Come Twilight (Saint-Germain #13)

Come Twilight (Saint-Germain #13) Page 34

Although they were almost a league away from the monastery, Ximene and Germanno could hear the shrieks and other grisly sounds as the flames rose in the pyres on which more than twenty vampires were tied. The westering sun lit the clouds from beneath as if the horizon were burning, a grander version of the smoke rising above the monastery walls with the glare of red on its underside; fortunately the wind was blowing across them, to the east, and so they could not smell what the smoke carried.

"How did they do this?" Ximene whispered as she stared at the smoke from the shelter of the trees. "How did those stupid, cowish monks manage to trap so many of my clan?"

"It hardly matters how," Germanno said, keeping in the shadow of the forest, reaching across his mount and hers to lay his hand on Ximene's shoulder both as comfort and restraint. "They have done it."

"But they are nothing-nothing." She pushed his hand away. "And still, they have done what they could not do, what they have never done before. How is that possible?"

"Ximene," Germanno said quietly, "I know you grieve for your-"

"Grieve?" she repeated, then laughed suddenly and harshly. "I cannot grieve for any who are so lax as to be caught by living fools, and monks at that, not soldiers. No, Sanct' Germain. They do not deserve mourning: I despise them for such a death. Had I thought they would fall in so headless a fashion, I would have killed them myself, and spared the monks their trouble." Her face was set in a kind of rigid fury, her hands knotted on the horse's reins.

"You told them to come down from your fortress," Germanno reminded her, troubled by her outburst. "When the others sent word of their fears, you dispatched...them"-he nodded to indicate the victims of the flames-"to aid the rest."

"Yes, to aid them. I did not think they would fall into a trap, especially one so clumsy as the one the monks set. A goat would not be so easily duped as they were." She shook her head. "No. They brought this on themselves. They have shown me that they are too reckless and gullible to live."

He contemplated her face, noticing the shine of anger in her eyes; he realized she was sincere in her condemnation, that she had no comprehension of her loss. "You are too severe."

"Why? They have been loathsome." Her mouth twisted with the word.

"I do not mean severe for their sake, Ximene: I mean for yours." He shook his head as the nightmarish screams suddenly stopped. "If you hold them in contempt, you will be haunted by their deaths; if you can accept their bond to you, and yours to them, you will release them and yourself."

"Do you think so?" she asked, gesturing to the smoke as it drifted away to join with the gathering clouds.

"I do," he told her.

She rounded on him. "What kind of idiot do you take me for? They are gone as if they were as mortal as the monks who have burned them. No affection, or any other feeling, remains." Her eyes met his. "And you cannot understand why I want you to leave here."

He put his hand out to her. "I will leave, but not on your account."

"Oh, yes," she said with heavy sarcasm. "You and your wandering. It is safer to wander. You have told me before. You are content to be alone in your travels, you have said. You make few vampires in your wanderings, and you console yourself by deciding that those whose blood you drink love you." Tugging the reins she pulled her bay mare back into the trees. "The monks will start chanting soon, and I will not listen to them. Come away."

Germanno perceived more emotion in her than she was willing to accredit, but said nothing more than, "All right."

"There is nothing more for me here," she said. "Not for such as they were."

"Ximene, they are dead. This was the True Death." He hoped to see some indication of compassion in her eyes, but there was none.

"All the better. My son is dead, and his was the True Death: none of them were worth a nail on his hand." She signaled her horse to walk on. "We have a distance to go tonight before we can feed."

Germanno wanted to bring her to a realization of what had happened, but decided that she would not listen to him now. "And where are we-"

"Follow me and do not ask me ridiculous questions anymore," she said, her back stiff and her voice edged. "There will be game to hunt tonight. Tomorrow night we will hunt men."

"No," said Germanno, quietly but with absolute conviction. "You may, if you must, but I will not."

She turned in the saddle to stare at him; even in the dim light of the forest he could see her taken aback expression. "You refuse to do as I require?"

"I will not stop you from hunting, but I will not join you. I do not prey upon men," he said, adding to himself that he had not done so in more than twenty-five hundred years.

"And if I order you?" She sounded dangerous now, angry enough to be reckless.

"I will refuse." He pointed ahead. "There is a river nearby. How do we cross it?"

"We follow the banks to the cattle-ford, and ride over. The water is low; it will not be too painful." She coughed, suggesting he was too fastidious to expose himself to running water.

"My soles are filled with my native earth," he reminded her. "The water will not bother me." That was not entirely true, he admitted to himself: he would still have a faint sense of vertigo and lassitude while crossing the river, but it was bearable.

"So you say," she mocked. "If you must keep yourself untainted by what you are, I will not compel you join me."

"Thank you," he said sardonically.

They went along in silence but for the steady clop of their horses' feet. When they reached the river, they turned westward along its banks, following a trail made by game; hoof-prints of deer and foxes marked the soft earth, and once there was the unmistakable impression of a bear's clawed pad, and at another place, the whole of the trail was scored by the marks of boars' hooves where a sounder had passed.

"The game has been moving away from our region. The fighting and the fires have made them afraid," said Ximene, her voice distant, as if none of this touched her. "The shepherds have taken the flocks to the other side of the mountains, beyond Aragon, so they will not have to lose any more of their sheep to the soldiers."

"That must interfere with your hunting," Germanno remarked, recalling the many times in the past he had seen just such a pattern emerge from war.

"All kinds of hunting," Ximene agreed. "The villagers have turned against us, and there is no game."

"Yet you remain here," Germanno said.

"Better to stay where you belong than become an exile, an exile from home, and from daylight." She sounded bitter now, and resentful. "Do not tell me it is a wise way to live, for I know it is not."

"You do not wish to consider what I have told you." He knew it was fruitless to argue, that no matter what he said, she would regard it as wrong.

"You have said nothing worthy of consideration," she responded, then held up her hand. "The ford is not far ahead. I think I hear cattle." For a moment she thought about it, then said, "If there are cattle, there will be men." A sly smile lifted the corners of her mouth as she swung around to look at him. "What do you say? Will you change your mind and hunt with me?"

"I will hold your horse," he answered. "Hunt if you must."

"I am famished," she exclaimed, keeping her voice low. "If you are not, then you must be more monkish than the monks."

"I hunger," he said quietly. "But blood alone will not suffice."

She waved him to silence again just before she swung her horse around to face him, slipped out of the saddle, tossed him her reins, and slunk off into the cover of the trees, moving more like a wolf than a woman.

Germanno heard the lowing of cattle just before a man screamed. There was a swift, intense brawl, mixed with the distress of the animals, then the sound of cattle scattering. He held his horse and the reins of Ximene's more tightly, not wanting them to bolt with the cattle.

A short while later, Ximene returned, her clothes wet to the waist, a smear of blood on her lips. Her pace was unsteady, as if she were slightly drunk. She was panting a bit; she shot a resentful glare at Germanno. "Do not trouble yourself about this one. He will not rise into our life. I made sure he was truly dead." She pulled herself into the saddle. "I will continue on in a short while. For now, I am sated and I need a little time to restore myself."

It was useless to protest. Germanno handed her the reins she had given him. "If you have to rest, so be it."

She glanced of him. "If Aulutis had been as knowing as you, he would still be alive and we would never have quarreled," she said dreamily.

This seemed highly unlikely to Germanno, but he kept his thoughts to himself, choosing instead to listen to the night around him, and watch over Ximene's rest. He would have to leave her soon, he knew, and return to the task Idelfonzuz had set for him. Would she rejoice or be saddened by his departure? he wondered, or would her fury blot out any other emotion?

Shortly before midnight she wakened, rousing gradually, stretching as much as the saddle would allow. "There," she said slowly, deliciously. "Now I am ready."

"Where do you want to go?" he asked as he put his horse in motion.

"Well, first we will go pick up your mules where you left them. If Goroloz has managed to control his hunger, the mules should be ready to come with you. I know you do not like to leave them too long in our care." She offered him a snide smile, as if his concern for animals was as foolish as his regard for living humans.

"Would you want to, were you in my position," he countered, bothered that she had managed to drag him into a dispute with her.

"If I did not think I would ever find mules again. I might." She threw back her head and gave a crack of laughter. "We will cross here," she added in a different tone as they reached the ford.

The ford was shallow, coming no higher than their horses' knees, but the water was fast-flowing, which made it more precarious to cross; Germanno held the high pommel of his saddle to compensate for the queasiness that filled him. As soon as they were on the far bank, relief washed over him with an intensity that almost made him dizzy.

"It is two leagues to where they are waiting. They have your mules safe, or they will answer to me." If this assurance was intended to please Germanno, it failed.

"Why do you punish your own?" he asked. "I find it baffling that you do."

"Because they are my own," she said as if this was obvious. "It is for me to make them, and having made them, it is for me to keep them in order."

He considered her answer, and was nonplussed by it; he had expected a blunt answer but not this one. He had to curb his desire to challenge her certainties, to contain his inclination to make another attempt to show her there was another way for vampires to live. "Yet you are disappointed," he said at last.

"How could I not be? You would be, too, were you willing to command those you have made," she countered, turning as much as the high saddle would allow. "You have seen for yourself how I must deal with those around me, how much care they require. What can I be, but disappointed?" There was a trace of emotion in her voice now that suggested she might allow herself to mourn her son, but when she spoke again, it was gone. "They all betray me, in the end." They went the greater part of a league without speaking, each alone though they rode together. They passed a village with half its buildings burned, and only pigs left in the pens. "Moors did that," Ximene said. "They do not eat pigs, so they let the peasants have them."

"At least they did not slaughter the pigs, so the villages would lose most of the meat in any case." Germanno said, having seen that done from China to Britain, from Poland to Tunis.

The track they followed went into the forest again; here the underbrush was thick and the trees half-grown. "There was fire here, twenty years ago. Some of the mountain washed away, but here, on this plateau, there will be real forest again in sixty years, if they do not burn it anew." She gave the place a look of disgust. "There used to be many bear here, and deer. Now they are fewer in number and harder to catch. I have not seen a wild cat in this part of the mountains in forty years. It is said that they have all gone to Toulouza."

"And have they?" Germanno asked, knowing the answer.

"No one has seen them there, either," she said, and sighed. "I remember how it was when I was young, and the mountains were all forested. A few of my clan also recall those times, but most came to me after the Moors began to fight, and to cut trees, and to burn. The Christians learned from them, and now we watch the mountains fall away in the winter."

"It saddens you, does it not, Ximene," Germanno observed, feeling a touch of satisfaction that something-anything-could make her sad.

"When I see familiar places vanish, it does," she admitted. "But then, I know that the living are asinine."

"You lived, once," he reminded her gently.

"And when I did, I was as witless as any of them." She stared into the half-grown woods. "Something is wrong." Reining in her horse, she stared intently into the night.

Germanno rose in the stirrups and looked ahead. "What is it?"

She swung her horse around. "The forest is on fire. Three leagues or more. It will burn this way."

"But three leagues-" Germanno began.

"Yes. That is where most of my clan gathers each night," she said grimly. "If Herchambaut and Goroloz have any sense, they will run for the far side of the mountains. Two of my clan have long since gone to the north, and will give them shelter. You have lost your mules, Germanno, it would seem."

Germanno signaled his roan to crouch and half-rear, then turned him back the way he came. "Do we cross the river?" he called out to Ximene, who had put her mount into a steady trot.

"And follow the far side until there is another valley," she said.

"You will tire your horse," Germanno worried her. "Let them walk as long as they can." He had kept his roan from trying to run, and held him back as Ximene urged her horse to go faster.

The first, distant trace of smoke fingered the night wind; two deer came crashing through the scrub, all but blundering into Germanno's roan in their panic. As if goaded by the fleeing deer, Ximene pushed her horse into a canter, and was soon lost to sight on the narrow path.

Germanno kept his horse to a steady, rapid walk, not letting the increasing number of scared animals frighten him into bolting with them. "We will get there," he assured his horse, patting his neck as he watched the woods around him. He was nearing the small village they had passed when he brought his horse to a halt; men were rushing out of their houses, many of them bearing torches, and shouting, "The Viexa Armoza! The Viexa Armoza!"

Ximene's bay mare stood, flanks heaving, by the pigsty; from the way she stood, her off-side foreleg was broken. Ximene was just getting to her feet, one hand to her head.

"Burn her! Burn her!" the villagers shouted.

"You would not dare!" Ximene raised her voice in command. "You will not touch me!"

Three or four of the men surrounded her horse and clubbed its head until it fell over, kicking once or twice before it died.

"Burn her!" The words were becoming a chant, as hypnotic as any cycle of prayers.

"You killed my horse!" she shrieked. "You will answer for that!"

"Burn her!" The cries grew louder and more frenzied as the men crowded around Ximene. One of them thrust a torch at her.

With a scream of rage she rushed at the man, throwing herself on him and trying to bite him. Most of the men drew back, aghast, but three did not retreat, and one of them actually struck her across the shoulders with a crudely made whip. Ximene bellowed and pushed herself away from her victim, her hands raised like talons to rip at anyone who came close enough to be touched.

Germanno clapped his heels to his horse's side, putting the roan to a gallop. He charged at the center of the men, keeping his whole attention on Ximene. As he reached her, he pulled his roan to a rearing halt, reached down and swung Ximene up into his saddle across his lap, then set his roan galloping away from the village toward the river. He held her in place with one hand and guided his horse with the other.

"The Devil!" one of the villagers shouted as they shrank back from Germanno's blue roan. The others around her took up the cry, and a few of the men sank to their knees and began to pray.

At the river, the roan splashed across the shallows in a series of plunges and half-jumps until he made his way up the far bank, where Germanno stopped him, dropped Ximene out of the saddle onto her feet and let the horse shake himself. Only then did he look back. "They are not following us," he said.

"Why should they?" she demanded. "To be carried away like a sack of flour-" She finished her thought with a gesture that showed aggravation and disgust.

"At least you were carried away," Germanno said. "They were prepared to burn you."

"And of course I am grateful," she said, making him a reverence of such submission that it was insulting.

"You had some other plan for escape?" Germanno suggested, not surprised by her response.

"I would have made them release me," she muttered, looking down toward the river. "The fire will reach them by dawn, in any case. And they have their village to look after before they pursue us."

"You would have been ashes by then, yourself. Vampires are swift runners but even we cannot outdistance flames." He dismounted and went toward her.

"They will burn, and I will be glad of it. I will rejoice." She folded her arms and dared him with her stance to contradict her. "Or will I have erred?"

"You may be right," he said in a tone that ended their dispute. "And you need to recoup your strength before dawn comes, as do I."

"So we can run from the fire, too," she said. "We might as well be one of the living, trying to flee every misfortune."

"You may stay and die the True Death if you would rather," Germanno said with an ironic smile. "You are not safe here, Ximene. The villagers may soon be looking for you."

"They will soon be trying to save their houses and their rigs," she said, tossing her head to show she put little stock in his warning.

"Possibly, but they will hunt you, as well. The fire will not deter them unless the wind picks up." He touched her arm in the hope she would look at him. "You cannot wait for the fire to reach them, in the hope that it will save you. We must go, and quickly."

"Go where? I will not leave my region." She glanced at him, her eyes flicking away from his. "If they are hunting me, as you say they are, then I would be numb-witted to go back to my fortress. If the fire gets into that defile, the fortress would be a death-trap in any case." She put her hands on her hips, trying to show her usual authority. "I will have to find another place."

Germanno saw her desperation. "Have you any place in mind?"

"Not just at present," she replied, glaring across the river. "All the usual places are no longer safe."

"Then pack some of your native earth and come with me; you may not want to leave this place, but what is left for you in it-your fortress is lost and your clan is gone. What more keeps you here?" Germanno said, doing his best not to sound impatient. "It may not be the same for you in the wider world, but you will not be hunted."

"As you are not?" She gave him a speculative look. "You wander the world because you are welcome everywhere?"

"No," he admitted. "But I am not often despised." Because, he added to himself, I am not often known for my true nature.

She came up to him. "You are tolerated by men because you hide your power, you make yourself less than you are to reassure them." She spat to show her opinion of such compromise. "Think what you could do if you had a clan like mine everywhere you have gone."

"I have thought of it, and I know we would be destroyed by the living." He saw the doubt in her face and went on, "No clan of vampires is large enough to stand against the living. There are far more of them than there are of us, and they are not as hindered as we are. There was a time, when I was far younger than I am now, when the living called me a demon and I was blind enough to take pride in that name. But over time, I saw the vainglory of it, and I learned to value the brevity of life, and to honor the living. Then I found that power is nothing if it has no use beyond its own perpetuation." He knew she did not believe him; he fell silent.

"You are ridiculous, Sanct' Germain, do you know that?" She took a dozen steps away from him. "What use is sympathy for the living, when most of them would kill you if they could? Has your compassion brought you anything but loneliness? We are enemies, the living and the undead. Nothing will change that. I did what I could to preserve my clan, and you know what has happened to them, but I do not deceive myself with pity for those who killed them. By sunrise most of them will be gone, slain by the living whom you say you honor." Her voice shook with contempt. "You are worse than any of the living."

He knew it was useless to take issue with her condemnation; he cocked his head in the direction of the river. "Should we not at least get back from the bank and into the trees?"

"Where the fire can catch us more quickly?" She kicked at the sodden hem of her cote. "I will go into the highest peaks where they cannot find me."

"And start another clan?" he asked, feeling a sudden hopelessness as he watched her.

"No. Not until I can command the region again. It would insult my son's memory to do less than that." She squared her shoulder, determination once again taking hold of her. "I will keep myself away from the living for a time; I will live in the highest peaks, where few men venture. I will not leave the crags; they-the living-will forget me in a century or two, and the Viexa Armoza will become nothing more than a tale, a story to frighten naughty children. In time they will bury their knowledge of vampires as they will bury their dead, and none of them will remember how to kill us, or what identifies us. When they are no longer able to fight me and mine, I will come again, restore my clan, and reclaim the region of Holy Blood."

Germanno considered what she said, and decided not to question her resolve. "How will you live?"

"There will be occasional travelers, or outlaws, or shepherds, or hermits, or knights who will wander into my realm. Not lavish fare but enough to meet my needs. I will be careful. They will all die the True Death from their first time with me." Her smile was self-satisfied. "It will not be as it has been, but I will not starve. Vampires cannot starve to death, can we?"

"No," Germanno said, recalling the times in his life when hunger had driven him mad; he shuddered inwardly at the memories.

"Then I have nothing to fear. But you." She swung around and pointed directly at him. "I told you I would kill you if you ever came to this region again. You disobeyed me, but you brought my son to me, so I pardon you this one lapse. However, you have no more means to bargain with me."

"Nor do I want one," Germanno said.

"Therefore in future if you seek me out you had better be prepared to give me the True Death, for I will be ready to give it to you." She stared at him for a long moment. "If you still think anything binds us, put it behind you; it has no substance with me." With that she put her back to him and began to walk away from the river.

"Ximene," he called after her. "Csimenae."

She did not turn around. "Go away, Sanct' Germain. The fire is coming. You are not wanted here."

He watched her until she was lost to sight; there was an emptiness within him, the ache of failure as well as the first pain of loss. Only a shout from the far bank jolted him from his morose reflections; then he looked up and saw half-a-dozen peasants rushing toward the river. "Time to leave," he said to his roan, and vaulted into the saddle, heading downstream, away from the fording and the path of the wind. Behind him he heard the curses of the peasants and the sound of rocks thrown after him. Would the men be reckless enough to follow him? He doubted it, as he doubted they would track Ximene in the morning. There would be too much to do then, and so long as the Viexa Armoza did not return, the peasants would have more than enough to occupy them. Perhaps, he thought, Ximene was right: in time she would be forgotten if she remained in isolation.

The river grew deeper and faster, and the canyon narrower. Germanno dismounted and led his horse along treacherous trails. He could see the first billows of fire to the north, and knew that by afternoon it would reach him. Overhead the sun hung like molten brass. There were animals at the river already, swimming across the current, attempting to find safety; marten and bear and deer swam with badgers and foxes and ferrets. Some were carried away by the current but many of them straggled ashore near a wide plateau that held the remains of a Moorish watchtower.

Making up his mind almost before he grasped the thought behind it, Germanno swung down from the saddle, untied his two satchels from the cantel, and reached up to pat the smooth dark-blue neck of his horse. "Someone will find you," he told the animal. "And you can graze on your own for a night or two." He reached up and unbuckled the throat-latch and pulled off the bridle, flinging it away down the slope. "There. Nothing to catch your head on now."

The roan nuzzled his arm, knowing something was wrong.

Germanno patted the smooth neck again, then stepped back and slapped the horse on the rump. "Off you go," he said, waving his arm to signal the horse to move away; the roan obeyed reluctantly, then began to trot in answer to Germanno's sharp command.

Taking up the satchels. Germanno rigged a kind of harness that tied them to his body. He hoped that they would retain enough of his native earth to keep him from being completely paralyzed by the running water. Then, before he could change his mind, he went to the bank and threw himself into the river; the current caught him and carried him away.

Text of a letter from Lailie, daughter of Rachmael ben Abbas to Teodoziuz Gratziaz, knight of Toledom: written in Greek.

To the most excellent Christian knight, Teodoziuz Gratziaz, the respectful greetings of Lailie, natural daughter of Rachmael ben Abbas.

Esteemed knight, I have in hand your generous proposal of marriage, and I am filled with gratitude that so highly reputed a knight as you would stoop to offer for one so unworthy as I am. I will ask God to show you special favor and to guard you in battle for the goodness you have shown to me.

Because I am fully aware of the splendid tribute you have shown me, I am doubly chagrined that I must regretfully inform you that I have recently accepted the proposal of Bildad ben Uzziah, mercer of Toledom, who has been recommended to me by the elders of the synagogue. He is a widower, with three children, and he has need of someone skilled in languages to advance his business. As great an honor as it would be to become the wife of a belted knight, it is a more sensible decision to marry one of my station in life and who shares my religion.

Were Germanno, Comide Ragoczy, who has been my guardian, here to advise me, I might have made a different choice, but he has been gone for many months, and with only the elders to guide me, I have chosen that which is familiar. With other council, I might have been swayed by your fame and your title, but as it is, I beg you not to despise me for my decision; you may put it to my woman's frailty, that I cannot convince myself to accept so fine an advancement as you offer.

I cannot help but think your Confessor will be relieved to know you will not take a Jewess as your bride. The Church has not encouraged men of your rank to marry women of my religion, no matter how much of a fortune we might bring with us as dowry. I know my portion is a generous one for a woman of my rank and position, but it cannot be so attractive that you and your Confessor would set aside concerns about marriage outside of your faith.

If you cannot forgive me, then at least I pray you will not take revenge upon me, or upon my affianced husband, or upon my religion. It is I who offends you, no one and nothing else. If anyone deserves your odium, I do. Spare the others your hard feelings. I beseech you, and know you will always have the heartfelt thanks of

Lailie, daughter of Rachmael ben Abbas

at Toledom, by my own hand, on the 9th day of November in the Christian calendar, in the Christian year 1117