Bllod and Gold Read online

  "Father, I've come to tell you. They took me to a far-away place, to the city of Venice, and I fell into the hands of one who made me rich, Father, rich, and gave me learning. I'm alive, sir. I'm as you see me now.

  Oh, how strange was this speech coming from one infused with the Blood. Alive? How so, alive, Amadeo?

  But my thoughts were my own in the darkness. I had no role in this reunion.

  At last, the man, sitting up to face his son, began to understand.

  Amadeo was trembling, his eyes fixed on those of his father.

  "Forget me now, please, Father," he begged. "But remember this, for the love of God. I shall never be buried in the muddy caves of the monastery. No. Other things may happen to me, but that, I won't suffer. Because of you, that you wouldn't have it, that you came that day and demanded I ride out with you, that I be your son!"

  What on earth was Amadeo saying? What did these words mean?

  He was on the verge of crying the terrible blood tears which we can never really hide. But as he rose from the bench where his father sat, the elder caught him tightly by his hand.

  He knew his son! Andrei, he called him. Fie had recognized him for who he was.

  "Father, I must go," said Amadeo, "but you must never forget that you saw me. You must never forget what I said, that you saved me from those dark and muddy caves. Father, you gave me life, not death. Don't be the drunkard anymore, Father. Be the hunter again. Bring the Prince meat for his table. Be the singer of songs. Remember that I came to tell you this myself."

  "I want you, my son, stay with me," said the man. His drunken languor had left him, and he held tight to Amadeo's hand. "Who will ever believe that I saw you?"

  Amadeo's tears had risen. Could the man see the blood?

  At last Amadeo pulled back, and removing his glove, he pulled off his rings, and he placed these in his father's hands.

  "Remember me by these," he said, "and tell my mother that I was the man who came to see her tonight. She didn't know me. Tell her the gold is good gold."

  "Stay with me, Andrei," said the father. "This is your home. Who is it that takes you away now? "

  It was more than Amadeo could bear.

  "I live in the city of Venice, Father," he said. "It's what I know now I have to go."

  He was out of the tavern so quickly his father could not see it, and I, once seeing what he meant to do, had preceded him, and we stood in the snow-covered muddy street together.

  "It's time for us to leave this place, Master," he said to me. His gloves were gone, and the cold was fierce. "Oh, but that I had never come here and never seen him and never known that he suffered that I had been lost."

  "But look," I said, "your mother comes. I'm sure of it. She knew you and there, she cornes," I pointed at the small figure approaching who held a bundle in her arms.

  "Andrei," she said as she drew closer. "It's the last one you ever painted. Andrei, I knew it was you. Who else would have come? Andrei, this is the ikon your father brought back on the day you were lost."

  Why didn't he take it from her hands?

  "You must keep it, Mother," he said of this ikon which he had once linked to his destiny. He was weeping. "Keep it for the little ones. I won't take it, no."

  Patiently, she accepted this.

  And then another small present she entrusted to him, a painted egg—one of those treasures of Kiev which mean so much to the people who decorate them with intricate designs.

  Quickly, gently, he took it from her, and then he embraced her, and in a fervent whisper assured her that he had done nothing wicked to acquire his wealth and that he might some night be able to come again. Oh, what lovely lies.

  But I could see that this woman, though he loved her, did not matter to him. Yes, he would give her gold, for that meant nothing. But it was the man who had mattered. The man mattered as the monks had mattered. It was the man who had wrung the strong emotions from him. The man had brought from him bold words.

  I was stunned by all. But wasn't Amadeo stunned by it himself? He had thought the man dead, and so had I.

  But finding him alive, Amadeo had revealed the obsession—the man had fought the monks for Amadeo's very soul.

  And as we made our journey back to Venice, I knew that Amadeo's love for his father was far greater than any love he had ever felt for me.

  We did not speak of it, you understand, but I knew that it was the figure of his father who reigned in Amadeo's heart. It was the figure of that powerful bearded man who had so vigorously fought for life rather than death within the monastery who held supremacy over all conflicts that Amadeo was ever to know.

  I had seen it with my own eyes, this obsession. I had seen it in a matter of moments in a riverfront tavern, but I had known it for what it was.

  Always before this journey to Russia I had thought the split in Amadeo's mind was between the rich and varied art of Venice and the strict and stylized art of old Russia.

  But now I knew that was not so.

  The split in him was between die monastery with its ikons and its penance on the one hand, and his father, the robust hunter who had dragged him away from the monastery on that fateful day.

  Never again did Amadeo speak of his fadier and mother. Never agajn did he speak of Kiev. The beautiful painted egg he placed within his sarcophagus without ever explaining its significance to me.

  And on certain nights when I painted in my studio, working fiercely on this or that canvas, he would come to keep me company, and it seemed he perused my work with new eyes.

  When would he finally pick up the brushes and paint? I didn't know, but such a question didn't matter anymore. He was mine and mine forever. He could do what he pleased.

  Yet silently in my secret soul, I suspected that Arnadeo held me in contempt. All I taught of art, of history, of beauty, of civilization—all this was meaningless to him.

  When the Tatars captured him, when the ikon fell from his arms into the grass, it was not his fate that was sealed; it was his mind.

  Yes, I could dress him in finery and teach him different languages, and he could love Bianca, and dance with her exquisitely to slow and rhythmic music, and he could learn to talk philosophy, and write poetry as well.

  But his soul held nothing sacred but that old art and that man who lay drinking out his nights and days by the Dnieper in Kiev. And I, with all my power, and all my blandishments, could not replace Amadeo's father in Amadeo's mind.

  Why was I so jealous? Wliy did this knowledge sting me so much?

  I loved Amadeo as I had loved Pandora. I loved him as I had loved Botticelli. Amadeo was among these, the great loves of my long life.

  I tried to forget my jealousy or ignore it. After all, what was to be done about it? Should I remind him of this journey and torment him with questions? I could not do such a thing.

  But I sensed that these concerns were dangerous to me as an immortal, and that never before had anything of this nature so tortured me or made me weak. I had expected Amadeo, the blood drinker, to look upon his family with detachment and no such thing had taken place!

  I had to admit that my love for Amadeo was all caught up with my involvement with mortals, that I had plunged myself into their company, and he himself was still so very hopelessly close to them that it would take him centuries to gain the distance from mortals which I had experienced on die very night when I was first given the Blood.

  There had been no Druid grove for Amadeo. There had been no treacherous journey to Egypt; there had been no rescue of the King and Queen.

  Indeed, as I mulled this over quickly I resolved I would not entrust him with the mystery of Those Who Must Be Kept even though the words had once or twice passed my lips.

  Perhaps before the making of him, I had thought idly that I would take him to the shrine at once. I would beg Akasha to receive him, as she had once received Pandora.

  But now I thought otherwise. Let him be more advanced; let him be more nearly perfected. Let him become
more wise.

  And was he not company and consolation for me now more than I ever dreamt? Even if a bad mood overtook him he remained with me. Even if his eyes were dull as though the dazzling colors of my paintings did not matter to him, was he not near at hand?

  Yes, he was quiet for a time after the journey to Russia. But I knew his frame of mind would pass. And indeed it did.

  Within a few short months, he was no longer aloof and moody but had come back to be my companion, and was once again visiting the various feasts and balls of the great citizens which I attended regularly, and writing short poems for Bianca, and arguing with her about various paintings which I had done.

  Ah, Bianca, how we loved her. And how often did I search her mind to make certain that she had no inkling even now that we were not human beings.

  Bianca was the only mortal I admitted to my studio, but naturally I could not work with my full speed and force when she was there. I had to lift a mortal arm to hold the paintbrush but it was rnore than worth it to hear her pleasant commentary with Amadeo who also perceived in rny works some grand design which was not there.

  All was going well when, one night as I came down upon the roof of the palazzo, quite alone, for I had left Amadeo in the company of Bianca, I sensed that a very young mortal was watching me from the roof of the palazzo across the canal.

  Now I had come down so swiftly that not even Amadeo could have seen it had he been watching, yet this distant mortal marked my

  presence and when I realized it, I realized quite a deal more as well.

  Here was a mortal spy who suspected me to be other than human. Here was a mortal spy who had been observing me for some time.

  Never in all my years had I known any such a threat to my secrecy. And naturally I was tempted to immediately conclude that my life in Venice had failed. Just when I thought I had fooled an entire city, I was to be caught for what I was.

  But this young mortal had nothing to do with the grand society in which I moved. I knew it die moment I penetrated his mind. He was no great Venetian, no painter, no cleric, no poet, no alchemist, and certainly no member of the Grand Council of Venice. On the contrary, he was a most strange sort of being, a scholar of the supernatural, a spy upon creatures such as me.

  What could this mean? What could this be?

  At this point, meaning to confront him and terrify him, I came to the very edge of the roof garden and peered across the canal at him, and there I made out his stealthy shape, and how he meant to cloak himself, and how fearful yet fascinated he was.

  Yes, he knew me to be a blood drinker. Indeed, he had some name for me: vampire. And he had been watching me for several years! He had in fact glimpsed me in grand salons and ballrooms, so I might indeed write this off to my carelessness. And on the night that I had first opened rny house to the citizens of Venice, he had come.

  All this his mind gave me rather easily without the young man realizing it, obviously, and then using the Mind Gift I sent a very direct message to him.

  This is folly. Interfere with me and you will surely die. I won't give you a second warning. Move away from my household. Leave Venice. Is it worth your life to know what you want to know of me?

  I saw him visibly startled by the message. And then to my pure shock I received a distinct mind message from him:

  We mean you no harm. We are scholars. We offer understanding. We offer shelter. We watch and we are always here.

  Then he gave way to utter fear and fled the roof.

  With little difficulty I heard him make his way down the staircases through the palazzo and then I saw him come out into the canal arid hail a gondola which took him away. I had caught a good look at him as he stepped into the boat. He was a tall man, lean and fair of skin, an Englishman, and he was dressed in severe clothes of black. He was very frightened. He did not even look up as the boat took him away.

  I stood on the roof for a long time, feeling the blessed wind, and wondering in its silence, what I should do about this strange discovery. I thought over his distinct message and the power of mind with which he'd sent it to me.

  Scholars? What sort of scholars? And the other words. How very remarkable indeed.

  I cannot exaggerate how odd this was.

  It struck me with full force that there had been moments in my long life when I would have found his message irresistible, so great had been my loneliness, so great had been my longing to be understood.

  But now, with all of Venice receiving me into its finest company, I did not feel such a thing. I had Bianca when I wanted to ramble on about the work of Bellini or my beloved Botticelli. I had Amadeo with whom to share my golden tomb.

  Indeed, I was enjoying a Perfect Time. I wondered if for every immortal there was a Perfect Time. I wondered if it corresponded to the prime of life in mortals—those years when you are strongest and

  can see with the greatest clarity, those years when you can give your trust most truly to others, and seek to bring about a perfect happiness for yourself.

  Botticelli, Bianca, Amadeo—these were the loves of my Perfect Time.

  Nevertheless, it was a stunning promise, that which the young Englishman had made. "We offer understanding. We offer shelter. We watch and we are always here."

  I resolved to ignore this, to see what came of it, not to allow it to impede me in the slightest as I enjoyed my life.

  Yet in the weeks that followed I listened for this strange creature, this English scholar, and indeed, I kept a sharp lookout for him as we made our way through the usual lavish and dizzying social events.

  I also went so far as to question Bianca about such a person, and to warn Vincenzo that such a man might attempt to engage him in

  conversation and that he must be very wise on that account.

  Vincenzo shocked me.

  The very fellow—a tall lean Englishman, young, but with pale gray hair—had already come calling. He had questioned Vincenzo, Would his Master wish to purchase certain unusual books?

  "They were books of magic," said Vincenzo, frightened that I would be angry. "I told him that he must bring the books if he meant to offer them to you, and leave them here for you to see."

  "Think back on it. What more was said between you?"

  "I told him you had many, many books already, that you visited the booksellers. He ... he saw the paintings in the portego. He asked if these had been done by you."

  I tried to make my voice comforting.

  "And you told him that the paintings had been done by me, didn't you?"

  "Yes, sir, I'm sorry, so very sorry if this was more than I should have said. He wanted to purchase a painting. I told him that no purchase could be made."

  "It doesn't matter. Only be careful on account of this man. Tell him nothing further. And when you see him, report it at once to me."

  I had turned to go when a question came to me and I turned to see my beloved Vincenzo in tears. Of course I reassured him at once that he had served me perfectly, and told him he must wony about nothing. But then I asked him:

  "Give me your impression of this man. Was he good or bad?"

  "Good, I think," he said, "though what sort of magic he meant to sell, I don't know. Yes, good, I would say so, very good, though why I say it I can't tell. He had a kindness to him. And he liked the paintings. He praised them. He was most polite and rather serious for one so young. Rather studious."

  "It's quite enough," I said. And indeed it was.

  I did not find the man though I searched the city. And I had no fear.

  Then two months later, I met, in the most auspicious circumstances, with the man himself.

  It was at a luxurious banquet and I was seated at the table, among a great number of drunken Venetians watching the young people before us in their measured and leisurely dance.

  The music was poignant, and the lamps were just brilliant enough to give the vast room the most enchanting glow.

  There had been several fine spectacles before with acrobat
s and singers, and I think I was faintly dazed.

  I know I was thinking again that this was my Perfect Time. I meant to write it in my diary when I returned home.

  As I sat at the table, I leant on my right elbow, my left hand playing idly with the rim of a cup from which I now and then pretended to drink.

  And then and there appeared this Englishman, this scholar, at my left side.

  "Marius," he said softly, and in full command of classical Latin: "Count me a friend and not a meddler, I beg you. I have watched you for a long time from afar."