The King and his court soon fled London and set up in Oxford, believing their chances of avoiding the plague better there. As they travelled, news of the horrors spread north quickly, and Henry soon heard it all as well. Troubled by the thought of so much suffering, he decided to travel down to London and do what he could to help.
He stayed in Griselda’s London house during this time, and there he found that Travers had stayed on after his mistress had gone to the Continent. She had explicitly instructed Travers to attend to any and all of Henry’s needs whilst she was gone. Henry slept in the same bedchamber that he had slept in the day of his Begetting. It brought back the nightmarish memories of his early days as a vampire. And he recalled with infinite regret the faces of the people he had killed in the eating-house massacre, and, with less remorse, Lady Margaret Foster and her new lover, Lord Pussett, in Hampton Court Palace. He felt that the time had come to atone for these bloody deeds, which were anathema to his true self.
There were some men who stayed to look after the sick, and these were usually apothecaries, physicians, those who had a rudimentary knowledge of medicine, or persons who were simply in need of money. Plague doctors were paid well for their troubles, which came at no little risk to their own lives. Henry joined these men as a plague doctor, at great personal discomfort, for he had to walk about tending to the infirm during the daylight hours. He would sometimes weakly stagger about from one to the next, but since the mortality rate amongst the humans in his profession was so high, few took much notice. He was, however, greatly esteemed by his colleagues and patients alike for his compassion and dedication. He worked longer than any of the others; his sole wish was to help.
Henry wore the complete ensemble of a plague doctor: large waxed overcoat, with long sleeves and which reached down to his ankles. On his feet he wore thick leather boots. Finally, under the flat, black hat, he wore the ubiquitous beak-like plague mask. He knew there was no danger of contracting the plague, but it would make his fellow plague doctors more at ease if they thought he feared the contagion as much as they did. The scents of the herbs inside the beak frame were pungent, especially the camphor. A few of the other plague doctors had incense stuffed into their masks instead of herbs. Plumes of smoke coiled and wafted into the air. The widespread belief was that the pestilence was carried by foul smells, and so, to counteract this, people began burning all manner of things. Others walked about holding a rag or a posy of sweet-smelling flowers up to their noses. But this, too, was a futile practice.
Huge pits were dug into the earth, and into these the numerous cadavers were thrown and covered with quicklime and soil. There was a great amount of concern about what depth to make the pits, and it often seemed that there were more bodies than could be properly dealt with.
“Bring out your dead!” cried the man down the road, leading a horse and cart filled with corpses. The smell of decomposition was rich and reminded Henry of his own odour, which he still kept at bay with daily baths after a night of slaying the infected.
Henry made his normal rounds, and came across one residence that had a freshly painted red cross upon the door. The words that so often appeared beneath these crosses were:
‘Lord have mercy upon us’
Henry had seen many homes that bore this mark. There was an overwhelming sense of grief in the air, and the stench of death pervaded everything.
A fellow plague doctor stood beside Henry, pointed to the house with his wooden stick, and commented, “There is a whole family ill in there. They won’t last the night, I reckon.”
“I’ll see to them,” Henry said. He opened the creaking door and walked into the insalubrious house. Several black rats scampered over the wooden floorboards and into various holes in the wall. There were flies everywhere. Someone began coughing in another room, and Henry tentatively walked in that direction.
True enough, there was a family: three boys aged from five to eleven and two girls, one around two, the other fourteen. Henry then saw the parents. The mother was clearly dead, and it pained him to see that her belly was heavy with child — the babe already dead, too. All of them were laid out upon a filthy bed of straw. Henry saw several fleas jumping around upon their soiled, ragged clothes. This infestation of fleas no doubt ate from both the black rats and the members of this unfortunate family. With a heavy heart, he set to his grim purpose; and, starting with those suffering the most, he began to drain them of their blood. The Grim Reaper had already had them in his clutches, and Henry mercifully ended their pain as he took their lives away. And so it was thus, every night, for weeks on end.
***
One day, as the torturous sunlight beamed down from above and Henry weakly walked from one infected person to the next, he caught sight of another in the distance. He could not understand why, but he was drawn to this person as if he were emitting some kind of energy. Henry tentatively walked closer, the smoke from several fires obfuscating the individual. Finally, the plumes drifted and then saw the man was a clergyman. This kind soul walked around the ill, administering to the dying their last rites. The clergyman suddenly froze, as though he had sensed something, and he turned to look at Henry. His gaze was not human. His eyes were as striking as Henry’s but of a white-blue colour. The man seemed alarmed by Henry and quickly turned and ran. Henry, still wearing his plague mask, followed swiftly behind, curious as to why this creature felt the need to hide from him. What was he? A vampire? Or were there other strange beasts that roamed the earth alongside him?
The clergyman dextrously ran down the narrow, filthy streets of London and into St. Olave’s Church. Henry continued in pursuit and, removing his mask now, stepped inside as well. It was a lovely old Gothic church, with grey stone throughout, and rows of wooden pews up to the carved pulpit. Henry was momentarily lost in the beauty and serenity of the place, but then his eyes fell upon the man he had followed, who now stood against the altar.
“Stay back, thou fiend!” cried the clergyman, as he raised a silver cross in his hand towards Henry. “This is house of God! I will have none of Satan’s minions here!”
Henry spread his hands, his palms facing the man. “I mean you no harm. I give you my word, and I’m no one’s minion, least of all Satan’s.”
“Who sent you?” the man exclaimed, his brow furrowed as he backed up against the altar. “Why are you immune to the Cross?” he asked, frightened. Was the cross he holds meant to affect me somehow? Henry wondered.
“Why, no-one sent me. I merely saw you earlier and you piqued my curiosity. Is there something inherently wrong about that?” Henry asked. “And I’ve seen crosses all of my life!”
“So they haven’t sent you?” the clergyman asked, his body tense.
“Who?” Henry didn’t know if the man had legitimate cause for concern or if he were simply paranoid.
“The Council!” he cried, his white-blue eyes bright and troubled.
Henry shook his head. “I know of no council, and I pray we can speak to one another without fear. I do not believe you are a mere mortal.”
The man continued to look upon him with suspicion. “So you are not here to destroy me?”
“Heavens no!” exclaimed Henry, smiling now. “I only wish to converse with you. I felt drawn to you out there, and I know not why.”
“But you are one of them, you are an evil one,” stated the man. He had sensed the wickedness in Henry without even seeing his green-yellow eyes — the Devil’s own eyes.
“This was done to me against my will and the person who did it has gone. What are you?”
“I am a vampire, as you are,” the clergyman replied without shame.
“But your eyes, they’re –“
“I do not serve the Devil,” he spat, “I serve the True Master.”
Henry looked at him in wonder. Not all vampires were evil?
“You mean to say that you are not damned?” Henry asked.
“Aye, my soul is with my Master, and I work to make the world better, not w
orse.”
Henry was stunned by this revelation. Had Griselda not told him that he was already damned?
The clergyman was still terrified, “Come, give me up the truth. Are you alone, or have you come with others of your kind?”
“I am Henry Stuart and I swear on the body of my father King Charles, I will not harm you.”
Was this man a son of the executed King Charles? Could this be true?
The clergyman regarded Henry’s earnest face with great scrutiny. Finally accepting that Henry posed no threat to him, the clergyman tentatively offered his hand in friendship. Henry shook it gratefully and they sat down in a pew and spoke at length about themselves and how they had been Begotten.
The clergyman’s name was Sebastian Mason, and he had been Begotten during the Middle Ages. He had been a stonemason then and life was a good deal harder, he explained. Sebastian had had to roam about the country in search of work. From cathedrals to tombs, he had a talent for creating beauty out of stone. He had helped sculpt the Queen Eleanor Crosses and carved stone for several cathedrals in his time. It was when he had finished his work upon the Eleanor Cross at Charing that his life took a decidedly supernatural turn.
It had been late at night. He had been walking through the fields of St. Martin’s, carrying what few possessions he had in the world, when he came across a man with strange green-yellow eyes. The man suddenly lunged at him and fed upon his blood. He said nothing but dropped his blood into Sebastian’s mouth and left him in the middle of a field. For seven days, he walked in the horrors of the otherworld only to be reborn as a vampire on the eighth day. The ravenous hunger consumed him, forcing him to kill. He spoke of the guilt and the horror his bloody deeds had created in his heart, and that he did not understand what he had become.
He spoke of how, in his despair, he had called out to the heavens for guidance, for some explanation as to why he had become a monster. He was so weak from lack of blood — for he had no desire to take the lives of others — that he was almost passing into the world of ghosts, doomed to walk the Earth for all time. It was at this moment, when he had given up hope, that a great pale blue light surrounded him and gave him courage. An ethereal voice answered all of his questions, and said they knew his heart was pure. They then explained that there were two kinds of vampires — those who were evil and followers of Satan, and those who followed Yahweh, the One Lord, or whom the former referred to as the Other. Satan had been a fallen angel, and the vampires created by him were a secondary class of angel. The same applied to the Other’s vampires.
The evil ones, Sebastian explained, had green-yellow eyes to match their Master’s. The vampires that fought against these had pale, almost white-blue eyes. He said the colour of their eyes was the same colour as the light of the high angel that came to speak with him. He said those that follow the One Lord weep clear, angel’s tears, not the blood tears of Satan’s vampires. His kind of vampire did not take on the Devil’s head when they morphed into their vampire form. Sebastian stated that they maintained their human face and only their canine teeth grew. Things began to make more sense for Henry, and he understood full well why Sebastian had tried to run away from him earlier, for the Evil Ones had made it their mission to kill all vampires who serve the One Lord.
There was a complex hierarchy involved, and Sebastian patiently answered all of Henry’s many questions about the subject. Finally understanding more about their kind, Henry pressed Sebastian to tell him more about himself. Sebastian related how he had no love for the reformations that Henry VIII had brought upon England. He explained that he used to know many good monks that had been left with nowhere to go following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and he looked nostalgically upon the way things were before that Tudor king. Sebastian had witnessed so much change in the past few hundred years that Henry listened with rapt fascination. The latter found great pleasure in finally being able to sit down and have a real conversation with another being again.
Henry then spoke of his life, and of his rebirth into night, of the atrocities he had committed, and of things he would never have done in life. Henry’s abhorrence for what had transpired in the four years since he had been reborn was clearly in evidence.
Sebastian nodded and said, “You were given the blood of the fallen angel, the Prince of Darkness, and this blood corrupts the soul of its host. But you have been fighting against the evil. That you are even able to fight this shows that you can choose the light.”
“And then I will no longer be damned? And I will have eyes like yours?” Henry asked, hope in his heart for the first time since he was Begotten.
“Aye, but I have heard about your Begetter, Griselda. She is younger than I but she gave herself completely to the Devil, and so her blood, which she fed to you, had a potent amount of his evil blood. No wonder you gave in to the darkness as you did, but from what you have told me today, you have retained your conscience and you feel guilt. These vestiges of humanity are usually stamped out once a human has been turned. You must have had a very pure soul to begin with. You can come back to your humanity if you fully embrace your compassion for human beings.”
Henry looked down at his pale hands, which were resting upon his brown breeches. Images of Henrietta Maria’s face flooded his mind’s eye.
“Oh, I do not know about that!” Henry replied, dismissively. “My mother once said I was damned because I was a Protestant and not a Catholic as she. If only she knew what I’ve become! Then she would truly despair!”
Sebastian gave him a faint smile in return. Humans had been killing each other over religion in every era he had seen; if they only knew the truth!
“There are others, like myself, who serve the Other. I think I might present you to them, so everyone can understand that you mean us no harm.”
***
Henry met with Sebastian at St. Olave’s Church after one particularly gruesome day amongst the plague victims; and together they walked into the City of London, where inside a private room above a raucous tavern, Sebastian introduced Henry to four other pale blue-eyed vampires. Sebastian had, during their walk thither, explained the need for secrecy. The evil vampires would love the convenience of having them all in the same location; it would make their mission all the more easy. Henry agreed it was probably for the best.
The vampires he looked upon in the room were well-dressed couples: Stephen and his wife Prudence, and Ethelred and his bride, Lucy. Most of the, he could tell, were uncomfortable with his presence, for it was rare for a vampire with green-yellow eyes to be good. They were, all of them, taken aback when they learned that he had had no relationship with Griselda prior to her Begetting him. This, they said, was not the proper way in which to create a vampire mate. They spoke of rumours they had heard, in their network of vampire allies, that one of the Devil’s favoured concubines, an Italian vampiress, had been summoned to appear before the Council in Constantinople.
Could this vampiress they speak of be Griselda? Henry thought.
After he had spoken at length about his royal origins and his disdain for the being he had become, they felt more at ease. This being the case, they soon told him their stories.
Stephen, a former lesser lord during the Wars of the Roses who had been Begotten following the Battle of Edgecote Moor in 1469, was as large as an ox, with great muscles and a thick neck, which was wrapped in a clean, crisp cravat. He wore a rich grey velvet suit, loaded with ribbons, as was the fashion. He wore upon his head an elaborately curled dark brown periwig.
His wife, Prudence, was a striking female, with her fair hair curled to frame her face, and the rest tightly bound up in a bun at the back of her head with white ribbons. She wore a full-sleeved light blue gown, which had a narrow, pointed bodice. This was trimmed with lace, and when Henry bowed to kiss her hand, he thought he smelled lily-of-the-valley upon her cold skin. Prudence had first encountered Stephen in the royal rose garden after he had fed upon one of the pageboys. She was, at that time, one of Quee
n Catherine of Aragon’s ladies-in-waiting. They soon embarked on a lengthy love affair. In 1525, she contracted the sweating sickness, and Stephen, unwilling to live without her, Begat her.
Henry then learned about the next couple, Ethelred and Lucy. Ethelred was a vampire who had been Begotten in the Dark Ages. He remembered a time when England had to pay tribute to the Danes, and massacres were an all too common aspect of life. He had very fair, almost white hair, and he was shorter than the others, for people from that time were generally shorter. He had an almost world-weary look ingrained upon his face. Of a man who had seen too much, but had to endure life forever. Henry did not envy him this, for he seemed to have a great burden upon his shoulders.
Lucy’s name was really Lucilla, and she was from Ancient Rome. She would reveal nothing further about her past, or how she had met Ethelred and turned him. Lucy was truly the quietest of the vampires, and she looked at Henry warily, her pale blue vampire eyes distrustful and vigilant. She wore a simple, but elegant strand of pearls at her marble throat.
Henry was surprised to learn that they, too, had come to feed upon the dying. As he looked at them, and listened to them conversing together, he felt a strange sadness within him, one of longing. Would he one day have someone to share his life with? Or would he be alone with the terrible burden of murderous immortality, with no sweet warmth to see him through?
With them he learned of a terrifying new strain of the disease, one with a horrible effect. Instead of dying from the plague, this mutation created a surge of energy, which caused the host to engage in cannibalistic frenzy. Much like the fleabite that caused the initial epidemic, this rabies-like mutation could spread through attack, as the host’s saliva would transmit the mutated disease and not the plague. Ethelred called those infected with this mutation, zombies.
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