Night Blooming (69 page)

“You are no demon, and could never be,” he said as gently as he could.

“It hardly matters, if Bishop Iso has his way. I will have to endure the fate of all demons, and burn for it.” She sighed. “Pope Leo has suffered, and I think he may not condemn me utterly. He knows what it is to have the world against him.”

Rakoczy pulled her closer to him. “He is frightened, and that makes him dangerous.”

“You tell me so, but I don’t know that it’s true,” she said to him, disengaging herself from his arms.

“Then what do you want of me, Gynethe Mehaut?” he asked, his voice low.

She considered her answer carefully. “I want to lie with you again, this last time. You said it is still safe for us to … to comfort our bodies. I want to have your touch to remember. If I must be a martyr to the Church, I will be, but I will have some delight for myself, if only to liven my Confession.” She eluded his hands. “Don’t press me, or engulf me so. I don’t like such embraces.”

“As you wish,” said Rakoczy, and rose to his feet, holding out his hand to her. “Come. You will choose where we are to lie, and you will tell me what would pleasure you most.”

“I don’t want to demand more of you than you wish,” said Gynethe Mehaut. “You may not intend to give more to me than you have, but there is much I haven’t found yet.”

“That is why I implore you to tell me what you seek,” said Rakoczy, indicating the private room attached to the parlor where he and Gynethe Mehaut had sat for a good part of the evening.

“This is going to be an interesting farewell,” said Gynethe Mehaut, as if she had determined to enjoy herself at any cost.

“What do you suppose would please you?” Rakoczy asked as he opened the door. “The bed is made with linen and good fur. You can be comfortable and warm.”

She nodded. “This is good,” she said, and smiled. “The room is warm; it is much more agreeable to be warm.” Glancing nervously in his direction, she said, “I don’t know what I should do now; can you tell me what would be best to do?”

“Choose what most gratifies you and that will satisfy us both,” said Rakoczy as he went to the side of the bed. “The coverlet on or off?”

“On,” she said. “I will lie atop it.” She unfastened her girdle and tossed it aside. “Take off my gonella.”

Rakoczy moved to her side and slowly lifted the soft woolen garment. “And your stolla?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said, shivering a little either from cold or anticipation. “Just don’t press me,” she said again.

“No. I won’t.” He went to her clothes-tree and took down the largest of the three silken veils Olivia had given her. “This has a touch a breeze could envy,” he told her as he ran the sea-foam fabric through his hands. “You may not think so now, but I will show you.”

She stood watching him. “You will not bind me?”

“No, I will not,” he said, trying to find some way to reassure her. “My Word on—”

“Yes, yes,” she said impatiently. “Well, no doubt I will see for myself.” She sat on the edge of the bed and stared off toward the lamps hanging near the head of it. “Compline is over and we have until Matins.”

“They will ring Vigil,” Rakoczy reminded her, puzzled by her state of mind.

“So they will.” She lay back. “May God forgive me for my happiness tonight.”

“Why should you need forgiveness?” Rakoczy asked, coming a step nearer.

“I should spend the night in penance, as I have done so often. While we traveled, it wasn’t possible, but I have been lax since I arrived here. God may not look kindly on my neglect of Him.” She held up her bandaged hands. “He could exact contrition.”

“You make God sound like a petulant parent, jealous of His own children, and Christ a rebellious youth,” said Rakoczy, who had often thought that the understanding of God had shifted from the original teaching of the founder of the Christian faith.

“Don’t say that It is blasphemous,” said Gynethe Mehaut distantly. “I don’t want to have to repent for listening to you.”

“Then perhaps I should be silent,” he suggested, coming close to her and letting the edge of the veil drift over her.

She caught the end of the veil in her fingers, letting it trail slowly. “It is so soft.”

“It is,” Rakoczy agreed, and came to the bed, putting one knee on it and moving the veil so that it fluttered over her.

“It is like a butterfly,” she whispered. She pulled her stolla up, exposing her thigh and waiting for him to do more. “Where will you land, lovely butterfly?”

Rakoczy flicked the silk, letting it brush her skin without lingering too long in any one place, flirting it along her body, across her stolla to her hands, and over the bindings that covered the wounds in her palms. Then he floated the silk down her exposed legs, a languid progress that eased her thighs open and brought her nipples erect, honing her senses to a keenness she had not experienced before; every part of her had come alive and was now yearning for greater stimulation. Although he could see the changes coming over Gynethe Mehaut, Rakoczy continued his tantalizing ministrations, using the silk to dally along her legs until she wriggled completely out of her stolla.

“Is this all?” she sighed, her body moving to follow the caresses of the veil.

“For a while yet,” Rakoczy said, aware of her increasing arousal. “Doesn’t it give you pleasure?”

“Oh, yes,” she breathed.

“Good. Then I’ll continue,” he said, and danced the veil up her taut belly to her small, high breasts.

Her breath hissed into her, and she shivered but not from cold; the sensitivities possessing her brought her to a pitch of excitement that astonished her. That a single piece of silk could work such marvels! She felt its caresses as if they were kisses, and she opened herself to them as she had seen the night-blooming flowers open to the darkness. So caught up was she in the sweet delirium of her body that she hardly noticed when Rakoczy set the silk aside and slowly, exquisitely, stretched out between her legs, gently lowering himself so that his head rested just under her chin. Slowly his hands repeated the lambency of the silk, their touch so light that it was almost as if the air caressed her. Her body responded to him, and she felt a gathering of heat within her that surprised and gladdened her. Gradually she moved to accommodate him, ecstacy putting all her fears to flight while his hands and lips discovered new raptures. Finally she was shaken by a sudden spasm that alarmed her with its intensity, and she pushed against his shoulders.

He moved immediately, lying beside her, his hand resting just beneath her breasts where he could feel her heartbeat, and her breathing. “Gynethe Mehaut,” he whispered.

She was panting still, and she took a short time to answer. “Before you … The other times … This time you didn’t…”

“It will come,” said Rakoczy.

“Aren’t you finished?” she asked, her eyes growing wide.

“No; you aren’t,” he said, a hint of amusement in his dark eyes. “You have only started to learn what your body can give you.”

“But—” She stopped herself, not wanting to name the sin she had committed.

“All your life, your body has been your adversary, a necessary vessel for your soul, but not an ally. You resent it, and it isn’t surprising that you do.” He stroked the line of her ribs. “It dispirits me to see you so blighted. If I can give you nothing else, at least let me have this chance to help you accept your body as a confederate and not an opponent.”

“You didn’t do this before,” she said, suddenly suspicious.

“No; you had no desire for that experience, but you do now.” He raised himself on his elbow, the black of his gonelle lying like a shadow along her white skin.

“Why do you say that? How can you know?” She wanted to pull away from him, but her limbs would not obey her will.

“I know that because I know you.” He moved his hand up, lightly cupping her breast.

She started to move his hand away and then stopped, unwilling to give up the rapturous sensation that was welling within her once again. “How can you?” she repeated.

“I told you: when I tasted your blood, some of you became part of me.” He fingered her nipple, gently, gently, then grazed a kiss on it.

Gynethe Mehaut shuddered deliciously and felt herself lapse again into that apolaustic state that must surely demand repentance at a later time. For now, this was all the world and everything she could desire, and not even the joys of Heaven could lure her from the fervor he awakened in her. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the ardor and the rapture that Rakoczy evoked in her, a glorification of her living body that she had not expected to find except before the Throne of God. When his lips brushed her neck, the culmination of her passion carried them both far beyond happiness to the fulfillment of joy. After what seemed to be half the night, Gynethe Mehaut opened her eyes and stared at Rakoczy lying beside her. “What was that? I’ve never experienced anything like it. What happened to me?”

“You found intimacy,” he said simply, and carried her hand to his lips to kiss the bandage. “We touched one another, and you touched yourself.”

“It was more than that,” she said.

“There is no more than that,” he told her, and brushed her pale wisps of hair back from her face. “And many people live all their lives without ever knowing what you have known.”

“But this is the flesh,” said Gynethe Mehaut, a sudden wave of anxiety taking hold of her. “How can it be more than the meeting of skins and the making of children?”

“Because,” Rakoczy said softly, “our bodies have touched, and through that, our souls.”

“That cannot be true. You drink my blood.” She flung the accusation at him as if to barricade herself against the emotions welling within her.

“As you drink wine as the Blood of Christ, to achieve union with the Saints,” he reminded her, no trace of blame in his words.

“The Saints abhor the flesh,” she said forcefully.

“Some of them do,” he conceded.

“The only union for Christians to desire is union with God,” Gynethe Mehaut charged him.

“Whose kingdom is within, according to Scripture,” Rakoczy reminded her. He moved back, then reached for the blanket of fox-fur that lay atop the chest near the wall. “Here. You’ll get cold. Wrap this around you and stay warm.”

Gynethe Mehaut huddled into the soft pelts, not entirely to keep warm, but to protect herself from his nearness. She was shivering again, this time for reasons she could not define. “When Vigil sounds, I should go and pray. It will ring shortly, I expect.”

“If you think you must, then do,” said Rakoczy without any indication of dismay.

She watched him as he rose and gathered up her clothes. “You puzzle me, Magnatus.”

The use of his title made him flinch. “Why is that, Gynethe Mehaut?”

“You offer me this gratification as if it were the gift of Angels, and not a sign of the sins of the flesh,” she said, trying not to think about the shame that threatened to overcome her.

He began to fold her stolla. “Why cannot you have both?”

She could hardly believe he had spoken. “Impossible. The flesh is the realm of the Devil. All sins he in the flesh.”

He put the stolla down on the chest and picked up the gonella. “Is that why you have come to dread all touching—because you fear the sins of the flesh?”

“As all Christians must,” she said as she did her best to make a gesture of protection. “We must turn away from the body to be worthy of Heaven.”

He remained very still, profoundly aware of her growing conflict. Watching her, he longed for the means to help her accept her delectation, and recognized the impossibility of it. As he set her clothing aside, he wanted to speak of something that would ease the alienation that had arisen between them so quickly. “When I first came to this life, I was the demon some would have you think I am. But that was almost three thousand years ago, and in time I have learned that the brevity of life is what makes it most precious, and that time itself makes demands upon us. If Heaven has more to demand of us than life does, it is too remote for the living.”

She listened to him attentively. “You don’t want me to say you have caused me to change my mind, do you?”

“No. I was hoping to show you that I understand why you wouldn’t.” He came to the foot of the bed and stretched out his hand.

“Then not all your women have become like you,” she said, a suggestion of doubt in her tone.

“No; most of them have not,” he said, and had a momentary recollection of Csimenae, and another of Nicoris.

Something must have shown in his face, for she said, “Does that trouble you?”

“No; no, it doesn’t.” He touched her ankle. “If you don’t want the life I live, then don’t enter it. You are not in danger of it now.”

“But it worries you that I would choose not to have it,” she persisted. “That’s what you expect, isn’t it? For me to change my mind and become like you.”

“No,” he said. “I was remembering someone who should have refused and didn’t.”

She was immediately curious. “How did that happen? When?”

“It was a long time ago,” he said. “Not everyone is ready to live as we do. Not everyone was ready to outlive all children, friends, enemies, and their grandchildren, and great-grandchildren until you are gone from memory. Only legend might survive.”

She shook her head. “I will never have children.” She pulled the fox-fur up to her chin. “I don’t know what it would be like to have friends as others do.”

Rakoczy said nothing for a short while, and then he said, “I’m sorry you haven’t had friendship. You have an aptitude for it.”

Gynethe Mehaut laughed once. “I suppose you expect me to cling to you, as my friend if not my lover. You want me to demand your devotion so that I will have to be one with you.”

“No,” said Rakoczy. “I would never compel anyone to come to my life.”

“Wouldn’t you?” She waited for him to argue with her.

“I wish I weren’t leaving as much as you wish it,” said Rakoczy as levelly as he could. “If it were my decision to make, I would remain here at Roma, in my old villa outside the walls.”

“Though you say you would not come to my bed again, in case I should end up a vampire,” she said bluntly. “You are glad you’re leaving.”