“What became of him?” Charis asked, interested in spite of the pang of jealousy she felt toward the long-dead Olivia.

“He was executed by Napoleon’s soldiers after the Egyptian campaign. He was accused of robbing the old tombs.”

“And was he? robbing the old tombs?” she asked before she could stop the words.

“No, he was not. He was helping to show Madelaine where the tombs were.” He shook his head once, sadly. “He was serving as her scout, preparing maps for her before she arrived.”

“It sounds pretty weird to me,” she said, reaching out and taking his hand.

“It’s a reasonable precaution.”

“Like lining the soles of your shoes with your native earth,” she said.

“Very similar. I recommend it to all vampires who want to be part of humanity.”

“Which you do.”

“Which I do,” he confirmed.

“But that requires many disguises over time, doesn’t it? You’re at risk if you don’t come up with plausible identities.” She held his hand more tightly, thinking for the first time that this was how she would have to live when she became what he was.

“I have found it prudent to make preparations for the next … manifestation. Madelaine always has wills drawn up leaving her property to her niece or cousin, so that the new identity is established before she needs it. I often do similar things, as do almost all those of my blood who survive.”

“Is that what you’re doing here? Are you preparing to go away? Are you teaching me how to prepare another … persona?” Charis asked, repelled and fascinated at the same time.

“Yes, in part,” he said, and was drowned out by a sudden eruption of doodle-doos. “I can show you various ways to achieve this,” he offered. “I’ve had a long time to get used to making such changes.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, then rose to attend to the stove. “If there’s anything else?”

“Rogers tells me you change your name from time to time. Why?”

“So that I can create a smokescreen for my existence, so that I will not have to vanish into the wilderness of Russia or Africa or America, or spend a generation or so in a remote—” He thought back to Lo-Yang, to Upper Egypt, to Delhi, to—

“Or your cover would be blown? Does that bother you, like Rumpelstiltskin?” Charis suggested, cutting into his memories.

“I have no skill to turn straw into gold,” he admitted with a wry smile, “but I comprehend his predicament.”

“It’s Rumpelstiltskin or the King of Elfland, I suppose.” She paused, shocked at her accusation, then went on plaintively. “But when we first got here, you were speaking of touching, the touching we shared last night. I would like so much to be touched. All of me this time.”

He paused in stoking the stove with the cut trunks of ancient trees, atop a kindling bed of dry leaves and clusters of twigs. “You know that is impossible,” he said flatly. “All of you … with one exception can be done, this evening.”

“You can’t do the act of life. I’m beginning to appreciate that you weren’t kidding when you told me, though it seems a pretty big stretch to me, to be so sensual and not ever be hard. But that was my mistake; you weren’t exaggerating to make a point. I thought it meant that you needed special circumstances to perform, and that they might not be as pleasant as what we do now.” Her perplexity was apparent now as she pressed on. “The blood remains in your veins, however slowly it may flow, and that … incapacitates you, according to what you’ve told me. I understand all that. I get it. Dead-but-not-dead, alive-but-not-alive. I get it. It’s just so unfair.”

“Are you changing your mind about becoming what I am?” he asked, thinking of Susanna, who had changed her mind when it was too late, and who had tried to end his undead life because of it.

“I don’t know,” she said petulantly. “Sometimes, when I’m feeling on my own a bit too much, I can see the advantage of not going on.”

“It’s likely you’ll have a decade or more before you have to make up your mind,” he said, favoring her with a sad smile. “I don’t ask you to do it for me, but for yourself. If you do not want to live as those of my blood must, then I can tell you how to arrange matters.”

“You’re having doubts, too?” she asked.

“Ah, Charis, you have enough for the both of us,” he said, a bit sadly. The fire in the stove had taken hold; the smell of burning apple-wood filled the room before he finished closing the tinder-box. He went back to the bed and slipped under the duvet.

“Under the cover. Now that’s unusual,” she said, trying to figure out what he meant by it. “You usually lie on top, don’t you.”

“As you say, the room is chilly, and I’m tired of wrestling with the bedding.” He turned to her, smiling.

“But you’re still dressed.” She plucked at his sleeve to underscore her complaint. “I’d like you naked.”

“Not at present, I think.”

“The scars still?”

He shook his head. “The sunlight. I’m not lying on my native earth, and I’m barefoot. The sun can be painful if I’m not dressed, or unless I close all the shutters, which would be a pity on such a fine morning.” He turned to her. “If you would rather put something on, to establish parity, please do.”

She tugged the duvet more closely around her. “That’s not what I had in mind, and you know it.” Her eyes were shining, but not entirely from desire; she was eager to force him to admit that much of what he told her was untrue; the prospect of having to live with such … ancient restrictions on her activities was beginning to rankle. “Native earth. Sunlight. Running water. It’s like something out of a Medieval romance. Do you have to count grains of millet or sunflower seeds? Do white horses seek out your resting places? Do flowers wither where you tread? I know that last is nonsense.”

“No, not nonsense. That is a creation of storytellers, like the belief that you can stop a charging tiger by throwing a glass ball at it, which is supposed to make the tiger think that it is seeing its cub reflected in the glass. I have no idea how that one originated.” He trailed his finger along her brow, her nose, the curve of her lips. “The cross is no problem for vampires, nor the Star of David, nor the crescent of Islam, or the wheel of the religions of India. Garlic will not prevent us from entering a room—although it does tend to keep off mosquitos. We can cross thresholds without invitation. We can say the names of deities without hazard.” He looked at her steadily. “Fire can kill us if it reaches the spine. Anything that destroys the nervous system will destroy us.”

“Yes, you’ve told me this before. I’m aware of all the dangers.”

“I surmise that; you’ve paid attention,” he said, taking her hand in his. “But you will need to remember these things until you accustom yourself to them: daylight, as I’ve said, can be enervating to vampires; water is enervating unless contained in our native earth. So no passion on the beach or in the desert before sundown.” His attempt at a chuckle fell flat. “I would like full concentration and energy when we enjoy our explorations.”

She gave an acrimonious sigh. “Can you at least snuggle?”

“With pleasure,” he said, turning on his side and drawing her close to him spoon-fashion; he could feel tension in her that was not the product of unaddressed desire, but of some greater vexation. “What’s on your mind, Charis. You aren’t simply worried about how you’ll manage things in the future.”

“Why can’t I be worried about that?” she demanded.

“You can, if that pleases you, but I am aware that there is sorrow in you, and dismay. I believe something has happened that is eating at you, in a very personal, present way. Are you having more trouble with Harold?”

“With Arthur. He wants to come here when he’s eighteen: he’s 4F, of course; he’ll still be on crutches then. David might not be so lucky. Arthur won’t be drafted, and he wants to spend some time with me, or so he’s told me in a long letter.” She sighed heavily. “I don’t know how to respond.”

“See him before you change, if that will heal some of your wounds; I might not be the only one who can see them,” he said, making no apology for his language. “By then you might have reached detente with your husband, and this would cause no additional hostilities.”

“You think you know everything,” she said in a small voice. “Harold is being himself, and for the first time, I know him for what he is.”

“I have tasted your blood, Charis: I know you, and I will know you until the True Death comes. Everything else is beyond me, but you, and everyone I have loved will be with me, a part of me, until the True Death.” He said it tenderly, but he could feel her flinch. “If you would prefer not to tell me, so be it, but I cannot be unaware of your state of mind.”

She rolled over to face him. “Maybe later,” she conceded.

“As you like.” He kissed her forehead.

She took one of the pillows and swung it at his head. “You are the most
aggravating
man!” she announced as the pillow struck.

He made no attempt to block the blow, and used no counter-measures to disarm her. “It isn’t my intention to seem so, nor do I want to distress you,” he said, tossing the pillow across the room as soon as she released it, watching a trail of feather float from the rent in the pillow’s side. He considered her briefly. “If you decide vampirism is not to your liking, there are many ways you can—”

“Die the True Death? Be sure of not rising to your life? Without rousing suspicion?” She turned to face him directly. “Do you think I’ll need to know?”

“I think all of us should know these things. All those alive of my blood know how to end vampire non-life, or how to create a believable vanishing that would permit any one of us to use that device to move on to our next … version of ourselves. It is harder now than it used to be. I still use my waxwork for identifying photographs, and in time I will find other ways to make what I am less obvious. I have yet to arrive at a method for dealing with fingerprints. As the world changes, so must we.” He could see the troubled expression in her eyes. “These days many people no longer believe in such creatures as vampires, which is useful, in its way.”

“But why? What makes it necessary that we not remain as we are? Will we cease to be allies when I come to your life?”

“That will be up to you,” he said gently. “Because nothing stays the same as long as it is alive. We age much more slowly than the living do. Being undead, we have a portion of ourselves that remains fixed at the moment of our first death and—”

“That’s why we age very, very slowly,” she filled in for him. “I do listen to what you tell me.”

“I know you do, because you question everything I tell you. You analyze what I say, subject it to skeptical examination until you are satisfied that it has been broken down into acceptable and unacceptable parts. With so much of your life gone askew, it is not remarkable that you are inclined to question more of your life than you had done before you left New Orleans. It’s your training as well as your natural inclination to question. I understand that, too. And I agree with you to a point: logic has its place, and in its place it is invaluable, but I have come to the conclusion that we do not have nearly enough knowledge of the nature of existence to be able to use logic alone to achieve the level of understanding we would like to have in dealing with the rudiments of existence. You will need time to weigh your experience with your logic and decide where the crux lies.” He slid a hand’s-breadth away from her so she could lie back and stare at the painted beams of the ceiling. “Religions—all religions, like all philosophies—offer their explanations of existence, as well as setting standards of conduct for a praiseworthy life, but all of them are subject to the human view of their own importance—”

“Humans, you say, are limited to the human view of
their
own existence? You don’t count yourself among the human beings?” Her snapping eyes dared him to answer her. “You’re not human?”

“I began human, but with as long a life as I have had I have found it difficult to sustain—”

“I reckon it’s been about two thousand years that you’ve been your sort of alive, and I can’t believe it; not even tortoises live so long,” she said, reaching for his hand. “This is flesh. A little cool, I grant you, but flesh. How can you be two thousand years old?”

“I am somewhat older than that,” he said apologetically.

“Be serious,” she said.

“I am being serious.” He nodded. “The urge to keep my humanity has shaped my behavior a bit less than three thousand years of my after-death life; for the first thousand years, I considered myself as much a demon as those I hunted. While I was held in prison, I began to grasp the loneliness of my circumstances, and that compelled me to manage my non-life in another way. I seek to retain my link with humankind, which is no easy thing, but I abhor what I was before I learned that, so I continue to strive for the human part in myself, no matter how difficult a task that may be. There is something monstrous in me that is quiescent most of the time; hundreds of years can pass and I will have nothing more than a faint distaste for the memories associated with it. Still, I know it is within me, but I rarely respond to its impetus. A little more than twenty years ago I had a taste of what it had been like for me all those centuries ago when I … dealt with the men who killed my ward. I had not summoned up my capacity for havoc for a very long time, yet it was as devastating as I remembered it.” He had killed all five of them with his bare hands in a single hour of fighting, and for a moment he was tempted to taste their blood as a vindication of Laisha. Their dreadful act ought to be acknowledged; if only by him. But the thought of having anything of them in him had stopped him from even licking their blood off his hands.