The Vampyre (20 page)

‘No.' Rebecca shook her head. ‘I just don't understand. ' She remembered the body of the tramp, laid out by Waterloo Bridge; she remembered the soft flow of her own blood. ‘An eagle? Why feel remorse for an eagle?'

‘I explained,' said Lord Byron, a coldness in his voice now. ‘I wanted it to be a part of me - it was so alive - and in killing it, I destroyed what attracted me.'

‘But isn't that what you have done throughout your whole existence?'

The vampire bowed his head. ‘Perhaps,' he said softly. His face was shadowed; Rebecca couldn't tell how angry he might be. But when he looked up again, his face was impassive; and then, as he talked, it seemed gradually to lighten and grow almost warm. ‘You must believe me,' Lord Byron said. ‘
I felt no thirst
. Not in those first months. There were only sensations - desires, whole universes of them, hinting at still further delights, far beyond my dreams. At night, when the moon was full and the air ghostly with the scent of mountain flowers, eternity would seem all about me. I would feel a calm that was also a fierce joy in my veins, just from the delight of having consciousness, of knowing myself to exist. My nerves were sweet to the touch - the faintest experience would brush them, and send shivers of pleasure out through my flesh. Sensuality was in everything - the kiss of a breeze, the scent of a flower, the breath of life in the air and all around.'

‘And Haidée?' Rebecca tried not to sound caustic, but failed. ‘Amidst all this unalloyed happiness - what about her?'

Lord Byron rested his chin on his fingertips. ‘Misery,' he said at last, ‘can sometimes be a fine and pleasant thing. A dark drug. The joy least likely to betray its faithful addicts.' He leaned forward. ‘I still mourned Haidée, yes, of course - but rather in the way that I would take a lengthy bath. It disturbed me, this inability to feel true pain - I sensed, I think, that it was a mark of how much my humanity was altered, and yet at the same time, for all that I tried to weep, I could not regret it. That was to change, of course . . .' He paused. ‘Yes - that was to change.' He studied Rebecca, almost, she imagined, as though pitying her. She stirred uneasily, and as she did so, found herself caught again in the ice of his stare. Lord Byron reached out a hand, as though to touch her cheek, or stroke her long hair - then he too froze. ‘The time was to come,' he whispered, ‘when I would grieve cruelly enough for Haidée. Oh yes - the time was to come. But not then. The joy of my new state could not be fought. It was a madness. It drowned all else.' He smiled. ‘And so even my misery enchanted me.'

He nodded. ‘It was in such a mood that I became a poet. I had started a poem that was something quite new - not like the satires I had written in London, but wild and restless, full of romantic despair. It was called
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
In England, it was to make me famous, and a byword for melancholy, but in Greece, where I wrote it, the gloom it expressed gave me nothing but delight. We were riding at this time past the mountain of Parnassus, on our way to Delphi. I wanted to visit the oracle of Apollo, the ancient god of poetry - I offered him a prayer, and the next day, we saw a flight of eagles, soaring high above us past the snow-clad peaks. I took it as an omen - the god had blessed me. I stared at the mountains, and thought of Haidée, and my wretchedness grew ever more splendid and poetical. I had never felt half so elevated before. Hobhouse, of course, being Hobhouse, claimed that the eagles had been vultures, but I damned him cheerfully, and rode on, gloomy in my poetry, exultant within myself.

‘It was late in the year now - but we continued to travel - and on Christmas Day, from a rugged mountain track, we had our first glimpse of Athens. It was a glorious sight - the Attic plain, the Aegean, and the town itself, surmounted by the Acropolis, all bursting upon our eyes at once. But it wasn't the archaeology which delighted me - Athens had charms far more vital and fresh than dead rock. We took rooms with a widow, a Mrs Tarsia Macri - she had three daughters - they were all lovely, but the youngest, Teresa, was a pouting little houri fresh from paradise. She served us our first meal, and she smiled and blushed as though she had been trained to it. That evening, we settled with the widow for a stay of several months.

‘Later, in the dead of night, I fell on Teresa like a thunderbolt. Had I forgotten Haidée? - no - but she was dead - and my desire for Teresa seemed to have risen suddenly like a fountain from a desert, so powerfully that it almost frightened me. Love, constant love?' - Lord Byron laughed, and shook his head - ‘no - not even for Haidée - though I swear to you, I did all I could. I walked in the yard, to cool my blood, but the soft little whore was waiting for me, and promising myself still that I wouldn't consent - I consented, of course. There was no help for it - none at all - she was far too delicious and alive. The veins beneath her skin were so delicate, and her bare neck and breasts so inviting to kiss - and the pleasure - when I fucked her - was like the rush of a drug. We crushed winter flowers beneath us, while above gleamed the impassive sky, and the spectral marble of the Parthenon. Teresa moaned with exultation, but there was terror as well in her eyes, and the emotions, I could sense, were inextricable. I explored inside her, felt the deep warmth of her life. My sperm smelled of sandalwood - she, of wild roses. I took her again and again, until morning rose behind the Acropolis.

‘Nothing else in Athens was to compare with that night. Yet our stay in the city passed delightfully enough, and winter began to melt into spring. Hobhouse raged around the countryside after antiquities; I rode my mule, haunted by the mythic beauty of the land, but making no notes, asking no learned questions. Instead, I gazed at the stars, and ruminated, and felt my dreams take wing until they seemed to fill the sky. But profundity could be tiring - and then I would return to more voluptuous pursuits. My Maid of Athens was insatiable - fortunately, for she needed to be - my own need for pleasure raging in my blood like a disease. At last, though, I grew tired of Teresa - I looked around, and took her sisters instead, apart at first, then
en famille -
and still my desire prickled endlessly. Something was missing - some pleasure that I hadn't contemplated yet. I took to wandering the streets of Athens by night, as though searching for it, the fulfilment, the
to kalon,
as the Greeks would say. I haunted the squalid alleyways of the modern town, and the pale relics of the glory that was lost, shattered marble, altars to forgotten gods. Nothing. And then I would return to the Macri sisters' bed, and wake them, and make them perform again. But still that hunger - for something - but for what?

‘One evening, early in March, I was to find out. Friends of ours, both Greeks and fellow travellers, had come to dine with us. The evening started off silent, then talky, then disputatious, then drunk - and for the final hour, all seemed happiness. My three pretty concubines danced attendance on me, and the wine cast a rosy veil across my thoughts. Then, gradually, through its warmth, the hunger began to scream at me again. All of a sudden, I was shaking, at the nakedness of Teresa's throat, and the glimpse of the shadow that marked out her breasts. She must have seen my expression, for she turned away coyly, and flicked back her hair in a way that made my stomach clench. Then she laughed, and her lips were so moist and red, that I rose unthinkingly, and reached out to take her arm. But Teresa laughed again, and danced back, and then she slipped, and the bottle of wine she had been carrying was shattered on the floor. There was a silence. Everyone turned to look at her; Teresa slowly raised up her hands and we all saw that they were wet with blood. Again, in my stomach, I felt the clenching of desire. I walked across to her and held her in my arms, as though to comfort her. She held up her hands to me, and I took them - and suddenly, with a naked thrill of certainty, I knew what my hunger had been for. My mouth was watering; my eyes were blind. But I lifted Teresa's hands to my lips, and I kissed them gently, and then I licked. Blood! The taste . . .' Lord Byron swallowed. ‘What can I say? - the taste was that of the food of paradise.
Blood
. I licked again, and felt lightness and energy in a wash of radiant gold, staining my soul with its purity. Greedily, I began to drink from the deepest wound. With a sudden scream, though, Teresa pulled her hand away, and at once, there was silence across the room again. Teresa looked for her mother and ran to her, but everyone else was staring at me. I wiped at my mouth. My hand, when I pulled it away, was smeared with blood. I brushed it on my shirt - then I touched my lips again. They were still damp. I licked them, and stared around the room. No one met my eyes. No one said a word.

‘Then Hobhouse - my dearest, best friend Hobhouse - rose and took me by the arm. “Damn it, Byron,” he said, in a loud, ringing voice, “damn it, but you're drunk.” He led me from the room; as I walked out, I heard voices behind me starting to murmur again. I stood on the steps that led up to my room. The realisation of what I had done struck me afresh. My legs seemed like flowing water. The taste of the blood came back to me - and I staggered, and fell into Hobhouse's arms. He helped me upstairs, and left me in my room. I slept at once - the first time for over a month - but it was not an easy sleep. I dreamed that I had never been a living thing at all, but instead a creature manufactured by the science of the Pasha. I saw myself laid out on a dissecting table, exposed to lightning at the summit of his tower. I had no skin. I was wholly naked to the Pasha's touch. He was creating me. I longed to kill him, but I knew that whatever I did, I would always be his thing. Always, always . . .

‘When I woke at last, it was to find myself lying in a putrid stench of matter. The sheets were caked with my own filth, just as the rocks had been by Lake Trihonida. I leaped to my feet, and stared down at the stuff which had once formed my living self. How much residue was there left in me? And when it had all gone - what would I be then? - alive or dead? - or neither, perhaps? It had been the blood, I knew, the blood I had drunk, it was that which had made my body sweat like this. I began to shake. What was happening to me? I didn't care to pause and think. Instead, I washed and dressed, then ordered Fletcher to burn the sheets. I woke Hobhouse. “Get up,” I told him. “We're leaving at once.” Hobhouse, to my surprise, didn't grumble even - just nodded, and staggered out of bed. We left Athens like thieves. Above us, as we reached Piraeus, the dawn was bleeding across the sky.

‘We took a ship across the Aegean Sea. The captain was an Englishman, whom we had met a few days before, and he saw to it that we both had our private berths. I kept to mine, for the thirst was starting to plague me again, and I was afraid of what it might lead me to do. In the evening, Hobhouse joined me; we got ragingly drunk; for a second night, he saw me to bed. But I didn't sleep; instead, I lay on my couch, and remembered the forbidden, golden taste of blood. The craving grew worse; at last, just before dawn, I reached for a razor, and sliced my own arm. Only a thin line of blood rose up from the wound, but I drank it greedily, and the taste was as rich and delicious as before. Then I slept, and dreamed, and imagined I was a creature of the Pasha again, a mass of skinless limbs beneath his anatomist's knife. In the morning, my bedclothes were stiff with the familiar filth.

‘We reached Smyrna on the afternoon of our second day at sea. My stay there was torture. I felt a restlessness and disquietude that I had never known before, and a terror at the thought of what might be happening to me. The proofs of that, both within my body and inside my mind, seemed terrible and full - and yet still I couldn't bear to believe the truth. And if I could not confess it to myself, then to whom else could I turn for help and advice? Hobhouse, as ever, was a devoted friend; and yet he was so solid, and generous, and down-to-earth - I couldn't stand it. I didn't want sympathy or reasonableness. I had darker dreams. I wanted - no - I tried not to think about it - and yet all the time, of course, I could think of nothing else.

‘So I continued silent and desperate. At last, my thirst grew so terrible, I thought I was turning mad. Hobhouse, seeing how black my mood had grown, and ever the sportsman, advised me to take some exercise' - Lord Byron smiled - ‘as though boxing or a game of cricket would have helped me then.' He smiled again, and shook his head. ‘Sadly, neither of those activities being ready to hand, it was agreed instead that we should make a tour. Two days' ride away lay the ruins of Ephesus - and so we set out for them, accompanied only by a single janizary. The road was wild and desolate, surrounded by bleak marshes, from which the croaking of frogs was deafening. At last, we had left even the frogs behind; and only the odd Turkish tombstone hinted that life had ever existed in that wasteland. Otherwise, not a broken column or roofless mosque disturbed the bleakness of the wilderness - nothing at all; we were wholly alone.

‘I could feel the thirst starting to consume me now. I looked desperately across the dreary plain, searching for any glimpse of life, but there was only a cemetery ahead of us, a shattered, empty city of the dead. My breath was starting to rattle now - my lungs felt as though they were shrivelling away. I raised my hand to wipe my brow, but as I did so, I checked myself, and stared in horror at what my fingers had become - gnarled twists of blackened bone. I stared down at my arm - again, it was black and dry; felt my face - it was withered to the touch; tried to swallow - but my tongue seemed thick with fiery dust. I scratched a sound out from my throat, and Hobhouse looked round. “My God,” he whispered. I had never seen such a look of revulsion before. “Byron. My God, Byron.” He rode back to me. I was so dry. I could smell the blood in Hobhouse's veins. It would be cool and fresh, and as moist as dew. I needed it. I had to have it. I reached out for his throat. I clutched at air. I tumbled from my horse.