A Cautionary Tale for Young Vampires

by G. D. Falksen

  “True,” Varanus said, circling the desk opposite Robert as she spoke, “but I can think of no one else with cause to kill the boy.”

  “Cause?” Robert shouted. “What cause?”

  Varanus snapped about in place to face him and fixed him with a sharp stare.

  “Do you pretend, cousin, that you didn’t know about the…the affair between Adam and your daughter Mary?” she asked.

  Robert’s face suddenly became white as a sheet, then turned bright red with fury just as quickly.

  “No I did not!” he shouted. “How dare you make such an accusation! In my own house!”

  Varanus was surprised by the ferocity of Robert’s reaction, though perhaps she ought to have expected it. But she suddenly was given to wonder if her suspicions had been off the mark. Robert certainly seemed more like an enraged father than a killer caught by his wrongdoing.

  Robert turned away and wiped his face with his hand. Turning back toward Varanus, he snapped at her:

  “And you knew of this? All along, you knew of this, and you did not tell me?”

  Varanus kept her composure. He did have a right to be angry about that, though Varanus held firm to the belief that it had been none of her business in the first place.

  “Kindly do not raise your voice at me, cousin,” she said.

  “I will do as I damn well please in my own home!” Robert shouted, raising his voice further. “Why did you not tell me?”

  “I did not know for certain,” Varanus replied. “I suspected, but did not know. I saw them both enter the church together one day, and that set my suspicion on the matter. But it hardly seemed appropriate for me to involve myself. Not when you, the master of the house, could see them clearly from your window!” Varanus held her head high as she addressed her incensed relation. “You would have preferred that I had come to you at once with my vague suspicions? I, a distant relative, a visitor from a foreign land, who had never met your daughter before and knew nothing of her attitude or conduct? You wish that I had assumed the worst of Mary’s virtue as a matter of course?”

  It was all puff and pretense of course. “Unimpeachable virtue” was one of those ludicrous ideas that failed to take into account the realities of youth. But for the sake of the family intrigues, Varanus could not allow herself to be seen as the sort of woman who allowed impropriety to take place under her watch.

  But though an act, it took the fire out of Robert’s fury.

  “No, of course not,” he said, his voice falling. Suddenly he was sullen rather than angry. And more than a little ashamed for the sake of his family’s honor, no doubt.

  “How could you not have known?” Varanus asked.

  “Because I did not!” Robert snapped.

  “Why was she not chaperoned?”

  “Enough,” Robert said. “We will speak no more of this. Ever. Do you understand, cousin? For the good of the family, Mary’s tryst never happened.”

  Varanus sighed inwardly with great irritation, but outwardly she nodded.

  “I understand, cousin,” she said. “But if you…I do beg your pardon…if you didn’t kill the boy for the sake of family honor, then who did?”

  Robert looked at her and said firmly, “That is no concern of yours, Cousin Babette.”

  Varanus gritted her teeth. He knew! He suspected someone! But who?

  “Of course,” she said demurely. “I only wish what is best for the family.”

  Robert returned to his chair with measured steps and slowly sat. He picked up the papers he had been reading, his hand trembling with anger.

  “Leave that to me, cousin,” he replied. “Do not concern yourself with it. And do not speak to anyone of your suspicions regarding the boy’s death, least of all the constable. Let them believe it was a wolf, and let that be the end of it.”

  Varanus forced a sweet smile.

  “Of course, cousin,” she said. “Your wisdom in this matter is…overwhelming.”

  Without another word, Varanus left the study for the hall, where she saw Korbinian waiting for her.

  “How was your conversation, liebchen?” he asked. “A success, I hope.”

  Varanus looked at him, irritated. He knew perfectly well how it had gone.

  “Merde,” was all that she said in reply.

  * * * *

  Though annoyed that the conversation with Robert had failed to produce the intended results, Varanus was soon able to put the whole matter from her mind. Instead, she spent the remainder of the day in Ekaterine’s company, discussing the possibility of a cosmetic to protect against the sun. The very idea had so captured her imagination on that first day that Varanus often found her thoughts drifting back to it. And she had learned long ago that when ideas returned in perpetuity, it was best to settle them before obsession set in.

  Dinner was a quiet affair, and there was little conversation to be had. The murder of the blacksmith’s son had cast a shadow over the house, and there seemed little to talk about that was fit for polite conversation. And through it all, Robert spent most of his time watching Mary across the table, as if he somehow suspected her of carrying on a dalliance with some new young man in the midst of dinner.

  Where she was seated, Varanus was forced to make some effort at polite conversation with Maud and Richard, which proved tedious. Maud was elegant as ever, but under the circumstances, the talk was even more forced than usual. Richard, on the other hand, spent the time imposing upon Varanus his detailed plans for the upcoming hunt, including several boasts about how many wolves he would kill to “avenge” the dead boy—a subject that was both abhorrent and disgraceful.

  At least Ekaterine had a reprieve from the worst of it, Varanus noted. Instead, with Elizabeth appropriately subdued by the darkness of recent events, Ekaterine was free to make some limited conversation with Anne, which seemed to please her. Varanus paid little attention to what they said—the few pieces she did listen to sounded incredibly dull and mediocre—but it seemed to relieve Anne. By the end of dinner, she had even stopped her nervous fidgeting, though Varanus suspected that five minutes with her husband would bring it all back.

  She wondered idly if she could murder Richard with one of the butter knives—because it would hurt more—and get off by blaming phantom wolves. That seemed to be rather in vogue at the moment.

  * * * *

  After dinner concluded, Ekaterine went with Anne to one of the sitting rooms to continue their conversation over a little sherry. Varanus promised to join them later, after she had had some time alone with her thoughts. She went to the portrait gallery and walked back and forth along the corridor, staring up at the faces of her ancestors as they looked down upon her.

  If there was a Heaven with them in it, what must they think of their descendants? Were they proud to see what their line had become? Angry? Saddened? Unimpressed?

  For that matter, what of Grandfather? Surely he watched over her now, in whatever capacity the dead were able. Was he proud of her?

  A part of her wondered if she should even care what Grandfather would think of her now. He had lied to her and concealed her son from her for years. And there were secrets he must have known that he kept hidden: secrets about the family, about their neighbors, perhaps even about himself. And yet, Varanus could not bring herself to be angry with him. And that fact itself made her angry. Even in death, he was too dear to her.

  But enough of such dark thoughts.

  Varanus quickly shook herself to dispel the melancholy that had fallen upon her. Ekaterine and Anne would be waiting for her, and their company would be appreciated at such a time. It could be dangerous having only one’s own thoughts for conversation.

  She quickly put those thoughts out of her mind and made for the sitting room, but as she passed Robert’s study, she heard her cousin’s raised voice shouting violently, in a manner that she had only briefly glimpsed during their talk earlier in the day.

  Varanus paused by the door and listened, easily making out both Robert’s l
oud shouting and the softer, more timid voice that replied.

  “In God’s name, what were you thinking?” Robert demanded.

  There was a pause, and then Varanus heard Cousin Mary reply softly:

  “I’ve done nothing wrong, Father.…”

  “Nothing?” Robert’s shout was almost like the roar of a mad animal. “Nothing?!”

  There was a moment’s pause, and then Varanus heard the clear sound of a heavy blow striking soft flesh. Mary cried out in pain, and there was a crash of someone tumbling violently into the furniture. Then all was silent, save for Mary’s soft whimpering.

  Varanus’s face twisted into a scowl. First Richard’s tyranny against his wife, and now Robert’s against his daughter. This would end at once she thought, and she reached for the doorknob.

  “I’ve done nothing wrong!” Mary cried. “He was just some boy!”

  “Just some boy? Wicked child!” Robert’s shout was followed by the sound of him striking his daughter again. “You ate him!”

  What? Varanus thought. What could he mean?

  “You killed him!” Robert shouted. “You killed him, and then you feasted upon him!”

  Robert was mad, that was the only possible explanation. He had killed the boy, fed him to his hounds, and now his diseased mind had fabricated this fantastical story to place the blame—

  “What of it?” Mary demanded.

  Varanus froze in the midst of opening the door, immobilized by shock and confusion. Had she heard right? No, surely not. But—

  “You devoured the flesh of men,” Robert snarled. “That is forbidden.”

  It could not be, Varanus thought. She could not be hearing this.

  She pushed the door open slightly more and saw Mary collapsed in a heap upon the floor in a mass of pastels and lace, blood trickling from her split lip. The side of her face, where Robert had struck her, was already bruising. Robert stood over her, and Varanus watched as he took his daughter by the throat and lifted her to her feet. Mary whimpered in fear at his touch, no longer defiant.

  “He was just a boy,” she pleaded. “That…that is what they are there for.”

  “You fornicated with the likes of him?” Robert demanded.

  Mary nodded slowly, as well as she was able with her father’s hand around her throat.

  “But then you grew tired of him,” Robert said. “So you killed him, like the others!”

  Others? Varanus thought.

  Mary did her best to nod again.

  “But this time,” Robert said, “you ate of his flesh!”

  “It was so sweet, Father,” Mary protested. Frantically, she tried to explain: “So soft and firm and delicious! If only you had tasted it, you would understand! Something so…so good cannot be evil, surely—”

  Robert threw her to the ground with a roar.

  “It is forbidden!” he shouted. “Forbidden! The monks gave their lives that our line might be spared! Have you forgotten?”

  “Father, please—”

  “But now you bring this shame upon our family?” Robert demanded. “Upon me?! How could you do such a thing? A Varanus has not tasted the flesh of man in more than two hundred years!”

  Mary sat up on her knees and bared her teeth at her father, snarling back at him like a cornered animal.

  “What about Cousin William?” she asked.

  Robert’s jaw slackened for a moment, and he shook with anger. Drawing back his hand for another blow, he shouted:

  “Do not speak that name to me!”

  Varanus pushed the door open and entered the room. She took a deep breath to steady herself and demanded:

  “What about Cousin William?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Robert and Mary both turned to look at her, their faces pale. They had not expected to be overheard, and now the shock of interruption had removed much of the fury of their argument. Robert’s look was ashen, but it was Mary who looked the most distressed at having been discovered, more frightened and upset now than when she had thought herself alone in the face of her father’s violence.

  Varanus entered the room and closed the door softly. She looked at Mary, then at Robert, and repeated:

  “What about Cousin William?”

  Robert’s mouth worked silently for a few moments before he finally found his voice and snapped, “Get out. This is no concern of yours, cousin.”

  “I find my cousin beating his daughter,” Varanus said, advancing slowly, “and accusing her of…of utter abomination! A charge that she does not in any way deny. And then she makes some dark insinuation about my grandfather? No, cousin, this is very much my concern. Now answer me!”

  Robert wiped his mouth with his hand. Presently, he took Mary by the scruff of her neck and pulled her, forcefully, to her feet. Mary whimpered loudly and bowed her head, her shoulders hunched with shame or fear. She looked at the floor. Robert shook her and snarled at her.

  “Go to your room,” he said. “Remain there until I arrive. I am not finished with you.”

  He all but threw his daughter toward the door. Mary stumbled from the force of the shove and would have fallen had Varanus not caught her. A look told Varanus that the fire had gone out of Mary. She was no longer defiant. She was terrified. But in light of the confession she had just made, she had good cause to be.

  Mary looked at Varanus with the same fear she showed toward her father. She quickly pulled away and fled from the office, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Varanus slowly closed the door again and turned back to Robert.

  “I suppose this is my doing,” she said.

  “Yes,” Robert said. “In as much as you alerted me to what Mary had done. I thought we had dispensed with it all last time, but I see it was not so.”

  He took a decanter of port from a nearby cabinet and filled two glasses. He approached and offered one to Varanus, sipping his own. With Mary gone, he was suddenly much calmer. Perhaps calculating.

  Varanus took the glass but did not drink.

  “I wonder, liebchen,” she heard Korbinian say, “is your good cousin trying to poison you to conceal this secret?”

  Varanus turned to look at Korbinian. She saw him standing behind Robert, dressed in his shirt and trousers, blood slowly trickling from his mouth. It was as he had been the night he was murdered, when he had died in her arms. He always did that when stress overcame her, though for what purpose Varanus could not imagine.

  “She has done this before?” she asked, forcing herself to look away from Korbinian and back at Robert.

  Robert was silent for a few moments and took another drink. Presently, he answered:

  “Taking a lover? Yes. Thankfully with no unwanted results.”

  “I meant the murder,” Varanus said.

  “Ah, yes,” Robert said, laughing softly. “Why should I deny it? You’re family. You are in this as much as we are. Yes, my daughter has taken three lovers in as many years, all local lads: two shepherd’s boys and now the blacksmith’s son. And when she tires of them, she kills them.”

  Robert seemed little concerned by that fact.

  “And then she eats them?” Varanus asked.

  “This is the first time she has done that!” Robert snapped. “And it will be the last.”

  “But not the last time she kills?” Varanus shook her head. “Cannibalism may be the greater crime, cousin, but if you will pardon me, you seem not at all bothered by the death of those boys.”

  “They were hu—” Robert began. He caught himself before he could finish. “They were peasants,” he said quickly, taking another drink. “Their deaths are of no concern to me. They are easily replaced.”

  “To you, perhaps,” Varanus said, “or to me, or to the great and mighty of this land. But not to their parents. They were each of them some mother’s son. And you think nothing of your daughter playing with them to relieve her boredom and then killing them for sport.”

  Robert laughed and said, “Cousin, I think you will find that s
he played with them for sport and then killed out of boredom.”

  “How can you be so callous about their deaths?” Varanus demanded.

  Robert laughed again and finished his glass of port in a single gulp. As he poured himself a fresh glass, he said:

  “I am callous about death because I am a Varanus. And you, cousin? Do you truly grieve for those boys? Or are you merely angered on point of principle?” He looked at her and grinned. “Ah, but I see in your eyes that you are a Varanus as well. We protect the meek when it suits us, but we do not weep for them.”

  “Do not try to change the subject,” Varanus said. “Your daughter is a cannibal. And what she said about my grandfather—”

  “We are cannibals, all of us!” Robert shouted, leaning down and looking her in the eye.

  Varanus did not flinch and neither did Robert; they stared at one another, eye-to-eye, for a little while before Robert rose up again and continued:

  “Hunger for the flesh of man has been in our blood since the beginning.”

  Varanus felt her pulse quickening—quickening as much as it was able, of course, for with the Shashavani one heartbeat was as a dozen for a mortal man. Could Robert speak the truth? What monstrosity was this? What barbarism? And for him to speak of it so coolly.…

  She looked toward Korbinian, who slowly wiped blood from his lips and looked back at her.

  “What do you expect me to say, liebchen?” he asked. “I do not know the truth of it any more than you do. Your cousin may lie, but if he speaks the truth, what shall you do?”

  “How did it begin?” Varanus asked. “With Roger Varanus? I have read accounts of cannibalism among some of the Crusaders.”

  “Ha!” Robert laughed. “Back to the beginning, cousin. Before Roger, before Henry, before the Varanus name and the Norman conquest. Before Rome, before Gaul, before Britannia. This predilection goes back into the earliest days of mankind. Into the very depths of the earth.”

  Varanus almost laughed at him, though under the circumstances it seemed abhorrent to do so. But Robert’s tone, his look, his countenance possessed a strange mixture of fervor and passivity that would have been comical under any other circumstances.