Leilah put her hand on Noell’s shoulder, as though the fingers could make a bridge between their souls, to carry courage in whichever direction it was required to flow. And on the hill, Shango spoke, and extended the spell of his protection to those he sought to save, in spite of the elders of Adamawara. The Egungun listened, and listened well.
When it was over, the Egungun lifted off their masks, and cast them down upon the ground, so that the torchlight fell upon their painted faces, which no longer seemed ferocious, but only ugly. It was a company of men, and not the risen dead, who went away into the forest, singing to themselves a sad lament. They sang because they had met a god in the forest, who had commanded them to be less than they were, and they would never again be the same.
When they had all gone, Shango came down from his throne, and walked slowly to the white men’s fire. Then he took off his bright and savage face, and became Ntikima.
‘Once,’ said the boy, ‘I was pledged to Aroni, fated to learn the plants of the forest and become a great magician. Now, I am Shango’s, and must shave my head and wear the beads which are the colour of blood. And when I am old, I might return to Adamawara, to be made his elemi in Ogo-Ejodun.’
Then he sat by the fire, and shivered, while they gave him some food.
The next day was no different, in any important respect, from the first, save that they now were six, and no longer five. The straps of Noell’s pack chafed, and the blisters on his feet made him limp as he walked. His throat was perpetually dry because he rationed his water very meanly, not knowing when they next might reach a stream or pool. Again, they forged on during the hot afternoon, intent on reaching the far side of the forest in as few days as possible.
By comparison with the slow headway they had made when coming in the other direction, they did well, though Langoisse was sick and Quintus tired. Again, when they stopped for the night, Leilah came to Noell as he sat by himself, some way from the tents. This time, she was in a different mood. She did not avoid his eye, but wanted him to look at her, and though she said nothing, he was not long in doubt as to her implication.
In the bright glare of day it had not been obvious, but in the shadows, and the flickering light of the fire, there was a definite lustre in her skin. Her complexion had always been smooth, but the smoothness now was taking on that extraordinary perfection and sheen which marked Berenike’s skin, and advertised what she was.
‘I feel strange,’ she said. ‘My hurt is not hurt any more, though I feel the blood coursing in my body as never before. Dost thou … ?’
‘Nay,’ replied Noell, hollowly. ‘I have no such feeling.’
He looked then at his hands – both the palms and the backs – and found them wrinkled and rubbed. When he put his fingertips to his face, he could feel the sweat, and the many blemishes he knew to be there. When he touched his bandaged arm, the wound burned beneath his touch. He was as he had always been, stricken with all the manifold signs of common mortality.
He wanted to ask her how many times she had been with Kantibh, and whether the time she had brought his semen in her mouth for Langoisse to bring to him was the first or one of several, but he could not bring himself to speak of it. It could not matter, in any case. Even if he could make himself hope a little longer, hope would neither help or hinder him. Hope was irrelevant. The change would come, or it would not.
‘And now thou wilt love me,’ she told him, in a low voice, ‘because I am a vampire lady, as Langoisse always promised me. And I will have thy blood to sustain me, will I not?’
He looked at her, not knowing what to say or to think.
‘Langoisse?’ he asked.
‘No sign,’ she said. ‘But I do not think he likes me enough to offer me his blood. I am no longer his, and I have no use for him.’ Her voice was so serene, her manner so thoughtful, that Noell wanted to laugh, but he dared not.
‘Quintus?’ he asked. He looked about him, searching for the monk, and found him tending to the donkeys. He hobbled across the space between them, somehow feeling far more frail than he had felt all day, and took his friend by the arm, turning him so that the ruddy light of the setting sun, filtering through the curling leaves, caught his features and made them shine. Quintus had always seemed to be carved from polished wood, his tanned skin stretched and sealed. It was hard to judge the beginning of a difference, but he was suddenly sure that it was there.
‘Quintus?’ he said, again, and stopped, not knowing how to ask the question. But the monk knew what it was.
‘Aye,’ he replied, softly. ‘I think ’tis so. I am not sure, yet, but I must pray for my soul, that it may be worthy of such a body. The souls of so many clearly are not.’
‘Langoisse?’ asked Noell, but Quintus shrugged his shoulders.
‘I do not know,’ said the monk. ‘But I could not think, when we began, that he could come so far and still be on his feet. He will have his dearest wish, I do believe.’
‘But why? asked Noell, in a fearful whisper. ‘Three took the elixir. How can some receive the gift, and not another? For the love of God, Quintus, what is wrong with me?’
‘I do not know,’ said Quintus. ‘Believe me, Noell, I would trade places with thee, if I could. ’
They came eventually to the place where they had found the bodies of the dead men, whose skin had become stretched upon their bones when the flesh had withered and wasted away, under the heat of the sun.
There was one more body now to be counted in that strange group. Like the others, it had not been attacked by scavengers, and had been left to decay slowly, after the peculiar fashion of things in this mysterious forest. They had no difficulty in recognising Selim the Turk, whose madness had brought him here to die.
It seemed that the Turk belonged in this company, for as the flesh upon the other faces had dried out and shrivelled, their noses had become shrunken and distorted, as his had been. He no longer seemed a monster cruelly set loose in a world of more perfect beings, but a murdered creature among murdered creatures, worthy of pity. Langoisse knelt before the body for a few moments, to whisper an improbable prayer; then they went on.
They came, in the fullness of time, to the pleasanter forest where the trees were not so twisted; where flowers grew, and insects flew, and birds sang. The further they went, the more birds there were, and many other living things which they were glad to see. They found water here in abundance, and were able to forage for food.
In due course they came out of the forest altogether, and on to the high plain where the Sahra planted their fields and kept their cattle. The chiefs of the Sahra villages made them welcome, and feasted with them, and danced to celebrate their passing, as they had always done for the elect of Adamawara, who were made of finer flesh than themselves.
And so it was to be in other lands through which they passed on their long and weary way. News of their progress went ahead of them, often, because there was something momentous in their arrival in each new place: they had come from Adamawara, and some of their party were vampires.
There was no way for those who made them welcome to know, or to understand, what sadness and bitterness there was in at least two of their hearts. Noell renewed his endeavour to make himself a vampire, with the means which he now had readily to hand, but his further attempts to overcome his mortality were no more successful than his first.
And when they came, at last, to a place which they could count a destination, it was still the same. Two of those three who had sworn themselves brothers in blood were vampires; and one was not.
PART FIVE
The Blood of Martyrs
‘A prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind the reproach of cruelty; by setting good examples he will achieve a better end than those who, in being merciful, permit disorders to arise; for disorders injure the whole people, while a prince’s executions offend only individuals …
“If the question is posed, whether it be better to be loved than feared
or feared than loved, the ready answer is that it is better to be both; because it is difficult to unite these qualities in one person, however, it must be said that it is much safer to be feared than loved if one or other must be chosen … men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advancement; but fear preserves by the dread of punishment, which never fails.’
(Niccolo Machiavelli, The Vampire Prince)
PROLOGUE
The de-ciphered text of a letter received by Sir Kenelm Digby in London in the summer of 1660.
Malta, May 1660,
To my dearest friend, Sahha!
No glad tidings have ever been more welcome to me than the news that England is liberated from the Imperium of Gaul, that Richard and his Norman knights are banished, and that a Parliament of new vampires now presides over a British Commonwealth. The knowledge that my home is free lightens my heart, and I am greatly glad that the victory was accomplished without the shedding of overmuch blood. That Richard accepted the untenability of his position in the face of your manoeuvres allows me to believe that all his prating and posturing in the name of the chivalric ideal, by which Gaulish vampire knights have ever sought to glorify themselves, has in it a core of sincerity and reason.
What has happened in England gives me hope for the future of Gaul entire, and I pray that the end of Charlemagne’s empire might now be accomplished without such a carnival of destruction as would plunge all Europe into an age of darkness and despair.
I know that in hands such as yours, the elixir whose secret I made known will be used wisely and justly. It will bring the world nearer to a condition in which all men will have reasonable hope that when they have long enough home the trials and tribulations of frailer common flesh, the chance to be immortal will not be denied them. With the aid of this secret which is secret no more, I believe that England will become a great nation in the remade world. Now that the existence of the new Atlantic continent has been determined, the opportunity is there for British mariners to create an empire more glorious than any that was ever devised by Attila’s kin, and this is the work which must be yours in the centuries to come.
While the northern nations still fight to throw of the yoke of Charlemagne’s rule, and the southern princes are beset from all sides by their enemies, your people and mine must build a New Atlantis in the west, as Francis Bacon prophesied. Of all the nations in Gaul and Walachia, Britain alone stands to emerge from the present conflict strengthened.
My heart is warmed by your urging that Quintus and I should return to England, now that she is free. I am sure that Langoisse could bring us safely through the hostile waters which stand between us, but I do not feel that the time is right for us to quit our station here. We have promised a great deal to the men of this island, and they have treated us most generously. Without the conversion of the knights of St. John to our cause, the secret which we brought to Europe might have been more effectively suppressed. To leave these allies now would seem an unkind desertion, and I would not like to do it. Your invitation to the Order of St. John to bring its knights to London is considered most generous by the Grandmaster, but the Pillars of the order could no more think of abandoning Malta, which has been their home and stronghold for a hundred and thirty years, than you could have thought of deserting England while the battle to force Richard into exile was yet to be fought.
The reasoned omens say that Malta’s direst hour may now be fast approaching; the knights of St. John will not shirk defence of their tiny realm, and I will do everything in my power to help them. I am an Englishman first and always, but my loyalty now must be to those who befriended me in an hour of desperate need. I spent too great a fraction of my life in leaving action to others; now I am become a man who takes credit for his ambitions I must take my stand with those who have served my ends.
You are probably in a position to gather far better intelligence than we of the disintegration of Gaul and Walachia, and what response the emperors plan to make. A few of the younger princelings have secretly offered support to our cause, because they see in our rebellion an opportunity for advancement which they could never have had while the older immortals held their power. For most of them, of course, our ideals are simply a convenient mask to put upon their ambition, but while they use us, we may also use them. There are many printing presses, and common men enthusiastic for their use no matter what the risk. We set out to disseminate the secret of the elixir so widely throughout Christendom that it could never again be put away and hidden, and we have found such a host of allies that I know the work is done. Unless miracles come to my aid, I will not live to see Charlemagne and Attila capitulate, and the old order absorbed into the new; but I will die knowing that such a capitulation is inevitable, and that I have helped to bring the great day forward.
We continue to hear rumours that our exploits have so annoyed the vampires of Gaul and Walachia that they intend to raise a great Armada of ships at Cagliari, Naples and Palermo, bringing galleys from Spain, Italy and France into a fleet which will overwhelm our own forces and land an army to devastate the entire island. The pope has now excommunicated the entire Order of St. John, and declared anathema against them, proclaiming Malta to be a nest of vile pirates. This shows singular ingratitude, given that it was the Knights of St. John and their navy which mastered the Turks in the Mediterranean, and have helped keep Europe safe from a seaborne invasion for a hundred and fifty years, but it is no more than we expected.
Villiers de 1’Isle Adam, as Grandmaster and guardian of the Order, is by no means unperturbed by these threats, but he stoutly declares that the knights are well used to such ungrateful treatment, and would expect no more from a false pope who is naught but a gaudy puppet of the godless vampires. It is because he has long held such an opinion that the Knights Hospitallers were so readily won to our cause. La Valette, who is the greatest naval commander in Christendom – as even Langoisse admits – has said that if this Armada comes, then Malta will withstand its siege just as it withstood the great siege of 1565, when Suleyman the Magnificent failed to destroy it. Then, the Order had less than a hundred vampire knights; today Malta has four hundred vampire fighters within the Order and a further three hundred without, not one of whom will easily surrender the privilege of longevity to fire and the sword.
Our enemies have tried to frighten us by promising to send Vlad Tepes himself against us, and your own Coeur-de-Lion with him, at the head of a new crusade of Gaulish knights. I cannot pretend that we are not disturbed by such possibilities, but I know that our allies cannot be terrorised into any renunciation of the path which they have taken. If Attila and Charlemagne themselves were to emerge from their seclusion to put on their armour the men of Malta would gladly take the field against them.
Langoisse and la Valette have done their best to convince our followers that it is not the greatness of heroes which determines the outcome of battles, no matter what the balladeers and romancers may claim. They insist that our fleet, which has such a preponderance of sailing ships, with their cannon mounted broadside, is a great force to be reckoned with at sea, and will not easily be defeated by any armada which consists almost entirely of Spanish and Italian galleys. Our hunters of the sea, they say, can destroy ships without needing to send out boarders, while the galleys – which have only oarsmen at their flanks – can hardly make effective defence of themselves.
Alas, I cannot share their optimism, though I am no man of the sea. I fear that we have far fewer good cannon than we need. Langoisse and la Valette are well used to battles in which only a few ships are involved, but I fear that if what we hear is true, then the coming battle of Malta might be the greatest conflict of ships that the world has yet seen. We discount the stories which say that an army of three thousand vampire knights will be raised, because we believe that such a number could never be spared from the war in t
he north, but whatever force sets out against us will be intended to make a clear and unmistakable demonstration that Attila’s empires will deal harshly with their enemies.
I must enter a renewed plea here, though I know that you have already told me that you cannot answer it. If only your new Parliament could send us two hundred Sussex cannon made from Sturtevant’s iron, I might be prepared to believe that we could stand off any fleet which the world could muster against us. I do not ask for the aid of Britain’s fleet, which is the chief defence of our island nation, but if a few cargo ships could bring such guns to add to our artillery, it would make a reckonable difference to our strength.
As things stand now we have been forced to send emissaries to Tunis and Tripoli asking for support. My darling Leilah asked to be our ambassador, but we dared not send a vampire among the Mohammedans, and so we used liberated prisoners who once were oarsmen in Christian galleys. We have made representations to the sultans on the grounds that we are the enemy of their enemies, and hence might be reckoned friends, but the hatred which the Turkish sea-captains have for the knights of Malta will make them most reluctant to come to our aid. I think it more than likely that the Turks will bide their time, rejoicing meanwhile that Christendom is being tom apart by its internal struggles.
Sometimes, I too wonder whether the grey sages of Adamawara might not have been right to conclude that the world of the unfinished is too violent to permit any future but its own destruction. But I avoid despair; I remain convinced that the elders of that mysterious valley are themselves incomplete, having sheltered themselves all too well from the ambitions of civilisation. If I have ever known a truly finished man – by which I mean a man in whose nature and temper there lies the seed of a finer world – then that man is my friend Quintus. I know that you too are that kind of man, and it is to your like – to men of science and men who love justice – that I look for hope that the future of mankind will be bright.
Empire of Fear Page 38
