Her servants noticed a change in her immediately. All of the crow’s feet, which had been taking root underneath her deep blue eyes, had disappeared, as did the colour of her eyes themselves. No longer the colour of lapis lazuli, they were now glowing green-yellow — the same shade as the Devil’s own eyes. The frown lines brought on by her boredom and her constant sneers of disapproval had now vanished. Her skin had taken on the soft contours of a happy and healthy woman. Griselda indeed looked considerably younger, and more beautiful than ever before.
Her eating habits had altered considerably, for no longer did she feast upon quail’s eggs and honeyed figs, but she shunned food entirely. She slept during the day, and the entirety of her household had to adapt to this strange and abrupt change. Everything about her was unnatural and frightening. As soon as they were out of her presence, her servants would cross themselves, certain that she had turned to witchcraft but were too afraid to betray her to the Inquisition. They were, of course, correct with such assumptions, but no one could have guessed what their mistress had become nor with whom she had made her grim pact.
But the feasting and entertainments continued in her gilded palazzo every night, after which she ventured into the darkness to feed upon human blood. She still needed to marry, for the sake of propriety and in order to ensure she could remain mistress of the Palazzo di Cuorenero. More suitors arrived, bearing gifts from exotic climes, incense from India, spices and silks from the East, peacocks, and jewels to tempt her. But the old trouble reared its head. None could tempt her fully.
One day, through the frost and snow of midwinter, came from France a most interesting prospect. He had come unannounced and boldly entered her visiting chamber, preceded by six tamed white wolves. Sensing her predatory nature, these beasts snarled at her until their master spoke:
“I am Count Adolphe de La Fontaine, at your service, my lady,” he said with his beautiful French accent. He flashed her a winning grin as he bowed deeply before her. He had dark brown hair, which had a fringe across his forehead, the rest waved slightly and turned inwards at his shoulders. He wore a red cap upon his head and a dark green velvet doublet. His facial features were as well formed as his body, which was lean and muscular. He had an attractive cleft in his strong chin and alluring hazel eyes that had flecks of honey in them. Griselda’s eyes strayed to his throat, his pronounced Adam’s apple, and a little nick from where he had cut himself whilst shaving earlier that day. His jugular vein throbbed invitingly, but since she had already dined that day, she had little trouble disregarding this. She arched an eyebrow as she evaluated him, for he was a count, and had a way of speaking that aroused her exceedingly.
“You are remarkably handsome,” she stated without shame.
He smiled brightly. “You are yourself such an exquisite beauty, my lady. As you have recently lost your father, it is well known that you must seek a husband. I happen to be in need of a wife with both a fortune and land, and in exchange for this, I humbly offer you myself.” He winked at her as he bowed again.
“There is nothing humble about you! What? You do not come bearing gifts?” she asked, slightly shocked and rather thrilled at his impudence. He merely smiled again, raising his chin and placing his fists on his hips.
“I would have thought I was gift enough for you. I am a Count already, your equal.”
“You’re not quite my equal, be in no doubt of that,” she replied. He was confident, even cocksure, but still only a mere mortal, whilst she was one of the Devil’s concubines. Nevertheless, she found him intriguing. “I have never met an Adolphe before. Pray, what does your name mean?”
“I believe that I was named after the majestic, noble wolf,” he replied, stroking the closest wolf at side, which licked his hand as though it tasted of honey. Taste. Griselda again eyed his throbbing vein on his neck and licked her ruby lips. He noticed this, and thought it was due to his exceptional skills at wooing.
“And are you as ferocious as a wolf, I wonder?” she asked, mischief glimmering in her green-yellow eyes.
“We should marry at once, lady, and I will be only too happy and honoured to show you my wolf-like prowess in the bedchamber.”
She laughed. “Are you suggesting I marry you just like that, a stranger whom I know nothing about? Do you think that you are the man for me, Adolphe de La Fontaine?” she asked, huskily. “Are you brave enough to be my husband?”
He made no reply, but simply stood there, penetrating her with his eyes and she could see the blazing lust therein; the heat from his body was rising. He exuded arrogance, and she liked him all the better for it. For the first time in the many years that she had been receiving suitors for her hand, she finally found one that she was interested enough in to marry.
Later that same evening, Griselda commanded that feasting and dancing be held in her great hall. She and Adolphe danced all the most popular Early Renaissance dances, particularly the lively saltarello, trotto and farandole. As the tambourine was shaken, the recorder soared, and the drum was struck, she found herself becoming more intrigued by the nubile and audacious suitor. As for Adolphe, observing her elegant, light step made him more attracted to her than before. She was pleased that he could keep up with her energetic movements, and she found herself thinking him the best candidate out of all the suitors she had met.
Sure enough, Griselda and Adolphe were wed, and little time passed before Adolphe realised with certainty that there was something odd about his new bride. Each night, following a dance or a poetry reading (for there were always visiting courtiers at the palazzo), he would join her in the bedchamber and, having engaged in luxurious bed-sport, she would tell him to leave before dawn. She slept alone, she said, the thick curtains of her bed shut tight to avoid daylight. He knew of no one else that slept during the day, but he found her eccentricities endearing for he, poor fool that he then was, loved her.
He had a younger brother who looked after his estate back in France. In truth, Adolphe preferred the coastal beauty of the Palazzo di Cuorenero. He loved the spray of the waves as they crashed against the rocky shore. Whilst his wife slept, he ran the palazzo and the estate and even oversaw the serfs during the day. Despite his perceived arrogance, he was neither overly proud nor arrogant. He truly cared for those who worked their land, and often did his best to make certain they were well provided for. His father had told him about the peasants’ uprisings following the Black Death, and he knew that things were different now. Masters had to tread carefully. And so he often visited the peasants in their little homes and asked after their families. He was alarmed to discover that some of their children and those from the neighbouring serfdoms had gone missing, only for their exsanguinated bodies to turn up days later, picked upon by scavenger birds.
It was a mystery that haunted him throughout the days. What kind of creature could do such a thing? Adolphe ordered that every cavernous spot in the surrounding area be thoroughly checked for the beast responsible for the children’s murders. He could have no reason then to suppose that the beauty he called his wife was the fiend of the night, the murderess of innocents, the Monster of Cuorenero.
Ignorant of her husband’s true kind nature, it was not long before Griselda began to harbour wishes to make him her equal in immortality. Grey would begin to streak his beautiful dark hair, and he would age. This she simply could not accept. He would be her handsome prince of the night forever and she could not see herself wanting another in his stead. He would be her dark lover for all time; and so on the first anniversary of their wedding, Griselda set her plan in motion.
“I will give you the greatest of all gifts, my love,” she whispered to him as she rode him hard upon their great bed.
He moaned. “Being with you is all the gift a man could desire.”
“Oh, but there is more… so much more.”
To his great shock, she suddenly morphed into her vampire form; and, pinning both of his flailing arms to the bed, she bit down upon his jugular vein at his throat.
She had desired to taste his blood since he first stood before her, and now she savoured it, letting the hot, salty liquid flood her mouth and down her gullet. Down and down it went, his delicious, dear blood.
The Prince of Darkness, her master, had taught her the art of Begetting, and she took her now dead husband in her arms and flew to him to the nearest crypt. The Devil had told her that crypts were the best places to Beget a new vampire — for that is what he had made her, a vampire. She wrapped him in a dead man’s shroud and waited for those eight days until the moment of his Begetting. In the meantime, she had hunted alone for what she thought would be the last time, and she brought back several unfortunates and chained them around one of the charnel-house pillars. They sat there, shivering with cold and fear, some of the young women weeping. Griselda occasionally would taste one or two as she awaited Adolphe’s rebirth.
His mind, his soul travelled throughout Purgatory, through the ghastliness of Hell, for six days, and on the seventh day conscious of his body but unable to move or speak. On the eighth day, he awakened as a vampire and turned into the demon-beast. He had been horrified by what Griselda had done to him, but he still loved her then, and she convinced him that it was for their happiness that she turned him into the creature he would now be for all time.
Adolphe de La Fontaine had found a way into Griselda’s cold heart, and although she could never really love another, she was fond of him. She taught him all the things that her Master had taught her. They would finally be able to sleep in each other’s arms during the day and hunt and feed together at night.
Once a year, on Hallow’s Eve, she awaited her dark prince with open arms and he would take possession of his paramour. Griselda was not the first vampiress the Devil had created, for he had explained that he had many concubines throughout the world. Some of them had proved disloyal by drawing attention to themselves, such as Lamia, who ostentatiously began to drink the blood of children, and Lilith, who was supposed to have been Adam’s mate, indiscreetly sucked men’s and children’s blood and so forced God to make Eve. Her Master had told her that he yearned to bring the whole world into the night, but that could only come through stealth, for his enemy up above would endeavour to thwart his plans.
She had sworn to her Prince of Darkness that she would not be another Lamia or Lilith — she would not let him down as they had done. She dismissed their entire staff once every ten years in order to keep their dark secret hidden from common gossip. For now neither she nor her husband aged, and no one could be around to see this.
Despite her vow that she would not become like her two predecessors, she inevitably developed the same taste for babies and young children — a taste that had a horrific tendency to occur in most vampiresses. When Adolphe discovered that she had been the murderer of the serfs’ children, his love for her vanished. Adolphe could never be as heartless as she; and the characteristics that had initially tempted him about Griselda eventually turned into abhorrence. She was insatiable, and Adolphe dutifully covered her tracks when she grew reckless, draining children of the nobles visiting their palazzo. She cared for nothing and for no one but herself and Adolphe. No one else, except for her Master, mattered.
Griselda had a penchant for violence and bloodshed, and so lashed out viciously at her servants upon the slightest provocation. She toyed with her human food with cruel glee, just as a cat toys with the frightened mouse it has caught. This, among other things, only served to increase Adolphe’s loathing of his wife. He began to be consumed with regret. He told himself that he should never have left home. He should never have come to her evil palace. He chastised himself for having fallen in love with her beauty. His lust and passion for her body soon fled, exacerbated by his firmly entrenched religious belief that sexual union was for the propagation of offspring. He became forlorn and regretful, knowing that there would never be any children from their sexual union, and would have turned to drink if he could stomach it. He yearned for the oblivion of drunkenness, for in such a state he could forget his great torment: the dead cannot create life.
Adolphe de La Fontaine, now Conte di Cuorenero, was the best of vampire husbands and was true to her, for well over one hundred and fifty years, despite his increasing disdain for her behaviour. In this time, they had amassed a great fortune, aided greatly by her Master, and through battles with neighbouring estates. Adolphe became one of the greatest warlords in the land, for he was undefeatable. Legends grew up around him. They used these funds to acquire castles and manors from Germany, Hungary, and Italy, through France, Spain, and England.
But always inside his soul was the gaping hole, the void that had set in when he realised his wife was the most evil creature he had ever known. And as for his thwarted desire for children, he eventually thought that perhaps it was for the best. For if they had been able to, he would have lived in fear that Griselda would drain them as well…
Chapter 5:
The Stuart Vampire
“Upon the water saw the corpse of the Duke of Gloucester brought down Somerset House stairs to go by water to Westminster to be buried tonight.”
- Samuel Pepys, Diary, 21 September 1660
Greater fear came upon him; for he felt trapped in his body, unable to shout for help, unable to do anything but look at the abyss of horror before him. Terrible images swarmed his brain as he crossed into the world of the dead, and he saw demons and blood… so much blood, everywhere.
As his physical body was taken down the steps of Somerset House and placed onto a boat to journey down the Thames towards Westminster, his mind saw a veritable sea of blood, and he swam in the midst of it, only to find himself surrounded by wide-eyed corpses, bobbing around him with wretched smiles frozen upon their cadaverous faces. As he looked up to the sky, there was no grey or blue, only hellish red and yellow flames. He thought he smelled sulphur and burning flesh, and he recoiled as more death came into view. To his left, there were bodies being impaled, again and again. To his right, there were people tied to stakes and burnt alive. He tried to scream, but no sound came. The wailing of those around him was amplified as their torment increased before him. During this macabre spectacle, he could hear the distant sound of weeping, of mourning.
There were cathedral bells ringing above him, and organ music playing a haunting melody. And still he could not move. He could not even open his eyes. A strange but terrible pain scorched throughout his body — he could only liken it to that which comes from touching a hot poker or a naked flame, but the pain was emanating from within him.
At once a horrible realisation dawned upon him. They had buried him alive! No! he thought, wildly trying to move, to scream, but he still was unable to do so. What he felt was sure to be a woollen shroud had been wrapped around him, even his face. The urge to scream was with him constantly. He felt as though he was being moved again, and he heard clanking noises, echoes, and whispers around him.
Then only silence, a deathly stillness was all about him.
Within the hour after he had been left alone, his extremities, once more listening to their host’s command, began to tremble with reanimated life. He wiggled his toes, fingers, and he opened his green-yellow vampire eyes for the first time. All he saw were the fibres of the shroud, which covered him completely.
Suddenly light appeared, and the shroud was gently removed from his face and he took in a deep breath, only to be repulsed as there was a terrible stench of musty decay. He immediately felt nauseous and longed for fresh air. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and he gasped in terror as he registered that the animal-woman who had attacked him in his bedchamber was, with her blazing green-yellow eyes, looking down at him with an almost maniacal interest.
Despite the fear she immediately conjured within his breast, she was oddly mesmerising, beautiful and entrancing. He looked around him and realised with dread that he had indeed been inside a casket. And all at once, he realised that he both heard and saw more clearly than ever before.
“Wh- wh-where am I? Wh
y am I here?” Henry croaked, surprised at the change in his voice. It was almost musical in its quality. “Am I even alive?”
“You are safe,” replied Griselda. “You are beneath the tomb of your ancestress, Mary, Queen of Scots.”
He turned to her, wide-eyed. “What? I am in the Abbey?”
“Why, yes, and there is no one to disturb us here in this vault. I am now your Begetter.”
“My what?”
“I begat you, several days ago, and now you are well and here, and mine.” She gave him that same look of madness, of obsession, that he saw the night she had attacked him, and earlier when he had first opened his eyes.
“I feel so strange. I do not feel like myself. What is happening to me?” he managed to ask, before falling to his knees as a new current of pain washed over him.
“The moment of the Begetting is at hand. My timing was perfect! Over the past few days, my blood has been coursing through your veins, changing you, turning you into something akin to a god. Now is the eighth day. It is now time.”
When she suddenly began to laugh maniacally, Henry realised that she did not fully possess her own mind.
“What are you saying, you madwoman?”
Before she could reply, Henry let out an agonising scream as the Begetting came to its end. Suddenly, every pustule of smallpox began to explode upon his skin. As soon as they had burst, however, the skin healed instantly and became smoother, harder. All former blemishes, scars and imperfections were completely gone.
The sinews and muscles strengthened enormously, and their elasticity increased tenfold. His bones hardened until they were as hard as steel. The skin, though soft and smooth, was impenetrable. Neither sword, nor musketball nor even cannonball could cut through this barrier. Henry’s chest-length black hair had thickened and curled at the ends. Soft wisps of this hair formed coils at his dark brow.
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