by Rice, Anne
It seemed quite impossible that in this Christian era, such a secular force could exist.
I reached down and picked up the gold coin with the engraved word, Talamasca. I put it in one of my pockets, and then I took his hand.
He was fiercely afraid now.
“Do you think I mean to kill you?” I asked gently.
“No, I don’t think you will do it,” he said. “But you see, I have studied you so long and with such love, I can’t know.”
“Love, is it?” I asked. “How long has your Order known of creatures like us?” I asked. I held his hand firmly.
His high clear forehead was suddenly creased by a small expressive frown.
“Always, and I told you we are very old.”
I thought on it for a long moment, holding on to his hand. I searched his mind again, and found no lie in it. I looked out at the young dancers moving decorously, and I let the music fill me once more as though this strange disturbance had never come about.
Then I released his hand slowly.
“Go then,” I said, “leave Venice. I give you a day and a night to do it. For I would not have you here with me.”
“I understand,” he said gratefully.
“You have watched me too long,” I said reprovingly. But the reproof was really for myself. “I know that you have already written letters to your Motherhouse describing me. I know because I would have done so if I were you.”
“Yes,” he said again. “I have studied you. But I have done it only for those who would know more of the world and all its creatures. We persecute no one. And our secrets are well kept from those who would use them for harm.”
“Write what you will,” I said, “but go, and never suffer your members to come to this city again.”
He was about to rise from the table when I asked him his name. As so often happened with me, I had not been able to take it from his mind.
“Raymond Gallant,” he responded softly. “Should you ever want to reach me—.”
“Never,” I said sharply under my breath.
He nodded, but then refusing to go with that admonition he stood his ground and said: “Write to the castle, the name of which is engraved on the other side of the coin.”
I watched him leave the ballroom. He wasn’t a figure to attract attention, and indeed one could picture him working with quiet dedication in some library where everything was splattered with ink.
But he did have a marvelously appealing face.
I sat brooding at the table, only talking now and then to others when I had to, wondering on it, that this mortal had come so close to me.
Was I too careless now? Too absolutely in love with Amadeo and Bianca to be paying attention to the simplest things that should have sounded an alarm? Had the splendid paintings of Botticelli separated me too much from my immortality?
I didn’t know, but in truth what Raymond Gallant had done could be explained fairly well.
I was in a room full of mortals and he was but one of them, and perhaps he had a way of disciplining his mind so that his thoughts did not go out before him. And there was no menace to him in gesture or face.
Yes, it was all simple, and when I was home in my bedchamber I felt much more at ease about it, even enough to write several pages about it in my diary as Amadeo slept like a Fallen Angel on my red taffeta bed.
Should I fear this young man who knew where I dwelt? I thought not. I sensed no danger whatsoever. I believed the things that he said.
Quite suddenly, a couple of hours before dawn a tragic thought crossed my mind.
I must see Raymond Gallant once more! I must speak to him! What a fool I had been.
I went out into the night, leaving the sleeping Amadeo behind.
And throughout Venice I searched for this English scholar sweeping this and that palazzo with the power of my mind.
At last I came upon him in modest lodgings very far from the huge palaces of the Grand Canal. I came down the stairway from the roof, and tapped on his door.
“Open to me, Raymond Gallant,” I said, “It’s Marius, and I don’t mean you any harm.”
No answer. But I knew that I had given him a terrible start.
“Raymond Gallant, I can break the door but I have no right to do such a thing. I beg you to answer. Open your door to me.”
Finally he did unfasten the door, and I came inside, finding it to be a little chamber with remarkably damp walls in which he had a mean writing table, and a packing case and a heap of clothes. There stood against the wall a small painting which I had done many months ago and which I had, admittedly, cast aside.
The place was overcrowded with candles, however, which meant that he had a rather good look at me.
He drew back from me like a frightened boy.
“Raymond Gallant, you must tell me something,” I said at once, both to satisfy myself and to put him at his ease.
“I will do my best to do this, Marius,” he answered, his voice tremulous. “What can you possibly want to know of me?”
“Oh, surely it’s not so hard to imagine,” I responded. I looked about. There was no place to sit. So be it. “You told me you have always known of our kind.”
“Yes,” he answered. He was shaking violently. “I was … I was preparing to leave Venice,” he volunteered quickly. “As you advised.”
“I see that, and I thank you. But this is my question.” I spoke very slowly to him as I went on.
“In all of your study, did you ever hear tell of a woman blood drinker, a woman vampire as you call it—a woman with long rippling brown hair … rather tall and beautifully formed, a woman made in the full bloom of life rather than in the budding flower of youth … a woman with quick eyes, a woman who walks the night streets alone.”
All this quite impressed him and for a moment he looked away from me, registering the words, and then he looked back.
“Pandora,” he said.
I winced. I couldn’t prevent it. I couldn’t play the dignified man with him. I felt it like a blow to the chest.
I was so overcome that I walked a few paces away from him, and turned my back on him so that he could not see the expression on my face.
He knew her very name!
Finally I turned around. “What do you know of her?” I said. I searched his mind as he spoke for the truth of every word.
“In ancient Antioch, carved in stone,” he said, “the words, ‘Pandora and Marius, drinkers of the blood, once dwelt together in happiness in this house.’ ”
I could not answer him. But this was only the past, the bitter sad past in which I’d deserted her. And she, full of hurt, must have inscribed the words in the stone.
That he and his scholars had found such a remnant left me humbled and respecting of what they were.
“But now,” I declared, “do you know of her now? When did you learn of her? You must tell me all.”
“In the North of Europe now,” he said, “there are those who say they have seen her.” His voice was growing stronger, but he was still quite afraid. “And once a young vampire, a young blood drinker, came to us, one of those who cannot bear the transformation.…”
“Yes, go on,” I said. “I know. You say nothing that is offensive to me. Continue, please.”
“The young one came, hoping we held some magic by which he might reverse the Blood and give him back his mortal life and his immortal soul.…”
“Yes, and he spoke of her? That’s what you mean to say?”
“Precisely. He knew all about her. He told us her name. He counted her a goddess among vampires. It was not she who made him. Rather coming upon him, she had pity on him, and often listened to his ravings. But he described her as you did. And he told us of the ruins in Antioch where we would find the words she’d written in the stone.
“It was she who spoke to him of Marius. And so the name came to be known to us. Marius, the tall one with the blue eyes, Marius whose mother came from Gaul and whose father was a Roman.”
>
He stopped, plainly afraid of me.
“Oh, go on, please, I beg you,” I said.
“This young vampire is gone now, destroyed by his own will without our compliance. He went out into the morning sun.”
“Where did he come upon her?” I asked. “Where did she listen to his ravings? When did this take place?”
“Within my lifetime,” he said. “Though I myself did not see this blood drinker. Please, do not press me too hard. I am trying to tell you all I know. The young vampire said that she was ever on the move, through the northern countries as I told you, but in the disguise of a rich woman, and with an Asian companion, a blood drinker of very great beauty and abrupt cruelty who seemed to oppress her nightly and force her into what she did not want to do.”
“I can’t bear it!” I declared. “Go on, tell me—what northern countries? I can’t read from your mind any faster than I can hear your words. Tell me all that the young one said.”
“I don’t know the countries in which she traveled,” he answered.
My passion was unnerving him.
“This young one, he loved her. He imagined that she would repel the Asian. But she would not. It drove him mad, this failure. And so, feeding upon the populace of a small German town, the young one soon blundered into our arms.”
He paused, to gather his courage and to make his voice steady as he went on.
“Within our Motherhouse he talked incessantly of her, but it was all the same theme—her sweetness, her kindness and the cruelty of the Asian from whom she would not break away.”
“Tell me the names under which they traveled,” I said. “There must have been names, names they used as mortals, for how else could they have lived as rich mortals? Give me the names.”
“I don’t know them,” he said. He gathered all his reserve now. “Give me time and perhaps I can obtain them. But I do not in truth think the Order will give me such information to give to you.”
Again I turned away from him. I put my right hand up to shield my eyes. What gestures does a mortal man make at such a moment? I made of my right hand a fist, and held my right arm firmly with my left hand.
She lived. Was I not content with that? She lived! The centuries had not destroyed her. Was that not enough?
I turned around. I saw him standing there, so very bravely, though his hands trembled at his sides.
“Why are you not terrified of me?” I whispered, “terrified that I may come to your Motherhouse and find this information for myself?”
“Perhaps no such action is necessary,” he responded quickly. “Perhaps I can obtain it for you, if you must have it, for it breaks no vows we’ve taken. It was not Pandora herself who sought shelter with us.”
“Ah, yes, you make a lawyer’s point on this score,” I answered. “What more can you tell me? What more did Pandora tell this young one of me?”
“No more,” he answered.
“Of Marius, this young one spoke, having heard the name from Pandora—.” I repeated.
“Yes, and then here we discovered you in Venice. I have told you all!”
I drew back once more. He was exhausted with me and so frightened of me that his mentality was almost to the point where it might break.
“I have told you all,” he said again gravely.
“I know you have,” I said. “I see that you are capable of secrecy but quite incapable of a lie.”
He said nothing.
I took the gold coin from my pocket, the one which he had given me. I read the word:
Talamasca
I turned it over.
There imprinted on it was the picture of a high and well-fortified castle, and beneath it the name: Lorwich, East Anglia.
I looked up.
“Raymond Gallant,” I said. “I thank you.”
He nodded.
“Marius,” he said suddenly, as though screwing up his courage, “can you not send out some message to her over the miles?”
I shook my head.
“I made her a blood drinker, and her mind has been closed to me from the beginning. So it is with the beautiful child you saw dancing this very night. Maker and offspring cannot read each other’s thoughts.”
He mulled this over as though we were speaking of human things, just that calmly, and then he said:
“But surely you can send the message with your powerful mind to others who may see her and tell her that you search for her, and where you are.”
A strange moment passed between us.
How could I confess to him that I could not beg her to come to me? How could I confess to myself that I had to come upon her and take her in my arms and force her to look at me, that some old anger separated me from her? I could not confess these things to myself.
I looked at him. He stood watching me, growing ever more calm, but certainly enrapt.
“Leave Venice, please,” I said, “as I have asked you to do.” I untied my purse and I put a good many gold florins on his desk, just as I had done twice with Botticelli. “Take this from me,” I said, “for all your trouble. Leave here, and write to me when you can.”
Again he nodded, his pale eyes very clear and determined, his young face rather willfully calm.
“It will be an ordinary letter,” I said, “come to Venice by ordinary means, but it will contain the most marvelous information, for I may find in it intelligence of a creature whom I have not embraced in over a thousand years.”
This shocked him, though why I did not understand. Surely he knew the age of the stones in Antioch. But I saw the shock penetrate him and course through his limbs.
“What have I done?” I said aloud, though I wasn’t speaking to him. “I shall leave Venice soon, on account of you and on account of many things. Because I do not change and therefore cannot play the mortal for very long. I will leave soon on account of the young woman you saw dancing tonight with my young apprentice, for I have vowed that she shall not be transformed. But oh, I have played my role most splendidly here. Write it in your histories. Describe my house as you saw it, full of paintings and lamps, full of music and laughter, full of gaiety and warmth.”
His expression changed. He grew sad, agitated, without moving so much as a muscle and the tears came up in his eyes. How wise he seemed for his years. How strangely compassionate.
“What is it, Raymond Gallant?” I asked. “How can you weep for me? Explain it to me.”
“Marius,” he said. “I was taught in the Talamasca that you would be beautiful and you would speak with the tongue of an angel and a demon.”
“Where is the demon, Raymond Gallant?”
“Ah, you have me. I have not heard the demon. I have struggled to believe in it. But I have not heard it. You are right.”
“Did you see the demon in my paintings, Raymond Gallant?”
“No, I did not, Marius.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
“Fearful skill and marvelous color,” he answered, not even hesitating a moment, as though he had thought it through. “Wondrous figures and great invention, which gave everyone utter delight.”
“Ah, but am I better than the Florentine Botticelli?” I asked him.
His face darkened. There came a small frown to him.
“Let me answer for you,” I said, “I am not.”
He nodded.
“Think on it,” I said. “I am an immortal, and Botticelli is a mere man. Yet what are the wonders which Botticelli has done?”
It was too painful for me to be here any longer.
I reached out with both hands and gently took hold of his head before he could stop me. His hands rose and they gripped mine but they could do nothing of course to soften my own grip.
I came close to him, and I spoke in a whisper.
“Let me give you a gift, Raymond. Now pay attention to me. I will not kill you. I will not harm you. I want only to show you the teeth and the Blood, and if you will allow—and mark, I ask for your permission—I shall give you a dro
p of the Blood on your tongue.”
I opened my mouth so that the fang teeth were visible to him and I felt his body stiffen. He uttered a desperate prayer in Latin.
Then I cut my tongue with my teeth as I had done a hundred times with Amadeo.
“Do you want this blood?” I asked.
He closed his eyes.
“I will not make this decision for you, scholar. Will you take this lesson?”
“Yes!” he whispered when in fact his mind said No.
I clamped his mouth in an ardent kiss. The blood passed into him, and violently, he convulsed.
As I let him go, he could scarcely stand. But he was no coward, this man. And he bowed his head for only an instant and then he looked at me with clouded eyes.
He was enchanted for these small moments, and patiently, I let them pass.
“My thanks to you, Raymond,” I said. I prepared to take my leave through the window. “Write to me with all you know of Pandora, and if you cannot I will understand.”
“Don’t ever see an enemy in us, Marius,” he said quickly.
“Don’t fear it,” I said. “I never really forget anything that happens. I will always remember that you spoke to me of her.”
And then I was gone.
I came back to my bedroom study, where Amadeo still slept as though wine had drugged him when it had only been mortal blood.
For a little while I wrote in my diary. I tried to describe sensibly the conversation which had just taken place. I tried to describe the Talamasca from all that Raymond Gallant had revealed to me.
But at last I gave in to writing the name Pandora over and over, foolishly, Pandora, and then I put my head down on my folded arms and dreamt of her, and whispered to her in my dreams.
Pandora in the northern countries, what countries, what could this mean?
Oh, if I were to find her Asian companion, how I would deal with him, how quickly and brutally would I free her from such oppression. Pandora! How could you let such a thing happen? And no sooner had I asked such a question than I realized I was quarreling with her as I had done so often of old.
