The Geomancer (27 page)

“Stand up,” Takeda chided. “Don't crawl.”

Anhalt bowed to the young male. “Hello. I am Mehmet Anhalt.”

The boy rose slowly, unsure whether to respond.

Takeda said, “Speak.”

The young vampire blurted out, “I am Hiro.”

“Very pleased to meet you.” Anhalt pressed the water vessel deeper into the hot coals. “Would you care for tea, Hiro?”

The boy looked confused by the question but stepped forward. “What is it?”

“It is a drink,” Takeda said. “You won't like it.”

Hiro frowned. “Then why drink it?”

“I like it,” Anhalt told the boy.

Hiro tilted his head. “Then I want to try it. Is it hot? Is it hotter than blood?”

General Anhalt froze briefly, eyeing the young vampire. “I don't know. But it is hot.”

“Why?”

Takeda grunted with annoyance. “Why must you ask so many questions?” The samurai reached out and cuffed the boy lightly on the back of the head. “You do not need tea. Go.”

Hiro looked disappointed, but he slowly wandered for the door. He gave Anhalt another silent glance of deep interest, then slipped outside.

“We are not spying on you,” Takeda said. “Hiro's curiosity is abnormally extreme.”

Anhalt smiled at the fact that the vampire felt the need to explain and excuse the lad. “I understand completely. He doesn't seem too different from young men I know.”

“You have children then?” Takeda asked, trying not to sound too eager.

“No.” The general poured two cups of tea. “Is Hiro your son?”

“No,” Takeda responded. “He is not my blood, but he is mine, for better or worse.”

Anhalt handed the small cup to Takeda who took it with great concentration on exactly where to place his fingers. He was clearly trying to be sure that he didn't accidently crush it. The general lifted his cup and held it out. The vampire looked at it, unsure what to do. Anhalt tapped his cup against Takeda's. “Cheers.”

Takeda lifted the cup to his lips. He smelled the liquid and then drank the contents in a single gulp. He stood as if waiting. Finally he lowered the cup.

“Well?” Anhalt asked.

Takeda smacked his lips without conviction. “I'm sure it's very good.”

The general smirked and sat on the edge of the fire pit. “Your name is Japanese. Is that where you're from?”

“Originally yes. I was born on the island of Hokkaido.”

“And Hiro as well?”

“No. He is from the great clan lands of Chengdu. To the east.”

“Isn't Hiro a Japanese name?”

“We take whatever name we wish. Sometimes we take many names. I think Hiro took that name because I am Japanese.”

Anhalt swirled his cup, watching the dark tea leaves swim in the liquid. “How did he come to be here? He seems far younger than anyone else I've seen.”

“Hiro came because I brought him after I killed his parents. He had no one else.”

General Anhalt gave the samurai a curious glance. “Does he know that?”

“He does.”

Anhalt grunted with interest, but Takeda didn't seem disposed to go into greater detail. The general lifted the pot and found the vampire extending his cup. Takeda took the refilled tea and went to the door where it was colder. He settled cross-legged on the floor.

Anhalt watched the samurai shifting his katana to the side. “How did you come to use that blade? I've never known a vampire to do such a thing, except for Gareth.”

Takeda ran his fingers over the hilt of the sword. “I killed so many men who used them. Yet they seemed confident in the ability of these things to protect them. They were wrong, of course, but they never stopped believing it. I found it fascinating.”

“Most of your kind would think it's pathetic.”

“Most of my kind don't think. At all.”

Anhalt laughed. “We have something in common then.”

The vampire smiled with a conspiratorial nod. He swirled his tea around, similar to the way Anhalt had done. “You have led young men like Hiro into battle? So you have experience making children into adults?”

“I have led many men into battle, some barely children, yes. But I only have detailed experience with a particular young man who has been my charge, off and on, throughout his life.”

“How did you acquire him?”

Anhalt laughed. “I didn't
acquire
him. As a soldier, there were two children whose safety has been my duty. A young man named Simon and the woman you see with me here, Adele.”

“Ah. I see.” The vampire nodded thoughtfully. “Duty.”

“Their well-being is not
just
my duty; it is my honor. What you would do to protect Hiro and to serve Yidak, I would do the same for Adele, and for Simon were he here. You understand that, don't you?”

Takeda stared at the old soldier for a long time. His blue gaze studied the brown eyes of Anhalt. Then he raised his teacup as if to click it against Anhalt's.

“Cheers.” Takeda drank.

Anhalt swallowed the last of his tea and set about brewing more.

C
HAPTER 26

Caterina prowled the halls of the Tuileries. The sun was warm and it suppressed activity around the palace. Most were asleep, but she was restless. Apparently so was Lothaire because he was not in his usual resting place. Likely he was with the children. So she headed for the nursery, feeling the urgent need to be among her family. Caterina turned the corner into the corridor where she saw Fanon standing in the hall. He had been a long trusted retainer of the clan and the war chief for centuries. He was old now; he had been one of Lothaire's primary mentors and a ferocious fighter during the Great Killing. Normally his steady presence was comforting, but now Fanon jerked oddly to attention when he saw Caterina. His gaze fell to the floor.

“Fanon, I'm surprised to see you here.” She regarded the old soldier, but he refused to meet her eyes. “What's wrong with you?”

“Nothing, Majesty.”

Caterina assumed that Fanon was simply uncomfortable or ashamed to have lost his position as war chief after so long, particularly to someone like Honore. It wasn't unusual for the eldest child to become war chief, but Honore was not qualified, even his mother had to admit that. Then she heard voices. One of them was her oldest daughter, Isolde. The other was not Lothaire.

It was Lady Hallow.

Caterina exchanged a quick accusatory glance with Fanon. He offered a brief embarrassed look. She snarled and broke into a run. She swept through the nursery door, searching the room frantically for any disturbance. In the far corner, near a broken window that overlooked ruined gardens, Isolde and Hallow sat knee to knee in deep conversation. They looked up in surprise at Caterina's dramatic entrance. Isolde was wide eyed with excitement. Hallow was her usual calm self and raised a warm smile for the queen.

“What's wrong?” Caterina asked. “Why are you here, Lady Hallow? Is something wrong with Honore?”

“No, Your Majesty.” Hallow's voice was like a smoothly running stream. “I'm visiting with Princess Isolde. Didn't Fanon mention I was here? I left him in the corridor.”

“Why are you here? Why are you visiting my daughter?” Caterina felt small hands on her legs. Her youngest peered up, insistent for attention. She lifted the babe into her arms.

Isolde beamed. “I'm going to fight.” The girl was a little younger than Honore, but nearly as tall as her mother already, and dark like the queen.

“Fight whom?” Caterina searched the room, spotting her inseparable twins sitting quietly against the far wall. She turned back toward Isolde, who approached with a manic grin.

“Humans.”

Caterina pushed the baby's gnashing teeth away, trying to focus on Isolde's senseless comments. From across the room, her son shouted, “Can I go too?” followed by his sister arguing that she should fight instead because she was more vicious. Isolde yelled at them to be quiet; no one had asked them to fight.

Caterina went to the door, wrestling with her baby. She called for two human servants who cowered nearby. “Feed him!”

The pale couple shuffled forward and took the wriggling child so Caterina could spin back to her squabbling family.

“Quiet! All of you! No one is fighting the humans.”

“I am!” Isolde barked. “Lady Hallow said.”

“Did she now?” Caterina glared coldly at Hallow. “Well, Lady Hallow doesn't make
all
the decisions in this family yet.”

“Honore needs me—”

“Isolde, silence!”

The young female gaped back at Hallow for support against her tyrannical mother. In return, the pale wraith said, “Your Majesty, the Dauphin has requested Princess Isolde begin her war training. There is a raid on Poitiers being planned. Fanon will be beside Her Highness at all times. You trust him, don't you?”

Caterina felt a coldness in her stomach and struggled to keep her voice calm in front of her children. “She's too young.”

“I am only doing my duty. I am Prince Honore's adjutant.”

“And I am the queen.”

“I will remind him.”

Caterina froze in rage at the temerity of her reply.

Isolde whined, “Please, mother! Let me fight! I want to help. I want to be like Honore, not like father.”

“How dare you!” Caterina rounded on Isolde, but she looked into the fiery eyes of a young female vampire rather than her daughter. Rage drained away to be replaced by gloom. A sense of sadness for Lothaire swept over her. His children were everything to him, but they only knew him as the sedate old father content to raise them. They had never seen him as he was.

Isolde retorted, “I am going to fight. Honore needs me and he's running the clan. If you don't let your older children fight,” she jabbed a finger at her younger brother and sister, “you'll watch Equatorians bayonet
them
in the streets of Paris this summer. Right, Lady Hallow?”

Hallow remained unmoved, watching Caterina with a despicable triumphant expression buried beneath her bland face.

Caterina managed to say in a rough growl, “You may withdraw, Lady Hallow. And you will never set foot in this wing of the palace again without my express permission.”

Hallow gave the queen a curt bow and put a brief hand on Isolde's arm as she passed. Hallow departed and there was a rustle as Fanon fell in behind her. Isolde followed, but Caterina seized her wrist.

“You do not have leave to go.”

The young vampire glared into her mother's face. Then her eyes darted toward her young siblings. “You have them to control for a while longer, but not me.”

Caterina tried to hold onto her daughter's arm. Isolde jerked her hand free and stalked out without looking back. The manservant appeared in the doorway and dropped the baby on the floor before staggering away. The child's face was smeared with fresh blood. He held his arms up to Caterina. She slowly picked him up. The twins whispered to one another, eyeing their mother suspiciously.

Caterina held the baby tight and he pressed his warm head against her shoulder as he drifted off into well-fed sleep.

Caterina walked slowly across the bridge and south into the narrow labyrinths of the Left Bank. She tried not to think too much about the coming meeting with Lady Hallow. She had sent a servant with a message to her son's advisor, pleading of a troubled heart and a concern for family. The queen indicated that she understood Hallow was now a part of the clan, and that she had resisted that notion for a long time. There had to be a reconciliation between the two powerful women. They both knew the men involved, Lothaire and Honore, were not truly the ones making the decisions. The clan would go the way Caterina and Hallow chose, so they should work together.

It had pained Caterina to talk about Lothaire that way, but she knew it was honest, and she knew Hallow would perceive it as such. So the queen asked Hallow for a private meeting to work out a compromise. They had much in common, and the clan wouldn't survive their continued strife. Caterina stated she would wait in the catacombs and hoped Hallow would see fit to join her.

Hallow would understand and value secret one-on-one conversations. They were her métier as a political creature. Hallow perceived the queen had little ground to negotiate; she would consider this meeting to be a prelude to Caterina's surrender.

That was what Caterina wanted. She needed Hallow to believe that so the meeting would take place and Caterina could kill Hallow. This stain had to be removed from the clan and from the family.

Caterina had lost her skills at being secretive. Still, she wandered the streets, up and back, doubling over the same terrain for a long while. She looked for familiar faces or shapes, trying to discover if she was being followed.

Only after the third passage down the same narrow lane did she notice a figure overhead. It had been there before. She couldn't make out the face in the sun, but the figure was smaller, likely a young female about the size of Isolde.