The Vampyre (7 page)

‘“Yes.” I remembered the passage well. It had always chilled me, the thought of the hero, waiting for the ghosts of Hades to come. I peered through the mists at the road that led back to Aheron. “And he would have come to this very place, I suppose - to the river of the dead - to summon them.” I imagined the spirits, the sheeted dead, squeaking and gibbering as they flocked down the road.

‘“Why,” I asked Nikos, “if the
vardoulacha
is so dangerous, do they want to summon him?”

‘“It was once the woman's husband. The priest has come to destroy it.”

‘“The woman in the inn?” asked Hobhouse. “The woman who has just arrived?”

‘Nikos nodded. “She is from a village near to ours. Her husband has been buried for months now, but he is still seen, walking as he always did when alive, and the villagers are afraid.”

‘Hobhouse laughed, but Nikos shook his head. “There can be no doubt,” he said.

‘“How?”

‘“When he was alive, his leg was withered, and now when he is seen, he limps in the same way as he used to do.”

‘“Ah, well,” said Hobhouse, “that proves it. Better kill him off quick.”

‘Nikos nodded. “They will.”

‘“But why have they come here?” I asked. “To this spot?”

‘Nikos looked at me in surprise. “Because this is Aheron,” he said simply. He pointed at the road we had come down that evening. “This is the way that the dead come from Hell.”

‘We stared into the trench. The blood had almost drained now from the corpse of the goat, and lay black and viscous inside the earth. Beside the trench, I saw, a long stake lay prepared. The priest turned to us, and gestured that we should return inside. We needed little encouragement. Gorgiou and Petro both seemed relieved when we joined them again by the fire. Petro rose to his feet and took Nikos in his arms; he spoke to him in a low urgent whisper, and seemed to be scolding him. Nikos listened impassively, then shrugged himself free. He turned to me. “Don't mock us for what I have told you, My Lord,” he said softly. “Tonight, bar your windows.” I promised that I would. Nikos paused; then he felt inside his cloak and drew out a tiny crucifix. “Please,” he said, “for my sake - keep this by your side.”

‘I took the cross. It seemed made of gold, and was beautifully worked with precious stones. “Where did you get this from?” I asked in surprise - its value seemed far in excess of anything that might be owned by a shepherd boy.

‘Nikos brushed my hand. “Keep it, My Lord,” he whispered. “For who knows what things may be abroad tonight?” Then he turned and was gone, like a girl suddenly embarrassed that her lover might be admiring her.

‘When I retired to bed, I did as Nikos had advised, and locked the windows shut. Hobhouse chaffed me, but as I pointed out to him, he failed to open them up again. We both fell straight asleep, even Hobhouse, who usually lay in his bed waiting to complain about the sharpness of the fleas. I had placed the crucifix on the wall above our heads, hoping that it would give us a dreamless night, but the air was filthy and close, and I slept badly. Several times I woke, and I noticed that Hobhouse too was sweating and tossing on his sheets. Once I dreamed that there was scratching on the wall outside. I imagined that I woke and saw a face, bloodless and with a look of imbecilic savagery, staring in at me. I fell back to sleep and dreamed again, this time that the creature was scratching at the bars, his nails like talons making a hideous sound, but when I awoke there was nothing, and I half-smiled to think how powerfully Nikos' tale had affected me. A third time I fell asleep, and a third time I dreamed, and now the creature's nails were slicing through the bars, and the stench of carrion on his breath seemed to be carrying some foul pestilence into our room, so that I grew suddenly afraid that unless I opened my eyes we would never wake again. I sat up in a violent sweat. Again, the window was empty, but this time I walked across to it, and saw, to my horror, that there were gouges sliced across the bars. I gripped them, until my knuckles were white, and leaned my forehead against the central bar. The metal felt cool against my feverish skin. I stared out into the night. The mist was thick, and it was hard to see far beyond the road. Everything seemed still. Then, suddenly, I thought I saw movement - a man, or at least something resembling a man, running with extraordinary pace, but also with what seemed a lurch, as though one of the legs had been damaged in some way. I blinked, and the creature was lost. I peered desperately into the mists, but everything was still again, stiller perhaps, I thought with a grim half-smile, even than death itself.

‘I reached for the pistols that I always slept with under my pillow, and threw on my travelling cloak. I walked stealthily through the inn. To my relief, I saw that the doors were still barred; I opened them, and crept outside. In the far distance, a dog was howling; all else was silent and motionless. I walked down the road a small way, towards the clump of stakes. The crossroads was swathed in mist but everything there seemed as still as at the inn, and so I turned and made my way, as you can imagine, thoughtfully back. When I reached the inn, I barred the doors, then, as quietly as before, I crept back towards my room.

‘The door, when I reached it, was hanging open. I had left it shut, I was certain. As silently as I could, I approached it, and walked into the room. Hobhouse lay as I had left him, sweating on his filthy sheets, but bending over him, head almost touching his naked chest, was a figure muffled in an ugly black cloak. I aimed my pistol; the cocking of the weapon made the creature flinch, but before it could turn, the barrel of the pistol was buried in its back. “Outside,” I whispered. Slowly, the creature rose. I nudged it with the gun, and prodded it back into the corridor outside.

‘I pulled it round, and tore the cloak back from its face. I stared at it and then I began to laugh. I remembered what had been said to me earlier that evening. I repeated the words. “Who knows what things may be abroad tonight?”

‘Nikos did not smile. I gestured with the pistol that he should sit down. Reluctantly, he sank onto the floor.

‘I stood over him. “If you wanted to rob Hobhouse - and I presume that's what you were doing in our room - why wait until now?”

‘Nikos frowned in puzzlement.

‘“Your father,” I explained, “your brother - they were the
klephti
who killed our guards yesterday?”

‘Nikos made no answer. I prodded my pistol into his back. “Did you kill my guards?” I asked again.

Slowly, Nikos nodded his head.

‘“Why?”

‘“They were Turks,” he said simply.

‘“Why not us as well?”

‘Nikos looked at me angrily. “We are soldiers,” he said, “not bandits.”

‘“Of course not. You are all honest shepherds - I was forgetting.”

‘“Yes, we are shepherds,” said Nikos with a sudden explosion of fury, “just peasants, My Lord, animals, the slaves of a Turkish
vardoulacha
!” The word was spat at me without irony. “I had a brother, My Lord, my father had a son - he was killed by the Turks. Do you think slaves cannot take their revenge? Do you think slaves cannot dream of freedom, and fight for it? Who knows, My Lord, perhaps the time will come when Greeks do not have to be slaves.” Nikos' face was pale, and he was shaking, but his dark eyes gleamed with defiance. I reached out to calm him, to hold him in my arms, but he leaped to his feet and pressed himself against the wall. Suddenly, he laughed. “Of course, you are right - I am a slave, so why should I care? Have me, My Lord, and then give me the gold.” He reached up to take my cheeks. He kissed me, his lips burning, with anger first, and then, I knew, with something more, a long, long kiss of youth and passion, when heart and soul and sense move in sudden concert, and the sum of what is felt can no longer be reckoned.

‘Yet the despairing mockery of his words stayed in my ears. Without sense of time, I still knew that I had to break from the kiss. I did so. I took Nikos by the wrist, then dragged him back into my room. Hobhouse stirred; seeing me with the boy, he groaned and turned his back on us. I reached across him for a bag of coins. “Take it,” I said, tossing the bag to Nikos. “I enjoyed your tales of vampires and ghouls. Take it as a reward for your inventiveness.” The boy stared back at me in silence. His inscrutability only made him seem all the more vulnerable. “Where will you go?” I asked him, more gently than before.

‘The boy spoke at last. “A long way off.”

‘“ Where?”

‘“To the north perhaps. There are free Greeks there.”

‘“Does your father know?”

‘“Yes. He is sad, of course. He had three children - one is dead, and I must flee, and tomorrow there will only be Petro left to him. But he knows I have no choice.”

‘I stared at the boy, as slim and frail as a beautiful girl. He was, after all, just a boy - and yet I regretted the thought of losing him. “Why do you have no choice?” I asked.

‘Nikos shook his head. “I can't say.”

‘“Travel with us.”

‘“Two foreign lords?” Nikos laughed suddenly. “Yes, I could travel very inconspicuously with you.” He glanced down at the bag I had given him. “Thank you, My Lord, but I prefer your gold.”

‘He turned, and would have left the room had I not held his arm. I reached back to the wall and unhooked the cross. “Take this as well,” I said. “It must be valuable. I won't need it now.”

‘“But you do!” said Nikos in sudden fear. He reached up to kiss me. From the road outside came the muffled sound of a shot being fired. There was a second shot. “Keep it,” said Nikos, pressing the cross back into my palm. “Do you really think I could invent such things?” He shivered, then turned and hurried from me. I watched him run down the corridor. When I woke the next morning, it was to find that he had already gone.'

Lord Byron sat in silence, his hands clasped, his eyes staring into the flickering dark.

‘And Nikos?' Rebecca asked, her voice sounding distant in her own ears. ‘Did you see him again?'

‘Nikos?' Lord Byron looked up, then slowly shook his head. ‘No, I never saw
Nikos
again.'

‘And the shots - the two shots - you heard in the night?'

Lord Byron smiled palely. ‘Oh, I tried to convince myself that it could only have been the innkeeper firing at some creeping thief. A useful reminder, if we'd needed it, that there were robbers in the mountains less scrupulous than Gorgiou. A warning, that was what we had heard - to be careful at all times.'

‘And were you?'

‘Oh yes, in one sense - we reached Yanina without further difficulty, if that is what you mean.'

‘And the other sense?'

Lord Byron hooded his eyes. The faintest curl of mockery played on his lips. ‘The other sense,' he repeated softly. ‘When we left in the morning, we saw the corpse of a man half-tumbled into the innkeeper's trench. The man had been shot twice in the back; the priest's sharpened stake had been driven through his heart. The priest himself stood watching as a grave was dug by the forest of stakes. A woman, the same we had seen the night before, stood weeping by his side.

‘“So they caught their vampire,” said Hobhouse cheerily. He shook his enlightened head. “The things these people believe. Extraordinary. Quite extraordinar y.”

‘I said nothing. We rode on until the hamlet could no longer be seen. Only then did I point out the coincidence, that the corpse had had a withered leg.'

LORD BYRON,
Cain

F
or as long as we remained on the mountain track, our memories and imaginings together bred unmentionable fears. But we reached the Yanina road without mishap, and from then on progressed with such good speed that the superstitions we had pretended to mock amongst the mountains we now felt able to deride with quite genuine contempt - even I, who lacked my companion's faith in scepticism, could discuss the
vardoulacha
as though we were back in London sipping tea. Yet our first glimpse of Yanina was enough to remind us that we were still far from Charing Cross, for the domes and minarets, glittering through gardens of lemon trees and groves of cypress, were as picturesque - and unlike London - as we could possibly have hoped. Not even the sight of a human trunk, hanging from a tree by its single arm, could dampen our spirits, for what might have seemed in a remote village a great horror, now appeared, as we galloped down towards the gates of an oriental city, merely a pleasing touch of barbarism, romantic fodder for Hobhouse's notes.'

‘So you were made welcome?'

‘In Yanina? Yes.'

‘That must have been a relief.'

Lord Byron smiled faintly. ‘Yes, it was rather. Ali Pasha - I think I told you - had a rather ferocious reputation, but though he was off slaughtering the Serbs when we arrived, he had left orders for us to be met and entertained. Rather flattering. We were welcomed at the gates, and then led through the narrow, crowded streets, with their endless swirl of colour and noise, while over everything, in almost visible clouds, hung the stench of spices and mud and piss. Crowds of children followed us, pointing and laughing, while from shopfronts, and hashish dens, and the latticed balconies where women sat behind their veils, eyes pursued us unceasingly. It was a relief, at last, to feel the sunlight against our faces again, and a cooling breeze, as we were led along a lakefront road towards the caravanserai that Ali Pasha had set aside for us. It was open and airy, in the Turkish style, with a wide courtyard that led down to the lake. Not all the rooms around the court had been given to us; two Tartar soldiers stood on guard by an opposite gateway, and there were horses tethered in the stable yard. But there was no one else to be seen, and in the quiet of our rooms, even the hum of the city behind us seemed stilled.