Lilah (35 page)

Lilah

The creaking in the walls and the
rattling of the windows from high winds interrupted my already restless sleep.
I awoke wondering if Gabriel had returned and wishing that he
was
with me in this large musty room.  It was sometime
after midnight when I heard the sound of carriage wheels clicking over the
cobbles of the bridge. Below, Beatrice stepped out of the carriage dressed in
the same black dress but this time her hair was swept up and decorated with
feathers. Her laughter was deep and sensuous and another young man stepped out
behind her. He wore a short tunic and his bejeweled fingers glittered under the
stars.
The man was of wealth
,
so
auspicious were his robes
.  His laugh was loud and step uneven from
too much wine.

Was it my imagination or did she look up at my
window? I pulled back slightly. Against my better judgement I crept downstairs.

I followed the sounds of laughter that seemed
to echo down the long wooden corridors and approached the room where we had
first been introduced. The door was left conveniently ajar allowing me to spy.
I wanted immediately to look away but the sight within was too compelling.

Beatrice and her young lover were in a
passionate embrace. They were in stages of semi-undress and I saw the unadulterated
lust in the man who could not think of anything else but the striking creature
before him.

Beatrice nuzzled his neck,
then
suddenly opened her mouth wider and bit down on the flesh. The man cried out
briefly before becoming motionless on the lounge where he had reclined. I had
recently seen the massacre by the strigoi but there was something so personal
about this that made it more appalling. I ran back upstairs slamming the door
to my room. Despite everything I knew, every book I had read, even marrying
this kind of being, this very act still left me shaking and terrified. I vowed
that I would never accept what they did. Never!

Gabriel came to me early in the morning but I
was already dressed and eager to leave this cold empty castle. I realised why
Beatrice was happy to live here alone. She was never alone: attracting many
would-be suitors into her web under the pretence of
love-making
.
And I remembered the ironic conversation we’d had upon entering the castle when
I had asked why Beatrice chose to live alone.

‘She finds plenty to amuse herself. She has a
taste for human lovers,’ Gabriel had said further, and later I saw through the
joke. Like a spider she injected her venom before milking her prey.

Our horses walked slowly, reluctant to leave while
happy to remain grazing in the expanse of fields around the castle. We entered
the early morning mist that hovered above the bridge. The water was still and
brown and the reflection of the castle taunted me as we rode past, its windows
like tiny eyes watching everything. I did not look up. I felt that Beatrice
would be standing behind one of them, pleased in her macabre way that I had
seen what she was capable of.

We passed a carriage that had fallen to the
side of the track. Beside it was a small fire where several servants were
burning a sack. There was a smell like burning hair and I covered my nose.

Gabriel said nothing and I could not bring
myself to talk about it until we were well beyond the castle. I felt cheated in
some way that he had known my father; an experience I would never share.

‘She is evil, your friend,’ I said, though I
felt compelled to turn my head to try and catch a glimpse of her one last time.
She had born my father and witnessed my birth. We would always have that.

‘Then so am I.’

‘So you would kill your human lovers then?’ I
mocked.

‘Beatrice can be cold and sometimes
indiscriminate, but our instincts for blood are still the same…Tell me, do you
really want to go to Venice? I do not think it a good idea.’

‘You said we would see my father. You have not
honoured that. The least you can do for me is let me meet my mother.’

‘I fear you will be greatly disappointed.’ But
nothing more was said on the subject. I had seen the effect my statement had
made on him. He looked away so that I could not see the guilt. He had carried
this secret of my father’s death and it had been a weight on his conscience. I
had already forgiven him. The hurt and betrayal was now in the past.

The trip proved taxing and took several more
days. Gabriel paid a man to sail us to the north of Venice. I was at first
nervous to be surrounded by so much water, but the sight of Gabriel embracing
the breeze released some of the anxiety. I was exhausted by the time we reached
the entrance to sail into the main canal of Venice. The sight of this strange
water city at night restored my energy as well as the fresh salty gusts off the
sea. In the dark of night we slipped into areas where we could not be seen and
where the air became thick with the smell of mud and waste.

Gabriel cautioned me to be silent. Venice was
well guarded; protective of what the
citizens
thought
was their jewel in the sea. Once in the main canal bordered by tall structures
built from wood, stone and coloured tiles, windows glinting like bright yellow
eyes – the same architecture as Beatrice’s castle – the man dropped
us off at edge of the city. We walked a short way to where several men sat
drinking beside their short narrow boats. Gabriel paid the man silver and the
boatman pushed his oars onto the sandy cushioned bottom to glide us forward,
while explaining that the buildings, streets and esplanades were built on posts
made from the Alder trees, and sunk in mud and clay. The water shimmered smoky
green, reflecting the candle light from houses overlooking the water. We passed
remains of a wooden house; nothing left but pieces of blackened timber and arid
smoke. Gabriel explained that this was not the first fire to start from a
glassmaker’s furnaces and that soon such practice would be banned from the main
island.

The boatman told us to not be fooled by
Venice’s beauty; there was also an underworld that was more dangerous than any
other. ‘You do not speak your thoughts out loud; otherwise, you will find
yourself in the dungeon as a heretic, and scratching your head wondering what
you did and didn’t do. It has a dark side here full of suspicion and
uncertainty. It is a city of dead-ends, twisting alleyways – a giant maze
where one can lose their hearts, souls and their purses if they do not hold tight
to them.
La città dei segreti’
, he said.
The city of
secrets.
My body froze with all this news but Gabriel nudged me
reassuringly, and to witness his fearless grin.

The faintest swishing by the oar could not be
heard above the sounds of raised voices and banging pots, and steam and smoke
spilt from open windows. At this hour, the households were so alive with
activity and Gabriel explained that people were preparing for a feast that
would last for many days. We floated under archways into a portico where other boats
had also docked. The building Gabriel described as a
fondaco
: a large
warehouse and residence for merchants who traded by water. We stepped onto the
tiled flooring and followed a corridor to a courtyard. Surrounding us were
large rooms filled with drums and clay casks. A mixture of spices hung heavily
in the air; none of which I could discern.

‘While you are here, you must agree with
everything I say,’ he instructed. ‘Antonio is a devout man and you are
otherwise an unaccompanied woman. I regret to ask this of you but it is
important he thinks of us as married. It is a way of keeping your respect
within this household and also so that we can escape – just the two of us
– to search for
your
mother without Antonio
insisting on chaperoning you.
Carnevale
is also a time that people turn
a little mad…’

‘A carnival?’

‘Yes. It is a deeply religious time for some
but for most it is an excuse for theatre, gambling and the perverse to take
their pleasures without consequence.’

I shuddered and Gabrielle laughed softly.
‘Don’t look so alarmed. Venice is magnificent and you will fall in love with it
despite its sins.’ Then more seriously: ‘
It
is
important we are together at all times. Antonio will help us without asking any
questions. He will always feel he owes me a debt.’

‘And does he?’

‘Let’s just say that some of our strigoi were
up to mischief on carnival night several years ago, forgetting to honour their
pledge and perhaps, because of the masks, not discriminating between worthy and
unworthy. I was required to intervene to protect Antonio. He did not see who
grabbed him but was aware that it was my intervention that saved him from what
he thought was to be a robbery.’

Gabriel knocked on the small wooden door, which
was opened by a manservant. He told us to wait before a woman shortly appeared
with a candle. She was small as she was round with a ruddy complexion. Her
dress was
a lavishly
embroidered ochre silk with lace
at the collar and cuffs.

‘Ah, Gabriel!’ she said, giving him a hug.
Gabriel introduced me and her eyes looked me up and down. I should not have
been surprised that Gabriel knew so many people when he had travelled across
many lands and two centuries.

‘Antonio will be pleased to see you,’ said
Estella, Antonio’s wife.

We were taken to a sitting room where a man, a
good decade older than me was playing with several small children. He was
neither witch nor strigoi. The two embraced and Antonio patted Gabriel on the
back when he learned of our marriage. As we were invited to dine with them, it
felt uncomfortable to deceive someone who I read as completely honest.

In the dining hall we were served steamed fish
spiced with ginger and cumin, imported from the Far East. I had never tasted
such flavours. For dessert we ate cake filled with creamed cheese, glazed with
peaches soaked in grappa.  In the monastery our food had been plain and
even at the castle the cooks, though good at their work, were not required to
be inventive with original tastes since, before my arrival, they had few to
service.

I sat demurely beside Gabriel who occasionally
put his hand upon my knee. Though, this often distracted me from the
conversation.

‘What brings you here Gabriel? It has been
nearly four years.’

‘Well, as you can see I have been busy with my
new wife.’

At the mention of this word I felt a spasm of
guilt that I had not given his true wife, Arianne, any thought until then. Not
only had I unwittingly led her to a life of killing, I was also with her
husband who no longer cared for her.

‘I have come to find someone,’ he asked. ‘You
may know her. It is Signora Tomasina Morosini.’

‘Oh, she is the daughter
of a wealthy merchant whom I care not to cross. I
hope you do not wish an appointment with her. The father does not like to see
foreigners for any reason unless they are buying his overpriced silks. And what
is it that you require from her?’

‘I have to deliver a message to her from an old
friend.’

‘Well, undoubtedly she will take her usual place
on the Rialto at
Carnevale
.’ He turned then to me oblivious of our
motives and grateful he had changed the topic. ‘Now my dear, has your husband
told you how we came to be friends?’

I shook my head.

‘So modest, Gabriel! He saved my life. I was set
on by thugs and out of the night he threw them away with a strength that I can
only liken to a bear. I am eternally grateful and if not for him I would not
have had my family.’ His
wife
entered at that moment with their newest
baby.

She passed the child to me. I thought of my own
and gazed across at Gabriel who seemed to stare at me strangely as if I was not
in the room. The child squeezed my finger and it was then I felt the air
thicken around me, like glass, and everything in the room seemed to fall into
the shadows. Even voices were muted and slow, and I struggled to keep up with
the conversation. It was as if time had stopped and I had been shut out of
their world. All that felt real in my strange enclosure was the baby Lorena and
myself.

I tried to speak but no words came from my mouth.
I looked down at the fingers of tiny pink hands grasping my own, seeking
comfort and recognition. The baby stared widely at me as if also aware that
something had changed and then before me a scene appeared: life sized and
colourfully drawn on invisible walls around us. A woman stood there with small
children of her own, a large family, some as young as Oleander. They stood
around a gravesite. The inscription showed that they were burying two infants.
As the image changed, several people and a child were crying by the woman’s
bedside and there were tears on her face. The child cried for its mother,
wailing so hard it hurt my ears. It was like I was above her on the ceiling
looking down upon her bed. The woman was covered in sores, her skin blackened
in parts. She coughed hard and her breathing was laboured. She took one more
breath before dying, her eyes wide and staring at me. I looked down at the eyes
of the baby cradled in my arms to see that it was also those eyes of the woman
from the vision. I had just seen into this baby’s future. A terrible illness
would befall them in this city.