Blood and Gold - Anne Rice [157]
“It’s complete now, Master,” he said, as if he were speaking to a child.
And together we walked back to the bedchamber where he put on his handsome velvets, and we went out to hunt.
I taught him how to find his victims, to use the Mind Gift to make certain that they were Evil Doers, and I also remained with him through the few hours of his mortal Death.
His powers were very simply enormous. It would not be long before he could use the Cloud Gift; and I could not find a test to outdo his strength. He could not only read the minds of mortals, he could make spells as well.
His mind, quite naturally, was closed to me, though this was still something I did not completely accept. Of course it had happened with Pandora, yet I hoped that it would not happen with Amadeo and only reluctantly explained it to him.
Now I must read his facial expressions, his gestures, the depth of his secretive and faintly cruel brown eyes.
Never had he been more beautiful, of course.
And having done all this, I took him with me to my very grave, as one says, to the gilded room of the two stone sarcophagi which awaited us, and I showed him how he must sleep by day.
It didn’t frighten him. Indeed, nothing frightened him.
“What of your dreams now, Amadeo?” I asked him as I held him in my arms. “What of your priests and the distant glass city?”
“Master, I’ve reached paradise,” he answered. “What has Venice in all her beauty been to me but a prelude for the Blood?”
As I had done a thousand times, I gave him the Blood Kiss and he received it and then drew back smiling.
“How different it is now,” he said.
“Sweet or bitter?” I asked.
“Oh, sweet, very sweet, for you’ve fulfilled my heart’s desires. You don’t pull me heartlessly after you by a bloody thread.”
I crushed him in my warm embrace.
“Amadeo, my love,” I whispered, and it seemed the long centuries I had endured had been but preparation for this. Old images came to me, bits and pieces of dreams. Nothing was substantial but Amadeo. And Amadeo was here.
And so we went to our separate sleep, and as I closed my eyes I feared only one thing in the whole world—that this bliss should not last.
22
The next few months passed in freedom and pleasure such as I could have never imagined.
Amadeo was truly my companion and also my pupil, and I forced him with gentle discipline to learn all that I thought he should know. This included his lessons in law and government, in history and philosophy, and also his lessons with me in being a blood drinker, to which he gave himself with a cheerful willingness that surpassed my dreams.
I had thought that, being young, he might want to feed on the innocent, but when I instructed him as to how guilt would soon destroy his soul if he did this, I found that he listened; and he took my instructions in how to feed upon evil without allowing it to darken his own soul.
He was also my eager pupil in the lessons on how to be in mortal company, and he soon felt strong enough to have some conversation with the mortal boys. Indeed, he was soon expert in deceiving them, just as I was, and though they sensed that something had changed with Amadeo they did not know what, and they could not know, and they dared not risk the peace of our wondrous house with even their slightest doubts.
Even Riccardo, the eldest of my apprentices, suspected nothing really, except that his Master was somehow a powerful magician and the magic had saved Amadeo’s life.
But now we had to deal with our beloved Bianca, whom we had not seen since the night of the terrible illness, and I knew that this would be Amadeo’s most arduous trial.
What was she to make of Amadeo’s swift recovery from his terrible battle with Lord Harlech, and what did she think when she laid eyes upon Amadeo with his luminous skin and shimmering hair? What was he to think when he looked into her eyes?
It was no secret to me that he adored her, indeed, that he had loved her as I had loved her. And so we must go to her. Indeed, we had put it off for too long.
Abruptly one evening, we went