Midnight Harvest

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  She felt a rush of sympathy for him, and her ardor returned at full intensity. “You would not have anyone be subject to you that way, would you?”

  “No,” he said, remembering Tishtry and Kosrozd, and Nicoris.

  “But you are bound to me for as long as you live? Through the Blood Bond.” She stared into his dark eyes, wanting to sound the depths of him.

  “I am, as I am to everyone who has knowingly had my love,” he said, taking care to make this last clear without inflicting pain.

  “I don’t care about them—at least, I don’t care tonight,” she declared, and began to unfasten her hostess-gown with a pragmatic efficiency that was enticing. “For whatever time we have, I have you knowingly and I intend to make the most of it. Who knows when we’ll meet again, or under what circumstances?”

  He sat down on the opposite side of her bed. “I hope this isn’t an act of desperation, Rowena.”

  “And if it is, what then?” She was in her underwear now, and starting to shiver for the room was chilly.

  “It will be of little value to you and me,” he said. “If you want me, let it be for love, or desire, or comfort, but not for desperation.”

  She regarded him thoughtfully. “I am not desperate,” she said at last. “I am lonely. And so are you.”

  “Loneliness isn’t the reason I love you,” he told her as he removed his jacket.

  “But it probably is for me, at least part of it,” she said, and reached around herself to unfasten her brassiere.

  “Let me do that for you,” Saint-Germain offered, and wrapped his arms around her in order to work the hooks. The undergarment came away in his hands; he set it on the nightstand under the lamp.

  She looked down at her body, and managed a little sigh. “I wish I were as young as when we first met.”

  “Why?” he asked softly as he kissed her shoulder.

  “Twenty-five years of wear-and-tear,” she said, indicating her breasts. “They were firmer before. All of me was.”

  “It is only a quarter century,” said Saint-Germain, going on contritely. “For me, that is a very, very short time.”

  She stared at him, struck by his words. “I suppose it is.”

  He reached out and touched her breast. “Your skin is wonderfully soft.”

  “Oh,” she breathed as the first quivering thrill promised greater rapture to come. She wriggled in an effort to get out of her garter-belt, stockings, and panties. “Clothes can be such a nuisance.”

  “So they can,” he agreed, all the while caressing her breast.

  “You’re distracting me,” she warned him, no hint of complaint about her remark. “Oh, that’s wonderful.”

  “If you don’t mind, I don’t,” he said, continuing what he was doing.

  “How good that feels,” she murmured as she finally struggled out of the last of her underclothes. “There. More.”

  Saint-Germain bent to kiss her nipples, taking the time to lavish attention on them both while he slowly, deliciously, slid his hands along her flanks. He was unhurried, relishing her heightened arousal. “What would you like, Rowena?”

  “I want my bones to melt,” she sighed.

  “How would you like to have it happen?” He increased his ministrations, feeling her flesh mold itself to the movement of his hands.

  “That’s … lovely,” she sighed, and opened her body more fully to him.

  He increased his attentions to her breasts again while his explorations of her body continued.

  “What more?”

  “Anything,” she whispered. “Anything you want.”

  “What you want is what I want,” he reminded her, gently fondling her thighs, gradually easing them open.

  “You’ve been with me enough to know,” she urged him in an under-voice. “I don’t want to have to choose.”

  He stroked the soft folds between her legs, then moved so that his tongue could take the place of his fingers; she sighed as he found the bud of her clitoris. As her craving for fulfillment began to gather in her body, he gradually made his way up her body to her throat, tantalizing and igniting her fervency to its utmost, and finally joining her in the sublime moment of her fulfillment, and for that ineffable time, knowing the whole of her, and embracing the entirety of her self as fully as he held her body.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered in fading ecstasy as she moved away from him at last, then reached out for him again. “Stay with me.”

  “All through the night,” Saint-Germain promised as he drew her close to him once more, cradling her in his arms as she drifted off into jubilant sleep.

  TEXT OF A LETTER FROM CENERE IN DENVER TO COLONEL MORALES IN MADRID; SENT BY AIRMAIL.

  Denver Train Station

  Denver, Colorado, USA

  21 December, 1936

  Colonel Andreas Morales

  22, Calle Real

  Madrid, Spain

  My dear Colonel,

  I have only a short time to write as my train begins boarding in thirty minutes and leaves in forty-five, so you will pardon me if this is necessarily brief.

  I am on my way to San Francisco in California. Through the inadvertent good offices of a secretary in the Chicago firm that has been managing some of Saint-Germain’s legal affairs, I learned he had purchased an automobile and had struck out for parts unknown. I was stymied when I discovered this, but I was then informed that he would have to re-register his auto in whichever state he settled. I have been in touch with the Department of Motor Vehicles for the state of Illinois and I have learned that his auto was sold in San Francisco, and so I am going there to learn as much as I can of his present whereabouts. He must have taken US Route 40 and gone as far west as it runs. I see no reason to duplicate his feat, and so the train will suffice to carry me to where he has been and, if luck is with me, may still be. I have the name of his attorneys in that city and I will call upon them shortly after my arrival No doubt I will find a way to persuade someone at the firm to provide me the information I seek.

  The secretary in Chicago need not cause you any anxiety: she will not be revealing anything to anyone. I felt it was best if she not be available to identify me. If I must, I will deal with others who provide me information in the same way. I am also making plans for the lamentable accident that will end Saint-Germain’s life and spare you the trouble of trying him in absentia. As you say, there would be many difficulties in keeping his company without at least the appearance of respect for the processes of law.

  I will be in San Francisco in less than two days, and I will begin my work at once. You need have no fear that I will waste time in sight-seeing or other tourist entertainments. Perhaps if I finish my work quickly, I’ll permit myself an amusement of my own devising, but that will not be anything that need concern you. I am committed to completing your assignment—as irregular as it may be—and you may rest assured that I will not falter in it this is just the sort of mission I most enjoy, and that, as well as my promise, ensures I will accomplish all I have undertaken on your behalf. I am assuming you will continue to support what I do in your name, and will continue to fund my search.

  To enable me to do this, have $2,000 waiting for me at the Crocker Bank in San Francisco so I may recommence the work I am doing for you. Do not try to bargain with me or I will make known what has been done in your name, which will cause you more than embarrassment. $2,000 may be a fair amount of money, but for what it is buying you, it is more than reasonable, for it ensures my silence as well as the results you seek.

  Yours to command,

  Cenere

  part three

  FERENC RAGOCZY, LE COMTE DE SAINT-GERMAIN

  TEXT OF A LETTER FROM MADELAINE DE MONTALIA IN CUZCO, PERU, TO SAINT-GERMAIN IN SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.

  7, Avenida del Templo Viejo

  Cuzco, Peru

  29 December, 1936

  Ferenc Ragoczy

  le Comte de Saint-Germain

  c/o the Saint Francis Hotel

&n
bsp; Union Square

  San Francisco, California USA

  My most-dear Comte,

  At last I have an address that will find you! Since you left Spain I have been beside myself, wondering where you had gone. Thank you for your letter, which arrived a week ago, delayed for reasons I cannot fathom, that told me finally where you were. I have been able to sense that you were alive, but nothing more than that, which, I will tell you, is not reassuring, for I have been imagining such things as would make your hair stand on end. But now I know you are in San Francisco, and I know what a splendid place it is. If you have found a house to buy, as you say you are going to do, you must provide me that address as soon as you have it to give. I will correspond with you as much as I am able, but here in Cuzco, with a dig underway, I may not write as frequently as I would like.

  Cuzco is a most fascinating place, as you said it would be, although it is very much changed from the time you were here—that was three hundred years ago, or nearly that as I recall. The old Incan buildings are not as intact as they were then, and we have had a challenge, trying to reconstruct what they were like before the Spaniards arrived. Our efforts are not universally approved. There are some in this city who would be delighted to have our team gone from Cuzco and all of Peru. They believe that archeological studies will lead to social unrest I cannot follow their logic on that account but I do believe the descendants of the Incas have not received the regard their lineage would command had they been Europeans and not New World Indians, whom many of the Spaniards still consider ignorant savages. Ignorant savages, indeed! I’d use that phrase more to describe the Conquistadores than the civilizations they conquered. Not that I believe the Incas were models of humanism, for that seems very unlikely, given some of the things we have found. Rather, they lacked gunpowder and horses, not reason and society. Do not let me get on this soap-box or this letter will weigh more than the airmail limits, and I will have to send it as air freight for ruinous amounts.

  The Spanish Civil War has repercussions even here, some greater than I would have expected, others far less so. The war is heavily reported in the newspapers and the state radio station carries regular reports about it. I should think that you were wise to leave Spain and Europe behind for a while. I agree that the turmoil is likely to spread and the price paid by the people there will be high. The Great War was unresolved when the Armistice was signed, and the problems that caused it are still festering. You have said you think Spain is just the beginning, and that in time all Europe will be caught in the conflagration of war, and I am increasingly persuaded that you are right and no matter how much I would like to think otherwise, I am preparing myself for the fighting to begin. Some of the results of the Spanish conflict may yet interfere with my work here and make it prudent for me to leave Cuzco, although I hope this won’t come to pass, or will be postponed until I have another dig arranged.

  In that light, I am concerned for Montalia. Provence might not be the most volatile place in France, but it is ideal for fighting, and I would hate to lose my home—my native earth—to the predations of war. Unfortunately (or it may be a fortunate thing), I am going to be in South America for several more years, and should war erupt I will be in no position to go to defend my home. Now I know how you must feel as Romania, Turkey, Hungary, and Austria all lay claim to your Carpathian birthplace, and I sympathize with you as well as empathize.

  How are you finding the United States? I have been told their Great Depression is a terrible thing, and that many people are suffering. Is that your understanding, or do you believe that President Roosevelt is doing some good with his many public agencies? Have you seen where I used to live, or is it all quite changed? The house on Franklin Street probably did not fare well in the 1906 earthquake and fire. I am curious about how matters are progressing in that country, because I recall the turmoil in Europe a decade ago, when Germany’s currency became more worthless than the paper it was printed on, and I would like to think that Herr Hitler has not found the only solution to economic disarray, and a less drastic solution to the problems of a monetary crisis is possible. I hope the United States can achieve that and, perhaps in the process, show Europe another path to follow. A terrible thing for a Frenchwoman to say, but true, nonetheless.

  I wish I could tell you how much I miss you, but as I try to find the words, they fail me. Suffice it to say that were I still breathing, I would miss you as I would miss air in my lungs. That does not sound as romantic as I intend it, but suffice it to say that it is heart-felt and as genuine as any more sentimental expression would be. I long for you, and I know it would be folly to be together. Since you kissed me in Berlin, I have accepted that, but I wish with all my being that it were not so—that those of our blood could be lovers as we love the living. Such hopes are futile, I know, but I cannot rid myself of them.

  Enough of maundering; there is nothing to be done. I thank you again for all you have told me about your years in this city so many years ago. You have helped me immeasurably in my work, and I only wish I could give you credit for your information when I publish my papers on this dig. I will not, for, as you say, that would lead to questions neither of us would like to have to answer; I have concocted the tale that I came upon the journal of a European explorer who lived in Cuzco while I was researching another subject in a private library. Its contents spurred me to come to Cuzco and search out those places described in the journal. So far no one has doubted my story. Other, far more unlikely scenarios have brought all manner of academic fortune-hunters to this place. It is always possible that such a journal actually does exist in a private collection somewhere in Europe, and so my speculation is not so far removed from reality that it becomes fuel for gossip.

  Among those accompanying me on this dig are two men from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. One is an archeologist, the other is a history professor specializing in Spanish colonialism, and between them, they have been very helpful The archeologist is a former farm-boy, athletic and energetic. The historian is bookish with a droll sense of humor. They are good company, clever and hard-working, and they are eager to explore the dig. I have never heard either one complain about the weather, the food, or the many difficulties we have had with the authorities here. Both of them have a small grant to do this work, which they are in hourly dread of losing, for it is possible that they could be stranded here. Their university has had to cut many of its programs for financial reasons, and they know their work here might be seen as an unnecessary expenditure of funds already in short supply. I have informed them that if it is necessary, my aunt will buy them return tickets to the United States. I can afford such a gesture, particularly since it is well-known that this aunt is a primary sponsor of this dig, along with the Division of Antiquities of the Peruvian government This aunt of mine has been very useful: she is now a recluse, living at Monbussy-sur-Marne; it was she who inspired me to follow in her footsteps as an archeologist.

  My most precious Saint-Germain, it is growing late and those in this rented house are finally fast asleep. I am going to visit one of them in his sleep, and I ought to be about it shortly, for I have more work to do tonight It will sustain me, but it does not provide the nourishment of the soul that I have known with you, before I came to this life, and my two Americans since; with you in the United States, I am doubly reminded of how much I miss you—and them. I hope you are doing well in San Francisco. As I have said already, I accept it is nothing like the city I visited eighty years ago, but I trust you have found it beautifully situated and charming. I do hope all those bridges will not ruin the lovely bay, though I comprehend the need for them now that the area is more settled than when I was there. You tell me that there are more than half-a-million people in the whole of the region, a figure I find staggering. I think Proust may be right-that the past is a foreign country where we can no longer go.

  Know that this comes with my enduring love and my truly undying (if unfulfilled) passion,

  Your Madelaine<
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  chapter one

  The blare of ships’ and cars’ horns greeted midnight in noisy cacophony, to usher in 1937. All along the Embarcadero sailors and fishermen formed impromptu parades, while in the fine hotels around Union Square and atop Nob Hill, dance bands played “Auld Lang Syne,” the saxophones deliberately slightly flat, to make it easier for the singers on the dance-floor. At the Cliff House, diners threw lit sparklers into the Pacific Ocean and hoped for better times ahead.

  In his fine three-story house on upper Broadway, Oscar King put another Strauss waltz on the phonograph and urged his guests to dance some more. He was holding another bottle of champagne in his hands, worrying at the cork guard in an attempt to get it open without sending the cork flying across the room. His concentration was less keen than it had been an hour ago, but he was a very determined man, and he kept at his self-imposed chore while his wife helped the cook set out roast turkey and ham for the midnight buffet. Most of the guests were in formal clothes, the women in gowns and jewels, the men in tuxedos, and the house was still decked out in its Christmas finery, making for a gala evening. Between the cigarettes and cigars smoked for the occasion, the air had a fine, filmy haze of smoke in it.

  “Why don’t you let me do that?” Saint-Germain suggested as he came up to his host. He was very grand tonight, even among such well-dressed guests, in tails with his sash and Order of Saint Stephan of Hungary blazing on it, and ruby studs in his pin-tucked shirt.

  “I can … manage,” King insisted, working the cork with his thumbs.

  “You don’t have to pry the cork that way. If you give it a half-twist, it will come out more easily,” Saint-Germain assured him.

  “Damned if I’ll resort to that,” King muttered, and finally levered the cork loose enough to pop. “Get a glass! It’s foaming.”