Bllod and Gold Read online

"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. Tm 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 Elde
r 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."

  She gave me a delicate but cold smile.

  "Can you imagine my anguish when I discovered that the Elder was dead and the temple was empty? When the few survivors of the temple told me that a Roman named Marius had come and stolen our King and Queen?"

  I said nothing, but her resentment was plain. Her face displayed its human emotions. A shimmer of blood tears rose in her round dark eyes,

  "Time has healed me, Marius," she said, "because I contain a great deal of the Queen's blood, and was from the moment of my making very strong. Indeed, the Great Fire only turned me a dark brown color, with small pain. But if you hadn't taken Akasha away from Alexandria, she would have let me drink her blood again, and I would have been healed quickly. It would not have taken so long."

  "And would you drink the Queen's blood now, Eudoxia? " I asked. "Is that what you mean to do? For surely you know why I did what I did. Surely you know it was the Elder who put the Mother and the Father in the sun."

  She didn't answer. I couldn't tell whether this information surprised her or not. She was perfectly concealed. Then she said:

  "Do I need the blood now, Marius? Look at me. What do you see?"

  I hesitated to answer. Then I did:

  "No, you don't need it, Eudoxia," I said. "Unless such blood is always a blessing."

  She looked at me for a long moment and then she nodded her head slowly, almost drowsily and her dark eyebrows came together in a small frown.

  "Always a blessing?" she asked, repeating my words. "I don't know if it is always a blessing."

  "Will you tell me more of your story? What happened after you first drank from Akasha? After your Maker went his way?" I put these questions gently. "Did you reside in the temple once your Maker had left?"

  This seemed to give her the moment of recollection that she required.

  "No, I didn't remain there," she said. "Though the priests coaxed me, telling me wild stories of old worship, and that the Mother was imperishable, save from the sunlight, and should she ever burn, so would we all. There was one among them who made quite a point of this warning, as though the prospect tantalized him—."

  "The Elder," I said, "who eventually sought to prove it."

  "Yes," she said. "But to me he was no Elder, and I did not heed his words.

  "I went out, free of my Maker, and, left with his house and his treasure, I decided upon another way of life. Of course the temple priestsoften came to me and harried me that I was profane and reckless, but as they did no more than that, I paid them no heed.

  "I could easily pass for human then, especially if I covered my skin with certain oils." She sighed. "And I was used to passing for a young man. It was a simple matter for me to make a fine household, to acquire good clothes, that is, to pass from poor to rich in a matter of nights.

  "I gave out word in the schools and in the marketplace that I could write letters for people, and that I could copy books, and all this by night when the other copyists had quit and gone home. And arranging a big study in my house, with plenty of light, I set to doing this for human beings, and this was how I came to know them, and came to know what the teachers were teaching by day.

  "What an agony it was that I couldn't hear the great philosophers who held forth in the daylight hours, but I did very well with this nocturnal occupation, and I had what I wanted, the warm voices of humans speaking to me. I befriended mortals. And on many an evening my house was filled with banqueting guests.

  "I learned of the world from students, poets, soldiers. In the small hours, I slipped into the great library of Alexandria, a place that you should have visited, Marius. It is a wonder that you passed over such a treasure house of books. I did not pass it over."

  She paused. Her face was horridly blank, and I knew it was from an excess of emotion. She did not look at any of us.

  "Yes, I understand this," I said, "I understand it very very deeply. I feel the same need for mortal voices near me, for mortals smiling on me as though I were their own."

  "I know your loneliness," she said in a rather hard voice. And for the first time I had the feeling that the passing expressions on her face were hard as well, that her face was nothing but a beautiful shell for a disturbed soul inside her, of which I knew little from her words.

  "I lived well and for a long time in Alexandria," she said. "What greater city was there? And I believed as many blood drinkers do that knowledge alone would sustain me over the decades, that information could somehow stave off despair."

  I was quite impressed with these words, but I didn't respond.

  "I should have remained in Alexandria," she said, looking off, her voice low and suddenly full of regret. "I began to love a certain mortal, a young man who felt great love for me. One night he made his love known to me, that he would give up all for me—his proposed marriage, his family, all—if only I would go away with him to Ephesus, the place from which his family had come, and where he wanted to return."

  She broke off as if she did not mean to go on.

  "It was such love," she said, her words coming more slowly, "and all this while he believed that I was a young man."

  I said nothing.

  "The night he declared his love, I revealed myself. He was quite horrified by the pretense. And I took my revenge." She frowned as though she wasn't quite sure of the word. "Yes," she said, "my revenge."

  "You made him a blood drinker," I said softly.

  "Yes," she said, still looking off as though she were back in those times. "I did, and by the most brutal and ungraceful force, and once that was done, he saw me with naked and loving eyes."

  "Loving eyes?" I repeated.

  She looked pointedly at Avicus and then back to me. Then she looked at Avicus again.

  I took my measure of him. I had always thought him rather splendid,

  and assumed from his beauty that the Gods of the Grove were chosen for their beauty as well as their endurance, but I tried to see him as she saw him now. His skin was golden now, rather than brown, and his thick black hair made a dignified frame for his unusually beguiling face.

  I looked back to Eudoxia and saw with a little shock that she was looking at me.

  "He loved you again?" I asked, locking in immediately upon her story and its meaning. "He loved you even when the Blood flowed in his veins?"

  I could not even guess her inner thoughts.

  She gave me a grave nod. "Yes, he loved me again," she said. "And he had the new eyes of the Blood, and I was his teacher, and we all know what charm lies in all that." She smiled bitterly.

  A sinister feeling came over me, a feeling that something was very wrong with her, that perhaps she was mad. But I had to bury this feeling within me and I did.

  "Off we went to Ephesus," she said, going on with her story, "and though it was no match for Alexandria, it was nevertheless a great Greek city, with rich trade from the East, and with pilgrims always coming for the worship of the great goddess Artemis, and there we lived until the Great Fire."

  Her voice became small. Mortals might not have heard it.

  "The Great Fire destroyed him utterly," she said. "He was just that
age when all the human flesh was gone from him, and only the blood drinker remained, but the blood drinker had only just begun to be strong."

  She broke off, as though she could not continue, then she went on:

  "There were only ashes left to me of him. Ashes and no more."

  She fell silent and I dared not encourage her.

  Then she said:

  "I should have taken him to the Queen before I ever left Alexandria. But you see, I had no time for the temple blood drinkers and

  when I had gone to them, it was as a rebel, talking my way in proudly with tales of the Queen's gestures to me so that I might lay flowers before her, and what if I had brought my lover, and the Queen had made no such gesture as that which she had made to me? And so, you see, I had not brought him, and there in Ephesus, I stood with the ashes in my hands."