Perfect Shadows Part 4

Rozsa, their daughter, was to be put to the question on her fourteenth birthday, late in October. She was imprisoned in a convent outside the city, and the Abbess agreed with me that her nuns would be much more edified by the sight of five hundred pieces of gold in the abbey coffers than by that of one more girl being burnt to the glory of G.o.d. I waited in the darkened chapel for the girl to be brought to me, fearing our capture, and knowing the penalties if they took us alive; I fingered my dagger and resolved that would not be. The Abbess brought the girl, pitifully thin and abused, and vanished with her gold.

"The convent priest surprised us as we were leaving. I thought for a moment that the Abbess had betrayed us, but no, he was alone. I was fast approaching my threescore years, but still hale and vigorous withal. I leapt upon him, knocking him to the ground. Rozsa had seemed distant, indifferent to what happened to her, but no more. She sprang on the priest, jerking the cord from his waist and swiftly binding his hands behind him. I stuffed his cowl into his mouth, knotting his rosary securely about it to gag him. Between us we wrestled him into the sanctuary and hid him in the shadows under the altar.

"Without a word we left the church and mounted the waiting horses, which I had hidden a little way off. We rode for the harbor, only pausing once, for Rozsa to change into the boy's clothing I had brought for her. Her hair had already been cut short by the nuns.

"We went by sea as far as Genoa, and overland from there to Budapest, where I took Rozsa to her aunt's house. The journey had taken almost two months, and the child looked much healthier, though still painfully thin. The b.i.t.c.h wouldn't see us, just sent word by a servant that as far as the family was concerned Anna had died the day she had married a Spaniard, and the dead bear no children," Nicolas shook his head. "Rozsa said nothing, just leant over and spat on the polished floor, then walked away without looking back.

"I took her with me to Prague and she became my daughter. But the time she had spent in the prison with her parents had taken its toll, and in the convent she had not been allowed to rest and regain her health, but rather made to do work too heavy for a child of her brittle strength. The winter following her fifteenth birthday I watched the signs of the consumption growing in her. I had seen it before in another dear one, and I could not bear it. The physicians said that mountain air would be good for her, so in the spring we traveled to Bavaria, and there we met Prince Geoffrey, who had taken a house there and asked us to stay with him.

"The hectic badge of her fatal illness continued to glow in her cheeks and I grieved, for I knew she would be taken from me, and I had come to love her dearly. But then I saw other signs, and these I put together with my observations of the prince, and one night I confronted him with my suspicions.' My lord,' I said 'I think that you are a vampire, and that you are feeding upon my child.' He did not deny it, but said that she would not live to be a woman without him, and that he had offered his gift to her, and that she had accepted him. 'So now, Nicolas,' he said to me 'what would you?' I told him I would stay with her, and become as he was, if he would extend his gift to me.

"He agreed, and a few weeks later, on Rozsa's sixteenth birthday, we dosed her heavily with poppy syrup, and Geoffrey smothered her as she slept. She had no wound, no horror to fight through, you see. She slept, and then awakened. A few days later, when we were certain that Rozsa would live, I followed her."

Nicolas fell silent, staring at the fire. I turned my attention to Geoffrey, who said nothing, for a time, then abruptly spoke.

"About my living days there is little to be said. Much was done, or so I've read, of which I am less than proud now, but given the circ.u.mstances I would most likely not do any differently, saving only accepting horse and armor from my brother John!" His smile was brief and bitter. "Richard was always h.e.l.l-bent," he continued, "desiring only the glory of battle-no, not even the battle, but rather the conquest, the forcing of others to do his will against theirs. It was meat and drink to him. It's whispered about that he loved only boys," Geoffrey's cool gaze lit on me, and I s.h.i.+fted a little in my chair. "That's not true, of course. Richard loved only Richard. He took boys, and men, because women were not, in his eyes, powerful enough to make the taking worthwhile. He married a woman who could but intensify his belief in the worthlessness of her s.e.x. Had he married Constance of Brittany in my stead, she would have taught him his folly, and they would probably have ruled the world! She was a strong woman, and hated us all equally, but always held an eye for the main chance. Mother, on the other hand, Richard never believed was human at all. But there, I am wandering; you must bring me up short, or you will learn more about my family than you ever imagined in your worst nightmare."

I realized with a start that Geoffrey was talking of the Lionheart, that this man had been alive then, four hundred years ago, had lived the stories I had been raised upon. I shook my head and compelled my attention back to the discourse.

" . . . a tournament in Paris. John had made me a gift of a beautiful destrier. I had looked the beast over, as would anyone who'd had so long an acquaintance with my younger brother, and I could find no fault with him, nor yet with the harness. But, in the mounted melee, I heard a strange and piercing whistle, and the stallion reared suddenly, twisting in a peculiar fas.h.i.+on; the cleverly contrived harness sundered and I was thrown. I knew as I touched the ground that it was a plot, for the beast whirled and trampled me. I felt the grinding of my ribs and the pain as a lung collapsed, then a flash of shattered light as I received the death blow to my head." He fell silent for a time, before continuing. "You know well enough the state in which I found myself upon waking. I marveled at being alive, and at last began to believe some of the outlandish tales my mistress of five months had told me.

"She was beautiful beyond telling, this woman. Her name was Alyssa of Byzantium, and she stood out among the blond belles of the French court like as able flame, an exotic black lily in a field of meadow flowers."

Geoffrey fell silent, staring at the dying embers of the fire for a moment before continuing. "I began to hear rumors about her, that she was a witch and practiced dark arts, but so enamored was I that this only made her seem the better match for my own dark and witch-tainted Angevin blood; I secretly began to hope that the rumors were true. I never saw her before nightfall, and I never learned where she dwelt, though I begged her to come and live openly with me, but she would only laugh and turn away.

"I commenced to have a recurring nightmare about then, that I was attending a funeral, and when I looked upon the body it was my own, broken and torn almost beyond recognition. I told Alyssa, and she was troubled enough to trust me with the mystery of her nature and to offer her gift to me. The dreams continued and worsened. I not only saw myself, but members of my family and their reactions to my death: my father bewildered, my mother grieved, my wife relieved, Richard unconcerned, and John gloating. One night, a month before the tournament, I accepted her gift. I did not know if I believed her, but I would take what a.s.surances I could. The dreams stopped on that night and never returned.

"After the fatal tournament, I woke bound and blind, fighting my restraints like an animal, but soon settling to the sound of her voice. I, like you, had a severe injury to the brain, and had taken a long, long time to heal to the point of awareness, but made a rapid recovery from that point."

"How is it that your body was not missed?"

"Mine was not the only mangled corpse upon the field that day, and once the surcoat is changed, one broken body is very like another. People see what they want to see. I think that my mother did suspect, for when I visited her later she did not seem surprised.

"Eleven years pa.s.sed before I was healed enough to take up the threads of my life, and much had changed in that time. Richard was pursuing his war with Philip and building his beloved castle Galliard. John was out of my reach, as Richard was keeping too close an eye on him. And I learned that I had a son, so I went back to Brittany. Alyssa had returned to Constantinople, but had left me well provided for. I watched Arthur, my son, grow into a young man, watched him learn to hate his dead father and all his father's family.

"When Richard met his ignominious end I was in Prague; by the time I had returned to France, my son was in a fair way to be murdered, and by the same hand that had engineered my own demise. I saved my son, but I learned that John could do what I could not-I could not slay my own brother, however much he deserved it. Even though I could not accomplish it outright, I knew that it was not the defiance of death or the will to live that occasioned my renascence, but the desire for revenge. This, I think, you share." I felt the blood drain from my face as I thought of Frizer and his taunting laughter when he drove the dagger into me, his helpless victim, oh so slowly, prolonging my agony as much as possible: Oh, yes, I wanted revenge, and not just on the minions. My pallor and clenched fists gave the answer I could not force past the knot in my throat. Geoffrey nodded and stood, offering me his hand. "Good, then tomorrow we will start teaching you to be not only vampire, but an Alexandrine prince."

Chapter 4.

After Geoffrey left the room, Nicolas fumbled with some books on the floor, and handed a large volume to me. "My journals," he said simply, settling back by the fire. I glanced at the page, but could make nothing of it.

"I'm sorry, but I cannot make out your hand," I said, handing the volume back. He gave me a sharp look, but said nothing. He thumbed the pages, reading aloud bits here and there that told of his feelings about me and the course that Rozsa had charted. He had not thought it likely, at first, that I would rise, but that had changed when he learned of the monstrous manner in which I had died. He told me of those endless nights before the inquest, when they knew not if I would rise, and the desperate plans to steal my body. My corpse-I realized with a sickening lurch of my stomach that this body had been a dead body, a defiled and unclean thing. I forced my attention back to his words, away from my morbid thoughts.

I felt shaky and sick, but still I sat as Nicolas related the details of the difficult journey that brought me, oblivious, to this house. Geoffrey had not been here; he arrived in mid August, the night I awoke from my catalepsy. With horrified fascination I listened to the account of my first "awakening", how I had raped and nearly killed a serving wench. How I had been no more than a ravening beast, mad and slavering. . . I cried out in shock and disgust. I could hardly bear Nicolas' look of sympathy. "Where is the girl?"

"She died," he told me, then seeing the spasm that crossed my face at his words, grasped my arm. "No! Not by your hand! It was an accident, last month. She was trampled to death in Paris. What happened was not your fault, Kit. It was mine, or no one's. Geoffrey was unsure, but I thought it was important for you to know why you have been kept bound, and why we thought it best to send Rozsa from here." He got up heavily and left without another word, and I sat staring at my hands for many long minutes after he had gone. How right they had been to send Rozsa away! I could never have faced her if she had seen me so. I felt that I could not even face the servants, and slipped up to my room unseen, to lie waking until the day-trance claimed me.

I awoke the next evening to a light tap on the door, followed immediately by Nicolas' kind face. He smiled to see me awake, and spoke over his shoulder as he stepped into the room. He was followed by Jehan and the serving-wench who had helped me on the stairs yesterday, both with their arms full of clothing. I blushed, remembering what I had learned the night before, but soon became interested in the finery spread before me.

"Ah," Nicolas said with a smile. "I thought that you would enjoy this. You told me once that you never had the money to indulge yourself in the sort of wardrobe you would like, and how you hated it when your appearance marked you as lower cla.s.s. Indeed, you were still wroth years later, at having been clapped into Newgate as a 'yeoman' rather than the 'gentleman' to which you were ent.i.tled by virtue of your university degrees." If that were true, I thought, my values were seriously awry. Nicolas chose a s.h.i.+rt and breeches for me, and waited outside while I dressed, a little puzzled by the plainness of the selected garments.

I was soon enlightened, for Nicolas led me, not to the study as I had expected, but to a wing of the building that had been fitted as a salle d'armes. Geoffrey, clad in much the same fas.h.i.+on, awaited us there. "There are fine schools of fencing near Cambridge," he said with a feral grin. "Made you any use of them?"

"We shall see," I answered with a grin of my own, and strolled to the racks lining one wall to select my weapons. I found abated rapier whose length and weight pleased me, and a practice dagger, then turned to face Geoffrey, rapier in hand. I looked down in surprise, realizing with a start that I was left-handed. My grin faltered a moment, then returned as I glanced at Geoffrey.

"I trust this does not inconvenience you," I said.

"Not at all," Geoffrey answered, switching his own blade to his left hand and deftly leaning into the attack.

Two hours later I returned to my room, dripping with sweat and feeling as though I'd run to Paris and back. I was delighted to see that Jehan had prepared a bath for me, the wooden tub lined with linen. I wasted no time but quickly stripped and eased myself into the steaming water, enjoying the scents of costmary and lavender. My anatomy had been considerably altered from what I seemed to remember; only the occasional scar seemed the same. I had been only a bit above middle height, somewhat awkward and gangly; now I was tall, lean and muscular, and my strength, agility, and grace were extraordinary, or would be when I recovered from the months of enforced inactivity. But I was half blind, and was having to learn to compensate. Again and again Geoffrey would attack from my blind right side, and I, who would have been hard put to best him even with two good eyes, would overcompensate, allowing him an opening and receiving a blow that resulted in a spectacular bruise. Being yet unused to the ministrations of a body servant, I dismissed Jehan, and when the water began to cool I dried myself, reveling in the feel of the old soft linen against my sensitive skin. I dressed in the clothes that had been laid out for me, midnight-blue velvet doublet and breeches, pearl-grey silk s.h.i.+rt, and silver-lace band. I pulled on my boots, wandered down stairs, and, hearing quiet voices from the study, tapped on the door.

"Ah, Kit! Come in, my boy," Nicolas called happily. "We were just discussing whether we should send someone to tip you out of that bath!" I laughed and took my usual seat between them. I stroked the velvet of my sleeve for a moment, then "What happened to my things?" I asked suddenly. Nicolas sighed. "I was unable to get them. Someone was there before me, from the council, I suspect. All of your personal belongings were attached by your landlord to pay your rent, and your friend Nashe rescued the ma.n.u.scripts from being used for fire-starters, or to line pie-dishes. I believe that Thomas Walsingham has them now. Chapman is completing the Hero and Leander-" he broke off at my confused look. "It was the poem you were writing at the time of your death," he explained gently.

"Oh, of course," I said, and stretched, a little self-consciously, trying to cover my embarra.s.sment. "My clothing would ill fit me now, anyway, I suppose. I rather think that I could pa.s.s unknown among my closest friends."

"That is frequently the case, and understandable when you consider that we undergo tremendous physical changes. It is only logical that some of them are external. It also serves our survival if we do not look exactly as we did in life; it precludes some embarra.s.sing questions." We sat in silence for a time, each considering the changes in our lives. I toyed with the ring I wore and tried to remember. I had probably never had much in the way of jewelry, I thought, and then suddenly remembered a pearl earring Tom had given me . . . I started to reach up, even though logic told me it was gone.

"They took it, Kit, and gave it to Poley for part of his pay," Nicolas said quietly. I hastily asked him if he had taken vengeance upon those responsible for Rozsa's illness and the loss of her family. Nicolas settled back into his chair and gazed keenly at me for a moment, then nodded.

"Yes, I too had my scores to settle," he said. "Oh, I could not kill the Inquisition, much as I would enjoy doing so, but I could, and did seek out the individuals responsible for Rozsa's imprisonment, and the death of her parents. The Abbess who had tried to work her to death had died herself that winter, and so was beyond our reach, but Rozsa's aunt paid full measure, though only indirectly with her life.

"In my lifetime I was very successful in business matters, so I looked into the interests of the family, and within only a few years we owned it all: Rozsa's aunt lived out her life on her niece's charity." Nicolas' grin was no less gloating and wolfish, but his memoir was interrupted by a soft knock on the door, and Anneke's entrance. Once again I noted the glow about her, a glow that I did not see in Geoffrey or Nicolas, or, come to that, in myself. While I was musing on this the couple excused themselves, leaving me alone with Geoffrey. I asked about that glow.

"It is that they have not died, Christopher, and we have. They possess what we need to survive, and we see it, you may call it the life-force, as that glow, although the longer you are . . . undead, the less you will notice it unless you actively desire to."

"What we need to survive?"

"It is not just a question of blood, you see, but of the vitality, the life. We can survive on the blood of animals, but it is repugnant, suggestive of b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, and, at any rate, cannot fill our needs for long. Our feeding is a sensual experience, for ourselves no less than for our chosen, and we are very sensual beings, though this can lead us into danger. We must be very careful when we feed, neither to take too much, nor yet too often, from one person. We do not require much, a few ounces only, but we must feed at least twice a week, more if we are injured. As the experience is pleasurable to us as well, the temptation is always with us, to feed more often than need requires. When you were with Rozsa, how often did you lie with her?"

"Two or three times a week," I answered, feeling my face flush.

"And how often did she feed from you, do you think?"

"Uh, not so often after the first two times, but later-" I broke off.

"Yes, later she fed more and more often, a need that comes upon us if an exchange is to be made. I fed from Nicolas every night in the week before I killed him. He feeds from Anneke only once or twice a month, now, but if she decides to join him, to become one of us, he will feed more often until they make the exchange.

"We cannot, of course, feed for nourishment from one another, there being none of the requisite life-force we require, but such a feeding, undead from undead, confers dominance among us, sapping the will of the fed-upon, bending him toward obedience. It will do the same with mortals, and to a much stronger degree, though it should not be exploited, used rather only for our safety.

"We can still take the pleasure of our bodies. Our afterlife would be bleak indeed if we could no longer enjoy our changed loves!" Geoffrey made a sound deep in his throat, and reached out to caress the back of my hand, then took it, and finding no resistance, raised it to his lips. His piercing grey eyes held mine as he pressed his lips to my acquiescent palm. "While I lived, I would have slain anyone who suggested that I, like my brother Richard, might enjoy the taking of a man in my bed as much as a woman," he murmured in a voice suddenly grown hoa.r.s.e. I found myself leaning towards him, my breath coming faster, the desire spreading from the pit of my stomach, making me feel light-headed and weak-kneed. Geoffrey also leaned forward, catching my chin in his hand and kissing me, gently at first, then deeply. "Share my bed, Christopher," he said softly, his smoldering eyes never leaving mine as he stroked my hair. Not trusting my voice, I nodded dumbly, and followed him from the room.

Later, naked and nervous in his bed, I laughed softly, startling an inquiring look from the disrobing Geoffrey. "I was-remembering," I said.

"Tell me."

"No, it's gone again," I said in distress. "It was something about a lover, something unpleasant, I think. Will I ever remember everything? Or will it always just come like this, in sudden shards? Ice, piercing and melting away." Geoffrey turned to me, shaking his head.

"You are healing, Christopher, but how far it will take you, no one may say. These things that you do remember are the things that are the most likely to rankle. We cannot allow these things to fester within us, for over as many years as we have to live, these things can drive us mad, and a mad vampire is a fearful creature indeed, I a.s.sure you." The merest echo of a threat hovered between us, and I s.h.i.+vered. "But now," he added, and took my chin in his hand, forcing my head back, silencing me with his lips. I smiled and leaned into an intense kiss, closing my eyes against the pleasure I felt at that touch, and of his insistent hands roaming my body.

Geoffrey was neither a gentle nor a considerate lover. I had had no previous experience in the submissive role, but I quickly learned not to resist him. In the confusion of waking the next evening, I stretched gingerly, not knowing quite where I was, nor why I felt so battered and tired. I turned to find Geoffrey was awake and watching me. I reached for him, both desiring and fearing him, but he batted my hand away. "We should dress now, and go downstairs, or poor Nicolas will think he has been abandoned. Jehan has arranged a bath for you in your chamber," he said sharply. I felt dismissed, and left to clean up and dress.

I joined Geoffrey on the stairs about a half-hour later and did not meet his eyes. I well understood the object lesson in last night's act: Geoffrey was master, and had exerted his dominion, bending his own nature to secure my absolute submission to his authority in the most basic way conceivable, a way to which my sodomite temperament must perforce respond. I was ashamed, as I had never been before, but grateful too, that he had not felt his authority needs must be enforced by feeding from me.

Chapter 5.

Anneke was in the study when we got there, and Geoffrey asked after Nicolas. "A messenger has come," she answered in her low and oddly accented voice. "He will soon return." She leaned back in her chair, appearing even more in my two-dimensional sight as a Flemish painting in the firelight. I sat over by one of the windows, feeling dejected and confused. I looked out at the night, which was moonless but lit with a glittering profusion of stars. Lost in thought, I was unaware of Nicolas' return until a hand was lightly laid on my shoulder. "You have a letter, Kit, from Rozsa," he said in a preoccupied way, handing the paper to me and returning to the fire to speak quietly to Geoffrey. I contemplated the missive for a moment before opening it, and when I did, I stared at it for few seconds in perplexity. There was nothing but meaningless marks on the paper. I stood, shaking, and took a book from a nearby shelf, then another, and another. As I dropped the third, as indecipherable as the first, a cry of torment escaped me, and I glanced around wildly, bringing Nicolas and Geoffrey to my side in an instant. "I forgot," Nicolas said in great distress.

"I cannot read," I spat. "I cannot read!" Something Nicolas had said struck me and I stared at him. "You forgot," I whispered. "So, you knew and you did not tell me, you just left me to find out-"

"We were not sure, but if it were so, we hoped that you need never know, Christopher," Geoffrey said sternly. "It is the result of the injury to your brain, and you will heal, I promise, but it will take time, mayhap quite a long time. We knew not if you would be able to recall your ident.i.ty, or even if you would be able to speak or understand speech. You are much, much better off than we had dared to hope, given the nature of your wounds, but you must not press it, and you must let yourself heal. Christopher, you are not alone, you are with your family, protected, here with us," Geoffrey urged, his voice low, but still firm.

"Kit, my dear friend, I am sorry that my carelessness has caused you such pain. What can I do to make it up to you . . .anything . . . anything. . . ." Nicolas' voice was hoa.r.s.e with regret. I clamped down on my emotions, and thrust the letter at him.

"Read it to me," I said shortly.

Nicolas read: My dearest Kit, I hope you can forgive me for not consulting you before making the exchange with you, but that you are alive and reading this is a proof of a sort of consent on your part, after all. Mayhap I have much to answer for, which I will do my best to requite when I see you again, a fortnight or so after the arrival of this letter. Until Twelfth Night then, my love and my thoughts be with you.

Rozsa He pa.s.sed the letter back to me and I folded it and tucked it into my doublet without a word, then stood up and left the room. I heard Nicolas calling after me, and Geoffrey's soft command: "Let him go." I could not face my room, and I wandered around the hall for a time, but the reminders of my newfound disability were everywhere. I found a heavy cloak near a small side door and slung it over my shoulders before stepping out into the moonless night.

The air was cold and crisp, sliding like silk over the skin of my face, and filled with scents that, being city-bred, I had never noticed before. There were living things that way, wild things in the forest, and over there the stable. If I listened I could hear the occasional stamp and snort of a restless horse.

I was aware of an owl's silent flight overhead, and heard the tiny shriek of the small creature it caught just short of the wood. My eyesight, or what was left of it, seemed curiously enhanced as well, for though the only light was from the starlight on the snow, I could see perfectly well. After a moment or two I made my way into the woods, following a narrow path that eventually led me to a small clearing, a clearing filled with shadowy shapes that, scenting me, bounded towards me.

Wolves! I felt a moment's panic even as I realized what these must be. I stood my ground, and soon they were milling all around me, thrusting cold noses into my palms, giving me a lick now and then as I knelt in the snow to shyly pet them. One of the smaller ones began to grow misty, and soon transformed herself into the serving wench who had saved me from a fall earlier. Naked, her long dark hair spilling like ink in the snow-light, she stood still for a full minute while I stared at her, then stepped to my side.

"It is very cold, my lord," she said in a low husky voice, and slipped under my cloak with me. I held her s.h.i.+vering against me for a time, then realized simultaneously that the other wolves had vanished, and that the girl was barefoot. I dropped the cloak from my shoulders, wrapped it about her and caught her up into my arms in one smooth motion, then turned back to the house, carrying her as effortlessly as if she were a child. As we neared the Hall, she kissed me, and I felt my desires rising and flowing together. I wanted her; I wanted to take her as Rozsa had so often taken me, to feed both my appet.i.tes.

The door to the study was closed, though I could hear the rise and fall of voices within as I carried the girl past, and up the stairs to my room, which Jehan was just leaving. He smiled at me, and my burden, but said nothing, just held the door, and closed it behind us. I saw that a tray with a covered dish, wine, and two gla.s.ses had been left on the table. I laid the girl gently on the bed, and sat beside her, feeling rather shy, but she smiled at me and unwound herself from the cloak. Moving across the floor with a fluid grace that made me think of music, she poured the wine and returned to the bed, handing me one of the gla.s.ses. I viewed it dubiously, but she laughed low in her throat. "It will not harm you, my lord. You may still enjoy the flavor if not the effects. You may take any liquids, and even solid food, if you must do so to avoid drawing attention to yourself, though you will have to vomit that up later," she told me, and laughed at my expression.

"I have lived all my life with vampires, my lord. There is little about your kind that I do not know." She took my untasted gla.s.s and set it on the floor near her half-full one. "Kit," she breathed, "I am Sylvie," and kissed me, working my doublet loose and unlacing my s.h.i.+rt, but my desire had faded, leaving only hunger. Gently I pushed her questing hands away, and she shrugged, smiling with a sort of wry resignation. "I know," she said softly, "women will never be your first choice, my lord, but you must feed, and not from Jehan again so soon. He is the only one among us who shares your inclinations, so. . . ." she shrugged again. I pulled her close, and pressed my sharp teeth against her throat, felt them pierce her vein, tasted her salt sweet blood as she s.h.i.+vered with the pleasure that my feeding gave her. My own pleasure welled, spilling over in an act even more intimate than that of physical love.

I withdrew my lips from her scented skin, my hunger a.s.suaged, content to hold her until she stirred, which she soon did. She smiled at me again, and reached for the wine. I gave her the full gla.s.s and fetched the tray, conscious as I walked that her eyes never left me. The dish held slices of rare beef and several oysters, similar to many of the meals Rozsa had fed me, in return, I suddenly realized, for my feeding her.

Sylvie took a slice of the meat and neatly ate it, not spilling a drop of the juice onto the sheets, while I sampled the wine, which I found refres.h.i.+ng but, as she said, not intoxicating. "These foods are good for rebuilding the blood, you see," she told me, and tipped an oyster into her mouth. When she finished her meal she set the dishes on the floor and curled up against me.

"You were distressed earlier," she murmured, resting her head on my chest. "Why?"

"Because I can no longer read, and writing is-was, my life. The man who did this," I touched the patch covering my right eye-socket, "took more than my vision, and my life. He took my reasons for living," I growled caustically." And someday, someday I will meet with him again, and when I do-"

"I will rip his throat out, if you like," Sylvie offered casually, and I glanced at her to see if she was serious. She was. I shook my head.

"No. No, I'd not want you to soil your teeth on him," I said, but somehow that matter-of-fact proposition had restored my humor.

"My lord? My lord Prince Geoffrey said you would heal, did he not? And you have healed so much already, you have no reason to disbelieve him." With a lurching in my stomach, I understood that Sylvie had seen me when I was-it could as easily have been her that I had raped and almost murdered. A shudder racked me, threatening to become a convulsion. She sat up and slapped me smartly on the cheek, replacing the horror that threatened to overwhelm me with pure astonishment. "My lord, Kit, listen to me. It was not your fault. We had no experience to guide us, and anyway, Annette could have changed her shape to escape you! She accepted that it was an accident, as much as the one that later killed her. She was born under an unlucky star," Sylvie added sadly. "It was always so, from the time she was a child. If a tree limb was going to break it would wait until she climbed that tree, or if a horse was planning to bolt, it would always wait until she was near. It wasn't her fault, any more than it was yours. It just happened." I stared at her for a few seconds.

"I thank you for that," I said.

I irritably pushed my dripping hair out of my face, glaring at the two men who had me backed against the wall, the tips of their swords dancing before my throat, my hand stinging from the forceful blow that had disarmed me. For the last two weeks I had spent as much time as possible in the salle, both in solitary drill, and in practice with Geoffrey and Nicolas, the latter being startlingly agile and deft in his movements for a man of his build. Laughing at my vexation, the two turned away. Geoffrey scooped my dropped weapon off the floor and tossed it over his shoulder to me in a single elegant movement. I caught the sword by the hilt and lowered it slowly to my side. Last week, in a similar situation, I had lost my temper and rushed Geoffrey's back, only to have the blade knocked out of my grasp for the second time in as many minutes, and it had seemed like hours before my hand had stopped tingling. A few paces distant, Geoffrey spun on his heel. "Excellent! It took us almost twice as long to disarm you, you did not lose your composure, and you did not let our switching hands startle you!"

"I didn't have the time to be startled!" I replied, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. I mopped at the sweat on my forehead with a sleeve that was itself soaked, and looked forward to the bath that I knew Jehan would have waiting for me, but as I started to leave the salle Geoffrey called me back.

"Rozsa will be here sometime tonight, Christopher, or tomorrow at the latest. She knows about-"

"My illiteracy?" I interjected bitterly.

"Your difficulty," Geoffrey continued smoothly, ignoring the resentment in my voice. "I took the liberty of informing her. Go now, and have your bath. You are progressing quite well. Give yourself some time." I just shook my head and left for my room, where I found Jehan curled up in my bed, waiting for me. It never ceased to amaze me that a man so tall could wind himself into such a small s.p.a.ce. The bath water had cooled just enough to be tolerable, and Jehan watched me with bright feral eyes as I undressed. I eased into the hot water, closed my eyes with a sigh, and heard Jehan stirring on the bed.

"Master Kit? Shall I wash your back? I'd like that," he added when I failed to answer right away. The complex interdependencies between the vampires and the wolf-folk troubled me. On the one hand they were perfect servants, well cared for and never fed from against their will, but the carnality inherent in the feeding itself led to a familiarity in relations.h.i.+ps that I felt entirely too comfortable with, and given their sensual natures, they were ever eager for the union and the erotic pleasure. I shook my head impatiently suddenly recalling my father's wise words of years ago: "What's not broken needs no mending."

"Yes, Jehan, I would like that, and a shave as well, an it please you," I answered, and relaxed beneath the big man's hands. In only a fortnight I had learned not only to be comfortable with the ministrations of servants, but had come to depend upon them. Later, resting against Jehan in the opulent bed, I fed.

I woke alone and dressed quickly in the clothing Jehan had left for me, garnet velvet the color of blood for the trousers and doublet, silk white as the sun on snow for the s.h.i.+rt, and a deep falling band of Italian needle-lace. I paused before pulling on my boots to stroke the fine silks, with an abrupt memory of the shabby clothing and coa.r.s.e scholar's gown of my Cambridge days, the unfas.h.i.+onable cropped hair and detestable caps. My family had sent me clothing of good woolen and linen stuff, hardly worn, some of it, but I'd p.a.w.ned most of it. Some of the money went to buy books of my own, and a pang of loss went through me for those forfeited volumes, and the maps I had painstakingly hand copied when the atlas edition had proved too dear for my means. Relentlessly I followed the thread of the memory-some of the coin had gone for less honorable purposes. What was that little puff-adder's name? John? No. James? Well, no matter. He was the son of some country knight, come to Cambridge the term after I had taken my Bachelor's degree. He was so wors.h.i.+pful and full of admiration for the new Dominus, and so lonely and lost. He had played me like a trout, and landed himself in my bed one night when the room's other occupants were absent.

It had been a heavenly night, but a h.e.l.lish morning, for the boy demanded money from me to keep quiet about the affair, and I had paid him, fearing at best to be stripped of my degree and turned out of college, and at the worst to be imprisoned, tortured, and executed, the punishment meted out for sodomy, as a crime against both church and state. I had been much relieved when the young man's elder brother had subsequently died, and the family demanded the youth's immediate return, but the incident had left me with a violent antipathy for extortionists and cozeners. With a blistering clarity, I recalled seeing the boy a year or so later, leaving Sir Francis Walsingham's via the back door, the day of my fateful interview with the secretary-the reason that Tommy had been waiting for me, to seduce me into Walsingham's circle of spies. That man had had a mind as twisted as a tightrope. I shook myself out of my reverie and went downstairs to the study, where a strange young man lounged before the fire, his gold and flame-colored brocaded tunic and venetians almost eclipsing the firelight as he turned to face me.

"Good evening, Kit," Rozsa said.

Not long after, in the curtained recesses of my bed, I raised myself on my elbow and looked at my companion. Her hair lay over the pillows in a pool of jet and coppery bronze, a fine contrast to her milk white skin. She reached a lazy hand out, trailing her fingers over my chest and down. "I was afraid that you would be angry with me," she said softly, not looking at me.

"Angry because you saved my life, when I was too reckless and forward to even see the risks I ran?"

"It is-customary-to give a choice, and not to thrust this gift on one who may be unwilling or unable to accept it. A breach of ethics, you see, and Geoffrey was less than pleased with me, although he did admit that your survival indeed implied a sort of belated consent." She smiled briefly. "He has read your works, such as were available, the ma.n.u.script copies you gave to us, and was himself unwilling that you should be cut off so early and so unfulfilled." As she finished I stirred uncomfortably.

"I don't remember," I said shortly, and then elaborated at her questioning look. "I remember very little of my life before I met you. Sometimes a memory will come out of nowhere, but I cannot make them sequential; they remain scattered events. Grievous events, mostly, things that hurt or frightened me, a few moments of rage, less of joy. I do not remember writing the poems and plays at all, though I have glimpses of the audiences at some of the performances. But my day-to-day life is gone. I came from a large family, but I cannot remember my mother's face or my sisters' names. Mary? Alice? Eliza? I know not. I can remember some of the lengths to which I felt driven, but not the why or the how. I know that I was angry and scoffing, but cannot feel what I was, but that I was somehow someone else, a stranger," I broke off with a crooked smile, and a sidelong look. She looked abstracted, and did not smile.

"That is at least partly because you are someone else," she said carefully." These changes are not just of the physical. We, all of us, except perhaps Geoffrey, change somewhat, and even he has, by all accounts, mellowed. Dying gives one a different perspective on life, you might say. The injuries that you suffered have taken more from you than is common, 'tis true, but what cause have you to be angry, what cause have you to fear? You have no need for patronage, no need to earn your way, because your survival has earned it for you. We are responsible for you in ways that the world could never understand, and you are responsible to us," she paused, and frowned slightly before continuing. "You need not remember your family because we are your family now.

"I took the responsibility of your new life when I chose to make the exchange with you, and you will do the same when you face that decision. You have set about a new schooling, learning to be a prince, for such you are," she said, and her voice was bitter. The day trance claimed me before I could ask her what was wrong.

The next evening, I woke to find her watching me, tears beading her lashes like tiny brilliant diamonds. When I reached a tentative hand to touch her cheek she drew away from me and turned her head.

"You were so very like him," she sighed.

"Like whom?" I asked gently, and she rose upon her elbow to gaze at me before replying.

"My love, my first love, George Boleyn," she whispered the name, then smiled as if at her own foolishness and said it aloud. "I was at the court of Her Majesty's father, Henry. Good King Hal! Bluff King Hal! He was a monster of appet.i.tes and self-righteous self-love. Oh, he wasn't the gross and bloated beast then that he later swelled into, but the cruelty and the selfishness were there. I had not been long a vampire when I came to the court, where Nicolas had business, and I had never been in love.