Blood and Gold (18 page)

“Marius,” she said in cultured and perfect Latin, her voice as lovely as her face, “you read my walls and floor as though they were a book.”

“Forgive me,” I said. “But when a room is so exquisitely decorated, it seems the polite thing to do.”

“And you long for old Rome,” she said, “or for Athens, or even for Antioch where you once lived.”

This was a formidable blood drinker. She’d plucked this knowledge of me from the deepest of my memories. I closed my mind. But I didn’t close my heart.

“My name is Eudoxia,” she said. “I wish I could say that I bid you welcome to Constantinople, but it is my city and I am not altogether pleased that you are here.”

“Can we not come to some understanding with you?” I asked. “We’ve made a long and arduous journey. The city is vast.”

She made some small gesture, and the mortal slaves withdrew. Only Asphar and Rashid remained, as if waiting for her command.

I tried to tell if there were other blood drinkers in this house, but I couldn’t do this without her knowing I was doing it, and so my attempt was rather weak.

“Sit down, all of you, please,” she said. And at that invitation, the two beautiful boys, Asphar and Rashid, made to bring the couches in closer so that we might gather in a natural way.

At once I asked if I might have a chair. And Avicus and Mael in an uncertain whisper echoed the same request. It was done. We were seated.

“An old Roman,” she said with a sudden luminous smile. “You disdain a couch, and would have a chair.”

I laughed a small courteous laugh.

But then something quite invisible yet strong caused me to cast a glance at Avicus and to see that he was staring at this splendid female blood drinker as though Cupid had just sent an arrow right into his heart.

As for Mael, he glared at her as he had glared at me in Rome many centuries before.

“Don’t worry about your friends,” said Eudoxia suddenly, startling me completely. “They’re loyal to you and will follow you in whatever you say. It’s you and I who must talk now. Understand that though this city is immense and there is blood enough for many, rogue blood drinkers come here often and must be driven away.”

“Are we rogues?” I asked gently.

I couldn’t help but study her features, her rounded chin with its single dimple, and her small cheeks. She appeared as young in mortal years as the two boys. As for her eyes they were jet black, with such a fringe of lashes that one might suspect there was Egyptian paint on her face when in fact there was none.

This observation put me suddenly in mind of Akasha, and I felt a panic as I tried to clear my mind. What had I done bringing Those Who Must Be Kept here? I should have stayed in the ruins of Rome. But again, I could not think on this matter now.

I looked directly at Eudoxia, a bit dazzled by the countless jewels of her robe, and the vision of her sparkling fingernails, far brighter than any I’d ever beheld except those of Akasha, and I gathered my strength again and tried to penetrate her mind.

She smiled sweetly at me, and then she said, “Marius, I am far too old in the Blood for what you mean to do, but I will tell you anything you want to know.”

“May I call you by the name you’ve given us?” I asked.

“That was my intent,” she replied, “in giving you the name. But let me tell you, I expect honesty from you; otherwise, I will not tolerate you in my realm.”

I suddenly felt a wave of anger emanating from Mael. I threw a warning glance to him, and once again I saw that totally entranced expression on the face of Avicus.

I realized suddenly that Avicus had probably never beheld such a blood drinker as this. The young women blood drinkers among the worshipers of Satan were deliberately dirty and disheveled, and here, reclining on her magnificent couch lay a woman who looked like the Empress who reigned over Byzantium.

Indeed, perhaps this was how this creature perceived herself.

She smiled as though all these thoughts were transparent to her, and then with a little movement of her hand she told the two blood drinker boys, Asphar and Rashid, to withdraw.

Then her eyes passed very calmly and slowly over my two companions as though she were drawing from them every single coherent thought which had ever passed through their minds.

I continued my study of her, of the pearls in her hair, and the ropes of pearls about her neck, and the jewels that adorned her naked toes as well as her hands.

At last, she looked to me, and a smile spread itself once more on her features, brightening her entire countenance.

“If I grant you permission to stay—and I am not at all sure that I mean to do it—you must show me loyalty when others come to break the peace that we share. You must never side with them against me. You must keep Constantinople only for us.”

“And just what will you do if we don’t show you loyalty?” asked Mael with his old anger.

She remained staring at me for a long moment, as though to insult him, and then as though rousing herself from a spell, she looked at Mael.

“What can I do,” she asked Mael, “to silence you before you say something foolish again?” Then her eyes returned to me. “Let me make this known to you all. I know that you possess the Mother and the Father. I know that you brought them here for safekeeping and that they are in a chapel deep beneath your house.”

I was brutally stunned.

I felt a wave of grief. Once again, I had failed to keep the secret. Even in Antioch long ago, I had failed to keep the secret. Would I not always fail to keep the secret? Was this not my fate? What was to be done?

“Don’t be so quick to draw back from me, Marius,” said Eudoxia. “I drank from the Mother in Egypt centuries before you took her away.”

This statement stunned me all the more. Yet it held some strange promise. It cast a small light into my soul.

I was wondrously excited suddenly.

Here was one who understood everything about the ancient mysteries, just as Pandora had understood. This one, delicate of face and speech, was a world apart from either Avicus or Mael, and how gentle and reasonable she seemed.

“I’ll tell you my story if you want it, Marius,” she said. “I have always been a worldly blood drinker, never one given to the old religion of the Blood Gods of Egypt. I was three hundred years old in the Blood before you were born. But I’ll tell you all you want to know. It is plain that you move through the world by means of questions.”

“Yes,” I said. “I do move through the world by means of questions, and too often I’ve asked those questions in utter silence, or long centuries ago of people who gave me answers that were fragments which I had to piece together as though they were bits of old papyri. I hunger for knowledge. I hunger for what you mean to say to me.”

She nodded and this seemed to give her extraordinary pleasure.

“Some of us don’t require intimate understanding,” she said. “Do you require it, Marius? I can read much in your thoughts, but this is a puzzle. Must you be understood?”

I was baffled.

“Must I be understood,” I said, thinking it over, as secretly as I might. Did either Avicus or Mael understand me? No, they did not. But once long long ago the Mother had understood me. Or had she? Just possibly when I’d fallen so in love with her, I had understood her.

“I don’t have an answer for you,” I said softly. “I think I have come to enjoy loneliness. I think when I was mortal I loved it. I was the wanderer. But why do you put this question to me?”

“Because I don’t require understanding,” she said, and for the first time there came a cold tone into her voice. “But if you wish it, I’ll tell you about my life.”

“I want so much to hear your story,” I answered. I was infatuated. Again, I thought of my beautiful Pandora. Here was an incomparable woman who seemed to have the same gifts. I wanted so to listen to her, and it was more than essential for our safety that I listen to her. But how could we deal with the uneasiness of Mael, and the obvious obsession of Avicus?

She took the thought from me immediately, looking at Avicus gently and then turning her attention for a long sober moment on the infuriated Mael.

“You were a priest in Gaul,” she said calmly to him, “yet you have the attitude of a dedicated warrior. You would destroy me. Why is this so?”

“I don’t respect your authority here,” Mael answered, trying to match her quiet tone. “Who are you to me? You say you never respected the old religion. Well, I respected it. And Avicus respected it. Of this we’re proud.”

“We all want the same thing,” she answered. She smiled, revealing her fang teeth. “We want a hunting ground which is not overcrowded. We want the Satanic blood drinkers to be kept out for they multiply insanely and seek to foment trouble in the mortal world. My authority rests on my past triumphs. It’s no more than habit. If we can make a peace . . .” She broke off and in the manner of a man she shrugged her shoulders and opened her hands.

Suddenly Avicus broke in.

“Marius speaks for us,” he said. “Marius, make the peace with Eudoxia, please.”

“We give you our loyalty,” I said, “in so far as we do want the same things, as you’ve described. But I want very much to speak with you. I want to know how many blood drinkers are here now. As for your history, let me say again that I do want to hear it. One thing we can give to each other is our history. Yes. I want to know yours.”

She rose from the couch very gracefully, revealing herself to be a little taller than I had supposed. She had rather broad shoulders for a woman, and she walked very straight, her bare feet not making the slightest sound.

“Come into my library,” she said, leading us into a chamber off the main room. “It’s better for talking, I believe.” Her hair was long down her back, a heavy mass of black curls, and she moved gracefully despite the weight of her beaded and decorated robes.

The library was immense, with shelves for scrolls and codexes, that is, bound volumes such as we have today. There were chairs here and there, and some gathered in the center, and two couches for reclining and tables on which to write. The golden lamps looked Persian to me in their heavy worked designs, but I couldn’t be certain of it.

The carpets strewn about were definitely Persian, that much I knew.

Of course the moment I saw the books, I was overcome with pleasure. This always happens with me. I remembered the library in old Egypt in which I had found the Elder who had put the Mother and Father into the sun. I feel foolishly safe with books which can be a mistake.

I thought of all that I had lost in the first siege of Rome. I couldn’t help but wonder what Greek and Roman authors were here preserved. For the Christians, though they were kinder to the ancients than people now believe, did not always save the old works.

“Your eyes are hungry,” she said, “though your mind is shut. I know you want to read here. You’re welcome. Send your scribes to copy what you will. But I go ahead of myself, don’t I? We must talk. We must see if we can achieve an agreement. I don’t know that we can.”

She turned her eyes to Avicus.

“And you, you who are old, you who were given the Blood in Egypt, you are only just learning to love the realm of letters. How strange that it would take you so long.”

I could feel his immense excitement and tender confusion.

“I’m learning,” he said. “Marius is teaching me.” And then the flame rose in his cheeks.

As for Mael, I couldn’t help but note his quiet fury, and it struck me that he had for so long been the author of his own unhappiness, but now something was truly happening which might be a legitimate cause of his pain.

Of course it greatly distressed me that neither of them could keep their minds secret. Long ago in Rome when I had sought to find them they had done a better job of it.

“Let’s be seated,” said Eudoxia, “and let me tell you who I am.”

We took the chairs, which brought us closer together, and she began to tell her story in a quiet tone.

10

“M
y mortal life isn’t very important,” she said, “but I’ll pass over it quickly. I was from a fine Greek family, one of the first wave of settlers to come from Athens to Alexandria to make it the great city that Alexander wanted when he founded it three hundred years before the birth of the Christ.

“I was brought up like any girl in such a Greek household, extremely protected, and never leaving the house. I did however learn to read and write, because my father wanted me to be able to write letters to him after I was married and he thought that I might read poetry to my children later on.

“I loved him for it, though no one else did, and I took to my education with a passion, neglecting all else.

“An early marriage was prepared for me. I wasn’t fifteen when I was told of it, and frankly I was rather happy about it because I had seen the man, and I’d found him intriguing and somewhat strange. I wondered if marriage to him wouldn’t bring a new existence for me, something more interesting than what I’d had at home. My real mother was dead and I didn’t care for my stepmother. I wanted to be out of her house.”

She paused for a moment and I was of course calculating. She was older than me by many years, she was making that plain to me, twice over, and that is why she appeared so utterly perfect. Time had done its work on the lines of her face, as it was doing its work on my own.

She watched me and hesitated for a moment, but then she went on:

“A month before the nuptials, I was abducted right out of my bed at night, and taken over the walls of the house to a dark and filthy place where I was flung down in the corner, to cower on the stone floor while several men carried on a crude argument, as to who would be paid how much for having stolen me.

“I expected to be murdered. I also knew that my stepmother was behind my ruin.

“But there came into the place a tall thin man with a head of shaggy black hair, and a face and hands as white as the moon, who murdered all of these men, throwing them about as if they were weightless, and holding the last up to his mouth for a long time, as though he were drinking blood from the corpse, or eating part of it.

“I thought I was on the verge of madness.

“As he dropped the body, the white-faced being realized that I was staring at him. I had nothing but a torn and dirty night dress to cover me. But I rose to my feet to face him bravely.

“ ‘A woman,’ he said. I shall never forget. “A woman’ as if that were remarkable.”

“Sometimes, it is,” I said.

She smiled at me rather tolerantly. She went on with the story.

“After this remark, he gave a strange little laugh and then he came for me.

“Once again, I expected to be murdered. But he made me a blood drinker. There was no ceremony to it, no words, nothing. He simply did it, right then and there.

“Then ripping off the tunic and sandals from one of the men, he dressed me crudely as a boy and we hunted the streets together for the rest of the night. He handled me roughly as we went along, turning me this way and that, pushing me, instructing me as much with shoves as with crude words.

“Before dawn, he took me back to his curious dwelling. It wasn’t in the elite Greek quarter where I had been brought up. But I didn’t know that at the time. As a matter of fact, I’d never been out of my father’s house. My first experience of the city streets had been frankly enthralling.

“Now here I was being carried up the high wall of a three-story dwelling and then brought down into its barren courtyard.

“The place was an immense and disorderly treasure house. In every room there were riches unimaginable.

“ ‘See, all this!’ the blood drinker said to me proudly.

“There was chaos everywhere. There were silk draperies in heaps and beautiful cushions, and these he brought together to make a kind of nest for us. He put heavy necklaces on me and said, “These will lure your victims. Then you can quickly take hold of them.’

“I was intoxicated and afraid.

“Then he took out his dagger and, grabbing me by the hair, he cut it off, almost all of it, and that sent me into wailing like nothing that had gone before. I had killed. I had drunk blood. I had run through the streets half mad. That did not make me bellow, but the cutting of my hair was too much.

“He didn’t seem at all disturbed by my crying, but quite suddenly he snatched me up, and threw me down into a large casket on a hard bed of jewels and gold chains and he shut the lid on me. Little did I know the sun was rising. Again, I thought I would die.

“But next I opened my eyes, he was there, smiling, and in a gruff voice, with no real wit or talent for a turn of phrase he explained that we must sleep all day away from the sun. It was our nature. And we had to drink plenty of blood. Blood was the only thing that mattered to us.

“Maybe to you, I thought, but I didn’t dare argue with him.

“And my hair of course had all grown back as it would every day forever, and he once again hacked it off. Within a few nights, to my relief he did acquire an expensive scissors to make this operation easier, but he, no matter what we had to do, would never tolerate my long locks.

“I was with him several years.

“He was never civil or kind, but never terribly cruel either. I was never out of his sight. When I asked if we might acquire better clothes for me, he agreed, though he obviously didn’t care too much about it. As for himself, he wore a long tunic and a cloak, changing only when these became worn, stealing the fresh clothing from one of his victims.

“He often patted me on the head. He had no words for love, and he had no imagination. When I brought back books from the market to read poetry, he laughed at me, if you can call the toneless noise he made a laugh. I read the poetry to him nevertheless, and much of the time after the initial laugh he simply stared at me.

“Once or twice I asked him how he’d been made a blood drinker, and he said it was by a wicked drinker of the blood who had come out of Upper Egypt. “They’re all liars, those old ones,’ he said. “I call them the Temple Blood Drinkers.’ And that constituted the entire history he bequeathed to me.

“If I went against him in any particular, he hit me. It wasn’t a terribly hard blow, but it was enough to stop me from ever opposing him on any count.

“When I tried to put the household in some sort of order, he stared at me dully, never offering to help but never striking me either. I rolled out some of the Babylonian rugs. I put some of the marble statues along the wall so that they looked respectable. I cleaned up the courtyard.

“Now during this time, I heard other blood drinkers in Alexandria. I even glimpsed them, but never did they come very close.

“When I told him about them, he only shrugged and said that they were no worry of mine. “I’m too strong for them,’ he told me, “and besides they don’t want any trouble. They know that I know too much about them.’ He didn’t explain further, but he told me I was very blessed in that he’d given me old blood.

“I don’t know what kept me so happy during that time. Perhaps it was hunting different parts of Alexandria, or just reading new books, or swimming in the sea. He and I did go out together and swim in the sea.

“I don’t know if you can imagine this—what the sea meant to me, that I might bathe in it, that I might walk along the shore. A closeted Greek housewife would never have that privilege. And I was a blood drinker. I was a boy. I hunted the ships in the harbor. I walked with brave and evil men.

“One night my Maker failed to cut off my hair, as was the evening custom, and he took me to a strange place. It was in the Egyptian quarter of the city, and once we opened the door, we had to follow a long descending tunnel, before we came into a great room covered with the old picture writing of Egypt. There were huge square pillars supporting the ceiling. It was rather an awe-inspiring place.

“I think it brought to memory a more refined time to me, when I had known things of mystery and beauty, though I cannot now really say.

“There were several blood drinkers there. They were pale and appeared extremely beautiful, but nothing as white as my Maker and they were clearly afraid of him. I was quite astonished to see all this. But then I remembered his phrase, “Temple Blood Drinkers,’ and I thought, So we are with them.

“He pushed me forward as a little miracle which they had not beheld. There was a quarrel then in their language, which I could just barely understand.

“It seemed they told him that the Mother would make the decision, and then and only then could he be forgiven for his ways. As for him, my Maker, he said that he didn’t care whether or not he was forgiven, but he was going off now, and he wanted to be rid of me and if they would take me, that was all he wanted to know.

“I was terrified. I didn’t entirely like this gloomy place, grand though it was. And we had spent several years together. And now he was leaving?

“I wanted to ask him, What had I done? I suppose I realized in that moment that I loved him. I would do anything if he would only change his mind.

“The others fell upon me. They took hold of me by both arms and dragged me with unnecessary force into another gigantic room.

“The Mother and the Father were there, resplendent and shining, seated on a huge throne of black diorite, above some six or seven marble steps.

“This was the main room of a temple, and all its columns and walls were decorated beautifully with the Egyptian writing, and the ceiling was covered with plates of gold.

“Naturally I thought, as we all do, that the Mother and the Father were statues, and as I was dragged closer to them, I was mad with resentment that such a thing was taking place.

“I was also curiously ashamed, ashamed that I wore old sandals and a dirty boyish tunic, and that my hair was tumbled down all around me—for on this one night my Maker had failed to hack it off—and I was in no way prepared for what ritual was to take place.

“Akasha and Enkil were of the purest white, and they sat as they have always done, since I have come to know them—as they sit in your underground chapel now.”

Mael broke the narrative with an angry question:

“How do you know how the Mother and Father appear in our underground chapel?”

I was deeply disturbed that he had done this.

But Eudoxia remained utterly composed.

“You have no power to see through the minds of other blood drinkers?” she asked. Her eyes were hard, perhaps even a little cruel.

Mael was confused.

And I was keenly aware that he had given away a secret to Eudoxia, the secret being that he didn’t have such a power, or that he didn’t know that he did, and I wasn’t quite sure what I should do.

Understand he knew that he could find other blood drinkers by hearing their thoughts, but he didn’t know how to use this power to even greater advantage, seeing what they saw.

Indeed, all three of us were uncertain of our powers. And I realized how foolish this was.

At this moment, when Eudoxia received no answer to her question, I tried vainly to think of some way to distract her.

“Please,” I said to Eudoxia, “will you continue? Tell us your story.” I didn’t dare to apologize for Mael’s rudeness because that might have made him furious.

“Very well,” said Eudoxia looking straight at me as though she were dismissing my companions as impossible.

“As I was telling you,” she said, “My Maker pushed me forward and told me to kneel before the Father and the Mother. And being exceedingly frightened, I did as I was told.

“I looked up at their faces, as blood drinkers have done since time immemorial and I saw no vitality, no subtlety of expression, only the relaxation of dumb animals, no more.

“But then there came a change in the Mother. Her right hand was raised ever so slightly from her lap and it turned and thereby made the simplest beckoning gesture to me.

“I was astonished by this gesture. So these creatures lived and breathed? Or was it trickery, some form of magic? I didn’t know.

“My Maker, ever so crude even at this sacred moment, said, “Ah, go to her, drink her blood. She is the Mother of us all.’ And with his bare foot, he kicked me. “She is the First One,’ he said. “Drink.’

“The other blood drinkers began to quarrel with him fiercely, speaking the old Egyptian tongue again, telling him that the gesture wasn’t clear, that the Mother might destroy me, and who was he to give such a command, and how dare he come to this temple with a pitiful female blood drinker who was as soiled and untutored as he was.

“But he overrode them. “Drink her blood and your strength will be beyond measure,’ he said. Then he lifted me to my feet and all but threw me forward so that I landed with my hands on the marble steps before the throne.

“The other blood drinkers were shocked by his behavior. I heard a low laugh from my Maker. But my eyes were on the King and the Queen.

“I saw that the Queen had moved her hand again, opening her fingers, and though her eyes never changed, the beckoning gesture was certain.

“ ‘From her neck,’ said my Maker. “Don’t be afraid. She never destroys those whom she beckons. Do as I say.’ And I did.

“I drank as much from her as I was able to drink. And mark my words, Marius, this was over three hundred years before the Elder ever put the Mother and Father in the Great Fire. And I was to drink from her more than once. Heed my words, more than once, long before you ever came to Alexandria, long before you took our King and Queen.”

She raised her dark black eyebrows slightly as she looked at me, as though she wanted me to understand her point most keenly. She was very very strong.

“But Eudoxia, when I did come to Alexandria,” I answered her. “When I came in search of the Mother and Father, and to discover who had put them in the sun, you weren’t there in the temple. You weren’t in Alexandria. At least you didn’t make yourself known to me.”

“No,” she said, “I was in the city of Ephesus where I had gone with another blood drinker whom the Fire destroyed. Or I should say, I was making my way home to Alexandria, to find the reason for the Fire, and to drink of the healing fount, when you took the Mother and Father away.”