Of Saints and Shadows (1994) (19 page)

“
Perhaps,” the stranger said, a wistful smile on his face.

“
Besides,” said Andronicus, “what makes you so certain the city will fall?”

At that, they all looked at him with tired eyes. He knew enough to be quiet.

“
You know what else?” the stranger continued, almost as if he hadn’t heard their statements. “The roses. It simply amazes me that they’re in bloom.”

“
Roses?” Nicephorus asked.

“
Yes, the roses, can’t you smell them?”

“
All I smell is the dung of oxen,” Carlo answered, with some finality.

“
All the sadder for you,” the stranger said, actually looking at them all for the first time, his gaze finally resting on Nicephorus.

“
Could I join you?”

“
The wine is almost gone,” Andronicus said, though they all knew it to be a lie.

“
I am not a wine drinker,” the stranger said.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, made even more unsettling for Nicephorus by the way the stranger seemed to stare directly at him, Gregory finally spoke up.

“
Well then, by all means sit down and introduce yourself”

The stranger accepted the invitation.

“
I am Karl, from Bavaria,” he said as he sat, and the others introduced themselves to him.

“
How do you find yourself dying with Constantinople?” Nicephorus asked.

“
By no will of my own, I assure you. I was passenger aboard a Venetian ship, en route from the Black Sea to the Aegean. This was in November, when the sultan had first warned he would sink any ship in the strait. Of course, he was not believed.”

“
Rizzo’s ship?” Carlo asked.

“
Yes, that’s right. She was sunk, and all hands who survived and didn’t make the city walls were beheaded. Of course, Rizzo was impaled.”

“
It surely seems,” said Carlo, “that sailors have taken the hardest blows in this siege.”

“
That it does,” Andronicus said, anger rising. “But we showed them in return. Two hundred and sixty Turks were executed for the forty-odd Christian crewmen from Rizzo’s ship who were murdered. In any battle, that’s a fair trade.”

“
No
, ’
Droncus.” Gregory shook his head. “That’s not a trade. That’s three hundred Vives destroyed for greed, for power.”

“
For life! For freedom! For God!” Nicephorus was angry now. “I won’t hear another word from you, Greg. Friend though you may he, we fight to the death for the glory of God and I hope we kill every last one of those heaven-forsaken devils. We fight for all that we are, so fighting becomes what we are. If that is how it is to be, I welcome it! Let them come and see what they have made us through their evil lust.”

They were all silent again, eyes on the ground, brooding and angry and afraid. All except one. Karl looked at Nicephorus Dragases with a wide smile on Ms face, his eyes bright with admiration.

“‘
Well said.”

Nicephorus decided he liked the stranger, whether or not his tale was a true one.

“
Only faith can save us now,” Gregory insisted, “the power of Christ and the Holy Mother, and the good will of Saint Constantine the Great.”

“
Then we’re dead,” Nicephorus said, for a black mood had come over him since the night before. “Heaven itself has turned against Constantinople. Greg, you remember the prophecies. Andronicus, do you?”

“
The last Christian emperor of Byzantium will share his name with the first, Constantine, son of Helena,” Andronicus answered, eyes downcast. He was the youngest of the group, and not afraid to show his fear.

“
Wasn’t there something about the moon ?” Carlo asked hopefully.

“
That the city may not fall under a waxing moon,” Andronicus answered, hopeful for a moment.

“
And last night the moon was full,” Nicephorus snapped back. “Now we can hope for nothing.”

As the men spoke a heavy fog, highly unusual for this time of year, had rolled through the city, and just as quickly departed. Nicephorus and the others heard citizens by the wall, wailing that the fog was a veil hiding the Holy Spirit as it abandoned the city.

“
Nonsense,” he told his friends.

“
Ah, hut they all believe it,” Andronicus answered.

“
They believe a lot of things,” Nicephorus said. “Most of them ridiculous. I’m getting tired of the superstitions.”

“
God is not a superstition!” Gregory said sharply.

“
You know that’s not what I meant, Greg.”

“
Well, now the fog has lifted, the moon is full and bright,” Carlo pointed out, and they all looked up.

“
Up here!” the voice of the sentry came down to them, sudden and urgent.

“
What is it, George?” Andronicus called back.

“
Lights!” the voice came again, and they were all scrambling for the ladder.

Once they were at the top, no words were spoken. The sentry merely pointed east, across the Golden Horn, where in the countryside, far beyond the Turkish camp, the same strange green light could be seen glowing in several spots.

“
Do you think,” George began, “that it could be Hunyadi, the Transylvanian prince, come to our aid at last?”

There was so much hope in. his words that Nicephorus was loath to answer. “Perhaps,” was all he said.

“
Somehow,” Carlo added, behind him, “I think not.”

They all stood on the wall, gazing toward the strange lights, but Nicephorus held back, thoughtful.

“
My friend.” Karl’s voice came in a whisper. “I think we should talk.”

“
About what?”

“
Revenge. The future.”

“
We have no future, here,” Nicephorus said flatly.

“
My point precisely,” Karl said, and now Nicephorus looked into his eyes and saw a pain and hate burning there alongside the intelligence he had already sensed in the man.

“
Let’s go.”

They descended the ladder together and were silent for the half-mile walk to Petra, where Nicephorus had a temporary dwelling. There was a small grove behind the building, and it was there that their conversation began in earnest.

“
Do you wish to die?” Karl began.

“
No man does.”

“
Do you wish to kill?”

“
Turks. The sultan.”

“
Do you wish to leave here?”

“
If I don’t do one, and excel at the other, I will leave here, yes. There is much of the world I would like to see,” Nicephorus answered, and then looked more closely at his companion. The questions were upsetting him.

“
What if I could promise you that you would not die, would kill many Turks, and would see all of the world you desire? Would you leave here with me tomorrow?”

“
How can you promise such things?”

“
Answer the question,” Karl replied, amused, not impatient.

Contrary to what Karl may have thought, Nicephorus Dragases had indeed left Constantinople many times. He had traveled to Serbia, to Wallachia, to Venice, to Rome, to Russia. Despite his lack of true education, he was a very intelligent man. He knew what he faced.

“
Vrykolaka,” Nicephorus said with utmost certainly.

“
Come now,” Karl chided, “I heard you say earlier that you were tired of the superstitions.”

“
So I did, though I didn’t know you were listening at the time.”

“
You were not meant to know.”

“
Of course not. However, I am a man who knows the difference between superstition and legend, and that most legends exist for a purpose, to represent something.”

“
Just so,” Karl answered smugly.

“
You are vrykolaka,” he said again, without a trace of doubt.

“
To use your logic, I am one of those who has inspired the legend.”

“
Well, we have established what you are, and what you offer me. Why do you ask me, and what is the price?”

“
The price is precisely what you think. You die without dying. The sun is your enemy as is the Roman church, eating will become difficult, but there is plenty of sustenance in the blood of Turks, and you lose your name.”

“
I do not understand what it is to ‘die without dying,’” Nicephorus answered. “I have ever preferred the night, and the Roman church is already my enemy. I cannot imagine not needing food, yet spilling the blood of Turks obviously appeals to me. As to my name, it is nothing. Again, why do you ask me? There are many soldiers here who would kill Turks with you, vrykolaka.”

“
Yes, hut how many are the son of Constantine? How many are warriors born, as you are? How many would have the courage to willingly meet death to return to the battlefield as death itself?”

There was silence as the light of the full moon tore through the trees overhead and the two beings stood face-to-face, watching each other’s eyes. Nicephorus had spent his life nurturing an anger that was well hidden beneath the guise his fellows knew. As often as he returned to Constantinople, he wanted to leave again. He sought something he had found nowhere in the world, something he had not been able to name. A courage, a knowledge, a power, an answer that would free him from the questions in his head, the search for a purpose, the release of the anger. The answer was clear.

“
How many would have that courage?” Karl asked again.

“
One.”

“And that’s how it began,” Peter said, finishing his tea as George and Meaghan visibly relaxed, letting out breaths they had been holding.

“But there must be so much more,” Meaghan began.

“Which will have to wait for later,” Peter said. “We’ve got far too many other things to worry about for now. Another time I’ll tell you what came later, and about the coven.”

“But what about the sun, and the tea, and the cross, and all that garbage?” Meaghan asked.

“Well, to the best of my knowledge—”

“Whoa, back up there. What do you mean ‘to the best of?”

“If you’d allow me a moment”—he arched an eyebrow—“I’ll explain.”

She apologized with a scolded look and an encouraging shrug of the shoulders.

“I don’t cat. I can, but I always throw it up later. Delicate metabolism, you know. I can drink most substances that aren’t too strong or too thick. As George said, he supplies me—”

“How do you get away with that? Aren’t the stocks so well guarded these days?”

She’s right on top of this whole thing, George thought, smiling in wonder. He really admired this girl.

“It’s easier than you would think. Peter can—are you sure you want to hear this?”

She nodded. George looked at Peter, who didn’t appear to object.

“Well, as long as the cadaver hasn’t been dead too long, I can always take a little. If the poor soul lost a lot of blood, it’s even less likely to be noticed. I keep it refrigerated, and when my assistants ask, I say it’s for comparative analysis. Also, Peter is unaffected by tainted blood. Alcohol and drugs in the blood are disagreeable, but disease-contaminated blood is okay. He doesn’t even notice. When donors test positive for HIV, the blood is supposed to be disposed of. I get my hands on it.”

Now Meaghan seemed really confused, and Peter was starting to look a little uncomfortable.

“But I thought it had to be, um, y’know, fresh?”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Peter said quickly, “It’s much better that way, and the
(bloodsong) . . .
let’s say the high is better. But it is sufficient.

“Don’t be fooled, Meaghan. In many ways I
am
the monster of legend. I was born a warrior, and died a warrior. For the first four hundred and fifty years of my immortal life, I look my sustenance the way the majority of my kind do. From humans. Some of them offered it and some of them did not. For a time it seemed much like hunting wild animals. I enjoyed it.”

“Why did you stop?”

Again, George was surprised. Meaghan was not stunned by Peter’s revelations, or the tone of them, only more curious.

“For several decades I had thought more and more about the hunt, and it began to hurt me inside. It was an ache of the spirit, and then I thought, perhaps the ache was in my soul. I didn’t know, even as a boy in a land which had been a center of Christian faith for a millennium, even there I did not know if the soul truly existed. And now I found myself wondering again. Did such a thing exist, and if so, could such a creature as myself retain it through this dark metamorphosis?”