13

I AM NOW at an important point in my story, for I mean to come forward in time towards the present by something slightly near to a thousand years.

I cannot say exactly how much time had passed for I am not sure when I left Constantinople, only that it was well after the reign of the Emperor Justinian and Theodora, and before the Arabs had risen with the new religion of Islam and begun their swift and remarkable conquest from East to West.

But the important matter here is that I cannot tell you all my life, and that I choose now to pass over those centuries which history has seen fit to call the Dark Ages, and during which I did in fact live through many small stories which I might confess or make known at a later date.

For now, let me say only that as I left Zenobia's house that night, I was greatly agitated for the safety of Those Who Must Be Kept.

The attack of the mob on our house had left me almost terror stricken. Those Who Must Be Kept had to be taken to safety well away from any city and any lodging of mine within a city. They had to be unreachable save by me.

Where could I take them, that was the question.

I could not go East due to the warring Persian Empire, which had already taken Asia Minor whole and entire from the Greeks, and had even captured the city of Alexandria.

As for my beloved Italy, I wanted to be near it, but not in it as the turmoil there was unendurable for me to behold.

But I did know of a very good place.

The Italian Alps, or the mountain range to the North of the Italian peninsula, was an area I had known in my mortal years. Several passes had been built through the mountains by the Romans, and I myself when young and fearless had traveled the Via Claudia Augusta, and I knew the character of the land.

Of course the barbarians had frequently swept through the Alpine valleys, both as they went down to attack Italy, and as they withdrew. And there was a great deal of Christianity in those lands now, with churches, monasteries and the like.

But I would not be seeking a fertile and populated valley, and certainly not a mountaintop on which a castle or church or monastery had been built.

I needed only the seclusion of a small, high and completely hidden valley that only I could reach.

And I would perform the arduous task of climbing, digging, clearing and creating a vault, and then bringing the Mother and the Father to this safe place. Only a superhuman creature could do this, but I could do it. I had to do it.

There was truly no other path for me.

All the while, as I thought this over, as I hired slaves and purchased wagons for my journey, as I made my preparations, Zenobia was my companion, though Avicus and Mael would have joined us if I had allowed. I was too angry with them still for their early refusal to protect Zenobia. And it did not assuage my anger that they wanted to remain with Zenobia now.

Zenobia sat with me long hours in this tavern or that one, as I made my plan. Did I care that she might read from my mind my thoughts on where I was going? Not at all, for I had only a dim scheme of it myself. The final location of the shrine of Those Who Must Be Kept would be known to no one but me.

From such a safe place, in the Alpine regions, I could venture out to feed upon the populace of any number of different towns. Indeed there had been a great deal of settlement in the land of the Franks, as they were called, and I could even venture into Italy if I wished, for it was very plain now to me that Those Who Must Be Kept did not require my daily vigilance or attendance by any means.

At last the final night came. The wagons had been loaded with their precious sarcophagi, the slaves had been dazed and mildly threatened and wantonly bribed with luxuries and money, the bodyguards were ready for the journey, and I was ready to set out.

I went to the house of Zenobia and found her crying bitterly. "Marius, I don't want you to go," she declared. Avicus and Mael were there, staring at me fearfully, as if they didn't dare say what was in their hearts.

"I don't want to go either," I declared to Zenobia, and then I embraced her as warmly as I had ever done and I kissed her all over as I'd kissed her the first night I found her. I could not get enough of her tender baby woman flesh. "I have to go," I said. "My heart will stand for nothing less."

Finally, we broke off, both exhausted with crying, and no better for it, and I turned to the other two.

"You will take care of her," I said sternly to both of them. "Yes, we mean to remain together," said Avicus. "And I don't understand why you can't remain with us."

As I looked at Avicus, an awful love welled up in me, and I said softly, "I know I have done you wrong in all this. I have been too harsh, but I can't remain."

Avicus gave way to tears now, with no regard for the disapproving looks of Mael.

"You had only begun to teach me so much," he said. "You can learn it from the world around you," I answered. "You can learn from the books in this house. You can learn from . . . you can learn from those you might some night transform with the Blood." He nodded. What more was there to say.

It seemed the moment for me to turn and go, but I could not. I walked into the other room, and I stood there, my head bowed, feeling perhaps the worst pain I had ever known.

I wanted desperately to remain with them! There was no doubt of it. And all my plans gave me no strength just now. I put my hand to my waist and I felt of the pain inside me as if it were fire. I couldn't speak. I couldn't move.

Zenobia came to me. And so did Avicus. They put their arms around me, and then Avicus said,

"I understand that you must go. I do. I understand." I couldn't answer him. I bit down hard on my tongue to make the blood flow and, turning, I put my lips over his and let the blood pass into his mouth. He shivered with this kiss, and his grip tightened on me.

Then I brought the blood up in my mouth again and I kissed Zenobia in the same manner and she held me fast. I picked up her long light perfumed hair, and buried my face in it, or rather brought it as a veil over my face and I could scarce breathe for the pain I felt.

"I love you both," I whispered. I wondered if they could hear.

Then with no more words, and no more gestures, I bowed my head and found my way, somehow, out of the house.

An hour later, I was outside Constantinople, on the well-traveled route to Italy, seated at the front of the first of the wagons where I might talk with the head of my guard who held the reins.

I was playing the mortal game of conversation and laughter, when my heart was broken, and I played it for many nights to come.

I don't remember how long we traveled, only that there were numerous towns in which we might stop, and the roads were nothing as bad as I had feared. I kept a close eye on my bodyguards and gave out the gold generously to buy loyalty and on we went.

After I reached the Alps it took me some time to find the very secluded spot where I would build the shrine.

But finally one evening when the winter was not so cold and the sky very clear, I did spy above me a steep series of unpopulated slopes, just off the main road, that looked more than perfect for my plan.

Taking my caravan into the nearest town, I came back alone. I climbed over rough terrain which would have defeated any mortal, and found the very spot, a tiny valley above which I could build the shrine.

Going back to the town, I purchased a dwelling for myself, and for Those Who Must Be Kept, and then I sent my bodyguards, with my slaves, back to Constantinople, with great rewards for all they'd done.

There were many warm farewells from my confused but amiable mortal companions, and very cheerfully they set out with one of the wagons which I gave them to make their way back home.

As the town where I was lodged was not safe from invasions, no matter how contented its Lombard inhabitants, I set about my work the following night.

Only a blood drinker could have covered the distance with such speed that separated my town dwelling from the final location of the shrine. Only a blood drinker could have dug through hard-packed earth and rock to create the passages that led eventually to the square room of the vault, and then made the ironbound stone door which would separate the King and the Queen from the light of day.

Only a blood drinker could have painted the walls with the old Greco-Roman gods and goddesses. Only a blood drinker could have made the throne of granite with such skill and in such time.

Only a blood drinker could have carried the Mother and Father one by one up the mountain and into the finished resting place. Only a blood drinker could have set them side by side on their granite throne.

And when it was finished, who else would have lain down in the coldness to weep again out of some habitual loneliness? Who else could have lain for some two weeks in quietude and exhaustion, refusing to move?

It was no wonder that in those first few months I tried to prompt some vitality from Those Who Must Be Kept by bringing to them sacrifices, like unto Eudoxia, but for these poor wretched mortals¡ªEvil Doers, I quite assure you¡ªAkasha refused to move her all-powerful right arm. And so I must finish with these miserable victims and carry their remains high into the mountains where I flung them on jagged peaks as so many offerings to cruel gods.

In the following centuries, I did hunt the nearby towns most carefully, drinking a little from many so as never to rouse a local population, and sometimes I did travel a great distance to discover how things were in the cities I'd once known.

I visited Pavia, Marseilles, and Lyons. There I visited the taverns as had always been my custom, daring to draw mortals into conversation, plying them with wine to tell me all that went on in the world. Now and then I explored the very battlefields where the Islamic warriors achieved their victories. Or followed the Franks into battle, easily using the darkness as my shield. And during this period¡ªfor the first time in my immortal existence¡ªI made close mortal friends.

That is, I would choose a mortal, a soldier for instance, and meet with him often in his local tavern to talk about his view of the world, about his life. Never were these friendships very long or very deep, for I wouldn't allow them to be so, and if ever the temptation came over me to make a blood drinker, I would swiftly move on.

But I came to know many mortals in this way, even monks in their monasteries, for I had no shyness about accosting them on the road, especially when they passed through dangerous territory, and accompanying them for some time while asking them polite questions about how it went with the Pope and the church and even the small communities in which they lived.

There are stories I could tell of these mortals, for sometimes I couldn't guard my heart so very well. But there is no time now for that. Let me only confess that I made the friendships, and when I look back on it, I pray to some god who might be willing to answer me, that I gave as good a consolation from this as I received.

When I was most courageous of heart, I went down into Italy as far as Ravenna to see the marvelous churches which possessed the same magnificent mosaics as I had seen in Constantinople. But never did I dare to go further into my native land. I was too afraid to see the destruction of all that had once been there.

As for the news of the world which I learnt from those I befriended, in the main it broke my heart.

Constantinople had abandoned Italy, and only the Pope of Rome stood firm against its invaders. Islamic Arabs conquered all the world it seemed, including Gaul. Then Constantinople became involved in a terrible crisis over the validity of Holy Pictures, condemning them out of hand, which meant the wholesale destruction of mosaics in churches as well as ikons¡ªa horrid war against art which scorched my soul.

The Pope of Rome would have no part of it, thank Heaven, and turning his back officially on the Eastern Empire, he made alliances with the Franks.

This was the end of the dream of the great Empire that included both East and West. It was the end of my dream that Byzantium would somehow preserve the civilization which Rome had once preserved.

But it did not mean the end of the civilized world. Even I, the bitter Roman Patrician, had to admit to that.

There soon rose among the Franks a great leader, eventually to be called Charlemagne, and his victories were many in maintaining some sort of peace in the West. Meantime there gathered around him a court where some of the old Latin literature was encouraged like a fragile flame.

But in the main it was the church which now kept alive the aspects of culture which had been part of the Roman world to which I'd been born. Ah, such an irony, that Christianity, this rebel religion, born of martyrdom during the Pax Romana, now preserved the old writings, the old language, the old poetry, and the old speech.

As the centuries passed, I grew stronger; every gift I possessed was enhanced. While lying in the vault with the Mother and the Father, I could hear the voices of people in towns far away. I could hear an occasional blood drinker pass close to me. I could hear thoughts or prayers.

At last the Cloud Gift came to me. I needn't climb the slope to the vault any longer. I had only to will myself to rise from the road and I stood before the hidden doors to the passage. It was frightening, yet I loved it for I could travel even greater distances when I had the strength for it, which was less often as time went on.

Meantime castles and monasteries had come to appear in this land which had once been the territory of warring barbarian tribes. With the Cloud Gift I could visit the high peaks upon which these marvelous structures were created and sometimes slip into their very rooms.

I was a drifter through eternity, a spy among other hearts. I was a blood thing who knew nothing about death and finally nothing about time.

Sometimes on the winds I drifted. Always through the lives of others I drifted. And in the mountain vault I did my usual painting for Those Who Must Be Kept, covering their walls this time with old Egyptians come to make sacrifice, and I kept my few books there that comforted my soul.

In the monasteries I often spied upon the monks. I loved to watch them writing in their scriptoriums, and it was a comfort to me to see that they kept the old Greek and Roman poetry safe. In the small hours, I went into the libraries, and there, a hooded figure, hunched over the lectern, I read the old poetry and history from my time.

Never was I discovered. I was far too clever. And often I lingered outside the chapel in the evening, listening to the plainsong of the monks, which created a peace inside of me, rather like walking the cloisters, or listening to the steeple bells.

Meantime the art of Greece and Rome which I had loved so much completely died away. A dour religious art took its place. Proportion and naturalism were no longer important. What mattered was that those images which were rendered be evocative of devotion to God.

Human figures in paintings or in stone were often impossibly gaunt, with bold staring eyes. A dreadful grotesquery reigned. It was not for want of knowledge, or skill, for manuscripts were decorated with tremendous patience, and monasteries and churches were built at great cost. Those who made this art could have made anything. It was a choice. Art was not to be sensual. Art was to be pious. Art was to be grim. And so the classical world was lost.

Of course I found wonders in this new world, I cannot deny it. Using the Cloud Gift, I traveled to the great Gothic cathedrals, whose high arches surpassed anything I'd ever beheld. I was stunned by the beauty of these cathedrals. I marveled at the market towns which were growing up all over Europe. It seemed that commerce and crafts had settled the land which war could not settle alone.

New languages were spoken everywhere. French was the language of the elite. But there was English and German and Italian as well.

I saw it all happening, and yet I saw nothing. And then finally, perhaps in the year 1200¡ªI am uncertain¡ªI lay down in the vault for a long sleep.

I was weary of the world and quite impossibly strong. I confessed my intentions to Those Who Must Be Kept. The lamps would eventually burn down, I told them. And there would only be darkness, but please, would they forgive me. I was tired. I wanted to sleep for a long, long time.

As I slept, I learnt. My preternatural hearing was too strong now for me to lie in silence. I could not escape the voices of those who cried out, be they blood drinkers or humans. I could not escape the drifting history of the world.

And so it was with me in the high Alpine pass where I was hidden. I heard the prayers of Italy. I heard the prayers of Gaul which had now become the country known as France.

I heard the souls suffering the terrible disease of the thirteen hundreds known now most appropriately as the Black Death.

In the darkness I opened my eyes. I listened. Perhaps I even studied.

And then finally I roused myself and went down into Italy, afraid for the fate of all the world. I had to see the land I loved with my own eyes. I had to go back.

The city that drew me was one I had not known before in my life. It was a new city, in that it had not existed in the ancient time of the Caesars, and was now a great port. In fact, it was very likely the greatest city of all Europe. Venice was the name of it, and the Black Death had come to it by way of the ships in its harbor, and thousands were desperately sick.

Never had I visited it before. It would have been too painful, and now as I came into Venice, I found it a city of gorgeous palaces built upon dark green canals. But the Black Death had a hold of the populace who were dying in huge numbers daily, and ferries were taking the bodies out to be buried deeply in the soil of the islands in the city's immense lagoon.

Everywhere there was weeping and desolation. People gathered together to die in sickrooms, faces covered in sweat, bodies tormented by incurable swellings. The stench of the dead rose everywhere. Some were trying to flee the city and its infestation. Others remained with their suffering loved ones.

Never had I seen such a plague. And yet it was amid a city of such remarkable splendor, I found myself numb with sorrow and tantalized by the beauty of the palaces, and by the wonder of the Church of San Marco which bore exquisite testament to the city's ties with Byzantium to which it sent its many merchant ships.

I could do nothing but weep in such a place. It was no time for peering by torchlight at paintings or statues that were wholly new to me. I had to depart, out of respect for the dying, no matter what I was.

And so I made my way South to another city which I had not known in my mortal life, the city of Florence in the heart of Tuscany, a beautiful and fertile land.

Understand, I was avoiding Rome at this point. I could not bear to see my home, once more in ruin and misery. I could not see Rome visited by this plague.

So Florence was my choice, as I have said¡ªa city new to me, and prosperous, though not as rich as Venice perhaps, and not as beautiful, though full of huge palaces and paved streets.

And what did I find, but the same dreadful pestilence. Vicious bullies demanded payment to remove the bodies, often beating the dying or those who tried to tend them. Six to eight corpses lay at the doors of various houses. The priests came and went by torchlight, trying to give the Last Rites. And everywhere the same stench as in Venice, the stench that says all is coming to an end.

Weary and miserable, I made my way into a church, somewhere near the center of Florence, though I cannot say what church it was, and I stood against the wall, gazing at the distant tabernacle by candlelight, wondering as so many praying mortals wondered: What would become of this world?

I had seen Christians persecuted; I had seen barbarians sack cities; I had seen East and West quarrel and finally break with each other; I had seen Islamic soldiers waging their holy war against the infidel; and now I had seen this disease which was moving all through the world.

And such a world, for surely it had changed since the year when I had fled Constantinople. The cities of Europe had grown full and rich as flowers. The barbarian hordes had become settled people. Byzantium still held the cities of the East together.

And now this dreadful scourge¡ªthis plague.

Why had I remained alive, I wondered? Why must I endure as the witness to all these many tragic and wonderful things? What was I to make of what I beheld?

And yet, even in my sorrow, I found the church beautiful with its myriad lighted candles, and spying a bit of color far ahead of me, in one of the chapels to the right side of the high altar, I made my way towards it, knowing full well that I would find rich paintings there, for I could see something of them already.

None of those ardently praying in the church took any notice of me, a single being in a red velvet hooded cloak, moving silently and swiftly to the open chapel so that I might see what was painted there.

Oh, if only the candles had been brighter. If only I had dared to light a torch. But I had the eyes of a blood drinker, didn't I? Why complain? And in this chapel I saw painted figures unlike any I had seen before. They were religious, yes, and they were severe, yes, and they were pious, yes, but something new had been sparked here, something that one might almost call sublime.

A mixture of elements had been forged. And I felt a great joy even in my sorrow, until I heard a low voice behind me, a mortal voice. It was speaking so softly that I doubt another mortal would even have heard.

"He's dead," said the mortal. "They're all dead, all the painters who did this work."

I was shocked with pain.

"The plague took them," said this man.

He was a hooded figure as I was, only his cloak was of a dark color, and he looked at me with bright feverish eyes.

"Don't fear," he said. "I've suffered it and it hasn't killed me and I can't pass it on, don't you see? But they're all dead, those painters. They're gone. The plague's taken them and all they knew."

"And you? " I asked. "Are you a painter? "

He nodded. "They were my teachers," he said as he gestured towards the walls. "This is our work, unfinished," he said. "I can't do it alone."

"You must do it," I said. I reached into my purse. I took out several gold coins, and I gave them to him.

"You think this will help?" he asked, dejectedly.

"It's all I have to give," I said. "Maybe it can buy you privacy and quiet. And you can begin to paint again."

I turned to go.

"Don't leave me," he said suddenly.

I turned around and looked at him. His gaze was level with mine and very insistent.

"Everyone's dying and you and I are not dying," he said. "Don't go. Come with me, have a drink of wine with me. Stay with me."

"I can't," I said. I was trembling. I was too charmed by him, much too much. I was so close to killing him. "I would stay with you if I could," I said.

And then I left the city of Florence, and I returned to the vault of Those Who Must Be Kept.

I lay down again for a long sleep, feeling the coward that I had not gone to Rome, and thankful that I had not drunk dry the blood of the exquisite soul who had approached me in the church.

But something had been forever changed in me.

In the church in Florence I had glimpsed new paintings. I had glimpsed something which filled me with hope.

Let the plague run its course, I prayed, and I closed my eyes.

And the plague did finally die out.

All the voices of Europe sang.

They sang of the new cities, and great victories, and terrible defeats. Everything in Europe was being transformed. Commerce and prosperity bred art and culture, as the royal courts and cathedrals and monasteries of the recent past had done.

They sang of a man named Gutenberg in the city of Mainz who had invented a printing press which could make cheap books by the hundreds. Common people could own their own copies of Sacred Scripture, books of the Holy Hours, books of comic stories and pretty poems. All over Europe new printing presses were being built.

They sang of the tragic fall of Constantinople to the invincible Turkish army. But the proud cities of the West no longer depended upon the far-away Greek Empire to protect them. The lament for Constantinople went unheeded.

Italy, my Italy, was illuminated by the glory of Venice and Florence and Rome.

It was time now for me to leave this vault.

I roused myself from my excited dreams.

It was time for me to see this world which marked its time as the year after Christ 1482.

Why I chose that year I am uncertain except perhaps that the voices of Venice and Florence called me most eloquently, and I had earlier beheld these cities in their tribulation and grief. I wanted desperately to see them in their splendor.

But I must go home first, all the way South to Rome.

So lighting the oil lamps once more for my beloved Parents, wiping the dust from their ornaments and their fragile robes, praying to them as I always did, I took my leave to enter one of the most exciting times which the Western world had ever seen.