“So I have,” said Ragoczy Germainus, continuing. “And will for many days more, I suspect. Before you tell me that I need . . . richer sustenance, I will agree. There; I have said it. But even had I the opportunity, here, in Chimena’s region of Holy Blood, I would not make any attempt to visit a woman, knowingly or in sleep.” He stared into the middle distance. “It would not be safe for her, or nourishing for me.”
“Because of Chimena and all of her followers?” The last word was uncertain, as if he could not think of one that would more accurately describe those who had become vampires of her making.
“Yes. I could not achieve even the most fleeting intimacy with any of them, not after what her lot has done.” He shrugged. “So I will wait. Game will suffice me yet awhile; I have gone decades on worse.”
“That you have. But why should you—once we reach Usca, you should have some chance of finding a woman who will be glad of the dreams you bring.” He took a bit of hare off the point of his knife and began to chew.
“Ah, but we have not reached Usca,” said Ragoczy Germainus.
“It will be soon,” said Rotiger with conviction. “Three, four days at the most, and we should arrive there.”
“But we have not got there yet.” Ragoczy Germainus picked up the thick headstall that was added to the jack-mule’s halter when he was being led. “This is beginning to fray. I will have to replace it at Usca.”
“Is it beyond repair?” Rotiger asked, resigned to the dismissal of the subjects they had just been discussing.
“It is not, but it is old. This one was made in Cyprus, and that was what? seventy years ago? It has been oiled so many times to keep it supple I am surprised it does not drip.” He put it down again. “It is time it was replaced.”
“There should be saddlers in Usca,” said Rotiger as he cut more flesh from the hare’s carcase. “No doubt you can purchase one there, or the leather to make your own,” he added, for he had seen Ragoczy Germainus make every kind of tack over their centuries together.
“Very likely,” said Ragoczy Germainus, his attention now on the braided-leather straps they used to hold their packs and chests in place. “These need oil and wax,” he remarked.
“Something more to purchase in Usca,” said Rotiger, trying to plumb his mater’s enigmatic mood.
“Yes.” Ragoczy Germainus was inspecting a girth now, scrutinizing the broad leather belt, looking for wear around the holes for the tongue of the buckle. “This will do,” he said a little later, and went on to the next with the same air of perplexing calm. He had finished perusing three of the girths when there was a disruption in the woods a little beyond the firelight. Immediately he dropped the girth and reached for his chain with the iron balls that hung from his belt.
Rotiger set the half-eaten hare aside and drew his short sword, turning to face the dark mass of trees. “Can you see?”
“Not well enough,” said Ragoczy Germainus, intent on the direction from which the sound had come.
“How many, do you think?” Rotiger wondered aloud.
“Not many,” said Ragoczy Germainus, beginning to twirl one of the iron balls.
“One, in fact,” said Ennati as he stepped out of the forest, holding up empty hands and moving slowly.
Rotiger did not lower his sword. “Just you?”
“Just me,” Ennati confirmed, continuing quickly. “I have come to warn you—Chimena changed her mind after you left. She killed Yamut ibn Rabi and Blaga, and she ordered Sayed killed as soon as he is caught. Merez is now her guard, and she has said that the clan must hunt you down, for our protection. She told us all that you have put us all in danger. You must die or none of them is safe.” He glanced about uneasily. “I left as soon as I could. She is determined to do this.”
“Is she,” Ragoczy Germainus said quietly, looking directly at Ennati, scrutinizing him.
“You do not know how she is when she has been thwarted,” said Ennati. “It is her pride, and her Right that speaks.” He kept glancing behind him, as if he feared the trees might attack.
“And her Word?” Ragoczy Germainus asked bleakly.
“She said it could not hold her in this case. She said you coerced her into making a promise, and because of that, it was not binding.” He clasped his hands together to stop them shaking.
“And you could not endure it,” Ragoczy Germainus said, his voice flat.
“She told us that you would bring our enemies down upon us if you were not stopped and silenced. She said you know too much, and that we would all be hunted because of you.” He came a step closer to the fire. “I mean you no harm. I only want to warn you, because you spared me and Blaga when you could have killed us easily. She may feel no obligation for that, but I do.” He stumbled and caught himself on the nearest pile of chests; Rotiger instantly raised his sword.
“There is no one else with him,” said Ragoczy Germainus, motioning to Rotiger to lower his sword. “And look—Ennati is burned.”
“I have been up since mid-afternoon,” said Ennati, gingerly touching his face where his skin was blistered and torn.
“To reach me?” Ragoczy Germainus said dubiously.
“In part,” said Ennati candidly. “I am also afraid that Chimena may decide to have me killed, as well, as she killed Blaga. She is in a bloody mood now, and that can only be satisfied with deaths, True Deaths. You are not the only one she would like dead. If she could lay her hands on him, she might well do away with Olutiz.” He looked up at Ragoczy Germainus. “I saw what happened. She took Yamut ibn Rabi’s big curved sword and with her own hands severed Blaga’s head in two blows.” He swallowed hard. “After she had done the same to Yamut ibn Rabi.”
“He did not try to escape?” Ragoczy Germainus asked, more doubtfully than before. “I would have thought he would have fought her.”
“How? He was on the ground with a shattered leg,” said Ennati. “I think he did not expect her to kill him, not after all the time he has served her.” He stared into the forest again, his expression desolate. “And Blaga was still corded up in the bearskin and never saw what she intended to do.”
“Why did Yamut ibn Rabi not protest?” Ragoczy Germainus was mildly surprised, thinking back to the Moor and his determination. “I would think he had seen her do as much to others, and for less cause.”
“He was devoted to her. He told her he had lost all chance of Paradise to be with her, and she said she was gratified. He made her his deity when she gave him undead life. From that time on, he has been her most ardent slave.” Ennati shook his head. “I cannot weep. I wish I could.”
“Vampires have no tears,” said Ragoczy Germainus, his tone revealing his own anguish at this loss. He saw Ennati attempt to compose herself, and some of his suspicions of the man diminished.
“So we have all discovered,” said Ennati as he put his head in his hands. “I do not grieve as I need to.” He stared out through his fingers. “I fear I will see her kill him for as long as I walk the earth.”
Rotiger asked the question Ragoczy Germainus would not. “Why did she spare you? With all her killing, how did you escape?”
“She said she needed someone to be a witness, so the rest of her clan would know the consequences of shaming her.” He crossed his arms and clutched his elbows as if to shield himself from a blow. “I cannot take it all in, not yet.”
“You will,” said Ragoczy Germainus with such utter conviction that Ennati was driven to silence for some little time.
It was Rotiger who broke the silence. “How far behind you are they?”
“I cannot say for certain: they could reach this place before dawn tonight. They will be here tomorrow beyond question. If they come tonight, they will be tired—that is something in your favor.” He shivered as if struck with sudden cold. “If there is rain, it would slow them down with running water.”
“And there will be rain tonight.” Ragoczy Germainus looked up at the leaves overhead and tried to make out the sky beyond. “It will not be much longer before the clouds open.”
“Are you certain?” Ennati asked, half-relieved, half-apprehensive.
“Fairly certain,” said Ragoczy Germainus. “I can smell it.”
Ennati shook his head. “I am not so sure, but—” He shrugged. “At most you gain yourself a night. And then you will have more than ten of us on you.”
Ragoczy Germainus seemed unfazed by this. “And you? Will you attack us then?”
“No,” said Ennati. “I am now Chimena’s enemy as much as you are; she has made me that. She will want my True Death as passionately as she wants yours, witness or not. I have left her side and she will consider that treason, no matter what I did, or why.” He was no longer distraught by this realization. “If I thought it would do any good, I would flee with you.”
“Why do you not?” Ragoczy Germainus asked, his dark eyes on Ennati.
“Because it would only prolong what is coming.” He paused a long moment. “Besides, where would I go?”
“You could come to Asturica with us,” said Ragoczy Germainus. “I think the Dux would be glad of a fighting man who knows something about the Moors.”
Ennati chuckled desolately. “And how long would that last? I cannot fight in daylight, and I cannot eat with others.” He fingered his copper-colored hair. “I could not be a spy among the Moors.”
“You may not need to be,” said Ragoczy Germainus. “There are many other services you could perform.” He thought back to his own past and his many improvised occupations that served to disguise his true nature. “If you are willing to guard the dead, no one will ask many questions of you, or if you can supervise the sick and wounded at night.”
“Why should I do either of those things?” Ennati asked, appalled at the suggestions.
“Because no one else wants to, and those who can do these things are not scrutinized. If you are not blatant, you may manage very well. Tell the Dux that you have taken a vow to do these things, and he will not interfere with you.” Ragoczy Germainus saw Rotiger nod in agreement. “You see? I am not the only one who has found such work to be useful.”
“But I would have to go away from here,” said Ennati, with such desolation of spirit that Ragoczy Germainus felt it as keenly as a knife-thrust.
“So you would.” Ragoczy Germainus paused. “I, too, have gone far from the mountains where I was born. I return there from time to time, but now I am as much a stranger there as I am anywhere in the world.”
“You did not rule there?” Ennati asked, amazed that this would beso.
“My father did.” As he said it, Ragoczy Germainus remembered his father—a man who had survived to the incredible age of forty-eight, half again the age most men attained then. “He was regarded with respect for many thousands of paces beyond our borders.” Until, he added inwardly, the long-haired, green-eyed foreigners in their chariots had come out of the east and laid waste to all his father had built and made Ragoczy Germainus a slave, to serve as an example to all his people. “I did not leave of my own volition.”
Ennati knew he had touched on something much vaster than Ragoczy Germainus had told him. “How long ago?”
“Nearly twenty-eight hundred years,” said Ragoczy Germainus, and knew the sum was too enormous for Ennati to grasp. “There was no Roma yet; Egypt was mighty.” How inadequate that sounded, even to him.
“Long ago,” Ennati said, trying to show he understood, knowing that he did not.
“Yes,” said Ragoczy Germainus, and shook off the ephemeral bonds of memory. “There is nothing for you if you remain here. You have an opportunity to decide how you will live now you have left Chimena. Better to go where you wish now while you can choose for yourself than wait until you are forced.”
“Listen to him,” Rotiger advised.
“I cannot go from here.” Ennati looked around as if to assure himself he was safe. “Even here, in this place, I begin to feel uncomfortable. If I go to Usca, I will be sickened. None of us can go beyond Chimena’s lands.”
“Because Chimena said so,” Ragoczy Germainus suggested, but with less conviction than he wanted to have; the lack of bonds among Chimena’s vampires was as familiar to him as it was perplexing; perhaps their bond to their native earth was stronger for that reason.
“And because when I have traveled beyond the region of Holy Blood, I lose strength and become almost as helpless as a babe.” He shrugged. “I have thought I might go to one of the old hermitages and take up living there. I know of such a place near the road to the Septimania Pass. The only difficulty is that Olutiz rules there, not Chimena, and he may not allow me, or anyone who has served his mother, to stay in territory he has made his.” For the first time his tattered face showed despair as he paced from the fire to the tether-line and back again.
“The Moors might not like such a thing, either, if they discovered you,” said Ragoczy Germainus sardonically. “This is most . . . vexing.”
Rotiger noticed the slight hesitation in Ragoczy Germainus’ words and he wondered what his master had intended to say. “How much farther can you travel?” he asked Ennati.
“Another ten thousand paces, perhaps twelve thousand,” he answered uncertainly. “Not in daylight, certainly. Daylight is too difficult for me now.” He indicated the state of his skin.
“That doesn’t put us at the Usca-Zaragusta road,” said Rotiger. “He would be five to six thousand paces shy of it.”
“No, not quite that much; it would be too far in any case,” said Ragoczy Germainus. “And it is all moot since you are unable to leave the region of Holy Blood.” He faltered, considering. “Where the hills are barren, the earth is sliding away, so such places will not sustain you. You will have to stay in the forests, as far from the loggers and the goats and sheep as you can.”
“The Moors are fighting the Christians in the mountains. The Moors want the Frankish lands as well as all of Old Hispania.” Ennati sat down suddenly, as if suddenly deprived of all energy. “If I must fight, I suppose I might as well fight the Moors. Better them than my own kind.”
“With the intention of dying in battle, I would guess,” said Ragoczy Germainus, his tone dropping, his dark eyes shrewd.
“It would solve many problems,” said Ennati.
“Possibly,” Ragoczy Germainus allowed. “It is a drastic step to take.” He thought, suddenly and poignantly, of Nicoris, and how readily she had embraced the True Death.