Under A Velvet Cloak (14 page)

That did make the girl pause. “We can,” she said. “We are not immortal if damaged sufficiently. Then let us compromise: he can have you as mistress after your babe is birthed.”

“Or you as mistress after he marries me,” Kerena said evenly. “I am the one he loves.”

“He must choose,” Vanja agreed.

“I choose Kerena,” Morely said immediately. “I will always love her. It was for love of her I left her.”

“Then it is decided,” Kerena said, relieved.

The time frames wavered. Jolie reacted almost automatically. She moved back a few seconds, sending a suppressing of Kerena’s comment. This time she said nothing, and the frames aligned.

Vanja considered, realizing that she held the losing hand. “Though she birth a baby not yours?”

“Yes. I can’t sire a baby now, nor can a vampire woman conceive one. That’s a vampire liability you forgot to enumerate when you converted me.”

So he felt bitterness too. That gratified Kerena. “I know you love me.”

“But the connection with Vanja remains,” he said. “I can not eliminate my desire for her. You have to understand and accept this.”

“Not necessarily. Didn’t Vanja lose Vichard’s hold on her when she converted you?”

“Yes, that is the only way,” Vanja agreed. “To blood another mortal.”

“So if Morely converts me, you will lose your hold on him.”

She knew the vampire woman was staring at her. She had
analyzed,
the system rationally and found its weakness. Morely was surely proud of her.

Jolie wondered whether that was the reason the timelines had started to separate: to stop Kerena from converting in order to win Morely back?

“You don’t want to be a vampire, Kerena,” Morely said. “I would love to have you with me again, but you should remain mortal. That way you have a future in the realm of mortals.”

“Yet you would convert me if I asked.”

“Yes. I love you. That’s why I ask you not to ask me.”

Much as Kerena had asked Gawain not to clasp her, though she longed for it. Love was like that. “I will think about it. Where can Gordon and I stay?”

“Not in the warren,” Vanja said. “Your stupid torches are a menace.”

“In a human village,” Kerena said.

“They can’t stay there either,” Vanja said. “They would reveal our location, and the mortals would invade and destroy us.”

“Then we’ll camp out,” Kerena said.

“But your baby!” Morely protested.

“Isn’t due yet. I’ll make up my mind before then.”

The two vampires left them, and Kerena went with Gordon to find a comfortable camp for the night. It wasn’t easy in the darkness, but they managed.

“Do you have an opinion, Gordon?” she asked as they lay under the cloak.

“Vanja is your enemy, but she doesn’t know about the cloak. I intercepted her so she wouldn’t discover that you are invulnerable.”

She smiled. “Thank you. But I mean about my becoming a vampire.”

“I don’t think you want to become any more like him than like me. Why sacrifice either your mortality or your sexuality?”

“I love him.”

“What of your baby?”

“I don’t want that to be a vampire. I’ll have to take it back to Sir Gawain.”

“He may not like that.”

“I don’t know what else to do.”

“Then I will wait until you birth it, then accompany you back to Sir Gawain.”

“That is more than you should do. If I turn vampire, you should consider your service over. Is there enough gold left to sustain you?”

“Three times as much as that.”

“It is all yours.”

“I will keep it-after I finish with you.”

“Were you normal, I would be suspicious of your motive.”

“I think I do love you, Kerena, in my fashion.”

“You wish to kiss me?”

“No. Just to take care of you.”

Love was like that too. “So many women would settle for that.”

“You will have to settle for my loyalty.”

They slept.

Kerena pondered for a week while they camped out. Morely brought them supplies. “Vampires do eat other than blood,” he said. “In fact, very little is blood. We need it only every month or so to maintain our vigor. We take it mostly from sheep, and not those grazing close to here.”

“You don’t seem to have fangs.”

“We don’t. We make a small cut near a vein, and lick the blood up as it flows. An ounce or so is enough. The sheep hardly misses it.”

In the second week Vanja came, bringing the supplies. Kerena was surprised. “Morely let you come?”

“He asked me to come.”

“Asked you!”

“He does love you. I come to make a deal.”

Kerena distrusted this. “What do you have to offer?”

“I can help you to help him, if you decide to convert.”

This was interesting. “Speak your mind.”

“I am bound to him regardless what he does. I could break that by converting another mortal man, but we prefer to keep our number low, and I don’t think I could find a better man than Vorely. If you convert you will take him. Let me be his mistress. I am ready to settle for that. In return I will show you how he can become chief of the clan, an advantageous position that would benefit us both.”

“Better to be the mistress of a chief, than the wife of an ordinary vampire?”

“Equivalent. And if you approved it, he would agree.”

Kerena considered. “So it’s power you want.”

“No. First I want Vorely. I chose him in part because I knew I could love him, and I
do.
Second I want vengeance on the man who brought me into this. I could have done very well for myself among the mortals.”

Kerena knew that with her figure and determination, Vanja could indeed have done very well. Her motives rang true. She had realized that if she hurt Kerena, Morely would turn on her. So she had to make the best of it by making an alliance with her rival. Could she be trusted?

Kerena focused her Seeing, and discovered to her surprise that the vampiress
could
be trusted, for her motives were straightforward. She knew what she wanted and how to get it. She was actually a person Kerena could have liked, had circumstances been different.

“I will consider it,” she said at last. “Tell me how you would help him become chief.”

“Each year the vampires vote on which among them will be chief for the next year. Vichard has been elected the past twenty years, but dissatisfaction is growing, and now there are only two more votes in his camp than against him.”

“Twenty years?” Kerena asked. “How long have you known him?”

“Eighteen years.”

“But you look eighteen total!”

“I look as I did when he converted me. I was that age as a mortal.”

“So it is true that you retain youth indefinitely.”

“It is true. But I would have preferred to remain mortal, had a man and family, and grown children by now. That has been denied me. I
do
not pretend it is fun to be a vampire. It is merely a different state, with compensations. Vorely gives my limited life meaning. I will
do
for him what I can.”

“So you are of Morely’s generation, rather than mine.”

“Generations don’t much matter, with our kind.”

“I am nearing sixteen,” Kerena said. “If I converted, I could remain that age, physically.”

Vanja smiled. “Yes. You look eighteen, and stunning, but for your pregnancy.”

“And if I converted, I would represent one more vote for Morely to be chief. But that would still be one short, not victory.”

“I have hitherto voted for Vichard.”

Now it came clear. Vanja had been loyal despite her ire, as there was no point in aggravating her lover when there were not enough votes to oust him. But now she had a better prospect, so her change in vote could make the difference. If Kerena joined.

“Let me talk with Morely about this,” Kerena said. “If I convert, you can be mistress of the chief. If I do not, I will depart, and you will be wife of the man you love.”

“Talk with Vorely,” Vanja agreed. She departed.

Alone again, Kerena discussed it with Gordon. “Should I ally with her?”

“I think you should birth your baby, take it to its father, and ask him to marry you.”

“He might
do
that, but I would be a millstone on his neck I will not
do
that to him.”

“And giving him his bastard child would be no millstone?”

That stung. “Less of one, I think. Siring bastards is a knightly thing to do; many women are enthralled by knights. But marrying a harlot is beyond the pale. I would not ask him to do that.”

“Why not raise your baby here among the vampires, then?”

“It is not a choice I care to make for it. I can make it for myself, but my baby must have its chance at mortality.”

“Then ally with Vanja and win back your man.”

That was the way she was leaning. The idea of remaining her present age forever had a certain appeal, too.

Another night she talked with Morely. “Vanja proffered me a deal: convert, help you become chief, marry you, and let her be your mistress.”

“If I converted you, I would have no further compulsion to sexually indulge her. I would want only you.”

Kerena was surprised. “Can she be ignorant of that?”

“Maybe she forgot.”

Kerena was not sure of that. She would have to discuss it with Vanja. “I never thought it would be so complicated, once I found you. It was difficult enough finding you. I never would have made it without your velvet cloak. It is past time to return it to you.”

“Keep it; I am glad it warmed you in my absence.”

“And protected me, and guided me,” she said. “Why did you not tell me of its marvelous properties?”

“What properties?”

“Invulnerability, for one.”

“It is merely a cloak. It provides no invulnerability. If you believed that, you were putting your life in danger.”

This was odd. Her Seeing indicated he was not joking. “I will demonstrate.”

She invoked invulnerability and wrapped the cloak closely about her. “Now strike me.”

“I would not do that.”

“Gordon, strike me.”

Gordon drew his sword.

“Don’t do that!” Morely protested. “This foolishness has gone far enough.”

“It’s no foolishness, sir,” Gordon said. “That cloak has protected me too.” But he sheathed the sword. “Try it yourself, with a stick. You will see.”

Morely picked up a stick and poked it at Kerena. It shied away. He tried again, with no better success. Surprised, he tried a light blow. It didn’t land.

“It’s true!” he said, astonished. “There is magic.”

“You didn’t know?” Kerena asked. “How could you not know?”

“That cloak never protected me like that. I have been buffeted by ruffians many times.”

“Well, you have to invoke it, of course.”

“It had no such power before. I would have known.”

“You are a Seer,” she agreed. “You should have known.”

“An amazing notion occurs to me,” he said. “You are doing it, not the cloak.”

“But how could I have any such power?”

“As an extension of your power with the elements. You showed much aptitude there, mastering them much faster than I did. I may have seriously misjudged your potential.”

“All that I am, apart from my Seeing, I owe to your instruction or your cloak,” she said.

“I think not. I think the Fey took you farther than I ever could.”

“She merely taught me how to invoke the properties of the cloak. I think she envied you the power you had to invest it with such powers.”

“I think she told you that, to limit your awareness of you own potential.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“More experimentation is in order. What other properties did you discover in the cloak?”

“Invisibility, permeability, and orientation on you, its master.”

“Doff the cloak. Make yourself permeable.”

She humored him. She set aside the cloak, then invoked the permeability spell on herself. “See-I am unchanged.”

“Now walk through me.”

She shrugged and walked into him, expecting a collision. And through him without resistance. It was as if she had become a ghost.

“Oh, my,” she breathed, feeling faint.

“Reverse the spell, so I can comfort you.”

She did, and he did. “I never dreamed of this,” she said, awed.

“Nor didI. I recognized great potential in you, but never that. I curse myself for my neglect.”

“Sir,” Gordon said. “You did not recognize it when she was younger because it had not yet developed. It surely came with her maturation.”

“Perhaps that explains it,” Morely said. “This does somewhat change the picture. Kerena, you must not waste yourself by turning vampire. You have so much more to accomplish in the mortal realm.”

“But I want to be with you.”

“And I with you. But I tried to train you to be rational. Is it rational for you to handicap yourself this way, when you have so much future elsewhere?”

“No,” she whispered.

“It grieves me to come to this conclusion, but it does seem best.”

“I have not yet decided.”

He paused. “In that case, be sure to let me know when you do. I would at least like to bid you fond parting.”

Another night Vanja came again. This time the moon was bright; that light did not bother the vampires. Kerena braced her forthrightly: “If Morely converts me, he will lose his passion for you. That could cost you your association, even if he becomes chief. Had you not thought of that?”

“I had thought of it. But I love him and want what is best for him. If that is to be chief with you, then so it must be. I will still have my vengeance of Vichard, and maybe Vorely will still find me appealing on occasion even if not compelled. You have but to allow it.”

Kerena’s respect was growing. “I hated you for what you did to Morely. Then I came to understand, without approval. Now I am coming to respect you. You are true to your lights.”

“I do what I must.”

“Let me study you.”

The woman was perplexed. “I will tell you what you want to know.”

“This is more than that. I am a Seeress. I can fathom things beyond what others know.”

“Yes, that is why Vorely loves you. I can not compete with that.”