“Are you certain of that?” Csimenae challenged. “You have power. Surely that would earn the respect and devotion—”
“I am certain,” he said, interrupting her. “I have centuries of experience to guide me. This village is no different than any other in that regard, and the villagers are much the same as villagers everywhere. They, like you, do not want to be touched by anyone foreign. They do not trust your friendship with me, you know.” He shook his head. “You risk enough coming here while the others are still about, and might see you in my company.” He wished that Rogerian were back from his journey down the mountain to buy flour from the monks; he should be returning in the next few days if all went well. Sanct’ Germain was still uncertain if he should have gone himself, as he had intended, but he had not thought it prudent to leave Csimenae on her own until she had learned how to deal with her vampiric state.
“Let them think what they wish. What can they do? This village is my son’s assumption, and I hold it in trust for him. If I fail in that, I fail in all. As long as I am alive, my son is protected. These villagers know as much, and honor it.” She held up her arms in a gesture of defiance. “They have too much to be grateful for. They should thank me, not question me. You will show me how to do it.”
Sanct’ Germain sighed. “There are more of them than there are of you.”
“And they are cowards, all of them,” she said, shrugging to show her opinion. “They will accept me so long as I am true to my child.”
“Even cowards will act to protect themselves.” He had seen that many times in the past, and had come to think that a coward fighting was as dangerous as a brave man.
“They are too cautious,” she said, dismissing his concerns with a single motion of her hand. “They know how much they owe to me.”
“Their lives are more fragile than yours,” he persisted. “You must learn to respect that fragility.”
“Why?” She faced him directly. “Because you tell me I must? You say that I have to follow your example. You tell me that because you brought me to your life, I must live it as you tell me. What arrogance! Your blood is not the blood of horses.” She laughed without mirth, her hands on her hips. “You have been reading me lessons since the battle, and I have no more reason to believe you now than I had then. Your life is not my life.” She took a step closer to him. “You have told me what I must do. I have listened. That is sufficient.”
“But you are unconvinced.” In the five weeks since she had wakened to his life, Csimenae had become more imperious, demanding respect and devotion, though she gave neither to anyone but her child. He wished now he had tasted her blood, for then she would be less of a conundrum to him; as things stood, she was too much a stranger to him.
“Why should I be?” she asked. “For Aulutis’ sake?”
“Yes. He is as mortal as any of them,” Sanct’ Germain reminded her. “And we are not proof against all things. We can die the True Death.”
“So you have said,” she reminded him impatiently, and ticked off what he had told her on her fingers. “If our spine is broken, if our heads are chopped off, if we are consumed by fire. We cannot drown or suffocate or bleed to death. We cannot become ill. Or starve.”
“True enough,” he said, interrupting her recitation. “But we are not wholly proof against them and all those things are . . . not pleasant to endure. You would do well to avoid them when you can.” He had personal experience with all five, and the memories still made him shudder inwardly. “Because you are able to withstand them does not mean they are desirable.”
Csimenae held up her hand, continuing her enumeration. “There’s more. We cannot be poisoned. Even the sun cannot entirely kill us, but it can burn us. Without our native earth, we are weakened.” She stared at him, defying him. “See, Sanct’ Germain? The things you have said—I have been listening. I have learned.”
“You have learned lists, but you do not comprehend,” said Sanct’ Germain quietly. “In time, you will discover—”
“In time!” She laughed aloud. “In years and years and years of time!”
“That is my point,” he said, not wanting to argue with her. “You may have the luxury of time, but you are not invulnerable. We must be careful of how we live, or we alert the living to our presence, and then we are at risk. Much as you may doubt it, you will need the people of the village—”
She interrupted him. “Not if you will not let me feed on them.”
He did his best to hide his vexation. “You need them for your son’s sake. You want him to have a village in which to rule, do you not? If you prey on these people, you prepare a cemetery for his inheritance. You want him to have a legacy that lasts more than his lifetime. Think of what you have dealt with to assure him of the fealty of the villagers. And you want him to be held in high regard, not dreaded and loathed.”
“All right. That is what I want; chide me for it if you must,” she allowed unhappily. “You say because your blood saved me from death that you are bound to me. Very well. I will hear you out.”
“I am bound to you. The blood is a bond as strong as that of native earth,” said Sanct’ Germain, realizing that she did not understand what he was telling her.
“Yes, yes,” she said impatiently. “No doubt you will hound me through all eternity.”
He looked at her in silence for several heartbeats, then shrugged. “You do not want to accept what you have become. You will not learn—”
“But I am
hungry.
” She folded her arms. “If I wait much longer, I will set upon Gratius or Pordinae. They will sustain me. They will know I am honoring them.”
Sanct’ Germain regarded her gravely. “And I tell you that they will know you for what you are, and they will seek you out and give you the True Death. Do not doubt that they will. Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but in time.” He saw her disbelief. “You think that because you have been one of them, they will permit you to raven among them? You have stoned mad dogs here: why do you suppose they would not do the same to you?”
“They are incapable of such perfidy,” she said with a great deal of confidence. “You have not lived here long enough to know this.”
“I know what those in my homeland are capable of doing to those of my blood,” he said. “Your village is not much different from my homeland.”
“No. You are wrong. Mont Calcius is not the same as other villages. No matter what you say.” Her face was pale with hidden anger. “This village knows when it is guarded. They will not begrudge me an occasional sacrifice in exchange for what I can give them.”
“Do you think so.” Sanct’ Germain looked steadily at her. “You are assuming your son will not mind, as well.”
If he had hoped to persuade her with such an argument, he was disappointed. “Why should he? He will benefit the most of all.” She turned away from him in a fine display of contempt. “You are always telling me of calamity and doom, as if I have become a monster. I am the guardian of this place as much as the horse-skulls are, and in time everyone here will know it.” Csimenae tossed her head. “You do not know these people: I do. They will not deny me. For the sake of Aulutis.”
“They would be more likely to visit the same fate on your boy than to permit you to make cattle of them.” He held up his hand to keep her from interrupting. “Listen to me, for your son’s sake if not your own. Try to understand what I am telling you without disputing everything I say: until you were fatally injured, I had not intended to bring you to my life, or to reveal my true nature to anyone in this village—indeed, I had been at pains to conceal what I am—but circumstances intervened. You would have died utterly, and your son with you had I not made it possible for you to change. For doing this, I am responsible for you, for the manner in which you live, because it is my blood that transformed you. I am only sorry you were unprepared, for now you must learn quickly how a vampire must live, or you will pose a danger to everyone living inside these walls.”
Her face stiffened in ill-controlled rage. “I would not be so foolish! That would redound to my son’s discredit and make him an outcast. You cannot think I would do such a thing. I will make the villagers glad of my presence. I will not make mistakes.”
“Then you would be unique among my kind,” Sanct’ Germain said, unimpressed by her posturing. “None of those who come to this life unprepared—as you were unprepared—are innocuous to the living, little though you may think so. You have my blood in you, and although it is not the blood of horses, it is a bond, whether or not I have tasted yours. The bond cannot be denied. I am bound to you until you die the True Death, or I do.” As he spoke, he saw her distrust. Only twice before had he experienced such perplexity, and now, as then, he was flummoxed by it: he did not know what he could do to remedy his predicament. He tried the most sensible approach he could think of. “You admit you are hungry. How long are you prepared to deny your need? Do you know what you hunger for? It is more than blood that sustains you. You have said already that you will permit the villagers to assuage your appetite, as if they were nothing more than sheep or goats. It is not what we ultimately seek.” He paused, increasingly aware of the isolation that wore at him. Watching her pace the small room he sensed her inner conflicts. “Still, I am beholden to you, and your people, for giving me a refuge for so long. I would repay you egregiously if I were to treat the villagers as so much fodder, and you would be no less responsible for behaving in so dishonorable a manner.”
“How noble you are,” she mocked him.
“How pragmatic I am,” he corrected her.
“Then, if I am not to feed on the villagers, let us go into the forest. There are goats and boar about. If we are fortunate, we will find the wild ponies, and drink the blood of horses. We may even find a marauder to feast upon.” She gestured impatiently. “You may be used to this, but I am famished. I must feed.”
“Lie back on the mat, the one with the blanket,” he recommended, pointing to where it had been made up on the ground floor; it was where Rogerian slept. “Your native earth beneath it will sustain you for a time.”
“Why should I? It is dark enough. We can hunt without fear.” She frowned at him. “Or are you afraid?”
“Not in the way you mean,” he said, growing apprehensive about her. “It is prudent to be careful. If you disdain thought, you may put yourself at more risk than you can handle.”
Her eyes mocked him. “So you tutor me to model myself upon you.”
He did not respond at once. “I have lived a very long time; I did not reach this age by being impetuous, or capricious; or foolish.”
“So you say,” she said, sulking. Then she sighed. “Oh, very well. We shall wait a little longer and then we hunt.” She folded her arms. “Aulutis deserves my protection.”
“Yes. He does.” Sanct’ Germain rubbed his chin with his thumb. “If he is to reach manhood, you will have to curb your desires, learn to control your appetite, and be willing to put his interests before your own, or he will answer for it.” He hoped this argument might finally have some weight with her. “You are not the one who will suffer for your acts.”
“But if I am weak, I cannot help him,” she came back at him. “Hunger weakens me,” she added pointedly.
He did not speak at once. “Tell me,” he said, taking up his stance by the single backless chair, “how long do you expect to live in this place?”
Startled, she pursed her lips as she thought about her answer. “As long as my son is ruler here.”
He nodded. “And you do not suppose that as the rest of the village grows old and dies, your unchanging youth will not be noticed? If the others age, and you do not, what then? Do you think Aulutis will not be aware of your nature?”
“It will be thought that I am fortunate, and my son will be glad of it,” said Csimenae defiantly. “It will be thought that the horses have made me one of their guardians, if they think anything about my long life.”
“A sign of favor from the horses, or the gods, or the angels,” Sanct’ Germain added for her, a deep exhaustion in his voice that came from the depths of his memories. “Or the newtri, or the Celestials. No doubt some would believe that, at least for a time. But as all your generation dies, and you do not; you show no signs of age—what then? Consider what I have told you: do you suppose no one will remark upon your unchanging youth? If not while your son is young, perhaps later? Then, when all of Aulutis’ generation dies, and you do not, do you suppose the villagers will not have qualms about you?”
“I will deal with it when I must; you will not tell me how I will live,” she said, dismissing the matter with a turn of her hand. “Now, have you finished? Can we go out to the woods to hunt?” From the tone of her voice, Sanct’ Germain knew it was useless to try to talk to her anymore this evening.
“All right. But take the precaution of walking out through the barn. That way no one will suppose that you are going to hunt; they will assume you are tending the sheep and the goats.” He straightened up. “I will join you at the edge of the olive trees in a little while. Wait for me there.”
“Must I?” She frowned in displeasure. “I know how to follow animals in the forest.”
“Certainly,” he agreed. “But you have not yet learned how to catch them with your own hands and subdue them without killing them.”
She pointed to him. “And why not kill them? It would be easier.”
“Because we are nourished by life. Once the animal is dead, there is no virtue in its blood, not for us. It is life that sustains us, and nothing is more living than blood.” He bowed slightly. “So wait for me. We will both be satisfied.”
“How will we kill them?” she asked eagerly.
His answer was without emotion. “Bring a knife. It is no easy thing to bite an animal’s neck while it lives.” There were ways to immobilize quarry, but they took time to learn.
“Very well—I will bring a knife.” For the first time she was eager. At the door she paused, taking the time to look out into the market square, making an attempt to ascertain if any observed her before she left.
Sanct’ Germain watched her go with misgivings. He was failing with her, he knew; it was in every aspect of her, from the angle of her head to the contempt in her tone. She did not believe him, or any of the admonitions he gave her. If only he had some means of persuading her that did not sound as if he were reading her a lesson. He did not know any other way to convince her of the perils of her vampiric life, for although she claimed to comprehend all his warnings, she clearly did not think she had anything to worry about, and resented his repeated attempts to instill some sense of accountability in her expectations. He pondered her circumstances in this remote village and tried to discover some aspect of this place that would serve as an example to her—one she would heed. Nothing suggested itself, and finally he gathered up his dagger and a small axe before he left his house, going along the street swiftly and silently to the wall. He vaulted up on it, and leaped over it, landing with ease on the outside near the olive trees.