19

I LOVED HIM INSTANTLY and impossibly. He was fifteen years old at the most when I took him out of the brothel that night and brought him to live in the palazzo with my boys.

As I held him close to me in the gondola, I knew him certainly to have been doomed¡ªindeed, snatched at the last moment from an inconsequential death.

Though the firmness of my arms comforted him, the beat of his heart was barely sufficient to drive the images which I received from him as he lay against my chest.

Reaching the palazzo, I refused Vincenzo's assistance, sending him off for food for the child, and I took my Amadeo into my bedchamber alone.

I laid him upon my bed, a wan and ragged being, amid the heavy velvet hangings and pillows, and when the soup at last came, I forced it through his lips myself.

Wine, soup, a potion of honey and lemon, what more could we give him? Slowly, cautioned Vincenzo, lest he take too much after the starvation, and his stomach suffer as the result.

At last I sent Vincenzo away from us, and I bolted the doors of my room.

Was that the fateful moment? Was it the moment in which I knew my soul most completely, the moment in which I acknowledged that this would be a child of my power, my immortality, a pupil of all I knew?

As I looked at the child on the bed, I forgot the language of guilt and recrimination. I was Marius, the witness of the centuries, Marius, the chosen one of Those Who Must Be Kept.

Taking Amadeo into the bath, I cleansed him myself and covered him with kisses. I drew from him an easy intimacy which he had denied all those who had tormented him, so dazzled and confused was he by my simple kindnesses, and the words I whispered in his tender ears.

I brought him quickly to know the pleasures which he had never allowed himself before. He was dazed and silent; but his prayers for deliverance were no more.

Yet even here in the safety of this bedroom, in the arms of one he saw as his Savior, nothing of his old memory could move from the recesses of his mind into the sanctum of reason.

Indeed, perhaps my frankly carnal embraces made the wall in his mind, between past and present, all the more strong.

As for me, I had never experienced such pure intimacy with a mortal, except with those I meant to kill. It gave me chills to have my arms around this boy, to press my lips to his cheeks and chin, his forehead, his tender closed eyes.

Yes, the blood thirst rose, but I knew so well how to control it. I filled my nostrils with the smell of his youthful flesh.

I knew that I could do anything I wanted with him. There was no force between Heaven and Hell that could stop me. And I did not need a Satan to tell me that I could bring him over to me and educate him within the Blood.

Drying him gently with towels, I returned him to the bed.

I sat down at my desk, where turning to the side I might look directly at him, and there came the full-blown idea of it, as rich as my desire to seduce Botticelli, as terrible as my passion for the lovely Bianca.

This was a foundling who could be educated for the Blood! This was a child utterly lost to life who could be reclaimed specifically for the Blood.

Would his training be a night, a week, a month, a year? Only I need decide it.

Whatever it was, I would make of him a child of the Blood.

My mind went back swiftly to Eudoxia and how she had spoken of the perfect age for the Blood to be received. I remembered Zenobia and her quick wits and knowing eyes. I remembered my own long ago reflection on the promise of a virgin, that one could make of a virgin what one wished without price.

And this child, this rescued slave, had been a painter! He knew the magic of the egg and the pigments, yes, he knew the magic of the color spread upon the wooden panel. He would remember; he would remember a time when he cared about nothing else.

True it had been in far-away Russia, where those who worked in monasteries limited themselves to the style of the Byzantines which I had long ago rejected as I turned my back on the Greek Empire and came to make my home amid the strife of the West.

But behold what had happened: the West had had its wars, yes, and indeed, the barbarians had conquered all it did seem. Yet Rome had risen again through the great thinkers and painters of the 1400s! I beheld it in the work of Botticelli, and Bellini and Filippo Lippi and in a hundred others.

Homer, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Plutarch¡ªthey were all being studied once again. The scholars of "humanism" sang songs of"antiquity."

In sum, the West had risen again with new and fabulous cities, whereas Constantinople, old golden Constantinople, had been lost to the Turks who had made it Istanbul.

But far beyond Istanbul, there lay Russia from which this boy had been taken prisoner, Russia which had taken its Christianity from Constantinople so that this boy knew only the ikons of strict somber style and rigid beauty, an art which was as remote from what I painted as night from day.

Yet in the city of Venice both styles existed: the Byzantine style and the new style of the times.

How had it come about? Through trading. Venice had been a seaport since its beginnings. Its great fleet had gone back and forth between East and West when Rome was a ruin. And many a church in Venice preserved the old Byzantine style which filled this boy's tortured mind.

These Byzantine churches had never much mattered to me before, I had to admit. Not even the Doge's chapel, San Marco, had much mattered to me. But they mattered now, because they helped me to understand again and all the better the art which this boy had loved.

I stared at him as he slept.

All right. I understood something of his nature; I understood his suffering. But who was he really? I posed the same question which Bianca and I had exchanged with each other. The answer I did not have.

Before I could think of moving forward with my plan to prepare him for the Blood I must know.

Would it take a night, or a hundred nights? Whatever the time, it would not be endless.

Amadeo was destined for me.

I turned and wrote in my diary. Never had such a design occurred to me before, to educate a novice for the Blood! I described all the events of the night so that I might never lose them to overwrought memory. I drew sketches of Amadeo's face as he slept.

How can I describe him? His beauty did not depend on his facial expression. It was stamped already on the face. It was all wrought up with his fine bones, serene mouth, and his auburn curls.

I wrote passionately in my diary.

This child has come from a world so different from our own that he can make no sense of what has happened to him. But I know the snowy lands of Russia. I know the dark dreary life of Russian and Greek monasteries, and it was in one of these, I am quite convinced, that he painted the ikons which he cannot speak of now.

As for our tongue, he's had no experience with it except in cruelty. Perhaps when the boys make him one of them, he will remember his past. Pie will want to take up the paintbrush. His talent will come forth again.

I put the quill aside. I could not confide everything to my diary. No, not everything by any means. Great secrets I sometimes wrote in Greek rather than Latin, but even in Greek I could not say all that I thought.

I looked at the boy. I took up the candelabrum and I approached the bed and I looked down at him as he slept there, easy at last, breathing as though he were safe.

Slowly his eyes opened. He looked up at me. There was no fear in him. Indeed, it seemed that he still dreamed.

I gave myself over to the Mind Gift.

Tell-me, child, tell me from your heart.

I saw the riders of the Steppes come down upon him and a band of his people. I saw a bundle drop from the boy's anxious hands. The cloth wrapping fell away from it. It was an ikon, and the boy cried out fearfully, but the evil barbarians wanted only the boy. They were the same inevitable barbarians who had never ceased to raid along the Roman Empire's long-forgotten Northern and Eastern frontiers. Would the world never see an end to their kind?

By those evil men, this child had been brought to some Eastern marketplace. Was it Istanbul? And from there to Venice where he fell into the hands of a brothel keeper who had bought him for high payment on account of face and form.

The cruelty of this, the mystery of it, had been overwhelming. In the hands of another, this boy might never be healed.

Yet in his mute expression now I saw pure trust.

"Master," he said softly in the Russian tongue.

I felt the tiny hairs rise all over my body. I wanted so to touch him once more with my cold fingers but I did not dare. I knelt beside the bed and leant over and I kissed his cheek warmly.

"Amadeo," I said to him so that he might know his new name.

And then using the very Russian tongue he knew, but did not know, I told him that he was mine now, that I was his Master just as he had said. I gave him to know that all things were resolved in me. He must never worry, he would never fear again.

It was almost morning. I had to leave.

Vincenzo came knocking. The eldest among the apprentices were waiting outside. They had heard that a new boy had been brought into the house.

I admitted them to the bedroom. I told them they must take care of Amadeo. They must acquaint him with all our common wonders. They must let him rest for a while, surely, but they could take him out into the city. Perhaps it was the perfect thing to do.

"Riccardo," I charged the eldest. "Take this one under your wing."

What a lie it was! I stood thinking of it. It was a lie to give him over to the daylight, to companionship other than my own.

But the rising sun gave me no more time in the palazzo. What else could I do?

I went to my grave.

I lay down in darkness dreaming of him.

I had found an escape from the love of Botticelli. I had found an escape from the obsession with Bianca and her tantalizing guilt. I had found one whom death and cruelty had already marked. The Blood would be the ransom. Yes, all things were resolved in me.

Oh, but who was he? What was he? I knew the memories, the images, the horrors, the prayers, but not the voice! And something tormented me savagely, even in my avowed certainty. Did I not love this child too much to do what I planned to do?

The following night a splendid surprise awaited me.

There was my Amadeo at supper gorgeously turned out in blue velvet, as splendidly clothed as the other boys!

They had hastened to complete the tailoring of his clothes to make me happy and indeed I was, almost to the point of being stunned.

As he knelt to kiss my ring, I was speechless, and with both my hands I bid him rise, and I embraced him, kissing him quickly on both cheeks.

He was still weak from his ordeals, I could see it, but the other boys as well as Vincenzo had gone a long way to put some color into his face.

As we sat down to supper, Riccardo explained that Amadeo could paint nothing. Indeed, Amadeo was afraid of the brushes and the pots of paint. And that he knew no language but he was picking up with amazing quickness our own tongue.

The beautiful boy with the auburn hair who was Amadeo gazed at me calmly as Riccardo spoke. And once again he said in the soft Russian tongue: Master, which the other boys did not hear.

You are for me. That was my answer for him. The soft words in Russian that I gave to him through the Mind Gift. Remember. Who were you before you came here? Before they hurt you? Go back. Go back to the ikon. Go back to the Face of Christ if need be.

A look of fear passed over him. Riccardo, not dreaming of the reason why, quickly took his hand. Riccardo began to name the simple objects of the supper table for him. And Amadeo as if waking from a nightmare smiled at Riccardo and repeated the words.

How sharp and fine his voice. How sure the pronunciation. How quick the look of his brown eyes.

"Teach him everything," I said to Riccardo and to the teachers assembled. "See to it that he studies dancing, fencing, and most of all painting. Show him every picture in the house, and every sculpture. Take him everywhere. See that he learns all there is to know about Venice."

Then I retired to the painting room alone.

Quickly I mixed up the tempera, and I painted a small portrait of Amadeo as I'd seen him at supper, in his fine tunic of blue velvet with his hair shining and combed.

I was weak from the heat of my own miserable thoughts. The fact was, my conviction had left me.

How could I take from this boy the cup he'd barely tasted? He was a dead creature brought back to life. I had robbed myself of my own Child of the Blood by my own splendid designs.

From that moment afterwards for months to come, Amadeo belonged to daylight. Yes, he must have every chance in the daylight to make of himself whatever he would!

Yet in his mind, unbeknownst to the others in any material way, Amadeo perceived himself, at my behest, as secretly and completely belonging to me.

It was for me a great and terrible contradiction.

I relinquished my claim upon the child. I couldn't condemn him to the Dark Blood, no matter how great my loneliness or how great his former misery had been. He must have his chance now among the apprentices and scholars of my household, and should he prove to be a princeling as I fully expected from his immediate brightness, he should have his chance to move on to the University of Padua or the

University of Bologna where my students were now going one after the other as my myriad plans came to fruition beneath my all-encompassing roof.

Yet in the late evenings, when the lessons had ceased and the little boys had been put to bed, and the older boys were finishing tasks in my studio, I couldn't stop myself from taking Amadeo into my bedroom study, and there I visited on him my carnal kisses, my sweet and bloodless kisses, my kisses of need, and he gave himself to me without reserve.

My beauty charmed him. Is it pride to say so? I had no doubt of it. I need not work the Mind Gift to render him spellbound. He adored me. And though my paintings terrified him, something in his deep soul allowed him to worship my seeming talent¡ªthe deftness of my composition, my vibrant colors, my graceful speed.

Of course he never spoke of this to the others. And they, the boys, who surely must have known that we spent hours together in the bedroom, never dared think of what happened between us. As for Vincenzo, he knew better than to acknowledge this strange relationship in any respect.

Meanwhile, Amadeo recovered nothing of his memory. He could not paint, he could not touch the brushes. It was as if the colors, when raw, burnt his eyes.

But his wit was as sharp as any among the other boys. He learnt Greek and Latin quickly, he was a wonder at dancing, he loved his lessons with the rapier. He absorbed readily the lectures of the brighter teachers. He was soon writing Latin in a clear and steady hand.

In the evening he read aloud his verses to me. He sang to me, softly accompanying himself on the lute.

I sat at my desk, leaning upon my elbow, listening to his low and measured voice.

His hair was always beautifully combed, his clothes elegant and immaculate, his fingers, like mine, covered in rings.

Didn't everyone know he was the boy I kept? My minion, my lover, my secret treasure? Even in old Rome, amid a wilderness of vices, there would have been whispers, low laughter, some bit of mockery.

Here in Venice for Marius de Romanus, there was none. But Amadeo had his suspicions, not as to kisses that were fast becoming all too chaste for him, but as to the man of seeming marble, who never supped at his own table, nor took a drop of wine from a goblet, or ever appeared beneath his own roof during the light of day.

Along with these suspicions, I saw in Amadeo a growing confusion as memories tried to make themselves known to him and he would deny them, sometimes waking beside me as we dozed together, and tormenting me with kisses when I would rather dream.

One evening, in the early and beautiful months of winter when I came in to greet my eager students, Riccardo told me that he had taken Amadeo with him to visit the lovely and gracious Bianca Solderini, and she had made them welcome, delighted by Amadeo's poetry and the manner in which he could pen tributes for her on the very spot.

I looked into the eyes of my Amadeo. He had been enchanted by her. How well I understood it. And how strange a mood descended upon me as the boys talked of her pleasant company and the fascinating English gentlemen now visiting her house.

Bianca had sent a small note to me.

"Marius, I miss you. Do come soon and bring your boys with you. Amadeo is as clever as Riccardo. I have your portraits everywhere. All are curious about the man who painted them, but I say nothing, for in truth I know nothing. Lovingly, Bianca."

When I looked up from the note, I saw Amadeo watching me, probing me as it were with his silent eyes.

"Do you know her, Master?" he asked me soberly, surprising Riccardo, who said nothing.

"You know I do, Amadeo. She told you I had come to visit her. You saw my portraits on her walls."

I sensed a sudden and violent jealousy in him. But nothing changed in his face. Don't go to her. That's what his soul said to me. And I knew he wished that Riccardo would leave now and we could have the shadowy bed, with its concealing velvet curtains, to ourselves.

There was something stubborn in him, something directed entirely towards our love. And how it tempted me, how it drew from me the most complete devotion.

"But I want you to remember," I said to him suddenly in his Russian tongue.

It was a shock to him but he didn't understand it.

"Amadeo," I said in the Venetian dialect, "think back to the time before you came here. Think back, Amadeo. What was your world then?"

A flush came to his cheeks. He was miserable. It was as if I'd beaten him.

Riccardo reached out for him with a consoling hand. "Master," he said, "it's too hard for him."

Amadeo seemed paralyzed. I rose from my chair at the desk and I put my arm around him where he sat and I kissed the top of his head.

"Come, forget everything. We'll go to see Bianca. This is the time of night which she likes the best."

Riccardo was amazed to be permitted out at this hour. As for Amadeo he was still dazed.

We found Bianca thickly surrounded by her chattering guests. There were Florentines among them, and Englishmen as I'd been told.

Bianca brightened as she saw me. She took me away from the others, towards her bedchamber where the elaborate swan bed was exquisitely adorned as if it were something on a stage.

"You've come at last," she said. "I'm so glad to see you. You don't know how I've missed you.'' How warm were her words. "You are the only painter who exists in my world, Marius." She wanted to kiss me but I couldn't risk it. I bent to press my lips to her cheek quickly and then I held her back.

Ah, such radiant sweetness. Gazing into her oval eyes, I stepped into the paintings of Botticelli. I held in my hands, for reasons I could never know, the dark perfumed tresses of Zenobia, gathered up in memory from the floor of a house on the other side of the world.

"Bianca, my darling," I said to her. "I'm ready to open my house if you will receive for me." What a shock it was to hear these words come from my own lips. I had not known what I meant to say. Yet on I pressed with my dream. "I have neither wife nor daughter. Come, open my house to the world."

The look of triumph in her face confirmed it. I would do it.

"I shall tell everyone," she said immediately. "Yes, I'll receive for you, I shall do it proudly, I shall do it gladly, but surely you'll be there yourself."

"May we open the doors in the evening?" I asked her. "It's my custom to come in the evening. The light of candles suits me better than the light of day. You set the night for it, Bianca, and I shall have my servants make everything ready. The paintings are everywhere now. You do understand I offer nothing to anyone. I paint for my pleasure. And for my guests I'll have food and drink as you say."

How happy she looked. Off to one side I saw Amadeo gazing at her, loving her somewhat and loving the sight of us together though it gave him pain.

Riccardo was being drawn into conversation by men who were older than he and flattered him and loved his handsome face.

"Tell me what to lay out on my tables," I said to Bianca. "Tell me what wines to serve. My servants shall be your servants. I shall do everything as you say."

"It's too lovely," she answered. "All of Venice will be there, I promise you, you'll discover the most wonderful company. People are so curious about you. Oh, how they whisper. You can't imagine what a supreme delight this will be."

It came about as she described.

Within the month I opened the palazzo to the whole city. But how different it was from those drunken nights in old Rome when people laid about on my couches and vomited in my gardens and I painted madly away on the walls.

Oh, yes, when I arrived, how proper were my finely clad Venetian guests. Of course I was asked a thousand questions. I let my eyes mist over. I heard the mortal voices around me as if they were kisses. I thought; You are among them; it is truly as if you were one of them. It is truly as if you are alive.

What did it matter their little criticisms of the paintings? I would strive to make my work the finest, yes, truly, but what counted was the vitality, the momentum!

And here amid my best work stood my lovely fair-haired Bianca, free for the moment from those who put her up to her wrongdoings, recognized by all as the Mistress of my house.

Amadeo watched this with silent grudging eyes. The memories inside him tormented him like a cancer, yet he could not see them and know them for what they were.

Not a month after, at sunset, I found him sick in the grand church on the nearby island of Torcello to which he had wandered, apparently on his own. I picked him up from the cold damp floor and took him home.

Of course I understood the reason. There he had found ikons of the very style he had once painted. There he had found old mosaics from centuries past, similar to those he had seen in Russian churches as a child. He had not remembered. He had merely come upon some old truth in his wanderings¡ªthe brittle, stark Byzantine paintings¡ªand now the heat of the place had left him with a fever, and I could taste it on his lips and see it in his eyes.

He was no better at sunrise when, half mad, I left him in the care of Vincenzo, only to rise again at sunset and hurry back to the side of his bed.

It was his mind that stoked the fever. Bundling him like a child I took him into a Venetian church to see the wondrous paintings of robust and natural figures that had been done in these last few years.

But I could see now it was hopeless. His mind would never be opened, never truly changed. I brought him home, and laid him down on the pillows once more.

I sought to better understand what I could.

His had been a punitive world of austere devotion. Painting for him had been joyless. And indeed all of life itself in far-away Russia had been so rigorous that he could not give himself over to the pleasure that awaited him now at every turn.

Beset by the memories, yet not understanding them, he was moving slowly towards death.

I would not have it. I paced the floor, I turned to those who attended him. I walked about, whispering to myself in my anger. I would not have it. I would not let him die.

Sternly, I banished others from the bedchamber.

I bent over him, and biting into my tongue I filled my mouth with blood and then I loosed a thin stream of it into his mouth.

He quickened, and licked his lips after it, and then he breathed more easily and the flush came to his cheeks. I felt of his forehead. It was cooler. He opened his eyes and he looked at me, and he said as he did so often, "Master," and then gently, without memories, without terrible dreams, he slept.

It was enough. I left the bed. I wrote in my thick diary, the quill scratching as I quickly inscribed the words:

"He is irresistible, but what am I to do? I claimed him once, declaring him my very own, and now I treat his misery with the blood I wish that I could give him. Yet in treating his misery, I hope to cure him not for me but for the wide world."

I closed the book, in disgust with myself for the blood I'd given him. But it had healed him. I knew it. And were he ill, I would give him blood again.

Time was moving too swiftly.

Things were happening too fast. My earlier judgments were shaken, and the beauty of Amadeo increased with every passing night.

The teachers took the boys to Florence that they might see the paintings there. And all came home more truly inspired to study than before.

Yes, they had seen the work of Botticelli, and how splendid it was. Was the Master painting? Indeed, so, but his work had become almost entirely religious. It was due to the preaching of Savonarola, a stringent monk who condemned the Florentines for their worldliness. Savonarola had great power over the people of Florence. Botticelli believed in him, and was thought to be one of his followers.

This saddened me greatly. Indeed it damn near maddened me. But then I knew that whatever Botticelli painted it would be magnificent. And in Amadeo's progress I was comforted, or rather pleasantly confused as before.

Amadeo was now the most brilliant of all my little academy. New teachers were required for him in philosophy and law. He was outgrowing his clothes at a marvelous rate, he had become quick and charming in conversation, and he was the beloved of all the younger boys.

Night after night we visited Bianca. I became accustomed to the company of refined strangers, the eternal stream of northern Europeans who came to Italy to discover its ancient and mysterious charms.

Only occasionally did I see Bianca hand the poisoned cup to one of her ill-fated guests. Only occasionally did I feel the beat of her dark heart, and see the shadow of desperate guilt in the very depth of her eyes. How she watched the unfortunate victim; how she saw him out of her company at last with a subtle smile.

As for Amadeo, our private sessions within my bedchamber became ever more intimate. And more than once, as we embraced, I gave the Blood Kiss to him, watching his body shiver, and seeing the power of it in his half-lidded eyes.

What was this madness? Was he for the world or for me?

How I lied to myself about it. I told myself the boy might still prove himself and thereby earn his freedom to leave me, safe and rich, for accomplishments beyond my house.

But I had given him so much of the Secret Blood that he pushed me with questions. What manner of creature was I? Why did I never come by day? Why did I take no food or drink?

He wrapped his warm arms around the mystery, He buried his face in the monster's neck.

I sent him off to the best brothels to learn the pleasures of women, and the pleasures of boys. He hated me for it, and yet he enjoyed it, and he came home to me eager for the Blood Kiss and nothing else.

He taunted me when I painted alone, except for him, in my studio, working furiously, creating some landscape or gathering of ancient heroes. He slept beside me when I collapsed in my bed to sleep the last few hours before dawn.

Meantime, we opened the palazzo again and yet again. Bianca, ever the clever and poised one, had outgrown her early beauty, and preserving her delicate face and manner, had now the polish of a woman rather than the promise of a girl.

Often I found myself staring at her, wondering what would have happened if I had not turned my attention to him. Why after all had I done it? Could I not have wooed her and persuaded her; and then, thinking these thoughts, I realized, foolishly, that I might still choose to do so, and cast him off, with wealth and position, to mortality with all the rest of my boys.

No, she was saved.

Amadeo was the one I wanted. Amadeo wag the one I was educating, training Amadeo was the precious student of the Blood.

The nights passed swiftly, as if in a dream.Several boys went off to university. One of the teachers died.Vincenzo took to walking with a limp, but I hired an assistant to fetch for him. Bianca rearranged several of the large paintings. The air was warm and the windows were open. On the roof garden we gathered for a great banquet. The boys sang.

Never once in all this time did I fail to apply the salve to my skin to darken it and make me appear human. Never once did I fail to work it into the flesh of both my hands. Never once did I fail to dress with fine jewels, and wear rings that would distract everyone. Never once did I move too close to a grouping of candles, or a torch at a doorway or on the quais.

I went to the shrine of Those Who Must Be Kept and remained there in meditation. I laid the case before Akasha.

I wanted this child¡ªthis boy who was now two years older than when I'd found him¡ªand yet I wanted everything else for him, and my soul was torn, just as his heart was torn.

Never before had I wanted such a thing, to make a blood drinker for my own companionship, indeed to educate a mortal youth for this very purpose, and to groom him expertly that he might be the finest choice.

But I wanted it now and it filled my thoughts during every waking hour, and I found no consolation looking at my cold Mother and Father. I heard no answer to my prayer.

I lay down to sleep in the shrine and knew only dark and troubled dreams.

I saw the garden, the very one I had painted on the walls eternally, and I was walking in it as always, and there was fruit on the low-hanging trees. There came Amadeo walking near me, and suddenly there came from his mouth a chilling cruel laughter.

"A sacrifice?" he asked, "for Bianca? How can such a thing be?"

I woke with a start, and sat up, rubbing the backs of my arms, and shaking my head, trying to free myself from the dream.

"I don't know the answer," I whispered, as though he were there near me, as though his spirit had traveled to the place where I sat.

"Except she was already a young woman when I came upon her," I responded, "educated and forced into life, indeed a murderess; yes, indeed, a murderess, a child woman guilty of dreadful crimes. And you, you were a helpless child. I could mold you and change you, all of which I've done.

"It's true, I thought you were a painter," I continued, "that you had the gift for painting, and I know that it's still in you, and that did sway me, too. But when all is said and done, I don't know why you distracted me, only that it was done."

I lay back down to sleep once more, lying on my side rather carelessly, staring up at the glimmering eye of Akasha. At the harsh lines of the face of Enkil.

I thought back over the centuries to Eudoxia. I remembered her terrible death. I remembered her burning body as it lay upon the floor of the shrine in the very place where I lay now.

I thought of Pandora. Where is my Pandora? And then finally I drifted into sleep.

When I returned to the palazzo, coming down from the roof as was always my custom, things were not as I would have them, for all the company was solemn at supper, and Vincenzo told me anxiously that a "strange man" had come to visit me, and that he stood in the anteroom and would not come in.

The boys had been finishing one of my murals in the anteroom, and they had hastily left this "strange man" to himself. Only Amadeo had remained behind, doing some small work with little enthusiasm, his eyes upon this "strange man" in a manner which gave Vincenzo concern.

As if that were not enough, Bianca had been to visit, indeed to give me a gift from Florence, a small painting by Botticelli; and she had had "uneasy" conversation with this "strange man" and had told Vincenzo to keep watch on him. Bianca was gone. The "strange man" remained. I went into the anteroom immediately, but I had felt the presence of this creature before I saw who it was. It was Mael.

Not for a single second did I not know him. He was unchanged just as I am unchanged, and he had not paid much attention to the fashion of these times, any more than he had paid attention to the fashion of times in the past.

He looked dreadful in fact in a ragged leather jerkin and leggings with holes in them and his boots were tied with rope.

His hair was dirty and tangled but his face wore an amazingly pleasant expression, and when he saw me he came at once to me and embraced me.

"You're really here," he said in a low voice, as though we had to whisper under my roof. He spoke the old Latin. "I heard of it but I didn't believe it. Oh, I'm so glad to see you. I'm glad you're still..."

"Yes, I know what you mean to say," I said. "I'm still the watcher of the years passing; I'm still the witness surviving in the Blood."

"Oh, you put it far better than I could," he answered. "But let me say it again, I'm so happy to see you, happy to hear your voice."

I saw that there was dust all over him. He was looking about the room, at its fancy painted ceiling with its ring of cherubs and its gold leaf. He stared at the unfinished mural. I wondered if he knew it was my work.

"Mael, always the astonished one," I said, moving him gently put of the light of the candles. I laughed softly. "You look like a tramp."

"Would you offer me clothes again?" he asked. "I cannot really, you know, master such things. I am in need, I suppose. And you live so splendidly here as you always did. Is nothing ever a mystery to you, Marius?"

"Everything is a mystery, Mael," I responded. "But fine clothes I always have. If the world comes to an end, I shall be well dressed for it, whether it is by the light of day or in the dark of night."

I took his arm and guided him through the various immense rooms that lay between me and my bedchamber. He was suitably awed by the paintings everywhere and let me lead him along.

"I want you to stay here, away from my mortal company," I said. "You'll only confuse them."

"Ah, but you've worked it all so well," he said. "It was easier for you in old Rome, wasn't it? But what a palace you have here. There are kings who would envy you, Marius."

"Yes, it seems so," I answered offhandedly.

I went to the adjacent closets, which were small rooms actually, and pulled out clothes for him, and leather shoes. He seemed quite incapable of dressing himself but I refused to do it for him, and after I had put out everything, on the velvet bed in the correct order, as if for a child or an idiot, he began to examine various articles as if he might manage alone.

"Who told you I was here, Mael?" I asked him.

He glanced at me, and his face was cold for a moment, the old hawk nose as disagreeable as ever, the deep-set eyes rather more brilliant than I'd remembered and the mouth far better shaped than I'd recalled. Maybe time had softened the set of his lips. I'm not certain that such things can happen. But he did seem an interesting-looking immortal male.

"You told me you had heard that I was here," I said, prompting him. "Who told you?"

"Oh, it was a fool of a blood drinker," he said with a shudder. "A maniacal Satan worshiper. His name was Santino. Will they never die out? It was in Rome. He urged me to join him, can you imagine?"

"Why didn't you destroy him?" I asked dejectedly. How grim was all this, how distant from the boys at their supper, from the teachers speaking of the day's lessons, from the light and music to which I longed to return. "In the old times when you encountered them, you always destroyed them. What stopped you now? "

He shrugged his shoulders. "What do I care what happens in Rome? I didn't stay one night in Rome."

I shook my head. "How did this creature discover I was in Venice? I've never heard a whisper of our kind here."

"I'm here," he answered sharply, "and you didn't hear me, did you? You're not infallible, Marius. You have about you many worldly distractions. Perhaps you don't listen as you should."

"Yes, you're right, but I wonder. How did he know?"

"Mortals come to your house. Mortals speak of you. Possibly those mortals go on to Rome. Don't all roads lead to Rome?" He was mocking me naturally. But he was being rather gentle, almost friendly. "He wants your secret, Marius, that Roman blood drinker. How he begged me to explain the mystery of Those Who Must Be Kept."

"And you didn't reveal it, did you, Mael?" I demanded. I began to hate him again, hotly, as I had in nights past.

"No, I didn't reveal it," he said calmly, "but I did laugh at him, and I didn't deny it. Perhaps I should have, but the older I get the harder it is to lie on any account."

"That I understand rather well," I said.

"Do you? With all these beautiful mortal children around you? You must lie with every breath you take, Marius. And as for your paintings, how dare you display your works amongst mortals who have but brief lifetimes with which to challenge you? It seems, a terrible lie, that, if you ask me."

I sighed.

He tore open the front of his jerkin and then took it off.

"Why do I accept your hospitality?" he asked. "I don't know the answer. Perhaps I feel that having helped yourself to so many mortal delights, you owe some help to another blood drinker who is lost in time as always, wandering from country to country, marveling sometimes and at others merely getting dust in his eyes."

"Tell yourself anything you like," I said. "You are welcome to the clothes and to shelter. But tell me at once. What's happened to Avicus and Zenobia? Do they travel with you? Do you know where they are?"

"I have no idea where they are," he said, "and surely you sensed it before you asked- It has been so long since I saw either of them that I cannot reckon the years or the centuries. It was Avicus who put her up to it, and off they went together. They left me in Constantinople, and I can't say that it came to me as a dreadful surprise. There had been terrible coldness between us before the parting. Avicus loved her. She loved him more than me. That was all that was required."

"I'm sad to hear it."

"Why?" he asked. "You left the three of us. And you left her with us, that was the worst of it. We were two for so long, and then you forced Zenobia into our company."

"For the love of Hell, stop blaming me for everything," I said under my breath. "Will you never cease with your accusations? Am I the author of every evil that ever befell you, Mael? What must I do to be absolved so that there might be silence? It was you, Mael, you," I whispered, "who took me from my mortal life by force and brought me, shackled and helpless, into your accursed Druid grove!"

The anger spilled from me as I struggled to keep my voice down.

He seemed quite amazed by it.

"And so you do despise me, Marius," he said, smiling. "I had thought you far too clever for such a simple feeling- Yes, I took you prisoner, and you took the secrets, and I've been cursed one way or the other, ever since."

I had to step back from this. I did not want it. I stood calmly until the anger left me. Let the truth be damned.

For some reason this brought out the kindness in him. As he removed his rags, and kicked them away, he spoke of Avicus and Zenobia.

"The two of them were always slipping into the Emperor's palace where they would hunt the shadows," he said. "Zenobia seldom dressed as a boy as you taught her. She was too fond of sumptuous clothes, you should have seen the gowns she wore. And her hair, I think I loved it more than she did."

"I don't know if that's possible," I said softly. I saw the vision of her in his mind, and confused it with the vision of her in my own.

"Avicus continued to be the student," he said with slight contempt. "He mastered Greek. He read everything he could find. You were always his inspiration. He imitated you. He bought books without knowing what they were. On and on, he read."

"Maybe he did know," I suggested. ''Who can say?" "I can say," Mael answered. "I've known you both, and he was an idiot gathering poetry and history for nothing. He wasn't even looking for something. He embraced words and phrases on account of how they felt."

"And where and how did you spend your hours, Mael?" I asked, my voice far more cold than I had hoped.

"I hunted the dark hills beyond the city," he responded. "I hunted the soldiery. I hunted for the brutal Evil Doer, as you know. I was the vagabond, and they were dressed as though they were part of the Imperial Court."

"Did they ever make another?" I asked. "No!" he said, scoffing. "Who would do such a thing?" I didn't answer.

"And you, did you ever make another? " I asked. "No," he responded. He frowned- "How would I find someone strong enough?" he asked. He seemed puzzled. "How would I know that a human had the endurance for the Blood?" "And so you move through the world alone." "I'll find another blood drinker to be a companion," he said. "Didn't I find that cursed Santino in Rome? Maybe I'll lure one from among the Satan worshipers. They can't all like a miserable life in the catacombs, wearing black robes and singing Latin hymns."

I nodded. I could see now that he was ready for the bath. I didn't want to keep him any longer.

When I spoke it was in a genial manner.

"The house is enormous as you see," I said. "There is a locked room on the first floor to the far right side. It has no windows. You may sleep there by day if you like."

He gave a low contemptuous laugh. "The clothes are quite enough, my friend, and perhaps just a few hours during which I might rest."

"I don't mind. Stay here, out of sight of the others. See the bath there. Use it. I'll come for you when all the boys are asleep."

When next I saw him it was all too soon.

He came out of the bedroom and into the large salon in which I stood relinquishing my hold on Riccardo and Amadeo with the strong admonition that they could go to Bianca's for the evening and nowhere else.

Amadeo saw him. Again, for several fatal moments, Amadeo saw him. And I knew that something deep inside Amadeo recognized Mael for the creature that he was. But like so many things in the mind of Amadeo, it wasn't conscious, and the boys left me with quick kisses, off to sing their songs to Bianca, and be flattered by everyone there.

I was impatient with Mael that he had come out of the bedchamber, but I didn't say it.

"So you would make a blood drinker of that one," he said, pointing to the door through which the boys had left us. He smiled.

I was in a silent fury. I glared at him, as always in such situations, quite unable to speak.

He stood there smiling at me in sinister fashion and then he said, "Marius of the many names and the many houses and the many lifetimes. So you have chosen a lovely child."

I shook it off. How had he read from my mind my desire for Amadeo?

"You've grown careless," he said softly. "Listen to me, Marius. I don't speak to insult you. YOU walk with a heavy step among mortals,. And that boy is very young."

"Don't speak another word to me," I answered, pulling hard on my anger to rein it in.

"Forgive me," he said, "I only spoke my mind."

"I know you did, but I don't want to hear any more."

I looked him over. He was rather handsome in his new attire, though a few little details were absurdly crooked and not tucked properly, but I was not the one to make them right. He struck me as not only barbaric, but comical. But I knew that anyone else would think him an impressive man.

I hated him, but not completely. And as I stood there with him, I almost gave way to tears. Quite suddenly, to stem this emotion, I spoke.

" What have you learnt in all this time?" I asked.

"That's an arrogant question!" he said in a low voice. "What have you learnt?"

I told him my theories, about how the West had risen again, once more drawing upon the old classics which Rome had taken from Greece. I spoke of how the art of the old Empire was re-created now throughout Italy and I spoke of the fine cities of the North of Europe, prosperous as those of the South. And then I explained how it seemed to me that the Eastern Empire had fallen to Islam and was no more. The Greek world had been irrevocably lost.

"We have the West again, don't you see?" I asked.

He looked at me as though I were perfectly mad.

"Well? "I responded.

There came a slight change in his face.

"Witness in the Blood," he said, repeating the words I'd spoken earlier, "watcher of the years."

He put his arms forward as though to embrace me. His eyes were clear and I could sense no malice at all.

"You've given me courage," he said.

"For what, may I ask?" I responded.

"To continue my wandering," he said. He let his arms slowly drop.

I nodded. What more was there for us to say?

"You have all you need?" I asked. "I have plenty of Venetian or Florentine coin. You know that wealth is nothing to me. I'm happy to share what I have."

"It's nothing to me either," he said. "I shall get what I need from my next victim, and his blood and wealth will carry me to one after that."

"So be it," I said, which meant that I wanted him to leave me, But even as he realized it, as he turned to go, I reached out and took him by the arm. "Forgive me that I was cold to you," I said. "We've been companions in time."

It was a strong embrace.

And I walked with him down to the front entrance where the torches shone too brightly on us for my taste, and saw him virtually disappear into the dark.

In a matter of seconds, I could hear no more of him. I gave silent thanks.

I reflected. How I hated Mael. How I feared him. Yet I had loved him once, loved him when we'd been mortals even, and I'd been his prisoner and he had been the Druid priest teaching me the hymns of the Faithful of the Forest, for what purpose, I didn't know.

And I had loved him on that long voyage to Constantinople, surely, and in that city when I'd given over Zenobia to him and Avicus, wishing them all well.

But I did not want him near me now! I wanted my house, my children, Amadeo, Bianca. I wanted my Venice. I wanted my mortal world.

How I would not risk my mortal home even for a few hours longer with him. How I wanted so to keep my secrets from him.

But here I was standing in the torchlight, distracted, and something was amiss.

Vincenzo wasn't very far away, and I turned and called to him.

"I'm going away for a few nights," I told him. "You know what to do. I'll be back soon enough."

"Yes, Master," he said.

And I was able to assure myself that he'd sensed nothing strange in Mael whatsoever. He was as always ready to do my will.

But then he pointed his finger.

"There, Master, Amadeo, he's waiting to talk to you," I was astonished.

On the far side of the canal, Amadeo stood in a gondola, watching me, waiting, and surely he'd seen me with Mael. Why had I not heard him? Mael was right. I was careless. I was all top softened by human emotions. I was too greedy for love.

Amadeo told his oarsman to bring him alongside the house.

"And why didn't you go with Riccardo?" I demanded. "I expected to find you at Bianca's. You must do as I say."

Quite suddenly Vincenzo was gone, and Amadeo had stepped up onto the quais, and he had his arms around me, pressing my hard unyielding body with all his strength.

"Where are you going?" he demanded in a rushed whisper. "Why do you leave me again?"

"I must leave," I said, "but it's only for a few nights. You know that I must leave. I have solemn obligations elsewhere, and don't I always return?"

"Master, that one, the one who came, the one who just left you¡ª."

"Don't ask me," I said sternly. How I had dreaded this. "I'll come back to you within a few nights."

"Take me with you," Amadeo begged.

The words struck me. I felt something within loosened.

"That I cannot do," I answered. And out of my mouth there came words I thought I'd never speak. "I go to Those Who Must Be Kept," I said as if I couldn't hold the secret within me. "To see if they are at peace. I do as I have always done."

What a look of wonder came over his face.

"Those Who Must Be Kept," he whispered. He said it like a prayer.

I shivered.

I felt a great release. And it seemed that in the wake of Mael I had drawn Amadeo closer to me. I had taken another fatal step.

The torchlight tormented me.

''Come inside," I said. And into the shadowy entranceway we stepped together. Vincenzo, never very far off, took his leave.

I bent to kiss Amadeo, and the heat of his body inflamed me.

"Master, give me the Blood," he whispered in my ear. "Master, tell me what you are."

"What I am, child? Sometimes I think I know not. And sometimes I think I know only too well. Study in my absence. Waste nothing. And I'll be back to you before you know the hour. And then we'll speak of Blood Kisses and secrets and meantime tell no one that you belong to me."

"Have I ever told anyone, Master?" he responded. He kissed my cheek. He placed his warm hand on my cheek as if he would know how inhuman I was.

I closed my lips over his. I let a small stream of blood pour into him. I felt him shudder.

I drew back from him. He was limp in my arms.

I called for Vincenzo and I gave Amadeo over to him, and off I went into the night.

I left the splendid city of Venice with her glistering palaces, and I withdrew to the chilly mountain sanctuary, and I knew that the fate of Amadeo was sealed.