by A. M. Manay
“But you were asleep,” he replied logically. “I did not wish to disturb you. Besides, I’d forgotten how soothing it is, the sound of a sleeping human breathing.” So his redhead didn’t sleep with him, apparently. She supposed he wasn’t paying her to sleep.
“Well, that’s, um, thoughtful, I guess. Next time something like this comes up, please ask.”
“As you wish,” he said with a nod.
She watched him for a moment, smelling the smoke. She’d always much preferred the smell of pipes to cigarettes, though she knew they were just as bad for you. “Why do you smoke a pipe? Tobacco has no effect on vampires, does it?”
“Certainly not. I began shortly after crossing the Atlantic centuries ago, in order to blend in more easily. I came to like the smell, the ritual of it. Does it bother you?” he asked solicitously.
“No, actually. My grandmother smoked a pipe, so I find the smell kind of comforting. And it’s not as though either of us needs to worry about the long-term health effects,” she replied with a smile and a little shrug. There were some advantages to being doomed.
“Your grandmother?” he asked, sounding amused. “I haven’t seen a woman smoking a pipe in many years.”
“She was a little eccentric,” November answered. “To say the least. So, have you found anything interesting in my binders?”
“Just this, so far,” he said, pulling out a sketch in colored pencil of a lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains.
“Oh, my lake. I see that one a lot when I’m travelling, if I’m gazing out the window. I’ve never known the actual location. Usually I see it from far away, like that drawing. I’ve had a couple of dreams from on the ground, though, in some kind of busy marketplace near the water. I could look up and see the mountains. I always thought it was funny to see all that snow but the lake never frozen over.” She smiled, remembering the smell of spices and the sight of silk and camels. It was definitely one of her more pleasant recurring visions.
“The lake is called Issyk Kul. It is located in present-day Kyrgyzstan. There was a city there, on the trade route between east and west. It was important at one time. It is now buried in the water. I was born there.”
“No way!” she blurted out.
“I assure you I am not mistaken,” he said a little severely.
“Of course I believe you! I’m just surprised. I’ve been seeing that place since I was a little girl. I had no idea it was connected to any of you. I wonder what else I’ve seen about all of you without even knowing. Have you ever gone back there?” Her mind was a bit blown.
“No, never. I fled as a young man, when I was still living. Too many painful memories there, I fear,” he said quietly. “It’s quite remarkable,” he commented after examining the drawing again. “Your second sight is exceptional, November. And your sketches aren’t bad, either. Imagine what you might be able to do with centuries to practice, and with a vampire’s strength!”
November looked down uncomfortably. She disliked the idea of being coveted as a tool or a weapon, leery of her own power.
“In the old days, a seer like you would live in a temple, surrounded by priests whose job was to care for you and to try to interpret your prophesies. People would flock to you to ask for direction, shower you with gifts. You would have been revered,” he added.
“It does sound more glamorous than being a carnival fortune teller,” she replied self-deprecatingly.
He looked at the shelf full of binders. “You’ve managed to accumulate all these visions on your own. I assume you only kept the ones that you guessed might be meaningful?” She nodded. “If only we knew what they all meant!”
“Well, feel free to look through them all.” She paused awkwardly before saying, “I should bathe and get dressed.”
The king failed to take the hint, simply replying, “Of course. Feel free to do so,” before turning back to the desk. November rolled her eyes behind his back.
She gathered up a change of clothes and locked herself in the bathroom, trying not to grumble incredulously under her breath. She couldn’t quite believe that she was standing in the shower while a vampire king sat in her bedroom leafing through her childhood drawings as though they would hold some secret wisdom of the ages. It was without a doubt the oddest Christmas day she had ever experienced.
When she emerged, Ilyn still sat unmoving at her desk. When she returned from the kitchen with her breakfast, still he remained. She read quietly so as not to disturb him. She sketched a few scenes from visions she’d had the previous day and filed them neatly away. She listened to music with her headphones, though she supposed he could still hear the music. He finally looked up toward the shuttered windows and said, “Sunset. I should head to the courtroom.”
“You can sense that?” she asked. Ben’s trial was beginning tonight. She didn’t want to think about it.
“The ones who cannot don’t survive long,” he replied. “May I return tomorrow to continue this work?” he asked formally, carefully honoring her request.
“Of course. Try not to wake me up,” she said jokingly, hoping for a smile, but, she was, alas, disappointed. The king bowed chivalrously and zoomed out the door.
Ben’s trial occupied the next two nights. As a human, November was not permitted to attend, which was both incredibly irritating and a relief. She got all the details from Zinnia, of course. The king presided. Amy was relentless for the prosecution. Josue made a valiant effort, but Ben was not terribly helpful in mounting a defense. Ben refused to testify or to call any witnesses. Ilyn handed down the verdict of death by stake, disappointing those who had hoped for burning or the guillotine for a little excitement. The execution was scheduled for New Year’s Day.
November did her best to avoid the visitors, especially Lilith. She kept to her room for the most part. She only ventured downstairs while the sun was shining, stocking up on a night’s worth of food and replenishing her stack of books. She was taking a break from reading about the wars after coming to some quite disturbing passages featuring the king, who apparently at one time had rather a reputation for butchery and quite the penchant for decapitation. She had difficulty reconciling those images with the man she woke each afternoon to find sitting at her desk, too large for her chair, silently smoking a pipe and poring over her work.
After the king would depart, she spent a lot of time alone. Most everyone was busy keeping the court people entertained, preparing for the next party, or working on war plans, strategizing about how to get sufficient support from other lords to go after Luka.
Her trips to the dungeon to see Ben were now impossible with so many strange vampires in the crypt. She had to settle for sending him a farewell note via Pine. Zinnia was spending a lot of time helping Rose prepare for New Year’s Eve and taking the visiting fairies around during the day, but she tried to stop by each evening to give her friend some company and update her on the gossip. She felt a little trapped in her room, and she eagerly anticipated things getting back to normal when the court left, but she found herself looking forward to seeing the king each day. Strangeness aside, it was probably the most pleasant holiday season she’d had since her grandmother had passed.
A steaming lake surrounded by white-capped mountains. Merchants. Plague. A policeman dies in the street. Marisha. Masks. A shining blade with a wooden inlay. Ilyn with a dozen wounds, writhing in the dirt. Zinnia throws a flower in a grave. A fairy child hides. Pine with an arrow through his chest. Savita covered in dirt, on her knees, screaming, screaming. A hundred wolf heads on a hundred pikes turn into the heads of men. A tiny body is tossed on a pyre. William and Savita and Luka curl up together in the hold of a ship, hiding from the light. Julia screams as she dies. Luka gives a bundle to a woman without a face. A shepherd stands in a clearing, guarding his sheep. Three of the sheep peel off their coats to reveal wolves beneath. They approach the shepherd, sneaking up behind him as he looks for enemies outside the flock. Their eyes glow. Their fangs drip with saliva. They make no
sound as they prepare to pounce.
She woke thrashing in her tangled sheets, whimpering, Ilyn and Pine looking down on her with concern. It was the third day of Christmas. As they helped her sit up, she looked around in confusion. The vision had been such a mish-mash that she was having difficulty orienting back to the present.
“Are you alright, little one?” the king asked solicitously. She looked at him blankly, not certain he was real. She reached out a hand and touched him on the tip of his nose with one finger like a curious toddler. Ilyn turned to Pine with a raised eyebrow.
“You might have to give her a minute, your grace. She gets pretty disoriented after the really bad ones. It can take a while before she starts making sense,” Pine explained. November started to shiver as her sweat evaporated. Pine pulled out a clean blanket from the closet and wrapped her in it. As her bodyguard, it was hardly the first time he’d had to play the priest to her oracle. She began to rock, clutching the blanket tightly around her.
Suddenly, November spoke with quiet urgency to no one in particular, in a voice not quite her own. “The wolves in sheep’s clothing. They strike at the shepherd. One at his heel. One at his heart. One at his throat. Three. Three. Three wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
She stopped rocking and looked up, her eyes finally in focus. She saw their faces: worried, puzzled, and in Ilyn’s case, fascinated. “Well, that one was a little wild,” she finally said with a weak smile. “I’m okay now, I think,” she added, pulling away a bit from the two men sitting on her bed. She appreciated their care, but she still wasn’t used to having help like that, and she was extremely self-conscious about being seen in such a state.
“What do you need?” Ilyn asked her. She smiled, genuinely surprised and touched. She had been certain he had been about to say, “What did you see?”
“Breakfast and a bath, then a paper and pencil,” she answered.
“I’ll go get you something from the kitchen,” the king said, jumping up to leave.
“That’s really not necessary, your grace. I’ll run down there in a few minutes,” she replied. She didn’t want him to go to the trouble. She couldn't even imagine him going to the trouble. She was also a bit concerned that he would come back with a bowl of flour or something. After all, he hadn’t eaten anything but blood since before Christ was born.
“No trouble. And don’t worry, I’ve been paying attention. I’ll get you what you always have.” And with that, he was out the door.
She exchanged incredulous looks with Pine. “Did the king seriously just go to fetch my yogurt and granola?”
“Yep. Don’t see that every day.” He shook his head. “I’ll be outside if you need me?” She nodded, and he resumed his perch in the hallway while she took a very long, very hot shower. By the time she dressed and emerged, the king was back at her desk, and her breakfast was laid out on a tray on her bed. There was also a tall beer mug half-full of blood on the desk. November wondered what had happened to the redhead.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” he replied. Rather than returning his attention to the desk as usual, he studied her as she ate. She tried to ignore him with not very much success. “Does that happen to you a lot? Such strong, disturbing visions in your sleep?” he asked.
She swallowed before replying, “All the time.”
“That must be difficult. Do you remember them when you wake?”
“It’s awful. For years I was afraid to go to sleep. I’m used to it now, though. I can usually shake it off. And yes, I remember every detail of every vision, not that they always make any sense.” She didn’t mention the blissful, dreamless sleep that only vampire bites could provide her. She tried to make herself forget that it was an option, but every night as she laid her head on the pillow, she thought about it with longing. “This one was a little worse than usual.”
“How so?” he asked, trying not to sound too interested.
“It was such a jumble. Disparate visions bleeding into one another. Some I’ve already seen, cut into new ones. I couldn’t make any sense of it, but I had this sense that I needed to. There was something frantic and scary about it. It’s going to take some work to try to tease everything apart. And then there was that weird thing with the wolf-sheep.”
“You said there were three of them and that they would strike the shepherd. Any idea what that means?” All his attention was focused on her as though she was the most important person in the world. It was a little overwhelming.
She began thinking out loud. “The shepherd is the leader and protector, right? You’re a king, which is similar. If you’re the shepherd, maybe there are three traitors among your people?”
“Vampires don’t usually think of themselves as the sheep. We’re the predators, and humans are the poorly guarded lambs,” he replied. “But your interpretation does make some sense. Have you ever seen that image before?”
“I’ve seen sheep, scattered and bleeding. Last month, some time. It should be in the newest binder,” she replied. The king found it and flipped through, holding up the page for her to see. “That’s the one. Maybe the sheep are humans, and the three wolves represent the three kinds of supernatural creatures?”
“Interesting . . .” He looked toward the shuttered window. “What else did you see?”
She thought back. “You, wounded. A knife. The late queen. Luka giving someone a package. Willow, when she was little. Merchants with the plague. A funeral for a child. Zinnia throwing a flower in my grave. Savita and Lord William and Luka hiding in a ship. My dad, dying in the street. I think that’s it.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Well, that is quite a lot. We must discuss this more later. William and I have a great deal of work to do this evening.” He drained his mug and rose to leave.
“Thank you for taking care of me before you asked about what I saw,” she blurted out as he moved toward the door.
“It was rather the least I could do,” he replied. And then he smiled a real smile, the first she had ever seen on him. It changed his whole face. Millennia of life’s sorrows fell away for a split second. And then it was gone, and so was he.
“Oh,” she said, jumping up. “You left your pipe.” He was already long gone, however, so she walked out into the hallway. She held it up to Pine. “Should we go down and return it?”
“Why not? I could stretch my legs,” he replied.
“Sorry I’m so boring to guard,” she said as they walked together.
“Boring is a lot better than the alternative,” he answered with a grin. “His grace’ll probably be in Lord William’s office, since he already ate.”
“Why is it ‘his grace’ instead of ‘his majesty,’ by the way?”
“Apparently the whole ‘majesty’ thing is a pretty recent innovation. I think the Tudors made it popular or something. He thinks it's pretentious.”
“The nouveau riche,” she replied, amused.
“Vampires and fairies can be very reluctant to change traditions, in case you hadn’t noticed. Plus, I think he got used to ‘your grace’ back when he was a bishop.”
“A bishop? Really?”
“Yep. Then a cardinal. Allegedly came this close to getting elected pope.” Pine held his fingers an inch apart.
While crossing the foyer to the office wing, the pair looked up from their conversation and into the highly unpleasant face of Lilith. The Grocer’s eyes fell upon the pipe in November’s hand. Pine quickly stepped between them as Lilith’s fangs dropped. The vampire made a visible effort to regain control of herself, but there was no way to hide the murderous rage in her eyes.
November forced herself to stand her ground and not look away. “Excuse me, ma’am, do you know where I might find his grace so I could return this? He seems to have misplaced it.” Her voice was respectful and sickly sweet, betraying not an iota of her fear. She smiled, all innocence. This, of course, only made the vampire angrier.
They were spared an escalating confrontatio
n by the timely arrival of the monarch in question. With the look of an absent-minded professor, he wandered into the foyer. “Ah, November, dear, thank you. It seems I have too much on my mind to keep track of my possessions.” He took the pipe and kissed her on the top of her head. Only then did he seem to notice the presence of his most senior servant. “All going smoothly, Lil?”
Her face rearranged itself. “Of course, your grace,” she replied with a smile.
“Come with me, I need you to help me arrange some conference calls . . .” And with that, the vampires disappeared into the office wing.
November took a deep breath and tried to settle herself. “That woman really hates me.”
“Seems to,” Pine concurred, leading her back toward the residence. “You’re wise to try to stay away from her.”
“What did I do to provoke her?”
“With her, I doubt it takes much. You are important. You have captured the king’s interest, and, evidently, his affection. You are the first to do so in centuries: vampire, fairy, or human. His isolation is part of what keeps her powerful, and she feels that the rise of someone new threatens her. If she were smart, she’d seize upon you, endear herself to you and co-opt you for her own purposes. But she is not as smart as she thinks she is.” He shook his head. “That one will not go down easily, but sooner or later, the king will see her for what she is. She will take people down with her, too, mark my words.”
Guests for the New Year’s Eve party began arriving in town, in numbers far too large for even Lord William’s domicile. Several luxury hotels in the area were owned by fairies or vampires, and they were soon packed with out-of-state lords and their entourages. Rose was in a tizzy, and even November was drafted to assist.
November then passed a lovely afternoon visiting with Birch, Zinnia, and her mother in the garden. Lady Amandier was as cheerful as her daughter, if quite a lot more level-headed. She was a staunch ally to William and Ilyn, asking Birch numerous questions about the latest developments before heading off with the rest of the fairies to feed before the celebration began.
