Blood and Gold - Anne Rice [103]
“You can do anything now,” I told her. “Merely think on it. You can be male. You can be female. You can be neither. Seek the Evil Doer as I do and you will never choke on death. But always, whatever your joys, whatever your misery, don’t put yourself in danger of the judgment of others. Measure your strength and take care.”
She nodded, her eyes wide with fascination. Of course the men in the tavern shot glances at her. They thought I had brought my pretty boy out drinking with me. Before things got out of hand, I left with her, but not before she had tested her powers to read the minds of those around her, and to daze the poor slave boy who had brought our wine.
As we walked through the streets, I gave her random instructions in the ways of the world which I thought she might need. I enjoyed doing this far too much.
She described for me all the secrets of the Imperial palace so that I might better penetrate it to satisfy my curiosity, and then we found ourselves in a tavern again.
I warned her,
“You’ll come to hate me for what I did to Eudoxia, and for what I did to the other blood drinkers as well.”
“No, that’s not so,” she said plainly. “You must understand that Eudoxia never allowed me one moment of freedom, and as for the others they felt only contempt for me or jealousy, I never knew which.”
I nodded, accepting this, but then I asked her,
“Why do you think that Eudoxia told me the story of her life, of how she herself had once wandered in a boy’s clothing in Alexandria, when she never told you such things?”
“She had some hope of loving you,” Zenobia answered. “She confided this to me, not directly you understand, but through her descriptions of you and her enthusiasm for seeing you. But these emotions were mixed up in her mind with wariness and cunning. And I think that her fear of you won out.”
I was quiet, thinking it over, the tavern noises like music.
Zenobia was watching me and then she said,
“From me, she wanted no such knowledge of herself or understanding. She was content to have me as a plaything. And even when I read to her or sang for her, she would not really look at me, or care for me. But you? You, she saw as a being who was worthy of her. When she spoke of you, it was as if no one was listening. She went on and on, making her plan to summon you to her house and speak with you. It was an obsession full of fear. Don’t you see?”
“It went so wrong,” I said. “But come, there are many things I must teach you. We have only so many hours before dawn.”
We went out into the night, holding fast to each other. How I loved teaching her! There was such a spell to it for me.
I showed her how she might climb walls effortlessly, and how easy it was to get past mortals in the shadows, and how she could draw mortal victims to herself.
We crept into Hagia Sophia, a thing she believed to be impossible, and for the first time since she’d been given the Blood she saw the great church she’d known so well when she was alive.
Finally, after we’d both claimed victims in the back streets for the night’s thirst, at which time she learnt of her considerable new strength, we returned to the house.
There I found the official documents pertaining to its ownership, and I examined these with her, and suggested how she might maintain the house of Eudoxia for her own.
Avicus and Mael were both there. And as it came near to sunrise they asked if they might remain.
“That question you must put to Zenobia,” I said. “This house belongs to her.”
Immediately, in her kindness of heart she told them to remain. They could take the hidden places that had belonged to Asphar and Rashid.
I could see that she found the well-built Avicus with his finely molded features quite handsome, and she also seemed to look far too kindly and guilelessly upon Mael.
I said nothing. But I was feeling extraordinary confusion and pain. I didn’t want to be separated from her. I wanted to lie down in the darkness of the crypt with her. But it was time for me to take my leave.
Being very weary, no matter