by Anne Rice
And then I made a deep, deep bow with my head almost touching the floor, and I went out, without looking back, closing the door behind me, and hovering near, to hear them as they jumped up and crowded about to see the rings and the dagger, and some to see to the lock.
For a moment, I was weak with emotion. But nothing was going to stop me from what I meant to do. I didn't turn to Marius, because it would have been craven to ask his support in this, or assent to it. I went on down the muddy snowy street, through the sludge, towards the tavern nearest to the river, where I thought my Father might be.
I had rarely entered this place as a child, and then only to summon my Father home. I had no real memory of it, except as a place where foreign people drank and cursed.
It was a long building, made of the same rude unfinished logs as my house, with the same mud for mortar, and the same inevitable seams and cracks to let in the dreadful cold. Its roof was very high, with some six tiers to shed the weight of the snow, and its eaves too dripped with icicles, as had those of my house.
It marveled me that men could live like this, that the cold itself did not push them to make something more permanent and more sheltering, but it had always been the way of this place, it seemed to me, of the poor and the sick and overburdened and the hungry, that the brutal winter took too much from them, and that the short spring and summer gave them too little, and that resignation became their greatest virtue in the end.
But I might have been wrong then about all of it, and I might be wrong now. What is important is this-it was a place of hopelessness, and though it was not ugly, for wood and mud and snow and sadness are not ugly, it was a place without beauty except for the ikons, and perhaps for the distant outline of the graceful domes of Santa Sofia, high on the hill, against the star-studded sky. And that was not enough.
When I entered the tavern, I counted some twenty men at a glance, all of them drinking and talking to one another with a conviviality that surprised me, given the Spartan nature of this place, which was no more than a shelter against the night which kept them safely ranged round the big fire. There were no ikons here to comfort them. But some of them were singing, and there was the inevitable harp player strumming his little stringed instrument, and another blowing on a small pipe.
There were many tables, some covered with linen, and others bare at which these fellows gathered, and some of the men were foreigners, as I had recalled. Three were Italian, I heard this instantly, and figured them to be Genoese. There were more foreigners indeed than I had expected. But these were men drawn by the trade of the river, and perhaps Kiev did not do so poorly just now.
There were plenty of kegs of beer and wine behind the counter, where the bartender sold his stock by the cup. I saw too many bottles of Italian wine, quite expensive no doubt, and crates of Spanish sack.
Lest I attract notice, I moved forward and far off to the left, into the depth of the shadows, where perhaps a European traveler clad in rich fur might not be noticed, for, after all, fine fur was one thing they did indeed seem to have.
These people were much too drunk to care who I was. The bartender tried to get excited about the idea of a new customer, but then went back to snoozing on the palm of his upturned hand. The music continued, another one of the dumy, and this one much less cheerful than the one my uncle had been singing at home, because I think the musician was very tired.
I saw my Father.
He lay on his back, full length, on a broad crude greasy bench, dressed in his leather jerkin and with his biggest heaviest fur cloak folded neatly over him, as though the others had done the honors with it after he had passed out. This was bearskin, his cloak, which marked him as a pretty rich man.
He snored in his drunken sleep, and the fumes of the drink rose from him, and he didn't stir when I knelt right beside him and looked down into his face.
His cheeks though thinner were still rosy, but there were hollows beneath the bones, and there were streaks of gray, most prominent in his mustache and long beard. It seemed to me that some of the hair of his temples was gone, and that his fine smooth brow was steeper, but this may have been an illusion. The flesh all around his eyes was tender- looking and dark. His hands, clutched together beneath the cloak, were not visible to me, but I could see that he was still strong, of powerful build, and his love of drink had not destroyed him yet.
I had a disturbing sense of his vitality suddenly; I could smell the blood of him and the life of him, as though of a possible victim stumbling across my path. I put all this away from my mind and stared at him, loving him and thinking only that I was so glad that he was alive! He had come out of the wild grasses. He had escaped that party of raiders, who had seemed then the very heralds of death itself.
I pulled up a stool so that I might sit quietly beside my Father, studying his face.
I had not put on my left glove.
I laid my cold hand now on his forehead, lightly, not wanting to take liberties, and slowly he opened his eyes. They were murky yet still beautifully bright, despite the broken blood vessels and the wetness, and he looked at me softly and wordlessly for a while, as if he had no cause to move, as if I were a vision near to his dreams.
I felt the hood fall back from my head and I did nothing to stop it.
I couldn't see what he saw, but I knew what it was-his son, with a cleanshaven face, such as his son had had when this man knew him, and long loose auburn hair in snow-dusted waves.
Beyond, their bodies mere bulky outlines against the huge blaze of the fire, the others sang or talked. And the wine flowed.
Nothing came between me and this moment, between me and this man who had tried hard to bring down the Tatars, who had sent one arrow after another sailing at his enemies, even as their arrows rained down upon him in vain.
"They never wounded you," I whispered. "I love you and only now do I know how strong you were." Was my voice even audible?
He blinked as he looked at me, and then I saw his tongue roll out along his lips. His lips were bright, like coral, shining through the heavy red fringe of mustache and beard.
"They wounded me," he said in a low voice, small but not weak. "They got me, twice they got me, in the shoulder and in the arm. But they didn't kill me, and they didn't let go of Andrei. I fell off my horse. I got up. They never got me in the legs. I ran after them. I ran and ran and I kept shooting. I had a cursed arrow sticking right out of my right shoulder here."
His hand appeared from beneath the fur and he placed it up on the dark curve of his right shoulder.
"I kept shooting. I didn't even feel it. I saw them ride away. They took him. I don't even know if he was alive. I don't know. Would they have bothered to take him if they had shot him? There were arrows everywhere. The sky rained arrows! There must have been fifty of them. They killed every other man! I told the others, You have to keep shooting, don't stop even for an instant, don't cower, shoot and shoot and shoot, and when you have no more arrows, bring up your sword and go for them, ride straight into them, get down, get down close to your horse's head and ride into them. Well, maybe they did. I don't know."
He lowered his lids. He glanced around. He wanted to get up, and then he looked at me.
"Give me something to drink. Buy me something decent. The man has Spanish sack. Get me some of that, a bottle of sack. Hell, in the old days, I laid in wait for the traders out there in the river, and I never had to buy anything from any man. Get me a bottle of sack. I can see you're rich."
"Do you know who I am?" I asked.
He looked at me in plain confusion. This hadn't even occurred to him, this question.
"You come from the castle. You speak with the accent of the Lithuanians. I don't care who you are. Buy me some wine."
"With the accent of the Lithuanians?" I asked softly. "What a dreadful thing. I think it's the accent of a Venetian, and I'm ashamed."
"Venetian? Well, don't be. God knows they tried to save Constantinople, they tried. Everything's gone to Hell. The world will end i
n flame. Get me some sack before it ends, all right?"
I stood up. Did I have some more money? I was puzzling over it when the dark silent figure of my Master loomed over me and he handed me the bottle of Spanish sack, uncorked and ready for my Father to drink.
I sighed. The smell of it meant nothing to me now, but I knew that it was fine good stuff, and besides it was what he wanted.
He had meantime sat up on the bench, staring straight at the bottle as it hung from my hand. He reached out for it, and took it and drank it as thirstily as I drink blood.
"Take a good look at me," I said.
"It's too dark in here, idiot," he said. "How can I take a good look at anything? Hmmm, but this is good. Thank you."
Suddenly, he paused with the bottle just beneath his lips. It was a strange thing the way in which he paused. It was as if he were in the forest, and he'd just sensed a bear coming up on him, or some other lethal beast. He froze, as it were, with the bottle in hand, and only his eyes moved as he looked up at me.
"Andrei," he whispered.
"I'm alive, Father," I said gently. "They didn't kill me. They took me for booty and sold me for profit. And I was taken by ship south and north again and up to the city of Venice, and that is where I live now."
His eyes were calm. Indeed, a beautiful serenity settled over him. He was far too drunk for his reason to revolt or for cheap surprise to delight him. On the contrary, the truth stole in and over him in a wave, subduing him, and he understood all of its ramifications, that I had not suffered, that I was rich, I was well.
"I was lost, Sir," I said in the same gentle whisper, which surely was only audible to him. "I was lost, yes, but found by another, a kindly man, and was restored, and have never suffered since. I've journeyed a long time to tell you this, Father. I never knew you were alive. I never dreamed. I mean, I thought you'd died that day when all the world died for me. And now I'm come here to tell you that you must never, never grieve for me."
"Andrei," he whispered, but there was no change in his face. There was only the sedate wonder. He sat still, both hands on the bottle which he had lowered to his lap, his huge shoulders very straight, and his flowing red and gray hair as long as I'd ever seen it, melting into the far of his cloak.
He was a beautiful, beautiful man. I needed a monster's eyes to know it. I needed a demon's vision to see the strength in his eyes coupled with the power in his giant frame. Only the bloodshot eyes gave him away in his weakness.
"Forget me now, Father," I said. "Forget me, as if the monks had sent me away. But remember this, on account of you, I shall never be buried in the muddy graves of the Monastery. No, other things may befall me.
But that, I won't suffer. Because of you, that you wouldn't have it, that you came that day and demanded I ride out with you, that I be your son."
I turned to go. He shot forward, clasping the bottle by the neck in his left hand and clamping his powerful right hand over my wrist. He pulled me down to him, as if I were a mere mortal, with his old strength and he pressed his lips against my bowed head.
Oh, God, don't let him know! Don't let him sense any change in me! I was desperate. I closed my eyes.
But I was young, and not so hard and cold as my Master, no, not even by half or a half of that half. And he felt only the softness of my hair, and perhaps a cold icy softness, redolent of winter, to my skin.
"Andrei, my angel child, my gifted and golden son!"
I turned around and clasped him firmly with my left arm. I kissed him all over his head in a way I would never, never have done as a child. I held him to my heart.
"Father, don't drink anymore," I said in his ear. "Get up and be the hunter again. Be what you are, Father."
"Andrei, no one will ever believe me."
"And who are they to say that to you if you are yourself again, man? "I asked.
We looked into each other's eyes. I kept my lips sealed that he should never, never see the sharp teeth in my mouth that the vampiric blood had given me, the tiny evil vampire's teeth as a man as keen as himself, the natural hunter, might very definitely see.
But he was looking for no such disqualification here. He wanted only love, and love we gave one another.
"I have to go, I have no choice," I said. "I stole this time to come to you. Father, tell my Mother that it was I who came to the house earlier, and that it was I who gave her the rings and gave your brother the purse."
I drew back. I sat down on the bench beside him, for he had placed his feet on the floor. I pulled off my right glove and I looked at the seven or eight rings I wore, all of them made of gold or silver and rich with jewels, and then I slipped them off one by one, over his loud groan of protest, and I deposited the handful of them into his hand. How soft and hot was his hand, how flushed and alive.
"You take them because I have a world of them. And I will write to you and send you more, more so that you will never need to do anything but what you want to do-ride and hunt, and tell the tales of old times by the fire. Buy a fine harp with this, buy books if you will for the little ones, buy what you will."
"I don't want this; I want you, my son."
"Yes, and I want you, my Father, but this little power is all we may have."
I took his head in both my hands, displaying my strength, perhaps unwisely, but making him stay still while I gave him my kisses, and then with one long warm embrace, I rose to go.
I was out of the room so fast, he couldn't have seen anything but the door swinging shut.
The snow was coming down. I saw my Master several yards away, and I went to meet him and together we started up the hill. I didn't want for my Father to come out. I wanted to get away as fast as I could.
I was about to ask that we take to vampire speed and get clear of Kiev when I saw that a figure was hurrying towards us. It was a small woman, her long heavy furs trailing in the wet snow. She had something bright in her arms.
I stood fixed, my Master waiting on me. It was my Mother who had come to see me. It was my Alother who was making her way to the tavern, and in her arms, facing me, was an ikon of the scowling Christ, the one I looked at so long through the chink in the wall of the house.
I drew in my breath. She lifted the ikon by either side and she presented it to me.
"Andrei," she whispered.
"Mother," I said. "Keep it for the little ones, please." I embraced her and kissed her. How much older, how miserably older she seemed. But childbearing had done that to her, pulling the strength out of her, if only for babies to be buried in small plots in the ground. I thought of how many babies she had lost during my youth, and how many were still counted before I was born. She had called them her angels, her little babies, not big enough to live.
"Keep it," I said to her. "Keep it for the family here."
"All right, Andrei," she said. She looked at me with pale, suffering eyes. I could see that she was dying. I understood suddenly that it wasn't mere age that worked on her, nor the hardship of children. She was diseased from within, and would soon truly die. I felt such a terror, looking at her, such a terror for the whole mortal world. It was just a tiresome, common and inevitable disease.
"Goodbye, darling angel," I said.
"And goodbye to you, my darling angel," she answered. "My heart and soul are happy that you are a proud Prince. But show me, do you make the Sign of the Cross in the right way?"
How desperate she sounded. She meant these words. She meant simply, Had I gotten all this apparent wealth by converting to the church of the West? That is what she meant.
"Mother, you put a simple test to me." I made the Sign of the Cross for her, in our way, the Eastern Way, from right shoulder to left, and I smiled.
She nodded. Then she took something carefully from inside her heavy wool shift coat and she gave it to me, only releasing it when I had made a cradle for it with my hand. It was a dark ruby-red painted Easter egg.
Such a perfect and exquisitely decorated egg. It was banded with long len
gthwise ribbons of yellow, and in a center created by them was painted a perfect rose or eight-pointed star.
I looked down at it and then I nodded to her.
I took out a handkerchief of fine Flemish linen and wrapped the egg in this, padding it over and over, and I slipped the little burden faithfully into the folds of my tunic beneath my jacket and cloak.
I bent over and kissed her again on her soft dry cheek. "Mother," I said, "the Joy of All Sorrows, that is what you are to me!"
"My sweet Andrei," she answered. "Go with God if you must go."
She looked at the ikon. She wanted me to see it. She turned the ikon around so that I could look at the gleaming golden Face of God, as waxen and fine as the day I'd painted it for her. Only I hadn't painted it for her. No, it was the very ikon which I had taken that day on our march into the wild lands.
Oh, what a marvel, that my Father had brought it back with him, all the way from the scene of such loss. And yet why not? Why not would such a man as he have done such a thing?
The snow fell onto the painted ikon. It fell on the stern Face of Our Savior, which had come ablaze under my racing brush as if by magic, a face which with its stern and smooth lips and slightly furrowed brow meant love. Christ, my Lord, could look even more stern peering out from the mosaics of San Marco. Christ, my Lord, could look as stern in many an old painting. But Christ, my Lord, in any manner and in any style, was full of unstinting love.
The snow came in flurries and seemed to melt when it touched His Face.
I feared for it, this fragile panel of wood, and this glistering lacquered image, meant to shine for all time. But she thought of this too, and she quickly shielded the ikon from the wetness of the melting snow with her cloak.
I never saw it again.
But is there anyone who needs now to ask me what an ikon means to me? Is there anyone who needs now to know why, when I saw the Face of Christ before me on the Veil of Veronica, when Dora held it high, this Veil, brought back from Jerusalem and the hour of Christ's passion, by Lestat himself, through Hell and into the world, that I fell down on my knees, and cried, "It is the Lord"?
