Commedia della Morte (38 page)

“I have some sense of that, I think—that closeness—when the audience is with me,” she said, unaware of the perplexity in his eyes. “If we must use the word: has anyone become a vampire by you and then changed her mind about it?”

“Yes, a few have. Some planned in advance not to continue in this undead life for very long, or to prevent the change from happening,” he said, flinching at the memories of Melidulci and Heugenet. “And there was one who ignored all I told her about how to live so that there is no trouble with the living; she rejected me and all I tried to teach her, made a tribe of her own kind, and brought ruin upon them all. She paid a terrible price for her choices, and so did those who came to her life.” Csimenae filled his thoughts again, and he wondered if she were still in Spain, or had suffered the True Death: with the Blood Bond between them broken, he could not tell anything about her.

“You’re reigniting my desire,” she warned him, recalling him from his unwelcome recollections; she smiled in anticipation, moving with the rhythm of his hand.

“Your fulfillment is unfinished,” he said, seeing a flush of color in her face and neck, and becoming aware of her strong ardor.

“But you’ve made what we’ve had tonight so … so wonderful, that—oh! that’s just right!—right there!” For a long moment she luxuriated in the increasing sensations that had taken hold of her. “Not yet, I want more time to savor your skills,” she murmured, and stopped moving so that culmination would not overtake her again before she could give herself over to her ecstatic release. She licked her lips and made herself speak. “If you go much further, we’ll have one less time to lie together.”

“If you’d rather not…” he whispered, his fingers doing wonderful things to the little bud at the top of her inner lips. “I will take nothing more from you.”

She shook her head emphatically. “You will not deny yourself. I would not be pleased to have you give me my culmination and have none yourself.”

It was this unusual openness that had drawn him to her, and he responded to it now, in spite of his reservations. “Since it is what you want.” He devoted the next several minutes to discovering the full range of her excitation, evoking blissful sensations from her toes to the top of her head, always returning to the sweet depths at the top of her thighs.

“Oh. Oh.” Her body was shaking with her gathering passion, from the limits of her flesh to the portals of her soul, she reveled in the anticipation of her approaching rapture. “Don’t stop.” She tried to keep from panting, but could only slow down her breaths a little. The transports were almost upon her, when she would lose and find herself in the same infinite instant. Her thoughts scattered, overwhelmed by the tide of pleasure sweeping through her in a culmination of desire that engulfed her as with a storm of exaltation that approached apotheosis. She made no attempt to stop her delirious spasms, clasping his hair in her hands and bringing his mouth to her neck, all but weeping with the glory of her release. Gradually the elation faded, although little tremors ran through her, codas to her climax, and gradually she loosened her hold on him, sighing with satisfaction and a touch of regret. “
Now
I am replete. Now I am Helen and Cleopatra and Venus herself.” In a grand demonstration, she flung one arm up and let it fall beautifully between them.

He regarded her with a fine mixture of shared gratification and dubiety; as intimate as they were, he still could not determine how much of what she offered him was genuine and how much was expert performance. “You are Photine,” he said softly, fingering the damp tendrils of her hair that lay on her cheek. “That is what I love in you.”

“Strange,” she said. “Most who think they love me love what they imagine me to be.” After lying contemplatively for a few minutes, Photine half-sat up and reached for her satin robe-de-chambre, and pulled it around her, then snuggled back against da San-Germain. “It’s getting cold in here,” she said with a giggle.

“Would you like me to build up the fire?” he offered, watching her struggles with the robe.

“I would like you to warm me up through your own efforts, but that isn’t what you do, is it?”

“No, at least not with my body,” he admitted, and swung out of the bed, going to the hearth and reaching for a log to put on the embers winking in the fireplace.

She pulled a pillow nearer and leaned on it. “You are very good to me, you know, and I am shrewish not to treasure you as you deserve. Most men would take their pleasure and that would be the end of it.”

“And you have been good to me,” he said, watching the log beginning to smoke. When he was certain that it would burn, he went back to her bed and got under the sheet and blanket. “The room will be warmer shortly.”

“Yes,” she said. “Will you promise to tell me one day how you learned to do all the things you know how to do?”

“I will tell you some of it, if you would like to know.” He stretched out beside her, leaning toward her and changing the subject. “What do you plan to do tomorrow?”

“We need to rehearse; Crepin and Olympe are getting lax in their lines,” she said, turning her attention willingly to her plans for the coming day. “We need to be more alert to the audience, as well. And Theron has an idea he wants to discuss with the troupe. I don’t think many of them will agree with him, but he has every right to ask.”

“Would you tell me what this idea is, or would you rather not until the matter is decided?”

She considered him, then said, “Since you are our patron, I suppose he couldn’t object to my telling you.” Grabbing a second pillow and shoving it under her shoulder, she said in a musing tone, “He thinks that the Corpses should march through the town at the end of the play; I think the beginning would be better if we must do it at all.”

“Why is that?”

“If we march at the end, our audience could leave without paying anything for the entertainment. If we march at the beginning, we may bring a larger audience to see us,” she said with happy conviction. “But the troupe might not like taking on something so unpredictable. Out in the streets, in such costumes, there could be trouble, and everyone would have to change their costumes for the play.”

“What if half the Corpses went out, leaving those in the first three scenes to get ready for the play? That way, you could open the curtain as soon as the troupe was back, and that would hold many of those who might follow us.” She beamed. “It gives us a willing audience.”

“Your plan makes better sense, if the parade is to happen at all,” said da San-Germain. “Theron’s would rob you of your bows as well as your money, and might earn all of you scorn from those who do not like the play.”

Her laughter was brief but rang utterly true. “You know us so well: players do like applause.” After a pause, she added, “And money.”

He chuckled wryly. “Merci du compliment.”

“Will we need another license for the parade?”

“Probably. I will find out for you, and secure one if it’s necessary,” he said.

“You are always so helpful, Ragoczy. It’s quite remarkable of you.”

“My motives aren’t entirely altruistic,” he told her. “I would like to find out when they are bringing the prisoners into the city.”

“It would be less obvious to ask while you obtained a license for a parade—yes, I see that.” She shifted on her pillow again, watching him, gauging how much more to say. “While we have a little more time together, I’d like to thank you for putting Feo to be companion to Enee. I no longer know what to do with my son, and he worries me.”

“It would help none of us if Enee should earn the condemnation of the Revolutionary Court.” Da San-Germain sat up across the bed from her. “If there is trouble, at least we’ll have timely warning of it.”

“You trust Feo,” she said, a little doubt easing the statement toward being an inquiry.

“I have found him to be reliable,” he said, preparing to rise. “The company will be up in another hour.”

“With such heavy clouds, how can you be sure sunrise is near?”

“I am not lying on my native earth, and my feet are bare: seen or unseen, I can feel the presence of the sun. All of my blood can do that.” He touched her face. “I should return to my room now, don’t you think.”

“Oh, I suppose so, though most of the players know that you passed most of the night with me. It is to be expected.” She held out her hands to him. “Actors understand these arrangements. Constance thinks it odd that I don’t spend all my nights with you.”

He rose to offer her a profound leg. “And how do you answer her impertinence?”

“I have said to her that I have my first loyalty to the company: patrons may come and go, but the dependability of troupers is essential to our success.” She got out of the bed, adjusted her robe, and tugged at the bedding, making an effort to restore a little order to the marvelous disarray. “You’re right, though,” she conceded as she plumped a pillow. “You should go back to your room, much as I delight in having you here.”

“Keep in mind that it will only be safe to lie with me one more time without facing the change to my nature upon your death.”

“Yes, yes. I do remember that much,” she said, and as he went toward the door, “How long do you think the rain will last? We’re supposed to perform in two days, but if it’s still raining, we may have to cancel, or find an indoor place to perform.”

“I don’t have the same sense of weather as I do of the movements of the sun, but the innkeeper said that unless there are high winds, the rain will last for two days. In December, it will last for three.”

“Will we be here in December?” Photine asked.

“I think not,” said da San-Germain.

She nodded, pausing in her bed-making, to blow him a kiss. “You’re almost a perfect lover, and almost a perfect patron, Ragoczy. When this is over, I will miss you.”

He bowed again, in the fashion of three hundred years before. “I am honored to be of service while I may,” and before she could speak again, he was out in the hall. He moved quickly and with only the slightest sound along the corridor to his room, where he tapped twice before opening the door.

Roger was sitting before the small fireplace, a plate in his hands with the remains of a raw duck upon it. “My master,” he said, starting to rise.

“There’s no reason to get up, old friend. Finish your meal, by all means,” da San-Germain said, then went to pinch out a guttering candle that stood with four companions on the night-stand next to the bed.

“How is Madame?” Roger asked as he resumed his seat.

“She seems well, or so I think she must be,” said da San-Germain, staring at the mirror on the armoire door, where there was no sign of his reflection; many centuries ago, the lack of an image would have distressed him, now he felt only caution and the desire not to have anyone discover his missing reflection.

Long experience of da San-Germain made Roger ask, “Seems? Not is? Is it Enee who causes the problem?”

“In part, I think. He is constantly goading his mother, provoking her to have to choose between him and me, and occasionally I wonder if she encourages that in him.” He shrugged and opened the mirrored door so that it no longer faced the room. “She puzzles me.”

“I am aware of that,” said Roger, cutting another slice of duck thigh.

“There are times I feel that she has revealed herself to me, but then, something in her shifts and I find myself wondering if she was providing another convincing performance, and that the performance satisfies her as much as anything I may do for her.”

“Do you think she is dependable?” Roger asked as if discussing the weather.

“To a point. I am persuaded that she values her own welfare more than she may possess any loyalty to me beyond what is pragmatic, but I trust that is enough. I would rather not be caught up in a contest between mother and son.” He rubbed his chin. “I need a shave.”

“You do; it’s been five days since your last, and your beard is beginning to show. I’ll get the basin when I’m done,” Roger said. “And I should trim your hair; it’s gotten a little wild at the back.”

Da San-Germain ran his fingers through it. “Indeed it has. We might as well do both at the same time.”

“I can ask the innkeeper to send up a tub and hot water, if you would like a bath as well.”

“I probably need one,” he agreed. “I’ll go get the seat-pad out of the cart. We can slide it under the tub.” The seat-pad was filled with his native earth and would counteract the enervating effects of the water.

“Hadn’t you better dress first? A nightshirt is—”

“—inappropriate; I agree. I’ll put on something more acceptable,” he said, looking into the open armoire. “The driving-britches and the coachman’s canvas cloak should do it. I’ll tuck in the nightshirt.”

“It’s early enough that no one will pay much attention,” said Roger, continuing to eat slices of duck.

“This shouldn’t take long,” said da San-Germain, pulling the garments from their pegs and tossing them onto the bed. “I’m not going to bother with underclothes.”

“No reason to,” Roger agreed.

“So let me…” He did not finish his thought as he pulled on the driving-britches, adjusting the waist after he tucked in his nightshirt. “Is this suitable?”

Roger studied him. “Yes, I think so,” he said. “With the cloak, you’ll do.”

“Thank you,” said da San-Germain before he tugged on his boots. “Shall I order the bath on my way out?”

“I don’t think so,” Roger said. “That would give rise to talk; you may be sure some of the servants know where you spent the night. They make a point of sharing what they know, as well. I’ll attend to it in a few minutes, when I take these bones down to the kitchen.”

“As you like. I shouldn’t take long,” he said, and let himself out of the room, going toward the backstairs since at this hour no one would be at the front door to bolt it behind him. In the kitchen, a sleepy scullion let him out of the building; da San-Germain crossed the yard to the stable and went in through the tack-room door. His dark-seeing eyes had little trouble with the lack of illumination, but he used flint-and-steel to light a small lantern that hung on a hook on the main pillar in the stable before he stepped into the wide central aisle of the structure, where the wagons and carts were stored at the end opposite the stalls. A few of the horses gave whickers of recognition, and one of the mules made a sound like a pan dragged over pebbles, but otherwise his presence went unnoticed.