Blood and Gold - Anne Rice [109]
And such a world, for surely it had changed since the year when I had fled Constantinople. The cities of Europe had grown full and rich as flowers. The barbarian hordes had become settled people. Byzantium still held the cities of the East together.
And now this dreadful scourge—this plague.
Why had I remained alive, I wondered? Why must I endure as the witness to all these many tragic and wonderful things? What was I to make of what I beheld?
And yet, even in my sorrow, I found the church beautiful with its myriad lighted candles, and spying a bit of color far ahead of me, in one of the chapels to the right side of the high altar, I made my way towards it, knowing full well that I would find rich paintings there, for I could see something of them already.
None of those ardently praying in the church took any notice of me, a single being in a red velvet hooded cloak, moving silently and swiftly to the open chapel so that I might see what was painted there.
Oh, if only the candles had been brighter. If only I had dared to light a torch. But I had the eyes of a blood drinker, didn’t I? Why complain? And in this chapel I saw painted figures unlike any I had seen before. They were religious, yes, and they were severe, yes, and they were pious, yes, but something new had been sparked here, something that one might almost call sublime.
A mixture of elements had been forged. And I felt a great joy even in my sorrow, until I heard a low voice behind me, a mortal voice. It was speaking so softly that I doubt another mortal would even have heard.
“He’s dead,” said the mortal. “They’re all dead, all the painters who did this work.”
I was shocked with pain.
“The plague took them,” said this man.
He was a hooded figure as I was, only his cloak was of a dark color, and he looked at me with bright feverish eyes.
“Don’t fear,” he said. “I’ve suffered it and it hasn’t killed me and I can’t pass it on, don’t you see? But they’re all dead, those painters. They’re gone. The plague’s taken them and all they knew.”
“And you?” I asked. “Are you a painter?”
He nodded. “They were my teachers,” he said as he gestured towards the walls. “This is our work, unfinished,” he said. “I can’t do it alone.”
“You must do it,” I said. I reached into my purse. I took out several gold coins, and I gave them to him.
“You think this will help?” he asked, dejectedly.
“It’s all I have to give,” I said. “Maybe it can buy you privacy and quiet. And you can begin to paint again.”
I turned to go.
“Don’t leave me,” he said suddenly.
I turned around and looked at him. His gaze was level with mine and very insistent.
“Everyone’s dying and you and I are not dying,” he said. “Don’t go. Come with me, have a drink of wine with me. Stay with me.”
“I can’t,” I said. I was trembling. I was too charmed by him, much too much. I was so close to killing him. “I would stay with you if I could,” I said.
And then I left the city of Florence, and I returned to the vault of Those Who Must Be Kept.
I lay down again for a long sleep, feeling the coward that I had not gone to Rome, and thankful that I had not drunk dry the blood of the exquisite soul who had approached me in the church.
But something had been forever changed in me.
In the church in Florence I had glimpsed new paintings. I had glimpsed something which filled me with hope.
Let the plague run its course, I prayed, and I closed my eyes.
And the plague did finally die out.
All the voices of Europe sang.
They sang of the new cities, and great victories, and terrible defeats. Everything in Europe was being transformed. Commerce and prosperity bred art and culture, as the royal courts and cathedrals and monasteries of the recent past had done.
They sang of a man named Gutenberg in the city of Mainz who had invented a printing press which could make cheap books by the hundreds. Common people could own their own copies of Sacred Scripture, books of the Holy Hours,